In a large, lavish building on Neo Domino's highest level sat a table. The group around this table were once the most powerful people in the city, the former Executive Council.
"We had high hopes for this city," Gael said. "We gave up our positions in the good faith that the City would develop for the better into the future. The progress has been quite disappointing, to say the least."
"Our supposedly reformed society of Neo Domino is in grave risk of falling into stagnation without our guidance, after we have been treated with such ingratitude," Gray continued, setting down his fine china teacup. "Even the name they now use for us, Old Council, lays bare their disrespect."
"There is no real initiative for the people to make decisions for themselves," Bordeaux added. "Right, Chairman?"
"Sad, but so," White Taki replied from the head of the table, his smile as unwavering as ever. "The city is in a highly vulnerable position at this time. We must act quickly, yet delicately, if we are to ensure its stability."
"And yet, the plan to acquire Yuzu Hiiragi that we invested considerable preparation into was ruined, thanks to the associate of our new guest," Azul spoke up, directing their attention back to the figure seated at the other end of the table.
The Dimension Duelist Commander.
"It is rather unfortunate that our respective plans were set in motion before our alliance came to be - but if your bribed officers couldn't handle my 'associate' by himself, their chances of succeeding were already virtually zero," he replied plainly. He happened to also gain a side benefit that Yusei likely never would have helped him if that also meant helping the Old Council, but he neglected to mention that out loud.
"Yuzu Hiiragi is a key component of our plans," Bordeaux said. "It is imperative that we secure her. Right, Chairman?"
"Indeed," White Taki replied. He activated a control and a holographic chess board appeared before him. "If we review the flaws in the planning of one of our own former associates, we can gain insight for our own. If we compare strategy for real life to chess, we must be aware that the game is abstracted for fairness in ways that real life strategy doesn't have to be, but there are greater complexities that can apply to our situation. For example, the hierarchy in chess isn't as strictly defined as some may assume. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board, far more dangerous than the king. Yet the king remains the most important. For all her power, the queen will surrender immediately if the king is in danger." He pressed the spaces the white king and queen were sitting on, causing them to switch places.
"Therefore, for our purposes, Yuzu can be considered the king and Yuya the queen. Controlling Yuzu is the key to controlling everything."
The other councillors hummed and nodded in agreement, the Commander giving a smile. When in reality, he was thinking,
Or maybe analogies get stupid and wear out if you rely on them too much.
Yuya's D-Wheel sped along the highway.
"Ok, what do we do now?" Yuzu said, "The city's new leadership and Reiji need to know about the police."
"Right," Yuya agreed. "That's where we'll head. Find Reiji or find the others; whichever comes first." He was still aware of another concern, however. Most of the sirens were moving away, and it seemed Yusei had been true to his word to lead them off. But they weren't completely gone.
As they passed an intersection, one of the connectors shifted and linked their road to an offshooting one, allowing a squad of NDPD D-Wheelers to drive up and surround them.
"Pull over!" their leader ordered.
"Officer Ushio!" Yuzu said.
"We're supposed to be on the same side!" Yuya cried.
"I'm aware of that!" Ushio replied. "But no-one's going anywhere until we have some answers! Now come quietly!"
Yuya looked around at the police surrounding him. There was one thing he was sure of at the moment, and that was that he didn't know who he could trust. He'd defeated enemy groups this size before. The risk of collateral damage, potential long term consequences of fighting the police, and whether it would be worth it were different matters.
As the cops closed in and prepared to start a duel, someone sailed through the air over the railing, silhouetted for a moment against the rising moon. The crimson D-Wheel landed, revealing a woman in a red and black riding suit atop it.
"It's the witch!" one of the officers screamed, and all of them except for Ushio slammed on their brakes, falling behind the chase and turning to drive off in the other direction. Ushio looked back at them and growled in disgust before turning his attention to his new opponent.
"What a night this has become… first Yusei, now the Black Rose graces me with her presence!" They activated their respective field spells, Crossover Accel and Speed World - Street Race.
"Riding Duel Acceleration!" Ushio and the Black Rose declared simultaneously.
"I'll start!" Ushio shouted, shooting ahead. "I summon Jutte Lord! This monster's effect also allows me to Special Summon another Jutte monster from my hand! I Summon Jutte Fighter! Level 2 Jutte Fighter tunes level 4 Jutte Lord!
Synchro Summon! With the power of authority, emerge and pursue, level 6 Goyo Guardian!"
"That monster again!" Yuzu said. Ushio set a card.
"My turn!" the Black Rose announced. "Since only you control any monsters, I Special Summon Rose Princess from my hand and make her a tuner! I Normal Summon Rose Paladin! Level 3 Rose Princess tunes level 4 Rose Paladin!
Lofty rose, that buds in a garden of integrity! Bloom here, watered by blue moonlight! Synchro Summon! Appear, level 7 Black Rose Moonlight Dragon!"
Rose petals blew around her in a whirlwind, coalescing together into wings, a head and tail emerging. The red and black dragon roared into the air.
"When Black Rose Moonlight Dragon is summoned, I can target one monster Special Summoned by my opponent and return it to the hand! I return Goyo Guardian to your extra deck! Rose Ballad!"
A new whirlwind blew across the field and Ushio scowled as Goyo Guardian vanished.
"Battle! Black Rose Moonlight Dragon attacks directly! Rose Requiem!"
Black Rose unleashed a blast from her mouth over Ushio, causing him to double over in pain and gasp for breath as his life points dropped to 1600.
"I set one card and end my turn," the Black Rose said. Ushio growled as he drew for his turn.
"I lower Black Rose's attack by 500 points to Special Summon Sasumata Gardna!" Black Rose hissed and her petals drooped as her ATK lowered to 1900. Another monster was summoned that Yuya and Yuzu had seen plenty of in their previous time in the Synchro Dimension: a soldier bearing a tower shield and a long weapon that gave him his name.
"I Normal Summon Torapart!" Ushio continued, summoning a joint pair of doll-like scarecrows. "I activate my trap, Synchro Deception! If I control materials that can Synchro Summon, I can send an appropriate Synchro Monster from my extra deck to the graveyard to give one of my monsters a boost equal to its attack! By sending Goyo Chaser to the graveyard, Sasumata Gardna gains 1900 attack points!" A ghost-like figure of Goyo Chaser appeared behind Sasumata Gardna, who glowed as his ATK increased to 2900.
"I know that you can activate your dragon's effect again if I summon another level 5 or higher monster!' Ushio shouted, pointing at her. The Black Rose looked back, her mouth becoming visible under the glare of her vizor, and it smirked.
"Yes… and I thought you might focus on that and forget about my face-down card."
"What?!" Ushio gasped.
"I activate my trap: Rose Curse! When your monster's attack points change, you take damage equal to the difference!"
Panic set into Ushio's face. With only two speed counters active, he couldn't even try to activate an action card. He sighed and smiled.
"I see your skills haven't dulled any, Aki…" Then he grit his teeth and screamed as a storm of rose petals blew him off course.
The woman pulled up along Yuya and Yuzu.
"Did he say Yusei?" she asked them.
"Why do you want to know?" Yuzu asked, still suspicious.
"If Yusei Fudo is involved in this, then something is definitely wrong," the Black Rose replied. She cast a sidelong glance at them, taking in their unease.
"Let me start from the beginning. I'm Aki Izayoi."
Yusei entered an abandoned building, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness of the main room. A figure looked up as he approached - Ryo Marufuji.
"You can tell your boss his experiment worked," Yusei said. He held out a data card, which Ryo inserted into his duel disk. It projected a hologram showing a camera feed of Yusei's previous duel. The recording could't discern the change when Yuya began acting like Yugo, nor Yuzu with Rin; however, Ryo altered the settings and energy signatures became visible around them: orange, dark blue, green and violet. At the points when Yuya and Yuzu had changed, the green signatures became stronger and surrounded each of them in an aura.
"Once they were under enough pressure, it was just like the Commander thought," Ryo remarked with an almost uncharacteristically awed expression.
"Well, I'm glad he's so happy with his plan to make Yuya think his girlfriend was getting kidnapped again," Yusei replied, the frown on his face darkening. He turned to leave.
"We all know you have personal stakes in this," Ryo said. "You've been waiting for a chance like this. That's why you went through with the first phase."
Yusei stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
"Don't go pretending he set this up altruistically. Once I'm finished, the debt's done."
"Crow's ok," Yuzu said, having managed to finally reach him after they'd either moved far away enough or the jamming had ended.
"That's a relief," Aki replied, covering the D-Wheels and leading them up to the door.
"He vouched for you. Sorry for not trusting you before."
"It's understandable after what you went through," Aki said as she sat down.
"We still don't know how she knows Yusei," Yuri muttered.
"Right, I'll explain," Aki replied. Everyone blinked once, then slowly turned their heads to her.
"You… heard me?" Yuri asked.
"Ah," Aki realized. "That's a whole thing on its own. It's kind of a gift… or curse.
I used to be a Top, years ago. In fact, I used to be known as the Black Rose Queen at the city's most prominent dueling academy. But I found that I had developed abilities that were, to be honest, very dangerous. Enough that it became dangerous just to duel me. I'm actually a psychic."
"That must have been pretty shocking before you knew you'd be talking to people from another dimension with ghosts accompanying them," Yugo blurted out.
"Shush!" Rin hissed, swiping at him. Her arm just went through him and she sighed in frustration. Aki cleared her throat.
"As I was saying, my parents became worried enough that they pulled me out of the academy and sent me to private tutelage. I became disillusioned with the city and that's when I came across them… the Arcadia Movement."
"I think I remember them," Rin said. "Weren't they doing experiments about dueling with psychic powers or something?"
"They always sounded like a cult to me," added Yugo.
"Yeah… it was a cult," Aki admitted, tilting her head. "They filled my head with all this talk of reforming the whole city, overthrowing its existing leadership and making a new one that was truly fair and equal."
A secret society? 'Fair and equal?' Yuya thought, remembering what Misty had told him.
"I came to idolize our leader," Aki went on, her voice lowering. "I ignored the worse and worse things he did, and the obvious fact that he really couldn't care less about us until finally I couldn't deny it any longer. The man I thought saved me was a monster.
So I put a stop to it. I brought Arcadia down. The leader was forced to face Jack Atlas in the Friendship Cup and sent to the Underground. But when I exposed them, I also exposed myself. My father was a politician and had made a lot of enemies - the scandal was enough to discredit him and we were demoted to the Commons.
Since I blamed myself, I resolved to protect my parents no matter what it took, so I entered the underground dueling circuit. And there, I stopped trying to control my powers."
"It was even worse than usual unrestricted Real Solid Vision?"
"It was a nightmare…" Aki closed her eyes, hanging her head. "For my opponents, and for me. Eventually, even my parents were afraid of me. I could tell - they couldn't even look at me the same way any more. And I… snapped. I hated the whole city and everyone in it. Winning didn't really matter anymore. I just wanted to hurt people." She opened her eyes again, staring at the wall.
"Yusei found me there. He got me out of it - he saved me from myself. He was involved in street duels, a bit of smuggling, but it was much better than what I'd come from. As…"
"As the Black Rose?" Yuzu asked as gently as she could.
"Honestly, Ushio might still have some respect for me, because he didn't actually use my full title," Aki gave a bitter laugh. "You see, Aki Izayoi, pride of the Tops' dueling schools, the Black Rose Queen… became Aki Izayoi, terror of the underground dueling world. The Black Rose Witch."
"Thanks for helping them out, Aki," Crow said as he arrived with Shinji. He sat, clasping his hands after they filled him in.
"We know Yusei. He was always alright. He tossed the kids a free chocolate bar after Tanner scraped his knee once. He's been good to us."
"Yeah… even after the time I threw him out and told him a Top would always be a Top," Shinji admitted.
"He used to be a Top too?"
"Oh, yeah," Aki replied. "Yusei? He lost everything. He barely even knew his parents. He spent most of his early life in a boarding school, funded by his inheritance. Then one day, he just left."
"He left the Tops? Willingly?"
"That's right. It was something completely unprecedented in the city's whole belief system. I think the Tops wanted to forget about him. But I don't know what his business is with these Dimension Duelists."
"What was he doing when all this started?"
"I haven't seen that much of him since you first arrived in the Friendship Cup. He ran into some trouble around then. Could they have come into contact with him then?"
"We don't know how long the Dimension Duelists have been preparing their plans," Yuya replied. "They must have done something important for him, right?"
"They might have, if there's anything to what I'm thinking," Shinji noted. "In the Underground, we were told that Roget was looking for the strongest duelist he could find. There were rumors that he was looking for a successor to Sergei Volkov - like a mkII version."
"You mean Yusei nearly ended up like - like -" Yuzu shuddered as she remembered the cyborg monstrosity who had almost murdered her.
"If the Dimension Duelists saved him from something like that, he might feel a compulsion to help them," said Aki, "but even then, he wouldn't just go along with them blindly."
Yuya found a call coming and stepped outside.
"Sawatari? Hey, Yuzu and I ran into someone who was with the Dimension Duelists - we want to tell Reiji about it but…"
"I think he might know at this point, Yuya. Are you around a TV?"
Yuya spied one of the big screens set up around the city and waved out the others to watch the red-headed woman in a cowgirl outfit.
"Melissa Claire here with breaking news! A challenger has appeared at the Duel Palace, demanding a duel! And if anyone has wondered if Jack Atlas ever considered retirement, rest assured! The challenge went out to him and he accepted without hesitation!
This has come at a particularly tumultuous time, while the Duel League is in the middle of appointing a new MC after the resignation of yours truly." She glanced off-camera irritably. "That's what you all get for those 'Sheriff Obvious' comments…"
"Uh, Melissa, the story..?" her anchor remarked.
"Oh, of course, Angela, I was just getting to that!" Melissa grinned in embarrassment.
"Of course those showboating bimbos got the top jobs…" muttered a woman in glasses sitting across the street.
"We'll be cutting to live footage at the Duel Palace in just a moment!" Melissa announced, and they all had a good idea who was going to be there even before the feed switched and Melissa introduced him.
"Our sources inform us that the challenger is something of a prodigal son for the city - an outlaw duelist named Yusei Fudo!"