Family (Not) Don't Hurt When They Sacrifice for Each Other (Not)
On the evening of the day the movie date with Rua ended, Ruru fired up a stream as always.
Ruru's broadcast today was Shooting Ground—but it wasn't an ordinary Shooting Ground session.
"Ruru-haru-ha~ Hi, Ruru~"
"Aris unnieeee~!"
"Senior, I'm here too!"
"Hello!"
"Welcome, Elia! You too, Inori!!"
Today was a full four-person Fantasy Live Shooting Ground collab.
In truth, Ruru had received a mountain of collab requests ever since the last streamer-server broadcast. And under the company's policy of carefully reviewing those requests one by one and pushing as many as possible, she was doing her best to lock in as many collabs as she could.
The reviews weren't finished yet, though, so for the time being she was running a lot of broadcasts like this. Source of that info? Straight from the girl herself, of course.
"So today! It's Shooting Ground! Yay! Yay!"
"Waaaaah~!"
Ruru was talking with pure, sparkling energy, and Inori—the one who looked and sounded the most like a little sister—was happily throwing in the ad-libs.
For reference: Ruru and Inori were the maknae slots of the first and second generations respectively, while Aris and Elia were the "actually good at games" slots of those same generations.
That lineup alone promised some very entertaining moments.
"Inori, we just hop on the bus from here, right?"
"Of course! I'm a Level-4 backpack!"
"I'm a Level-4 backpack too!"
The two of them shamelessly declared they would be riding the bus, and Aris immediately launched into lecture mode.
"Still, you two should at least get one kill each, right?"
"Just land a hundred damage. A hundred each."
"That sounds way too hard…"
"Right, right! Super hard!"
The second Inori helpfully called it difficult, Ruru piled on with enthusiasm—and Aris moved straight to suppression.
"Ruru. How many hours have you played Shooting Ground at this point?"
"…Ninety hours?"
"With that many, shouldn't you be carrying a few games by now?"
"Y… You've got over a thousand hours, Aris!"
"Not quite that much. Around eight hundred? Nine hundred?"
"That's the same thing!"
"I was already winning solo-quads at ninety hours."
Aris was the kind of streamer whose past life you couldn't even begin to guess at, but one thing was crystal clear: she was a genuine game addict.
Her Vapor account had leaked once—just once—and the number of games on it was over two hundred. Yes. Two hundred.
Someone who loved games that much and was that good at them was inevitably going to have a massive skill gap with Ruru.
Ruru… Rua had never been the type to play games that obsessively. No talent, no massive hours—the gap with Aris was simply inevitable.
"Anyway, carry us! Peep!"
"Ahem. You still have to pull your own weight."
Right as she said that, Aris switched into full streamer voice.
"Wow~ Thank you for the mission! The mission is… win with a crossbow?"
Win with a crossbow. Someone had actually put that as a mission. That was a little wild.
Shooting Ground was a game where a hundred people dropped onto an island, scavenged guns, and killed each other until only one person—or one team—remained.
And if you had to pick the most out-of-place primary weapon in the entire game, it would be the crossbow.
Yes. This game had a crossbow.
Its performance was, naturally, terrible. Every single bolt took forever to reload, and unless you landed a headshot you couldn't even kill in one hit.
Its only real advantage was that it was nearly silent… which basically made it a pure entertainment weapon.
And someone wanted them to win with that. While hauling around what were effectively two dead-weight duo members named Ruru and Inori.
Even so, Aris's competitive fire ignited instantly.
"This is actually pretty doable…! Call!"
Doable, she said. And that was exactly Aris's charm.
Every streamer in Fantasy Live's first generation—Sweet Dream—had her own particular charm.
Ruru's was her trash-tier control, her razor-sharp reactions, the sheer stubborn grit that pushed through both, and those occasional brainy plays that made you go "wait, she's smart?"
Mei's was the soft, gentle unnie who turned terrifying the second she got angry, and who could still be adorable on top of it—classic gap moe.
Aris's was that constant confidence paired with real consideration for others, her absurd game skill, and the pure challenge spirit that made her try any mission no matter how ridiculous.
People who understood that charm—and who loved it—were watching her stream right now. Which meant Aris's chat was already on fire.
Sure enough, Aris turned to Elia with the exact same energy.
"Elia, I'm counting on you."
"Yes, Senior! Leave it to me!"
The second Elia answered with full confidence, the troll duo opened their mouths.
"Believe in us too!"
"Yeah! We can do well!"
"You two were just saying you'd ride the bus!!"
A warm, laughing atmosphere settled over them, and using that warmth as fuel the four of them immediately started queuing into games.
And then…
……For roughly four hours, they failed to win even once.
Technically they had won twice. But those were wins Aris secured with other guns after she simply couldn't find a crossbow.
A crossbow victory? Not even once.
Yes. Not even once.
As I said, the crossbow was a terribly performing toy for veterans who just wanted to mess around.
Which was why the developers had dialed its drop rate as low as possible so it almost never appeared.
And that, in turn, was why Aris kept taking risky plays during the early looting phase.
It got so bad that even Ruru eventually started lecturing her.
"Hey, Aris unnie."
"What?"
"Just stick with us and pick up the crossbow if it drops. If you run around alone and get cut, the whole game just gets more exhausting."
People usually mocked her as "noob Ruru," but this was the same Ruru who, in the previous server collab, had delivered absurd macro-level designs and plays that cut straight to the core of the server itself—effectively becoming the main character of that entire collab.
Coming from that Ruru, the words carried real weight.
"…Okay. Got it."
In the end Aris couldn't really argue and decided to follow Ruru's lead. From that point on, Ruru started giving the actual calls.
"We're short-looting again this round. We have to get Aris unnie her crossbow win."
"Yes, understood!"
"Yes~"
"This map barely has short-loot spots, so peel just a little and loot fast."
"Don't go too far, okay?"
With those words the four of them started looting again in the new match.
Then Inori's voice cut in.
"Aris senior! Aris senior! Over here—I grabbed a crossbow and crossbow bolts!"
"Thank you…! I'll give you the gun I've been looting. It's good for beginners."
"Thank you!!"
The two of them met up quickly, swapped items, and from then on ran the game under Ruru's orders.
If they had actually been trying for a clean win, the correct play would have been to avoid fights as much as possible and play it safe.
But this was a broadcast. A boring safe strategy was never going to fly if they wanted the stream to be fun.
Ruru seemed to understand that perfectly, because she started calling extremely aggressive plays.
"That fight over there looks like it's wrapping up. We push now!"
"Okay~"
"I'll open with a sniper kill."
"Unnie, you can do it?"
"Of course I can~"
With that confident voice, Aris—
—Fwoosh!
—loosed an arrow.
—Thwack!!
Aris had drilled the enemy clean through the head, and she immediately shouted:
"BULLSEYE!!!"
Apparently that was the term you used when you hit dead center in darts or archery. The fact that she even knew the word suggested Aris liked sports too.
Anyway—Aris had opened the fight, and the moment she declared war, Ruru charged in right with her.
—Ratatatatatat!
—Dududududududu!
Gunfire erupted. Ruru went down hard, and the other two were left scrambling for what to do.
"Elia… what do we do…!?"
"I know… Senior, where is he right now?"
"That rock over—ah, he's coming my way. I'll get you solid info, just figure something out…! Ah, am I about to die…!?"
The enemy had indeed shifted position, clearly intending to finish Ruru off for good.
"Ugh, should we go that way…?"
"Elia, Inori, don't come! If you come here it's actually dangerous…! They have first shot for sure!"
Ruru was already starting to accept her own death. Better that than creating a pointless variable.
But Inori and Elia were soft-hearted; they weren't ready to give up. They were clearly gearing up to rush in together.
And then—
"Got the info clean, Ruru…!"
—Whoosh!
From far away, Aris suddenly lobbed a grenade.
—BOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion killed Ruru instantly—and the enemy who had closed in to secure the kill took massive damage as well.
—Thwip!
—Thwack!
Aris finished that enemy off cleanly with arrows, and—
"YAAAAAAAH! ARIIIIIS!!!"
Ruru dropped the "unnie" and just yelled Aris's name in pure casual rage.
Aris answered in the most shameless voice imaginable.
"Ruru, unnie told you, right?"
That completely shameless delivery made Ruru explode.
"That was a one-sided sacrifice! And I hurt! I died because it hurt!!!"
"Once you're dead you can't feel pain, so it doesn't hurt, right?"
"AAAAAAAARGH!!!"
While the two of them cycled between genuine emotion and pure theatrical WWE, Elia and Inori just kept playing the game in stunned silence, like they'd swallowed honey and lost the ability to speak.
Yeah—those two's best-friend chemistry was still too thick for anyone else to jump into. Honestly, interrupting it would probably make things less fun anyway.
Anyway, after that Aris carried the rest of the game, and the crossbow victory mission was marked a success.
Good. That was good.