Chapter 192: The Dark Side of Eve
"Manager, why did you have to say something that hurtful?"
Keshin stood behind the counter with her hands on her hips, asking the shop owner the question as he scratched his head in distress.
"Was it... that hurtful? I only wanted to help Yui feel at ease about leaving."
"Yes, it was that hurtful." Amano stepped into the shop to add his own verdict.
"This is a card shop that barely gets a single customer, but Yui genuinely loves this job. She takes real pride in being the shopkeeper. And you said what you said."
Not only had the manager told Yui to resign from her shopkeeper position, he had nominated her ten-year-old cousin as her replacement. Yui's furious exit was completely understandable from Amano's perspective.
"I really did handle that badly." The shop owner covered his masked face with his hand and let out a long sigh. "I am genuinely terrible with women. I thought I was doing something kind and it blew up in my face."
A man who was terrible with women, yet insisted on running a card shop in a district that had almost no duelists, and felt it necessary to hire a cute shopkeeper to keep the place going. Compared to this person, Chiha did not even register as eccentric.
"So why do you want to send Yui to a dueling academy in the mid-level district?"
Moving a lower-district resident across the class divide to the mid-level was not something that money alone could accomplish. You needed connections, the kind Finesse had with the Wein family to smooth the way.
And a strange shop owner who ran a card shop in District 32 might genuinely have that kind of reach. But why go to all this trouble specifically for Yui? To him, she was presumably just a hired employee.
Volunteering generosity without reason tended to raise suspicion. No wonder Yui had just accused him of having ulterior motives.
"There are roughly two reasons."
The shop owner straightened up, trying to collect himself, clasped his hands behind his back, and adopted an air of deliberate mystery.
"I can't go into the specifics. But I can genuinely see that Yui has an exceptional talent for dueling. Her natural aptitude is significantly higher than most duelists. Burying talent like that in the lower districts would be a genuine waste."
Yui had an exceptional talent for dueling?
Amano had actually noticed hints of something similar himself.
Yui's 70-point affection skill was named Fusion Mastery. Setting aside the effect, just the name alone carried a kind of authority. What ordinary girl from the slums had a skill named after achieving absolute mastery of an entire summoning form? That kind of name usually belonged to the head of some legendary school or lineage.
"As for the second reason." The shop owner looked at Amano.
The man wore a strange mask, but his gaze in this moment seemed to look straight through it and directly at Amano.
"You probably aren't aware of this, Amano Rei. After you all left, Yui has been carrying a deep loneliness inside. But Yui has too much pride to say so out loud. She chose to carry it alone."
You say you're terrible with women, manager?
You are clearly reading her perfectly, and going out of your way to think about her situation. This was exactly the profile of someone genuinely dangerous to a girl's heart.
"And when Kaiba Chiha arrived, Yui probably redirected some of the feelings she had been holding for you all onto her. Which led to the result you've seen."
The result being Kaiba Chiha, second daughter of Kaiba Corporation, trained into a loyal pet. That redirected longing was honestly rather terrifying in its effects.
"Well, actually, there is a third reason. Unrelated to Yui, but related to Kaiba Chiha, and also connected to my own interests."
"Related to Kaiba Chiha?"
"If Yui stays in District 32 indefinitely, Chiha will almost certainly choose to stay as well. At which point, Kaiba Chiaki will eventually come to District 32 to retrieve her. And I... have some history with Kaiba Chiaki."
Sure you do. You have history with Kaiba Chiaki.
That sounded like something from his previous life, the kind of story a friend tells where they insist a famous billionaire is personally out to get them.
But the part about Chiha was actually a reasonable prediction.
The current "Yui's loyal pet" version of Kaiba Chiha would almost certainly follow along to Academy City if Yui went there. Which would complete the task Kaiba Chiaki had given him.
From that angle at least, his interests and the shop owner's were aligned.
And if Yui, his childhood friend, could be part of life in Academy City too, both Kikawayu and Shio would be thrilled.
As for accommodation, that was not a concern at all. The villa had plenty of rooms. Several more people including Yui would fit without difficulty.
"Manager, if you're genuinely doing this for Yui's sake, I can help you."
"How?"
"Just watch." Amano gave a small knowing smile. "You don't need to do anything at all. With Yui's personality, she will be back within five minutes."
He had barely finished the sentence when the shop door was thrown open again.
Yui, who had stormed off in a fury only minutes ago, had already come back.
"Manager. If I agree to resign, will you really help me get to the mid-level district?"
"Yes, of course." The shop owner had not expected the turnaround to come this fast.
Exactly as Amano had predicted. Knowing this childhood friend's personality as well as he did: she always let her feelings show the instant she felt them, but she cooled down just as quickly. Once the anger faded and she had time to think, a genuine opportunity was not something she would walk away from.
"Then I'll agree to resign. But..."
Yui had one condition before she would be ready to go to the mid-level district.
"I need the lower districts to stabilize first before I can leave with a clear conscience."
Unlike the Amano siblings, who had a straightforward household situation that made moving easy, Yui's parents, grandfather, and Keshin all lived in District 32. With the current disorder in the lower districts, she could not leave in good conscience.
The question was how long this Eva system breakdown would actually last.
"Don't worry, Yui. Even if you and Chiha leave, I'll find a way to keep District 32 protected."
This was both a genuine solution and one that served his own interests alongside the shop owner's goals.
Pulling in allies. Given his current relationships with the Wein family and the Nanki'in family, he could ask either one to send duelists to hold District 32 temporarily until the lower-district Eva system bugs were resolved.
"Ah. That matter." The expression beneath the mask became subtly complicated. "The disorder won't resolve automatically from the Eva system for quite some time. But I know a manual repair method. The problem is that it looks somewhat difficult at the moment."
"A manual repair method?"
This strange shop owner's background was evidently significant. He knew how to manually repair network bugs in the lower-district Eva system.
In that instant, Amano found himself actually starting to believe the claim about having history with Kaiba Chiaki.
"It's already late tonight. I'll take you there tomorrow."
The following morning.
At first light, Amano, Chiha, and Yui set out following the shop owner.
The destination was the recycling center hub in the southwest of District 32.
That was, in fact, where Amano used to work. Though not the specific section he had been assigned to. If he remembered correctly, the southwest corner of the site was a massive mountain of accumulated junk and garbage.
"The disorder varies between districts because each district's Eva network management system is independent."
The shop owner explained as the four of them climbed up the garbage mountain.
"The contract bugs appearing in District 32 were something I tried to repair on my own previously. But I was careless, and it ended in failure."
"Manager, how do you know all of this?" Amano asked curiously.
"Ha. Consider it trade secrets. This isn't something I can explain in detail."
"Suspicious." Chiha was still irritated at the shop owner over yesterday's treatment of Yui and made no effort to hide it. "Yui-nee, trusting a suspicious man like this is less reliable than trusting me, an actual Kaiba Corporation second daughter. If you want to go to the mid-level district, I can make it happen."
"I believe you, little Chiha." Yui said warmly. "But right now I want to resolve District 32's crisis first. Once the disorder is fixed, leaving will feel much easier."
Amano took the same attitude of trying what was available. The shop owner's background was suspicious, but there seemed to be no reason to deceive any of them this way.
After roughly fifteen minutes of climbing, all four of them reached the peak of District 32's largest garbage mountain.
At the very summit, hovering in midair, was a diamond-shaped rift that looked like a crack in data itself. A virtual data fracture, embedded jarringly into the open air of the physical world.
The scene in front of him was so deeply science-fictional that Amano briefly questioned the reality of the world he was living in. It almost felt like they were all living inside a data space.
The shop owner explained: "This is the source bug causing District 32's disorder. I call it a Displaced Singularity. There are quite a few of these scattered through the lower districts right now. They appeared because of the Wicked God battle that affected the entire tower."
"So how do we repair a Displaced Singularity?" Amano asked.
"By dueling." The shop owner answered.
Only in a future world where everyone had dueling on the brain would the method for fixing a system bug also be a card game.
"Amano Rei, Kaiba Chiha. This Displaced Singularity is not weak. I strongly recommend both of you go in together, or you will lose badly."
"Me, with him?"
Amano and Kaiba Chiha pointed at each other simultaneously.
Even if Amano had said he was letting go of what Chiha had done before, and even if Chiha had genuinely bowed her head in apology yesterday, that did not mean the two of them had reached the point of fighting side by side.
[Kaiba Chiha] [Affection: 57]
Even with affection back above the 50-point threshold, the reading said they were at most familiar strangers.
"If going in alone were viable, I wouldn't have brought both of you." The shop owner said. "With Amano Rei and Kaiba Chiha together, the two of you can absolutely produce a result greater than the sum of your parts."
"Is this suspicious man actually underestimating me?" Chiha pushed back. "Even without Amano Rei, how could I possibly lose a duel to a simple data entity?"
"Chiha, this is not the moment to dig your heels in!" Yui cut her off firmly.
"Y-Yui-nee..."
"This is about the safety of District 32. Even one extra point of winning probability is worth fighting for. Rei, listen to what the manager says and go in with Chiha."
"Personally, I have no objection."
Amano's surprise had been genuine: he simply had not imagined a day would come when he dueled alongside Chiha. But teaming up with a duelist using Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon would genuinely unlock the most powerful Xyz play his full Dragon-type Extra Deck had ever been positioned to attempt. The shop owner had clearly seen that, which made him all the more curious about who this person actually was.
"Since Yui-nee is asking..." Chiha clenched her teeth, then finally gave in. "Fine. Fine."
Yui smiled with quiet satisfaction. "That's better, little Chiha."
The two exchanged a resigned look, then at the shop owner's signal, both reached out and touched the data rift of the Displaced Singularity at the same time.
The next instant, it felt as if their consciousness had been pulled into a data space.
In Amano's estimation, the brief weightless feeling of the transit was exactly identical to passing through the tunnel when using the Background Spirit skill.
When they opened their eyes again, the two of them had appeared inside a space of interlocking black and white data.
And the figure standing in front of them as the Displaced Singularity's dueling representative was enough to make Amano genuinely startled.
The slender, flat figure of the girl standing there made him blurt out the name on instinct.
"Eve?"
Eve: "I'm right here."
The actual Eve responded immediately from inside his deck.
So the figure in front of him, who shared roughly ninety percent of Eve's appearance, including a one-hundred-percent match in the specific department of being completely flat, was not the familiar Eve from his cards?
Ivaliss, Phantom Rupture
[DARK]
[Cyberse / Effect]
[ATK: 0 / DEF: 0]
This card's third effect can only be used once per turn.
(1): When this card is successfully summoned, target 1 Link Monster in your Graveyard. That monster's ATK becomes 0, its effects are negated, and it is Special Summoned to your field in a Link State with this card.
(2): While this card exists in the Monster Zone, the controller cannot Special Summon monsters unless they are Link Monsters.
(3): When this card leaves your field, Special Summon this card to the opponent's field in Defense Position.
Looking more closely, she was more like a dark-side version of Eve.
"Whatever she looks like, she's nothing but a glitched data entity." Chiha was reading the situation far more clearly than Amano. The data girl's appearance had not shaken her composure at all. She immediately activated her Galaxy-themed Duel Disk with a sharp click.
"You two, pay attention!" The shop owner's voice reached them from outside the space.
"The Displaced Singularity copies the decks of opponents it has faced and retains all data from every previous battle. There is no way to predict which strategy it will use."
In other words, it was an accumulated card pool.
But wait. Had the shop owner not just said he attempted a repair run and failed?
That meant this entity had already copied the shop owner's deck as well. It would have been useful to know in advance what kind of deck he had been running before charging in here.
Amano opened his Duel Disk and took his position.
Apparently sensing both of their intentions to duel, the girl who had been silent since their arrival finally spoke in a quiet voice.
"Challengers. If you fail, please leave behind your most important cards."
The voice was identical to Eve's. But it was stripped of all emotional warmth, carrying none of the good-natured, straightforward personality Eve actually had.
In the same instant, a black data chain scanned through both their decks and marked the most important card in each.
Kaiba Chiha checked her marked card: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon. Of course.
Amano checked his. If Chiha's most important card was Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon, his should logically be whatever shared the same ATK stat...
Why had it marked Priestess Who Receives the Star Chalice?
Eve: "Hold on, that is completely wrong! I officially protest! He has Blue-Eyes White Dragon in that deck! Why did it pick me?!"
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