The Truth Behind The Game

Four Days Earlier

Ayaka Kohaku stared at her friend list in confusion. She refreshed the display twice, but the result was the same. Amakaze - Itsuki's character name - had completely vanished from her contacts.

"That's weird," she murmured, checking her message history. Their conversation logs were still there, but his status showed as [User Not Found].

It wasn't like him to delete his account, especially not without telling her. They'd been gaming together every day since middle school, and in the three years Astral Caliber: Horizon had been out, they'd played daily without exception - even on holidays, even during exams, even when one of them was sick. He'd never missed their daily check-ins.

Worry gnawing at her stomach, Ayaka logged out of Astral Caliber: Horizon and grabbed her jacket. Itsuki's parents were traveling abroad again, as they usually were, but she had a spare key for exactly these situations. They often had dinner together when his family was away.

The walk to his house felt longer than usual, her concern growing with each step.

"Itsuki?" she called out as she unlocked the front door. "Are you home?"

Silence greeted her. His shoes were by the entrance, and she could see light coming from under his bedroom door.

"Hey, your character disappeared from my friend list," she said, climbing the stairs. "Did you do something to your account?"

Still no response.

Ayaka knocked on his bedroom door. "Itsuki? I'm coming in."

She pushed the door open and froze.

Itsuki lay collapsed on the floor beside his gaming setup, his body perfectly still. The Synapse Core at the base of his skull pulsed with an eerie blue light, far brighter than the usual subtle glow during normal gameplay.

"Itsuki!" She rushed to his side, checking for a pulse, for breathing, for any sign of life. His skin was warm, but she couldn't detect any vital signs.

As she reached for her phone to call an ambulance, something impossible happened.

Itsuki's body began to dissolve.

Starting from his fingertips, his form broke apart into countless crystal fragments that sparkled like starlight. The Synapse Core dissolved along with him, the implant vanishing as his skull crumbled into glittering particles. Ayaka stumbled backward, watching in horror as her childhood friend crumbled into glittering dust that gradually faded from existence.

Nothing remained on the floor where he had been.

Ayaka screamed.

◇◇◇

Present Day

Ayaka sat in her father's executive office on the 40th floor of Nexus Interactive, the company that published Astral Caliber: Horizon.

"You're telling me," she said slowly, "that our world has a treaty with another dimension?"

Her father, Hiroshi Kohaku, CEO of Nexus Interactive, looked older than she'd ever seen him. "The Astral Caliber Project was never just a game, Ayaka. It was a collaboration between our world and theirs. A way to identify and transport worthy individuals to help with their ongoing crisis."

"Crisis?"

"Their world is facing threats that their native population can't handle alone. The goddesses of their realm reached out to ours decades ago, requesting heroes with specific skills and mindsets." Hiroshi pulled up a holographic display showing dimensional gateway schematics. "The 'game' was a testing ground, a way to identify candidates with the right combination of tactical thinking, dedication, and combat expertise."

Ayaka's hands clenched into fists. "So you've been kidnapping people?"

"Not kidnapping. Transporting volunteers who demonstrated exceptional capability and commitment. The process only activates for those who meet very specific criteria and have formed deep emotional connections to that world through extended gameplay."

"Itsuki never volunteered for anything!"

"He didn't have to consciously volunteer," Hiroshi said quietly. "His dedication to the game, his skill level, his daily engagement for over three years... it marked him as someone who had already chosen that world over this one in everything but name."

Ayaka stood abruptly, pacing to the window overlooking the city. "There's more. I know there's more. Who banned his account?"

Hiroshi's expression grew even more grave. "That was... an unauthorized action. Your friend had a brother who works in our development division. Kenji Kurogane. He discovered the true nature of the project and became bitter about the selection process."

"Bitter how?"

"He felt he deserved to be chosen as much as his younger brother. When Itsuki's transport sequence was scheduled to begin, Kenji used his administrative access to ban the account out of spite." Hiroshi brought up another display showing account logs. "He thought it would disqualify Itsuki from the process."

"But it didn't."

"No. It created an unprecedented situation. Itsuki was transported as scheduled, but his account restrictions remained active in the destination world. He arrived as a level one character with a permanent experience ban, despite retaining all his acquired skills."

Ayaka turned back to face her father, her voice cold with anger. "You sent my best friend to another world to die, and his own brother sabotaged him out of jealousy."

"I..." Hiroshi started, then stopped. "You're right. That's exactly what we did."

"And the version of Astral Caliber we play?"

"A snapshot of their world from several years ago. The real Astral Caliber realm has continued to evolve and change. What players experience is essentially a simplified, static representation of a living world."

Ayaka walked to her father's desk and placed her hands flat on the surface, leaning forward. "I want access to the real data. All of it. Transport logs, dimensional coordinates, current world status, candidate selection criteria. Everything."

"Ayaka, you can't—"

"I can and I will." Her voice carried a determination that reminded Hiroshi uncomfortably of her mother. "Itsuki is trapped in another world as a crippled level one character because of decisions made by this company and his brother's petty revenge. I'm going to find a way to help him."

"Even if such a thing were possible, the amount of classified information involved—"

"Dad." Ayaka's voice cut through his protests. "Either you help me, or I go to the media with what I already know. Imagine the headlines: 'Gaming Company Secretly Transporting Players to Parallel Dimensions.' How do you think your stock price will handle that?"

Hiroshi stared at his daughter for a long moment, seeing the steel determination in her eyes that had made him successful in business, now turned against him. He was a man who could never say no to his precious daughter.

"There's a secure data drive in the vault," he said finally. "Everything you want to know is on there. But Ayaka... once you see the full scope of this project, there's no going back. You'll be complicit in secrets that could change the world."

"Itsuki was my best friend," Ayaka replied. "There was never any going back."

◇◇◇

Ayaka sat in her car in the parking garage, a small but incredibly dense hard drive in her hands. The device contained years of dimensional research, transport logs, and most importantly, real-time data about the current state of the Astral Caliber world.

But as she scrolled through the files on her laptop, one section caught her attention: Goddess Protocol Documentation.

The files revealed that the goddesses of the Astral Caliber world had unique quantum signatures that allowed them to interface directly with the world's underlying code.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she cross-referenced the technical specifications with her father's security clearances. She found what she was looking for in a folder labeled "Emergency Administrative Access": detailed schematics for Goddess Matrix Integration. The process was dangerous, experimental, and had never been attempted, but it might grant her enough administrative access to work around the ban.

More importantly, it would let her send system packages directly to specific user accounts.

Ayaka pulled up Itsuki's transport data. His character signature was still active in the system, despite his account ban. The ban prevented normal gameplay progression, but it didn't block system-level data transfers.

"This is the best I can do for him," she muttered, "since unbanning his account seems impossible."

This is insane, she thought, but began preparing the conversion protocol anyway.

◇◇◇

A couple hours later, Ayaka stood in her father's private laboratory, surrounded by quantum processing equipment that hummed with otherworldly energy. She'd modified the dimensional transport array to create a partial consciousness interface - enough to grant her temporary administrative access without fully transporting her physical form.

"Are you sure about this?" her father asked, his face pale with concern. "The neurological risks alone..."

"Itsuki is stuck in that world as a crippled level one character because of this company's decisions and his brother's spite," Ayaka replied, placing the modified Synapse Core against her skull. "This is the best I can do for him since unbanning his account seems impossible."

She activated the sequence.

Pain beyond description tore through her mind as her consciousness interfaced with the dimensional systems, her human awareness temporarily expanding to access vast data streams. For a terrifying moment, she felt connected to every system in the Astral Caliber world.

Including one specific banned account.

[GODDESS PROTOCOL ACTIVE] [ADMINISTRATIVE OVERRIDE ENGAGED] [TARGET: AMAKAZE - ACCOUNT STATUS: BANNED] [SYSTEM PACKAGE COMPILATION INITIATED]

Ayaka began assembling a comprehensive upgrade package: experience ban workaround protocols, hidden privilege grants, system access expansions, and debugging tools that would give Itsuki unprecedented control over his character state.

[PACKAGE COMPILED: UNKNOWN SYSTEM DATA] [DELIVERY STATUS: READY] [SENDER: CLASSIFIED]

With temporary administrative authority, Ayaka sent the package directly to Itsuki's account, working around every restriction that had been placed on it.

[DELIVERY CONFIRMED] [RECIPIENT WILL RECEIVE NOTIFICATION ON NEXT LOGIN]

Suddenly, sparks erupted from the quantum processing array. Warning alarms blared as electrical systems throughout the lab began overloading. The dimensional transport equipment sparked and smoked, circuits frying under the massive power feedback from the cross-dimensional connection.

"What's happening?" Hiroshi shouted over the alarms.

Ayaka quickly disconnected from the system as equipment around them short-circuited and died. Emergency lighting flickered on as the main power grid failed.

"Guess this is why we bowed to the other realm," Ayaka said, staring at the smoking remains of millions of dollars worth of technology. "Their technology is leagues above ours... AND THEY'RE THE ONES THAT NEED HELP???"

She turned to her father with a determined expression. "I'll have to have Papa invest in better tech for me personally."

Show them what you got, you big nerd, Ayaka thought as emergency crews rushed into the lab.