Chapter 4: The debut
"Looks like I have a big meanie here," I heard Nickel Doll moan. Just then, the flaming words 'FIGHT!' appeared. Not wanting to be too careless, I raised my hands up and shouted "Rainbow Sky Fire!" to adjust my head and barrage her with fireballs. As I see them descending, I also spot her running towards me. The fireball barrage kept hitting just behind her, so I tried a new tactic. "Rainbow Sword Rain!" I shouted again, this time to have two swords shoot into the ground from behind me, just in front of Nickel Doll.
Before she could, I grabbed both of them and swung them at her. While they did hit, they didn't do much damage at all. I slashed at her again, this time doing a little more damage, then a little more, then a little more, until she was at half health. Just then, she rammed her fist into my stomach, and I immediately started feeling an electrical burning in my body. I could still move, though, the pain wasn't that bad. With a kick to her chin, I freed myself from her.
She still didn't let up, shoving her fists at me at every opportunity. A fist flew by, just touching my face, and I got another shock. A second time, her fist made brief contact with me, again shocking me. Again, but this time I managed to dodge. Again, and again, fist after fist, whole flurries of punches came at me. My whole body was continuously shifting forwards and backwards, side to side, trying to avoid those electric fists and edging backwards all the while. A few punches landed, but I had managed to dodge many of them.
Suddenly, she raised both her hands up, shouting "Anode, Cathode!" and creating a sphere of electricity. Bolts of lightning soared down to the ground, and I suddenly felt a much stronger electrocution. Looking at my own Health Bar, I was getting dangerously low at only a quarter health left, so I needed to act. Not seeing much of an alternative, I shout "Rainbow Life Stream!" hoping that I will heal. I looked down, hoping to target myself with this technique, and I notice why I was experiencing such painful torture: I was standing in a fairly large puddle of water. My head adjusted itself, and soon enough it began raining, giving off a green mist. My health bar's reduction slows down remarkably, stopping just before it hits rock bottom, and soon it starts reconstructing itself. For some reason, though, my head's wing-like flaps had advanced onto my forehead
That was when I noticed that the rain was only falling onto me. I had somehow concentrated it. Another thing that I saw was that I was healing at a much faster rate. Yes, my health bar's reconstruction was still slow, but that was only because of Nickel Doll channeling electricity into my body. When I healed Haruyuki, the rain only healed him at a very slow speed without someone damaging him. I looked again at my health bar, and saw that my killer move gauge was full. Maybe, just maybe, I could still win this.
I maintained the rain through the electricity coursing through me, and as soon as my health bar reached one hundred percent…
"Rainbow Sky Fire!" I shouted.
"Moron!" I heard her shout back. "Now that you have stopped healing yourself, it's only a matter of time before you fry!"
I knew that, but I also knew something else: she was completely focused on me. There was one other thing I had realized about the Sky Fire move, or any of my 'Rainbow' moves, which was why I looked at Nickel Doll's feet. Sure enough, fireballs suddenly contacted and exploded on her. Her health bar had blasted chunk after chunk off. The electrocution stopped at that point, largely due to her not being able to focus on me, I think. I imagined the fireballs aiming not only for her, but also the ground around her. I also noticed, however, that my killer move gauge was steadily decreasing.
I had managed to get her down to a ninth of her health, before she started successfully evading. "Rainbow Sword Rain!" I shout once again, having two swords thrust into the ground beside me. Picking up those swords, I ran towards the exhausted form of Nickel Doll and thrust both blades. This was it; the blades were thrusting towards her… and got stopped by her hands. That was when I kicked her in the head.
The last of her health disappeared, after which I managed to gain some Burst Points. I was also glad that I had practiced virtual gaming with Haruyuki, and even happier that I won my first match. Something was still a bit off, though, so as my world returned to normal, I decided to wait for a little while. I thought that I would mail Muttsurini and tell him about my victory, but it occurred to me that I would be seeing him again tomorrow. I noticed then that I was quite hungry at that point, so the prospect of staying suddenly wasn't as tempting to me as getting something to eat.
My hunger eventually got the better of me, especially considering there was a coffee shop on the way back home. Just as I sat down, though, my world turned blue, which could only mean one thing: acceleration. The setting changed to inside a ruined building, and I was wondering who my opponent was this time. Instead, it looked like I was selected as a spectator between Silver Crow and Ash Roller.
I was a little bit far away, so I ran in the only direction that occurred to me: towards where Umesato would have been. I got there at about the same time as a motorcycle-riding Burst Linker, possibly this 'Ash Roller' that was being challenged. Just as the bike soared past me, the rider got kicked off by the Silver Crow Avatar, which proceeded to run up a building afterwards. I thought Haruyuki was using a good strategy: that bike was far too big to fit inside the building, and there was no visible way to ascend it.
That is, until I saw Ash Roller, who was definitely the rider, charge up the vertical wall using some speed boosters. From there, I had my fingers crossed, as Haruyuki started losing lots of health. Part of me wished that I had waited outside the school grounds to see if Tetsujin would drag him off to a supplementary lesson in case he lost. Another part of me, however, felt that he would somehow turn this around. After all, he was Arita Haruyuki, someone whose gaming talent rivaled my talent with acting or Muttsulini's talent with Health education. My hunch was right. I got up to where he was, and I saw that he had rendered Ash Roller powerless. From there, I could tell that victory was inevitable.
After decelerating, a waiter had come to my table, mistaking me for a girl and asking me for my order. After placing one for some oolong tea and a slice of cake, I was contacted by Muttsulini, asking me if I had fought yet. After replying that I have, and so has Haruyuki, he insisted on meeting up with me. Just as I got off the phone with him, I saw Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime walk past my booth.
"Good match out there," I say to him, whereupon I saw him jump forward in his direction for a bit, clearly startled at very least. Guess I shouldn't have been surprised; it was impossible to see where I was sitting when you were coming into the coffee shop
"D-don't scare me like that, Hideyoshi!" he shouted back at me.
"Come here to celebrate your victory?"
"I guess."
"Something else bothering you?"
"No, n-not really. How about you? Have you been in any matches yet?"
"Actually, yes. I won that one. Anyway, enjoy your victory drink!"
"Haruyuki-kun…" Kuroyukihime began, with a jealous expression, "…is there something I should know about you two?"
"I'm a guy," I sighed. Why did even the girls have to mistake me for a girl?
Just then, my order arrived, and Haruyuki, along with Kuroyukihime, sat down in the booth in front of me. After that, from the sounds of it (or lack thereof), they had Direct-linked. Muttsulini came in not long afterwards, sitting in my booth and using a cable to Direct-link with me, which, I will admit, was a little awkward, mainly because people have enough misconceptions about me already.
"So," he began, "… who trained you?"
"Well, that just so happens to be the person sitting directly behind you, Muttsulini," I transmitted through the cable.
"What all have you gone through?"
"Fighting moves, colors, how we got the Avatars, and I experimented with a few moves."
"Did you go over legions?"
"No, I don't remember anything about legions."
Muttsulini enlightened me about how Burst Linkers grouped together to form legions that assumed control of various territories. Leaders of these legions were Level 9, and there were about six major legions: the Green legion, the Red legion, the Yellow legion, the Blue legion, the White legion and the Purple legion. The leaders for these legions apparently had a name: the Six Kings of Pure Color. There was apparently a seventh, but this particular King, Black Lotus, had apparently betrayed a non-aggression pact with an act of regicide and had since disappeared.
What surprised me, though, was the fact that, according to Muttsulini, there was supposedly a legion forming at Fumizuki Academy. I was, supposedly, the first outside of this legion to know about its formation, and it was allegedly from them that Muttsulini had acquired Brain Burst in the first place.
"We need to figure out the full extent of your abilities. Accelerate," he continued.
"Burst Link!" I shouted, whereupon the world turned blue and I separated from my real-world body in my Summoned Being outfit. Muttsulini was also by his real body in his ninja outfit.
"Now, click one of the icons to your left, bring up the matching list, and tell me what you see,"
"I've got it. There's me, a Grey Smoke."
"That's me,"
"Then Silver Crow and… Black Lotus."
"Press your name, then mine, and Haruyuki's, and declare a Duel."
"What about Lotus?"
"Neither of us is strong enough to take on a Level 9."
"Here we go!" I state as I press the Duel icon. The blue world dissolved, I felt myself changing into my Duel Avatar, and soon the world was reconstructed.
