Chapter 286: Shiyue Yi's Infinite Debt
The expression on Amano's face when he heard what Nanki'in Yukihime had just said was the very specific expression that said: what on earth are you talking about.
So much for twenty years of reading people.
You spent twenty years working on this, and that is your conclusion?
"Shio is obviously my real sister. I was there when she was born."
Calling it an eyewitness account was a bit of an exaggeration, technically, but when Shio had been brought out from the delivery room at the community hospital in District 32, Amano had been the first person to see her. His own little sister, the one right in front of him. There was no room for a mix-up.
"What?" Now it was Yukihime who looked uncertain.
The reading of people that she had spent so long developing was supposed to work on something like this. The feelings Amano Shio directed toward Amano Rei: there was unambiguously something particular in them.
Not that particular feelings alone were enough to make such a conclusion, even for Yukihime. Siblings could be close to a degree that looked unusual from outside. She was not the type to make a rash judgment on that basis.
The thing that had given her enough confidence to say what she had said was not the reading of people at all. It was one specific object.
The pendant around Amano Shio's neck.
"Amano Rei: do you know the current situation in the Top Layer?"
"The Top Layer? Nothing. I know nothing about it."
Amano had left the bottom tier of the Tower only a month ago. He heard things about the upper tiers occasionally. The Top Layer, separated from him by two full tiers, was something that belonged to a category beyond his ordinary frame of reference.
In his understanding, the bottom, middle, and upper tiers differed primarily in wealth: poor, ordinary, and rich, in that order. The Tower's structure narrowed toward the top, which meant the higher you went, the smaller the actual living space, and paradoxically, many of the major households including the Nanki'in preferred their estates in the middle tier where there was room to build properly. The upper tier functioned more as a status symbol: holding an address there was the entry ticket to important business gatherings, rare card auctions, and professional dueling events, all of which were held in the upper tier almost exclusively.
That was how the Tower worked for someone like Amano. The Top Layer might as well have been a different world.
"Then let me explain, because it connects to everything else I want to discuss tonight." Yukihime's tone had shifted: precise and serious in a way that was distinct from her usual social warmth. "Twenty years ago, the Top Layer had a population of around two thousand. Only those who were recognized by the mainframe Eva as genuinely contributing to Eden's future were eligible to live there."
She held up two fingers, then folded them down one at a time.
"Today, the population is approximately three hundred."
"In twenty years? Down by more than four-fifths?" Amano stared.
A population drop of that scale was not something that happened naturally. Across all of recorded human history, that kind of number required either a natural disaster or a man-made catastrophe, or both simultaneously. The Top Layer of Eden had no natural disasters to speak of. Which left only the other kind.
"Amano: have you heard of digital life?"
"That... rings a bell."
"The reason the Top Layer's population dropped so sharply is that the majority of its residents chose to abandon their physical bodies. They transferred their souls and consciousness into data and moved permanently into Eva's network. Digital immortality."
"Cyber immortality..."
This was something Amano had only ever encountered in science fiction from his previous life, and even then it had been treated as speculative. There were no similar works in Eden, no films or novels exploring the concept. The idea of discarding a physical body in exchange for immortality as pure data was entirely outside the everyday frame of reference for anyone in the Tower's lower tiers.
Was this the same kind of immortality that Nanki'in Onikiri had been pursuing through the Millennium Key?
"I still don't follow how any of this connects to Shio, or to the Millennium Items."
"According to what the Nanki'in family has been able to determine: the data behind the Millennium Items originated in the Top Layer's network."
The Millennium Items in Eden were not physical objects. They existed entirely as data.
"Onikiri's Millennium Key, my father's Millennium Scale, and some portion of the power that Jinguuji Domitsu was able to use through the Millennium Rod: all of it traces back to the Top Layer's network."
"Those people who converted their souls and consciousness into data, somewhere in the deep layers of Eva's network, found a way to access a power that originated six thousand years ago. And they brought it into Eden from there."
That the Millennium Item power originated with people in the Top Layer clarified something Amano had been wondering about: why the people who held Millennium Item power had shown such particular interest in Nanki'in Sakuya's body. Sakuya's Sky Striker field was one of the rarest Link archetype gene fields in all of Eden. In the Top Layer, where the Extra Zone was always active, that power would operate at its absolute maximum. Combined with the setting in the anime where Link Summoning and data networks were inseparable by design: anyone looking at it from the outside would say the same thing. Sakuya's body was uniquely suited to the Top Layer.
"What about Shio?" Amano pressed.
"Amano Rei: the pendant around Shio's neck." Yukihime's voice was measured. "Do you know where it came from?"
"She said it was a farewell gift from a friend."
"She told you that?"
"Yes."
Amano was fairly sure he was not misremembering. The pendant had come up when Shio was talking with Yui: something mentioned in passing, something given to her by someone.
She had not named the person who gave it to her.
"That is not a pendant." Nanki'in Yukihime's expression had no trace of its usual warmth. "It is a digital life form's key."
"A digital life form's key?"
"More precisely: it is a living person."
From the first time she had laid eyes on Amano Shio, Yukihime had noticed the pendant. Something about its particular shape had registered with her, though she had no concrete basis to name what it was at the time. She had simply noted it internally and moved on.
After that, in the weeks that followed, her fondness for Shio had led to the girl spending considerable time on her lap or in her arms. Part of that was genuine: Shio's company made Yukihime feel something like the person she had been in her professional dueling days, and that feeling was something she had not expected to be able to access again. But some of that time had been quiet observation of the pendant.
The same week, Yukihime had used the Nanki'in's information network to gather everything available on digital life forms in the Top Layer. The second time she held Shio, she confirmed what she suspected.
"For the digital people who have converted their souls and consciousness into data, that key is the most important thing they possess. If they lose their key, they can no longer return to the data network. Their soul and consciousness become permanently trapped inside a data cage."
A girl from the bottom tier of the Tower, born and raised in District 32, should have had no connection to the Top Layer and no reason to be wearing a digital life form's key around her neck as casual jewelry. The act of doing so, Yukihime noted, amounted to a public challenge directed at the Top Layer's inhabitants, and the thought made even her uneasy.
"Of course, this is entirely my own speculation. If Shio is genuinely your blood sister, Amano, then I apologize for the presumption."
"No, it's... fine."
The information had landed too hard for him to think about the apology. The pieces were moving in his head faster than he could sort them.
Shio's pendant.
The pendant Shio had said was a farewell gift from a friend.
Shiyue Yi.
Was Shiyue Yi one of the Top Layer's digital life forms?
If she was, then everything Amano had never been able to account for about Shiyue suddenly made sense.
Why she had the appearance of someone in middle school yet had been involved in the attack on Finesse's mother five years ago. If your physical appearance was data, you could adjust it freely, the same as customizing a character in a game.
Why she had seemed to teleport: appearing and vanishing mid-confrontation, gone entirely after the Dark Game. If your body could be converted to data, you did not need to travel through physical space. You moved through Eva's network, which covered the entire Tower, and materialized wherever you chose.
Why the pendant had ended up with Shio.
The farewell gift that was not really a farewell gift. Shiyue's most essential possession, placed in the hands of the one person in Eden she apparently trusted enough to keep it.
New questions were already forming. Why Shiyue had chosen Shio specifically. Whether Shio understood what she was actually wearing. Whether the pendant's presence near Shio represented anything other than safekeeping.
A knock at the door. Outside: Kikawayu's voice.
"Hey, Rei: you awake? Time to head out."
Kikawayu and the rest of the group had finished dinner long since. The only reason they had waited the extra hour was Yukihime's explanation that Amano had accidentally gotten into the flower wine and passed out.
"Yeah, I'm up."
The door opened. Shio pushed in immediately, the expression of a younger sister delivering a verdict.
"Ha. Terrible, big brother. Getting taken care of by Yukihime-san because you can't handle two cups of something. You're embarrassing me."
"Ha, fair enough. I'm done drinking, effective now."
His tone was the same as always. But after the conversation with Yukihime, a part of his attention that had not been on Shio before was quietly there now, landing without announcement on the pendant resting against her collarbone.
"Well then, let's leave it there for tonight, Amano." Yukihime rose with the easy grace of someone who had long since stopped thinking about how she held herself. "If anything else comes up, please don't hesitate to come by. And even if nothing does, come visit anyway. Today was the liveliest this house has been in quite some time, and I mean that genuinely."
"I'll come back often, Yukihime-san!"
Yukihime's hand ruffled the top of Shio's head with real affection. Whatever mysteries the girl was carrying around her neck, Yukihime's fondness for her had not changed. The girl herself was easy to love. And it was possible, she thought, that the person who had given her that pendant had loved her for the same reason, and had trusted her with something irreplaceable for that exact reason.
It was a thin theory, but it was what Yukihime had.
Sakuya reappeared as the group was preparing to leave, having changed back into her usual style: the jacket, the dark short skirt, the katana-style Duel Disk strap at her hip. The ends of her dark hair still carried a faint dampness.
She had genuinely gone to wash up because Amano had slumped against her shoulder and worked up enough of a sweat to soak through her kimono. He filed that away as something he would not look directly at and moved on.
"Tomorrow, Amano. School. This is a class representative's direct order. No disappearing."
"I'll be there. Promise."
"Good. Safe trip home."
As for Kaiser Ryo: Tsukiyu Yukishiro had already collected him and headed for the medical center well before the evening wound down, the toll of the duel having set his recovery back to a point that needed attention.
Amano had said nothing to Kaiser about the Spacetime Points or the possibility of a return home. The priority right now was the treatment. There was nothing to be gained by putting that conversation in front of Kaiser before his heart was actually in a condition to survive returning to a timeline where Eden's medical technology did not exist.
The question of how to formally shelter Kaiser through the system was also something Amano had not worked out. Sheltering Saotome Rei had required a guardianship certificate signed at the Bureau with a thumb press, after which the system had confirmed the shelter. He had no equivalent path with Kaiser, and he was not going to walk up to Kaiser Ryo and propose a father-son relationship. Setting aside the age problem, he could picture exactly the kind of response that would generate.
He left the "shelter" reward on the table for now. Let Kaiser stay with the Tsukiyu household for the time being and focus on recovering.
The Nanki'in estate dispatched cars for the ride back. Settled in the rear seat with Shio beside him, Amano looked at his sister.
"Did you have a good day, Shio?"
"The best! The food was incredible and Yukihime-san was there, so: when exactly are you and Sakuya-nee getting married? Because I'm ready to just move in permanently."
"HKK HKK HKK HKK!"
The coughing that simultaneously erupted from Saotome Rei and Kikawayu across the seat was impressive in its synchronization.
The weather was getting colder. Cold weather did things to the throat. The two of them should probably look into a scarf.
What the comment did tell Amano, beyond any reasonable doubt, was that Yukihime's instinct about Shio was wrong. Nothing about how Shio talked about Sakuya or about Amano and Sakuya together read as anything other than a younger sister enthusiastically imagining her brother's future for him. If there had been something uncomfortable underneath it, she would not have been this casual.
"Shio: can I have a look at your pendant for a moment?"
"Huh?" She had clearly not expected the request. Her hand went to it automatically, and she looked at him with the specific wariness of someone about to ask a follow-up question. "Why do you want to see it, big brother?"
"I just thought it looked nice. Wanted a closer look."
"Ugh, okay, but don't lose it."
There was a note of reluctance in it, but she unclasped the pendant and placed it in Amano's hand.
The azure crystal caught what little light the car interior provided and scattered it in the way that quality gemstones do. Even here, even in the dark, there was a faint glow to it that sat just at the edge of what the eye could identify as luminescence.
This was a digital life form's key.
In other words: this might actually be Shiyue Yi.
No matter how long he turned it over in his palm, it remained a beautiful pendant. There was nothing about it that announced what it was.
"Shio: you said before this was a gift from a friend. Which friend gave it to you?"
"Um, a classmate."
"Which classmate? Would I know them?"
"It's just... it's... why are you asking so many questions, big brother? I'm allowed to have my own private life!"
The pendant was reclaimed with some force and re-clasped around her neck. Shio was wearing the expression of a younger sister who had reached her limit on older sibling intrusion.
Amano recognized the expression. It was not Shio's rebellious phase, which had come and gone years ago. This was something more specific: she knew more about the pendant than she was saying, and she was not interested in sharing.
Back at the villa, Amano summarized the day's events for Finesse over tea, keeping two things back: the candlelit dinner with Sakuya (not a story to tell in this particular living room), and the Yukihime conversation (the subject of Shiyue Yi was not one he wanted to drop into Finesse's evening without warning).
He kept the account of the duel and the afternoon visit, and left the rest.
He was, however, curious about something Yukihime had touched on in passing, which connected to a question he had never fully resolved.
"Finesse: the mystery Eva Points you've been receiving. Is it still happening?"
After the Dark Game that had ended Shiyue Yi as an active presence in Eden, Finesse's terminal had started receiving unexplained Eva Points deposits. Irregular. Variable in amount. No clear pattern. Amano's theory at the time had been that the infinite Overkill debt Shiyue had incurred could not be paid out instantly by the Eva system, and was instead being discharged in installments.
"Still happening, yes." Finesse lowered her teacup and pulled up her Eva Terminal. "Actually: literally five minutes ago."
[Eva Points: +50]
The timestamp confirmed it. Fifty points, five minutes before the current moment, from an origin that the terminal did not specify.
"Only fifty?"
"It started out in the thousands and tens of thousands. The amounts have been getting smaller. I stopped paying attention to it, honestly. Are you short on money? Say the word and I'll send it over."
"I'm fine on funds, Finesse-mom."
"My, how cute."
The picture that was forming, if Yukihime's explanation about digital life forms was accurate, was of Shiyue Yi working off an infinite Overkill debt from inside the data prison Shio had sealed her into. Fifty points. The amounts getting smaller. Either the debt was approaching a conclusion, or the person paying it was running out of whatever they had to pay with.
Amano started thinking about what the Top Layer's digital world might actually look like inside, and why two thousand people had found it worth abandoning their physical existence for.
What would draw that many people into a data existence voluntarily? What was in there?
And on the subject of what was coming next:
"The Millennium Key's password is hidden in the next Duel Chronicle."
The Blue-Eyes spirit had told him that in the dream space. If the Millennium Items connected to the Top Layer, and the Millennium Key's password was in the next Chronicle, the Chronicle was probably a DM-era arc. Six thousand years back from Eden's current year landed squarely in the Yu-Gi-Oh! animated timeline.
Tomorrow was Monday. He had promised Sakuya he would actually attend class.
After school, though: there was a meeting he had been putting off for too long.
A VSN notification from Rin Seiya was sitting unread in the queue:
[If you stand up me and my friend one more time, we are officially done as friends!]
[And I want to be VERY clear: "done" is not a relationship status I'm offering!]
Three times now, Rin Seiya had arranged to introduce him to the friend she had been talking about, and three times it had not happened. The Chronicle had consumed two of those. Today had consumed the third.
If Z-one decided to materialize in person to deliver the next warning, the situation would have escalated considerably.
Tomorrow afternoon, then. He was finally going to meet the friend that Rin Seiya had been insisting on introducing him to.
The question of who that friend might actually be had been sitting at the back of his mind. Rin Seiya was Z-one's daughter, carrying the Stardust Dragon's spirit and riding the second D-Wheel built to Yusei's specs. The people in the 5D's timeline who had connections to Z-one, beyond the main cast, included his three closest allies.
Paradox? Or Antinomy?
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