Chapter 90: Can You Possess Me One More Time?
Akiyama Sho's scream tore through the light of Chimeratech Overdragon's final explosion and just kept going.
Even with holographic duel projection technology, pain feedback from damage at that level was completely, brutally real. Nearly one hundred thousand points of head-on destruction wasn't something a body could simply shrug off.
THUD.
When the light faded, Akiyama crumpled straight to the duel floor, thin wisps of white smoke still rising from his body.
Under Eva's rules, any harm caused during a sanctioned duel was entirely exempt from the violence classification. From a technical standpoint, Shio had done nothing wrong.
But everyone watching could tell.
Amano Shio had cranked the dial to maximum on purpose.
Legally sanctioned violence was still violence. Just like school bullying -- evil that slipped through the cracks of the rules was still evil. Shio had simply chosen to answer it in kind.
An eye for an eye. In the most spectacular way possible.
"Sho -- Sho!"
Akiyama's mother abandoned any pretense of composure and rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside her son. Then she whipped around and fixed Shio with a furious glare.
"You vicious little girl -- how dare you go that far against my son!"
"Oh? You want to keep going?"
Amano stepped in front of Shio.
"Because if you do, I'll be your opponent."
That shut her up. She'd already lost one fight today and she knew she'd lose another. There was nothing left to say that wouldn't make things worse.
The cheering from Class 3-7 rose around them. Every single one of Shio's classmates -- the same students who'd spent a week averting their eyes -- were now calling her name without hesitation.
Akiyama's mother looked around at the crowd, at her son unconscious on the floor, at the triumphant girl in the wheelchair who'd beaten him without even flinching. Even someone who'd spent years in willful denial could read the room at this point.
Her son had lost the duel. He'd lost it publicly. He had to pay the overkill penalty. And he had to leave school.
"Why -- why would this happen to my Sho..."
"Because he brought it on himself," Shio said, without a trace of sympathy.
Then she flipped open her Eva terminal and held the screen up for her brother to see.
The overkill figure displayed was just under one hundred thousand Eva Points.
"Brother -- we're rich~! You hold onto it for me, okay~?"
"Shio. You earned it. Keep it yourself."
Amano had suspected the Cyber Dragon deck's overkill potential was absurd, but seeing the number made it concrete. A deck built to push attack power into the stratosphere was exactly as broken for prize farming as he'd feared.
He had a feeling no one in the entire middle school division would agree to duel Amano Shio ever again. One wrong move and you risked losing everything you owned.
Shio grinned ear to ear, the kind of grin that said she'd fully thought this through.
"But still -- a hundred thousand! I'm such a poor girl, I don't even know how to spend that much. Even if I blew the whole thing on Ax Raiders, I could only buy ten of them. Wouldn't even fit in a deck~"
She was still twisting the knife. The girl held a grudge.
"Don't get too smug!" Akiyama's mother had found her voice again, chest puffed up despite everything. "One hundred thousand overkill points? Our family can cover that easily! And expulsion? I'll hire the best private tutors money can buy. Sho will skip straight to the high school division when he's old enough -- he doesn't need this place!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that."
A voice cut through the noise.
Amano recognized it instantly -- familiar, warm, and absolutely impeccably timed.
"Who do you think you are, coming in here to -- ah--"
Akiyama's mother spun around and froze.
Finesse was walking out of the crowd.
"You -- you're -- the Wein Group's -- il--"
The word "illegitimate" made it as far as the back of her throat before she swallowed it whole and replaced it with something safer.
"--Young Lady!"
However she felt about Finesse's family status, the Akiyama family's entire operation depended on the Wein Group's continued goodwill. Getting on the wrong side of even an unofficial Wein heir would be catastrophic.
Finesse stopped a few steps away and looked at Akiyama's mother with an expression that could generously be described as polite.
"Akiyama Logistics CEO Akiyama Hiroshi has been terminated from his position at the Wein Group, effective today, pending investigation for embezzlement of company funds. Wein Group will be dispatching a management team to oversee operations going forward." A pause. "As for your family -- the full compensation amount and applicable penalties are non-negotiable. Every single point."
"That's -- that's impossible! Everything was completely fine before I left today!"
"You'll find out when you get home." Finesse's tone didn't shift even slightly. "I was only here to watch my little sister's duel. Letting you know was just on the way."
She pulled Shio in close with one arm as she said it.
Class 3-7 went very, very quiet.
Shiyue's jaw dropped so far it looked structural.
"A-Amano-san, you're actually..."
Amano Shio was the Wein Group young lady's little sister?
She'd kept that completely secret this whole time?
If Shio had dropped that connection even once, this entire situation would have resolved itself in minutes. Akiyama would have been falling over himself to apologize.
But instead of leveraging her family name to make the problem disappear, she'd chosen to fight it head-on -- she'd bet her own enrollment on a card game to make the whole class choose a side. To make everyone look at what they'd been pretending not to see.
The murmuring rippling through Class 3-7 carried something that sounded like awe.
Even Furukawa-sensei, standing a few steps back, had gone quiet with a look of genuine shame on his face. He was an adult. A teacher. And his understanding of justice and doing the right thing had just been comprehensively outclassed by a middle school girl in a wheelchair.
Amano finally understood what Finesse had meant when she said she had something to take care of first.
He watched her standing there, having walked in with three minutes left in the scene and somehow taken over the entire narrative.
Short drama female lead energy. The face-slapping variety, specifically.
He'd have to mention that to her later.
Though in fairness -- Finesse's involvement also meant Shiyue's father was now protected. Without it, the Akiyama family would have had every incentive to make his life miserable the moment they got home. That particular problem was now very thoroughly handled.
"But -- Amano-san." Shiyue tilted her head, something apparently not adding up. "You don't have the same last name as the Wein family..."
She glanced at Amano. Then at Finesse. Then back at Amano.
Her eyes went wide.
"Oh! I get it!" The realization hit her with the full force of a middle schooler who was absolutely certain she'd figured something out. "She's your sister-in-law! That's why she calls Amano-san her little sister!"
"No -- no, no, it's not like that, Shiyue!"
Shio scrambled to correct the record, looking more flustered than she had at any point during the duel.
Finesse, for her part, didn't seem particularly bothered. She reached out and gently pinched Shiyue's round cheek.
"Who does this adorable child belong to?"
Talk like that and I'll make sure your dad gets a promotion, Amano thought.
"Sorry for dragging you into this again, Finesse."
He'd told himself when they moved to the mid-level districts that he would stop leaning on Finesse's Wein family connections. That had lasted exactly as long as it needed to.
"Call me out like that again and I really will get angry, Amano." Finesse made a face -- not quite a pout but in the general neighborhood of one. "Besides. I really do think of Shio as my little sister."
"Right, right. Our young lady is the kindest, most generous soul in all of Eden Tower~"
"Flattery noted." The corner of her mouth curved up. "But since we're on the subject of asking favors -- there's actually something I need to ask of you in the next few days."
Her voice had dropped. Not dramatically -- just enough that only Amano caught it.
"Command away, young lady."
"Too many people here." She glanced at the crowd of middle schoolers still buzzing with excitement. "Somewhere quieter."
"Understood."
They peeled away from the noise -- from Shio beaming at her classmates, from Shiyue still working through the sister-in-law theory, from Akiyama's mother standing shell-shocked in the middle of the floor.
As they walked, Amano turned the situation over in his head.
Finesse asking him for something this seriously meant it wasn't a small thing. And he'd accepted enough from her to feel the weight of owing something back. Whatever it was, he'd make it work.
He owed her that much.
Finesse led him to a corner away from the crowd. When she turned to face him, her expression was different from anything he'd seen before.
Whatever this was, it mattered to her.
"Amano."
She looked him straight in the eyes.
"Can you possess me one more time?"
.
.
He'd been prepared to pay something back.
He just hadn't expected it to be this kind of payment.
***
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