The moment the video's post button was pressed, the entire underground base fell silent for about three seconds.
Then, Kohinata leaped up from the sofa, hoisting three phones into the air at once. Each screen was refreshing the page of the video they had just posted.
“It's up! It's really up! Quick, quick, quick, see if anyone's liked it yet!” Barefoot, she bounced twice on the sofa cushions. A faint scar still lingered where the bandage on her left leg had just been removed, but she didn't care in the slightest.
Amamiya placed her phone on the coffee table face-up, her thumb hovering over the refresh button, tapping it every few seconds. Her expression remained sleepy and aloof, but the frequency of her taps grew faster and faster. Night Sakura leaned all the way over the edge of the coffee table, her face practically pressed against the screen.
She clicked the mouse with her index finger to refresh the back-end data. The view count on the page jumped from zero to dozens, then from dozens to hundreds. With every jump of the numbers, her eyelashes fluttered.
“It's going up, it's going up! Wait, why did it stop? Ah, it's going up again!” She reached out to tug on Amamiya's sleeve beside her, but her hand caught empty air, as Amamiya was currently holding up her own phone to take a screenshot of their account's homepage.
Qiluo sat on the very edge of the sofa, watching the three heads huddled over the coffee table, chattering away. She felt as though she had stumbled into a completely different dimension from her usual life.
She hadn't given the draft much thought when writing it, simply feeling that the copy had both combat results and warmth—a perfect fit for the Wings of Freedom.
Now, watching Kohinata roll around on the sofa just because they had gained a few followers, she felt her intuition had been correct.
“Are you guys planning to sit here and refresh the back-end until morning?” she asked, taking a bite of her bread.
“You don't understand!” Kohinata replied without looking back. “This is my first time on camera! Did the camera shake when I swung my hammer down? Night Sakura, did you add a filter for me when you edited it? Did my combat stance look cool?”
“I added it, I added it. You looked cool, very cool,” Night Sakura answered dismissively. She was currently using an alternate account to bicker with a passerby who was questioning the Wings of Freedom in the comments section.
Her typing speed was like playing a piano, the keyboard clattering loudly.
[Wings of Freedom? What kind of no-name group is this?]
[Where did this know-it-all come from? If we're a third-rate group, why did you go out of your way to comment? Your desperation for attention is thicker than your family register. If you've never heard of us, why did your hand slip and click on the video? Did scrolling through short videos give you hallucinations? Do you just crave attention that badly?]
...
When the views broke ten thousand, Kohinata rolled over on the sofa, pulled the lollipop from her mouth, and shouted at the ceiling, “We are—!” She then paused, waiting for someone to finish the line.
Amamiya smacked her face with a cushion. Night Sakura finished it for her: “The champions!” She laughed at her own joke, causing her mask to slide down from her forehead and hang off the bridge of her nose. She didn't even bother to adjust it, leaving it crooked as she continued to tap away on the keyboard.
Qiluo sat on the very edge of the sofa, taking in the entire scene.
All kinds of voices began flooding the comments section, mostly expressions of curiosity and words of encouragement.
“What is the Wings of Freedom?”
“The white-haired girl in the video is so cool.”
“Is an unregistered Magical Girl organization legal?”
Night Sakura picked a few comments to reply to, keeping her tone somewhere between polite but firm, and take-it-or-leave-it.
After posting her final rebuttal to a comment, Night Sakura leaned back against the sofa and let out a long breath.
Misa Tachibana rolled her wheelchair forward a few centimeters. This movement caused everyone in the sofa area to subconsciously sit up a bit straighter.
She always did this before saying something official; everyone had already been conditioned to react to it.
“Our debut video has gained traction. But traction fades. The Wings of Freedom isn't a formally registered organization, so we don't have the right to have a jurisdiction assigned to us by the Association. Official channels of activity are basically blocked off for us.”
“Which leaves only the unofficial ones.” Misa Tachibana's voice rose slightly at the end, as if stating a fact they all knew too well. “Self-media. Since we already have social media accounts, our next step can be livestreaming.”
“Livestreaming?” Kohinata pulled the lollipop out of her mouth.
“Battles, daily lives, behind-the-scenes clips—we can stream all of it. We don't need Association approval, just a phone and an internet connection. The streams themselves don't need to involve any sensitive information; the key is interacting with the audience. The more attention we get, the harder it will be for the Association to sweep our existence under the rug as a non-existent organization.”
“Using the public credibility of livestreaming to bypass the Association.” Amamiya opened both of her eyes.
“Yes,” Misa Tachibana nodded.
Night Sakura opened her laptop, navigated to a new account registration page for a livestreaming platform, and turned the screen toward everyone. “Which platform should we choose? There are only a few mainstream Magical Girl streaming platforms right now. Some are affiliated with the Association, while others are completely independent. The affiliated ones have strict censorship; we might get banned the moment we register. The independent ones have less traffic, but offer much more freedom.”
“An independent one.”
“An independent platform it is, then.” Night Sakura tapped on her keyboard a few times. “Registered. The channel name is Wings of Freedom, and we can just modify our account bio for the channel description. When should we schedule our first stream?”
“Saturday night. While the hype from our debut video is still fresh.” Misa Tachibana placed her tablet on the coffee table. The screen displayed a livestream plan outline she had just drafted. “The first stream doesn't need to be too complicated. It'll be split into three parts: an opening self-introduction, a glimpse into your daily lives, and a Q&A session with the viewers. For the first stream, all of you will appear on camera.”
“What about Lightweaver?” Kohinata raised her hand.
“I'm not appearing on camera,” Qiluo waved her hand. Livestreaming meant standing in front of all those people.
That's way too hard for someone like me who didn't put any points into social skills.
“Then you'll be our mysterious trump card,” Kohinata said, shifting her position on the sofa. “The first public appearance of our mysterious trump card should be saved for a critical moment, like when the Association comes to pick a fight. When that happens, you can walk in from off-camera, say 'get out of the way' in a super cold voice, and then clear the entire field by yourself. The chat will absolutely explode. Oh my god, this script is gold even without writing it down.”
“First of all, that's all hypothetical and might not even happen. Second, even if it does, I would never say a line like 'get out of the way.' It's too embarrassing,” Lightweaver replied, her tone still carrying its usual cold, slightly impatient edge.
“Aww—then what would you say?”
“Nothing. I'd just start fighting.”
“That's even cooler!” Kohinata collapsed backward, burying herself in the sofa cushions.
“In any case! Lightweaver is our hidden character!” Night Sakura turned her laptop screen toward everyone, displaying the back-end page of the livestream channel.
“What's the view count now?” Amamiya suddenly asked.
Kohinata glanced down. “It's rising steadily. It's already in the tens of thousands.”
The comments section had already split into several factions. There were curious bystanders, those questioning their legality, and even a few who claimed to be active Magical Girls from the Association, accusing the Wings of Freedom of steal-killing since the Erosion Body in the video was originally within the Association's jurisdiction.
Night Sakura replied to those comments with a simple smiley face emoji.
“It might break one hundred thousand tonight.” Night Sakura closed her laptop after posting her reply. “I'll sleep at headquarters tonight to keep an eye on the back-end data and write tomorrow's stream script while I'm at it. Anyone want to pull an all-nighter with me?”
“Me,” Amamiya raised her hand.
“You just want to crash on the headquarters' sofa.”
“The sofa is more comfortable than my bed,” Amamiya hugged a cushion to her chest and closed her eyes again.
“Me too!”
Kohinata jumped down from the sofa and ran barefoot to the storage cabinet. She rummaged around, grabbed a bag of potato chips and a few cans of coffee, and ran back with her arms full.
Rate on N.U.
