Chapter 18: The Betrayal

The warning from Ryota hung over them like a dark cloud as they returned to the training facility. The brief respite of the fighting game tournament had been a necessary distraction, but now they had to face the cold, hard reality of their situation. Mr. Tanaka wasn't just a corporate shark; he was a predator digging for skeletons.

Ms. Aya, their manager, called an emergency meeting. "He’s not just after your contracts," she said, her expression grim. She projected a document onto the main screen. "This is an internal memo from Ronin Corp, leaked to me by a contact. It’s a proposal to create a 'scandal.' They’re investigating every aspect of your lives, looking for anything they can use to discredit you, to force our sponsors to drop us, and to make it impossible for you to play."

A wave of unease washed over the room. They were gamers, not celebrities used to this kind of ruthless scrutiny.

"What could they possibly find?" Mina scoffed, though her bravado sounded a little hollow. "The worst thing I've ever done is put pineapple on a pizza."

"They will twist anything," Daichi said, his voice low. It was the most he had spoken all day. "A joke becomes an insult. A friendship becomes an affair. A mistake becomes a crime."

The paranoia that Prometheus had once inspired returned with a vengeance, but this time it wasn’t about in-game strategies. It was about their lives. They started looking at each other differently, wondering about the secrets everyone keeps.

The first blow landed a week later. An anonymous article appeared on a notorious esports gossip blog. It detailed Haru's past as a teenage grey-hat hacker, including a list of minor, non-malicious but technically illegal system breaches he had committed for fun years ago. The article spun his playful pranks into the actions of a dangerous and untrustworthy cybercriminal. Ronin Corp’s PR machine immediately went into overdrive, with their sponsored streamers and influencers calling for Haru to be banned from professional play.

Haru was devastated. "It was just stupid stuff I did as a kid," he said, his usual cheerful demeanor gone, replaced by a haunted look. "I never hurt anyone."

"We know," Kimi said, putting a comforting arm around him. "And we’ve got your back."

The team presented a united front, issuing a statement in support of Haru. But the damage was done. One of their sponsors, a major tech company, put their partnership "under review." The pressure was mounting.

Shouka felt like he was fighting a ghost again, but this one didn't use logic; it used lies. He spent sleepless nights trying to figure out how Tanaka was getting his information. The details about Haru were too specific to be a lucky guess. He had to have an inside source.

The thought made him sick. He refused to believe that anyone on the team would betray them. But the alternative-that Tanaka had their entire lives bugged-seemed even more far-fetched.

The awful truth came to light by accident. Shouka was helping Yuki with a technical issue on her PC. While running a diagnostic, he noticed a hidden program running in the background. It was a keylogger, a piece of spyware that was recording every keystroke and sending the data to an external server. His heart sank. He ran the same diagnostic on every PC in the facility. Only one other machine had the spyware: his own.

The program was sophisticated, but not untraceable. With a heavy heart, he followed the data trail. It didn't lead to Ronin Corp. It led to a private, encrypted server that he couldn't access. But he could see the access logs. Two IP addresses had been uploading data. One was from inside their training facility. The other was from the headquarters of the Tokyo Knights.

Yuki.

The realization hit him like a physical blow. Yuki, his childhood friend, the quiet girl next door, the one who had turned down the Tokyo Knights' offer to stay with them. It was impossible. It couldn't be true.

He confronted her that night, not with anger, but with a quiet, soul-crushing sadness. He showed her the evidence. She didn't deny it. She just broke down, tears streaming down her face.

"I'm so sorry, Shouka," she sobbed. "I never wanted to hurt anyone."

The story she told was a tangled mess of fear and manipulation. The Tokyo Knights hadn't just made her an offer; they had been grooming her for months before Stardust Breakers was even formed. They had supported her through a family crisis, making her feel indebted to them. When Prometheus was revealed to be the coach of their main rival, the Knights' manager had pressured her. They told her it wasn't betrayal; it was "competitive intelligence." They had asked her to install the program on Shouka's computer, the strategist's PC, framing it as a necessary evil to compete at the highest level. She had been living a double life, torn between her loyalty to her old friends and her obligation to her new benefactors. The information about Haru had come from a conversation she had recorded.

"I tried to stop," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "When they asked for more personal stuff, I refused. But they threatened to expose me. I was trapped."

The plot twist was brutal. The "inside source" wasn't working for Tanaka. The Tokyo Knights, their rivals, had been spying on them all along, and Tanaka, through his own network, had somehow gotten his hands on their stolen data. Yuki wasn't a malicious traitor. She was a pawn in a much larger game, caught between two powerful organizations.

Shouka didn’t know what to do. His best friend had betrayed him, his team was under attack, and the foundation of trust they had built was shattered.