The Holy City, New Jerusalem (4)

A minute had passed since Shutang was roadkilled and sent sailing far across the map.

"Are you all right?"

"The gauge is getting awfully thin……."

Having somehow put down the two-man motorcycle team with a high-spec firearm, Sister put the question to Mary. Mary's character, HP emptied out and downed, crawled along the ground with nothing left to do but wait for her partner to bring her back.

"The honor of being allowed to heal Shutang!"

"What do you mean, an honor?"

"Well. Simply running a duo with Shutang is already honor enough, if you ask me."

Mary Tepes swallowed the retort—We've played together plenty of times already, haven't we? The fact that we're friends on Setsukoto is proof enough—before it could leave her mouth. Back then, it hadn't been a duo with "Shutang." It had been a duo with Ninomae Hitomi.

"Her existence."

"What."

The answer was so blunt, so nakedly fanatical, that chat dissolved into a sea of laughter all over again. The woman in question only let out a puzzled hmm?, as if she had no idea which part of it had been strange.

Watching the way they reacted to Sister, Mary—Ninomae Hitomi—smiled a thin, bitter smile.

In truth, before the match had even begun, she had sent Han Seoyeon a Pasta Chat, careful that it wouldn't be caught on the broadcast. Seoyeon was a complete novice at streaming. Hitomi had wondered whether the manager had given her any direction at all, and, if not, whether she ought to offer a few words of advice herself.

The rest of the guidance, as far as she could tell, amounted to this: don't accidentally call anyone by their real name, and don't speak carelessly about private life. At the time she had genuinely doubted whether that would be enough… but Manager Hatsuna's eye, it seemed, had not been wrong.

Miss Shion isn't even running a concept, and her character is still far too strong…!

Well. How often did you find a rabid VTuber fan who also happened to know her oshi personally, and was devout on top of it?

"Shutang, gunfire at bearing one-one-zero. Please stay alert."

"Understood."

Even as they spoke, the match kept sliding forward—already past the middle, and into what you could fairly call the mouth of the endgame. The Pulse blanketing the map had drawn in tight. There was no avoiding a fight anymore, and if one broke out it had a way of swelling at once into a brawl. This was the highlight of the game, in name and in fact.

Somewhere far off, a firefight crackled. The survivor count on the screen finally dropped under twenty. Ten teams left, at the most.

"Nnh— Miss Sister! A car, over there……."

"Confirmed. Can you take the shot?"

"If all I have to do is lead something holding a steady speed."

"Then there is nothing to hesitate over."

At Sister's word, the two of them leaned out from cover and opened fire.

"Got them!"

Take the ground first, wait, then spring the ambush. The advantage was considerable, and a moment later Mary's name lit the kill feed. But this was a duo match. A downed player could still be brought back by their partner, so they needed either a finishing blow or to drop the one who was left. There was no room for a finish.

"Healing for a moment."

An enemy climbed out of the car and answered, and Sister's HP plunged to under half in a single burst. She hissed through her teeth and slipped back behind cover.

In that window Mary hammered rounds into the vehicle the enemy was tucked behind. She burned through the awkward remainder of a magazine, then came up with a grenade, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it traced a clean arc toward the car. The range was too long to loft it over the roof and onto the player themselves. The blast thumped the chassis, but the point of impact sat a little too far out. On its own, it fell short of destroying the vehicle.

"Got the other one, too!"

Had that been the whole of it, it would not have been enough. Then a roar rolled out hard on Mary's confident voice—a chain detonation, the grenade setting the vehicle off. As if to say she hadn't poured those rounds in beforehand for nothing, she grinned and racked a fresh magazine.

"—Calculating damage, I'll have you know, is my specialty."

She murmured it low, watching the burning wreck.

"Isn't Shutang ridiculously cool?"

"…Ugh. Please don't say embarrassing things."

"Hey! Cute is not what I am! I am a noble queen, I'll have you know."

"Tch. These people have no intention of listening at all."

"Our servants have always been that way."

"Let's just move! That fight definitely gave our position away."

"As you command."

And with that, the two of them broke into a sprint beyond the brick wall.

Sister. CharMary—Han Seoyeon's favorite ship. And the one who carried the "Char" at the front of that name was Charlotte Lupus. Tsunashi Tenka.

She sat in a room with the lights off, staring into the monitor.

"What do I do……."

What the screen held was gameplay, and a platinum-blonde vampire avatar. Tsunashi was rewatching yesterday's Mary Tepes broadcast. But the one holding her attention was not Mary, the owner of the stream.

The one she was watching was the woman with no avatar. The one they called Sister. Those exceptional reflexes, that sense for a fight, kept snagging on her eye—to say nothing of a blessing powerful enough to reach into the game itself.

By her own testimony, and by every circumstance around her, the person called Sister was unmistakably of that breed: a Holy Knight of the Church. In other words, a hunter of anomalies.

"…Should I ask Ninomae-chan to call off the collab?"

In the dark, Tsunashi Tenka's triangular ears pricked. She let out a sigh.