Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

Nobuko Kimura. Class, unknown. She seemed to be the de facto leader of Ruby Passion Jr. based on how she was treating the other girls. Signature revolver in hand, she stared down the monster, even though it was not looking at her anymore. Despite having successfully changed his current target, she hadn’t made the mistake of trying to run away. Tuning her back right now would be certain death.

Her two team members also had their weapons out. Kenji Tanaka had been very particular when he had picked them, given their styles. It wasn’t a surprise that all of them sported some very high-level or unique classes. Kana found the one on the right of Nobuko more interesting, so she looked at the one on the left first.

Megumi Ishida. Class, Scout. It wasn’t something Kana had seen yet, but she had read about it during training. The Scout class was not generally considered something worth having on the team, but things changed when it was paired with someone like Nobuko. Megumi Ishida used a variety of tools to not only gain more information about the monsters she saw, but also highlight weak points for everyone in the fight. To aid herself, there was a submachine gun strapped to her back. Kana assumed that had nothing to do with her system.

Shoko Takahashi, Class, Healing. Another class that would be useless in every team, except one containing Nobuko. Generally, monsters did not dole out enough damage to warrant healing. The competition didn’t go on for long enough to worry about stamina either. But for a girl who was constantly aiming a revolver and getting one kill per shot? Constant bursts of extra stamina and adrenaline were exactly what she needed.

This wasn’t a team at all. It was a support squad meant to make Nobuko stronger. It was meant to take her to the absolute limit of her potential. Since she killed a monster with a single bullet anyway, why would you want anyone else if they were wasting so much time? If only they knew what her class was. Things would be easier to understand and counter.

For now, though, they needed to focus on the four-armed elephant in the battlefield. Sizing them up, it still hadn’t attacked. Maybe it had noticed the lack of weapons in their hands? But then again, even if they had only one, Ruby Passion Jr. also had only one major weapon in view. They were both an equal threat.

“Sanada, you run first. How’s the ankle?” Kelsey asked, getting the axe in her hand ready to attack.

“Don’t!” Kana warned, “Don’t move, or else you will make it attack first. It's testing the waters right now. Let them start and ruin it.”

“Ever heard that precaution is better than cure?” The blonde girl grimaced, her voice almost low and gravelly enough to be a growl.

“Yeah. And the second mouse gets the cheese. Don’t bring up random phrases to justify your nonsense!”

Kana had made the mistake of illogically attacking these things before, and it had not turned out well. You could not just start blasting and hope for the best. There was more thought, consideration, and planning that would need to be put into it. Otherwise, the only thing that would leave this world would be their corpses.

Yet, before she could relay that to that stupid girl, the damage had already been done. Moving her left foot back to get into a running position, Kelsey looked at Sanada and nodded, as if she thought the vocalist was in agreement. Then, with a deep breath, she whispered.

“Good thing I’m a hawk, and not a rat, then.”

Like a missile, she boosted forward. For being a sniper, she had surprisingly good speed. Reaching the legs of the eleven-foot monster in the blink of an eye, she looked up, and they looked at each other for a split second. In the next moment, Kelsey swung the weapon at its thigh.

“And now I guess we have no other option.” Kana groaned, “Run!”

Four-Armed Demon did not stay still as the weapon got closer. By the time it was piercing the very edge of its skin, the monster had already started to bring one of its hands down. Palm wide open, it was aimed straight for Kelsey’s head.

Kana couldn’t care less about her lack of any survival instinct. Grabbing Sanada’s hand, she pulled her to the left. Jina, at the same time, hopped towards the right. Ruby Passion Jr. was probably having a hell of a time watching this unfold, but this was not about them. Kana would not let Nobuko make this about them. She couldn’t use her weapons anymore, but she still had a knife. That was what she would make do with.

“Kelsey!” Sanada screamed, causing the blonde to look up at the mammoth palm coming towards her.

“Let her-”

The vocalist could not. She could not just let go. Stretching her hand out, the moment before the hand touched her, she switched her weapons. A sledgehammer appeared in her hand, and the axe vanished. Driven by the forward momentum of the lost weapon, the blonde girl collapsed forward. The palm landed on the ground with a thud, sending dust and pebbles flying.

Pulling herself away, Sanada put the sledgehammer back in her inventory to check on her team member. Four-Armed Demon, snarling at the lack of any death, looked up at the new contender. Raising all three of its remaining arms, it stepped forward. Below it, Kelsey rolled away from the thudding footsteps.

“Upper Right Hand. Middle finger!”

In the distance, the Ruby Passion Jr. Scout, Megumi Ishida, called out. The demon turned one of its eyes towards them, only to see a bullet rush past it at blinding speed.

“A…h…”

It pierced through the finger that Megumi had called out. Right through the very base of its ligaments, causing it to fall down to the ground. A spurt of blood gushed from the wound, painting its brown body and the wasteland below it crimson red. Far away, Nobuko smiled and reloaded her revolver.

Not a one-shot kill, then. What were her powers? If Kana somehow didn’t find out in this fight, then she would never forgive herself. This was the opportune time, and a plan was already forming in her head. If she could damage the demon, then they didn’t need to focus on fighting. Sakai Entertainment wasn’t supposed to be here anyway. Let Ruby Passion Jr. take the points. Kana was here for information.

Jina turned, running back to the demon. Blood dripping down its body, it tried to run, swooshing its hands at her. She bent down, grabbing Kelsey by her arm as the two of them tried to crawl out.

“En…emy…”

“Lower Left Hand. Thumb.”

Another bullet ripped through the air. Kana changed her direction, still pulling Sanada along with her. The projectile hit the bottom of its finger and shredded through. This time, it did not tear it apart. It blew it into a million pieces, sending small bits of flesh and bone flying everywhere. Four-Armed Demon groaned in pain, giving enough time to Jina and Kelsey to get out of range.

The battlefield took a breath again. It stood there as the two girls wrapped around to run back to the rest of them. Now all seven were, without any communication between them, standing in front of the demon. It snarled; red dust flying in the air with every exhale. Kana readied her knife, hoping to trick Nobuko into believing she was going to fight.

“What are you doing here?” The leader of Ruby Passion Jr. asked first, slightly tilting her head as she looked at Jina.

“We…uh…” She stuttered her reply, “We were just, uh…doing-”

“En…emy…kill.”

The demon scratched its chin with its upper right hand. Then, with a nod, it repeated the tail end of its latest sentence.

“Kill.”

“Are you sure you do not want to try reasoning with it, Nobu?” Megumi asked.

“I think we might be a bit past that, Ishida.” Nobuko sighed, spinning the revolver on her index finger, “Might have tried it before I shot two of its fingers off.”

“Well, I did suggest it when we first came across the six of them. But Sho-chan was-”

“I was what?” Shoko rolled her eyes, “All you ever do is blame, blame, and blame. Just shut up and tell her the next weak point. That’s what you’re here to do, so start doing your job!”

The demon observed, slowly raising its upper hands. At the same time, it pushed the lower hands outwards, as if preparing for a wrestling match. Four-Armed Demon’s feet pushed the dirt around them, finding even ground to grip on.

Megumi, apparently offended by her words, brought her hand up. It contained a small device which looked very much like some advanced binoculars. Putting them right in front of her eyes, she gulped and started analyzing the beast in front of her. Nobuko, notably, kept quiet the entire time. Her entire body stayed on alert, tracking the demon instead of worrying about her group members.

Kana glanced at the leader, wondering when the right time to make a move would be. The demon’s hands reached the very top and joined together in a praying gesture. The air rippled, and a low hum started to rise out of him. That made her snap back to the main threat here. Why did so many things have to happen together? For once, she had her head straight, and now it had to go and do something like this.

“What?” Sanada whispered.

“Is it…praying?” Jina took a step forward, putting her hands in the same position, “But they don’t know how to pray. They can’t. That’s our thing.”

“You’re asking the wrong question.” Kana shook her head, raising her knife up with the intent to throw.

“Yeah? What’s the right one?” Kelsey stood in front of Sanada, ripping the knife out of Jina’s hands as she prepared, along with Kana.

Nobuko looked at the four of them, subtly smiling as she raised and aimed her revolver. Megumi put her scanner down and looked at her leader. She nodded and pressed a button on the device. For some reason, she wasn’t going to call anything out this time. The device whirred, and its rectangular front opened up. Rising straight, it transformed into a gun barrel.

The demon’s hum grew in intensity and volume, and the ground started to rumble. The seven girls, working in two completely different pairs with bated breaths.

Megumi aimed the device-turned-gun and shot. A small, almost invisible pellet pierced the demon’s skin. Without any noise or wound, it dissolved into the creature’s blood. Kana did not have time for this. Aiming straight for the demon’s upper hands, she threw the knife. Watching her move, Kelsey did the same. Their blades flew out, cutting through the air at high speeds.

“The right question….”

Right then, a small spot on the demon’s chin started to glow green. Nobuko cracked a smile. The knives hit its hands. The first stabbed straight through both of the palms, and the second lodged into one of its fingers. The hum stopped, and its eyes flew open. A single growl.

“Who is it praying to?”

Nobuko asked the question as she shot. The bullet hit the part of the jaw on which the green mark had appeared. Four-Armed Demon’s growl stopped in an instant as the bone dislodged, half of it falling down with the flesh barely holding it in place. Its upper hands broke free from the position, sliding the knife out of one of its palms, and leaving it stuck in the other.

A moment of silence and peace as its eyes grew larger and redder with anger.

“KILL.”

A final scream, and the small strands of flesh holding its jaw up tore. The left side of his mouth fell down, and his upper hands moved to his outstretched lowers. Grabbing both of them, he leaned down and forward, his face barely able to contain the anger. Kana took a step back, getting ready to step back. With her, she took both Sanada and Jina. Kelsey followed.

“That was the right question, wasn’t it?” Nobuko laughed, looking at her with eyes so revolting that she would have thought them impossible a few weeks ago. How many more surprises was this girl going to give her?

“KRRUGGHIICLLL!”

Its whole body vibrating, the veins on the demon’s arms popped out, thick and pulsating. A shrill, raw sound of muscles ripping apart filled the surroundings. Kana and her group kept moving backwards, as she herself alternated between the demon and Nobuko. The sound got louder and grittier, causing her to cringe out of fear.

Then, covered in its crimson red blood, it pulled both of its lower arms out of their sockets. The blood pouring out of them splattered across the field. As if swords unsheathed, the demon rushed forward in the same second, leaning straight in like a samurai. There was no time to react. They could not get away on.

“Grab on to me!” Sanada screamed as she took her sledgehammer out once more and swung it. The girls tightly grabbed on to different parts of her body at once.

“Wasn’t it? Give me an answer, Kana-chan.” Nobuko, fearless, smiled as she slurred her way through those last few words.

The demon’s arms thrashed into the ground, leaving a crater in their cave. Covering it all, pieces of its own flesh mixed with the coarse dust. Just before it hit them, Sanada’s sledgehammer hit the demon on the side of its arm. Enough force generated, they were thrown back together, crashing into the ground.

Kana’s cheeks grazed the dirt on the ground; her head hitting every small pebble and sharp rock on the way. There, with her eyes closed, she started thinking. It needed to come together. Somehow, she needed to put it all in a single package. How could she solve all of this at once?

“Sanada, here!”

Kelsey was already on her feet. Taking the sword, which Sanada had just switched to, out of her hands, the blonde girl rushed in. The demon turned its focus on her immediately. Using one hand to clash against her weapon, he used the other to make distance between him and Ruby Passion Jr. That later move could be a disaster for the demon, though. In the grand scheme of things, maybe a small victory.

Kana pushed herself up and got the dust off her face. Jina, standing beside her, managed to help Sanada to her feet.

Ruby Passion Jr. stuck together. Shoko Takahashi took a small gun with a fat round barrel out of her system and shot it at the floor. A green liquid spilled on the legs of the three girls. The moment it touched them, they started moving faster. Keeping as far away from the brawl between Kelsey and the demon, Megumi put her scanner up once more. Their little gameplay loop had started.

“Kelsey…” Sanada coughed, trying to limp forward to help her. The vocalist’s bandage had come off again. Jina held her back, keeping her locked between her arms to make sure she couldn’t go in just yet.

“Kana, what do we do!?” She asked, trying her hardest to contain the struggling Sanada, “Nobuko can’t find out about the plan. And she’ll tell everyone now. She’ll tell them about Sanada-san.”

That made the vocalist stop. The realization set in. Ruby Passion Jr. had seen her alive. If everyone got out of this alive, they would know that Sanada could survive something like this. And then, there would be no excuse to tell people that she had died. Jina let go of her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Sanada looked at Nobuko and her group, probably wondering what to do.

What to do was the right thing to think, though. The demon. The groups. The plan. Kana raced her mind. Every time Kelsey blocked a strike from the Four-Armed Demon, Kana’s brain accepted the rhythm and started to work. The clangs of the extremely durable hands hitting the blade created enough of a melody to help her get there. There was an answer. One that she could see right away.

“We can do it.” She nodded.

“How?” Jina asked, “What are we doing?”

She wasn’t going to let anyone actually die. As much as she did not like Kelsey or Nobuko, they would live as well. But this could not go well if nobody died. She would have to solve that little causal loop, and that was what the plan was about.

“If she isn’t going to believe that Sanada is dead, then we’ll just have to kill Sanada in front of her. For her, we’ll need to kill you.”