The roar of the crowd detonated like a shockwave, rattling the glass walls of the Taito Station.
The tenth-floor hall, lit by the pink neon glow of Osu!, thrummed with energy, like a server pushed to its limit.
Outside in Akihabara, thousands of fans packed beneath the giant screens were losing their minds, the air thick with shock and pure adrenaline.
Gnahus—fifteenth in the world—had just taken down Milosz, sixth globally, in a match that had flipped every prediction on its head.
His relentless combos, the way his cursor danced across insane patterns, had left the entire community speechless.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. "Gnahus just knocked out a top-six player. I can't take him lightly."
The monitor in front of me displayed the match stats: Gnahus, 99.54%, full combo; Milosz, 99.01%, two misses.
A staff member in an event T-shirt, the one who called players before each round, announced in English: "Pantera Grigia versus Gnahus! Get your peripherals ready and join the lobby! Two minutes!"
His voice sliced through the noise, sending a chill down my spine as I settled deeper into the gaming chair.
The lobby loaded, and Gnahus's avatar—an eagle with flaming wings—stared me down.
A chat message popped up, in English: «Good luck, Pantera Grigia. It won't be easy.»
I nodded, feeling a mix of challenge and respect. "No trash talk. I like that."
I typed back: «Thanks, Gnahus. Let's put on a show.»
The random draw had given him first pick, just like it had against Freezes.
"Perfect. I can study him, figure out his rhythm and his stamina," I thought, rubbing the hand warmer the staff had given me between my hands to warm them up quickly and ease the stiffness. It was a ritual I always did before every match.
I slipped on my Logitech headphones, and the outside world disappeared, replaced by the lobby's background track.
Gnahus picked Black Rover—8.51 stars, 290 BPM, a brutal test of speed and endurance.
The hit circles were big, forgiving if your aim was decent, but the rhythm was a marathon, a relentless whirlwind of streams and sliders designed to drain you.
I tightened my grip on the stylus, heart pounding. "Speed can mess me up sometimes. But stamina… that's where I can fight him."
The opening notes of Black Rover blasted through my headphones, the electronic beat thrumming in my bones.
Circles poured down like gunfire, sliders weaving through the chaos in perfect sync.
Gnahus was lightning—his cursor snapping to every note with terrifying precision, combo climbing without a break.
I matched him, the stylus gliding across the tablet with a flow that even surprised me.
"Don't think. Just feel it," I told myself, eyes drifting from the screen to trigger the Panther's Sight.
We hit the end of the track with identical combos, his accuracy edging me by a razor-thin 0.03%.
The final note was offset by half a second—a classic trap to throw players off the music.
I zoned in completely, ignoring the song and trusting only my vision.
I tracked the thin approach circle as it closed in, waiting for the exact moment it snapped shut—the real cue to click.
Gnahus, feeling the pressure of me breathing down his neck the whole way, followed the music instead and tapped too early.
Miss.
That single mistake let me pull ahead.
I finished at 99.83%; he ended at 99.80%. Without that miss, the round would've been his.
1-0 to me.
The crowd erupted again, the outdoor screens replaying my final hit while chat exploded with «W Pantera» and «Gnahus choked».
My turn to pick.
From watching him, I had figured he struggled on 9-star maps. Even against Milosz on an 8.72, he had looked shaky.
I selected Silhouette—9.37 stars, heavy on fast flicks, my specialty.
Across the room I caught his expression darkening, like he already knew he was in trouble.
"I'll use the same strategy that worked on Freezes: wreck his fingers so bad he's done for the next round," I thought as the map loaded.
We started, but thirty seconds in I noticed something off: Gnahus was sitting at zero points.
In Osu!, there are different ways to win a map. If both players finish—alive or dead—the higher score takes it. If one fails and the other survives, the survivor wins.
"Is he pretending not to play to screw me over?" I wondered, still hitting every note cleanly while my score climbed and his stayed flat.
I kept going until halfway, then stopped too.
"So much for putting on a show, Gnahus," I thought. "The crowd's watching two players doing absolutely nothing."
BTMC's voice cracked over the commentary: "What is happening? Pantera Grigia and Gnahus have both stopped playing! In six editions of this tournament, we've never seen anything like it!"
The arena fell into an eerie hush, broken only by the track still pounding through our headphones.
Waiting for the song to end, I finally understood his plan.
Gnahus had studied my match against Freezes.
He knew I had won because the high-difficulty maps had shredded Freezes's fingers. So he was sitting this one out to preserve his own, banking on winning the next round on a map he picked.
Not a bad idea—but it had a hole.
Even if he took the next round and made it 2-1, I had already secured this one by default, which meant I would pick again and force him into another 9-star.
It was a solid way to steal one round—my fingers were already sore from the map we had just played—but it wasn't enough to win the match.
I hadn't finished the full five-minute map, but three minutes at that intensity had still been brutal.
Gnahus picked Highscore—8.22 stars, the map he held world number one on, a six-minute endurance monster.
He had chosen it because its length favored the more rested player, and he was the best in the world at it.
An idea hit me: I would do the same thing—sit still like he had, wait for him to relax, then suddenly start playing and catch him off guard.
My only shot was nailing everything perfectly once I began.
The track started, the beat pulsing hard in my headphones.
I stayed frozen, cursor motionless—but Gnahus kept going.
He wanted to lock in the round and avoid the risk of a clean 3-0 sweep. "Yeah, I'd probably do the same thing to avoid total humiliation."
Near the end, around the fifth minute, he finally stopped too; the score gap was insurmountable.
I didn't even try to catch up. I handed him the round.
2-1 to me.
We both knew the tables had turned—I was the fresher one now, and he was spent.
To be safe, I picked Tear Rain—9.05 stars, another savage map packed with fast jumps and dense streams that would destroy anyone's fingers.
After the six-minute break I had effectively gotten, I cleared it without trouble, landing clean flick after clean flick the whole way through.
Gnahus threw everything he had into it, hell-bent on winning, his cursor moving with desperate energy while his wrist shook, missing circles and sliders left and right.
I finished at 99.29%, full combo. He ended on 94.51%, with five misses.
3-1. My win.
The hall and the street outside went quiet for a moment, like everyone was still trying to process what they had just seen, then broke into uncertain applause.
We had just shown the world a whole new way to play Osu!: strategy over pure mechanics.
BTMC shouted into the microphone: "Pantera Grigia advances to the quarterfinals! This match just rewrote the rulebook!"
Once the match was over, I went to sit in a corner of the room, watching the next showdown between Ninerik and Sytho on one of the many screens.
From here on out, the bracket was a minefield: Ninerik in the quarters, Ivaxa in the semis, and Mrekk in the final—if everything went according to predictions.
With the last round-of-16 match wrapping up—Ninerik taking it 3-1—the schedule gave us a fifteen-minute break before the quarters started, just enough time to rest our fingers.
I opened Discord, hands still shaking: «Gnahus is out. Quarters, here I come.»
«Nice strategy—didn't see that coming,» Pego_pro wrote.
«That full combo on Tear Rain was insane!» Zenchidori added.
«Pantera, I'm watching you on the big screen outside—you just made history!» StarClicker7 typed.
The tension wouldn't let go; it sat like a knot in my chest.
I stood up, legs shaky from the adrenaline, and headed to the vending machine for a Pocari Sweat.
I had seen it in so many anime that I had to try it.
I bought a bottle for 150 yen—less than a euro—opened it, and took a sip.
The taste was nothing like I had imagined. Salty and sweet at the same time, with a lemon aftertaste—one of my favorite fruits.
I took a few more sips, trying to decide if I liked it. "It's not bad. You just have to get used to it."
I was still figuring out that strange, refreshing mix when Mrekk walked up.
"You've got skills," he said, looking genuinely impressed. "In all my years playing, I've never seen a match like that!"
Ivaxa joined us. "So we're all still in it, huh? Looks like some fiery rounds ahead."
"Fiery for us two," I said with a laugh. "Mrekk's bracket is a cakewalk—nobody in the top ten, just players ranked twentieth or lower!"
Ivaxa nodded. "Gotta admit, he's got insane luck with the draws. He and I always meet in the final, never earlier—always on opposite sides of the bracket."
We chatted about where to grab dinner after the last matches, though we all knew we would end up wherever Nijiro suggested—he actually knew the good spots, unlike the rest of us.
The break ended, and the staff member announced: "Everyone back to your stations—we're resuming! First quarterfinal match: Ninerik versus Pantera Grigia!"
Ninerik—third in the world and the undisputed number one in Norway—was a living legend in the community.
Unlike every other player, he used a mouse, proving to the world that you could reach the top without a graphics tablet.
His specialty was reading patterns perfectly, even the ones that made most people's heads spin.
The lobby opened, and we both joined at the same time.
Finally, this time I got to pick first.
After the break, the fatigue was gone, so I went hard: Renatus, 9.48 stars—a relentless track packed with extreme-speed flicks and sliders.
"No more playing around," I thought, adjusting my headphone volume.
Ninerik typed in chat: «Congrats on that last match, but you don't stand a chance against me. I'm four spots above you, and at this level, that matters.»
I replied: «You're right, but that doesn't mean I won't try.»
The music started, and the first circles appeared on screen.
From what I had heard, Ninerik struggled on 9-star maps. This should've been easy.
Three minutes in, though, he was still right on my tail.
I was too tense. The pressure from Ninerik, plus that bet with my dad, was throwing me off.
"Right when the stakes are highest, that damn bet comes back to haunt me," I thought, still clicking away.
One minute left. My hands were sweating, the stylus slipping, but I managed to adjust and hit the circles. Then, on a slider, I overshot.
Miss.
"No, not now!" I had broken my combo, and that miss felt crushing.
At this stage of the map, my only hope was that Ninerik would slip up.
We reached the final section—a lightning-fast slider almost nobody could nail.
I hit it perfectly, and Ninerik missed four circles, but it was too late: there was no way to close the gap.
He still won, 99.12% to my 98.68%.
1-0 to Ninerik.
The crowd erupted, his fans chanting "Ninerik" like they were in a stadium, while those rooting for the underdog—me—gave a respectful clap.
Ninerik had been hiding his strength on 9-star maps. A deliberate ploy to fool me, Mrekk, and Ivaxa into thinking he had a weakness.
He had pulled it off masterfully, especially since he played with a mouse—people in the community tend to underestimate anyone who doesn't use a tablet.
He picked Dead To Me—another 9.07-star map, three minutes long.
That sealed it: it wasn't just luck. He really could handle that difficulty.
His stamina was inhuman, his cursor steady, no mistakes.
I was distracted. "That bet with Dad is killing me."
I tried to push the thought away, to banish my father's face from my mind, but the harder I tried, the more it messed with my focus.
I finished at 98.55%; he got 99.42%.
2-0 to Ninerik.
I was done for. I couldn't see a way out. A better strategy? Nothing came to mind. Some new technique? Unlikely.
"If I keep going like this, I lose everything." I leaned back in the chair, sweat dripping, heart still racing.
The crowd was still there, cheering for me even after those two rounds. People who had only met me today were rooting harder than I was rooting for myself.
I couldn't go down 3-0. Not after coming this far, not with the whole community watching and believing in me.
I needed a turning point.