Everyone gathered around a table, seated in a circle.
Each person had a few booster packs in hand—some had more, some less. Naturally, the one with the fewest was Jesse, who had lost his duel. Right after him was Alexis; though her stall-based, control-heavy deck had a natural edge against Rin's burn strategy, her overall performance hadn't been particularly stellar. So she ended up with the second-lowest score.
Around the table, Hikaru Amagi sat next to Alexis, holding a thick stack of booster packs, curiously eyeing Yugi. A few of those packs, in fact, had been personally recommended by him.
Yugi unwrapped the packs with practiced care, ensuring the cards didn't bend even slightly, then pulled them out for a look.
He'd come to this world specifically to study its cards. KaibaCorp had naturally granted him a massive allotment of "points"—in theory, he could just take the entire Security Bureau's card inventory home to research.
But he wouldn't do that.
Looking across at Chazz Princeton and noticing how tense he looked, Yugi blinked, then smiled.
"You must be Chazz Princeton, right?"
"Y-Yes, Mr. Yugi Muto!"
"No need to be so stiff. Just call me Yugi."
"T-Then… Mr. Yugi!"
Yugi chuckled and shook his head. Glancing between the cards in his hand and Chazz's unopened packs, he raised an eyebrow.
"How about this? Let's build quick decks from these booster packs and duel—right here on this table."
"R-Really!? I… I get to duel you!?"
Chazz nearly fell over in shock.
Ever since Yugi had pivoted into game design and other ventures, he'd practically stopped dueling in public—even his mentor hadn't faced him in a match for years!
"It's just for fun, no need to overthink it," Yugi said casually. "The point is to enjoy ourselves."
"Y-Yes! Absolutely!!" Chazz lit up with excitement.
Across the table, Jaden and Jesse watched with envy, arms slung around each other's shoulders.
"Man… I wanna duel Mr. Yugi too…" Jaden muttered with a pout.
As he shuffled his deck, Yugi asked while scanning the cards, "You're Kaiba's student, aren't you, Chazz?"
"Yes, sir—yes!"
"I noticed you seem pretty frustrated with your ranking."
"That's right!" Chazz suddenly looked fired up. "At the very least, I should be scoring as high as Jaden—no, even higher, like Hikaru!"
Yugi didn't dismiss Chazz's passion. While setting up his cards for the table duel, he said calmly, "Actually, Kaiba's not satisfied either."
"!!!" Chazz's eyes widened.
Wha…!?
"Ah, not with you specifically. Sorry—poor choice of words." Yugi coughed awkwardly. "What I meant was… he's dissatisfied with the overall results of the tournament."
"Ehhhh—" Jesse let out a dramatic sigh.
"You guys might feel like you dominated the duels with the S-Dimension, and on paper you did well. But from Kaiba's perspective, the outcome was unacceptable."
"Why?" Chazz asked, eagerly leaning in.
He'd always wanted to understand what went on in Kaiba's head—but the man was like a hyper-intensified version of himself, and Chazz could never quite bring himself to ask.
Yugi summoned an attack, gently flipping a card forward to strike one of Chazz's monsters and shave his LP.
"This world's only been exploring interdimensional travel for about half a year. Before that, they developed in total isolation. Meanwhile, our world's been exploring alternate dimensions for years. Most of you here from Duel Academy came through the dimensional portals with KaibaCorp's sponsorship. Compared to them, we're the more 'advanced' side."
As he spoke, Yugi calmly set four cards face-down on his side of the table.
"And yet, our students went head-to-head with duelists from Satellite—people considered weaker even within their own world—and the duels were barely even. Some of us even lost."
Jesse rubbed the back of his neck, wincing.
He wasn't the only one who lost—but at least the other guy lost to Jack Atlas. That didn't sting quite as much.
Even though both Yugi and Kaiba recognized Yusei was no ordinary duelist… it didn't matter.
In Kaiba's eyes, if all this interdimensional tech couldn't produce a decisive victory, it meant the S-Dimension had a higher average dueling strength. Which also meant… they hadn't progressed far enough!
"I get it now…" Chazz nodded slowly.
On the surface, it looked like they won—but most of the S-Dimension's duelists weren't even elite. Heck, some of them were kids! How could that be considered acceptable?
"You've seen it too—Kaiba's always reaching for the next pinnacle of Duel Monsters."
Everyone nodded solemnly.
In this multiverse… no, in all of known human history… the peak was still the legendary Pharaoh of the Shadow Realm.
That was what this was really about…
"I suppose it's getting late," Yugi said, glancing at the time. He still had other things to take care of. Looking at the field, he chuckled. "Now then, about this world's cards…"
"From what I've seen—whether in the X-Dimension or this world—their card design is more advanced than ours. Though the evolution paths differ, they're clearly more developed overall. So yes… there are new forms of familiar series from our world."
"Huh? Like what?" Jaden asked, instantly intrigued.
Yugi just smiled and played a card.
"Quick-Play Spell—Mask Change II."
!!
Hikaru stood up so fast his chair almost tipped.
Among all the cards he'd hunted across dimensions—this was one he'd searched for the most. And now, here it was, in front of him.
"That's right," Yugi nodded gently. "They've got them."
Then he smiled again. "And the rumors weren't exaggerated. You really do know your Fusion stuff. That's impressive."
"In short: discard one card from your hand, send a face-up monster you control to the Graveyard, and Special Summon a Masked HERO with the same Attribute but higher Level from the Extra Deck."
"Masked HERO!? Other HEROES?!" Jaden practically leapt from his seat.
Yugi sent a WATER monster to the Graveyard, searched his Extra Deck, and placed a sleek blue HERO on the table.
"Which means I can bypass Fusion entirely and Special Summon—Masked HERO Vapor."
"Woooahhhh—!!" Jaden was overwhelmed.
A brand-new HERO!
In Chazz's stunned silence, Yugi activated Torrential Tribute, wiping the field—but thanks to Vapor's immunity to destruction effects, he stood alone and claimed victory.
After the match, Yugi packed up his cards and waved goodbye.
Before leaving, he helped each of them pick out a few specific booster packs.
And once he was gone, Hikaru and the others eagerly looked through the ones he'd chosen.
Inside might be cards unique to this world's Synchro era—or even brand-new evolutions of familiar archetypes.
Hikaru tore open his first pack, the one Yugi had picked for him, and both he and Tiella gasped at what they saw.
Right on top—Future Next Backup Unit!
A vital card for Tiella's archetype fusion combos!
He ripped open the second—nothing too special.
But in the third, that familiar purple foil gleamed…
Tiella let out a stunned "Whoa!"
Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier — reimagined.