Old Habits......

I’ve had a lot of regrets ever since I came here…….. Trusting that lizard Makoto with my sister’s hand, trying to relate with Isaac for feeling completely out of place in our small group….. among many other things, one of my biggest regrets I had on the day I tore that place apart, was that I wasn’t able to do the same to that sick fuck Razir.

I’ll never forget that day, the carpets were always bright red but it was a lot darker after I found myself outside. Everyone who laid their eyes on me was struck in fear, as my skin was more dyed in the color of the blood of everyone inside. The only way that they realized I was the same as them, was after the rain washed the dye off my skin.

….Just like it is today

I was a lot less blood drenched today, which made the rain that followed shortly after have an easier time to wash away the lives I took from my hands just moments ago.

My jacket was getting drenched but that didn’t bother me in the slightest, but what I also noticed was that people were not ignorant of it anymore. Instead, groups huddle up at any bits of shelter they could find, no longer being afraid for their lives.

Which made me stick out a whole lot more.

When I boarded the L-Train, I could feel the excess rain dripping down onto my head, and I take my hood off for a moment and squeezed the moisture out which made a puddle worth of water splash onto the floor.

A few eyes were suddenly upon me, especially from the group standing beside me

“Sorry” my apology was silently acknowledged by everyone around me.

Even after a long ride to Up-Sec, the rain still hadn’t let up. But once again, I didn’t let that slow me down, but as I got back, my jacket was drenched to its limit. On the bright side, the flagpole was missing its occupants now, meaning those two might’ve sobered up by now. I got out of the rain by entering the house.

The moment there were no more droplets of water striking my jacket, I started to feel much more soggier than I did in the L-Train. I put it aside to dry. It was only the next moment I noticed Tatsuo and Hayato seated at the table next to each other, with a bowl in hand….. and still in their underwear.

However, that wasn’t what I found to be odd…. What was odd was the fact that both of them were something they never are…. Completely silent.

“What did you do to them?” I asked Haru, who was leaned on the wall next to me with her arms crossed

“Something I almost never do… I did nothing.”

“How did that…..ah, I think I can see how it all went down”

Haru raised her tone “Nothing like sobering up to the sight of people on the street looking up at you with no pants on. Isn’t that right, boys?”

I could see Hayato and Tatsuo flinching from here

“Please have mercy on us, Haru-sama” Hayato whispered

(Guess the after effects of all the booze is hitting them where it hurts….leaving aside the dignity both of them left up on that flagpole)

“How much did you two even drink?” I asked

Hayato raised his hand to answer, but looked down on the desk immediately

“I think I’m gonna throw up even if I think about that at this point”

“Long story short…. Everything until moments ago was a haze, neither of us remember more than half of what happened last night. Even how both of us ended up on that pole” Tatsuo answered on his behalf

“I guess the difference between me and you two was the place we woke up.” But for some reason, Haru’s gaze locked onto me as soon as I said that

“Something on your mind, Haru?” I asked her

“Oh, nothing to worry about”

(That was odd, especially for her)

“Tatsuo-san… I just want to say I’m-”

“Sorry” However those words didn’t come out of my mouth

“Huh?”

“I had a bit of time to think about what happened yesterday. I blamed you for almost getting yourself killed… I blamed you for almost getting us all killed. But the truth is the only reason we are not dead and buried today, is because of what you did. It was wrong of me to-”

“NO!” I didn’t let him finish….it just wasn’t right

“What is there for you to feel sorry for, Tatsuo-san…. If you didn’t snap me out of it, I would still be lying to myself

I clenched my fist and looked straight at his back, as he was facing away from me on his seat “I know more than anyone that I messed up back there, it’s just…… I’ve always sucked at asking for help, or relying on anyone who is not me”

I dropped my gaze in frustration “Even after I got myself stuck here, that part of me never changed….And that ended me up dying in a river while I let two of the biggest scumbags in this place slip from my hands-”

I looked up towards him yet again “I don’t want that again…. I don’t want my stubborn ways and who I was to hurt anyone else I care about anymore-”

I paused and caught my breath, allowing me to relax a bit. “I kept telling myself that I’d change, that I have changed. Then how am I still pushing people away from me? It was when you called me out, I realized that I was still the same as I used to be. I almost got myself killed and the people around me see me as nothing but a monster…..How is that any different than what I was?”

I bowed my head “I understand if you don’t want to be around me anymore, that you don’t want others to be hurt because of me…. But for everything I have done, I sincerely apologize!” I said with a slightly elevated tone, pushing those words out of my heart.

“Tatsuo” I heard Hayato’s voice calling out to him

A brief pause followed, until Tatsuo broke the silence

“I can’t accept you apology, Yulia-san-”

(Can I even blame him)

“-because I can’t forgive you, if you don’t forgive yourself” he finished

“Huh?”

“I might know a thing or two about self-loathing….ever since we saved you from the water, that’s all I saw from you…..You don’t hate who you are…. You are just afraid.”

He lowered his gaze to his bowl as he swirled its contents “I don’t know much about your past except the bit you’ve let us in on. But one look at you, I can say that you’ve had it tough…. That you had it different from any of us…… But everyone deserves a second chance… to learn from their mistakes, and to better themselves……I can give you another chance…. Look at me”

I obeyed

Tatsuo was now looking directly at me…

“I can’t hold what you did and how you acted against you….. But I will not watch one of us throw away their life for no good reason”

Hayato smirked “Tsundere”

And his remark was met with Tatsuo reaching out to Hayato’s head and planting his face into the contents of Hayato’s bowl

“Anyways…. Consider yourself given a do-over. How about this time you keep in mind that we all got your back huh?”

I stopped for a second before I answered “I’ll try”

“That’s good enough for me”

He then let go of Hayato’s head and he took a deep breath as their hangover cure dripped from his face

“What was that for, you big lug?”

“Either you check the brakes on your yapper, or you play as big as you talk, Bitchkawa”

“You sure you can keep up or should you bring your training wheels?”

(Yep, these two are sober enough alright)

As those two were bickering as usual, it was back to Haru and me on the side

“Had fun outside?” Haru asked me

“Didn’t go as I expected-” I looked at my hands to see that not all the blood from before had washed off “But what can you expect from this place”

“But…. I needed that bit of me time” And I paused again for a moment

“And I….need your help. All of you”

And that brought the room to a standstill and looking at me, including Tatsuo and Hayato

“Well, don’t leave us in suspense… Shoot” asked Hayato

I stopped again, contemplating on whether to tell them

“The Ascension BR. Whatever, that is”

Tatsuo, Haru and Hayato started exchanging glances at each other, so I decided to clarify it further

“I’m after a few people…. Sick in the head, all of them…responsible for most of the shit that’s happening in the city…. I, uh….got a bit of a hunch that, I’ll be able find them at this BR”

“The head honchos of the New World Order?” asked Hayato, which caught me off guard yet again

“How did you…?”

“You really should give us more credit than that, Yulia-san….. We did pull you out of what the Guild calls a major guild hideout. And you just said it yourself that they are responsible for what’s happening down here. I wouldn’t even be surprised if you just said that you used to be one them”

Hayato really did have his own way with words, but that was enough to make me freeze in place, and catch everyone’s notice noticed

“Wait… You were one of them?”

(Wouldn’t be surprised he said…well that was a lie)

“The New World Order was the cause of so much trouble for so many people….Us included. Mind explaining yourself-”

“You think I don’t know that?” I said to cut Tatsuo off “The New World Order was not supposed to be what it is right now. It was supposed to bring everyone together to fight against this world, not rob everyone in broad daylight….I watched as it burned to the ground, as it turned into something far removed.”

I sighed as I was forced to relive the day that it all went wrong “But long story short, is that with the Night Rules squeezing on them, the NWO is getting forced out of power…. And they are looking to beat everyone to the next layer and redo everything.”

“Take control of the Central Cathedral, and they get themselves an unshakeable stronghold… Not like the goody two shoes monks would stand a chance against a wave of power-hungry players” Hayato interjected with his own deductions

“So what are you thinking?” asked Tatsuo

“If what she says is right, we have to be on that first wave of BRs…. Any later and we’ll definitely be walking into the NWO’s hands.” Hayato now looked at me “Luckily, we got our work cut out for us…. mostly”

I didn’t know where he was going with this and there I was standing cluelessly

“The point is, all we got right now is a waiting game….except for you” Tatsuo tried to clarify

(Well that was clear as mud)

Hayato took a deep breath and stood up and paced around to stretch his legs, but….

“What Tatsuo means is that you have to step it up, but fret now….. as you will not be alone”

(He forgot, didn't he?)

“You are a first timer to this place…meaning that all of what is happening around you might be a bit overwhelming at first…. Luckily, you know me“

He paused for a moment “From today on, I will be your Sensei of all things CyberGrounds…. I will teach you everything you need to know, and tips that will help you out in clutch situations”

“Uhhh, Hayato?” but I think he was fully in his head to even hear Tatsuo calling out to him

“Be it fights, positioning, mindset, gear, all the miniscule stuff that will get you ahead….I’ll be there to drill it into your brain, and after that…you may make it to Morpheus after all-”

(I want to take him seriously but….)

“And I was just talking your ear off this whole time forgetting that I was in my underwear, didn’t I?”

(Took him long enough)

I replied with a slight nod of approval

Hayato clapped his hands together and went silent, and then he pointed upstairs with his thumb

“I’m just…. I’m just gonna go…. Get dressed, maybe take a nap, and pretend that all of this is a dream and that I didn’t embarrass myself even more than I already hadt”

And he just disappeared upstairs, with not a word out of any of us….and the silence ended as the sound of Hayato’s door slamming shut reached us.

“Well, that couldn’t have gone any worse…. But as Sergeant Oblivious just said, there is still one more thing to worry about before the Ascension BR” said the one who was also sitting still in his underwear.

“If you don’t mind me asking….what’s a BR?”

“It’s the other PvP mode…Drop in and be the last one surviving” Haru summarized it for me

“If it was only that easy. Battle Royale is a whole different ball game compared to the rest of CG even when we were behind a screen. I can only imagine how it’s going to play here” said Tatsuo

“Different how?”

“Why don’t we leave that to pro…. Best thing we can do now is to see what you can do. Doesn’t take someone who has thousands of hours put into this game to realize that you are force to be reckoned with. But that doesn’t mean you have a high chance of not catching a bullet to the brain” He said, looking straight at me

“What do you have in mind?”

“Pretty sure that Hayato is thinking the same, but might as well see how you perform in the range…. Work out tweaks in your game sense and mechanics”

I took a moment to process all he said but that didn’t help in the slightest

“All right, back up for a bit…. Pretend that I have never played a video game in my entire life…like ever….and try again”

Tatsuo set aside his bowl and put his hands on the table “Hold up… You told us you’ve never played CG before but…. you have no experience with any kind of game….anything?”

“Well… I’ve been dragged into one of those high profile stadium matches a long time ago….didn’t understand anything except the pointing and shooting aspect”

“Yu-chan…. You are telling us this now?”

“I thought it was a given when I said I had no idea what the hell is going on. I just assumed that all games were the same”

“Oh, we have a lot to work on” I heard Tatsuo muttering to himself and then he looked at us

“So I’m a lost cause?” I asked

“Not quite…. Look, Night Rules are in effect in a few hours ... .let's drag Hayato out of his bubble and we’ll see what we have to work with.” Tatsuo got up off his chair “Now if you excuse me ladies, I have to leave for now and get my legs out of the breeze”.

However he was met with one last surprise, as the downstairs door opened and out came the kids who had just woken up and directly into Tatsuo’s line of sight. The chatter from Akira-kun and Shun-kun turned silent, as they didn’t even know what to say seeing their ‘hero’ like this, and Naoto-kun in the back was doing the timid Misa-chan a favor, covering her eyes from the sight in front of them

“And just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse” Tatsuo told to himself

I shifted my sight towards Haru, but it seemed as if she was enjoying this from behind the scenes.

A few hours remained and it passed agonizingly slowly, as I kept myself busy with some light exercise and cleaning my gear, and afterwards I was relegated to aimlessly browsing my inventory in my room. And I knew the time had come as Haru knocked on my door, signaling me that everyone was moving out.

The house emptied and we separated into two groups as we got close to the Guild. Tatsuo and the kids made a beeline into the main building to score some quests, and I was in the company of Hayato and Haru. Both of them lead me to what looked a bit like that old colosseum in Rome.

(Barracks?) The name popped out into my view as a holo display.

It didn’t take us long to enter, and what lied in front of me is something I wish I knew existed in this place a lot earlier

“So…ready for your first lesson?” Hayato turned towards me and asked

I didn’t answer as I was still looking around the place…. Multiple ranges for different types of guns ... targets, dummies, an obstacle course, an open area for CQC…..this place had everything…..

My time behind these are not ones I’d say I remember fondly, but if it increases my chances of survival even my a little….

“Oi, Earth to Yulia-san…..you still with us?”

“Hm? Oh yeah” I exited my own mental space and into the reality in front of me

“Quick question, how familiar are you with guns…. I know that you have a SMG and a lever action but-”

I heard Hayato’s voice clearly, but I was acting while he spoke

I walked up to the small arms range and beside my window was an arsenal of handguns more extensive than the one I have back home ... .there were some that I haven’t even seen before that were pulsing with some sort of energy.

I ignored the one’s I didn’t know for the time being and picked the one I was more familiar with.

(The MC Prodigy 9mil…. My first gun that I was allowed to call my own.)

“Taken a liking to the shooting range I see…. I’d say you should start with the standard setting ... .get a feel for the guns and their kick first.” Hayato said, approaching me from behind

I laid the gun on my palm, putting my first two fingers over the red dot and pulled back on the slide to press check the gun to see it was loaded

“What’s the highest setting?” I asked Hayato

“Well it’s Legendary but I don’t think it would be great to start with that…. Took me years to even hit the minimum score to pass and that’s coming from me”

But I didn’t heed his advice as I selected what he told me not to from the interface and hit start

“Small arms trial engaged….Legendary Difficulty……3….2….1…..Begin”

Targets started popping up one after another, and as they appeared, I managed to put lead down range.

(Count your shots, breathe out as you pull the trigger….Guide the gun, don’t let it guide you)

17 rounds fired and found their way into each of the targets and the slide stuck itself to the back

“Reload” said the P.A

I had a full mag in my hand moments before the announcement as there was a line of them sitting in front of me, and I hit the mag release, allowing the empty clip to fall onto the ground as I reloaded and released the slide. And I knew my reload was fast enough as I was in ready stance, aiming downrange and the targets were still not popping up. So I held my stance and loaded in another mag just to have one extra shot in the gun….. Even double reloading, I was quick enough to complete it before the targets started popping up.

The next set of waves were a bit trickier….popping up faster and some moving in erratic patterns. Most of them caught a bullet, but I managed to misread a couple of targets, making them disappear before I shot them. Suddenly, the targets stopped popping up

“Neutralize weapon to finish” announced the P.A

While it was worded differently, I instantly knew what to do. Magazine release, pull the slide back to empty the chamber and put the gun on the square in front of me beside all the loaded mags.

(8100/9000 points…..average reload add time: 1.1 seconds.)

“Tsk, of course I’d be rusty” I muttered to myself as I saw that I had missed a few targets on the post trial results screen.

I turned to face Hayato and Haru and they were stunned to a silence

Haru turned towards Hayato “By the way…. What did you say your highest score was on this trial?”

“After a million tries, 7.8k….. I’ve held that record for years, and that was behind a mouse and keyboard…. I haven’t even come to that level down here”

“Oh…uhh…sorry?”

Hayato covered his face with his hand and sighed “Yulia-san, I know I might be putting my other records at risk but, could you show me how you handle yourself with other weapon types”

And I indulged….. As someone who was forced to spend half her life down range, I didn’t find myself resenting this for once. It wasn’t because the range here was completely different to what I used to practice in, but maybe because for once I felt that I was being accepted, no matter how I performed…. unlike my old man.

I tried not to get distracted by Haru and Hayato’s reactions in the background as I was keeping focus. But of all the trials I had faced, that proved to be one of the hardest. Haru cheering me on during the reload phase did slow me down slightly, as I felt the pressure of the AK’s stock crushing my shoulder and causing me to misalign the fresh mag, slowing my reload down by around half a second compared to my norm.

At the end of each gun trial, it was entertaining to see Hayato trying and failing to hide his face of defeat, as I had managed to overthrow more than half of his range records in my first try. I couldn’t hold my chuckling every time.

(Wait…. Is this what she meant by ‘teaching me how to have fun’)

However, my moment of lifted spirits went down a bit as I remembered my sister.

“Yu-chan…. You okay?” Haru being observant as ever

“Ah, don’t worry about it…. Just the adrenaline settling” I avoided the topic all together

“Well in that case, how about we switch gears for a bit” Hayato looked away for a second “And I don’t think watch my hard earned records be desecrated anymore”

Eventhough he might’ve thought he said that with his inner voice, it wasn’t

“If it would cheer you up, I’m not that great when it comes to the big stuff”

“Yeah, but neither am I”

(Well that didn’t make it any better)

Hayato reset his mood and started walking around aimlessly “Anyways, back to the task in hand. I already knew you could handle a gun….but holy shit. However…. Gun skill can only get you so far in this place. Understanding the game’s mechanics beats god-tier aim nine times out of ten”

“Um…. Mechanics?” I asked

He stopped in his tracks “To put it in simple terms, mechanics are the rules of the game. You can aim and shoot someone in the head in the hopes to secure a kill but what if they don’t die…. Base example of a mechanic…. The interaction between players and regular weapons.”

Hayato points a gun at Haru which catches me by surprise

“What are you-”

But he froze immediately after

“Are you sure about this, Haru-san?”

“It’s fine, it was my idea after all”

Eventhough they looked like they had it under control and knew what they were doing, it didn’t make the sight of Haru flinching in pain any easier to watch as Hayato pulled the trigger, aiming at her left arm

“HARU!” I ran to her side, and crouched down to check on her, but there was no gunshot wound, just a very bad bruise.

“Ow, ow, ow. That hurt a lot more than I expected it to” Haru said from down on her knees

“Ahhhhh, that felt awful. You okay, Haru-san?” said Hayato

“I’ll be fine, nothing a quick heal wouldn’t fix” Haru slowly started to get back on her feet

“Okay, let’s never do that ever again.” Hayato immediately diverted his attention to me “However, point….. Normal weaponry cannot kill players easily. They hurt, but it takes a lot to get through a player’s personal shielding….Possible to kill? Yes. Difficult?.....Also yes”

Hayato attempted to draw his own pistol but stopped “Okay, I’m not going to do that especially after what just happened” And he put away his half drawn gun

“But Cyber-Gear on the other hand, can kill players with very little effort in comparison. Now that’s a mechanic… the more of them you know, the better you’ll be as a player. And the better your chances of survival”

(But….)

“Wait, hold up….Why are we bothering with normal weaponry for being with ... .don't we always have access to our own weapons?”

“Because…. The Ascension BR.”

I kept looking at him waiting for him to continue

“Battle Royale…BR for short, is a mode where you fight with what you find and hope to be the last one standing. In our case, it’s the last 10 teams standing out of 100 teams…… When you drop in, you have nothing. You won’t have your Cyber-Gear, you won’t have your personal shields. The first two zones are mostly run of the mill warfare….. grab guns and utility you find off the floor, and hope that you make it to the end game.”

“Zones…. End game…. What?”

Hayato paused to recollect himself “Right… think of the BR map as the two times the size of all of Helios. If it stays that way, people will just stay hidden for eternity and the game will grind to a screeching halt…. However there is a shrinking zone. I don’t know what it does to you exactly since well….there hasn’t been a BR yet in this VR space, but if you get yourself caught outside the zone, it will keep eating at your HP until you are….” he followed up by gesturing his throat getting slit

Hayato walks towards the opposite corner of the range, prompting us to follow “The zone shrinks 4 separate times after a timer… the timer depends on how many people are alive… the more teams still up and running, the more time there will be before the zone moves in. After that, it just keeps shifting positions until the winners are decided. Zone 1 and 2 is what’s called early game, 2 and 3 is mid-game and-“

“4 and whatever follows, is endgame” I deduced

“Now you are on the right track…. Early game is all about loot scavenging ... .Guns, ammo, utility and gear….all that can be found on the floor in most areas of the map. You kill someone, you can loot whatever you need off them.”

Hayato approaches a massive table which was away from all the gun ranges and materialized in a plate carrier from the interface…. Along what looked like…. A collar?

“When you don’t have your personal shielding, even these non-gear guns are as lethal as your own weapons. And that is when you go back to basics.”

“I know about plate carriers, but…what’s that?” I asked, pointing at the collar.

“This is a CDM…. A Cranial Deflection Module….. I shoot you in the head with a standard weapon right now, and you might feel like you ran full speed into a wall face first, but early game….. one bullet to the head means instant death….. Think of this as a plate carrier, but for your whole head…..Kind of a..head protection”

Hayato held the collar in a way that I could see the slot on its side.

“And this is where the so-called armor plate goes…” He then takes a small rectangular chip from the table and slots it in. He then jogs down to the nearest free range and puts it onto a dummy. A transparent energy shield forms around the dummy’s head and it disappears moments later.

Hayato then returns and materializes in a handgun and a clip of ammo. He loads up the gun and takes aim at the dummy down range.

“Onto another mechanic….Armor Break. Keep your eyes on the dummy’s head” And he opened fire. His shots hit their mark with a level of precision that even made me raise an eyebrow on instinct.

As his third shot landed, the barrier that went invisible earlier showed itself, and now it showed itself like a fishbowl with a huge chunk of glass missing in the front, before disappearing again.

“You see that animation, that only happens if your opponent’s CDM is compromised. And unless he switches his barrier shard with a new one, he is open to a one-shot headshot.”

“You shot his head thrice, so I’m guessing that’s the limit?”

“Depends on the ammo. It takes three shots to break with small caliber and pulse ammo. Two with mid caliber and it only takes one sniper shot to the head to break it instantly. You see that animation on someone attacking you and if that enemy that still decides to push you, that is what I would classify as an idiot….So 9 times out of 10, breaking your enemy’s head protection is a surefire way of either buying yourself some breathing room or to widen an existing advantage…… also keep in mind that it works both ways.”

“Noted”

“Onto the next item on the list, since you know how plate carriers work, I’ll skimp over that explanation.” Hayato materialized three armor plates but they were different in color. Black, White and Gray respectively. While I observed them with my eyes, Haru went for a more hands on approach

“Armor plates come in three materials….Kevlar, Ceramic, and Steel” he said while pointing at each one of them from left to right “Plate preference comes down to playstyle, Kevlar is extremely light and can tanks up a few small caliber rounds….but you get hit by something heavier, you are going to feel the impact in your organs, even with all the pain dampening.”

He now pointed at the white plate “Ceramic…. Slightly heavier, and can tank up to three rounds even with most of the highest caliber rounds. Tanks almost half a clip worth of ammo of anything from a 9mm all the way to 7.62 FMJ….. But when this shit breaks, it shatters into million pieces. Reapplying a new ceramic plate into your carrier is going to take a whole lot longer since you’ll have the clear the broken plate”

And now his hand was on the gray plate “Steel, near indestructible unless you eat an RPG to the face. But weighs as much as a brick wall when you got two plates on, one front and one back….. Even with one plate, it’s still heavier than two ceramic plates…So, pretend it doesn’t exist unless you want to roleplay a truck”

“So that's the basics of BR early game ... .Any questions?”

What followed was a silence of words that was taken over by the sound of gunfire in the background.

“Alright then, best you put all you learned into practice when we get to that stage. But right now, we have something else to worry about before that….more specifically….. You have something to worry about”

“And that is where I and Tatsuo-san comes in” Haru’s silence had ended

“Uhhmm… go on?”

“To prepare for the BR, you need to qualify for the BR…. Which is something all of us have achieved, except you……The prerequisite for the Ascension BR is that you have to be at Rank cap…. Which for Bronze is 1000RP…”

“And we made 900RP in that last raid but unlike us, you went into that raid with zero RP.” Haru continued Hayato’s train of thought

“Which means that you need to win a ranked game, before anything”

I paused for a moment as I still couldn’t see the problem

“I mean, we handled a raid boss…. Can’t be worse than that, right”

And now there was a silence among both of them until Haru spoke up

“There is no ‘we’ this time, Yu-chan”

“What?”

“One of the unfortunate rules in this place…. Once someone hits Rank cap, they are barred from playing any more PvP games until they ascend ranks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’ll have to learn how to work with others, other that are not us” Haru filled in the blank in my head

“Now that’s where I’m not very good at. I played pro for quite a while, so I can’t exactly help you when it comes to honing your solo play. That’s where Haru-san and Tatsuo will help you out…..They are more familiar with that compared to I am…. But I’ll help you out with all the other stuff, so it’s not like we are going to completely abandon you”

“You said that everyone had to be at Rank cap for the BR….. What about the kids?” I inquired

“Believe it or not, they hit Rank cap a couple days ago. It’s the reason we went on the raid in the first place. Damn junior league contenders are far more competitive than we are.”

“The what?”

“Forget about it….. When it comes to the BR for the them, they won’t have to compete to ascend”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The standard squad size for BR is only 4 members…. Each squad represents either four people individually, or a clan. We make it through the BR, everyone in the clan ascends.”

(Something about that doesn’t add up, won’t people be looking to exploit that?...Wait, does that mean that if Makoto, Roland and Razir makes it through….)

“But lets leave that for later, but long story short….we need you for the BR. Tatsuo’s a brick wall when it comes to letting any of them fill our squad. And since you are one of us, none of us can compete yet unless you meet the requirement”

My mind was preoccupied by the notion of all under the NWO getting a free pass into the silver layer if I don’t end those three during the BR. But that just served me as more motivation to do what’s necessary.

“So one match….that’s all I have to play?”

“Depends on you. But, my money's on you having to play a whole lot more than that.”

I held my silence in the hopes that he would elaborate, which he did

“If I am to be blunt, Yulia-san. You are way too impulsive ... .you want to learn to trust others but you don’t know even half of it yet…..”

“I won’t repeat what happened in the raid again…..”

“Saying it is completely different than doing it….. From all my years behind a screen, let me let you in on one crucial fact, Yulia-san”

Hayato stepped closer “Competition in games is not about who can do the right things at the right time…. It’s about how strong you are mentally….How much loss you can take before you tilt and throw everything you have under the bus, how much frustration you can take before calling it quits. When that frustration is almost at the boil and you just can’t take it anymore, only a very few see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

He now moved towards the spawning table “You know the difference between me and Tatsuo? I stuck around to see that light, while he gave up….. And all that, is something you never experienced.”

He spawned in another gun and loaded it up

“Any one of us can tell that you’ve been through a hell of your own… Now, best be ready to go through a brand new one.”