Because both Duelists were thrown from their D-Wheels, the system ruled the match invalid.
The Duel was terminated.
The towering wall of fire slowly faded away. One by one, the souls that had been devoured by the Earthbound God drifted back along their original paths, returning to their bodies.
Kalin staggered to his feet, steadying his D-Wheel. He looked across the scorched track at Yusei.
Yusei lay motionless, his body battered beyond recognition. The artificial systems implanted in him flickered erratically; he barely looked human anymore.
Kalin, by comparison, had taken the lesser hit. If he wanted revenge, now was the time, he could have finished it.
But as he stared down at the fallen Yusei, the fire in his heart wasn't hatred anymore.
What he felt instead was… emptiness. A hollow ache deeper than any pain.
The man who had once chased satisfaction now realized, he was the emptiest soul alive.
After a long silence, Kalin finally spoke, voice low and hoarse."Heh… looks like I don't have to finish you off after all. Without positive and negative Synchro energy to stabilize it, your 'Artificial God' will eat you alive.
Cherish what little life you have left, Yusei!"
He kicked his D-Wheel into gear and roared off without looking back, his manic laughter fading into the distance.
Shinji hesitated for a moment, then started his own engine, speeding off after Kalin before Security could arrive.
Moments later, Crow and Hikaru reached Yusei's side.
Crow jumped off his D-Wheel and immediately hooked an arm under Yusei's shoulders, struggling to lift him. Hikaru crouched down, scanning Yusei's vitals with quick precision.
"That specter was right," Tierra murmured beside Hikaru, eyes sharp as she studied the fallen duelist.
"This human won't live long. Two years at most. A blink of an eye."
Even two years felt cruelly short, and to Tierra's kind beings, who measured life in centuries, it was nothing.
"Yusei!"
Jack's voice thundered from above as a helicopter descended.Ignoring protocol, he leapt straight out before it even touched down, startling the two women inside into shrieks.
He hit the ground in a roll, sprinted forward, and grabbed Yusei's other arm.
"You idiot! You've been hiding from us all this time, just to pull something like this alone!?"
"Hey, easy!" Hikaru warned, raising a hand. "Don't shake him, you'll make his injuries worse!"
Startled, both Jack and Crow froze, then gently eased Yusei onto his D-Wheel frame, laying him flat.
Hikaru's movements were calm but urgent; he worked like a field medic, connecting small diagnostic tools to check his pulse and core systems.
"Yusei," he said quietly, "Kalin wasn't wrong back there. You know what's happening to you… don't you?"
Yusei's eyes fluttered open.
A spark of static jumped across the right side of his face, making Jack and Crow both jerk back in alarm.
"It's fine," Yusei said softly. "I was prepared for this."
"Prepared!?" Jack snapped. "You still owe me that rematch, Yusei Fudo! Don't you dare collapse before that!"
"Yeah!" Crow added, his voice cracking between anger and worry. "You've been hiding out, getting modified, and you didn't even tell us? What, you think we wouldn't have your back!?"
Their frustration couldn't hide the concern underneath it.Yusei smiled faintly, the edges of his mouth trembling but peaceful.
"I just… didn't want anyone to see me like this," he admitted. "Didn't want to scare anyone."
He paused for a moment, then began to explain everything, the truth he had kept buried.
It had happened one day, during his last duel with Jack. When Stardust Dragon and Red Dragon Archfiend resonated, a flash of crimson light engulfed them both.
And when the duel ended… Yusei found himself somewhere else.
In the distant future.
A world countless years ahead, where humanity no longer existed.
Almost instantly, the people of that time found him. And that's when he learned the truth.
Humanity… had destroyed itself.
Their greed and malice had caused their perpetual engines to spiral out of control.
From that disaster, the planet itself had manifested its will, a mechanical consciousness known as Meklord Emperor, the Earth's own vengeance, and it had wiped civilization from existence.
There, Yusei learned of the War of the One God…and heard that man's thoughts.
The world had always suffered through endless cycles of pain,and the root of it all traced back countless millennia to the age when gods still walked among creation.
Once, the gods cooperated in harmony.
Through that divine resonance, they gave birth to a mysterious power known as Synchro, a force born from unity, from the rhythm of countless wills beating as one.
But that same power sowed the seeds of conflict.
Gods turned against gods.
Their war echoed downward, spreading to angels, demons, spirits, and finally humankind.
Each race, once inspired by the gods, began fighting to possess Synchro for themselves.
And in the far, far future…when humanity's greed finally reached its peak, the perpetual engines born from Synchro's science spiraled out of control.
From that catastrophe arose the Meklord Emperor, a mechanical god forged by the will of the planet itself, created for one purpose: to exterminate mankind.
In the end… humanity perished by its own sins.
When Yusei was cast into that ruined future, the last surviving humans he encountered gave him a chilling proposal:
"If that's our fate, then go back to the beginning.
Erase Synchro from history. Stop its birth, stop its spread.
End it in every dimension."
It sounded like the perfect solution, an end to the cycle, a single, clean cut to erase suffering forever.
But Yusei refused.
He offered another possibility, a future not of erasure, but of understanding.
A world where gods, spirits, and humans could stand together,where all existence could truly resonate in harmony.
Because from the very beginning, Synchro was not born from conflict, it was born from countless gods working side by side to create a better world.
It was a symbol of unity and hope.
Power itself was never evil. Only how it was used determined its destiny.
Lying on the D-Wheel now, Yusei smiled faintly, remembering.
"Hah… I guess you inspired me, Hikaru," he murmured.
He recalled that Duel at the Friendship Cup, a match that, for the Fusion Dimension, was just another tournament, but for Yusei… it became the turning point of his life.
That duel had earned him a place in the Fortune Cup, a chance to face Jack again, to finally understand him.
There, he met people from the Fusion Dimension and saw how their society worked.
He met Hikaru, the scholar of another world, and through him, he glimpsed technologies and philosophies his own dimension had never reached.
Just as Hikaru learned the essence of alchemy from the way Yusei built D-Wheels, Yusei, too, came to understand countless physical and metaphysical truths.
But most important of all, was Hikaru's faith in his world's Fusion.
Even when faced with Synchro, faster and more advanced, he showed no fear.
When Yuya's identity drew suspicion, he didn't judge, he defended him.
Even after winning, he showed no arrogance toward the Synchro users.
His heart remained open, unwavering.
From that, Yusei learned to believe. In his friends.
In the bonds they shared. In the future they could still build.
He believed, no, he knew, that a new future could be born. Not from erasing Synchro, but from elevating it.
So he chose the harder path, the uncertain, impossible one.
He chose to merge with the Artificial Being created by that man,to become the God of Unity, not to rule, but to end the endless cycle of pain.
He wanted to stop the meaningless struggle.
To end the conflict, as a human being.
"Even for me, this path is untested. Yusei… this choice will lead to the unknown. It is the most difficult and most dangerous of all possibilities."
"Among countless choices, you've chosen the one none dared to walk."
If you choose this path, every living being will doubt you. Those chosen by the gods who crave Synchro power. The tyrants who believe only in their own supremacy.
The fools who think they can create 'peace' by control. The skeptics who cannot comprehend selflessness…
To all of them, you will be an enemy. And yet you intend to make them believe in you, to help them lay down their hatred?]
That's almost impossible. Humanity's entire history is a history of war.
Because the hearts of men are filled with desire and malice… that's why our world truly fell.
Are you truly willing to try?
Yusei had answered only one word.
"Of course."
He never told anyone what he and that man said in their final conversation.
But his resolve was clear enough that he didn't need to.
Jack turned away with a deep breath.
Crow rubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve, pretending it was just the smoke.
Neither could bring themselves to scold him.
Jack clenched his fist, his usual fire reigniting.
"Heh… I get it now. Fine! Just like back in the Satellite, we'll paint this whole world black if we have to!"
Crow grinned, nodding fiercely.
"Yeah! Nothing we can't handle. First thing, we're getting our captain back! No way we're letting that guy run off alone again!"
Sunlight broke through the clouds, spilling across them.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Yusei smiled, a quiet, genuine smile.
He took a slow breath, sat up, and fastened his helmet once more.
With the visor on, he looked almost like his old self again, calm, determined, unstoppable.
"So," Hikaru said softly, "what exactly is it you need from me?"
Yusei turned toward him, his voice steady but filled with warmth.
"Hikaru… you're the key. No one else can do this. Without you, I'd never even get close."
"I had a feeling you'd say that," he replied, folding his arms.
Yusei's expression grew serious.
"I want you to help me find a chance… a single opportunity."
Hikaru's eyes narrowed. "A chance for what?"
He already knew the answer before he said it.
In a world where even Yusei Fudo had lost certainty, there was only one thing he'd ask for, one impossible task left undone.
"A chance…" Yusei said quietly, "to reach out to the Fusion-bound Earthbound Immortal, the one exiled from this world."
Fusion.