Going in Earnest
"So you've decided the game for the collab will be BN?"
"Y-yes. It's a game th-that you, senpai, and I both used to enjoy, and s-since it's cooperative at its core, I th-thought it would be all right."
Bloody Night. BN, for short.
The genre was a battle-royale hero shooter. Unlike her previous life, when even the name had been unfamiliar, it was a genre one could now safely call popular. These days the field had no shortage of rivals, and the advantage BN's developers had chosen to lead with was simple: cartoon rendering, and a feel that leaned hard into casual.
The pitch sounded plausible enough. Said plainly, though, it just meant a game tuned to otaku taste. Most titles in the genre chased something closer to live action than to casual, and even when they did go casual, it was American cartoon styling rather than Japan's moe-line art. Even so, BN's studio had made no secret of courting subculture players, and the attempt had succeeded well enough to lock in a solid core of devotees. The reason she herself had played, back then, was that she had taken a liking to a character in the game called Lina.
"It does sound fine. But the sniping—you're really all right with that?"
"Th-that... senpai said we should j-just accept it."
Unless a game could be played by the two of them alone, viewer sniping was bound to follow. At first they had meant to play 77 Worlds, something just the pair of them could manage, but after talking it through they had concluded that BN was the better choice, even if they had to swallow the sniping.
"True enough. Sometimes the sniping is what adds the fun."
"Y-yes. S-senpai said something like that, too...."
Watch enough game broadcasts and you saw it often: sniping shoved a match somewhere no one expected, and a funny scene came of it. She had no intention of forcing that. Still, if it happened on its own, wasn't it simply a gain? On that conclusion, the game for the collab with senpai was settled. BN.
"Then do your best tomorrow. And please—no disasters. Understood?"
"P-please don't worry. K-Koga helped me s-so much. There's no way I'd cause a—"
...disaster. Right?
For no good reason, she felt uneasy.
The collab would be streamed on Kurokami-senpai's channel. And before she knew it, the clock read 5:56 p.m. The live waiting room had already climbed past four thousand.
Her heart was pounding.
"Haa... haa...."
"I-Izumi, you're so nervous that even I'm starting to shake...."
"I-I'm sorry."
She tried to steady herself at senpai's words, but a mind gone pure white would not cool so easily.
Is someone like me really allowed to be here?
What painted itself behind her eyes was herself making a nuisance of everyone, and a community in flames. Viewer after viewer, cursing her, tearing her apart, grinding her down. She couldn't. She had promised Koga she would ease up on thoughts like these.
She drew a long breath and looked at the frame set above the monitor.
"Are you all right? If something's hard, tell me. I'm your senpai, so I'll do everything I can to help!"
"Haaa...."
Looking at that frame had become a routine for her, one small way of settling her nerves.
Nacchan, of course. A legal narcotic, officially recognized by the state....
Relying on it every time had dulled the effect since the beginning, but this much was still enough. She could do the stream. She was sure of it.
"Izumi. It's time."
"Y-yes. P-please look after me...."
The thumbnail for senpai's collab was an illustration of the two of them face to face, growling. Then the art vanished, and the screen gave way to the usual standby image that meant senpai was preparing to go live: a splendid picture of her seated on a great throne, hiding her mouth behind an antique fan, offering a little nod.
A minute or so passed.
"Ahem. Ahem."
With that little cough, the standby illustration cut over to BN's interface. At the bottom of the screen, perfectly at home there, was senpai's avatar.
"Ohoho! Are you all in good health? Kurokami Hikari—a villainess-lady more proper than any other!"
"Now! I posted the notice ahead of time, so all of you ought to know—but there may be foolish butlers among you, so I shall explain it myself. There was a junior, last time, who had the nerve to pass judgment on me, was there not? Today's broadcast was prepared to show that impudent junior the gap between us!"
Another ohoho! rang out, and at that same moment her own avatar rose onto the stream.
"Come now. Greet everyone, my impudent junior."
"Ko—Konzumi.... The atmosphere maker who d-dreams of a world where everyone can smile.... K-Kaino Izumi...."
"I-it's an honor to c-collab with Kurokami-senpai today. P-please look after me...."
My head's already spinning. Am I really allowed to be here?
The pressure was nothing like a collab with Koga. This sat in another dimension entirely.
"Today's content, as you can see, is Bloody Night! I shall teach Izumi the difference in our levels, thoroughly!"
"Haa.... You are my butlers, and you do not know even this? It seems my eye for people has withered considerably. While Izumi is accomplishing nothing whatsoever, I seize victory with my overwhelming skill. That alone is enough to teach my impudent junior, beyond any doubt, the difference in our level. To trample an opponent's pride head-on—what a cruel conception!"
"Nngh...! Foolish butlers, without an eye for anything at all!"
Kurokami-senpai sparred with the chat for a little while, then let out a sigh and turned to her.
"Izumi! And what do you think?"
"Uh, um, uhhh...."
What was she supposed to say? Honestly, her head was still spinning so badly that she could barely grasp the situation in front of her.
"Th-thank you for the c-carry?"
"Aaaah?!"
"Kh.... Hmph! Laugh while you can. It will only be for now. Once the game begins, you will all come to see that my judgment was correct!"
With that, Kurokami-senpai pressed the party invite and selected the ID Izumi had added as a friend the day before.
Hikaring has invited you to a party.
Accept?
Yes / No
Of course she hit accept, and her monitor shifted into BN's lobby.
Senpai's main was a middle-aged man with sharp eyes and gray hair: Arsene Agner. A tank, built to nullify an opponent's attacks on the front line. Her own main was a girl whose gray eyes and mechanical legs left an impression: Lina. A damage dealer, mobile enough for play that turned flashy.
"Sh-shall we keep these positions?"
"Let us. Our roles do not overlap, and a tank beside a damage dealer is ideal for a duo."
"Then p-please look after me."
"Lovely. We depart!"
What they were queueing was not ranked, but a normal match. Ranked would have been fine enough, but neither she nor Kurokami-senpai had touched the game in quite some time, so they had settled on normals. There was, of course, another reason....
In any case, after about ten seconds the screen changed to character select. As a matter of course she took Lina, and Kurokami-senpai took Arsene. When the timer ended, the roar of a fighter jet announced the start.
"F-first... wh-where should we go?"
In a battle royale, where you dropped mattered enormously. Claim the right spot and you could pull far ahead on loot, and loot turned straight into wins. Trust your skill enough, and you could always drop somewhere popular and sweep the place—but BN was built so that an early rush rarely paid. Neither she nor Kurokami-senpai, only just returned after a long break, had the skill to pull a rush off anyway, and with viewer sniping mixed in at full force it was closer to impossible.
"Shall we make for Downtown first?"
"...Understood."
Downtown was a region where the loot sat scattered far and wide, so clearing it took time. It was unpopular for exactly that reason, which made it a sensible drop for two players coming back after so long. Assuming, of course, that they were in anything like an ordinary situation.
"Aaaah?! What is this?! So many people dropping into Downtown! I have never even heard of such a thing!"
Right. They were not in an ordinary situation. This was a peculiar one, with the live audience already nearing six thousand. There was no chance that none of them were watching for the express purpose of sniping.
Which meant Downtown—whose whole premise was spreading out to loot—was obviously the worst possible choice. Those people were not playing to win. They were playing to torment the two of them. The moment the pair split up to loot, the lobby would swarm in to kill them; stick together, and Downtown's sheer size meant there was no profit to be had in looting at all.
"F-first, what should we do? I think m-moving quickly to the n-next zone might be all right."
She offered what seemed, to her, like a reasonable option.
"Hah?! I, Kurokami Hikari, would never choose flight in a situation such as this! We meet them head-on! Izumi, finish looting, and we shall regroup!"
A senpai that proud was never going to take the suggestion.
"O-okay...."
The moment they touched down, she watched senpai head for the west side of Downtown and moved north herself. Two minutes, more or less, might have passed.
"How cowardly! Two teams rushing me at once! Aaaah?!"
Senpai's scream burst against her ear.
And then—
"...I'm dead. Izumi."
No matter how wide the gap in skill, BN made it hard to profit from an early rush. The characters' unique skills were simply tuned too strong. Play it defensively, and even if several people jumped you at the start, getting away was still within reach. For a tank like Arsene—the one Kurokami-senpai had chosen—it was easier still.
"Senpai... did you f-fight them head-on...?"
"But of course! The word flee does not exist in my dictionary!"
"Haha...."
Well. She had seen it coming.
There were two reasons they had chosen a normal match instead of ranked. The first was that they wanted to take it easy, having only just come back. The second was that a ranked duo had been impossible for the two of them from the start.
Her old rank was Night Raid—BN's top one percent.
Kurokami-senpai's was Bronze, down in the bottom five.
Yes. The gap had been so severe that ranked matchmaking itself could not put them together....
"Q-quiet! It's only because I haven't played in ages that I'm still rusty!"
"L-let's go with that...."