"I still lost, huh?"
After the Duel ended, the two Duelists clasped hands. Jim couldn't help saying it to Hikaru with a rueful smile.
"It just so happens I know a lot about Fossil Fusion," Hikaru replied, smiling back.
"Ow.."
"Karen says there's no need to be modest now."
"Haha…"
Hikaru chuckled. In truth, it wasn't "just so happens." He knew Fossil cards, and the cards that interact with them very well.
Before coming to this world, in the Albaz/Branded storyline that defined much of Series 11, Dogmatika cards had surged into the meta. Strategies that sent monsters from the Extra Deck to the GY to unlock graveyard lines were everywhere. Even before he transmigrated, when he played casual Shaddoll, he often packed Ecclesia, the Virtuous, her activation line was simply too convenient.
Some Fossil Fusions echo that play pattern. The "wagon" Jim used earlier, Fossil Machine Skull Wagon, can banish itself from the GY to destroy a Spell/Trap. And among the Fossils there are counterparts that pick off monsters, like Fossil Warrior Skull Knight, which banishes itself from the GY to destroy a monster.
For someone like Hikaru, who lacked much clean on-field destruction, the Fossil route had always been tempting: Fossil Fusion not only clears problem cards from the opponent's GY, its Fusion monsters come with solid graveyard utility, perfectly in tune with Hikaru's game plan.
But beyond that, Hikaru's curiosity kept circling back to The Tyrant Neptune.
"By the way, Jim, may I see that card?" Hikaru asked, genuinely curious.
Normally, you didn't casually ask to see a Duelist's ace. Even close friends would find that rude, suspicious, even.
Cards are a Duelist's life. Asking to see someone else's card is like asking to see their life.
What's more;
People here grew up on legends of Yugi Muto and Seto Kaiba. They knew the stories by heart.
It's said that on the way to Duelist Kingdom, Weevil Underwood took advantage of Yugi's trust and tossed his ace, Exodia the Forbidden One, into the sea. The incident is recorded in Mr. Yugi's adventure memoirs and Joey Wheeler's autobiography.
Even so, Jim only frowned for a heartbeat, then relaxed and smiled. He pulled up his Deck, found a card, and began to explain how he'd acquired it.
"You dug it up?" Hikaru blinked. He hesitated, then lifted the card slightly to one side.
Tierra appeared, bent to study it twice, then lifted her gaze and flicked him a look.
Hikaru understood.
It was exactly what he'd suspected.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Hikaru said with an easy smile, handing the card back.
From that brief look, Hikaru had already confirmed what he needed to know.
Strictly speaking, it was Tierra who confirmed it, and Hikaru who received the hint.
Before Hikaru ever crossed worlds, The Tyrant Neptune was already a fixture on the Forbidden/Limited List, not only because it copies effects, but because as Duel Monsters evolved and the card pool deepened, a card like Neptune, searchable by certain methods and able to combine with other pieces, could become an untouchable, instant-win endpoint.
It's easy to foresee: as the pool grows and stranger monsters appear, this card's ceiling only gets more "terrifying", just as Magical Scientist's reputation as "the second-strongest single card in history" only loomed larger with time.
As the pool deepens, The Tyrant Neptune becomes ever harder to set free.
But for now, none of that mattered much to Hikaru.
The sticking point was that this really was Jim's card in the "original work."
Not the anime, but the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX manga.
Hikaru hadn't thought that far ahead. The anime and manga had different main plots and different final bosses. Even though Chazz in this world was also Seto Kaiba's disciple, most events and personalities followed the anime's track; the Dimensional Door had twisted a few things, but nothing Hikaru found beyond reason.
Besides, this world already had tells: Chazz here had Light and Darkness Dragon, and Jack Atlas from the S (Synchro) Dimension carried Red Dragon Archfiend. It wasn't strange for people to hold their manga versions of cards.
But;
When Hikaru looked closely at The Tyrant Neptune and had Tierra check its aura, he finally understood.
Some things weren't absent, they were gone.
"Not absent" and "gone" were very different.
He clicked his tongue in wonder.
In the GX manga, the final boss, Tragoedia, a being that manipulates hearts. An ancient evil from Egypt, it had been sealed into a stone tablet by a priest's own heart. In the manga's plot, it slowly awakened and controlled people in an attempt to revive itself.
On paper it sounded imposing: an ancient demon, a priest's seal, mind control. Impressive, if you hadn't seen worse. To be blunt, in Tierra's homeland you could pull a dozen monsters like that off the shelf. Demon Gods, Evilswarms… pick a handful of the stronger ones and you'd have similar "evil gods." Maybe not Tragoedia's exact power, but the same type: a villain that sounds terrifying, then becomes less so once you look closely.
By contrast, the anime's last boss, Darkness, embodied the world's end and humanity's ruined future. Darkness might have been poor at Dueling, but its supernatural power was never weak, its influence blanketed the Earth, nearly plunging humanity into oblivion in an instant. Without a dual soul, Jaden wouldn't even have earned the right to Duel it.
All of that, though, was window dressing. What mattered most were the cards used to unseal and revive Tragoedia.
They were things like The Tyrant Neptune, The Supremacy Sun, The Tripping MERCURY, The Splendid VENUS, the so-called Planet Series.
Those cards… had to be man-made.
So if they were man-made, who made them?
Right, Aster's father again.
Human strength and time are limited. Even a wild-genius designer like Aster Phoenix's father couldn't create Destiny HERO, then turn around to think up Vision HERO, and then be puppeted into producing the Planet Series on top, at least, not without the entities controlling him choosing what to prioritize.
And those "great beings" would prioritize. An unrevived Tragoedia had no way to compete with the Light of Destruction. Not only is the Light itself powerful, it absorbed destructive impulses from other dimensions, it would crush Tragoedia even harder. The same logic applies to Darkness.
Perhaps a fully revived Tragoedia wouldn't be weak, in raw force it might even rival Darkness, but that presumes "fully revived."
From the look of The Tyrant Neptune just now, Tragoedia likely died peacefully.
Hikaru said his goodbyes to Jim and urged him to finish the revival bracket, become the eighth strongest and come Duel him again.
Jim grumbled, "Have mercy, another match is exhausting," but there was no hint of backing down.
Back in the prep hall, Hikaru found himself thinking about Darkness again.
In hindsight, it made sense that Atticus was personally possessed by Darkness when he served as one of the Seven Stars. Hikaru had wondered about that for a long time and only now understood why. Given the current situation, Darkness shouldn't have been able to descend into the human world so quickly.
Looking at it this way, Darkness wasn't really idle; it turned out he was first harvesting competitors to strengthen himself.
Hikaru leaned back against the sofa, thinking.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen something like this.
Back then, Kagemaru had also died "mysteriously." Only later did Hikaru learn it was Declan Akaba's doing.
It seemed likely that, in this world and in others, there had been cases like Kagemaru and Tragoedia.
Villains "uniting" isn't something you achieve with a slogan or two; it's already good if they don't trip each other up.
Then;
He suddenly thought of something else. He quickly pulled "Dragon Lich, the Underworld Dragon" from his Deck and stared at it. The dragon looked puzzled and let out a small, confused roar.
"I was thinking about you," Hikaru said with a smile.
The final villain of the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's manga was the main protagonist's staunch ally in the 5D's anime!
Given that Jack truly had Red Dragon Archfiend and Hikaru himself truly had the Netherworld Dragon, he wasn't entirely sure how things stood.
After some thought, Hikaru decided he'd only be able to pin it down once he reached the Synchro Dimension.
Compared to that unseen future, one thing excited him even more right now, it had been a while since he'd properly checked his Deck!
"Ha…" Hikaru rifled through his cards, searched a bit, and his eyes lit up.
There it was!
It really was there, Mesozoic Fossil Machine Skull Wagon!
...
Stones Plzz
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