1v1

...but suddenly he gets hit from a bullet from behind him, the bullet shoots right through his shoulder leaving a clean impact entry and exit. As fast as he's possibly able to turn around, he twists his upper body and tries to get at least a glance of the sneaky rat. Another bullet hits his ear ripping a huge chunk of meat with it, but now Ziekl's sure where the rat is.

"There he is, behind the right crate" Another bullet hits him in the head and it's now on me to save the match, "A 1v1 in the last round, now this is exciting!" the announcer exclaims then he goes on to explain the special conditions of 1v1s, "In a 1v1 all teammates get muted and you can only hear the enemy! So the two opposing Players are on your own!"

As I reach the corner I suddenly throw myself to the ground sliding behind the enemy corpses body to use as cover, already having my weapon ready to shoot I search the sneaky rat. But there is nobody, immediately I turn around to look behind me, 'maybe Ziekl made a wrong call?'. But even behind me, there is no enemy.

'Where is this guy? He must have run around the corner of his box at the same time as ran around mid crates corner! That means he's probably waiting for me to go to the bomb to defuse, cause my time is running out while camping on the other side of the box. If I start defusing he'll be ready to strike and take me down! What a classical tactic... but also easy to defeat! Well, I hope so. Maybe he'll anticipate a fake defuse.' A fake defuse is when you start defusing the bomb but immediately stop, to bait enemy with the defusal sound.

'Well maybe he's also camping in the entrance from T side, that would mean he could camp the corner and try to get me as I run out of cover to get to the other side. I could counter this easily with a smoke or flash, but my econ was bad the last few rounds so I couldn't buy any nades, only armor and not even a helmet.' Econ refers to economy, meaning how you manage your money to buy weapons and utility in relation to a ratio of your kills, cause more kills equals more money. Also, utility refers to armor, nades, and so on.

'Anyway, I have no other choice but to either try to guess his camping spot and push him or to just run for the bomb. The problem is, I only really have time for the second option'. All these thoughts rush through my brain in less than a second.

Now having made up my mind I dump my cover, the body, and rush giving myself a boosted jump from Ziekls' body out of cover. The jump is needed so that his preaim gets messed up. As soon as I left my cover, I can already feel the pressure of bullets flying through the air almost hitting me, one even rips my trousers. 'Haha he preaimed to low, now's my chance he needs about 4.5 seconds to get from his position to the bomb and I need five to defuse, with enough luck it'll work out'

After landing on solid ground again I dash to the bomb and start my work at the bomb with no time to spare.

'4 seconds, come on!'

'3, Come ON!'

'2, f*ck any moment now he's here', I already hear his footsteps just behind the crate.'

'1, ok now just pray.'

At about 0.5 seconds a bullet hits my foot, "Arrrgh" 'I can't stop now, I need to tank it!'

Shortly after the next one hits the wall on head height, it missed my head by a few centimeters, 'He has high inaccuracy! This means he's still moving at least a little bit and hasn't yet negated his momentum, now he has the disadvantage, that his first two, the most accurate shots, more or less missed their target, this could work! I just need to keep defusing.'

A few more rounds hit me and the wall ripping through my flesh and spraying debris, but then after the last few agonizing milliseconds the bomb is defused and he didn't manage to kill me although my health is pretty low now.

Even though the match is technically already won, I want revenge for Ziekl and the pain I am feeling! Although the pain is considerably less than it would be in real life.

I hurry to take my knife out while spinning my body around the Z-axis and throw it in the direction of the enemy player, "Knife Game!" I scream. If this wasn't already a won game I would never do this, cause it's too unpredictable you need a lot of luck and skill to reliably hit a target by throwing a knife and I have about none of both.

But against all the odds, the knife embeds itself in the players' head with so much force that his head jerks back hard enough to break something in his neck, at least it sounds like that happened cause I hear a *crunch* sound.

"Team 1 has won the match and consequently the tournament! Congratulations that was an epic showdown between two highly skilled teams! The Teams are now advised to meet up with their members to attend the award ceremony shortly after."

Suddenly I can hear the voices of my teammates again, the first thing I hear is Ziekl laughing uncontrollably while sputtering some nonsensical stuff, "Bwahahaw Kn- Pffff Kni~fee Game HahaHA it doesn't even make any sens~e Hihihii~! That was soooo Pfff f*cking bad...", he continues to tease me about my (admittedly) bad joke, but at the moment his antics can not drag my mood down. I am simply too happy to win one of the greatest tournaments in the game.

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-Meanwhile in the fourth dimension, down in hell.

"Ok he survived reincarnation scenario 665, but he surely won't survive scenario 696, the suddenly-died-from-a-heart-attack scenario", the demon snickers like a schoolgirl, "HihiHiiii~, MHAWHAHAW".

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-in middle of the award ceremony

"... and now the winning team shall receive their awards, every player from team 1 will receive one of the special Lootboxes!"

*ding* <You have won a special Lootbox, congratulations!>

"And now ladies and gentlemen, it was a lovely evening but..."

The announcers' voice slowly fades out, while I am on my way to my apartment, Ziekl is on the way to his apartment too. We all separated as soon as we got our award, that's a custom of teams made up of mainly random players. Actually, it's kind of a wonder we even won!

"Open Lootbox", I command walking through the streets of district 2100 the entire district is made to look like a dystopian city from a Sci-Fi movie like Blade Runner but with a bit more neon and cyberpunk stuff. My apartment is located at the northern end of this district.

<Opening Lootbox now> The voice of my Assistant sounds from within my head, shortly after a big neon glowing lottery wheel appears.

<Good luck>

I take a final look at the beautifully designed wheel and spin the wheel. After a few seconds of spinning it comes to a halt.

<Congratulations you have won the 'soulbound living&conscient system-supported weapon upgrade ticket'>

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-Ziekls player home

"I can't believe I've got another USP-S for my collection and it's even a rank 7! I really can't believe my luck!" Ziekl says while holding the weapon affectionately and caressing its finish. "I could get rich if I were to sell it", he spaces out and starts drooling, suddenly he shakes his head. "Oh don't worry daddy would never sell you, you little cutie"

<Disgusting>

Even his own assistant can't endure this fool.

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-Gen's standing in the middle of the street

"WHAT?", my eyes are wide open from a curious mix of shock and joy, I can't believe what I've gotten out of the loot box, it's possibly the rarest Item in the entire game, 'there should be only one of these tickets in existence...'.

"Is this really..."

<Yes, this is the single most rare Item in the game> My assistants' mechanical voice answers.

"..."

"What exactly does it do?"

<The 'soulbound living&conscient system-supported weapon upgrade ticket' converts a single weapon of your choice into a soulbound[1] living weapon with a conscient AI and System to support the user, however, the System will only get activated under certain conditions. [1]Soulbound refers to a method to fuse entangle two souls with each other, that's why it can only be done with conscient beings.>

"What are the conditions?"

<You have to re- r̷e̶i̴- r̵͇͝ě̴͓i̴̡͘n̵̠͆- r̵͔͂̎é̸͔ị̶̪͌n̷̘̯̎c̴̛̖- --ŕ̶̨̙̲̈͠ȇ̴̞̍͗̃d̷̙͈̦̅́͝ã̶̛̩̟̿̈c̷̲̙̑̃͛̈́ẗ̴̛͓́̚ẻ̸̼̭͆̏̈́d̶͔́̀͊-->

<ERROR Code 666, foreign entity manipulated database>

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-in Hell, Satans Palace

"*Huff*, that was close", Satan takes some deep breaths, "Who would have thought, that these new VR pods upload your consciousness temporarily or even completely in some circumstances, cause of this reincarnation scenario 696 was a bust. And the worst thing is, he'll get a notification in a few minutes about his bodies state, we need to act quick!"

"I mean he's technically dead...", just a moment after the employee spoke these words he already knows that he shouldn't have said that

"YOU IDIOT! We need his soul not his body, I don't care about the filthy body of a mortal!"

"..."

After calming down a little Satan begins to wonder, "But actually it's pretty weird, that he won the special reward I made for one of my worshippers, that fool actually sold his soul to me to be able to win an Item, that he can't even get anymore, cause that kid got it. HAHAHA"

"Now enough procrastination, if we can't kill him in real life, then let's just kill him in-game! HA! I am a genius!"

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-In Gens apartment

I sit on my couch while contemplating for a bit if I should use it now, or later, after a while I make my final decision.

"I want to use the ticket!"

<Do you really want to use the 'soulbound living&conscient system-supported weapon upgrade ticket?'>

"Yes"

<Which weapon do you want to upgrade?>

I walk up to a specific pedestal, the one which holds my AK called Tachi. I admire the majestic craftsmanship of the weapon and then take it from the pedestal, to caress its surface.

"It's time to give you a Soul, Tachi"