Raising his arm high, Kaiba commanded Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon. Its three mutated, terrifying dragon heads aimed at the three Crimson Nova Cubic Lords on Sera's field.
"Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon's effect—if this card was Fusion Summoned using 'Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon' as material, once per turn, I can destroy up to three of your cards!"
"An effect that can instantly destroy three monsters?!" Jonouchi shouted in disbelief. "If all three Cubic monsters are destroyed in one go, that's a total of 9000 damage—her Life Points would be wiped out instantly! Tch, this guy… guess he's got some tricks after all!"
"It's over, brat! Behold—the Triple Subspecies Ultimate Jet Burst Stream!"
But with an expressionless face, Sera simply lifted her small hand and flipped her Set card. "Evolution… begins. Trap Card activate—Cubic Causality."
A surge of orange cubes erupted like a tidal wave, engulfing Kaiba and Hakusei's monsters, merging into the Neo Ultimate Dragon just as its effect was about to activate.
"Cubic Causality—Material Sublimation! Place 'Cubic Counters' on all of your monsters. Monsters with Cubic Counters have their effects negated and cannot attack."
Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon, overwhelmed by dimensional cubes, gradually turned into stone-like matter, ceasing thought entirely. Along with it, Hoshino Alter's Mash and Ozymandias were also crystallized under the Cubic Counters.
"Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon?! Damn it…" Kaiba ground his teeth in fury. The reversal he had prepared was completely blocked by a swarm of cubes—it was infuriating.
After a brief moment of hesitation, Kaiba Set his last card.
"I Set one card and end my turn!"
"To think you fought this far under such circumstances… you truly are worthy of entering the higher dimensions as duelists."
Drawing her next card, Sera immediately placed it onto her Duel Disk. "But in the end, all of this is just futile struggling. I activate the Spell Card—Cubic Collapse! Destroy all monsters with Cubic Counters!"
A gaping black void tore open, unleashing crimson cubic energy that consumed the crystallized monsters on the field.
"I won't let you have your way, Sera! I activate the special effect of Heroic Spirit – Arash from my hand!"
[When a card effect would destroy cards on the field, you can banish this card from your hand; negate that effect.]
"I'm counting on you, Arash!"
"—Stella!!"
A shooting star split the heavens, one shining arrow piercing through the black hole created by Cubic Collapse, suppressing the crimson energy entirely.
"(°Д°) Too cruel, Hoshino! You sacrificed Arash again!"
Two years had passed—Mana was no longer the naïve little girl who once thought Arash simply liked fireworks.
"As expected, you're troublesome… It seems that with all these mysterious powers supporting you, Hoshino, you must be the first one I eliminate."
Continuing, Sera flipped her third Set card from the previous turn. The three Cubic monsters on her field radiated an aura that grew exponentially more ominous.
"Trap Card activate—Unification of the Cubic Lords! I send my three Crimson Nova the Dark Cubic Lords to the Graveyard to Fusion Summon the ultimate darkness!"
"—Come forth, Crimson Nova Trinity the Dark Cubic Lord, and bring all to ruin! Aaaaahhh!!"
[Crimson Nova Trinity the Dark Cubic Lord ★★★★★★★★★★ (Level 10)][DARK][Fiend/Fusion/Effect][ATK: 0 → 4500/DEF: 3000]
[Fusion Materials: 3 x "Crimson Nova the Dark Cubic Lord"]
[This card cannot be targeted or destroyed by your opponent's effects.]
The colossal dark god, beyond description in scale, blanketed the entire sky. Its seamless veil of darkness swallowed even the faintest trace of moonlight.
Kaiba's brow furrowed. "Its attack power matches Ultimate Dragon?!"
With her final hand card placed onto the Duel Disk, Sera fixed her gaze on Kaiba's monster.
"I activate the Spell Card—Cubic Wave!"
[Target 1 "Cubic" monster you control and 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; the ATK of that monster you control becomes double its current ATK, and if it does, the ATK of that monster your opponent controls becomes half its current ATK.]
[Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon ATK: 4500 → 2250]
[Crimson Nova Trinity the Dark Cubic Lord ATK: 4500 → 9000]
Hoshino Alter gasped in disbelief. "A Cubic monster with 9000 attack… this has to be a joke!"
"And now comes the execution! Cubic Trinity, attack Mash Kyrielight! And when this card declares an attack, its effect activates—your Life Points are halved!"
[Seto Kaiba LP: 518 → 259]
[Chiyuki Hoshino LP: 13 → 7]
Nine colossal scythes tore through the sky, mercilessly cutting down Mash's crystallized body.
[Mash Kyrielight – Destroyed]
"This is your end, Hoshino~ According to Dimensional Duel rules, when a monster is destroyed, its controller takes damage equal to that monster's original ATK."
Hoshino Alter flipped her only Set card. "Sitting around and waiting to die isn't my style! Trap Card activate—Nobu – Forced Overtime!"
[Nobu – Forced Overtime: When you would take damage and you have a "Nobu" monster in your GY: The damage becomes 0, then add 1 "Nobu" monster from your GY to your hand.]
"Thanks to this Trap, I nullify the damage and add Super Mecha Nobu Mark-II from my GY to my hand!"
Hoshino muttered, "So we survived… barely. But you really are carrying some strange, ridiculous cards, my other me."
"No… it doesn't look like we've survived at all, aibo." Hoshino Alter swallowed hard as the Cubic Trinity, having destroyed Mash, prepared for another strike.
"Cubic Trinity's effect—when it destroys a monster by battle, it can attack once more during this Battle Phase!"
Its nine scythes swung again, this time targeting Hoshino Alter's last monster, Ozymandias—crippled under Cubic Counters, its effects negated. With no Set cards or hand traps left, Hoshino Alter could only watch as the lethal blow approached.
"Trap Card activate—Staunch Defender!"
[Staunch Defender – You can only activate this card when your opponent declares an attack. Select 1 face-up monster on your side of the field. During this turn, your opponent can only designate the selected monster as an attack target, and your opponent must attack the selected monster with all face-up monsters.]
"—I target Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon! Redirect Cubic Trinity's attack!"
"Huh? Kaiba, you—?!"
"Hoshino! You are the one duelist I, Seto Kaiba, acknowledge as my equal—the strongest! The rest is up to you. Now, go and claim our victory in style!"
"Trap Card—Staunch Defender! I force Cubic Trinity to change its attack target. Sorry, Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon."
"You'd jump out at a time like this, just to sacrifice yourself, Seto Kaiba?"
Sera's voice carried genuine surprise. From what she knew of Kaiba, sacrificing himself for the sake of someone else was something he would never do.
"When Cubic Trinity declares an attack, the opponent's Life Points are halved! Since you're so eager to take Hoshino's place, then vanish beneath the blades of my god!"
[Seto Kaiba LP: 259 → 130]
[Chiyuki Hoshino LP: 7 → 4]
The Trap redirected the attack. Nine massive scythes of the Cubic Trinity tore through the air, slashing apart the petrified, immobilized Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon.
[Blue-Eyes Alternative Ultimate Dragon – Destroyed]
"Kaiba, you—" Hoshino Alter's eyes trembled, unsure what she should feel in that moment.
[Seto Kaiba LP: 130 → 0]
This time, the Life Points displayed on the AR Duel Disk drained to zero without interruption. The pale-blue glow slowly flickered out.
Lowering his arm-mounted Duel Disk, Kaiba—fully aware that he was eliminated—showed no outward emotion, leaving only his final gaze fixed on Hoshino.
"Hoshino—you are the duelist I, Seto Kaiba, recognize as the strongest! I've witnessed with my own eyes the miracles you've created in countless hopeless situations, and that uncanny fortune of yours that no obstacle can shackle… To be honest, I almost find myself jealous of you…"
"…Jealous of me?" Hoshino's emotions were tangled. "You're a wealthy, powerful CEO—why would you be jealous of me, just some broke student?"
"Hahahahaha! You may be a poor student, but you're also the King of Duelists—and the future honorary headmaster of Duel Academy!"
Laughing freely, Kaiba fulfilled the promise he had made to Hoshino two years ago, just before his body was completely disintegrated by the dimensional cube.
"Hold your head high. Face everything with pride. And as you always do—shatter the impossible before you in style!"
—Seto Kaiba, defeated.
As the Battle Phase concluded, Sera's cold voice echoed through the field:
"Completely erased, without leaving even a trace? So that's the end of you, Seto Kaiba."
Jonouchi, unable to believe what he had just seen, stammered:
"Kai—Kaiba really disappeared? Why? Why would something like this even happen?!"
"There's no need to panic," Sera replied flatly. "The doors to the higher dimensions have already begun to open. Seto Kaiba has merely gone on ahead of you."
Lowering her Duel Disk, Sera had intended to finish Hoshino this turn, but instead, she had eliminated Kaiba. Though it wasn't exactly what she had planned, her Dark Cubic Lord with 9000 ATK still left her with an overwhelming advantage.
"As pioneers of humanity's evolution, you should feel honored. Next, it's your turn, Hoshino. Stop resisting and follow Kaiba's footsteps—ascend into another dimension!"
"Evolution of humanity? No—that's not evolution at all!" Hoshino's voice, laced with grief and anger, rang out.
"Human evolution is the accumulation of knowledge and awareness, built step by step, little by little, over long ages. Forcing open the door to another dimension—that's not science, it's nonsense!"
"…?" Tilting her head, Sera looked genuinely puzzled. "Hoshino, with all the mysterious powers that surround you, how can you possibly cling to something like science, the way Kaiba did?"
Just as Kaiba would never sacrifice himself for another, in Sera's understanding, Hoshino Alter was the person farthest from science.
"Great Da Vinci once said: magic is nothing more than another layer of science. A brat like you wouldn't understand!"
Angered, the orange dimensional particles around Sera began to quake violently.
"If you claim my evolution is wrong, then prove it to me, Hoshino! Use your so-called knowledge to surpass my ultimate Cubic monster!"
But Hoshino was no master of words, and victory in a duel wasn't won through speeches alone. No matter how stirring her resolve, unless she could overcome the Dark Cubic Lord before her, victory remained out of reach.
"…So it's my turn now. To be honest, Kaiba, your spirit of self-sacrifice really moved me… but in this situation, with just one card, I really don't know how I'm supposed to turn this around…"
Her fingertip brushed against the top card of her deck. Despite the chaos of the collapsing dimension around her, Hoshino could hear her heartbeat—loud and clear.
"Aibo… in this moment, what would you do?"
(***)
In an endless expanse of white, Kaiba glanced about, confused.
"Am I… dead? No, if that brat's dimensional theory is true… then this must be the higher dimension?"
It was a barren emptiness—so silent that even the sound of his own footsteps echoed back to him over and over again.
"Hmph. So this is supposed to be the 'higher dimension'? More boring than a prison cell. If this is humanity's next step in evolution, what a disappointment."
He didn't dwell on it long. Instinctively, Kaiba touched the Duel Disk on his arm.
If worst came to worst and he was trapped here forever, at least as long as his deck remained, he wouldn't go mad from boredom… Of course, a duel opponent would make it better.
The deck within the Disk still radiated with the lingering heat of his last duel. Feeling that warmth stirred something inside him—an aching sense of loss.
"So that was my last duel with you, Hoshino? …Honestly, I'm not satisfied."
"Seto Kaiba…"
Just as Kaiba resigned himself to the fact that he was alone in this space, a man's unfamiliar voice drifted through the void.
"…What? Someone else is here?"
"I've been waiting for you for a long time, Seto Kaiba~"
The man's voice was gentle, carrying the warmth of spring sunlight.
"Waiting for me? Who the hell are you?"
Kaiba quickly searched his memory. He was certain he had never heard a voice like this before.
"Although we've only met a few times, I'm an old acquaintance of Chiyuki. And if you really want to know who I am…"
From the corner of the white void, a man in a uniform stepped forward, a reassuring smile on his face.
Kaiba narrowed his eyes at the stranger before him. "You're one of Hoshino's old acquaintances… Why are you here?"
"My name is Solomon. Of course, like Chiyuki, you can call me Romani Archiman—or simply, Dr. Romani~"