It was Saturday, a few days later.
I was walking outside a train station in Tokyo with
Hinami.
"Still, I'd never have guessed this was where you wanted
to take me."
"Ha-ha-ha, caught you off guard, huh?" I asked
triumphantly.
She rubbed her temples like she was sick of me.
A few weeks earlier, right after the school festival ended
and I'd told Hinami that Kikuchi-san and I were dating, I'd
also told her there was somewhere I wanted to take her.
Unfortunately, we'd been too busy to go before school
started again, but we were finally there.
"Listen. You can do what you want, but I'm not gonna talk
about myself."
She was still putting up a little resistance, but I ignored
her and nodded confidently.
"That's fine by me."
"…Hufff." She sighed audibly.
"Okay, off we go."
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"Yeah, yeah."
Still, the fact that she followed me despite all her whining
made me think she wasn't completely uninterested. After all,
NO NAME would never do something totally pointless.
"…Anyway, I'm pretty nervous about this, too."
I glanced back at her, but she ignored my confession and
cut in front of me.
"Your problem, not mine. If we're going, let's hurry up
and go."
"H-hey, wait for me!"
She walked briskly forward. All that complaining, but
when I show the slightest vulnerability, I get this. She always
has to be in control.
With that, we headed off toward an offline Atafami
meetup.
* * *
"…This is it?"
We'd been walking from the station for couple of minutes,
using a map I'd pulled up using the address listed on the
More Info page.
We were at the venue.
"I'd hardly call this a venue… More like an ordinary
apartment," I said, peering around.
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Hinami nodded. "Yeah, looks that way. I read that some
people who live together just started holding regular events."
"Wow, you did your research."
"Shut up."
All her complaining aside, she seemed like she might
actually be excited…which was a good thing.
We were at a venue called AtaHouse—or more accurately,
a group of adjacent apartments occupied by Atafami players
who held regular offline tournaments. Hence the nickname.
"The room number is…"
I pulled up the More Info page on my phone and checked
the number again and again to make sure I had it right, then
rang the bell on the intercom in the lobby.
A few seconds later, a male voice answered. "Hello?"
"Um, we're here for the tournament."
"Okay, come on up."
The lock on the door to the first floor clicked open, and
the two of us walked into the elevator.
"M-man, I'm nervous…"
"You are?"
I was the one who'd invited her, but she was still way
calmer than me.
"Wh-why are you so unaffected by this?"
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"I mean, all we're doing is going into a room with around
ten people we don't know, right? We're in our home field."
"Uh, I beg to differ. I'd call this an away game."
I smiled cynically, but her business-as-usual attitude was
slowly dissolving my anxiety.
"What are you talking about? This is your home field even
more than mine."
"I guess so…," I said vaguely.
Hinami grinned. "I mean—you are the nanashi."
"…True."
She was right.
The room we were about to enter was one of the few
places in Japan I could call my home field.
We walked up to the door and pressed the intercom.
"Door's open, come on in," the voice said, so I put my hand
on the knob.
"Ready…?"
"Yup." Hinami nodded.
I gripped the knob. Then held it for a few seconds.
"…We're really going in?"
"Just hurry up and do it." Hinami's grin was gone.
At her urging, I opened the door—and we stepped into the
gaming venue.
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* * *
I shuffled in with tiny, embarrassed steps; nearly ten
people were already inside. Hinami was behind me, but she
was brimming with confidence.
Three monitors were lined up on a table, their cords
snaking around, and of course, Atafami was on the screens.
On two of them, one-on-one games were already underway,
with two players and a small audience in front of each one.
"H-hi."
At the sound of my voice, a couple of the people watching
glanced toward me, then quickly shifted their gazes to
Hinami with obvious surprise. Predictable, I guess.
Everyone here aside from Hinami was a guy, and even if that
wasn't the case, a girl of Hinami's caliber would cause a stir
anywhere she showed up. I mean, people turned their heads
even when we were walking down the street.
"Welcome, uh…?"
A guy who I guessed was the host walked up to us,
smiling. He appeared to be in his early thirties, the neat and
tidy type you'd see working at an electronics retail store. He
glanced back and forth between me and Hinami like he
didn't know what to say. He was probably wondering which
of the registered participants we were.
"Uh, we're here for the first time…"
"Gotcha, nice to meet you! And your names?"
He opened his phone and started looking through what
must have been the list of participants. I took a nervous
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breath.
"Uh, my name is—"
Come to think of it, I probably hadn't used that name in
the real world since I'd met Hinami.
"I'm nanashi."
In that instant, every eye in the place turned toward me.
Both the players in the middle of games as well as those
watching. Uh, I think you should focus on your screens,
guys…
When I looked back at the host, even he seemed nervous.
What do I do now? I knew my name was fairly well-known,
but to get such an openly shocked reaction made me unsure
what to say.
"Uh…you mean that nanashi…?" the host asked timidly,
peering into my face.
"Uh…yeah, I mean, I'm the nanashi on the leaderboards."
A murmur went through the room again. Right away,
everyone's eyes drifted to Hinami but then were redirected
back toward me. Probably because she was so blindingly
attractive. Nope, you never get used to someone that
beautiful. By the way, she was giving them a friendly smile
as she bowed adorably. So we're in this mode today, huh?
"Wow, you're younger than I expected. Oh, I'm Harry, the
host for today."
"Nice to meet you. And this…"
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"Nice to meet you! I'm nanashi-kun's friend Aoi."
Just as I glanced over at Hinami to introduce her, she beat
me to it. She'd registered using her real name written in
English letters.
"Pleasure's mine, nanashi-san and Aoi-san. Do you play
Atafami, too?"
"I do! But I'm still nowhere near as good as nanashikun…"
"Ah-ha-ha! You could say the same about basically
everyone in Japan."
"Very true!"
Hinami was smoothly easing into a friendly conversation
with Harry-san, using her skills to full effect.
By the way, Harry-san was an Atafami player as well as a
play-by-play commentator on YouTube. His voice was
famously velvety, attracting a steady audience.
"So about the system we use here…," he began, evidently
about to start a little tour.
"Th-this is nanashi-san…?"
A guy who looked to be in his late twenties had walked up,
addressing his question to Harry-san. He was short with
cropped black hair, glasses, and a muscular build. He kept
making eye contact with me and then looking away,
obviously nervous. Hey, no need to freeze. I'm just a high
schooler who's good at video games, dude.
I tried to make my expression as natural as possible.
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"Nice to meet you. I'm nanashi."
I bobbed my head at him. He clammed up for a minute,
seemingly panicked, then dipped his head down and up.
"N-nice to meet you. I'm Max."
"Oh, so you're Max-san."
"Wow, you know who I am?"
I nodded. I didn't know all that much about him, but he
showed up in Harry-san's videos sometimes, covering games
with him. He played the role of question-asker—I guess you
could say he was the Watson to Harry-san's Holmes.
"I've seen you on Harry-san's videos a couple of times.
Now that we're talking, I recognize your voice!"
"Ha-ha… Yup, that's me. I'm honored that you watch us."
"Oh, no, it's great to meet you."
Once we finished introducing ourselves, Max's gaze
flicked back to Hinami.
"Um, is th-this your girlfriend?"
"Oh, no, no way!" I almost burst out laughing as I firmly
shot that question down. "Not at all, she's a friend. Just a
friend."
As I waved my hand back and forth, Hinami smiled
impishly. "You're so mean! You really want them to know
I'm not your girlfriend!"
"Come on…"
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I knew she planned to hide the fact that she was NO
NAME, but now I realized she was going full throttle into
perfect-heroine mode. Understood.
"Ah-ha-ha, you two seem like very good friends…"
Max-san's slightly probing words sounded a little envious.
So I explained, "Uh, she likes Atafami, too, and that's why
we decided to come together."
"Really!" Max-san exclaimed, his eyes glinting. "Not many
girls like Atafami!"
He looked at her, and she nodded.
"Ah-ha-ha! Is that so?"
She must have guessed that he had accepted her because
she swiftly moved to consolidate her advantage.
"It really is a great game. It's fun to play in a group, but
when you get into it, it's so deep."
"Exactly!"
"And the balance…"
She went on like that, hitting all the right spots in her
performance of game-talk. Well, she is genuinely a fan.
"…I just love that part of it!"
"I know! Me too!"
Max-san and Harry-san had both lost their initial
nervousness by now and seemed to be enjoying the
conversation, enjoying Hinami's presence. I mean, she was
already incredibly good at communicating, so add in the
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common language of Atafami, and they were going into this
battle with Fullheal on their side.
I was joining in here and there, awed by Hinami's skill,
when the other participants started coming over to us. I
guess their games had ended. Their sparkling eyes were
focused fervently on me. Who would've guessed that I'd be
attracting more attention than the one and only Aoi Hinami?
"Um…I played you online once, and you crushed me… I
really wanted to meet you!"
"Uh, thanks?"
"I've learned a lot from watching your games!"
I didn't know how to react to this flood of emotions from
my Atafami fans. Then they started asking me questions,
like "Can I shake your hand?" "When did you start playing?"
"Do you do offline tournaments?" and on and on. Wow, I
really was a celebrity. I knew I was somewhat well-known in
the Atafami world, but I had no clue this would happen.
As I was fighting my way through the wave of people and
words, I suddenly heard something unexpected.
"—And you're so good-looking!"
"What?"
I couldn't help feeling surprised.
I'd never heard that before in my life.
I started to protest, but then I thought about it and
stopped midsentence.
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I mean, I was probably getting compliments because I'd
chosen my outfit carefully based on what Hinami had taught
me, gone to the salon regularly, and practiced doing my hair
every morning. On top of that, I'd dutifully trained and
taught my face how to look cheerful.
Which meant I shouldn't reject the compliment, but I
shouldn't get all full of myself and let my guard down, either.
What I should probably do is simply accept it.
That's why I chose to reply:
"…Thank you."
I stood there confidently, smiling back and meeting the
eyes of the person who complimented me.
I don't know if that was the right response, but after I said
it, I felt refreshed.
Interesting. I'd never done that before.
Maybe accepting compliments felt better than I thought.
But the other participants kept on talking.
"He's also stylish!"
"And he even sounds cool when he talks!"
"It's like nanashi's a top-tier character in real life, too!"
My whole set of internal values was threatening to
crumble under this rush of unfamiliar praise. No one had
ever said this about me before. "Stylish"? "Sounds cool"?
"Top-tier character in real life"??? Everything I thought I
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knew was breaking.
"Uh, um, how about we talk about Atafami…?"
Unsure what to do, I made a feeble attempt to stop them,
but the rain of words kept coming. It even intensified.
"Don't be modest! You're so cool!"
"You seem like a real extrovert!"
"Um…she is your girlfriend, right?"
Okay, this is not how I pictured a real-world Atafami
tournament would go. I was imagining more of an epic
battlefield where players stoically won and lost—
"Enough!!" I didn't mean to shout, but I was truly
suffocating. "I'm just nanashi, guys!! I play Atafami.
Nothing more, nothing less. My looks have nothing to do
with it! And this is just my friend, definitely not my
girlfriend!! Okay?!"
My sudden outburst was followed by silence, and then
everyone broke into grins.
"This guy's pretty interesting!"
"Yeah, definitely an extrovert…"
"I bet he's on the leaderboard in his class, too."
I took in their words, my eyes squeezed shut, and then it
dawned on me.
"No matter what I say, it's not gonna make a difference…"
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Behind me, Hinami was smiling as I caved. Stop enjoying
my suffering!
That's when it happened.
"Excuse me!"
To my surprise, the voice that came out of the blue from
my right side, by the door, sounded feminine.
And the speaker clearly was not Hinami.
I turned toward the voice—and saw a girl I didn't know
looking back at me with glittering eyes. So there was another
girl here aside from Hinami. She seemed to be around my
age. Her dark-brown hair was cut straight across, and she
was wearing a black beret-like thing over it.
"…I've been wanting to meet you, nanashi-san!"
Her voice was nasal but somehow warm, too.
She was wearing a tight, grown-up-looking gray sweater
with long sleeves—which had a heart cutout over her chest.
Seriously? (Well, I'm fairly sure there was one there anyway.
I didn't look directly, since I've heard girls always notice.)
The neck was high and unobtrusively frilly, and she had on a
gold chain with a white charm on it.
Despite her unusual sweater, she looked more elegant
than eccentric, maybe because of the simple black skirt she
was wearing with it. It was relatively short and tight around
the hips, then flared out above her slim, fair-skinned legs.
Overall, she reminded me of a Korean pop star or
something. I sensed an animal kind of strength in her.
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The vertical stripes on her tight sweater made the
contours of her body quite obvious—overly obvious, actually
—and to be honest, I'd never been so lost as to where I could
safely look. It was overwhelming. No matter where I directed
my gaze, I was pretty sure I could be accused of sexual
harassment. So I stood firm and stared her straight in the
eyes.
"Pleased to meet you. I'm nanashi."
I visualized Mizusawa and grinned. Channeling Mizusawa
at moments like this is crucial. When you have a model,
things tend to go better, and focusing on imitating him
prevented me from being distracted by the parts of her I
shouldn't be looking at. I'd even say that went well.
"I was so surprised when I looked at the list of
participants! It's amazing! It's really you!"
She brought her hands together in front of her face, her
eyes still sparkling. This meant her arms were squeezed
against her sides, which I'm pretty sure were also squeezing
something else at the edge of my field of vision, but I was
Mizusawa. I kept my eyes focused unwaveringly on her eyes
and searched for a conversation topic.
"Ha-ha-ha, thank you. Uh…what's your name?"
"Rena!"
"Rena-chan, got it… Ah."
As I fought to keep my gaze upward, I'd channeled
Mizusawa a little too much and accidentally called her
"Rena-chan." That was way too chummy for someone I'd
just met, and I scrambled to correct my mistake.
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"I'm sorry. I meant to say Rena-san."
For some reason, her eyes glittered even more brightly
when I said that, and she sidled up to me.
I think she was even closer than Izumi gets. The heavy
scent of flower nectar and shampoo tickled my nose
seductively, and for a second, my thoughts dissolved into a
haze.
"Oh, you can call me Rena-chan!" Her voice was high and
sweet, and her eyes were moist.
I felt like that scent was melting down my brain and
eating away my consciousness as it dreamily wafted around
me. Logic was disappearing into a dizzy fog.
"I—I can? Okay, then Rena-chan it is."
Damn, that was fast. The Mizusawa software currently
running my brain might be one reason I was being so
friendly, but I also felt manipulated.
Well, I do use chan with Tama-chan, so maybe it wasn't so
weird…right?
"Yay! Can I call you nanashi-san?"
"Uh, yeah, that's fine."
She was kind of controlling the pace, but I think I was
managing to carry on a fairly smooth conversation without
getting too flustered. I'd already been sucked into an
unusually casual interaction, but I guess that was fine.
"Back off a little, Rena-chan, you're overwhelming him."
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I guess Max-san couldn't bear to watch anymore, because
he finally jumped in for the save. Sounds like he knew her.
"What? No, I'm not! Are you overwhelmed, nanashi-san?"
"Very."
"You are?!" she squealed, before eventually laughing and
turning toward me. It was an intimate gesture, as if she was
wordlessly saying, This is fun, isn't it?
By the way, the joke I made is like a basic combo that I've
done a million times since I started playing this game, so I'm
able to use it fairly freely now. It's a form of teasing that's
just exaggeratedly agreeing with whatever the other person
says. To put it in Found's terms, it's like a down throw, up
air.
"You're so mean!" she said, looking at me with sleepy eyes
and lightly touching my shoulder. Why was she acting so
vulnerable? I could probably get her into a fully charged
Attack right now, no problem.
She was staring at me, so I looked back at her. Her skin
was so pale, it seemed almost blue, and her dark eyes were
bottomless wells. Her near childlike features were
symmetrical, and her constant smile was mysteriously
magnetic.
I glanced at the bottom of her sleeves, which were as tight
as the rest of her sweater, and noticed she was wearing a
bunch of heavy black bracelets. Their design was so rough
that they struck an interesting contrast with her girly frilled
collar and sexy, tight-fitting clothes, and the wrist beneath
them was worryingly fragile.
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She kept staring at me as she spoke.
"So it turns out nanashi-san is a stud!"
There was something inviting in her moist eyes. Earlier,
I'd felt embarrassed when the other participants said I was
good-looking and stuff, but having a girl look me in the eye
and say it hit way harder. And on top of that, Rena-chan's
gaze and voice seemed glued to me. My head was heating up;
this was a major assault on my instincts.
"Ha-ha-ha, um, thanks."
Somehow, I managed not to stutter. I bet Mizusawa
wouldn't even say um, but for me, that's unavoidable. She
smiled, then suddenly glanced away. For a second, I almost
thought she was sad. What was going on?
Once the conversation had passed like a stormy wave, she
blinked exaggeratedly at Hinami.
"…There's another girl here!"
She stepped closer to Hinami, sounding genuinely
shocked.
"Hello, I'm Rena."
She peered into Hinami's face with observing eyes, her
lips forming a smile. I was struck by the contrast between
Rena's cool gaze and her soft tone.
"Hi, I'm Aoi," Hinami answered cheerfully with a five-star
smile, looking her over from head to toe. "Those are so
cute!" she said, pointing to her clunky black bracelets.
Um, are they? I think a word like cool might be better for
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that design.
"Ooh, you get it! They're so clunky!"
"I know! They look good on you!"
But apparently, they were cute. There it was again, that
unique normie take on the word cute. It was the same with
the famous haniwa key chains, and I didn't get it this time,
either. How does clunkiness equal cute? Can cuteness and
clunkiness cohabitate?
"But you're the stylish one, Aoi-san! I love your earrings!"
"Thank you so much! They're my favorites! I think we
have the same taste."
"We do! Wow! And your hair is so soft and your face is so
small and your skin is so nice! Like a pretty doll!"
"But look at your figure, it's amazing!"
I didn't get it, but they seemed locked in a relentless
competition over who could compliment the other one more.
Really. It felt like an actual battle.
"This is your first time here, right?" Rena-chan asked
Hinami.
"Yes!"
"If you have any questions, you can ask me!"
"Thank you! Do you come a lot?"
"Yeah, I'm becoming a regular here!" Rena-chan smiled
wanly before continuing. "Did you…come by yourself?"
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"Oh, um," Hinami said, glancing around until her gaze
landed on me. "I came with nanashi-kun."
And then.
Rena-chan swiveled her head back and forth, bewildered.
"…You did? …Are you friends?"
"Yes! Atafami friends, I guess you could say."
"Huh…"
Rena's face was blank, or maybe I should say frozen.
Then she took one more look at us and grinned. "What a
handsome pair! I hope you come often!"
"Ah-ha-ha. I plan to."
They both smiled. I felt like they'd just completed a round
of hand-to-hand combat. Were girls always this intense
when they first met? I couldn't even keep up.
As I was reeling from this unknown world, Rena-chan slid
over to my side again and tapped me softly two times
between my back and my flank. I think she was just trying to
get my attention, but her touch was oddly ticklish—if my
guard wasn't up, I would have made a noise.
"What's up?" I asked, pretending to be calm.
She brought her face up to my ear. Since she moved her
whole body along with it, our clothes rubbed together,
warming my upper arm like a fever.
"Um…"
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Along with her breathy voice, that sweet scent washed
over my consciousness again.
"Y-yeah?" I asked, staring straight ahead.
"…to be totally honest, it seems like you two are dating,"
she said in an even breathier voice.
I turned toward her, intending to correct her—but since
she'd just been whispering in my ear, we ended up facing
each other at close range. And yet she didn't retreat—she
just kept watching me. How was she able to stay so close?
We were centimeters apart, and I couldn't take my eyes off
her pitch-black pupils.
"W-we're really just friends," I said, taking a step away.
She continued to stare me down. "Really?"
"Yeah."
"…Well, that's good."
She turned suddenly back toward the rest of the room. I
was finally free from the pair of eyes holding me in place, but
what was "that's good" supposed to mean?
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* * *
After the question attack by the other participants and my
conversation with Rena-chan, the group started up versus
mode, which was more what I'd imagined an offline Atafami
meetup would be like. That was a relief. By the way, Harrysan encouraged Hinami to join in, but she said she wasn't
good enough yet. I guess she'd blow her cover if she played
at her real level, and knowing her, she probably couldn't
bring herself to go easy on her opponents. Watching was a
wise option if she didn't want to give herself away.
"Nanashi-san, let's play!" Harry-san said, rolling up his
sleeves.
Even though he's better known as an announcer, he's
actually a solid player with a steady upper-middle ranking in
both online and offline games. He uses a little one-head-tall
character called Wigglypoff, who's a fairly unique fighter
thanks to her high number of jumps and fast aerial mobility.
On the upside, her aerials are solid in terms of damage,
active frames, and hitboxes, so she's great at midair
encounters and close-quarters combat. On the downside,
she's super vulnerable to characters with good reach, which
makes her a challenge to play. I don't often come across
people online who use her well, so I'd been wanting to play
Harry-san for a while.
"For sure!"
We headed over to an empty screen and sat down to get
ready to play. I could hear Rena-chan shouting, "Ooh,
exciting!" in the background. I would've recognized her voice
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even if Hinami wasn't the only other girl there.
We checked our controller settings and chose characters.
To decide on a stage, we figured we'd go old-school and do
rock-paper-scissors, with the winner picking from a couple
of simple options.
"You good?"
"Yup!"
I won at rock-paper-scissors, so I got to choose the stage. I
went with Buono Volcano.
It's a simple stage, a little narrower than average with one
platform each on the right and left.
Since Wigglypoff can move so freely in the air, she
generally does best on stages with multiple platforms. That's
why I ruled out the Arena, where she'd be able to use that
advantage to the max, but since I was curious to see how
Harry-san used platforms, I went with Buono Volcano.
It took a couple of seconds for the game to load. I got
myself psyched up, spinning the stick around with my left
thumb. It made a satisfying sound as it scratched the edge,
firing up my instincts.
The game ended after a couple of minutes…
"Man, you really are good," Harry-san said, smiling
bashfully.
Like before, I thought rejecting his compliment would be
wrong, so I just thanked him.
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"That was a surprise for me, too. I didn't know Wigglypoff
could do that much."
I'd watched videos of the character before, but playing
was different. Wigglypoff's playstyle is basically just
throwing out attacks and then striking during an opening; it
isn't such a threat as long as you kept an eye on your
spacing. And managing that spacing is my specialty.
What is a threat is the way she uses her aerial mobility to
edge guard.
"I was getting worried there—you just kept coming after
me," I said.
Harry-san's style was to mercilessly pursue his opponent
when they got knocked off the stage, trying to KO them as
fast as possible. Since Found, my character, has a recovery
move that makes him disappear briefly, he's harder to edge
guard. But the range on that move is short, so it's not the
most versatile. If Wigglypoff uses her aerial mobility to
guard multiple routes, the situation gets a whole lot tougher.
"Ha-ha-ha. Thank you. But you react fast, nanashi-kun."
"Ah-ha-ha. No one's gonna kill me without a fight."
I smiled. At first glance, Harry-san's edge-guard style,
which involved pursuing his opponent dangerously close to
the blast zone, did seem like a threat to Found. But if you
looked a bit closer, you'd see fairly quickly that before he had
a chance to guard multiple routes, he dived into one choice
and threw away the others.
You wouldn't notice it if the edge guarding freaked you
out, but he would always reveal the route he was going to
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guard.
"With Found, if you up-B early as you're approaching the
stage, you can intercept and use the i-frames to avoid
attacks. Even when the invincibility ends, Found can get
back to the stage faster than Wigglypoff, so he won't get
punished for it."
"That is exactly right. Once you know that, I can't do
anything!"
Harry-san sounded regretful but also somehow happy.
We each started with four stocks and were playing firstto-three. The final score was 3–0. Harry-san KO'd me first,
but after that, I figured out on the fly how to deal with him,
and in the last game, I won with three stocks left. I think
being able to come up with countermeasures midgame is
one requirement for staying at the top.
"It really was an honor to play the famous nanashi."
"No, it was my pleasure."
With the postmortem finished, I glanced over my
shoulder. An audience was gathered around, avidly listening
to our conversation. Next to them, there was Rena-chan,
with a slightly different kind of glint in her eyes—and behind
her, obviously spoiling for a fight, was Hinami. If she wants
to play that bad, she should just play.
I walked up to Hinami and smiled wryly.
"You sure you don't want to play?" I asked.
"…Oh, no! I mean, I'm not worth playing."
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"…Really."
She wasn't budging. She'd be better off dropping the act.
* * *
After that, since this was an offline meetup, a simple
tournament got underway. Of course, I joined in. Everyone
aside from Hinami, including Rena-chan, was competing for
the top spot. Hinami watched, chewing her finger.
First round. The guy I'd just played had his jaw on the
floor.
"G-good game, man…! Dang, I couldn't do anything…"
"Good game!" I answered, taking the controller from the
stand.
I won the next game easily, too—obviously, I guess I
should add. Anyone who came to a meetup like this would
be a decent player, but that said, I'm still the long-standing
top player in Japan. From what I saw, I was a level or two
above anyone else here, so I didn't think I'd lose to anyone in
the first-to-three system they'd set up.
Second round. My Found was zipping around the screen,
and my opponent was at my mercy. I seized an opening to
deliver the KO.
"Oh my god! He just took advantage of the ending lag
from that dash attack to up tilt out of shield! How does he
keep so calm?"
"You can see why he's number one. He just calmly comes
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and takes everything he can when he gets a freebie."
"He was on the edge of the platform, too. If it was me, I'd
want to grab the other guy and do a back throw. He's
watching really carefully."
"Yeah. The basics are so key."
The audience was vigorously analyzing my play. Just stop,
okay? It's kinda embarrassing. And terrifying, because
everything they said was spot-on.
But I also realized something.
Up till then, I'd never openly admitted just how obsessive
a gamer I was, but in this setting, everyone understood
technical stuff about Atafami as if it was totally natural.
After racking up another win, I looked around the room
again.
Everyone here loved Atafami, and each of them took their
game seriously.
That was enough to make them feel like old friends, even
though we'd just met. I felt strangely at home.
"Good game!"
Everyone I was playing loved this game. We were all
different ages, and we had no idea what one another's real
names or occupations were.
And yet I was able to be my real self around them, noholds-barred.
"How come he was able to charge an Attack there?"
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"He saw right through that tomahawk grab. Was the
reason he shielded so hard to prepare for that…?"
"You're right that he could KO with an up throw at that
percentage, so a grab would make more sense than an
aerial."
"So that's how nanashi thinks…!"
…But still, having my thought process analyzed this
closely made it a little hard to play.
"Ooooh!"
That's when it happened.
Cheers erupted from the next table over.
Thinking someone must have done something cool, I
glanced over during the pause before my next game—and
burst out laughing at what I saw.
Who was in front of the monitor but…?
"You killed me! Aoi-san, you're so good!"
"I am? Thank you for the compliment!"
A male player was grinning in defeat as he complimented
the girl who'd just won.
Yes, it was NO NAME, the second-best player in Japan,
wearing the guise of the perfect heroine. What the hell was
she doing?
"Uh…she's in the tournament, too?" I asked.
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Max-san, who was standing behind me to observe my
games, nodded.
"She is! She said she wanted to play after all, so I added
her in a match against a seeded player."
"Ah-ha-ha…got it."
I thought she'd been watching enviously this whole time,
but as it turned out, she couldn't stand the temptation. Well,
she did get super emotional when it came to Atafami.
Normally, you had to bring your own controller to places like
this, so I guess she'd brought hers? Which meant she'd been
raring to go all along.
But would she be okay? Her playstyle was so precise that
it was almost otherworldly. I don't think many people use
that style with Found. Some of the people watching might
recognize her.
Well, better focus on my own game first.
I turned back to my third match and took a deep breath to
regain my concentration, when Max-san burst out excitedly.
"Wow, her Foxy sure is strong!"
"…Foxy?"
I glanced back at Hinami. I was fairly sure her main
wasn't Foxy—it was Found, like me.
I wonder if she'd gritted her teeth and chosen a different
character because she wanted to play without getting caught.
If that was true, she must really, really like Atafami,
although I'm not one to talk. If she was going that far, why
not just admit who she was? I smiled cynically to myself,
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then refocused on my own game.
"…Here we go, game number three."
"I-I'm ready."
With that, I kicked his ass again.
* * *
Having safely won the second round, I headed over to
Hinami's table. A game was just starting. According to the
people watching, this was the third, and Hinami had won
the first two.
"She's…really, really good, isn't she?" Harry-san asked
me.
I wasn't sure what to say, so I just nodded and made a
noncommittal noise. Rena-chan, who was standing next to
us, jumped in.
"Did you train her?"
"Train her? Uh, not exactly, but…"
Rena-chan stared at me as I groped for words. Come on,
Hinami, you want to hide that you're NO NAME, but what
story do you plan to use? You went and started playing
without telling me, and now I'm stuck. I don't want to
blabber on inanely to these people, so you're really on your
own here.
"We play here and there…and she's gotten a lot better,
partly by copying me," I said, avoiding any specifics. She
genuinely had improved by copying me, so I wasn't lying.
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Thanks to all the time I'd spent with Hinami's mask, I was
getting a lot better myself at lying without really lying.
Harry-san nodded, impressed.
"Wow! I haven't seen many girls that good."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
Rena-chan seemed to enjoy poking fun at Harry-san's
offhand comment. But her face quickly grew serious again as
she turned back to the screen.
"But you're right… I was totally defenseless against her."
"You played her?"
That was a surprise.
"Yeah, I played her in the second round, and she beat me
three times in a row," she said casually.
"Ha-ha, sorry to hear it."
I smiled weakly. Her tone was lax, but ever so slightly
empty. It probably was bothering her.
But wow, three victories in a row with Foxy. I didn't know
how good Rena-chan was, but if they'd faced off in the
second round, she'd beaten someone in the first. Which
meant Hinami had done more than beat a beginner three
times in a row.
"Get her back for me, okay, nanashi-san?"
"Wait, am I on your team now?"
"Oh? Were you on Aoi-san's team, then?"
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She stared at me with a challenging expression. Her gaze
was direct, but not open like Tama-chan's. It was more like
Hinami's—impossible to read beyond the surface.
"I'm not on anyone's team… I mean, I'm on nanashi's
team."
"That's so mean. I hate you."
"Wait, why?!" I said in my well-practiced style of cheerful
comeback-slash-reaction. She smiled happily, then thumped
my shoulder. I'm not sure how to describe how I felt every
time she touched me—ticklish, or maybe fidgety. Anyway, I
have zero resistance against that, so please stop.
"You're funny, nanashi-san."
"Ha-ha…thanks."
While I was chatting with Rena-chan and Harry-san,
Hinami's game started. Since her usual character was
Found, I didn't know how good she was as Foxy.
When the game started, Hinami's Foxy used his blaster to
poke and pressure the opponent and kept him moving with
some minor punishes while doing fast-fall nairs. (A nair is a
neutral aerial attack, which you do by leaving the stick in a
neutral position while pressing the attack button.) While it's
not that powerful on its own, it sends them up at a good
angle and has good landing lag, so as long as you're able to
land the blow, it's a really convenient way to start all kinds of
combos. Hinami got the hit and skillfully segued into a
combo.
"Very steady…," Harry-san said, nodding softly.
Even if your opponent shields, neutral air doesn't have
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many vulnerability frames, so you won't get punished much.
Actually, depending on the character, there might be no
punishment at all even if they shield. To be blunt, it's one of
those moves you can just kind of do and get good results. In
addition to using it to segue into a combo and deal damage,
if you land it when their percentage is high, it can be
powerful in itself while also leading into an attack. It can
even be used to KO. It's pretty scary.
"Aoi-san sure is good at those nair combos."
"…Yeah."
Hinami unleashed her short hops, fast falls, and
preemptive forward airs and back airs, at the same time
predicting what her opponent would do and taking the
initiative. Then she suddenly landed a beautiful fast-fall
neutral air, flowing into a high-firepower combo. Her
opponent fled out of her reach, but she came after them with
a blaster attack, determined to up the damage by even 1
percent.
"Damn…," I couldn't help saying as I watched.
The precise way she moved around was so completely
Hinami. She repeatedly chose low-risk, mid-return moves,
waiting for her opponent to make themselves vulnerable.
When they did, she went to a spot where she could unleash
her firepower, then used precise movements to initiate a
combo and inflict more damage. When she couldn't do that,
she blocked her opponent's combo starters to limit the
damage she took to single hits. The result was that she was
landing combos while her opponents were only getting
single hits. It wasn't a showy way of playing, but before you
knew it, she was way ahead.
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But when had she found the time to practice using Foxy?
The character has good specs to start with, so you can be a
bit sloppy and still get okay results, but combos that good
had to require some practice. If you want to main Foxy,
you've gotta put in some serious work, and even Hinami
would have a hard time getting to that level without
investing the time.
"That tomahawk was very accurate," Harry-san suddenly
commented next to me. I nodded.
"Someone uses that many nairs on you, you're gonna
freeze up even if you don't want to."
The tomahawk throw. It's a mind game you use against a
shield, where you don't attack with an aerial but instead land
right in front of your opponent and grab them.
There's a chance you could get hit when you land, but
Hinami used it so precisely and smoothly that it was a
pleasure to watch.
At first, it seemed mysterious, but the trick was simple.
"She's baiting those shields."
Hinami's neutral airs were always accompanied by fast
falls after a jump. Unlike the normal version, which started
up quickly and suddenly from the ground, she was always in
the air before she did it, so in a sense, as long as her
opponent always shielded when Foxy was in the air, he
wouldn't take damage from neutral airs.
And she was clearly using a lot of them, so her opponent
knew that if one of them made contact, he'd take a lot of
damage from the combo. At a high percentage, he might
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even get KO'd then and there.
That image would be seared into her opponent's mind
whether they liked it or not.
I can't let myself get hit by that attack. That's dangerous.
And those thoughts invited hasty shields.
He wasn't just shielding to protect himself from neutral
airs; it was almost like he was being conditioned to shield
now that he had been taught to fear.
And when her opponent saw Foxy in the air and shielded
to protect himself from an illusory neutral air, that's when
she made her move.
Without attacking, she landed right in front of him and
grabbed him.
As I watched her play, I was steadily coming to
understand her overall strategy.
"…Actually, she chooses that option essentially every
time."
"Really?" asked Rena-chan, who had come over to listen.
I nodded.
Hinami was doing this well with Foxy, who wasn't her
main. I wondered when in the world she'd found time to
practice, but the answer was simple.
She'd done it during the tournament.
Or more likely, during all the games she watched earlier.
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Pokes and the bare essentials aside, she was basically only
using combos from neutral airs and tomahawks.
Of course, she used the blaster while she was moving
around and throwing out back airs. There were also the
various aerials she pulled out during combos, the dash
attack for when she got attacked or whiff-punished
unexpectedly, and the jabs she used when her neutral airs
were shielded.
But basically, it was just those two moves—nairs and
throws—that she used to rack up damage. All the rest was
just window dressing, thrown in to make her maneuvers
look better.
In other words—I'd been wondering when she managed to
practice so much with Foxy, but I wasn't coming at it the
right way. She wasn't using all of Foxy's abilities; she'd just
practiced neutral-air combos in a couple of ways until she
could do it flawlessly, and she was using that to lay waste to
her opponent.
Her moves were all performed perfectly, so if you looked
just at that, you'd think she was a seasoned Foxy user. But in
truth, the only moves she used were the handful she'd
practiced. Everything you could see had been baptized, you
might say. That was about it.
"She's probably trying to hide that she's only using that
one pattern…but the fact is, almost every time she deals
damage, that's how she does it."
Foxy moved fast on the ground and vertically through the
air, so even if her attacks all followed the same pattern, it
was hard to notice because you naturally focused on the
speed. On top of that, after the neutral air, she used a wide
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range of combos depending on percentage, so at first glance,
her attacks looked varied.
But even though she was trouncing her opponent through
her underlying mastery of spatial management and
maneuvering—when it came to her core attacks, she was
relying solely on two options. What the hell kind of
playstyle was that?
"…Now that you've pointed it out, you're right."
"You sure picked up on that fast, nanashi-san."
After watching her play a little longer, Harry-san and
Rena-chan both seemed to notice it, too. It was simple once
you knew what to look for.
"Doesn't mean it's easy to deal with, though…"
Foxy attacked fast, and once Hinami'd created an
advantage for herself, she would bring on the pain. It was
less like her opponent was rationally making choices and
more like he was being guided into certain actions while his
brain was floundering to keep up with the angry tsunami of
her attack—which was exactly what she wanted. If this was a
game of rock-paper-scissors, she wasn't predicting which
one he would make; she was whipping him into a panic so
he'd clench his hand into a rock, then make paper herself.
And if that was the arena you were playing in, the crucial
thing—even more crucial than noticing her trick or being
good with the controller—was to not panic. That wasn't
something you could learn overnight.
"Oh…it's over."
The game ended with two stocks remaining for Hinami.
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That made the final score of the first-to-three 3–0. She'd
won.
"Thank you so much!"
Hinami smiled happily and gave her opponent a shallow
bow. Her attractiveness and innocence apparently affected
him, because he didn't seem to mind the loss. I'm afraid to
imagine her when she's all grown-up.
As I was gazing at her with a wry smile, she suddenly
noticed our group of three. She stuck her finger in the air
and smiled at us.
"Nanashi-kun, Harry-san, Rena-chan! I won!"
"Yeah, congrats."
"Ah-ha-ha. Congratulations. I love that cheerful attitude."
"Congratulations!!"
Hinami was stacking up one win after the next while
easily putting everyone present under her spell. She was
staging such a good performance, in fact, that I was almost
starting to worry if she'd be okay with everyone liking her
this much. Her technique is unrivaled, both in Atafami and
life. She uses the combos she's practiced at just the right
moment.
"Uh, guess I'm up next…," I said, looking at the
leaderboard. That's when it dawned on me. "Which
means…"
"You noticed?" Hinami said, grinning boldly.
Yup, you guessed it. Well, of course you did.
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If I won my next game, Hinami and I would be facing off
in the final round.
* * *
"There we go."
Yeah, I knew this would happen.
"Oh my gosh! There's no way I can beat you, nanashikun!"
"Uh-huh…"
The final round. Predictably, we'd both won our earlier
games, and predictably, we were now colliding head-on.
That's what you get when the players with the best and
second-best winrates in Japan show up at a tournament.
Hinami might be using a different character than usual, but
her basic level was still on a different plane from her average
opponent.
But what was her plan now? She was fairly good at using
Foxy, but now that I knew her only highly polished weapon
was nair combos, it wasn't going to work against me. She
probably knew I'd been watching her last few games, and
she must have guessed that I saw through her trick.
On the other hand, if she used Found, she risked revealing
her true identity, so she couldn't do that. All the more so if
she was playing nanashi. I mean, there's only a handful of
people in Japan who can go toe to toe with me using Found.
With those questions on my mind, I sat down at the table,
connected my controller, and let it rest lightly in my hands.
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"Hey, nanashi-kun?"
I turned around at the sound of her voice.
From the way she was grinning, I just knew she had some
plan up her sleeve.
"…What?"
It was enough to get me excited, strange as that sounds.
Her next words were like a single drop of water on the
surface of a smooth pond.
"Since I could never beat you on regular terms…"
She proposed this:
"…can we play with special rules?"
I didn't know exactly what she had in mind, but an alarm
bell was blaring instinctively in my brain.
"'Special rules'… You're not asking me for a handicap, are
you?"
"Of course not."
Maintaining the bare minimum of cuteness, she gave me
another bold grin.
"It's simple. We ban both of our mains. So neither of us
can use Found or Foxy."
"…Okay, I get you."
This would be a showdown of pure Atafami skill, played
with characters we weren't used to. Found would blow her
cover, so she wanted to use someone different.
"Fine. A contest of skill, then?"
I grinned, and she looked back at me like she was really
having fun. This plan would let her keep her identity hidden
but still enjoy facing off with nanashi. I was starting to relax,
now that I saw her strategy, but then she added another
condition.
"And let's make it a ditto."
A murmur ran through the crowd of people watching us.
Once again, a jolt of excitement shot through me at her
hawkish suggestion.
A ditto match.
So this depended completely on our skill and ability to
read each other as players, regardless of our characters'
abilities or compatibility.
"Ha-ha… So a contest of skill and nothing else, no excuses
allowed."
Instead of nodding, Hinami just grinned at me again.
"That's right. What do you say?"
The challenge was from NO NAME, hidden behind the
perfect heroine's mask.
And I was nanashi, without any mask at all.
Of course, I couldn't turn down a proposition that good.