Game 23: The Dawn in the Mirror

It seemed as if Mr. Set was seeking out the other Game Masters one by one. First, it was Eileen Stewart. Now it was Shinji Mitsuda.

In the real world, Shinji was busy trying to find the malicious “kill code” that Mr. Set had hidden away inside The Game.

“Maybe if I can erase this code they keep talking about,” Shinji told himself, “maybe then I will finally get the respect I deserve.”

“You seem awfully sure of yourself, Mr. Mitsuda.”

Shinji, startled by the voice, fell out of his chair. Shinji had always looked at Mr. Set with cautious respect, though the latter's unusual mannerisms could sometimes make Shinji very afraid of him.

“Mr. Set?! What are you doing here?”

Shinji, pretending that nothing had happened, got back into his chair and continued searching.

“Checking on your progress… I need to make sure my code remains intact.

“Your code? You mean the code that's resulted in countless deaths? The boss has tasked me with erasing it.”

“I'm not dim, Mr. Mitsuda. Even if you could find it, which… you can't, I can always just add it back in.”

“I'm not dim, either, Mr. Set. Your access to The Game's code was locked out as soon as you tried to kill Eileen. You betrayed us -”

Mr. Set interrupted him by throwing Shinji out of his chair.

“If you want that code, if you want the respect you seek, there's only one way to get there. You must fight.”

Shinji got up to face Mr. Set.

“Fight you? Right here, right now?”

“In The Game, the ultimate battlefield, and you must win The Game in order to make your wishes come true.”

“Not this stupid wish spiel again… I am not risking my life just for a few lines of code. Besides, I quit your silly little game.”

Mr. Set then unplugged Shinji's computer before throwing it against the wall.

“One cannot simply quit The Game. You either win or you lose.”

•

Rita, Makoto, and Aisha raced across the landscape in an attempt to make it to the Emerald City in record time. The faster they could find Takeshi and Proteus, the better. Though they had only been traveling for two days, it seemed they were getting close. Off in the distance, they noticed smoke billowing high into the air. They took this as a sign that they were close to the Emerald City.

“Hang on, guys!” Rita shouted. “Help is coming in a flash!”

•

Mr. Set and Shinji entered The Game in the ruins of the Arena. Mr. Set angrily kicked rubble around in an attempt to scare his opponent. Shinji had never seen his former colleague so heated before.

“You know what really grinds my gears?” Mr. Set asked him. “People like you who think you can get in the way of progress.” He then started charging towards his opponent. “Until now!”

Mr. Set was armed with a tiger's claw gauntlet. Shinji was armed with a dragon gauntlet. Mr. Set would try to swipe at his opponent, and Shinji would counter by launching fireballs at him. Both fighters tried to utilize the environment to their advantage. Very quickly, Shinji realized his opponent had started this fight with 99 Lives, the maximum amount a player could have in The Game. Shinji's own eight Lives would have to go very far in an uneven fight like this.

“I suppose I've always hated you,” Shinji told Mr. Set. “You and Lazlo, always taking the credit for my ideas, MY hard work. I just never realized it until now.”

“So the truth comes out. You're driven by envy.”

“Every time someone mentioned anyone else's name before mine, I could feel it building up inside. But I kept going, kept being a team player, because I thought maybe just maybe, provided I worked hard enough, maybe they would finally give me the respect I deserved.”

Mr. Set went for an aerial attack, but Shinji met his move with several shots from his gauntlet, knocking several Lives from Mr. Set's total.

•

Elsewhere on the map, the Desert Rose was quietly plotting her next move. Working for Mr. Set was fine and all, she thought, but she needed to set her sights on bigger ideas, such as winning The Game. She sat down at the edge of a very high cliff, her feet dangling off the edge. She was tempted to betray Mr. Set and win The Game for herself.

She didn't even know why she was working for him in the first place, other than the fact that he was paying her very handsomely. She questioned whether that would be enough moving forward, or whether he was holding her back.

She sat there, wondering what she was going to do next…

•

Eileen Stewart had made her way to the headquarters of the Chaos Directive, a large industrial complex hiding in plain sight, deep within the heart of Tokyo's Shibuya district. In her entire time working on The Game, she had only heard of this building in passing, usually when Lazlo or Mr. Set would refer to it. She wondered if this place was open to the public (so that people can register for The Game, for example).

The doors were unlocked, which struck her as very odd. The front office was empty, which was to be expected. It was midnight in Tokyo, after all. She decided to explore further.

The complex was a labyrinth of passageways and doors, none of which Eileen was quite sure where they went. She wasn't even sure if she knew what she was looking for. She would wander down one hallway, then another, and still another. 

Eventually, she found it.

Eileen had found herself in a massive room full of pods. The Game Masters always had private headsets that they could use to enter and exit The Game at will, so the idea of people needing entire pods in order to even play The Game was foreign to her. But everything was starting to make sense to her. The idea that players could not simply leave The Game; the idea that they were playing 24/7 for months, even years on end; the need for a “kill code”. It all made sense to her.

These players were all trapped in a virtual reality hell.

•

Finally, Mr. Set had managed to damage Shinji, putting him down to seven Life. His emotional control was now completely gone. Whatever pent up emotions he would express at the moment, that was merely fuel for his desire to defeat his opponent. Another slash. Six Life.

“Your resistance is useless!” Mr. Set shouted as he went in for another attack. Shinji managed to equip a defensive item just in time, sending Set into the air. He was now on the offensive once again. They charged at each other, releasing a huge burst of energy that sent both of them hurtling towards the walls. Five Life vs. seventy-one. Shinji tried to go for even more attacks, but Mr. Set managed to disarm him in a one-two slash. Three Life. Shinji was now completely defenseless. In a flurry of strikes, Mr. Set had defeated his opponent.

As Shinji Mitsuda lay amidst the ruins of the Arena, Mr. Set approached him.

“When you entered The Game,” Mr. Set explained, “I offered you the chance to fulfill your greatest wish, your greatest desire. Do you remember that?”

“No…”

Mr. Set misunderstood this “No” as a negative answer. “No? Do you remember what I told you if you lost The Game?”

“No…”

“Well, actually… It doesn't matter now. I lied.”

And with that, Shinji Mitsuda was gone.

“Twenty-two days, Mr. Set. Twenty-two days,” Mr. Set told himself, referring to the number of days until his daughter's birthday.

•

Back in the real world, Eileen was examining each individual pod. She may have estimated there were at least two hundred thousand pods in this room, with each pod measuring seven feet long and two feet wide, and pods as far as the eye could see. She reasoned that there must be other pod rooms around the world in order for there to be well over one million players in The Game. Whether that was actually true or not mattered not to her at this moment.

She had finally found what she was looking for. Or rather, who…

Each occupied pod was labeled with a name, written in Latin script and the occupant’s native script, if necessary.

This one read “Takeshi Ishida 石田 勇志”.

•

Elsewhere in the city, chaos had erupted in the aftermath of the Blue Moon incident. Any semblance of order, peace, or stability had long fallen by the wayside.

But in the midst of said chaos, two boys aimed to fight their way out of the Emerald City, one way or another.

Takeshi Ishida and Proteus Rhade lived.

Whether they were the same people as before or not… it was impossible to tell…