Hikari plops her entire weight onto her dorm room bed. Her backpack falls off the bed, slipping off her back and fingers. She takes a big sigh and stretches her arms and legs before letting out a big sigh. “Phew….it’s over.” She rolls over and checks her phone for any messages. It’s been a few days since she had been in contact with Emi or Chiara. They must still be busy with studying or their midterms. Hikari just finished her exams and feels mostly confident about her performance. For once, she’s done for the weekend and it’s only Thursday. If only Mai were done with her exams. Poor Mai. She’s been studying all week. It got to the point where Mai had insisted to Hikari and the others not to call her cellphone for the next few days until she had her midterms taken care of. It’s already the first week of October and everyone is just counting the weeks until the Thanksgiving break. For Hikari and her friends, it’s not until the end of the month when they have their next tournament match. But that’s a few weeks away. “What am I supposed to do now?” Hikari thinks to herself as she starts doom scrolling. “Hm...maybe I’ll email my parents. Do I really want to talk to them? I mean I got nothing to hide or be ashamed of. I’ve been getting good grades, finished my midterms.”
Hikari composes a quick email message addressed to her mom and dad’s account. She posts the following in Japanese:
”Good day Mom and Dad. I hope everything is going well back home. I’ve survived my first weeks of college. I am getting through my classes without any issues. I’ve been having a wonderful time here in this American University just as I had in High School Mai is such a wonderful and loyal friend and we both ran into some other girls here on campus and around town who are pretty smart as well. It’s been incredibly hot but hopefully the weather will cool down soon enough. I have not run into any problems and my friends are all supportive of me and my academic pursuits. It would be nice to return back to Japan someday. I don’t think I can fly over for the Christmas break, but once I am done with my second semester, I will return in the summer. Perhaps I can bring my dear friend Mai with me. There’s another friend who is interested in visiting Japan to but I don’t know if I can make arrangements. I do miss you both so much, but I must go back and focus on my studies for now. But you both will always be in my heart. I hope to see you both and return to Japan soon. Your Little Hime: Hikari.
Hikari sends the email and expects a response sometime soon. The timezones are different between them so they probably won’t be awake to see her email. The door to her dorm room opens and she sees Mai had finally returned. Her eyes have bags under them and her hair is messier than usual.
”Oh hey Hikari...done with your mid-terms already?” Mai’s voice is very drowsy and she looks like she might collapse at any moment.
”Yeah. I finished my last exam for the week an hour ago.” Hikari watches as Mai slopes over to her bed. Her face falls flat onto the comforter, almost like she died on the spot. “I got one more exam on Friday morning. I don’t want to study, Hikari.”
”Do you really have to study for it? Can’t you just wing it?”
”No can do. I really need my power nap so…wake me up in like two hours so I can go to the library.”
”Why don’t you study here, Mai?” Hikari can see Mai is already dozing off to sleep.
”Nah...too many distractions...I won’t be able to focus...ah...man….goodnight.” Mai starts to snore softly as she knocks herself to sleep. Hikari can’t leave the room like this. It would be nice if she can go out and socialize with someone, maybe even try to talk to some guys, but she has to look after Mai right now. The best she can do is either hop into VR or browse the web. Hikari puts on some wireless earbuds and looks for something to watch on YouTube. “I wonder if I can find something about the fall tournament” Hikari ponders to herself as she types on her phone. She finds a couple of channels dedicated to Mil-Sim Story’s Tournament with a bunch of analysis videos. Many of them seem to be about other teams. There’s no sign of anyone talking about her team’s previous match until she scrolls all the way down to a general recap of the first round of the tournament featuring her team. She taps on the video, rolls her eyes when she has to wait for the opening ad to finish playing and then proceeds to watch the video hosted by someone called “The Mil-Sim Armchair”. A guy wearing a M1 replica helmet sitting in his bedroom behind a computer streaming setup.
”What is up ladies and gentlemen, I’m the Mil-Sim Armchair and today we are going to talk about first round of the Mil-Sim Story Fall Tournament event. This is the second tournament event of the year following that epic tournament from the summer season which kicked off just weeks after the game’s release. By the look of the sales chart, Mil-Sim Story has quickly risen into mainstream popularity and continues to grow despite the military simulation genre being historically niche throughout the gaming scene for years. That first tournament in case you all need a recap was the start of something special. Everyone was trying to figure out how combat would work, what tactics to use, and so on. It was a very experimental event if you think about. Nobody knew what the meta was nor did anyone have an idea who would reach the grand championship of that tournament. Now we all know that Raptor Squad would be the one to win that tournament with an impressive form of tactics, coordination, and uniformity which not only gave the team victories one after the other but it strongly influenced everyone gaming in Mil-Sim Story to copy and adapt their play style to their teams. This is something that’s going to be prevalent in this Fall season of tournament matches as we go through the first couple of rounds from a few weeks ago and yes, I’m aware the matches are going to be different from last time as now it’s two squads for each team instead of the squad vs squad setup of the first tournament.”
The video transitions into a image of a tournament bracket where teams that have been defeated have been crossed out with a red “X”. Mil-Sim Armchair starts going through some of the teams that had made it through their first match up which includes squads like Bayou Patrol & Meal Team Six, Charleston Squad & Bass Squad, Raptor Squad & Lion Squad, JarPig Squad & Vampire Squad, and finally Armadillo Squad & Longhorn Squad.
”We had no surprises this first round when it came to Raptor Squad, showing us all once again their incredible speed, room to room clearing.” There is a montage of their first match highlights showing some scenes of the squad kicking down doors into rooms and hunting down the squad mates alongside another professional looking squad. “This season, Raptor Squad is teaming up with a new squad called Lion Squad which consist of real life operators of the NATO alliance which almost makes this a unfair match up with their opponents this round. Most people are placing their bets on Raptor Squad and Lion Squad the moment the rosters were announced but I wouldn’t sleep on the other teams.”
The video transitions into another battle between a strange combination of squads who might as well be polar opposites of each other working together. One of the teams consist of mobster looking sorts with fairly vintage weapons while the other has an urban aesthetic blasting the opposing team form corners, SUV drive-by shootings, and encirclements. “A lot of viewers of this particular matchup were absolutely shocked at the performance of Bass Squad and Charleston Squad. Two criminal inspired squads of different fighting ideologies working together to get the upper hand in their first round. Don’t let their style fool you. We saw the same thing with Flamingo Squad in the last tournament and could potentially be the ultimate championship if luck is on their side.”
The scene transitions to another match up that takes places in a futuristic cityscape that looks awfully familiar to Hikari with some minor differences to what Tokyo currently looks like. It’s a match up between some very distinct squads. “Here’s a interesting match up between the alliance of Vampire Squad and JarPig Squad against The Agency and Bronco Squad. As you know, Vampire Squad was one of those veteran squads from the previous tournament that didn’t make it to the finals but had plenty of potential. It seems that Vampire Squad’s notorious squad leader, Asura had learned her lessons from the first tournament and applied her own spin to mastering close quarters combat and night fighting. It’s a mystery why she teamed up with JarPig squad who many consider to be...okay in their own right but nothing particularly special. In any case, these two squads ended up winning this round which leads us to the other team they will soon be going up against.”
”He’s going to talk about our squads.” Hikari thinks to herself, feeling a bit uncertain about how their squad is going to be judged. The highlights from that match bring a lot of memories to Hikari but there’s a bunch of other scenes Hikari was not aware of that show some perspective from Glam Squad and Kraken PMC. It’s a miracle they even won that match in a first place. Not even Mai was certain of their victory.
”Another major surprise in this tournament was the match up between a new coming team consisting of Longhorn Squad and Armadillo Squad, going up against some well known veterans of the first tournament. For those of you who don’t know, Cheyenne was the grenadier for Flamingo Squad during that finale against Raptor Squad. To everyone’s disappointment, all of her incredibly feats of bravery were nowhere to be seen in this match as her off shoot of Flamingo Squad seemed to play the waiting game for too long before the enemy was able to turn the tides of the battle. It was something we had ever seen before in Mil-Sim Story matches up until this point. It almost looked like both Armadillo Squad and Longhorn Squad would capitulated at the start of the match when they were assaulted and bombarded with infantry, armor, and support but to everyone’s shock, both squads managed to regroup, reform and use cunning to beat Kraken PMC and Glam Squad into submission. A lot of bets were lost during that match up and a lot of the speculative watchers are not content with Longhorn or Armadillo Squad moving up the tournament bracket.”
”There are people betting on these matches? What’s wrong with them?” Hikari finds the whole idea disgusting and finds it abhorrent that anyone would ever be upset at them in the first place. It does make her feel a little awful for winning the first match of the tournament with her team but why should she feel awful? They did their best and pulled through. Is the idea of an outsider squad overtaking an established name and squad revolting to these sorts of people?”
”As for how Armadillo Squad and Longhorn Squad will preform in their next match is uncertain. If I had to make a personal prediction, I don’t think they will win against “Vampire Squad or JarPig Squad.”
Hikari’s heart breaks from hearing that. Her face warms up with discontent from the YouTuber’s comments.
”Vampire Squad is more professional and aggressive when it comes to close quarter fighting. Even JarPig squad, as mediocre as they are, understand this concept and have methods to clearing rooms. Not to mention this next branch of the tournament bracket will be exclusively gun fighting. Vehicles and support abilities will be prohibited for both teams so we are expecting Vampire Squad’s mastery and brutality to be in full show this time around. Of course, this matchup will be a few weeks from now, but I personally don’t believe Longhorn or Armadillo Squad will achieve the amount of unit cohesion and fighting ability to compete with their opponents on an equal battleground. Even with the defensive advantage they’ll have for the next match, it’s not guaranteed to do them any good. I wouldn’t place any bets on them. I can say that for certain.”
Hikari scoff and closes the video. She places the phone by her bedside and rubs the temple of her head as she thinks to herself. “Am I really going to stress over this stupid tournament? We’re all college students. We don’t have the time to be as good as any of these gamers. Tomio himself said we’re just doing this for fun. But why do I feel like I don’t want to settle for just playing for fun. This could be something the girls and I can dominate together. I hate to admit it but Mai is right. This game is fun. But I don’t want to make it my life. I’m a nursing student. I have to focus on that for my parent’s sake. For my family name sake. But I also want to put that annoying YouTuber in his place.” Hikari eyes dart over to her headset which is on the nightstand. “I can’t just hop into VR. Not until Mai leaves to study. I’m going to use my spare time to train. I can’t believe I got hooked into this stupid game now.” She gets up and heads towards the sink in her room. She unties the two ponytails to let her hair loose as she looks at her reflection as she starts to think about her long hair. "Perhaps I should cut my hair, I wonder if I would look good with a new haircut. Guys like girls with hair like Emi and Mai right?" She turns on the sink and starts washing her face, being quiet enough not to disturb Mai in her sleep. She going to have to stick around for a little longer before she can wake up Mai. She grabs her laptop from her backpack and starts to do some research for Mil-Sim Story on some forums. She then grabs her phone and starts texting her group chat labeled as “Lonestar Team”
”I’m done with my midterms for the week. I’ll be doing some training by myself real soon. I suggest everyone do the same. I want to beat Vampire and JarPig Squad!”