The credentials Sato had fabricated for him—a sleek, holographic ID card identifying him as Takahashi Kenji, Handle: Sensei_GG, Team: Team Scramble—did not feel like a key. They felt like a confession. Every beep of a security scanner, every nod from a staff member, felt like another nail being hammered into the coffin of his sanity.
He followed Sato through a labyrinth of back corridors, the distant, thumping bass of the main stage a constant, oppressive heartbeat. This was the player's area, the so-called "grinder's paradise," and it was a circle of hell Dante had somehow overlooked. The air was a toxic soup of industrial-strength air conditioning, the metallic tang of a thousand energy drinks, and the faint, heartbreaking smell of instant noodle broth. It was the scent of arrested development.
The main player lounge was a cavernous, dimly-lit space that resembled a decommissioned nightclub redesigned by a teenager with an unlimited budget. Banks of high-end gaming stations lined the walls, each one occupied by a player in some state of intense, twitchy focus. The only light came from the hypnotic glow of their monitors and the lurid, pulsating neon logos of sponsors—soda companies, graphics card manufacturers, and companies that made chairs that looked more complicated than the F-35 fighter jet.
"This is it," Sato said, her voice a low, professional murmur in his ear as she guided him toward a cordoned-off section.
Her manager's pass, which read Sato - Team Manager, was clipped to her hoodie with an air of absolute authority.
"This is our team's designated practice area. Try to look like you belong here."
Kenji attempted to look like he belonged. He hunched his shoulders slightly, adopted the pained, thousand-yard stare he usually reserved for stakeouts, and tried to project an aura of someone who had very strong opinions about screen refresh rates.
"They're here," Sato announced.
"Your team."
Four young men were huddled around a low table littered with empty cans of "God Mode" and crumpled snack wrappers. They were, Kenji noted with a deep, internal sigh, exactly what he'd expected. They looked less like a professional sports team and more like a support group for people who had been mugged by their own posture.
Sato, shifting seamlessly into her role as "Manager Suki," clapped her hands together with a crisp, authoritative sound.
"Alright, Team Scramble, listen up."
The four heads snapped in their direction.
"This is him," she said with a hint of theatrical reverence.
"The man I told you about. The one who's going to be our fifth. Please welcome Sensei_GG."
The reactions were a perfect cross-section of the human condition.
A kid with a shock of bright red hair and a face full of earnest freckles practically vibrated out of his chair. He couldn't have been more than seventeen.
"No way! The real Sensei_GG? I saw your clips on MetaReplay! Your chaotic neutral playstyle is, like, a total paradigm shift!"
"This," Sato whispered to Kenji, "is 'Kid Flash.' Real name: Haruto. He's our entry fragger. Enthusiastic. A bit naive. He already worships you."
Across from him, a lanky young man with greasy black hair, thick glasses, and a T-shirt that read 'I Paused My Game To Be Here' just grunted. He radiated an aura of profound, cynical skepticism.
"That's 'Static'," Sato murmured. "Real name: Ryo. Our primary strategist. He thinks your entire online persona is a viral marketing stunt. He's not wrong, but he doesn't need to know that."
The third was a giant of a young man, a blond foreigner who looked like he should be playing linebacker, not video games. He was currently trying to fit an entire bag of potato chips into his mouth at once. He gave Kenji a greasy thumbs-up.
"'Rampage.' Real name: Chad. From California. Our tank. He's here for the prize money and the free food. Mostly the free food."
The last member of the team was a quiet, intense-looking young man with silver hair who hadn't said a word. He just gave Kenji a single, sharp nod, his eyes flicking from Kenji's face to his hands to the worn-out sneakers he was wearing, analyzing him like a piece of software.
"'Zero.' Real name: Shin. Our sniper. He communicates almost exclusively through in-game pings and quiet, soul-crushing judgment. He's the only one here who is genuinely a prodigy."
"Sensei-san!" Kid Flash gushed, bowing slightly.
"It is a true honor! I have studied your unconventional wall-bouncing techniques! They defy all known physics!"
"He was walking into a wall because he forgot which key was 'forward'," Kenji thought, but he just gave a slow, solemn nod, as if considering the boy's statement with the weight of ancient wisdom.
"The wall is not an obstacle. It is a question."
Kid Flash's eyes went wide with dawning comprehension. Static rolled his eyes so hard Kenji was worried he might detach a retina.
"Alright," Sato interjected, ever the efficient manager.
"We have a practice match scheduled in ten minutes against the Shanghai Steel Serpents. It's time to see how the new roster synergizes. Sensei, a word, if you would."
She pulled him aside.
"You need to give them a speech. A pre-game motivational speech."
"A speech about what? The importance of ergonomics? The dangers of carpal tunnel syndrome?"
"A speech about strategy," she insisted. "Use your own terms. Frame it as philosophy. They'll eat it up."
Kenji sighed, the sound of a man being asked to build a skyscraper with nothing but spoons. He walked back to the team, who were now looking at him with a mixture of awe, suspicion, and in Chad's case, mild hunger.
"Alright, team," Kenji began, his voice dropping into the familiar, authoritative tone he used for mission briefings.
"Listen closely. Before we engage the enemy, we must establish our operational parameters."
Static snorted.
"Operational parameters? It's a video game, pops. We click on the other guys until they fall down."
Kenji ignored him, his gaze sweeping over the others.
"Each of you has a designated role, but you must maintain total situational awareness. I want constant communication. Call out enemy positions, track their movements, anticipate their probes. Kid Flash, you are the tip of the spear. Your aggression must be tempered with discipline. Do not over-extend your supply lines."
"He means don't rush in and die alone," Sato translated in his earpiece.
"Rampage, you are our shield. Your job is to absorb pressure and create space for the rest of us. You are a mobile fortress. Do not break formation. Static, you will coordinate our tactical advances. I expect you to read the flow of battle and adjust our strategy accordingly."
"You want me to be the shot-caller?" Static asked, a hint of grudging respect in his voice.
"I want you to be the commander on the ground," Kenji replied.
"I will be operating on a different strategic level, focusing on the macro-narrative of the engagement. My movements may seem… unorthodox. Do not question them. They serve a larger purpose."
He looked at Zero, the silent sniper.
"And you. You are the scalpel. Precision. Patience. A single, perfect strike at the critical moment. I expect nothing less."
He finished his speech. The team just stared at him. Kid Flash looked like he was about to burst into tears of pure inspiration. Rampage had finished his chips and was now looking at Kenji with a newfound focus. Even Static looked less skeptical and more… confused. It was a start.
"That," Kid Flash whispered to Rampage, "was the most hardcore pre-game speech I have ever heard."
"Dude's a legend," Rampage agreed, wiping a crumb from his chin.
The practice match was a symphony of failure, misinterpreted as genius. Their opponents, the Shanghai Steel Serpents, were a solid, well-drilled team. They played by the book. They executed perfect strategies. They were completely unprepared for the existential chaos that was Sensei_GG.
Kenji, playing as the hulking 'Wrecking Ball Ronin,' spent the first two minutes of the match stuck on a small, decorative crate near his own spawn point.
"What's Sensei doing?" Kid Flash asked over the team comms, his voice laced with concern.
"Is he AFK?"
"No," Static groaned, watching Kenji's screen on his secondary monitor.
"He's trying to walk through a crate. The man doesn't understand object permanence."
From the coach's channel, audible only to Kenji, Sato's voice was a calm, reassuring presence.
"Hold your position, Kenji. You're establishing early map control by creating an unpredictable anchor point."
Suddenly, a member of the enemy team, a fast-moving scout character, rushed their position, expecting to find them moving out. Instead, he found Kenji, standing perfectly still, staring at a box. The scout stopped, confused. This was not a standard strategy. He hesitated for a split second, trying to process the bizarre scene. In that moment of hesitation, Zero, from his sniper's perch, landed a perfect headshot.
First blood! the game's announcer boomed.
"Whoa!" Kid Flash yelled.
"Did you see that? Sensei baited him in! He pretended to be stuck to draw out their scout! 500 IQ play!"
"He got lucky!" Static grumbled, but he sounded less certain now.
Later in the match, Kenji found himself in a frantic firefight. He panicked. He forgot which button was his cannon and which was his shield. He just mashed his hand across the keyboard. His character on the screen went into a spastic, convulsive fit, firing his weapon in all directions, activating and deactivating his shield, and repeatedly throwing a useless proximity mine against the wall he was hiding behind.
It was the single worst display of professional gaming in the history of the sport. It was also, somehow, devastatingly effective.
The enemy team, who were trying to coordinate a push, were completely bewildered. They had never seen a player move like this. It was a whirlwind of unpredictable, self-destructive, and utterly terrifying chaos. They couldn't predict his movements because his movements had no logic. They fell back, their perfect strategy shattered by a 41-year-old man having a panic attack.
"He's zoning them out!" Kaito screamed into the comms.
"His chaotic energy is creating a perimeter of pure psychological terror! They're afraid to even approach him!"
They won the match. Barely. The final scoreboard showed Kenji with the worst statistics on the team: zero kills, seventeen deaths, and an accuracy rating that was technically a negative number. It also showed him with the highest "area denial" and "enemy disruption" score the game's engine had ever recorded.
As they exited the practice room, flushed and victorious, they came face-to-face with another team. They were tall, silent, and moved with a synchronized, fluid grace that was deeply unsettling. They all wore the immaculate black-and-green jerseys of the Seoul Soul Crushers, and a faint, sweet, metallic scent seemed to follow them. They were all sipping from cans of God Mode.
The player at the front was Lee "Viper" Jin-Hwan. He was even paler in person, and his eyes, fixed on Kenji, were devoid of any emotion. They weren't the eyes of a competitor; they were the eyes of a scanner analyzing a piece of faulty code.
"Sensei_GG," Viper said.
His voice was a soft, uninflected monotone.
"We have analyzed the data from your practice match. Your methods are… illogical. A statistical anomaly."
"Chaos is a ladder," Kenji replied, the first vaguely philosophical thing that popped into his tired brain.
Viper's head tilted slightly, like a confused android.
"Chaos is inefficient. It is a bug in the system. All bugs must be patched. During the tournament, we will optimize you."
He and his team glided past, leaving a palpable chill in the air.
"Whoa," Rampage said, letting out a low whistle.
"What a creep. What did he mean, 'optimize you'?"
"He was engaging in psychological warfare," Static said, though for the first time, he looked genuinely unnerved.
"Trying to get in our heads."
But Kenji knew it wasn't a threat. It was a promise. It was a diagnosis from a doctor who intended to cure him, whether he wanted it or not.
That night, back in the shoebox apartment, Sato ran the final analysis.
"It's confirmed," she said, pointing to a waveform on her monitor.
"Viper's reaction times are not human. There are no micro-hesitations, no prediction errors. He's not just reacting; he's processing the game on a level that shouldn't be possible. God Mode is a significantly more advanced variant of Cerebralax. It doesn't just suppress emotion; it seems to overclock the user's neural pathways."
"He said they were going to 'optimize' me," Kenji said, rubbing his temples where a familiar, mission-induced headache was starting to bloom.
"They see you as a threat," Sato replied.
"Not because you're a good player, but because you're an anomaly they can't explain. Your chaos is a variable they can't control. And if there is one thing we know about Ouroboros, it is that they cannot abide an uncontrolled variable."
Kenji looked out the window at the endless, glittering city. The real tournament started tomorrow. Eighty thousand people in the arena, millions watching online. And he was the primary target of a team of chemically-enhanced super-gamers who wanted to "patch" his very existence.
He sighed. It was going to be a long week.