The day had started badly. He had woken up in a cold sweat having fallen off his bed the night before. Pushing himself up he checked to see how late he was today and huh, he was actually early. He would actually get to eat breakfast for once and still make it to school on time even if the train malfunctioned or some esper decided to pick a fight with him midway..

Homework was just never going to be completed in the first place.

His fridge hadn't even malfunctioned and made all his food go off. Setting up a light breakfast in disbelief he made a final twso checks, his neurolinker hadn't been hit by a virus today and his phone still worked. The fading memories of a nightmare paled before this once in a lifetime turn of good fortune.

Then, when he left his dorm room the entire city exploded into flames.

"Such misfortune." Clearly he had been way too optimistic. The only reason the universe could have let him get such an early start was so there would be more time for things to go wrong.

Strange signs covered in complete gibberish fell from the sky on chains, Touma turned left and approached the next doorway. "Tsuchimikado you can read English right? Or at least your better at it then me!" he slammed his hand into the door, catching a glimpse of a claw that he couldn't place.

The door immediately collapsed inwards. "huh he's not in, damn"

Maybe if he fixed the door before anyone noticed... He reached out and grabbed it, only for it to crumble in his claws... His claws... He glanced down at the rest of his body to see that it was covered in pitch black armour and that he had a large tail sort of like a reptiles sticking out the back. Reaching pout he could even sort of feel sensations from it and with great concentration get it to move. Sighing Kamijou placed it to the back of his mind, first he needed to search for anyone else stuck in this world.

His attempt to check the train station first had resulted in nothing. No people or trains but instead just a wasteland covered in scrap metal. And so he had set off to walk to school. It was a good lamndmark anyone else who might know what was gonig on would head there too wouldn't they. Kamijou hoped so at least.

Zapp

Four bolts of lightning lashed out striking his right side, as he emerged from the building, too fast to get his hand up. A brief pain coursed through his body as his hand moved to block the shot.

And continued as he was assailed by a barrage from four yellowish green discs attached to the wall while a fifth in the centre shined some sort of light on him.

"um .. can we talk?" He addressed a similarly coloured girl in long flowing robes sitting on the windowsill of the fifth floor. " Do you know where everyone else went?"

She ignored him. Even as he walked over to the base of the building she continued to ignore him. Picking up a rock and tossing it up.

"You can see me can't you?" as her head suddenly tilted down.

"Yes you are ju-" Crack, the rock slammed back down into his head. "I'm fine I'm fine, so about those missing everybody else? "

She giggled " Your parent really hasn't told you anything?"

"This Kamijou Touma's parents taught him many valuable lessons, what to do when everyone in the city vanishes overnight was not part of it."

"A truce then, for in my benevolence I shall endeavour to educate you on the rules of this game. I shall descend then." And thus with a flourish she dropped off the windowsill slamming into the ground. And screamed.

"Are you ok." Kamijou felt guilty, had she expected him to catch her. From the complete failure to bend her legs she must have expected for him to catch her right? There was an antiskill branch nearby, they would have medical supplies he could use to treat her even if there was no-one else around.

"No no ow ow ow... how come everyone else can do that so easily?"

"They probably bend their legs when they hit the ground... that really helps. So I'm going to lift you up now and we'll head to the hospital ok."

Maybe she was a 'Sheltered Princess' who had never set foot outside on her own.

"I'm fine now the pain only lasts a moment. Anyway this world exists as a place for the chosen elite using visual filters to recreate an image based upon reality." She got up spreading her arms wide as she twirled around, "The normal world is merely continuing on oblivious to the changes that occur in this place."

A brief moment of contemplation followed, "so I'm gonna be late for school? Sorry if I'm late again I'll get in real trouble so I'll be-"

"Wait" 'Sheltered Princess' had lunged forward to grab him, had he tripped some sort of flag somewhere? "Time moves differently in here so you're not late, it ends on its own and only a second will have passed in the real world so stay here so I can finish explaining."

Kamijou scratched his head "Like a hyperbolic time chamber."

Manga had once again solved his problems in understanding something.

"Yes?" A question?

Kamijou deflated, to not know the classics.

"You don't know what that is do you?"

"no, but it sounds close enough. now move your hand like this to open your menu." She made a strange motion with her right hand.

Copying the motion revealed a whole group of buttons labelled in gibberish. This whole game was going to be in English wasn't it?

"So the most important ones immediately would be to observe your special attacks and learn to use the guide cursor, though you will want to look at the colour chart later so you can see the various colours strengths and weaknesses we are going to focus on your own strengths primarily at this point."

"I can't actually read any of this."

"You're supposed to be a high school student are you not? It's not like any of the language used in this game is difficult and as we are only talking about single words there's no need to worry about having some small trouble with the grammar of a second language."

From the tone such a statement sounded like it should have been a reassurance. But for this Kamijou such an answer would only highlight how much of a failure he was.

"Yeah... about that... I can't read English. At all." poking at the various options Kamijou found a small compass object that pointed toward 'Sheltered Princess', so probably the guide cursor and a weird colour wheel diagram. The others only lead to more writing he didn't understand.

"You can't even read the names of the avatars?" An obvious statement, truly they were progressing. "You've given me some kind of strange nickname haven't you?" 'Sheltered Princess' wasn't that strange a nickname he would have to reassure her.

"I'd never give someone a strange nickname 'Sheltered Princess.' Instead you've been given a descriptive and helpful nickname that tells people you need to be looked after."

Wilting she proclaimed "Volt Empress." Kamijou pondered the nonsense words for a moment before dismissing them entirely. "And your moniker for this game is Midnight Reaper." More nonsense words.

"Saying words in a language I don't understand doesn't help."

"You just need to remember them as sounds then. Don't use your real name so easily." That seemed rather pointless. He had always used things similar to his real name when playing games, it's not like people were going to come after him in real life for something done in a game. "If it helps then your name means 'the middle of the night' and 'one who brings death' so for a videogame character it's a pretty good name.

This game was definitely mocking him for his failures. At this point he was expecting his special attack to translate as 'oh great plague God of misfortune'.

"What does this greyed out button do?" Kamijou quickly changed the subject.

"That is the matching list so it only works when you're not already in a duel. When in reality you can enter the accel world via either the commands burst link or unlimited burst. The first pauses reality and lets you enter one-on-one matches but has a limited duration and costs one burst point. The second costs ten burst points buts lasts indefinitely and exists in a vast world with monsters running around." Maybe she had noticed his discomfort but no questions to the change in subject were asked.

A brief conversation on the colour chart had ensued.

Red, purple and blue as colours were focused of effective ranges, with red possesing long range attacks such as railguns, artillery and missiles. Purple had mid ranges with powers similar to minor electromasters and pyrokinetics, Kamijo disagreed with that heavily, noone in his school had a high enough level to be able to use such abilities in combat, it was in no way had closecombat which to fit the previous two he assumed meant swords and spears etc, 'Sheltered Princess' didn't seem to be able to name any closecombat weapons herself.

Yellow and green quickly transformed into a lecture on how her turrets worked. three types, one did temporary paralysis, the beam one made people who were hit unable to see her and the lightning blasts. And she had to deploy them by hand but they could be recalled from anywhere. That didn't actually explain what the colours were for but she seemed really proud of it for some reason.

And then white and black which she outright declared she had no clue to. That they must be hero type colours that rarely get handed out. Massive claws and a name that meant death bringer didn't sound very heroic to him.

And then finally the fact that it was an RPG. That seemed more like the kind of thing that should have been mentioned first. Kamijou had a love-hate relationship with RPGs. He played a lot of them with their hero type characters who could make progress and score actual flags that would get events. They hated him with their 100%, Mythical, Mythical-rare and Legendary drop rates, so named of course because he never got any of them. The eventual despair of having another save delete itself from his hard disk for no explained reason as he got far enough already loomed close in Kamijous mind. Best not to get too attatched.

Time had unfortunately not run out.

With her leaning uncomfortably close Kamijou had been forced to look at his special list.

It was as mocking and terrifying as could have been expected.

Catastrophe. A disaster.

At that moment with no fight ongoing there was no way that Kamijou would use it. But when he declared this intention boldly with no hint of falsehood or embarrassment the 'Sheltered Princess' only stepped back and smiled.

"I'm glad you don't want to use it on me." and then she started fidgeting.

For someone less genre savvy than himself this might be seen as a preclude to a confession scene. That having raised some flag somewhere he would now be rewarded as a heroine confessed to him. This was Kamijou however so he recognised it for what it truly was. The girl in front of him was in trouble and was going to request his help and thereby drag him off to get caught up in some misfortunate event.

"So I've never been to the unlimited zone before and was wondering if you could escort me there later today?"

Yes a truly horrific plight which he would be forced to endure major bodily harm again, but he had been through this before and leaving someone in need on their own was ... wait what did she say. Was this actually a girl asking him out on a date?

"Er ... yes?"

"Excellent, then I will see you afterschool."

And then the world collapsed.

Winner.

Kamijou's foot landed awkwardly, tripping him as he fell towards the wall. Hand outstretched to catch himself the cheap phone in his hand flew over the edge. Kamijou stared after his phone for a moment before a thought struck him. He was going to be kept behind afterschool again today.

His mythical date had ended before it even began.

Burst link.

Entering the matching list there were only two names present. He couldn't read either of them. Neither of them matched the name on the status screen she had showed him.

Touma stared at the homework lying on the table. Maybe just maybe if he handed it in on time he would be let go. He could return from school at the time of a normal student rather than a failure.

Much better than missing it by losing his phone and seeing a suicide note days later, far too late to change anything.

Staring at the piece of paper in his hands it still didn't disappear. His homework was done, complete, finished, on time. This had never happened before. Carefully creeping through the hallways of his school Kamijou remained alert for all possible enemies, from malfunctioning sprinklers all the way up to dogs that shouldn't have been able to reach the top floor in the first place.

Entering the classroom Kamijou was greeted by silence, no teacher to hand it to, his first completed assignment of the term remained in danger.

Moving towards the front desk he prepared himself to finally hand something in on time... Actually where did people put their homework when it was done. Glancing at the desk there was nowhere that seemed appropriate to place it. Maybe he needed to keep it on his person until called for, no-one else did but there were still precious minutes until the day started where everything could go wrong.

"Trying to find your excuse for the next assignment you've failed" a voice rang out from behind.

Fukiyose, aha she would know what to do with homework. Spinning around Kamijou thrust the papers in his hands towards the voice.

Bounce.

He was going to die. The red faced Fukiyose was going to kill him. the moment his hand had touched her chest his fate had definitely been sealed. He was definitely the one at fault as well so there was no choice but to take his punishment like a man. When faced with the windup for Fukiyose's monstrous right punch Kamijou only cowered a little bit. Thwack.

Lying on the ground Kamijou moaned "I did my homework for once."

the papers were removed from his care almost immediately. "So you can do it if you try then." with those words Fukiyose dismissed all his hard work as though it was a normal feat. "You forgot your name" a pen materialised in her hand almost instantly as she moved over to the desk and started writing. A moment later a stapler was used and the resulting papers were placed into a red tray on the desk.

The task of handing in his homework had been completed. His date was saved.

Kamijou rose unseeing, this was a dream.

It had to be.

Strange empty worlds, acceleration, people who stopped attacking him when he asked them to, completed homework, a date. None of these things could have existed in reality so it had to be a dream.

Such a realisation made everything make sense. He had clearly fallen asleep in class at some point. He would wake up at any moment and so Kamijou could stride confidently towards his desk, sit down and no longer worry about his homework which he couldn't have done.

As Tsuchimikado entered and greeted him it didn't matter, as the other members of his class entered it didn't matter, for Kamijou was still asleep. The seat in front of him was empty, he really should be able to remember who sat there but it still escaped him, more proof it was a dream.

As the register was taken through a herculean focus he thought he managed to set himself as present. And then.

Loud.

The door slamming open was way too loud.

"Komoe Sensei I'm late, scold me."

Ah that was who was supposed to be sitting in front of him.

"Sit down. So who hasn't done their homework today?"

"I did it!" Haha for the moment he would play along with this dream.

Crash. Tschimikado had fallen off his chair. That was ... why was everyone staring at him?

"You're leaving the idiot trio!" Aogami looked like someone had punched him. "But- but we've been to every afterschool class as a group you can't leave."

"No" Komoe sensei interjected. "Kamijou is still so far behind that even if he did his homework he's still staying afterschool."

Even his dreams had no mercy. The act of leaving school on time remained forever out of reach.

"Right so a paper copy." Komoe sensei had found his homework, "wrong wrong wrong, not how it works, well the first section is completely wrong in its entirety." With that statement all of Kamijou's hard work was destroyed. All six burst points used to finish it on time had been wasted.

"The second section is also a complete failure." Kamijou's precious success, a once in a lifetime act of completing his homework had turned into an inquisition. Nightmare. This was definitely a nightmare.

"The third section, well I guess some of it looks like it might be right at a first glance." Kamijou wanted to wake up back in the real world where his homework was just not done.

Aogami looked away for a moment at these declarations of failure and then smiled as only someone who was abusing fox words and pretending to be nice could. "Look at the bright side Kami-yan, you get to spend a whole afternoon with Komoe sensei."

Kamijou rested his head on the table. Sleep. Maybe this whole thing will look better after I go to sleep for a while...

A thick fog floated across his vision where his desk had been moments before. "huh I was getting somewhere on that question too."

He had been forced to wake up shortly afterward for lessons. His homework had still been done. and it was now the third lesson of the day, Math, that was being interrupted by this bizarre world again.

Tapping through the menu so that the guide cursor appeared he set off over the rocky terrain that had replaced the school. Flowing streams cut across the surface while being eternally replenished by waterfalls that fell from the sky.

A shadow moved out suddenly and Touma greeted it warmly "Hi i'm new i don't suppose I could just finish the question I'm on first I was just close to a breakthrough and I don't want to lose it."

The massive blue six armed monstrosity emerged from the fog. "Don't worry this is just a practice match for you joining my legion, whatever the question is Wolf over there will fix it for you in a minute." He gestured to a purplish avatar off to the side.

Looking around there were several more shadows watching in fact. Eight of them. Did that make this the unlimited zone?

"I'm not really interested in joining any legions here I won't have the game much longer before my neurolinker breaks again anyway" he scratched his head idly and "wow my head here is really weird."

The jaw extended out too far, way too far, at this point it really should be interfering with his vision. Was the hud filtering it out or were his eyes placed differently as well. Checking that would be a bad idea though. With these claws it would probably end up with a missing eye.

"It looks kind of draconic, no idea what kind of trauma gets you something like that. And the game detects stuff via brainwaves or something so even if you change neurolinkers it just reinstalls on the new one." The guy crossed his arms smirking "also joining my legion isn't a choice, you either bow your head now or I beat you until you learn your place."

"Such misfortune"

He started laughing, arms uncrossing and falling to his sides, "You."

Someone he knew? Well given they were on the school server it really should have been expected as there were only so many students and he had lived in the same area for years now.

Staring across that small gap of only four meters a moment passed as Kamijou contemplated his opponent's avatar for a hint as to who it was. The first punch crossed that gap in an instant. The middle right arm seeking to smash his head in even as he stepped back and twisted out of reach. The upper right arm followed immediately after in its shadow and slammed into Kamijou's head.

He was launched back through the fog, far further than could be expected from a human punch, the force of a wrecking ball throwing him out of sight until he came crashing down in one of the small ponds, a third of his life bar gone in an instant.

Kamijou ran.

He bravely retreated, advancing away from the direction the guide pointed him in. Towards safety. Rushing straight through pools and scrambling over the rocks Kamijou called back "You don't like me do you?"

"I've changed my mind!" the voice boomed out through the fog, "No more tryouts, I'm just gonna kill you."

And then Kamijou ran out of space to run away into. The edge of a cliff loomed before him, its base hidden amidst the fog. "Such misfortune." but with the enemy so close behind there was only one option. Taking a moment to position himself Kamijou began his descent, claws digging into the rocky surface as he hung just below the top of the cliff.

As his opponent's heavy footsteps grew closer Kamijou prepared himself. As they grew close enough he lunged to trip his opponent, hoping to send them falling down into the ravine. Claw striking the front of the blue boot and cutting into its surface. Kamijou was almost wrenched off the cliff he clung to as his opponent tumbled down into the fog. Had he won?

the crash a second later suggested otherwise. The scream of anger that followed confirmed it. No that did not count as a win. Looking at his opponents health bar it had only dropped to half.

"I don't suppose I could know why you want to kill me."

"You stole my girlfriend."

Clearly he had the wrong person. Kamijou couldn't raise even a single flag without disaster occurring. Even simple acts such as holding hands with a girl were out of reach for him. The possibility of managing to go so far as steal another person's girlfriend was so far out from normal possibility as to be delusional.

"I think you may have the wrong person." He was being helpful really "I don't have a girlfriend, you should really talk these things through before attacking people it helps a lot."

His opponent was not calming down. In fact his helpful declaration seemed to have made things worse. "You're looking down on me again! Just like last time!" Climbing back up onto the top Kamijou heard a sharp crack below him followed by a second a bit closer.

"A bit higher boss" one of the avatars from earlier, a small reddish brown guy, standing nearby, looking over the cliff.

Kamijou was on guard instantly but the guy standing next to him didn't seem to care. In fact he was laughing at him for it. "I'm one of the audience so you can't actually attack me you know?"

Two rocks smashed into the ground in quick succession at which point the other guy turned back around. "Yeah that's the right height."

Not six? was he having trouble using all six arms at once to throw rocks? Earlier the second arm had followed behind the first and all three sets had kept similar motions while they had been talking. His tail had been hard to use seperately as well so maybe there were problems with feedback from extra limbs?

A resulting barrage of smaller rocks quickly followed as Kamijou dived for cover, small pellets striking into his upper body for a moment and taking another chunk off his health, a soft ping marking his special gauge finally being full.

Catastrophe, well if his colour was black then that would mean black magic or something like that right? A powerful beam maybe? An ultimate trump card? Pressing the button to activate the ability Kamijou hoped for something about this situation to change. The counter for the special gauge vanished.

He waited.

The rocks stopped.

"Sentinel? What did he do?" had it affected the other guy without him targeting anything?

"Not seeing anything up here, maybe it's some kind of internal effect, extra defence or something?"

A dud. His special move was a complete dud. No move named Catastrophe could ever count as a good thing when working on your internals. No external effects to be seen. Kamijou's precious, only, special move was a dud.

"Try arcing your shots more he's pressed right up against the ground."

And the audience was on the other side.

No. No! Think positively he had higher health and the high ground if he could just last another ... 9 minutes. That was longer than he was hoping for really. A lot longer.

No more rocks seemed to be coming, Kamijou prepared himself for the important task of resuming plan 'run away'.

Crack

The ground was moving away from him.

No the rock he had been standing on was falling away. Pushing off the ground he tried to turn so he could lunge back to the summit. It was out of reach. Reaching ot for a handhold Kamijou tried to at least slow his descent. It broke away almost instantly as well due to momentum but gave him a precious extra moment to brace himself for hitting the ground. Kamijou watched his life drop to about a fifth of its starting value.

His opponent stood before him unmoving.

"Hi." Reaching around behind him for a rock in the rubble Kamijou stalled for time. "You would probably do better with keeping a girlfriend if you didn't threaten to hit people whenever they disagreed with you."

Rock thrown up toward the opponents head.

Dive low past the gap as all three sets of arms rose to block it.

Swing the right arm round to strike his opponent in the back.

The other guy stumbled but didn't go down. Advancing for the second strike the other avatar's fists glowed blue and struck the ground. A shockwave blasted out shattering the ground around them and throwing him back.

And the mountain fell. His opponents dropped drastically to a tenth as he backed up, and then slowly ticked down the rest of the way.

And that misty world collapsed in on itself.

Winner

Observing the classroom around him Kamijou came to the obvious action needed to survive these next few sections without entering another battle.

A quick button press and "Komoe sensei my neurolinker broke again so I'm getting myself some paper for the rest of the day."

Aogami and Tsuchimikado were laughing at him.

"Again! Kami-yan has the worst luck eh?"

"Yeah and he was so close to finishing the question too."