I Strike My Own Body (6)

The declaration broke into cheers.

Mary Tepes joined them, smiling with bright, unclouded delight.

"Great work, everyone!"

"You worked hard too, Lady Mary."

"Good work."

One side roared for the win while the other swallowed its disappointment and offered encouragement anyway — the sort of heartwarming scene you might see after a school sports day. This time, of course, it was not going to end on nothing but the wholesome glow of a children's field day. The whole event had been staged as a battle of pride, the better to play up the rival act between Tachibana Rin and Komori Sae.

Once the reactions from the Red and White teams alike — cheers and consolation both — had settled into a lull, Tachibana Rin walked over to the Red camp with heavy, deliberate steps.

"Kid."

"Ugh..."

The one she was calling out was, of course, the Red Team's leader, Komori Sae. At Rin's summons Sae let out a miserable groan, as if disaster had arrived, and crept forward.

"Declare your defeat."

"Wh-who said I didn't know?"

Grumbling even as she obeyed, Sae turned her head and looked up at the sky. A single character was flitting around up there: a staff account logged in from the company building to run the match and commentate it. The hands actually on the controls, though, were surely their boss's.

The duels between the two of them, now a regular event under the name War of Gods and Demons, followed a fairly fixed formula. On top of the penalty, the loser had to speak a line her opponent had designated and formally concede. That principle had never changed, no matter how many matches they fought. This time the lines and the penalties had been kept secret from each other and submitted only to the organizers, so the look Sae sent upward was a silent plea. She would comply. Just tell her what she was meant to say.

Before long the line appeared as enormous in-game text, trapped between quotation marks.

"Kuh... th-this old hag... she's really coming at me like this?"

"Sounds like age has given you a chronic condition. A loser's voice, in particular, you cannot hear."

Sae, having read it off the screen, was already muttering in a voice thick with humiliation. Rin answered as she always did: perfectly deadpan.

"So. Not doing it?"

"Guhk..."

"Not 'guhk.' 'Kyuu.'"

"You think I'm like this because I can't read it?!"

You couldn't see it on the avatar, but there was no doubt her face was burning red. She hesitated for a long while, then forced the words out in a squeezed voice.

"Kyuu... kyuuung...! Sae tried really hard today, though... can't you let it slide? Rin-oneechan? Huuung? Please let it sliiide~"

"...Pfft."

"Ghhh... just you wait! Next time you get caught, I swear...!"

"Then don't get caught."

Rin nodded, wearing what was, for her, a deeply satisfied smile — though anyone outside her fanbase would have asked how that expression qualified as one. Sae let out a short, heavy sigh.

"Anyway, it's not like you were actually going to let me off just because I said the line."

"You know me well."

"Boss, what's the penalty?"

Her gaze went once more to the boss's character drifting through the air.

"...Shar-oneechan's live?"

"Right. Show up and put your back into the labor."

Other members appearing as guests on a birthday live was hardly rare. Depending on the friendship, even a VTuber from outside Anathema Production might join. Sometimes it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠arranged beforehand and they performed a song or two together; sometimes a surprise guest the birthday girl herself knew nothing about dropped in, offered a few words of support, and left. A proposal like this was not strange in itself.

Even so, Komori Sae looked puzzled.

"Um, Boss? I think the penalties got swapped— kyaah?!"

Thwack! Inside the game, Rin threw a punch without a shred of hesitation and cut the sentence off.

"Wh-what was that for, all of a sudden?!"

She spun on Rin with her RP in pieces, demanding an answer — but only for a moment.

"...Ah."

A short, belated sigh. She had caught on. They had written the exact same thing and turned it in. Rin's face was nearly expressionless to begin with, and even that was hidden behind a game avatar, but Sae could still read a certain dismay in her eyes, and a little resignation with it. Viewers were already constantly forcing the two of them together and screaming teetee. If it got out that they had both, independently, proposed standing on the same stage, the reaction hardly needed imagining. She didn't even have to check the chat.

Komori Sae — that is, Bansei Marin — put enormous care into building her character. She had been handed a role somewhere between late elementary school and middle school, younger than half her real age, so of course she had to keep it at a slight remove from her actual self. What attitude, toward which person, was correct for Komori Sae? Whenever she streamed with others, that question was always in her mouth and in her head. And by her own reading of the character, Komori Sae was supposed to stay locked against Tachibana Rin, snapping and bickering without end.

That did not mean she had split herself cleanly from the VTuber she played. Someone who made a poor match as a character could still become a real friend easily enough, and if you kept streaming, a relationship like that was bound to show. Actors and voice actors received a script fitted to the role and performed it. This was closer to carrying a performance forward on a script being written live. Holding a character through that without a single break in the setting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would itself be a remarkable feat.

But Bansei Marin was fiercely on guard against a yuri image sticking to her in that particular way. Getting along as their broadcast selves, and letting a slightly romantic air form because of it, was fine. What must not happen was the relationship the viewers imagined acquiring a basis in reality. It wasn't that she had any especially grave reason. She was past thirty and on her way to forty; tangling the younger ones up with her like that would simply be too unfair, wouldn't it? If it were Komori Sae, whom even she found cute and charming, perhaps. Being paired with Bansei Marin — years past her retirement, and then some — didn't sit quite right. The viewers, though, were already fully primed to take it exactly that way, which was surely why Rin was giving off that faintly resigned air. Komori Sae sighed, softly, once more.

It was around then that President Gyokichi spoke into the mic. The members, who had assumed that with everything finished they would chatter a little among VTubers and then log off, all turned toward him.

"Huh? Uh... yeah. We did."

Iwabami Kyouka answered in a reluctant voice. Mary paused, trying to remember what that had been, and soon recalled yesterday. Judging by the chat, a few of the viewers had remembered as well. Whoever finished day one with the lower total score was supposed to crawl beneath the other's crotch. Kyouka's mood was a little dark because the loser was her.

"What...? Ugh, wait. You bastard, don't tell me...?!"

"Eheheh, what's with the sudden call~"

"You— you said doing it in front of other people would be too much, so out of mercy you'd make me do it when it was just the two of us...!"

"Wooow~ and you actually believed thaaat~"

Kyouka's head was juddering so hard that the hand on her mouse was clearly shaking.

"Maybe the mistake was believing I'd really show you mercy?"

"You... you little—"

For all that fury, Kyouka could not muster a single rebuttal. She understood perfectly well that the greatest fault was her own, for having trusted that Momomomo Chisa. She ought to have trusted someone worth trusting. Secretly filming the thing, sending it to the company, and asking them to release it was exactly the sort of thing Chisa would do. In that respect, she was reliable. And President Gyokichi was equally reliable, in that if something of the sort reached him he would play it without hesitation.

"S-stop! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠There's no person behind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a virtual avatar, remember?! You can't go releasing something like—"

"Damn it. Right...!"

In the end, that day's broadcast closed on Kyouka's scream of shame ringing out.

"Ryuumai-san really has it rough."

Once the stream was over and she had shut the PC down, Hitomi murmured it with a wry smile. She never would have imagined operations airing a video like that in the middle of a live broadcast. If she herself had been the one in that position, she might have died of shame. It had come right after an event every member joined, so even a crude sum of all their viewer counts was the size of the audience — and because it was billed as an all-hands event, people who rarely caught the lives had surely gathered too, which meant the real number was higher still. Having your disgrace put on display in front of a crowd like that was no ordinary humiliation. From the president's point of view, of course, he had only released it because he judged a mental blow of this size was one she could endure...

"With this, Maid-san's real identity is as good as confirmed. She was already half pinned down, but still."

"Was Ryuumai-san not exposed as well?"

"Don't you think quite a few people wouldn't even know what she looked like in her active days?"

Both Momomomo Chisa and Ryuumai Fuu appeared in the video, obviously. With their faces covered, though, Ryuumai would prompt little more than the thought that, looking at that body, the mercenary background was no lie. Anyone who actually knew what the former Triage commander looked like might go a step further and conclude that the speculation drifting around the internet was probably true. Chisa was another matter. Already guessed at, nearly to the point of certainty, as the maid of the Hyakurenno house, her real identity would have been nailed down even more cleanly than Ryuumai's. The rumors had already been circulating as all but confirmed, and then she had shown up in the video wearing her ordinary maid uniform, exactly as it was.

"Mmm..."

Recalling the scene, Hitomi flushed. It had felt strangely erotic. Of all things, that maid uniform was a long skirt, so to let someone pass underneath, the maid in the video had hiked her skirt right up. Not far enough to show her underwear, and neither of them had had any such intention... but from a viewer's seat, you couldn't help thinking, oh my, how indecent. For no good reason at all, she felt embarrassed, and her heart was pounding. On that thought she stole a glance toward Han Seoyeon, loading the look with a feeling that quietly invited.

"Shion, maybe tonight... hueh?"

A heartbeat later she looked at the handcuffs fastened around her wrist, and her eyes went round. She stared down at her own wrist, then lifted her head to look up at Seoyeon's face.

"So Hitomi was thinking the same thing. This will go quickly."

"N-no, wait, Shion? Why handcuffs, all of a sudden..."

"You said so yourself, did you not? That you wanted to do interrogation play."

"What?"

Now that she thought about it, she had said that if she won this match, that would be her wish. It had planted itself as a perfect death flag.

"No, the roles were supposed to be reversed— hyaaah?!"

A moment later her body was scooped up in a princess carry.

Ninomae Hitomi met the eyes of a beast watching her from point-blank range, and swallowed. Ah. This is a lost cause. The certainty settled over her. She had better start practicing, in advance, how to say that their base was to the north.

"No, how would I know the password to the Tokyo church vault— hyakyaah?!"

"Still feigning ignorance. This will not do."

"Ack! I'll talk! So, um, it's... 3456... hiiik?!"

"Incorrect."

"No, if you already know, why are you even asking— nnghyaaaah?!"

"Ah. That just now was a setting error. Then we shall say I checked, and it was not. False testimony. This calls for a heavier penalty."

"Hnnnnnghk?!"