Time passes ever so slowly, but at the same time quickly.

Yuri and Astral faced off against a cat fanatic named Cathy who just wanted to be Yuri's friend and the latter accepted after their duel.

Right now, we find ourselves within the mysterious realm of Yuri's key pendant, as Astral discovers another golden gear part that held a green-glowing dormant numeral representing one of the few XYZ Number Monsters in his possession, this time being 83 for Galaxy Queen...

Holding out his palm, he brandishes a smaller version of the symbol and activates that section to begin moving.

"This gear seems to move every time I gather another one of the missing Number Cards...But why? Could it have something to do with my memory loss? Could solving this puzzle, also solve the mystery behind my amnesia?...And what does Athena have to do with it all? Why is this apparatus inside her key? And despite Yuri already found so many Number cards, a majority of them won't offer my memories. Are they waiting for me to find more Number cards? Or are they waiting for something else?"

...Meanwhile, back out in the real world of Heartland City, we catch up with the red-eyed girl. Currently, she was waiting at the crosswalk as she headed for school.

"Glad they made a shortcut to school here."

She looks up just as the crosswalk light shifts to green, and grins slightly before saying to herself,

"Alright, off we go."

...But just as Yuri starts to walk across the striped part of the road:

(Vrrrooooom)

A motor engine sounds from her left side, and she turns with wide eyes at the sight of an incoming duel runner!

"Ah!"

She tumbles into a somersault out of the way to the other side in the nick of time, while the rider swerves into a screeching halt in the middle of the road past the crosswalk...

Yuri scrambled back up on her feet with a growl before calling out the motorist on their reckless driving.

"The hell's wrong with you?! I had right of wa-Huh?"

She stops herself dead when her red irises lock with a very familiar cobalt blue...

"Shark..."

...Haven't seem him since our duel. Where's he been?

The boy with blue-violet hair didn't utter a word, instead kicking the engine of his cycle to life again and speeding off, leaving the girl to watch his form disappear.

"...Hm, come to think of it, I haven't caught his form in the school halls since our duel...Is he skipping?"
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Soon, she would arrive at the Heartland Dueling Academy, and enter the classroom for the first lecture of the day.

"Hey, what's up, people?"

"Alot, actually." Caswell said.

"Huh?"

She raises a brow at the addressing Caswell, who steps up to her form and reaches to dislodge her duel monster deck from its holder to look at.

"Oi!"

He ignores her protest and peers over the cards with Tori and Bronk looking over his shoulders.

"Hm...May I ask why those Number Cards aren't in your deck right now?"

"That's cause Astral's not around out here at the moment."

Tori smiles a bit in thought:

"That's right. The cards are a part of Astral's existence and memory."

"Hmph, well regardless, in the end, there's a good reason to why you wouldn't want them in the open."

Yuri folds her arms and gives Caswell a challenging look:

"Oh really?"

"It's 'cause they're your secret weapon, what lets you win every time." Caswell said as a matter of fact.

...The girl with blackish hair bursts into laughter causing Caswell to ask a bit indignantly,

"What's so funny?"

"That you actually believe in the quality of the cards over the quality of a duelist."

"Huh?"

Yuri straightens back up with a wise/mocking smirk before stating,

"I admit my deck has gotten stronger when I got these Number Cards, but it's having faith in my skills and my monsters that makes me a good duelist. And that knowledge grows each time I face a new opponent."

"Even when you lose?"

"Especially when I lose...I can understand what you mean, Cas, but my dad said that dueling is not only about logic. You can't move forward without facing a failure every now and then. Failure is the mother of success after all."

Caswell then hands Yuri back her deck and says to her,

"Alright, so maybe there's some merit to failing in order to succeed, but I think you and I both know there's only one real way of settling this dispute..."

"Hmph, (nod) a duel...Alright, game set: I'll even let you choose my opponent. To make it interesting, I'll defeat them without using any of the Numbers. You know like i did with you?"

That declaration caused the other girl and boy of the small group to mutter in concern and exasperation,

"Yuri..."

"Oh geez..."

Meanwhile, the boy with light green eyes says to the girl he's challenging,

"Really? Even if the individual I want you to take on is your old foe, Shark?"

Hearing the name of said duelist sparked a minuscule frown onto Yuri's lips, recalling the expression that was on the boy's face earlier this morning...Brushing it off, she forms a neutral face and replies casually,

"Fine, whatever. We'll go combing for him during break."

"Hang on a sec, bud." Bronk piped in.

"Hm?"

She turns to meet Bronk's black eyes as he suddenly warns,

"I dunno if lookin' for Shark's a good idea."

"Why's that?" Yuri asked.

"Ever since your duel, he really shifted gears. No one's seen him in class anymore. And from what I've heard, he's been hangin' 'round some roughneck creeps. If you decide to go challenging him, you could be in for the toughest duel of your life."
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Bronk was right about what Yuri found.

Shark had hanged around two thugs named Scorch and Chills, and they had Numbers.

They were going to raid a museum of cards and make Shark take the blame.

But Yuri was able to have Shark come to his senses. And convinced him to defeat Scorch and Chills with her.

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Into the Duel, Yuri kept her life points and Shark's safe, and she even set up a Field Spell to support their water monsters as Scorch and Chills were already down to 2500 life points. Clear Sea Palace (fanmade) to boost the attack of water, fish, and aqua monsters by 500 while weakening fire and pyro types by the same amount, and she set up things to summon a certain XYZ monster with her Mermail monsters.

"Now, I Overlay level 4 Mermail Abysslung and Abyssturge. With the Overlay Network in effect, I summon Number 37: Hope Woven Dragon Spider Shark!" Yuri said as the new monster appeared to fight alongside Black Ray Lancer.

And when Freezadon was gonna activate its special ability, Yuri activated a counterattack.

"I play the face down, Xyz Aqualusion Punishment (fanmade)! Here's how it works, if an Xyz monster you control would use its effect and is facing an Aqua monster, not only do I get to negate the activation, the monster in question gets destroyed, and you take damage to its original attack points!"

"What?!" Chills yelled. And like that his life points went down to 600 only to be wiped out by Spider Shark's attack.

"And to wrap this up, I'll activate Spider Shark's special ability. By removing an overlay unit, Volcanarasuarus loses a thousand attack points until the end of this turn."

"And I'll use Black Ray Lancer's effect to negate that dinosaur's abilities!" Shark added as Lancer's ability striked.

And with an attack from Spider Shark and Black Ray Lancer, Shark and Yuri won the duel.

he AR World dissolves away to give headway for reality once again, Tori and Bronk cheer for their victorious friends.

"Woo-hoo, they did it; they won!"

"Alright, Yuri and Shark!"

Meanwhile, Astral's focus was on extracting the two Numbers from the duo formerly known as Scorch and Chills.

'Observation Number Twelve: Not every duelist in this world duels with honour. Some are willing to compromise their spirits, as long as it means winning.'

Although they were a little difficult, Yuri tamed them by humming that Celtic song, and they behaved like lapdogs.

...But as soon as Numbers 61 and 19 touched Astral's fingertips, the celestial being was struck with a rather disturbing image.

"Uh!"

(Pulse...)

The image shown to him, was of his home galaxy being struck with inferno red, comet-like blows from an outward source, followed by the distant sound of muffled screams from a large mass...

Astral's face was frozen with shock, which Yuri noticed, but then she heard the two gang leaders awaking with their own heads muddled over recent events.

"Wha...What happened to us, Chills?"

"I dunno. I don't remember nothin'..."

They look up, only to cringe when they meet the glaring eyes of the young teens they just dueled (not that they necessarily recall)...

"Look, it's Shark!"

As they turned to sprint out of the area, Bronk and Tori with smirks on their faces,

"Serve ya right, cowards!"

"Don't you mess with us again!"

"I'm outta here."

"Hm?"

Yuri turns to see Shark begin to casually walk away, but stops when she calls him to a halt.

"Hang on a sec! (Pulls out a card) Your Armoured XYZ. Don't you want it back for your deck?"

Without turning around, Shark replies,

"Nah...keep it."

"Uh, you sure?"

"Yeah. (Glances over his shoulder) You can use all the help you can get."

Feeling slightly insulted, Yuri pouts and replies,

"Hey! If I recall, I was the one who helped you!"

Shark just smirks a little and softly calls a,

"Later," before continuing his way, leaving Yuri to smile a bit and call back,

"...See you around, Shark."
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Once they were back home, Yuri made it in time for dinner and quickly  got ready for bed afterwards.

But she noticed Astral had been quiet since retrieving 61 and 19.

"Astral? You've been silent since the duel ended. Did they show you a bad memory or something?" She asked.

"It's nothing for you to worry." Astral said looking away.

"Astral." Yuri said in a serious tone. "You've already done a lot for me. Giving me more confidence in the duels we've had recently. I previously thought that I couldn't because of my protective sister after mom and dad vanished. But you showed me that they would not want me to squander like that. I would at least like to make up for it by helping with your troubles. Keeping it silent for too long can damage you internally."

"......Alright."

Astral then told her of the memory, and Yuri thought about it.

"Well, maybe it could be part of the reason you're here. Maybe someone behind the attack is on Earth and you were sent to stop whatever their plan is. And maybe the Numbers are part of the key to stop them too. It sounds like a logical answer. All the more reason to keep looking for Numbers."

Astral thought about it, and agreed. "If we gather all of them, we shall see."
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