Chapter 86: Weapon Chip: Fireball Cannon
As the Navigation Arrow's caption text faded, familiar waves of power passed through Ross, Yusuke, and Kurama simultaneously.
"Ross, what is this?"
Yusuke turned around, expression genuinely surprised at recognizing something familiar in the sensation.
Ross himself was surprised too. This was his first time entering a non-game Primal Secret Realm through this method.
Looking at it this way, if game Secret Realms were for building strength, then Primal Secret Realms were probably for putting that accumulated strength to use.
"My ability activated. As long as we're in here, you two will automatically have access to the temporary abilities you had before."
Ross didn't go into detail about the specific mechanics. Just a rough explanation. They didn't need to know more than that.
The Samejima Riki template mapping on Yusuke came from the training period under the Spirit Wave Style. To avoid losing himself entirely in the brutality of daytime training, Yusuke would occasionally join Ross as a temporary gaming partner.
Honestly, Yusuke's gaming skill was genuinely poor. Perfect dynamic vision, perfect physical reaction speed, and yet he couldn't translate what he saw into his hands and into the controller. He would frequently do things that were exactly the opposite of what he intended.
It was a bit like playing a shoot-'em-up, seeing the bullet about to graze you, intending to dodge, and then piloting directly into it.
Every player is their own category.
As for Nekketsu New Record, which was fundamentally a competitive head-to-head game, Yusuke never had a chance against Ross. But Ross had solutions.
It was a two-player competitive game. That meant you could work the mechanics.
The overall ranking was decided by Gold Medal count, not by individual event wins. Which meant that even without placing first in any single event, you could accumulate enough Gold Medals to take the overall first. Two events were particularly important for this: the 400-Meter Combat Hurdles and the Swimming Combat King.
In the Hurdles event, you could skip fighting the opponent entirely, just run, and rack up Gold Medals by destroying as many hurdles as possible along the way.
In the Swimming event, you could similarly skip all combat, stay at the bottom during the three-minute limit, and simply wait to pick up the Gold Medals that spawned at random in the water.
Through straightforward support and resource farming played cleanly within the rules, Ross ultimately managed to get Yusuke's Hanazono High team to an S-rank completion on the narrowest margin possible, satisfying the basic requirement to enter the Secret Realm alongside him.
The four selectable teams in Nekketsu New Record were Nekketsu High, Hanazono High, Reihou High, and the Combined team. Since Nekketsu High was already bound to Ross as the core protagonist's team, he had bound Hanazono High to Yusuke.
This wasn't arbitrary. Ross knew clearly that among all the character templates available, only Hanazono High's captain, Samejima Riki, was the best fit for Yusuke.
Riki wasn't just the official rival and partner-in-arms to Kunio. He also had the strongest punch-type ability talent of any character.
Getting Riki's signature Mach Punch, though, would require hunting down other Nekketsu series titles: River City Ransom, Nekketsu Basketball, or Nekketsu Story.
On a separate note: Yusuke still flatly refused to address Ross as "senior disciple" and continued calling him by his name. Ross didn't actually care. He could call Yusuke "junior" and use it to needle him unilaterally.
He also almost never called Genkai "Master" to her face, defaulting consistently to "Granny." After a while Genkai stopped bothering to correct him.
As for Kurama: he had composed himself and was calmly preparing to make some temporary modifications to his school uniform trousers.
"What temporary abilities? What are you all talking about?"
Kuwabara, who hadn't spent the past two months hanging around with them, was curious.
"Play more games with your old pal Ross. It'll do you good, trust me."
Ross put an arm around Kuwabara's shoulders and gave him a deliberately vague answer, while internally considering which game character would best suit him.
"Hey! Are you done talking? If you are, move!"
On the other side, Hiei, who was impatient on multiple levels, had no interest in any of this and was simply pushing them to get going.
"Easy. First wave is already here."
The ground began to move as Ross spoke.
Then, one after another, humanoid figures in tattered grey robes crawled up from underground, none of them clearly distinguishable as anything in particular.
Rotting Hungry Ghosts: the lowest-tier demon residents of the City of the Four Saint Beasts. They had a powerful appetite for humans but were too weak to hunt living ones, surviving on carrion. They desperately wanted to climb the social ladder of the city and almost never got the chance.
These particular Rotting Hungry Ghosts normally buried themselves underground in a dormant state to minimize energy expenditure. The overwhelming concentration of human scent coming off Ross's group had drawn them out immediately.
Every one of them had the look of something that had been starving for a long time and couldn't wait a second longer.
...Why does this look exactly like the endlessly respawning zombies from Ghosts 'n Goblins?
Ross's habit of mapping what he saw to similar visual memories kicked in instantly.
His hands, however, were not idle.
A flash of light, and a blue oval-shaped device appeared on his left hand.
The Mega Buster. First real combat deployment since it had been conjured into existence.
Standard Nen blast mode had a stable conversion rate of 0.1 Nen units per shot, but against a group of enemies it was inefficient. No piercing effect. So instead of using the standard firing mode, Ross tapped the cannon once. The blue casing shifted directly to red.
And what came out of the barrel was no longer a Nen blast.
A fireball, screaming forward.
Ross had aimed at the ground directly below the nearest Rotting Hungry Ghost. And then something stranger than the shot itself happened: the fireball did not explode on contact with the ground. It did not go out either. It caught on the surface and ran along it in a straight line, burning everything in its path, leaving a low continuous wall of fire extending far into the distance.
Every Rotting Hungry Ghost in the line of travel had the tattered cloth on its body ignite instantly. Shrieking erupted across the formation. Some rolled on the ground. Some ran in random directions, too overwhelmed to think. Some, purely on instinct, grabbed onto the nearest fellow demon in a desperate attempt to reduce the pain and managed only to spread the fire.
One shot. The encirclement was completely broken.
Everyone was surprised. So was Ross himself.
[Weapon Chip: Fireball Cannon. Mega Buster derivative attachment. Source: Sonic 3 Secret Realm BOSS, Waterfall Diver.
When equipped, the Mega Buster's attack mode changes from Nen Blasts to Burning Fireballs. Fireballs can be fired forward normally or launched to slide along the ground. Extremely effective at igniting and burning wood, cloth, and similar materials. Current Nen conversion rate: 0.5 units = 1 fireball.]