Shibuya Snapshots

Blanket

Tomorrow's the last one, and I'm excited for it.

So they all met up and savored the blanket of relief and comfort upon seeing one another, the three of them privately dreading the inevitable day where only one of them comes to this spot on the first day.

-xXx-

The Game was as stressful and overwhelming with despair as always, but at least they have each other.

Kanon, Fuya, and Motoi all share the same troubles as team leaders as they all struggle to reach first. Or, well second. Scratch that, staying out of last place was the real goal.

Out of the three of them, Kanon had been the first to be sent into the Underground. Her charm and confidence had quickly gained her a swift team. There had been an incident where her team, the Variabeauties, had become unbalanced, the result of a powerful Player having joined their team and had been relied upon by a majority of the team, something Kanon herself had warned them not to do. But then that Player had gotten a bit too overzealous and they, along with a handful of other Variabeauties that they had roped into their plan, and had gone after a Ruinbringer.

Every single one who had gone after Tsugumi, one of the two Ruinbringers known to the other teams, had gotten themselves erased. Kanon couldn't really blame the girl, as much as she wanted to. She doesn't think she'd hold back if multiple people suddenly attacked her before the last day.

But that also caused some problems for the rest of the team as a lot of their manpower had gone down. Thankfully the team was still rather large, so they didn't suffer too much for that stunt they had pulled. But still, she made sure to talk to every Player who was interested in joining the team to ensure that that doesn't happen again. Knowing that her team is balanced gives her a sense of security, and seeing her team consistently not rank last or second last is like a safety blanket around her shoulders.

Whenever she thinks a Player would unbalance her team, she directs them to the recently established Purehearts, who was still accepting Players readily. Perhaps lots of manpower was Motoi's own security blanket.

And Motoi was a case all of his own. She saw straight through him the first time they met, especially when he told her his identity as An0ther, a poet of some sort who posted a lot of quotes. When she had looked him up, she had found a file of quotes. She hadn't read through them all, the common sense of nearly all of them making her internally scream, but there had been a few good ones. But the problem was that she herself had definitely heard them before, or at least something along the same lines.

But they were working for the same goal, survival, so she did her best to not attribute it to his whole personality and cautiously made the decision to trust him as a fellow team leader.

Months (or was it closer to a year?) later, a fresh-off-the-dead-boat Player, or team leader, as it were, named Fuya approaches the both of them and asks them about being a good leader. Both are surprised, neither expecting someone to ask them about their leadership. So, they all agree for the three of them to meet up and talk with each other.

Which quickly leads to the three's close friendship. They stick together enough to be able to easily ask for favors, but not close enough to seem like an alliance at a glance. Their teams still go against each other to uphold the rivalry between them, but like clockwork, the first day of every new week, they all convene at one location. One never knows if a team got usurped last second and shot down to last place, after all.

There had been a time where two teams got brought down to last place on the final day. Neither had gained any points since then, so when it came time for the last-place team to get erased, everyone had been expecting a tie-breaker. Except both teams had gotten erased anyway, and everyone playing had been brought to the grim reality of the Game. It was simply a contest of who would survive the longest at this point.

So they all met up and savored the blanket of relief and comfort upon seeing one another, the three of them privately dreading the inevitable day where only one of them comes to this spot on the first day.

-xXx-

These three are implied to have played the game for seven months are probably the only consistent teams during that time. Not to mention that they are on first-name basis with each other, so there's no doubt that the three are close. I'm also sad that all three of them die :(