Chapter 10: Rising Tension

The vision ends as quickly as it began.

Hana staggers backward, catching herself on a costume rack. Her head is pounding. Her vision swims with afterimages—a shrine burning, a woman crying in the ashes, a face that might be her own staring back across decades of loss.

Kae watches her with those ancient eyes.

"What was that?" Hana's voice is rough. "What did you do to me?"

"I showed you a memory. One that belongs to your blood, whether you accept it or not." Kae's expression doesn't change. "The shrine that burned in your vision was tended by your great-grandfather. He was a priest. He was loved." A pause. "He left and never returned."

"Left where? Returned to what?"

"Questions for another time." Kae steps back, her form already beginning to blur at the edges like a photograph losing focus. "I wanted to see if the bloodline had truly awakened. It has. We will speak again."

"Wait—"

But she's gone. Dissolved into shadow like she was never there.

Hana stands alone in the corner of the green room, her heart racing, her hands shaking, her mind filled with images she can't explain and questions no one seems willing to answer.

What just happened?

Magic. Divine presence. Something beyond the transformation.

That doesn't help.

"Hana?" Yuki appears at her elbow, concern written across her face. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"Something like that."

The rest of the evening passes in a blur. Post-show debriefs. Congratulations from industry contacts. A late dinner that Hana barely touches, her appetite destroyed by the encounter with Kae.

She knew about the bloodline. She knew about the shrine.

Ren knows too. Has to.

Add it to the list of things everyone is hiding.

The next morning brings routine.

Hana is in the gym by 5 AM, running until her lungs burn and her legs threaten to give out. The exercise helps—it always helps—but today the voices are louder than usual, arguing about bloodlines and shrines and ancient losses she has no framework to process.

By 6 AM, she's showered and preparing breakfast in the Floor 16 common room. The calorie app shows her macros from yesterday: too low on protein, too low on total calories. The performance burned more than expected.

She adds an apple to her morning routine. Logs it. Watches the numbers adjust.

"You're actually using that thing."

Sora appears in the kitchen doorway, still in running clothes. Her hair is damp from her own workout.

"Couldn't sleep," Hana says.

"You're up early." Sora's usual response. "The schedule today is lighter. Just afternoon rehearsal and individual development. But Ren wants to talk to you first."

"About what?"

"She didn't say." Sora's expression suggests she knows more than she's sharing but has chosen not to press.

Hana finishes her breakfast. Logs the final items. Closes the app.

"Where does she want to meet?"

Ren's office is on Floor 35 of the main tower.

The room is utilitarian by corporate standards—a desk, a few chairs, a wall of filing cabinets that probably hold contracts for every performer under Crescent Moon's management. The window behind the desk frames Tokyo's skyline, a reminder of how far Hana has come from the hotel room where this all began.

"Close the door," Ren says.

Hana closes it. Doesn't sit.

"The woman from last night. Kae." Ren's voice is careful. "What did she tell you?"

"Almost nothing. That I have a bloodline connected to shrine priests. That she wanted to see if it had awakened." Hana studies Ren's face, looking for tells. "You knew she was coming."

"I knew she might appear. I didn't know when or how."

"Explain."

Ren exhales slowly. "The magic I use—the transformation rituals, the reality alteration—it doesn't belong to me. Not entirely. Something facilitates it. Something ancient. I've always assumed it was ancestral energy, spiritual inheritance from my family's history as shrine keepers." She pauses. "But I've recently begun to suspect it's something more specific. Something—someone—with agency."

"Kae."

"Possibly. She's appeared in family records going back generations. A guardian spirit, according to the oldest texts. A kami, connected to our bloodline. But she stopped appearing after my grandfather's time. I thought she was gone forever."

She burned the shrine. The vision showed that.

Don't reveal what you saw. Information is leverage.

"What does she want?"

"I don't know." Ren's frustration is visible, breaking through her careful composure. "I don't know what she wants, I don't know why she appeared now, I don't know what it means that she chose you specifically. All I know is that your transformation was different from the others. Stronger. More complete in some ways, less complete in others. If your bloodline connects to hers..."

"Then I'm part of whatever history you've been running from."

Silence.

Ren doesn't deny it.

Lunch happens in the Floor 16 common room.

Hana sits at the table with her regulated portion, logging each item before consuming it. The other members of Prism5 are scattered around the space—Sora reviewing schedules, Rei scrolling through social media, Yuki attempting conversation that Hana mostly deflects.

Miya sits across from her, picking at her food with the mechanical precision of someone counting every bite.

Hana reaches into her bag and pulls out an apple. Logs it. Takes a bite.

Miya watches.

She's hungry. Actually hungry, not just stress-hungry.

Not your problem.

Maybe it should be.

"I run every morning," Hana says, not looking up from her phone. "Five AM. The gym is empty then. It helps with the... everything."

Miya's chopsticks pause.

"Running burns calories," Hana continues. "The math is simple. If you burn more, you can eat more. The nutritional program doesn't account for individual metabolic variation. If you want to maintain the energy to perform, you need fuel beyond what they're providing."

"Is that... allowed?"

"I'm not asking permission." Hana takes another bite of the apple. "Neither should you."

Something shifts in Miya's expression. Not quite hope—she's too exhausted for hope—but something adjacent to it. The beginning of the beginning.

The moment breaks when the common room door slams open.

Ayumi enters with two members of her group, her expression sharp with an anger Hana recognizes from their previous encounter. She stalks across the room, ignoring Sora's protest, and plants herself in front of Yuki.

"I need to talk to you."

Yuki's face goes pale. "I don't—"

"Now."

"She said she doesn't want to talk." Hana rises from her seat. "Take the hint."

Ayumi turns. Her eyes narrow.

"This isn't your business."

"You made it my business when you walked in here."

"Really." Ayumi steps closer. Close enough that the aggression is unmistakable. "You think because you landed one plane you're something special? You think you can protect her from what's coming?"

"What's coming?"

"The truth." Ayumi's smile is vicious. "About what she did. What all of you did. The industry doesn't forgive secrets, Hana. Sooner or later, everything comes out."

She's fishing. She doesn't actually know anything.

Maybe. Or maybe she knows everything and is waiting for the right moment.

"Back off," Hana says. Her voice is flat, controlled. "I won't say it again."

"Or what?"

Ayumi's hand shoots out—a shove, aimed at Hana's shoulder.

Hana catches her wrist.

The grip is automatic, trained into muscle memory years ago by instructors who taught her how to control without injuring. But this body is different. The strength calibration is off. She squeezes harder than intended, and Ayumi's face contorts with pain.

"Let go—"

Hana releases. But the damage is done.

Ayumi staggers backward, cradling her wrist, her expression shifting from anger to shock to something calculating.

"Security footage," she says. Her voice is cold now, controlled in a way that suggests she's already planning her next move. "Every inch of this building is recorded. Whatever that was—whatever you just did—it's on camera."

She's right. You lost control.

Fix this.

How?

"Stay away from Yuki," Hana says, her voice steady despite the chaos churning in her mind. "Stay away from all of us. Or the next time, I won't hold back."

It's a bluff. She has no idea what she's capable of, no framework for the strength that just manifested, no explanation that won't reveal things better left hidden.

Ayumi smiles. Not defeated. Triumphant.

"We'll see."

She leaves. Her groupmates follow.

The common room is silent.

"Hana," Sora says finally. "What was that?"

"I don't know."

Liar.

I really don't.

The silence stretches until it snaps.

The summons arrives three hours later.

Ren's voice on the phone is tight with controlled panic.

"The CEO wants to see you. Now. In the executive conference room."

"What happened?"

"Hikari's manager filed a formal complaint. Assault on talent. They're demanding an investigation."

Expected.

Doesn't make it better.

"There's more," Ren continues. "They're reviewing security footage. The grip strength you displayed... it's not normal, Hana. Not for someone your size, your build. Not for anyone who hasn't been... enhanced."

The word hangs between them.

"I don't have an explanation."

"You need to find one. Before you walk into that room, you need to find one, because Tsukishiro-san has been looking for an excuse to cut problematic talent, and you just handed him evidence of something impossible." Ren's voice breaks slightly. "They're going to ask how you did what you did. And I don't know how to protect you from the answer."

The bloodline. The shrine magic. The connection to Kae.

Don't reveal it. Not yet. Not until you understand.

"I'll handle it."

"Hana—"

"I said I'll handle it."

She ends the call. Stands in the hallway. Looks at her hands—these borrowed hands that just demonstrated strength she didn't know she possessed.

The elevator to Floor 35 feels longer than usual.

The conference room is glass-walled, intimidating by design. Tsukishiro Masanobu waits at the head of the table—sixty years old, silver-haired, his expression a masterwork of polite threat. Beside him sits Mrs. Kuroda, his secretary, her nose wrinkled slightly as if the entire situation has an unpleasant smell. At the far end of the table: Hikari's manager, a tablet displaying what must be the security footage, and Ayumi herself, her wrist wrapped in a bandage that looks strategically excessive.

Ren sits apart from the others, her position suggesting diminished authority.

"Miss Hana," Tsukishiro says. His voice is soft, cultured, carrying absolute certainty. "Please. Sit."

Hana sits.

"We have a situation." He gestures toward the tablet. "The footage shows you gripping Miss Ayumi's wrist with sufficient force to cause visible injury. The medical assessment suggests hairline fractures. This is... unusual. For someone of your physical profile."

Hairline fractures. The grip was harder than you realized.

Say nothing. Let them fill the silence.

"Miss Ayumi claims the interaction was unprovoked. She was merely trying to have a conversation with your groupmate when you intervened with excessive force." Tsukishiro's eyes are fixed on her, unblinking. "Would you care to offer your perspective?"

"She was threatening my colleague."

"Threatening is a strong word."

"She used it first."

Silence.

"The force you displayed," Tsukishiro continues. "It doesn't match your training profile. It doesn't match your physical assessments. It suggests enhancement of some kind. Medical, perhaps. Or..." He lets the word hang.

He suspects. He doesn't know.

Keep it that way.

"I don't have an explanation," Hana says. "Adrenaline, maybe. Protective instinct."

"Adrenaline doesn't create bone fractures with a grip."

"Then I don't have an explanation."

Tsukishiro studies her for a long moment. His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes—calculation, assessment, the weighing of costs and benefits.

"Miss Ren," he says finally. "Your talent. Your responsibility. This is the second unusual incident involving Miss Hana in less than a week. First the plane. Now this. I'm beginning to wonder if Prism5's newest member is more liability than asset."

Ren's voice is steady. "She's the reason three hundred people survived that flight."

"And she's the reason we're now facing an assault investigation from one of our most successful groups." Tsukishiro rises. "I want answers. Real answers. Within forty-eight hours. Or the contract with Miss Hana becomes... negotiable."

He leaves. Mrs. Kuroda follows. The Hikari manager gathers the tablet and escorts Ayumi out with exaggerated care for her "injured" wrist.

The door closes.

Hana sits alone with Ren, watching the Tokyo skyline through glass walls that suddenly feel like bars.

"The bloodline," Ren says quietly. "Something in you that I didn't know about. Something that Kae saw."

"I don't know what it is."

"Then we have forty-eight hours to find out." Ren's face is gray with exhaustion. "Because if we can't explain this, you're not the only one who loses everything."

She didn't know about the enhanced strength.

Neither did you.

That's the problem.

Hana stares at her hands.

Somewhere in Tokyo, she's certain, a woman with ancient eyes is watching. Waiting. Testing.

The question is: testing for what?