[Guy who remembers how dangerous parody songs are and chickens out.]

[Elsaaa! Let's play Apex! You're Gibraltar!!]

[An update so exciting I couldn't help but sing.]

Chapter 506: Resound, Grateful Legacy — Superalloy Mobile Iaifist

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There is such a thing as the Cursed Prison Society.

Cursed Prison's selling point isn't limited to the absurd performance it gains after Prison Break. In fact, most of its fighting is done beforehand, while it's still in its cursed-armor form, so naturally there were players who wanted to test exactly what that cursed armor—running on the SLF engine—could do.

And so countless Cursed Prisons engaged in acts of destruction in pursuit of the armor's deepest secrets... until one particular fact was discovered.

Hannya: "That isn't a two-arm, two-leg form... A special form?"

No Face: "The condition is equipping twelve engine units from specific Machine Swarm types. This special form was only discovered right before this show started."

Cursed Prison normally builds outward from its base armor, wearing whatever it destroys. But as an exception, absorbing certain objects in certain quantities can sometimes transform it into a non-humanoid form.

That eight-legged Cursed Prison from earlier was probably another special form I don't know about. Its mobility wasn't all that high, but I'd guess it excelled at long-range attacks, whether operated manually or automatically. Come to think of it, I think absorbing all three types of Machine Swarm Target Enemy also leads to a special variant.

In that case, I'll throw away weapon expansion and beat your ass with a special form specialized entirely for mobility and horsepower.

I'm a man who always stays at the cutting edge of the times—and with the power of an energy-drink stack that's hit me in multiple stages, I'll accelerate hard enough to leave everything behind!!

Hannya: "Hah. Think you can actually handle it?"

No Face: "Does a lion forget how to use its own claws?"

I'll show you the raging soul of a Thomson's gazelle. Fuck lions.

No Face: "Hey, kiddo. Keep your head down and hide over there."

Hannya: "Quit trying to act cool!!!"

Right now, Cursed Prison has absorbed both Colonel and Commander. There are a fair number of characters in WΔ who can turn Target Enemies into fuel for themselves, and every one of them is powerful. There's also the Target Enemy defeat bonus. If I underestimate my opponent just because of the remaining HP, every boast I've made so far will become a shame for generations to come.

But—

No Face: "You can always dig shame and regret back up from the past!"

If you spend your time being ashamed of the future, you'll never do anything! Chaaaaaarge!!!

The muzzle of Colonel, worn as armor over the opponent's right shoulder and arm, begins accumulating a vicious electrical spark. A charged-particle cannon. A direct hit would probably blow away twenty percent of my HP... but don't underestimate a build with zero room for expansion and everything dumped into mobility.

My bizarre form has four legs, counting the two sub-legs extending from my raised knees in a half-collapsed kneeling posture. Because I've incorporated bird-type Machine Swarm parts, the whole thing stays permanently hovering!

BOOM! Explosive thrust erupts from my lower body like it just detonated, blasting my Cursed Prison body forward. Yet instead of following a simple straight line, the body glides smoothly as I close the distance all at once.

Hannya: "Crash, damn you!!"

But my opponent is America's number two. In other words, this is a veteran who's fought America's number one—the very embodiment of mobility. The blast fired from a perfectly aligned muzzle slams straight into my body.

But—

Hannya: "It only did ten percent...!?"

No Face: "Super! Heavy! Armor! A mobile fortress—a fatass that can move!!!"

Hannya: "Guuuh!!"

This twelve-engine form should normally leave me room to choose a few more weapons. But the armor I'm wearing on top of a form already built for ridiculous mobility is my real trump card.

Hannya: "...What the hell is that armor!?"

No Face: "A bank-vault door."

A security shield tough enough to repel even missiles. The moment I learned Amelia Sullivan used heavyweight characters, the outline of this battle style had already started taking shape in my head.

Cursed Prison's equipment ability has a capacity limit. There's plenty you have to think about, like easing the weight restriction, but none of that matters right now. The remaining capacity should normally have room for about three weapons. Instead, I've used up two whole slots of that capacity and sacrificed nearly forty percent of my original mobility to equip this ultra-massive lump of metal.

Mass is power. Heat is energy!!

No Face: "This blow is the wisdom of physics!!"

Hannya: "Ghk... oooh!!"

It reminds me of the motorcycle-equipped lariat I used when I fought Sylvia Goldberg. But this time I'm several levels heavier and faster than that.

My body barrels forward, leaving scorch marks across the asphalt as I close in on Amelia Sullivan. My extended arm slams horizontally into Cursed Prison's neck... Yeah, that's right. If I remember the video, it went something like this, didn't it?

A killer lariat combining my own acceleration with centrifugal force. Slam an arm into the opponent's neck, lock it in place... then spin one full rotation with them and smash them into a wall.

The name of that move is—

No Face: "Mortal Lariaaaat!!"

The 1P-colored Cursed Prison goes flying through the glass of a building as though hit by a throw, while I strike a finishing pose. If I'm going to copy another game, I might as well copy the pose too.

No Face: "I'll drag you down to hell..."

Hannya: "...Mortal Teddy from Death Match 4? Wrong game, No Face."

No Face: "We're two copies of the same face beating the shit out of each other. Bit late to start whining because I brought a gag over from the other side of the wall."

Besides, I've still got plenty more material prepared.

No Face: "Take this and drop dead! Have all you want!!"

This form has one weakness. The posture locks me into something like I'm being endlessly knee-buckled, so I can't brace myself. The sub-legs extending from my knees solve that part—the absurd components are literally jet-equipped wings from bird-type Machine Swarm units attached directly as legs—but because of that, this special form has a more fundamental problem.

It can't reverse. It can't move backward.

And precisely because there's nowhere behind me to go, I step even farther forward. People have the most fun when they're just a little bit close to dying!!

Hannya: "Don't get carried away!"

No Face: "Too late, I'm riding high!?"

Cross-counter.

Looks like the other side has made up their mind not to fear death either. The instinct to shave down the opponent and the thought of protecting oneself line up perfectly, and the fists launched from both sides crash into each other.

I can't brace myself, so all I can do is keep moving forward. I deliberately break the deadlock between fist and fist myself, open my clenched fist into a palm, and grab the opponent's arm.

If the principle is the same, can I call it the same move? My monkey-see-monkey-do knockoff—scratch that, my own original custom remix!!

No Face: "Variant Ooshike!!"

If my imitated Ooshike used high-speed movement on wheels to rotate my own body along a horizontal axis and turn that into a one-armed shoulder throw, then this version uses booster-driven rotation on a vertical axis for an ultra-high-speed giant swing...!!

No Face: "Fly beyond the raging waves!!"

Hannya: "Taking it lying down isn't my style, asshole!!"

Clank! The mechanical wings—parts of Commander, the other Target Enemy the opposing Cursed Prison absorbed—are forcibly activated.

They don't grant flight, but if you're asking whether they're just for show—hell no.

Hannya: "Wasn't planning to make this last long anyway... Get vaporized!!"

Their true nature is a set of high-output laser turrets shaped like wings. Seven barrels per wing, fourteen in total. As Cursed Prison's massive body is about to be sent flying by the horizontal-spin throw of Variant Ooshike, the recoil from the barrage forcibly pins the body in place.

Then the wings writhe while spraying beams indiscriminately, trying to focus every shot on me alone... Yeah, if all of those hit, I'm fucked. Which leaves only one option.

Forward.

But the lasers are already almost on top of me. What do I do? Take a cue from Bakumatsu and go Iaifist. I'm borrowing this one, Zeninari-shi!

No Face: "Beat Strike!!"

Hannya: "Ghk... what!?"

I throw my fist as if I'm going to punch—then stop it just short. One beat later, I snap my fingers!

CLANG!! It's a ridiculously heavy sound for a finger snap, and the volume is on a completely different level from an ordinary one.

Damn, this is convenient. It's of limited use in Bakumatsu, where everyone starts dealing with it normally around the third use, but being able to forcibly create an "opening" gives it great synergy with the Iaifist style.

No Face: "Spacing out for a whole second? That's way too leisurely, don't you think?"

Hannya: "Ghah!!"

Iaifist works against weapon users too. Everybody should start learning it!

The entry requirement is to defeat the first boss of "Constipation" story mode—a nail-bat wielder who moves at triple speed and splits (bug)—without taking damage. Don't worry! Up through stage three you can use the bug technique "Out-of-Body Experience," which moves your hitbox behind your own body, and even accounting for that, everything from stage two onward is even more hellish!!

I get in close, create my opening, grab the base of the mechanical wing, and wrench it up. Equipment worn by Cursed Prison is a destructible object! If I break it before it hits me, there's no problem at all! Then I hook it with a sub-leg spinning under booster power—eat this brute-force leg sweep!

Behold this beautiful combo. I'll call it Iaifist: Bakumatsu Install... Let's keep accelerating until our brains boil, Amelia Sullivan!!

No Face: "Your neurons are out of breath! Is it nap time!?"

Iaifist can chain into grapples, submissions, punches, kicks, German suplexes... every kind of technique imaginable! It's the strongest school of combat!!

[• Various Things Before WΔ Was Implemented

GH:C Dev Team: "...We'd like to implement rules along those lines."

Tsukuyo: "Why are you asking me?"

GH:C Dev Team: "Hey, genius. Nowhere sells a brain capable of handling the system we bought from you!"

Tsukuyo: "No, that's not what I mean."

Tsukuyo: "Why don't you ask Server-kun?"

GH:C Dev Team: "???"

Server AI: "ok, got the gist. Make the map like this... reference the data entered for each character, and how about adding stuff like this? I've put in the rough data for the new enemies, so pls do the character designs."

GH:C Dev Team: "????????"

That's roughly how it went. Pretty amazing, considering they built a whole new building from scratch! Tsukuyo-san's technical prowess is breaking into the realm of fantasy, but given the inspiration behind her model, it doesn't feel all that out of place, so I'll have her keep pushing straight on into super-technology.]