Through the Door (2)
"So what you're saying, Yuri..."
Ninomae Hitomi gazed off into the distance for a moment, as if sinking into thought, and then spoke.
"You're set on throwing a concert outright, under Hyakurenno's sponsorship. And a few of Anathema Production's VTubers would be on the bill as well."
"Yes. That's right. If there's anything that might lift the stock price even a little, we have to do it."
"...It won't turn into a loss, will it?"
She couldn't help worrying they were bleeding far too much red ink. A concert or two, however grandly staged, was hardly going to shake Hyakurenno Group—but listening to Yuri, this was nowhere near the only thing Hyakurenno had in motion. A concert was simply the only sort of proposal that would reach as far as Mary. The company was wearing out its shoes in every direction, defending the share price by any means it could find, and Hitomi couldn't shake the feeling that they were pushing themselves too hard.
"We still have to. If Hyakurenno stock—something people treated as a safe asset—falls too far, the Arakawa River is going to fill up with people."
"......"
A saying had been making the rounds, half in jest and half in earnest: leave it there and it rises, however slowly. It might wobble in the short term, but over the long haul it only ever climbed. On the stock boards, people even asked whether it wasn't safer than a savings account.
That was the monster called Hyakurenno, and the people who had laid themselves down in its vast shadow were hardly few. Only Hyakurenno itself had been shaken, but the reach of the hands it had already extended was anything but small.
What flashed through Hitomi's mind in that instant was something she had only brushed past in a general-education lecture.
"...The Lost Decade."
Japan's bubble economy of the 1980s—the years when the collapse of real estate and the securities market ruined countless lives.
"Even so, that would only be possible in the very worst of the worst. We don't believe it will come to that, either. The government will grit its teeth and stop at least that much."
Yuri answered with a smile she had to force. Perhaps she was comforting herself with the thought that this was still better than that.
"And at least, this time, only the people of the hidden world know about it. That's a mercy."
Set against the surface world, the hidden world's population was vanishingly small. The hidden world held a great deal of wealth for its numbers, yet it still could not compare with the surface. Even so, there was no room for optimism. A mass flight of hidden-world investors might set off a panic sell on the surface, or some operator might seize the opening, whip up the surface, and hunt a short. However small the hidden world was said to be, no one could say how the shock would spread once it reached the surface, and so they had to answer it thoroughly.
The reverse, though, was also true. If they could only keep a firm grip on the surface world, the affair on the hidden side would not become a serious problem. Should the good news felt by the people of the surface outweigh the downward drag of hidden-world investors pulling out, they could defend the share price well enough—and if things broke extraordinarily in their favor, they might even aim for a rebound.
The concert Yuri had proposed was one piece of that same effort. To call it bread and circuses would be a far too malicious way of putting it, even so.
"But why me, of all people?"
"Plain and simple, you have the most subscribers in the second generation. You're a celebrity in the hidden world too, so we can aim for a rebound on that side as well. ...Honestly, I don't know how much good it will do."
"Ah..."
It was such a reasonable judgment that Hitomi had nothing to say. Now that she thought about it, of course that was right.
"Besides me, who else do you have in mind?"
"For now I've only really prioritized myself and you, Miss Ninomae... I think it would be best to balance the first and second generations and keep it to about four or five."
For Anathema Production, the ideal would have been for every talent to attend. This project, though, was being led by Hyakurenno rather than Anathema, and its aim lay somewhere other than promotion. Japan might lead the world where subculture was concerned, but even there a VTuber could hardly be called mainstream—and Anathema Production had yet to claim a major's place even inside that industry.
Hitomi herself could see it coming. The moment the concert lineup dropped, someone was bound to sneer, so who even is Mary, you weeb? The company was still too slight to justify nine people eating up stage time. That four or five slots had opened at all was half Hyakurenno Yuri's consideration for her colleagues, and half a bid to ride the spectacle of the Hyakurenno heiress performing in person.
"So what will you do?"
"...Mm. I'll have to talk it over with the president first. I really do want to do it, though."
Hitomi let out a short hum and answered that way. She couldn't give a firm yes on the spot, but the offer tugged at her all the same.
She had experienced a live concert before, even if only in the form of a streamed broadcast. She had never heard cheers the way they sounded in a real hall—but the chat detonating like something unhinged, and the way her heart pounded past enduring when she secretly read the fans' write-ups after it was all over, that thrill and that feeling were hard to forget once you'd tasted them. If the chance came, she couldn't help wanting to seize it. All the more so for a concert led by Hyakurenno Group, one that would clearly dwarf every performance she had done so far.
Even among singers with a fair following, more than a few would call a show this drenched in money a chance that would never come again in a lifetime. Hyakurenno might be staggering now, but the name had always meant something of that order. If Mary had been an indie VTuber, she would have snapped the offer up before the sentence was finished.
"Well, that does sound right. I gave the president a rough explanation, but we'll need to discuss it a little further."
Yuri nodded, as if she felt the same.
"...By the way, what was that thing about TV you brought up at the start?"
"Just what it sounds like. I'm asking how you'd feel about going on a television broadcast as a panelist."
VTubers appearing on television were not entirely without precedent. They turned up as guests on programs billed as VTuber specials, and there had even been shows built entirely around the VTuber concept. Someone popular enough might appear as a solo guest. Anathema Production, of course, had done none of it yet. You could argue they sat near the top of the minors, but in the end their weight class still fell well short of the true corporate giants.
They were famous in the hidden world to a degree that bordered on suspicious, but television was aimed at the surface world as a matter of course, so that fame meant nothing. President Nakabashi had come out of a broadcasting station, so there must have been connections of some kind—though whether any relationship of real use still remained was another question.
From what I heard, the president won the lottery and then bolted straightaway, saying the plan was to do whatever felt right...
Word was that the post at the station hadn't been particularly high to begin with, so perhaps there had simply never been enough pull to carve out a slot on the air. Either way, Anathema Production and television had scarcely crossed paths until now.
"We could make a reasonable slot before the concert and use it for promotion, or we could go on afterward in the spirit of 'these are the people who became a topic after the last show' and try to draw new viewers into Anathema... This isn't settled in any detail either. It's only a rough idea, so I just wanted to ask what you thought."
"Hmm. Television..."
This, too, was plainly not something she could decide alone. She would have to speak with the president, and the decision would have to wait until it was certain who would actually take the concert stage. Thinking so, Hitomi nodded to herself.
She had done a fair amount of broadcasting, but she still couldn't call herself an expert. Internet streams and television differed completely, from their shape down to the way they were run, and it was anyone's guess how much help the knowledge she did have would even be. Anathema, by contrast, had its share of station alumni, the president among them, and fully three of its VTubers had worked in the entertainment industry itself. Hand this sort of matter to the experts, and they would see it through.
It was a far better choice than judging everything on a whim by herself. Staying out of that part entirely and leaving it to them would not be a bad approach at all. Some might think it a little irresponsible, but wasn't this exactly why an MCN existed, and why it had a staff?
...It would take quite a long time before she learned how naive that thought had been.
"Um... President?"
"What is it, Miss Ninomae? If something doesn't sit well with you, please do say so."
"No. I... I think I'm all right. I mean the project I agreed to appear on."
"Ah... then what seems to be the problem?"
"Not my project. The broadcast Miss Kuroyuki and Miss Bansei are going on separately."
"That one? It is an independent station, but the time slot is quite good. I consider it an excellent project."
"No—the guest list has both their real names and their virtual names written on it!"
"Aha. Is that what you mean? Please don't worry. The virtual name isn't inside parentheses. It's written after a comma, isn't it? That isn't marking who the person inside the VTuber is. It means they appear separately, as distinct guests."
"That's even more of a problem!"
Hitomi recalled a sentence she had once seen on the internet.
A line to that effect.