Chapter 140: Chronicle Card Rewards
The hidden reward was a Free Entry Ticket?
That meant Amano had one chance to select any Chronicle chapter he wanted and challenge it directly, bypassing Eva's random assignment system entirely.
Something that valuable needed to be spent carefully. The ideal target would be a Chronicle with excellent drop cards and a difficulty rating his current deck could handle comfortably. The problem was that Chronicles with genuinely desirable drops tended not to have low difficulty ratings in the first place.
For now, the ticket would have to wait. The Chronicle instance had not finished processing.
The duel was over. The clear rating had been calculated. But the three of them were still inside the Chronicle story, still standing in the GX Duel Academy setting, the virtual environment fully present around them. The GX-style Duel Disk on Amano's arm had retracted automatically, but the world itself had not dissolved.
Around him, the Slifer Red students crowded in. Syrus and Chumley and the others were talking over each other in excited bursts, celebrating the victory, the dormitory's survival, the fact that they still had a place to sleep. Napoleon, his scheme collapsed completely, was doing the thing small-time antagonists did when their plans failed, going red in the face and stamping his feet.
All of it felt natural. All of it felt real. Like a story Amano had lived through rather than one he was visiting.
Then Jaden spoke.
"You really are the best duelist around, Rei!"
"Jaden." Amano looked at him, at the grin that matched every memory precisely, and felt something unexpected rise in his chest. Something that did not come from the Chronicle background. "Everyone was worried about you. Where did you disappear to?"
"I got a whole new HERO deck! The dormitory was already safe by the time I got back, but I'm still going to challenge Aster to a rematch!"
"A new HERO deck?" The mention caught Aster's attention, and something that was almost a smile appeared on his face. "I'm genuinely curious about these new HEROes. I accept your challenge, Jaden."
The story had found its way back to the original track. What came next in the GX timeline was Jaden Yuki versus Aster Phoenix, the destined clash between Neo-Space and Destiny, the rematch that the original series had built toward. Maybe the Chronicle would not end until Amano had watched that duel play out.
He stepped away from the field. Jaden walked past him in the opposite direction, heading toward Aster. For a moment the two of them were side by side, one leaving, one continuing forward.
They slapped hands without either of them planning it. Old friends exchanging a relay.
"I'll leave the rest to you, Jaden."
Jaden was already past him. His voice came back quietly, just above a whisper, too low for anyone else to catch.
"The future is yours, my friend."
Amano's feet stopped.
He started to turn, started to process what that meant and why Jaden Yuki would say something like that in that particular way. But before the thought could finish forming, the world around him began to come apart. The Academy buildings, the morning sky, the crowd, all of it dissolving like data decompressing back into nothing.
When awareness returned, all three of them were back in Eden's Academy City. The virtual network login point suite surrounded them, exactly as they had left it. The screen in front of them displayed the Chronicle Clear Success notification, and below it, a gold prompt indicating unclaimed rewards.
Amano tapped the claim button.
[Chronicle Free Entry Ticket x1 - Delivered]
[High Rating Clear Bonus: Select one card from the Chronicle drop table.]
[Available cards: Elemental HERO Neos Alius, Neo-Spacian Air Hummingbird, Neo-Spacian Aqua Dolphin, Neo-Spacian Flare Scarab]
The selection mechanic made sense now. The Chronicle drop table had always listed cards as available "with a chance." What that probability actually meant, and which card dropped if any did, was normally uncertain. But clearing a Chronicle with a high rating turned the probability into a guarantee, and the guarantee included a free choice from the full list.
There was no deliberation needed.
"Neos Alius, obviously."
Elemental HERO Neos Alius. Seven-star vanilla. The walking Ultra-Man reference that had started it all. The other three Neo-Spacian cards were Effect Monsters, but honestly, early Neo-Spacian effects were a bit abstract in practice. Neos Alius without any Neo-Space support still had usable Fusion forms that could do real work.
The one card in the list he would have genuinely considered over Neos Alius was Neo-Spacian Grand Mole, the only Neo-Spacian with a consistently strong effect. If Grand Mole had been on the drop table, he might have made a different call. It was not, so Neos Alius it was.
He confirmed the selection. Dense data condensed on the screen and resolved into card form. Two cards materialized in his hand simultaneously.
"Why are there two?"
One was Elemental HERO Neos Alius, the card he had selected. The other was labeled separately.
[This Chronicle Run Drop: Neo-Spacian Flare Scarab]
He stared at the Neo-Spacian Flare Scarab for a moment and then understood. The high-rating selection reward and the Chronicle's random drop at the end of a completed run were separate systems operating independently. Clearing with a high rating did not replace the drop. It added to it.
Eva's reward structure was actually quite generous when you thought about it.
He gave it a small appreciative nod.
Good thing the two cards had not landed on the same selection. Though honestly, two copies of Neos Alius would not have been a disaster either. Two Neos Alius could Fusion Summon into Elemental HERO Divine Neos at 4200 ATK, which was not a bad option to have available.
"Are we back?" Sakuya was still reorienting, her internal sense of location not yet fully caught up with the return.
Chiaki had already moved past reorientation. Her attention had gone to the rewards Amano had just received from the screen.
The two card acquisitions were interesting but not what held her focus.
It was the Chronicle Free Entry Ticket.
A ticket that could bypass Eva's random assignment and let the holder select any Chronicle chapter freely was functionally a universal key to authenticated historical records. Combined with Kaiba Corporation's ongoing exterior excavation data, the ability to target specific Chronicle chapters based on what the excavation had already uncovered would be an enormous accelerant for their historical research. The potential value of that single ticket to Kaiba Corporation's current projects was difficult to overstate.
And then there was the Chronicle experience itself, which had been unlike anything she had encountered before. Amano had been embedded in the story. She and Sakuya had been pulled in as participants. It had functioned as something closer to living history than a game instance.
"Amano Rei. You really are something else." She met his eyes directly. "Are you absolutely certain you won't transfer to the Fusion Academy?"
He had not expected her to still be pursuing that.
This was the third time she had raised it. Three visits to the same argument. The phrase "three times makes it earnest" existed for a reason.
But he had accepted Synchro Academy's benefits package. Walking away from that for another offer would not be a transaction. It would be a betrayal of his word, and he was not built that way.
"My apologies, Chiaki-senpai. I believe I've already declined."
"I'm aware that Synchro Academy made you significant promises." She read the situation cleanly, as expected from someone with her experience. "But if you say yes, I'll double whatever they offered."
"Double?"
"Or, Amano. How much? Tell me a number. What would it take for you to transfer to the Fusion Academy?"
That was not doubling the offer anymore. That was handing him a blank cheque and telling him to fill it in himself.
Before he could respond, someone stepped between them.
Nanki'in Sakuya. Expressionless as always, arms at her sides, standing in the space between Amano and Chiaki like a wall that had decided to have opinions.
"Amano," she said, in the flattest possible tone for a completely explosive statement. "I can pay you too. How much money would it take for you to stay at Synchro Academy."
Right. He had almost forgotten. The person standing next to him was also someone for whom money was not a constraint.
In terms of current market position, Nanki'in assets were not at Kaiba Corporation scale. But Kaiba Corporation was a new enterprise measured in decades. The Nanki'in family was old money measured in centuries. Whatever Kaiba Corporation thought it could offer to pull Amano away, the Nanki'in family's deep reserves meant the counteroffer would not come cheap.
Sakuya squaring up against Kaiba Corporation for his sake was genuinely impressive. The hands on her hips and the slight lift of her chin made it clear she felt she had won something.
She had also forgotten to close the livestream.
The chat had completely detonated.
The debate about the Chronicle duel was running at high volume, but the fundamental human appetite for drama meant the current scene was generating significantly more traffic.
"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
"Kaiba Corporation's president AND the Nanki'in heir going after the same guy?"
"Why can't that be me. I would be very good at being kept."
"Getting fought over by wealthy heiresses requires a certain caliber of person."
"He's only marginally better looking than me, honestly."
"If I had to pick I'd go Nanki'in. Cold and cute is my weakness."
"I'm a dominant CEO type person myself."
Mizuki, watching her chat spiral into chaos, was frantically calculating whether to cut the broadcast.
Sakuya had clearly not registered that she was still live.
If the two of them kept going, this was going to be the kind of streaming incident that made the trending page. Both family names were going to be in the headline.
"Okay, so, since the duel's finished, today's broadcast will be wrapping up right here, thank you all so much, and oh, thank you to 'My Granddaughter Is the Cutest' for the fifty Prismatic Carnival super chats!!"
The tip landed on Mizuki like a physical impact. Fifty Prismatic Carnivals. The math on that was half a million Eva Points.
The planned broadcast termination evaporated instantly. Mizuki's entire nervous system rerouted toward the donation, and she was on her knees doing a full prostration of gratitude at the camera before she had consciously made any decisions about it.
Sakuya, in the meantime, had a moment of clarity. She remembered the recording app was still open. One tap, and the feed cut to black, leaving an audience in the middle of their most excited commentary staring at a silent dark screen.
Amano turned back to Chiaki.
"It isn't about money, Chiaki-senpai. I gave Synchro Academy my word that I would stay. That's a matter of credibility. I don't go back on commitments."
He was short on funds in ways that were sometimes genuinely uncomfortable. That had not changed. But twisting his principles for financial convenience was not a trade he was willing to make at whatever his current price point happened to be.
"Hmph."
Chiaki absorbed the refusal with a single short sound, then turned and walked toward the suite exit at a pace that communicated she was done with this particular conversation. At the door she paused without turning around.
"When you run your next Chronicle, call me again."
The monetary appeal had failed completely, and she was visibly not happy about it. The parting line was still asking to be included next time.
Amano watched her go and concluded that Kaiba Chiaki was considerably less cold than her default presentation suggested. Every wealthy heiress he had encountered had opened with an impression of being completely untouchable, and every single one of them had revealed something different once the surface cracked. He found himself genuinely curious what hidden characteristic would emerge from Chiaki once her affection level climbed high enough.
The system notification answered the idle thought before he had finished having it.
[Kaiba Chiaki] [Affection +10]
[Kaiba Chiaki] [Affection: 63]
Early-stage affection was still in the easier range to accumulate. He knew that much from experience. But ten points in a single session was notable. The Chronicle experience had clearly made a significant impression on her.
Sakuya's hand closed around his wrist.
"Evening study is about to start. Let's go back, Amano."
He still had not figured out how to break the news to her that he was no longer required to attend evening study sessions. Looking at her face, at the cold composure with a very faint appeal underneath it, he decided tonight was not the night to find out what happened when he left her behind.
He could attend. Kondo had said he was exempt, not that he was prohibited.
Amano Rei, Class 1-E Duel Representative, beloved by all, committed student. The GX Academy dunce brigade persona was fiction. Pure slander. He would not stand for it.
"Sure, let's go back, class rep."
Sakuya did not release his wrist for the entire walk back to the D-Wheel.
The broadcast had been cut partway through, but its impact landed harder than the previous one. The closing footage of Nanki'in Sakuya and Kaiba Chiaki competing openly over the same person had hit the trending page within the hour, both family names appearing in headlines that the respective PR departments were presumably not thrilled about.
The market reacted with the particular irrationality it always showed for this kind of content. Both families' publicly traded subsidiaries saw small but real gains before close of trading.
At the Nanki'in estate, Muramasa read the trending reports and laughed with complete satisfaction.
"That's my granddaughter! Not even Kaiba Chiaki gets to intimidate her. Hold onto that young man with both hands, Sakuya!"
At the Wein estate, the broadcast had ended. Latir and Karl both looked at Finesse.
Latir tilted her head.
"Finesse, didn't you tell me earlier that Amano was your boyfriend? Was that actually true?"
Karl could not stop himself.
"Interesting that your boyfriend has this many girlfriends, Finesse. Though I suppose the more relevant question is whether he knows he's your boyfriend."
Finesse, caught between embarrassment and something sharper and more acidic that she did not have a clean word for, pulled her head down between her shoulders and produced a response that was technically words.
"Amano is just very talented at dueling. He's in demand. That's all. A boyfriend, that kind of thing, I would never just say something like that, it's just, it's just that he's, he's mine, sort of..."
In the innermost room of the Wein estate, the current head of the Wein family sat alone.
Deseth Wein had been watching the same broadcast the others had. The boyish sharpness of younger years had softened into the weathered face of a middle-aged man, and something in his expression had shifted during the duel. Not dramatically. Just a settling. A quiet decision arriving.
He was smiling faintly.
"Heroes don't need to be enemies." He said it quietly to the empty room. "After all these years, I can still hear those words. From you, of all people."
On the desk in front of him, one card sat face-up. He had drawn it from his personal deck while watching the broadcast. Whether it carried specific meaning for him, or whether he had simply seen something similar in the duel and reached for the familiar shape of it out of old habit, was not immediately clear.
Destiny HERO Bloo-D.
Whatever the card meant to him, the decision it accompanied was becoming solid.
It was time to break free from the curse that had wound itself around the Wein family and around his daughter for ten years.
In her locked dormitory room, Kikawayu was rolling around on a bed covered in Amano-themed pillows, having abandoned all dignity.
Her account, username "Want To Sleep With My Childhood Friend At Twenty," had received the broadcast notification the moment it went live, and she had opened it the instant she got back from class.
At first she had been delighted. Live footage of Amano dueling was excellent material for the evening. She settled in happily.
Then Jaden Yuki had appeared on screen.
"That's so cool! You really pulled it off, Rei!"
Kikawayu sat up.
Why was this person calling him Rei.
That name was hers. Exclusively. Reserved. Not available to others.
She could not articulate why, but the moment she saw Jaden Yuki, something intensely unpleasant had started building in her chest. A sharp, hot, completely irrational feeling that this particular person was a threat to something important, despite being a fictional character who existed only inside a virtual Chronicle and had zero capacity to interfere with anything real.
The feeling had nowhere to go.
She picked up the large body pillow printed with Amano's face from adolescence and held it in front of her. She looked at the familiar features on the fabric for a long moment.
The smile that spread across her face was not entirely stable.
"You're such a troublemaker, aren't you, Rei. I'm going to have to punish you properly tonight."
***
40+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces