Tin Pin Turnabout:
A Sauce Project Production
By EeveeGen9988 and Chronic Guardian
[Shibuya Operation - Story Storm]
Chapter 3: Clash
...
Ayumu blinked. They'd arrived at the battle table. The referee was saying something about how much of an honor it was to host the match, but Ayumu was too distracted to process any of it. Beside him, Rueban and Joshua were both shifting through various stages of annoyance and distrust. Or, Rue was, at least. Joshua had settled on a cordial distance before even arriving and was now quietly reinforcing his opinions. Ayumu had kind of been hoping the bad blood between them was just a force of habit kind of thing. Like, maybe if they could just play on the same team for once, they might realize how similar they were and actually get along for once. Now he was realizing how dangerous it was just to have them in the same room.
Part of him knew the whole mess was his fault, that he could have figured out their problems without trying to bring Tin Pin into it. And yet, even with his well-developed sixth sense, he made a point of not reading family members too directly. He still read their aura's as a matter of practicality. Being blind, it was either that or get used to waiting out the waves of classic Kiryu sarcasm when dealing with his cousins. But part of that sarcasm was that they didn't want to be fully known, and Ayumu tried to respect that. Even if he could technically read their minds, it just felt wrong doing that to a family member. Kind of like pulling back bed sheets on a cold winter morning. Ayumu shivered at the thought.
Mind reading his opponents, on the other hand, was perfectly fine and entirely necessary for their plan to succeed. Ayumu used to try playing Tin Pin by "braille", but that always ended up with him fingering the wrong pins or getting his hands mashed in the action. Granted, he'd be playing on a professional battle board this time with remote controls, but his ears weren't good enough to guess positions just from the skitters. He needed to borrow a set of eyes to play effectively.
From what Rue said earlier, Tatsuya's little brother would be the best pick. If Shuto played by intuition then he probably wouldn't think articulately enough to spoil the other side's strategy. Even handicapped, Ayumu wanted to avoid cheating. Josh might let it go, but Rueban would go crazy if he found out about it. Rue didn't like being wrong, but he hated it even more whenever Ayumu did anything slightly questionable. Mom tried to joke that Rue was just getting in dad practice, but Ayumu sensed something else going on.
Ayumu shook his head and tried not to think about it. So long as Shuto had a mental map of what was going on, things would go alright. Ayumu would just have to remember to mirror the movements since he'd be looking at himself from across the table.
The referee's voice slipped back into focus long enough for Ayumu to make out two crucial words, "Slammers ready?"
His hands started shaking. Suddenly the world felt like a bad dream he'd forgotten to wake up from. What was he doing here? He was facing off against the best slammers in Shibuya—Possibly even Japan—and he'd never played a competitive game in his life!
His breath sped up a little, and he knew both his cousins would notice. It was like getting caught in two spotlights that shone right through his skin. He'd been in a school play once where they used a spotlight. It was horrifying to feel people thinking about him as his skin warmed; he imagined the whole auditorium had suddenly gotten laser vision and decided to roast him with it.
Pushing down the panic, Ayumu reached out to Josh for a cue on what was happening. Joshua's energy felt fluid and light, kind of like sudsy dish water. Ayumu could almost feel the empty bubbles popping in his fingers as he tried to get a hold on his cousin's demeanor.
More than any of them, Joshua was good at pretending nothing bothered him. It wasn't true, of course, and Josh was also the least likely to let something go if it actually made it under his thick skin; but still, that light, defensive exterior would help at a time like this. Ayumu took a breath and tried to imitate it with his own energy.
The attempt ended in a choked gasp as a smooth hand closed on his wrist. He twitched before recognizing Rue's aura. His cousin kept a gentle grip as he guided his hands to the controller on the battle board. Ayumu felt his face flush hot as Rue moved on to checking his deck and making sure the pins would eject right. The other team didn't say anything, but Ayumu could imagine their mocking smiles at the childish treatment.
Tucking his chin into his chest, the blind blond took another shaky breath and tried again to center himself. Rue had a plan, and Rue's plan would probably work. If Ayumu just hung back and waited for the right moment to strike, he could probably make it to the next round. That probably wasn't what Joshua wanted, but Joshua's plan would probably get them all knocked out in the first round. As much as Ayumu respected his cousin's skills alone, it was harder to trust that aggressive, risky playstyle in a three-on-three game.
Something shifted in the air and the surrounding auras got sharper with focus. Reaching out to the opposing slammers, Ayumu realized the countdown had begun. Gulping down one last bracing breath, he gripped his controller and slowly made contact with Shuto's consciousness. The other boy probably wouldn't sense anything anyway, but Ayumu didn't want to disturb his focus. If Shuto couldn't keep his mind on the game, he wouldn't be much good as a vision proxy. Ayumu ran his thumbs over the buttons and tried not to think about how much of a disaster that would be.
"Slaaaaam," the referee began. The words seemed to come slower than normal, as if the ref had forgotten what came next and was holding out until he could remember. Ayumu twitched as he made full contact with Shuto. Energy shot through his body and he had to lean in on the controller to keep from shaking.
In the next moment, he had what he was looking for. The board stretched out before him with six pins. Apparently the tournament hosts were playing it safe for the first year and using a normal round board. That was good, it meant plenty of space to move and no surprises. Ayumu even felt a timid smile tug at his mouth. Maybe this wasn't so different from playing with Josh at home. Maybe—
"ONNNNNN!"
Suddenly the round board was gone. Or, not gone, just changed. Into the moon.
What… what the…?
The whole area flooded with light as the three closest pins morphed into superheroes. Ayumu just had time to latch onto his own game piece before watching it transform into a bug. And not even a recognizable bug, just some kind of sad beetle. Ayumu felt his jaw dropping open as the insect rolled on its back and cried.
Beside his beetle, another bug spread its wings and rushed for the center of the battlefield. Mid-leap, it changed from a bug into a fire breathing ninja. Hands became buzzsaws and feet became laser guns. The whole thing felt children's television if it were actually directed by children. Since when did Tin Pin have laser guns!?
Two of the superheroes ducked back from the attack, tucking their faces into their elbows as they danced through the air. The third grabbed something from the ground, a shield made from a giant pin, and dove closer. The design looked familiar, sort of like the pin Shuto had been using, but with a lot more spikes and heavenly light rays.
...Wait.
"Dark slammerai!" the hero bellowed in a high, pre-teen voice. "I have come to—!"
"Sorry," the ninja snickered, slipping around behind the hero and kicking him towards Ayumu's bug. "All yours, cousin."
Ayumu grabbed his controls and slipped to the side as the unbalanced superhero careened towards the insect. The beetle sidestepped in the opposite direction and morphed into a bearded turtle-man with grey, pupiless eyes.
My eyes.
And then it all made sense.
This is how Shuto sees Tin Pin! Ayumu realized. Every game is an epic battle between good and evil! I get it! These heroes are Shuto and his friends, so that means we're… His focus slipped back to the ninja and turtle-man and the initial excitement flipped back to embarrassed confusion. Actually, maybe it didn't make so much sense. Seriously, why buzzsaws and laser guns?
Ayumu twitched back to attention as he caught the shielded slammerai attacking his turtle. He winced and pushed one of the special controls to jump over the reckless warrior. Could he really play like this? Flipping the controls was hard enough, but playing out a children's saturday morning cartoon? Maybe he could switch to—
No, he told himself as he just barely missed another attack. I can't switch fast enough without risking breaking their focus. And Josh and Rue would definitely react! I can't make them lose. I've gotta at least hang on until we get a break.
But when did tournaments give breaks? Would he have to finish out the whole round, or was there some kind of halftime? Maybe he could switch after he beat Shuto like this.
...If he could beat Shuto like this.
Maybe he wouldn't need to do it alone. He was playing on a team, right? If he could lure Shuto close enough to Josh or Rue, maybe they could help. Keeping on the run, Ayumu began looking across the lunar landscape for his cousins.
Unfortunately, the moon seemed to have shrunk in the last few seconds.
Huh?! Ayumu paused as he frantically went over the small space again. All the edges were blurry now, and he could only see himself and Shuto. What was going on? Had they been picked out for a duel? Or was Shuto just focusing on their part of the board and ignoring everything else? Ayumu's reflexes seized up in a panic and Shuto grabbed the opportunity to send him edgewards. The turtle made windmill arms as it careened through the air towards a wall of fire, but it touched down and skidded to a halt before making full contact.
Scrambling back towards the center of the board, Ayumu just had time to duck into a defensive shell before Shuto made contact again. The slammerai ran headlong into the turtle just as a forest of spikes shot out of the shell, pushing back the shield and leaving the warrior dazed.
"Okay, that's enough!" Ayumu shouted, springing back up from his defensive stance and trying to ignore how his voice was coming out of a turtle-man. This was his chance to help, and he couldn't let Shuto's imagination ruin it! "Time for me to teach you—!"
"Ayumu, watch out!"
He twitched at Rueban's voice. Watch out how?! He wanted to yell back. I can't see anything! I'm trying, okay?! Why don't you try playing Tin Pin backwards as a giant turtle-man!
Said giant turtle-man then lurched backwards as the fire breathing ninja barrelled out of the blurry abyss and body slammed him out of the way. Half a second later, one of the slammerai superheroes flipped through the space he'd just been occupying and landed in a crouch.
The new slammerai turned to Shuto and gave him a stern look, complete with glowing eyes. "You've gotta be more careful, bro! These guys ain't just—"
"Whoops," Josh's voice slipped in unapologetically. Following the cue, a being of pure darkness swooped down from the sky and landed on the second slammerai. A moment later, and he was hurtling towards the fire walls waiting at the edge of the arena.
Shuto's superhero went racing after his brother's. "BRO! Hey, hang on, Bro! Just use a rebound! WE STILL GOT THIS!"
The fire wall swallowed up the airborne slammerai and for a second everyone just stood still. Ayumu felt his stomach jump and he couldn't tell if he was relieved or not. If they'd managed to get Tatsuya out of the fight, things would definitely get a lot easier. But the way Shuto called after his brother… it was hard not to feel sorry for him.
Before Ayumu could sort it out, the wall opened up again and belched out Tatsuya like a flaming wad of gum.
"BRO!" Shuto cried, literally crying rivers as he pumped his fist in the air. "I knew you could—"
"Whoops again," Joshua interrupted.
Looking forward to where Tatsuya was about to land, Ayumu found Joshua had deployed another stinger. The Tin Pin King was doomed before he even hit the ground.
Once Tatsuya hit the trap, Josh was immediately on the offensive. Two hits and the opposing champion was right back into the flames. "Now," the oldest Kiryu said, turning to his cousins. "Follow my lead!"
Ayumu took a deep breath and re-tightened his grip on the controller. It was starting to get a little slippery with sweat, but they could still end this if they all worked together. If they could gang up on the remaining slammerai before Tatsuya respawned, they could build up momentum and—
And suddenly the board only included Shuto and Joshua's blob of darkness.
"W-wait!" Ayumu sputtered. Where was his gamepiece? Was he sitting on the edge still? Or had he moved from there? Where was the hoodie guy? Would he run into him if he moved for the center? He needed to change viewers now!
Beside him, he heard Rue take a sharp inhale. The hair on the back of Ayumu's neck tickled upward as his cousin's energy shifted to focus on him. Rue had figured out what was going on.
"We need to regroup," the middle Kiryu said. His voice dropped to a low, serious growl. "Josh!"
"Little busy, cousin," Josh grunted. "Maybe you could come to me?"
Ayumu couldn't wait any longer. Disconnecting from Shuto, he gasped as the world went back to its usual blank. He needed to find someone else to see through before he got knocked out. Where was the hoodie slammer? Ayumu reached out, then instinctively recoiled. The hoodie slammer was focusing on him. He would almost definitely notice if Ayumu tried to spy through him, and then that would make a scene, and everyone would call Ayumu a freak once they figured out what was happening. No, if he was going to switch this quickly he needed someone safe, someone who would already be expecting it.
Without thinking about it, he slipped into another mind close by. Maybe it was because it felt familiar, like following the path home from school after walking it a hundred times before. The visible world came back into existence and Ayumu had exactly one second to orient himself before his new host reacted. There were two pins at the center of his vision. And one of them was Joshua's.
Ayumu?
The thought hit him in Josh's voice and he flinched. "I'm sorry!"
The world blurred for a moment, and when the picture cleared, Joshua's pin had been knocked off the table. Shuto must have taken advantage of the distraction. Ayumu felt hot tears forming on his own face and running down his cheeks. This was all his fault.
"H-hey!" Across the board, Tatsuya cried out in alarm. Had he noticed what was going on? Ayumu clenched his teeth and hoped the other boy wouldn't say anything. Sympathy from strangers was just more humiliating.
"My pins won't eject!"
Wouldn't eject? Wait, maybe that meant they had a chance after all! Even on the tournament level, equipment malfunctions were the player's responsibility, so if Tatsuya couldn't get any more pins on the table—
Beside Ayumu, Rueban's aura shifted from annoyed to hostile. "Joshua," the middle Kiryu gritted out. "What were you doing before you came out to get me?"
"A wonderfully diverting anecdote," Joshua replied with strained composure as he fielded another pin. Ayumu cringed as he felt his cousin mentally acknowledge the surprise guest in his head. "It can wait."
Rue didn't take the hint. "You were tinkering with some equipment, weren't you?"
"Keeping my own gear in order, yes," Josh said. His mental state shifted and Ayumu watched as possible endings to the conversation played out in his cousin's mind. Most of them involved Rueban going ballistic. "Wouldn't want to have a malfunction like our friend Mr. Dan, here."
Josh's mind suddenly bristled with annoyance. Apparently that wasn't the answer he meant to say. The tension between him and Rueban was only growing, and Ayumu couldn't even focus on the board anymore. Something snapped in the air.
Rue gave a frustrated grunt and turned from the table. His energy spiked up like a sea urchin and pushed back against Ayumu's touch. "I quit," he said over his shoulder.
"What?" Ayumu cried. "W-why? I mean—"
"Because I don't play with cheaters."
Ayumu stopped. He wanted to yell at Rue and tell him to take it back. He couldn't accuse Josh of cheating! That was insane! Josh would never…
...Or would he?
Across their mental connection, Ayumu felt Joshua nodding to himself. The younger Kiryu paused, stopping himself from pressing deeper. If he read Josh's exact thoughts, he would know whether or not Rue was right. But if he did that, it would also mean he didn't trust Josh himself, and Josh would feel it. And they would both know they couldn't trust eachother after that.
At the edge of his mind, he felt Joshua realize what was going on and lift up a wall against him. Even if Ayumu wasn't planning on mind reading, Joshua knew he could. And that made Josh afraid. But why? Why would Joshua sabotage another player? Wasn't he good enough to play for both of them? He didn't need the edge. This was all just a misunderstanding! Malfunctions didn't have to be someone's fault, did they?
...Unless Josh was trying to make up for player who wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.
In his hands, Ayumu felt the controller vibrate, signalling that he'd been knocked off the board. He took one last shaky breath, then let go.
I'm sorry, Josh, he thought. I can't do this.
Joshua called his name, but he didn't answer. He took his pins back from the battle table and walked away.
…
CG's Lonely Author's Notes
So this time around I have to do notes by myself because I'm late and Eevee couldn't review the last few bits of the chapter. She's off being a responsible adult or something. But don't worry! You'll see her next week. In the meantime, I hope you didn't mind me pulling double duty.
As is my custom, this is the part of the author's note where I complain about how hard everything was to try and disguise the fact that I'm not a perfect writer. First off: Shuto's fantasy sequences. We see in the original TWEWY that Shooter has a pretty vivid imagination, so I just figured it would be even more intense/delusional in his younger years. Don't get me wrong, this was a fun sequence to write; Eevee just had to continually remind me to give clues about what the heck was going on to keep it from being too jarring.
Speaking of Eevee corralling my more wayward writing instincts, this was also the chapter where Eevee found out I'm awful at writing characters with emotional reasoning. In a reveal that will surprise no one, I'm a lot more like Rue than Ayumu in real life, so it's much easier for me to write characters who pursue a logical progression and try to figure out what's going on than characters who follow an emotional arc through their sequence of events and make decisions based on their feelings. This is part of why I'm glad I get to write with Eevee, because she's a lot more in touch with this side of character writing than I am. Hopefully her guidance was enough to deliver a more diverse and enjoyable narrative. If not, don't worry. This is the only Ayumu chapter I get to write. The rest is up to dear old Eves.
But that also brings me to my third point, which is also Ayumu-based. This one was kind of both a blessing and a curse. See, writing for a blind character meant I had to switch my analogies up and ignore anything visually based. So long as nothing slipped through the net, I tried to make his narrative more tactile based since that would be his primary means for interacting with the world. It was also fun/difficult to explore how Ayumu's powers work (although I'm not entirely sure I got them right. I was mostly going off of how I imagine his Deckverse abilities function). In general, it was an enjoyable challenge to deal with a character who defied my native narrative conventions and made me work on a new level mechanically.
All that said, I hope you enjoyed the twists and turns of this chapter (assuming I wrote the twists and turns well enough for them to be followed). I know I've been pretty busy lately, but I'd at least like to say I've done my duty here. Hopefully the next chapter of Hybrid won't take much longer.
In the meantime, make sure to check out the current Shibuya Operation - Story Storm series! Avi is still staying strong on the schedule, so if you need consistent content with an awesome aesthetic bent you can always hit that up. Until then, stay warm out there!
Hopefully not disappointing,
-CG
Slammer Profile: Rueban Kiryu
Hailing from the Shinjuku ward, Rueban "Rue" Kiryu cut his slamming teeth on local Tokyo tournaments before moving on to disrupt the Northern Honshu and Hokkaido leagues as a wild card entrant. Legend has it that he was tagging along on his father's business trips to the areas because his parents thought he was too young to attend local tournaments unsupervised and his father didn't have time for special scheduling. Whatever the case, Rue Kiryu has been wreaking havoc on the northern slammer ecosystems and is easily in the running to succeed one of the five Tin Pin Kings one day.
This year marks Rueban's return to the Tokyo Tin Pin circuit, so it's expected he'll try his hand at wooing sponsors in the spring before the summer season hits. He's a noted fan of Pegaso gear, but some of his fans argue he might be shooting for the ultra-selective Gatito brand. Although Rue prefers low-weight pins with lots of technical possibilities, it's rumored he's been testing heavier pins for a "B-side" strategy of brute force to diversify his repertoire. The only certain thing is that Rueban isn't done flexing his slammer muscles just yet, and professionals in the field are expecting a lot of growth from his efforts.
The one difficulty Rueban has yet to surpass is his feud with his cousin Yoshiya. As two powerhouse slammers from the same family group, the cousins seem rivals destined to battle for the fate of modern Tin Pin as we know it. Only time will tell which one will come out on top.