Though Kira felt like a long time had passed in the 5DS dimension, in reality, it had only been about a month. Still, with crisis after crisis, the non-stop busyness made it feel much longer.
At last, things had calmed somewhat, and with the WRGP still just in preparations, Kira figured there was unlikely to be trouble in the short term—so he decided to take this chance to visit home.
Home—meaning the GX dimension he'd come from.
With precise dimensional coordinates and access to interdimensional travel devices, jumping between worlds wasn't much of an issue. Especially now that Kira was Iliaster Boss, with the organization's resources and Z-ONE's tech support, interdimensional shuttling had never been more stable and reliable.
…
Another dimensional jump landed him in KaibaCorp's extratemporal facility—the very place he'd started out from.
As soon as word spread, Mokuba immediately dropped everything and rushed over. When he arrived, Kira was still undergoing KaibaCorp's routine checks—to make sure he hadn't brought back any unknown cross-dimensional pathogens.
Once sterilized and inspected, Kira stepped out, where Mokuba eagerly greeted him.
"How is it?" Mokuba asked breathlessly. "What's the other world like? Did you find the enemy?"
"Mmm, hard to say," Kira replied. "I haven't found the real enemy yet, but I'm a bit closer than before. Made some new allies, very strong allies... but that's a long story."
"Overall, that dimension is probably our future."
"The future?" Mokuba echoed.
"That's right. A possible future from several years after our own, where an unlimited energy source called Ener-D became the foundation of civilization—an infinite future built atop infinite power."
"Really? Infinite energy?" Mokuba was amazed.
Though not too surprised—as they already knew about perpetual motion engines. The Duel Runner that Paradox brought to this world ran on perpetual energy, and KaibaCorp's top team had been slaving away over it ever since.
A world fully powered by perpetual engines, where energy was inexhaustible—such a prospect could only thrill them.
"But don't get your hopes up too much. Even with infinite energy, people are still people." Kira smiled.
Infinite power or not, wealth and resources would still be in the hands of a tiny elite. There were still Satellite-like slums, still people surviving on garbage.
In fact, the birth of Ener-D proved that human problems can't be solved by technology or energy alone.
"I'd like to see how the research projects are progressing while I was gone," Kira said.
Mokuba grinned, "Knew you'd say that—I already had everyone notified."
He understood Kira—there was nothing more important to him than cards. Coming back, the first priority was always to check if there were any new cards, to catch up on the research department's progress.
Kira nodded. "While I was gone, has anything major happened? Like, you know, some world-ending maniac, or some 'avant-garde magus' with a dragon coming out of his crotch?"
Well, he'd only been gone a month, but with dueling powers everywhere, who knew what bizarre stuff might spring up?
"Not too bad. Things are relatively stable—but if you're asking about potential threats... there's something," Mokuba said, now serious.
"Around Domino City, in the past month, there's been a wave of missing persons cases."
Kira replied, "Missing people aren't that unusual, right? Cases happen every month—even in the non-supernatural world, that's normal. That alone means nothing."
Mokuba nodded. "True—but there's evidence that several cases this month are connected to supernatural forces.
There may be some higher-dimensional being kidnapping people for some unknown reason. But we don't know why yet."
Kira started to realize who the new foe must be. But he asked, "Any clue as to the enemy's real identity?"
"KaibaCorp has formed a special investigation team, cooperating with Domino's security bureau—and our key field operative isn't from the company or police, but a student from Duel Academy who volunteered to help."
"Who is it?" Kira asked—though he already could guess.
"Your best bud—Jaden Yuki." Mokuba smiled. "Unbelievable, huh? That Slifer Red kid you introduced to Duel Academy GX, he's changed so much.
He's technically a volunteer, but now he's the core of the investigation. His mysterious powers have been a huge help—he's even stronger than most registered dark duelists we know of."
Kira nodded, not surprised at all.
Of course. Nowadays, Jaden had combined the powers of the Supreme King and Yubel—peak-tier, maybe even stronger than in the anime's late stages.
"Jaden discovered that the center of the incidents is your Duel Academy," Mokuba explained. "He fought a group of dark duelists calling themselves 'Trueman'.
Jaden says their decks are a mess, completely irregular. More than that, they don't seem human at all—more like projections, pure darkness sent by some higher-dimensional entity.
He's beaten them multiple times, and learned their true mastermind's name..."
Before he finished, Kira cut in. "Nightshroud."
Mokuba was startled. "You know?"
Kira explained, "Back during the Sacred Beasts incident, I had some brief contact."
And now, his last semester at Duel Academy was approaching—the final season in the GX story, where Nightshroud is the ultimate boss, so it was downright predictable for Nightshroud to show his face.
But the true Nightshroud is hidden in other planes—unless he starts his "Humanity Assimilation Project" and fully invades, there's basically no way to find his main body yet. All that could be done for now was to play defense and wait.
Still, among the Yu-Gi-Oh bosses, Nightshroud wasn't exactly the most intimidating—and Kira was confident the current Jaden could handle him fine. So, no need to worry.
Anyway, first things first—he had to go check out the new cards!