Q&A Stream: Ask Nia Anything!
Two full days had already passed since Nia's re-debut stream.
Surprisingly, the arrival of a self-proclaimed virtual idol had stirred up no small amount of waves across the internet.
The revival of a virtual idol who had thrived before the Great War!
…A keyword like that was bound to spark curiosity. For internet journalists who lived and died by page views, and for anyone who made a living in that orbit, it was the kind of story you simply had to dig into at least once.
Of course, she hadn't generated the kind of massive buzz that would catapult her into the mainstream. Virtual idols were still an unfamiliar concept, and the people paying attention remained a minority. For a girl who had only been known for about a week, widespread recognition was going to take a little more time.
Meanwhile, on certain boards, the people who had insisted Nia was real were crowing in triumph, gleefully mocking the losers who had tucked their tails and fled. Their reaction was only natural. Those who had claimed her revival was nothing but manufactured hype had spent ages hurling personal attacks at anyone who believed otherwise. Call it karmic payback — the price you paid for going all-in before the cards were fully on the table.
Even so, a pocket of holdouts remained — people clinging to a kind of skeptical neutrality. From their perspective, Nia's brief appearance left far too many things unexplained.
For one, before the Great War she had clearly been a 2D model, yet now she looked like a real person — an unrealistically beautiful one, sure, but a person all the same. For another, the company that supposedly salvaged her data was still completely unidentified, even after the stream had gone live. And finally, for all the talk of recovering data from roughly eighty years ago, nothing about that first broadcast had particularly highlighted the fact.
To critical eyes, there was still enough that felt off to keep them from declaring her a total fraud with absolute certainty. If those points weren't properly addressed or clarified soon… the backlash could become more than she could handle.
Had Nia's side anticipated that reaction all along? Just as fresh doubts began to creep in, a notice appeared on her official Olive board.
A Q&A. Put another way: questions and answers.
For believers and skeptics alike, it was a golden opportunity to peel back the veil of secrets that still hung over her. In that sense… the bait was irresistible.
> Stream activated.
Unlike last time, Nia's stream opened on a bright sky-blue waiting screen, overlaid with a cheerful, upbeat BGM. Compared to the silent black void of her first broadcast, this waiting screen actually looked the part of a virtual idol's show.
Even so, the pre-stream chat still had a sharp edge to it. Nia's re-debut could certainly be called a success — but not enough of one to shift the posture of those who viewed the whole situation with skepticism. Unresolved questions and deep-seated preconceptions formed a high wall that had stripped the fun right out of the experience for them.
With over a thousand people packed into a chat with no moderator, the rising temperature was perhaps inevitable. The words flying back and forth gradually shifted from banter into barbs designed to tear each other down. And since Nia's side still hadn't made any move to shut it down, the more aggressive chatters were just starting to pour real venom into the fight when—
The waiting screen suddenly cut to the live feed, and Nia herself popped into view.
Fight or no fight, the welcoming flood of chat from viewers greeting her arrival shoved the increasingly hostile messages clean off the screen.
Silver hair that seemed to catch and scatter light. Purple eyes like gemstones set in an impossible face. Features so perfectly beautiful you could sculpt a doll and never come close. Before she was a living witness to the pre-war era, before she was a new icon of the old civilization… she was simply a presence overflowing with charm.
Instead of the military-style uniform from her first stream, Nia was wearing a thin, functional set of athletic clothes. The uniform was cute, but the sportswear that showed off her lines was great too! Most of the viewers watching her were reacting positively.
But that warm welcome… instantly turned into a wall of question marks at what she did next.
She had been standing quietly on a mat laid out on the floor. Then she glanced once at the camera, planted her hands on the ground — and flipped herself completely upside down.
And she wasn't done. With a smooth, fluid motion, she arched her body backward as if folding at the waist. Her toes drifted naturally toward her head, her back tracing a near-perfect circle.
The pose was called Scorpion Pose — named for the way the toes curled up like a scorpion's tail. It was one of the positions from yoga. Pulling it off with that slender frame of hers — model-long limbs paired with a face that still looked so young — was an astonishing performance.
It was certainly an attention-grabber. A pose so difficult you could barely imagine copying it had flipped the entire mood of a chat that had been about to descend into pure toxicity. But among everyone currently in the chat, not a single person actually understood what she was doing. And maybe that was only natural — in this world, yoga was one of those old cultural practices that had long since been forgotten and lost.
Nia explained it for the puzzled viewers, then shifted poses as if it cost her nothing at all. Crow Pose, thighs drawn tight against her stomach. A handstand with both legs split front and back into a twisting variation. The overwhelming core strength, the extreme physical balance, the exceptional flexibility — all three working in perfect concert. Viewers forgot to even type, staring blankly at her in a daze.
Apparently deciding that was enough, Nia — still upside down — planted her hands, flipped her body in a smooth whirl, and landed properly on her feet. Not a single drop of sweat. Completely unfazed, she looked into the camera… then, with a faintly embarrassed air, pointed at the viewers and called out:
The second time was a little less mortifying than the first, apparently. Nia's face didn't turn bright red the way it had before. She just gave the camera a bright little smile and added, with full confidence:
It might as well have been a bold declaration of war — a promise to meet every skeptical gaze head-on and break straight through.