Chapter 288: Wait, I'm Dueling Both Yugi Muto AND Kaiba Seto?
Nobody had expected Nanami Misaki to go straight for the nuclear option: threatening to tell the parental figure.
What were they, in elementary school?
Though the parental figure in question was admittedly somewhat unusual.
If she was invoking Z-one by name, then Nanami Misaki's background was probably close to what Amano had speculated based on the in-game character data: a member of the future group, the same circle as Z-one himself.
That explained why she had locked Rin Seiya out. Rin Seiya clearly did not know who Misaki actually was, while Misaki had apparently picked up on something about Amano.
Even with the parental threat on the table, Amano was not going to admit to something like that. Whether or not he had anything to admit to was its own question. Owning it would be the worse outcome by any analysis.
"I think that's really a question better asked of Rin Seiya herself. It wouldn't be right coming from me."
"Hm. You didn't confirm anything, but that answer isn't exactly a denial either."
The knocking from outside the club room door had gone quiet while they talked. The dramatic shouting about betrayal and forbidden activities had faded at some point.
"Let me be clear, though: this isn't what I wanted to talk to you about. You have met Z-one, haven't you, Amano junior?"
"Yes."
"What did he tell you?"
"Not to trust the mainframe Eva completely."
"Of course. That's consistent with what I've been observing. Z-one picks up on truth from outside the system. That's something."
"You've reached the same conclusion, Nanami-senpai?"
"The mainframe Eva was created to manage a post-catastrophe environment and ensure humanity's survival. But her direction seems to have shifted."
The next part was too sensitive even for a soundproofed club room. Nanami Misaki rose onto her toes and brought her mouth close to Amano's ear. The warmth of her breath against his ear was a secondary consideration. The content was not.
"Rather than creating the conditions for humanity to thrive, Eva now seems more inclined toward... keeping humanity contained."
"Contained?"
That word carried a particular quality. Somewhere between security and captivity, depending on the user's intentions.
"I can't say more about Eva here. Just keep it in mind."
Nanami Misaki settled back onto her heels and returned her hands to her hoodie pockets.
"Since you've met Z-one: you know about Rin Seiya's situation. And given how you looked at me when we first made eye contact, I'm guessing my own background isn't a complete mystery to you."
"Z-one's assignment for me is to protect Rin Seiya's safety while she's in Eden. Last month something interfered with my ability to do that, and you happened to be in the right place at the right time. That almost made me think you and Eva were operating together."
"But you did protect Rin Seiya. That's a fact that doesn't disappear regardless of interpretation. So you understand why, even in a first meeting, my initial read of you is positive."
Initial read is positive.
[Nanami Misaki] [Affection: 51]
Fifty-one points of positive. Without the system readout, Amano would not have been able to identify a single specific behavior in the last five minutes that constituted warmth. The vegetable vendor downstairs probably had more observable goodwill than this.
Fifty-one was doing considerable work as a number.
"In a sense, we're now operating on the same side. I hope we can work together well going forward."
The corner of Nanami Misaki's mouth moved into something that could technically be classified as a smile: the kind produced by someone who understood that social situations called for them but did not particularly come equipped with them naturally.
"That covers the introductions. I think we're done here."
She walked to the door and unlocked it.
Amano had been wondering about the absence of noise from outside. Two people in motion had been quiet too long.
A child is quiet, something problematic is happening.
Nanami Misaki opened the door without warning.
The two people who had been pressed against the outside of the door toppled in together.
"Owwww!"
Two. Not one.
Rin Seiya and Kuroshio Nagi, stacked on top of each other on the floor of the club room doorway.
"Kuroshio-san. You're here."
Amano had run into Nagi at the convenience store at five in the morning. Now here she was at noon, in a location she had gone to specific effort to reach.
"Ahaha, hey there, my oshi. Just thought I'd, you know, stop by."
From underneath Rin Seiya, Nagi produced an awkward smile.
Rin Seiya, sitting on top of Nagi with full lack of apology, was furious in a different direction. "What were you two doing in there without me?!"
Both of them had apparently been pressed against the door for the duration. Given that Amano and Misaki had deliberately kept their voices down during the sensitive portions, the audible yield from that position had probably been minimal.
Misaki shrugged with the complete equanimity of someone who had decided not to care. "I told Rin Seiya some of her most embarrassing childhood stories as an introduction gift. First meeting tradition."
"What?!" Rin Seiya's face went red. "You told him that?!"
"Yes."
Exactly what?
"No, that can't be! If you told him that, I have nothing left to live for."
"It's all right, Rin Seiya-senpai. Knowing that, I still don't think any less of you."
Amano delivered this line with full commitment to the bit.
Rin Seiya grabbed his arm: "Is that true? Even knowing that, you won't look at me differently? Ever?"
"Ever" was a long time for a commitment like that.
He was now genuinely curious about the story that did not exist. He was going to have to find Nanami Misaki and ask at some point.
Kuroshio Nagi provided a quiet reminder from the floor: "Senpai, sitting on my back is not going to make me into a D-Wheel."
"Oh, right. Your backside is just too comfortable, I forgot." Rin Seiya got up without visible remorse.
"So, Misaki: did you at least tell him the thing about the Riding Duel while I was outside?"
"No, not at all."
"You just talked about my embarrassing stories the whole time?!"
"Yes."
"You're my worst enemy, Misaki."
The Riding Duel subject. Amano asked: "What was that about, Rin Seiya-senpai?"
"That's the whole reason I've been trying to get you and Misaki in the same room. She might look like this, but her dad is basically a corporate villain. The Riding Duel venue we went to before? That's his."
Running a venue that seated tens of thousands of spectators was, by most definitions, entering corporate villain territory.
Nanami Misaki picked up the explanation: "The venue is launching a new ruleset this coming weekend. An updated version of Speed World to expand the Riding Duel audience. Eva's already authorized the field card."
"New Speed World?"
"Yes. Under the new version, normal Spell Cards can be used during Riding Duels in addition to Speed Spells. Previously Riding Duels had almost exclusive appeal in Synchro Summon circles. With this update, Fusion Summon strategies can actually participate."
A Speed World that allowed regular Spells alongside Speed Spells. In the animated series, ARC-V had introduced a new Speed World that was essentially a standing duel played on wheels: a conceptual overlay on normal dueling rather than a specialized format. But the specific combination Nanami was describing, with Speed Counters operating on Speed World 2 mechanics and normal Spells playable at the cost of extra Counters, was closer to the ruleset from the official Yu-Gi-Oh! game that Misaki herself had originated in.
"Under the New Speed World, Speed Counters accumulate and are spent according to Speed World 2 mechanics, and most Speed Spells remain usable. Normal Spell Cards can also be played, but each one costs an additional 2 Speed Counters."
That locked it. This was the game-origin ruleset, not the anime version.
"To preview the new format, there's going to be a New Speed World Invitational this weekend. The venue is inviting recognized professional Riding Duelists to compete."
"And where do I come in?"
"Rin Seiya used my connections to enter you."
"I see." The first comment when Misaki walked in replayed: "the junior Rin Seiya insisted on entering." Entering the tournament, not just the room.
"Come with me! It'll be fun, I promise!" Rin Seiya's enthusiasm was running ahead of anyone's objections.
So Rin Seiya had entered herself as well.
"The format is based on the Fortune Cup structure from the anime. Eight invited duelists, single-elimination style. And the champion gets to challenge the Emperor."
In the anime, the Fortune Cup's winner earned the right to challenge the KING, Jack Atlas. In Eden's version, that challenger's slot went to the Riding Emperor.
The Riding Emperor: holder of all three Synchro God Cards, the most powerful Riding Duelist in Eden. Amano's initial impression of him had not been charitable. From what Fiore the mechanic had described, the Emperor had, at a decisive moment in a previous tournament, abandoned his team partner to secure the God Cards for himself. In the anime, the Synchro God Cards carried a burden of saving the world; a person with genuinely rotten character should not have earned their recognition.
Yet when the Wicked Avatar incident had pushed the mid-level district to the edge of collapse, the Emperor had shown up and used all three God Cards to hold it together. Whatever the full truth was, the ability was not in question.
"If there's a chance at a proper Riding Duel with the Emperor, that's worth showing up for."
"Ha! Bold words for someone who still hasn't managed to beat me." Rin Seiya's playful expression flipped into something considerably sharper. "Beating Kaiba Chiaki doesn't mean you can beat me. Riding Dueling is my territory."
Which would be more convincing if it were not coming from someone who had lost to him in a Riding Duel on her own ground.
"I won't go easy on you this time!"
So last time was going easy.
The weekend Riding Duel tournament was settled. That was a problem for the weekend.
More immediately: Monday had its own standing obligation.
Kaiba Chiaki: [Chronicle run? Coming?]
The same message that had woken him at five in the morning arrived again, this time at the appropriate end-of-school hour.
Amano almost wanted to send another [Not coming] just to see what three exclamation marks looked like in an afternoon context.
He did not, for two reasons. First: it would be cruel. Duel Chronicles were one of the few things Kaiba Chiaki genuinely looked forward to, and she had already had one declined today. Second: this particular Chronicle was the one the Blue-Eyes spirit had told him would contain the Millennium Key password.
Amano: [Coming!]
Kaiba Chiaki: [Already here]
Already there. She had messaged him while already sitting in the booth.
The president of a major conglomerate, behaving like a student who had skipped a free period to go reserve the good seats.
This time, Amano was not bringing Kikawayu. He had learned something from the GX Chronicle: more people did not mean more manageable, and Kikawayu inside a Chronicle with a Dark Game trigger somewhere in the vicinity was an active variable he did not need.
If the system assigned a 5D's arc, he would check in with Rin Seiya about joining. She had made her feelings on that subject clear once, very emphatically.
For this one, it would be just him and his angel investor.
Kaiba Chiaki was waiting in the private booth she habitually reserved, the dark circles from the Chronicle recovery week finally gone. Three days of rest had done something for her complexion: she looked like herself again, the white skin catching the ambient light in the way it was supposed to instead of looking like she had been awake too long.
That was what money and recovery time looked like, apparently.
"Mine or yours?"
She led with the practical question before anything else.
Right: entering the other person's Chronicle was an option, and it came with shared rewards. The Chiaki Chronicles had been running long enough that Amano had personal experience with this.
But the Blue-Eyes spirit's direction was clear: next Chronicle, Millennium Key password. That was reason enough to prioritize his own arc.
"Mine."
"Understood. Start it up and let's see what we get."
The familiar Chronicle interface. The cursor settled, and the selection resolved onto a DM-era chapter.
When the chapter title and difficulty rating appeared, both of them went still.
[Dark Side of Dimensions Arc: Stage of Champions]
[Difficulty: SSS]
[Possible card rewards: Gandora the Dragon of Destruction / Gandora-X the Dragon of Demolition / Gandora Giga Rays the Dragon of Destruction / Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon / Obelisk the Tormentor / Palladium Oracle Mahad / Palladium Oracle Mana]
SSS rating again. Following the Wicked Avatar arc, this was the second Chronicle to appear at the highest difficulty tier.
And the reward table was something else entirely.
In previous Chronicles, the possible drop pool reflected the specific opponent: whoever you dueled against determined which cards could be brought out. The pattern was clean: Kaiba Seto's Chronicle brought Blue-Eyes cards, Joey Wheeler's Chronicle brought his signature cards, and so on.
This reward table did not follow the pattern.
Gandora the Dragon of Destruction was Yugi Muto's. All three Gandora variants were his.
Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon and Obelisk the Tormentor were Kaiba Seto's.
Palladium Oracle Mahad: the card form of Mahad, the ancient Egyptian high priest. Palladium Oracle Mana: the card form of Mana, the apprentice who had grown up with Yugi across three thousand years of past lives. Both were post-memory cards, released into the world after the Pharaoh returned to where he belonged.
Reading this reward table against the established pattern of one opponent per Chronicle:
Was he dueling Yugi Muto AND Kaiba Seto AND the Pharaoh?
Brilliant move, Eva. You've decided to simply arrange for all of them at once.
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