Three Shattered Souls (Part I)

The Harmony Sound recording studio occupied the third floor of a run-down building in Shibuya. A crooked “CLOSED” sign hung from the front door. Rei had climbed the back façade, avoiding the surveillance cameras with an ease born of centuries of practice.

The window gave way beneath his fingers. He slipped inside.

The hallway was plunged into darkness, lit only by emergency lights. But at the far end of the corridor, light seeped out from beneath a door.

And a voice was singing.

No. Two voices.

A duet.

Rei moved forward in silence, every step calculated to make no sound at all. The studio door was slightly ajar.

Akane was there.

She stood in front of a synthesizer, headphones clamped over her ears, fingers flying across the keys with mechanical precision. Her voice rose into the room—a melancholic ballad about loneliness and dying stars. But something was wrong.

She was singing on a loop.

The same verse. Over and over again. Her voice broke with every refrain, tears running down mascara-streaked cheeks, yet she didn’t stop.

Like a broken machine that no longer knew how to shut itself down.

On the music stand beside her, a tablet glowed.

An avatar was singing in harmony with Akane. Black hair streaked with violet flowed as if suspended in water. Two cat tails swayed lazily, hypnotically. Luminous violet eyes stared—no, devoured Akane with an intensity that was anything but human.

Below the avatar, a chat was scrolling. Hundreds of messages. Thousands.

Die. No one loves you. Smile and sell your body. Go back where you came from.

At the bottom of the screen, the channel name flashed:

Nekomata_Hikari — 🔴 LIVE

Rei’s heart stopped.

That presence. That voice. That smile.

He knew that aura. Somewhere, in the darkest recesses of his memory, something screamed in recognition. But the details slipped away, like a dream unraveling upon waking.

His three tails manifested instinctively, rising like silver blades. Cold flames crackled around his fists.

The avatar on the screen stopped singing.

Mid-note, without transition, she fell silent. Her violet eyes slowly turned—not toward Akane, who continued her infernal loop—but directly toward where Rei was standing.

As if she could see him through the screen.

As if she had been waiting for him.

She smiled.

A smile carrying years of resentment, sorrow, and something that almost resembled relief. A smile that said: I knew you would come.

“Rei-kun~”

Her voice came through the Bluetooth speaker—not digital, not synthetic. Real. Alive. As if she were standing in the room with them.

Akane spun around sharply, tearing off her headphones. Her face was pale, exhausted, hollowed out. But her eyes—

Her eyes glowed with a violet light that was not her own.

“Rei-san?” Her voice was strange—layers of tones overlapping, forming a discordant harmony.

For a fraction of a second, her face glitched.

Feline ears appeared atop her head. Her eyes turned fully violet. Her mouth curved into the same smile as the avatar’s.

Then everything snapped back to normal.

Akane blinked in confusion—and her legs gave out.

Rei caught her before she hit the ground, but his hands trembled—not from fatigue, but from contained emotion. The young singer was light in his arms. Too light. How long had it been since she’d eaten?

He lifted his gaze to the screen.

Hikari’s avatar was still there, unmoving, smiling. Her two tails swayed lazily.

“Rei-kun~” Her voice was almost affectionate. “We’ll see each other again. Nya~”

A soft, crystalline laugh.

Then the tablet went dark.

Silence fell. Only the distant echo of the city and Akane’s shallow breathing remained.

Rei stood motionless, the unconscious girl in his arms, staring at the black screen. Beneath his fingers, he felt the corruption gnawing at Akane—not yet a yūrei, but dangerously close. She had fought. Unlike Yuki, she had resisted the hatred of the internet with everything she had.

But she was at her limit.

He closed his eyes, took a breath, and began to absorb the corruption.

It was like swallowing ground glass. The negative energy seeped into his essence, burning, acidic. He felt his own strength draining as he purified Akane—not completely, just enough to stabilize her.

When he opened his eyes again, he was trembling with exhaustion.

But Akane was breathing more calmly. The violet glow had vanished from her closed eyes.

Hikari…

The name echoed in his mind like a painful reverberation.

That’s impossible…

***

Miles away, Aoi stepped into an abandoned filming set in Odaiba.

The place must once have been impressive—an immense hangar converted into a studio, television set pieces still standing like ghosts of forgotten productions. Now, dust covered everything, and dead spotlights hung from the ceiling like lifeless eyes.

At the center of the set, surrounded by broken mirrors arranged in a circle, Ren stood motionless.

The actor–seiyuu was speaking. To himself. Or rather, to his reflections.

“No, no, the line is…” He turned toward another mirror. “You don’t understand, I have to be perfect.” Another mirror. “They’re all waiting for me to be perfect.” Another still. “But I don’t know who I am anymore.”

In his hand, his smartphone was broadcasting a live stream. The same avatar. Nekomata_Hikari. And the same torrent of hatred flooding the chat.

Aoi approached carefully.

“Ren-san?”

He turned around.

His face was… fragmented. Not physically—but spiritually. With her onmyōji senses, Aoi could see shards of his essence floating around him like splinters of glass. Each fragment carried a different emotion: rage, sadness, fear, despair.

Tiny yūrei. Dozens of them. All born from him.

“Who are you?” Ren asked. Then, in a different voice: “She’s dangerous.” Another voice: “No, she can help us.” Another: “No one can help us.”

Aoi felt her heart tighten.

“I’m here to help you,” she said softly.

She reached out her hand toward him.

And the world collapsed.

A labyrinth.

Aoi floated in a space that was nothing like the physical world—a maze of corridors made of memories, fears, shattered hopes. The walls were plastered with hateful comments, biting criticism, disappointed fan messages.

You’re a fraud. Your acting is pathetic. Go back to doing commercial voiceovers.

She moved forward, guided by instinct. Somewhere in this mental labyrinth, the fragments of Ren were waiting to be reunited.

The first fragment she found was curled up in a corner, trembling.

Fear.

An eight-year-old child staring at an empty stage, terrified of stepping onto it.

“Come,” Aoi whispered. “You’re not alone.”

She took him in her arms. He dissolved into golden light.

The second fragment stood on a stage, screaming at an invisible audience.

Rage.

A teenager who had never been good enough in his parents’ eyes.

“I see you,” Aoi said. “Your anger is valid. But it doesn’t define you.”

He hesitated. Then he, too, dissolved.

Fragment after fragment, she found them.

Sadness, hiding behind a red velvet curtain. Doubt, wandering through a hall of mirrors that reflected only flaws. Hope, nearly extinguished—a flickering flame in the darkness.

Each release drained her further. Her golden light dimmed. Her legs shook.

But she kept going.

Because she knew what it was like—to be broken. To be reduced to fragments of oneself by the gaze of others.

The final fragment was at the center of the labyrinth.

Ren himself—or what remained of him.

A young man sitting on the floor, surrounded by torn scripts, whispering:

“I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know—”

Aoi knelt before him.

“You are Ren,” she said simply. “Not the actor. Not the seiyuu. Not the product they made you into. Just… Ren. And that’s enough.”

He looked up. Tears streamed down his face.

“Really?”

“Really.”

She took his hand.

Light exploded.

Aoi came back to herself, collapsed on the floor of the abandoned set. Every muscle screamed in agony. Her vision blurred. She felt as if she had run a marathon while carrying the weight of the world.

But in front of her, Ren slept peacefully, his face finally serene. The fragments of his essence had reassembled into a coherent whole.

She had succeeded.

She tried to smile—but a sharp pain tore through her chest.

The Resonance.

Through the bond linking her to Rei, she felt something terrible. Suffering. Despair. The taste of blood.

Rei!

She forced herself upright, staggering.

Shinjuku.

He was in Shinjuku. And he was losing.

The pain pulsed again—stronger this time. For one terrifying fraction of a second, she felt the bond waver. Crack.

As if something were trying to tear them apart.

No. No, no, no.