…to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?
Milan Kundera. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"
[LDS Centre Court. 6.00 p.m.]
Through arcane science, a miracle beyond common faith or suspension of disbelief takes place. Yuzu Hiragi is reborn as the sole reincarnation of Ray. The spirits of the three other bracelet girls live inside her, just as the three dragon boys live on in Yuya.
Yuya welcomes her first amongst the party and they shake hands. Emotions are high and running in the air. There's joy, relief and hope, but between them anger and despair over the innocent children and Yuri whose lives were lost.
YUZU
Yuya, I was sure you could make everybody smile with your duel.
YUYA
*nods politely* Welcome home, Yuzu.
YUZU
Yuya. [tears up]. I'm back.
Sawatari looks on with contentment; the MAN Gongenzaka and a BURNING Shuzo tear up; Hitoshi shivers; Yoko looks pensively in the distance, her thoughts unknown to us. Is she happy that Yuzu survived the ordeal? Has she resigned herself to the fact that her son carries three boys' spirits on top of the burdens he's carried? Is she wondering how to pay Yuya's tuition to Pro School amidst divorce proceedings? A baby Reira laughs her demonic possession away in Himika's arms. Leo and Reiji exchange a few silent words. The single word "Yuya" is then muttered by Reiji, followed by an unbidden laugh. The lights go off. A single figure stands up in the spotlight up high.
YUSHO
If you think this is the end, that's a big mistake!
YUYA
Dad?!
YUSHO
Yuya! Your real fight began from the moment you passed the test! Are you prepared to continue fighting as a pro?
YUYA
Of course! From now on I will make everyone smile with duelling! And I will be an Enterma-Duellist that surpasses my dad.
Yuya springs with newfound hope, fervour and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
YUYA
The fun is only getting s—SHIT!
A white D-Wheel descends from up high and with it two gigantic dragons. A three-headed mechanical dragon clad in golden armour blasts the audience with three successive shots from each head. Everybody starts screaming in distress. Those with combat experience start blasting monsters into their disks to fight, but the white uni-horned dragon with rainbow-tinged wings is the fastest beast they've ever faced and it obliterates the main players. Yuya summons the Four Dimension Dragons to parry the attacks and dispatches Clear Wing towards the D-Wheel. Suddenly, Clear Wing is hit with a beam made of literal cards; it activates Dichroic Mirror twice in succession, but a third, far larger stream finally connects and it disappears with a roar. As this is taking place, Solid Vision fails, Yuya falls from Odd-Eyes and sprains his ankle. The hellfire draws closer. Yuzu cradles Yuya and runs for shelter. Shun runs after her and extends his arm, distracted from the incoming attack.
SHUN
RURI!
Yuzu instinctively reacts, but never sees him. The fire burns everyone alive.
YUZU
NO!
Out of who-the-hell-knows-where, Yuzu is hit on the eye. The object that does it falls at her feet: an all too familiar double-banded silver bracelet with a pink gem at the intersection. An old instinct kicks in and she grabs it. Yuzu is engulfed in pink light and fades away.
[Miami City Highway: 6:01 p.m.]
By the time the pink light around them had dissipated, a red one was hitting the floor they stepped on and splintered the ground.
"YUYA!"
"YUZU!"
Their screams for the other drowned in each other and Yuzu held Yuya tighter with all the strength she could muster mid-fall. Once they fell, he slipped off her arms. In one second's fraction, Yuzu stood up in an adrenaline rush and in the next, the source of the attack rose above them. A gigantic mechanical behemoth towered above them with a shining red eye.
"Academia?!"
"YUZU, DUCK!"
Yuzu flipped back in a pirouette that managed to dodge the blazing hit on the ground and the two dragons that swung forth. Starve Venom spread its tendril wings to their full length and shielded the kids from the ensuing barrage while Dark Rebellion pierced the terrain with its fangs and lunged at the monster. Behind their protection, Yuzu tended to Yuya and slung his right arm to get him on his feet, one sprained, the other bleeding. For the first time, they were able to see the behemoth in all its might.
"It can't be….I thought Academia would reform itself", Yuya said with a tremulous voice.
"It's not Academia's", Yuzu said, leaving out "how could they?"
Indeed, the monster was a wholly different design from the Antique Gears that had ravaged Heartland. Its armour was an ember-bronze plating and its build was larger, more futuristic and more dynamic with a raised shield that kept Dark Rebellion at bay and a laser cannon that forced Starve Venom on the defensive. At its chest, from an opening shaped life an infinity symbol, a green core shone a sickly, hypnotising green.
"Look out!"
Too late. Starve Venom's wing had been pierced and its blood oozed a sickening substance that rusted part of the machine's steel and nearly burned them both.
Yuzu was pushed backwards and Yuya fell behind her. The dragons dissipated from the Solid Vision and the towering behemoth was now aiming a final cannon at them.
It's over.
"KATTOBINGU DA, ORE!"
Yuma Tsukumo rode atop Sleipnir Mail and they jumped off a cliff of debris from which he got a clear shot.
"Go, Rainbow Kuriboh!"
It shot forth as a cannon ball and hit Machine Emperor Grannel squarely on its head. The Grannel Top was entrapped in a rainbow-tinged sphere and it started rotating madly in haywire. Without wasting a single second, Yuma summoned King of Wishes, Hope Ray which hurled its Unicorn Spear towards the exposed core. Grannel Infinity exploded on contact and the rest of its parts broke apart in tandem.
Yuma rode at the burnt middle ground between the kids and their attacker. Astral emerged in a flurry of blue light right beside him.
"We finally found you. Give it up Yliaster!"
"Oh crap!"
Behind the falling debris of Grannel's parts, the old man who controlled it immediately activated a Magic Card. Astral saw its image in clear detail—an archway releasing white light from within a purple world. That was all he saw before it transmuted like a computer glitch, along with the monster and the duellist.
They might as well have never been there.
Two seconds of silence. Then another three and not a single Emperor in sight. Yuma deactivated his disk and jumped off his steed, which vanished in a glitch.
"Oi! Are you alright?!"
The girl was drenched in cold sweat and grabbed onto the boy, who had fallen unconscious. With a few seasoned touches, Yuma applied the power of Chaos first onto his ankle and chest so the injuries healed. After the girl had been reassured at her partner's healing, Yuma smoothly pressed her fingers into her forehead. She closed her eyes. With each passing second, her expression hardened and tears streamed. To heal under Chaos meant opening the injuries within. Even a few feet away, Astral could sense that this girl was carrying too much pain for one life to handle.
"I-It can't be".
When Yuma put his arm around her, she collapsed into his chest and cried for what felt like the entire night spent away in tears.
[Miami City Central Park: 6:02 p.m.]
Aporia and Paradox arrived 30 seconds later than they had timed it. At the scale of their operation, one second made all the difference in the universe.
"Just what happened down there?" asked Antinomy.
"I bombed the stadium exactly as we planned. But when I baited the dragons, I only managed this one", he pulled out a Synchro Monster "This one beast drained my energy. Even that Tachyon Dragon didn't put this much of a fight".
Antinomy could only raise his eyebrows as he took the card. Aporia interjected.
"We have bigger problems. Those people from the other dimension are back on our trail. They intercepted me when I pursued the boy and the girl".
"Don't tell me, they were the same Barian Emperors?" asked Paradox.
"No. These were a boy and a Duel Ghost. They transmitted energy equivalent to Barian's, but it was different".
"It would seem we've taken more than we bargained for in diverging with these Emperors". Antinomy hadn't looked up from the card.
"Really Antinomy, I had no idea!" He did, however, see Paradox from the corner of his eye, banging his head with an imaginary cane, like he used to with a real one.
Clear Wing Synchro Dragon.
Analysing new variables had become a mechanised reflex when things went horrifically awry and he had to formulate an out on the spot. It had only been six months past their timeline when Z-One had finally developed sustainable time travel, but they might as well have been at Day One. Whereas their first two trials yielded underwhelming results, this, their third, had produced overwhelming results in italics.
"Time travelling has provided more duties than one man will manage in a lifetime. Let's not bring dimensional warlords into this. Paradox. We must leave that Tachyon Dragon in a marked position where its master can find it, well before he locates us. It's true that it has a useful time re-setting ability, but that's no lead towards our technology. I'd rather not leave it in the hands of someone we don't know".
"What about that one?"
"We're keeping it".
"Did you recognize it?"
"No. I have never seen it before, and what a shame that is. On sheer calculations, this is a card that could have blocked the Machine Emperors and defeated them in combat. And on my duellists' gut, I'd like to think of it as a miracle come to save us"
"Duellist's…gut?" Aporia only stared.
"A miracle?" Paradox looked disdainfully.
He sighed. Even after all this time, he kept forgetting that, battle hardened as they were, Aporia and Paradox had no use for the game's own sake. Any talk of creating bonds with the cards flew past them. He couldn't blame them that. Antinomy himself wasn't sure where this was coming as he'd avoided duels altogether. They had had to sustain themselves on surgically-inserted life supplying cores until Z-One could perfect the creation of a Cyborg Avatar. Even if his mind and hand muscles were intact, Antinomy couldn't hope to survive the impact of a duel on his current condition.
"We better move on", he affirmed briskly. Time is of the essence went unsaid.
[Miami City. You Show School: 6:05 p.m.]
Yuma Tsukumo. Astral.
Chaos in the midst of battle and near death was known to temper old grudges and form unlikely allies and few tests stood to mind quite as clearly as a Machine Emperor. Astral had urged them to find a hide-out to recover from their psychic wounds and catch their breaths before the battle.
Yes, there would be a battle. Yuzu didn't know against whom or why, but as soon as Astral had said it, she sprung forth on command and took them to You Show School for comfort. Their last hideout. Their last sanctuary of a past and future long gone.
They exchanged intel like long lost friends who'd wandered separate ways and were catching up. The idea of a Duel Ghost that had once been linked to a schoolboy's body should have freaked them out. But after the agony of being physically dissolved into the aether, reintegrated from a single particle and witnessing the deaths of her loved ones, Yuma had proven to be a radiant sun of hope.
Really, finding allies as Astral already seemed as mundane to their universe as the sun and moon after Yuya, after Yuto…
"You mean that three-headed dragon that attacked everybody is an Xyz Monster?"
"Yes. Neo Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon. And what a formidable monster it is. Yuma and I couldn't even handle the base Tachyon Dragon. That was Kaito's fight, after all".
"Wait. Galaxy-Eyes…Kaito? As in Kaito Tenjo?"
"Uh?"
"You know Kaito?" Yuma looked incredulously.
"Yes. He's one of our comrades who fought with us all this way. He was even at…" Yuya's words caught on his throat. This time, Yuma did not lend a supporting hand. He stood up.
"Don't tell me Kaito was at that stadium when those guys attacked?!"
Yuya was reddening with tears, slid his goggles and sat on a desk. Yuzu felt a sick pit growing in her stomach. In a flash, Yuma stood up and had kicked the door open.
"Yuma! Where are you going?!"
"ASTRAL! Kaito was there! We have to find him."
"How? We can't rush this without a plan!" Yuya lowered his goggles. "Yuma, if Kaito survived the attack, we have to believe that he's still fighting and may help us when he has a chance to. Otherwise..." But even Astral looked remorseful at this. Yuzu had to step up.
"We'll fight with the comrades we have. If we have even one of us standing, we can get through this", Astral reiterated with a calm, but firm demeanour. Yuma and Yuya remained sullen.
"Damn…to let Kaito die after last time…" Yuma looked up the window towards the full moon. Yuzu felt Serena enraptured by it. It was as big and blazing as when Ray beat the Zarc out of Yuya. Could they pull another miracle tonight?
They'd swung back and forth between despair and hope, tragedy and miracle inextricably linked, as far as she could remember?
They same the time goes by, yet the memories are cruelly short. Where did I leave my father? Did I really have no mother outside of Ray?
At first, Yuya had invented (or discovered?) Pendulum Summon and You Show School was at the public centre of attention for good again. Then Yuya had been accused of cheating and LDS had sent students to steal the cards, then their school. Yuya had fought back, but then Yuto appeared and Yuya was embroidered in another mess someone left. Yuzu couldn't protect him, nor the school so she'd sought Sora to learn Fusion Summon. Then Academia appeared. Then Yuya bravely stepped up to fight it and bring smiles to the worlds left in misery. And now Zarc manifested and Yuya had another burden. And now everything they'd fought to get back was being snatched again.
"I won't accept this".
"What did you say?" said Yuma and Yuzu could feel everyone's eyes on her (even inside her) as she looked up at the chalkboard.
"I won't accept that these people can just take everything away from us. Not your friend Kaito, not our friends or families. Academia tried to hunt me down and kill me. For all intents, they did". She finally managed to look at them. Yuma looked on in fearful awe; Astral seemed remorseful; Yuya's posture had relaxed slightly, but he still wasn't looking at them. Yuzu looked straight at them, like she'd seen her father so many times before when giving a heart-to-heart pep talk when someone was crying or lost a duel.
"They won't leave it at this. They stole one of your comrade's dragons and Yugo's. They challenged you guys and fled and tried to kill us. If they're real hunters, if they've decided to use duelling as a tool of war, they won't leave any loose ends. They'll come for us as easily as we'll come for them. We should go back to the stadium and take them head on.
Yuma's red eyes blazed with a twinkle. Grieving anger and hot passion flared into each other. Astral closed his eyes and nodded with a small smile. Yuma stepped forth.
"You're right, Yuzu! We'll definitely pull a kattobingu on those guys!"
"A kattobingu?" Yuya looked up.
"Yeah. It's the feeling you get when you really want to do that special something that's been bugging you, even when all odds are against you! Look, I don't know what any of you have been through", Yuma literally meant all eight of them, for his powers had confirmed the presence of their dimensional counterparts somewhere in their hearts, "but I've been in life to death duels before. I lost so many comrades along the way, without knowing if I'd ever see them again. But I still had friends and duels. As long as you stand by them, they'll answer. That's my way of kattobingu".
Yuya stared at him for one second. A giant grin rose on the next. "I understand. It is your way of bringing smiles to everyone you cross paths with?"
Yuma nodded encouragingly. Yuya took his goggles off and dried the tears.
"If that's the case, we'll do it. My friends saved me when Yuto, Yugo, Yuri and I drowned in darkness. The least I can do is repay the favour. We'll beat those guys and bring everything back to the way it was!" He pumped his fists enthusiastically.
Yuzu wanted to be happy for Yuya, but bitter thoughts materialized inside her.
Nobody said beating them would guarantee they'd come back.
Really, do we exist just to motivate him?
Those had been Serena and Rin's, she knew, even though they might as well have been hers. Yuzu had barely been reborn seven minutes ago and she already understood nothing could go back to the way it was, not really. She was grateful for Yuma's appearance, but Yuya needed to step up if he wanted to accomplish anything….
That had left only Ruri's voice for her to hear, but Yuzu was still learning to distinguish them.
She was still learning to distinguish herself.
