Chapter 9: First Performance

The venue is small. Four hundred seats arranged in a fan around a stage that barely fits five performers. The walls are covered in acoustic panels. The lighting rig overhead looks older than Hana's transformed body.

"It's a developmental showcase," Ren explained during the morning briefing. "Industry people, talent scouts, a few invited fans. Low stakes, relatively speaking. A chance to see how you perform under pressure."

Low stakes. Hana watches the seats fill from backstage and feels her pulse accelerate despite her best efforts at control.

Approximately 380 people. Industry identification visible on 60% of front-row attendees. Media credentials on the balcony.

Stop counting. It doesn't help.

The dressing room is cramped, five stations crammed into a space designed for three. Makeup artists swarm around them, applying foundation and eyeshadow with practiced efficiency. Costume coordinators make last-minute adjustments to outfits that feel simultaneously too tight and too revealing.

Hana stares at her reflection—or rather, at the reflection of whoever she's supposed to become under the lights.

The girl in the mirror wears a coordinated outfit in Prism5's signature palette: deep purple with silver accents. Her hair has been styled into waves that frame her face. Her eyes are emphasized with glitter and liner. Her lips are painted a shade of pink that makes her look younger, softer, less like herself.

This isn't you.

This is exactly you. This is who you have to be.

"Five minutes," calls a stage manager from the doorway.

Yuki appears at her shoulder, her own transformation nearly complete. In costume and makeup, she looks almost unrecognizable—not the guilt-ridden girl from the pool deck, but someone confident, polished, ready to perform.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I look exactly as fine as I need to look."

Yuki's expression shifts, something complicated moving behind her eyes.

"The first one is always the hardest," she says. "After this, it gets... not easier, exactly. But more familiar. You learn to separate the person on stage from the person behind them."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

"I don't know. Is it?"

Hana doesn't answer.

The stage lights are blinding.

Hana takes her opening position—stage left, slightly behind Sora and Rei—and feels her body slip into performance mode without conscious direction. The transformation included this, apparently: the ability to project confidence she doesn't feel, to smile at audiences she can't see, to move through choreography while her mind screams at her to run.

The music begins.

The first song is uptempo, demanding fast footwork and precise arm movements. Hana's body responds automatically, executing steps she's drilled hundreds of times over the past week. Her voice joins the harmonies at exactly the right moment, blending with the others without conscious effort.

Surrender to it.

Never.

The audience responds. She can hear them—cheers, applause, the distinctive sound of coordinated fan chants—through the monitors in her earpiece. The energy of the room shifts, intensifies, wraps around the stage like a living thing.

The second song is slower, more emotional. Miya takes lead vocals, her small voice carrying surprising power. Hana watches her transform under the lights, the anxious girl from the bathroom becoming someone radiant, commanding, completely present in a way she never seems to achieve off-stage.

This is what they trade. Identity for presence. Self for performance.

Maybe that's not a trade. Maybe it's a release.

The set continues. Three songs. Four. Five. Hana loses track of time, loses track of self, loses track of everything except the music and the movement and the strange, intoxicating feeling of being witnessed by hundreds of eyes.

When the final note fades and the lights dim, she stands center stage, breathing hard, sweat running down her spine, and feels something she didn't expect.

Satisfaction.

No. You don't get to enjoy this. This was forced on you.

That doesn't mean it can't feel good.

It can't. It shouldn't. It—

The audience erupts.

The applause crashes over them like a wave, accompanied by cheers and whistles and the rhythmic chanting of "Prism Five! Prism Five!" The lights come up. The five of them bow in unison, a synchronized gesture Hana doesn't remember learning but executes perfectly.

Rei is grinning. Miya has tears streaming down her face—different tears than the bathroom, these ones. Sora's composure has cracked into something that looks almost like joy.

Yuki catches Hana's eye from across the stage.

Thank you, she mouths.

Hana doesn't know what she's being thanked for. But something in her chest loosens, just slightly. A knot she didn't know was there, unwinding by a single thread.

Backstage is chaos.

Production staff swarm around them, removing microphones and adjusting costumes. Other performers from the showcase offer congratulations with varying degrees of sincerity. Crescent Moon executives materialize from the audience seats, their faces arranged in expressions of approval that somehow feel more unsettling than criticism.

Hana retreats to a corner of the green room, trying to process what just happened on stage. The adrenaline is still coursing through her system, making her hands shake and her thoughts race.

You enjoyed it. Admit it.

I did what the magic required.

That's not what happened and you know it.

"Hana."

Ren's voice. Hana turns.

The manager stands in the doorway, her expression careful. Behind her, partially obscured by shadows, stands someone else.

A woman. Older—maybe fifty, maybe five hundred, her features suggesting an agelessness that defies easy categorization. Traditional clothing—a simple kimono in muted tones—contrasts sharply with the modern chaos of the green room. Her eyes are dark, ancient, and fixed on Hana with an intensity that makes her skin prickle.

"There's someone here to see you," Ren says. "She's been... waiting."

The woman steps forward. Her movements are fluid, almost too smooth, like water flowing over stone.

"Hello, Hana." Her voice is soft but carries, filling the space without apparent effort. "I am Kae. We need to discuss your... lineage."

Something happens.

Something inside Hana—deep, primal, older than conscious thought—recognizes the woman. Not the face or the name, but the presence. The power radiating from her like heat from a furnace.

Run.

Stay. This is important.

Both.

"My lineage," Hana repeats. Her voice comes out steadier than she feels.

"You carry a bloodline that was thought lost," Kae says. "The blood of shrine priests who served my family for generations. It has been diluted, yes. Scattered across oceans and centuries. But it remains."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Kae's smile is sad, knowing, infinitely patient.

"No," she agrees. "You don't. Not yet."

She reaches out and touches Hana's forehead with one finger.

The world explodes into light.