Chapter Text
"Are we sure this is a good idea?"
"Too late to back out now, uhee~"
"Wow~ So this is what it's like to have a tail! ☆"
"Kufufu! You all look great!"
"Humu! My taste in fashion is impeccable!"
"The hat doesn't fit my ears. Nn."
"W-Wha?! Don't take it off! That's absolutely necessary!"
"...Hah. This is going to be a long day."
"M-Millennium tech wear! For that 'modern' look!" A certain treasurer's voice stuttered. "Ah, I really can't do this… Huh?! You're still recording?!"
Violet eyes, sunken into their sockets, glared up from the stack of paperwork on her desk. The slitted pupils stared into her subordinates' souls. "Turn that off."
"Yes, Head Perfect!" The newest member of Gehenna's perfect team hastily shouted before shoving her phone into her bag without even turning off the video. Hina could still hear the muffled cries of that Millennium treasurer's voice, but it was faint enough that she could tune it out.
"...Hah…" She sighed, putting her pen down for a moment. With shaky hands, she tried to soothe her exhausted eyes by turning towards the rest of the Perfect Team, but that only gave her more of a headache. The sun had already begun to set, and yet, these young girls were still swamped with work. Those who didn't have a stack of paperwork sitting on their desks were running in and out of the office like headless ducks. Frantically dispatched on missions as if their life depended on it.
In a way, it did.
"There's another protest!" Someone radioed in. "And it's right outside the school gate too!"
A faint voice cry could be heard in the background. "DOWN WITH THE PERFECT TEAM!"
"Again?" The executive officer of the Perfect Team sighed. While normally Ako looked impeccable no matter the situation, even she wasn't able to perfectly weather the month-long marathon they had all been enduring. She gave a tired wave of her hands. "You know the drill by now. If they start shooting, suppress them on the spot."
Considering this was the average Gehenna student they were talking about, there was a good chance bullets would be flying before the Perfect Team members even arrived.
"...I could deal with them easily." A dark-skinned succubus groaned, only to jump at the sudden whack in the head. "Ow! Hey!"
"You know exactly why you're not allowed outside right now, Iori." Chinatsu shook her head before dropping another stack of paper onto her desk. "Now hurry up and help me get through these."
"Ugh." Iori groaned before picking up her pen again. "Cursed that damn game…"
"Tell me about it." Hina muttered under her breath.
It was hard to believe that all of this chaos had come from the release of a simple mobile game, but the truth was undeniable. Ever since Blue Archive had been released, the Perfect Team had been in the biggest crisis in its entire existence. Their reputation was at an all-time low, no thanks to the less-than-favorable representation in the game's opening story. They had always justified their existence by trying to bring order to this chaotic school.
To then be shown not only invading another academy's territory, but trying to kidnap an adult as well?
Suddenly, it was like the entire district had Cassius Bell to turn against them.
The unfortunate part of all of this was that, while Hina wished she could say that such a thing wouldn't happen in reality, she knew exactly how extreme her subordinates could be at times. But it was precisely because she knew them so well that Hina was sure Ako wouldn't do anything without some form of deniability. It didn't take much digging to discover just exactly why her in-game counterpart thought she could get away with it.
Turns out? 'Abydos' barely counted as Abydos anymore. Most of their land was owned by the Kaiser Corporation. Thus, they weren't technically invading another school.
Naturally, the rest of Gehenna hadn't bought it. It had taken the 'glorious' leader of the Pandemonium Society less than a day to push through a drastic budget decrease. That was only just the start of it. Makoto had that look on her face, where just one look told Hina that she was scheming something again… But whatever she was planning hadn't come to fruition yet, which was even more worrying.
All they could do was continue operating with a shoestring budget while waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Are we sure we can't go after the devs?" The leader of the assault team grumbled for the fifth time this week. "There's no way they can just get away with this, right?!"
Since they had already had this discussion many, many times, everyone in the office merely went back to focusing on their work. Still, nobody could truly blame her for complaining. Not when Iori had been one of the students who had gotten hit the hardest by Blue Archive's existence. She had always been on the front line of any operation the Perfect Team carried out, but with that ridiculous rumor out there and being the face of the meta, even just the slightest hint of her appearance would send the students of Gehenna into a frenzy. Thus, she was relegated to desk work with the rest of the committee heads. Filling out paperwork, she honestly should've been doing before the game came out.
Then there were the other factors.
"Ah." Ako gave her a teasing smirk. "Someone was just caught selling pictures of your legs."
"AGAIN?!" The dark-skinned demon slammed her table. "Where are these perverts even getting them?!"
"Perhaps it's a cosplayer?" Chinatsu hummed. "I heard that some students are intentionally trying to look like us on Momotalk."
"...You know that's even worse to think about, right?"
"If you're going to gossip," Hina pinched the bridge of her nose. "Then do it when you're on break."
"""Apologies!""
Time continued to drag on while at the same time melting away into a pile of viscous goo. All of the paperwork didn't just have to be finished, it had to be triple checked to make sure that there wasn't a single smidgen of an error lest their already minuscule budget got lowered even more. If Hina's hair wasn't already white as snow, she was sure she'd have gotten grey strands from the amount of stress she was feeling. Eventually, though, the sun faded over the horizon, and the number of people in the office slowly began to trickle out.
"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" The medical committee member gave her a worried look. "I haven't seen you go home in days."
"I'll be fine." Hina replied with a tired sigh. "I've pulled all-nighters before. This isn't any different than normal."
"We both know that's not true."
No, but if she started to acknowledge the exhaustion now, then she'd probably crash.
"Just make sure to get some rest, okay?" With one last worried look, Chinatsu stepped out of the office. "I'll be off now."
"See you tomorrow." Hina shook her head before turning to the last remaining holdouts of those who'd spend the night working. "...And what do you two think you're doing?"
Typically, the last one to leave the office would be Ako, but she was spending the nights doing who-knows-what these days.
More recently, Iori was also one of the last ones to get off work. As soon as the day was done, she immediately clocked off and ran to Gehenna's local branch of the Black Market in order to hunt down the scalpers who were making a killing selling her elementary school yearbooks.
No, the girls who were staring up at her like lost puppy dogs weren't any of the Perfect Team's committee members but rather their two newest recruits, holding up a couple of paper stacks. "We're here to help you out with the night work, ma'am!"
Hina stared at the two girls before sighing. "It's late. Go home."
"But don't you still have so much work to do?!"
"I can handle it myself." If anything, giving them to a newbie might increase her stress even more. "You two should go get some sleep."
"Sleep? Why would we?" One of them practically bounced in her steps. "Whenever you're around, it's daytime to us!"
"That's right!" The other nodded vigorously. "We're like plants! We thrive in the scent of sunlight!"
Hina's eyes twitched.
"You idiot." The other rookie elbowed her. "You said the forbidden words!"
"You're the one who alluded to it first!"
"It's called subtlety and tact!"
"You two…" Hina groaned. Moments later, the two rookies were sent quite literally out the door by a wild throw from the Head Perfect's tiny frame. "Don't cause any trouble tomorrow, got it?"
"Ah! Wait! Miss Hina~!" They cried, but it was too late, for Hina had already slammed the door shut and locked it tightly.
She dragged her exhausted body back to her desk before collapsing into her seat. It was truly ironic that when the Perfect Team's budget was at its lowest and their reputation was at rock bottom, were they experiencing an unprecedented upswing in new recruits. Frankly, she would've loved the help under ordinary circumstances, but only by people that she trusted could actually do the work. Those two… had no idea what they were getting into. Even if they had come to love her through that 'game', what she had to do was not the romantic smile of an alluring dream.
It was exhausting, backbreaking, thankless work. No matter how enthusiastic they were, if they were to jump into this headfirst, it was only a matter of time before they burned out and quit. Hina would rather they took care of themselves instead of trying to give her any false hope.
Plus, she had come to find joy in spending the nights alone recently.
Hina gently placed her phone onto her desk and opened up Blue Archive.
It was strange. This game was the source of all her most recent problems, but every night, before she even realized it, Hina found herself booting the app up again almost by habit. Despite everything that was happening, the game was always there to greet her with the same cheery atmosphere it always did. Nothing else on the market could even compare. These days, just hearing the opening music gave her a rush of dopamine.
Now if only the developers hadn't used all that talent to make money off Hina's own image.
Ah, what Studio MX had been thinking when they were making this game was a mystery for the ages. Even after the Decagrammaton incident a few days ago, much of their origin remained a mystery. The only thing that Hina really knew about them for certain was that, judging by the footage released during the Cherry Blossom Commotion event, the one listed as 'MX Blade' was probably the same sword wielding student involved in what was called the Shanhaijing Affair a few months back.
Much of the details on that were still a mystery. Piecing together the details from the underground rumors, it had involved some sort of heist that went completely out of control. Though Shanhaijing was very keen on making sure what exactly had been stolen from them remained a secret. The Perfect Team had gotten reports on it at the time, but since none of the suspected actors had been involved with Gehenna, the girl who would become known as MX Blade included, it was ultimately just filed away on the back burner.
Now however, Hina didn't even have the time to look into it, even if she wanted to.
Which she did. Because somehow, despite never having even stepped foot into the land of demons, a nameless mercenary had managed to capture the entire Perfect Team so well that she could turn them into characters in a mobile game. But there was nothing that she could do about it at the moment, so Hina decided to enjoy Blue Archive for what it was instead.
Even if she didn't have the free time to actively play the game, there was one thing she had managed to do.
As the gentle song of midnight dreams flowed from the speakers, Gehenna's Head Perfect sat back in her chair and came face to face with her in-game counterpart once again. She looked as free as always. Staring at her with eyes not filled with exhaustion but rather, a gentle enjoyment of a tender moment.
Sometimes Hina wondered if there really was another her staring back. What exactly would she be thinking if she could see herself now?
Practiced words flowed from her lips unbidden. Memorized so deeply that they had ingrained themselves into her tongue. "...Fufu. Now that I think about it… It's been a strange night."
There were two types of girls who played Blue Archive. Those who self-inserted into the player character, and those who had been lucky enough to be archived, able to project themselves onto their in-game counterpart.
It should be noted that Hina had never been one to project herself into a story. Even when she was reading shoujo manga in elementary school, Hina enjoyed it only for the sweet romance. She had always been the type to clearly separate the line between reality and fiction. However… Almost like the girl had been caught by the laws of gravity, Hina found herself strangely unable to resist the game's draw.
"I never thought we'd be in the office alone together at this hour." There was no one here. The girl was all alone. "With you here, I feel like I could fall asleep just like this. Fufu… I think… I'll do just that."
She wouldn't. There was just too much work to be done.
"So sleepy… So comfortable…"
The nights in Gehenna were cold, especially with an air conditioner going on full blast. Hina had sat in her chair for so long that it had begun to tear away, leaving her feeling the rough sensation beneath her whenever she shifted in her seat. No replacing it on this budget anyway. And the silence that followed every word she spoke was sharp enough to dig into her skin.
There was no way she could sleep like this.
"Sensei…"
But she leaned back and pretended like she was going to anyway. Her eyes never turned away from the dream that was trapped by the bounds of her tiny smartphone.
"I get so embarrassed… when you stare at me like that."
How many times had she done this? Hina didn't remember anymore. It should only have been a few days since she had managed to unlock 'her' bond scene, maybe a week or two at most. Yet, now it felt like she couldn't go a single night without repeating this moment.
"I don't get it. I feel so at ease when we're together."
Hina was alone. These words were not meant for her. They were meant to be told to someone else, not repeated again and again in a desperate attempt to recreate a moment that had never been.
The young girl knew that this was nothing more than a written story.
Even still, she kept going.
Because in the end…
It was only natural that a dragon yearned for fairytales.
"The truth is… Seeing you smile makes me happy."
She wondered what it would be like if Sensei were a real person. She wondered what it would be like to have an adult by her side. She wondered what it would be like to spend time with someone whom she could rely on and share her burdens with. She wondered what it would be like to laugh without a care in the world. She wondered what it would be like to love someone with all of her heart.
She wondered what it would be like…
"Haa… I feel like I could drift away…"
…To fly into the night sky. To let go of all the thoughts weighing her down and soar beyond the bounds of Gehenna. Into a world where only she and Sensei existed. Bathed only by the faint glow of the moon. Where all her worries would melt away like snow in the spring, and she could simply enjoy each moment that passed her by.
A finger reached out to press against the screen. The barrier between dreams and reality, separated only by a piece of glass. "Ah, I don't want to think anymore…"
…But Hina wasn't so easily swayed that she would let herself be carried away by just a simple game. As long as she still wore the armband of Head Perfect, the heavy weight of responsibility sat upon her shoulders. Yes, there were times when she wanted to quit, run away, or even just tell anyone about the burden that she was carrying. Yet she always managed to pick herself back up eventually.
Just as she wanted a Sensei she could count on, there were plenty of others relying upon her.
"Time to get back to work." Hina muttered to herself, reluctantly turning Blue Archive off. The silence of her office hit her once more, but now she found these quiet moments just a little more bearable. "I should probably get this done before the update comes out tomorrow…"
When that happened, the entirety of Kivotos was sure to be thrown into chaos once more.
Hina had no idea how right she was, for the next day, before maintenance was even finished, the worst piece of news reached her ears.
"...Problem Solver did what?"
An unmarked van leisurely drove down the road to Abydos. This was not anything new. Though the specific vehicle may differ and the driver may swap out, like a certain ship in a distant land, a salary-bot would always be making this trip on this day. It happened last month, and it will happen the next. On and on for the next three centuries or the day that lingering dreams finally lose grasp on the waking world.
However, if the driver even bothered to put an ounce of attention into their surroundings, they'd find that while the journey remained the same, the road itself was noticeably different. Cleaner for one thing. The streets had been freshly paved over, rendering the once bumpy journey into a smooth ride. Stores that had once been relics of a better time had been newly revamped. They even had proper customers, actual students bustling through the streets in the fleeting moments between breakfast and the morning bell's chime.
As a technical resident, the salary-bot should've felt glad about this upswing to a dying district. Instead, what little emotion was left in his mechanical wiring was more confused than anything else. While renovations were inevitable once Kaiser had acquired the district happening while Abydos still stood wasn't the plan. Then again, as a low-ranking employee to a conglomerate's shady subsidiary, no one ever told him shit. What he knew had only been pieced together from conversations overheard in the office. The salary-bot didn't care, though. None of it mattered in the face of the pile of bills sitting on his apartment table.
Now if only he could stop getting suspicious looks the closer he got to his destination. Nothing good ever happened if a student noticed you.
This belief was only reinforced when the salary-bot arrived at Abydos. Or, to be more specific, arrived directly outside of the school's gate. In stark contrast to the rest of the district's sudden upgrade, Abydos's campus looked like it was in the middle of a siege. The once normal iron gate had been replaced by a large, sturdy wired fence. Sandbags had been placed out front, though no one was currently stationed there at the moment. Bullet holes riddled the school walls, but none more so than the sign hanging directly next to the school's entrance plaque.
"Visitors by appointment ONLY!!!"
They had underlined the last word three times.
The paint still looked fresh.
Someone knocked on the van's door. Without even thinking, the machine rolled down the vehicle's window and turned to face them. "Yes? How can I help you?"
A young girl with a mask covering the bottom of her face stared at him. She narrowed her eyes. "...You wouldn't happen to be from Kaiser Loans, would you?"
"That would be correct." He nodded. "Do you need any-"
Before the salary-bot could finish, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
Ah. It was gonna be one of those days.
"I'm going to make this quick." With a soft click, she pulled the safety back. A brief glance towards his rear-view mirror revealed five more students, all ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice. "You're not wanted. If you don't get the hell out of here in five seconds, we'll turn your van into Swiss cheese and sell whatever's left of you to a chop shop."
Mmh… 3/10. She didn't even threaten to rip out his CPU and shove it into a toaster.
"I'm afraid I can't do that, ma'am." The salary-bot replied without missing a beat. "I'm on official business, you see."
"Yeah?" His assailant growled. "Then here's your unofficial notice to FUCK OFF!"
Just before they could stress test how good the bulletproofing on the collection van was, a voice cried out in the distance. "STOP! STOP!"
Fast as a hawk, a mechanical drone zipped in between the two. The familiar voice of a certain elf played over the speakers. "I'm so sorry about them! I'll let you in in a moment!"
The drone stayed in place to guard the van as a single girl scrambled to the gate. With a huff, Ayane dragged the barricade back just far enough to let the car come through. Wiping the sweat off her brow, she waved her arm in the air. "Come in!"
"You can't be serious!" Growled the bot's assailant.
"Abydos appreciates your enthusiasm." Although Ayane was smiling, the disappointment in her eyes was evident to see. "But this isn't something that you can interfere in."
"That whole damn loan is bullshit anywa- OW!" Fast as a cowboy in the wild west, the elf whipped out her pistol and shot her fellow student directly in the forehead. The girl withered on the ground like a worm, the start of tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. "NO! Not before the newest update!"
Desperately, she pulled out her phone. "Hurry up and load, dammit! I don't need another two star! If I don't get rid of the curse before the next banner- MAINTENANCE IS ALREADY HERE?!"
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't treat me like a curse." Ayane frowned as all the girls jumped back like a pack of stray cats. "There's nothing wrong with gold…"
"Ahem." The salary-bot coughed. "May I come in, Miss Okusora?"
"Oh! Yes please! I can only hold them back for so long!"
A couple minutes and a few more students experiencing the Midas touch later, the two of them were finally able to get down to business.
"I'm really sorry about them." The first year said sheepishly as she handed over the bags of cash. "They weren't nearly this bad before the Millennium assault."
"Ah, yes, we too have been experiencing reputational harm due to 'Blue Archive'." Assault rates on Collection Agents were up by 150%. That was a whole 5% higher than last month's increase. So nothing new really. What was he supposed to say here again? Oh right. "Kaiser Loans would like to officially state that we will not stand for such blatant slander and are currently in the midst of pursuing legal actions against the perpetrators. We are upstanding citizens of Kivotos and run an honest business with many satisfied customers."
"Satisfied customers…" It was only natural for the girl to grimace at that. "Um, so you're taking Studio MX to court? How's that working out for you? We haven't been able to contact them ourselves."
How the hell should he know?
"The details of the case haven't been made public, but we assure you that our legal team is moving." The salary-bot said, the corporate-speak flowing like it was his mother tongue. He'd rather just focus on his job and be done with this. "A 7,883,250 yen payment on your loan, including variable interest and additional interest, has been confirmed. Paid in cash. No issues to report."
Usually, this would be the part where he left, but as the Kaiser employee turned around to jump back in his van, he once again came face to face with the mob of very disgruntled school girls with itchy trigger fingers, just waiting for him to set one foot outside the Abydos campus.
He turned back to Ayane. "...Incidentally, it's quite rare to see you by yourself. Would your classmates happen to be around?"
"Yes?!" She jumped before rapidly shaking her head. "I-I mean no, sorry! We're all busy since Blue Archive's releasing another main story update later today."
"I see." The salary bot nodded. He reached into his pocket. "Excuse me for a moment."
Kivotos' common sense stated that adults should never, under any circumstances, engage in direct confrontation with a student.
Desperate times, however, called for desperate measures.
"HE'S GOT A GRENADE!" One girl shouted, but it was too late. With a sharp noise, the flash-bang burst into a bright light. By the time their eyes had recovered, the Kaiser Employee was already in his van, barreling down the street at top speed. "Dammit! After him!"
"Thank you once again for using Kaiser Loans!" He cried out the window. "See you next month!"
"YOU BASTARD!" One of the girls threw Ayane as the mob of students turned into a raging stampede. "We won't let your hard work be in vain!"
"Ah, no, you don't need to…" But it was too late, as by the time the words had left her lips, the only thing the first year was talking to was a cloud of dust. She blinked at the suddenly empty gate before wiping her glasses and pulling out her phone. "Target is on the move."
"Nn."
"You're really getting into this! ☆"
"Of course I am! You know what happens if we get caught, right?!" She pinched the bridge of her nose before sighing. "But this is the only way we'll find out the truth! I'll leave it all to you guys!"
"Don't worry, Miss Four-Eyes!" One of their newer 'associates' laughed. "This is going to be a blast!"
"Now I'm even more worried…" She hung up the phone and pulled out her tablet. Moments later, her drone went flying across the city. "I really hope this is worth it."
Being a clerk at the Stygian Bank was easy.
If something would make money, approve the loan.
If it doesn't, deny it.
No matter how much they beg.
"Please…" The student in front of him shook, head in her hands with tears dripping from her eyes. "Please just let it go through this once…"
"I'm afraid that your bakery doesn't meet our standards." The clerk-bot smiled. "We recommend that you try again at a different bank."
"Who else am I supposed to turn to?!" She exclaimed, clenching her fists. "You're the only ones who wouldn't just turn me away at the door!"
Yes, well, of course they would. A former delinquent trying to start a bakery in the middle of the black market? Anyone would be absolutely insane to even give her the time of day. "Hm, this is admittedly a bit unprofessional of me, but… Have you ever considered Kaiser Loans?"
"K-Kaiser?" The student shook in her seat. "They'd eat me alive."
"Well, I'm afraid that you'll have to consider other options." The clerk-bot replied without skipping a beat. "Please note that if you keep trying to persuade me, I'll be forced to have security show you out."
"I… Understand…" Slowly, she pulled herself up out of her seat and dragged herself to the doorway. "Hik!"
Ah kids.
She'd get over it.
"Thank you for visiting us today!" The clerk-bot made sure to say before reaching from the bottom of his desk and pulling out a tissue box. Wouldn't want to have any leftover tears damage important documents after all! "There! Good as new!"
With that, he was officially on break. So without further ado, the machine pulled out his phone and opened up Momotalk. Normally, he'd be using this time to leverage his superior processing power to finish all of his dailies within the blink of an eye, but with maintenance going on, all that he could do right now was just check what people were talking about on social media.
"Millennium's newest thermostat!" Yuuka exclaimed, holding up a fancy looking cup while dressed in a frillier outfit than usual. "It makes water taste like… more water?! Wha- Who designed these things?! If you're going to treat me like a shiny, sparkly idol, can you please let me advertise normal stuff?!"
The clerk-bot nodded sagely.
A beat later, and half his salary for the month was gone.
Truly, he was a good sensei.
Yes, life was quite easy working at the Stygian Bank, even in spite of the fact that it was located in the middle of the greatest crime den in all of Kivotos.
After all, you'd have to be monumentally stupid to cause trouble here.
An explosion rang throughout the building alongside a cheerful voice. "Kufufu! Good afternoon, everyone!"
The clerk-bot looked out from his office only to see a familiar group of Gehenna students waltz through the newly created entrance, guns at the ready.
"Put the money in the bag." A Gehenna student wearing a fedora and a blindfold mask demanded. "Nn."
Despite knowing the faces of every playable faction in Blue Archive by heart, there were a lot more members than the clerk-bot recognized. The executives of the company were recognizable at a glance, but behind each and every one of them was another Gehenna student whose faces were obscured in the same noir-styled manner. At the very center, face completely uncovered, was a certain red-haired demon currently flipping her hair back. "Greetings. Problem Solver 68 here. We're the best fixers in all of Kivotos. We'll do the crime if you've got the dime. And unfortunately for you… Someone is paying us very handsomely today."
Ah yes.
That would do it.