A/N: The spelling is italicized, it's computer writing. When the story is told from Jin's point of view, it's 1st person. When it's Minako, it's third person. Bold is game notifications. 1000¥ is roughly ten dollars.

April 26 12:54 AM Waxing Crescent

It's late, but there isn't much to do. Things have been going pretty well lately. My persona is under control. Chidori and Takaya are out but god knows what they do with their free time. It's possible they will come back tonight but they also disappear for days at a time. I never know where they are or what they're doing. You'd think it'd be impossible when three people lived under one roof.

But I digress. An unfinished bomb is sitting on my desk, but I'm not in the mood to finish it. Building explosives is almost a boring task at this point. I have a horde of them sitting in my closet and not much use for it. Takaya said I should always have some handy, and I did, but there was a limit to our storage space. If one of my explosives went off at this point, it would blow the entire building off the map.

I check the Revenge Request website. I made the thing months ago but it was beginning to look more and more like a waste of time. The webpage was exceedingly simple. A black screen with an input box in the middle. Once someone submitted a request, the user's request and IP information went straight to my hard drive. I run it through my database for their contact information and I send them a price for the job.

It was a good way to make a bit of money, but the people on it were so exceedingly stupid. The entire thing was a headache. Most of the requests were about bullies or cheating boyfriends. Easy targets, sure. But why are people so useless? Didn't anyone know how to solve their own problems?

We've been hunting pretty often lately. Takaya and Chidori handle most of them during the Dark Hour. Even now, it's likely they're out working. I don't leave the house. I'm awkward enough to attract people's attention. While Chidori and Takaya also stick out, they're much stronger and faster than I am. I'm not as fast with a gun, and my grenades attract too much attention. They cause too much damage.

So I stick to my computer. Besides, someone needed to man the base. I'm about to take a quick nap when a request catches my eye.

"Wipe out the new girl on Hemelin and make sure she never comes back."

The IP address tells me the requester is an older guy who lives down the street. I've seen him a few times while throwing out trash. Older bachelor. Works full time maintenance at the movie theater. Waste of oxygen. I send him a price for the job.

10,000¥.

My phone pings me almost immediately after I send out the price. Half the money's been deposited into our account. Clean.

Easiest job in the world.

Hemelin is an online fighting MMO that I play on occasion. The server is almost full when I log in, way more active than anything I've ever seen. There are avatars on top of each other, literally glitching because of the server load. My computer specs were the best money (and threats) could buy, but even THAT wasn't enough to handle whatever the hell was happening.

"What's going on?"

My speech bubble is lost in the hundreds of other comments in the open world log. I give up on trying to ask a question and focus on the chat instead.

~"NO WAY BRO KNOCK HER OUT"

~"shes a girl? pm me."

~"No way. Has to be bot. Her account is new and she's in 56th place."

~"No one's ever climbed that fast before."

~"hacxx"

~"add me"'

~''pm me'

~"ive been reporting her for hours. nothing."

~"legit?"

~"~~~~add me~~~~~~~"

~"YOUR GETTING REKT"

~"No Way."

~"yo, check her friend list its 0 shesa bot"

~"pics or it didntt happen"

~"ADDED"

~"SHUT UP!"

~''Just play the game."

The wall of text repeats the same information for miles. It doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together. Someone new was playing arena and they were winning. This hasn't happened for a while. The top 20 has always been the same 24 or so people. They shifted depending on the time of day but it has always been the same set. Yours truly occupies the 11th spot with an iron fist.

But a girl huh. Now that WAS unheard of. My logical mind tells me she probably wasn't a girl though. A lot of fat old men use female avatars to cheat idiots out of a few gift codes. It wouldn't be too surprising if one of the top 10 created a new female avatar to steal the spotlight because they were bored with real life. Now that the idea occurred to me, I wonder why I've never done it.

I try quick travelling to the arena, but the area is capped out. I give up on it after a few tries. It'll empty after the fight ends. I work on my bomb for a few minutes before my computer pings to let me know my "watched" fight has ended.

It takes a bit of work, but I can see that there is a girl avatar with the golden badge above her head, signaling an arena win. The sight nearly makes me drop my bomb.

Congratulations

KotoneShiomi22 has beaten WorldEnder6969 +12,789 Prestige

Rank 56 = Rank 24

WorldEnder6969 has lost to KotoneShiomi22 -12,789 Prestige

Rank 1 = Rank 4

That stupid American has held top spot for years. Literal, actual, off-line years. He was logged on pretty much 24 hours of the day, playing. He even had a video blog dedicated to his games that I would occasionally watch if I was feeling especially masochistic.

The American requests a rematch, and the new girl is quick to oblige. I had about 4 seconds to get into this room before it filled up. It's the fastest I have ever moved in my life.

Let me take a minute to explain the game first. There are combos, abilities and moves you can acquire by base race which you pick when designing your avatar. The others you win by fighting different opponents. There are hundreds to choose from so everyone's character is pretty much unique. There is a 5 skill cap per match but older players almost always had an advantage because they had more time to expand their skillset and pick and choose their skills to their advantage. New players can acquire skills from specific events and quests but it is a lot more work than fighting. The entire process is too time-consuming when the guys at the top just picks up the flocks of sheep and devours their powers. (I was one of those guys at the top of course.)

That was why this new girl had caused a ruckus. No one. And I mean no one is capable of climbing the ranks like this. Until now. Whoever she was, had completely broken the meta.

The match begins like normal. A 3 second count down followed by by players taking off into the air. She fights like she has all the health in the world. She doesn't dodge or guard. Every strike, bullet, and missile takes a chunk out of her health bar. It drops faster than any reasonable player should ever allow. She's about to lose, when I finally understand her strategy. She'd picked up BERSERK at some point and her attack power only got stronger when she took damage. That wouldn't be enough to assure her victory, but she'd also picked MIRACLE SHIELD and BLOODY RAMPAGE. Her health couldn't fall past 1 for 10 seconds, and her speed would quadruple when her health was in the bottom 1%.

I could only sit there in shock. No one used Bloody Rampage. It was such a risky skill to be running, especially when there were so many other choices to pick from. Who on earth was this girl? The match was over before her 10 second ability was up. The entire stadium is transported back to the open world and a new win trophy has appeared over her head.

Congratulations

KotoneShiomi22 has beaten WorldEnder6969 +10,357 Prestige

Rank 24 = Rank 18

WorldEnder6969 has lost to KotoneShiomi22 -10,357 Prestige

Rank 4 = Rank 12

Trophy acquired - 100 game win streak. Golden Award

He'd dropped passed even me. I check my own ranking and I'd jumped up one. This would've been excellent news had I not been so terrified and excited at the same time. Who was this girl? Where the hell did she come from?

The American logs off and the open chat wall loses all semblance of control. Thousands of PM requests and conversations left and right, but not a single person challenges her to another fight. Anyone ranked 20 and above is pretty easy to get a hold of. They would need to be online pretty often or their rank would fall. The 16-other people above her were likely all online at this moment.

I check my clock. 2:04 AM Takaya and Chidori still haven't come home yet. I had some time. This was clearly the girl that the request talked about. I send her a chat invite.

Minako Arisato is sitting cross-legged at her desk, her head drooping out of her palm. She lets out a loud yawn, a piece of her auburn hair falling into her mouth before she quickly spits it back out. She was getting tired. Junpei had given her the game as a present because he couldn't win. She'd been going at it for several hours but didn't see much appeal. Sure, she was winning, but it wasn't nearly as hard as she'd expected to climb the rankings. She had looked up the complete ability list earlier and started making combos that looked nice together. After about 40 minutes, she'd had a solid list and she'd been winning ever since.

The thought of quitting occurred to her, but no one else at the dorm played video games and Junpei told her the hard copy costs around 5,000¥. That was a lot of money she didn't want to waste. It also helped that she didn't have class the next day so staying in and playing games seemed nice.

Truthfully, she'd moved into the dorms about two weeks ago, and while the others were nice, they weren't quite friends. Minako looked to her door and imagined the other people she'd met. They were comrades, but not much else. No one talked around the dorm except about missions and the shadows they would need to face.

*Bing* The loud noise woke her up immediately and she returned her eyes to her screen.

ShiroiTobira has sent you a Chat Request. Will you accept?

Minako sighed. There were a lot of these, and it was beginning to annoy her. She didn't know any of these people, why would they want to be friends? She quickly hit reject and contemplated logging off, but then another bubble immediately appeared on her screen.

ShiroiTobira has sent you a Battle Request. Will you accept?

Minako checked his player ranking, mildly surprised. She was looking for the other players who were ranked above her, but she wasn't quite sure how that system worked yet. The player guide wasn't very helpful.

She accepted without a second thought, and they were thrown to the pre-fight skill pick. She knew nothing about him so she went for her safest combinations. The three second countdown started and the fight began. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, jumping and shooting at her enemy. Her opponent didn't seem to try to advance, letting the timer run down.

No matter how often she hit him, his health bar wouldn't go down. It seemed like he had a counter for everything. He didn't make any moves to attack her either. Not a single punch, kick, or energy blast. What was this guy doing? Didn't he want to win?

After what seemed like a full hour, a large 30 flashed across her screen. She had 30 seconds left?! Her health bar was full, and so was his. A part of her was surprised he hadn't been hit at least once, but most of her mind was focused on the game. This had actually been kind of fun. Sure, there wasn't any real fighting, but it had been like target practice. A logic puzzle that she hasn't solve. She clearly wasn't as good as she previously thought if the guy ranked 10 could dodge everything she threw at him.

The battle clock continued to wind down until it hit zero, leaving her dumbfounded. She hadn't looked this far into the game. What would happen now?

Tied Game

KotoneShiomi22 has tied with ShiroiTobira +0 Prestige

Rank 18 = Rank 18

ShiroiTobira has tied with KotoneShiomi22 +0 Prestige

Rank 10 = Rank 10

They two of them are transferred back to the starter field with all the NPCs and Minako slams her head onto her desk, before quickly pulling herself back up. She hadn't meant to cause a ruckus, but that had been a good fight. Completely tiring though. Sleep was calling to her.

She moves her mouse to the battle window and found the name she was looking for, sending him a friend request. Her clock read that it was almost 3AM in the morning. Even if she didn't have class, it was a horrible idea to stay up so late.

Water. She needed water. The walk down to the kitchen feels much longer than it should. The dorm is dark. All the lights are on dim to conserve energy. The Dark Hour is long over, but the regular taste of fear still creeps up her spine. It had taken so much from her. But then it brought her back, to the one place she could fight the nightmares. And she would fight. Fight and win. She'd found her reason for living.

When she gets back to her room, the first thing she sees is a message on a private chat log.

~"gg"

Confusion is the only thing that colors her thoughts. A quick search tells her that the letters were a simple greeting gamers used after a match. Easy enough to understand.

"You too."

~"japanese huh? are you new here? how'd you climb up the rankings so fast?"

"Yes. I started earlier in the afternoon. I looked up some guides online and found some really good combinations for my race class."

~"lol. seriously? do you know how mad people would be knowing that's how you're winning?"

"What do you mean? Why would they be mad about that?"

Minako puts down her mug, a frown on her face. This is silly. It was just a game. Other people would win and they'd come back and beat her tomorrow. Wasn't that how games worked?

~"because there's no guide for real life. it's like cheating. people grind for years to make it where you are now but after a day some girl just runs in with the knowledge other people acquired and ruins something they've spent years to build. wouldn't you be mad?"

Minako's fingers pause in the air. She wasn't sure if she'd be angry. In a way, she'd been flighty her entire life. She never had to work very hard at anything. There was always a "cheat code". A methodology to follow. A guide to light the path. She needed good grades for a scholarship? Study certain parts for the exams. Teachers almost always point out what they're putting on exams beforehand. Need to stay in shape? Go running or stop eating ramen. Both, if she was especially desperate. If she wanted more people to like her, all she'd need to do was smile and nod at whatever they were saying. Easy. Life was like a video game where the guide was built into her mind. Everything followed a logical pattern cause and effect. Nothing left up to chance. There was no "living" involved.

"If they didn't want me to win, then why did they put up a page telling me everything I needed to know?"

~"it's just for clicks. everyone knows how to win the game but they can't win it for themselves. so when they see someone else using their knowledge to do what they can't, that pisses them off."

The cup stops halfway to her mouth. People want attention. That's natural. Everyone wants to be in the spotlight. A star in the sky. Everyone knows how to do it, but they can't. They're not smart enough. Not fast enough. Not strong enough. Not pretty enough. The reasons go on and on. People get jealous and vengeful when others can do what they can't. Minako knows this, but she tries not to think about it. What's the point? Knowing why people hate her won't stop it from happening. Nothing will change.

"So what about you?"

~"what about me?"

"How do you feel about me?"

~"might is right. if you win, then it doesn't matter if it was because you were smarter or stronger. what matters is that you won."

"Neither of us won today."

~"there's always next week. same time?"

Minako looks at her clock.

"Maybe a little earlier. It's pretty late."

~"11pm?"

"Sure."