Chapter 257: The Second Virtuous
The system repeated itself.
[Victor!]
[Young miss x Young master!]
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"
The real heat from the flames blazing in the Dark Game was so intense that even the audience above and below the stage could feel the actual thermal wave washing over them.
"Father!" No matter how much his personality had changed recently, he was still their father. Watching Jinguuji Domitsu wail inside the final conflagration, both Jinguuji sisters cried out at the same time.
The fire cleared. Jinguuji Domitsu was on both knees, his consciousness barely holding together.
Facing a Domitsu broken in the dark, Amano heard the system's notification chime through his borrowed awareness. Then came a prompt he had not seen in a while.
[Occupation detected. Recording in progress.]
The system had detected an occupation from Jinguuji Domitsu.
Since Shiyue Yi's fall, no new occupations had been added to the system's records. Not only that: when the Wicked Avatar had been awakened, three occupations had been sacrificed in the process.
The result was that Amano's occupation roster was currently down to a single entry: Deity Tamer.
He still had not figured out what the "occupation" records the system kept actually did, beyond providing cards. But collecting them felt like collecting achievements in a video game. Even if you did not know what they were for, you still wanted more. And they did hand out cards, so they were not entirely without purpose.
[Recording complete.]
[Occupation: "the Virtuous"]
...Excuse me?
System, you are telling me the occupation you just recorded from a middle-aged man at the head of a yakuza family is what exactly?
The format was completely different from every other occupation on record. All the others had followed the pattern of a specific professional title. "The Virtuous" was not a professional title in any conventional sense.
Was "the Virtuous" even an occupation?
Ecclesia: "I'd say it counts, roughly speaking."
Eve: "Incidentally, a priestess is a completely legitimate occupation."
Amano opened the system's occupation description and, more importantly, checked the card waiting to be claimed in the Eva Terminal. Every occupation entry always came with one.
[A divine paradox walking upon red embers. The pure white remaining feather blooming in muddy darkness.]
["Guided by destiny, the gathered Virtuous ones shall create a new world."]
Same as always: a description that made no immediate sense and read like dramatic foreshadowing.
As for the card itself, Amano was currently in Nanki'in Sakuya's body and could not conveniently access his own Eva Terminal to check.
Which brought him to the subject of Nanki'in Sakuya's body. His idiot class president had now attracted the attention of a Millennium Item for the second time.
The first time had been Nanki'in Onikiri with the Millennium Key, who had wanted to take Sakuya's body for himself. Now here was Jinguuji Domitsu with a Millennium Rod, who had wanted to dominate her mind.
Was there something about the Nanki'in family's bodies that was especially attractive to Millennium Item holders?
Thinking it through: if you counted all the background spirit tutoring sessions, Amano himself had racked up the longest cumulative time operating in Nanki'in Sakuya's body of anyone.
Amano: "Sakuya. You might want to reflect on this. Why is your body the target every single time a Millennium Item gets involved? I can barely keep up with how often I have to come rescue you from something."
Sakuya: "I don't think I'm that remarkable in that way. Besides, I think you manage just fine. This time too, actually. I didn't take a single point of real damage."
She had burned down to 400 LP, yet truly felt nothing. The reason was that Amano had taken the control slot the Millennium Rod was targeting before Domitsu could lock it in. The mental domination-type Dark Game had been negated at the source.
[Nanki'in Sakuya] [Affection +4] [Affection: 89]
After the second Dark Game, the idiot class president's affection had climbed to one point away from the next skill unlock.
For some reason, Amano found himself feeling simultaneously eager and uneasy about the 90-point threshold.
He wanted the skill. He was also a little worried about what clearing it too quickly might do to the balance everyone had established between them. He could only hope that the most straightforwardly dense of the bunch would not start thinking about complicated things for a while yet. When too many relationship routes developed at once, situations had a way of going sideways.
The moment the Dark Game's barrier dissolved, members from both families surged onto the dueling stage.
The Jinguuji side immediately took the barely-conscious Jinguuji Domitsu and carried him back to the family's private rest area.
On the Nanki'in side, the two personal bodyguards who stayed closest to Sakuya at all times appeared at her side immediately.
"Young miss, are you alright?"
"Is there any discomfort anywhere?"
"Do you need us to call an ambulance?"
"Nothing that dramatic. I'm just a little tired. I'll rest for a moment." Amano waved them off and consciously tried to dial back his expression. Sakuya's signature blank face with its faint moe quality was widely known. If the expression suddenly became animated, the people around her would worry more, not less.
The Farewell Banquet hall, which had been held in a tense and artificially civil atmosphere by the formal rules of the occasion, had now become something else entirely following the Dark Game. The atmosphere between the two families was more volatile than it had ever been.
Even so, any actual violence in the mid-level district, under Eva's management, could not simply play out as a street brawl between opposing family members.
What happened next with Domitsu's act of underhanded betrayal was not Amano's problem to solve. He left that to Muramasa and Yukihime. His job was to fight the duel. Getting involved in yakuza family politics beyond that was not something he wanted any part of.
Up in the viewing area, Nanki'in Muramasa finally let out a breath that had been held for a long time.
"I wouldn't have believed that boy Domitsu was capable of something this underhanded. He used to be a reasonably decent person. Yukihime, can you actually believe a person can change this much?"
Yukihime smiled. "I didn't used to believe it. But watching Sakuya's duel just now, it was like she became a completely different person. Father. You owe me an explanation. Though honestly, I think I can already guess. That was Amano, wasn't it?"
"Yukihime, did you realize I let something slip just now?"
"Yes. But I still need you to explain to me why something that inexplicable happened in the middle of Sakuya's duel."
"The exact mechanism is beyond this old man's understanding. I imagine it must be connected to the Millennium Puzzle fragments Amano holds. I didn't want to pry too closely. Asking too directly might strain things between us."
"Another Millennium Item." Yukihime's beautiful eyes moved thoughtfully. "The Nanki'in family and the Millennium Items really do have a history together."
Amano did not linger in the tense banquet hall. He could not separate from Nanki'in Sakuya's body yet, and too much time moving around out there meant too many of the Nanki'in retainers who had watched Sakuya grow up from childhood might notice something off. He walked Sakuya's light steps back to the innermost room of the family's private rest area, where his own body was currently lying.
Ryuuma was still standing guard at the door, doing his job with an intensity that would have discouraged anyone who tried to approach. When he spotted Sakuya coming, the loyalty dog immediately went from feral to obedient.
"Y-young miss? Young Master Amano is inside right now..."
"I know. Stand aside, Ryuuma."
"Yes." Ryuuma stepped back without another word.
His orders had been to let nobody through. But it was obvious that the young miss was not included in "nobody."
Amano pushed the door open. At the sight of his own body resting peacefully on the sofa, he finally relaxed.
The Hacker Invasion's duration still had an hour and a half left. The best move right now was to stay in this room, keeping Sakuya's body together with his own, and avoid adding to the confusion outside.
Amano: "Sorry for keeping you stuck in here, Sakuya. You missed most of a perfectly good dinner party."
Sakuya: "I don't mind. Honestly, between a dinner party and being alone together in a room, I prefer this."
Technically this was not two people alone in a room in any conventional sense. Two people in a room would be 1 plus 1. The current state was more accurately described as 2 plus 0. But that was a technicality.
With nothing else to do for the time being, Amano looked toward his own sleeping form and then reached out with Sakuya's cool-fingered hand and took hold of his own left hand.
The voice in his head stumbled: "Wha, wh-wh, Amano, what are you doing? Being bored is not a reason to do something like this. And if you want to hold hands normally, you can just ask me. I would never refuse something like that."
Amano had no interest in that particular kind of self-involvement and was not about to start behaving strangely just because he happened to be occupying a girl's body. He lifted his own left wrist and keyed in the passcode to unlock the Eva Terminal, purely to check the card that would have appeared there after the occupation was recorded.
As expected, the relevant option was flashing in the terminal.
[Card awaiting claim: Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous]
Amano materialized the card data from the terminal and held it in hand.
[Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous] [Level 4 / LIGHT]
[Spellcaster / Tuner / Effect]
[ATK: 1500 / DEF: 1500]
In the card art, a silver-haired woman in a vivid crimson gown stood holding a slender blade, her gem-red eyes seemingly watching something beyond the card's edge.
The Jinguuji father and daughter between them had now provided one Virtuous card each.
But unlike the time he had received Dogmatika Ecclesia, the Virtuous, there was a clear difference here. Amano could feel it plainly: this card did not have a spirit residing in it. It was just a card.
Even as a card without a spirit, Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous was genuinely useful. Without Fallen of Albaz on hand for the first effect, the card still brought a Level 4 Tuner along with the second effect that functioned as a Fusion Summon in the Main Phase, giving it applications across both of Amano's core axes.
A good card, all things considered.
Amano: "Something feels like I'm forgetting it, though."
At that same moment, in the banquet hall, Amano Shio was still chewing and scanning the room with wandering eyes, searching through the crowd.
"Why isn't Big Brother back yet?"
Shio had been in possession of very little information about the actual situation. All she knew was what Amano had said before vanishing: "Shio, stay here and don't move. I'll be right back."
And since she had always done what her brother told her from the time they were small, she had been standing here ever since, frozen in place, anchored to the fried rice station at the banquet buffet.
The only thing she could do in that state was bowl after bowl of fried rice.
"Big Brother. If you don't come back soon, I won't have room for dinner at home."
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