"You keep downloading us," the voice said. "But you never ask who's downloading you."
The opponent? A mirror match. The same boy, standing perfectly still.
Before Leo could press a button, the game's audio stuttered into a low hum, then a whisper. Not from the phone's speakers—from inside his head .
Leo laughed, copying the ISO to his phone and firing up AetherSx2 on his old Razer Kishi. The PS2 BIOS booted—that familiar white Sony screen, the dancing cubes. Then the Budokai Tenkaichi 3 title card appeared… but twisted. The letters bled like wet ink. The background stars weren't static; they moved .
The stage loaded: Destroyed Namek. But the sky wasn't purple—it was the color of an old television tuned to static. His character materialized. It wasn't a Saiyan, a Namekian, or a Frieza-clan creature. It was a skinny, pale boy in a torn T-shirt. Leo's T-shirt. The character had his face—same tired eyes, same cowlick.
This one was different.
Leo tried to exit. The phone was unresponsive. Then the screen flickered, and the AetherSx2 interface reappeared—but now it had a new game loaded in the recent list. Not Budokai Tenkaichi 3. Not any ISO he recognized.
"Save state deleted. Player data transferred."