Chapter 83: Rin Seiya Skill Unlock
[RANKING POINTS EARNED: 42,015]
[RANK: 890 → 670]
The moment the Dark Game ended, Amano's Eva terminal lit up with a notification.
Ranking points. From a Dark Game.
Overkill bonuses were one thing—those had precedent. But ranking points too?
Bart-senpai really was a top-tier opponent, ranked eighteenth in the academy. Forty-two thousand points in one duel. The windfall was so good Amano almost forgot about the burn injury on his arm.
The only disappointment: his current rank was high enough that he couldn't replicate the hundred-thousand-point explosion from the Chiha match. Diminishing returns on ranked gains.
But you couldn't be greedy about these things.
Wait.
Now wasn't the time to be celebrating the point gain from Bart-senpai's ranking.
The respected Bart-senpai who had just given him forty-two thousand points had taken catastrophic damage in a Dark Game. Was he dead?
Amano rushed over to check.
Bart was still breathing.
Back in District 11, Ruiz—the bounty hunter puppet—had taken less damage than Bart just did and died on the spot. But Bart was alive. Unconscious, barely, but his vitals were stable.
Amano noticed the faint starlight residue clinging to Bart's body and understood immediately.
Stardust Dragon's protection effect.
Having a reliable card spirit in a Dark Game really did make a difference.
Amano was envious. Again.
He pulled Bart's deck out of the Duel Disk.
"Uh—Amano, what are you doing?" Rin had managed to pull herself upright. "Bart's still alive. Taking his deck while he's unconscious is—that's not—"
Morally questionable. Legally questionable. If Bart was dead it would be one thing, but pulling cards from an unconscious duelist? Eva would flag that as theft instantly.
"I'm looking for the fake cards."
Bart-senpai had given him forty-two thousand points and five hundred overkill bonus points. The least Amano could do was help clean up the Puppeteer's contamination.
Speaking of overkill bonuses—less than a week into the semester and Amano had already earned four thousand Eva Points from overkill alone. At this rate, he wouldn't even need to find work in the mid-level district.
The average mid-level income was ten times the lower district standard. Amano's old wage had been a thousand a month. Mid-level average was ten thousand. Equivalent to the gap between rural poverty wages and urban salaries in his previous life—three hundred versus three thousand.
Just from duel overkill, he was approaching mid-level average income. Basic living expenses wouldn't be a problem. And cards? He could exchange those with academy points.
Amano flipped through Bart's deck. Only two cards lacked Eva identification codes: Ancient Gear Dark Golem and Ancient Gear Chaos Giant.
"They really are fake cards—" Rin leaned over his shoulder and spotted the anomaly immediately.
No serial numbers. And that distinct wrongness radiating from the card faces—the residue of something that didn't belong.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
The mushroom cloud explosion had finally attracted the city police. Not that they'd be much use.
"We should leave, Amano."
Rin had fought two Dark Games in Academy City already. She knew the drill. Getting caught by useless police just added unnecessary complications. Better to disappear before they arrived.
The police would find Bart and get him to a hospital. That was enough.
"Come on—back to the club building. I'll—I'll take you to the medical bay and treat that burn!"
Rin's eyes caught on the injury, and guilt flashed across her face. Amano had taken that hit protecting her. A fourth-year, Synchro Academy's strongest duelist, and she'd needed a first-year to shield her.
And it had taken Amano's explosive finish to win the Dark Game.
When did I get this useless?
Next time I won't be careless. Not again.
Fortunately, the club building Ancient Gear Chaos Giant had demolished wasn't the one housing Rin's club. The precious complete 5D's archive and Kozuka Yoka in the medical bay were both safe.
Inside the medical bay, Rin fed Amano's arm into the small treatment pod and finally let herself breathe.
"I thought you were going to need an amputation for a second there. I would have felt guilty forever."
"Honestly, I wouldn't mind a mechanical arm."
Cool factor alone made it appealing. Like Fullmetal Alchemist.
Though keeping the original was obviously better.
The large treatment pod hummed steadily. Kozuka Yoka's vitals were stabilizing inside it.
Tonight's Dark Game had come out of nowhere, but at least it hadn't resulted in irreversible consequences. Lives mattered more than anything. As long as no one died, the battle had been worth it.
"Amano—the 'Puppeteer' you kept mentioning during the duel. And these cards with no serial numbers. You know something, don't you."
"Yeah."
Rin was clearly on the Puppeteer's target list. If they were on the same team now, hiding information didn't make sense.
Amano explained what he could.
"You came to Academy City specifically to hunt the Puppeteer? That's such a cool motivation. Like an anime protagonist!"
Rin's frame of reference remained aggressively otaku.
As for Rin's side—she didn't have much additional intel. She'd used Stardust Dragon's card spirit senses to protect and rescue two Synchro Academy students who had been possessed by the Puppeteer. That was the extent of her encounters.
Compared to Eve's abilities—as flat as her chest—Stardust Dragon's functionality was impressive.
A flicker of motion caught Amano's attention. Behind Rin, star fragments were quietly gathering.
Rin was focused on monitoring his treatment progress, completely unaware of the subtle shift happening at her back.
The starlight coalesced first into a dragon's silhouette. Then, slowly, it shifted into a more familiar human outline.
The image was blurred—star particles didn't render sharp detail—but that crab-claw hairstyle was unmistakable. Across the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, only one character had hair like that.
Probably. Amano's memory was fuzzy after eighteen years.
The figure made of starlight—Yusei Fudo—seemed to nod at Amano once. Then it dispersed into the air.
What was that supposed to mean?
A system notification chimed.
[TARGET AVAILABLE FOR ROMANCE] [RIN SEIYA] [AFFECTION: 82]
[70 AFFECTION - ROMANCE SKILL UNLOCKED: "ASPIRING TO BECOME YUSEI FUDO"]
[80 AFFECTION - ROMANCE SKILL UNLOCKED: "CLEAR MIND STATE"]
The system had never displayed Rin's affection before. Amano had written her off as untrackable, someone the system couldn't process as a romance target.
Turns out it was just blocked. By the card spirit's power.
And just now—that moment—
Stardust Dragon. Or more accurately, Yusei Fudo.
Had he just given his approval?