[I got a Celestial Jewel Divine Core, so here’s an update.] [Huh? The Ancient Battlefield? Y-y-yes, I’m doing it! I swear! I haven’t run away!]
Chapter 485: Resound, Grateful Legacy — X Day: Countdown!
Four days until X Day.
While steadily chipping away at Leviathan, I was spending my lunch break at school watching a certain video on my mobile device.
Zappy: "What're you watching?"
Rakuro: "Yo, Zappy. Is it true you tried to look cool by getting another piercing, only for it to get infected and swell up again?"
Zappy: "Urgh."
Rakuro: "The courage to turn your own body into a recurring gag... and, while we're at it, that toughness of yours in refusing to fear repetition... I'm moved...!"
Also, piercings are banned at our school.
Whatever he does in private is his business, but strictly in terms of school life, the image here is unbelievably stupid: the guy voluntarily punches a hole in his own earlobe and then voluntarily self-destructs because of it.
Zappy: "S-shut up! Wait, it's just a game video? What game?"
Rakuro: "Justice Versus."
Zappy: "Yeah, never heard of it. Is it fun?"
If you're asking whether it's fun... Hmm.
Rakuro: "It's kind of more fun to watch than to play?"
Zappy: "Huh."
JusVers is a game you enjoy in a slightly unusual way...
In the end, its player population... got so sparse that the game declined because there just weren't enough people left. Apparently there are still people who play it here and there, but the really spectacular stuff comes from its heyday.
I rip the wrapper off an onigiri I bought from the cafeteria and set my mobile device on the desk where my idiot friend—with a bandage over his earlobe—can see it too.
Zappy: "I don't really get what's happening, but yeah, the fights are flashy. Explain it."
Rakuro: "Here the player mashes light punch on Custom 8 to knock the opponent back and stagger them, then uses a gauge move to launch them into the air and—"
Zappy: "Look up what the word 'explain' means."
Rakuro: "He staggers him, kicks him into the air, then beats the crap out of him up there."
Zappy: "Didn't ask you to summarize it either."
Demanding bastard...
Rakuro: "This is still a fighting game where you normally win by beating the other guy down, but there's a different way of enjoying it that's more popular among the players."
That's exactly what makes JusVers a masterpiece.
I'm not especially great at controller-based games myself, so I'm content just watching videos, but even purely as a spectacle, the game is incredibly polished.
Zappy: "What kinda way of enjoying it?"
Rakuro: "Quit going all country on me, Zappy. Basically, it's like, 'Show off a flashier move trick and you become the popular guy.'"
Zappy: "Ohhh... Huh? So, like, style points or something?"
That's probably the closest comparison.
As I half-watch footage of a girl turning the entire stage into a flower garden, duplicating herself, and having all her copies gang up on the opponent, I bite into the yakisoba bread I bought from the cafeteria.
JusVers's biggest selling point is that you can customize everything from normal attacks all the way up to special moves.
Even something as basic as how you throw a punch ranges from boxing punches to rocket punches, and once you get to the special moves, the degree of customization is practically programming.
Strictly speaking, the video I'm watching isn't really a serious match so much as a showcase reel for move tricks.
There are even videos that film the player's hands at the same time, and those people hold their controllers in bizarre, incomprehensible ways while every single finger moves like it's a separate living creature.
Zappy: "Can you do this too?"
Rakuro: "Don't be stupid. This is completely different from full-dive. I'd have to train my ass off to pull this off."
Zappy: "You didn't say it was impossible..."
No idea whether I could actually learn techniques at this level, though.
I'm the kind of gamer who wanders from game to game, so there are always areas where I just can't match someone who's specialized in one thing.
Zappy: "Anyway, getting to the real question... you and Saiga-san really—"
Rakuro: "The dawn sky, the darkness turning bright. It's just like my heart, as the sun that is you—mghf!"
Zappy: "Wh...!? Huh...!? You—how do you know that...!? I never showed anyone...!!"
Rakuro: "You wrote it while drinking a café mocha, right? Apparently Takasaki was sitting in the seat directly behind you."
Zappy: "TAKASAKI, YOU BASTARD! I'LL SHOW YOU HEEEELL!!!"
Takasaki: "OH CRAP! AKATSUKI HEART-SAN'S GONNA SHOW ME HELL!! SOMEBODY SAVE MEEE!"
Classmate: "Akatsuki Heart! Calm down!!"
Another Classmate: "I think it's good, Akatsuki Heart!!"
Another Classmate: "I searched social media and found what looks like a poetry account... Oh."
Zappy: "OGOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"
Tens of thousands of followers is honestly pretty impressive, isn't it?
Ooh, my heart's all aflutter over these words singing of looove!!
◇
Sylvia: "Good morning, Amelia. Did you read the email from Kei? Pumpkin says he's free now that Halloween's over and can make it."
Amelia: "Hell yeah. Sylvia, you're looking forward to this too, aren't you?"
Sylvia: "Of course. Sorry, Amelia, but as a Cursed Prison player, he's the best possible answer. Honestly, I want to fight him badly enough that I'd shove you aside and take him for myself."
Amelia: "Like hell I'm giving him up. I'm first. It's not like I'm that hung up on the title of Real Cursed Prison... but the only people who can take a round off you with Cursed Prison are me and that lovesick idiot of yours, right? If a new face has shown up, of course I want to see what he's got."
Sylvia: "I heard we're playing a different game on the program we're appearing on, though?"
Amelia: "You've gotta be kidding. Every Japanese game besides Shangri-La Frontier is worse than GH:B."
Sylvia: "You probably shouldn't say that while we're on the air."
Amelia: "I know that much. More importantly, Sylvia, you're living with Kei, right? Go wake his ass up. You think I'm letting him quit while he's still ahead from yesterday?"
Sylvia: "This Christmas, I'm planning to ask Santa Claus for a spare key to Kei's room."
Amelia: "What the hell do you even see in that fawn of a guy...? Every Japanese person has such a bland-looking face, I can't tell any of them apart."
Sylvia: "I don't want to hear that from someone who's into dried-up twigs."
Amelia: "A lot of Japanese martial-arts masters had faces I liked."
Sylvia: "Uh-huh..."
Amelia: "Oh, right. There was one more thing I wanted to ask."
Sylvia: "What?"
Amelia: "Why the hell is this country's subway so damn complicated? I got lost even with navigation."
Sylvia: "Take a taxi. I gave up."
Amelia: "I hate taxis. My head hits the ceiling."
◆
Three days until X Day.
There was absolutely no future I could imagine where we ended up playing anything other than GH:C, so I finally dragged myself into action and cracked open Galaxia Heroes Chaos.
Since I do have some history with him, I picked Cursed Prison for now.
But among the palette swaps that are basically his Player 2 colors, there's one that's very obviously pumpkin-colored.
Is that supposed to mean what I think it means?
I could feel myself about to fall down a rabbit hole if I started thinking about it, so I forced the slight grin off my face, got my expression back to neutral, and queued for a match.
My opponent is...
What the hell is this?
S... A, I...
SAIKYOKASUPURI...?
At least put an underscore in there. That's a pain in the ass to read.
And I matched with them at the rating you start at when you've only just begun...
No, no. I guess there's nothing wrong with putting your future goal right in your name from the very beginning.
Yeah.
But, by sheer coincidence, it's a mirror match.
If Amelia-whatever-san was supposedly the person closest to becoming Real Cursed Prison, then getting some mirror-match experience with Cursed Prison can't hurt.
Rakuro: "All right."
There was almost something nostalgic about descending into Chaos City once again as Cursed Prison, but I kept the sentimentality in check.
Figuring I'd aim for around the middle tiers for now, I sent a nearby motorcycle cop flying with a punch.