The lights in the performance hall up front dimmed, but the fluorescent lights in the backstage corridor were glaringly bright.
Kizuna sat in front of the vanity mirror, her fingers plucking at her bowstring. She gently pulled back the silver-white string and let it go, releasing a faint hum.
The stage costume she wore was the same outfit from her first transformation in the hospital room.
Her long hair cascaded down, the tips dyed a silver-white that matched Star-trail's color scheme.
“Three more acts to go,” the manager said, poking half her body through the crack in the door. “How are you feeling?”
“...Great,” Kizuna replied, nodding to her reflection in the mirror.
The manager gave her a cheering gesture, and the door clicked shut again. The sound of footsteps in the corridor gradually faded into the distance.
Kizuna placed her bow on the vanity table and looked down at her slightly trembling fingers.
It was strange. She had been able to sing the entire song in one breath to Star-trail in the hospital room, yet now, just waiting backstage, her heart was beating so fast it felt like someone was drumming inside her chest.
She pressed her hand against her chest, feeling her racing heartbeat through her stage costume. She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.
It was a normal reaction before going on stage for the first time in so many years.
And it was her first time standing in front of so many people since waking up.
“Don't be nervous. You've memorized the lyrics, and you've practiced the blocking. Just pretend the people in the audience are radishes. The auditorium is dark anyway, so you can't see their faces. That's perfect—just pretend you're singing to a sky full of stars.”
She muttered to herself in the mirror, mimicking the comforting tone her older sister usually used.
Once the words left her mouth, she paused.
Her sister would never say anything about a sky full of stars. Her sister would just tell her to imagine the audience as wooden figures.
“Star-trail, are you there?” she asked, gently nudging the contract link in her mind.
There was no response.
The bright lights illuminated the empty space on her shoulder, where Star-trail usually perched.
Seisou didn't try calling again, simply keeping her awareness on the contract link deep in her consciousness.
If it was sleeping, she didn't want to wake it up.
But with that spot empty, a corner of her heart felt a little empty too.
“Pitter-patter~”
Seisou heard tiny footsteps.
Turning her head, she saw Star-trail poking half its head out from behind the curtain next to the vanity, holding something in its mouth.
Its ears popped out first, followed by the star-shaped mark on its forehead, and finally its entire face.
It leaped gracefully from behind the curtain onto the vanity table, navigating the gaps between scattered hairpins and powder compacts to walk up to her.
It set down the object it was carrying right next to her hand.
It was a glow stick.
“I took a lap around the auditorium and brought this back for you.”
Kizuna picked up the glow stick. Its warm yellow light reflected in her light purple eyes, dispelling some of her earlier anxiety.
“Where did you get this?”
“...I found it.”
A slight weight settled on her shoulder, but it quickly dissolved.
It felt like a marshmallow resting on her shoulder.
Kizuna looked at Star-trail on her shoulder in the mirror.
Star-trail was gently brushing her nape with its tail, a gesture it had done many times before.
Kizuna blinked, reaching out to pull it into her arms and burying her face in the soft fur of its neck.
She didn't squeeze or pet it like she usually did, choosing instead to lean against it quietly. Her rapid breathing gradually began to slow and steady.
“...You didn't answer when I called earlier.”
Her voice was mostly muffled by Star-trail's fur.
“I'm actually really nervous. I've been nervous since this morning—so nervous I couldn't even eat breakfast.”
“Sis says this is a normal reaction, but I'm not like her. She's Meruru.”
Her fingers rubbed back and forth across Star-trail's back, tracing from its neck down to the root of its tail. Her movements were completely disorganized, a subconscious habit born of her anxiety.
“This is your first official stage performance, so it's normal to be nervous. But not everyone gets to perform in the finale slot for their debut. The agency decided on this spot after seeing your capabilities. It wasn't just luck.”
“You don't need to compare yourself to your sister. There will be many people in the audience tonight, but even more will remember Seisou.”
“Then... do you think I can do it?” She looked up, her arms still wrapped around it.
“You can.”
She looked at it, gently cradling Star-trail in both hands and lifting it to eye level. After staring at it intently for a moment, she touched the tip of her nose to its forehead.
“The starry sky in your eyes looks so beautiful whenever it rotates. One day, I'll definitely understand it.”
If you can actually read it, I'll take your last name!
From then on, I'd be called Qiluo Asana.
What lay inside Star-trail's eyes was the starry sky of Qiluo's original world.
When she had created Star-trail, she had deliberately placed the star chart of that time into its eyes.
There was absolutely no way Kizuna could understand it!
Even if she happened to guess a few things right, the final right of interpretation still belonged to Qiluo Tian Gong!
...
After the previous idol group finished their performance, enthusiastic cheers erupted from the crowd.
The moment the stage lights dimmed, the clamor of the audience suddenly quieted down, as if someone had turned down the volume.
Only glow sticks and light boards continued to glow in the darkness, rising and falling in waves.
Kizuna stood in the shadows of the wings, the magical glow on her body pulsing softly with her breaths.
Her manager crouched beside her, helping her make final adjustments to her skirt hem, pausing when her fingers brushed against the back of Kizuna's hand.
“Your hands are so cold. Do you want a sip of water?”
“No, it's fine. It's normal for them to be cold. My hands are always like this.”
As the curtain rose, a spotlight beamed down from above, enveloping her in a shroud of blazing white light.
She felt her heartbeat sync with the intro of the opening song, and the first melody note rippled from her fingertips.
The music flooded the entire performance hall like a rushing stream.
Her hands traced musical notes in the air, each release scattering into tiny, sparkling points of light.
As she moved across the stage, the light trailed behind her in soft purple streaks. These streaks interwoven and layered, spreading out behind her like a grand musical staff.
Some audience members in the front rows reached out to catch the drifting specks of light, which quietly extinguished the moment they touched their palms.
Rei hadn't sat down once since Kizuna took the stage.
She held her glow stick higher than anyone else. Though her voice was quickly swallowed up by the crowd's collective singing, she didn't care in the slightest.
The climax of the performance arrived without warning.
Following her rehearsed movements, Kizuna drew her bowstring to its limit during the final repetition of the chorus. The arrow she shot split into dozens of tiny beams of light, fanning out to cover the space above the entire stage.
This was supposed to be her most magnificent release of the night. She had already mentally prepared her next sequence of movements.
Lower the bow, turn around, and smile directly into the spotlight.
But the instant the light beams burst apart, she heard a discordant sound that didn't belong to any part of the melody.
It sounded like shattering glass.
While her bowstring was still vibrating, her fingers had already instinctively reached for the string again.
The spotlights continued to move according to their pre-programmed paths, leaving the center of the stage dazzlingly bright. However, in a dark corner at the back of the stage, something was beginning to take shape.
At that moment, the magic in the air fell out of balance.
Standing beneath the spotlight, Kizuna watched the light arrow on her bowstring shift from a pale purple to a warning silver-white.
She could feel its presence seeping out from the shadows.
The folds at the edge of the curtains began to quiver unnaturally. From backstage came the hushed but unmistakably panicked static of a walkie-talkie.
Kizuna stood right in the center of the stage, the spotlights rendering her almost translucent.
She knew exactly what she was supposed to do right now.
As a Magical Girl, the number one rule was to ensure everyone's safety.
Turn around, face the shadows, and draw the bow.
But her fingers froze on the bowstring, her pounding heartbeat completely drowning out the music.
The audience below was still cheering, entirely oblivious to the anomaly on stage.
She opened her mouth, wanting to use the contract communication to call Star-trail.
But before she could utter a single syllable, a razor-thin thread of warm white light lit up in the dark corner at the wing of the stage.
The thread of light slid silently out from the folds of the curtain, wrapping with absolute precision around the Erosion Body's forelimb as it crept out of the shadows, dragging it violently back into the darkness.
The Erosion Body's screech was completely swallowed by the roar of the speakers. Not a single member of the audience noticed anything amiss.
But Seisou saw it. She saw it crystal clear.
Rate on N.U.
