Chapter 124: I, Ross, Tiger Fighter
Ross had anticipated that the two Nekketsu games might share a Secret Realm. What he hadn't anticipated was that Nekketsu Fighting Legend's character creation system would come with this kind of bonus.
It was essentially giving him a permanent mapping equivalent to what Creator Authority would normally require to unlock, handed over early.
But after reading through the entire series of notifications, Ross didn't follow the prompt immediately.
Getting a permanent true-self avatar mapping ahead of schedule was genuinely attractive, and it would have filled the most obvious gap in his current combat lineup: direct frontline fighting ability. All true things.
Ross's ambitions ran a little bigger than that, though. A Kung Fu practitioner with nothing but base stats and the same special move set as Kunio wasn't going to satisfy him.
He had the cartridge in his hands. Of course he was going to push it a little further.
What came next involved Nekketsu Fighting Legend's password input system.
The short version: player-created characters and NPC characters alike could be called up through specific password inputs. Ross intended to use the character creation slot for a password character instead.
He had exactly one target in mind.
After entering a string of Japanese syllabary inputs, the 1P character slot that was supposed to hold a created character turned into one of the game's final bosses: the younger of the Tiger Brothers, the one whose hood lacked the crown marking. Torajirou.
He picked the younger brother over the elder, Toraichi, primarily because Torajirou's special move set suited him better.
[Detected: player has created a specific character via password input: Tiger Fighter: Torajirou.]
[When the player selects Nekketsu Fighting Legend, the mappable character changes from "True-Self Avatar: Ross" to "Tiger Fighter: Torajirou."]
During Nekketsu Fighting Legend Real Mode, you will temporarily gain the following abilities:
Enhancement Affinity (Grade S), Tiger Fighter (Grade S), Combo Attack: Light (Grade S).
Ross drew a sharp breath.
What else would you expect from a template pulled off a final boss. Those three enormous S-ranks communicated everything you needed to know about the character's strength at a single glance.
Enhancement Affinity at Grade S, built on top of Grade A's 100% baseline, added another 20%.
With that active, Ross would likely become the first person in the Hunter world with a natural affinity value that broke the 100% ceiling.
Don't underestimate that 20%. At a high enough level, when both sides' base numbers had climbed to an absurd range, what that 20% gap actually translated to in practice went without saying.
Next was Tiger Fighter (Grade S).
[Tiger Fighter: Grade S, Lv-, special class, passive. The unique style developed exclusively by the Tiger Brothers, legendary figures in the Nekketsu Fighting Legend world, synthesizing the best of multiple schools into a form that belongs to them alone.
A player who holds this class passively gains full command of all of Torajirou's signature techniques and foundational moves: Mach Kick, Jump Elbow Strike, Burst Kick, Twin Cyclone Fist, Spiral Pile Driver.
The player may consume Nen to amplify the power of any technique.]
Ross couldn't help opening a match and testing Torajirou's moves.
Mach Kick: reduces damage per kick in exchange for tripling the kick's speed. It could be read as a budget early version of the Lightning Legs. Kunio had this one too, so it didn't need to be forced onto Chun-Li's account.
Jump Elbow Strike: and that's all that needed to be said.
Burst Kick: lunge forward while driving a knee through every obstacle in your path.
Twin Cyclone Fist: sprint forward with both arms spread wide, spin the body, and send every nearby enemy flying.
Spiral Pile Driver: grab the opponent, leap to a great height, then drive them into the ground with full body weight behind it, dealing massive damage.
The last two, from name to effect, were the kind of thing that didn't even attempt to hide their origins. Even without getting a Street Fighter cartridge yet, Ross could practically point both hands at the sky right now.
BOSS templates were just built differently.
But the main event still wasn't over.
[Combo Attack: Light: Grade S, Lv-, active skill. In the Nekketsu Fighting Legend world, fighters who compete as a team typically share a special connection known as a Fighter Bond. Through the right method, this bond can be converted into elemental attacks against opponents. As the game's strongest boss combination, the Tiger Brothers possess light-type combo attack capability that is top-ranked in both damage and priority.
When the player has a teammate, they may attempt to release the combo attack by embracing or lifting their partner while both consume Nen simultaneously. Based on the bond level between the two, the combo attack takes one of three forms: Mark in Place (Bond Lv1-3), Ground Tracking (Bond Lv4-6), or Soaring (Bond Lv7-9).
The combo attack you lead is Light-type, which holds absolute advantage over Fire-type (Judoka-led), Ice-type (MMA Fighter-led), Thunder-type (Boxer-led), and Wind-type (Kung Fu Practitioner-led), meaning a 100% successful priority resolution against all of them.
If either player mistimes the combo release, the player who mistimes deals full grapple damage with no reduction to their own partner.]
There was a saying for situations like this.
The protagonist's side shouts something about friendship, about bonds, and then they all rush forward together and produce a level of power that should have been impossible by any normal standard. The most textbook development in all of Japanese narrative.
In the Nekketsu Fighting Legend world, that bond wasn't just thematic color. It was quantified, graded, displayed in a visible interface, and converted into a real elemental attack.
In the game, bond levels could swing wildly. One moment you were at the maximum Lv9, and then a player's hands slipped and accidentally hit their partner with a Mach Kick, and the bond crashed to Lv1 on the spot, with the partner's portrait icon cycling through expressions of rage or tearful devastation.
But in the real world, how would bond level actually be measured? Would it require entering the Secret Realm together?
Then something clicked.
Ross had an idea that was, at a bare minimum, absolutely unhinged.
The bond level meter. Could it serve as a quantified readout of actual friendship between people who were genuinely close?
He was going to test this on his junior disciple.
If that little punk's bond level with him came in below Lv3, Ross was absolutely going to exercise his senior disciple's authority and send him a care package in the form of some Spirit Light Bullets.
Without any further deliberation, Ross picked up the phone and called Yusuke.
The call connected. But the voice on the other end made it immediately clear, just from the tone alone, that Yusuke was in a very low place.
"What happened? Did Keiko finally see through you and dump you?"
In response to Ross's entirely direct jab, Yusuke didn't come back with anything. Instead, after a long exhale, he said it quietly.
"Kuwabara and I killed our master's senior disciple together."
***
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