Chapter 99: The Kaiba Corporation's Dowry
Nanki'in: [Do you really not need me to send someone to pick you up?]
Amano: [I'll be fine, class rep. I'm heading straight from the dorm. Just wait for me inside.]
Nanki'in: [Alright. And when you arrive, don't call me class rep. Call me Sakuya.]
Amano: [Understood, class rep...]
Nanki'in: [...]
Of two bad options, Amano picked the marginally less catastrophic one. Monday evening, just before departure, he decided to ride with Finesse in Gong-san's car and arrive at the venue together. What happened when he ran into Nanki'in Sakuya after that was a problem he'd deal with in the moment. He had no strategy. The bridge would sink when he got there.
"Mm. This suits you very well, Amano."
Inside Griffin's Menswear in Eden Tower's central commercial district, Finesse examined Amano's formal outfit from every angle with an expression of complete satisfaction.
Entirely her own work, naturally. Head to toe, every piece selected personally.
Amano was already presentable under normal circumstances. Put him in formal wear that Finesse had specifically curated for him, and the gap between him and the typical wealthy young heir at an event like this became very difficult to close from the heir's side.
This was worth bringing somewhere.
After a long, satisfied look, Finesse sighed softly.
"I'm already regretting making you look this good. What if one of the other family daughters spots you and tries to steal you away from me?"
"Ahem." The guilt manifested as a sudden coughing fit. "That -- that's not going to happen. You're joking, young lady."
"Hmph! It better not!" Finesse looped her arm firmly through his. "Alright, let's get moving."
They rode from the central district directly south to the venue: Tenhai Dragon Pavilion, the most exclusive hotel in the mid-level district. Apparently more than a dozen of Eden Tower's most prominent family factions had been drawn to this gathering, making it the most formal inter-family event of the year.
Midway through the ride, Finesse took a call. When she lowered her terminal, her expression had dimmed.
"What happened?" Amano asked.
"I'm sorry, Amano. I was planning to introduce you to Father tonight, but something came up last minute. Big sis is attending in his place."
"Don't apologize for that." Amano quietly exhaled relief.
He'd met Latir. He hadn't met the Wein patriarch. Meeting a parent carried a categorically different level of gravity, one he was honestly glad to skip.
The car pulled up to the hotel entrance. Finesse kept her arm linked through his.
"Come on. I'll take you to the Wein family lounge first so you can say hello to big sis."
At large inter-family gatherings of this scale, beyond the shared banquet hall, each family maintained a private lounge: a space for rest between socializing, or for the women to change and touch up their appearance.
The moment they stepped inside, his VSN buzzed twice almost simultaneously.
One message was from Nanki'in.
[Are you here yet? I'm in the Nanki'in lounge. Want me to come out and meet you?]
[Almost there. Keep busy, I'll find it.]
The closer the reckoning got, the more clearly the shape of his own destruction came into focus.
"What's wrong, Amano? Are you cold?" Finesse felt the subtle tension through his arm. "The hotel air conditioning is a bit strong. Do you want an extra layer?"
"No. I'm just nervous."
"Ha! What is there to be nervous about with big sis? You've already met her." Finesse paused thoughtfully. "Though I suppose this body of yours hasn't."
Every time the topic of the body-swap came up, a warmth entered Finesse's voice that she didn't bother concealing. As if having been that close to someone -- sharing consciousness, sharing space -- placed the relationship in a category that ordinary closeness between two separate people couldn't quite reach.
The second message was from Mizuki.
[Boss. There's something I need to come clean about. Can we find a time to meet?]
[If I make it through tonight alive, I'll think about it.]
[That's such a death-flag sentence. Boss, are you okay?]
He set the streaming girl's message aside. He was almost at the destination.
"Big sis, I'm here."
Pushing open the door to the Wein family's private lounge, Amano found Latir sitting cross-legged on a high-end sofa, one leg propped over the other, turning a card over in her fingers and examining it with concentrated interest.
The HERO battle had apparently shifted something. Finesse had confirmed it: Latir's attitude toward her had noticeably softened since that day. Finesse also acknowledged, privately, that Amano had probably been right. Maybe her older sister wasn't actually a bad person. The distance between them in the past had come largely from Finesse herself -- the cold facade she'd maintained, the wall she'd kept up against anyone who tried to reach her, Latir included.
Latir set the card down and looked up. Then she noticed the person standing beside Finesse, and something like thunder crossed her expression.
"Finesse, who is -- who is this?"
"Didn't you say that day to bring a boyfriend if I had one?"
"I was joking! I didn't actually think you had one!" Latir looked genuinely flustered in a way that seemed entirely unprecedented for someone who had dueled without a trace of nerves. "Am I -- am I seriously the only one still single?"
"Just big sis..." Finesse glanced around the lounge. "By the way, where's second brother?"
No Karl Wein anywhere. Finesse quietly exhaled.
Latir didn't know Amano. But Karl did. They had history from an underground duel in which Karl had walked away a hundred thousand Eva Points lighter. Whether Karl's grudge had a longer memory than Finesse wanted to find out about was a legitimate question.
"That's actually what I was about to mention." Latir tapped the card on the table with one fingertip. "Karl got called over to the Kaiba family's lounge."
Spell Card: Polymerization Mutation.
[Polymerization Mutation: Tribute 1 monster you control. Special Summon from your Extra Deck 1 Fusion Monster with the same Level as the Tributed monster.]
Amano recognized it immediately. In his previous life, this card had spent over a decade sitting on the Forbidden list, and for solid reasons. As a Forbidden list regular, its price in Eden was certainly not modest.
Latir had apparently been trying to determine whether it had any application in her Masked HERO deck. The answer was that it didn't. Mask Change was the engine, not Polymerization.
"Where did that card come from?" Finesse asked.
"The Kaiba Corporation sent it over. As a dowry."
"What?" Finesse and Amano said it at exactly the same time.
"Your second brother. Looks like he and Kaiba Chiha are being set up for an arranged marriage. He was called over there a little while ago, and the Kaiba people handed me this card in the meantime."
Kaiba Chiha and Karl Wein. The contrast in personality made the pairing almost impossible to picture. Two very different kinds of difficult person being formally linked by their respective family corporations.
"Things really are unpredictable. Though a Kaiba alliance would benefit the Wein family's development considerably. The Kaiba Corporation is a major player."
Latir handed the card she'd been examining to Finesse.
"I can't use it. You take it."
Finesse looked at the card, then looked at Amano.
"I can't really use it either. The only monster I have with a high enough Level is Destiny HERO - Plasma, and it's a Special Summon-only monster. Its Level doesn't count for Tribute purposes." She held the card out. "You take it, Amano."
Amano accepted it in a daze.
He had walked into this lounge to say a brief hello, and somewhere in the span of about three minutes he had ended up in possession of a card that Kaiba Chiha had dispatched to Karl Wein as a formal engagement gift.
Neither the Wein family nor the Kaiba family appeared to have given a single thought to Karl's feelings in this matter.
Did they even consider Karl a person.
***
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