Chapter 93: HERO vs HERO
Amano: "Is this really how things were supposed to go, Finesse?"
His original purpose in being here was to print her some Extra Deck cards. The plan was straightforward: possess Finesse, win a weekly duel, fuse some HEROes, expand her options before her sister came back.
Finesse: "The process went completely wrong. But the result is the same, so it's fine."
He stared at that message for a moment.
Your definition of "the result" better not be "win the duel against my older sister," because I never agreed to that part. That falls under a completely different service tier. This was supposed to be card printing, not fighting your family battles for you.
The problem was that Hacker Invasion ran on a two-hour clock with no early exit. He couldn't cancel the possession. And walking away from a sanctioned duel in Finesse's body wasn't an option either, for reasons of both system compliance and basic duelist self-respect.
HERO versus HERO it was.
Amano set his jaw and walked toward Fusion Academy's duel platform.
Behind him, Kikawayu Yuu watched with a frown that kept getting deeper.
"However I look at it, something feels off. What's going on?"
Standing opposite Latir Wein at close range, Amano had to once again acknowledge that the Wein family genetics were genuinely formidable. The woman in front of him was essentially short-haired Finesse, point for point, and in certain other departments she had Finesse comprehensively outclassed.
Finesse: "Amano. What exactly are you looking at right now."
It was a statement, not a question.
His eyes, his rules.
"We haven't dueled in about a year, have we, Finesse." Latir's gaze was sharp and steady across the field. "If you're still as weak as you used to be, I'm going to be very disappointed in you."
"Don't worry. I won't be disappointing anyone today."
Finesse: "AMANO. I would never say it like that! Who calls their older sister 'anyone'?"
Amano: "You're literally calling her 'sis' all the time."
Finesse: "I absolutely do NOT say 'sis'! My image! My carefully maintained image!"
Hm. Amano had genuinely assumed this was standard aristocratic sibling interaction, probably due to overexposure to Kaiba Chiha's particular communication style corrupting his baseline expectations.
Across the field, Latir had paused at the unexpected response. Those silver-grey eyes, identical to Finesse's, blinked once in clear surprise.
"Father mentioned your personality has opened up recently. I didn't think it was this dramatic a change." A beat. "Fine by me. I always found your fake-coldness insufferable anyway."
Latir raised her wrist terminal. White light began spreading across her frame.
"Let's go, Finesse. A Wein-style duel. The real kind."
Wein-style duel?
"Transform!"
The word came with full commitment and both arms raised overhead. A hero suit materialized in blue-white tones, complete and immaculate, with a helmet fitted with a semi-transparent visor that left only the clean line of her jaw visible below.
Amano stared at this.
He had a bad feeling about where this was going.
Finesse: "What are you waiting for? Transform! Go!"
Amano: "Me? I have to... transform? Myself?"
He'd known this was coming. He'd known from the moment Latir shouted the word.
Fine. It's not his embarrassment anyway. It's Finesse's.
Amano: "How do I do it?"
Finesse: "Check my Eva terminal. There's an app for it. Use the second costume."
He opened the terminal. There was, inexplicably, an actual dedicated transformation app.
The second costume instead of the first, Finesse said, because the first was what she'd worn during the fight with the Puppeteer. Changing it up served as loose cover. Though Amano privately doubted it made much difference, because which duelist outside the Wein family was running around with a transformation app on their terminal?
Some family traditions were their own kind of unique.
"Transform!"
Light washed over the borrowed girl's frame. Opposite Latir's blue-white, Finesse's suit materialized in red and black, darker in tone, built for someone who operated in the shadow of things rather than the light.
"Your transformation was sluggish, Finesse."
Latir delivered it without inflection, like reading a score off a board.
"I thought the determination to become a hero was the one thing you had over Karl. It seems you've lost even that."
Amano: "What does 'determination to become a hero' mean?"
Finesse: "Second brother doesn't like wearing the suit."
Amano reconsidered his entire opinion of Karl Wein.
He'd previously written Karl off as petty and small-minded. Vindicated. Karl was simply the only person in this family with a functional sense of self-preservation.
"She looks incredible!"
"That's a Wein duelist for you!"
"That color scheme really works on you, Finesse!"
The Fusion Academy students watching were apparently very into this.
Amano recalibrated. Right. Not his body. Objectively speaking, a hero suit on a girl with Finesse's build and face was going to generate exactly this reaction. There was nothing embarrassing about it. He was a Guardian Spirit. The girl wearing the suit was extremely attractive. This was simply observable fact.
Confidence restored. Let's duel.
[EVA: DUEL APPROVED]
[DUELIST: FINESSE WEIN (AMANO REI)]
[DUELIST: LATIR WEIN]
[DATA NETWORK CONNECTED, DUEL FIELD GENERATED]
[DUEL TYPE: WEEKLY DUEL]
[PROUD DUELISTS, LET VICTORY AND DEFEAT WEIGH YOUR SOULS IN THE BALANCE!]
[DUEL!!]
First turn went to Latir.
"I Normal Summon Masked HERO Goka in Defense Position!"
[Masked HERO Goka] [3-Star / EARTH / Warrior / Normal] [ATK: 1000 / DEF: 700]
A hero clad in earthen armor crouched into position on Latir's side of the field.
Of everything Amano had anticipated from "Fusion Academy's strongest HERO duelist," Masked HEROes had not been on the list.
He actually knew almost nothing about the Masked HERO series. The Masked HERO lower-level monsters were almost exclusively from the GX manga, cards that had never even appeared in the anime. The fact that they existed in Eden at all said something interesting about this world's card pool.
"I Set one card. Turn end."
First turn, field looking simple. Latir ended with a quiet confidence that suggested this wasn't anywhere close to the full picture.
"My turn. Draw!"
Amano took control of Finesse's hand and reached for the opening draw.
He'd adjusted Finesse's deck yesterday specifically for this weekly duel, loading it with a variety of different Fusion spells. The goal was to summon as many different HERO Fusions as possible during the duel, maximizing the new cards that would be added to her Extra Deck permanently afterward.
The core of the deck remained unchanged: Destiny HEROes.
"I Normal Summon Destiny HERO - Diamond Dude in Attack Position!"
[Destiny HERO - Diamond Dude] [4-Star / DARK / Warrior / Effect] [ATK: 1400 / DEF: 1600]
A hero encased in crystalline diamond materialized in front of Amano.
"D again."
Latir sighed.
The D she meant was clearly the D in DESTINY.
Finesse: "Big sis always makes that face whenever I summon a monster. I've never understood what her problem is."
Amano just asked her directly. "What's wrong with D?"
"Nothing wrong with D." Latir's eyes didn't shift. "My problem is with your D specifically."
She raised a hand and pointed across the field.
"The Destiny HEROes you use are too weak. A hero who can't even protect themselves has no standing to protect the family, or the people who need protecting. That's why I keep you away from the family's core operations, Finesse. Not because I look down on you. Because you're not ready."
Finesse: "Then fire back!"
Amano: "I can't."
Latir wasn't wrong. Looking at Finesse's Destiny HEROes without the Fusions Amano had printed for her, they really were exactly what Latir described. Low stats, situational effects, no real threat output.
And despite knowing she was outgunned, Finesse had gone after the Puppeteer in a Dark Game.
Amano: "Your older sister might not actually be a bad person."
Heroes didn't choose weak hosts. That wasn't how it worked. And someone chosen by heroes, who genuinely wanted her little sister to be strong enough to stand on her own, couldn't be written off that simply.
If Latir's problem with Finesse was her weakness, then the solution was just as straightforward: show her that the Destiny HEROes she looked down on were capable of something she hadn't seen yet.
"Destiny HERO - Diamond Dude's effect activates! I flip over the top card of my deck. If it's a Spell, I send it to the Graveyard and can use its effect next turn!"
Finesse's slender fingers flipped the top card.
Spell Card: Grand Convergence.
The mouth visible beneath Latir's visor parted slightly.
"You've actually learned Fusion Summoning, Finesse? I suppose... if you got into Fusion Academy, you at least know one or two Fusion Spells."
The older sister was apparently predisposed to give her little sister the benefit of the doubt.
One or two. If Amano hadn't been printing Finesse's Extra Deck for her, the correct number would have been zero. She didn't know a single Fusion monster before their first possession session together.
The blame for that falls on you, by the way. You never modeled Fusion Summoning for her. The only HERO series that doesn't use standard Polymerization is the Masked HERO series. Your little sister learned everything from your example, and your example was completely outside the norm.
"Spell Card: Fusion Sage!"
[Fusion Sage] [Spell: Add 1 "Polymerization" from your Deck to your hand, then shuffle your Deck.]
Back in his previous life this card would have been a waste of a card slot. You carry Polymerization, you don't need to search for it. But in Eden, where a single copy of Polymerization ran for thirty thousand Eva Points, Fusion Sage, which could be had for under ten thousand and simply found the Polymerization already in the deck, was a different kind of value entirely.
"I add Polymerization to my hand, then activate it immediately!"
Three cards came from Finesse's hand. One monster from the field. Fusion spiral expanded.
"I fuse three Destiny HEROes into one! Diamond Dude, Disk Commander, Dasher!"
The spiral swallowed all three, and from the breaking vortex, a new hero stepped forward.
"Shatter the chains of fate, master the trajectory of destiny! Triple Destiny Fusion!"
"Fusion Summon! DESTINY HERO - DOMINANCE!"
[Destiny HERO - Dominance] [10-Star / DARK / Warrior / Fusion / Effect]
[ATK: 2900 / DEF: 2600]
[Materials: Destiny HERO monsters x3]
Three Destiny HEROes, one Fusion Summon, and what emerged was a 10-Star titan with a capital D stamped across its chest armor and a massive fractured blade held in one hand. It landed on the field with enough weight to rattle the floor.
"An actual Fusion from Finesse. Interesting." Latir's tone had shifted. Not dramatically, but perceptibly. "Let me see it."
"Destiny HERO - Dominance's effect activates! During the Main Phase, I can look at the top five cards of either deck and rearrange them in any order!"
The hand holding fate over the top of the deck.
"I'll look at my own cards."
Finesse: "Looking? That's what you're using it for?"
Five cards flipped. Amano reviewed each one, then set them back in a specific sequence with a quiet smile.
"Moving to Battle Phase. Destiny HERO - Dominance attacks Masked HERO Goka!"
"'Fate-Severing Slash'!!"
The massive fractured blade swung. Dominance also carried a second effect: when it destroyed a monster in battle, draw one card.
"So you can already fuse to this level."
Latir said it with something that was almost satisfaction. Then she looked down at the Set card at her feet and activated it.
"Quick-Play Spell: Mask Change!"
[Mask Change] [Quick-Play Spell: Target 1 "HERO" monster you control; send it to the GY, then Special Summon 1 "Masked HERO" monster from your Extra Deck with the same Attribute as that monster.]
"I send Masked HERO Goka to the Graveyard. Special Summon the EARTH-Attribute Masked HERO from my Extra Deck!"
"Transform, Goka!"
The Mask Change card became a transformation belt, fastening around Goka's waist. Energy gathered. Armor locked into place piece by piece, layer after layer, the composite form of an earth-attribute hero fully assembled from the fusion of diamond-hard plating.
"Special Summon! MASKED HERO DIAN!"
[Masked HERO Dian] [8-Star / EARTH / Warrior / Fusion / Effect]
[ATK: 2800 / DEF: 3000]
[This card can only be Special Summoned with the effect of "Mask Change."]
2800 ATK. 100 lower than Dominance. But that defense rating, 3000, was a wall comparable to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's raw attack power.
Latir placed Dian sideways on her Duel Disk. Defense Position.
"Too bad, Finesse. Your hero's attack can't break through 3000 points of diamond."
Hm. You know the Blue-Eyes White Dragon comparison.
Amano pulled the attack back.
"Since your field changed, I cancel this attack."
He paused.
A thought surfaced.
Amano: 'What's your sister's academy ranking?'
Finesse: 'Before she took her leave, she was consistently top twenty. I'm not sure where she'd place now.'
Top twenty. In the entire academy. With a Masked HERO deck.
That tracked. Masked HEROes at full power were a top-tier archetype across any format. The Mask Change engine was fast and flexible, capable of generating threatening fields from nearly any starting hand.
Amano had been spending a lot of time playing against high-ranked opponents for someone who was still in his first year.
"I Set one card. Turn end."
The objective hadn't changed. He wanted to win this for Finesse. She'd done too much for him and Shio to walk away from this with anything less than a victory that forced Latir to reconsider her assessment. If the weekly duel's academy system evaluated his performance highly enough, Finesse might even earn a strong Destiny HERO card as her reward.
First, he needed to get through whatever was coming next.
"Not bad. Surviving one of my turns with actual field presence, Finesse. Let's see if you can handle what comes next." Latir drew her next card. "My turn!"