Emika tracks down gambling suspect Martin Hamer but loses the bounty credit to a rival hunter who got there first.

Emika hacks into the Warcross Opening Ceremony game to steal a power-up and accidentally becomes visible to millions of viewers worldwide.

Hideo Tanaka pays Emika's debts and invites her to Tokyo, offering her a secret job.

Hideo reveals that a criminal called Zero hacked the NeuroLink and hires Emika to find him undercover in the championships.

Phoenix Riders captain Asher Wing selects Emika as the number one draft pick at the Wardraft ceremony.

Emika discovers that DJ Ren's personal accounts are protected by unusually heavy security shields, raising her suspicion of him.

Emika spies on Ren's meeting in the Dark World and watches Zero assign what appear to be city coordinates to other gamblers.

Hideo gives Emika a virtual shield-breaking snare to secretly use on Ren during the first championship game.

Phoenix Riders win the first match, and Emika places the snare on Ren and finds a file hinting at a plot to assassinate Hideo.

Emika calls Hideo with a warning just before an assassin shoots one of his bodyguards in the Tokyo Dome.

Zero erases all of Emika's Memory Worlds of her father, then an explosion destroys the Phoenix Riders team house.

Hideo visits Emika in the hospital and dismisses her from the bounty job and the team for her own safety.

Emika splices two deleted file fragments together, revealing Zero's plan to spread a virus through rigged Artifacts in the final game.

Emika hacks into the final championship game, uses illegal power-ups, and deactivates the rigged Artifacts with her teammates' help.

Hideo confesses he uploaded a mind-control algorithm to all NeuroLink users; Emika ends their relationship and vows to stop him.

Emika Chen begins the story as a broke bounty hunter in New York City, losing a crucial payment to a rival hunter despite successfully catching her target. Her desperation drives her to hack the Warcross Opening Ceremony, accidentally launching her into the global spotlight and earning her a job offer from Warcross creator Hideo Tanaka. Hideo sends her undercover into the championships to track a dangerous hacker called Zero, who threatens the NeuroLink system. After Emika uncovers and stops an assassination attempt on Hideo, Zero escalates his attacks until Hideo dismisses her from both the team and the mission entirely. Refusing to quit, Emika and her teammates infiltrate the final championship game and neutralize Zero's plan—only to uncover a far darker secret Hideo has been concealing all along. Emika ultimately confronts Hideo over his mind-control algorithm, ends their relationship, and vows to stop him.

The headline events driving Emika's mission from New York to Tokyo and beyond.

Emika's landlord threatens to evict her and roommate Keira within three days unless they pay their overdue rent.

A news program about teenage inventor Hideo Tanaka and his NeuroLink glasses inspires a grieving young Emika to study coding.

Emika flies to Tokyo on Hideo's private jet and revisits Memory Worlds of her late father during the flight.

Hideo tests Emika by showing her memories of Zero's code damage, which she finds and repairs faster than his best engineers.

Emika spots a mysterious dark virtual figure hovering in the rafters of the Tokyo Dome during the Wardraft ceremony.

Emika meets her Phoenix Riders teammates for the first time, including kind Hammie, quiet Roshan, and the standoffish DJ Ren.

At the post-Wardraft party, Emika speaks with rival Demon Brigade players while quietly scanning their hacked private accounts for data.

During team training, Emika attempts to beat Hammie to a power-up but loses it to her at the last moment.

Emika finds a deleted encrypted email in Ren's hacked account bearing the WC0 identifier and a red dot linking to the Dark World.

Emika decodes Zero's oddly specific betting amounts from the Dark World as coordinates for cities hosting championship dome events.

The Phoenix Riders win their second championship game against the Stormchasers.

Ren privately plays Emika a song used in the Darkcross match she spied on, hinting he knows she was watching.

Zero appears inside the third championship game, traps Emika's avatar in an underwater cavern, and demands she work for him instead.

Hammie visits Emika in the hospital and brings her the shredded remains of her father's last painting from the explosion.

Emika agrees to partner with Tremaine to fight for justice and freedom, uncertain which Tanaka brother she will need to stop.

Emika's story begins with financial desperation—eviction threats, a dead-end apartment, and a childhood shaped by the loss of her father—before a news program about the teenage Hideo Tanaka first inspired her passion for coding years earlier. Once in Tokyo, she is quietly tested during a meeting with Hideo, then thrust into the public eye at Wardraft, where she joins the Phoenix Riders and immediately begins investigating her teammates from within. Piece by piece she assembles evidence pointing to Ren's connection with Zero, including a suspicious encrypted email and coordinates she decodes from Dark World bets. As the championship rounds progress, Zero grows bolder—trapping Emika in a match and publicly exposing her relationship with Hideo—before ultimately destroying her most cherished keepsake in the explosion. The story closes with Emika battered but resolute, agreeing with Tremaine to fight for freedom and justice despite not yet knowing which Tanaka brother poses the greater danger.

The supporting moments and discoveries that fill in the full shape of Emika's journey.

Emika decides to attempt stealing the high-value Sudden Death power-up from a player's account during the Warcross Opening Ceremony game.

Emika wakes to find 84 identical texts from Henka Games and news reporters gathered outside her apartment building.

Emika officially accepts Hideo's job offer, learning she will receive ten million dollars if she successfully identifies Zero.

Hideo equips Emika with prototype NeuroLink contact lenses that charge through a microscopic film left on the surface of the eye.

Emika moves into the Phoenix Riders' luxury team house and begins secretly hacking into the personal accounts of all championship players.

Zero stares directly at Emika as she tries to exit the Dark World, revealing that he can see her despite her cover.

Hideo takes Emika to his private rooftop restaurant for dinner and the two plan how to deploy the snare against Ren.

Emika visits Hideo at his home and he demonstrates the Link, a new technology that connects and shares two people's thoughts and feelings.

Hideo uses the Link to share his desire to kiss Emika; they kiss passionately before he abruptly stops and pulls away.

Hideo and Emika kiss at a hot spring near his parents' house during a private outing away from Tokyo.

Hideo shares the Memory of the day his younger brother Sasuke disappeared during a park game when both boys were children.

A holographic photo of Hideo and Emika holding hands is broadcast to spectators worldwide immediately after the third championship game.

Tremaine reveals himself as one of Hideo's dismissed bounty hunters and gives Emika a second fragment of the deleted encrypted file.

Asher, Roshan, and Hammie reveal themselves as disguised helper bots and rescue Emika from security in the Dark World's Emerald Emporium.

Emika uses her recorded Memory of the final match to investigate Zero's account and discovers he is Sasuke Tanaka, Hideo's lost brother.

Emika's story turns on a series of bold choices, each carrying significant consequences—from her reckless decision to steal a Sudden Death power-up during the Opening Ceremony to accepting a secret ten-million-dollar job in Tokyo. Her investigation deepens as Hideo equips her with experimental contact lenses and she moves into the team house, hacking her teammates from the inside while Zero begins to close in on her in the Dark World. The stakes become deeply personal when romantic tension with Hideo escalates through the Link technology's shared emotions and a kiss at a hot spring near his family home, where he finally reveals the childhood tragedy that shaped everything he built. Zero publicly exposes the pair's relationship worldwide, setting off the chain of events leading to the final confrontation, while Tremaine's unexpected offer of help shifts the balance of power in Emika's favor. The ultimate revelation—that Zero is Sasuke Tanaka, Hideo's long-lost kidnapped brother—reframes everything Emika believed and leaves her future loyalties dangerously unresolved.