Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

Despite the grueling work of preparing an album’s worth of content now that their popularity had grown out of hand, Kana somehow managed. Since she easily got pissed off when the others wrote stuff without thinking, it was also a pain to micromanage and vet every word that came out of their pen.

Throughout the three-week-long process, there were only two things that helped the girl keep her sanity. The first were the two performances they got to do on a stage, sharing timings with Nozoki Neko. The second was whenever her brain worked overtime to come up with a plan to take down MidoriLIVE.

Ever since the prospect of using that old house containing the portal had come to her mind, it had been a constant source of tension. Her brain had latched onto the idea without quite coming to the conclusion of why. Until now. Until she finally had some time and was lying down on her living room couch with a rubber ball in her hand.

Up it went, hit the ceiling, and then came back down. Catching it every single time, since it usually landed close to her face, Kana let the rhythm guide her mind into a trance. The consistent PLOP’s of the ball hitting the ceiling and coming back down allowed her to run through the possibilities and question her own choices. And every time the ball failed to land in her hands, Jina was kind enough to throw it back to her.

She was sitting right there, also providing a good source of background noise to go with the ball. She and Emi, who had been quieter ever since they came back from Keiko’s, were going through some fan mail. With Jina on the floor and Emi resting on her inflatable pool swan, the two were opening every single letter by hand and slowly making their way through the pile they had created between them.

Once in a while, Kana would throw the ball, cancel out an idea in her mind, and then immediately be punctuated by one of the two laughing. It was, in a way, way more annoying than it had any right to be. But it was, at the same time, keeping her on her toes. Going through plan after plan, with each one failing, was not exactly pretty.

It was only after her forty-seventh cancellation that a laugh got too loud for even her.

“KanKan! Look! Look at this one.” Emi cackled, holding one of the letters in her hand as the pool swan floated around with a mind of its own. “Apparently, this girl was playing your song at full volume in her room, right? But then her mother came in and smashed the music player in anger because she was tired of the song…”

“Eh?” Jina kept down the letter in her own hand, mixing it with the rest of the pile. “What’s so funny about that, Emi-chan? Some poor girl got her entire music box broken, you know? Stop being happy about it. Rude!”

Emi shook her head in denial, splashed on some of the water to change her trajectory, and started floating towards Jina. As she made her way to that edge, she continued.

“That music system was apparently really old, you see? So, this girl and her father came up with this plan to get the mother angry, and that’s what the whole story was about. Here, see?”

The swan hit the floor, splashing some water up as Emi handed the letter to a surprised Jina. With it in her hand, she went through it just the way it had been written and nodded until she was also left laughing in the end.

“Fine, she tricked her mother into breaking something.” Kana groaned, smacking her own face with the ball. “What’s so funny about that? Just shut up and let me think already. Keep it to yourselves.”

“Nah, Kana. I don’t think Emi-chan even got to the funny part. The letter ends with personally thanking you for, I quote…’having a voice that pisses old people off.’”

“My voice does not piss people off. Shut it!”

“But it kind of does, though…” Jina sighed, keeping the letter down while shaking her head in pity.

Emi nodded too, pulling her pool glasses above her head. “It definitely kinda does, though. She’s not wrong at all.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me one old person whom I’ve pissed off with my v-”

Kana stopped on her own and closed her eyes in defeat. The moment the question left her mouth, the answers came to her on their own. She could already name way too many to be comfortable, and now she had given the duty to do exactly that to two girls who would be more than happy to tear her down. Covering her eyes with her hand in shame, she groaned as the barrage of names began.

“Sakai-san!”

“My dad…” Emi’s first was a bit concerning.

“Kenji Tanaka!”

“Letter girl’s mother!”

“Aiko Taira!”

“Your own mother!”

Kana interrupted that last one by Jina. “Taira’s an ally!”

Jina invalidated that remark. “She spent a whole 15 minutes talking to you on the notes app instead of listening to your voice.”

“My mother…wow. Mothers really hate you.”

“Don’t ignore the obvious, Ohara. She did it because there was a bug.”

“Yeah, but she could have whispered or something, you know? But she just didn’t wanna hear your piss-off-old-people voice, maybe.”

Emi kept going down her own list. “That previous dance instructor you had also hated yo-”

“Alright. Shut up!”

One final shout from Kana and everyone quieted down. The point was made, and she did not need more of the same to tell her how wrong she was. Her voice got old people angry, and that was now an established fact. For some reason, it was. Letting it be as it was, though, she started bouncing the ball on the ceiling once more and focusing on the job at hand.

For a while, the peace was maintained. Jina went back to opening letters, since she was more than used to being shouted at by now. Emi, however, could not do the same. Staring at Kana for an extended period of time, her expression turned sourer every second. With every bounce back of the ball, her wish to say something increased. And then, once it was too high, she spoke up.

“They’re your fans, you know? You’re just being rude for the sake of being rude, that’s it. I get that you’re busy and thinking stuff or whatever, but every single one of these letters came from someone who genuinely loved your stuff to take the effort and write something down.”

“Ugh, don’t start, Emi.” Kana closed her eyes and threw the ball into the pool, creating a massive splash. “I didn’t ask them to write it. It’s as simple as that. Just because you put in the effort to do something doesn’t mean that I have an obligation to read all of that trash.”

“Don’t call it trash! You haven’t even read most of them, and you’re deciding all on your own. Just because I read out a single funny letter, you think all of them are like that. Do you know how many of these are just about how much someone likes the music or the lyrics or just how cool you are?!”

“I didn’t ask for it. I don’t need them to tell me how awesome or fabulous I am. It doesn’t matter. Look, just read them if you want to read them. Don’t pull me into this nonsense because I’m busy enough as it is.”

Emi pulled herself closer to the edge of the pool and got out of the swan. Her feet dripping, she made her way to Kana and took a look, forcing her hands away from her face to get her eyes to open.

Once she had gotten them where she needed them, she continued with a glare piercing straight into Kana’s soul.

“It’s just the right thing to do, that’s it. I’m not saying that all of these letters need to be responded to, or reacted to, or whatever. But you’re the one who became an idol, Kana. It’s your duty to ensure that at least all of the people who are writing to you are heard. At least read what they have to say, even if you burn every letter after that.”

Kana gazed back with a similar death stare. “I keep saying it, and I’m getting tired of saying it. I am not that kind of idol, Emi. I don’t need their praise and their love and their fake fandom obsession. Most of these idiots are just latching on to whatever is popular without a thought and th-”

“Those kinds of idiots don’t write fan letters, Kana!”

“Yes, they do. It’s nothing more than some performative bullshit for social media clicks. I bet so many of them have recorded videos of themselves sending letters just to show off!”

“You haven’t even read them! They’re not stupid, alright? They…they’re honest. They’re lovingly written. They are pure-hearted. At least read one of them. These people actually liked what you made because it reached their hearts in some way.”

“I’m not a surgeon, Emi. I didn’t wanna reach their he-”

“They’re someone’s hopes, Kana. They’re someone’s most intimate thoughts put into wor-”

“Keep your intimate thoughts to yours-”

“They’re someone’s unrealized dreams that you put into a son-”

“Just stop dreami-”

“Dreams like Aharu-chan, Kana!”

That stopped it. Kana did not say anything in return, letting Emi’s words rest in her heart as she pulled her hands out of the girl’s grip and sat straight. Out of the girl’s sight, she stood up and started walking up to the bedroom.

“That’s why you are doing this, right? Because of what happened to that time capsule she made? Because someone looked at a thing she had poured all of her love into, and then threw it away without a thought? You don’t think that Akiko Hara had the same level of apathy when it came to that time caps-”

“Get ready, Jina. We need to go and meet Iwata-san.”

“Huh?” The goth girl, who hadn’t actually been very goth over the last month or so, looked at her in confusion.

“That’s all you know how to do, isn’t it? You look at an actual issue in front of your eyes, and your first instinct is to run away and stop thinking about it, Kana!”

“I’ve got a plan. We need to discuss it with her immediately. The faster we are, the better the results. We don’t have time, so get off your ass.” Kana ignored the girl’s words. She did not need that right now. They weren’t right anyway. She knew what she was doing, and she did not need someone to tell her if it was right or wrong.

“O…k,” Jina whispered with reluctance as she stood up, looking at Emi with pity in her eyes.

Kana got on the stairs and walked up, looking down to avoid making eye contact with her girlfriend.

“Stop fucking running, KanKan. You can’t keep running forev-”

She reached the bedroom and got in, closing the door behind her. Then, she locked it. Even if it was for a short amount of time, a little bit of peace would not be bad. She didn’t need anyone. Especially not anyone telling her how wrong she was…

_____________

Yamada pulled up the car in front of the Bobtail Felis HQ, and then looked back to see if they were ready. Kelsey, who was sitting right beside him, looked annoyed more than prepared, but Kana had already accepted that as her default state of existence. Given that, then, all of them were as ready as they would ever be.

After thanking him for driving them there, Kana got out first. Jina followed her, and then Kelsey very reluctantly got out of the air conditioner and into the slight autumnal heat of November. Together, as they looked at the office building of the agency, which represented the second strongest team in the competition, they could not help but be humbled.

Instead of a towering building like Sakai Entertainment, Bobtail Felis was set up underground. A simple, unassuming wooden door had a sign hanging behind the rectangular window glass. Bobtail Felis’ logo adorned the sign, with a homely welcome mat below the door. If you weren’t looking for it, it was a place that you wouldn’t even think twice about entering.

Kana moved first, wondering if there was no security at such an important place. But the moment she opened the door, she noticed the old man sitting on a chair in the corner. In a small area that was hidden from public view, right next to the door, he watched as she held the open door and waited. A slight nod, and only then did she get inside.

The interior was just as quiet as the exterior. Stone floors, white concrete walls, and cheap fluorescent tube lights reminded her of the training centers that she had spent her time learning about the Coalition in. A strange, calm aura surrounded the entire place, and almost put a smile on Kana’s face.

In the distance, she could barely make out Marie’s singing voice. A joyous but subtle melody accompanied her vocals, with a drum mixed in once in a while. As the three made their way through the single corridor connecting the many rooms of the underground office, the song grew louder and louder until it peaked right outside a room marked ‘Studio’.

Kana hesitated for a moment, but then opened it without shame. She had heard this song before, which meant that it wasn’t unreleased or under work. There was nothing unethical being done here. Peering in, however, she was surprised to see a complete reversal of atmosphere. Compared to the quaint corridors and other simple rooms of the office, the studio was lined with the most expensive, high-tech materials and instruments possible.

Every inch of the room had been decorated to give off a premium air that blew away even Sakai Entertainment’s practice. That was what made Kana feel the difference in their standings. Even with the massive office, Sakai just did not have the kind of money that this equipment required.

“Minami-san!”

Iwata stopped singing the very second they walked in. Hiromi, who was on the drums, and Hanae, who held a guitar, also stopped. All three of them, unlike their visitors, had bright smiles on their faces.

“Sorry for interrupting.” Kana tried her best to smile back, but the conversation with Emi earlier still had her feeling queasy.

“Oh no, that’s fine.” Marie came up and shook her hand, then proceeded to do the same with Jina and Kelsey. “This was our last song anyway. Just wrapping up for the day.”

“You’ve got some quality stuff,” Kelsey noted, adding a whistle to emphasize her wonder.

“Thank you!” Hiromi beamed. “And, uh…I love your hair!”

“Thank…you?”

The girl nodded, still smiling, and then stood up. Soon after that, all of Nozoki Neko was standing in front of them with welcoming expressions.

“So, what finally brings you here?” Iwata asked.

Kana answered, running down the plan in her brain one last time.

“I came up with something to get MidoriLIVE. But you’re not gonna like it. Nobody’s gonna like it. That’s why I didn’t tell Jina or Kelsey either.”

“Well, shoot. You eventually need to spill the beans, so might as well be now. What are you thinking of?”

Kana sighed, almost groaning with a slight lack of confidence. “I was thinking of revealing the location of the house with the portal door.”

“To the press? They know it already, though.” Jina looked on in confusion.

“Oh, no. To the public.”