Chapter 3: Life in Gosha - Part 2
Yukikaze browsed on her computer while Cid watched from nearby, smiling in expectation as she hovered the mouse over a desktop application Cid recognized as something used to stream to a certain platform.
"Um, Yukikaze-san. What are you doing? We're supposed to play together alone, right?" Cid asked, making her stop whatever she was about to do immediately.
"Mmm.... It's a force of habit, I am a streamer, after all. It would be really bad if I suddenly introduced you to my viewers!" Yukikaze said, sighing in relief.
'Ah. I got saved! Usually I'd stream at night outside of missions and some things like vacation..... But, this really isn't the time to stream, right?'
With that in mind, she hovered her mouse away from what she shouldn't have done yet, before she clicked the LMB when it hovered to a recently installed game: Shin Tekken.
This game is a heavily remastered version of the entire Tekken Series, with 60 characters.... Which was quite ridiculous.
It took a few seconds for the game to boot up, and for her to connect two controllers for herself and Cid.
Later.....
{ "Kazuya Win!" }
"No! Not again...." Yukikaze moaned out, as the character she controlled lost again.
All her practice on one character, only for her to be flexed on by Cid's expertise of character movesets as if he had already known it deep within his mind.
She can't help it, she's just new to the game!
"Cid, can't you at least.... Hold back a little more?" Yukikaze asked, getting frustrated.
"You'll get used to it," he nonchalantly replied, tightly holding onto his controller, and waiting for her to proceed to the next match.
Yukikaze then tried to imitate how he held his controller, now feeling humiliated. Her determination became a key to trying out new strategies.
Until, on one round, she saw a chance.
Her character did a rage art with a button, after a long combo coming from her character through carefully made inputs that left Cid speechless, she won another round.
For an hour, she began to enjoy playing with Cid, winning and both losing, while the Mob...
He is thinking about all possible moves to execute, so that he could remember using them sometime in the future.
Aside from that, he was thinking of another thing.
"Yukiaze-san, I'm afraid I might have to leave." Cid said, putting the controller aside and stood up.
"Why?"
"Uh..... I'm hungry?"
The girl took a glance at him blankly, being dumbfounded.
"There's food in the fridge, feel free to take some, just don't take too much or else I'll definitely be angry!" She said, pouting with some annoyance. "Our game isn't even over as I've yet to hone my skills as a newbie Fighting Game Player!"
So, Cid stood up and before he exited the room, he glanced at his tanned upperclassman.
'Wow, this is troublesome.... And it would be really rude for me to suddenly leave without a word.'
"Um, actually.... I still have several assignments I haven't done, so how about one more game?" He asked, sitting back down to his plastic chair.
"Alright!"
In that one last game at the Shin Tekken, the two gave it their all, to the point where their quick reflexes and rapid inputting of commands made the fight in the game look like a completely choreographed one.
The two imagined themselves as the characters they were playing.
Dodges, parries, and an exchange of blows were made. At one time, one side suddenly made an enormous progress chipping the health of the other, and in a singular moment, the tide of battle changes.
Yukikaze smirked, fully getting the feel of the game as her fingers rhythmically mashed on the buttons, using Taima Particles to enhance her reflexes, thinking speed, and some more.
Cid had done the same.
And both naturally entered THE ZONE.
If they were in a public tournament in the Grand Finals, their crowd would have roared.
Until...
Yukikaze won.
"Y-Kaze X-Chan win~! GG~!" She said, briefly putting the controller aside to give Cid a peace sign with a wink.
Just before immediately stopping what she was doing and blushed with embarrassment.
'I hope he didn't notice, right?'
Cid noticed.
'Uwaaahh!!!! He noticed!!!'
"Well, I admit defeat." He said with a smile, scratching his head. "May I go now, Y-Kaze-Senpai?"
She nodded with a wry smile and a hot face after ending her pose.
"Make sure to return here if you have free time!"
And so, he silently left, leaving Yukikaze to begin calming down, and disconnect the controller Cid once used. For now, she should enjoy herself.
But first, she decided to get some rest and announce when she is streaming through YouTube 2.5
Once done, she exited the room and then saw Cid standing still as he stared at something she recognized as a picture of her family.
"I wonder where her mother is...." He said, as if thinking about what else to do at this moment. ".... I might have to investigate on this case."
After tapping his feet, he turned to Yukikaze, who right now was dismayed. She never thought she'd be reminded about something horrible that happened some years ago just by this statement.
"Cid?"
Her lowerclassman glanced at her.
"Can we talk for a bit?"
The two began to talk about what happened in their lives, allowing for Yukikaze to find out that he was living alone as her, except he was in solitude and she still had Rinko and Tatsurou as her friends.
Cid didn't really care if she was some sort of genius, and treated her as just a friend. It was something rarely ever done by anybody in general, mostly in the Gosha Academy, and it felt relaxing to have.
As for her, she told Cid had her mother, Mizuki Shiranui had been missing for about 4 years ago between a mission, and she never once believed that she was dead.
It prompted Cid to begin feeling like taking on another personality, but who will that personality be, other than Shadow, of course.
He needed something that works as an infiltrator of sorts, meaning he had gained a lightbulb above his head.
"By the way, Yukikaze. I think something is at play here. Maybe back then, your mother had been sent for a mysterious mission by someone.... Someone who is working in the shadows, someone who is a part of an even bigger criminal organization...."
"Really?"
"Perhaps, I could only tell this, though. That someone clearly wanted your mother."
Once a long talk was over, Yukikaze felt like something inside her was relieved, even if she had felt a bit of grief inside her.
Connecting several different dots in Cid's speech made her realize something obvious: Her mother was sent into a mission that is nothing better than a trap.
So, she clenched her fists and looked for something to calm her doen, like playing games.
On the other hand, he was already gone to his own devices.
Inside his home, Cid opened a notebook where he kept inside a secret compartment for safety reasons, and entered his "Super Secret Basement", created using pure innovation and stolen technology from his heists as Shadow.
"Now.... Let's begin designing the new member of Shadow Garden! Huh, I like that name, it fits my aesthetics well..."
Just by arriving in his basement, he had already thought of many different names for this man, and his personality.
Roleplaying has never been so better, when there's a General Ninja Art that allowed him to act like another person completely.
It'd take a long while, but when it is over, he for once will be able to go out to the outside world to play his part as that person, the Super Elite Agent/Spy.
< ~ TO = BE = CONTINUED ~
Fun Fact: Yukikaze is a tsundere. Not as hardcore as Alexia Midgar, tho.
Fun Fact 2: Y-Kaze X-Chan is Yukikaze's gamer tag/streamer tag.
Next Chapter will be released in Wednesday
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