Around the World (Holomyth 1st Anniversary)

At the Tokyo International Airport, three girls waited for an arriving flight. Various kinds of beastfolk, elves, Sapiens, and other species moved in and out, but none of them were the two people they were expecting. The tallest of the three tapped her foot and stared at her phone for any new messages. Of course, this impatient figure was none other than the one, the only, the real Grim Shady herself, Calliope Mori. As Kiara and Ina arrived in the first half hour she stood waiting, her patience was starting to run thin.

The Grim Reaper's apprentice barked in English, "It's been two hours already! Where are they?!" She held the bags of the phoenix beside her, much to the latter's blatant delight.

Kiara replied, "Well, maybe~, they got lost trying to leave the airport. It's their first time here, after all. I think. I dunno if Ame ever went to Japan before, like in the future even, and just, never ever told us."

Ina quietly remarked, "Maybe time flew by while they were in the mile high club," prompting equal amounts of shock and rolling eyes.

"HEY! We're here!" The loud shout grabbed their attention, and as they jerked their heads towards the source, the girls found a familiar detective half-leading half-dragging a shark girl who looked far more pale than any of them remembered. Calli dropped Kiara's luggage, much to the owner's slight dismay, and ran over to the latecomers.

"Ohmygod, is she alright?! Did she eat something bad up there? Or get airsick? Did she forget to wear her jacket, fall asleep, and get a bad cold from that?!" Amelia Watson waved 'no' nonchalantly.

"Nah. She got scared and passed out a few times on the flight here, especially on take-off and landing. Ehehe- Ow!" That little chuckle of hers prompted the Atlantean to slap her hard on the back of her head.

Gura whined, "Ameee! You know it's my first time in the air! Why couldn't you Sapiens be happy with boats?! Why y'all gotta give tubes wings and make 'em fly?"

"Boats aren't gonna get you through a continent, Gura."

"Well that's what the Suez Canal is for!"

Amused, Calli shook her head as she declared, "Whatever. It's cool as long as you're both safe. Good thing YAGOO sent us a company van. Masturi knows how expensive taxi services get, especially if you keep the meter running."

After loading the luggage into the van and getting seated, the driver began the trip to the hololive Production building. It was their first anniversary as idols, after all, and what better way to celebrate it with a generation-wide Live together? And not only would they also have the chance for in-person collabs with their fellow JP talents, but in their downtime, they would also have time to explore Japan together.

Downtime…, Calli thought. She said not to make any plans, but why shouldn't we? Something's not adding up. Something seriously funky is going on. I know it.

As Ina, Amelia, and Gura took in the breathtaking sights of Tokyo, Calli took out her phone and looked at the 'Map' app. Kiara peered over her shoulder, curious as to what she was planning.

The pink-haired girl whispered, "Say, Kiara. Where do you think we should go while we're here?"

The phoenix promptly turned as red as her signature beret. "O-oh! Calli, you-you're so straight-forward all of a sudden. Did you really miss me tha-"

Calli gripped her phone tightly. "Not like that, Kusotori." Not yet anyway, she thought reluctantly."I meant all of us. I mean, how often will they have a chance like this?"

"Hm... Ame's a bit hard to place, but I know for sure that Ina will love going to Akihabara! I hope she doesn't, like, spend all of her money there."

"Eh, that's true. We gotta make sure we don't lose her, or we'll never find her again. Tokyo Tower's definity a place we should visit."

"Yeah, the pics we took there together were lovely… Oh! I always wanted to see the Ghibli Museum at least once!"

"Think the others will be up for it? I dunno, I'm not sure if it'll be any good if you didn't watch any Ghibli films."

"C'mon, Calli. It'll be fun!"

As they stepped into the dark office, identical to the studio used to record so many Hologras, everyone's guard went up, except for one. At first, Calli was also wary of the numerous life signatures she detected, all standing still and scattered around the office, but after identifying a certain one, one she encountered often, she calmed down, knowing what was in store.

They remained as still as stone, until the room was bathed in light.

"Happy anniversary!"

With a well-rehearsed welcome, most of the members of hololive JP and A-chan greeted holoMyth with a storm of confetti, the thunder of poppers, and streaks of streamers in the air. Most of the talents that didn't already have a scheduled livestream or some other prior engagement that day came to celebrate. Each of them bore a wide grin, as if to say 'well done on making it this far'.

Gura bolted towards her favorite witch with tears in her eyes, and although she practiced what she was gonna say to her hundreds of times in the mirror, all that came out was a long, high-pitched squeak of utter glee. Murasaki Shion shook her head, delighted.

In Japanese, the latter happily suggested, "Guess we can have that Minecra wedding here," while squeezing the shark tight and nuzzling into her.

Meanwhile, Amelia Watson strolled over to the self-proclaimed Elite lover of blonde-haired boing boing herself, Sakura Miko. The shrine maiden examined the detective from head-to-toe, and then a second time. Then she checked again to make sure. Once more for good measure… And then-

This went on for another minute straight, with neither person speaking at all. Amelia simply watched Miko watch her, striking a prideful pose every now and again while her cheeks flushed slightly red. Off to the side, Haachama glared at the shrine maiden, while Pekora and Suisei held their laughter as they watched the pink-haired girl make herself out to be a perverted fool yet again. Their bout of fun ended when chaos indominant (not 'incarnate', mind you, `cause Matsuri knows what Hakos was) dragged her back. Finally, Suisei couldn't handle it anymore and burst out giggling, pointing at Miko as she teased her.

She snickered, "Ha! Looks like Mikochi's on her way to the 'bad end'. It seems she's just as unlucky as ever!" However, her snide remarks earned her an Elite elbow to the ribs, shutting her up.

"What was that?" Miko rebutted, cupping her hand around her ear. "I couldn't hear you, but that's nothing strange. As we all know, Sui-chan kyou mo chiis- Ai! That hurt!" Annoyed, the psychopathic idol had retaliated with a light jab to the offending arm.

The members of Micomet stared each other down with scowls on their faces. Then, they stepped closer to try and glare at each other eye-to-eye. However, they stepped a bit too close for comfort and smashed their foreheads together, sending both of them reeling to the floor, clutching their heads as A-chan rushed to grab bags of ice.

Enjoying this sideshow performed by hololive's own idol comedian duo Micomet, Pekora exploded in a fit of directional laughter. Amelia and Haachama joined in right after. A faint call coming from the priestess of the Ancient Ones could barely be made out over the cacophonous cackles. The other members of holoMyth turned to the source, intrigued.

"Help… I'm ina bit of a pickle over here. Ladies, can't we just Tako-ver a nice cup of tea?" Ina requested, who was being dragged left and right by the members of hololive's fifth generation. Sensing the puns, the four collectively laughed together before returning to their tug-of-wah.

On one hand, Nene and Polka tugged with all of their might. On the other hand, Botan and Lamy would not budge an inch, though the lion was simply helping Lamy have Ina to herself. Both of Ina's hands would probably be sore when this was all over.

The purple-tentacled artist was suffering from success, but that was to be expected. She did push all of their Botans the right way. She just had to Polka sleeping bear with a stick, and for her troubles, she got caught in their Ina-scapable Nene-tting. The bear-seal alien probably already got the marriage papers signed, scanned, copied, and even Lamy-nated.

As the Shinigami apprentice and the franchise owner gazed on at the priestess, Suisei walked over to her coworkers, pressing the ice bag to her forehead as she remarked, "Told you to not make any plans, cuz we'll make sure your schedules are all packed while you're all here."

Kiara sighed, muttering, "Really? Aw, I really wanted to go out with Calli when we were free." The blue-haired girl placed her free hand over her heart and gave her a faintly pitiful look.

"Oh, we're stopping you and Calli from going on your date? … That's good to hear." That sadistic smirk fans have come to both love and fear emerged. "It's about time Calli and I spent some time outside of our… usual collaborations." The cometzen giggled before a splitting headache seized her, forcing her to shamble past them and find a place to lie down.

Feeling glacial chills for once in her many lifetimes, the phoenix kept looking back over her shoulder as she whispered, "Man, is Suisei-senpai ever gonna stop being so scary?"

Calli had a faint smile as she shrugged, admitting, "Her, of all people? Not in a million lifetimes. Feel free to start counting, Kiara."

A/N: Hope I provided enough context clues this time that the underlines didn't confuse you too much. I've been meaning to test ways to depict when a character speaks a different language for a future work I have planned. Speaking of, I kinda wrote this chapter with that story in mind, so feel free to come back to this when I do start it!