Chapter 250: Is 90 Affection the Kill Line?
The anime's opening played on the club room television, but the moment Amano walked through the door, Rin Seiya's starlit eyes locked onto him with a quiet, slightly mysterious smile and did not move.
"Senpai. You called me out here alone. Something important?"
"Sit first, junior. I'll tell you in a bit."
As she said it, she pressed her bare white foot lightly against the empty spot on the sofa beside her, guiding him to sit down next to her.
"I promised it was something important. Just need a moment."
"This had better not turn into another watch-anime-together session."
"And what if it is? Would that be so bad?"
"Honestly, not really."
Amano settled into the soft sofa and let himself relax properly against the back cushion for the first time in a while.
Between the Academy Challenge Tournament runs and the Chronicle with Union of Kindred Spirits and the strongest Evil God, the intensity of the past few days had been genuinely high. Even without physical exhaustion, mental fatigue was real. It was time to decompress.
Then, almost immediately after he sat down, Rin Seiya swung her feet over and rested them in his lap.
"That's a bit much, Senpai."
"What's much about it? I washed my feet. It's not like it costs you anything."
Did you specifically come to the club building to wash your feet? Interesting hobby.
Though from the faintly warm skin and the barely-dried ends of her white hair, it was probably not just her feet. She had taken a full shower.
The club building did have a bathroom, technically. It was there for sports clubs and for emergencies like Kuroshio Nagi's roadside wardrobe incident. It was not exactly standard use.
Whatever the case, there was a faint clean scent about Rin Seiya now. Not her feet, to be clear. Her whole presence.
The subtly charged atmosphere reminded Amano of the first time he had gone to visit her at home when she was sick. She had been running a fever for two days without a bath, and yet there had been some faint pleasant quality to her presence even then.
It was not a perfume. Just something that was pleasant.
He had actually looked it up when he got home afterward.
The top result on EdenNet: that kind of subtle scent was explained by pheromones. A biological-level attraction between two individuals whose genetics were highly compatible, creating an instinctive response. Hence the pleasant quality.
He had come away with genuine respect for biology as a discipline.
Absentmindedly turning her ankle in his hand, he watched the anime playing on the screen.
Both the content on the television and the atmosphere of just the two of them in the room felt deeply familiar.
"Does it ring a bell, junior?" The mysterious smile at the corner of Rin Seiya's mouth had not moved.
The episode on screen was from the 5D's Fortune Cup arc. The same set of episodes they had watched the first time Amano ever came to this club room.
That had been the first real exchange they had actually had, as opposed to the inexplicable pictures she had been sending him through the VSN system before that.
It was also the night two people who shared the same interests had watched episodes until well past midnight, and then walked straight into an encounter with the Puppeteer, and both of them had been pulled into a Dark Game.
"If you hadn't been there that night, junior, I probably would have died in the Dark Game. And not just that once: with the time I got sick afterward, I think you've saved me two or three times over by this point."
Rin Seiya still dreamed about that night occasionally. Not as a nightmare. What she saw was the back of a young man who had stepped in front of her without a second's hesitation and taken a mechanical dragon's lethal laser for her.
"Let me see your arm, junior."
"Hm?" Amano held it out cooperatively, with one preemptive condition: "No biting. No licking either."
Rin Seiya slid his sleeve up without comment, and her eyes moved.
"There's a scar."
He had taken that mechanical dragon's attack with that arm directly. Even after the club building's medical equipment had done what it could post-duel, the severe thermal burn had left a mark.
"That one doesn't bother me. There are quite a few others, actually. You just can't see them."
An Amano Rei who had been working in the junkyard recycling district since before he was of age had accumulated scars in numbers he had long since stopped counting. That was simply the reality of doing physical labor in the lower districts. For most of the workers down there, a minor injury that left a mark was not even worth mentioning.
"Can I see?" Rin Seiya asked with complete directness.
"Let you see. That seems... not great?" Amano declined politely.
"No, I want to see." Rin Seiya rejected his rejection, pulled her feet back, and threw herself across him entirely. "I am going to see exactly how many scars there are."
Today's senpai was also being extremely unusual.
The specific degree of unusual reminded Amano of a certain Finesse on a certain night.
You'd better actually be here to look at the scars.
[Thought Reading, activating.]
Thought 1: Is this excuse too clumsy? But I do genuinely like him. Besides, we already shared souls!
Thought 2: Not thinking about it.
Thought 3: Yes.
Three short, direct thoughts. Barely any space in Senpai's head right now for anything other than those three.
Amano finally understood something clearly.
[Rin Seiya] [Affection: 91]
That was not an affection score. That was a kill threshold.
At 90, he was going down.
"Senpai. Not in the club room, surely."
"Relax. The soundproofing in this room is excellent. Unless someone's pressing their ear against the door from outside, no one would hear a thing."
"...Well then. Alright."
Surely nobody would actually do something like press their ear against the door.
Kuroshio Nagi, ear pressed against the door from outside, had stopped breathing.
She had just stumbled onto something explosive.
The content was so explosive, in fact, that she was starting to feel genuine apprehension, along with a quiet reproach from her own conscience. Should she be a decent person and leave?
Her rational mind told her yes. But her legs had gone completely uncooperative and were refusing to move. And with the scene in the room playing out in her imagination, the pull to keep listening was proving very difficult to override.
Kuroshio Nagi smoked, drank, and had a well-established reputation as a delinquent. But she was an absolute beginner at this kind of thing. Curiosity was natural.
She had not expected Rin Seiya-senpai to play this kind of card. The monster just came out of nowhere and swallowed Amano's dragon entirely.
The duel inside the room had apparently reached a temperature that was turning Kuroshio's cheeks a shade approaching crimson. Her thoughts were going sideways, her head was swimming, and her hands were starting to behave independently.
Somewhere in the course of that evening, Kuroshio Nagi appeared to unlock a new category of interest: eavesdropping on other people's duels.
A productive evening.
Well. Not a full evening exactly. Less than two hours in, Rin Seiya was raising her hands.
"I can't. Junior, I genuinely cannot. Please stop."
In their ordinary interactions Senpai always seemed to be the one holding herself back the most. Her actual endurance in practice turned out to be considerably less impressive. A lot of sharp talk and not much behind it.
By comparison, Finesse-ojousama had appeared to have very few thoughts along these lines in everyday life, but her practical performance had comprehensively outclassed Rin Seiya's.
That was the terrifying physical constitution of a HERO family member. The girl who had once draped Amano's unconscious body over her shoulder and carried him through a District 11 alley at a brisk pace without apparent difficulty.
Part of the comparison came down to Amano's own improved performance since the first time. The initial unfamiliarity had been on both sides of that encounter. With one more round of experience on his side, having a full tactical advantage in the rematch was not surprising.
Incidentally, he had still never beaten Rin Seiya in an actual standing duel. The Riding Duel at the arena had been his win. But Rin Seiya's wounded pride had demanded a best-of-three afterward, and she had taken that 2-1.
The memory of her completely satisfied expression after winning those two standing duels, cheerfully demanding he rub her shoulders as prize compensation, was still fresh. He found he had some revenge in mind.
"I really can't anymore..."
[Rin Seiya] [Affection +5] [Affection: 96]
All right. A mild punishment was probably enough. Looking at the barely-functional Rin Seiya collapsed across the sofa, Amano decided mercy was appropriate.
Besides, evening study hall was ending soon. There was no guarantee other people would not come by. Time to tidy up the aftermath; at minimum the traces left by the battle needed to be dealt with.
[Kuroshio Nagi] [Affection +1] [Affection: 79]
Wait.
Why?
How had Kuroshio's affection also gone up?
Amano genuinely could not explain this. His best theory was that she had watched one of his duel recordings again and the idol effect had kicked in. No other explanation came to mind.
His most straightforwardly cooperative conquest target, and here she was receiving passive affection increases.
Amano handled the evidence, but no one else arrived at the club room that night. Everyone seemed to have their own things going on.
After a proper rest period, Rin Seiya had recovered enough energy to be a functioning person, though not enough to move around with any reliability. She stayed on the sofa with Amano's wide white school jacket draped over her pale shoulders, sitting on her knees.
"That was mean, junior."
"Who moved first?"
"Look how practiced you are. This clearly isn't your first time."
Rin Seiya's lower lip pushed out slightly, and then her eyes lit with a speculative gleam.
"So since you're that good at this, I suppose that makes us a couple now? You can't just take something and have no responsibility for it."
Couple. As in dating. Finesse had never put it in exactly those words, but now that Rin Seiya had, Amano remembered: this whole system had been called the Romance Development System from the start.
"Is that what you want, Senpai?"
"Of course! I think we suit each other extremely well. Compatibility, shared interests. If we date and then just get married, our domestic life after that would definitely be very peaceful. And if you ever don't want to work, I'll ride Riding Duels and support us both."
How had she already moved on to planning the post-marriage household?
Though as the current holder of a Kaiba Corporation salary in the fifty million range, that was not a scenario where he needed supporting.
"I'll think about it."
"You absolute player!"
"Senpai, consider your own profile for a second. Dating at the Academy, when you're a well-known figure here, would make my next few years of school life very difficult."
Rin Seiya was the acknowledged goddess of Synchro Academy. The photo posts she put up on her VSN feed got tens of thousands of likes. Her fan base could drown Amano in disapproval from sheer numbers alone.
Dating Rin Seiya would, if he was being direct, be more complicated than dating Finesse. Anywhere he went around the Academy, he would be on the receiving end of the collective jealousy of Synchro Academy's student body.
"That's fair, I suppose. The curse of being a popular beauty is real." Rin Seiya shook her head with resigned acceptance. "But after graduation we can go straight to married, right?"
"You've already skipped dating entirely?"
"Dating suddenly seems like a lot of effort. Let's just go straight to being a wife. Oh, also, I haven't posted tonight yet."
The nightly eleven o'clock VSN post, as reliable as a personal diary entry, never missed a day.
"I still can't really move. Go out to the balcony and take a photo of the night sky for me, junior."
"Has to be the night sky specifically?"
"It has to be." On this point Rin Seiya was completely firm.
Fine. It was not much trouble. Amano stepped out to the balcony, found a decent angle, and pressed the camera shutter on the Eva Terminal.
"That's a good shot, junior. You have a talent for this."
Rin Seiya received the photo on her terminal and began composing tonight's post content.
Amano leaned over out of mild curiosity to see what she was going to write.
The post read: [Thinking I want to get married right after graduation.]
"Senpai, is posting that really okay?"
He had a feeling the comments on tonight's post were going to combust immediately.
"Hehe. It's fine. Don't you think there's something deliciously guilty about it?"
He had not expected the white hair to be concealing that kind of subtle mischief underneath.
After posting, Rin Seiya buried her nose in Amano's wide school jacket and took a slow breath.
"Coming again tomorrow, junior?"
"I have plans tomorrow."
"You're a first-year. How are you busier than I am?"
"Senpai, you're too free. I actually have something on."
He had promised Nanki'in Sakuya he would go with her after school tomorrow for her Duel gene awakening identification. Managing a schedule was its own skill.
Besides, from the look of how urgent Sakuya felt about this, it was probably connected to the call she had received during that last afternoon period.
"Alright. I'll go find a friend to hang out with tomorrow then."
"You actually have friends, Senpai?"
Amano said it with genuine surprise. In all the time he had known her, he had never seen Rin Seiya with other people around her. Even when she had been sick she had been alone at home.
"What kind of isolated personality type do you think I am? I have two or three friends! And my closest friend is someone I've known since childhood. I'll introduce her to you sometime when there's a chance."
As she said it, Rin Seiya extended one leg and hooked it lightly around Amano's ankle.
"Mm. I think I've recovered a bit. Since you're busy tomorrow, junior, do you want to keep going tonight?"
The smile at the corner of her mouth at that moment was the classic expression of someone who had completely forgotten they had just been begging for mercy not ten minutes ago.
Someone whose nose had been running and who had been on the edge of tears while pleading for it to stop.
As expected, this time Rin Seiya's signature white ahoge wilted in under an hour.
[Kuroshio Nagi] [Affection +1]
What is the explanation for this?
[Kuroshio Nagi] [Affection: 80]
Even accepting that it was passive accumulation, clearing 80 affection in one sitting was a remarkable pace.
[Affection reached 80. Romantic skill unlocked: Burning Timelord]
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