Fanfic / Yu-gi-oh Arc-V: Pendulum of Hope

Pendulum of Hope is an Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V AU story, written by Gentyman. The story stars Yuto as the main protagonist instead of Yuya and focuses on him rebuilding Heartland and ending the war peacefully.

"Many stories can have different outcomes, and Yuya's story is no different. What if, Yuya was not the main protagonist of Arc v. What if Yuto was? There will be some differences. Some minor. Some major. This will primarily focus on Yuto, Shun, and Ruri. However, some other characters might get at least one or two times to shine."

The first 67 chapters are currently undergoing a reconstruction.

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This story contains examples of the following Tropes. Beware of Unmarked Spoilers:

• Action Girl: Most of the female characters are skilled Duelists, and the most notable ones are Ruri, Rio, Sayaka, Asuka, Aki, Yuzu, and Rin.
• Action Survivor: Yuto, Shun, Ruri, Allen, Sayaka, Kaito, Shark, and Rio are some of the few survivors of Heartland, who fight to protect their people from Academia.
• The Ace: Every Dimension has one.
  • In Xyz we have Kaito. Before the invasion, he was a top Pro-Duelist who wanted to keep people happy, and he even managed to defeat Ryo.
  • In Fusion we have Ryo. Due to his reputation as a top honor student of Central Academia, he was known as Kaiser by his peers. But his fame means nothing to him compared to his stance towards humanity.
  • There is also Yusuke Fujiwara/Darkness who is a high-ranking officer and Leo's right-hand man. Darkness's skills rival Leo's.
  • In Standard we have Reiji Akaba who has mastered all the summoning methods. His dueling skills are akin to a Pro Duelist and he became the owner of Leo Corporation and LDS at 16.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Yuto's feelings for attacking Sawatari are unknown in the canon, here he feels remorseful for unknowingly hurting him.
  • In canon, Yushou doesn't feel guilty for leaving his wife and son behind, because he knows they have faith in him that he will return, and after knowing what he has done they will be proud of him. Here he feels guilty for leaving them behind, while trying to foil Leo Akaba's evil plan and blames himself for being a bad father to Yuya.
  • Ruri and Rin's feelings for getting trapped at Academia is unknown in the canon, but here they describe their days at Academia as a nightmare and were brutally tortured by Sanders and other Academia soldiers.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Yuto, Shun, Ruri, Sayaka, Allen, Kaito, and Rio made their debut in #1 unlike their canon counterparts.
  • Asuka made her debut in Season 1, while in canon she didn't get to appear until Season 3.
  • Edo and the Tyler twins made their debut in Season 3.
  • Ray and Zarc's existence has been mentioned in Season 2 during the Synchro arc, while in canon the audience didn't get to know about their existence until Season 3.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Professor Cobra was one of the antagonists during Season 3 of GX who worked with Yubel to bring back his son. Here he is the Big Good of the Fusion Dimension who feels disgusted with Leo Akaba's plan to card and destroy the lives of innocent citizens of Heartland, and even sends one of his students, Austin O'Brien, to aid the Resistance.
  • Ryo Marufuji wears his Hell Kaiser outfit whenever he's at the Xyz Dimension, but he never became a ruthless Duelist, and he's genuinely one of the heroic characters, who fights to stop the war and foil Leo Akaba's evil plans.
  • Dr. Faker lacks all of his Mad Scientist traits and is a Team Dad to the Resistance.
  • Due to Barian World never existing, Shark and Rio never became Barians and they fight to stop Academia.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Dr. Faker is a Cool Old Guy who acts as a Team Dad to the Resistance and likes to make old man puns.
  • Shark's personality is very similar to Yuto's canon counterpart. He's very friendly and nicer to everyone he interacts with except people from Central Academia and he even enjoys having a fun entertainment duel.
  • Ryo is very sweet, kind, and open with his emotions compared to his aloof and stoic GX counterpart. He's like a nicer version of his Season One anime counterpart.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • The majority of Yuya and other Standard characters' duels and developments are cut short, so that Yuto and his friends, as well as people from Academia, can get more screen time.
  • Most of the duels in the Miami Championship are also cut short and some happened off-screen.
  • Yugo's duel against Duel Chaser 277 happens briefly.
  • Most of Shun's duels in Underground at Tops are skipped.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • In canon Academia has only one branch, here they have five branches. The one which Leo Akaba leads is the Central Academia, while the one Professor Cobra leads is the West Academia which serves as a Good Counterpart to the Central branch.
  • Yuto and Sora's duel remained unfinished in canon. Here Yuto is able to defeat Sora before the latter forcibly gets teleported to Academia.
  • Yuzu and Yuri's duel happened off-screen in canon, but here their duel is fully shown.
  • The Xyz arc in canon lasted for 13 episodes, here the author mentioned the arc will have about 20-30 chapters
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • Yuto is less stoic and more emotional than in the canon
  • Shark is very friendly and open compared to his ZEXAL counterpart.
  • Kaito is more friendly and nicer than his canon counterpart, but after Academia carded his family he became similar to his canon counterpart but he gradually managed to snap out of it, thanks to Shun.
  • Yuya is more realistic in the fic than in canon. In canon, he is very optimistic about bringing smiles to even his enemies during the war and he has faith that his entertainment Dueling will reach out to them. Here after getting absorbed by Yuto, he becomes more cynical and serious and when he sees the Obelisk Force and people in Synchro enjoying brutal events and suffering of others, he starts to find his entertainment Dueling useless and believes it's better to get tough rather than entertaining his opponents during the war.
• Allegiance Affirmation: Between the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot and the Morality Kitchen Sink, it's difficult to establish the allegiance of several characters at first.
  • Yugo is initially thought by basically everyone to be an Academia spy from the Synchro Dimension, mainly because he looks identical to the guy who kidnapped Ruri, and he fights against Yuto (Ruri's boyfriend) quite viciously. However, after Yuto realizes that he's from Synchro or Standard Dimension, he notes that Yugo isn't an enemy and he's also looking for his friend Rin and this prompts both of them to clear their misunderstanding and after Yuto offers him an alliance, Yugo choose to fight against Academia to save her but unable to team up with Yuto because the latter's allies are distrustful toward him.
  • O'Brien is initially thought by Yuto and Shun to be an Academia spy from Fusion Dimension, mainly because he's a student of the West Academia branch, but Yuto decides to trust him after the former convinces them that he's an ally and this prompts him to hide O'Brien's true identity to his friends. However, after his friends find out Austin's identity they decide to trust him, since they know not all people from Fusion are evil, except Shun who took time to warm up to him.
  • Ryo rebelled against Academia after they carded Sho and learned how evil they were. He was saved by Yushou and decided to work with him to stop the war. When he was teleported to Xyz he knew people would assume he was an Academia soldier since he still wore his Obelisk blue uniform so he decided to change his uniform into his Hell Kaiser outfit, but people of Xyz still thought he was an Academia spy because he uses the standard Academia Duel Disk and he has to prove to the Resistance that he has defected from Academia and genuinely wants to help them stop the war.
• Alternate Self: A big plot point is that Yuto and Ruri have 3 alternative selves. four when the four dimensions were created.
• Alternate Universe: This is the explanation for the alternate dimensions, which were split into four from the original dimension due to Zarc and Ray. The Fusion Dimension's Academia is based on GX's Duel Academy with Obelisk Force as their elite warriors, the Synchro Dimension has the D-Wheel and a classist City similar to 5Ds, and the Xyz Dimension has Heartland City as in Zexal. It is implied that the Standard Dimension was originally the Duel Monsters dimension, without any special Extra Deck summoning methods, but later research led to their creation.
• And I Must Scream: Anyone who is turned into cards is still alive but they will be screaming in pain.
• Anyone Can Die: Or be turned into a card at any rate, like in canon anyone can become a card.
  • Not even legacy characters are safe. Poor Sho who gets Killed Off for Real after the Doctor tears his card...
• Ascended Extra:
  • Yuto, Shun, and Ruri are the main characters and they get more focus compared to their canon counterparts.
  • Allen and Sayaka are part of the main supporting cast.
  • Ryo Marufuji's name appeared on Academia's whiteboard, here he appears psychically and gets more screen time.
• Badass Biker: Many Duelists in Synchro Dimension are D-Wheelers. The most notable ones are Yugo, Rin, Crow, Jack, and Aki. Yuzu, Ruri, Yuto, and a majority of the Lancers also became Turbo Duelists during the Friendship Cup arc.
• Break the Cutie: Yuto, Shun, Ruri, Kaito, Shark, Rio, Allen, and Sayaka were normal people who simply wanted to enjoy Dueling and this trope took a toll on them when they witnessed Academia destroying their home and sealing innocents into cards.
• Big Good: Every Dimension has one.
  • In Xyz Dr. Faker can be counted as one since he is the Team Dad and The Leader of Resistance who wanted to stop Academia.
  • In Fusion it's Professor Cobra. He's a foil to Leo in many aspects and is utterly disgusted with his plans and aims to stop him.
  • Reiji is the first one shown and arguably fits the role closest despite his morally ambiguous ways at the start of the show. Reiji is the founder and leader of the Lancers, one of the main heroic organizations of the series as he leads the charge against Big Bad, Leo Akaba.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • For Black, Roget wants power and will use any means necessary to get it.
  • The shade for the Xyz and Fusion arcs. While the You Show Characters, Yuto, Ruri, Kamishiro Siblings, Ryo, Asuka, and Austin are purely white, the Lancers as a whole are much more morally ambiguous with Reiji allowing teenagers to fall for his plans and Kurosaki believing in Pay Evil unto Evil. The Academia so far are sadists that openly enjoyed destroying the Xyz Dimension.
• Breather Episode: The first few chapters are lighthearted and focus on Yuto and his gang's peaceful days before Academia invaded their home.
• The Cameo:
  • Sho appears in # 5, where he was caught by the soldiers for trying to rebel and escape Academia, as a result, he ends up getting carded by Leo.
  • Fubuki is indirectly mentioned by Asuka in #54 and has yet to appear on-screen.
    • Some minor characters from GX also appear as the Monster of the Week
  • Ryusei Gin, a one-shot character from GX who duels against Jaden in #71, appears in #58 as an Academia soldier who duels against Rio.
  • Kagurazaka, who is known as Dimitri in the dub, appeared in #59 as Sayaka's opponent. In GX he's a Yugi fanboy who stole a replica of his deck, here he is Ryo Marufuji's fanboy who uses his alias Kaiser, and a replica of his Cyber Dragons deck.
  • Murkuro Enjo appears in #63-65. His duel with Shun was cut short and he dueled against Yuto in #64.
• Camp Follower: The Resistance base is shown to double as a refugee camp, confirming that a lot of the people living there are just refugees living alongside the rebels.
• Captain Obvious: Any time a duelist's monster isn't destroyed in battle because of a card effect, their opponent will often respond with some variation of "But you still take damage!".
• Cardboard Box Home: Realistically, the resistance camp is shown to be made up of a hundred or so tents stationed together.
• Cast Herd: Link in the canon, the cast is usually divided into their Duel School or factions.
• Clarke's Third Law: Technology is so advanced at this point that Action Duels are more or less Shadow Duels. Serious injuries during a duel are very possible, though there seems to be some limit to the lethality, considering that Sora survived a bombing run and building collapse.
• The Conspiracy:
  • LDS has restricted advanced Extra Deck Summoning techniques and cards (Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz) to only their top students and not the general public. They also control almost all Duel Schools around the world as a means to achieve some kind of goal. Their goal is later revealed to be stopping Leo Abaka and defending their dimension.
  • Reiji is using the MCS to weed out powerful duelists to "serve as Lancers to protect the world", whatever that means. Turns out he's recruiting the finalists to fight in the war against Academia.
• Darker and Edgier: Even more so than the canon. Since Yuto is the main protagonist, the story mostly focuses on his point of view, and the theme of the story is more somber and depressing and focuses on war and violence.
• Darkest Hour:
  • The mini-invasion arc is this for Yuto and the citizens of Heartland. Everyone was filled with despair, anger, fear and sadness. They had to see their home getting destroyed and loved ones turned into cards.
  • The Battle Royal sub-arc has characters carded, all of them teenagers on the good guys' side. While we do have assholes mixed in, the vast majority were people that just wanted to defend their homes. Yuri making an appearance, Yuya suffering from a lot of Break the Cutie moments and Yuzu being chased around by Yuri for a night and being teleported away. Finally culminating in Yuya having his biggest break the cutie moment when he finds out Yuzu is missing or maybe even carded.]]
• Duels Decide Everything: Many characters do resort to dueling to settle things, as advanced Solid Vision allows monsters to harm other people. Various other characters, such as Obelisk Force and Security, simply skip the dueling and use monsters and Spells/Traps as weapons, and yet others, namely Kurosaki, simply skip that and flat-out physically involve others to disable them.
• Evil Plan: The ARC Area Project is actually a Zigzagged Trope. While the actions to do the plan are horrific, the intentions are quite reasonable for Leo at least.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Many members of the Resistance despise Fusion Summoning because it is used by their enemy the Central Academia, but gradually some members let go of their hatred towards Fusion users, and only focus on their hatred towards Central Academia.
  • The Academia despise Xyz users from the said Dimension and even referring to them as Xyz scum
• Gilded Cage: Academia is this for Serena and Ryo, though they managed to escape.
• Good Counterpart: The West Academia is this to their Central counterpart. Their Professor is a Big Good and the school is composed of heroic soldiers who fight for the greater good.
• Hall of Mirrors: While dueling Masumi in the "Crystal Corridor", Yuzu bumps into an Action Card's reflection while trying to get to it and loses because she can't get to the real one in time.
• Hard Light: The Leo Corporation has invented Solid Vision with mass, "Real Solid Vision", allowing anyone to interact with the Duel Monster holograms. This is part of what makes Action Duels so popular. Apparently, they can also control just how hard the light is because they state that the Junior Championship has the most spongy Solid Vision since the duelists are all young kids.
• Humans Are Bastards: A recurring theme in the show. Unlike in canon series where humanity is corrupted or tricked by evil forces of magic, in ARC-V, the conflict is entirely human in origin. Even the Dragon Boys' Awaken side was the result of the original dimension enjoying violence and bloodshed.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: The Fusion Faction hunted Heartland's Xyz users for fun and profit. Made worse with the reveal that the war was started in order to kidnap a single girl.
• Jerkass Has a Point: During Reiji's duel against Yuto and Yuya, when he gives them a hint that Yuzu is safe he makes them realize that they're being selfish and only showing their concern towards her and it doesn't matter to them if the other participants of Miami Championship are carded. He also advised Yuto that if he avoids Fusion it's going to cost him during the battle.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Leo and Central Academia invaded Heartland, burned the city into ashes, and took the lives of many innocents.
  • Sanders tormented BB during their tag duel with Ruri and Rin. He also mentally and physically tormented both the girls while they were prisoners at Academia.
• Like Father, Like Son: Yuya looks up to his father, using an Entermate archetype and a similar playstyle to his father to entertain the audience. Reiji, on the other hand, after finding out his father had abandoned his family and is planning to fuse the dimensions, has shown dislike towards his father and wishes to foil his plans. Gradually deconstructed as the series progresses with the tropes switching between the characters. There are times when Yuya struggles to use Entertainment Dueling and resorts to violence in order to win, only to later regret his actions. Even when he doesn't, his cheerfulness can come off as forced, if not ambiguous, much different from Yusho's dueling, which seemed more sincere. Meanwhile, while Reiji and Leo have very different goals, both use questionable methods, believing the ends justify the means.
• Living MacGuffin: Ruri and all of her alternate dimension counterparts are targeted by Leo Akaba in order to bring back his daughter Ray.
• Legacy Character: Just like in canon, characters from GX, 5DS, and ZEXAL show up as alternate versions of their original counterpart. Some have prominent roles where they help the main cast contribute to the plot, others act as side characters, and some make cameos.
  • In GX we have Austin O'Brien, Ryo Marufuji, Asuka Tenjouin, Edo Pheonix, Yusuke Fujiwara who appear as Darkness, and Professor Cobra. Sho made a cameo in #5 and his sole purpose of existing is to serve as a motivational fuel to Ryo and his fight against Academia.
  • In 5Ds we have Jack Atlas, Crow Hogan, Aki Izayoi, and her parents Hideko and Setsuko.
  • In ZEXAL we have Kaito Tenjo, The Kamishiro siblings Shark and Rio, Haruto, and Dr. Faker.
• The Magic Poker Equation:
  • A series staple; many characters have a very convenient opening hand. Consider, for instance, the number of times Kurosaki opens with three copies of Vanishing Lanius or the number of situations that make Smile World (a recurring card that looks mediocre on paper) work.
  • Surprisingly enough, there is actually some aversion to this trope when looking at the deck types used in the series. Hokuto and Yaiba, who use the Constellar and X-Saber archetypes respectively, make pretty standard plays with respect to how the real Yu-Gi-Oh! card game is played. With those Archetypes, getting out one or two monsters with 2500+ ATK on the first turn is pretty normal, especially when it's shown that characters carry multiple copies of cards.
• Male Sun, Female Moon: Apollo and Diana are two Fusion Dimension duelists who respectively guard the towers holding Ruri and Rin. Apollo's deck and attire are based on the sun, while Diana's are based on the moon. Despite their Smug Snake attitudes, both of them are effortlessly curb-stomped by Ryo and Asuka in one turn.
• Master of None: Standard was this compared to the other dimensions before Yuya invented Pendulum summoning. While they had access to the various extra deck summoning methods, they weren't as skilled as the duelists who came from the other dimensions. Makes sense when you learn they didn't originally have these methods.
• Morality Kitchen Sink:
  • Eventually divulges into this when the interdimensional war was revealed. Sorting by factions and individual characters, we have: White (Yuto and the You Show Duel School both Standard and Fusion, Yuya, Yuzu, Gongenzaka, Asuka, and Ryo) vs. Lighter Grey (O'Brien and Shark plus Serena) vs. Darker Gray (the Big Good LDS and Kurosaki and Yuto's Superpowered Evil Side for kicking only assholes) vs. Black (Academia). Sora seems to go from Dark Gray to Black with a few Pet the Dog moments. The Synchro Dimension, while not directly involved in the interdimensional war, seems to be locked in a Black-and-Gray Morality conflict (see the entry above).
  • Special note of the Lancers, who despite being the good guys are made up of differing kinds of moralities. Yuya and Gongenzaka are obviously White, being the kindest characters on the team who are deeply opposed to the war. Sawatari and Serena are Light Grey, Sawatari seems more focused on the pride of being on the Lancers than the actual war while Serena has her heart in the right place, she's done some horrible things when still loyal to the Academia. Reiji and Kurosaki are Dark Grey, while still having good intentions, have done some horrible actions and aren't stopping anytime soon. Dennis is Black, being an Academia spy. Reira and Tsukikage are unaffiliated, simply following Reiji's orders for differing reasons.
  • There's also some work put into showing how characters who do evil things think and why they do what they do.
    • Serena shows the mentality that leads people to become Black, since she wanted to be a soldier until she stopped to consider that her victims might be innocent.
    • In fact, all the characters from Central Academia see themselves as Proud Warrior Race Guys with Undying Loyalty to their leader, even the nastier characters like Yuri. The only ones who don't feel Trapped in Villainy, which drives them into despair and Then Let Me Be Evil.
    • Edo falls into the latter category, while he has Undying Loyalty towards Professor but he also has humanizing traits such as feeling disgusted when he learns that Leo is willing to card their families if they defy him.
    • Yuri is eventually shown to be twisted because he was raised as a monster by a man who, due to preconceived notions, saw him as a "demon" and rewarded him for doing evil, which was the only time someone paid personal attention to him.
    • Kurosaki is a genocide survivor and a Shell-Shocked Veteran trying to rescue his friends and family.
    • Reiji's invasion of privacy and ruthlessness has saved the lives of the three LDS students and enabled him to ensure that his dimension isn't caught by surprise and destroyed the same way the Xyz Dimension was.
    • Most of the Tops actually believe the lie that they are equals and friends with the Commons when they're actually the oppressive ruling class in a Crapsack World.
    • Roget is just a greedy bastard, although he tries to justify his actions to himself by claiming Might Makes Right.
    • Kaito found himself in the same boat as Kurosaki, after his family was killed, whereas Kurosaki still had his sister, and Kaito thus pushed everyone away to avoid being hurt—causing him to become He Who Fights Monsters even more than Kurosaki.
    • Leo Akaba doesn't think that anything in the four dimensions really "counts" and his driving motivation is to get his daughter back, but he goes far beyond Well-Intentioned Extremist, fucks up royally in the process, and refuses to listen to any perspective but his own.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: The majority of the cast are scrawny teens yet they regularly show superhuman agility when running for Action Cards.
• Myth Arc: The series so far is focused on the Interdimensional war that Leo Akaba started and the main cast attempts to stop it or help it. Along with the secret of the Dragon Boys and Bracelet Girls and how they fit in Leo's plans
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the #71 flashback when Rin was looking for Yugo, she angrily tells herself that she will cobble up some new boots in order to kick his ass is a call back to Akiza in the 5D'S English dub where she angrily told similar dialogue to Crow for not telling her about Yusei's culprit earlier.
    Rin: Ugh! When I find him I'm gonna cobble up some new boots, and use them to kick his butt.
  • Yusuke Fujiwara/Darkness duel against Yuto is a call back to his duel against Fubuki in the finale arc of GX.
• Nebulous Evil Organization: What Leo Corporation and Academia are implied to be. Subverted for Leo Corporation but played straight for the Academia.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The Resistance doesn't see Dueling as fun but as a war due to the turmoil most of them experienced.
• No Ontological Inertia: The Doktor's parasites are seen crawling inside the host's ear to their brain to brainwash them.
• Named by the Adaptation
  • The unnamed family that appeared in episodes 100 and 144 of Arc-V is Yuto's family in this fic and their two sons are also his brothers, while in the canon they aren't related to him. The mother is Lane and the father is Ryon.
  • Yuto has Only One Name in canon, but here his surname is Ohnaka
• Not Just a Tournament: The Miami Championship started as a normal tournament albeit with Reiji using the tournament as a testing ground for possible new Lancers. Then it just falls off the rails as the Academia invades forcing Reiji to use a Battle Royal to hide their invasion and keep non-duelists safe.
• Once More, with Clarity: Yuto and Yugo's conflict was not only a misunderstanding but quite possibly planned out by Yuri.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are two You Show Duel Schools, but they're in other dimensions: one in Standard and one in the Fusion Dimension.
• Outside-Context Problem: Academia to everyone. First, they caught the Xyz Dimension completely off-guard and used the element of surprise to decimate them. Then Reiji specifically avoided this trope by calling the Standard dimension's attention to Academia directly after their first minor attack, convincing them to militarize so they wouldn't be caught off guard the same way. Finally, nobody in the Synchro dimension except the Council and Roget believes Academia exists, leading to characters who have already been told about the inter-dimensional war making false assumptions about the protagonists based on what they know to be true in their own dimension.
• Parasites Are Evil: The Doctor brainwashes his victims by inserting parasitic insects in their ears. The infectees become uncharacteristically sadistic, rejoicing when watching others suffer and even taunting their friends when they try to set them free.
• Personality Powers: Most character's decks reflect who they are in some way, Yuya's Performpals, are goofy and support each other, Kurosaki's Raid Raptors are better at fighting things stronger than them, and Sora's Fluffal deck is a cute and non-threatening deck that hides a much darker side.
• Point of Divergence: A lot of elements of the first season and synchro arc started changing due to Yuto being the main protagonist.
  • The misunderstanding between Yuto and Yugo which was caused by Yuri was solved by both of them, while in canon their conflict remains unresolved.
  • Yuto ends up learning about Yuya's existence before the latter does, and that happened much earlier.
  • O'Brien and Shark Infiltrate You Show Duel School as students in order to find out more about Yuzu who resembles Ruri, and O'Brien ends up dueling against Hokuto instead of Yuya.
  • Sora and Masumi ended up dueling against Yuto at a warehouse, since Yuya arrived a bit late.
  • Reiji and Shun ended up dueling against each other since the latter didn't end up agreeing with his deal immediately.
  • Before getting kidnapped by Yuri, Rin challenges him to a duel while in canon she simply ran away in fear.
  • Yuto takes part in the Miami Championship and never got absorbed by Yuya. But it was Yuya who got absorbed by him and Yuto was forced to take part and disguise as Yuya during the tournament.
  • Yuto along with Shark and O'Brien are forced to join the Lancers and they even went to Synchro Dimension and Yuto took part in Friendship Cup.
  • Yuto and Ruri got along with the Lancers and got arrested by Roget, and Ruri was the one who dueled against Tokumatsu and taught him how to smile instead of Yuya.
  • Ruri and Aki ended up taking part in the Friendship Cup.
  • Crow got eliminated in the first round of Friendship Cup after being defeated by Ruri.
  • Tsukikage doesn't participate in the Friendship Cup, instead, he remains with Reiji, Reira, Shark, and O'Brien with the Executive Council and the one who dueled against Shinji in his place is Aki.
  • Asuka and Ryo rescued Ruri and Rin from Academia by OTK Diana and Apollo instead of Kaito and Yugo.
  • Gongenzaka and Tokumatsu got brutally thrashed by Sergey instead of Yuzu.
  • Serena duels Yuzu during the 1st round of the Friendship Cup and gets eliminated.
• Poor Communication Kills: A justified example and the reason for Yuto and Yugo's rivalry. They both thought the other was Yuri who kidnapped Ruri and Rin, people very important to them. But unlike in the canon, both of them managed to sort out and clear their misunderstanding.
• Pretext for War: Of the "these guys are evil, so we need an excuse to attack them" variety. While it's true that Academia is an evil, dimension-invading genocidal child-soldier employing military force, Leo Akaba has never actually tried to take over Standard. He sent a small squadron there with the intent of capturing two girls, but he didn't give a crap what happened to any other people in Standard. Reiji and Himika take the footage of this squad butting heads with the MCS participants to make it look like Academia has already tried invading and that their world is in immediate danger in order to whip the world into a frenzy.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Kurosaki has called LDS to be arrogant and lacking determination in their duels.
  • Ryo gives one to the Juveline Officers for using a boring by-the-book predictable strategy.
• Rousseau Was Right: Despite it falling to its Humans Are Bastards trope unlike the previous series, this series does portray characters as either people not wanting to cause harm, didn't ask for bad things to happen, or have a detailed reason as to why they do what they do.
• Rule of Three: The three Extra Deck summoning methods (Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz) are portrayed this way, each with its own corresponding dimension and population of practitioners. The purpose of the Standard Dimension and Pendulum Summoning is to act as a bridge between the three.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe; interestingly, besides the heroes in the You Show school, everyone is like this calling dueling a battle. This becomes a plot point when the Resistance and Academia takes central stage and dueling is being used as a tool for warfare.
• Took Alevel In Badass:
  • After Yuya gets absorbed inside his body, Yuto is able to master all the summoning methods Pendulum, Fusion, and Synchro.
  • Yuzu is able to master almost all Summoning Methods. Such as Pendulum, and during her stay in Synchro she was able to learn how to Synchro Summon from Yugo, and when she moved to Fusion Asuka taught her how to Ritual Summon.
  • Serena is able to master Pendulum Summoning from Reiji and she demonstrates it during her duel with Yuzu.
  • Yusuke Fujiwara managed to master all the summoning methods.
  • Aki used Fusion during her duel against Yuto in #79, which was given to her by Roget after she was forced to make a deal with him.
• True Companions: The Resistance will do whatever it takes to protect each other.
• Two Guys and a Girl: It's all over the place here: The main characters^note Yuto, Shun, and Ruri, the You Show kids trio^note Tatsuya, Ayu, and Futoshi, the main LDS trio^note Hokuto, Masumi, and Yaiba, the LDS transfer trio ^note Halil, Olga and Dennis, and the most significant members of Academia^note Yuri, Serena, and Sora and the middle school You Show students^note Yuya, Yuzu and Gongenzaka.
• War Is Hell: The series does not pull its punches when showing the realities of war. With the Akaba's using realistic propaganda to draft soldiers, child soldiers being sociopaths because they were misled by adults or because they were forced to kill to survive and realistically showing that anyone can die in a war, even the civilians. Not to mention characters who have been on the frontline having varying shades of PTSD, and the MCS championships, since there were only a handful of soldiers and civilians present. The actual battlefield has helpless refugees being hunted down and infants being carded. Not to mention we learn that deserters of Academia are killed on sight, and anyone caught draft-dodging is considered disposable.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Shark sees Yuya as a worthy opponent and even admits he enjoyed facing his entertainment duel.
  • Jack sees Reiji and Yuto as worthy opponents, and they return his respect for them.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Himeka would brainwash one, and Security doesn't care about hurting Reira.
  • Kurosaki certainly doesn't seem to mind hurting Sora. Zigzagged with him, as Kurosaki later shows he would only hurt a Child Soldier.
  • Academia takes the cake, with soldiers carding an infant on-screen.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Chapter 64 ends with a heart wrenching one, with Yūto finally seeing Ruri again and trying to run to her, only to be caught in Security’s net. The last thing he sees before passing out is Ruri being loaded into a van to be taken away again.

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