Hikaru spent a few more days sightseeing in the Synchro Dimension.
After about a week, the KaibaCorp garrison stationed in the Synchro Dimension finally finished reviewing all the local intel. Hikaru then brought Serena and Lulu to the KaibaCorp branch office and transported back to the Fusion Dimension.
Before leaving, Hikaru made a promise to Yusei: when the WRGP came around, he would definitely come to witness Yusei's duels. Participating was out of the question, the WRGP required three-person teams. Yusei would be Turbo Dueling with Crow and Jack, and at most Hikaru could serve as an alternate. Nothing more.
Of course, considering that every time Hikaru thought "this has nothing to do with me, I'll just watch from the sidelines and leave," he inevitably got dragged into something, he didn't make any absolute statements. He simply told Yusei to save him a spot as an alternate.
Serena naturally returned to the Fusion Dimension with Hikaru. As for Lulu, she didn't know anyone in the Synchro Dimension. Since Serena was someone familiar who had also rescued her, she naturally chose to come along to the Fusion Dimension.
After all, staying in the Synchro Dimension might mean running into more bizarre incidents. Better to stay with Serena.
At least her safety would be guaranteed.
Upon returning to the Academy, the first thing Hikaru did was find Vice-Chancellor Crowler and brief him on the full situation.
After hearing that Leo Akaba had been defeated by Hikaru, the Vice-Chancellor felt somewhat wistful. Whether he was reflecting on how the world had changed or contemplating how events had unfolded, it was hard to say.
But in any case, now that Leo Akaba had fallen, things should be much more manageable going forward.
Of course, that was impossible.
Leo Akaba's defeat certainly symbolized the Fusion forces' failure.
But that didn't mean the Fusion forces had vanished entirely.
In their world, the Fusion forces were universally reviled, true. But ambitious opportunists who banded together for profit and power were never in short supply. Even without the Fusion forces, they could simply operate under the Fusion forces' banner. So for the time being, the Fusion forces would continue to exist in this world.
Besides, the Fusion forces still had Yuri.
So there was no room for complacency.
As for Lulu.
According to Vice-Chancellor Crowler, the KaibaCorp diplomatic team dispatched to the Xyz Dimension had only just arrived. Until then, their side couldn't communicate with the Xyz Dimension; it remained under lockdown.
Of course, given that Lulu was from the Xyz Dimension, he could help write a letter on her behalf and hand it to KaibaCorp to facilitate things on that end.
Until contact was established with Lulu's family in the Xyz Dimension, she would have to stay here.
If Lulu didn't want to spend her time idly, she could attend classes at their Academy. While she was technically below the age requirement, since Serena was the same age and apparently her counterpart from a parallel world, enrolling her as a first-year wasn't out of the question.
Vice-Chancellor Crowler was actually quite enthusiastic about this.
If, during his tenure as acting principal, the school had an "interdimensional" student, that would be excellent for the Academy's development.
So he was quite excited when discussing it.
Lulu had no objections either.
Having the chance to learn this dimension's Summoning methods and gain some knowledge about this world would be a novel experience for her.
"Yay!" Serena cheered from the side.
Hikaru promptly smacked her on the head.
"You apologize to the Vice-Chancellor first!"
Serena's enthusiasm deflated instantly. She fidgeted and offered an apology to the Vice-Chancellor.
Vice-Chancellor Crowler listened to Serena's apology with a calm smile on his face. After listening for quite some time, he finally nodded and said it was no big deal.
It really wasn't a big deal.
When he thought about it carefully, it was pretty ordinary stuff.
Compared to what Jaden had put him through last year, this was child's play.
Compared to Jaden, Serena was barely scratching the surface.
Back then, Jaden had been mucking about in Shadow Games all by himself. Serena at least had Hikaru as a senior looking after her. No matter how you sliced it, her incidents were far less severe than Jaden's.
At this point, he didn't even bat an eye at all the chaos Jaden had caused. Serena's troubles were genuinely mild.
After that, Hikaru didn't do much else. He made one trip to the Spellbook Academy, where he obtained a new "Invoked" monster, and was only given a date.
He was told that in seven days, the Witchcrafter Alley would reopen. If Hikaru went then, he should be able to meet the Witchcrafter leader.
After waiting this long, someone was finally available.
As long as he secured the certification of Witchcrafter Madame Verre, Hikaru would have gathered all three "Great Sage" endorsements and could proceed directly to the Magician's domain.
But this final endorsement had been impossible to obtain because the person was nowhere to be found.
Hikaru was honestly a bit speechless.
What a slacker.
At least she was finally coming back.
Hikaru returned to the Academy and went looking for Chazz. He found Chazz slumped over his desk, having apparently fallen asleep at some unknown point. The instant Hikaru opened the door, Chazz jolted awake, shook his head, and raised a hand in greeting.
Hikaru still had some promotional work to handle in coordination with Vice-Chancellor Crowler, so he'd come to see Chazz before getting started. He hadn't expected Chazz to be this swamped. Hikaru tossed the recording equipment from before over to Chazz and told him to remember to edit the final duel footage.
He knew Chazz would review it all anyway, so there was no need to say more. He simply teased that the current Chazz looked nothing like the pampered heir of a major conglomerate, his dark circles were terrifyingly dark. Chazz brushed him off with a couple of offhand remarks.
Then Chazz said, "In a couple of days, I'm going back to the Group."
Bringing this up out of the blue, Hikaru immediately understood what he meant.
"Ha, so you're really going to settle things with your brothers?"
"Yeah, because of the Fusion forces situation, they've taken quite a bit of heat within the Group. My performance during this period has made the family quite pleased, so there's an opportunity to settle things with them."
As he spoke, he pulled a document from his drawer. "You know about this, right? Representative Duels."
"The kind of duels between major corporations, right?" Hikaru nodded.
Both he and Rex Raptor were spokespeople for Funglow Corp and its representative duelists. When different companies needed to duel for promotional purposes or to determine strategy through "settling the score," they would participate.
"Generally speaking, a company has one primary representative at most, with others as secondary duelists. In Funglow Corp's case, Rex Raptor is the chief representative and you're the second. But some large conglomerates can have multiple.
They've provided a list for the representative duels."
He held up the document and explained.
According to this world's trends and development, beyond business and economics, a representative duel was also required.
Among them, Chazz Princeton, as a competitor for control of the Group, would duel his two older brothers. Considering both brothers were novices, a special "2-vs-1" format was permitted, with Chazz facing both brothers alone.
Hikaru had no particular comment on this.
Although Chazz's two brothers, after the incident with the Armed Dragon Catapult Cannon, had recognized that true duelists and casual hobbyists like themselves were two different breeds, and had begun studying and practicing dueling seriously, they were still beginners. Even in a 2-vs-1, Hikaru doubted Chazz would lose.
Next were the proxy duels.
Two matches total: one 1-vs-1 and one 2-vs-2. This was also the prevailing trend in this world, since most Spirit Worlds favored 2-vs-2 formats to observe the bonds between duelists and their adaptability, Tag Duels had gradually become popular.
"For the 1-vs-1, I've asked Atticus-senpai to help." Chazz said.
Chazz and Atticus Rhodes had a pretty good relationship. In the original series, Chazz had even taken Atticus on as his mentor in matters of romance. In this world, while that particular development hadn't occurred, Chazz and Atticus were still close.
So it wasn't strange for Chazz to pick Atticus as his proxy.
After all, Atticus wasn't just photogenic, he was genuinely strong. If not for bad luck drawing Zane early in the bracket, many people believed Atticus could absolutely have made it to the final four of the GX Tournament.
Regardless, Atticus was absolutely an excellent choice.
"For the 2-vs-2, would you be interested in teaming up with Jaden?" Chazz rubbed his temples, looking like he had a headache.
He had already approached Jaden earlier about participating in a duel for his goals, but at the time he hadn't known when Hikaru would return to the Academy, so he hadn't decided on the final member.
If Hikaru hadn't come back, he probably would have asked Syrus.
After all, Syrus had been performing exceptionally well lately, having already been promoted to Ra Yellow. His teamwork with Jaden in the Nexus Dimension had been impressive for all to see, and the two had participated in several Tag Duels together, making him an excellent option.
The only issue was that Chazz's relationship with Syrus wasn't particularly close, so approaching him out of the blue felt a bit awkward.
Fortunately, now that Hikaru was back, everything was settled.
Chazz might not be especially close with Syrus, but his relationship with Hikaru was rock-solid. And Hikaru could team up with anyone without issue.
"When is it?" Hikaru asked directly.
He naturally wouldn't refuse this kind of match. On one hand, Tag Dueling with Jaden sounded fun. On the other, in a duel at this level involving world-class conglomerates, the opponents were bound to be somebody notable. There was always the chance of encountering some rare and powerful cards.
Hikaru was very interested in that.
Chazz checked his phone. "Seven... eight days?"
His head felt a bit foggy. He probably needed a proper night's sleep.
Hikaru nodded.
That worked out nicely.
"Who are the opponents?"
"No idea. Why, scared?"
"Ha, you're the one who should worry. Keep skipping sleep and your novice brothers might actually beat you."
Chazz yawned and waved him off. Hikaru didn't mind, said goodbye, and left.
After Hikaru was gone, Chazz let out a deep sigh of relief and stretched hard.
Over the past two weeks, before Hikaru's return, he had been worried about whether Hikaru was stuck in the Synchro Dimension. He had been on the verge of abandoning his family matters to go search for him. But now that Hikaru was back, everything could proceed as planned.
He looked at the documents in his hands and finally felt at ease.
"Yo! Hikaru, you're back? Anything interesting in the Synchro Dimension?" The moment Hikaru stepped out of Chazz's room, he spotted Jaden wandering through the Fusion wing, seemingly on the prowl for someone to duel.
Hikaru sighed and asked if he knew about the upcoming Tag Duel. The instant Jaden heard that Hikaru was going to be his partner, his face lit up with a grin. He stuck out his thumb and said, "Hahaha, that's awesome!"
He looked like he was in great spirits.
Ever since the Nexus, Hikaru had rarely seen Jaden this enthusiastic.
Come to think of it, he'd rarely seen Jaden going out looking for duels every day either.
It seemed his chat with "himself" had gone well.
"Let me tell you, Hikaru, right now, I'm scary strong." Jaden sidled up to him conspiratorially and whispered.
'How scary? Scary enough to Special Summon Elemental HERO Stratos off A Hero Lives?'
Or Fusion Summon Elemental HERO Absolute Zero, then use De-Fusion to bring out Elemental HERO Bubbleman and Elemental HERO Avian, then Tribute Summon Elemental HERO Neos?
Hikaru had no idea what Jaden was talking about, but since he was this confident, Hikaru nodded on the spot and said he looked forward to Jaden's dueling.
Later, Hikaru returned to the Great Universe Workshop and released the Sacred Beasts.
Although the three had cooperated with Hikaru during the Leo Akaba duel, there were things Hikaru needed to discuss with them properly.
After all, the three were genuine "demons" that consumed the life force of humans and spirits. Just because they were following Hikaru now didn't mean he could let his guard down.
Tierra negotiated with them, laid down ground rules, and eventually reached an agreement.
As long as the Sacred Beasts followed Hikaru's rules, they could exchange their own power for spirits' "life force" within the Great Universe, or simply draw from the Philosopher's Stone's life force. But if they dared to overstep, Hikaru would not hesitate to pull them out and seal them back underneath Duel Academy.
As long as they honored the agreement, Hikaru and his team's spirits would respect them.
The three demons weren't completely witless. After their experience of being dismantled and reassembled by Leo Akaba, they genuinely needed a place where they'd be respected and allowed to rest. So the arrangement suited everyone.
That worked out fine.
Hikaru watched the three demons help with construction and ecosystem development in the Great Universe Workshop, figuring that as long as they didn't cause trouble, they were still technically "gods," and left them to it.
Besides, Armityle the Chaos Phantasm was in his hands. As long as the three couldn't merge, they were no match for the current Tierra. After the duel with Leo Akaba, Tierra had begun constructing Pendulum machines in the Great Universe Workshop. Between the recent upgrades and Z-ONE's improved schematics, combined with remnants of the Elementsaber series, Tierra had gradually mastered "Pendulum" and was beginning to restore her power of "Creation."
She couldn't manufacture cards just yet, but clearly, it wouldn't be much longer.
Hikaru still had one dimensional travel opportunity this month, but he needed to save it for Witchcrafter Alley, so there was no rush. He spent his time at the Academy participating in various events and promotional work with Vice-Chancellor Crowler.
Fortunately, he was used to it from his advertising work with Funglow Corp, so it wasn't too mentally draining.
Just as the duels were approaching, Funglow Corp called him.
"Representative Hikaru, we found them!"
Found them? Oh, the legendary duelists!
Hikaru's eyes lit up.
Then he heard the rest.
They hadn't found just one!
As it turned out, during this period, the company had been tracking down information on several legendary duelists. Some were willing to accept Hikaru's challenge, while others were currently active on the circuit.
Among them, it just so happened that Hikaru and Jaden's upcoming opponents were, The Paradox Brothers.
"Reportedly, they've acquired incredibly powerful new abilities and are now honored guests of the Princeton Group. We know you have a friend who's the heir to the Princeton Group, so this is a perfect opportunity."
"Ha, that works out perfectly. You can come film it in a few days." Before they could finish, Hikaru cut them off with a laugh.
"Huh?" Surprise from the other end, followed immediately by, "Understood! We'll be there!"
...
Stones