“I know your playstyle better than you do.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“…!”
That was when I became certain.
What Hinami was saying was probably true.
Even if I changed my attack pattern, she would come up with a precise strategy to deal with it, eliminating all my options.
While you shouldn’t ever be able to escape from the rock-paper-scissors element when reading each other, the match wore on while I had no way to gain an advantage.
How should I approach to make it work? I just couldn’t figure it out.
“…Fine, that’s just how I like it,” I said.
If she had seen through just about all my attack patterns.
Then the way out was to show her a method I’d never used before.
A move that Hinami couldn’t anticipate.
For that, I’d need knowledge and incredibly precise control. This wasn’t stringing random combos together on the fly or something like that; I was thinking up a strategy, which I usually did when I wasn’t playing the game. It was the sort of thought experiment I used to do before I met Kikuchi-san, in breaks when we were moving from one classroom to another. This time, I was doing it in an actual game.
I had to hit her with an attack pattern that I would normally never use.
There are many little tricks and secret techniques in Atafami, and there’s a number of incredibly difficult combos using those. But most of these are too hard to be worth it, or they have no realistic chance of success in a real match and are only for showing off.
So naturally, these are moves that nanashi would never have done before.
That was why NO NAME, with her obsession with logic, wouldn’t anticipate them.
I made my brain work faster. I had Jack’s movements in front of me, and Jack’s movements in my brain. Fortunately, since Hinami’s Boxman was a defensive character, she wouldn’t pull any attacks that I couldn’t handle while I was busy visualizing.
In a match with a top player, making a combo I’d never done in a real game succeed in just one try—that was a feat that no Atafami player could pull off.
But I’m different.
I’m nanashi.
Confidently, I switched directions in midair, found the right distance, then immediately went to a double jump and fired my gun.
✦ ✦ ✦
“—Yup, I knew it.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Hinami’s voice was filled with sadness, as if she’d anticipated this.
✦ ✦ ✦
“At a moment like this—nanashi would confidently choose the most difficult technique to execute.”
✦ ✦ ✦
My move should have been impossible to predict, and yet she handled it as if she’d seen the future.
“Listen, this time I’ve been off school, I’ve done nothing but play Atafami and watch Atafami videos.”
In the opening when Jack landed, Boxman slid in close.
“Your playstyle really was ideal. It was beautiful. You were aggressive, never running defensively, always going into mind games and winning them. Nobody else could do that.”
While I was still landing, Boxman’s combo starter slammed into Jack’s stomach.
“Nanashi’s playstyle is cool, ideal, and brilliant. That’s why I wanted to be like you before I even knew what was happening.”
Boxman just kept on firing that same strong attack in the same way.
Over and over, without changing a thing, he continued to swing.
“But you know…it wasn’t suited for me to imitate.”
Again and again and again. The technique ate away at Jack’s percentage with raw strength and nothing else.
“All I can do is win.”
I was unable to escape from her combo as the damage piled up.
“So while I was holed up at home, I abandoned looking good and abandoned my ideals. I focused just on winning. If I do that—”
Boxman’s attack hit Jack right where it hurt.
✦ ✦ ✦
“—then just winning is something I can do.”
✦ ✦ ✦
And so ended the final match.
“…”
Displayed on screen was Boxman, robotically celebrating, and Jack, falling to his knees in despair.
“You said before, didn’t you?” Hinami was expressionless, dispassionate. “‘Believe in nanashi, the one person you couldn’t beat,’ was it?” she said coldly, but with sorrow. “Now there’s no reason for me to believe in you. And no reason to believe in myself.”
I couldn’t say a thing.
Atafami was the one arena where I had always been able to win against Aoi Hinami.
“So I have to apologize to you for just one thing.” Hinami held down the power button of the game console, turning it off.
The TV screen went all black.
“…Apologize? What for?”
On the monitor, where only dim black appeared.
Only cold-blooded darkness was reflected in the awkward distance between Hinami and me.
“I was wrong from the start. From the day I met you in Omiya.”
And then she spat—
—as if she had been swallowed up by the curse that clung to her—
✦ ✦ ✦
“Life is a shit game.”