Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

Chitose Yono refused to leave her side, no matter what. Questions followed questions, and no number of answers satisfied the girl. By the time the sun had set and everyone was getting ready for the second round, Kana had started wishing that she had gotten Risa Ueno, Nobuko’s trainee, instead.

Approaching Kelsey’s room, where she and Jina were getting ready, however, the knowledge that she would soon be free of this girl kept her sane. But before that could happen, she was stopped by Naomi. Standing and waiting in front of Kelsey’s room, she smiled as soon as Kana came into view.

“Minami-san, here.” She handed her a slip of paper before passing a similar one to Chitose, “It’s a snack pass for when the round is going on!”

“Eh?” Kana looked at it, wondering why something like that would even be necessary.

“I mean, there’s still unlimited snacks, obviously.” Naomi explained, “That one is for a local specialty that is quite expensive because of the seasonal ingredients. So, uh, they’re only allowing one per person based on that pass.”

“Ooooh!” Chitose beamed, as usual, “Thank you, Yamazaki-san! That’s awesome. Do you know what it is?”

“Nope. They only asked me to pass them around to everyone without any more information. A few others asked me for the name, too, but I’m a bit clueless there.”

“To everyone?” Kana passed her slip to Chitose and raised her eyebrow, “You don’t mean everyone?”

“I do.”

She groaned, “No! Naomi-san, you work for us. That’s it. Nobody else, alright? You don’t need to go out of your way to do that. You should have outright rejected their order, no matter who they were.”

“But…I thought we were cool with Aiko Taira. Were we not?”

Kana paused, taking a moment to breathe. That name confused her in the worst ways. Taira had already proven herself to be trustworthy and a very valuable insider. Still, she was not immune to pulling off these tricks. The only unfortunate thing that came out of it, though, was having to wonder if it was on purpose.

Had Taira taken advantage of Naomi’s relative naivete to lower her workload, or had she hidden something in these slips that she expected Velvet Beats to catch on to?

For now, at least, she decided to believe in the former. No matter how helpful, Taira was an overworked Coalition employee first. No wonder she had decided to offload some of that burden to someone she could trust. Most of the blame, unfortunately, lay with Naomi in this particular case.

“Well, don’t do it again, alright?” Kana opened the door, “Thank you for your work, Naomi-san.”

“No problem! Let me know if there’s anything else you need. I’ll be in my roo-”

And she closed the door. Without hearing her words out, she slammed it on her face. It brought Kana no pleasure, and she was certainly not pissed off at the woman, but it worked. It left enough of a negative impression on Chitose to influence her to begin a little rebellious phase.

They got into the room, only to see Jina and Kelsey’s trainees sitting on the bed, chatting with each other as the girls got ready. Throwing her handbag on the bed beside them and yawning, Kana stretched her sleep away.

“So, what’s the story?” She asked.

“What story?” Kelsey gritted her teeth, almost shaking with anger at the number of people who had found their way to her room.

“About the competition, duh. Why are they putting idols in AR pod machines on live television? Hell, that would make sense. Why were they doing it without a reason for a retreat?”

“Because we’re, like, really cool!” Jina gave a smug smile, “We’re young, and fun, and love playing games. So, we were just kinda having fun over here before the media pitched this new story about the young trainees!”

“Ok.” Kana sighed, “I’ll let the vet know your rabies shot is due. Now, stop acting up and tell me what the actual story is.”

“Whoa, kinda rude.” Chitose cleared her throat, “She’s telling the truth, actually. That’s what we were told to follow, too. It’s the official story, since it’s not that difficult to accept. I mean, it’s just a bunch of people coming together to play games. Very expensive LAN party, eh?”

“Yono-san, you do LAN parties with your friends!?” Jina turned her hair upside down to look behind her with a grin.

“Ooh, all the time! We get together to play Splato-”

“Alright, shut the nerd talk.” Kana pushed Jina’s head back where it belonged and leaned down to be right beside her ear. The millisecond she did, however, the girl’s temperature increased, and her skin grew red. Pushing past the sudden embarrassment that washed over her, Kana whispered, “Go with it. Make me look like a jerk.”

“Huh? Why?” Came a whispered reply.

“Just do it.”

“Eh…I mean, it won’t be difficult, to be fair. Kinda comes with the territory.”

Kana held her breath, not letting herself fall for it. But the next moment, she had landed a controlled punch on Jina’s head. Being so good at acting was not a good thing, either, clearly. Or being so good at letting the truth out when you were given freedom. Moving back, Kana scowled.

“OW!” Jina cried, “Horrible, horrible. You’re the worst, Kana-chan! What the hell? Who does that? I was just getting ready, you know? I was just sitting here doing nothing, and talking about fun stuff with the girls, and you hit me on the head!?”

“Yeah.”

“Owww!! It hurts so bad! You’re the absolute, absolute worst~! It’s not my fault that you super suck and got kicked out in the very first round. That’s your own skill issue, not ours. Nobody asked you to destroy the entire goddamn building, did they!? Now you’re complaining about it to me and hitting me in the head like I’m some cartoon character!”

“You’re the closest humanity has come, Ohara.” She moved to the bed and crashed on it, spreading her arms to force the girls sitting on it to move and accommodate, “And don’t be talking about winning the rounds when you’re just getting carried by Akiko Hara.”

“Huh? So what? You’re just jealous, aren’t ya? You’re just pissed that you didn’t get to be in the same team as Akiko-chan like me! And let’s be real, you didn’t need to be on it anyway. Kelsey-chan wasn’t on it either, and look at her. She’s looking like a rockstar, ready to rock everyone and win the game. And what are you doing? Crumpling your dress lying down on a bed, that’s what!!”

“Watch what you say, you dumb bi…rd. I don’t need Akiko Hara on my team to win. I’m better than she could ever dream to be, got it?”

And that was enough to light the fuse. Nobody disrespected Ruby Passion or Akiko Hara, and that was the law of the land. Just that line got the girls whispering amongst each other. By the time Kana got back up and looked at them, Chitose was looking at her with a disapproving look.

“What are you looking at, huh?”

“Nothing…”

Kelsey put some finishing touches on her eyelashes and stood up, looking at Kana like a disappointed mother with her hands on her hips, “Minami, if you’ve got nothing to add or do, then just get out of here already. Stop bothering the people who actually have something to look forward to.”

And she did not even have to tell this one to act. Kelsey was just naturally gifted with a sharp tongue and an unagreeable personality, so it worked out perfectly. Kana yawned once more and stood up, looking the blonde girl in the eye before moving towards the room’s exit.

“Yeah, whatever.” She said, “Hope you both lose, or something. At least it’ll show you that Akiko Hara ain’t shit.”

“Maybe record your expression when we don’t, and then we’ll talk.”

Kana closed her eyes in admiration. Even with her actual ally not in the conversation, her actual hater had covered the bases. She scoffed, walking backwards towards the room’s exit, “Oh, shut up. I’m not even gonna watch it. Just go there and get your asses kicked. I’ve got better things to do, anyway.”

“Oh, better things to do?” Jina leaned to the right, looking straight into the corridor Kana was moving deeper into, “You mean like Emi-ch-”

The next one didn’t even require her to come up with a plan. With a red face, Kana picked up a rubber stress relief ball that Kelsey had kept near the exit and threw it towards Jina. It barely missed her, flying past her hair and hitting the wall behind. The goth bitch winced and closed her eyes.

“Shut up!”

It took about a dozen seconds after that for the room to calm down. Only after that happened did Kana straighten herself and look at Chitose Yono, who was busy going through some papers.

“You, come on.”

“Uh…” Chitose looked around and then at her, “Minami-san, will it be fine if I stay with them and watch the game?”

“Whatever. Go watch them lose, loser.”

“Wha…what? Why am I the los-”

Kana shut the door behind her, walking away.

_____________

As everyone left for viewing the second round of the game, Kana waited outside her room. Emi had already left to watch the competition after discussing the plan, so she was all alone. And she remained as such for about ten minutes until Marie Iwata and Hiromi Kitani finally joined her to begin their mission.

“Nobody knows you’re here?” Kana confirmed.

Marie shook her head, “We asked our trainees to be in the audience.”

“And how did that go?”

“Quite well!” Hiromi nodded, “We just told them we had important work, and they promised to record the coolest parts for us.”

“Oh…”

That was an option too, obviously. Kana had just not considered it before the one she went for. Except in her case, there was a chance it didn’t work. The trainees under Nozoki Neko probably knew of them already. To Chitose, Velvet Beats was a relatively small group she didn’t know much about. Kana being busy didn’t sell as a cover story as much as Marie Iwata being busy.

“Let’s go, then.”

The three quickly made their way to the stairs and started climbing to the third floor. Once the press had moved into the resort with their people, some of the idols had been shifted to the lower floors. The only ones remaining on the third were Ruby Passion and THE POP-JO, which made their job easier.

Ensuring that nobody saw them and hiding as necessary, the climb up went as well as possible. After getting there, however, the bigger trouble came into focus. They did not know which rooms belonged to whom, so knocking or entering the wrong ones would probably get them into major trouble.

It also did not help that there were people other than them on the floor. Hiding in the small service corridors that Kana had realized about earlier was how they managed to stay away from prying eyes. And by checking one of the supply closets to find that it was empty, they also found a convenient way to completely disappear for some time.

Thus, they walked around trying to narrow down the rooms occupied by members of THE POP-JO. It slowly got easier as most of the press members left the floor and made their way to the hall where the competition was being broadcast. And about five minutes before the first round was supposed to begin, Marie finally stopped in front of a familiar door.

“This one.”

“Are you sure?” Kana asked.

Marie nodded, and Hiromi backed her up, “Sayuri’s room for sure. She loves hanging that little glass charm on top of the door of every room she stays in. Some kind of gift she got from her best friend.”

“Hmm. Sayuri Kakuta, eh?” Kana put a hand on her chin, “Do we really need her, though? Isn’t she the youngest of the bunch? I don’t think there will be any dirt to be found in her room.”

“Yeah, but their group prefers to stay in close proximity. They’re very good friends even outside of the group, after all.” Marie explained, looking at the doors beside Sayuri’s.

Hiromi tried the door despite knowing they weren’t going to enter, only to find that it was open. She groaned, shaking her head.

“Come on, Sayuri-chan. Why would you do something this dumb? What if someone got in, huh?!?”

“All of these in a row are probably assigned to them. We just need to go through them one by one.” The Nozoki Neko leader said, ignoring her member’s antics.

“I think you can close that one, Kitani-san.” Kana took the matter into her own hands, deciding to control this girl before she became the very intruder she was getting angry about.

Marie stepped forward, hoping to move to the other room as Kana closed the door on this one. The moment she was halfway to the other door, however, it opened on its own. A hand reached out, and then a whole body.

Kana swung Sayuri’s door open, jumping in with Hiromi. Behind them, Marie ran to hide herself, too. Barely making it in before the other door closed, she closed the door behind her.

The sound, unfortunately, made its way to the person outside.

“Huh? Kakuta?”

Kana put a hand over her mouth, and so did the other two. They could not fail this close to the end. Someone knocked on the door, calling her name out once more. It was a familiar voice, but Kana had not heard it enough to figure out who. The knocks continued for another minute or so before she stopped.

Marie took a breath of relief, whispering, “Sachiyo Tanaka…”

Sachiyo? What was a Ruby Passion member doing in a room assigned to THE POP-JO?

The door rattled all of a sudden. Sachiyo, on the other side, tried the handle over and over. She only stopped when another voice called out from the room she had just come out of, and she walked away.

Only then did Kana let go of her tension and take a breath. The last thing she needed was to deal with more Ruby Passion nonsense, but here she was.

“Should we abort?” Hiromi asked, somehow with a determined expression.

“What?” Marie was surprised, too. She shook her head.

“Of course not.” Kana sighed, “We’ll just have to work around them.”