Alone in the dark with nothing but his partner by his side and a plastic gun in his hands, Mura readied himself for battle.

The old man’s voice cackled out, mocking the two players as the first-person camera within the game scrolled up to the front door of the infested residence.

Mura scoffed and grinned at the screen.

“Come on, deadheads. You’re not gonna be around for another sequel,” he whispered in a gravely serious tone, causing Lilith to question just how immersed he had become.

The heads-up display flashed on screen, showing two bags of blood: representative of each player’s health. At the bottom of the monitor was a row of twelve silver bullets to indicate ammo, along with two grenades.

Fading in from black, Mura found his character to be in a foyer with undead monsters already waiting for them. Eerie yet energetic music creeped into the booth as the zombies began moving towards them.

“Now, perish!” Mura laughed as he pulled the trigger multiple times.

One by one, the heads of the zombies exploded into a fountain of blood as their bodies dropped to the ground offscreen. Mura closed one eye for better accuracy, squeezing off each round with the confidence of a professional marksman.

“How’d ya like that silver, eh? It’s certainly an acquired taste, hehehe~”

Lilith looked up at Mura, her annoyed expression lost within the darkness.

“Mura, you haven’t hit a single thing yet. I’ve been killing them all,” Lilith said bluntly. “You killed the chandelier and grandfather clock though, nice job.”

“Huh?” Mura blinked in confusion.

His aim was on point. Normally he could hit just about anything with surprising accuracy, but he had yet to actually work with real firearms.

“It’s just broken, I’m sure it is,” Mura shrugged.

“Oh my god, you’re gonna get us killed! Gimme that!” Lilith barked, snatching away Mura’s light pistol and dual-wielding the weapons.

Lilith proceeded to use both guns, clearing up the screen from the oncoming horde of monsters approaching them with one-hundred percent accuracy. She managed to get the room cleared all by herself, only giving the pistol back to him once the camera was busy transitioning into the next room.

“Damn that was hot!” Tomoe exclaimed, peeking in from the curtains.

“Eeh, hehe…” Mura chuckled nervously while hiding his face from view. “You’re clearly much more skilled with this than I am.”

“Well of course, I am!” Lilith paraded with a boisterous laugh as they traveled into the next room. “But don’t worry much, I sucked ass when I first started too.”

The next room was deeper into the mansion’s basement, being home to a massive purple worm with jagged teeth and a segmented body. It lifted its tail into the air, revealing it could fire projectiles from its backside.

“Okay Mura, with guys like this you gotta shoot the glowing parts of its body. Like this!”

Lilith held her pistol with one arm straightened and the other relaxed, shooting the red swollen segments of the worm’s pallid rope of a body.

“See, just like that! Now Mura, press the green button on the console to throw your grenade. We’ll finish him off with that!”

Mura laughed with bloodlust, smashing his fist into the green button almost immediately.

“Fire in the hole!”

The animated grenade was lobbed across the screen, soaring right over the worm’s head and into the back room of the basement where it exploded harmlessly. The worm looked toward Mura and shot him with a tail projectile, dropping his health to zero.

Lilith looked over at her friend, who had collapsed in shame; submitting his weapon to the almighty beast.

“I didn’t even know it was possible to miss with one of those…” Lilith whispered to herself.

She lobbed one of her own grenades at the foul vermin, blowing its upper half into red sticky chunks. Glowing text appeared on screen with victorious music, announcing their victory followed by a score card.

“That was pretty fun, Tomoe! Thanks! Mura usually beat me at these back in Yomi, isn’t that right?” Lilith said with a friendly jab to the side

Mura was lost for a brief second before realizing her intent.

“Oh, uh, y-yeah…” he fumbled before thanking his friend internally for salvaging his pride.

“Hey don’t worry, I think slaying those things in real life is much more impressive Mura!” Tomoe laughed with a feigned smile, trying to be as supportive as possible after the terrible display.

“Let’s try another game, how ‘bout that? The brand new Backstreet Fighter game came out last week!”

“Wow…” Lilith uttered. “That series still refuses to die even after a hundred years, huh? I suck at those, but maybe you guys’ll be better?”

Mura nodded, his hands on his hips.

“If there’s one thing I’m confident about, it’s that!”

Tomoe’s eyes lit up at the sound of his words, giving him a thumbs up with a toothy smile.

“There ya go! Now that’s a proper outlook, I like your conviction!”

She led Mura and Lilith out of the light gun machine and around the corner. Motioning with her hand, Tomoe took them both up the short flight of red stairs to the second floor.

Mura saw a row of electronic dart games lined up against the wall in a set of three. Opposite of that was a cluster of gacha machines and an air hockey table. Nestled right in the middle between the walls were a string of flashy arcade cabinets. A teen wearing a backpack walked away from the machine in the middle, leaving it open to their eyes.

“Is that it?” Mura asked Tomoe, looking over at her as she nodded in approval.

“That it is! Backstreet Fighter XLIX!” the schoolgirl declared, reading off the Roman numerals with much fanfare.

Lilith rubbed the back of her head, scratching at the white ornaments in her golden hair.

“I looked at that real quick and thought it said x-licks…”

—You can literally read any language and got tripped up by that…

Mura smiled, shaking his head and approached the machine.

“You know how to play these…?” Tomoe asked, mistaking his eagerness for acquainted experience.

“Yeah, don’t worry. It’s a fighting game, right? How hard could it be?” Mura said confidently as Tomoe swiped her gamer card to pay for a credit.

The title of the game flashed on screen with a bright flurry of lights before cutting to a map of the globe and a character select screen.

—I’ll pick the girl with the eyepatch, she looks badass.

Mura selected his character, prompting her to do a kick and say a witty line as her eye began to glow. The game then instantaneously loaded into the match as the announcer counted down.

“Three!” the game announced. “Two!”

Mura readied himself for combat against his opponent: a muscular green beast.

“One! Go!”

Mura smiled and curled his fist into a ball, immediately driving it into the arcade cabinet’s screen.

Lilith and Tomoe shrieked in surprise as Mura’s fist drove directly through the glass, causing electric sparks to fly out briefly before the screen went dead.

“What ‘da holy hell was that!?” the employee on the first floor exclaimed to himself, get out of his chair to inspect the large crash.

“O-Okay, time to get the hell outta here!” Tomoe scrambled, pulling Mura from the machine and dragging him along with Lilith toward an exit.

The trio made their way toward the exit, prompting the glass doors to slide open as they made a break for it. Tomoe’s panic turned into uncontrollable fits of giggling until she started to burst into laughter as they ran down the escalator leading to the ground floor and out into the city once more.

Once they were positive they had left the arcade in their dust, they all stopped to catch their breath.

Ai, who decided to catch some personal time in rest mode during the initial light gun game had been woken by the loud crash. Her screen blinked on inside, finding herself inside of Tomoe’s jacket pocket.

“W-What’s going on? I demand you let me see what’s happening this… uh, instant!” Ai snapped in a slightly timid manner.

Tomoe couldn’t stop laughing, so Lilith pulled Ai out of the pocket as Mura shook his hand in a vain attempt at dulling the pain. It wasn’t bleeding, thanks mostly to the slightly increased durability of his demonic skin.

Ai looked around, activating her motors so she could hover around like a bumblebee.

“Is everything okay? I-I heard a crash!”

Tomoe wiped tears from her eyes as she struggled to stand up straight.

“Y…Yeah. This guy just PWAH—“ Tomoe tried to speak, unable to before exploding into laughter a second time as she pantomimed his punch.

“I don’t follow, Tomoe,” Ai stated matter-of-fact.

“It’s nothing…” Mura said to the android with a hushed, quick tone. “I think I need to research games more before I attempt anything else.”

Lilith nodded, wordlessly agreeing with his statement as Tomoe recovered once again.

“Awww shit, my stomach… heehee. I feel like I lost five kilos just from laughing. Hey, let’s get some ice cream. I need some after that masterpiece,” she said, clicking her tongue as she took the role of leader once more.

As they walked over to whichever location Tomoe was bringing them for ice cream, Mura decided to speak up on the primary topic he had been wanting to ask.

“Hey Tomoe, I know we got a bit distracted and all from the fun games and whatnot but I just need to ask you something.”

“Huh? Yeah, shoot.”

“As we explained, we’re stranded here with no way back and—“

“—And you need me to help you fit in?” Tomoe finished. “Don’t sweat it, I can do that. But like I said before, in exchange I want you to help me take down that loincloth-wearing dickhead. That’s a fair deal from where I’m standing,” she said, continuing to walk down the sidewalk.

“Okay okay, yes. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page is all,” Mura confirmed.

Tomoe flashed Mura a thumbs-up without looking back. He could tell her mind was set on revenge and she seemed to understand how big of a target that’d make her, especially if she achieved her goal.

The three reached what seemed like a literal hole in the wall, or rather, a rectangular window with a bald middle-aged man on the other side.

“Hey there, I’d like the honey-drizzle. Two scoops. My gang will decide whatever they want, ain’t that right guys?”

Mura and Lilith smiled and nodded.

“I’ll take the… Um, the… chocolate! Yeah!” Lilith said, proud of her decision.

“Pistachio for me, please,” Mura said.

Tomoe paid the man in the window of the building and a minute later, they were licking away at scoops of frozen goodness.

“Sooooo Tomoe. Currently, we’re holed up at this caretaker’s house. You know where the shoreline is? The houses there?” Mura spoke between licks.

“Mhm?” she replied.

“Well, if you need to reach us. That’s where we’ll be—“

“I suck at directions, dude,” she said back. “I’ll just come back with you. I’m more of a ‘find my own path’ kind of girl, ya feel me?” she said casually.

“Tomoe, we can’t be rude!” Ai said, licking her own digitally-rendered ice cream cone. “I could just calculate the destination from your descriptions, guys?”

Lilith shook her head.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m sure the Old Man won’t mind, he’s used to taking in people. We can have a sleepover! Oh my god, I haven’t had one in four years!” Lilith exclaimed.

“I haven’t had one in six-hundred…” Mura muttered. “But sure, if he’s okay with it, you can stay. Beats me trying to explain where it is. I don’t even know where anything is down there.”

Tomoe turned and smiled widely at them.

“You really mean it? I can actually go?! I was just, well, nevermind! This is so cool!” she squealed with delight. “Don’t worry though, I’ll behave my very best!”

❇ ❇ ❇

Zuiho’s Residence, Ema — Two hours later that day. Zuiho bent down to open his refrigerator, pulling it to reveal a refreshing puff of cool air onto his face. Using a single hand, he snatched a beer out of the fridge and closed the door lazily with his foot.

“Time for some relaxation after a hard day’s work…” he sighed to himself, content and at peace.

Twisting off the top, he took in the aroma of the icy adult beverage and took a sip as the familiar warm sting rushed throughout his throat and nose.

“Ahh~” he cooed to himself, readying himself for a nice movie in his recliner.

Knock, knock, knock.

The thudding on his front door instantly soured his smiled as he took a huge swig of the bottle and collected himself to answer the door.

Sliding it open, he noticed Mura and Lilith were back from their adventure… with someone else in tow.

Tomoe grinned wide, her arms crossed while flashing a peace sign with her fingers.

“Yo~! You must be the old guy!”