Fatal Harmony

Aoi moved like she never had in her life.

This wasn’t the choreographed dancing she’d learned during her idol career. It was something deeper, more instinctive. Her body followed the pure rhythm she could now hear, and every movement placed her exactly where the yurei’s attacks couldn’t reach her.

A tentacle hissed past her face, missing by a few centimeters. She bent backward, her glowing hand carving an arc through the air. Wherever the golden light touched the tentacles, they dissipated for a moment, as if losing their cohesion.

Projectiles shot toward her. Aoi spun between them, her feet finding the perfect timing without her even needing to think. Her power was now pulsing in perfect harmony with the original rhythm, and she could see the yurei’s attack patterns before it even launched them.

Because it was trapped in its own rhythm.

Behind her, Rei forced himself back to his feet, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. But his eyes lit up with understanding when he saw Aoi dancing.

“Keep going!” he shouted, his voice rough. “Hold that frequency!”

He closed his eyes, focusing. His silver flames flickered, then shifted — their erratic pulse stabilized, aligning with the same rhythm as Aoi’s light.

The Resonance activated.

Aoi felt it like a circuit snapping shut. Rei’s silver energy and her golden energy recognized each other, intertwined, amplified one another. It was no longer two separate powers trying to coordinate their efforts.

It was a single power. Harmonious. Complete.

Rei charged back into the fight, and this time, everything was different. Aoi knew where he was going to strike before he even moved. She felt his intentions as if they were her own. And he felt her too — when she dodged left, he attacked right, keeping constant pressure on the yurei.

They moved like a single being.

The yurei recoiled, confused. Its screen-face now displayed characters changing too quickly to read.

Error. Error. Error.

It tried to change the rhythm again — slowing down abruptly, then speeding up, desperately trying to throw them off.

But Rei and Aoi adapted instantly. Because they weren’t following the yurei’s rhythm anymore. They were imposing their own — a harmony of cold flames and warm light, of ancient predator and newborn purifier.

Rei struck the yurei’s left flank, his silver flames devouring the corrupted pixels. At the exact same moment, Aoi hit its right side, her golden light purifying the emotions that held the creature together.

The yurei screamed — a sound both digital and painfully human.

It split into three clones, trying to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. But the strategy was useless. Rei and Aoi knew exactly which one was real — they could feel it through their shared connection.

They ignored the clones and struck the center simultaneously.

The impact made the whole floor tremble.

The yurei staggered, fragments of its body disintegrating. But it pulled itself together one more time, refusing to yield. Its screen-face now displayed:

Survive… survive…

Aoi felt a wave of emotion surge through her — not her own, but the yurei’s. Or rather, the emotions of the hundreds of people whose suffering had created it. Loneliness. Despair. The desperate need to feel something, even if it was through a screen.

“I understand,” she murmured, her voice strangely calm in the middle of the chaos.

The yurei froze.

For the first time since it had manifested, it stopped attacking. Its screen-face now showed a single word:

Understand?

Aoi stepped closer, slowly, Rei at her side. Their hands — one shining silver, the other gold — reached out toward the yurei together.

“You’re not a monster,” she said softly. “You’re just… lost. Like the rest of us.”

She touched the yurei’s core. Rei did the same.

The explosion of light blinded them.

Their energies fused completely — not to destroy, but to harmonize. Aoi’s light sank into the yurei’s corrupted emotions, searching for what had once been beautiful. The love of games. The simple joy of competition. The happiness of sharing a moment with friends, even virtual ones.

Rei’s flames burned away everything poisonous — the unhealthy obsession, the devouring addiction, the self-feeding loneliness.

Together, they weren’t destroying.

They were healing.

The yurei disintegrated slowly. Not in pain, but in something that felt almost like relief. Its pixelated fragments floated through the air like luminous confetti — pink, blue, green, gold. Tiny soul-lights dancing like fireflies, each carrying a purified fragment of memory.

Then they drifted gently down toward the lower floors, returning to their owners.

The music had stopped.

The silence was deafening.

Aoi collapsed to her knees, exhausted. Every cell in her body screamed. Using her power consciously, even with Rei’s help, had drained her completely. She felt her muscles trembling, her vision blurring.

Rei knelt beside her, panting as well. Blood still flowed from his cheek and his mouth, but he was smiling — a real smile, not the one he wore on stage.

“Not bad,” he said quietly. “For a first time.”

Aoi laughed — a trembling sound, almost hysterical.

“That was…” She couldn’t find the words. Terrifying? Exhilarating? Impossible?

“Welcome to my daily life.” Rei helped her back to her feet, steadying her when her legs nearly gave out.

Down below, they heard cries of surprise. Players coming out of their trance, confused but unhurt. None of them would really remember what had happened — only a strange dream, a feeling of dizziness.

They would never know they’d been saved.

Rei and Aoi stayed there for a moment, catching their breath. But something had changed between them. For the first time in four years, Aoi felt… whole. The Resonance now pulsed like an almost tangible bond, stronger than before.

Then Rei’s smile faded.

“We synchronized our powers,” he said at last, his tone turning grave. “That’s… normally impossible without months of training.”

Aoi felt her stomach tighten.

“The Resonance.”

“It’s progressing much faster than I thought.” Rei ran a hand through his hair, an unusually nervous gesture for him. “At this rate…” He hesitated. “We’ve only got a few weeks. Maybe a month before the Resonance condemns us for good.”

The weight of that reality crashed down on Aoi. She had just felt truly alive for the first time in four years. She had just done something that mattered. Experienced a connection she had never imagined possible.

And now she was being told she probably only had a few weeks left to live.

But strangely, instead of terror, she felt something else.

Determination.

“Then we’d better find out who’s behind all this quickly,” she said, straightening up, ignoring the protests of her exhausted muscles. “We’re going to die anyway — might as well do what we can before that.”

Rei looked at her with an unreadable expression. Surprise? Admiration? Something more complex?

“You’re completely insane, Aoi.”

It was the first time he’d used her first name without any honorific.

“I know.” Aoi gave a faint smile. “And so are you, Rei.”

A slow smile spread across Rei’s face — something vulnerable she had never seen on stage.

He took her hand to help her down the stairs.

The contact sent a familiar spark through both their bodies. The Resonance pulsed between them — warm, alive, real. As if their very essences recognized that they belonged together, even if it would destroy them.

They were on the fifth floor landing when a voice echoed through the arcade.

Amplified. Smooth. Lethally polite.

“Rei-kun. Still as theatrical as ever.”

They froze.

A silhouette emerged from the shadows at the bottom of the stairs. A refined man in a charcoal three-piece suit, looking around forty, with black hair slicked perfectly back. He smiled — a predatory smile that never reached his eyes.

Eyes glowing blood-red in the dim light.

Rei transformed instantly. Not partially this time — fully. His three tails materialized, flaring like silver blades. Flames crackled around his fists. His canines lengthened slightly.

And on his face, for the first time since Aoi had met him, she saw pure fear.

“Kageyama.”

The name came out as a growl.

The man bowed with mocking elegance, as if they were at a business meeting and not standing in an arcade after a fight with a vengeful spirit.

“I am Kageyama Jin, director at Nova Entertainment.” His smile widened, revealing teeth that were too white, too perfect. “And incidentally… a very old friend of Rei’s.”

He lifted his gaze toward them, and in those blood-red eyes Aoi saw something primordial. Predatory. Dangerous in a way even the arcade yurei hadn’t been.

Because the yurei had been born from human pain.

But Kageyama… Kageyama was something ancient. Calculated. Fully aware of his cruelty.