DISCLAIMER: I do not only the series or any of the characters. I'm just a Kagerou Project fan who loves writing these scenarios for the characters.

Dead Bullet -1989- was the name of the game. An online zombie shooter, it originally was something she found out about while surfing the web. She liked those splatter games, the grotesque idea of shooting one zombie after the next. It wasn't real, she knew, but being able to land headshot after headshot, staining the screen red with blood, was oddly enthralling.

In the end, she placed second place in the nation at the tournament sponsored by the gaming company. The name 'Ene' became completely well-known throughout the community as the alias of the girl whose strange, entrancing style of play won her a spot in the top three.

The 'E' in Ene came from the first letter of Enomoto. The 'ne' in Ene came from the last syllable of Takane. Her name was Takane, surname Enomoto. She was just a high school girl who had become idolized by the online gaming community.

Of course the mere mention of her screen name caused her to panic when in public.

"Haruka! Why are you still playing that?" Takane shouted at her friend and classmate, her face a bright tomato red out of embarrassment. She had entered an unused classroom where her friends would be waiting for a study group, but to catch Haruka with his laptop out…

"Ah! Takane, I was just it showing off my new high score," Kokonose Haruka answered with his happy-go-lucky smile present on his face as it always was. "This game's a lot different than the game sensei made, but it's really fun."

The girl sitting beside Haruka, Tateyama Ayano, was the student wearing a red scarf around her neck despite the hot weather. "Konoha-san is showing me the ropes. It's not fair if you three all know how to play shooting games when we're a team."

"This is a study group, not a team…," a droopy eyed boy remarked. The name written on the book bag he was resting his head against read Kisaragi Shintaro. "And it's you girls that need to study…"

Ayano playfully pouted in response to her friend's words. "Shintaro, even if you say that, it's Konoha-san who is teaching me right now…"

"Gyaa! Can you all just give it a rest?" Takane slammed her hand down on the table. The headphones on her head fell to her neck due to her sudden movement. "And his name is Haruka! Ha-ru-ka! Why are you calling him by his screen name?"

There was a brief moment of silence as Takane's three friend/acquaintances gave the girl some time to catch her breath. The first to respond was Haruka, the one who knew her the best. "Takane, isn't that fine? Konoha's a cool name. It's like you and E-"

"Kyaa! Don't mention that!" Takane's shouts filled the room once again. She was becoming exhausted from all of the yelling, but it just had to be done. Her face was tingling with embarrassment, flustered and red. She had only recently gotten used to Haruka learning of her past, but he was just so willing to say it in front of their underclassmen. She would explode if more and more people found out about her reputation.

"I think Ene-chan is a really cute name. Enomoto Takane is where it comes from, right?" Ayano uttered the name Takane had just tried to hide.

"W-where did you hear that?!" the flustered schoolgirl glanced at Haruka who still had his ignorant, everything-is-happy-fun-fun smile on his face. Ayano did the honors of pointing the boy out as the person who exposed the truth.

"Ta-da~! The culprit Ko-ko-no-se. Haruka!" Ayano's smile and wink were complimentary. She simply wanted to stress Haruka's name to create his screen name.

"It's fine, isn't it?" Shintaro's arm was raised into the air but swayed limply from lack of energy. The boy wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to the words of the conversation being spoken. His right ear was pressed against his book bag which he used as a makeshift pillow. His left ear had an ear bud in it. "I didn't catch the whole conversation, but it's just a screen name. Nothing to get embarrassed about."

"Grrr…," Takane was on the verge of snapping. In fact, she did snap. "You're just saying that because you don't have anything to worry about!"

To call this just another ordinary day wouldn't have been far from the truth. Takane bickering with everyone, Ayano and Haruka out in the own world, Shintaro not caring about what was going on, it was a natural occurrence. It was a first for the subject to be on the topic of screen names, however.

"Don't mind it," Ayano giggled, her fingertips pressed against one another. "Using syllables from your names is actually really cool. I'm really amazing how you can break your name down into something like Konoha. It makes me want to try out other people's names."

"Is that right? Then why not try out this lazy idiot right here," Takane pointed her finger at Shintaro. She would prefer the subject to be dropped, but at the very least, she wasn't the center of attention.

"Hm…? Me? Wait a-" Upon realization that his full name was being broken down, Shintaro straightened up. He saw Ayano with a piece of paper in her hands writing out each syllable of his name.

Ki-sa-ra-gi Shi-n-ta-ro was how Ayano broke down her friend's name. Upon doing so, she attempted to figure out as many names as she could create. "Kisa… Kita… Kitaro… Kishi… What sounds good…?"

"… Kishin?" suggested Haruka who was equally interested in the topic.

"Uwah! That sounds cool," Ayano's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Like a demon lord or something! Good job, Konoha-san!"

"You guys. Don't be thinking up random names like that. What if it becomes a nickname?" complained Shintaro. He forcefully snatched the slip of paper from the table and looked at all of the names written.

Unfortunately, the droopy eyed boy's worries had already come true. Haruka and Ayano both had the same wavelength in innocently teasing Shintaro.

"So scary, Kishin-san," giggled Ayano.

"Kishin-san is a real demon," agreed Haruka.

"Why you-"

And the scene of Shintaro becoming worked up after being provoked by Ayano was just another daily occurrence. Takane watched from the side, a little glad the center character of the conversation had been switched from her to Shintaro. She didn't need to hear the name Ene repeated over and over. Sure, hearing the word Kishin all the time would become bothersome, but it was the lesser of two evils. She wasn't the Kishin. Shintaro was…

Wait… Kishin…

"Uwah~! No way!" Takane came to a stunning realization.

The loud voice of the Enomoto girl drew the attention of her friends. Haruka was the first to open his mouth to express concern. "Hm…? What's wrong, Takane?"

"That tournament back then, the online tournament I got second place in…" Takane made an effort to recall her memories. Sweat trickled down her forehead, having formed either from the heat or the stress. "I remember that the first place winner called himself Kishin!"

"Eh? Really?" Ayano's head tilted in surprise.

It had to be a coincidence. It just had to be. But wait, that would explain how he had beaten her at the school festival. It made sense. Nobody except Kishin had beaten her before in any shooting game: Kishin, The Sniping God. For Shintaro's name to wind up forming that screen name and for him to be have bested her at their own (sensei designed) homebrew video game could only lead her to conclude that…

"Y-You guys," Shintaro's palm met his face with the speed of a bullet. He groaned as Ayano and Haruka stared at him with curious eyes. "D-Don't you think that you're grasping at straws here?"

He had a point, Takane admitted that, but the fact that he was hiding his reddening face did nothing to lower their hopes. He was a bad liar and unless he answered with a straight face, nobody would believe his case.

"Shintaro. Were you really the Kishin? Don't tell me we guessed right," Ayano leaned in close, making the dark haired boy even more nervous.

"You should be more honest, Kishin-san," smiled Haruka.

"It makes perfect sense. No nobody anti-social unathletic wimp would ever be able to beat me," Takane declared. "The only person to ever beat me was a shooting game god! An… anti-social… unathletic wimp of a shooting game god…" The girl drifted off, realizing that no matter what she said, she still lost to somebody like Kisaragi Shintaro of all people.

"Now, Now, Takane-san. Shintaro's… a little special. Don't mind it," Ayano patted her upperclassman on the back, trying to reassure the defeated girl. Unfortunately, those words rubbed salt into her old wound even further. The muffler girl panicked as she saw her friend sink even deeper into a slump.

Thankfully, Haruka stepped in as the hero by changing the subject. "Well that's three names now. There's still one left, right?"

Ayano blinked as she realized who remained without a screen name. "Ah, me? I'm not sure my name can make anything that cool."

"Let's try anyways," the artistic upperclassman took out a piece of paper and began to write out Ayano's name out. He spoke each syllable he jotted down. "Ta-te-ya-ma A-ya-no…"

Her mood improving slightly, Takane turned to the paper her friend was writing. She offered a suggestion off the top of her head. "Tama?"

"That sounds like a cat's name," mumbled Shintaro, who was also silently glad the word 'Kishin' had left the conversation. "And you're only using her last name?"

"Well I don't see you giving any options!"

"Oh!" Haruka interrupted the argument before it began. "How about Yamano?"

Takane shut down the thought as soon as it came out. "It doesn't fit Ayano-chan. Besides, that sounds like a last name. I'm pretty sure that's a last name, Haruka. "

"Eh? But it works," pouted Takane's classmate.

Ayano stifled a laugh as she watched her friends argue over what name to give her. In her head, she tried to think up ways to arrange her name, but she stayed silent. She wanted to hear what the others had thought up before she spoke up.

It was Shintaro who broke the debate with a quiet mumble as he yawned. "Tamaya?"

"Eh? Like what you shout doing fireworks?" Ayano was the only one to hear what her friend had said. "That Tamaya?"

Although surprised he was heard, Shintaro tried to appear calm. His hand was already covering his mouth since he had just yawned, so it was easy to hide his expression. "Y-yeah…"

"Do people even shout that anymore?" Takane immediately said what came to her mind, but she surprisingly did not disapprove of it. She crossed her arms while nodding seriously in agreement. "Well, it does have Tama, so I guess my first guess wasn't that bad."

Haruka found the name fun to say aloud. "Tamaya-chan! Tamaya!"

"I like it. It's very cute," smiled Ayano. She tilted her head as she turned toward Shintaro. "Thank you for the lovely screen name, Shintaro."

Unbalanced by his friend's happy smile, Shintaro stuttered out a simply reply. "I-It was nothing…"

Takane shook her head at the lovey-dovey atmosphere forming between her two underclassman. Kishin and Tamaya, Ene and Konoha, she hadn't expected to have a conversation about online names while at school. Really, they were just an odd bunch, weren't they?

With the mood finally relaxing again, the gamer girl was finally able to study in peace. Haruka had taken to doodling on his leftover scraps of paper while Ayano playfully teased her classmate Shintaro before being forced to go back to work lest she fail her next exam. Their discussion about screen names vanished into the silence as the next topic of conversation came.

It was routine as usual. To the four students in their little study group, it was just another ordinary day.

I love to tease Shintaro, but Takane's fun too. The Yuukei Quartet is just so cute. I was waiting for the anime so I could figure out how the four interact. I got more than I expected with Yuukei Yesterday. LiSA's version was beautiful. Shaft makes me laugh. I'm so waiting for the Blu-ray improvements. There's one more episode left so I'll add that Mekakucity Actors made a fan like me squee (ponytail Kido is a major reason). I want to say something about episode 9 too, but let's not. ~Richi