The Dance of Mahanaim (3)

She fastened the buttons of her coat one by one and smoothed her clothes into place, then picked up the tote that held her wallet and the rest of her things and slipped her phone inside. At the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠entryway she stepped into low heels and tapped her toes against the floor, working her feet the rest of the way in. Only then did Ninomae Hitomi spin about and look back into the apartment, a bright smile painted over her face.

"I'm off!"

Watching her go, Han Seoyeon lifted her right hand in a small farewell and saw her out. It was the Saturday of the week in which Mary Tepes's birthday had fallen, and today was the day of the live concert held in its honor.

The moment she stepped into the studio inside the company building, the staff were already rushing about in a flurry of work.

"Everyone's working hard."

"Ah—everyone! Lady Mary is here!"

She greeted the staffer nearest the entrance, and he called out to the others to announce that Ninomae had arrived. It was far earlier than the hour she'd been told would be fine, and yet no one looked particularly flustered. Turning up considerably ahead of a promised time was a habit of Ninomae's, famous even inside the company.

"Though I have to say, you came with your manager today?"

What he asked instead, curiosity plainly on him, was that. His gaze had gone to the figure standing behind Ninomae.

Hatsuna Miho—the manager who oversaw Anathema Production's second generation. In a position like that, picking the VTubers up and bringing them in whenever a broadcast was scheduled at the company studio was nothing out of the ordinary. But ever since Han Seoyeon had gotten a vehicle of her own, Ninomae had mostly been commuting in it, and the sight of her rolling up to the company in a tractor-trailer, trailer and all, had settled in as one of Anathema Production's local landmarks. Arriving at the studio alongside her manager was, for that very reason, something that hadn't happened in quite a long while.

"You didn't come with Sister today?"

"No. Just for today, I intend to get through the whole thing from start to finish without Shion's—without Sister's help."

A stage Mary Tepes was offering up for her servants. A performance, a festival, and above all a gift meant for them. And Han Seoyeon stood as something like the foremost of those servants. Borrowing the hands of the very person who was supposed to receive the gift was the one thing she did not want to do. For Ninomae it was a kindness that made her glad, but Mary Tepes's pride would not permit it.

"Right. Just for today."

Mary was known for a nose held high and a follow-through full of holes, and people said that very gap was her charm. Not today. So that a perfect stage would be something more than a claim she simply insisted on—a stage to which she had given everything she had. Ninomae clenched the hand around her tote until the knuckles went tight, and steeled herself.

"Um... when does rehearsal start?"

Han Seoyeon hit enter and turned her eyes from the monitor. What her gaze found was the VR headset resting on the desk—the thing Ninomae had strictly charged her to use, insisting she had to have the best possible experience. Seoyeon checked the equipment over this way and that, settled into the chair in a comfortable posture, and fitted the device onto her head. The focus and everything else had already been set.

An unlit stage opened before her eyes, and at its center a countdown to the start was ticking away. She turned her head from side to side, taking the measure of letters floating in empty air. A hologram or something of the sort would have made it no impossibility even in the real world, and still, somehow, it felt uncanny. Perhaps that was only because this was a live she wasn't used to. She had watched performances by the other VTubers of Anathema Production a handful of times, but seeing one in VR was a first.

With every dwindling of the remaining time, her heartbeat quickened. Her oshi's first stage. Telling herself not to expect anything would have been too cruel a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing to ask. Han Seoyeon opened and closed her hands, and waited for the stage to begin. Then, without thinking, she brought a hand up to her chest. The VR display hid it from sight, and even so the shape of a cross came through against her fingertips. She drew her thumb along the reverse, and a line of raised grooves met her skin. —from Tepes.

Before she knew it, less than a minute remained. At the twenty-second mark a sound effect began, like the second hand of some great wall clock on the move, and the font changed with it.

"......"

Twenty seconds. Fifteen. Ten. Five......

Han Seoyeon clenched her fist tight. The instant the count reached zero, the last tick's reverberation faded, and everything around her went quiet. A few seconds, shut inside the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠silence of the dim house. For a little while the only sound was her heart beating inside her body.

And then—.

"...!"

A sound like something violently flapping rang through the venue. Han Seoyeon jerked her head up before she knew it, and her eyes met a flock of bats shearing across the sky. The bats that had been crossing the stage left and right gathered at its center. Then they scattered in every direction all at once, and the lights snapped on with a pop. Where the flock had vanished, at the center of the stage, a single woman stood with her back turned.

Platinum-blond hair, and a dress of deep wine red. Below a hem that fell to the knee, long legs stretched straight down, sheathed in stockings. The moment a guitar riff laid itself under the stage, Seoyeon hauled in a sharp breath. Something like a current seemed to run the length of her spine. Then Mary whipped her head around. Their eyes met, and for an instant her breathing stopped.

From the entrance all the way through to the eye contact—staging that could only be done because this was a virtual space. Unlike a stage in the real world, every member of the audience was looking at it from the very same coordinates. While Han Seoyeon was lost in the thrill of it, Mary tapped a foot to the rhythm, spun her body around to the front, and began to dance.

The movement was so crisp, so exactingly disciplined, that Han Seoyeon could not help but be astonished. It was true she had only recently become able to reinforce her body, and that by the devil's magic; even so, until now there had never been an image of her this dynamic. The dancing was professional enough to wring that kind of awe out of a person. Perhaps the blinders of infatuation had something to do with it, but it was like watching one of those K-pop idol groups famous for razor-sharp synchronized choreography—or a professional dance crew.

Nor did it falter in the slightest once the song itself began. Magical assistance was an enormous cheat, and yet this was not a height one could reach by that alone. How much bone-paring practice she must have put in to finish this stage was plain as day before Seoyeon's eyes. She wanted to see how the other viewers were cheering. She wanted to smile wide and brag. This is my oshi. This is Shutang. But she hadn't the faintest thought of taking the gear off to look at the chat. No—even if she had set a chat window to float at one edge of the VR view, she could not have turned her eyes that way. Han Seoyeon simply could not tear her gaze from Mary.

The instant she thought it, Mary flashed a confident grin and looked at Han Seoyeon once again. It was an expression the proud Shutang wore often. On an ordinary day it would have been a smile Seoyeon watched in warm contentment, thinking this, too, was cute. Just for now, though, it felt like an impossibly fitting smile, and an impossibly cool one. Seoyeon's pulse sped harder, and her face began to burn as if she had turned into a girl in the middle of puberty.

"Ah......"

A sigh slipped out of her before she knew it. It seemed she had gone and fallen for Mary all over again—and not for Ninomae alone.

"Shutang is the best—!"

The first song had not even run five minutes. By the time it ended, that alone had already bewitched Han Seoyeon completely, and she was clapping, the cry torn out of her.

The song ended in a pose with her arms flung wide, and Mary Tepes gasped for the breath she had been holding down in order to sing. A single thread of sweat ran along the nape of her neck. A moment later, Ninomae pulled her eyes from the monitor. It was the final image going out over the broadcast: her movements recognized, Mary's model moving in answer, a handful of effects laid over the top. And Mary grinned, and set one hand on her hip with a flourish.

"Konmea! Anathema second generation—the vampire queen who will one day rule this world, Mary Tepes!"

A greeting thrown out with her core braced, as if she were shouting with everything she had. The other monitor, the one with the chat left open, was dyed from edge to edge in Konmea. Looking at it, Mary felt a tingling buzz run through her limbs. So this was what the first-generation seniors had meant, and Serena, who had held a live stage before her—a live is a burden, but it's worth it. She understood it well enough now.

"That was the first song of my very first live concert. How was it?"

Anathema Production's birthday lives were, by tradition, built to run about an hour. There were stretches of rest in between, time to talk with the viewers, but even allowing for those, it could feel like far too long a span for anyone who had never stood on a stage before their VTuber debut. The first generation being a menagerie of monsters had a great deal to do with that. Descendants of oni. Bodies warped by vampires. Contractors bound to devils. Even Yugure Tama, the nearest of them to an ordinary human body, was a shrine maiden who served a god, and a woman who kept exercise as a hobby besides. Thanks to the precedent those women had set, Serena—who had done her live in January—had apparently spent days afterward in the grip of muscle pain.

In any case, within a sixty-minute structure of that kind, a mere five minutes. No—strictly counted, a shorter time than that. And yet that alone was enough for Mary to fall headlong into the rapture of a stage.

"Well then, let's go straight on to the next song. Yes, well. It isn't an original, I'm afraid. Or rather, I still don't have all that many original songs, you see?"

Ten months since her debut. The feel of it might have been halfway to an idol's, but strictly speaking her main work was closer to a YouTuber's than a full-time singer's. She had yet to put out so much as a full album, so this many songs could even be called generous. Even so, it was not enough to fill all sixty minutes with her own tracks alone.

This can't be helped. But someday.

Mary glanced once more toward the broadcast feed. The screen showed not only the stage but a portion of the house, and that house was packed with the black silhouettes of an audience. It was nothing more than a backdrop. In truth there were surely enough people watching to fill a house of that size, and yet the space all of them actually occupied came to a single person's worth. Because everyone was watching from the same angle, even a piece of direction like meeting every eye at once was possible.

Shion is in that seat too, isn't she.

She would be watching this from over there. Mary looked that way again, so her eyes might meet Han Seoyeon's. What did she look like now? Was she letting out a cheer, or had she frozen stiff and become unable to do anything at all? She wanted to draw closer. She wanted her to see something even more splendid. She wanted her to drink her fill, without holding back, of this stage that Mary Tepes had prepared with everything she had.

A little more. A little more......

"So, the next song I'll be singing is... the opening of an anime I really love. I imagine quite a few of my servants will have caught on from no more than that..."

The anomaly struck in that very instant.

...Ah?

Her vision flickered for a moment. Mary had the feeling that, for the barest instant, she had seen her own figure directly with her own eyes. Had she sunk too deep into the stage? A sudden vertigo crashed over her and she swayed, and yet a few blinks brought her sight back to what it had been. The monitor with the broadcast feed up on it. The assorted streaming equipment set behind that. And the staff, the air around them considerably unsettled......

It was a strange atmosphere. Every one of them had frozen, staring at Mary. Bewilderment spread. It did not take long to realize that the something running from her nose was a not-inconsiderable quantity of blood. This was not the sticky seep of an ordinary nosebleed. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠poured out in a gush, as if something inside had burst. Drip. Drop. The blood that struck the floor made a small pool.

Why...?

Mary's own eyes flooded with bewilderment. A little of the blood that had run backward pooled in her mouth as well. Fatigue? No—she had settled the entire physical burden with magic. Had the faith she carried run dry? Or had she leaned too far on the devil's power, and the recoil come due? A curse, or something of that sort, was probably not it. The holy relic necklace Han Seoyeon had given her ought to be serving as a protective charm.

Only around then did some of the staff get their wits about them. Someone nearby snatched up tissues and started toward her to hand them over. Mary stopped that approach with her eyes alone.

Do not interrupt my stage.

At a sharp look seldom seen from the usual Ninomae, the approaching staffer's steps halted dead. Even in a situation like this, Mary Tepes would not let it show. There was no reason to worry the viewers over nothing. As if something of this degree could break the flow of the stage. If anything, her mind felt clearer than it had a moment ago. And so, for the audience watching through the filter of a 3D avatar, it would look as though nothing at all had happened.

A raw metallic taste filled her mouth, but she paid it no mind. No—for the stage of a vampire queen, did it not suit her all the better? Mary Tepes put on that confident grin once more.

"All right, then—here I go...!"

The live, after all, had only just begun.