In the cafeteria, Yumi quietly looked over the rations being distributed to the students, teachers, and Pro Duelists. The food was clearly being used sparingly, with everyone receiving only what was necessary to keep them going, but Yumi's expression remained calm as he looked around the room.
The sight didn't really surprise him.
This world was at war, after all, and Duel Academy had effectively become one of the front lines between the human world and the Spirit World. Food shortages, damaged buildings, exhausted Duelists, and students living under constant fear were simply part of what came with that.
Still, Hoshino couldn't help but notice that the atmosphere inside the cafeteria was different from before.
Thanks to Yumi's intervention, the students and Duelists were eating with noticeably less tension than they had been earlier. The thick, suffocating atmosphere that had filled the room after the latest Beast Wave had finally started to loosen, and for the first time in a while, some of the students were actually talking normally instead of constantly looking toward the windows and doors in fear of another attack.
They had managed to hold out surprisingly well until now, but Hoshino knew that pure optimism could only carry people so far.
Not everyone could have the mental strength of the Last Master of Humanity.
The constant fighting had already taken its toll. Some of the Pro Duelists were exhausted both physically and mentally, while several students had already developed a genuine fear of Duel Monsters after seeing their classmates get hurt during the Beast Waves. Some had even lost the will to fight entirely.
Hoshino couldn't blame them. They were students, not soldiers.
And yet, despite everything that had happened, Yumi continued to act almost completely carefree.
He walked around as though the Beast Waves were nothing more than an inconvenience, spoke with complete confidence about being the strongest, and had casually wiped out every stray Spirit on the island with a single card.
Looking at him now, Hoshino couldn't help but think that maybe Yumi being abnormal wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
"Duel!"
[Yumi, LP 4000]
[Jaden, LP 4000]
"Ehh?" Hoshino nearly jumped when she heard the declaration.
She had only turned away for a moment to gather her thoughts, and somehow, in that short amount of time, Yumi had gotten himself into a Duel with Jaden of all people.
She immediately walked over while rubbing her temple.
"Seriously... what happened this time?"
After asking one of the nearby students what had happened, Hoshino's expression became blank.
Apparently, Yumi had casually declared that he was the strongest.
Jaden, naturally, disagreed and insisted that he was number one.
Neither of them was willing to back down.
So, rather than continuing to argue about it, they had decided to settle the matter the only way Duelists knew how.
With a Duel.
"I'll go first! Draw!" Jaden confidently drew the first card from his Deck and looked at his hand. "I activate the Spell, Pot of Greed! This lets me draw two cards!"
He placed the card onto his Duel Disk, and the familiar green pot appeared on his field with its usual ridiculous grin.
Jaden reached toward his Deck. Before he could even touch it, however, Yumi raised a card from his hand.
"I activate Trail Veiler from my hand."
"Huh?"
"By discarding this card, I can banish a card from my Deck and negate the effects of all cards with the same name until the banished card leaves the banish zone."
Yumi sent the card to his Graveyard, causing his Deck to automatically shuffle. A card was then ejected from the Deck, and Yumi casually caught it between his fingers.
"I banish Pot of Greed."
A translucent cyan girl with twin tails and flowing water-like wings appeared beside Yumi, giving him a small wink before flying around him once and disappearing.
At the same time, the Pot of Greed on Jaden's field suddenly lost its color before shattering.
Jaden stared at his destroyed Spell.
"...Seriously?"
Yumi simply put the banished card away.
Jaden shifted his gaze toward his hand and decided not to let it bother him.
"Fine. Then I'll Normal Summon Elemental HERO Bubbleman!"
A stream of bubbles rose from Jaden's field as the familiar blue-armored HERO emerged from them. Bubbleman landed with a confident smile, his cape flowing behind him as he dropped into a pose with his arms crossed.
[Elemental HERO Bubbleman, 1200 DEF]
"Bubbleman's effect!" Jaden announced. "When he's Summoned and he's the only card I control, I can draw two cards!"
He placed his fingers on his Deck.
Once again, Yumi interrupted him.
"I chain it with the effect of PSY-Framegear Gamma in my hand!" Yumi revealed another card. "When you activate a monster effect while I control no monsters, I can Special Summon this card from my hand along with PSY-Frame Driver from my hand, Deck, or Graveyard."
Yumi's Deck shuffled automatically, and another card was ejected.
He caught it and placed it onto his Duel Disk alongside Gamma.
A pair of strange mechanical creatures materialized on Yumi's field, their metallic bodies held together by glowing green energy.
[PSY-Frame Driver, 2500 ATK]
[PSY-Framegear Gamma, 1000 ATK]
"And since I Special Summoned them, I can negate Bubbleman's effect and destroy him."
Green electricity immediately wrapped around Bubbleman. The HERO struggled against the electrical energy for a moment before the attack overwhelmed him, causing his body to explode into particles of light.
"Bubbleman!"
Jaden stared at the empty space where Bubbleman had been. He clenched his fist slightly.
At this point, he wasn't even sure whether he was supposed to be enjoying this Duel or getting annoyed.
The Beast Waves had changed the way he looked at Dueling.
Before all of this started, Duel Monsters had simply been a game to him, something he loved and something he wanted to become better at. But after seeing how many people had been injured because of the Spirits running wild, it was impossible to look at Dueling in exactly the same way anymore.
Even so, he couldn't bring himself to quit. If he stopped fighting, someone else would have to take his place. And he couldn't accept that.
There were already students who had lost their courage because of the Beast Waves, students who were now too afraid of Duel Monsters to even pick up their Duel Disks.
Around the cafeteria, the students watching the Duel were completely absorbed by what they were seeing. Most of them already knew how strong Jaden was. He was one of the Academy's best Duelists, and everyone had seen him pull off ridiculous comebacks before.
But Yumi wasn't giving him the chance to do any of that. He had interrupted Jaden's first two major plays almost immediately and destroyed Bubbleman before Jaden could even draw the cards he needed.
The students exchanged looks.
"This is..."
"He's not giving Jaden any room to play."
"I've never seen someone Duel like this before."
"Just as expected of Hoshino-sensei's disciple."
"He's just as ruthless as his teacher."
Hoshino, who happened to hear that last comment, twitched slightly. "Why am I getting dragged into this!?"
Unfortunately, Yumi was a pro at pressing the skip button and ignoring dialogue from NPCs, so he didn't care or let what they said stay in his mind.
He was entirely unaware that he was quickly developing a reputation among the students.
Hoshino, however, was starting to feel a completely different kind of headache. Her expression slowly became more and more complicated.
This was the kind of Duel that reminded her of the more toxic eras of Yu-Gi-Oh!, where one player's turn could seemingly become the other player's turn as well, and one Duelist could spend the entire game saying, "No." to everyone one of their opponent's plays.
Hoshino's eye twitched.
"Don't tell me he's one of those Duelists..."
Meanwhile, Jaden looked down at the cards remaining in his hand. He wasn't going to give up just because his opening plays had been stopped. He picked up two cards and placed them onto his field.
"I set two cards face-down."
Two face-down cards appeared on Jaden's field. Then he looked toward Yumi.
"Turn end."
At the end phase, both PSY-Frame Driver and PSY-Framegear Gamma disappeared from Yumi's field in golden particles.
Yumi's expression remained completely calm as a faint smile formed on his face. He placed his fingers on top of his Deck.
"Draw!"
He pulled a card from the top, his golden eyes briefly shifting toward his hand before he immediately selected another card.
"I activate the Spell Card, Take Over 5. I send the top five cards of my Deck to the Graveyard."
The top five cards were immediately ejected from his Deck, and Yumi casually sent all of them to the Graveyard.
Then he placed two more cards onto his Duel Disk.
"I Normal Summon Sky Striker Ace - Raye and Special Summon Sky Striker Ace - Roze."
Two familiar figures appeared on his field.
Raye and Roze stood side by side, their blades already in their hands as they faced Jaden's side of the field. Their hair and skirts moved gently in the artificial wind created by the Duel. Even after being summoned together, neither of them made a move, simply waiting for Yumi's next command.
[Sky Striker Ace - Raye, 1500 ATK]
[Sky Striker Ace - Roze, 1500 ATK]
Seeing the two monsters appear together, Hoshino's mind immediately began turning.
She wasn't exactly an expert when it came to Yu-Gi-Oh. Back in her previous world, she had only learned bits and pieces about the game through a few online friends who occasionally invited her to play. Even then, she had mostly watched them rather than seriously learning every mechanic and archetype.
Still, she remembered enough to know what she was looking at.
Those two were definitely from the Sky Striker archetype. But something about this didn't feel right.
Wasn't Sky Striker supposed to use those blue Extra Deck cards?
Hoshino narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember.
She couldn't remember the details clearly. Her knowledge of modern Yu-Gi-Oh was limited at best, since most of her experience with it came from watching her friends complain about the current meta rather than actually playing the game herself. Most of her experience consisted of memories of her friends explaining complicated card effects to her while she wondered why a children's card game had somehow become this complicated.
"Henshin."
Yumi suddenly waved his right hand to the side.
Bright photon energy spread across his body, moving from his right side toward his left as his appearance rapidly changed. His black shirt and pants shifted into white, while his red jacket and boots became a glowing magenta. The red No. 96 appeared behind his jacket, glowing faintly as purple markings formed around his left eye.
The sudden transformation caught everyone watching the Duel off guard.
Even Hoshino blinked several times.
"Why did he just transform in the middle of a Duel?"
Yumi, naturally, ignored everyone's reaction. He raised his right hand and extended his palm forward.
"I overlay my two Level 4 monsters, Raye and Roze!"
An Overlay Network immediately formed in front of him.
Space itself seemed to twist as a swirling black vortex filled with countless points of starlight appeared above the field. Raye and Roze glanced toward one another before their bodies transformed into two beams of light and shot directly into the vortex.
Then a powerful burst of energy exploded outward.
A new figure slowly stepped out from the light.
She was a mature woman with short silver hair, dressed in a dark purple and black bodysuit that fit closely around her body, accentuating her hourglass figure, with her D-cups, slender waist, and round hips. A long purple cape wrapped around her neck and flowed behind her. A strange mechanical gauntlet covered her left hand, with what looked like a small clock attached to the back of it.
Two glowing stars appeared beside her, slowly orbiting around her body.
"Xyz Summon!" Yumi's voice echoed across the cafeteria. "Sky Striker Ace - Redoer!"
The newly summoned Spirit raised her gaze, calmly looking toward Jaden's side of the field.
[Sky Striker Ace - Redoer, 2400 ATK]
The students watching the Duel stared at the woman on Yumi's field in silence.
They had seen Fusion Summons and Ritual Summons.
But whatever Yumi had just done was completely new to them.
The fact that the black card now appearing on his Duel Disk didn't cause the system to flag it as an error only left everyone watching completely stunned.
Hoshino, meanwhile, was still trying to process what she had just witnessed.
That's definitely not how Sky Strikers are supposed to work.
At the same time, Yumi remained completely calm.
After everything that had happened with Kaito, he had spent a long time thinking about what Chaos had told him.
For a long time, Yumi had tried to convince himself that he was a good person. Maybe not a hero, but at least someone decent. That despite the things he had done, there was still a clear line between himself and the people he considered truly selfish or cruel.
But eventually, he had accepted the truth. He wasn't as kind as he wanted to believe.
He was selfish. He didn't help people simply because they needed help. Most of the time, he judged what they could offer him and what he could gain from helping them before deciding whether they were worth his time.
At the same time, however, that didn't mean everything about him was bad either.
He still cared about certain people, and protected those he considered important.
Both sides were real.
Neither one of them was a lie.
So after thinking about it for a long time, Yumi stopped trying to separate himself into someone good or someone bad.
He simply accepted both.
The good within him, and the bad as well.
That acceptance had also allowed him to finally accept the power he had stolen from Kaito.
For a long time, Yumi had refused to truly consider it his own. It belonged to someone else, someone whose death had been connected to Yumi's own actions, and using that power had always left a bitter feeling in his chest.
But now, he had stopped running from that truth.
The power was his now.
Whether he liked it or not, whether he considered himself worthy of it or not, it had become part of him. So instead of continuing to reject it, Yumi chose to take responsibility for it and make that power his own.
Using his own will to manipulate the cosmic fabric around him, Yumi could now create an Overlay Network. And with that, he had gained the ability to perform Xyz Summons.
"Battle! Redoer, direct attack!" Yumi declared, thrusting his palm forward.
Redoer immediately charged across the field, closing the distance between herself and Jaden before leaping into the air. She spun gracefully through the air and came down toward him with a powerful kick.
"I activate the Quick-Play Spell, The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh!" Jaden quickly waved his hand, flipping one of his face-down cards face-up. "This lets me Special Summon Winged Kuriboh from my Deck!"
A small brown furball suddenly appeared on Jaden's field, its tiny white wings fluttering as it looked toward the incoming attack.
[Winged Kuriboh, 200 DEF]
"Next, I activate the Quick-Play Spell, Transcendent Wings!"
Jaden flipped over his remaining face-down card and sent the last two cards in his hand to the Graveyard.
"By discarding two cards, I can transform Winged Kuriboh into Winged Kuriboh LV10!"
Winged Kuriboh began glowing brightly as the light surrounding its body intensified. Its small form expanded, transforming into a much larger Kuriboh with enormous white wings and golden dragon-like armor covering its body, complete with a head and tail extending from the armor.
[Winged Kuriboh LV10, 300 ATK]
"By Tributing Winged Kuriboh LV10, I can destroy all of your Attack Position monsters and inflict damage to you equal to their combined original ATK!" Jaden shouted, clenching his fist with a confident grin.
Winged Kuriboh LV10's entire body began glowing as a brilliant white light erupted from it and rapidly expanded across the field.
Yumi simply smirked.
"I activate Redoer's effect!"
Jaden's expression changed.
"Once per turn, by detaching an Overlay Unit, I can activate one of her effects depending on the material I detach. If I detach a Monster, I can banish Redoer until the End Phase. If I detach a Spell, I can draw one card. And if I detach a Trap, I can place one card from your field on top of your Deck."
One of the glowing stars orbiting Redoer suddenly disappeared.
Her body faded into golden particles just as the white light from Winged Kuriboh LV10 swept across the field, passing harmlessly through the space where she had been standing.
"He dodged it!?"
The students and Pro Duelists watching the Duel stared in surprise. Jaden's friends immediately cheered when they realized what had happened, knowing that he had just avoided an attack that would have wiped out a huge chunk of his Life Points.
Jaden let out a relieved sigh as he looked down at his Duel Disk.
"Thanks, partner," he quietly said to Winged Kuriboh.
The small brown furball appeared beside him in Spirit form and gave a cheerful little "Kuri, kuri!" as if encouraging him to keep going.
Yumi watched the exchange with an amused smile before casually reminding everyone of one very important detail.
"My Battle Phase isn't over."
The cheering immediately stopped. Everyone's attention returned to Yumi as he raised the final card in his hand.
"Quick-Play Spell, Turn Jump!"
The moment the card activated, the space around the field began to distort.
The image of a massive clock appeared overhead as its hands started spinning rapidly, while cracks resembling fractures in time spread through the air.
"During the Battle Phase, we each jump ahead to our next three turns!"
The effect took hold.
[Sky Striker Ace - Redoer, 2400 ATK]
Redoer reappeared beside Yumi, calmly folding her arms as the enormous clock continued spinning behind her.
One glowing star appeared beside her. Then another that vanished almost immediately. Another appeared, then disappeared. Another appeared. Then another.
For a few seconds, the stars continued appearing and disappearing around Redoer until the effect finally settled.
Three glowing stars now orbited around her body.
At the same time, something else had changed. Yumi's previously empty hand now contained seven cards without anyone noticing.
They were far too busy watching Redoer.
After all, Yumi had taken advantage of the accelerated turns to draw cards through Redoer's effect, banish his three copies of Take Over 5, and eventually recover the Pot of Greed that had been banished earlier once his two Standby Phases ended.
Yumi was too lazy to explain that part.
"Go, Redoer! Direct attack!"
Redoer immediately moved. She shot across the field and appeared directly in front of Jaden before he could react, swinging her leg and kicking him across the face with enough force to send him stumbling backward.
[Jaden, LP 4000 -> 1600]
Jaden barely managed to recover before Yumi raised another card.
"I activate the Quick-Play Spell, Sky Striker Mobilize - Linkage!"
The duelists watching the Duel barely had time to process what was happening.
"By sending Redoer to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon a Sky Striker Ace from my Extra Deck!"
Redoer's body suddenly began glowing.
Her form dissolved into light, and in her place stood Raye, now equipped with her blue high-tech combat suit. A massive shield was mounted on one arm while a large weapon covered the other, making her look considerably more battle-ready than the version Yumi had summoned earlier.
"Cast off! Sky Striker Ace - Shizuku!"
[Sky Striker Ace - Shizuku, 1500 -> 2500 ATK]
Jaden's eyes widened.
"Shizuku, direct attack!"
Shizuku immediately rushed forward.
"Shield Strike!"
Before Jaden could react, Shizuku swung her massive shield straight toward his head.
BONK!!
[Jaden, LP 1600 -> 0]
The cafeteria fell completely silent as Jaden was knocked unconscious by the hit.