Chapter 1

PROLOGUE —Urban legends. These whispers traveling through the world, as countless as the stars, represent a kind of wish. —Like the urban legend that humans have never been to the moon. —Like the Freemason conspiracy hidden in the dollar bill. —Like the Philadelphia Experiment into time travel. The nuclear shelter on the Chiyoda Line, Area 51, the Roswell incident, etc.— Looking at these innumerable urban legends, one can see a clear pattern emerging. Namely…they are composed of a wish: “It sure would be cool!” It’s said that there’s no smoke without fire. But when you think about the nature of rumors and how a big fish gets embellished until it’s too big to even be a fish, you can see how these urban legends come to form. In short, they’re based on true stories but are not themselves true. To put it bluntly, they’re mostly BS. And yet they don’t quite deserve to be complained about, or even wondered about, really. Since ancient times, people have always preferred fate over coincidence beginning with the very fact that the birth of humanity was the product of astronomically unlikely coincidence. Thus, people wanted to think, from their instincts, from the rules they had experienced, that someone intentionally made humanity. That the world was made not of chaos, but of order. Imagining someone in the back pulling the strings, to find meaning in an absurd and unreasonable world…at the very least, wishing that it could be true. So, too, can it be said that urban legends are generally another product of this earnest wish. —So. There are urban legends numerous enough to light up the sky. What isn’t as well known is that some of them are actually true. —Just to be clear, this isn’t to say that any of the previously mentioned urban legends are true. It’s simply that there do exist urban legends emerging from a different principle. —For instance, a rumor too surreal to believe becoming an urban legend. Here is an example of such a rumor. It’s a rumor, whispered around earnestly on the Internet, of a gamer named “ ” (Blank). They say he holds unbeatable records in the online rankings for over 280 games. That there’s a gamer who’s swept up all the world’s top ranks with his player name “ ”. You probably think, “No way.” Of course, that’s what everyone thinks. The hypothesis they’ve come up with is simple: That it’s become a trendy convention among game devs to just leave their names as a space in the rankings for their games so people wouldn’t know who they were, and it isn’t an actual player—. Yet, bizarrely, people keep on claiming that they’ve actually played him. They say he’s unbeatable. They say he’s shut out chess programs that have even beaten grandmasters. They say his play style defies common sense and is impossible to read. They say they used tools and cheat codes and they still lost. They say…they say…they say—. Those who are even a little interested in such rumors probe deeper. Why? It’s simple. If he has the top online ranks in console games, PC games, and social network games, then he must have an account. If he exists, then you should be able to look at his history. But there’s no way such a person could actually—. —And they sneer and search—and there’s the trap. Because there actually is a user registered with the name “ ” on every console, on every SNS, and anyone can see “ ”’s history: and there can be found a number of trophies that could literally be expressed as “countless.” Because “ ”’s match records list not a single loss. —And so the plot thickens. Even though the facts are solid, the rumor becomes even more unbelievable. “It’s a hacker who’s erased his loss records.” “It’s a gamer group that invites only the best players.” —Etc., etc. Thus, a new urban legend is slowly born. —On the other hand, in this case, some of the blame does lie with the party who originated the rumor: “ ”. After all, he has an account; he’s been given his place to speak. Yet he says not a word and responds to no contact. Since he releases not so much as a byte of information, everything about him except that he’s Japanese is a mystery. No one knows his face—and this is yet another factor that accelerates the growth of an urban legend. —And so. —It’s time for an introduction. This is it. The uncontested king of the global rankings for over 280 games. The legendary gamer who continues to make unbeatable records. “ ”—in the flesh—! “……Ah…I’m gonna die; I’m gonna die… Ah, I died… Come on…Res me already!” “…Slurp… I guess…it was too hard to use two mice with my feet…” “What, just res me already—Hey, no fair, little sister! I haven’t eaten anything in three days, and here you are leisurely slurping instant noodles—in the middle of a battle!” “…Brother, you want some…? We’ve got some CalorieMate…” “CalorieMate is for the bourgeois; who’s gonna eat that? Just res me!” “…Sip… Mm, sure.” Shvaa…pwing! “Righto, props… Wait, what time is it?” “…Uh…still, eight o’clock in the middle of the night…” “Eight a.m. is the middle of the night? That’s a new way of looking at it, my sister. What day is it?” “…Dunno…it’s my first, second—fourth, cup of noodles…so, I guess, fourth?” “No, no, my sister, I didn’t mean the number of days we’ve been up. I mean what day of what month?” “…You…don’t have a job… What does it matter?” “It matters! There are events on online games and tournaments!” —This young man and girl enjoying their online game spoke across the room without bothering with eye contact. The room was—probably big enough for sixteen tatami mats. Pretty big. But, with the countless consoles, four PCs each—eight total, along with the wiring that snaked around the floor with a modern art–like complexity, the opened game boxes, and the scattered noodle cups and plastic bottles they called “rations,” there wasn’t enough space left in the room to feel the original size. In the pale light of the LED displays they had chosen, like true gamers, for their fast refresh rate and the faint glimmer of the long-risen sun through the blackout curtains…they conversed. “…Brother, aren’t you gonna…get a job?” “—Well, are you gonna go to school today?” “…” “…” They spoke no further. The brother: Sora (“Sky”/“Empty”). Eighteen, unemployed, virgin, unpopular, socially incompetent, video game vegetable. A young man with messy black hair, in jeans and a T-shirt, looking just the part of a shut-in. The sister: Shiro (“White”). Eleven, truant, friendless, bullied, socially phobic, video game vegetable. A girl who, with her pure white hair, looked far too unlike him to be related, hair which still dangled low and apparently uncared-for, covering her face as she sat in an elementary school sailor uniform she hadn’t worn outside the house since she’d switched schools. The characters for their names put together spelled Kuuhaku: “Blank.”