Loner High-School Girl And The God-Tier Game — Someday, On The Moon

“M-my name… how?”

“I have every student in the school memorized. Obviously. I’m the student council president.”

That is not “obviously” at all, I don’t think?

“S-s-s-sorry! I’ll retreat immediately!”

“Why? There’s no need to run.”

Tsukigami holds up a convenience-store bag.

“I eat here too. Let’s eat together.”

“I-is that all right…? Someone like me…”

“Mm-hm. If anything, I want to. With you. The one who landed a hit on me.”

She wants to eat with someone like me… hm? Didn’t she just say something strange?

“A hit?”

“Koshiki. So that’s why your player name is Shiki.”

“Huh?”

She knows my player name. Which means we’ve met somewhere, in some game world.

Who is she? I shouldn’t have a single acquaintance to my name.

“Have we… met somewhere?”

She points upward.

“On the moon.”¹

“On… the moon…”

The gears mesh and lock into place.

Tsukigami’s voice… it’s the same as that girl’s.

“Don’t tell me… the White Meteor?”

“That’s right.”

Meteor Girl is the student council president?!

“Let’s talk while we eat.”

She sits down beside me, and a soft, sweet scent tickles my nose. Not perfume. Something more natural than that, more delicate. Uh-oh. Do I smell all right…? At this kind of range, what am I supposed to do if I stink?

M-m-m-more to the point, I’m alone in a place nobody ever comes to with THE first-year student council president! No. No way…! I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to talk about!

“Sniping.”

“Ha-huh?”

“That sniping technique. Self-taught?”

“Uh, y-yes. I was basically always a Sniper in other games too…”

“Good arm. It’s been a long while since anyone put a bullet in me.”

“Eh, ehehe… you think so?”

Tsukigami isn’t pushy. She’s the cool sort, like Azuha, so she’s a little easier to talk to. Maybe.

“From up on the platform, I saw your avatar, and I knew right away you were ‘Shiki.’”

“Just from the avatar?”

The avatars we use in the assembly hall trace our real-world appearance exactly. Mine shouldn’t look anything like Shiki.

“Your physical characteristics were the same as Shiki’s. The rest was intuition. The hawk-sharp killing intent I felt on the moon was the same one your avatar gave off.”

Huh? Am I always giving off that much bloodlust?!

W-well, true, I was getting irritated because I wanted to touch a gun already…

“Wh-why are you on the lunar surface, Miss Tsukigami?”

“…To learn what love is.”

“Ohh, love… LOVE?!”

A-a joke? Should I be laughing here…?

“What kind of person do you like?”

“L-li—?! N-n-n-no way! Someone like me falling for anybody is out of the question! It would be rude to them!”

“…? Is it rude to like someone?”

She asks it with perfectly guileless eyes.

Ngh…! I feel like I could be swallowed up by those blue eyes.

“Ahh… no, I suppose it isn’t… Um, well… would 2D characters be okay?”

“Mm-hm.”

“L-Lo○kon Stratos (Ne○l)… Akai Sh○ichi, Mi○hael from Mac○oss, Duke T○go, Jigen Da○suke, Oga○a Hyakunosuke… every one of them is a fave.²”

Will a lineup like this even land with a high-school girl…?

“You like snipers?”

Ah, it landed. This girl watches a serious amount of anime too.

“Yes… that’s right. Snipers are intellectual, and, um… I love the gap between how a character normally is and how they are once they’ve got a weapon in their hands… I’m drawn to the profile of their face when they have a gun raised, I suppose… and snipers are all so grown-up, that’s what I love about them… ah, but Oga○a looks grown-up and then he’s childish, and that’s the good part… ehehehe…”

“But snipers mostly end up de—”

“Please don’t say it!”

If anything, snipers have a high survival rate as a role. In fiction, though, they somehow always seem to end up dead, or at least badly hurt. And that fragility is part of what I love about them.

“What about you, Miss Tsukigami…?”

“I have never liked anyone.”

“Eh…”

“Familial love, friendship, love for the opposite sex, love for the same sex, reverence, self-regard… I have never held anything that could be called love. Or rather, I have never had much interest in other people at all.”

That’s a surprise.

The Tsukigami in front of me right now is expressionless. But the one I see in front of the teachers, or at the all-school assemblies, is full of expression, and I often catch her chatting and laughing with friends. She never once looked like someone with no interest in other people.

“In Infinity-Space, I am the strongest. In that world, if I were ever killed… then I think I could take an interest in the player who killed me. That is why I keep waiting up there on the lunar surface. For someone who will kill me… for someone I can love.”

She looks at me with those blue eyes, beautiful as sapphires.

“I have expectations for you.”

“Eh—ehhhh?!”

Unwelcome—? No, it isn’t. I’m happy.

A girl this beautiful… someone who is my exact opposite, everybody’s favorite, taking an interest in me. Of course I’m happy. But…

“I-I could never do it…! Unlike you, Miss Tsukigami, I’m not popular… I’m bad at communicating… I-I live in the shadows… even right now my heart is pounding… there’s no way I could do something nobody else has managed.”

“That’s not true.”

Tsukigami stands and plants herself directly in front of me.

“Miss Tsukigami…?”

She puts a hand on the door behind me and leans down.

Face to face, closer and closer.

“This is the first time I have wanted to eat lunch with one particular person, with no calculation of profit or loss.”

“A-uh-wh-uh…?!”

“To share a meal with the real me. That is something no one else has ever managed.”

Maybe the fan is too weak. Sweat is pouring off me; even my skirt has gone damp. Is the temperature in here over a hundred degrees Celsius? My head is hot enough to make me faint.

“I’ll be waiting. Up there on the moon. Waiting for you.”

My hot, burning summer break… begins.