"Wait! Hey, hold on a second!"
As we were walking through the streets of Kyoto, my steps came to a sudden halt.
"I left my sword behind."
"...? What are you talking about?"
Gojo and Geto turned back, looking at me as if I were a complete lunatic. I scratched the back of my head, feeling sheepish.
"I mean, walking around the middle of the city with a sword swinging at my side is a bit eye-catching, right? Out of habit from Tokyo High, I just shoved it into a locker when we went to the records room at Kyoto High earlier.
Aw, hell. I subconsciously thought it was our school and just left it there..."
"Ugh, you absolute dimwit!!"
Smack!
Before my excuse could even finish, Shoko's spicy palm ruthlessly slapped me across the back.
"Ow! That actually hurts!"
"The final battle is tonight! Who in the world forgets their weapon?! Go get it, right now!"
"Alright, alright! I got it! Look, I'll go grab it and be back in a flash. You three go ahead to the truck parking lot. I'll catch up!"
Clicking my tongue, I turned around and sprinted back toward Kyoto High.
After navigating the security and administrative offices—bowing and scraping while saying things like, "I'm so sorry, I left something behind, could I use the locker again? Yes, yes, my deepest apologies"—I finally managed to retrieve the baseball bag containing Muramasa.
"Phew, I'm already exhausted and the mission hasn't even started."
With the baseball bag slung over my shoulder, I was cutting back through the city using a shortcut.
I happened to pass by the very net cafe that had coldly turned the four of us away last night.
'Wait?'
I stopped in my tracks.
The burly guards who had been menacingly guarding the entrance with their tattoos on display only yesterday were nowhere to be seen.
'Is it because the time for that "general mobilization" or whatever is approaching? Did they all head to the truck parking lot? That would mean this place is empty. Should I take a look inside?'
Driven by curiosity, I gently pushed open the glass door of the net cafe.
Tinkle.
The bell rang, but there was no one at the counter.
The shop was as quiet as a grave.
No.
It wasn't perfectly empty. Way back in the corner of the dark smoking area, in a seat where only the flicker of a monitor glowed, someone was sitting.
I shifted my gaze to check the back of the person's head...
'Snow-white hair and a tank top. And the glimpse of an Irezumi tattoo.'
My heart thundered for a moment.
No mistake. That's the figure from the photo the faculty showed us earlier. The boss who united the Kansai Yakuza—the Gokudo Flower herself!
'Holy crap, why is the boss still hunkered down alone in the corner of a net cafe like this?!'
In a state of extreme tension, I gripped the handle of my sword and moved soundlessly toward her back, when—
"Not enough minerals."
"...Huh?"
An eerily familiar mechanical voice drifted out from the headset she was wearing.
Speechless, I stopped and stole a glance at her monitor screen.
'...This bitch, is she seriously playing StarCraft here while her underlings are gathering?!'
On the Yakuza boss's monitor, a Nexus was churning out probes alongside intense worker micromanagement.
In that instant, my burning curiosity and competitive drive as a fucking Korean gamer completely overrode any tension I felt as a sorcerer.
Thud.
I sat down naturally just two seats away from her and pressed the power button on the computer.
"...Ah, shit."
As soon as I sat down, a sharp, irritated mutter came from the seat next to me.
"The whole place is empty, so why the hell did he crawl into this specific corner..."
I casually ignored her complaints and stared at the monitor. Connecting to the Battle.net local server and scanning the lobby, I saw the ID I had glimpsed on her monitor moments ago sitting online.
I placed my fingers on the keyboard and fired off a whisper to the barcode ID.
[ILILILILILIII]: Fighting Spirit, one round?
[blade_rose]: ?
[ILILILILILIII]: Aren't you just miserably playing against AI in the corner because you have no one to play with? Get in here.
Click, clack.
"Hah?"
Three seconds after the message was sent, I heard the sound of a chair creaking two seats away. The Gokudo Flower partially pulled off her headset and whipped her head toward me with an unpleasant look.
Her sharp gaze collided with mine in mid-air.
I shrugged while holding the mouse.
'I don't care if you're a Yakuza boss or a curse user. Let's settle this on the national standard map first.'
After glaring at me for a long while, the Gokudo Flower let out a scoffing laugh as if she found it absurd and turned back to her monitor.
"Ha. Fine... I'll play along for once, just the way you want."
A room was created, and our two IDs entered the Fighting Spirit lobby side-by-side.
[ILILILILILIII]: Terran
[blade_rose]: Protoss
The pinnacle of the Yakuza and the outlier of the Zenin clan sat in the corner of a dark net cafe, picking their races with deadly seriousness and resting their hands on their keyboards like true keyboard warriors.
[Game Start]
I pulled out a standard One-Factory Double build optimized for Terran vs. Protoss. Sending an SCV scout to the Gokudo Flower's base, I saw she was countering with a standard One-Gate Double Nexus build.
'She said she's a Yakuza boss, but her basics are solid. However.'
As soon as my Factory was up, I attached an Add-on and researched Speed and Mines. Then, leading a newly produced squad of Vultures, I attempted a harass on her natural and main base.
With a vroom, the Vultures began popping Probes.
I typed away on the keyboard.
[ILILILILILIII]: Pew!
[blade_rose]: ?
At the moment her Zealots chased my Vultures while clumped with the workers, I maneuvered the Vultures with flashy moving-shot control, dropped a mine right in the middle of the path where the Zealots and workers overlapped, and zipped away.
Boom!!
The mine exploded spectacularly, sending her Zealots and a chunk of Probes into the air. Without hesitation, I hammered the keyboard again.
[ILILILILILIII]: Pew pew!
[ILILILILILIII]: Bang!
[blade_rose]: ?
Classic tilting chat harassment. I felt her glaring at me from the side in real-time, but I stubbornly ignored her, keeping my eyes fixed on the monitor.
Despite my psychological warfare and petty harassment, she didn't waver for a second.
Instead, she parried my harassments, expanded her bases, and developed her build mechanically, keeping her supply count almost equal to my Terran forces.
"This chick is actually good. At this rate, she's almost on par with KEN, that guy who used to talk like an old man whom I still remember."
Time passed and the game entered the late stages. After consuming the map's resources, both sides' supply reached the 200/200 cap.
'Should I initiate a fight in the center open field?'
Before committing to battle, I sprayed a Scan over her main base to identify her troop composition.
"...Huh?"
At the corner of the vision revealed by the Scan...
I caught a glimpse of an Arbiter spaceship shrouded in its cloaking field, and the wiggling silhouettes of High Templars beneath it.
Suddenly, a cold sweat ran down my spine.
'Don't tell me. Hallucination Recall?'
I bit my lip. It was an atrocious combo: cloning fake Arbiters with High Templar magic to bait the anti-air fire, then letting the real Arbiter enter the base safely to summon (Recall) a massive army.
This was a mechanism that hadn't been standardized yet in 2005; it was something that would only become popular years later when the esports scene reached its peak!
'I have a bad feeling. Now is not the time to push the center.'
I recalled the entire 200-supply Terran force I had grouped and retreated to my base.
I completely scrapped my plan to lure her into a turf war using the superior range of Siege Tanks in the open field.
I began mobilizing workers to plaster Missile Turrets in every corner of my base. I also mobilized all remaining Vultures to lay Spider Mines across the base floor until there was nowhere left to step.
'The core is the Tanks. Goliaths, load anti-air missiles. And you Tanks—every single one of you, unsiege.'
If Siege-moded Tanks fired at Protoss forces dropped inside my base, the splash damage risked destroying my own buildings and troops.
I took all Tanks out of Siege Mode and put them on standby in their regular attack mode, colloquially known as "Tung-tungi" mode.
'Now, come on! Let's see whose move wins: your gambit or my years of experience.'
Swooosh!
My prediction was perfect.
Multiple Arbiters overlapped and flew over my main base. While the fake Hallucination Arbiters took the brunt of the Turret fire, the real Arbiter found an opening and tore open a blue Recall vortex right in the heart of my base!
Flash!
Along with a pillar of light, dozens of Zealots and Dragoons—fully upgraded Protoss forces—poured into the center of my base like a nightmare.
However...
"Welcome to the minefield."
The moment the Protoss forces hit the ground, dozens of mines buried in the floor leaped up simultaneously and clung to them frantically.
Boom! Crash!!
A chain reaction of explosions occurred, turning the Recalled Zealots and Dragoons into tattered scraps. Simultaneously, the concentrated fire from the Turrets and Goliaths riddled the main Arbiter with holes and shot it down.
Whirrr—Boom!
As the Arbiter was destroyed and the cloaking field lifted, dozens of unsieged Tanks standing by in Tung-tungi mode began focusing their fire on the remaining survivors.
Pew! Thud! Pew!
The lethal winning move, Hallucination Recall.
But her 200-supply Protoss main army, which she had poured everything into, couldn't last even 10 seconds before melting away like ice cream.
"Protoss down!"