"Ugh… my head."
"Where the hell am I?"
Amagi Hikaru clutched his forehead, disoriented. He scanned his surroundings, definitely not his bedroom. The walls were plastered with Dark Magician Girl posters, and above the dormitory door hung a massive sign that read "Fusion."
Then he noticed his clothes.
A white and yellow uniform. It took only a second to recognize it, the Ra Yellow uniform from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
No doubt about it. He had transmigrated.
The only question was, into what kind of world? Was this actually Yu-Gi-Oh!? Or had he possessed some diehard fan at a cosplay convention? If it was the former... honestly, he'd take it. He'd always loved the game. If he had the chance to duel in a world with real Solid Vision systems and holographic monsters, that would be insane, in the best way.
And to be fair, this world held a lot of promise.
Back in his original world, Hikaru was a hardcore duelist. He'd never competed in official tournaments, but he'd consistently held Master Rank in Master Duel. In a world where dueling was everything? He could probably make a decent living, maybe even thrive.
As his thoughts spiraled with possibility, a sudden commotion outside caught his attention. He moved to the window and looked down.
A group of students in purple uniforms were gathered below, shouting passionate slogans.
"Fusion is the noblest summoning method!"
"Crush the duelists from other dimensions!"
"Make them bow before us!"
Well, that confirmed it.
This was the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! all right.
But not the one he expected.
"Wait a minute… is this Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V?!"
"Oh no. Oh hell no. That dumpster fire of interdimensional warfare? No way I was signing up for that. Was it too late to opt out of this reality entirely?"
He smacked his forehead to clear his panic and dove for the dorm's computer. He began furiously typing, searching for clues. At the same time, he rifled through every notebook and scrap of paper scattered around the room, hoping to piece together what world he'd landed in.
Eventually, he let out a long breath.
"Okay, this was definitely the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe."
'But not just GX. Something was off.'
This world had Yugi Mutou, Seto Kaiba, and Joey Wheeler. It also had Aster Phoenix, Dr. Crowler, and of course, Jaden Yuki, his classmate, apparently.
But Duel Academy looked different. Some of the structures, terms, and student hierarchies mirrored the dimensional chaos of ARC-V. The timeline was all tangled.
Still, there was good news: the extremist Fusion fanatics were just one faction. Most professors weren't part of that nonsense.
So really, it was a blended universe, a fusion of GX and ARC-V, but still grounded mainly in the GX era.
He even found duel footage from the legendary first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, where Jaden defeated Crowler with Elemental HERO Flame Wingman. That was reassuring.
Maybe it was the adrenaline fading, or maybe the familiarity of it all, but Hikaru suddenly felt a wave of foreign memories.
He paused. These weren't his memories.
They must belong to the original owner of this body.
Hikaru had been a first-year student at Duel Academy, same as Jaden Yuki. But while Jaden started in Slifer Red, Hikaru had been placed in Ra Yellow, the mid-tier dorm.
And in this world, Duel Monsters wasn't just a game, it was a supernatural force. Dueling wasn't mere entertainment; it was a battle of will, intellect, and mystical power.
Here, duels were how people resolved conflicts. All conflicts.
Whether it was fighting over the last slice of bread or saving the universe from destruction, it all came down to a duel.
Even national elections were settled through duels. That's how, in this world, Trump absolutely demolished Biden in a televised match and secured two consecutive terms as U.S. president.
In this world, no one knew dueling better than Hikaru did.
Duel Monsters had become the fabric of civilization itself. He'd even read that a research city was developing an "Eternal Energy Machine" powered by Duel Monsters, a literal impossibility in physics, but thanks to Duel Spirits, it was somehow within reach here.
Moreover, space travel, dimensional exploration, even diving into the underworld, none of it was science fiction anymore. Thanks to Duel Monsters and the power of Duel Spirits, such feats had become possible.
Take Seto Kaiba, for example. The president of KaibaCorp had long since moved past the days of childish rivalry. With Yugi Muto retired from dueling, Kaiba stood unchallenged as the strongest duelist on the planet. And what had he done with that title? He launched a full-scale research initiative to reach the Underworld, blending Solid Vision with hyper-advanced virtual reality systems. If a god of the afterlife was hiding out somewhere, Kaiba was going to find it, with a duel disk on his arm.
It was just like how once Steve Jobs turned the smartphone into an obsession, every other tech company dropped what they were doing to chase the same dream, whether it made sense or not.
In this world, with Yugi Muto retired and no longer dueling, Seto Kaiba had taken the crown as the strongest duelist alive. And if the man at the top was busy building virtual gateways to the underworld using Solid Vision tech? Of course, the rest of the dueling world would follow him, no questions asked.
That's how Duel Academy ended up discovering alternate dimensions. And from that revelation emerged a new, aggressive ideology, Fusion Supremacy, led by the radical Leo Akaba.
The original Hikaru, well, the one who lived in this body before, wasn't part of that extremist camp. But like many students, he had enrolled at Duel Academy with the dream of mastering Fusion Summoning and becoming a professional duelist. A steady income, recognition, maybe even championship titles. Dueling was, after all, this world's version of the civil service exam. Everyone wanted in.
In theory, his plan made sense.
In practice?
Not so much.
Sure, Duel Academy only accepted the best and brightest. Students here were supposed to be fluent in card mechanics, tournament rulings, and the endless maze of Yu-Gi-Oh! archetypes. No one would just throw a bunch of shiny Normal Monsters into a pile and call it a deck… right?
Apparently, someone would.
Amagi stared at the deck the original owner had left behind.
At first glance, it looked okay. But as he began sorting through the cards, his optimism crumbled. The entire deck was filled with low-level monsters, most of which were completely dependent on drawing the right fusion pairings. These weren't flexible materials from established archetypes. No, they were obscure one-off creatures whose only purpose was to combine with exactly one other card, assuming you drew both in the same lifetime.
One example was a "Blank Emperor Dragon" with 2300 ATK, decent on paper. But the only way to summon it was to fuse Guardian of the Sky - Winged Dragon and Fairy of the City Wall. The former had mediocre stats. The latter didn't even have an effect.
That was one of the better examples.
Other monsters in the deck were so niche and underwhelming that even Axe Raider would be embarrassed to stand next to them.
And don't even get him started on the Spell lineup.
The deck had a grand total of three cards.
Three fusion spells for a deck entirely dependent on Fusion Summoning.
Worse, most of the fusion materials were single copies.
How was anyone supposed to pull off a combo with one-of-each low-tier monsters and only three chances to fuse them?
Was the plan to glue them together and pray?
Amagi let out a long, weary sigh.
This was the deck the original owner had poured all his savings into? His entire summer break spent grinding and scraping together the cards, only to build… this?
It was a tragedy.
To be fair, the cards weren't exactly cheap. Because they were specific fusion materials, they had limited print runs and inflated prices. He could imagine the original Hikaru putting in part-time work, scanning every duel forum, trading endlessly just to complete this monstrosity.
And somehow, he had actually scraped by and passed the entrance exam into Duel Academy.
But from the fragments of memory he'd absorbed, Hikaru was sure of one thing:
The original deck could've been built for half the cost, maybe even less, and it would've been twice as effective.
Shaking his head, he walked over to the card box, intending to pull out the deck and start reworking it. But the moment he flipped open the lid, he froze.
"This… isn't the original owner's deck."
The very first card staring back at him wasn't some low-stat Normal Monster or obscure Fusion Material.
It was Gem-Knight Fusion.
Gem-Knights? That's a real Fusion archetype. A solid one, too. Especially in an environment like this.
He quickly rifled through the next card, only for his eyebrows to shoot up again.
Red-Eyes Fusion.
Wait, what?
He flipped to the next card. Then the next. Then the next.
And the deeper he went, the more confused and stunned he became.
"Fossil Fusion, Aroma Blend, Melodious Concerto, Earthbound Fusion, D-Fusion, Fusion Destiny, Cybernetic Zone, Fusion Gate, Branded Fusion!!"
"What in the hell kind of deck was this?"
He flipped through one card after another. Every single card in his deck had been replaced with a "Fusion" card.
All the Spell and Trap cards that could Fusion Summon monsters were there!
In fact, after seeing one particular card, he sucked in a breath of cold air.
"Even this one!"
The ultimate, most powerful Fusion card!
"Super Polymerization!"