[center][color=9D1E2F][h1][u]Ren[/u][/h1][/color][/center]
Ren had a dumb smile on his face as the Rift Warriors X logo took over his screen. He watched the much-anticipated announcement live. The game was practically his life nowadays. He knew it might not last, as his parents both constantly reminded him, urging him to find a [i]real[/i] job, but it made for a good, stable form of procrastination. He was just dipping his toes into monetizing his clout, so that he'd have more than just prize money to work with, and the results had been good so far. He didn't feel he was ready for streaming, but he figured he'd record his reaction to the announcement, and possibly start putting more on his YouTube channel than a single video playing auditory shitposts on Queen Morag's War Horn.

As Ryuichi Masada's verbal announcement of the game progressed, his smile gradually waned. It eventually came to an unceremonious end, with the crowd in an uproar. He rewinded the stream and rewatched it. He changed the language to Japanese to hear the original wording of the announcement. Rift warriors X would be the [b]final[/b] entry. Only [b]five[/b] players would get a copy. There was no doubt. He googled it, looking for miscommunications, or perhaps the publishers would overrule Ryuichi Masada, because it made no business sense. Would there be a Rift Warriors 9.5 with crossplay? Are there interviews with the other developers commenting on the situation? Who approved this shit? No matter where he looked, it all pointed to Mr. Masada meaning exactly what he said on the E3 stage, and nothing more. People were outraged. The uproar online was enormous. He joined in too, while his passion was ignited, but after spending hours writing up a fucking essay on how stupid the situation was, to go alongside the hundreds of other essays about it online, he shut his computer down and just stared at the black screen. The red light on his camera finally reminded him he had been recording, though he already knew there was no way the footage would see the light of day. He got up and crossed his room, just lying on his bed, willing his conscious thoughts away. It was still bright out but he wanted nothing more to do with the current day.

A fighting game is nothing without people to actually play it with. It was a competitive fighting game too. The single player modes weren't of particular interest, and it was unreasonable to expect X to be any different. There would be no competitive scene. IX's popularity would inevitably die down and soon he would have to go back to facing the problems that ruled his life. He thought back to his old, shitty job as a clerk and decided that maybe he should just give up instead of dealing with that day in and day out for the rest of his life. It's not like getting fucked by student loans for a decade for the right to be called overqualified by employers seemed any better.

He didn't really intend to, but for the rest of the day, he just lied there. A cacophonic whirlwind of thoughts paralyzed him. His future felt like a black void. He didn't want it. He didn't want this. [color=9D1E2F]"Fucking why, Masada?"[/color]

Well, it's not like this was anything new. This was always the case. He just got carried away procrastinating, right? It's not Masada's fault that the problem didn't go anywhere.

He hammered his pillow futilely with a tightly clenched fist. It wasn't fair. He felt his eyes moisten and it just made him angrier. He's old enough to drink and he's still crying over a video game like some idiot child. [color=9D1E2F]"God. GOD. FUckInG GOD DAMMIT."[/color]

[hr]
When Ren next woke up, it was a quarter 'til 5 AM, still dark out. He washed his face, inhaled a granola bar, took a glass of water with him, and went back to his room to play Rift Warriors IX.

He had never taken the online rankings all that seriously, and neither did anyone else by his reckoning. Most people cared more about tournament results. He was still near the top of the online rankings, but that just meant he was vulnerable to being pushed down.

For the following days, he played like he was possessed, and in some ways, he was. If he didn't get a copy of X, then what were all those years he spent on the game? [i]Fuck all, that's what[/i]. Maybe he was doing it to spite Masada, or himself, or what the fuck ever, he didn't care anymore. He wanted, [i]needed[/i] to get his hands on a copy, because otherwise, how else was he ever supposed to find closure on this? How else could he just drop Rift Warriors and pretend it didn't matter to him anymore? How was he supposed to just abandon the ray of hope, the one singular chance he's seen, to be able to do something he loved for most if not the rest of his life? How was he supposed to just deal with that?

What if he couldn't?

What if he wasn't able to?

[color=9D1E2F]"Maybe..."[/color]

He couldn't stop thinking about it. He didn't want to think about it. He put it out of his mind and focused on online games of Rift Warriors, over and over and over. When he achieved the #1 spot, he wasn't satisfied. Nobody took the online rankings seriously precisely because of their volatility. He kept going and going. A certain Sitra player was a persistent thorn in his side, but otherwise his win streaks went on absurdly long. He wasn't the type to stick with one username, and his current one was just three letters, but it didn't take long for people to figure out who "dis" was.

Eventually, the deadline came around and the final results mostly mirrored the worldwide results. He knew all of the top 5 from tournaments, sans the previously unknown fifth place Spartan player. He had managed to hold onto #1, and he sighed as the stress of keeping his high position within the shitty online ranking system lifted off his shoulders. All that was left was to wait.

[hr]
Ironically, when he finally received Rift Warriors X in the mail, he hesitated to actually open it. With it, Rift Warriors was finally going to be over. Sure, maybe the fans will keep up the IX tournaments for another year, but the year after that? The year after that? All games die eventually, and he was standing in the twilight of his favorite series. He searched online, trying to find news of the other recipients of the game, but there was nothing. None of the others had deigned to so much as mention that it had arrived. Maybe they were too excited and just played it. He felt something similar, though he wouldn't call it outright excitement.

He took his camera. There was a letter warning against publicly sharing the game before beating the campaign, but nothing said he couldn't record it and upload it after the fact. Maybe each copy was different, or maybe he would be the first to reveal the game to the rest of the world. They deserved to know, he thought. He know he'd want to see it if he failed to reach the top 5.

When he finally booted up the game, there was a pretty intro cutscene. It was, honestly, amazing. It was a flood of nostalgia, of all the characters he had grown to adore over the years, in a long action sequence over some of the most dramatic music he's heard in his life. He couldn't help but mentally compare it to a passionate kiss from someone about to break up with him. Masada is such a jerk.

When it was over, it didn't take him to a title screen. It instead took him straight to a character select screen with only one option. It was a blank square that hovered to reveal the name of his ol' reliable, Aster Wilde. He played all the characters well, give or take a couple. He would switch between them constantly, but there were none quite as comfy, nor any he would consider himself quite as competent with as Aster. Maybe it was because of that that he was Ren's favorite character, or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, it was the only choice, and he was interested in seeing how Aster changed in this iteration.

And then the screen went completely white.

[hr]
When he came to, he was lying on the ground in the Hall of The Messenger. There were guns in both of his hands, with two more in shoulder holsters that immediately struck him as excessive. Then he looked at the ostentatious overcoat he was wearing and the ridiculously plunging neckline of his shirt.

Welp. He's lost it, guys, pack it up.

He doesn't really believe what he's seeing as he reaches to touch his own bare, chiseled abs. His hands are covered with fingerless gloves, and there's a shiny red crystal wrapped around his neck multiple times. He knows it's rule of cool, but why the fuck are Aster's clothes like this?

Maybe he should be more concerned about how he ended up in this situation, but honestly, he's read enough isekai to come up with 100 different plausible answers. Fuck it, beats the real world. This is his just his life now somehow. Maybe it will show up in the real world under some comically long title like "I reincarnated as a half-demon exhibitionist with a gun fetish".

Well, then again, Aster is more comically greedy than he is obsessed with guns, despite carrying around 4 of them for no real reason. Literally, nothing in his moveset uses four guns at the same time. He isn't Bayonetta. Ren has no idea what the character designers were thinking.

[color=9D1E2F]"What am I thinking, exactly?"[/color] It's so funny he forgot to laugh. He's entered the world of Rift Warriors, in the hyper-capable body of his main, and yet he's still getting caught up on some stupid details nobody cares about. Maybe if he was paying attention, he would have noticed the group of other people, which he recognizes from silhouette alone as Sitra, Ravager, Morag and The Spartan, or the conspicuous mirror shard inexplicably lying around by his feet. Before joining the others, he takes a good look at himself, and all he can see is Aster Wilde. He wonders if he should bother acting the part. Given that it's specifically those four characters, he doubts he needs to blend in, and given that he knows three of them, it'll probably just seem like LARPing. Still, this was a crossroads. A fantastic outcome he wouldn't have dared to dream of. Maybe he should try reinventing himself?

Haha, yeah right. As if he'll ever change.

He walks over, hearing their conversation.

[color=9D1E2F]"...And the devil shall appear."[/color]

None of them have said 'speak of the devil', but it felt fitting given his new pointy ears.

Finally, Ren realizes that the rest of them don't look quite right. HR's hair, Red Queen's freckles, And Lioness' eyes. They stood out in stark contrast to the character outfits they were all wearing.

He arrived nonchalantly, but knit his eyebrows as it dawned on him that he was the only one who now looks completely like Aster.

...but why?

And then he remembered. HR isn't on fire. Lioness isn't a furry at the moment. Both are transformations given to them by the Messenger. Aster was just always a demon. Or, half-demon, rather.

Maybe this [i]was[/i] a good opportunity to change who he was. Nobody could say with certainty that "dis" was Ren after all. Why would he want to hide it, though? Ending in the #1 spot is maybe the only thing he has to be proud of. Or, at least, the only thing he feels proud of. Maybe this whole world is just some sophisticated technology indistinguishable from magic, and the game will inevitably come to an end. Barriers between him and the only people he has to share in this game just sound like they'd detract from the experience.

What did he want to change, anyway? It'd be stupid to pretend he didn't see his current self as a problem after internal monologues like that, but it's not like he [i]wanted[/i] to interact with people more outside of Rift Warriors. Being an introvert wasn't a problem and neither was a preference for never seeing another living being. This was a belief he held firmly, so why...?

He shelves the thought. Maybe he'll come up with the answer later.

[color=9D1E2F]"I'm Ren."[/color]