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In the time spent after explaining to them my grand plan, not much headway has been made since then. And it wasn’t for a lack of trying either, both Jin and Ayako have fully devoted themself to the task at hand, but a spur of the moment decision brought about by an even more spur of the moment problem did not leave much of a possibility for smooth sailing progress.

I knew that, Jin knew that, Ayako knew that.

Yet being aware of it did not abate the frustrations from funneling past our collective sighs. Jin and I huddled close, a silence shared between us to maximize concentration. For my part, I spoke no jest, no complaints… just total radio silence from me while he does his thing with my hand.

Yes, even when my arm screamed in agony, begging for relief and threatening to pop off of its socket, I held my tongue. All for the sake of not annoying Jin further.

And I could tell he was already getting incensed even without me being involved in the equation.

Countless attempts, time spent scribbling out multiple lines of code, done only to be purged in an instant by a bright flash of red in a small rectangular screen, displaying within it two very demoralizing words emboldened in all caps.

<>

The luminous vibrant red painted his face, complimenting well the displeasure showing within. The clicks of his tongue were getting more recurrent and vocal with every failed attempt, an unnerving sight, especially when you're literally a hair’s breadth away from his face.

I looked towards Ayako to discover that she too was entangled in her own dilemma. Contemplation, agitation, twisting, and turning her composure to a stumbling, mumbling mess.

“‘Do we - I mean, I - Do I think we have a chance at getting through this? No, absolutely not, zero chances, we might end up all dead and forgotten. But even so, I have a - I have a dream! That one day -’, no wait - why am I saying that? That sounds stupid, scratch that.”

That among many others were the countless muttering under her breath, and if that was her latest iteration for motivation, then I’d say we’re far from receiving any accolades for best speech of the year.

But if anything at least, I truly am glad she was on my side here. I thank my lucky stars there was no real uphill battle to get her around to this. A motiveless drive to help others, a fine quality she still retained in spite of all that has happened.

The number of times she has donated to those less fortunate or helped her fans out in their times of struggle was enormous. I could only imagine the good she can do here if given the ability to act. There’s a big potential for unification if it’s all under her.

But all of that is mere speculations for another day and another time. What concerns us most right now is the current goal to be achieved.

Jin’s hand gripped a little tighter on mine. Obviously, things weren’t proceeding as well as he hoped. And indeed, just as I centered back to the screen in front of me, I too realized just how well he was faring.

“You know you turned off my health bar display, right?”

“I know...” He said, misery accompanying along with his heavy sigh, “I know.”

Ayako, meanwhile…

“‘Life has handed us some lemons! So in return, we will draw our swords and make some lemonade! With our hearts we will -’, what the fuck am I even saying right now? Seriously…”

Well, I guess Rome wasn’t exactly built in a day. Just have to hope we won’t take as long as the Romans did.

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Near a wall in the center of the room, that’s where we were.

“Position set?”

Ayako cleared her throat, “All good to go.”

The only source of lighting being the blazing wooden torch from Jin’s inventory, held firmly in my grasp.

“Speech all ironed out okay?”

A confident thumbs-up, and a broad smile of reassurance.

“Okay,” I turned my sights to Jin, who was recouping himself from stress-fatigue with a little lie down in a corner, “Third attempt here. Sure the stream function won’t bug out on us again?”

He grunted.

“Absolutely sure? I could tell Tayuma to wait a bit longer for the stream to start if you want to do another check-up.”

Jin flapped his hand in a shooing motion. I took that as a sign for the all-clear. Looks like this was it, the turning point for our plight.

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My hand hovered over the selection screen, a finger on standby inches away from activation, but before that…

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Ayako,” I called out.

She turned my way, “Yeah, what? Started already?”

“No, not yet,” I said. “Just making sure of a couple of things… you remember, right?”

Perhaps my own trepidation on things was showing, a blatant display of weakness that she readily pounced upon. Chuckling to herself with a smile full of cheek.

“Dunno,” She responded, shrugging her shoulders. “Remind me again, I didn’t quite catch it the last two times you said it.”

“Ayako…”

“I got it, I got it,” She waved me away with her arms. “Your friend will be watching the stream. There are 102 people along with him and I’m targeting them specifically. Win them over, and we got ourselves a guild.”

“Yes, but remember, you gotta be absolutely on point here. Sway as many people as you can to our side. Convince too little, and there might not be enough people to survive our encounter with the boss. That’s a no-no, so do your best here, kay?”

“So long as there’s no pressure, right?” With a smile showing resolve, she clapped her hands thrice. “Let’s get this over with.”

Her outward appearance of confidence would have fooled me in the lie that she had everything under control if not for the smallest trembles on her lips, the fidgeting, quivering motions of her fingertips.

I don’t think she even noticed herself clutching the ends of her dress nor the way her voice wavered with every word. A far cry from the confident state she claimed herself to be in.

As for me, I could only imagine. The position I placed her in was not an enviable one and I sympathize with that. If she would just call it off, tell me herself that she couldn’t do it, I would have let her go.

But she hadn’t. Not now, not then. Despite the burden, she willed herself to see this through to its end, and to that end, I trust that she will.

“Starting now,” A small tap on the screen exerting a harmonic digital whirr, and we were ready to go.

Just as with all first times, adaptation to new elements was a mandatory process. Immediately, my HUD gained many new indicators that came along with streaming.

A bright red blinking dot on the upper right. Directly below it was a separate window reserved for chat. Viewership count to the left of it, displaying a total audience count consisting only of a single individual. No doubt it was Tayuma.

I gave a thumbs-up heads-up motion, signaling Ayako to proceed. She breathed.

“Hey everyone!” Her first words.

Not gonna lie, it was almost like a shriek. Didn’t sound like her at all. It didn’t help that a painful smile seemed to be permanently etched on her face. She’s acting like she has to gun pointed to her head or something.

Come on, Ayako, all those years of live streaming has led up to this. Don’t screw it up now.

“Surprise, right? I know none of you were expecting this. Believe me, I wasn’t either…. heh.”

If only she would wipe that smirk off her face, it’s making her look deranged.

“How am I able to appear on stream, you ask? Uhh… Magic mambo-jumbo, I wouldn’t know. So, uh, yeah.”

A long, silent pause. Again, she tugged at her clothes, the quivering of her lips was getting more apparent, and I soon found out why later.

“I… I forgot my speech,” She admitted, nervous giggling, before stopping dead short and averting her gaze downwards, away from the stream.

This was painful. But it was too late to stop now. It’s now or never.

I let my voice be heard, “Keep going. Don’t stop.”

Still looking away, her long raven black hair cascading in a bundle, obscured the apprehension riddling her expression.

“Come on, you can do it,” I continued to reassure.

Silence remained as her answer, her fingertips fiddling against her palms, her knees buckling slightly.

The stream continued, viewership - 1. I refused to end it. I knew she could do it.

Then, quietly, a voice of total sincerity sounded through the quiet, “I’m… I’m a bit scared.”

Slowly, she raised her head, one hand brushing away the strands of hair concealing her face, “I bet you guys are too.”

Viewership - 3

“Trapped in here. Those things on the prowl. NPCs, right? Who would have thought?”

Finally, she rose her eyes back at mine. Nervous but committed.

“Four days, living in constant fear, I know… you’re all so tired - I sure as hell am.”

Viewership - 5

“I had a joke about lemons and lemonades… Nah, I won’t do that. No jokes… no lemons,” She took another deep breath. “I came with you all here, four days ago, sharing a goal we were all striving towards. A goal that’s all but forgotten due to our - y’know… unforeseen circumstances.”

Momentarily, she looked like a loss for words, only momentarily, however, continuing once more after a small pause.

“Now, I’m on stream again, doing what I do best. Talking. To ask all of you to pick up where we left off that day and do what we never did. Beat the boss.”

Viewership - 16

“Beat the boss and it’s all over. You might be asking how do I know that? Well, I don’t, really. I just believe. I believe him.”

Ayako pointed directly at the stream, pointed directly at me. A sudden gesture that had me turning tense and stiff.

“Our streamer, remember him? Sora. The one that tried to warn us? The one we didn’t believe when we should have.”

Despite the utter impossibility of it, I felt as if a million eyes were staring at me and it was unbearable.

“Ayako,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

Ignored.

“Yes, he’s stuck here with us too. What on earth is he doing here, I’m still not really sure myself. Perhaps he wanted to help us out. Perhaps he isn’t the bad guy you all are making him out to be. Yeah, perhaps.”

Viewership - 57

“He’s the one that said it. Kill the boss, everything ends. Now, you aren’t obligated to believe him, in fact, none of you are obligated to believe anything I say as well. But I know I won’t make the same mistake twice, I believe him.”

Firm, resolute, I could sense no timidity from her anymore. It was as if she was a whole different person entirely.

“We lost so many, so much, in so little time, it’s almost amazing. Scattered, separated… I don’t even know if the people I know are even alive anymore. Sawako. Tomoe. Kirie. Keita. Subaru. Long time fans that have been with me since the beginning, and there’s still so many of you I haven’t even met yet.”

Viewership - 140

“But you’re out there, somewhere, I know. The person who trapped us here intends to kill all of us, how do I know - Sora, of course. He doesn’t want that to happen and frankly neither do I. I’m guessing neither of you guys do as well. “

A sudden spike, a surge of activity brought my eyes rounding to the bottom right corner, where, appearing so abruptly was a tidal wave of comments flooding the chat.

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-OH MY GOD

-Ayako?!

-What the hell?

-This is from in-game, isn’t it?!

-I’M SO SHOOKED RIGHT NOW WAFHEGOEHSORGB

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Viewership - 2400

It’s rising.