The fateful encounter between a man and the guy who kicked him down a hill.

At the park where the guys wanted to go have their casual games, there existed a cafe with tables surrounding a small lake, which was where the two parties decided to take their unexpected meeting.

Because Yukiko would rather be shot twice on an arm than to have Chika be surrounded by boys, the two got a table for themselves, near the rest of the group.

On that main table, so to call it, Tate was growling and glaring at Yasuke like a dumb dog, who in turn was just peacefully looking at cute artwork of V-Tubers on his phone. With them where Izuru and Ban, who was going town on a bowl of strawberry ice cream.

And by Yasuke's side was someone whose name he had mentioned on the day he met Tate. Junpei and Yasuke's upperclassmen, an average looking boy with black hair and orange eyes, Nakano Ren.

And no, none of the parties got the last piece of fried chicken. Why?

"Setting aside how awkward this is..." Izuru coughed. "We're sorry for the Vladidumbass getting us kicked from the store for trying to dropkick someone in the fried chicken aisle."

"Bro I had my reasons, this guy kicked me before too!!" Tate exclaimed.

"Eheh, Noel-chan said the thing." Yasuke chuckled, picking his nose with his right pinky. He hasn't paying much attention to anything in general.

"Can't believe we lost such a perfect piece of fried chicken because of you mixing real life with an episode of literally any shounen ever." Ban deadpanned.

"S-shut up!"

"Huh, r-right..." Nakano sweatdropped.

And then the awkward silent returned faster than Izuru empties his wallet for png images. It was somehow more normal to talk to Endo about doing things with his ex-wife than to confront the people who knew Junpei.

But even so, Izuru managed to muster up some decent small talk.

"S-so... How did... Midterms go...?"

Nevermind.

"Oh, right." Nakano cleared his throat. "Our midterms were average. Not too hard, but they posed a challenge nonetheless."

Not even Yasuke was heartless enough to let poor Nakano handle the entire social situation in front of them by himself, so he put his phone down and gave his upperclassman a strong slap on the back, to wake up some of his inner confidance. With a loud laugh, he took the wheel of the conversation away from Nakano's hands.

"I'm sure what you wanna know is about Junpei, yeah? Afterall, you're that dude who made it impossible for him to wank one for ages!"

"You dumbass! Don't go make fun of what happened like that!!" Tate exclaimed.

"No, it's fine. I mean... I kinda thought about that too." Izuru snickered, holding back a small laugh.

'No one's at that table has any social skills, do they?' Yukiko thought, staring at the rest of the group with a flat look.

"C'mon, be honest, Sawada. You're prolly curious about what's been happening too, ain't you? Well lucky you, I can answer anything." Yasuke chuckled, pointing at himself with a thumbs up.

"Well then... How... How were things after he went to Shinjuku?"

"Except that."

"Eh?" Izuru blinked.

"I kinda just joined Shinjuku the year after that. But Nakano-senpai was there already, so you go and tell him, senpai!"

'Yasuke, you idiot, what are you doing?! Don't make me guide this convo!' Nakano thought. "W-well... Our school was something else on the year Kotomine joined. In a normal school, he'd have become miced meat in less than a second because of how he was, but not in Shinjuku. There was someone who lead the students better than the actual student council president himself. This all happened while I was in my last year of middle school, but I remember it like if it was yesterday. He joined during the last year with Jack-senpai attending Shinjuku Tech."

"Shinjuku Tech? I thought the red spider emblem was from Shinjuku Metropolitan." Tate said.

"It is but the name's too big for it's own good, so most of us just end up calling it Shinjuku Tech."

"Wait, I remember that! Jack-senpai! He was all the talk back when I joined cuz he was fresh off everyone's memories!" Yasuke exclaimed.

"Jack?" Izuru asked.

"Jack-senpai was a third year during the time Kotomine joined. He was a foreigner who came from the States and ended up at Shinjuku Tech. Basically, he was the leader of the delinquents of Shinjuku, but also counted as a leader of the students. He guided people with a single idealogy: Fun guides one's life."

"Wait, what?" Ban asked. "The hell does that mean?"

"You'd expect a new student at a run of the mill school like Shinjuku Tech, one with broken limbs at that, to be ruthlessly beaten by the delinquents, right? Well, Jack-senpai avoided those types of situations with his idealogy. He defended that fun was the strongest power of the world, and it was through having fun with others through their shared interests that one could become truly happy. His vision of that happiness was to die surrounded by people who he bonded with through having fun with things they liked. Card games, video games, music, even book genres, anything could connect people. It was also through that ideology that he could make fights happen in a different way. Through these shared interests, the strongest and weakest person could have a fair fight. That's how alot of bullying was avoided in Shinjuku."

"Wow, that guy sounds amazing..." Tate said, shocked by Nakano's story.

"It's ironic, considering his dream in life was to become a boxer..." Nakano sweatdropped. "But that only lasted while he was there. Kotomine tried his hardest to continue Jack-senpai's legacy, but most of Shinjuku Tech just reverted back into being a school like any other."

"But Jack-senpai's big brain ideas live on through those who were there to hear it, or who heard about it! That's how we ended up becoming friends with Nakano-senpai!" Yasuke laughed, slapping Nakano's back again.

"Stop doing that, you moron, I don't want to go home on a wheelchair..." The upperclassmen deadpanned.

"Wait, but wasn't he already at Shinjuku Tech when you two joined?" Izuru asked.

"Well, yeah, but we only became friends soon after summer break ended." Nakano explained.

"Yup! Can you believe senpai over here only started playing Vanguard during this past summer?! People who don't play Vanguard actually exist!"

"Shut up, I had better things to focus on than some children's card game." Nakano deadpanned, shoving one of the meatbuns in the table into Yasuke's mouth. "But yes, I only watched things happen from the background. It sort of stings that I only got my first friends now, because of my last year at Shinjuku Tech being almost over... But it's fine, at least I got a fun last year." He let out a small laugh.

'Wow, only joining the Vanguard race this late into his high school life, that's so fitting of a protagonist...' Izuru thought.

The Ansei training regiment part who knows, obtaining the ability to know the type of people who'd be great protagonists.

"So, how did you get into the game, Nakano-senpai?" Izuru asked.

"No no, you don't have to call me that, we go to different schools." Nakano sweatdropped. "But well... It sort of just happened by chance. I think it was the first day of summer break, when I was returning home from crammer school at the end of the day."

'C-crammer school...? R-returning home?! Wait, don't tell me-!'

"I found a deck, just lying on a bench by itself."

'HE FOUND A DECK AT RANDOM, THAT'S SUCH A PROTAG THING TO DO!!!! W-WAIT, DID ALL THOSE TIMES TAIRA YELLED AT ME ABOUT BEING THE PROTAGONIST JUST LIES IN THE END?! I-IS NAKANO-SENPAI THE TRUE PROTAGONIST?!'

I wish.

"It happened long ago, but I still remember it so vividly." Nakano placed his deck on the table and looked at it with a small, nostalgic smile. "It was on a bench, near the riverbank."

A jolt flew past Izuru and Yukiko's brain.

"In these really nice grey sleeves."

And another jolt.

"And I remember there being two weird people having what I think was sex at the distance."

And another jolt. Only that they were actually having a dumb fight.

"And one card in particular confused me alot. My little sister is really into Vanguard, so when I asked her about it, she found it weird because of an errata made to Valkerion."

And the last jolt.

Nakano didn't found any random deck.

He found the deck Izuru had bought to test before becoming a Valeos main.

"YOU BASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD! YOU STOLE MY MALKUTH DEEEEEEEEEEECK!" Izuru yelled, slamming his hands on the table.

"Oh, yes, the deck was a Malkuth-Melekh deck, which was why having Valkerion in it made me confused."

"GODDAMIT, IT WORKED THAT MORNING, THE DUMB ERRATA CAME OUT AFTER YOU STOLE THE DECK FROM ME! I BOUGHT THOSE SLEEVES AND I BOUGHT THOSE CARDS!"

"Actually..."

Nakano raised his hand and shook his head.

"I sold the Angel Feather cards."

"AH?!"

"And I used most of the money to buy cheap Gear Chronicle cards. I used the rest to buy my sister some cards she likes."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH?! H-HOW CHEAP ARE WE TALKING?!"

"All the Mystery-Flares I brought were quite low priced."

"M-MYSTERY-FLARE?!"

Utterly defeated, Izuru fell onto Tate's arms. His best friend held him close, to protect him from the fact the money he burned on Malkuth was then burned in a card as bad as Mystery-Flare

"It's okay, Miyuki. It's okay." Tate comforted Izuru by patting his head to make things better.

"That money could have gone to my gacha fund..." Izuru cried.

"Oh man, this is too good!" Yasuke laughed. "Imagine buying a deck, then losing it, and then learning some dude sold it to buy the worst cards in GC! And the guy who first owned the deck was even the DZ manager's little bro! Ahahahaha!"

"You idiot..." Yukiko sweatdropped.

"Wait, this Sawada is Sawada-san's older brother? No offense but... You don't really look anything alike." Nakano said.

"None taken, genetics work weird in our family..." Izuru waved it off.

"But if it makes you feel better, I only bought those cards because my sister is a big fan of your brother, so she thought it'd be cool if her big brother played the same clan as Sawada-san!"

"Stop sounding like a better MC-kun than me..." And Izuru waved it off again.

"Cute stories, but let's get to business." Ban said, putting down his empty ice cream bowl. "No offense but I don't particularly care about that Jack guy or how you got into Vanguard, Nakano. What I do care about is him." He declared, looking at Yasuke.

"Hi honey." Yasuke replied.

"Even if he only did it in order to defend his friend, that doesn't change what he did. He really went and thought he could use violence on one of our friends without paying the cost."

"I also only met you a good ten minutes ago." Yasuke nodded.

"Yeah, I expected you to say something along those lines." Nakano admited. He briefly looked down, but then looked back at Ban with a determined glare. "However, Yasuke's one of my underclassmen, and also my friend. I'm sorry, Ban-san, but I can't let you go ahead and do whatever you want to repay what he did to Tate-san. I hope you can understand that."

"Hi, I don't get it." Tate raised his hand.

"Hi, I don't get it either." Izuru raised his hand too.

"Can't say I expected you to just bow down to us, Nakano. You said you're new to the game, yeah? Then you probably realized already how we tend to deal with problems around these parts."

"You play card games. And I still don't get how that works as a method to solve issues."

"That's fine, no one does either. You and me, Nakano. Name the place and the time, and I'll fight you there."

"Yo senpai, let me handle this dude. I can be done with him in like ten minutes, give or take." Yasuke said, picking his nose with his pinky again.

"Don't worry about it, Yasuke. I'll handle this." Nakano shook his head. "This is my first time fighting for one of my underclassmen and friends. This is exhilariating." He said with a small smile.