"GET out of my way! Actually, give me that deck first!" a person yelled at the crawling kid, who was desperately trying to flee the area.
The man grabbed the deck the boy was holding and began tearing the cards apart, one by one.
"NO! STOP! 'Haah'..."
The boy cried, weeping bitterly as he lunged at the man who was still actively destroying his cards.
"GIVE THEM BACK!"
He tackled the man, forcing him to the ground, and gathered all the teared cards he could take back.
"You BRAT!"
The man snarled, grabbing the boy by his collar and slamming him hard against a crumbling wall.
The boy let out a sharp gasp as blood began to pool from the back of his head.
The man stepped forward to beat the boy further, but the heavy sound of approaching footsteps echoed from behind. Before the attacker could even turn his head, his body crashed to the floor, unconscious, with foam bubbling from his mouth.
"Are you okay, Edo?!"
"Yeah. Thanks, Barret, Amon."
Without wasting a second, the three of them crawled frantically away, keeping low to hide from the dangers around them.
Once they found a safe place behind a massive pile of concrete rubble, the boy began examining his damaged cards.
"Aghhh... they aren't the most important ones, but they are completely torn apart."
"?" Amon looked over, trying to comfort him. "Edo, these cards aren't as important as "that" card, right? Then it's fine."
"I know, but still, these are 'my' cards. And he just trashed them."
Amon adjusted his glasses, a fiery intensity burning in his eyes. "Do these cards become trash only because they are destroyed? Or is it because you don't use them? Isn't it practically the same thing if they just sit in your deck unused?"
"Yeah... you're right." Edo muttered, looking down. "I'm just furious at myself because I couldn't do anything to stop him."
"We had better stay hidden and keep quiet rather than worry about cards right now." Barret suggested, keeping his eyes on the perimeter.
"We know, but it's still important."
"I know how much you treasure the cards your dad gave you, Edo." Barret replied softly. "But this is the not the time let alone best to worry about them. We can't fight back against those Darklords, no matter what we do."
Amon glanced back toward the path they had just taken. "Barret, is the perimeter clear? You're the best at hiding your presence—go take a look."
"Sometimes a gift is a curse, huh? I'll check."
Barret originally intended to climb the mountain of shattered concrete, but decided peering around the side was a safer approach, even if it limited his field of vision.
He crept forward, ensuring his boots made no sound, and carefully scanned the area.
The landscape was apocalyptic. Entire blocks had been reduced to a hail of rubble, the rocky roads were split into cracked rocks, and the sky was filled with heavy gray clouds. Wherever he looked, people were being assaulted and dragged away.
Barret crept back to Edo and Amon to tell his report.
"If we stay absolutely silent, we might be able to slip away unnoticed. If we're lucky, that is. The area is crawling with terrorists. We need to head in the opposite direction, but that increases our chances of being spotted. We can use the building debris as cover, but moving through this scrap metal without making a sound won't be easy."
"It's a solid plan." Edo said, turning to Barret. "But keeping quiet is going to be the hardest part. This metal and rock are so unstable that a single mistep could cause a landslide. We'll have to be incredibly careful. It's not impossible, though. Great thinking, Barret."
"Save the gratitude for later. Just don't make a sound."
The three teenagers nodded in unison and began to crawl forward, hyper-aware of their surroundings.
Suddenly, the crunch of approaching footsteps echoed nearby. Judging by the heavy but deliberate thud of the boots, they instantly concluded it was an enemy.
They held their breath. Fortunately, the footsteps began to fade into the distance after a few eternity like long seconds. The trio let out a grouped sigh of relief.
Then, a massive jolt of lightning erupted right in front of them.
Blinded and startled, the three boys acted purely on survival instinct, covering their faces and scrambling away toward safer cover. Even if it meant being find out.
The concussive blast caught the attention of the passing person, who immediately turned and ran back toward the source of the noise.
The colorful lightning flickered one last time before vanishing completely. As the smoke cleared and the dust settled over the shattered rocks, a man stood in the center of the crater. He looked hurried and anxious, yet his facial expression remained eerily stoic—as though he were utterly detached from fear. He turned his head, scanning the ruined environment until his eyes locked onto the teenagers.
"Nothing goes right?!"
The three boys prepared to bolt, abandoning any thought of confronting the stranger, but the voice that echoed through the ruins stopped them in their tracks. It was incredibly familiar.
"RYO?! It's Ryo!" Barret shouted, his cautious demeanor momentarily breaking under a wave of sheer relief.
"Ryo...?" the man muttered, turning his gaze toward the boy.
The person the teenagers were shouting at was indeed a teenager with dark blue hair, dressed in a clean white shirt and blue pants. The older man quickly deduced with that boy's appearance that this "Ryo" was likely a student from a prestigious academy, but the surrounding devastation left him deeply perplexed.
Had his machine teleported him to a war-torn continent, or was this truly an entirely different dimension? Because he had used an untested prototype, his calculations carried no weight until he could confirm the true nature of this world.
He watched the kids sprint toward the blue-haired boy, their panicked expressions giving way to relief. When the man began walking toward them, however, the boys instantly reverted to a defensive stance.
They gripped pieces of jagged rock and scrap metal from the debris. They knew they had the advantage in numbers, but they couldn't let their guard down. The stranger facing them was a dark-bronze-skinned, bald man who looked physically exhausted, yet radiated the intense, unhinged aura of a madman. His inflamed, bloodshot eyes and visible body nerves only made matters worse; the boys internally panicked, wondering if they were standing in the presence of a Sovereign.
Ignoring their hostility, the man checked the digital device fastened to his left wrist. The telemetry signals were functioning correctly, though the dimensional readouts were entirely alien.
The man scolded himself silently. "Why didn't I think to analyze the ambient radiation of this world before crossing?"
He lowered his arm and addressed the defensive boys. He could tell they were terrified, poised to run at any second, yet waiting to see what his true intentions were.
"I only want to know what this place is." The man said calmly. "I have no reason or intention to harm any of you. I am simply searching for someone."
Though they remained deeply skeptical, the raw sincerity in his voice convinced them that he was telling the truth about his search.
Ryo stepped forward, deliberately shielding the younger boys behind his back. Accompanied with Barret. "What do you want to know first? If the person you are looking for is missing, you might as well forget about them. They have probably already been carded."
"Carded? What do you mean by that? And what exactly is this world?"
Anger would typically have flared within the boys at such absurd questions, but they had just witnessed this stranger materialize out of a localized lightning strike. Enduring this hellscape had evolved them to become experts at reading people, and this man genuinely had no understanding of the tragedy that had veiled their world.
Before they could formulate an answer, a deafening roar soared through the sky, causing the very ground beneath them to tremble and crack.
The heavy gray clouds split apart as a monstrous, demonic entity descended. Its skeletal, bone-like structure was inlaid with blinking black orbs. It gnashed its razor-sharp teeth, swinging a massive tail capable of crushing mountains.
The creature lacked legs, but its elongated, blade-like hands looked capable of slicing through solid steel. They were sharp to very tip.
Perched proudly upon the beast's back was a man with a military posture, looking down at them with the smug satisfaction of a hunter trapping prey.
"Ho... you rats certainly make our job easier. It would save us a lot of trouble if all the rebel scum gathered themselves into neat little piles like this."
"A Sovereign..." Barret growled, clenching his fists as he glared up at the sky. "We were idiots to waste precious seconds talking to this crazy old man."
Overcome by sheer terror, Edo and Amon lost the strength to stand, collapsing to their knees.
Seeing the boys paralyzed by fear, the bald man stepped forward.
"What is your problem, old man?!" Barret snapped, projecting all his terror and rage onto the stranger. He lunged forward, tightly grabbing the fabric of the man's lab coat at his chest. "Why are you standing there so expressionless?! Why do you act like none of this matters?!"
Ignoring Barret's rage, the man brushed Barret's hands off his chest, completely ignoring the outburst. He walked past the boys, heading directly toward the towering beast, and spoke over his shoulder.
"I am neither mad nor mistaken, and the person I seek was not abducted. I will never let any harm fall on them. I will find them on my own terms." The boys stared, utterly failing to grasp the weight of his words. "And one last thing—my name is Leo Akaba."
Leo closed the distance between himself and the monster, stopping a mere two meters away.
"It's not as though I left my deck behind. But to think I would actually have to waste my time using it against a mindless animal radiating artificial darkness... You aren't worth the data."
Leo raised his wrist, activating the advanced interface of his device against the eleven-meter-tall behemoth.
"Is he seriously going to duel a Sovereign?!"
"It's suicide! It's beyond insane. He's throwing his life away!"
"I don't know..." Ryo countered after a long, tense pause. "Is cowering in fear and living as their slaves any better? At least he's fighting on his own terms, even if he gets turned to ash."
"But it's no different from suicide!" Barret yelled back. "He's ending his life! That Darklord is going to vaporize him. Demanding freedom when you're clashing yourself with certain death, that isn't a revolution; it's just stupidity!"
Leo calmly tapped a sequence of buttons on his wrist device. At the same moment, the Sovereign riding the beast barked a command.
The creature unhinged its massive maw, its jagged, skeletal teeth glistening as it lunged downward. Leo's fingers never stopped typing; it was a mechanical race against time.
The monster's teeth grazed Leo's forehead, drawing a thin line of blood that dripped onto the dry earth. In that exact microsecond, Leo's interface detonated with a blinding, absolute flash. A dome of pure flash consumed the entire sector.
The boys shielded their eyes by raw reflexes, overwhelmed by the blinding light.
When they finally opened them, they were met with a sight that defied the established laws of their grim reality.
The Sovereign, who just moments before had been sitting arrogantly atop the apex predator, was now sprawled flat on the dirt. He was aggressively rubbing his eyes, unable to comprehend how his reality had been inverted in a fraction of a second.
Standing in front him, Leo calmly caught a card as it drifted down from the sky. It possessed a distinct purple border, and the artwork depicted the exact same skeletal creature—only far more terrifying and bound in chains.
The enemy soldier scrambled to his feet. Recognizing that his monster was gone, he relied on his massive physical frame and raw strength. He sprinted at Leo with a speed he had never utilized before.
It was a monstrous, heavily-muscled soldier charging on a physically exhausted, bald man with visible body nerves, who looked like a madman.
Barret tried lunged forward to help, but the confrontation resolved itself before he could even take a step.
With a swift, clinical movement, Leo redirected the soldier's momentum. The massive man was slammed violently into the ground, the breath driven completely from his lungs as his eyes rolled back. Leo looked down at the defeated soldier for a brief second before slotting the captured card into his device.
"How... how did he do that?" Edo whispered, his voice trembling on the verge of cheering, held back only by sheer disbelief.
Ignoring the boys' astonishment, Leo kept his gaze fixed on the conscious, albeit broken, soldier at his feet.
"Your eyes told me that you seek destruction, and when you cannot find it, you create it. Is inflicting terror and watching human beings drown in despair truly your concept of pleasure? You had absolute confidence that you could kill me. But I have seen the true apex—the ones we ourselves created to satisfy our own inner beast. The darkness we craved, the devil humanity birthed, and the absolute distruction he left in his mere transient. Compared to the world he forged..." Leo paused, surveying the gray clouds, the dark sky, and the endless fields of broken concrete and crumbled structures. But no darkness had covered this world. "...this place is heaven."
"What did he just do?" Barret asked, utterly dazed.
"He bypassed the Sovereign's punch entirely and used basic physics and leverage to slam him into the dirt." Edo explained, his shock giving way to analytical awe.
Leo turned back to the teenagers, his voice shifting back to a commanding, clinical tone.
"I will ask you one final time. What is this place?"
"This is Domino City... on the Sovereignty Continent." Ryo said, stepping forward. His voice carried a trace of hesitation, but he spoke with absolute firmness.
"The Sovereignty Continent...?" He didn't asked more about this topic. It carried no meaning and value to him. "Tell me, how many summoning methods do the duelists of this world utilize?"
"How many? There is only one true method: Fusion Summoning. Tribute Summoning exists, but it's completely trivial."
"I see..." A simple, knowing smile cracked onto Leo's face.
"Are you... not from around here?" Edo asked.
"No. I have no reason to lie or hide my origins. I came to this dimension to find someone. Now, tell me exactly what is happening to this world."
"If you're from a different continent and looking for someone, you're likely too late." Ryo explained, taking the lead to repay the man for saving their lives. Thinking the dimension talk was just rubbish to hide his origins. "They are either imprisoned in the capital or they have been turned into a card."
"Turned into a card? Please explain me what is that."
"It's an ancient phenomenon that the Sovereigns rediscovered and turned it into technology. It compresses a living human being's biological and spiritual existence as a single entity into a single card. It is an eternal prison—one that cannot be broken out of, and cannot be undone."
Leo placed a hand over his mouth, his mind racing as he began to mutter to himself. "A card... eternity. Hmm. If the biological data is preserved within the card's matrix, does that mean the individual remains technically viable inside it?"
"Yes." Ryo continued, misinterpreting Leo's scientific curiosity as dread and concerns. "The Sovereigns claim they remain fully conscious, trapped in an unending sentence. But we don't know for sure. Only the high-profile rebels, professional duelists, and most of all faculty and people of the Academia have been carded so far."
"The Academia?"
At the mention of the word, the boys' brows furrowed in deep resentment.
"You don't even know about the Academia? Seriously, what world are you from?"
"I will answer your questions in due time, but let me interpret to synthesize this information first. Tell me if I am wrong." Leo interrupted, his tone analytical. "This 'Academia' operates as a dueling institution, which should be best and biggest in this world, that is why they have captured them because they have potential to create actual physical manifestation of Monsters, correct? And these 'Sovereigns' or terrorists you speak of can utilize creatures that possess actual physical mass, like the one I just neutralized? Is that why your resistance cannot fight them? Tell me—do you not possess Real Solid Vision?"
Leo pointed toward the crater where the beast had materialized. The monster had undoubtedly possessed real weight, volume, and power. Yet, these boys hadn't even attempted to summon a monster to counter it. Leo was intensely curious to know why.
"Those Darklords are physical monsters when they are summoned." Barret explained bitterly. His eyes blurred from past. "Only their machines are handwrought and have the properties of actual physiology and physical interaction applied to them which they have created. They have those monsters, Darklords we don't know much of but they can be manifested into actual one. Without needing any supply or support of those machines. All of our monsters are just standard 3D projection. They can't inflict real damage. But what is Real Solid Vision?"
"Standard 3D holograms... I see. So your duel systems only project light, not tangible mass. That explains the asymmetry in your war. And I presume these 'Dark Lords' are the primary asset these Sovereigns used to subjugate this world."
"...Yes." Edo muttered, staring at Leo with growing admiration. "I don't know how you can deduce the entire stratum layout of our war from just a few scraps of information. It's incredible."
"Has your global scientific community simply failed to engineer mass and physical physiology into your Duel Monsters?" Leo asked.
"No, we never even tried." Edo said, his voice dropping into low tone. "It was always considered far too dangerous—a forbidden boundary. My father was the loudest voice opposing the materializing of holograms. He was one of the original pioneers who invented the 3D projection, systems we use today. Because of that, he was one of the very first targets the Sovereigns carded. They took him, along with every engineer and scientist who could have helped us level that field. I never even got to say goodbye to him. Now, all I have left to remember him by are the cards he passed down to me... and most of them were just torn to pieces. Life is entirely meaningless. We are just ripped away from the people we love, with absolutely nothing to gain. Just staying with them and remember them just to say eternal farewells."
Edo's fists clenched so hard that his knuckles turned white, his eyes welling with suppressed tears.
"Do not succumb to despair!" Leo commanded, his voice cutting through the boy's grief like a sword. "You say you never received the chance to say goodbye to your father? Then don't settle for a goodbye! Fight to take him back! You have no need for final farewells when you can tear down all walls, look him in the eye, and speak to him for as long as you desire!" Leo turned his gaze to the rest of the group. "I am certain that every one of you shares a similar tragedy."
The boys remained silent, but the sudden, fierce ignition in their eyes told Leo everything he needed to know.
"The worst part isn't even the fighting." Amon added, cleaning his glasses with the edge of his sleeve. "They expect us to worship them as deities. They style themselves after the ancient myths—Obelisk, Ra, Osiris. They act as though they are the absolute rulers of this cosmos, when they aren't even halfway there."
"This war has stripped everything from everyone. It has erased hope." Barret muttered, grinding his teeth.
"Does your resistance lack a centralized leader to guide your tactical operations?" Leo asked.
"We have Tenjoin Fubuki," Ryo answered. "He's a senior student from the Academia, he have helped us and lead us to stay safe. Even now as we speak. But our logistics are nonexistent. We lack the resources and materials to move efficiently from sector to sector. We spend all our time simply hiding in the dirt."
"I see." Leo declared, adjusting his posture of hands as he looked a bit high. "Then I shall provide the strategy. I will bring liberation to this dying world."
Ryo looked at him skeptically. "But you're talking about fighting forces that wield the power of gods. How do you plan to dismantle a empire like that?"
"Do you not believe in the mechanics of hope?" Leo countered. "Even a glimmer of spark glows with absolute intensity when it is enveloped by total darkness. The deeper the shadow, the more potent a sliver of light becomes. I am standing here today because I chose to ride that exact same glimmer."
Leo looked down at Edo. "Your name?"
"Edo. Edo Phoenix." The boy answered automatically.
"Phoenix? Edo?" Leo was stunned, as if remnants of past covered his thoughts."A fitting name. Edo, you stated earlier that life is entirely meaningless. That is incorrect."
"Is it a lie, then? Or a truth?"
"It is neither," Leo stated flatly. "What I perceive of human life, and what I intend to forge within it, exists far beyond those two fundamental categories."
A sudden downpour began to fall from the heavy gray clouds overhead. The dirty, ash-choked rain splattered against the concrete, turning the dust around them into a thick, dark mud.
The boys looked up at the sudden downpour, stunned by the heavy shift in the atmosphere.
"What I see in human life is not what is currently here, but what is yet to come." Leo continued, his voice ringing out over the storm. "My vision transcends the concepts of righteousness and selfishness. It goes beyond right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies. The world I intend to build exists entirely beyond these dualities. A paradise. A Unison."
"Unison...?" they whispered, the word echoing in their minds.
"It is a distant goal," Leo admitted. "But we must take the absolute first step right here, right now, if we ever hope to reach it. If this war has stripped everything from you, from your families, and from your people—then your only logical thought should be to take everything back!"
The boys felt an electric surge course through their veins, a sudden, overwhelming urge to unleash the pent-up energy they had suppressed for longs. They were on the verge of shouting, ready to follow this strange, brilliant madman to the very edge of existence.
"If your enemies claim to be gods, then shatter that illusion!" Leo commanded, his words carrying immense weight. "Every civilization that has ever surrendered its agency to the concept of a deity has failed to achieve its true potential. God is dead. If not then we must kill God. There is no king!"
"But how do we convince an entire population to reject their current reality?" Amon asked, his very mind calculating the sheer scale of the logistical nightmare. "How do we shift their priorities?"
"Human beings possess an inherent psychological tendency to follow a master." Leo explained. "It is an evolutionary but raw reflex to offload the burden of choice onto a leader—to reap the rewards of their success, and to point fingers and blame them when everything falls apart. Very few individuals possess the fortitude to rely solely on themselves. We must break that psychological loop. We must excise that base instinct entirely."
"But even if they blindly believe in a lie, does exposing it actually help them?" Ryo challenged. "Don't people naturally crave an entity to carry their suffering, even if that entity is completely invisible?"
"Yes, history is an absolute witness to that tragic cycle," Amon agreed, slipping his glasses back on. "In every era, brute force has ruled terms. Every time an intellectual spoke up or attempted to alter the course of human development, they were systematically silenced."
"Because the masses were uneducated." Leo countered sharply. "They never analyzed the mechanics of the real world. They never endured a crisis severe enough to force them to discard the invisible man in the sky and stand on their own two feet. They never witnessed the absolute void where they assumed a doesn't god exist. They suffered in silence, and the few individuals whose eyes were opened acted in a frantic rush, failing to unify the population before they were purged. The first man who dared to declare that deities were merely a manifestation of human delusion was executed. Diagoras was poisoned for speaking against religion. Kazimierz Lyszczynski, who authored a treatise on the non-existence of God, had his tongue off from him in the middle of a public square before he was beheaded. Do any of you comprehend the common similarity among these historical figures?"
The boys remained silent, but the burning intensity in their eyes signaled their undivided attention. Leo let out a dark, sharp chuckle.
"Each of those men stood entirely alone. They lacked a collective structure to safeguard their wisdom. Blind belief has only ever resulted in destruction; it establishes its foundations first, exclusively upon a mountain of corpses. God, religion, dogmatic righteousness—history claims these concepts were invented to provide peace, an idea echoed for three millennia of human civilization. Yet, they have yielded nothing but chaos and demolition."
The teenagers straightened their postures, their resolve hardening.
"The individuals who spoke the truth were left to stand alone in the cold. No one was there to support their theories. Meanwhile, the compliant masses who served those dead institutions were permitted to survive until the end of their natural lifespans. We must correct this error. We must unify everyone first. Every single soul. Stay strong. Stand firm. An unwavering resolution. This is what a revolution demands! The raw material from which a revolution is formed! History proves that no single human being has ever achieved a lasting paradigm shift in isolation. The world must become a singular entity for paradise to welcome us!"
Suddenly, the electronic console on the unconscious Sovereign's wrist began to chime aggressively. In the far distance, a massive mechanized infantry unit, armed with heavy artillery and advanced Duel Disk systems, appeared on the horizon.
"It seems conflict is inevitable before we can achieve our wishful results." Leo remarked, his eyes locking onto the approaching army. "Tell me—does any one of you possess the desire to fundamentally reshape this broken world? Forget about your damaged cards. Do not worry about the risks. I will calculate the solutions to every obstacle. I ask you now: do you want Unison?"
"Where exactly does this paradise you speak of exist?" Barret demanded, his voice mixing with Ryo's.
"Your name is Ryo, correct?" Leo said, a brief, soft smile breaking through his severe expression. "It is an interesting coincidence; the nickname of my own son is also Ryo. The familiarity brought me a brief moment of comfort." He turned his gaze back to the horizon. "Paradise is the unison of worlds. All four dimensions integrated into one! The answer to our paradise lies within that unison, and everything else will follow."
The concepts of "unison" and "four dimensions" caused the boys to flinch. They couldn't fully comprehend the mathematics behind his words, but they knew with absolute certainty that this man was unlike anyone they had ever met. They wanted to make that unified world a reality. They wanted to follow this man.
"My younger brother is currently enduring his darkest hour," Ryo said, his voice dropping into a quiet, painful tone. "His name is Sho. He's at his absolute worst right now—he can barely walk, he can't eat properly, and he speaks with hard efforts... Will this new world of yours truly fix what occurred? Are you genuinely confident in your formulas, or are you just another one of those historical figures you mentioned, who barks at the system only to be executed in the end?!"
Leo answered without a single shred of hesitation. "Results never manifest without calculated compromises. The output of any system is strictly determined by its input. If your primary objective is to save your little brother, then you must dedicate every single percentage of your energy to goal. You must detach your emotions from his immediate suffering if you want his ultimate wellbeing. Those who allow themselves to be paralyzed by the fear of failure rather than enduring the immediate pain of the struggle will inevitably be conquered by both."
Before they could delve deeper into the philosophy, the vanguard of the enemy army closed the distance, their boots shaking the muddy earth.
With a swift motion, Leo reached into his coat and tossed an electronic device to each of them—sleek, highly advanced duel interfaces.
"This is my personal invention—an extra layer of insurance. It is a technology I hoped I would never have to deploy, yet reality dictates its necessity. Use them. Every one of you still possesses a deck, correct? Then insert them into these pads! Manifest your emotions, and let these conquerors experience the true weight of their own medicine!"
Driven by absolute faith in his words, the boys slotted their remaining cards of deck into the advanced pads and initiated their summons.
Instantly, their strongest monsters materialized—not as hollow projections of light, but with immense, crushing physical mass and actual kinetic weight. The creatures leaped across the ruined landscape, launching devastating, physical assaults against the enemy lines. A chorus of shocked groans, exploding machinery, and panicked screams echoed through the stormy sky.
Everyone celebrated.
"Wow! I can't believe this!" Barret shouted, his jaw dropping as he watched a holographic dragon physically shatter an armored transport vehicle. "This is incredible! I apologize for calling you an old man earlier. I guess age really is just a number."
Leo chuckled as he watched the tide of the battle shift. "Age is merely a word."