Bonds Beyond Reality

Turn 7 - Butterfly effect

While in the car, everyone wants to hear Yuya's story, even the driver, despite being one of Zaizen's trusted men who's supposed to just ignore and follow orders.

Yuma is also very interested in Pendulum summoning since this is his first time seeing those cards. Yusaku breaks the ice by assuming that Yuya is also from a different dimension and saying he doesn't have to worry about them believing that; at this point, they'll just accept it. Yuya confirms and replies that it feels like a kind of relief after hearing he doesn't have to go too deep into the concept of multiple dimensions. Although he was sure they'd be more receptive to that since Astral itself is proof that they are used to unusual stuff, Yuma is also surprised that Yuya can see Astral. Yuya starts by telling them that while it is true that they can just assume he's from a different dimension, his case is a little more complex than that. He mentions he's from what he calls the Pendulum dimension, something that everyone thinks is a joke at first. After all, he's talking as if his whole reality were based on a duel monster summoning mechanic. "It is a bit silly when you say it out loud." Yuya replies, but he confirms that the special characteristic of his world is that the Pendulum summoning is their representative mechanic. He goes further to explain that there's also a Fusion, Synchro, and XYZ dimension.

Yuma: Oh! So ours would be the XYZ dimension, right?

Aoi: So is this the link dimension?

Yuya says that their assumptions are close but not accurate; there's an XYZ dimension with a city named Heartland that is not the same as Yuma's; the multiverse is infinite; and apparently there are multiple versions of the same dimension. For example, Yuya asks Yuma if the words Kaito and the Cipher mean something to him. To which Yuma replies that, of course, Kaito is one of his best friends and strongest rivals, but he has never heard of a "Cipher" monster. This is because there are at least two versions of Kaito in the multiverse: one known by Yuma, who uses photon monsters, and the other known by Yuya, who uses Cipher monsters.

Yuma's brain is scrambling, but the others seem to comprehend the idea, so he just keeps his explanation and then mentions that even though this current world could be called the Link dimension, there's a distinctive factor from the Fusion, Synchro, XYZ, and Pendulum dimensions known to him. And is that all of those four dimensions used to be one, but because of a terrible evil known as Zarc, they were split into four.

Yusaku reacts since he heard the Ghoul referring to him as Zarc during his duel. Could Yuya be a terrible evil incarnate? He just smiles and says that part of it is correct. Back when the dimensions used to be one, he used to be a person named Zarc. The situation inside the car turns kind of tense, but then Yuma laughs, saying that it wouldn't be possible. He saw his passionate dueling and knows there's no possible way he's a bad guy.

Yuya says that he appreciates it and that he's right; he, Yuya Sakaki, is not evil. When the world divided into four, so did Zarc's soul. and Yuya is only one of the four fragments of Zarc, but he has his own mind and soul; he's nothing like him. The others believe him but start to wonder what it has to do with anything.

Moving on, Yuya tells them that Zarc's malice attempted to reunite the four dimensions into one in the past, which resulted in his partial resurrection, but thanks to his friends, Zarc was defeated and practically exorcized from Yuya's soul, but there were a couple of problems with that. The first is that only Zarc's soul was released. Inside Yuya, there's still the soul of the other three fragments: Yuri, Yugo, and Yuto.

Yusaku asks if the reason his appearance changes from time to time is because his alter egos are taking control of him. Yuya confirms it and says that his main purpose is to be split into four once again; after all, they were all people with their own lives and dreams. He has always thought it was really unfair that he was the only one allowed to retain his own body, and he wants to give them a chance. That's where the second issue comes into play. He mentions that Akaba Reiji and Akaba Leo had been researching how to achieve this without impacting the other dimensions like the last time. And they found out that there were more than just 4 dimensions, and a located power source enough to split them back was in this dimension.