All of Us Together in One Place (1)
“...Bansei-san, the firepower really was beyond anything I imagined.”
In the car running along the road, Ninomae Hitomi murmured it with open admiration. Quite some time had already passed since Bansei Marin's stage ended, and still she sat sunk in a strange, lingering afterglow.
“To think so many people besides Alejandra-san would cheer that passionately.”
“Longtime fans. Not an opportunity they could possibly let slip.”
Hitomi was in the passenger seat. Beside her, hands on the wheel, Guroyuki Sui answered without a ripple in her voice.
They were heading for the filming studio the Hyakurenno Group had prepared for them. A little longer and the sun would begin to set, so they could not afford to stay where they were. The VTuber stages were clustered through the middle and latter half of the program — not because Hyakurenno's backing had bought them a favorable slot, but simply because an outdoor stage had a practical flaw: in strong sunlight, the footage refused to show. There was still a fair stretch of time before their own performance, yet it demanded far more technical work than an ordinary concert, which meant they needed to arrive early and prepare. That was why the two of them, booked to perform today, were making for the studio now.
“If an oshi who retired something like ten years ago said she was performing again, there's no way you could sit still.”
“Well... that's true.”
“And for all anyone knows, today's stage as Bansei Marin might be the last.”
That, too, was fair. Hitomi nodded.
The president of Anathema Production — a man with a slight defect in the part of the brain responsible for common sense — had put forward a plan to drag Komori Sae's true self out into the open as well, both to let Bansei shake off what she still clung to and to whip up a spectacle. Bansei Marin being given a performance under her own name at this festival sat squarely along that same line. The stage, in other words, was a one-off event strictly for promotion. Nothing guaranteed the like would ever happen again. If anything, it carried the feeling of a true and final close.
A comeback after ten years, and a retirement stage in all but name. Fans who still longed for her would have spent a fortune to be in that crowd.
“Dee-chan really does have a head for this sort of thing. Vicious, even, depending on how you look at it.”
All those people who had loved Bansei so fiercely. They had just been made to face the end of the oshi they adored, and now the VTuber from the company where Bansei had been active since her retirement was slid neatly out in front of them and spoon-fed to them like a finished meal.
Some among Bansei's fans had surely already migrated over to Komori Sae as naturally as water finding a channel, but most had not. A conventional idol and a VTuber who held concerts sat a considerable distance apart. It wasn't that they recoiled from the subculture crowd everyone liked to sneer at as weebs and shoved them away. People like that certainly existed. Far more numerous, though, were those who didn't even know that Bansei Marin had been reincarnated as Komori Sae and was working as a VTuber. Some had never heard of VTubers at all. Others knew the word and simply felt no interest. There would even be fans of Bansei Marin who watched some particular VTuber channel and still had no idea who Komori Sae was.
Even within the livestreaming industry, culture split often enough along company, crew, and platform that unless the person you watched happened to collab with her, or the algorithm happened to surface her, you might never encounter her at all. And Anathema, prizing as it did the chemistry among its own people, could hardly be called generous with outside collaborations. On top of that, an unwritten rule of the VTuber world held that so long as one maintained anyway, that's not me, the press and its like would not go around announcing that Bansei Marin was working as a VTuber.
Even so, a past-life fandom was, from a company's point of view, an irresistibly sweet chance at fresh viewers. There was always the danger that a mass influx would turn invasive, drive out the existing audience, and overturn the mood of the stream... but President Gyokichi seemed convinced that Komori Sae's broadcast had settled in firmly enough by now that it would not be shaken by anything on that scale.
This, then, was the opening move in claiming Bansei Marin's old fans as a slice of the viewer pie, and calling it vicious was not far wrong. At this point it was practically a hostage stunt. Haha! Your oshi belongs to us!
The earliest version of the plan had been to book Bansei Marin and Komori Sae on the same day, pry open the mouths of fans fresh from the retirement concert, and cram the reincarnation straight down their throats. In the end, worries that it would place too heavy a burden on Bansei carried the day, and the two were split across separate days. Even so, they apparently could not bring themselves to abandon the spoon-feeding. A brief surprise appearance, a featuring spot, was arranged for the middle of Guroyuki Sui's stage — that is, the VTuber Tachibana Rin's.
“Sometimes I really do wonder if there's a human heart in there at all.”
“Ahaha... well, it is a bit of an excessive hostage drama.”
Hitomi let a small laugh slip at Guroyuki's words.
Of course, no human heart was closer to a joke than anything else. From someone else it might have landed differently; coming from Guroyuki, it was all the more so. Nakabashi Gyokichi was the benefactor who had taken her in after she lost her expressions and opened the path of a VTuber for her. A heartless from that mouth could hardly have been sincere.
“But if we're talking hostages, aren't you in a similar position, Guroyuki-san?”
“I'm an actress. One who retired before she was even an adult. Very different circumstances from Bansei-chan, who was active for quite a long while and was a singer outright.”
She had possessed skill enough to draw notice as one of the next generation, and there really were fans who had followed her all the way to the VTuber broadcasts, but the difference from Bansei lay, in the end, in the field itself being different. I can see a concert by the singer I loved, even through an avatar — that had a powerful pull. Guroyuki putting on Tachibana Rin's avatar and appearing in a drama was another matter entirely.
And once she had lost her expressions, the very appeal she pursued had changed at the root. Most of the praise back then had amounted to if she can act like this at that age, the future is something to look forward to, so from the moment that was lost, it was honestly better not to expect too much. In short, Guroyuki's appearance on television, paired as a set with Bansei's, had been for no grander purpose than straightforward promotion.
“Whatever the case, we only have to prepare for our own part. The rest belongs to the company.”
“You're right... that's true.”
They had only to give their all to their own roles. The company stood behind them for exactly that, and Anathema Production was, in its own way, an enterprise one could trust.
Before long Guroyuki pulled into the parking lot and eased the car to a gentle stop.
“Shall we go get ready, then?”
“Yes. Let's.”
This time the VTubers' stages ran back to back. The performances required all manner of technical elements, and the schedule had been drawn with that convenience in mind.
Chosen to bat first was Sarah Groothuizen.
The reason for that decision, too, was technical convenience. She alone conducted her motion capture in a different studio, and the arrangement had followed from it. Personal circumstances kept her from coming as far as Japan, so she would take part by transmitting data captured at a studio overseas.
In truth, of course, it was because she did not materially exist in reality — but that was not something one could say openly in front of others. Even to someone who knew the hidden world, airing a particular VTuber's real life was a breach of manners.
Among the VTubers from other companies, some had been looking forward to it, wondering whether they might finally lay eyes on the true form of Sarah, so steeped in mystique. Once they learned how things actually stood, their faces had fallen considerably. Perhaps they were fans of a rather serious order. It was common enough, among VTubers, to choose this path out of admiration for another VTuber.
The same thing happened in other corners of subculture, anime among them, but a VTuber was, if one had to put it a certain way, a case in which the person herself was the work, and so the tendency stood out all the more.
“What do I do. Sarah-chan is too pretty...!”
...And confirming that guess was not difficult in the least.
The waiting room for the VTubers scheduled to perform today. Watching the woman bite down on her handkerchief in sheer rapture, Hitomi smiled wryly.
Should I arrange a phone call for her later...?
The fervor was enough to put the thought in her head unbidden. Performing alongside her as she was, surely she could do at least that much.
...It would be all right, wouldn't it?
What worried her was the state Sarah Groothuizen — that is, Abraham-Delta — was in now.
Even amid the previous incident, with her faith and her sense of self badly shaken, she had kept up her VTuber work. If anything, she had been more active than before. And that, somehow, left Hitomi deeply uneasy.
It was not actually rare for someone whose mind and body were unsteady to cling all the harder to work, or to a hobby. To be honest, Hitomi herself had been there once, so she could not treat it as someone else's affair. It had been long ago — back when she was quietly, modestly streaming as an indie, before her debut as Mary Tepes — but even so.
Having learned that everything she was had been a lie constructed by someone else's hands, was she fixating on the one personality she could be sure no other hand had touched — Sarah Groothuizen? Hitomi could not help the worry. And if that were the case, she would not want to meet anyone as the personality on the inside, rather than from beyond the avatar. Which was precisely why Hitomi had been reluctant to reach out to her.
Now that they were sharing a stage, they had exchanged messages a few times... but those had been written while scrupulously maintaining Sarah's persona. They could not serve as proof that her present state was a good one.
And yet that was exactly why a need remained to face another person as the one on the inside. So Hitomi thought. Perhaps, then, it would be all right to reach out indirectly, under the guise of introducing her to a fellow VTuber sharing the stage. If Abraham's condition was not at its very worst, the chance was good enough.
She worried she might be meddling too far, but if she was refused she could simply give up at once, and on that thought Hitomi made her decision. Even if she did reach out, it would have to wait until after the performance.
She turned her gaze to the broadcast feed. On it, Sarah was smiling brightly. The first song had only just ended, and she was in the midst of a tremendous cheer.
From the very first number she had unveiled lavish staging possible only because she was a VTuber, and high notes of an astonishing caliber, seizing in a single stroke even the interest of people who were not VTuber fans. She had been chosen as the first VTuber to perform with exactly this in mind as well: seize the momentum from the very start.
Knowing the truth, Hitomi could not help thinking those high notes were a little bit of a cheat... but a red pill, more often than not, was better left unswallowed.
Whether or not she had any sense of what Hitomi was thinking, Sarah still looked out over the audience one by one with that same confident air, then brought her foot down with a solid thud.
Please, listen.
The Barren Star
Her stage had only just begun.