The Rod and the Staff (1)
At the voice behind her, Han Seoyeon pulled her earphones free and turned. Ninomae Hitomi stood there, beaming.
"That was the day before yesterday's stream, wasn't it."
"Since we happened to meet last time, I have been looking through some of her highlight clips."
Amairo Tsubasa—a second-generation talent of Anathema Production, the same cohort as Mary Tepes. She was also the character played by Hyakurenno Yuri, the conglomerate heiress Seoyeon had happened to become acquainted with not long ago.
Brilliant blonde, gathered high. If Mary's was platinum, hers was gold. The costume, built on a tunic, was cut just low enough to put a little more skin on display.
The roleplay—the concept—was a Trainee Knight. To Han Seoyeon, a Holy Knight in active service, more than a few lapses of historical accuracy were difficult to ignore, but sometimes abandoning detail for the sake of character was a method in its own right.
"Shall we do a collab stream with her next?"
"...Is my opinion permitted to enter into that?"
"If the final say is mine, the company will probably be fine with it too."
From the company's side, there would be no way of knowing who had been breathing what suggestions into whose ear. Wasn't that all it amounted to? The words climbed as far as her throat. She swallowed them.
"Will the schedules even align?"
"Tsubasa's a university student too, for now. Her streaming schedule is pretty close to mine."
"So long as she doesn't get hooked on some strange game before we set a date, we'll be fine." Ninomae added it with a smile.
Hearing that, Seoyeon offered a wry smile of her own, as if she could already see it coming. There were times when Amairo Tsubasa latched onto what people called kusoge—shitty games, to put it plainly—and burrowed into nothing else for a long while. The more vicious part was that seeing a game's ending did not necessarily mean it was over.
Ordinarily, cases like that came from an overflow of competitive spirit, a stubborn need to see the ending no matter what. But Tsubasa was not that type either. She simply enjoyed spiritual training.
"I hear that her first members-only stream was a calligraphy broadcast. Is that true?"
"Not one inch of exaggeration. Astonishingly enough."
Streams of that sort had left her with the lowest subscriber count in the second generation. Her viewers' loyalty, conversely, was the highest. Amairo Tsubasa's audience had split cleanly in two: the ultra-loyalists—or the resigned faction—whose position was Tsubasa-chan, just do whatever you like, and the music faction—or the holdouts—whose position was with talent like that, please, we are begging you, do a singing stream. Every viewer who belonged to neither had long since withered and died.
"Well... this isn't really the time for me to be worrying about someone else's stream."
Ninomae let out a long sigh then, as if something unwelcome had just occurred to her.
"Chimera House 3. You are doing that today as well, are you not, Ninomae?"
"Yeah. It just sort of happened."
The game from the clip Seoyeon had been watching a moment ago. A new entry in a famous series, and so the agency had encouraged a number of its VTubers to try streaming a playthrough. The problem was the genre. It was horror. And Mary Tepes—Ninomae Hitomi—was exceptionally weak to horror.
Anathema Production did, of course, grant its talents a considerable degree of freedom. Enough, at the very least, to leave a certain young lady to her calligraphy streams and her flower arranging. So the agency's encouragement was encouragement in the strictly literal sense. It was by no means coercion dressed up as a suggestion. If she wished to refuse, she was perfectly free to refuse. Even if Ninomae did not take it, the agency had no shortage of people who would play the thing live.
And yet Chimera House sat on Ninomae's broadcast schedule for the week. The cause, of course—
"Ugh, damn it. Fine! Horror-game streams are the most fun when it's a Shuttan stream, they said...!"
Ninomae folded forward onto the lecture-hall desk and lamented, at a volume that would not, of course, carry to anyone nearby. If you were watching someone else play a horror game, it was certainly more entertaining when they frightened easily and reacted large. Considered purely as broadcast entertainment, there was no one better suited than Shuttan, one of the greatest cowards in Anathema. And for all her complaining, her appetite for streaming was considerable. She had slapped this week's announcement up without a second thought, and now that the day itself had arrived, the regret was setting in.
Toward that sorry figure, Han Seoyeon smiled faintly.
"I shall look forward to the stream."
"You're treating this like someone else's problem?!"
"It is someone else's problem."
"Huuueeh......"
Ninomae was sunk in grief. So mournful that the lecture would not enter her ears. No—that's how it always is. Thinking on it, failing to focus on the professor was an everyday affair. She shook her head.
What she was actually worried about was the stream set for this evening. Resentment toward her past self tangled in her head with the expectation that the viewer count would be enormous anyway.
"......"
A sidelong glance, toward Han Seoyeon in the next seat. Their eyes met. She was smiling brightly. In truth it was only the faintest lift at the corners of her mouth, but on her, that much was as good as a face-splitting grin. Not merely indifferent, on the grounds that it was someone else's affair—no, past even that. She was probably taking pleasure in the mental image of Mary screaming her lungs out. The sight was profoundly irritating.
But what was she supposed to do about it? Just because Seoyeon was like that, it wasn't as if this side had any way to— Wait. Someone else's problem? In that instant an idea cut across her mind. Then I only have to make it not someone else's problem.
Ninomae met Seoyeon's eyes again. Not with vague resentment this time, but carrying a settled will.
A flinch. Catching some nameless omen in that gaze, Han Seoyeon gave the smallest shudder of her shoulders.
Why am I... here?
Why, of all things? Han Seoyeon was thoroughly at a loss. No—she knew the cause. This had been entirely her own choice.
"Front-row seats. Live viewing. Shuttan horror game."
"I will go at once."
An instant answer, risen from the deepest part of instinct. The root of this entire situation.
"This is actually all right, I trust?"
"I got the company's permission."
"...You were swift."
Han Seoyeon smiled, sourly. A response that quick—just how badly had she not wanted to play a horror game?
"And I have no intention of shoving this onto you, Shion. This is my stream, start to finish, and the viewers came to see Shuttan."
The center of the broadcast was Mary Tepes. She had no intention of forgetting that responsibility. Ninomae went on.
"You only have to play the part of a totem. That alone will be easier on my heart than being by myself."
"Would it not be better to call another VTuber?"
"Everyone's schedule today is kind of awkward. And suggesting an offline collab on the day itself feels a little wrong."
The ones who might have managed it were all planning to stream Chimera House themselves later on. Scared or not, she could hardly spoil the game for them in advance.
"I do wonder about putting a non-broadcaster on the stream."
"A guest! You're a guest, nothing more."
And if one pressed the point, had they not already sprung a surprise on her and played a game together once before? Had Seoyeon truly been an ordinary person of no significance, Ninomae would have hesitated longer—but a character called Sister had already been built. Failing to make use of her would be a waste.
"I'll make sure the appearance fee isn't stingy, either!"
"No. I did not say it with the intention of abandoning you and going home, so you need not cling quite so hard."
At the sight of Ninomae all but hanging from her arm, Seoyeon smiled bitterly. She could almost feel a plush, yielding softness against her forearm.
She drew the chair she was sitting in closer still toward Ninomae.
"In any case, it is about time. Let us start the stream."
Ninomae, too, drew a long breath and composed her face. The mouse clicked once. And the broadcast began.
A brief silence after the broadcast began. Only the viewers' chat climbed, noisy and bright. She had checked the setup any number of times before going live, and still her eyes ran over it once more, quickly. Good. Nothing out of place. Ninomae—Mary Tepes—murmured it inwardly. Then she broke into her usual confident smile.
"Konmea! I am Mary Tepes, the vampire queen who shall one day rule this world!"
To think she would hear that line from immediately beside her. Quite a novel feeling, Han Seoyeon thought.
"Today, as announced... hmm. A surprise, and playing a different game, might not be so bad either?"
"R-running away? Did you think I would dare something so cowardly? That just now was only a joke."
Mary muttered it in a voice that was plainly flustered. Of course, having come this far, she had never expected a trick like that to work.
"Phew... and above all, the me of today is different from before! I dare say, call me the New Mary."
Ninomae's triumphant smile. In time with that expression, the Mary on the screen grinned a sly little grin.
"Because today, I have brought reinforcements! If I am not alone, even a horror game does not frighten me!"
"Sh-shut up! Connections are a personal ability too, you know! ...Ahem. Anyway, please come out."
"Konmea. This is Sister, appearing as a totem for the alleviation of Shuttan's fear."
"F-fear alleviation? That makes it sound as though this vampire queen, Mary, possesses an emotion called fear."
"Then an emergency body pillow, perhaps."
Mary's eyes narrowed as she looked to the side, but Han Seoyeon paid it no mind at all and spread both arms, as if to say that should Mary grow frightened, she was welcome to scream and throw herself into them at any moment. A version of her rather far from the one usually on display. Ah. This person has already gone into malicious-viewer mode, Mary lamented.
No. Even so, she's still far better than not having her at all. She steadied herself soon enough. Even if the other person only sat in silence, having someone beside you and having no one were worlds apart. At least it would be better than what she usually managed. What if I'm not scared enough, and the viewers end up disappointed? Nursing a worry that was already half a fond delusion, Mary started the game.
"U-umm...! It's got quite the atmosphere, hasn't it."
A dim title screen. Background music, strangely grotesque. Mary's expression, meeting it, stiffened enough to read even through the avatar.
No. It'll be fine. This time, if it comes to that, Sister is here too... After three deep breaths, she set the cursor on the start button and steadied her heart, telling herself there was no retreating now. And she pressed it.
And in that instant, with a tremendous noise, the screen played a cinematic of itself shattering.
"Hyaaak?!"
Mary let out a shrill scream and froze where she sat. Only after she had shivered there for a long while did she creak her head around, bit by bit, to look at Han Seoyeon.
"Shuttan. This may not be a particularly important observation, but."
"Y-yes? What is it...?"
"A horror film is still frightening even when a hundred people watch it together in a theater, is it not? I do not imagine one person at your side will change very much."
Seoyeon delivered it with perfect calm.
Ninomae's eyes, somehow, had gone moist.