A TS Pretty Girl's Song, Obviously — "What Even Is That Voice…" Is the Only Natural Reaction

It goes without saying, but streaming a live means singing and dancing in front of people.

And that is exactly why I now haul myself to dance lessons three times a week — Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Even that isn't enough.

If I were the sort of talent who could hit the summit with no training at all, this would be a different story. I am not that once-in-a-century genius. I am an ordinary, dime-a-dozen mediocrity, the kind of person who has to put in the work if she wants to reach a goal.

…Why am I saying all this?

Because today, at last, a text like that arrived from my manager.

It was as good as a final ultimatum. There was no time left to run.

Someone looking in might ask whether I was making an awful fuss for a person who isn't even a real idol. I could answer that with my head held high. This was absolutely not that.

VTubers have fallen a long way from what they once were, but there was a time when they stood at the very peak of the subculture market. It wasn't only streaming. Singing and dancing the way real idols do, even putting out albums, was perfectly common, and that culture has carried on to this day.

Look at Nacchan alone. She released a first album, and Ontube officially recognizes her as a music artist. And I am the one who stood in front of the Iztomo and proudly declared that my goal was to stand on a stage and stream a live. There was no way I could skip vocal training entirely.

…People say that if you're confident in your skill, you don't strictly need vocal training. The problem is how absurdly high the bar for that confidence sits. At the very least, I was certain my current ability would never clear it.

Of course, I'm a TS pretty girl with a past life's memories, so the timbre of my voice is ridiculous. If all I did was go to karaoke with my classmates and sing, I'd probably earn a gasp along the lines of what even is that voice…. The problem is that what I need right now is nowhere near that level.

In other words, I absolutely need vocal training.

"Wh-what am I actually supposed to do…?"

"If you really mean to do a live broadcast, that stutter has to go. …I don't think it'll be easy."

"Haa…."

Miss Koga's firm words pulled a sigh out of me before I could stop it.

Doing a live broadcast, and taking vocal training, both meant singing in front of other people. Could I — someone who can't even speak properly in front of others, from sheer nerves — really manage that? No confidence came.

"I th-think I've gotten b-better than I used to, but…."

"Yeah. You definitely have. But the fact that you stutter at all is the problem, isn't it?"

"Th-that's true…."

That was also why I had been putting vocal training off. If I stuttered so badly I couldn't sing in the first place, the training wouldn't mean anything. I had told myself that if I was going to take it, it would be after I had properly fixed the stutter.

"Then how about image training? Picture yourself singing in front of other people."

"I a-already tried."

And failed. Just imagining that someone was listening to me sing was enough to lock my mouth shut.

"…All right. Then let's flip it. You stutter a lot, Izumi, but it isn't all the time, is it? There were plenty of moments on stream when you spoke… normally. When don't you stutter?"

"Mmm…."

When I speak without stuttering.

"F-for one thing, when I'm talking to myself, and with family… no. When I talk with Mom, I d-don't think I do."

Talking with my sister, I still stumbled a little.

"And when you're going on about something you like, you get excited and stop stuttering too."

"…Right."

"Then what if you sing while holding on to that feeling? Doing it through a whole conversation with someone else would be hard, but doing it only while you sing seems like it might be easier."

"…Oh."

It was a pretty plausible fix. Correcting it little by little would certainly be easier than trying to repair everything from the start.

"Good. Then shall we practice right now?"

"Eh?"

"For something like this, it's better to have someone watching than to image-train by yourself. Give it a try."

…She wasn't wrong. So why did I feel like I'd been tricked?

Still, it wouldn't do ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to aim that suspicion at Miss Koga when she was the one stepping forward to help. Doubting pure goodwill is a bad thing.

"Then I'll g-give it a try…."

The song I chose was In a Black World, the opening of Uncle.

First I played the instrumental version on Ontube, then turned on Misscode's screen share so Miss Koga could hear it too.

"Hoo…."

The intro began.

Goosebumps were already rising along my back from the tension, but I still couldn't run. Even so, the full-version intro of In a Black World runs long, which made it a good stretch for sorting out my tangled thoughts.

Right. Recall the feeling of when I don't stutter.

The feeling of talking to myself was impossible from the start. I knew Miss Koga was listening. So I had to call up how it feels to talk with Mom, or to talk about something I love. The latter was impossible too. That only happens when I start babbling with no thought in my head at all, which means it isn't something I can control on purpose.

Which meant I was supposed to sing while thinking of how it feels to talk with Mom.

Think about it, though. Wasn't that strange? Miss Koga was already in the mama position for me, and here I was being told to remember talking with Mom. That's the same thing, isn't it? I'm talking to Mama, and I'm supposed to recall talking to Mom. Isn't that hilarious?

"Heheh…."

"Izumi. The song already started."

"Ah, I-I'm sorry…."

"…Figures. Fixing it perfectly from the very start is hard."

"Yeah…."

The solution Miss Koga had offered was plausible enough, but it wasn't some cure-all that could solve everything on the first try. No matter how hard I pictured talking with Mom, the instant I remembered that the person on the other end was Miss Koga, I started stuttering. The gaps were absurdly short, too. I was sure I had sung properly for less than half the song.

"Still, if we keep at it like this, it'll get better bit by bit. Just now, it wasn't as if you couldn't sing at all."

"…Th-then, the parts I d-did manage to sing — h-how were they?"

"Hm? …Uh. Honestly, they were kind of off."

"Eh?"

A song sung by this TS pretty-girl body, and it was off? Absurd. Miss Koga had to be jealous of my perfect timbre. I ought to understand, with a generous heart.

"I recorded it, just in case. Want to hear it?"

And that was how, today, I learned that I am ever so slightly rhythm-deaf.

"Finally, the last one…."

I had started at the beginning of January, and now the middle of February was slipping past, so it had been more than a month. After investing that much time, I had at last earned the right to challenge ST's final boss.

"I t-told you, didn't I? The tachi is the strongest weapon…."

If a tachi carrying a man's romance isn't the strongest thing there is, then what in the world is?

At first the Iztomo had smeared the tachi like crazy, but more than a month was plenty of time to grasp the truth of it. Last time I had accidentally equipped the twin swords a boss dropped, and in that instant the chat flooded with reactions like You abandoned the tachi, traitor!

"Then, sh-shall we start?"

The moment I said it and entered the command, the door of the final dungeon creaked open.

Inside, seated on a throne, was a middle-aged man with a solemn air, white hair, and a pure white beard.

"I'm a g-god too, you know?"

At the man's words, a single choice rose on my screen.

…No matter what I picked, it looked like the only outcome was a fight.

Still, going by the story so far, the first one was probably a little more correct. In ST, choose wrong and the boss becomes insanely difficult, so I had to be careful. Challenging something hard would be fun too, but this was still my first playthrough, and I wanted to take it step by step.

The moment I chose the first option, the enraged middle-aged voice rang out.

He got this angry just from being told he had been abandoned. How furious would he get if I outright said I was going to kill him?

…And yet.

"Y-you're sulking just because humans wouldn't p-play with you, this guy…? And you're a god? Pfft…."

"I'll say it again — I-I'm a proper Water Avatar too, you know…?"

But there was a difference. Unlike these guys, who lost to humans and got driven out, Kaino Izumi the Water Avatar has countless believers: the Iztomo. In other words, as a god, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I rank higher.

"And in the first place, i-isn't this weird? If you look at the story, the g-gods picked a fight with humans first, lost, and got driven out, right…? S-so why are they talking like they were the ones who spared us?"

At the same time as Zeus's battle cry, lightning began to crash down from the sky. Not aimed only at my character — bolts falling at random. So I was meant to dodge all of that and still take him down. A difficult, annoying pattern.

But well. For this TS pretty-girl body, it was incredibly simple.

"And look. Z-Zeus gets called the chief god of Greek mythology, but he isn't actually the s-strongest, you know? Above him there are the P-Protogenoi, too…."

"Hehe…."

"…Hoo."

Daring to challenge the tachi, the strongest weapon, when you aren't even the strongest god. That blasphemy deserves death a hundred million times over.