Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

What did it mean to give someone a chance? Who really, really even deserved a chance? Kana counted down the reasons in her mind with the barrel of the grenade launcher pointing at the man’s skull. The other members of his little crew, including Yamazaki’s sister, crawled away from their leader in panic.

Right now, if she pulled the trigger, what would change? The calm winter breeze caused her hair to get in her eyes. Clicking her tongue, she pushed the barrel deeper into his skin. The man cowered and lowered his knees, whimpering as he reached the floor and raised his hands.

“Look…look…what’ya want? Huh? What’ya want?”

If the world had been traumatized because of RiRi’s death, would it even blink at this guy’s? If RiRi could die, then he could die too. Yet, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. It had taken no effort at all to walk up here, shout, and point this thing at him. Now, though, she didn’t have the strength to pull the trigger.

“Just lemme go, man. What’a do to you!?”

She was going to show them, but she could not. She could not kill someone again. Where had all of these morals come from? When had she started to care enough?

“Who’s yours, eh?” the man shrugged, gesturing at the people behind him, “Someone here, yeah? Take ‘em. Go on. Pick the bitch up and lemme go. Wha’fuck I do to you!?”

Kana came back to the present with that sentence and straightened herself. She almost wanted to thank him. Looking back at all of the cowering men and women, she almost wanted to jump up in joy as her mind reached the same conclusion again. It had been surprisingly fast and easy. The Paradox of Tolerance.

“All of them.”

The moment she whispered, the man stuttered and started waving his fingers around in uncertainty. Going through every single face behind him, he shrugged and groaned before his trembling knees gave in. Dropping down to the floor, the man shook his head.

“Nah, nah. What’ya mean all of ‘em? I ain’t givin’ you all of ‘em. They’re mine!”

“Yeah, I don’t care. Are you going to walk away, or do you want to be carried by an emergency specialist?”

“Man, who’re you, huh!?” He raised his voice, even though he was still cornered, “You know how much time I put into ‘em? You know how much money!? They mine, got ‘at? Get your fucking paws off.”

“Paws, huh?” Kana wagered the Coalition wasn’t that far away. She kneeled down too and pushed the barrel down until his head hugged the ground. There, as he looked at her heels, she decided on everything.

She decided that she had been wrong to let RiRi die. She decided that all of it had been her fault and that it was irreversible. She decided that no amount of mourning was going to cleanse her. But she also decided on how not to make that mistake again. Not on purpose, at least.

“How many years?” She asked, “You said you’ve put in a lot of time, so let’s hear it.”

“Man, just lemme goo!” He cried, smacking his fist against the ground, “I wanna go home! Leave m’alone, man…”

“How many years?”

“Man…”

“How. Many. Years?”

“E…eight!”

“Wow. I don’t remember the last time I put eight years of my life into something. Crazy.” She gasped, “That really is a lot of time. How many times have you been to rehab?”

“Huh?”

The man tried to look up. Kana got back on her feet and kicked him in the stomach.

“How many times have you been to rehab?”

“I…I don’t go there, man. I clean! Shut up and lemme go. I got nothing to do with this.”

“Never? Wow…” Kana nodded.

It was such a simple process. Ask questions, get answers, and then judge based on them. As long as she knew that the person who died deserved it, then their death was acceptable. In fact, now that he had given her his answer, she felt like she couldn’t wait to see his face blasted against this wall.

“How many girls do you have? Is this all of them?”

“Y-yes, man. Just take ‘em, alright? You’re fucking insane. Just take ‘em and lemme go.”

“Liar!” She screamed, kicking him in the stomach once more, “How many?”

“T…” He coughed up some blood and then continued, “This is half. Just…lemme go. Please?”

“My, my. Quite a number, then.”

Tires screeched against the road. She looked back and noticed that Yamazaki had turned the car around. Without a word, she knew why he was here. In the distance, the Coalition cars were starting to appear. There wasn’t enough time.

“Jina, grab her.”

The back door opened, and the goth bitch ran out to take Yamazaki’s purple-haired sister out of the group. As she dragged her away, the man laughed. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his screaming blended into his joy. Looking at their friend go, the other men and women started to stand up too.

“Yo, what the fuck!?” Yamazaki’s sister screamed, trying to wrestle out of Jina’s hands, “Let me free. Who are you? Jun? Is that you, Jun? You bastard. Let me g-!”

Kana hit the girl on her head. She went limp, unconscious. Jina, still in shock, managed to get her into the car and close the door. That was that, then. The cars were basically on them by now. There wasn’t a lot of time left to deal with this entire mess all at once.

Withdrawing her launcher and leaving the man as he was, Kana looked up at his high followers. Barely able to comprehend the situation, they still looked like they were trying to weigh their decisions. A hell of a time to do it, too. Kana wondered where all of them, sixteen in total, would have been if they had thought about their choices a few years ago.

“Get out while you’ve got the chance.”

She got into the front seat of the car as the Coalition’s cars came to a stop. There were four in total for now. Two men got out of the first one and started to walk towards them. The man on the ground stood up, laughing with the pleasure of being alive. One look at Yamazaki, and he pressed on the accelerator. They burst forward at once, and the two men ran back to their car.

“You’re gonna let him go?” Jina asked, turning in her seat to look back, “All that big talk, and you’re gonna let him go!?”

“Should we loop around to get a few more of them?” Yamazaki asked. Kana assumed he was referring to the other victims.

“No.” She replied, “They got themselves where they are. Their fucking fault. The only reason she’s in the back is that she’s your sister.”

“Are you trying to ignore me? You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you? Cause I punched you in the stomach!” Jina was still looking through the rear window to check on the Coalition cars. All four of them were after them now.

Kana looked at her hand, and at the finger which had once held that Ruby Passion ring. That psychiatrist would probably be disappointed in her when she went live next week, but it was fine. If he was showing random girls images of gory helicopter crashes, then maybe he could be the next one at the end of her barrel.

Through the rearview mirror, she ignored the cars coming after them at high speeds and focused on the man. His victims had mostly walked out of the range, and he had finally seen it. The darkness made it impossible for darker shades like green to be easily visible. But that ring would shine.

He picked it up in admiration, probably thinking about how he had pulled one over her. Only then would he notice that the ring was not by itself.

“You know the fun thing about grenades?” Kana asked, holding up her middle finger towards Jina to spite her constant questioning, “They don’t go off until you actually want them to.”

Their car took a turn to get out of the ward. In those final seconds, as Kana looked out of the window to her side, she was able to get the view she wanted. The man held the ring up with a smile, and the grenade lever that it had been holding tight slipped out. The clink was inaudible, but she heard it in her heart. Just as they pulled away from the view, a loud blast echoed through the streets.

“Holy shit!” Jina screamed, “They’ve got guns. They’re pulling out guns!”

Kana sighed, pulling her seat back and pressing it against Jina’s body. As the goth girl grunted and tried to get out of the way, Kana looked at her and then at the rear window. She couldn’t bother to confirm those words. Even if they were true, they were inconsequential.

“Yamazaki-san, step on it. Use those skills you were showing off just now and get us out.”

Yawning, she decided that it was about time she rested. Her heart still hadn’t accepted RiRi’s death, but she wagered a little more sleep could fix that. Now that she had done all of this, she needed a fresh brain to think of how to handle the consequences.

“Kana, the guns! Stop fucking ignoring me, for god’s sake. What about the guns!?”

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up!” Kana groaned and pulled the girl back down, making her sit, “What’s easier to cover up? A random explosion, or a whole car crash with three casualties?”

“Uh…the former?”

“Exactly. They can’t afford to kill us at this hour. They won’t have enough time to prepare a cover story. We’re safe. Just sit down and make sure purple hair over there doesn’t fall over every turn.”

Once that had been dealt with, the rest of the trip was a breeze. Or, well, it felt like a breeze to Kana. The Coalition cars did not honk or shoot, since they did not want to make any noise. Yamazaki weaved through the streets as if he had been born here, because he had been. There was no chance in hell that they were going to catch them tonight.

Pulling the seatbelt, she closed her eyes. The jolt of every turn and the skidding every time the car’s tyres burned against the road gave her all the comfort she needed. The bright lights of Neo-Edo flashed against her shut eyelids as they passed over them. Just their colors, switching from neon to luxury gold, were enough to tell her which ward they were in.

She was going to place all of her trust in this man. Not because she truly thought he was incapable of failing her, but because she knew failure wasn’t a choice for him anymore. Kana wasn’t going to lie and pretend like this had been her plan all along. But put simply, she had seen her employee in distress and had helped him out. Now, the ball was in his court.

How do you pay back someone who saved your sister? Kana wouldn’t know, of course. She never met Keiko’s friends and school teachers to be able to do that. But she had started to hold them in higher regard than she held for her own mother. Whenever Keiko was at school, Kana knew that she would be safe.

If someone saves your life, then that debt lasted a lifetime. But if someone saved someone you loved, that debt lasted till the end of time itself. The unconscious purple-haired woman in the back was an utter failure of a human being, and Kana recognized her as such. But to Yamazaki, she was the entire world and then some more.

He shifted the stick and pressed on the pedals with extreme precision, blasting through the streets as they moved further and further away from the Coalition cars. Kana wasn’t sure if she drifted off to sleep and then woke up, or just stayed awake the entire time. Regardless, by the time the bright lights were replaced by the sun, the cars on their tail had completely given up.

“Jun…what the hell are you doing?”

The girl stirred awake as they finally came to a stop in some back alley. The sun was just rising and slanting through the windows.

“Naomi…” Yamazaki sighed, his hands red and trembling from all the rash driving.

“Where are we, Yamazaki-san?” Kana pulled her seat back, pushing Jina’s cramped legs away and causing her to wake up as well.

“My mother’s place. I will ask her to accommodate us for some time.”

“Are you stupid?” She asked, pulling the water bottle out of the tray beside her, “Just take us back to Katsuhara. No need to make such stupid sacrifices. Fuck your mother.”

“Unnhh…” Jina yawned awake, hitting a confused Naomi in the face with her fist, “What are you saying, Kana-chaan? They’ll be waiting for us there.”

“No, they won’t. Sakai thinks I’m a smartass, so he will expect me to find a hiding spot. That is why we give up on the hiding spot and just go home. You’ve got a nice car, Yamazaki-san, but I really would prefer to sleep on my own bed for some time.”

“Uh…” He adjusted the rearview mirror to get a look at his sister, “Fine.”

“No, stop. Who are you? Why am I here? Open the door…”

She tried to push the handle, but it was locked. Kana groaned on the inside and started to look out of the window as the car started moving. Naomi kept asking questions, and Jina introduced herself. Yamazaki, probably too embarrassed to be able to respond, drove without a word. So much noise in the morning was not Kana’s favorite thing in the world. Not after such a heavy night.

These were the people that she had decided to surround herself with. That, she knew, hadn’t been the wrong decision. Or that’s what she considered ninety percent of the time. And that problem could be solved if they weren’t so damn annoying during the remaining ten percent.