Chapter 54: Yuma Tsukumo in Ranked Matches?
"Find Puppeteer among thirty thousand people?"
Since this was academy werewolf, they obviously needed a seer.
"Finesse, are there no other clues? Even knowing which academy would narrow the scope significantly."
"There are." Finesse pulled up her Eva terminal's projection screen.
"Recently, those incidents where behavior gets controlled, emotions become inexplicably violent, and people use duels to assault innocent passersby—several cases occurred in Academy City too."
Though the news had mosaicked the victims' and perpetrators' faces, the students' white uniforms remained conspicuous.
"Synchro Academy!"
"That's why I've been focusing on Synchro Academy students, especially high-ranked ones."
The terror incident happened ten years ago. This timeline itself contained contradictions.
Even fifth-year higher division students would've only been twelve or thirteen back then.
Even for a hidden antisocial personality, causing such a sensational terror incident at such a young age—at minimum, it proved Puppeteer's dueling ability was definitely extraordinary. Perhaps even terrifyingly strong.
And then another ten years had passed.
Amano scrolled up the ranked points interface. Thirty thousand was still too many—might as well jump straight to the top.
At rank ten, he spotted a familiar name.
[Kaiba Chiha] [Xyz Academy] [Point Rank: 10] [Total Accumulated Points: 545,000]
Holy crap, couldn't tell that brat was this skilled.
Reaching top ten ranking in Academy City—in Eden Tower full of duelist brains, you'd absolutely be an elite among elites.
Worthy of being Kaiba Corporation's second-in-command, casually raising [Blue-Eyes White Dragon]'s price to 120 million.
Using your butt to think, you'd know Kaiba Chiha's deck definitely had tons of expensive rare cards, including but not limited to that [Painful Choice].
The points ranking interface also marked everyone's academy.
Amano suddenly got curious.
Since the three great academies' relationship was so tense, all fighting over which was the superior summoning method—which academy had the most people in the top ten?
Amano scanned and tallied—Xyz Academy: 2 people, Fusion Academy: 2 people, Synchro Academy: 6 people.
By headcount alone, Synchro Academy was clearly more outstanding. Looking at just the top 100, Synchro Academy seemed to have the most representatives too.
But looking at the top three—third place belonged to Synchro Academy.
[Rin Seiya] [Total Accumulated Points: 762,000]
Second place was Fusion Academy's [Kaiba Chiaki] [Total Accumulated Points: 815,000]
Another old familiar name—Kaiba Corporation's number one, the older sister being stronger than the younger made sense.
However, first place—that name looked even more familiar to Amano.
Xyz Academy [Yuma Tsukumo] [Total Accumulated Points: 954,000]
Lord Yuma, when did you arrive?
Unlike Kaiba Chiaki who bore the Kaiba surname yet wasn't the original anime character—
Yuma Tsukumo's name was identical to Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL's protagonist!
Just reading the name made Amano feel like shouting "kattobingu!"
Except Amano vaguely remembered that in the anime, Yuma Tsukumo should've been just a 13-year-old middle schooler, the type who ranked dead last in his class.
This character setup was completely reversed!
Reaching first place in the higher division academy ranked matches—you'd need to be at least twenty years old. And these accumulated points were ridiculously high, completely in a league of their own. Over 100,000 points ahead of second place Kaiba.
A fully matured twenty-year-old Lord Yuma? Amano found it hard to imagine.
Perhaps it was just a coincidental duplicate name.
Looking at the leaderboard, Synchro Academy had the most people in the top ten, but their strongest only occupied third place. Xyz Academy didn't have the most people, but possessed the number one ranker.
Looking at it this way, Fusion Academy was actually the most awkward.
Guess the noblest summoning method hadn't been fully developed in this world yet.
But would Puppeteer be among these ten?
Well, at least someone like Kaiba Chiha probably wasn't. A 20-year-old girl about the same height as Shio.
Ten years ago, she would've been even more pocket-sized. Hard to imagine a tiny kid causing any terror attack incidents.
======
"Achoo—!"
In Kaiba Corporation's president's office, Kaiba Chiha, gripping a game controller, sneezed heavily.
Felt like someone was talking smack behind her back?
Just then, the office door was knocked.
"Come in."
Completely unconcerned, Kaiba Chiha kept mashing buttons, eyes never leaving the screen.
Gently pushing the door open was Kaiba Chiha's personal secretary at the corporation.
Standard office lady attire, long legs in black stockings, intellectual glasses, decent looks, good figure.
"Young Master Chiha, the person you asked us to monitor has arrived at Academy City."
"Oh!"
The second before, Chiha had been clutching her controller unwilling to let go—now she directly shut off the screen.
Her expression switched from slacking mode to serious mode. Deep within the girl's beautiful eyes, incompletely dissipated fury still lingered.
"That useless Akira, completely wasted the cards I lent him. Tell him his year-end bonus is toast!"
"Young Master Chiha, according to information provided by surveillance personnel, today at 14:28, Amano Rei registered at the Academy City Service Center, applying to take tomorrow's entrance exam."
"Which academy?"
"Fusion Academy."
"Hmph, arrogant! How dare you think you're qualified to attend the same academy as Big Sister!"
Even after a month had passed, Kaiba Chiha still hadn't forgotten that day in District 32, the humiliating scene where Amano Rei toyed with her.
In her memory, the man with a twisted face, despicable and shameless, held the [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] card, smirking as he constantly provoked her.
"Want it? Here you go! Can't catch it, huh? Came back to me! Hahaha! Just messing with you!"
(↑ Absolutely none of this actually happened)
Well, the Amano Rei in Kaiba Chiha's memory had completely lost any connection to the real person. He'd become a pure product of humiliated-filtered perception.
Actually, what enraged Kaiba Chiha most was Amano Rei binding the fourth [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] card.
Kaiba Chiha had already received news that Kaiba Chiaki was returning from her external investigations.
Big Sister would come back soon, only to learn the fourth [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] card could never be obtained.
As a 120% pure sis-con, just thinking about Big Sister showing a sad expression made Kaiba Chiha's hatred toward Amano Rei surge.
Absolutely couldn't let Amano Rei appear at the Duel Academy. Especially flaunting around in front of Big Sister with that [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] card—Kaiba Chiha would never allow it.
"Arrange this for me!"
"What matter, Young Master Chiha?"
"Tomorrow, for Amano Rei's entrance exam—I'm personally taking the field!"
Academy entrance exams were basically handled by upperclassmen one year ahead.
The specialized test decks had low power levels. Even with the additional restriction of limited summoning methods, passing wasn't difficult.
But Kaiba Chiha—an Xyz Academy senior, ranked tenth powerhouse—going to conduct Fusion Academy's entrance exam?
This clearly violated regulations.
But rules were often controlled by the strong.
"Next up: Kaiba Special Rules!"
"What about the test deck?" the secretary inquired.
"What test deck? There's no such thing."
She'd made up her mind to make Amano Rei disappear from Academy City.
Kaiba Chiha drew the top card from the deck on her desk—
Level 8, LIGHT Attribute, Dragon-Type, 3000 ATK, 2500 DEF.
Just as powerful as Big Sister's dragon.
Hehe, if she let Amano Rei pass the test tomorrow, she'd never grow taller for the rest of her life!
[Kaiba Chiha] [Affection -1]
"???"
On the train, Amano's head filled with question marks.
Why did affection randomly drop again?
[Affection change detected. Skill reward distribution failed. Please try again later.]
Already told you, no need to specifically notify me every single time affection changes.