Chapter 14: Integration Progress

The pool at Residence D opens at 5:00 AM.

Hana arrives at 4:58, keycard in hand, and waits in the basement corridor while the automated lock cycles through its security protocols. The air smells of chlorine and humidity—industrial cleaning compounds layered over the organic traces of dozens of swimmers. The fluorescent lights flicker once, stabilize, illuminate the entrance with their cold precision.

The door clicks open.

She swims.

Twenty laps becomes thirty. Thirty becomes forty. The water is 26 degrees Celsius—cooler than standard pool temperature, kept that way to discourage recreational use. Hana prefers it. The cold demands attention. The cold pushes other thoughts aside.

Stroke. Breath. Turn. Stroke. Breath. Turn.

The rhythm replaces the noise in her head. Not silences it—the voices never fully silence—but drowns them out. Layer after layer of water between her and the constant analysis, the fractured perspectives, the four points of view that aren't quite hers and aren't quite separate.

Forty-three laps. Approximately 2,150 meters. Heart rate elevated to 165 BPM.

She stops at the wall, breathing hard, and the thoughts rush back.

You moved too fast yesterday. The producer saw. Ren knows something is wrong. The footage exists—

Hana pushes off again.

Fifty laps. Sixty. Her arms burn. Her lungs burn. The voices fade to static.

When she finally pulls herself out of the pool, the clock on the wall reads 6:14 AM. Seventy-two laps. Three and a half kilometers. Her calorie app will want this data. Her body will want protein.

She sits on the pool edge, feet dangling in the water, and lets herself breathe.

Better, something acknowledges. The exercise helps.

Temporary, another voice warns. The problem hasn't disappeared. You've just postponed thinking about it.

That's the point, a third perspective adds. Postponement creates space. Space allows processing.

The voices feel different this morning. Not quite separate. Not quite unified. Something in between—like instruments in an orchestra starting to find the same key.

Hana towels off, showers, and returns to her apartment to begin the day.

Practice starts at 9:00 AM.

The eighth-floor studio in Residence D is smaller than the main rehearsal spaces in the Roppongi Hills office tower, but it's theirs. Mirrors line three walls. A barre runs the length of the fourth. The floor is sprung hardwood—professional grade, designed to absorb impact and protect joints.

Miya is already there when Hana arrives.

She's stretching at the barre, her small body folded into positions that would break most people. Her movements are automatic—the product of years of training, performed without conscious thought. But her face is pale, and she keeps glancing at the door.

"You're early," Hana says.

"Couldn't sleep." Miya's voice is quiet. "Kept... replaying it. The fall. Your catch."

"You're okay."

"I know. But what if—" She stops. Takes a breath. "What if you hadn't been there?"

Then the safety net would have caught you, Hana wants to say. That's what it's designed for.

But that's not what Miya is really asking.

"I was there," Hana says instead. "That's what matters."

"How did you move so fast?"

The question hangs in the air. Honest. Frightened. The question that everyone is thinking but no one has directly asked.

"I don't know."

It's the truth. Hana has spent hours reconstructing those seconds—the moment the platform shifted, the trajectory of Miya's fall, the impulse that drove her body forward. She can't explain it. Can only acknowledge that something in her responded faster than her conscious mind could direct.

The bloodline, suggests one of the voices. Kae mentioned it. Artemis tested it.

Or training, counters another. Muscle memory. Conditioned responses.

Does the distinction matter?

"Hana." Miya's voice brings her back. "I never thanked you. Properly, I mean. For catching me."

"You don't need to."

"I want to." Miya straightens, turns to face her fully. "You didn't have to stay. After... everything that happened. The transformation. The contract. You could have fought. Run. Made things difficult."

"I did make things difficult."

"Not as difficult as you could have." A small smile. "Rei talks about exit strategies sometimes. Ways to break contracts. People who have done it."

I have one, Hana doesn't say. Growing every day. ¥47.8 million as of this morning's trading close.

"Why didn't you?"

The question catches her off guard. Not because she hasn't thought about it—she's thought about little else some days—but because she's not sure she has an answer.

"I don't know," she says again. "At first, it was about information. Understanding the situation. Then it was about the contract. The debt. The practical constraints."

"And now?"

Hana looks at Miya—sixteen years old, originally male, transformed three years ago to save a dying career and recover from childhood leukemia. The longest-tenured member of Prism5. The one who should understand betrayal better than anyone.

"Now I'm not sure leaving is what I want."

Practice runs from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM.

Three and a half hours of choreography, formation drills, vocal exercises, and the endless repetition that transforms individual movements into group synchronization. By the end, all five of them are sweating through their practice clothes, their muscles protesting, their voices raw.

"Lunch," Sora announces. "Thirty minutes."

They scatter—Rei to her phone, Miya to the barre for cool-down stretches, Yuki to the water station. Sora stays behind, reviewing video footage on her tablet, analyzing their formations from angles they can't see themselves.

Hana sits against the mirrored wall and pulls out her calorie tracking app. Logs the morning swim. Estimates the practice burn. Calculates what she needs for the afternoon.

"You're always doing that."

She looks up. Rei has drifted over, phone still in hand, watching Hana's screen with undisguised curiosity.

"Doing what?"

"The food math. The numbers." Rei slides down the wall to sit beside her. "It's different from how Miya does it."

"How does Miya do it?"

"With fear." Rei's voice drops. "She counts because she's terrified of gaining weight. You count because..." She trails off, waiting.

"Because it helps me think," Hana finishes. "The numbers. The patterns. When everything else is chaos, the data is... stable."

"That's what I figured." Rei stretches her legs out, working the tension from her calves. "You're not restricting. You're controlling."

"Is there a difference?"

"Huge difference. Restriction is about shrinking. Making yourself smaller. Control is about..." Rei gestures vaguely. "Keeping your grip on something when everything else is spinning."

Perceptive, one of the voices notes.

Dangerous, another warns. She's getting too close to understanding.

Maybe that's okay, suggests a third.

"You're different too," Hana says. "Since yesterday."

"The catch?"

"The way you're looking at me. Like you're reevaluating something."

Rei is quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is careful.

"I've been in this industry since I was twelve. Different company. Different group. But the same... system. You learn to read people. Figure out who's genuine, who's performing, who's dangerous."

"And what am I?"

"I don't know yet." Rei meets her eyes. "But I'm starting to think you're not what you seem. None of us are. But you—" She shakes her head. "There's something else going on. Something you're not telling us."

She's right, Hana thinks. More than she knows.

But she's not ready to explain. Not yet. Not until she understands it herself.

"When I figure it out," she says finally, "you'll be one of the first to know."

The afternoon brings vocal training, media coaching, and a two-hour session with the company psychiatrist.

Dr. Kanzaki Reiko practices from a converted conference room on the fifth floor. Her office is aggressively neutral—beige walls, beige furniture, beige carpet that absorbs sound like a sponge. The only color comes from her degrees, framed along one wall: Tokyo University. Harvard Medical School. Johns Hopkins psychiatric residency.

"How are you feeling today, Hana-san?"

The question is asked the same way every session. Clinically precise. Devoid of actual interest.

"Fine."

"Your sleep patterns show irregularity. The building's access logs indicate you've been using the pool at unusual hours."

Of course the building tracks her. Of course Dr. Kanzaki has access to that data.

"Exercise helps me sleep."

"Exercise at 5:00 AM suggests you're not sleeping to begin with." Dr. Kanzaki makes a note on her tablet. Her fingers move with mechanical efficiency. "Are you experiencing intrusive thoughts? Anxiety? Dissociative episodes?"

Intrusive thoughts: yes. Anxiety: manageable. Dissociative episodes: depends on how you define the term.

"Nothing unusual for my situation."

"Your situation." Dr. Kanzaki's tone flattens further, if such a thing is possible. "You're referring to the transformation."

"Among other things."

"The incident at yesterday's recording has generated discussion. The producer filed a report. Management is concerned."

Hana says nothing.

"Would you like to discuss what happened?"

"No."

"The recording shows you moving at speeds that exceed normal human capability." Dr. Kanzaki's eyes never leave her tablet. "Medical evaluation suggests no injury from the catch. Miya-san's psychological state has improved since the incident—she reports feeling 'protected,' which is positive for group dynamics. However, the physical impossibility of your response remains unexplained."

"Maybe the cameras were wrong."

"Multiple angles. Multiple cameras. All showing the same sequence." Now Dr. Kanzaki looks up. "I don't believe in supernatural explanations, Hana-san. I believe in psychological ones. So tell me—what did you experience in that moment?"

Fear, Hana thinks. Not for myself. For her.

And then—

Something else. Something that moved through me rather than from me.

"Instinct," she says aloud. "Training. Adrenaline."

Dr. Kanzaki makes another note. Her expression suggests she doesn't believe a word.

The session ends at 6:47 PM.

Hana returns to her apartment, showers, changes into comfortable clothes, and opens her laptop. The trading software displays overnight positions—modest gains in the Asian markets, a small loss on European currency fluctuations. Net change: +¥112,000.

Her total now sits at ¥47.9 million. Still ¥27.1 million short of the buyout clause. But closer.

You could leave, something whispers. Not today. Not this month. But soon.

Where would you go?

Anywhere. The money buys options. The skills translate. You could disappear into any city on Earth and build a new life.

Alone.

The word settles heavy.

Hana closes the trading software and opens her browser. Types "Hayashi shrine Tokyo" into the search engine.

The results are sparse. A Wikipedia article about Hayashi as a common surname. A handful of shrines with "Hayashi" in their names, none in Tokyo. A few genealogy sites that promise family history for a subscription fee.

She clicks through to the genealogy site. Creates an account. Begins entering the fragments she knows: Hayashi family. Shrine associated. Tokyo area. Pre-war era.

The database returns three matches.

The first two are irrelevant—different kanji, different regions. The third...

"Hayashi Family Shrine (廃社)," the entry reads. "Former location: Ginza, Chuo Ward, Tokyo. Status: Demolished. Notable history: Survived the firebombing of Tokyo (1945), nicknamed 'the miracle shrine.' Site now occupied by commercial property."

Commercial property. In Ginza. Where Kae appeared to meet her after that first performance.

Hana keeps reading.

"Last registered priest: Hayashi Kenji (1912-?). Status: Unknown. Family dispersed post-war. No current claimants to shrine duties."

Kenji. Her great-grandfather's name?

She doesn't know. The transformation implanted knowledge of Japanese language and culture, but not family history. That information belonged to her original life—the one reality alteration tried to overwrite.

The bloodline, something in her thinks. Kae mentioned testing. Artemis mentioned lineage. This is connected.

She keeps searching. Cross-references the Hayashi name with shrine records, war documentation, immigration databases. Hours pass. The Tokyo skyline darkens outside her window.

At 11:32 PM, she finds it.

A ship manifest from 1946. Passengers departing Yokohama for San Francisco. Among the names: "Hayashi Kenji, 34, priest (former). Family: wife Miyuki, daughter Hanako, son Isamu."

Isamu. Her grandfather's name. The name on documents she saw once, years ago, before her parents stopped talking about the old country.

Her grandfather was the son of a Japanese shrine priest. A priest whose shrine survived the firebombing of Tokyo. A priest who left Japan and never returned.

Kae, she thinks. Kae was waiting for him. For decades. For the priest who abandoned her.

And Ren—

The connection crystallizes.

Ren Hayashi. The manager who trapped her. The woman who performed the transformation.

The same family. The same bloodline. The same inherited burden.

She's still processing the implications when her door opens.

Ren stands in the hallway. Her face is pale. Her hands are shaking.

"We need to talk," she says. "About your great-grandfather."