Finesse was standing outside the door.
Standing on the inside of that door, watching her through the security feed, Amano Rei's thought process simply stopped.
Why.
Why was Finesse here.
Rin Seiya: "I don't know her, but she's gorgeous."
That much was undeniable. Finesse's looks were in a category beyond criticism, and even Rin Seiya, herself a strikingly beautiful white-haired girl by any standard, recognized it imdiately on sight.
But this was not the mont to admire anyone through a security cara.
Amano: "I know her."
Rin Seiya: "If you know her, why is she knocking on my door?"
That was exactly what Amano couldn't figure out. Rin Seiya didn't know Finesse at all. Nanki'in Sakuya showing up would have at least been sowhat explainable. But Finesse tracking down Rin Seiya's address made no imdiate sense.
And of all possible monts, it had to be this one.
His soul was trapped in Rin Seiya's body for another hour. He could not open the door.
Amano: "I don't know why she ca here either. But I can't open the door right now."
Rin Seiya: "This situation really isn't great."
Even without knowing Finesse personally, Rin Seiya grasped the problem. Amano's body was lying unconscious on the living room sofa. Anyone walking in would find that imdiately, and there was no version of that scenario that looked acceptable.
But Finesse outside showed absolutely no signs of leaving. If the door stayed closed, she was going to keep ringing until sothing gave.
After ten minutes of continuous ringing, the neighbor's door opened. Soone peering out into the corridor.
If this continued, the building's security staff would be drawn over. After that, the property managent office would get involved, and they might contact Rin Seiya's parents directly. And her parents, worried their daughter had collapsed alone inside and wasn't responding, would rush ho.
Which would produce an imasurably worse situation than the current one.
Rin Seiya: "Just open it. Getting my parents involved is worse."
The hoowner had spoken.
Finesse was a stranger to Rin Seiya. She genuinely could not feel the full weight of Amano's anxiety here.
Rin Seiya: "Amano, why did you step back, aren't you opening it?"
Amano: "I am, give a mont."
After Finesse maintained the bell for another five minutes, pushing things to what felt like the absolute limit of what the neighbors and building security could endure, Amano directed Rin Seiya's body forward and opened the door.
When she saw Rin Seiya standing there in ho clothes and pajamas, slightly disheveled, Finesse's silver-grey eyes registered a brief, barely-perceptible flicker of surprise.
The rumpled casual look concealed nothing. Rin Seiya was spectacularly beautiful regardless of the state of her hair or the nature of her outfit.
"Is this Rin Seiya's residence?"
"Mm, mm, yes it is."
Amano was doing his careful best to replicate what he rembered of Rin Seiya's speaking cadence. More precisely, he was working very hard to avoid falling into his own.
All he could do was hope Finesse did not have Kikawayu's terrifying animal-level instincts.
"I'm Rin Seiya. And you are...?"
Amano asked it with the tone of soone who already knew the answer, which was exactly what he was.
"I'm a friend of Amano Rei's."
"Ah... hello."
Rin Seiya: "You look completely guilty, you know that? Natural expressions, Amano."
There was nothing he could do about that. He was guilty.
Finesse continued, "It's a bit awkward to talk in the doorway. May I co in, Rin Seiya-senpai?"
She reached into her bag and produced a student ID to confirm her identity, indicating she was not so dangerous stranger.
"Coming in might not be the best idea right now... ahem, cough, I'm sick, it's not really convenient..."
"I don't mind catching it."
"Even so, it's not..."
"May I," Finesse said, enunciating each word individually, "co in?"
"You... you can..."
Rin Seiya: "Amano, why did you say yes? I told you to brush her off at the door."
He couldn't help it. The guilt of everything he was currently doing had undermined his ability to hold ground against Finesse's composure. He had caved.
And beyond that, he knew how Finesse operated. If he didn't let her in, she was fully capable of continuing to ring that bell from the other side.
At least the few minutes he had bought himself while stalling at the door hadn't gone to waste. He had made his own body presentable.
Finesse stepped into the living room, her eyes moving through the space in a careful, unhurried survey, clearly searching for sothing specific. When she didn't find it, she drew her attention back without comnt.
"Rin Seiya-senpai, I'll be direct. Is Amano Rei here?"
"Cough, cough... what are you talking about? I'm ho sick, resting by myself."
"Is that so? You're alone?" Finesse's gaze settled on the shopping bag sitting open on the coffee table.
Amano felt a wave of profound relief that he had overruled Rin Seiya's earlier suggestion to buy certain items on that shopping trip. If that bag had contained what Rin Seiya had jokingly proposed, no explanation in the world would have salvaged the situation.
Finesse smiled gently. "Being sick and ho alone must be hard. As a fellow student, let keep you company for a bit."
"That really isn't necessary, Finesse-san. I can manage on my own. I actually just fell asleep before your ringing woke up."
"Then I really must apologize for that. Don't let appearances fool you, I'm actually quite good at taking care of people."
Sothing briefly playful passed through Finesse's expression as she checked the ti on her wrist terminal.
"I won't bother you long. About an hour from now, if everything looks fine, I'll leave."
The timing was too precise. Amano felt a cold chill at Finesse's smile.
Letting her stay here for an hour ant the mont his soul separated from Rin Seiya's body, the brief disorientation would happen right in front of her. That was not sothing he could conceal from soone with Finesse's observational ability.
Rin Seiya: "Amano. Why does she know about the one-hour mark?"
He had forgotten. He had ntioned the Hacker Invasion skill to Rin Seiya but hadn't ntioned who else he had used it on.
Finesse's arrival had now put him in trouble on two fronts simultaneously.
Amano: "Senpai, let get through this first and I'll explain after."
Finesse pulled out a chair from the dining table and sat down.
"You must be bored being ho alone. Want to talk for a bit?"
"No, no thank you. I was actually planning to go back to sleep."
The principle here was simple: more words, more exposure. Amano directed Rin Seiya's body to the sofa and lay down.
Finesse offered thoughtfully, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable sleeping in your room? The sofa doesn't seem like it would be great for your back."
"The sofa is fine."
"Unless there's soone in the bedroom?"
"Cough, cough, my cold seems to be getting worse..."
"That is unfortunate."
Finesse settled herself on the sofa beside him with the ease of soone entirely at ho, and with slender, pale fingers she gently swept Rin Seiya's fringe aside from her forehead.
"Your temperature isn't too high. Should co down within about an hour, I'd think."
"I'm going to sleep now!"
Pretending to fall asleep was the most defensible position available. If he appeared to be asleep when the soul separation happened and the brief dizziness hit, it would be far less conspicuous.
But the mont he closed his eyes, he felt both hands slide under his head and lift it carefully, setting it down on sothing cool and soft.
Rin Seiya: "Is this what I think it is. Is she doing a lap pillow right now."
Amano risked cracking one eye open, barely, and looked up through the gap.
Finesse was gently stroking Rin Seiya's forehead, her expression carrying a soft, warm smile that radiated sothing unmistakably maternal.
What was happening. Finesse-mom?
Though considering the situation from a certain angle, Amano thought, this dynamic was entirely unprecedented in his experience, and he wasn't sure what to do with any of it.
Finesse spoke again, quietly.
"You've been pushing yourself lately, haven't you. All these Dark Gas. This isn't your body, but I still hope you can relax your mind a little, Amano."
"Finesse? I think you have the wrong..."
"I don't. You just called Finesse. And then you called Finesse again. I never introduced myself by na. So you're Amano."
"That... that was because I saw your student ID before you ca in."
"I showed my brother Karl's student ID. You didn't look at it at all."
Finesse, you set up.
It had been a trap from the mont she walked in. Of course it had. Amano had given her na exactly as casually as soone who already knew it, because he did. The student ID had been a prop to establish a false explanation if needed, and he had never actually registered whose photo was on it. He had caught a vague impression of soone with red hair and assud it was her.
That person had been Karl.
She had not even used Latir's ID. She had used a man's photo and it had worked.
"Let explain, Finesse." Amano started to sit up. Finesse pressed him back down onto her lap without particular effort but with considerable strength.
"No need to explain. I understand, Amano. I always do."
"Finesse, I..."
"If you hadn't fought when you did, the mid-district would be paralyzed right now."
"That reflection in the sky, that was real? That actually happened?"
"So the person who just saved countless people in the mid-district is lying on my lap looking embarrassed. You should be prouder of yourself."
Being proud was difficult under the circumstances. His soul was trapped in a girl's body, and he was being pinned to another girl's lap, and the body's actual owner was listening to every word of this conversation.
"Amano. Where did you encounter the Puppeteer?"
"It wasn't quite the Puppeteer. Sothing adjacent to it but different."
He gave Finesse a condensed account of the Soulswindler's involvent.
"A Soulswindler operating from the network's deepest layer. That aligns with what the Wein family's investigation has turned up. The Puppeteer is backed by an organization with significant reach. The Soulswindler was almost certainly part of the sa network."
"But Finesse, how did you find your way here?"
"I reasoned it out from watching that Dark Ga. Both Rin Seiya's cards and your cards appeared on the sa field, but the match didn't look like a tag duel. Hacker Invasion was the only scenario that fit. So I had the Wein family's intelligence network pull Rin Seiya's information imdiately, which is how I found out she was ho sick on leave."
"Powerful families are frightening."
He had initially suspected Finesse might have placed a tracker on him at so point. But a family intelligence network that could produce a stranger's ho address and current status in under an hour was sohow more unsettling than a simple tracker.
"Nothing frightening about it. As long as I'm here, the Wein family will always be in your corner."
Finesse ran her fingers along Rin Seiya's cheek.
"You really are quite cute like this, Amano."
Looking down at Amano's soul occupying a beautiful girl's body, lying across her lap, Finesse found the warm maternal quality of her smile beginning to shift into sothing she couldn't quite categorize.
The combination of that face, the situation, and the mory of watching Amano fumble awkwardly through the impersonation attempt when she arrived, was producing a response in her she hadn't anticipated.
She wanted to tease him. Enormously. Having Amano like this, soft and flustered and completely unable to do anything about it, seed like it would be deeply satisfying.
"Finesse. This isn't my body. This isn't appropriate."
Amano felt his cheeks being lightly pinched and it was not comfortable.
anwhile Rin Seiya had beco very quiet.
Amano: "Senpai, are you okay?"
Rin Seiya: "Fine."
The one-word reply arrived in a noticeably cooler tone than anything she had said in the past hour.
Rin Seiya: "You and Finesse seem quite close."
Amano: "Finesse is soone I owe a great deal to. If she hadn't been generous when I was at the bottom, I never would have been able to move to the mid-district or enroll at Synchro Academy."
Rin Seiya: "I see. So it's that kind of debt. Just that kind of debt? Nothing else? Like, for instance, the reason she knows about Hacker Invasion is because you used it on her too?"
At this particular mont, Amano found himself thinking, with so nostalgia, about Nanki'in Sakuya.
Sakuya never asked this many questions. Because Sakuya, bless her, genuinely would not have thought to.
Though it had to be acknowledged: he was currently occupying a girl's body, lying on another girl's lap, and thinking fondly about a third girl. That was a specific kind of situation.
Rin Seiya: "I thought it was just you and Nanki'in Sakuya."
In terms of assessed threat level, Nanki'in Sakuya registered quite low for Rin Seiya. She was easy to understand.
But Finesse was sothing else.
From a single encounter at the door, Rin Seiya had taken a precise reading: this person was not simple. It had taken Finesse a handful of words and gestures to extract Amano's identity through a trick. That was a different category of dangerous.
Finesse, for her part, had made her own assessnt the mont she saw the footage of that Dark Ga.
Rin Seiya was the top-ranked student at Synchro Academy. The academy's most prominent female duelist. Back at the evening banquet so ti ago, Finesse and Nanki'in Sakuya had reached an unspoken understanding without needing to discuss it explicitly: a united front.
Rin Seiya was the most significant threat.
In raw dueling strength, Finesse and Sakuya combined probably couldn't beat Rin Seiya alone. That was the honest arithtic.
Which was precisely why the mont Finesse saw that Dark Ga, she had treated it with the sa urgency as an actual ergency, activated the Wein intelligence network at maximum speed, pulled Rin Seiya's complete profile, and put herself physically between Rin Seiya and Amano as fast as she could manage.
Unlike Sakuya, who could be treated as a comfortable ally with minimal threat potential, Rin Seiya was a genuinely dangerous variable.
At exactly that mont, across the district, Nanki'in Sakuya, just leaving evening class, sneezed with considerable force.
She rubbed her nose. It had felt, for just that one instant, like three different people had looked down on her simultaneously.
She sighed. She hadn't managed to solve a single problem in tonight's howork either.
Was she really this hopeless?
****
50 advance chapters at patreon/Eatinpieces
User Comments
0 comments from readers