I parted my lips slightly and began to steady my rough breathing.
Hee- Hoo-
With each inhale and exhale, a clear and beautiful voice penetrates my ears.
“…”
The diction that sounds like a voice actor giving their all in a performance coming out as everyday speech, and the first-person view of a beautifully sculpted body with weighty breasts rising and falling, have become familiar now.
It’s been a year already.
Since I started living as a game character.
And the time I spent growing stronger while competing with the strongest character.
-Another draw.
-Next time, I’ll definitely win.
Today, we promised to settle the score in a fighting tournament with all academy students participating.
The arena built with the latest solid alloy materials.
Until recently, it had the appearance of a sacred temple.
Now it was full of unsightly craters and scratches tens of meters in radius.
Of course, these were traces from my duel with her.
The finals of the fighting tournament.
The cheers of tens of thousands of spectators gathered here were gone. A silence as if time had stopped. The students were just quietly holding their breath, witnessing the conclusion of this fight.
Sweat drips from tightly clenched hands.
Without touching the desserts brought to share with friends.
They were just watching in awe.
One question that many female students of the academy city have had over the years:
[Who is the strongest student in the history of <Academy City Yord>?]
A debate that initially started with discussing profound principles, but escalated into emotional arguments leading to fistfights in dessert shops and cafes. Such a trivial topic with no clear answer.
Perhaps at this moment.
They think they might witness the answer to that debate.
The aura emanating from the fists of the two contestants facing each other in the center of the arena. The power contained there was more than enough to discuss the strongest in the history of the academy city.
‘Well, actually, I’m the only one with clenched fists.’
During the lull in the fight as we caught our breath,
I shook off the leisurely thought that had briefly entered my mind.
“Hoo, hoo…”
“Huu, hah…”
Unable to easily launch an attack due to the thought that this might be the final exchange, my opponent was in the same situation. We watch each other’s movements, waiting for the moment when breathing falters.
One hit for you.
One hit for me.
Then, who succeeds in landing that one hit becomes crucial.
I admired my opponent’s breathing, which was quickly stabilizing.
‘As expected of the strongest, her breathing has already recovered.’
[Azure Lightning Lance] Brunhilde.
A first-year student at <Aesir Girls’ High School>.
Her appearance two years before appearing in the game’s story.
A girl who had grown stronger fighting with me as peers over the past year.
‘According to the original setting, she had no match until her third year, the time of the main story. Maybe this version of her now, having fought and grown stronger with me, is closer to that state.’
Brunhilde.
The strongest character in the mobile game I used to play.
She was steadying her breath with a fierce light in her eyes.
Despite her slender figure with silver-white cold hair, the aura emanating from the lance she held was ominous.
“…”
The silver-white girl, whom close friends call ‘Hilde’ for short, unusually spoke during the fight.
“…Lara.”
“My, how unusual☆”
“…”
“Hilde wanting to chat during a fight… Did you feel like having some girl talk?”
I clearly thought ‘Hilde, what’s the matter?’ in my head, but ever since I woke up as the damn perverted ‘Clara’, the pretty filter in my head has been arbitrarily altering my lines.
But I was okay with it.
Isn’t conversation something that happens in the heart?
I firmly believed that true girls’ talk takes place amidst blood and sweat.
‘You seem in a good mood today.’
The blue of the sky had seeped into Hilde’s silver-white eyes, giving them a lively appearance like blue roses.
The brightest light I’d seen in her eyes over the past year.
Except for ‘the final moment in the game’s main story’…
She was showing a cheerfully smiling face for the first time.
Hilde spoke with that lively smile:
“Thank you, Lara. For remaining unbroken over the past year.”
“Ohoho. It’s nothing. And they were all draws anyway―☆”
“Over the years, those who faced me all either gave up or worshipped me.”
“Well, Hilde is an admirable girl that anyone would look up to―☆”
I tried to say ‘What years are you talking about at barely over ten years old?’, but the pretty filter activated again and distorted the content.
“It was lonely days. I even lamented my talent for not finding an opponent, thinking it was a curse given by God.”
“…”
“I’m glad I met you.”
“Hehe.”
“Thanks to you, at this moment…”
Tap!
Hilde, having completely steadied her breathing. She lightly stepped forward and shot in like a bullet.
“I felt alive―!!!”
Rumble―!!
The arena floor cracks several meters with each step. And making threatening sounds throughout her body, she advances at the speed of lightning.
Under the skirt of the approaching silver-white girl.
The scenery unfolding was a wave of rocks crushed by force.
It was a storm of lightning constantly raging around.
The blue and white girl was approaching like the king of storms, with a scene of destruction behind her.
Suddenly-
All vision flows slowly.
A topic is thrown into my mind.
Beyond the unconscious, a white light is twinkling.
What shines at this moment under the hot sun?
Is it the moment when a girl living her youth shines like lightning?
Is it the fortune of having the chance to prove one’s strength in a game?
Or is it realizing what is truly precious from an overwhelming love?
In the time made up of moments, all these things were shining brilliantly together… I couldn’t know exactly.
But.
One thing I could know.
If I miss this brilliance.
I might regret it for the rest of my life.
‘Then…’
Let’s welcome it with open arms.
Not as the game character ‘Clara’.
But as ‘Lara’ who has grown as Hilde’s rival for a year.
In this miraculous moment transcending past and present lives.
Let’s enjoy the fight already happening here.
As a gamer, let’s consider it fate to have the opportunity to become a game character myself, grow, and compete as a rival with the one I admired.
Just fight.
And definitely win.
With such determination, I clenched my fists and shouted.
“Ultimate technique…!”
What I deploy by extending both fists is the culmination of the skills I’ve trained over the past year.
[Pink Lemon Sherbet]
With the shout, pink ether thrashes in the air, spreading out in heart shapes. Pink hearts filling the surroundings like cherry blossom petals falling on a bright spring day.
They approach in irregular curves, not straight lines, like the playful steps of pure children.
Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap―
The numerous hearts gathering into fists with a deflating sound.
In the ‘game’, it was the remnant of the weakest humorous skill that dealt weak damage over a wide area. A joke-like skill created with playful intent because it was just a meme character to be laughed off.
The pink hearts slowly begin to rotate, becoming a huge vortex.
Tsutsutsutsu―
But if you can gather them in one place.
Change the force that should be scattered in all directions into a flow.
If you can change it into a pink spiral torrent flowing through your fists.
The joke can become a terror beyond laughter.
The ultimate technique created by putting everything into it that had been stuck as the weakest comedy character, ‘Clara’…
[Pink Lemon Sherbet]
Although the name arose due to the pretty filter full of estrogen components. I affirmed it. Because I accepted the changed parts as part of myself too.
Kiiiiing―!!
A huge spiral of pink hearts originating from the fists. The wind creates a violent storm within a radius of hundreds of meters.
Holding a pink natural disaster in hand, I take a big step forward.
I too have become a spiral storm
A wave walking on the earth.
In a moment of time.
The azure lightning storm and the pink heart spiral collide.
Impact.
There was light where the two girls met.
Boooom―!!!!
“Huaaaaa!!”
“Haaaaat!!”
A pillar of light spreading hundreds of meters outward.
This is a battlefield where azure and pink flashes meet.
The wind pressure created where the pink torrent and blue lightning clash.
The raging torrent at the point where two warriors standing on the battlefield collide.
Gooooooo―!!!!
In the center of the arena wider than a soccer field.
I could feel everything within a radius of several kilometers trembling due to the raging torrent of force.
At this moment, a typhoon was blowing somewhere in Academy City Yord.
Crack!
Crack!
Even fragments of force bouncing off the collision point break the solid alloy floor and fly off. Debris several meters in size rises up like a dragon following the spiral of force.
“Kuh…!”
I woke up one day to find I had become a beautiful girl in a mobile game.
After experiencing a not-so-pleasant academy life for a year, starting as the weakest character and facing numerous hardships.
But I finally made it here.
“Haat…!”
If the flame in my heart hasn’t gone out.
If I clench my fists and look up at the sky.
If I stand firm on two legs on the ground.
Then let’s make a manly resolution.
I came running to see the outcome of the match with the last bit of selfishness.
Even if I lose.
Isn’t it enough that the sky, the earth, and myself are watching all the efforts of the past years?
Let go, let go of everything in my heart.
Amidst the fierce collision, I emptied my mind of the tens of thousands of spectators gathered in this arena, the hundreds of competitors, all of them. I focused only on the opponent in front of me, on the silver-white girl who was clashing with me with all her sincerity.
Silver-white hair swaying in the wind.
I focused only on defeating the girl who was enjoying this fight with all her might.
Soundless
Thoughtless
Formless
Unable to withstand the impact of the collision, blood flows backwards.
Forcibly swallowing the rising bile and blood beyond my throat, an agony like scraping my throat with sandpaper comes in waves.
‘Then let’s erase even the pain.’
Around the time I erased even the pain from my mind, I saw only white space in front of me, not a battlefield. A white space where everything had been erased, bleached away.
When I felt like only I remained in the white space.
‘Ah…’
I could feel it.
You were there too.
“…Hilde.”
Hilde was also looking at me in this extreme white space.
“…Lara.”
We faced each other in this extreme cognitive space that no one gathered here knows about.
A miracle-like enlightenment that those living in this world might reach once in a lifetime if they train their whole life.
Wuji.
The two girls who reached there faster than anyone smiled with pure emotion.
At this moment, we instinctively felt that we had reached the strongest position one could reach in this world by oneself.
And felt an irresistible joy that it was each other who had reached there together.
-Hehe.
-Puhehe…
-Hahaha!
-Huhuhu!
The calm eye of the typhoon.
The white realm like eternity.
The thrilling laughter of two girls who reached there one step ahead.
We will never forget this moment.
You and I.
At this moment.
Could dare to say.
[I am the strongest.]
Baaaaang―!!!
Dazzling flash.
That moment that felt like eternity passed. As the colors of the world return, I’m sucked into the clashing storm.
The verdict finally revealed.
What I saw before my eyes… was my outstretched fist touching Hilde’s chest beyond her lance.
“…La…ra.”
“…Hilde.”
Hilde called my name one last time, and fainted standing in the posture of thrusting her lance.
[The winner!! The winner is Clara of <Central Prism Academy>!!]
[[Pink Spiral] Clara student!!]
[The strongest new student and the undefeated genius!! The one who defeated [Azure Lightning Lance] Brunhilde of <Aesir Girls’ High School>!!]
[<Central Prism Academy> representative!! [Pink Spiral] Clara!!! She has become the strongest student in the academy fighting tournament!!]
-Waaaaaaaa―!!
The cheers of the crowd approaching as if about to burst the air deafen my ears.
“…Haah.”
I sighed with relief and regret. Then I carefully laid the fainted Hilde down, and said in a small voice, ‘It was a good match.’
“…You looked very cute☆”
“…”
Of course, the pretty filter distorted my words to the end.
I gently stroked Hilde’s hair as she lay unconscious.
My rival.
My opponent.
Finally defeated.
“…”
“…”
But our match was over here.
‘Because from now on, it’s not just our story anymore.’
The story that will come in 2 years from now… In the main story of the game, Clara of <Central Prism Academy> must be the last foolish senior student of a failing school. That’s how the story can flow to perfectly protect this academy city we love.
With such regret and relief, I said to the unconscious Hilde:
“It was really a great match at the end☆ Thank you Hilde. I’m glad I met you too.”
“…”
‘May you continue on that path of the strongest… my eternal rival.’
Leaving the cheers of the crowd behind.
I gradually suppressed the fighting spirit in my heart and left the arena.
* * *
“…Don’t go.”
* * *
The realm of Wuji became a secret kept only by the two strong ones.
When the legendary battle and the alias [Pink Spiral] became a vague memory remembered only by the third-year students of the academy city.
The story began.