Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

The moment of victory was right in front of her, and Kana could not care less. The audio had done its job. A bit too well, in fact. The Coalition was arranging a meeting to discuss what was to be done about it. Yet, she could not get what Keiko had said out of her mind.

The Coalition probably didn’t know about the raid those forums had decided upon, and that was her one saving grace. Keiko had refused to listen to her when warned not to go, and then hung up the phone. It was better that the Coalition didn’t know about it all, then. If they found out, there was no telling what they would do.

Stories of them ‘dealing’ with people who had found out about the Monster Dimension were widespread. Like those three boys, Kana had accidentally gotten roped into it all way back when. That felt like a distant memory now.

Rotating in a chair right beside Sakai, she waited for the meeting to begin. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be here. The call was only for the presidents of the agencies and was highly confidential. Normally, it would have been difficult to get Sakai to break the rules for something like that, but she knew better this time around. A little poke on his ego and she had easily convinced him to go against Tanaka in particular.

“I’ll do my best to help you out, since I started this whole fiasco.” She said, looking at the ceiling and wondering about Keiko. “I talked about this with Nanoka-san, too. The president of Bobtail Felis, you remember?”

“Are you trying to get kicked out of the room, Minami!?”

“No, no. I just thought you might have forgotten her, considering everything. Glad to know that’s not the case, Sakai-san.”

“That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble someday, you know?”

“It’s gotten me into trouble already. What do you mean?”

He laughed and clicked the link to enter the meeting. “Worse than this, Minami. If you think Tanaka is letting you go because he’s weak, then start reconsidering.”

“Oh no, of course not.” She straightened her posture and pushed her chair back to get out of frame. “I never thought that about Kenji Tanaka. Letting me go because they are weak is…someone else’s thing.”

“Mina-!”

He paused and cleared his throat as the meeting started, leaving her with a deathly glare for now. Kana smiled back and switched her position to be right in front of him. They had already decided on how they were going to do this, so now it was a matter of hoping that nobody noticed.

Sakai would keep his mic muted and listen to her when required. He could not speak back, obviously, but Kana was fine with that. It just meant she did not have to deal with the man’s nonsensical complaints every time she suggested a follow-up to someone else. It just meant she could do what she wanted.

_____________

November 11, 2043 – 10:34

Coalition HQ

Joint Meeting Regarding the Iwata-Minami Audio (Reference No. N1143)

“I believe we all know why we are here, so let us not waste any time.” Kenji Tanaka spoke first, looking away from the camera as he gestured to an assistant on the other side of the room. “Someone clearly leaked information outside, or we have a mole. Either way, the house’s location is compromised, and we need to do something about it.”

“Not sugarcoating it today?” Nanoka sighed, picking up the pre-lit cigarette lying on her ashtray and giving it a puff. “That also works, doesn’t it? Or did your speech writer make it a bit casual just for this one?”

A slightly uncomfortable air immediately followed her words. A wink from the Bobtail Felis president, and it turned heavy. It settled down and set the tone for the half an hour that would follow. Nanoka Iwata, blowing out some smoke, looked to the side and whispered to someone else as well.

“You’re not allowed to have anyone with you there, Iwata-san.” Tanaka reminded her, barely able to contain the rage trying to escape through his creased forehead. “Do I need to remind you of the most basic rules?”

Iwata laughed and picked up her laptop, turning it around to show an empty office. Turning back to herself, she put it down and groaned.

“Just trying to waste your time, dear. Please go on. We all have work to get to.”

“Not really the best way to be making that point, then, is it?” Sakai snapped, but then immediately went silent, keeping his eyes on the screen the entire time.

Tomoko Ito, the President of MidoriLIVE, kept silent. The flamboyant, freshly colored streak of pink in her jet-black hair was nothing more than an insult to her feelings. The house was owned by MidoriLIVE, and it meant that she would have to speak up here and now.

“Ito-san?” Iwata pressured her first. “Maybe you have something to say?”

“N-no.” She replied, looking away at once.

“Well, who else is gonna have something to say, eh!?” Sakai raised his voice once more, only to be followed by a similar toning down as before. “The property is yours, and you didn’t have the sense to come up with a plan to deal with all of this?”

“I-I…” Tomoko picked up a small bottle of packaged water and gulped it down. Glug, glug, glug. The sounds filled the meeting until she kept it down and wiped her mouth, slapping her cheeks in preparation. “Y-you should be worried, too, Sakai-san! It is your artist who got us all into trouble, just like she always does. And y-you too, Iwata-san.”

“Don’t bring me into this, Ito.”

“Y-yeah. Sorry, Iwata-san…I didn’t mean that.”

“What kind of joke is this?” The president of the well-named Sakai Entertainment got close to his camera and then pulled back in embarrassment. “You think you can get away with blaming me for no purpose? It was all AI, alright? We made that announcement already.”

“Sure, Sakai.” Tanaka waved the man off. “We came up with some options, so I’ll try to present those. The first is completely emptying the house by tonight, of course. Nobody needs to find out, and nobody will find out.”

“Aren’t there houses everywhere around it?” Miwa Uchida spoke up. The president of Highwave Comics Music. HCM, for short, and the agency behind Fluorescent Angels. “How will we empty it without attracting too much attention?”

Tanaka nodded, ready with an answer. “We also thought of that an-”

“The Monster Dimension.” Iwata rolled her eyes and took another puff. “We can always enter through a different door, pull stuff out, and empty the place. But it’s a dumb idea. Pathetic idea. Only you could come up with one like that, Tanaka.”

“Do you have a better one…Nanoka?”

Iwata raised her eyebrow at the transgression. Her own husband had never called her Nanoka. Who did Kenji Tanaka think he was?

“No. But you do not need to be a chef to critique a restaurant, do you?” She managed to keep herself calm. “Masaru Abe already figured out that the place belongs to MidoriLIVE. Kana Minami already confirmed that they use it for parties. How is it going to look when someone steps in, and it is completely empty?”

“Yeah, but that’s assuming someone will step in…” Sakai started to speak, but then trailed off. His ears pricked up, eyes stuck on the camera, and then he suddenly continued. “O-of course, that is a good assumption. Masaru Abe is totally capable of going further, and he will definitely go further. As rightly pointed out by…uh…me. Right now. I just said that.”

“Ok. Lay off the drugs, Sakai.” Iwata scoffed.

“How about you lay off your a-”

“Iwata-san makes a good point. So does Sakai-san.” Tanaka interrupted the man nodded. “We considered bribing them, but someone brought up the point that Abe cannot be bribed. That is correct, obviously. The moment someone looks into the house, they will find the door. How do you avoid that?”

Miwa Uchida raised her hand. “Uh, I had an idea! What if we could…hide it? We could put some furniture around it, and that might help. Or…! Or, yes, we could hire a security guard, and that would help keep the reporters away. Everyone knows that MidoriLIVE owns the place by now, so it should not be that much of an issue.”

“Horrible plan.” Iwata shot it down with even more brutality. “All you’re doing is making it seem like we do have something to hide. Which, you know, we don’t.”

“But we do have something to hide,” Uchida argued.

“Alright. That’s all I need to hear. Who’s next? Got anything, Sakai?”

“Not really…” He cleared his throat, took another pause, and then dramatically shook his head. “Actually, no. I just came up with something. Not an idea, but a question. We really should be asking how Masaru Abe came across all of the information. He is good at his job, yes, but what path did he take? That will, uh…that will give us a…what’s that word? It will give us an estimate of when other people might reach the same conclusion.”

Iwata nodded, sarcastically clapping her hands.

Tanaka, though reluctantly, had to accept the argument.

“Good question, Sakai-san. Very good question. We should try to come up with a timeframe within which the others might fight something out. But…let’s say we do that. What then? What’s the use of even doing that?”

“Well…” Sakai took a moment to think. “Of course, if we do that, then we can figure out how to deal with the property rights. If the other people see that…MidoriLIVE does not own the property; they might think that Abe was lying about it to drum up drama. Does that make sense?”

Iwata chuckled, holding her forehead. “Yeah, there it is. You almost had me convinced you had grown a brain, Sakai. Thanks for reminding me you haven’t.”

“Will you just shut u-”

“You see,” She continued. “That’s not how property rights work. Even if Ito were to sell to someone else, MidoriLIVE’s name remains attached to the history of it. That will just make it more suspicious.”

Sakai opened his mouth, frothing at the disrespect in her voice. He stood up, grumbling under his breath.

“Not unless the person buying is Abe himself.”

The female voice was familiar to most in the meeting, but still a surprise. Iwata sat up straight, leaning closer to her device the moment she realized who it was. At the same time, Kana Minami rolled her eyes and pushed Sakai’s chair aside to get into frame.

“Minami, you are not supposed to be here!” Tanaka hissed, slamming his table.

“Yeah, yeah, rules. The meeting has been very rule-y till now.” She crouched down to get her head in the camera. “Look, I’m getting to the point. Abe buys the house. As simple as that.”

“No, Minami. Please leave.”

“No, you.” Iwata scoffed at the president of Lilac Shower. “Go on, Kana-chan.”

“Kana-chan, is it?” Tanaka looked away in frustration.

“We all know about the RiRi and Sanada situation, obviously. The latter died and whatnot.” She went off in a rapid-fire monologue. “And then, we know everything about the resort, too. The point is that Abe has it in for our agency, and he’ll do whatever is required to get us down. That is why…if we were to call him here for a personal interview, he won’t think twice before agreeing.”

“And this will lead to?”

“Easy, Iwata-san. We make him sign the papers using some trickery, get his signature and details, and then do the rest of the work on our side. As simple as that.”

“That’s…highly questionable behavior.” Tomoko Ito claimed. “You cannot just do that. It’s fraud.”

“Yeah. Killing people cause they found out about their super-secret organization is very ethical. Thank you, whoever you are. President whatever, how did you get so smart? I’m not good enough to keep up with your brain, so please shut it. That’s the plan, and it’s the best we’ve got.”

“We haven’t really discussed every single plan.” Tanaka gestured for her to stop. “Until then, it’s just a plan. That too, a plan delivered by someone who isn’t meant to be here.”

“And what will we do after he buys it, anyway?” Ito asked. “He…he buys it off me. Great. He now legally owns the property and can step into it whenever he wants. H-how does that make sense?”

“Because he doesn’t know that. And even if he does find out, he’s now implicated with no proof. I don’t think Abe’s ever going to put his own career in danger.” Kana shrugged.

A silence fell over the meeting. It was a simple point, but a potent one.

“You don’t know Masaru Abe, kiddo.” Iwata smiled. “He will happily drown if it means pulling someone else down with him.”

“I don’t know about that, Iwata-san. He seemed pretty self-preserving last I checked.”

“And when was that?” Tanaka questioned.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe back when he protected his pedophile friend instead of accepting that he liked such an animal. I am sure you are right about the drowning, Iwata-san. But I think I’ll bet that he keeps a resurfacing plan for himself.”

“No, that’s not the issue at all.” Ito shook her head, leaning in. “I…I own the property, which is why I am in the Coalition. It is an investment in the conglomerate itself. That’s m…my half of the Coalition!”

“Yeah, about that…”

A second silence followed. This one much prolonged than the last. Kana Minami took her time, carefully curating her words before deciding on the best structure. Once decided, she specifically targeted a single person.

“Let me explain, Tanaka-san. One news reporter is a punch you can block. But he’s a feint. The real punch is the one he landed two days ago. Open any social media app, and you’ll see people quite unhappy with MidoriLIVE. It is unfortunate, but he brought their name up and ruined it all. Now, they are unfortunately associated in their collective memory with Mari Sanada’s death.”

“W-what!?” Ito stammered, gulping.

“That’s a tumor now, Tanaka-san. It will foster another hidden punch. The one that sends a small group of dedicated idiots deeper into the company, and eventually exposes us all. And there’s just one way to deal with people like that.”

“And what’s that, Kana-chan?”

“You give them a happy ending, Tanaka-san. The only thing you do with a tumor is cut it once and for all.”

_____________

As Kana closed the door to Sakai’s office behind her, she was able to find peace. The ensuing screaming match had been too much for her to handle. The old man was better at that than she was.

The work was done, though. Tanaka was a fungus, and he lived to spread. No matter how good a friend he was with Tomoko Ito, it wouldn’t change that nature. The idea had been planted into his head, and he would do the rest. She couldn’t take MidoriLIVE out herself, but he could. He would do it better than her, in fact. After all, he had done it with Bobtail Felis just a month ago.

After that, it was only a matter of coaxing the company into being bought out by Nanoka Iwata. Some sweet talk from that woman was all it required. She would promise Tomoko Ito revenge against Kenji Tanaka, and that was that. One problem down, quicker than she had expected. Marie could thank her later.

Now, for more important matters. Because this little stunt could handle Abe, but it would not stop those rabid fans out for justice.

It would not stop Keiko.