Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

Kana sat beside Emi, only to face a complete rejection of her presence. The girl’s eyes were glued to the screen, where the two groups were finally stepping out onto this round’s stage. Kelsey and Yuko both walked out first, followed by the other girls. Unfortunately, Kana was barely able to pay attention to whatever was going on there.

“Emi! What happened? Stop being a child!”

No reply.

“Emi! Emi! Emi! What the fuck!?”

Not even a blink.

“Emi!” Kana pushed her hand forward and pinched her arm, finally getting a reaction out of her.

“Owch! Emi grabbed her hand, rubbing it, “Just keep it down for some time. Not now!”

“Wow. Not that hard to say, was it?”

Kana would have, at that point, expected her to react slightly unfavorably and sit sulking during the rest of the match. Instead, without even waiting for a reply, the chair screeched backwards, and Emi stood up. Their eyes met briefly, and she communicated a horror that Kana had never felt before this. The horror of unknowing. She tried to speak up, to reply, but Emi had already walked away by then.

On the screen, the six girls had entered the level. This time, it was designed to look like a rural medieval village. In the middle of the map was a large well. On both sides, symmetrically positioned, were three wooden huts each. Each team was standing behind the middle hut on their side, waiting for the whistle.

“Yuko, you know…?” A grating voice suddenly whispered in Kana’s ear, “Yuko is really, really talented. But she is so, so incapable of adapting to chaotic situations.”

Akiko Hara sat down on Emi’s empty seat, smiling. Kana felt her heart rate increase and then fall back down, all at once. The more she looked into the eyes of her enemy, the less she felt like she had something to fear. The closer this woman got to her, the further she drifted from her established personality.

“I think Yuko’s gonna lose today. What do you think?”

Kana smiled back, tightening her fist away from Akiko’s view. The whistle rang, and all the members of the media started scrambling to get the cameras ready. The game began.

“I don’t think, unfortunately, Akiko-san. I don’t participate in hypotheticals.”

_____________

Hanae Miura moved first.

Based on their division, Kana guessed that Kelsey’s team had decided to force three different one-versus-one mini-matches. The idea itself made sense in this case, where forcing two people onto one enemy would leave the rest of the board unbalanced as well. Instead, divide your resources equally, and then cover up for whatever outcome came out of it.

Hanae and Sayuri had, then, picked the opponents below them. The two girls whose names Kana couldn’t be bothered to remember were from teams even below Velvet Beats. On the surface, that put Yuko Suzuki at a disadvantage. But when Kelsey was the only one going up against her, that position became one of predatory benefit. With both of them using snipers and hiding in one of the three huts on their side, their game would not include the other four players at all.

It was a simple match of skill, rank, and luck. The one kind of competition that Kana respected.

Hanae ran in from the left lane, meeting halfway with one of the opposing girls. A Handgun Class, the Nozoki Neko member took out her duel-wielded automatic pistols, aiming at the one closing in. That girl, her opponent, was another Bomber Class. And despite her middling curly haircut, that small detail made Kana lean.

In the huts, Yuko peeked from her side, sliding from one window to another to catch the glint of the opposing sniper. Kelsey, however, was nowhere to be found. Instead of participating in a generic cover shooting duel, she had gone for the more violent route. As Yuko bent down and cocked her rifle to prepare a shot, the frame of the window above her cracked.

The shrill cry of a bullet, followed by the creaking of wood, was tail-ended by the table behind her shattering into two. Yuko bent down further, keeping crouched as she moved to a move covered position. Kelsey shot again, tearing through the wood Yuko had been crouching behind just a moment ago. The bullet hit the floor, ricocheting once before hitting the ceiling, and clattering dead right next to Yuko’s foot.

“It appears like Kelsey is trying to destroy the battlefield instead of using it to hide. Certainly, an interesting strategy!”

_____________

Kana groaned and looked to the right, where a single Coalition representative was standing with a mic in his hand. She hadn’t seen this person before, but the suit gave his allegiance away.

“Commentary? Are you kidding me?”

“I know, right?” Akiko rolled her eyes, pulling out a pair of earbuds and handing them to Kana, “Want some? Really helps with blocking their stupid words out.”

“I’d rather listen to the match, thank you.”

“But you can listen to it via these.” She put one in her ear without asking, and the sound of a grenade exploding rang in Kana’s ear the very next moment, almost loud enough for her to want to tear it off.

“What the…?!” She held her ear, groaning.

“Ah, sorry, sorry.” Akiko put the second one on and then pulled her phone out. With a quick slider setup on an app, the volume of the earbuds went down, and she gave Kana a thumbs up.

Kana looked away, seeing no need to thank her for something she hadn’t asked for in the first place. Putting all of her attention back on the match, now that she could hear it without the pathetic commentary, she was pulled right back in.

_____________

Kelsey destroyed another window, letting its shards litter the other side to make sure nobody would stand there. Even if the game was not real, standing on glass would still cause Yuko’s character to internally take damage in the system.

To the right, Sayuri Kakuta had engaged the other girl, but was taking her time with the fight. An Assault Class user, she was using the hut just like Yuko had been – as nothing but cover. Her opponent, who was also somehow an Assault Class, seemed to be matching her pace.

Kana groaned. As if the boredom of the sniper duel had not been enough. Now, she had to power through four people shooting at each other while hiding behind a window.

“Miura, watch out!” Kelsey screamed from inside the hut, firing another preliminary shot before Yuko could stand up and narrow her position down.

To the left, Hanae jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a bomb headed straight for her stomach. Missing her, it bounced over to the entrance of the hut and went off, sending the pieces and splinters of wood flying through the battlefield. Kelsey, within her own hut, stumbled over, falling to the floor.

Hanae moved up, shooting at the Bomber’s leg before throwing one of her own pistols at her face. The enemy raised her grenade launcher in the air and shot, but the projectile only hit the approaching pistol. Sending the firearm to the floor because of the momentum, the grenade itself also came back, causing the girl to sidestep to avoid it.

Precisely at that moment, Hanae shot once more, catching her this time. The bullets pierced through the Bomber’s ankle, crippling her. The grenade flew to the back, causing some dust to fly up before lying still on the ground. It did not go off. Both the girl on the floor with her hands raised and the girl standing above with the pistol looked at the explosive.

In the back, Yuko took advantage of her opponent stumbling. Switching up her position to be in the same hut as the Assault Class member of her team, she angled her sniper to catch Kelsey right as she stood up. Still recovering from the sudden blast, she barely got to come back to her senses before a bullet found its way through the wooden walls and to her ear.

The piece of flesh fell down, causing Kelsey to stumble back with a censored curse and sit down on the floor. Taking cover behind one of the prop cabinets, she caught her breath.

“So, is that like…a dud?”

In the left lane, Hanae waved her pistol at the grenade. The girl on the floor shrugged, also looking at it with a concerned expression.

“That’s never happened before. I mean…it’s not like it’s real, you know?”

Hanae sighed, “System’s still kinda broken, huh?”

The girl on the floor widened her eyes, gritting her teeth before trying to remind her opponent of the situation they were supposed to be in. But before she could angle her legs and spin them to catch Hanae off-guard, a set of bullets had already found their way to the girl’s stomach. Blood poured out, though toned down compared to the first round, and the Bomber was defeated without any fanfare.

Hanae took a deep breath and sat down, picking the dead grenade off the floor and looking at every inch.

“My, my. That’s a bit dangerous, isn’t it?”

Kana looked to her side, caught off guard by Akiko suddenly speaking right into her ears.

“Don’t worry, Minami-san. They’re just connected. We can talk without hearing the outside, so it’s fine!”

Both Kelsey's and Yuko’s bullets whizzed past the main well and into the other’s hut. Kana looked away, adjusting her bangs so that no part of Akiko’s face was visible to her.

Hanae stood up, stretching as the many bullets being shared between the four still fighting turned into a force melody. The grenade in her hand remained silent, refusing to react to its programming in any way. Kana often forgot because they were working with her, but Nozoki Neko was still one of the top competitors of the Coalition. Miura probably knew what she was doing.

“Still struggling, Sayuri?” She yawned, tossing the grenade in her hand as she laid her eyes on the huts at the far right.

In that hut on their side, the member from THE POP-JO was, indeed, struggling. She tried to reload her weapon, but it refused to click like it was supposed to. Since Assault Class members were stuck with the same weapon, this wasn’t the ideal condition. Another burst of bullets was pre-fired from the other side, forcing her to remain crouched and panicked.

“Kelsey! Got any assault-compatible magazines!?”

In the middle hut, the blonde-haired sniper raised her eyebrows, “What? Why would I? What is wrong with you!?”

“Huh…wahah!”

Another barrage of bullets kept Sayuri down as she pulled her head between her hands and threw her rifle aside. No matter what she did, it would not shoot. There was no time to engineer it to be better.

“Yeah. What do you mean?” Kelsey continued, moving to the right wall of her building, “Why would a sniper rifle magazine ever be compatible with an assault rifle. Why would you ask that?”

“Doesn’t seem like the time for that argument…” Akiko sighed.

Kana tried to ignore her. It was one thing to have an annoying Coalition member giving bad commentary. It was a completely different level of torture for Kana when that person was Akiko Hara.

“Look, I’m new, alright? I’m sorr-”

Kelsey screamed as another set of bullets rang through the battlefield, “New? You don’t need experience to know that. It’s the most common answer in the world. What are you on…”

No reply came back. No whimper or cry from the teammate who should have reacted at least a little bit. Kelsey moved back, peeking out of the window to her side to look at the hut to her right. In there, through two windows, she saw Sayuri Kakuta’s dead avatar. She hadn’t stopped mid-sentence because Kelsey started shouting. She had been stopped a bit more forcefully than that.

Hanae, unsure of what was going on, finally threw the grenade, relying on what little arm strength she had as a Handgun Class user. Bringing one of her pistols up as the explosive made its way through the field and towards the opposing hut where the enemies were, she prepared to shoot.

At the same time, Kelsey groaned at the loss of her teammate. Running back to the front of her building to find an open window to shoot at Yuko and the other girl from.

On the other side, right then, Yuko moved, too.

“Minami-san, do you know why this map is so boring compared to the mansion?” Akiko asked, leaning closer to her for absolutely no reason.

Kana refused to answer again, keeping her eyes glued on the screen as all three of them moved at the same time.

Kelsey shot at the peeking Yuko. Yuko shot at the completely defenseless Kelsey. Hanae Miura, hoping to forcefully ignite the explosive before it reached the hut, shot at the exact same moment. Three bullets flew in, aiming for different targets. Yet, their trajectories matched.

“It’s a structural flaw.” Akiko kept going despite being ignored, “In fact, the map is so obtuse to understand that they ended up having to tune up the algorithmic luck factor up by so much just to make matches more interesting.”

As if to match her exact words, that very luck kicked in. Three individual bullets collided at a meeting point in the middle.

Yuko’s reached the grenade first, having not expected the projectile to interrupt her shot. The bullet hit it at the top, letting it topple into the well right below it. Now that its path was clear, Hanae’s pistol shot flew straight, free of any target. Free…until Kelsey’s high-caliber shot found its way to that very path. The two bullets hit each other, and Hanae’s exploded, causing Kelsey’s to be redirected just a little.

As the grenade fell into the well, and Yuko’s shot hit a random part of the wooden wall, Kelsey was the only one who found a human target. The Assault Class girl, who had been happily reloading her gun now that her enemy was dead, was hit right in the neck by the redirected bullet. She fell down, dead, and a silence blanketed both the game’s battlefield and the auditorium they were in.

“That’s…” Nothing else came to Kana’s mind, “just some bullshit…”

“Oh, Minami.” Akiko chuckled, “It’s not even over. This is my favorite part of my least favorite map, actually. When the bullshit that you’re referring to meets the brain-dead level design that was put into this map? The results are a bit…”

The sniper shot had activated the grenade. As it landed at the bottom of the well, the insides finally clicked. The System finally calculated its presence. And then, it exploded.

At first, just a stifled blast under the ground caused some smoke to rise from the well. Then, for some reason, flames started to lick the bottom of all three sheds. They teased the wooden floor before ripping it all apart and rising up indiscriminately.

All six huts caught on fire, rocked by the explosion. Kelsey screamed just once before the fire swallowed her. Yuko Suzuki did not make even a single sound as the roof of the hut collapsed and crushed her.

Quite unceremoniously, without any skill or mental planning on display, the still alive, very confused Hanae Miura brought the match to an end.

_____________

Akiko removed Kana’s earbuds with her creepy smile and put them back in her bag. The commentator on the side announced that Team 6, containing Kelsey, Hanae Miura, and Sayuri Kakuta, had won the match. Yuko Suzuki and the other girls in Team 7 had been eliminated first.

Kana did not move. She bit her tongue, hiding it behind her closed mouth to maintain a neutral expression as she looked at Akiko.

“I know. It’s a bitch of a map.” She sighed, “I mean, they made a whole underground part of it, and there’s no visible entrance. It only comes into view once the huts are destroyed, or someone falls down the well.”

“I’m guessing you did not play on the same map earlier today?” Kana asked.

“Nah, of course not. We all hate it with a passion, and Yuko just got…unlucky. Absolute shame that that map happened to end up in her game, and led to her loss. Fate can be so cruel, can’t it?”

Akiko smiled, standing up as she waved her goodbye, “I’ll be looking forward to fighting your friend, though! To be honest…this might have been the exact outcome I was looking forward to!”

As the leader of Ruby Passion walked away with a hop in her step, Kana stifled her laughter. She had no reason to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. It was what her mind demanded.

All that work. All that planning. Even from the audience, Kana could see that Kelsey had something in mind. She must have. A girl like that did not step into a match without an idea. And yet…she had won by luck. Algorithmic luck. Luck that was as real as Akiko Hara’s positive morality. One that had been very obviously manufactured by her.

Kana felt her ears and then looked at her once more. Now that she was far away, the pieces fell into place. Having internal audio from the game at her fingertips? Being able to hear their voices, even though the communications were private? If that bitch had manipulated the map that was used, then how much else could she have changed for her own entertainment?

“Kana!” Jina called out to her, running up to her with a grin, “That was kinda cool, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, shut up.” Kana stood up and started walking, ignoring her.

“Wha!?” She followed the girl, confused, “What did I do now!?”