Disclaimer: I do not own Love Live! or any of its characters. This is a work of fanfiction that I have been itching to write because the mobile game has consumed my life.

May We All Burn in Idol Hell!

"Bushimo!"

Kotori's cheerful voice rang out of Ayase Eli's cellphone as the Love Live: School Idol Festival app loaded itself on the screen, with one of their group's hit songs, Takaramonos, playing in the background. This was quickly replaced by the game's title theme after Eli tapped on the screen to bring up the home menu. Even with the therapeutic effect of Cheerleader Nozomi greeting her with a "I'll infuse you with my spiritual power~", the music was still driving her nuts!

This was the fifth time she had rebooted the game. She had been convinced that her game was lagging, because why else would she keep getting one "good" on Soldier Game EX? She was a ballerina, for goodness sake! Her thumbs might not dance as well as her feet, but she had an impeccable sense of rhythm. Plus, she sang this song with Maki and Umi! How could she not have full combo'ed this already!?

She took a deep breath and clapped her hands to her cheeks. No, she couldn't lose her cool. She was Otonokizaka's student council president after all. She couldn't be defeated by a mere mobile game created after the image of her friends and herself!

(More importantly, she read from the internet that if you couldn't breathe right while playing LLSIF, you would perform even worse.)

She brought up Soldier Game EX from the live menu, hearing the song sound through the speaker. She shifted in her seat. Shifted the phone in her grasp. Flexed her thumbs a couple times to make sure they were good to go. Okay. Yosh! She tapped on the cover image, selected her cool team, and then selected "Sonoda Umi" from her friends list. Umi had not changed her main team or center for ages, but that served Eli just fine because the Initial Umi UR had a good leader bonus for this song.

And so it began.

Tap, tap, taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap… Soldier Game EX was notorious for its sheer number of taps, but Eli wouldn't let it deter her from victory. She was doing just fine! Maybe…sort of…it was getting a little more finicky by the second and she was getting more greats than perfects at this point. But she could still hang on! She could do it!

"I told you not to play with your thumbs," a bored voice sounded behind her and she missed the next tap. GOOD, it said on the screen, but this was the polar opposite of good, god damn it!

Eli didn't even bother with the rest of the song and just turned around to glare at the newcomer. Nico shrugged.

"Hey, don't blame it on me. You have been going at it all day."

Eli took a breath, held it, and exhaled with more force than necessary. If she showed her frustration, Nico would just rub it in. And she really didn't know what she would do if Nico rubbed it in. She was on the verge of punching something already.

"…and I think you should exchange this healer card for a perfect lock. Come on, cute and clever Elichika, I thought this was basic!" Eli caught the rest of Nico's sentence but couldn't care less. She reached for the phone that Nico had taken without her permission.

"I will just try again," she declared.

"But you are out of LP."

"I will just use a loveca."

"But you are out of that too."

Eli made the sound of a hurt animal and slammed her forehead on the table in front of her. She was done. She was so done with this! Forget being the cool-headed student council president – she was too angry to keep up the pretense. She caught sight of Nozomi taking a video of her outburst but she couldn't even care anymore. This stupid game. This stupid ass game!

"Whoa…chill, girl. You've got to chill…" Nico said with another shrug. "Like I said, just change that healer card for a perfect lock…"

"Elicchi has been using all her loveca to recover LP, so she doesn't have enough to do a scout," Nozomi answered in Eli's stead. Eli just let out a groan as confirmation.

"Okay, that is just stupid."

"Nicocchi, if I were you, I would try not to provoke Elicchi further if you still value your life, especially seeing as you were the one who convinced all of us to play this game in the first place," Nozomi said in her sing-song fake Kansai-ben. Was she really one to talk? She was the one recording Eli's outburst and uploading the video onto their group chat!

"Fine, whatever. I have my game to play, so it isn't as though the Great Nico-nii has all the time in the world to care about yours."

Nico pulled out a chair and started up her own game. Nozomi peered over her shoulder as Nico checked on her members list.

It was full of Nicos.

There wasn't a single card that wasn't Nico.

"Nicocchi, it is not good to be a narcissist~"

"What do you mean a narcissist? Clearly my cards are the best cards and you all suck because you don't practice off your other cards to get stickers to trade for blue coupons to scout more of my cards!"

Eli lifted her head just to give Nico a look of disdain before flinging herself back onto the table.

Nico ignored the other two third years and went straight to the scouting box. She had saved up 250 loveca for the third years' cool scouting box, and she wasted no time to get started. That Valentines Nico UR was going to be hers at the end of the day!

Scout a normie, scout a normie, 1, 2, 3…Nico scouted normal cards until she got an ugly old Rin card that coloured the poor girl's hair brown instead of orange. Nico nearly didn't recognize her! She decided not to care and went to the third years' cool box, pressing the "Scout 11" button.

There goes the golden scouting box. Whoosh! The envelopes went flying. Pink, pink, pink, pink…with only the single purple of the guaranteed SR. Okay, but it might turn around, right, right?

Nope. Three copies of Rare Eli in cheerleader outfit, a copy of Rare Eli in the school uniform, another in her practice outfit. There was also a pair that Nico knew would idolize to Snow Halation Eli, not that she would do it. There was a lone Rare Nico, that very old card that would idolize to Wonderful Rush Nico but looked so grotesque in its unidolized form. The remainder were two Rare Nozomi cards, and the guaranteed SR, a teasingly smiling Ghost Story Nozomi.

"Are you two mocking me?" Nico shouted at Eli across the table.

"What did I do now?"

"This is an increased chance Nico-nii box and I scouted a bunch of useless Elis!"

"I find them cute~" Nozomi answered.

"Shut up! I've had enough of that toothless grin from your SR card, I don't need to see it on your face too!"

Nico knew Nozomi was still smiling that lopsided smile, so refused to look at her, concentrating on her screen instead. She tapped scout and home repeatedly until she got a cameo on home screen (which was just a different Nico, but that was to be expected), and then jabbed fast and hard at her own image to make weird squeals play in the background before going to the scouting page and pressing "Scout 11" again.

Golden box, flying envelopes, ten pink and one purple again.

"What is this!? I am making money for you, KLab, how can you treat me like this!?"

Nozomi started giggling while Eli just sighed.

The next scout saw Nico doing five rounds of her "Nico-nico-nii~" routine before pressing the button, but was still blessed with the single guaranteed SR. And it was another Ghost Story Nozomi to boot! Nozomi kept bothering her to idolize it, but knowing the idolized version would feature an even more atrocious face, that of Nozomi sticking a tongue out at her, there was no way she would do it!

She sighed. This was it. She had to set down her pride and bring out her ultimate weapon – the only method guaranteed to bring home her dream UR (not!)

"RNGeeeeeesus! RNGeeeeeeesus! RNGesus. RNGesus. RNGeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesuuuuuuuuuuuusss!"

Nico's sudden singing made Eli snap her head upwards and stare at her incredulously. Nozomi was laughing so hard Eli worried she might pee her skirt. Nico gave no shits about what they thought as she made a final twirl on her tip-toes and kneeled in what could only be described as a grande révérence. Maybe Nico was the real ballet dancer after all…

"RNGesus, My Saviour. I have faith in you," she whispered, pressing the scouting button.

Eli blinked. "I am confused."

As Eli shook her head to try and comprehend what was going on, Nico's screen flashed with the whooshing of envelopes once more. "Red, red, red, red…" Nico chanted, but the envelopes were all the lighter shade of pink. Then there was the purple one. Maybe it'd flip. Maybe it'd flip!

And it did!

But it flipped to the blue and red of a SSR. Well, better than nothing, but as the envelope opened…

Initial Eli.

Nico glared up to Eli's gaze and pointed a finger at her. "You – Are – UGLY!"

This did not help Eli's comprehension at all.

"Here, here, let me give you some of my spiritual power~" Nozomi offered after she recovered from hyperventilation, probably because she didn't want to die laughing in Nico's face. She took Nico's phone and pressed the scouting button.

"No! That's my game! You can't do my scouts!"

And there it was, a red envelope. What's with this Big Tits Monster and her luck!?

But when the envelope opened to reveal a Christmas v1 Nozomi…

"You call me a narcissist!? You scouted your own UR in my increased chance box!"

And Nozomi switched over to the blue coupon scouting box and pressed that too.

"NOoooooooooo! NOT MY BLUE COUPONS!"

"Oops~"

Nozomi didn't sound sorry at all when the blue coupon scout revealed a UR, but not the one Nico wanted.

Christmas v1 Eli stared Nico in its full-screen glory.

"At least you have collected the pair now~"

"Why the hell would I want your gay ass UR pair? Do I not have enough of being a third wheel IRL that I need to be a third wheel in a mobile game version of our lives!?"

It took three seconds for Eli to understand what Nico just said, then her face turned red, from the cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears. Nozomi giggled some more before she bent down and whispered into Nico's ear.

"Fine, fine…I'll trade my Valentines NicoMaki reroll for this account. Only for you, Nicocchi~"

It was Nico's turn to feel her face burn.

For Extra Points:

The supporting members list of Nico's account is full of cards of her siblings. She loves them too much to spend them on levelling her cards.

Actually, Nico doesn't just collect her own cards. That's all for show. She has a secret account full of Makis.

And Nozomi beats them all on score matches. Not that she is a particularly good player, but her insane luck gave her tricolor, idolized UR teams. I mean, how can you beat a whale that is not even a real whale because she is F2P? Well, only Maki can stand a chance, seeing as she actually whales with her ginormous allowance…

Honoka and Rin don't really play this game at all. They don't have the patience to wait for the LP bar to fill up, so they end up just singing and dancing to the songs. Plus, they keep tapping before the beat and can't even pass a five-star song. Poor things.

Hanayo plays though! She is an avid collector who tiers for every event, even when the cards look miserable. When she is waiting for the LP bar to fill up, she cooks rice. Rice is best when it is fluffy!

Umi is just Umi is just Umi. She would never admit to such an unhealthy habit as playing an app game so scandalous its English translation had initially been...creatively edited. But Kotori knows. Actually, everybody knows. She did set her username to "Sonoda Umi" and added everybody to her friends list after all.