You Shall Not Obtain the Crown (2)
When word came that they would broadcast a competition from the studio, facing one another through motion capture, the viewers hardly spared a thought for the competition itself. They cheered for a single fact: that it would be an offline collab of every talent at Anathema Production.
A studio broadcast was no once-in-a-lifetime novelty, and projects built around a crowd gathering in one place to settle things with games were hardly unheard of either. At most, the feeling was that they would surely get up to something. Interest fell less on what they might do once gathered than on the bare fact that the VTubers one liked were gathering at all, and that, if anything, was only natural.
On Anathema Production's official channel — a broadcast that rarely went live on Etube — two women appeared.
"Hello to every Anapro viewer across the nation, or perhaps the entire world! Iram karapte! I'm Aki, a first-generation talent of Anathema Production and the shrine maiden of Rokumondera Shrine!"
One of them was Rokumondera Aki, a shrine maiden the viewers already knew well. Her miko robes, hooded in the shape of a polar bear, were not the red-and-white pairing a Japanese shrine maiden ordinarily brought to mind, but black and white. A bear-god's shrine maiden, conceived as an Ainu itako — that was the character of Rokumondera Aki.
"You've all heard the news, haven't you? After all this time, Komori Sae-chan has challenged Tachibana Rin-chan to a duel. And this time, of all things, it isn't one-on-one! It's a team battle! Clap, clap, clap~"
What anyone was applauding was difficult to say, but the viewers clapped along in the chat regardless. Most of them had come in looking forward to today's stream, after all.
"For the sake of their duel, every last one of Anathema Production's monsters has turned out today! The first full-roster offline collab in Anapro history! ...Ah. Not counting me."
Opinion on that remark split, by and large, according to how well one knew Rokumondera Aki — more precisely, the woman inside the avatar, Natsugahara Hina. That she was a hikikomori with a fear of other people was the sort of thing you could more or less pick up from other streams even without being an Aki fan. That it was, in the most literal sense, a condition grave enough to strip her of her reason — that was difficult to grasp unless you watched the first generation often. Most people, then, could only picture it as the sort of nerves that stopped her tongue and set her body trembling when she stood before others.
Aki herself always spoke of it as lightly as she could, wary of letting the stream slide into a heavy mood over nothing. Even so, watch long enough and the severity became impossible not to sense, and a group collab like this was bound to draw out fans who worried for her. If she went, that was obviously a problem; if she alone sat it out, that was no good thing either. But no one could very well say, "Don't run group projects, because Aki gets left out!" and so the matter had never been raised in earnest.
...Of course, the viewership of an internet stream covered so wide a spectrum, and held so many people well past the reach of common sense, that she had heard someone really had sent management a message to exactly that effect.
"I'll be joining today on play-by-play... Oh, right. I've been talking all by myself."
With that, Aki glanced to the side. She was the only one actually in the room, but one more person was up on the screen.
"On commentary, Hinata Shion-san. She holds the post of Mary Tepes's wife, and as a bonus she also works as assistant manager for Anapro's third generation."
"Hello. This is Shion...... But hasn't the order of that introduction been reversed?"
What mattered to Anathema Production's viewers was the latter, was it not? At the question, Aki huffed through her nose and answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world — even the little bear on her head somehow turning smug, an expression possible only because she was virtual.
"If you could only be one of the two, which would you pick?"
"I'll have my resignation ready."
"See?"
"Yes... In any case, welcome to those of you who watch as usual. If you only watch Tepes-tan's streams, it has been a while... and if this is our first meeting, then it is a pleasure to meet you for the first time."
Shion's rate of appearance — that is, Han Seoyeon's — was, surprisingly, rather high. Living with Mary as she did, she was bound to turn up whenever viewers were on the verge of forgetting her, and she had pushed her face onto the official channel a fair amount besides. The company's position was that a model had already been commissioned, and it would be a waste not to use it. Seoyeon agreed with that much, and so whenever the official channel had something to announce, it was "Hinata Shion" who stepped forward. The model had been made for this sort of thing in the first place.
Early on, the thought of appearing on a broadcast in the form of a virtual avatar had put her off a little, but by now she was more or less used to it. From around then she had also begun, bit by bit, to study VTubers outside Anapro, and once she learned that any VTuber company of real standing usually kept a staff member or two with an avatar of their own, her reluctance faded considerably. Anyone following the official channel's lives and videos, then, was bound to be fairly familiar with Shion's face.
"Today has effectively become the entire Anapro roster taking the field. How do you see the match, Shion-san?"
"Wouldn't it be proper to begin by telling the viewers who is facing whom?"
"Ah! You're right. I'm sure an image was prepared... Staff-san! Please put up the team graphic!"
The two avatars shifted into the corner at the right, and in the same moment an image appeared on the broadcast.
Beneath the heading "The 1st Anathema Sports Day," a thick vertical line divided left from right. At the top, side by side, stood the two serving as captains, and under each of them five teammates had been set in place.
"Ta-da~"
"Red Team and White Team."
"A sports day really has to be red and white, doesn't it? And it just so happens Rin-chan has white hair, while Sae-chan's is red."
Her conversation partner was Korean, so a protest might well have come back — isn't a sports day blue and white? — for in Korea, that was the usual pairing. But Seoyeon had never experienced a sports day in her life, and perhaps for that reason, no such remark appeared.
"Red Team. Leader, second generation, Komori Sae. First generation, Yugure Tama. Second generation, Charlotte Lupus and Serena Razania. Third generation, Shirase Hikari and Mikazuki Umi. White Team: the leader is first generation, Tachibana Rin, and likewise first generation, Kitayama Maya. Second generation, Amairo Tsubasa and Mary Tepes. Third generation, Iwabami Kyouka and Masachi Nodoka. Six members to a team."
"Hmm. Shion-san, what standard do you think they used to divide them?"
"A roughly even split by generation, as the base... The heart of it is combat power."
"...This is a sports-day commentary, right? The one we're doing?"
"You are welcome to think of it as physical ability."
"So... anyway. What would you say is the key to the match, Shion-san?"
"If I abstract each of their physical abilities as far as I can, for the viewers' sake... An S-rank has been assigned to each side. Red Team has two A-ranks, but two C-ranks as well. White Team has one A-rank and one C-rank, with the rest at B — a solid middle."
"Mmm, the S-ranks... well, that's the two third-gen juniors, isn't it? Kyouka-chan and Umi-chan."
"Yes. If it came to a brawl this instant, each of them is at a level where she could wipe out the rest of the opposing side alone, her counterpart excluded."
Shion nodded as she answered. Sure enough, the moment she reached for a brawl as her comparison, the chat erupted with demands to know in what world this counted as sports-day commentary.
"Tepes-tan, Charlotte Lupus, and Shirase Hikari are A. Yugure Tama, Kitayama Maya, Amairo Tsubasa, and Masachi Nodoka have gaps between them, but lump them together and they are B. Komori Sae, Serena Razania, and Tachibana are C."
"Wait, hold on. The leaders are the most hopeless of the bunch — is that right?"
"The ranks are nothing more than my own subjective opinion, so there is no need to pay them too much mind."
Of course, there was hardly a soul who would disregard a combat assessment handed down by an Apostle in person. To take issue with it, one would need either talent or ignorance staggering enough to refute Professor Senjoji's theories in the field of folklore.
"All right. We'll begin with each team leader's oath, and then move into the first event."
"What are the events, though? Nothing was passed on to me."
"I haven't heard yet either. They said they'd reveal them to us as we go, so the reactions would feel more real. So! The first event is... a gesture game. Say It With Your Body!"
"...One moment. President? If the event is this, why did you ask me to sort them by combat power?"
"Who knows? Maybe they just wanted an excuse to play a versus game?"
Aki tilted her head and answered her so.
...All of this was fifteen minutes before the game of tag — the next event, once this one had ended — produced someone hanging from the ceiling.