The damp brick alleyway was entirely cut off from the vibrant lights of Maiami City. On the concrete ground, Masumi, Hokuto, and Yaiba remained completely unconscious—senseless casualties of a conflict they didn't understand. Shun Kurosaki's chest heaved, his fingers still twitching near the activation switch of his glowing, Xyz-extended Duel Disk.
His defensive, manic laughter cut short as Ryoho Akaba stood before him, entirely unmoved by the volatile display.
"Ryoho... Akaba," Shun repeated, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register. His eyes locked onto the silver-haired teenager. "The younger brother. You've been watching me this entire time, playing the part of an oblivious bystander while your company hunts me like animals."
"If I wanted you hunted, Shun, you wouldn't be standing in this alley," Ryo said flatly. He didn't reach for his pockets or trigger a disk. His posture remained perfectly still, a calculated display of absolute control. "I told you. I'm not here to duel. I'm here to talk."
"Talk?" Shun stepped forward, the heavy soles of his boots grinding against the gravel. "We have nothing to talk about! Your father's lapdogs cornered my comrades, Leo Akaba ripped our sky apart! If you won't draw your cards, I'll force you to. Once I beat you, I'm dragging you with me as a hostage. We need leverage against Leo Akaba, and you just handed yourself to me on a silver platter!"
"Your strategy is so incredibly obvious that I genuinely thought it was a joke," Ryo replied, his red eyes catching the dim amber glow of a distant streetlamp.
Shun froze, his jaw tightening.
"You want to capture Reiji or me to extract information on Academia's roster," Ryo continued, calmly dismantling Shun's playbook. "You want to seize our card-manufacturing facilities and our design mainframes so you can reverse-engineer the card making process and give cards back to the survivors in the Xyz Dimension.
"And from your behaviour last time on seaport tells that the Ruri girl has been abducted by Academia and you want you save her. Your desperation to save that Ruri girl was very obvious and that very desperation is what is fueling you to cast away other worries. You couldn't even tell that the girl on seaport wasn't Ruri. But it seems your partner did. You have not tried to make a contact with that girl who looked like Ruri, maybe because your partner told you she isn't Ruri and you believed it. It seems your partner can tell who real Ruri is and you are just blindly chasing your goal.
"She must also be very important that you are going such lengths, to cast away your comrades at Xyz dimension in order to save just one girl. Am I missing anything?"
The silence that followed was suffocating. Shun's breath hitched. He had never shared their specific logistical desperation with anyone in the Standard Dimension, yet this teenager had mapped out their entire resistance agenda in a handful of sentences.
"How do you know that..." Shun muttered, his fist clenching tightly inside his coat pocket.
"Because I look at what is missing," Ryo said coldly. "Now, if I wanted to attack and have no damage fall on me, I would have systematically destroyed your fabrication devices and carded your civilian network and all strong and helpful people, to ensure you couldn't replace your losses. Making sure Xyz dimension would run on a finite supply of resources." He finished his logic. "But rushing Reiji or me won't give you the keys to those machines. It will only alert the system before you're ready. All you are doing is just making more and more toll on your people, did a thought never crossed your mind that the longer you are here, the shorter the number of people are getting, who need you and your help in Xyz dimension? It is amsane as a betrayal, wouldn't you say?"
"But it all doesn't matter!" He roared. "You are that Akaba Leo's son. As long as I hav—"
"No, nothing is gonna change or matter." He cut off Shun's words. "But if you want to say anything, just say in short explanation. Hearing what I already know is a waste of time."
"Don't act arrogant just because I need you safe! I am gonna exchange you for Ruri! Even Akaba Leo won't say no for the safety of his son."
"I wouldn't be as confident as you. You are placing too much weight in the family thing. Leo Akaba wouldn't even in slightest worry about me or his family."
"Don't lie! What kind of would not be worried for his so—"
"I never lie. Lie, false is the one thing I hate to end. I will never tell a lie."
Shun took a slow, menacing step closer, his Duel Disk humming with lethal mass. His belief shattering in instant. "We are already at a permanent disadvantage. We fight to protect the future, and we don't have the luxury of waiting. If betrayal is what it takes to survive, then we will turn this entire dimension upside down to force Leo's hand!"
"If betrayal was forgivable, the devil would be sitting right next to God," Ryo countered, his voice cutting through Shun's raw aggression. "You're reacting out of fury, Shun. You feel the pain and sadness of war, but all you're producing is blind anger. If you are backed into a corner, you don't blindly lash out—you expand the corner."
"And how do you expect me to do that when the enemy is everywhere?!" Shun roared.
"By tracking the variables they don't want us to see," Ryo said, turning his gaze slightly toward the sky. "You and Yuto are entirely cut off from your home grid. Your people don't just need a card-reversal mainframe—they are starving. I would definitely cut off all resources, the main supply to live, the food, making it very limited. They need basic substance to live.
"If you cause a public problem here anymore, LDS will lock down the transport networks entirely, and you'll lose your only backdoor to enter the Xyz Dimension again."
Shun lowered his arm slightly, the intense light of his Duel Disk dimming by a fraction. The raw shock of Ryoho's detailed intelligence was forcing his tactical mind to fight against his emotional trauma.
"What is your game, Akaba?" Shun asked, his voice low, suspicious, and tightly coiled.
"Don't pry into my game," Ryo replied smoothly, his expression remaining an unreadable, poker-faced mask. "Just know that no one knows how or when a person will know about your plans and secrets. There is no telling nor a reasoning."
Shun looked eye to eye.
"My father, Leo is planning to have a Invasion on Maiami as well. On a specific day. We want your help and your friend's as well."
As Ryoho turned his back to walk away, his hand smoothly slipped past his coat pocket, subtly flicking a tiny, pressurized, a note, written in a simple way on a white sheet of paper, straight into Shun's coat.
The text decrypted instantly for Shun:
LDS needs you shortly in order to aid against the Fusion Dimension and dismantle Academia. They are going to invade here during the Maiami Championship, and I want you to be there to protect the people of Maiami. When the time comes, you can convert the Academia people into cards—it doesn't matter. But having one or two high-ranking targets to keep as hostages for their information regarding Academia is valuable and an absolute must.
LDS will aid and supply all the needs Xyz dimension needs in exchange your and Xyz dimension's help. LDS will also help in fighting against all the Academia people from Xyz dimension and save its people.
Furthermore, you should know that during our last meeting at the seaport, I attached a microscopic acoustic tracking gadget to your back of collar. I have been hearing everything properly. I couldn't tell who Yuto and Shun were from the two of your encrypted name profiles alone, but from analyzing your behavior and talking, it became transparent. The aggressive, hot-blooded person is you, Shun. The calculative, rational, and Phantom shadow is Yuto. I know exactly who you both are. Do not disappoint me.
And if you and your friend wants, you can stay at LDS. We have special guest rooms with luxury to live. It will also be helpful to you, one who needs rest and knowledge before dueling the enemy. We will provide anything you two need.
"We aren't done, Ryoho." Shun called out into the dark, tightly gripping the hidden note and turning that little gadget into scrap. As he chose not to raise his disk. "I will get my answers. I will find the Professor."
"Then survive long enough to ask them." Ryo said flatly, stepping out of the alleyway and leaving Shun alone in the shadows.
# LDS Central Command: Monitoring Suite
Inside the glass-paneled observation deck, the audio feed from Ryoho's tracking chip slowly crackled into silence as he cut the localized transmission line.
Reiji Akaba stood before the massive holographic map of Maiami City, his fingers steepled in front of his face, his red glasses reflecting the scrolling green lines of data. Nakajima stood just behind him, adjusting a digital tablet.
"It seems Ryo-sama knew we were listening," Nakajima murmured, tapping a stylus against the screen. "He deliberately used the interface to feed us the parameters of the Xyz Resistance's goals. As for those three fallen students, Ryo-sama have already ordered our cleanup crews to deploy. Their memories are going to get systematically altered. The public narrative remains perfectly preserved—the rogue entity hunting Fusion users is still on the run, but we don't want the public to panic. The citizens have absolute belief and faith in LDS that our forces will catch him."
"Naturally," Reiji said, his voice entirely devoid of surprise. "Straightforwardness is an operational flaw, Nakajima. If a strategy is completely clear, it becomes as transparent as an open window to your opponent. Ryo understands that to survive an absolute threat, one must occasionally become oblivion itself. He allowed us to track him because it served his immediate logistical needs."
Reiji turned away from the terminal, his gaze shifting toward the physical monitoring data pulled from Ryo's ocular nerves during his previous collapse.
"But his vitals are still showing a severe generational decay," Nakajima warned, sliding a graph forward. "The physical mass generated by those foreign duel systems is fracturing his baseline biology. Every time he overclocks to read the dimensional displacement, he's burning through his own internal timeline. He's suppressing it, but the damage is compounding."
"Then accelerate the completion of the Pendulum specifications for our primary defensive rosters," Reiji commanded coldly. "The lines are drawing closer. The vanguards of the Fusion Dimension are probably already preparing their position, and we are rapidly running out of eras."
# Academia
Deep within the central courtyard of the Fusion Dimension, the heavy scent of crushed vegetation hung thick in the humid air. Yuri stood with his hands tucked casually into his purple uniform pockets, looking down at the ruined plants where the heavy rubber hose had completely flattened the delicate, emerging sprouts.
"Oh dear," Yuri sighed, though his cheerful, mocking expression didn't waver for a single second. "They really were far too fragile for this world. A single drop of pressure and everything turns right back into the dirt."
"You're slacking off again, Yuri." A sharp, disciplined voice interrupted.
Yuri turned his head slightly to see Celina standing at the edge of the stone walkway, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her indigo hair tied with into a ponytail by big, bright yellow ribbon, her emerald-green eyes flashing with a characteristically tough, unyielding intensity. Her indigo hair and light blue colored bangs that fell on both side of her face, caught the sunlight.
"Celina," Yuri purred, his smile stretching into something unsettlingly venomous. "I'm not slacking off at all. I'm observing the natural order. Humans and plants are remarkably similar, you know. If you touch them just right, they break. But the strong ones... the ones with real thorns... they're the only ones worth holding barehanded."
Celina let out a sharp, dismissive breath, walking past him without sparing a word for the ruined garden. "Save your philosophical nonsense for the battlefield. The Professor has finalized the deployment schedules for the Standard assault vectors. If you're too busy playing in the mud to notice, the rest of us are moving forward."
"We have. Unlike you who only slackes off, I have taken precious two people from each dimension in order for our Professor's wishes and project. I have worked a lot, you know. I wouldn't mind working more and more, past my limits. But there isn't just anyone who can outmatch me."
"Because you never dueled me. Let's duel right now!" She forced her duel disk, her sword like duel blade flashed light.
"Oh my, so intensity. But I am in no mood. And you shouldn't have that much time, have you? Aren't you are going somewhere."
"You..." A sweat broke from her face.
"Well it's obvious, you are in rather good mood. Plus, you are actually going along and hearing my talk, unlike other people. Plus, there is a person behind that building after all, waiting for you."
By instinct, she looked back. And just after doing she realized what she did.
"I wouldn't mind. After all, I am just a good person."
She narrowed her eyes. Turning and walking.
Yuri's eyes narrowed into thin, reptilian slits as he watched her retreating figure accompanied by Barret. The playful, childlike aura around him instantly evaporated, replaced by a cold, radiating malice that caused the remaining leaves on the nearby bushes to curl, blacken and decay.
"Always so serious, Celina," Yuri whispered to himself, a low, excited chuckle rattling in his throat as his saliva pooled from the sheer anticipation of the upcoming hunt. "Go ahead and run along to the Standard Dimension. But there is only fun if one is running, and that's what the fun is in chasing. Run as far as you want. But worlds are a very small place... and every single road always leads right back to the apex. And I am just hungry for so much fun."