Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

As the car trudged along the grimy roads of an unknown ward, its occupants engaged in a verbal free-for-all. Yamazaki and Kelsey wanted answers about what had happened at Katsuhara Apartments, while Jina tried her best to piece together the truth and share it with them. Kana Minami, meanwhile, was in an almost catatonic state.

“What do you mean the mines didn’t hurt you? How did they not hurt you!?” Kelsey asked with an antagonistic flair.

“Would you have preferred it if both of us were dead?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. If you don’t want to be normal, then don’t open your mouth, Ohara.”

“And then what? Who will you ask your questions to? The road?”

“Let’s not let this get out of hand, alright?” Yamazaki continued to drive, but Jina could not help but feel like he had no destination in mind.

The 38^th floor of Katsuhara Apartments would have been their meeting point, but that was impossible now. Emi Kitamura had left them forever, and the result had been a series of explosions that destroyed far more than that single floor. When Jina thought about all of the damage that had been done, a sense of guilt washed all over her.

In the end, they had run away. The others had just looked upon them with horror as Jina loaded Kana into the car with Kelsey’s help, and they took off. The police would arrive, and so would the fire brigade and the ambulance. But all they would find would be an impossible scene. A whole skyscraper burnt, with no injuries sustained, and the mildly famous perpetrators behind it missing.

If they weren’t looking for Jun Yamazaki and Chika Maeda for the murder of Ryu Sakai, they would be looking for Kana Minami and Jina Ohara.

About half an hour ago, only two of the people in this car were criminals. Now, all four of them were. All in a single night, things had gotten way out of control. Not to mention…

Yamazaki’s phone started ringing, interrupting her thoughts. He coughed, panicked, and then looked at it to check who it was. Unfortunately, an unknown number confronted him. He looked at Kelsey, who nodded and whispered something that Jina did not hear. Kana continued to stare out of the window, though her fingers twitched once in a while.

He calmed himself down and picked the phone up, turning on the speaker after he kept the device on the dashboard.

“Is this Jun Yamazaki?” An eerily familiar voice came in from the other side.

Jina almost gasped, but held her mouth. Kelsey cursed under her breath. Yamazaki steeled himself and responded with a stammer, “Y-yes?”

“Good. This is Masaru Abe. I am a reporter for Neos-Edo. I believe we met in front of the elevator at your place of employment about forty-five minutes ago. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Now, I have an investigator here with me who would like to talk to you, so could you please come back around to your office? It is related to an incident that has just unfolded, so they’re just questioning everyone who is employed here.”

Yamazaki gulped and looked at the two of them. Kelsey shook her head, gesturing for him to cut the call.

Masaru Abe was lying, obviously. He probably did not want to get Yamazaki riled up, which is why he wasn’t laying down any accusations immediately. If he did, the man would never come back to the office. By acting like there was no suspicion on him yet, there was a chance that he returned just to clear his name.

But before Jina could process all that, Kelsey leaned forward and cut the call herself.

Yamazaki hesitated, snapping. “That will just make it more obvious!”

“It’s already obvious, Yamazaki-san.” She answered. “It’s more than obvious to them. You and I were the last people to walk out of that office. Everyone knows. If you stayed on for any longer, they might have started tracking you.”

Jina had to agree with her reasoning. There was no doubt that they were already hunting them down. Now, all four of them were in the sights of the authorities. If some Coalition higher up were to stand up for them, they could even get away. The only man who could have done that, however, was gone now.

Kenji Tanaka was missing, after all. The man who probably had direct connections in the government, and the man who could have potentially helped them.

She looked at Kana, who was still unresponsive, and held her hand. Jina was desperate to help this girl out, but she also knew that being forceful right now would make it worse. That landmine incident had been an exception, not the rule. If there was one thing that she knew about Kana Minami, it was that she always found a way to bounce back.

If there was just one girl in this world who could fall down to the darkest depths of hell and still crawl back to being sane enough, it was her. The only question, then, was what version of her would make it through. And that question, only time could answer.

For now, she was about to go back to the train of thought from before, when the phone rang once more. A different unknown number this time, but it was probably just Masaru Abe again. Who knew how many different numbers that man probably had?

Yamazaki looked to his side and sighed. Rolling down the window, the man kept his eyes on the road until there was a long empty stretch ahead of them. Then, he picked up the ringing phone and put all his strength into snapping it into two. Once done, he threw it out of the car and put his hands back on the wheel.

“You…” Jina looked back at the remains of his device. “Don’t you need to talk to your family?”

“I have a different phone for that. One that’s not on the record.”

That was good, then. It was stupid of her to even wonder. There was no world in which Jun Yamazaki would throw away his last means of communication with his family like that. Even now, in such a bad situation, they were probably the first thing on his mind. Jina could guess that he was not thinking about how to get away at this moment. He was thinking about how to make sure his wife and daughters did not get caught in the crossfire.

Too much had happened to him today, and he was somehow still remaining calm and pragmatic. What kind of strength did that take?

Jina gulped, squeezed Kana’s hand, and decided to take her chance to say what she wanted before another interruption.

“You don’t know about Akiko, do you?”

“What about her?” Kelsey asked.

Even Yamazaki looked back for a second, just as confused as her. Of course they didn’t know. Aiko Taira and Nanoka Iwata had only found out when they told them. Soon, via them, the news would spread throughout the Coalition. But until that happened, the girls who had been witness to Akiko Hara’s betrayal would be the authority on the situation.

So, she explained. One event to another, she listed down exactly what had led up to the death of Yuko Suzuki and Akiko Hara joining forces with the monsters. They did not know why, but the what itself was so terrifying that they almost didn’t want to. Even if they found out whatever twisted justification Akiko had for her actions, it would help her case or change their minds.

Kelsey did not have anything to say when Jina was done. She had a knowing look in her eye, as if she had always expected that woman to go off the rails. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps every one of the older girls who had been present there had always known that it was but a matter of time.

Not if Akiko would snap, but when. And now that the day had finally come, it was nothing surprising.

“She just…cut her neck off like it was nothing. Yuko Suzuki, for fuck’s sake.” Jina whispered, still finding it difficult to believe nonetheless. “She was good friends with her!”

“She was never a friend of anyone except herself.” Kelsey scoffed. “What else do you expect from a woman like that? You can be good at what you do, but still a complete moron otherwise. People loved her because of her singing. Never because of who she was.”

“As if she could sing.”

All of them looked at the person who had finally spoken up. As if out of pure spite for that woman, Kana had decided to join the conversation with a simple zinger. She was still looking out of the window, but had broken her silence. Pulling her hand away from Jina, she buried it under her other hand.

“Welcome back to the living. If you want a rundown, then everything is fucked. That’s it.” Kelsey leaned against her own window, her mind racing.

“That’s what you think,” Kana whispered.

“No, that’s what I know.” She responded. “We just killed Sakai, you just burnt down an entire building full of people, and fucking Akiko Hara has turned into some tentacle-controlling monster. You want me to think that’s all in my head!?”

“Who said any of it is a problem?”

“Kana…” Jina put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s ok. Just cal-”

“I am calm.”

The way she spoke caused Jina to put her hand back down. It wasn’t a scream. It was something she had said to convince herself. No, it was a voice full of conviction. Kana Minami was calm. Somehow, she was calmer than she had ever been in her life. Jina looked into her eyes and saw nothing but a deep, empty abyss. Yet, she was in control.

Emi Kitamura had broken up with her for the second time and left her all alone. In response, she was now…quite normal. Just as normal as she might have been three days ago.

Or perhaps even more.

Because what even was normal for someone like her? What even was an act, and when did she put it on or drop it?

“Yamazaki.” She ordered, specifically without any honorifics. She had never been one to call him just by his name, but today was different. Kana folded her hands and crossed her legs.

“Yes?”

“Call Masaru Abe.”

“W-what?”

“Are you positively insane, Minami? Do not call Abe!” Kelsey rebutted.

“Uh…” Jina wasn’t sure what to think, but slowly inched away to give Kana her space.

Yamazaki hesitated as he looked at the phone in his pocket. If he used it, then they would get that number. The one that he had reserved for his family. Once Kana realized that, she took out her own phone and threw it in front of it. It landed on the dashboard and stopped, unlocked already.

“I said…call Masaru Abe. Are you deaf?”

“No, I-”

“Call him.”

“Kana, I am not sure if th-”

“Call him.”

It would have been one thing if she were screaming. It would have been another thing if this had been her usual show of fake forcefulness. But it wasn’t. Jina found herself moving further away with every word that came out of Kana’s mouth. Because the only way it could be described was that it was sultry, it was seductive in an almost psychopathic fashion.

Kana Minami, with that voice, had decided to claim ownership of every single person in this car. The consequences of trying to speak up against that, all of them could feel, would be terrible.

Yamazaki, shivering with irrational fear, picked up the phone from the dashboard and did what had been asked of him.