Three days of time. To say it's long isn't long, to say it's short isn't short. But as the hurried seventy-two hours passed, many things got done one after another.
During these three days, Yusei and the other members of Team 5D's paid successive visits to the other teams. Even Akiza Izinski, a rather reserved and shy girl, paid visits to several all-women teams. In this way, Team 5D's had essentially made a round of every team.
Among these, the ones that took the longest, or rather, that sat down for the longest talks, were still Team Ragnarok and Team New World, whom Yusei visited.
Team Ragnarok goes without saying. There Yusei came to recognize a crucial point he'd previously overlooked. As for Team New World, that left him a bit surprised.
Earlier, when Jack had dueled Team New World's Paradox, he'd assumed Team New World was quite hostile toward people of this era. But when he showed up to visit, the New World trio quite amicably welcomed him.
The trio had already known about Yusei's "genesis philosophy," so they weren't surprised. And moreover, the three of them were, in a certain sense, willing to support Yusei. But they also had their own conviction: they had to see the hope that Yusei's philosophy could actually be realized. Otherwise, they still wouldn't support him.
At this, Yusei wasn't surprised.
Even Zone, in fact, didn't support him. Although he'd been given large numbers of new cards as gifts, his prospects weren't looked upon favorably.
Yusei accepted this "challenge." Then he heard a cold snort.
He watched as Paradox took out a card and tossed it to him.
Holding the card and looking at its name, he was quite puzzled: "Malefic Paradigm Dragon... what's this?"
"If you dare put these cards into your own deck, then I'll be willing to hold expectations for you."
"I see." Aporia, beside them, understood what Paradox meant. "Malefic doesn't pair well with Synchro. And moreover, Yusei Fudo, every duelist's deck is carefully tuned, filtered, and combined by the person themself. Extra, unusable cards may well hinder the deck, becoming useless things in the hand.
If you can accept this kind of thing, then that will be enough for us to acknowledge you."
Malefic Paradigm Dragon was not only a Level 10 monster that couldn't be Normally Summoned, but also required banishing a Malefic monster from the Extra Deck to be Special Summoned. Yet Yusei had no Malefic Extra Deck monsters at all. This card in Yusei's deck was a genuine "dead card."
Hearing this, Yusei understood their meaning. Then, without the slightest hesitation, in front of everyone, he placed those cards into his own deck, then flipped the deck over, revealing Junk Synchron at the bottom.
This was precisely his deck.
Aporia and Paradox both gave cold snorts, but didn't offer any more remarks.
"Then, in this proxy war of gods, stand until the end, Yusei Fudo."
"I will. Then, everyone, goodbye." Yusei Fudo slowly took his leave of the three.
Besides Team New World, Yusei also chatted for a long time with the little brother who used Phantom Dragons and the little brother who used Karakuri. Over three days, he could count quite a few gains. Only a few places gave him a slight headache.
One was Team Despair. This team wouldn't make contact with any other faction at all. When Yusei went to visit, he even saw a young man in pure-white clothes, wearing a personal mechanical device, who had been trying hard to knock, looking as if he'd come to seek revenge.
Yusei remembered his name. It seemed to be Kite Tenjo.
Anyway, aside from this little episode, Yusei Fudo's visits went smoothly throughout. There was even the City Hall team's "Yuto" who came looking for him proactively because of Hikari's involvement. Looking at that face identical to Yugo's, he felt slightly disoriented too.
But Yuto's demeanor and speech, dozens of times more composed than Yugo's, kept him from getting too confused.
Of course, more importantly, when Yusei Fudo made contact with Yuto, he could clearly see the "characteristics" that made Yuto different from Yugo.
This too was a kind of special "vision" he'd obtained after accepting Zone's bodily modification.
According to Zone, this observation ability was actually quite similar to spirits' observation ability.
When a spirit observed a living being, they first observed its "dueling attributes." Having accepted the modification, he'd become the "Unity God," but not a true god. So naturally he didn't have "comprehensive vision," but rather a partial vision.
Yugo appeared to have the shadow of Synchro. Yuto's soul was more powerful. But whoever it was, they themselves concealed a certain impulse of destruction, which was quite unexpected.
And there was another even more unexpected point.
That was, the destructiveness on that Yuto seemed to be much, much greater than Yugo's.
The two were of the same age.
And Yuto seemed far more rational than Yugo.
Very strange.
On the other side, after Yusei hurriedly left, Kite Tenjo stopped his knocking motion.
Actually, he'd already been quite mild.
Only because his aura was truly too oppressive, in Yusei's eyes it looked somewhat fierce. But if people familiar with Kite Tenjo were here, they would surely say things like "my god, I've never seen Kite this gentle!"
Over the three days, he'd come three times. Because it was a rare time of rest, Kite Tenjo really wanted to see Hart.
But during three days, never mind Hart, Kite Tenjo hadn't seen anyone else from Team Despair.
What about Quattro?
Why wasn't he coming out to see him either?
And, shouldn't he have been in the middle of experiments together with their teacher?
Why on earth would he appear in a place like this?
More importantly, up to this moment, he still hadn't seen Team Despair's third member.
This gave him a faint bad premonition.
His little brother had likely fallen into some dangerous situation again.
He held his breath in silence for a long time.
Hart was a very special boy.
At birth, because of a congenital illness, his father had had to seek the power of another world in order to save his life and let him grow up.
Although Kite hadn't known about this until he confronted his father and dueled him, from a young age he'd been especially attentive to and fond of his little brother, giving special care to this frail, sickly brother.
And besides this, Hart had special talents and abilities based on this constitution.
He could control the "Astral World's power," and could also manipulate the power of "Numbers." No matter what type of Number monster, he could easily command it.
Even more, Throne had needed to use the power of technology to seize Hart's power to complete his ambitions and plans.
All in all, Hart was a born "vessel of power."
Whatever type of power it was, he could bear it. But what he got in exchange was endless pain and torment.
Even with all his love for his little brother, at this very moment, Kite Tenjo was gradually realizing the seriousness of the problem.
Hart tricking "86" out of him and suddenly leaving his own dimension absolutely wasn't a sudden whim or a matter of play.
"Some bastard must be manipulating him." Kite slammed a fist into the wall beside him. With a thunderous punch, he left a crater, startling the robot beside him into full-body trembling.
Realizing he'd lost composure, Kite Tenjo drew a deep breath, shook out his hand, brushed the debris off, and then, looking at the wall with brow furrowed, told Orbital 7 to contact the Synchro Dimension's government.
When it came to not causing trouble for others, he understood that plenty well too.
So, where on earth had Yuma gone?
Kite Tenjo's brow was knit into a tight knot. He truly was somewhat puzzled.
So, in Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, the Xyz Dimension's "core," the one countless people cared about, "Yuma Tsukumo," where on earth was he?
"Whoaaaaaa!"
"Quick, dodge quick!!!"
"Astral!!!"
Within the endless starry sky, an enormous golden "pyramid ship" was slowly cruising. In the starry background, red, blue, and silver-white explosions rose and fell in succession. Along with them, silver-white laser cannon fire swept across from time to time.
A lobster head and a green-haired little girl kept screaming in the cockpit, frantically dodging the disasters nearby.
"Where on earth is this place!" Yuma was clutching at his hair in near madness.
"Yayayaya!" The green-haired girl was pressed close against Yuma's side, gripping his shirt-hem tightly, not daring to separate for even half a second.
A blue-white glowing "ghost" floated at their sides, maintaining his calm as he said: "Wherever we are, we first need to avoid the attacks. There's a one-in-twenty probability the next barrage will hit the flank. We must hurry and leave this space lane."
"I know, I know, don't keep saying it aaaah!!" Yuma shrieked, frantically operating the ship at the same time.
"When on earth is this going to end!"
Yuma didn't understand things as profound as dimensions and the cosmos. All he knew was that on that day, he'd originally intended to find Hart to play. But instead, he'd discovered Hart sneaking things out of Kite's room, then hurrying off in a rush.
Although Kite doted on Hart, sneaking off with things to play with wasn't good. Regarding himself as Hart's "big brother," he had of course gone up to stop him.
Only, to his surprise, at the very moment he rushed forward to try to stop Hart, a duelist had blocked his way, and a duelist who used "Numbers" at that!
Just when he'd finally defeated that Number user and wanted to go find Hart again, he'd discovered Hart was actually about to cross a dimensional passage. Even as dense as he could be, with Astral's reminders, he knew there had to be something fishy about it.
Only, while chasing Hart, No. 75 had suddenly launched an attack. He hadn't caught up to Hart in that first moment, and instead had ended up in the cosmic starry sky, dodging the great war in the cosmic void within this starry sky.
But what he couldn't figure out was that no matter what, he couldn't lock onto the position of "Earth."
The result being that now, he could only find as safe a place as possible in the starry sky, and, together with his childhood friend Kotori Mizuki, talk things over at length.
"Damn it, I'm so hungry."
"Kite, Shark, come save me!!!"
Sadly.
A vacuum can't propagate sound.
Just as a vacuum can't be breathed.
His voice was destined to be unable to travel through the "cosmos" to Kite Tenjo's or Reginald Kastle's ears.
So he could only, once again in this cosmic war, pretend to be as inconspicuous a small figure as possible, hurry to slip away to a safe zone, then catch his breath.
As for what came after, that could only be figured out afterward.
At least first get out of the middle of the battlefield. Otherwise, what time did he have to think!
At this urgent moment, they hadn't noticed that, beside them, there were seven stars shining brighter than the sun.
That was the Big Dipper.
"The Big Dipper's data has been calculated!"
Tierra called out to Hikaru.
Over three days of time, Qliphort Scout had finished calculating the Synchro Dimension's Big Dipper data. What surprised Hikaru was that the Synchro Dimension's Big Dipper and their dimension's Big Dipper coordinates were actually "opposite"!
He looked up at the sky, gazing at those seven stars that looked no different from those in his memory, then looked at the thing in his hand, feeling a sense of unreality.
"Very normal." Tierra beside him said with a smile. "Standing at the North Pole, no matter where you look, everywhere is south. On different planets, in different dimensions, in different cosmoses, though there's no difference by the senses, in fact the data are entirely different.
Only mathematics won't deceive you."
Hikaru gave a light nod.
In this area, Tierra had the absolute authority.
Hikaru nodded, laying the two sets of data side by side. Then Tierra did a quick mental calculation and derived a corresponding coordinate.
Hikaru found a blank card, engraved the coordinate into it, then, together with the previous card, placed both into the dimensional gate system.
This time, amid a rumbling, the dimensional gate finally began to operate. Hikaru watched the dimensional gate slowly activate. After the seven stars lit up on the green dimensional gate, he finally let out a breath of relief.
The Big Dipper!
This time it worked!
Of course, holding to a "better safe than sorry" mindset, Hikaru didn't act rashly. Instead, he first dispatched a small robot through, and after it had recorded for a while, retrieved it again.
"Good thing I didn't rush over there."
Hikaru looked at the retrieved photos and footage, watching that dimension's chaotic cosmic war, and shook his head.
By the looks of it, this peculiar dimension was in the thick of the fighting.
But Hikaru understood too that a dimension like this, at first glance in the thick of the fighting, could smash a person into a shockwave from the slightest brush. But actually, as long as one raised the request for a "duel ritual," the flames of war would stop for a duel.
Spirits were, after all, spirits. Naturally there would be spirits' own rules.
The flames of war weren't much of a problem.
Or rather, the flames of war were the smallest problem.
If it were a war among spirits, what would surely be chosen was still "dueling." Purely artillery fire meant this was only the usual "minor friction."
Hikaru checked the date.
Tomorrow the competition would resume. He had to give Yusei and the others a heads-up first. In the near term he apparently really wouldn't be able to take the field for the next matches.
After contacting Yusei, Hikaru packed his things.
Although the flames of war among spirits might not be much of a problem, a brush or a bump could easily lead to trouble. And besides, it wasn't just him going.
Syrus and Atticus Rhodes were the main forces of this trip.
If those two took a hit, that would be a huge problem.
With every preparation made, he set off together with Syrus and Atticus Rhodes for this spirit dimension.