Shattered Reflections

 The taxi stopped in front of the television studio in Odaiba. Even at three in the morning, the building gleamed like a stranded cruise ship — every window lit, every exterior screen flickering with mechanical urgency.

Aoi and Rei stepped out. The Resonance pulsed between them, stronger since the arcade battle — a warm, invisible thread linking their essences, almost tangible.

Aoi’s stomach tightened. Returning to the world of girl-idol groups after four years… it felt like walking back onto the scene of an accident.

The automatic doors slid open onto controlled chaos. Technicians ran in every direction, producers yelled into phones, security guards struggled to contain a swarm of half-awake journalists with messy hair, crooked shirts, and cameras raised like starving vultures.
At the center of it all, paramedics pushed a stretcher.

Aoi caught a glimpse of the girl’s face: pale skin, delicate features, black hair spilled across the pillow like spilled ink. Beautiful, even unconscious. Too beautiful — almost unreal.

Hoshino Yuki. Nineteen. Angelic face. Center of Stellar Dreams.

But what no one else saw was the thread.

A blood-red spectral filament stretched from her chest to the smartphone held tightly by her assistant walking just behind the stretcher, pressed against her own chest along with Yuki’s bag. The thread pulsed like an artery, pumping something dark and viscous between the girl and the device.

Aoi grabbed Rei’s arm.
“Do you see it?”

His golden eyes narrowed. “Yes. A parasitic link. Someone — or something — is draining her through that phone.”

The paramedics wheeled Yuki toward the exit. The spectral thread stretched, thinned… but did not break.

“Mizushima-san?”

Aoi turned. A man with a wrinkled suit and a production badge pinned crookedly to his lapel was staring at her, eyes ringed with exhaustion.

“I’m a friend of your editor. I’ll give you the information first.”

“What exactly happened?”

“We were filming Night Owl — live broadcast, promoting their new EP. Yuki was performing ‘Constellation Dreams’ when…” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “She just stopped. In the middle of the song. She stared at the camera with an empty look, then collapsed.”

“Did the doctors say anything?”

“Exhaustion, supposedly.” His voice dropped. “But there’s something else. The tech crew in the control room… they saw something strange on the monitors.”

Rei stepped closer, alert. “What exactly?”

The producer hesitated, afraid of sounding insane.
“The image glitched. Just for a split second. And they all swear they saw…” He swallowed. “A silhouette superimposed over Yuki. Ears. A tail. Like a cat. But when they rewound the recording, nothing. Just normal video noise.”

A cold shiver ran through Aoi.

Rei froze. Just for a second — so brief Aoi almost missed it. Something flickered in his eyes. A painful memory?

But he collected himself instantly.

“Where are the other members of her group?” he asked, voice calm but sharper.

“Backstage. Green Room B.” He hesitated. “They’re in shock. Go easy on them.”

***

The green room smelled of hairspray and fear.

Three girls sat huddled on a battered couch — the remaining members of Stellar Dreams. Their stage makeup was smudged, glitter clinging to their tear-streaked faces, their expressions like puppets whose strings had been cut.

The eldest — maybe twenty-two, with dyed chestnut hair — looked up as Aoi and Rei entered.

“Who are you?”

Aoi showed her press badge. “I’m a journalist, and he’s my assistant. I’d like to understand what happened.”

“Understand?” The girl let out a broken, almost hysterical laugh.
“You want to understand? Yuki snapped, that’s what happened!”

The other two stared at her, terrified.

“Haruka, shut up!” one hissed.

But Haruka kept going, the words spilling out like poison from an infected wound.

“She’s been getting messages. For weeks. Thousands. Every day. On SNS, forums, her DMs…”

“What kind of messages?” Rei asked gently.

“Hate.” Haruka clenched her fists. “A rumor started — that she insulted her fans in private, said she didn’t care about them. Completely fake. But it spread like a virus.”

The second girl — small, round-faced, eyes swollen — spoke in a trembling voice.

“She read everything. Obsessively. Every hateful comment. We begged her to stop, but…” She hesitated. “It was like something…”

“Like something was forcing her to look,” Aoi finished softly.

All three nodded, relieved someone finally said it aloud.

Rei exchanged a glance with Aoi. She understood.
It wasn’t just human obsession. Something — or someone — was amplifying it. Feeding it. Twisting it into a compulsion.

“One last question,” Rei said. “Do you know who started the rumor? Who posted the first accusation?”

Haruka hesitated.
“We don’t know… The account disappeared.” Her voice dropped. “But backstage rumors say Nova Entertainment might be involved. Some kind of… destabilization before the Tokyo Idol Festival.”

The name hung in the air like a curse.

Nova Entertainment.
Kageyama.

***

In the hallway, Rei leaned against the wall, eyes closed.

Aoi could feel his frustration through the Resonance — sharp, burning.

“He cultivates them,” Rei murmured. “Kageyama is deliberately creating conditions to generate yurei. Collective hatred on social media, spiraling obsession… it’s pure fuel for his developing ōyurei.”

Aoi’s blood ran cold.
“So Yuki is just… a meal?”

Rei opened his eyes, and they gleamed dangerously.

“Massive negative emotions — hate, jealousy, obsession — create yurei stronger than worship ever could.”

He paused, frowning.

“The ōyurei should feed directly from that despair through screens, comments, notifications. But…” He shook his head. “Something doesn’t add up. And that visual glitch…” His eyes narrowed. “As if something else is standing between Yuki and the ōyurei. An intermediary?”

He turned to Aoi.

“Kageyama is using the internet. Social media to target his victims.”

Aoi thought of millions of people constantly connected. The waves of hatred celebrities endured daily. The terrifying ease with which one could destroy someone’s life from behind a screen.

“We have to go to the hospital,” she said.

Rei nodded — but his expression was heavy.
As if he already knew they were too late.

***

The University of Tokyo Hospital smelled of disinfectant and sterile despair.

Outside, the same disheveled journalists were now crowding the entrance to the ER, creating chaos. Rei and Aoi slipped inside during the confusion.

They climbed to Yuki’s floor. The hallways were empty — too late for family visits, too early for staff changes.

Room 407 was dim, lit only by machines softly beeping. Yuki lay motionless in the bed, an IV in her arm.

On the bedside table, her smartphone was on, the screen glowing.

A video, audio barely audible.

A VTuber — sleek avatar with black hair streaked with purple, two cat tails swaying lazily. Her feline ears twitched as she sang a lullaby, violet eyes glowing with unsettling intensity.

But it wasn’t the song that froze Aoi’s blood.

It was the comments flooding the chat:

“Die.”
“Nobody loves you.”
“You slept your way to center.”
“Talentless wh*re.”

Hundreds. Thousands.
Scrolling endlessly while the avatar smiled sweetly, her tails swaying with hypnotic grace — unaware, or uncaring, of the hatred swirling around her.

Rei leaned closer, frowning. “Who is that?”

Aoi read the channel name:

Nekomata_Hikari — 3.2M subscribers — 🔴 LIVE

“A popular VTuber…” Aoi muttered, unease crawling up her spine.
“But why this video? Yuki is in a coma… And why are hateful comments about her appearing here?”

Rei’s eyes locked onto the screen — specifically, the two cat tails swaying behind the avatar.

Something in his expression chilled Aoi — as if he recognized something.

“Rei?”

He blinked, breaking the trance.
“Nothing.” But his voice was taut. “Probably nothing.”

He was lying. Aoi felt it through the Resonance — a knot of anxiety he was trying to hide.

Aoi touched Yuki’s hand.

A jolt shot through her.

Images.

Yuki reading her phone before performing.
Tears streaming.
Fingers scrolling compulsively.

Thousands of messages. Harsher. Crueler. Unending.

And behind each one — a presence.
Soft.
Almost maternal.
A voice whispering:

“Keep reading. Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
“Let me help you carry this burden.”

A presence that amplified.
That fed.
That twisted the pain into something tangible.

Aoi yanked her hand back, nauseous, gasping.

As Rei pulled her toward the exit, the VTuber on the screen stopped singing.

Her violet eyes shifted.

Directly toward them.

And she smiled — a smile with nothing innocent in it.

Then the screen went black.

In the hallway, Aoi trembled.

“That thing is feeding on her despair,” Rei said, voice tight.
“And the more it feeds, the deeper her despair gets.”

“How do we stop it?”

“We can’t.” Rei clenched his fists.
“Kageyama controls the narrative. As long as the messages keep coming — as long as the collective hatred flows — Yuki will stay connected and keep feeding the ōyurei.”

He turned to her, jaw set.

“We have to stop Kageyama.”

Aoi’s phone vibrated.

Her stomach twisted as she looked.

A message.
Unknown number.

“I’ll be waiting.
We have so much to discuss.”

Below, an address: Nova Entertainment Headquarters — Roppongi
And a QR code for security clearance.

Aoi lifted her eyes to Rei.
The Resonance pulsed — she felt his fear, his urge to stop her.

But she also felt something else:
The certainty that they had no choice.

She slid her phone back into her pocket.

“I’ll send a few notes to my grumpy editor and go crash.”

Outside, dawn was rising over Tokyo, the city stretching awake — unaware of the war unfolding in its shadows.

Aoi felt exhaustion wash over her — every muscle aching, her vision blurring. Using her power twice in one night had drained her completely.

Kageyama’s invitation weighed in her pocket like a stone.

He knew she would come.