Rapid Fire King:Volume1 Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Expert

1

A long counter and several tables were lined up in a large white space.

It was a cafeteria.

Uniformed students sat at the tables and chairs and the clock on the wall said it was 12:50.

This was their lunch break at school.

And one student in a navy blue uniform sat a table near the counter.

It was Takamura.

He sat alone below the fluorescent lights with a sweet bread in a bag and a pack of coffee milk on the table in front of him. His butt was scooted toward the front of the chair as he stared up at the ceiling.

But while his eyes were turned upwards, he was not actually looking at the filthy ceiling. Nor were the footsteps and voices of the other students reaching his ears.

“…”

A certain memory was replaying in his mind over and over.

It was what that Freeter had done the night before.

…He didn’t use a single continue.

That man had beaten Super Rapid Fire on very hard using a single coin.

Takamura could not seem to forget it.

When he had started watching that Freeter attempt the challenge in the arcade the night before…

…I assumed he would fail in the end.

Deep down, he really had.

But that assumption had been wrong.

The Freeter had actually done it.

He had beaten the shoot ‘em up game with a single coin.

Takamura had never seen anyone do that before in his half a year visiting the arcade. And this Freeter had done it on very hard.

He had played the game like it was a battle he could not afford to lose.

Takamura recalled what he had seen the night before.

2

The Super Rapid Fire cabinet had become a battlefield the night before.

The player ship had reached its maximum of 10 bullets fired side by side at once. That barrage had three times the width of the player ship and it could shoot through the enemies as often as the player could hit the button for their rapid fire.

The background scrolled by, the clouds swayed as if in the wind, the ocean had parts in shadow and parts in the sun, and the stars flowed by with a different distance for each. The game had been full of things he had never before seen. For example, Stage 4 included a scene where the player dropped down and descended into the Grand Canyon, Stage 5 included a scene where the player rose through the sunset clouds, passed through the stratosphere, and arrived in outer space, and the Final Stage had a scene where the player flew while looking down at a fleet battle being fought in outer space.

The aerial warship that acted as the boss of Stage 1 split the sea of clouds from below as it made its appearance.

There was also a giant tank that dropped from the sky while the game zoomed in or out on the player character.

The player ship was shot down just once. In a careless move, an enemy bullet had hit it.

However, the next life snagged the powerup items while dodging the enemy attacks to return to full power in just a few minutes.

The final boss warship started off partially fading into the background before gradually growing solid and the main ship transformed each time one of its parts was destroyed. It had looked like a giant version of the player ship at first, but then it had become a multi-jointed serpent, a cannon, a huge bird, and a giant fighter craft made of straight lines. In the last transformation, the head portion separated off and began to flee.

You apparently had to destroy it before it escaped and a countdown timer appeared at the top of the screen.

You only had ten seconds.

The screen scrolled rapidly down to show how the enemy was trying to escape and they fired a powerful attack at the very end.

The screen was lit up by bullets like someone had set off some fireworks.

But the red ship rapid-fired.

The enemy rapid-fired in response.

The red ship slipped between the incoming bullets and lasers and destroyed the fleeing enemy aerial warship.

The timer stopped with 1 second remaining.

The ending was a simple thing.

A few images were displayed in a sepia tone and then the screen went black.

After that, a movie-like credits roll played for about 10 seconds.

Finally, the company name was displayed in large letters with “The End” below it.

The name entry came after that.

When you earned a high score in an arcade game, you could use the stick and buttons to enter three letters. In other words, only those who had earned a high score were allowed to enter their name.

The limited number of letters meant most people entered their initials. Some people found it too much effort and just hit the button without choosing letters, leaving them with AAA.

The Freeter made sure to use the stick to choose the letters for a name: WIN.

Then the high score ranking was displayed.

The power had been reset to change the difficulty, so only he had played it. The high score ranking was filled with the preset default scores, but there was a 5 digit difference between the scores in 1st place and 2nd place.

And the entry for WIN had the letters ALL displayed after the score.

That was like a medal given by the game to anyone who cleared every stage and saw the ending.

Those three letters proved that person had completed their battle.

Then the Freeter sighed.

“Now, then.”

And he stood up.

His back moved. It was a small thing, but Takamura took a step back. Why did he do that? Because it had felt like the arcade’s atmosphere was moving with that man.

But Takamura was the only one to respond like that and no one – not the Freeter and not anyone else – was looking his way.

No one noticed him as the Owner uncrossed his arms and held a hand out toward the Freeter.

The Freeter took the Owner’s hand and laughed a little.

“Ha ha. I did it, Owner.”

“So you did. You said you were thinking of changing what name you used, but I notice you’re sticking with that.”

“I had some other thoughts on the matter. Oh, but more importantly, you should change the difficulty back. If you don’t hurry it up, some customer might make a fool of themselves.”

Takamura heard that from behind because he had started to leave the arcade. And in a way that was best described as “slipping away”.

He was not sure why, but he felt like he could not stay there any longer.

And while he walked toward the exit…

“Eh?”

He realized something. He had not been the only one watching them. A woman was standing near the entrance.

She wore glasses and was taller than he was. Based on the smile she was directing the Freeter’s way, he guessed they knew each other.

But she had nothing to do with Takamura, so he walked past her and walked toward the exit.

He pressed the button for the automatic door, and…

“Ha.”

He stepped out of the arcade.

He felt the chilly breeze of that spring night and started to say something, but…

“…”

He could not say a word.

He also had no idea what it was he had wanted to say, so he scratched his head in confusion, shook his head, and sighed.

He checked the clock to see it was 9:02.

That meant the Freeter had been fighting for more than half an hour straight.

A single hit meant death in that unforgiving world where he had spent the whole time dodging, attacking, and rapid-firing.

…A thirty minute battle.

Something occurred to Takamura then.

…Could I do that?

The hand scratching his head had a distinctive tan. The box of tanned skin on the back of his left hand was from a glove. He had that thanks to the school baseball team.

“Baseball.”

Baseball is a battle between two teams, he thought.

The games lasted from two to three hours.

However…

…You don’t have to stay tense and focused the entire time.

There were times when you sat on the bench waiting for your turn at bat and times on defense when the pitcher was switched out. You were not standing in the batter box throughout and you did not have balls flying your way all the time.

So could he really maintain that level of tension for half an hour?

He would have to keep fighting on his own without any teammates to pick up the slack if he was tagged out or made an error.

…Could I really do that?

He compared himself with that man.

And he recalled what the Freeter had said before making the attempt.

“He was serious,” he muttered as he thought about that word.

Is that what it means to be serious?

And if that man could do it…

…There are people who can get serious about video games.

Just as he confirmed that for himself, he returned his focus to the outside world.

Shifting from that replaying memory to the present time felt a lot like waking up.

He groaned while straightening up and finding the school cafeteria around him.

3

Takamura sighed inside the cafeteria.

…Getting serious, hm?

And he realized something.

“…”

At some point, he had started tapping his finger on the cafeteria table.

He was rapid-firing.

He was slowly copying the movement of that Freeter’s finger.

“…?”

He did not know why he was doing that. He had no real reason and could only he say he was doing it “just because”.

It was not necessary for school.

If anything…

…It’s a lot like playing a piano.

He tried matching his finger movements to the piano music he always listened to with his headphones, but…

…What am I doing?

He laughed at himself in his heart.

He liked piano music. Those slow melodies sounded like they were trying to speak to him in some kind of language and they helped calm him down.

The CD rack in his room at home had a space for pop songs and a space for piano music.

He had used piano music as background music when studying for entrance exams in his third year of middle school and he had never stopped listening to it.

But while the movement was similar…

…This rapid-firing can’t be saying anything.

Games were just for fun. He thought of them as fundamentally different from music in that way.

And he looked around to make sure no one had seen him doing that.

Fortunately, no one was looking his way.

Everything was fine. It was already 1:10. Fifth period would begin in another 10 minutes. The cafeteria was nearly out of ingredients, so the only people still here were the ones with nothing better to do.

“Nothing better to do, huh?”

That about sums it up, he thought while scratching his head. A lot more people in his class had started flipping through textbooks and flashcards at lunchtime, but he was still here in the lazy cafeteria.

More than that, he was thinking about the time he had spent at the arcade last night.

…I really don’t have anything better to do, do I?

That was when he heard a girl’s voice from behind him.

“Hey, Takamura.”

4

“Eh?”

Takamura did not even need to turn around because a ponytail swayed near the seat to his right.

He turned toward the movement of air he felt just in time for the neighboring seat to scrape back and a girl to sit in it.

She placed a plate of curry on the table and gave him a downcast look.

“Iwa…”

His voice was a little weak. He did not even speak the full name given on her nametag: Iwata.

She gave a response of sorts after sitting down.

“–––––”

She continued the silent downcast look before sighing and bending back.

Her eyebrows were raised. Her swaying hair hit his right shoulder, but he said nothing. Then she grabbed the curry spoon and tapped it on the plate twice, but…

“You know.”

She started speaking while fully opening her eyes and giving him a sharp look.

She aimed the unused spoon toward his face.

“I would like to have a word with you.”

She leaned forward to give him an upturned look.

…Oh, crap.

She’s mad, isn’t she? he thought.

He knew why.

But she resumed speaking before he could think about that reason why.

Her low voice seemed to confirm his restless thoughts.

“So here’s a question.” She shoved the spoon even closer to his face. “Where did you go in Haijima last night?”

“W-well.”

“I waited at the ticket gate until the very last second, you know?”

“Yeah, but, um.”

“And you didn’t get off at Higashi-Akiru Station either.”

“Are you stalking me now?”

She reacted to that by pulling back a bit and looking more down at him while smiling thinly.

“Heh. Is that what this looks like to you?”

Oops, he realized, but it was too late.

She reached into her blazer’s breast pocket and pulled out a notepad. It was an old-fashioned leather one and the title nametag said “Newspaper Club”.

She placed it on the table.

“I am getting profiles for all the baseball players. You are the only one I haven’t gotten yet.”

“You’re the one that said you could get it at any time since we live so close together.”

“I didn’t consider the possibility of you running away. Was it a mistake to tell you in advance I wanted to get it done on the train home?”

The phrase “running away” and the nuance of the following sentence told Takamura something.

…Iwa doesn’t think I went to the arcade?

She said he had run away.

She considered telling him in advance a mistake because she thought that was why he had not met her at the agreed upon time.

And she did not think the arcade was his reason for running away.

…She seems to think I don’t want her to get my profile for the newspaper club.

Once he realized that, he looked away and tried something else.

“I mean, can’t you just make up a profile for me?”

She blushed with eyebrows raised at that.

“Why do you want me to imagine your weight, height, hobbies, and fetishes, you pervert?”

“We went to the same elementary and middle school and we chat about stupid stuff on the train most mornings. Plus, my height only just passed yours, so you more or less know that.”

“Girls’ and men’s weights aren’t similar enough to guess like that.”

…Why does she take the weirdest things so seriously?

And why is she calling herself a “girl” while I’m a “man”? Besides, I was talking about height, not weight.

At any rate, it looked like Iwata was stubbornly insisting on getting this profile.

She refused to compromise at times like this.

That much had always been true.

“I wonder where she got that from,” had been the response from her father who ran a ramen restaurant, but Takamura’s theory was that she had inherited both her parents’ temperaments for a double dose of it.

Meanwhile, she was glaring down at him.

“Your team doesn’t even have a manager, so who do you think is giving you a scoresheet after every game?”

“That’s just a copy of the scoresheet. And you don’t need to add spectator opinions to the individual player records!”

“That’s an old tradition of the newspaper club’s baseball recordkeeper. Those midgame notes are important.”

“Sure, sure,” he said to brush it off.

At any rate, he was no longer worried about this. However…

…She has always had really old-fashioned ideas about things.

He knew exactly what she would say if she learned he had gone to the arcade:

“Are you a little kid? You’re actually spending money on video games? Heh. You could use that on something useful, you know?”

After all…

…I swear her brain has stepped straight out of the Showa era.

In other words, she was old-fashioned.

She thought video games were a pointless distraction for little kids. He also remembered what she had said one day when they passed by that arcade:

“That delinquent hangout is still around?”

As far as Takamura knew, the arcade was a nicer place than it had been in the past, but Iwata still had no interest in it.

What would happen if she learned he had been paying money to play games at that “delinquent hangout”?

…She doesn’t know anything at all about video games.

Due to her household situation, she had not had many luxuries growing up. That may have been why she was always with him in his memories from elementary school, especially when he was playing baseball. He had often tried to hit the balls her way as if trying to hit her with them. Not that he was actually trying to hit her.

And starting around middle school, she had started helping out at the ramen restaurant whenever she had some free time.

At the time, most kids their age had at least one home video game console and had been interested in manga, TV, or entertainers, but when she got home, she would help out at the restaurant. Once she was done with that, she would eat dinner while watching the sports news, watching a baseball game, or reading the newspaper. She would also have a drink along with her parents. As a result, she had turned into quite the middle-aged man of a girl.

And since she had been in middle school at the time, she had been a middle-aged man who attended middle school.

Now she was a middle-aged man who attended high school.

But she always had plenty to talk about, she said unbelievable things like that she did not watch the popular shows on TV, and she worked at her family’s business, so she had been extremely popular with their classmates even back then.

Takamura had known her for a long time since they lived close together.

He had no intention of damaging that relationship and he did not want to damage it.

So he changed the subject while giving her a warning.

“Y’know, Iwa. Being in the newspaper club doesn’t give you the right to monitor everything I do. Got that?”

“Then I’ll get everything I can out of you on the train home.”

“Are you even listening?”

“Hey, don’t treat me like a child.”

He started to say more, but she gave him a look with her eyebrows lowered.

“You really don’t want to do this?”

“Eh?”

The ends of her eyebrows and her shoulders both drooped.

She refused to compromise and she was always honest about her thoughts. With other people and with herself.

What she was feeling had always been written plainly on her face. This time, she shrugged as if to hide it a little bit.

“Am I pressuring you to do something you don’t want to do?”

If he said yes, she would say “I see”, give a weak smile, and never ask again. She would do the same with people other than him too.

That was just who she was.

He knew that from experience, so he did not hesitate to answer here.

“No, I don’t mind doing it.”

She had shrunk down a bit, but she straightened back up when she heard that.

Not all the strength had returned to her face, but she tilted her head and directed her opened eyes his way.

“Then,” she began. “If you don’t mind, why did you run away yesterday?”

“Well…”

Crap, I walked right into that one, thought Takamura while sweating in his heart.

…I’m so bad at this stuff.

When faced with something different from normal, he would say more than he should.

But this time, he began with an exaggerated sigh.

“I just need time to prepare myself.”

“Prepare yourself for what?”

“Well,” he said again while aware they were both reverting to their normal selves. “Y’know, a boy’s weight is different from a woman’s, right?”

She immediately raised her eyebrows and blushed again.

“Y-you…”

“Hey, now. People are watching. Don’t raise your voice.”

“In that case…”

“Oh, don’t slap me either.”

As soon as he said that, she slammed her left heel down on his right foot.

It made a really loud noise.

“––––––”

The shock more than the pain left him speechless, so she breathed in and spoke.

“That wasn’t a slap.”

She let out a long sigh and then started on her curry without considering the damage done to him.

And after taking a bite…

“It’s gone cold.”

“D-don’t blame me!”

“Shut up,” she said from the side. “Don’t you dare run away today, okay!? If you do, I’m going straight to your house. I’ll bring some of our gyoza to greet your parents and then I’ll ask them if ‘Kou-kun’ is there.”

He considered running away again just to get some free gyoza out of it, but he had to give up on that idea.

Why? Because when they got off at Haijima Station on the way home that day, she suggested they go to the bookstore.

5

He never managed to go to the arcade that day.

1

Takamura arrived home at 8:27 PM.

He and Iwata had parted ways on the hill his house was on. Her house was at the bottom of the hill, so they only lived about 20m apart.

His house had a small workshop attached. He stopped his mountain bike next to the workshop and announced he was home.

Then he took a bath, ate some dinner, and holed up in his room.

He turned on the CD player next to his bed to play some piano music.

He liked the slow music of pianos. It sounded like words to him.

But he was interested in something else today.

“Okay.”

He sat in front of the TV, but not because there was a show he wanted to watch.

“I have practice early tomorrow morning, but it’s still too early to go to bed.”

He used that as an excuse to turn on the TV. And he used the remote to switch the input to video input.

“Let’s see.”

He pulled a home video game console from the cabinet next to the TV.

He did not have much attachment to the machine. Its rectangular black box was a somewhat outdated design and it had used “16 bit” as a selling point, although he was not sure what that actually meant.

He had originally bought it cheap off of a friend. He had spent the 10,000 yen of last year’s New Year’s money to buy the console and a few games.

He did not actually know if that was a good deal or not, but it was definitely the nicest game console he owned.

He had not seen it in a few months and he had not hooked it up to the TV since New Year’s this year.

“Long time no see,” he said while pressing his hands together in respect.

He had some difficulty getting the cords hooked up, but it was ready to go in just a few minutes.

Instead of the joypad that came with the system, it was currently set up with a black joystick sold by the same company as the system.

He sat cross-legged, placed the joystick in his lap, and peered inside the cabinet.

He had only ever played the action games or fighting games to kill some time.

“There was one in here, wasn’t there?”

He meant a shoot ‘em up game.

He had seen a box with a picture of an airplane among the games he had gotten from his friend.

He found that box in the far back of the cabinet.

He pulled it out with a hint of excitement.

He checked the screenshots on the back of the box to confirm it was indeed a vertical-scrolling shoot ‘em up game.

He pulled the ROM cartridge from the box, and…

“A serious battle, huh?” he muttered.

A battle.

He would come out the other side knowing whether he was a winner or a loser.

He thought back to what he had seen in the arcade the night before.

Someone had spent half an hour battling all alone at the highest difficulty and emerged victorious.

That man had said he was serious before doing so.

As for Takamura…

…I play baseball.

His glove was sticking out of the bag in a corner of his room.

That was a tool he used for the “battles” fought on the school team.

But…

…Are that Freeter’s half hour and my baseball games really the same sort of battle?

2

Takamura thought to himself with the piano music in the background.

He thought about his baseball games and the battle that Freeter had fought through the word “serious”.

…Are those the same thing?

He had a feeling they were different.

The video game was played as an individual.

Baseball was played as a team.

They were not really comparable in that sense.

But…

…I…

He had to do something before he could judge whether or not that Freeter really had been serious.

“I don’t know what it’s like to play a video game like that.”

Did he want to know?

This home console was inferior to the arcade game, but did he want to create a similar situation here to experience for himself what that Freeter had done?

Did he want to understand what that man meant when he said he was serious?

…But…

What would I accomplish by learning that? he wondered.

He did not know.

How could he know what that would accomplish or what it would mean for him?

He could only say one thing here.

…Now that I’ve seen someone fight seriously and now that I’ve touched upon that…

“I want to know what it’s like. And I want to know how serious he really was.”

He was curious.

He could not bring himself to get serious about baseball, but now he had encountered another game someone could get serious about. And he had discovered it in the arcade, where he had thought nothing was serious.

…I saw someone accomplish what I feel like I can’t do.

What was it that man had done?

And…

“Can I do it too?”

If it was similar to baseball, he would stop pursuing this. Because he already had something like that.

But if it was different…

“–––––”

He inserted the ROM cartridge into the console.

He switched it on.

He stopped the CD so he could only hear the game sounds coming from the TV.

And the game began.

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