The atmosphere inside the LDS Command Room had changed.
Not because alarms were blaring. Not because tactical units were sprinting across the corridors. Quite the opposite.
Silence.
Rows of analysts sat frozen at their consoles, eyes wide as the central holographic display replayed the final seconds of the underground terminal feed: Barret dissolving into a pillar of extraction light, leaving an empty corridor behind.
Nakajima leaned over his terminal, sweat gleaming at his temple. "He... he self-extracted? President, should we re-engage the perimeter search grids? If we lock down Districts 3 through 6—"
"No."
Reiji Akaba didn't turn around. He stood before the primary display, his hands resting behind his back, staring at the frozen frame of the gray-hooded girl vanishing into the shadows.
He tapped a single key on his wrist console.
The detailed street maps of Maiami City instantly vanished. The red search grids, the building layouts, the transit lines—all gone. In their place appeared a network of glowing light: thin, delicate lines connecting names to locations, duel disk signatures to time stamps, movement vectors to probability nodes. A web of human behavior stretching across the city.
Nakajima blinked. "The tactical layout... you wiped it?"
Reiji adjusted his glasses, the blue light of the display reflecting across the lenses.
"They didn't come to conquer territory," Reiji said quietly. He zoomed in on the junction where Barret had made his final stand. "They came for an objective. And when the objective shifted, they abandoned the fight."
His finger highlighted the single moment Barret stepped between Ryo and Celina.
"They protected her," Reiji murmured.
Nakajima leaned in. "The girl? But why risk an operative for—"
"We stop chasing places," Reiji cut in, his voice cold, steady, and devoid of grandstanding. "We track priorities."
He swept his hand across the glass, re-anchoring the entire city's surveillance network not to physical streets, but to five specific individuals.
For the first time since the dimensional breach, Reiji's expression settled into an icy, dangerous. The enemy had finally revealed how they thought.
...
The underground terminal smelled of ozone and scorched cement.
Ryo walked slowly past the scorched crater left by "Beastborg Panther Predator." Emergency repair drones hummed in the background, but he paid them no mind. His boots clicked against the cracked floor with a slow, deliberate cadence.
He stopped at the exact spot where Barret had vanished.
"He lost," Ryo thought. He looked down at his own hand, still feeling the faint ache in his chest from the penalty of Dark Contract with the Gate. "I stripped his Life Points to zero. I controlled the field."
He closed his eyes, replaying the final second before the extraction light swallowed the veteran soldier.
Barret hadn't been grimacing. His jaw hadn't been set in rage.
He had smiled.
Ryo opened his eyes. A cold realization began to anchor itself in his gut.
"A soldier who loses an engagement doesn't smile," Ryo reasoned, taking a slow step forward, looking at the pattern of energy residue on the ground. "Unless the duel wasn't the mission."
He pieced it together ladder-rung by ladder-rung. Barret hadn't pressed his advantage when Ryo passed his first turn. He hadn't called for reinforcements. He had dragged the duel out just long enough for Celina to have time to flee. Although she didn't.
"He didn't come to win," Ryo realized, his eyes narrowing in the dim light. "He came for something else. Something more important than winning."
Ryo reached into his pocket and pulled out his Duel Disk core, his thumb tracing the metallic frame. The win felt hollow—because it wasn't a win at all. It was a trade.
But what was more peculiar for Ryo was that he was distributed by this hollow victory.
# Stadium No. 2
High above, in the arena of Stadium two, the sound was deafening.
"AND YUZU HIIRAGI TAKES THE MATCH WITH A SPECTACULAR FUSION FINISH!" the announcer roared through the his mic, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
In the participant box, Yuya Sakaki was clapping.
His hands slammed together rhythmically, but his palms were cold. His chest felt tight—not with excitement, but with a heavy, suffocating knot of confusion.
"Awesome job, Yuzu..." he mumbled, his voice swallowed by the cheering fans around him.
He looked at the card again.
Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon.
"I don't know why this card is in my deck, but I know I have to use this. Perhaps that is why it came to me. So I can make people smile more."
Yuya smiled, meeting eye to eye with Yuzu. His expression relaxed.
"I will do it, with the new help. With you." He looked at the card again.
The bright lights of the stadium suddenly felt blindingly harsh.
Someone was playing a game far bigger than the Maiami Championship—and somehow, without his consent, he had been shoved onto the board.
...
Vance walked near the back of the pedestrian stream. Beside him, Razz was chewing nervously on a toothpick, his eyes darting toward every LDS patrol vehicle that cruised past the intersection.
BZZT.
A single, muted vibration hummed against Vance's ribs.
He didn't slow down. Without breaking stride, he slid a small burner receiver from his inner pocket, flipped it open, glance at the screen for less than a second, and snapped it shut.
"OBSERVE."
Razz caught the motion and leaned in, keeping his voice beneath the sound of traffic. "What happened??"
Vance didn't answer right away. He smoothly stepped off the curb, peeled off his outer windbreaker, tossed it into an open industrial dump bin, and pulled a dark cap from his rear pocket over his hair.
"Drop your primary receivers," Vance said flatly, pulling a second, completely unlinked comm unit from his belt. "We switch to local band three. We split at the next light."
Razz blinked, taken aback by the sudden shift. "Wait—just like that?"
Vance said, his voice hard as iron. "Perhaps something bigger is coming. Move. He will come with me." Vance gestured to the boy in white jacket, boy's expression still confused. "You are gonna have your match now or later, you should go to competitors' waiting area, Razz."
Razz swallowed his protest, spat out his toothpick, and melted into the crowd heading west. Vance turned east, disappearing into the sea of umbrellas. The boy followed Vance.
# Underground Turminal
Deep beneath the city's abandoned freight lines, the quiet was broken by a sharp, violent CRACK.
Celina punched the concrete wall with her bare knuckle.
Dust rained down from the ceiling. A faint smear of blood bloomed on her hand, but she barely felt it. Her chest heaved, her breath coming in ragged, angry hitches.
"Liar," she hissed into the dark tunnel.
She kicked a rusted piece of rebar, sending it clattering down the iron rails.
"He's an enemy. He was trying to mess with my head."
She slammed her hand against the damp wall. She hated Ryo. She hated his calm, arrogant voice. She hated the way he looked at her like he knew something she didn't.
"If Professor truly created a perfect soldier... why are you asking questions?"
"Shut up," she growled, her knuckles digging into her temples.
She wanted to laugh at his absurdity. She wanted to mock him for thinking a few clever words could shake her loyalty to Academia. She wanted to punch him for telling her she is wrong.
"Why didn't Barret let me fight? I am not weak. I am stronger than him. Better than most of Academia students. Then why? Why I am so angry?"
She wasn't doubting Academia. She couldn't. But now the anger burning in her gut didn't directed at only Ryo—it was directed at the terrifying, unshakeable realization that she didn't have an answer as well.
# Somewhere else.
The extraction platform in Academia's central spire hummed with dying energy as the pillar of white light dissolved into nothing.
Barret stood in the center of the cold metallic room. His uniform was torn at the shoulder, the fabric scorched black from the feedback of Real Solid Vision. He didn't lean on anything. He stood straight, his chin raised.
At the far end of the platform, obscured by the deep shadows, sitting on a throne like seat, a solitary figure.
"Did you confirm it?" The voice echoed—deep, resonant, and completely devoid of warmth.
Barret brought his right fist to his chest in a precise military salute.
"Yes, Professor."
The figure in the shadows didn't move. "The summon mechanics?"
"Reconstructed on the fly," Barret reported, his voice crisp. "I have also extracted information other than most of their elite duelists, about Pendulum summon."
Silence stretched across the massive hall.
Barret hesitated for a fraction of a second.
"It is documented," Leo Akaba said from the darkness.
Barret's eyes widened slightly. He had assumed it was an anomaly—a new strategy developed in the field.
"You... already knew?" Barret asked softly.
Leo replied, his voice chillingly cold as he turned away from the balcony. "Before you had gone there, taking Celina with you for my approval of you, Berret."
Barret froze.
"But nothing else matters," Leo murmured into the dark. "Phase One is complete. We must take Celina back. And another her as well. Phase two will begin alongside with it."