The Art Of Sword

*Yama turn*

Just like the Dance&Karaoke section the Rhythm Forever section also has the yellow line that covers the top and bottom of the entrance.

From the outside looking in, the whole place looks the same as other areas, but when he crosses the yellow line the floor looks more like a disco floor with squares divided equally while constantly changing their color. Which is kinda like the lit-up squares the Gang first encountered when arrived on this floor.

Compared to the Dance&Karaoke section this place is even more lively. Yama walks around to find an open machine but every machine is occupied by a player.

Yama: This is just like home… Machines are packed and all you can do is wait. But they do lack in machine variety.

The layout of this section is quite weird. All of the machines are positioned to create an empty circle in the middle of them all. Now thinking about this whole section again. The layout and the vibe are quite familiar to the ‘Dance Battle’ event in Japan.

Yama: Was it their inspiration?

After 5 minutes of walking around and not being able to find an empty machine. He takes a seat at one of the empty benches in the area.

Yama said to himself

(Not an empty machine in sight. I was looking forward to spending 30 minutes straight dancing. All of the machines have a time counter that displays 1, 2, even 3 hours. And the number keeps going up… have they all been playing for that long!)

(Those greedy bastards! Some of them aren’t even that good.)

“kuso!”

(I just want to clear my mind off being the fifth wheel in the group. All of them are older and have great chemistry with one another…)

He leans his head back, looking at the ceiling, and thinks (What to do? Should I leave? But this is the only type of game that I can lose myself in.)

…

While sitting there looking at the ceiling, he hears a familiar voice. But he doesn’t know this person, the familiarity comes from the voice tone and the language they are speaking.

What he heard was “Kuso!?...”

“Hello? In the mood for talking? Japanese?” all of these were spoken in Japanese.

Yama thinks that (there must be other Japanese people here or I’m just overthinking. Sunz can speak two languages but he keeps changing between them abruptly…)

Then someone suddenly, intentionally push his shoulder, which force him to look at them.

Standing before him is a girl with a petite physique, wearing casual clothes and a black fiddler cap. She leans forward at Yama with her arms crossed behind her back.

Yama in English: Can I help you?

The girl shakes her head.

Yama: Am I bothering you?

The girl nods.

Yama is a bit confused: I guess I’ll leave then.

When Yama lifts his body off the bench, the girl pushes him back down while shaking her head.

Yama: Ok…no leaving then…

When she removes her hand, a slip of paper floats down Yama’s lap.

Yama picks it up and asks: Is this your?

On the paper was written ‘Japanese?’ in Japanese.

Yama switched to speaking Japanese: Is this better?

The girl nods while clapping her hands. Which reveals to Yama that she had a bunch more paper slips with her.

Yama asks: Are you a Mute?

The Girl’s face displays no reaction or movement.

Yama *sigh*: Move on then…What is your name? My name is Yama.

The Girl smiles and gives him another slip of paper. On it is only the word ‘W’.

Yama noticed something about the girl changed after he looked at the slip of paper and then looked back at her.

Yama: Ok W…

The Girl was a bit surprised when he said that but she just nodded.

Yama: Where is your hat? Why are you wearing a cat ear accessory?

The Girl just shrugs and then starts tip-toeing while swaying back and forth. Waiting for Yama to speak.

Yama’s intrusive thought (They do look real tho…kinda want to touch them.)

Yama follows his intrusive thought and immediately gets his arm restrained by W’s hand and gets slapped back to the bench by a bunch of slips of paper.

Yama: Ok I deserve that.

One slip of paper was stuck to his face after that slap. He takes it off his face and reads what's on it.

(You look handsome, are you in any dance groups? Do you know how to dance? Are you really from Japan?)

After reading the first half he starts getting irritated because of all the handsome jokes/compliments he has been getting all day. When he gets to the end he feels like she is comparing him to a K-Pop member.

Which irritated him even more so he grabbed onto both of W’s shoulders and gave her a piece of his mind.

“Don’t call me handsome! Don’t compare me to those boys from your country! I…I just want to be myself … I don’t want people to have fixed thoughts on how I should act… I-I don’t want to be called handsome.”

…

After saying all of that Yama’s felt his mind just got a bit clearer. But that action might make him hate himself more than feel relaxed because he just kinda screams at a Mute Girl.

When he goes to release his grip on W’s shoulders, only one hand can be removed while the other hand is still gripping her shoulder, due to one of W’s hands holding onto his hand.

But this only last for a few seconds before she manages to slide the previous slip out of his hand. And immediately tearing it apart.

The parts of the slip that were being torn out of her hands didn’t fall to the floor. Instead, they disappear into faint sparkles which look like a magic trick. Then all she left with was a slip with these words

(know how to dance?) which she held in front of her chest with her two hands for Yama to read.

Yama: Umm… Not great at normal dancing. Just good at rhythm dancing.

W’s next action really surprised him. She has the biggest smile after hearing that, she even does a fist pump to celebrate.

Yama: Was it that amazing to hear?

W just shrugs then slaps a slip with only a question mark on her forehead. Which confuse Yama even more. Then out of nowhere she just hugged him. But he also feels that she just stuck a big slip of paper on his back.

When she releases the hug, Yama has to blink many times to see if there is anything wrong with his eyes. Because for some reason W is now wearing a penguin onesie.

Before he could even say anything, she just waddled away.

After all of that interaction, Yama’s mind just froze for a bit before grabbing the big slip of paper on his back.

On the slip of paper, it has these words

*Have No Machine to Compete!*

*The floor is your Key. When the time to compete begins, try to score as much as you can from the Dance Floor.*

*When you have the highest score in the competition. You will get a dance lesson from one of the best choreographers. Demon Queen Vivid.*

*Remember keep those combos high. Color tiles = Combos. Gray tile = Miss.*

Yama mind (What the?)

Then a stage slowly gets raised up in the middle of all the dance machines. Standing on that stage is a Girl in a colorful outfit with a Red card clipped to her hair.

Yama: So this is one of those ‘Monarch and King’ people…Do they have an age requirement? She looks quite young. (About my age maybe…)

The whole place suddenly went dark, all of the machines got shut down but the floor light still flickered. Then lights from above shine down onto Vivid.

Vivid with a loud and clear voice: Before we begin, I would like to say Sorry to our casual Player for the malfunction that just happened to all of the machines here… But most of you aren’t casual Players.

“I’ve seen the time on all of those machines, all of you ‘Bug’ has been practicing, waiting or should I say hogging the machine for yourself.”

“But I can’t blame you… The reward is too valuable. Let’s see who will earn that reward. Will it be my fans or my haters will steal it from them… or will it be some individual that just wants to make good money.”

“Now! Before the competition can begin, the people that aren’t competing please stand on the white tiles to stay out of the Player's way.”

“For those that bring friends to increase their chances of winning. Remember that you can only sabotage the people on the Dance Floor, not the people using the machines.”

After saying all that, the whole Dance Floor immediately gets separated into 3 zones ‘White—Red—Colorless’ and the ‘Sunglasses bodyguard’ from before also shows up.

Vivid: Now everyone has 2 minutes to get ready. When start, this competition will only last 3 minutes.

Everyone starts moving in and out of the Dance Floor. Yama also stands up to join the competition, then he receives a digital message with a timer counting down from 2 minutes.

*Would you like to hide your face*

*Yes*-------------------*No*

*If you don’t make a decision you won’t be able to join.*

Yama (They also have this type of technology.) chooses *Yes* and a Kitsune mask appears in his hand then flies onto his face. (Wow pretty convenient and fits perfectly too.)

He walks to the Dance Floor and still has 20 seconds to spare.

Vivid: A reminder to all Players. You don’t have to be good at dancing to win, just having the highest score is enough. And for those that are on the Dance Floor…

Vivid *chuckle*: 3 grays and you. Are. Out!

Music started to be blasting around the whole place and slowly getting louder. Then the whole ‘Colorless’ zone lit up with color when Vivid yelled “Begin!”

Everyone on the machines starts dancing while most of the people on the Dance Floor start pushing each other around to steal the score for themselves or eliminate the other person.

Yama sees that the tiles that he was standing on when lit up immediately turn gray, that goes the same for everyone else.

Yama (That means I scored some points already.), then he sees the other ‘Colorless’ tiles got stepped on immediately turn red and go back to gray instantly.

The people who stepped on a ‘Colorless’ tile got a red armband on their shoulder. Step on another one again, and another red armband appears on their antecubital. Step on them for the third time the final red armband appears on their wrist and the ‘Glassess bodyguard’ quickly carries those people out of the Dance Floor. The tiles also turn gray when ‘Glasses bodyguard’ steps on them.

Yama (OK so stay away from him and try to win). In the middle of his monologue, he got tackled from behind. He was able to dodge that attack and use his ‘Shockwave’ to knock the attacker down. Then he noticed that when the attacker got knocked to the floor, every part of his body that touched the floor also turned the ‘Colorful’ floor gray. But Yama also noticed that he stepped on a gray tile.

The ‘Glasses bodyguard’ picks up the body in front of Yama while also showing him 2 fingers as a warning.

Yama (Every body part counts and I only have 2 more chances. Let’s go!)

Having the advantage of being stronger than everyone else on the Dance Floor, Yama quickly runs around the whole dance floor, taking all of the scores he can get. Until there are no more points to take, everyone just standing on the recently captured tiles.

But after that stunt, Yama knows that he is now on top of the elimination list.

Vivid: 1 minute is over! It’s time to Lit Up again!

The Dance Floor goes from gray to colorful in an instant.

Knowing that he is now the prey, Yama attacks the location with the most people by turning that whole section gray which immobilizes them. Within 30 seconds he turns the Dance Floor from ‘Colorful’ to ‘Colorless’ while taking out a few Players that try to eliminate him. Those that tried to attack him head-on got thrown to the ground of the Dance Floor by Yama, hitting the ‘Colorless’ tiles which eliminated them.

Vivid was baffled by Yama’s action “The Dance Floor just got clear in 30 seconds? That means it’s Reset time.” As she snapped her finger the Dance Floor lit up once more.

Vivid: It looks like today's winning condition will change!

Every action on the Dance Floor remained the same for the next 1 minute and 30 seconds. The only thing that changed was, when the time hit Zero, Yama was the last person standing on the Dance Floor.

Vivid: The competition is over! Now, let’s see who is our winner!

Vivid removes the red card from her hair and holds it with two fingers. Then she throws the card.

“Whoever this card lands on is the Winner! And don’t try to snatch it out of the air, don’t want to lose any of your fingers.”

The card makes a few rounds around the Rhythm Forever section before it flies above Vivid and starts spinning really fast then immediately stops.

A second after it stopped. It explodes into even more cards flying at other people and sticking to their heads. Most of the cards are Gold and Silver… except for the card on Yama’s mask, which is bright red.

Vivid: Those are the rewards for participants and second places. Now the winner wearing the fox mask, which reward will you choose, 10 million won or a dance with me?

Yama thinks (What am I supposed to do with 10 million won?) then he throws the card back at Vivid. The card suddenly hits an invisible barrier and disappears into a flight of stairs leading to the stage from where he is standing.

Vivid’s outfit started to glitch out as she began to speak: My fans if you have seen his performance…I’m worried that today might be the last day you get to see me.

As Yama walking up onto the stage, he can see the crowd is screaming directly at him but he doesn’t understand what are they saying. Then a bunch of light sticks appear into the hands of people in the crowd.

Vivid: I suggest not to give him any more motivation to beat me. If you want me to stay with you all, then start pouring your heart out for ME!