Just then, LaVelle Smith Jr. walked forward with a smile.
"It seems it's time for a real professional to take the stage."
He took off his jacket and casually handed it to a young Sega employee standing nearby. Beneath the jacket was the chiseled body of a dancer, every muscle radiating a sense of power.
Smith casually warmed up his wrists and ankles, producing a series of faint cracking sounds from his joints. Then, he raised his eyes and scanned the crowd. His gaze rested briefly on Nakayama Takuya, a confident smile, befitting a king, playing on his lips.
As the choreographer for the song "Bad," he could envision every beat and pause in his mind with his eyes closed.
The moment Smith stepped onto the platform that held so much anticipation, the air in the entire laboratory seemed to freeze instantly. Even the somewhat noisy chatter born from excitement died down. Everyone's eyes were focused on him.
Once again, the music erupted from the pair of professional-grade speakers.
Smith's body started moving almost the instant the first drumbeat sounded. There was no hesitation. Every turn, every pause, every iconic Michael Jackson-esque move was timed to the millisecond, perfectly synchronized with the descending arrow indicators and colored bars on the screen.
His footwork was swift and light, yet it carried a soul-shaking explosive force, as if every dance step was a question posed to the earth. On the screen, the rating, from the very first arrow, was locked on the dazzling word "Perfect!" It formed a continuous golden waterfall, with nothing else in sight.
The Sony sound engineer who had played earlier watched with his mouth agape, almost forgetting to breathe. He had been pleased with himself for getting "Great" ratings, but now he understood the true, vast difference. This was no longer playing a game; this was the perfect fusion of art and technology.
Following Smith's masterful performance, the lights on the platform and ceiling went into a complete frenzy. They were no longer simply alternating between light and dark or switching colors. Instead, they burst forth with an unprecedented brilliance. Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple—countless beams of light precisely chased, scanned, exploded, and rotated with Smith's every move, enveloping him in the center of a vortex of light and shadow, like a true king of the stage descending.
The mirrored walls reflected and superimposed this dazzling spectacle infinitely, transforming the entire laboratory into a bizarre and mesmerizing otherworldly space. The very air seemed to tremble from the extremity of the light and sound.
"My God—" a young Sony engineer who had participated in the lighting programming murmured to himself. The lighting effects he had designed were only now, through Smith's performance, truly unleashing two hundred percent of their potential.
The young developers and testers from Sega and Sony, who had been watching from the sidelines, could no longer contain their excitement.
What started as quiet gasps of amazement soon turned into uncontrollable cheers and screams.
A few people even started to involuntarily move their bodies awkwardly to the powerful beat, waving their arms and celebrating the miracle they had created together.
An excited Sega programmer threw his arms around a Sony tester next to him, and the two of them laughed together without distinction. The entire laboratory had completely transformed into a boiling sea of joy.
At the bar counter area, the changing expressions on the executives' faces were even more spectacular.
Director Yoshikawa and Suzuki Masao had initially maintained a certain level of executive scrutiny, but as Smith danced, their bodies leaned forward unconsciously. Their gazes shifted from focused to engrossed, and now, to undisguised amazement and ecstasy.
Director Yoshikawa even found himself unconsciously tapping out the beat with his fingers on the counter. The development proposal Takuya had submitted earlier had seemed like just an interesting experiment to them, not described in any grandiose terms. Who could have imagined that this thing would so precisely capture the pulse of the youth and possess such magic?
Sony Music President Maruyama Shigeo couldn't hold back any longer. He shot up from his high stool, strode to the edge of the performance area, raised his hands above his head, and applauded vigorously for Smith, his smile as bright as a child's. "Fantastic! Nakayama-kun, you've done something truly incredible! Fantastic!" he shouted excitedly back at Nakayama Takuya, his voice booming.
Behind his lenses, Mitsui Chuta's eyes sparkled with excitement. He adjusted his glasses and nodded repeatedly, his fingers rapidly calculating something in the palm of his other hand. It was clear he could already see the immeasurable commercial value behind this project.
Kutaragi Ken slowly turned his head, his gaze falling on Nakayama Takuya beside him. A rare, complex emotion showed on his face—there was astonishment at the young man's boundless creativity, admiration for Sega's excellent execution, and even... a subtle hint of respect. He was silent for a moment before saying, in a volume only the two of them could hear, "Nakayama-kun, you at Sega... you always manage to create something surprising."
Nakayama Takuya met his gaze with a calm and confident smile, a smile that carried just the right amount of youthful spirit.
He knew. It was a success.
The huge weight that had been hanging over him for months regarding this project finally came crashing down, leaving him with an immense sense of security.
This LD arcade project, a fusion of Sony's cutting-edge audio-visual technology and Sega's revolutionary gaming concepts, was, at this very moment, more than halfway to being a complete success.