'ARCANE SYSTEMS – The long awaited class-based virtual reality game is finally out of beta.'
A boy with long, black, untidy and unkempt hair and pale skin was looking at his phone. He tapped it a few times and set it aside.
"It's finally out. There will be a huge influx of new players in the next few days. I was getting bored of playing against the same people over and over."
He put a helmet-like device on his head, walked to his bed and laid down.
"These devices are so scary. What if it blows up on my head while I am in-game."
Soon he found himself in his usual training area surrounded by training dummies and targets.
"Let's train for a bit and then stomp some noobs," he said, his lips curling into a smile. "There should be a lot of them; today is the launch day after all."
A list of his recently played classes popped up in front of him. He selected his beloved 'Spectral Ninja' class. He was one of the best, if not the best, player of that class. The class was not particularly powerful, and all the techniques for this class should be created by the player personally. And if this is done properly, it has the potential to wipe the floor with your opponent of almost any class; so, this class had a very high skill ceiling.
He was very bad with the class in the first two years of his playing it. But he stuck with it cause it reminded him of an anime he saw online. An anime that was very popular 100 years ago. Playing this class feels like he was transported into his beloved anime. His starting class was just 'Ninja' and it gradually evolved over time into the current 'Spectral Ninja'.
The game has been in beta for 7 years. And finally today it was out of beta and released for everyone. Reminiscing about all the time he spent watching the anime and making his own techniques based on it, he continued training. After training for a while he queued for 1 vs 1 fights.
He didn't have to wait long before—
[MATCH FOUND]
[Accept | Reject]
[Auto-accept in 5 seconds.]
—was displayed in front of him.
And then the timer ticked—
[5… 4… 3… 2… 1… 0]
—down to 0.
"Alright. Let's get this over with."
The boy's avatar dissolved and then reformed in the player vs player arena.
He saw his opponent on the other end of the arena.
His opponent was lazily leaning on a trident stabbed into the ground. The trident was blood red in color. Both sides of his head were shaven. In the middle was a long strip of dull gray hair styled into spikes. There was a ferocious air about him.
'Is that a mohawk?'
Squinting his eyes he focused on the opponents status and used inspect:
[Player: Jashin666]
[Class: Apex Sanguine Ritualist]
[Description: N/A]
[Innate Abilities: Rituals are completed as soon as the prerequisite materials are obtained. The player doesn't need to perform any additional ceremonies.]
'666? I seem to have run into an edgelord. Let's look at his class… umm… What? Apex Sanguine Ritualist? And why is the class description empty? I cannot recall any class with that name. Is that a new class released today?'
He took a deep breath and calmed down.
'Alright. Let's see how my class 'Spectral Ninja' fares against that. This guy doesn't look like a new player. And I don't know anything about that class. Oh heck, I don't even know what a 'ritual' means. I might have to go all out from the outset.'
Then there was an announcement:
[The match starts in… 3… 2… 1… Start!]
***
Hagoromo Otsutsuki POV:
Unbeknownst to either of them, a figure was floating in the sky and observing them. He was an old person with pale-skin, deep wrinkles on his face, and the most striking feature was his eyes. And he had three of them. The third one was on his forehead. The one on the forehead was red colored and the other ones were pale purple colored and all of them had black circles in the sclera surrounding the pupil.
Hagoromo watched as the boy with the long, black hair in white robes and light armor with a katana charged at the gray haired man in black robes with the trident.
'Oh.This world is very interesting. I can focus on someone and see all sorts of information about them. Let's see… who is this kid?'
[Player: Kagutsuchi]
[Class: Spectral Ninja]
[Description: A class focused on stealth. Has many abilities to aid in subterfuge. One of the few classes with the 'mana' mechanic.]
[Innate Abilities: Can use 'mana' to create original techniques. Class related techniques are easier to create.]
Hagoromo watched as Kagutsuchi used his mana to create many mirror images of himself mid-charge and lunged at his opponent.
'I see. Whatever these people call mana seems to be similar in function to 'chakra'. And these techniques are a bit similar to the ninjutsu created by Indra.'
Jashin666 finally got into an offensive stance and raised his trident to his shoulder level and parallel to the ground. He started rotating on the spot and his speed increased dramatically the moment Kagutsuchi and his images closed in on him.
Once Jashin666 struck all the images, he stopped spinning and jumped away from the images keeping an eye on all of them and waited for the images to disappear and the real one to show itself.
Sure enough, three of the four images vanished in a puff of smoke and the fourth one was struggling to stand up.
Without wasting a second, Jashin666 launched himself toward Kagutsuchi and raised his trident. But before he could strike him down, Kagutsuchi suddenly stood up and jumped towards Jashin as well and parried the blow with his katana sheathed in lightning.
'Oh. That's a good application of lightning. Uses very little chakra—or rather 'mana' as they call it—and probably always succeeds the first time it is used against someone.'
Jashin666 was caught off guard as his body went numb. Kagutsuchi did not let this opportunity go to waste. He drove his fist squarely into his opponent's chest. The impact knocked the breath from the man's lungs and toppled him over.
Just as Jashin666 was about to hit the ground Kagutsuchi turned on his heel and circled around, wrapping his right arm around his opponent's neck, and then grabbed his own shoulder on the opposite side. He then placed his left hand behind his opponent's head and jumped and wrapped his legs around him. And then both of them fell to the ground, with Jashin666 locked in a choke hold and immobilized.
By the time Jashin666 got his bearings and was about to deal with Kagutsuchi, a towering wave of fire crashed towards them and completely engulfed both of them inside it and continued raging around them.
It was unknown what was happening inside.
After what felt like an eternity, the flames gradually disappeared. A charred form slowly stood up and emerged from the burnt ground with great difficulty and looked into the sky towards a gradually descending figure clothed in white robes.
As it turned out, the one who held Jashin666 down for the fire attack was just an image which was imbued with a much greater amount of mana than the other three while the real one disappeared into the sky to prepare for the fire attack.
Jashin666's face was twisted with rage. "Human you will pay for harming me, Jashin. I am…"
But Jashin666 was never able to complete his sentence, as the moment Kagutsuchi reached the ground he used all his mana to perform a short range teleport—one of the most mana expensive moves—next to his opponent and drove his katana to the hilt into his heart.
Hagoromo frowned. 'Masterfully executed. The initial fake clone, the lightning technique, immobilizing the opponent for the fire ninjutsu, were all just a setup for the final teleport ninjutsu. That final all-in move would have been a sure kill against anyone else. A shame, really.'
Kagutsuchi was confused. The match should have ended. After all, his opponent's HP has dropped to zero. He double checked that. But, still it didn't end. His opponent's body didn't disappear.
Suddenly, Jashin666 shot his head forward, bit into Kagutsuchi's neck, and tore off a good chunk of flesh and swallowed it while being bathed in crimson blood. Then he once again bit into his neck and started sucking the blood dripping from the neck.
A sharp pain surged through his neck as the teeth pierced through his skin.
This sent a wave of panic through Kagutsuchi. No matter what kind of attack you have suffered from, you would only lose HP. Some attacks apply a debuff on you and may immobilize you or poison you or blind you.
But not the pain. Never the pain.
It felt as real as having suffered it in real life.
He struggled to break free, but his body wasn't listening to him. With each passing moment, the world was blurring around him. He felt he was getting close to being unconscious, which was not supposed to happen.
Wanting to break free from his opponent at any cost, he opened his inventory and summoned his most lethal 'Blast Sphere' between them and instantly activated it.
With a deafening roar, the item detonated, sending a blinding flash of light across the battlefield. A shockwave rippled outwards, uprooting the battlefield and sending both of them flying away from each other. Smoke and flames engulfed the area for a long time.
The smoke and flames gradually disappeared. Kagutsuchi lay collapsed on the ground with a shocked expression. Even though his HP also dropped to zero, the match did not end with him as the loser as was supposed to be. He didn't know what was happening anymore. Furthermore, the explosion from the item did not cause any pain—after all, actions in game shouldn't cause one pain.
Jashin666 finally got up on the other side of the battlefield. A wicked smile was plastered on his face. He made a hand sign and his skin turned black with white bone-like markings all over it.
"Human. Now you shall pay the price for injuring me, Jashin," he roared, and then a hint of madness appeared in his eyes. "Be happy human. You are the first sacrifice to me in this world. With this I will be able to step out into the real world." His goal was almost within reach, he could almost taste the freedom.
"I will soon spread Jashinism in this world as well. I will finally acquire power to rival the Sage of Six Paths. I will no longer have to life in fear of being discovered by him. Haha…" Jashin666 yelled, and looked into the. One more step. Just one more, and he will be free.
Once Kagutsuchi's opponent said 'Sage of Six Paths', he recalled he heard that name and even his opponent's name in the anime he watched. But that was just a story. That was not real. This was not happening. He refused to believe Jashinism was real.
By now Kagutsuchi was paralyzed and could not even move, much less speak. He never felt as helpless as he was now. He could not even bring forth the menu to logout. He could only resign himself to his fate and hopefully wake up from this bad dream.
Jashin finally stopped laughing and looked at Kagutsuchi and licked the crimson blood around his mouth. He made a hand sign and the effect was instant. Kagutsuchi literally blew up like a bomb. However, it was an explosion of blood, not of fire. All of this blood flew toward Jashin. The moment it got close enough to touch, his body absorbed it.
Kagutsuchi was dead—and this death was not just in game. Jashin looked into the sky and once again started laughing.
***
Hagoromo sighed. 'It was a shame that he had to run into Jashin, of all people.'
Hagoromo form flickered and he disappeared from the sky and the next moment he was in front of Jashin and waved his shakujo.
Jashin didn't do much more than stop laughing and look at Hagoromo in shock before he was incinerated without even being able to put up a struggle. And all that was left of him was a pile of ashes.
Hagoromo took a deep breath and sighed in relief. He finally got rid of this plague called Jashin. He lost count of how many times Jashin escaped just in the nick of time, and the last time was particularly embarrassing for Hagoromo—he severed Jashin's head, and even gave him a proper burial.
Huff.
Hagoromo had never looked into Jashinism, or he would have known how big of a blunder his action was. He should have erased any trace of his existence the first time, and now an innocent life and been lost; a life that wasn't even a part of, nor had any karmic tie to Hagoromo's world.
And he—Hagoromo Otsutsuki, a god—had to use this innocent life to get rid of a greater evil. He was ashamed of himself in this moment. However, it was the only way left for him—he had to wait until this boy was killed.
He looked at what was left of Kagutsuchi and bowed to him. 'Forgive me, Kagutsuchi, for not being able to save you. I wanted to kill Jashin once and for all. And in this world, he has yet to commit a crime. And I can't kill someone without them accumulating the sin of killing an innocent life. If I stopped him now, I would have been left with no choice but to let him escape and I don't know when I will be able to find him again, if at all.'
He fell silent for a long time and looked up into the sky seemingly contemplating something.
'But it is also true that you are dead because of my world's problems. And I am responsible for my world. So, it stands to reason that I should reward you for helping me solve one of my world's biggest problems.'
Hagoromo once again looked at Kagutsuchi. 'I have decided to reincarnate your soul in my world. I am going to wipe your memories of this world before doing that, since that is one of the rules of reincarnation when one's soul is reborn in another world.'
Hagoromo waved his shakujo and Kagutsuchi's body started glowing and then disappeared. And after a few seconds the entire battlefield glowed and disappeared as well, leaving Hagoromo to standing in a blank void.
Hagoromo paused. 'And finally, I should wipe my memories of this world as well, since that was the condition under which I was allowed to follow Jashin here. I am going to wipe my memory of everything that happened after I left my world, including the fact the I even left my world. I am going to implant a new memory that I was able to corner Jashin in my world and kill him without any incident.'
Hagoromo lifted his shakujo. 'May you find happiness and contentment in your new life, Kagutsuchi.'
He closed his eyes and he waved his shakujo for the third time and after manipulating his memories, he disappeared as well.