"Krista. This may be a card of destruction, but if you use it to protect what's truly precious to you, it will bloom into the most beautiful flower."
…
Following Krista through the underground passage beneath Synchron Academy, the first sight to greet Miles was a scene like a vast cavern of stalactites.
Familiar.
No… extremely familiar.
The subterranean tunnels of Synchron Academy were identical to the ones beneath Fusion Academy, the place they once entered to break the seal of Dystopia the Despondent.
There was no way this was a coincidence.
Even if someone argued that stalactite caves weren't uncommon underground, that first door mechanism—the one that read "Access restricted to Duelists ranked B or higher"—was something Miles could never forget.
That test had left Aisha with deep psychological trauma.
Her A+ rank result had even caused a certain flat-chested girl to start questioning whether genetics truly existed.
With such a twisted sense of humor behind its design, there was no doubt… it had to be made by the same person.
Standing confidently before the door, it was clear Krista had passed through it before.
"Tch. Just a B, huh. Fine, you can go in," grumbled the voice from within the mechanism.
It sounded displeased with Krista's borderline score, but still obeyed the rules and opened the heavy stone gate.
Upon closer look, though it wasn't obvious, Krista's result was indeed slightly better than Aisha's.
"(〃＞皿＜) Mr. Miles! What are you looking at! Where are you looking!?"
What else? Of course, he was looking at what you don't have.
"Sigh… still a B." Krista sighed with mild disappointment. "It's been almost three years already… what am I still lacking?"
"Krista?" Miles asked cautiously. "You… do realize what kind of test this is, right?"
"How could I not know? Since it's an underground mechanism under Synchron Academy, obviously, it tests a Duelist's skill level. But my rank's been stuck at B since my first year… so I must still be lacking as a Duelist."
…It was apparent that Krista had no idea what the door actually measured.
Poor girl. The part of you that hasn't improved in three years… isn't your dueling ability.
"If it were you, Miles, your rank would definitely be higher. Want to give it a try later?"
"Let's not. Time is precious—we can't waste it on pointless things."
"Ah… sorry."
Realizing her mistake, Krista subconsciously quickened her pace.
Once again, Miles had successfully protected Aisha's dignity.
Stardust said, "Miles, you're so kind."
After hurrying through the remaining underground passages, they entered the final chamber—barely illuminated by the golden glow of a Millennium Item.
At the center of the room, placed on a raised pedestal, rested the golden Millennium Scale.
By comparison, this chamber corresponded to the one under Fusion Academy where the Millennium Key had been stored.
"Just as I feared… it's gotten worse," Krista murmured, her delicate brows furrowing.
"Worse? What do you mean?"
Unlike her, Miles couldn't see anything particularly alarming about the golden balance before them.
"The Millennium Scale is a sacred artifact that measures the balance of good and evil in this world. Compared to when I last checked, the balance has tilted even further out of alignment."
"I see."
Even if Miles couldn't interpret the markings on the Scale, it was obvious: the beam was heavily tilted to the left, even though both pans were empty.
In truth, they weren't empty at all. What rested on them were the world's kindness and malice.
And judging from Krista's grim expression, Miles could already guess the result.
"Tilting left means there's more evil, doesn't it?"
Krista nodded. "Yes. Something must've happened… something that caused the Spirit Continent to accumulate so much malice in such a short time."
"Emmm…"
If one were to ask, Miles actually knew quite a lot.
The Three Sacred Beasts awakened during the Battle of the Royal Capital, the Three Wicked Gods were later summoned by the cultists, and the two Earthbound Immortals encountered in Axet—all of them could be considered embodiments of this world's evil.
Wait a second… the God Cards, the Wicked Gods, and the Earthbound Immortals… weren't all those cards in his possession?
Could the imbalance of good and evil be because he'd collected too many of these cursed cards?
"(￣ー￣) Uh, yeah, no idea."
A blatant lie.
"Pfft, Miles, that expression! You look just like Mokey Mokey."
Well, it was Aisha's body after all… those familiar expressions came naturally.
"And this is Mother's card." Krista turned toward the pedestal. "If things truly are as dire as the Millennium Scale suggests, this card will surely be needed against the coming darkness."
Beside the Scale lay a Synchro Monster card—a dragon as crimson as a rose. As Krista picked it up, her mother's gentle words echoed once more in her mind.
She whispered softly, "A flower that blooms to protect what's most precious… Mother, please lend me your strength."
After securing the Synchro card, Krista lifted the Millennium Scale from its pedestal.
"You're taking the Millennium Scale too?" Miles asked. "Isn't that… a bit inconvenient to carry?"
Given its size, he could understand why Krista usually kept it sealed beneath the academy. Unlike the other Millennium Items, it wasn't exactly wearable.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures. Even the smallest chance of success is worth seizing. Besides, the power sealed within a Millennium Item is far from small."
"So how do you plan to bring it with you?"
"Like this!"
Krista suddenly lifted her short skirt, revealing more of the absolute territory between her thigh-highs and hemline.
Riiiip!
With a sharp tear of fabric, she ripped off a strip from her skirt.
The design now sported a new slit, exposing flashes of her pale thigh whenever she moved.
"See? I'll just tie it to the side of my D-Wheel! Perfect!"
Her hands moved deftly—like father, like daughter. Within moments, the Millennium Scale was securely fastened to the side of her red D-Wheel.
"All set. Let's go, Miles!"
"Yeah!"
Leaving the underground chamber of Synchron Academy, the two who had inherited Stardust's will revved their D-Wheels to full power—carrying the fate of countless lives—as they sped toward the final leyline tower.
Inside the academy, the crisis had still felt distant and abstract.
However, once they were back on their D-Wheels, racing through Axet's towns, Miles and Krista finally understood just how devastating this disaster truly was for the nation.
Imagine it… an entire civilization suddenly stripped of its energy source. Chaos was inevitable.
Everywhere they looked, magitek cars had collided after losing control of their power cores. In the factories, cranes had collapsed mid-operation. Airships, unable to maintain altitude, had plummeted from the skies.
Each catastrophe only triggered more explosions, fueled by the crimson-tainted magic stones.
Krista's voice trembled. "It's too cruel. Most of these people don't even know the truth, yet they still have to pay such a terrible price... What did they do wrong?"
"Krista," Miles said in a low voice, "this isn't something that can be judged in terms of right or wrong anymore. All we can do now is what we believe is right."
The mistake that demanded this price had already been made fifty years ago… ever since the day the first magic stones were unearthed from a destroyed village.
Albeit, as Krista said, how could those who came after, who knew nothing of that past, be blamed?
It was the kind of question that had no answer, and Miles didn't want to waste time thinking about it.
All that mattered now was figuring out how to save as many people as possible from this destined calamity.
The city's devastation was overwhelming, but fortunately, the Duelists who had stayed behind at Synchron Academy had already begun organizing rescue efforts.
Deprived of convenient energy, people finally remembered why Duel Monsters—summoned instantly at a Duelist's call—had replaced swords and sorcery as the dominant power on the Spirit Continent.
Their D-Wheels continued at full speed. Leaving the "technologically advanced" city behind, the rural outskirts—less reliant on magitek—were relatively untouched.
For a nation once hailed as the pinnacle of science, the sight was ironic: the further they got from Axet's technological heart, the less destruction they found.
Half the journey remained to the main leyline tower.
As they approached, the crimson spire piercing the heavens came into view—like a bloodstained spear driven through the nation's heart.
Each segment of red stone seemed to wail, a chorus of hatred festering for fifty years.
Feeling the raw, oppressive malice radiating from the corrupted leyline, both Miles and Krista felt unease tightening their chests.
Could Stardust Dragon and Stardust Spark Dragon truly purify fifty years of accumulated destruction born from humanity's greed?
Perhaps the earth itself had suffered far more deeply than anyone realized… so much so that it had birthed gods of darkness and resentment within its depths.
And then, as if responding to their anxiety, the road ahead suddenly erupted into flames.
Walls of dark-purple fire rose, forming a fiery track. On the ground, a massive Nazca Line began to glow.
The familiar darkness made Miles's eyes widen. "That's… an Earthbound Immortal!? At a time like this!?"
"I won't let you pass!"
The roar of another D-Wheel grew louder—a man's voice following it. Beneath his gray hood, half of his face was covered in marks.
It was him—the Dark Turbo Duelist who had once fought Ren.
"So you're still alive, huh?"
Back then, after defeating him in a Shadow Duel, all that had remained was an Earthbound Immortal card—Miles had already suspected the man had escaped using some unknown means.
"You say I'm still alive?" the man muttered, puzzled.
Abruptly, then his gaze caught the Millennium Puzzle hanging from Miles's chest, and understanding dawned. "I see now… the girl I dueled yesterday wasn't herself—it was you!"
Miles didn't actually have a bad impression of this duelist.
Now that he knew the truth about the magic stones, he could even understand why the man had hunted Turbo Duelists.
"You destroyed Turbo Duels to stop the magic stones' runaway corruption, right? Then don't stop us—there's still a chance to save this country's magic stones!"
"Save?" The man suddenly burst into mad laughter. "Hahaha… Save!?"
In just one day, the two men's beliefs had diverged completely.
"Your so-called 'salvation'... you mean purifying the stones to delay destruction for a while, and then just waiting for the next, even greater catastrophe?"
"Oh? So you know about that?"
Miles was startled… how did this duelist even know about their plan to purify the leyline using Stardust Dragon?
"You're naïve!" the man yelled furiously. "As long as this nation refuses to abandon its pursuit of infinite magitek energy, even if you purify it today, what about tomorrow? Or a hundred years from now? The tragedy will repeat again and again!"
"How do you know all this?" Krista asked, astonished by his understanding—perhaps even deeper than her father's.
"Because I already lived through it… fifty years ago."
"!!!"
The man pulled down his hood. The upper half of his face was mangled—charred and disfigured—his eyes barely able to open. The lower half, which Miles had once mistaken for curse marks, was actually crisscrossed with scars from an explosion.
"This country is just reenacting the same tragedy from fifty years ago. I was one of the survivors of that catastrophe… the one Axet erased from history."
To transform the magic stones into a 'safe' source of infinite energy, the Axet Republic had erased the records of the destroyed village that once suffered the first runaway disaster.
They had buried the truth—but not the people who had lived through it.
"Rather than let this cycle of tragedy repeat forever," the man roared, "I'll end it here! Let the magic stones and this nation vanish together! You'll go no farther!"
He slammed down a Field Spell Card—[Speed World 2]—and within the blazing Nazca lines, a 1v2 Turbo Duel began.
He had tried to stop this fate, yet now could only watch as the nation marched toward the same end. In his eyes, all was already lost.
In just fifty years, Axet had spread its magitek trains across the entire Spirit Continent. If things continued, the next disaster would endanger far more innocent lives.
Better to erase it all now—to let the magic stones vanish, along with Axet… just as his village once had.
"Unless you step over my corpse," he bellowed, "I won't let you repeat this tragedy again!"
Miles scowled. He knew well that in a Duel, the hardest opponent to face wasn't one with rare, powerful cards—rather, one with an unshakable conviction.
Even facing two at once, the man showed no doubt in his eyes.
"Even so, we have our own resolve!" Miles shouted back.
As [Speed World 2] activated, his expression hardened.
"Endless tragedy or inevitable destruction—whatever future awaits, the people living now just want to survive! That's all that matters!"
"Miles…"
Krista looked at him, her heart pounding as they rode side by side.
Even though he spoke through a girl's voice, in this moment, he looked unbearably heroic.
"Humanity has the right to live! Even the gods can't take that away! Krista!"
"Yes!"
"Let's break through together!"
The Shadow Turbo Duel began—each side driven by their own convictions.
"Turbo Duel! Acceleration!"