[March 22, 2023]

As the sun rose from the horizon, its rays peaked into a small window of a certain room. The bookshelves being thoroughly scanned by the sunlight. The chirping of the birds outside rung into the room's window as a couple of sparrows passed by.

For a medium-sized room, it was very cozy as a single coffee table sat in the bedroom next to a shiny pod that would sparkle when light bounced off the plastic exterior. Posters of different animes and characters were stuck on the walls next to a desk, and on top of that desk was a white helmet decorated with cherry petal motifs, while the name 'Sakura Blast' was written on the front of the gear.

At the corner of the room, a bed held a small figure above it while it released soft snores one after the other. This was no other than Shuko Takamura. She herself wore nothing but light pajamas and her hair was nothing short of a bird's nest.

This was the result of her staying up all night playing VR, although her body may not have been physically tired, her mental state was still fatigued over having to control a body. She was up until 12 AM when she decided to finally log out to get some sleep.

Eventually, the alarm next to her bed went off like an annoying fire alarm. Since she was deep in her sleep, it took her about five minutes to even dare turn the clock off by pulling away from the outlet beneath her bed. Now that she had been woken up, the girl stretched her arms then groaned. Hearing a few cracks from her stiff back.

By this point, she was still yawning while she looked at the mirror in the bathroom as she prepared herself to go to school. Her toothbrush almost fell into the toilet because of her carelessness. Meanwhile, her mother called out to her from the kitchen, "Shuko! Breakfast is ready, get down here or you'll be late!" Shouted her mom from below.

Walking down the stairs, headed to the kitchen, Shuko nose was bombarded by the strong scent of coffee and pancakes. There, she saw her brother already stuffing his face with as many pancakes as possible while their mom was about to walk out the front door dressed in her usual business suit, "I might get home late today, don't forget to take Fuji to school and if I'm not home and you're both hungry, just microwave some food from the fridge," as usual, their mother dumped all of this information onto Shuko, while she was just about to take a bite of her breakfast.

"Love you, mom!" Fuji yelled as their mom exited the door.

"Love you too!" Smiled their mother as she peeked from behind the door. She shut the door close and the sound of their car leaving the front can be heard as their mother drove away.

Left alone by themselves, Shuko looked at the kid eating, unlike his older sister, Takamura Fujimaru had black hair like their mother. The only thing the two of them had in common was their eyes, both having the color of hazel.

Noticing how messy her brother's cheeks were from eating breakfast, she took out some napkins then wiped off the excess food all over the kid's face, "Sheesh, the food won't be running away you know," she commented.

"Hey Onee-chan," Fuji started which in turn cause the girl to turn silent to listen, "I heard the Crusaders won again, cool right?" He directed a grin to his sister. The young girl immediately pulled the boy in for a tight hug.

"Really? What happened then?" She played along with her brother's stories while eating. Fuji's eyes sparkled while recalling the series of events that he saw yesterday, he even mimicked a few actions which he found cool, he went with words like, woosh! Swaboosh! And Slice!

Shuko was more than entertained watching her brother speak so enthusiastically, mid-sentence, Shuko pulled her brother's head then hugged him while saying, "Please don't change, ever, stay in this cute form forever," the female nuzzled her cheeks against her brother's.

After their small banter, the two of them finally head off to school and began walking.

•∆•

The sky was clear and the sun was still rising, a cool breeze brushed against the sibling's cheeks as they walked past the sideway by the road. Thankfully, their house was not too far away from their schools, although they go to separate schools, both of which are not too far apart.

Their first stop was by Fuji's school where Shuko had to drop him off while staring at him from the gate. She can only watch from a distance, seeing the smile on her brother's face while he runs towards his friends.

Adjusting her shoulder bag as she was just about to take her leave when a voice called to her from behind and made her look back, "Heading to school?" The girl turned around behind her and saw a young teenage boy with dusty blonde hair and a pair of glasses. She knew this person and smiled upon seeing them. Tateo Komiya, a close friend of Shuko Takamura.

"Good morning Tateo-kun, are you here to drop off Asumi-chan?" She asked. The young man nodded while looking at one of the students walking towards the school building, which was his sister. Fuji, Shuko's little brother, exchanged words between him and Asumi as they entered the building.

"Good morning to you too Shuko-san," he greeted her. The two of them decided to walk to school together as they exchanged stories with one another. "Congrats on winning the finals by the way," Tateo congratulated which earned a chuckle from the girl.

"So you were watching the fight yesterday?" Asked the girl as they crossed the road along with some other students.

The lad replied, "Yeah, Shuu forced me to watch it along with Chainiki-san."

Shuko sympathized with him using a crooked smile, "I'm not surprised. Those two don't take no as an answer." Chuckled the girl.

Along their way to school, they went past a few people chatting. The topic was about Shuko's tournament and how her team won, her ear would twitch at the sound of people commenting about her skills. Shuko peered her head from around the corner with a curious glance, while oblivious about her presence, the other students exchanged dialogues about yesterday's recent events which were shown on Live TV.

"Dude! The Crusaders won the Celestial Cup, ain't that a surprise?" Student number 1 said with a proud grin while facing his classmate.

Student number 2 scratched the back of his head, "Was it good? I wasn't able to watch it yesterday thanks to my family." Groaned the student.

"Oh my- you should've seen it! The power duo managed to pull a clutch against three people," the student's story was a bit exaggerated as some of the details were not what they did, Shuko didn't mind though.

"Ahhh! Dammit! I should have watched it," frustrated, student number 2 ruffled his hair thanks to his friend's story.

"On another note, since they won I guess they're going to have to leave again," student number 1's tone suddenly turned into disappointment, "Now I guess we'll just have to wait until they announce what game they're going to play next."

"Right, they had that code thing that they follow. Honestly, I don't understand their group's codes and stuff," student number 2 recalled about the golden code of the Crusaders, it was an icon for Shuko's team after all so everyone would have at least heard about it.

"Once on top..." The two said simultaneously while Shuko listened from the corner. "Find another stage." They both finished in a slightly disheartening tone.

Hearing those words coming out from other people, Shuko felt her heart take a dip. She did enjoy playing Celestial Cup: Online, she really did. Those memories of her grinding, crafting her own unique weapons, and heck, even the times she died because of carelessness, she missed those.

But even if she wanted to go back and play that game again, she still has her team's code which she has to follow. How many times has she felt this way, she wonders? Out of the twenty VR games that they dominated for two years, she still hasn't gotten used to the feeling of abandoning those games. The empty feeling of leaving behind all that progress was painful enough for her.

The girl couldn't think any further as a finger pressed against her cheek slowly while a voice said, "Boop," from behind her. She smacked the hand away looking flustered at the lad behind her. "Chill," the person said in a nonchalant tone as they buried their hands into their pockets.

"I told you she would get angry," Komiya chuckled beside the person. They had black spiky hair which was long and unkempt, a pair of bags under their eyes, and a loose necktie dangling around their neck.

"Stop doing that, it gets irritating fast," the female glared while looking up to their face. It was hard being a few heads shorter and trying to glare at someone taller than you. The person in question was referred to as Kobayashi Shuu, another friend of Shuko's.

"Morning Komiya, so how's your day?" Shuu ignored the shorty in front of him by engaging in some conversation with his bro, Komiya.

"Good morning too, Shuu," Komiya replied. "Heading to school, I presume?"

"Pretty sharp of you Mr. Obvious," Shuu shot back with a grin. Then from out of the blue, Shuu seemed to realize something and redirected his tired eyes at the shorty in front of him, "Oh yeah, nice job on winning," he congratulated.

"Yeah, thanks," she replied as they walked to the campus.

The school building was huge, many cherry trees had started to bloom as they walked under them. Petals would fall along with the wind and get carried through the current, many pink petals littered the sidewalk as the trio passed the entrance of the school.

Girls would shoot glances at Komiya as they walked through the halls. It was an uneasy feeling but luckily, Shuu and Shuko had grown to adapt to these types of occurrences most of their days along with Komiya. It wasn't a surprise for someone like Komiya to gather people's attention since he, himself was a role model and was the student body president even though he was just a second-year.

Shuko noticed a few girls glaring at her at the corner of her eye while walking along with Shuu, and not only that. Shuu received his fair share of eyes giving him cold stares, asking the question, "Why is he here?" Among themselves.

Shuko and Shuu bundled together as they distanced themselves from Komiya who was radiating unnecessary charisma through the atmosphere. "Hey guys, wait up!" Komiya shouted while the two began walking faster in front of him before Komiya can even catch up, a swarm of girls flocked around him as they greeted him a well morning.

Due to his natural good nature, Komiya said good morning to them one by one, eventually losing sight of Shuu and Shuko who both had vanished from around the corner. "You guys..." He muttered to himself while a dozen more females greeted him blocking his path.

Meanwhile, Shuko sighed in relief as they reached their classroom, "Finally." She said to herself as Shuu stepped to the side as if avoiding something.

To Shuko's surprise, a pair of hands clasped her cheeks as another female looked at her, "Why didn't you reply yesterday!? I sent like, a hundred emails!" The girl bombarded Shuko with questions, mostly about why she didn't pick up her phone.

"I wash...pwaying..." Shuko explained in a muffled voice while the hands squished her cheeks in a circular motion. The girl had orange hair along with amber-colored eyes, she also had a taller frame unlike Shuko and a pair of...assets which made her quite the looker. "Can wou...stwop?"

"Not until you stop being mad at me," Chainiki Chiyo pouted.

"I'm not angry! I was busy!" Shuko snapped after taking off Chiyo's hands off her face. Her face hurt after that as both turned cherry red.

The oranged-hair female pulled Shuko into a hug, but because of Shuko's height, her face was buried into Chiyo's chest as the female sighed, "Thank goodness, I thought you were ignoring me or something."

"I wasn't, it was just because I was busy," Shuko pulled out from the hug and went to place her things on her desk. Beside her was Shuu who had his head on his desk while trying to sleep. "Good morning by the way," she told Chiyo.

"Mornin' I hear you won, good job!" She cheered while taking a seat beside her.

"Yeah, it was more of a close call than a win per se," the girl sheepishly scratched her cheek with her pointer finger.

"So that means you'll move to another game, right?" Chiyo blatantly asked as she proceeded to poke fun at Shuu's sleeping face.

Shuko sighed, "Yes, but I haven't decided on what to play next." She said while watching Chiyo playing with a marker in her hand as she doodled on Shuu's face, "Are you even listening?"

"Yeah, I heard you," she placed the cap on the marker then turned to Shuko with a grin. "If you're interested, my father was going to announce a new game to the public today, I can give you the game if you want."

Hearing that, Shuko was definitely hooked from the looks of it. Chiyo smirked as she saw Shuko making a serious stare, hook, line, and sinker, "What's the game about?" She asked.

Tapping her chin, Chiyo shrugged, "Just your typical RPG game, swords, and magic, the whole thing, I think it was called Gaia Battle Front or something."

Shuko raised an eyebrow at this. A new game? And it's an RPG? How come she hasn't heard of it? "Oh yeah, I also heard from one of the testers that it was very brutal since dying once means losing progress." Once hearing that, Shuko's interest in the game shot up immensely.

"Gaia battlefront, huh? Sounds interesting," She asked. Komiya came through the door behind them, panting as he had to run away from the girls who were blocking him.

"Oh look, it's Komiya-kun, mornin' Komiya-kun!" Chiyo waved at the lad from her seat. Shuko also looked back at Komiya who placed his bag down beside her.

"You guys are too cruel, leaving me behind like that," he complained while adjusting his glasses.

"We had to, there were so many girls giving us the stink eye," Shuu interrupted as he woke up from his nap. His face had a mustache drawn on it while the others forced to stopped their laughs. "What's so funny?" He asked out of curiosity.

Shuu realized they were laughing at his face and borrowed a mirror from Chiyo. Upon seeing the drawing, he glared immediately at Chiyo by instinct, he knew it was her and no one else. Shuu took out a marker of his own then approached the female who held her hands in front of her, "Now now Shuu-kun, don't get too hasty..."

The day went on smoothly for them.

•∆•

Shuko found herself lying on her bed and scrolling through her tablet. She was looking for some information on the game which Chiyo suggested to her. Shuko was surprised to hear VEX making their own VR game, she mostly knew they only worked on commercial stuff like energy, food, and other daily necessities that help people every day.

The girl was taken to a website recommended to her, it had many comments about people talking about the game. Things like:

"This game is so unfair."

"The scenery was so good that I had to paint it."

"Wtf, the pain blocker is wack, even getting a scratch hurts like the real thing."

"Levelling up is a pain."

"It's like the NPCs are actually real people talking to you. They don't have programmed dialogues."

The girl pondered about the last comment about the NPCs, being almost realistic. Up until now, most VR games had normal game systems that followed a basic speech generator for most things in the game, so this was interesting for the girl. Now that she had a few ideas about how this game acts, she stood up and downloaded the game data from her tablet into her 'Anchor'.

Once done, she walked into a pod that had a lot of cushion paddings inside of it. She leaned on the machine then placed the Anchor on her head before saying the magic words, "Neuro Sync."

|Welcome To Gaia Battle Front|

After a series of bright lights, and sequences showing her account, she now entered the game's lobby which was nothing more than a white room. Shuko found herself staring at a screen floating in front of her asking for her name.

She began typing, then pressed enter. Next was the gender she wanted, she picked female, of course, she's not a troll. Then she left the occupation part as open, all that's left was her to choose her race. There were five known races and a plethora of subspecies that belong to these races.

Tians: Otherwise known as Humans, the race is divided into two categories. Aquilan which was a group of Tians that are fond of colder climates, thanks to their environment they developed pale skin and grey hair. Austerian was the opposite, they thrived more in the dry and harshest of environments, making their skin tan and their bodies robust.

Elken: Beings closer to Tians but unlike Tians, these beings are loved by nature and have a high aptitude for magic. Their defining features are their pointy ears and slender frames, the males included. They are also divided between two groups. Lyrken is part of the species who worship Dawn magic while their counterparts, Mirkens revere Dusk magic. Both of which can be distinguished by their skin color as the latter has a darker shade than the former.

Luars: The species which are closely related to Tians in term of appearance but can be distinguished by their stature for being shorter than a normal Tian. They look older than they actually are and can live longer than Tians. Separated into two ethnicities, Fyaluars those who choose to go live outside mountains instead of inside them. Hyluars the ones who decided to not live on the surface but instead, live underground.

Beastclaw: Half beast and Half man, these species are known to have many different varieties ranging from the felines to canines.

Dragoncrown: Half dragon and Half man, unlike the race Beastclaw, the Dragoncrown race is also loved by magic and has a high affinity to magic than any other race. They also love gold and other treasures.

After reading the whole thing, Shuko came to a conclusion of her own. She chooses her race and that being...

|Adventurer Yuna Myriad|
|Gender: Female|
|Occupation: None|
|Race: Tian/Aquilan|

She smiled after seeing that finished, all that's left for her now was to make her avatar. Normally she would take a ton of time just getting the correct facial features and other stuff like that, but today she felt a bit gutsy and tried the random generator. A bright light covered her body blinding her for a moment before dissipating.

A mirror was placed conveniently in front of her so that she could inspect her new body. There was no change in height, or even her bust, which was disappointing. Although she made sure to check it thoroughly.

She noticed that her eyes were a shade of gentle spring green and her hair was a flowing ample brown. She also discovered that she is now wearing a starter outfit complete with a journal strapped to her waist and a small knife tied to her right thigh.

Ecstatic of what her new body can do, she wanted to press start already but refused after a moment. She began pondering to herself, asking if she was going to speedrun this game just like the others, there was silence. The girl shook her head from side to side violently with a look