All the duel data from the HERO battle funneled into the reward card, and the academy's Eva system delivered its verdict.
Corresponding to the Destiny HERO card slot, the ultimate D: Destiny HERO - Plasma.
Amano had had a feeling, actually, even before the reveal. If the evaluation was genuinely tied to performance rating, and the Destiny HERO card worthy of a 5 score had to be one single monster, Plasma was the only candidate that made sense. Invincible, iconic, the undisputed king of the archetype.
Finesse's main deck had finally received its first Destiny HERO with actual fighting ability.
Finesse: "Amano! This monster! This monster!"
Her excitent was hard to miss even through the ntal channel.
Completely understandable. Any duelist who used HEROes, or frankly any HERO archetype at all, seeing this card materialize had every right to be excited.
Finesse: "This monster is so weak! It takes three Tributes to summon and only has 1900 ATK!"
Amano: "..."
He was beginning to understand why Latir had never approved of her little sister. He was getting there slowly, but he was getting there.
He thought briefly about what it would be like to have a little sister who was simultaneously this reckless and this unaware of her own recklessness. Following a notorious murderer around to investigate. Challenging a Dark Ga practitioner with a Destiny HERO deck that had, until recently, no Fusion Monsters. Seeing Destiny HERO - Plasma and comnting that it was weak.
Finesse. You have a long road ahead of you.
anwhile, across the arena, Kikawayu Yuu had not taken his eyes off Finesse's direction since the duel ended.
Kikawayu: "Why does Finesse keep giving this feeling that Rei is the one playing? Especially during the duel. The way she moved, the way she talked, it was too similar."
A voice answered from nearby that only Kikawayu could hear.
"I'm not detecting any anomaly on my end. You've probably just been affecting yourself from what's been going on in your room the last few days. Try to hold back a little more."
Kikawayu: "If you weren't telling to wait until I'm twenty, would I even be this pent up?"
The other voice did not dignify that with a response.
Amano, having experienced Kikawayu's terrifying instincts firsthand, had already slipped out of the arena the mont the duel was confird over, putting distance between himself and anyone who might ask questions.
Two hours later, the Hacker Invasion tir expired.
Amano's consciousness returned to his own body. He opened his eyes to the familiar white ceiling of the Synchro Academy nurse's office.
Good. No one had apparently noticed anything suspicious in the two hours he'd been lying there.
Or so he thought, until he turned his head and found soone sitting at the edge of the bed.
Nanki'in Sakuya. Watching him with a blank expression.
Why.
Amano's brain produced a full column of question marks topped with cold sweat.
"You're finally awake, Amano." Her voice carried sothing that sounded, unexpectedly, like genuine concern. "You were sleeping so heavily I thought you'd died. I couldn't even tell you were breathing for a mont. Is it because of what happened with Shio yesterday? Or sothing else?"
"I've been a bit worn out lately. Slept longer than I ant to." He pushed himself upright. "How long have you been sitting there, class rep?"
"Two hours."
She had followed him from the classroom without a gap and sat here for the entire two hours.
Amano had absolutely no frawork for explaining this.
"Was there sothing you needed from ?"
As she answered, Sakuya handed him a cup of warm water. He took it automatically.
"I thought you might be exhausted because of everything you handle for Class 1-E. I'm not a very useful class rep, so a lot of things end up falling on you. The least I could do was be here."
Drained enough to need a delinquent class rep personally watching over him in the nurse's office. His actual role in Class 1-E consisted mainly of letting people copy his howork and passing notes during exams. Apparently Nanki'in Sakuya's assessnt of that contribution was substantially more generous than his own.
The nurse's office door burst open.
It was the lunch break, and Class 1-E had arrived in a body, piling through the entrance with the collective energy of people who had been holding their worry in for two hours and could no longer contain it.
"Committee Rep, are you alright?!"
"If sothing happened to you I don't know how I'd go on!"
"We've been planning on following you forever, you can't just leave us!"
How. He had taken a sick day and slept for two hours. Why did the room have the atmosphere of a deathbed vigil.
Sakuya looked mildly bewildered herself. She had also been in the nurse's office the entire ti and no one had apparently spared a single thought for their class representative's wellbeing.
"We all heard from Kozuka-san, Committee Rep!"
Kozuka?
Only then did both Amano and Sakuya notice Kozuka Yoka squeezed into the crowd sowhere near the back.
"We heard from Kozuka-san! She said you saved her life in a Dark Ga two nights ago!"
Kozuka Yoka had recovered well enough to return to class that morning. According to her account, she had originally followed Amano out of class that night to see what Rin Seiya wanted with him, motivated by her self-appointed duties as the Class 1-E shipping captain and concerned guardian of Sakuya's romantic interests. What she had encountered instead was the Dark Ga practitioner who had been circulating as an urban legend.
By the ti Kozuka's LP had run out and she was on the verge of losing consciousness, the last person she had seen running toward her was Amano Rei.
When she woke up, she was in a dical recovery pod in the Academy City hospital.
"The Committee Rep saved !" Kozuka had apparently been emphatic about this part. "And Dark Gas take a huge toll on the duelist who fights them, so he must have been completely drained, which is why he took sick leave!"
That explained the deathbed atmosphere.
Kozuka had handed the entire class a fully assembled narrative and they had accepted it without question.
Sakuya stood very quietly for a mont.
She had heard her grandfather speak of Dark Gas before. Extrely dangerous ritual duels. Genuinely life-threatening.
And suddenly several things that had not made sense clicked into place. Amano yawning through the next morning's class. Rin Seiya coming to return his damaged uniform shirt. She had reprimanded him for it, coldly, assuming the worst. anwhile the actual explanation was that he had spent the night fighting a Dark Ga to save a classmate.
I am genuinely terrible.
If the rest of Class 1-E hadn't been present she would have slapped herself.
"I'm sorry, Amano. I had the wrong idea entirely."
[NANKI'IN SAKUYA] [AFFECTION 2] [AFFECTION: 68]
Not only had the point she'd lost returned, it had co back with interest. He would have to thank Kozuka Yoka properly at so point.
Kozuka, anwhile, had picked up a scent she found deeply interesting. Her eyes had gone bright.
She spread her arms wide, began slowly backing toward the door, and herded the entire Class 1-E crowd ahead of her like she was redirecting livestock.
"Back up, back up! Give the class rep and the committee rep so space! Nobody interrupt them!"
The door closed. The room contained exactly two people.
In the process of clearing the room, Kozuka had also managed to collect the school nurse, who had been quietly eating her lunch in the corner, and remove her from the premises as well.
Amano sat in the sudden quiet and tried to determine what to do next. He should probably leave. He'd been lying here for two hours and he was hungry and it was lunch break and staying was not doing anything productive.
"Amano. What does a Dark Ga feel like?"
Sakuya spoke first.
"Nothing you'd want to experience. I hope you never have to find out for yourself." He ant it.
"My grandfather told about them once. He said only a duelist who truly has no fear of darkness can win a Dark Ga. And that he's been looking for soone like that for a long ti."
"Your grandfather, huh."
The Nanki'in family patriarch. Retired to a background role now, presumably, but in organizations that ran on loyalty and history, the influence a founding generation carried didn't simply evaporate with a formal handover. A man like that, still searching for sothing after all these years.
What exactly was he looking for?
"Amano. Co back with ."
The warm water Amano had been drinking went sideways.
Sakuya, with completely unruffled composure, produced a tissue and cleaned up the situation.
"Back -- back with you? To the Nanki'in house?"
The Nanki'in family was the oldest established organization of its kind in all of Eden Tower. Sakuya was the sole legitimate heir of this generation. She was inviting him to her family ho. If he did sothing that displeased the Nanki'in household, the most optimistic outco involved being disposed of in a location that wouldn't be discovered for a significant amount of ti.
"Not to my house. That would be too soon." Her tone hadn't changed at all. "But the family is holding a gathering in a few days. My grandfather will be attending. I'd like to invite you."
"If it's just a gathering..."
Amano checked the affection display.
68 points. Two points short of the next skill unlock. Opportunities to accumulate affection through their usual howork and exam arrangent were slowing down at this point. This might be exactly the opening he needed.
"Alright. I'll be there."
"Thank you, Amano. Grandfather will be very pleased."
The smile that crossed Sakuya's face was small by most standards. On Sakuya's face, it was practically enormous.
[NANKI'IN SAKUYA] [AFFECTION 1]
Correct decision. Definitively correct.
That afternoon, during class, Amano's VSN received a ssage from Finesse.
[Thank you so much for today, Amano! And by the way, big sis ntioned the family dinner next Monday -- you're coming too, right?]
[ too?]
[Big family dinners have a lot of rules. Adult won without a male companion get talked about. You wouldn't want to see get talked about, would you?]
Amano checked Finesse's affection.
89 points. One away from the reward threshold.
Affection always got harder to accumulate the closer you got to a milestone. This family dinner invitation might be exactly the kind of push that broke through the ceiling.
[Since you're asking personally, I'll be sure to do you justice, young lady.]
[Haha, the way you talk is so funny, Amano. It's a date then! Next Monday evening.]
The ssage closed with a sticker of Winged Kuriboh laughing.
Wait.
Monday evening?
Family dinner. Family gathering.
A deeply unpleasant probability surfaced in Amano's mind.
He leaned across to the neighboring desk and kept his voice low.
"Class rep. The family gathering you ntioned -- when exactly is it?"
"Monday evening next week, if I'm rembering correctly."
"..."
"Is it only the Nanki'in family attending?"
"No, quite a few of the major families in Eden Tower will be there. Let think... the Wein family and the Kaiba family, among others that you'd recognize."
Wrong. This was wrong. This was completely wrong.
This was a disaster.
He had accepted invitations to the sa event from two different people. And the Kaiba family was also attending, which ant Kaiba Chiha would probably be there, which made the situation geotrically worse.
Amano sent polite cancellation ssages to both Finesse and Sakuya simultaneously.
Both replies arrived almost at the sa ti.
Finesse: [No. I already told Father you're coming. You WILL be there.]
Nanki'in: [I already promised Grandfather. I can't cancel.]
He stared at both ssages.
Were they coordinating with each other. Had they already figured out the overlap and decided that the appropriate response was to make him deal with the consequences in real ti.
He was going to arrive at that dinner, and both of them were going to be there, and he had agreed to escort both of them.
What had he been thinking.
The answer, unfortunately, was that he had not been thinking. He had been thinking about affection points.
He could not do this purely for affection points again. The lesson was learned. He would not forget it.
This was not manageable.
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