Chapter 172: A Reverse Love Triangle at the Nanki'in Estate
With the monthly exam on the horizon, Sakuya had been granted a temporary exemption from the mandatory evening self-study period. Amano decided there was no point going back to class first. He started his D-Wheel, put Sakuya on the back, and headed directly for the Nanki'in estate to start the tutoring.
This time he was smarter about one thing. Before handing over the spare helmet, he inspected it. Specifically, he checked whether Finesse had left any of her signature red hair inside from the last time.
Holding on around Amano's waist as the D-Wheel moved, Sakuya quietly gave him directions and, inwardly, celebrated.
"I did it. I finally got Amano to come home with me."
She had noticed, somewhat uncomfortably, that her personal threshold when it came to Amano kept moving. The fake boyfriend scheme at the family dinner had left her feeling genuinely guilty for a while afterward, especially after the Finesse encounter. But this scheme, arranging everything and then presenting it as a done deal? She did not feel guilty at all. If anything she felt a trace of excitement.
She was clearly getting worse.
Her mother's voice floated up from somewhere in her memory: "Only by having enough ruthlessness in your nature can you truly lead the Nanki'in family."
Maybe she was, finally, becoming ruthless.
Amano rode at speed. The D-Wheel's performance helped, but the roads around the Nanki'in estate also helped: wide, quiet, and almost entirely free of other traffic. Established yakuza families tended to build on secluded ground, and the kind of person who would voluntarily drive through a neighborhood watched over by underlings in full dramatic face paint was rare.
Those underlings, who gave every passerby the kind of look that produced nightmares, transformed instantly upon seeing who was climbing off the D-Wheel. Their expressions shifted into what they probably believed were warm and approachable smiles. The result remained unsettling, but the effort was genuine and their posture snapped to full respect.
"Young mistress, young... wait, no. Amano-aniki! Good evening!"
So this was what coming home looked like when you were the heir of a family like this. Amano was experiencing it firsthand for the first time.
He was also fairly certain he had almost been called "young wife" again. For the record: in the extremely remote hypothetical scenario in which he and Sakuya did somehow end up married, they would absolutely need to correct that to her being the young wife, not him.
From the gate inward through bamboo groves, pine trees, and a stone-edged pond, along the garden path toward the classical formal entrance of the inner residence, underlings greeted him at every turn.
"Amano-aniki!"
"Amano-aniki!"
"Amano-nii!"
"Young wife!"
Under the steady barrage of respectful salutations, Amano's sense of self began drifting pleasantly somewhere it probably had no business going.
This was reportedly just one of the Nanki'in family's properties in the mid-level district.
If he actually married Sakuya, all of this would be...
The clear creak of the inner entrance door swinging open brought him back.
He had literally just resolved not to be a kept man. And here he was being seduced by a house inside five minutes.
"Amano-aniki! I've been looking forward to seeing you again!"
The warmest welcome inside the inner residence came from Ryuuma, the head of the family's bodyguard detail and one of the few people cleared for access to this part of the estate.
This was probably the first time Amano had seen Ryuuma since the Onikiri incident. Before that confrontation, Ryuuma had treated Amano as Sakuya's friend. By the family dinner, he might have been considered a potential romantic interest. But after the Onikiri incident and the oath Ryuuma had made that day, something had fundamentally changed. The warmth Ryuuma directed at him now was at the same level as how he addressed Sakuya herself. Possibly warmer.
"Amano-aniki, please have some tea."
What followed was Ryuuma laying out a cushion, producing sweets from somewhere, brewing and pouring tea, and then apparently deciding that a shoulder massage was also an appropriate gesture of hospitality.
Sakuya cleared her throat. "Ryuuma. Amano is here to help me and Yukki study. You're disrupting us."
Ryuuma froze for a moment, seemed to genuinely register his own behavior for the first time, and straightened up with visible embarrassment.
"My apologies, young mistress, Amano-aniki. I got a little carried away. The tutoring, right. Let me go bring Yukki-ojousama here now."
He exited quickly.
The room went quiet: just Amano and Sakuya, seated across from each other.
Sakuya spoke first. "Are you satisfied with it, Amano?"
"Satisfied with what?"
"The estate. I could tell you were looking around on the way in. This is all Grandfather's arrangement."
He had been that obvious about it?
Amano took a sip of tea to avoid the question.
Even the class representative had noticed. Whatever expression had been on his face walking through the gate must have been embarrassing.
"If you like it, I can give it to you."
Amano inhaled wrong and spent several seconds coughing.
Absolutely no wind-up, no preamble: just an immediate mansion offer.
There was no defense against that.
"The Nanki'in family has a number of properties in the mid-level district. Grandfather purchased this one specifically for the convenience of my commute to school. If you want it, please don't feel like you need to hold back..."
"This is not about holding back. People do not just give someone a house out of nowhere. Even if you offered, I have no valid reason to accept."
"Oh." A very small amount of disappointment crossed Sakuya's face. "I thought you really wanted it."
The fact that his reaction on the walk in had been that readable was troubling.
"Actually, while we have a moment: why is Yukki being included in the tutoring?"
He chose the topic partly to move past the mansion conversation, and partly because he genuinely wanted to know. In the Nanki'in estate context, using her given name directly felt right.
"Grandfather wants Yukki to transfer into Academy City's upper division next semester. She cannot inherit the Shiranui deck because of the genetic binding, but her duelist gene analysis came back with a very notable result. She appears to have awakened a powerful field."
"What kind of field?"
That question interested him more than anything else she had said, including the property portfolio.
The room's door slid open before Sakuya could answer.
Nanki'in Yukki entered in a kimono. Amano nearly did not recognize her. The first time he had seen her was in the immediate aftermath of the Dark Game with Onikiri: body exhausted, hair in disarray, the whole picture one of someone who had been through something serious. The Nanki'in household's care over the intervening weeks had changed the picture entirely. The person walking in now was, by any measure, striking.
Her features carried about seventy percent of the resemblance to Sakuya, with an additional layer of subdued intensity that seemed to come from whatever Onikiri had left behind. Even descended from a body-hopping technique, Nanki'in family genetics were remarkably consistent.
[Nanki'in Yukki] [Affection: 65]
Sixty-five on a first real meeting. That was a new record.
The first time in the hospital barely counted, since Yukki had still been in the confused aftermath of the possession and had not registered him as a specific person. The number explained itself when he thought about it: Sakuya had been talking about him to Yukki. Regularly. Apparently at some length.
"Sakuya-onee-sama, is this him? Is this the Amano you mention so often?"
"Yes." Sakuya's nod was composed.
The brooding quality in Yukki's expression shifted, fractionally but visibly: small points of light in her eyes.
"Amano-sensei! You are exactly the person Onee-sama always told me about. The one who saved my life." She took in his appearance with open attention. "You are exactly as handsome as Onee-sama described you every night before sleep."
"Every night before sleep." Those specific words in that specific combination implied a bedtime storytelling routine that Amano was not going to examine too closely.
Sakuya. You have been using me as a bedtime story.
Whatever the mechanism, Yukki's sixty-five affection points were a direct product of those nightly recitations, stacked on top of the gratitude from the rescue.
Even accounting for all of that, sixty-five at first genuine meeting was a staggering number. His most devoted fan, Kuroshio Nagi, had started at fifty-five. The title of easiest to get along with had barely lasted a day.
Yukki bowed deeply in thanks, then arranged herself on the cushion beside Sakuya.
Settled in, she leaned close to Sakuya with a lowered voice.
"Onee-sama, Masayo-nee-san is here again today. Isn't what you're doing a little... problematic?"
At this distance, Amano caught every word clearly regardless.
"Masayo?" Sakuya's brow furrowed. "Why is she here again?"
"Onee-sama, that's really too cruel a thing to say about Masayo-nee-san. She comes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening to wait for you to come home. I have it memorized. How does Onee-sama not?"
Amano could not follow the full context yet, but something about how Yukki was delivering this information felt less like a concerned report and more like throwing a stone into a pond to watch the ripples.
"We can deal with that later." Sakuya shook her head and pulled her bag onto her lap. "Studying first!"
She was showing an enthusiasm for learning that Amano had genuinely never seen from her before.
Then she produced the current issue of Weekly Shonen Jump and placed it open on the table.
"...Which manga arc were you planning to analyze?"
The reaction was instantaneous: Sakuya swept the magazine off the table. She then spent the next minute digging through her bag, pausing to relocate several more manga before eventually locating an actual textbook. She had brought significantly more fiction than curriculum materials.
While she was still searching, a new disturbance came from outside. Ryuuma's voice carried through the door.
"Masayo! The young mistress is in the middle of a study session! You cannot come in and disrupt them!"
"Who cares about any of that?!"
The wooden door slid open again.
A girl in Synchro Academy uniform, short blue hair, stood in the doorway. Her eyes fixed directly on Amano.
[Jinguuji Masayo] [Affection: 35]
Two successive first meetings with numbers at opposite extremes.
Yukki had set a new personal record high. This one had just set a new personal record low. They were exactly fifteen points apart. It felt like the distribution had been arranged deliberately.
"You are Amano Rei?"
"That's right."
Amano did not flinch from the weight she was putting into the question. As far as he was concerned, he was the one who had been properly invited here. This was Sakuya's estate, not anyone else's territory to challenge him on.
Yukki turned toward the doorway with a helpful expression. "Masayo-nee-san, Amano-sensei is here because Onee-sama invited him to tutor us. Please don't misunderstand!"
Masayo's focus shifted to Sakuya. When addressing her, the edge in her voice softened slightly.
"Sakuya. If you wanted tutoring, why not ask me? I am in the top ten at Synchro Academy. I would not be any worse than him at this."
Before she could get another word out, Ryuuma materialized from somewhere behind her, locked her arm, and covered her mouth with his other hand.
"Apologies, young mistress, Amano-aniki, for the disruption! This is entirely my failure as head of security! I will handle this completely right now! Please continue your lesson!"
"Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!"
Masayo thrashed against the hold with visible intensity.
Amano stared at the scene for a moment.
Did yakuza family households run like this on a normal evening? And did Ryuuma just casually say he would "handle this completely"? Was this young woman about to be disposed of at the bottom of a bay somewhere?
Yukki, turning back toward Amano, picked up her explanation without being asked.
"Please don't misunderstand, Amano-sensei. Masayo-nee-san is the second daughter of the Jinguuji family. The Jinguuji family and the Nanki'in family have designated each other as marriage alliance partners across generations. It is just that this particular generation happened to produce daughters on both sides, which made the arrangement... more complicated."
Amano had not asked for any of this. He also was not misunderstanding anything. But Yukki seemed to have decided the context was necessary regardless, and was delivering it with the air of someone who felt entitled to narrate the situation.
Thanks to that unsolicited explanation, the picture came together.
From what Amano understood of how old-line yakuza families operated, marriage alliances between clans were crucial infrastructure for maintaining long-term peace. These arrangements were fixed from birth and not typically left to the preferences of the people involved. Under the established family protocol, Sakuya should have been entered into an alliance marriage with the Jinguuji family. But the current generation having produced female heirs on both sides had complicated the execution of that arrangement.
"Complicated" was Yukki's characterization. But looking at Masayo's behavior: she was waiting at this estate every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. She was not treating this as resolved.
Which meant Amano had stumbled directly into the center of a reverse love triangle at the Nanki'in estate.
He glanced at Sakuya. She was looking at the table with an expression suggesting the floor would be acceptable as an alternative destination.
Well. At the family dinner last time, she had clung to his arm the entire night and made him experience a front-row seat to the Finesse rivalry dynamic. The current situation was a reasonably proportionate karmic reversal.
He ran a brief internal consideration of two available moves.
Option A: Feign offense, stand up, and walk out, letting Sakuya have to chase after him and call him back with Masayo watching everything.
Option B: Stay completely composed, look directly at Sakuya, and quietly ask: "Between her and me, which one do you actually choose?"
He discarded both immediately, because neither of them reflected how he actually wanted to handle this.
He had also noticed something. Of all the people in this room, the one who had been actively fanning these flames from the moment she sat down was, very clearly, Nanki'in Yukki.