“Ugh, this is killing me.” I groaned softly as my head rested on the desk. I hadn’t been able to calm down ever since that seductive unicorn allowed me to leave her office. Knowing she was about to watch me made me all flushed and sweaty. I was supposed to be the one doing that to people, not the other way around.
“What is?” Daniel asked. He sat just next to me while setting stuff up for the stream. “Got a migraine?”
“Mmm…. Something like that.” I crossed my legs, and leaned back in my chair. Instead of a throbbing in my head it was in, ahem, other places. I needed a cold shower or something.
“It’ll be over soon.” Daniel patted my shoulder, which just sent a flush through me once more. He was a married man according to his ring, though, so there was nothing I could do about it. Or rather, wanted to do about it. A girl’s gotta have some standards, even if mine weren’t very high. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I glared at the man. Yeah, maybe it’d end shortly for you. “Thanks.”
”I’ll be right here if something goes wrong.” He tried to offer me a smile. It just made me want to punch the bald man in the face.
“Nothing will go wrong.” I shook my head to try and clear out the fog. Thinking about the white void helped quite a bit. Once I was calm, I hit the button. “Yip-yip! Hello, my delicious snacks!”
A felt heat flush to my face as I said ‘yip-yip’. Honestly, there wasn’t much that managed to embarrass me so far. That was definitely something that did. To distract myself, I kept my eyes on the sprinting chat.
”I’m Sakura, your sweet little fox spirit who just wants to make lots and lots of friends!” My tails lashed out at the air as my voice turned velvety smooth. “And steal the hearts full unsuspecting humans.”
| YuriFan: Ah! Take my heart! It’s all yours!
| BlueLightAddict: Bring back my unicorn wife!
| TailSniffer: I’ll be your snack anytime you want
| Yaoi4Ever: Ugh, another woman
| Hololight: A fox spirit character? I’ll reserve judgement
| VTubeMe: What’s your angle?
Pretty good reactions. Those were just a fragment of the chat sprinting past. I was streaming on Willow’s official account, BlueLight, so there were dozens of people already filing the chat. “Today, we’ll be doing a quick round of DeadLeague! Oh, right, this is an actual match made match, and not a custom set up by BlueLight to make me look good.”
| DeadLockedIn: I hath been summoned! Someone say DeadLeague?
| Abra-ram_Me: Get out of here VWeebs! Gamers, rise up!
| SliverxCeleste: Lemme guess. You play Tails?
“I sure do play Tails! Woah, you guys are so good at this!” Although I pushed out the cutesy voice, my fingers tightened on the mouse. Was I really that transparent? Wait, right, time to think later. I dropped my voice back into my seductive purr. “I wonder what else you’re good at~?”
| DeadLockedIn: Women only slow my mouse clicking skills! Begone!
| YuriFan: Ah, fuck. I need new pants
| Yaoi4Ever: Why’s your voice sound so good?
| VTubeMe: Here’s hoping you look as good as you sound, and aren’t a 500 ib 40 year old gamer.
| Hololight: We finally seeing our compy gamer of the bunch?
| Abra-ram_Me: You only have twenty minutes tho? Games last longer tho? Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
| NapTime: don’t contaminate my beloved, plz
“Right on the money, Abra-ram Me!” I chuckled as the game finally loaded, and my character spawned on the zip headed to the middle lane. My lane mate was Sleeper, a support type character. “It’s just under twenty minutes though… I guess I’ll just have to make this quick.”
I slid off the zip line, and jumped up onto the middle bridge that ran over the middle lane to get some early hits in. Tails was a burst assassin, and relatively weak in the early game. Especially into the enemy’s picks, Fencer and Gambler.
“Sleeper grabbed his two, so he’ll be able to heal me up if I take a heavy trade.” I smoothly dodge Fencer’s explosive rune with a dash, and answered with a charged shot from Spirit Tails, my third ability. “As long as I don’t overextend like crazy, this should be an easy lane.”
We quickly cleared the lane, and left to go buy stuff. Sleeper didn’t buy anything, though wrote a message saying he was going for Supressor. Looked like he wanted to snowball with his third ability, which buffed minions. While I was busy with that, I checked the chat.
| DeadLockedIn: Why didn’t you buy high velocity?
”I grabbed Monster Rounds to shred the tower quicker.” I opened my tab, and flicked over Sleeper’s character. “Once he gets two points in his three, he’ll make the minions super tanky and we’ll devastate the tower.”
It was something I’d seen several times, and struggled to fight against myself on occasion. Honestly, Tails didn’t have super great lane clear, so Monster Rounds also helped with that since it buffed damage against NPCs. My character was unfortunately a straight spirit assassin without much else.
| YuriFan: Is this game good?
| NapTime: @YuirFan you wouldn’t like it
| SilverxCeleste: It’s insanely good! Streamer! No way you can win in 20 mins!
”Aw~ you forgot my name? You’re going to make this little fox super sad. Remember this! It’s Sakura, yip yip!” I physically cringed as I let out a cute bark, which made Daniel chuckle. “And twenty minutes will be easy… you want to make a bet?”
| SilverxCeleste: Yeah!
| TailSniffer: Please talk more
| Abra-ram_Me: I’m down
| NapTime: sure
Dozens of other messages flashed buying. Several people even left comments as if I’d back out of the bet like a coward. “Okay! We’ll make a bet—oh, one sec.”
Sleeper was pushed super far up to get in some damage, and got caught totally out of place by Fencer. Fencer activated his reposite ability, flying at Sleeper to stun him. In a flash, my teammate’s health bar practically vanished.
I popped my second ability, Spirit Fox, and darted forward to my teammate. Just as I got in range, all three of my character’s spirit tails detached and flew forward to Sleeper. It instantly gave him a burst heal just enough to survive a heavy melee from Unicorn.
“Thanks.” Sleeper said softly. The second the stun frame ran out, he threw a parry and caught Fencer’s heavy melee. The enemy was instantly stunned for four seconds as Sleeper used his two to fly to me and heal the both of us.
”Ah, right, where was I? The bet! Okay, if I can’t win before my segment’s over, my snacks, I’ll let you choose my punishment.” I leaned closer to the mic, and dropped my voice into a purr. “It could be anything. Even if you want to collar your favorite nine-tailed fox, I’ll allow it just this once.”
The chat exploded at the suggestion. Messages flew past so quickly that I could hardly keep up with all of them. Daniel flashed me a thumbs up from off to the side.
“If I win, though?” I leaned closer back, and fired off a Charm to catch Fencer just before he could clear the wave. He was forced to walk up to me as I easily lined up a headshot. He had just enough health to survive—at least until a pillow full of bricks slammed him upside the head from Sleeper. “Every single one of you has to admit I’m your favorite! Seems fair, no?”
| Abra-ram_Me: Fair! Fair! Fair! You’re already my favorite!
| DeadLockedIn: Play more DeadLeague
| YuriFan: Ugh, I’m already blushing thinking about my cute little fox in a collar. Can I hold the leash?
YuriFan wasn’t the only one blushing, though I tried to keep my wits about me as Sleeper and I pushed our advantage. Gambler showed up to try and resist, but she was an incredibly weak character in the early game without Fencer there to help her.
We wiped the minion wave, and pushed under the tower while Fencer was still respawning. With the minion wave dead, it pushed me to just enough gold to get my ultimate ability, Spirit Realm. “There’s check!” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Once I had three spirit tails to charge up my alternate fire, I pushed past the tower. I used my ultimate on Gambler before she could get away. My ultimate ability interrupted her teleport. She also hadn’t earned enough to unlock her ultimate yet, which gave me a massive advantage.
“And that’s mate.” The two of us were sucked into an alternate dimension for a forced one v one. She was already half health thanks to our efforts in lane while I was full health thanks to Sleeper keeping me topped up. I also had more items thanks to the kill bounty on Fencer.
I slammed Gambler with a Charm, and finished her off with a smooth headshot using my fully charged Spirit Tails. The moment she died, the Spirit Realm faded. Since I killed her in my ultimate, I also got a little bit of spirit power to boost my damage. “And the snowball has begun. Get ready to vote me as your favorite, my little snacks~.”
With a lead already taken in the middle lane, I quickly roamed to the side lanes to help my teammates win their fights as well. Sleeper got left handling mid lane since no one wanted to go trade out with him. It was a little unfortunate considering we had four other characters that would’ve loved to solo-lane and earn a ton of money, but it was whatever.
The thing about Tails was this—once I started to snowball, it was over. Unlike other characters that scaled super hard off their items to enhance their guns, Tails scaled off how many people I could kill in my ultimate, Spirit Realm. With graceful control of the game, that number steadily climbed.
The game progressed, and I relaxed more and more to talk to chat. My comments stayed just above lewd, though definitely leaned into suggestive several times. Just as I started to give them a taste, I pulled back into my cutesy fox character like a switch had been flipped.
With my initial success, my teammates had started to snowball as well to dominate the game. It didn’t help that the enemy’s Gambler was running it down. By the time the match ended, she had 13 deaths. Considering the game lasted exactly 19 minutes and 43 seconds, she was dead half the match.
It also didn’t help that I was targeting Gambler like crazy. Free stacks were free stacks. Off her alone, I got a ton of spirit power off my ultimate. By the time my teammates fired the last shot into their base to end the game, my stat line was 24/0/7.
“And there we have it, my lovely snacks~!” I clapped my hands together as the the victory screen flashed up. “Don’t forget your end of the bargain! Vote me as your favorite little spirit fox so we can play lots of fun games in the future! This has been Sakura! Until I get hungry again…”
I popped up the stream starting soon page back up onto the Throb stream, and leaned back in my chair. Daniel took care of everything else with practiced ease. “Nicely down… Seren, right?”
”Yep! I hope we get to work together in the future as well.” I bowed my head to him as my tails swayed around behind me. “It was fun!”
”I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” Daniel chuckled, and moved to open the door for me. “You were the last one up, so the results should be pushed out soon.”
”Nice.” I slid out of the door and headed back out to the waiting room. Honestly? I was feeling pretty confident. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little nervous going in, but BlueLight’s fans were actually pretty chill. It gave me some confidence that I’d be able to manage my own fanbase, hopefully.
The waiting room was full of tension as all ten of us waited for the results. Only two of us would be moving forward, and that would leave the other eight left stranded. Even if I wasn’t nervous before, the tension in the room alone was enough to make my tails curl around me like a soft safety blanket.
Thankfully, it wasn’t too long until the doors popped open and four people strode out. Willow, the dominant unicorn that she was, led the way. Her sharp violet eyes looked between all of us sitting there. It felt like they paused on me for a moment longer than the rest, but maybe that was just my imagination.
“First of, thank you for coming to audition with us. Even if you don’t find success joining the third generation, you all are remarkable in your own ways and we’d love to help you find somewhere to settle in.” Willow’s horn flickered as if by magic. “Now then, the two people that will be joining the third generation are… Bella and Seren!”
| Achievement: A Star Is Born
Successfully join a VTubing Agency
Reward: Nine-Tail Gaming Gear |
Achievement? I froze as the screen popped up in front of me. Right, those were a thing too. They gave me rewards? I quickly flicked a tail and looked away before anyone could see that I was staring at nothing. I’d have to check out whatever I just got when I got back to my apartment.
A round of clapping went around the room, and drew me from my thoughts. Although the other contestants looked dejected, they showed at least some sportsmanship. Bella, the nervous girl acting as the Demon King, shivered in her seat with wide eyes. “D-did you say Bella?”
”Sure did!” Valerie, the red-headed catgirl, had a wide smile on her face. “Congrats! I knew you could do it!”
”Thank you!” Bella put on a smile that was so blindingly joyful that I had to look away. Seeing her so excited honestly made me feel a bit bad for wanting to become a VTuber for such impure intentions. “This is a dream come true!”
”Yes, thank you.” I winked at Willow. When her eyes met mine, I suggestively looked down as my tails sashayed around.
”Now then, let’s get you two set up.” Willow avoided my eyes and focused on the others. “The rest of you, if you'd please follow Vanessa and Daniel, they’ll get you sorted out. Dinner’s on us tonight as a sign of our appreciation for sticking around for so long for the audition. If you’d follow me, Bella and Seren?”
”You don’t have to tell me twice.” I popped up to my feet and quickly chased after the unicorn before she could get far.