Antithesis
Serena stepped out into the bright pink haze of the early morning. The rest of them were still asleep, but she knew they wouldn't be for long. She left the door behind her open so that anyone walking by would see her, and know that she hadn't abandoned them or fallen victim to the Obelisk Force in the still of the night. She took a deep breath, the air still sweet and undisturbed by the business of day-to-day life. When they weren't fighting, she preferred to spend her days in solitude. At Academia she'd been suffocated by anger and loneliness, longing to be out on the front lines where she could truly prove her worth; but now that her wish had been granted, she often found herself in isolation by her own accord. Her mind was her prison, and her thoughts were her wardens.
The Lancers were her comrades—their honor was her honor, their success hers as well. They stood shoulder to shoulder in their mission to drive Academia into the ground and bring the Professor to his knees. When she first came to Standard, she never would have imagined things would've turned out the way they did. Her original plan had been to confront and defeat the remnants of the Resistance, hoping that the Professor would see her success and finally allow her onto the front lines, for the sake of Academia and it's noble goal.
Yet here she was now, fighting Academia alongside Standard's finest, being lead by Akaba Leo's rebel son. They gave her the one thing she'd been constantly denied on the lonely island: recognition. Respect. They saw her potential, and refused to squander it. And in return she pledged her undying loyalty to them and to protecting the original dimension. Serena was nothing if not sincere, but she still knew that her new comrades would never trust her, not fully.
She didn't blame them. Not so long ago, she'd been proud to call herself a student of Academia, a duel soldier waiting for the opportunity to unleash her power. She knew it would take her a long time to unlearn everything she'd been taught there, and she found herself correcting her own bigoted thoughts on a near hourly basis.
No, Standard's duelists are not inherently weak. They are simply unprepared.
Kurosaki Shun does not warrant extermination for simply existing.
No noble cause justifies sealing people away into cards.
Fusion is not, and can never be, superior to Synchro or XYZ or Pendulum summoning.
She hated that she had to consciously remember these things, beliefs that came as second nature to the rest of the Lancers. Whenever she felt herself becoming frustrated with her toxic thinking, she reminded herself that all good things came in good time. Had she been allowed to go out onto the front lines three years ago—or even three months ago—there would have been an irreversible shift in her. She would've become just like all of them, a remorseless monster who destroyed innocent lives for no other reason than to prove that she could.
This is what set her apart: she could still change for the better, and truly did want to. She wanted to engrave this belief in equality into her very consciousness, live and breathe it. No longer subscribing to Academia's "noble cause", she found herself without purpose, wanting battle for battle sake. She knew that was unacceptable, because that was how monsters were born. She wanted to channel her passion and fury into justice. She wanted her every move to be drenched in a desire to undo Academia's evil. It would be a long road, but Serena was nothing if not determined.
She couldn't imagine any of her former comrades even considering taking that path that she'd chosen, but of course, they knew no better. She didn't blame them. Even that boy that'd been sent out to capture her—Shiunin Sora—was so painfully ignorant that she could not bring herself to hate him. Contrary, she almost felt sorry for them, those indoctrinated duel puppets that made a grave mistake in invoking the ire of the Lancers.
Surely they were righteous in their mission, and that gave her and her comrades the right to destroy them. Their fates were sealed.
Yuri looked out into the bright pink haze of the early morning. He was alone, perhaps even for miles—no one to miss him, no one to wonder where he'd been or where he was going. He sighed as he relished in the knowledge of that, his entire existence as still as the air around him, absolutely untainted by the filth of Standard's inhabitants. Whether he was on a mission or back at Academia, he preferred to spend his days in solitude. The distance he maintained between himself and humanity signified his status as being above them. It kept his strong. Alone, he was free.
He supposed that technically he was allied with Academia, but in truth, Yuri had no use for such foolish bonds. Academia's duel soldiers were not his comrades, nor his equals—he was much, much better than the lot of them by a large margin, and he had the credentials to prove it. When he first came to Academia, he never would've imagined he'd one day have the right to say that. Back then, all he dared hope for was to make the Professor proud, and do well on the front lines.
He'd come a long way since then: he was now the finest duel soldier Academia had to offer. He had everything he ever wanted: recognition. Respect. The Professor was making the most of his potential, giving him only the most elite missions that could not be trusted to anyone else. And in return, he obeyed only the Professor. Why would he turn against the person who's orders made his life so much fun? But of course, it wasn't all about his enjoyment. There was just a bit more to it than that.
Those girls were weak, and deserved what they got.
The people of the XYZ dimension warranted extermination for being what they were.
No problem is so great that it can't be sealed into a card.
Fusion is, in every way, superior to Synchro and XYZ.
These truths were second nature to him, seared into his very being long ago, and he could hardly understand why they were so hard for other people to accept. He supposed that coming to terms with one's own inferiority had to be a bitter pill to swallow, but how could they deny a truth so plainly presented to them? It reminded him of the initial push into Heartland. He went out expecting the XYZ dimension to be full of warriors, for the duels to be grinding and brutal. He expected an actual challenge. Instead all he got was a world full of whimpering civilians, running for their lives. He and the other front liners grew so bored that they saw no other choice but to turn it into a game. It was simple: the one who turned the most people into cards by the end of their tour won. Of course, Yuri claimed victory; by the time his regiment was sent back to Academia, his number had been well into the hundreds. And that was only on his first deployment.
That was what set him apart: he carded dozens a day without trying. It was no longer about uniting the dimensions, it was about seeing who could cause the most carnage; but before long, even battle for battle's sake began to lose its appeal. Heartland's population was down to it's last hundred or so, the core of the Resistance, but that's when it happened. Through the eyes of one of Academia's fallen, the Professor saw it: a girl he wanted captured alive. Being sent on that mission awoke something in Yuri. It was no longer about his kill count; it was about inflicting as much horror as he possibly could on a single person. The breaking of a spirit. It had been so fascinating to watch Kurosaki Ruri fall apart.
He knew that anyone else at Academia would've jumped all over the chance to go on such an elite mission. He didn't blame them, but of course none of them were worthy of such an honor. He was simply better than they were, and they had to accept it, just as the Resistance had to accept it. He didn't know what the Professor had planned for Standard itself, nor did he particularly care. But Hiragi Yuzu? Yugo? The Lancers? They all made a grave mistake in challenging him.
He was Academia's finest, and he was going to have the time of his life destroying them. Their fates were sealed.