With the situation around White Crystal resolved, Hikaru Amagi—accompanied by his two swordsman spirits—began exploring the ruins of this shattered dimension.
Most Duel Spirits were still unconscious or barely hanging onto life. The puppet soldiers that had once served the Fusion Army were now nothing but broken husks, strewn across the battlefield like discarded marionettes.
It was grim.
Too grim.
As he flipped over a chunk of rubble, Hikaru spotted what remained of a card once used by puppetized Ruru. Now nothing more than cracked stone, shattered and fallen in this crumbling dimension.
After searching for a while, he finally discovered a small spirit in the wreckage. Its appearance retained faint traces of a Shaddoll, but it had mostly reverted to the form of a Gem-Knight.
Tierra glanced over and said, "Even though Ruru's hatred and power were absorbed by White Crystal when she lost the duel, her own consciousness was already mostly gone. Waking her back up might take months. Not long, really."
For her, a few months was probably the blink of an eye.
"Captain, I'll leave her recovery to you. Can I count on that?"
"With pleasure!"
Despite still aching from the last battle, White Crystal accepted the task without hesitation.
More than that—it had to be him.
Under Tierra's control, Ruru and the other spirits were converted into cards. Hikaru tried searching the D-Pad she'd used, but most of her cards had already been absorbed into that monstrous puppet deck.
Still, that wasn't a real problem.
These oversized cards might be unusable in normal duels, but Hikaru could always refine and scale them down.
He was especially interested in Gem-Knight Master Diamond, Topaz, and Ruby. With a little luck, maybe he could extract something weird and useful from the rest too.
After that, Hikaru made his way to the Fusion Army's temporary base. It wasn't an experimental lab—more like a factory for turning spirits into soldiers. So, not much valuable tech or materials.
"Ugh…"
Even Tierra sighed in disappointment.
Last time, back at the Alliance's ship hangar, Tierra had discovered the Fusion Army's artificial Dark Magician Spirit project and scavenged a Dark Magician card from it. She'd even used the opportunity to have Hikaru help her forge a component for her physical form.
She'd been hoping to find something similar here. Boredom and curiosity had led her to this broken world—but in the end, it was just a factory.
But Hikaru didn't share her disappointment.
Because here, he'd uncovered information far more valuable than he expected.
On a computer left behind—one that no one had gotten around to wiping—he found data related to Declan Akaba.
Ever since the Sacred Beast Incident, Hikaru hadn't seen him once.
In fact, not just Hikaru—even KaibaCorp agents commissioned by Chazz Princeton hadn't been able to locate him. When Declan's research team was linked to the Princeton Group, Chazz had decided to take over the family company himself—and Kaiba had handed everything over, saying, "It's your family's mess. Deal with it."
(Then again, knowing Kaiba, he might've just wanted to see if Chazz had the backbone.)
Since then, aside from one creepy "warning" Declan delivered using Shingo's body, Hikaru hadn't heard a word about him.
Everything at Duel Academia or in the Interdimensional Buffer Zones had been left to others. Declan had vanished.
Until now.
Hikaru skimmed the files. Declan hadn't forgotten about the Xyz Dimension—he was prepping for war from his own stronghold.
"No way… already?"
He read the report again carefully.
What was the specific date for the planned attack?
He searched. Up and down.
Nothing.
"Tch… Guess they haven't finalized it yet," Hikaru muttered.
In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, it was Aster Phoenix who led the Fusion Army's charge on the Xyz Dimension. But the timeline was vague.
By normal standards, it made more sense for Aster to attack in his third year.
But—
Aster wasn't a normal Duelist. Him being a freshman and Supreme Commander? Totally believable.
Hikaru remembered how the Fusion Army's pro Duelists had "invited" Aster to join them.
He quickly dug through the files for anything on Aster.
"!"
He actually found something.
A massive report—stuffed with overblown praise for "Professor Akaba"—but Hikaru could see through the flattery. What mattered was the content.
Apparently, Declan had once made a deal with someone: he'd lend Aster Phoenix to assist them.
But Aster didn't help.
He did the opposite—he fought them.
He'd broken the agreement so thoroughly that both sides ended up settling things the only way that mattered in this world—
A Duel.
"So who were they?" Hikaru murmured.
Come on, was it even a question?
The Society of Light, obviously.
A grin spread across his face.
Villain-on-villain violence? Hikaru was all in for that.
Tierra tilted her head as she watched Hikaru chuckling and typing away.
"What could make Mister Fusion over there so damn happy? No new cards..."
Hikaru ignored her and kept reading.
He didn't know how the duel ended. The final section of the report only included some of the "Professor's remarks."
"So they didn't win," Hikaru concluded.
Judging from the tone of the report—if Declan's team had crushed the Society of Light—they would've bragged about it all the way to the moon.
But one phrase stood out:
"The Professor says they acquired even more light from the enemy, so it was an overwhelming victory!"
Classic propaganda. But knowing Declan's style, even losing could be spun into some metaphysical "win."
Still… the wording made Hikaru narrow his eyes.
"More light…?"
He thought of Serena.
In the original series, Declan never once claimed Serena was his daughter—only that she was important.
But in this world?
He'd flat-out said she was his daughter. Used it to manipulate her, to mold her into an emotionless dueling machine.
Worse than canon.
"Don't tell me…" Hikaru muttered.
Could Declan have been tainted too?
Tainted by Light of Destruction?
"Tch…"
Suddenly, everything made sense.
The Xyz Dimension. The Synchro Dimension. And this world—they didn't feel like split timelines. It was all too... coordinated.
If all Declan really wanted was to reunite Serena, then finding her four counterparts should've been enough.
But no.
He didn't want peace.
Declan Akaba just wanted war.