Regret

Blazy's eyes and ears ached from all the chaos, so she had to close them.

"Should I shoot her?" Iroko asked. "The photographer can't do much against us."

"Did you forget about her tracker?" Kuroki replied. "If she teleports here, Blazy won't need to use her eyes to hit us."

"Right..."

Kuroki was calling Kasugo, but without success. "Damn it, he's been captured!" Kuroki complained. He repaired Minako's phone to communicate with her. "Minako, retreat!"

"Wait, what?" Iroko murmured. "Are we going to leave Kasugo there?"

"There's no other choice! I can't keep repairing Minako much longer, and she won't be able to rescue him with Sparky around!"

"Then let me hit her! I just need some time."

"The photographer might also be looking for us... if you keep shooting, she won't even need to teleport to us to tell Blazy where we are."

"I just need to focus..."

"Give it up, Iroko." Kuroki lowered his gun. "You can't hit her."

Minako used the explosions to propel herself and escape. Sparky didn't follow her, as she felt the need to protect Blazy at all costs and not leave her side.

"You were right, Blazy," Sparky commented. "She's durable as hell."

"She's allied with Barrage... of course they're not going to die this easily..."

She's the girl from the photo Crow took a few days ago... So she's an ally of a high-level player? Now it makes sense why the thugs I hired couldn't come back.

Minako jumped into the water and dove in, as her bright green body would attract a lot of attention. She swam at full speed, with Kuroki replacing the air in her lungs.

Well, it doesn't matter anymore. I have a wounded and incapacitated Blazy before my eyes. I just need to finish her off.

"Your explosions..." Blazy said, "Episan called you Sparky, right?"

Did she recognize me? No, not at all... My new appearance contradicts my previous one.

Sparky bowed in reverence. "Yes, Blazy. I didn't expect you to come here today, but sensing danger, I had to protect you."

Come on, thank me! I just saved your life!

"I see... Have you heard that there's an imitator of mine out there, claiming to be superior to me?"

"What? No, I haven't..."

"You said you had to protect me, right? Why?"

"Because you are important, Blazy."

"Then why don't you call me Mrs. Blazy?"

Mrs. Blazy? Seriously? Who do you think you are?

Sparky knelt down. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Blazy."

"Why am I important to you? How did you meet me?"

"Episan's acquaintances are important to me."

"That's it? Not because I'm the strongest player? You're a player, aren't you? Every player should know me."

Shit! She's suspicious of me... but it doesn't matter, I can just finish her off in this state.

"Sparky is the name of my imitator," Blazy teased. "Do you happen to know her?"

Sparky was about to launch a fireball when Maika stepped on her hand. What?! Sparky thought, Is she trying to kill herself? Sparky couldn't use her power because it could explode in her hand, and she wasn't immune to explosions. Blazy launched a smaller fireball. Is she taking her friend with me?! Maika teleported away. Oh... I should have seen it... The fireball exploded on Sparky's head, killing her.

Kuroki was resting on a bed in a new hotel room they had booked.

"Boss, are you feeling alright?" Iroko asked.

"I'm sorry..." he replied, regretfully. "I was too confident and let Kasugo get captured..."

"You did great, boss. If it weren't for you, I would have put myself in danger."

"Minako fought against Magma, which means Kasugo lost to Tsurugi... If I had let you kill her, none of this would have happened."

"As you said before, they knew a sniper was aiming at them, so she would have been able to react to the sound of my shot, since that gives them about a second of reaction time."

"Even so..."

"It couldn't have gone better, Kuroki. We managed to kill Episan and one of his henchmen. Now we must rescue Kasugo."

"Rescue him? How?"

"I don't know. If they went to the trouble of capturing him, they'll let us know how to contact them."

"About that..." a female voice echoed in the dark room, "I'm your messenger." It was Maika. She laughed awkwardly.

"How did you...?!" Kuroki stammered, startled.

"Relax, you can't kill me. Here, take this." She tossed a note specifying some coordinates and time. "If you want your friend back, you'd better hurry. We'll be in a cruise ship. If you're late, you might as well say goodbye to him."

She then disappeared before any of them could reach her. She teleported back to the port where she had been just seconds before. "I sent the message, Master."

"Good job, Maika," Blazy congratulated. "Which photo did you use?"

"The purple-haired girl's!" She held up a physical photo of Minako, which suddenly burst into flames. "The sniper who was targeting you at the event and Barrage were there too."

"So they're all working together..."

"Master," said Booster, "what should we do with her?"

He pointed to Tsurugi, who was staring at Kasugo's unconscious body with a smile and nudging him. "Come on, darling... wake up. You've been sleeping for quite a while."

Blazy frowned, feeling a certain amount of displeasure. "Well, at least she didn't oppose our plan, which means she's on our side."

"She's a little crazy," Maika added, "but I can kind of understand her obsession."

Kasugo didn't start out as a laid-back guy. He cared about what others thought of him. He was never very intelligent, but even so, he felt useless when someone did something better than him. However, one day, he got tired of trying to be a good example and started to make the bare minimum effort to pass, unless it was something related to his interests. He wanted to be himself and have fun in his own way.

He strived to be good at everything he enjoyed; some things went well, like sports and art. He was above average in both, and that was enough for him. Simply being good at what gave him pleasure increased the enjoyment. He never wanted to go to college, but due to pressure from his parents, he chose Arts. But he didn't like all types of art, only that which he considered beautiful. After all, for him, art was meant to be visually pleasing.

"When are you going to finish it?" his parents said. "We're not paying you to be playing around!" He always tried to find an excuse to postpone college. It took him many years to graduate. But his friends enjoyed his company, so they never asked why he was still there. 

He didn't want to remember how life would only get worse and more difficult from then on, so he always procrastinated until the last minute and did only the bare minimum to get everything over with faster. He no longer cared about being seen as a dedicated student; instead, he wanted to spend more time pursuing his hobbies.

He started tagging as a teenager, trying to discover his talent. Sports like baseball emerged around the same time. But after that... he felt his life was meaningless. He never achieved anything he could be proud of, like a well-paying job. Deep down, he still cared about what his parents thought of him and what society expected of an adult. He couldn't turn his hobbies into a profession.

So, he took any job just to earn money. Nothing about it interested him except the money, so he always gave the bare minimum. His parents weren't happy, of course, but he felt he had no other choice and that nobody understood him. Then, he discovered Pivot's Game. It seemed fun, so he tried it, not knowing it could become a full-time job. He managed to survive until he met Kuroki.

"Wakey wakey!" Tsurugi woke him with a light tap. He was tied to a chair. He immediately understood the situation.

"They won't come to rescue me," Kasugo said determinedly. "My boss said he would only save us if he had any chance of winning."

"You're giving us too much credit," Blazy replied. "Do you think his vision of victory is the same as yours?"

"He would never put himself at risk for the sake of just one person. He's not sentimental."

"So he's authoritarian? I wonder why you're still on his side."

"Ask that to your photographer!"

"Me?" asked Maika, confused. "My Master isn't authoritarian at all! I think you've got it all wrong about us. We're not as bad as you think."

"You were allies with Episan..."

"Only because it was the shortest and fastest way," Blazy retorted. "Don't compare us to that sack of shit."

"As my boss says, whoever uses the system is part of the problem."

"Oh? Then is he part of the problem?"