Turns out lyric writing was still a complete slump of a process, even if you had the most brilliant idea in your head. Coming up with melodies, rhymes, and breaking up words at the perfect spots to create the best version of a story was definitely not something Kana was cut out for. At the same time, she was not going to fall down to the level of Ruby Passion and write something horrible, so she pushed through.

  Late morning turned to afternoon, and that turned to the evening before they finally got all the words down on paper. It flowed well, had a clearly distinct style to it, and it was a song that Kana herself would have liked to listen to. Now, they just needed….everything else. The music, the mixing, the singing, and the dance. At the very least, that was not until Sakai approved the lyrics.

  “He is a little busy with a Coalition meeting, so he will only be able to meet you a bit later.” Yamazaki said, adjusting his glasses over his ever-swollen eyes, “I’ll try to make it as soon as possible.”

  “Thanks!” Kana gave him a little salute in keeping with her better mood and decided to head to the training room for now.

  Pink Beats had already left and were probably getting ready for their mini-concert at whatever small stage they had bought. Now, she had more than enough time to get her Railgun up to Level 2. And she could do that while not having to worry about other things for once. The plan was going well, and the lyrics were done too.

  Dummy after dummy got vaporized into nothingness. It was highly annoying work, but it was necessary to keep herself on top of the points. Every single shot took half a minute to charge, and then a bit more to shoot and cool down. And Kana needed only sixty kills on the dummies to level up. All of that time wasted for literally no good reason, other than the fact that this random resource from the other dimension was being a bitch.

  “Thirty-seven!” Jina cheered as another dummy fell, clapping her hands. She had somehow been at full stamina for every single kill. Getting the lyrics done had certainly taken a burden off her shoulders. She had also actually liked the final product, so her happiness was understandable. Annoying and overbearing, but understandable.

  Kana groaned and put the weapon back. Falling to the ground out of exhaustion, she stretched her hands. Despite being made out of a material that was collapsible, the weapons were still quite heavy. It also did not help that Kana had been the one writing the actual lyrics because Jina’s handwriting and typing skills were horrible.

  “Come on, come on! No giving up, Kana-chan.” She cheered, “You’re the one who put this off for so long, so get back up and start shooting! It’s a fun, fun punishment, isn’t it? What was it you were telling Kelsey earlier? A class that requires no effort on your side? Haha. At least snipers don’t need to build up energy and cool down, huh?”

  Kana frowned and stood up, taking her railgun out once more.

  It was more than just that. Even with a grenade launcher, you required more precision than a sniper. At the end of the day, a bullet was simple to read. If you got it into someone’s head, they died. With a grenade, you needed to ensure you shot where it dealt the maximum damage. Where it did not only hit most monsters, but also hurt them all enough to kill them.

  She raised the gun again and let it charge. The seconds passed by agonizingly slow, ticking up with absolutely no speed, until she was ready to attack. As the blast shot out, she shot through three dummies at once. As it happened, she stood still and stared at the end of the range with a sour face.

  “Forty-one!” Jina clapped once more, “And she’s finally figured out how to use her brain to do this. Only took two whole hours, yay!”

  If Kana could strangle Jina right now, she would. Unfortunately, they had a meeting with Sakai in less than half an hour. At least the railgun would actually be Level 2 by then, now. She started letting it build up once again and hoped that Emi was having a better day.

  _____________

  Emi spent some time on the inflatable swan.

  Emi spent some time looking out of the window at the ant-like people below.

  Emi spent some time checking what parts of her building were visible from this one.

  Emi spent some time rolling around on the bed out of boredom.

  Emi spent some time making herself lunch.

  Emi considered breaking into Jina’s room, and then decided it was not ethical.

  Emi was just slightly, slightly bored.

  _____________

  “Jenga?” Sakai looked at the laptop screen in front of him, “That’s the name of your first song? Jenga?”

  Kana smiled and nodded, “Yup! It’s all about love, just as you like. About manipulating the conditions to be just right so that the person you love also falls in love with you. It’s about doing your best to show your perfect side to them and getting what you want. It’s cute, isn’t it?”

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  “Uh, let me get this right. Ohara, Minami…” He cleared his throat, “Your first song ever is about how you are going to set the stage just right to make people fall in love with you? About how you’re gonna manipulate things to work in your favor?”

  Was he catching on? Well, even if he did catch on, there was nothing he could do about it. Plausible deniability was a thing, and it applied to every single word in those lyrics. She could just say that he was putting words in her mouth by suggesting any vile subtext, and then get away with it. It was, after all, just a song about love.

  “Ahh, I don’t know what you meaann~!” Kana laughed and tilted her head with her tongue out, “What are you suggesting, Sakai-san?”

  “Well, it is obvious, isn’t it?”

  This man…

  He laughed, “You’ve made a song that describes exactly what you’re doing. You wrote the song, you came together as a duo, and are now going to prepare a performance for everyone else. This is your setup, and when you go on stage, that will be the fall of the Jenga. You’re not making some random dude fall in love with you. You’re making the fans fall for you!”

  …was an absolute fucking idiot. She praised his mother for raising him without any brains.

  “Y-yes!” Jina laughed along with him, “Ah, you’ve caught on to our writing, haven’t you? This was completely my idea, of course. Kana-chan wanted to write something boring and dark, but then I suggested we should do something more fun, like writing about love. It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Oh, it has worked wonderfully. In fact, I want you to give me a performance of this as soon as possible. Get some music and vocals on a snippet, and show me what you can do with this. If that works, then I’ll work on getting you your debut performance. Let’s just say…this Friday? How about that?”

  Kana and Jina looked at each other. Normally, this would have been a very tight deadline. But they had been preparing for this exact outcome. Everything that they had done, and every piece they had placed till now, had been to help them succeed in this avenue when the time came.

  Just now, Jina had even convinced Sakai that the lyrics had been her idea. If they had come from Kana, after all, he would have gotten wary and tried to read deeper into them. All he needed to believe was that Jina was still a yes-girl who did whatever he wanted her to do. He needed to believe that she was only into simple things like hope and love, and they would get away with everything.

  “Alright…” Kana tried to present herself as unsure as possible.

  “I know it is a tight deadline, but that will be halfway through your one-month period. You understand that, don’t you?” Sakai smiled, closing the laptop and pushing it back towards them, “Only when you get ready with this, can we start working on branding for your new duo and putting you out there to sell tickets. It is your one and only chance to prove yourself.”

  He took a break as he put his legs on the table, still confident that he was the one in control here. He was, of course. But that didn’t mean he knew everything. It just meant he was on one side of the table, and they were on the other. If you removed that table, Kana knew she already had him dancing in her palm. Now that he had also let her meet Emi, she knew she didn’t need to worry about that girl.

  “You also want your friend to be happy, don’t you?” Sakai asked, looking at Kana.

  “Yes…” She meekly answered.

  Let him believe whatever he wanted. The lesser he thought of them, the better.

  “Well, then, you can go. Start working on that dance and music immediately, got it? I am expecting great things based on these lyrics. Let’s see if we can get you to surpass the A Team already, yeah?”

  “Yes, Sakai-san!” Jina threw a fist in the air with a smile, “We won’t disappoint you at all!”

  And with that, they turned and left the room.

  Yamazaki was waiting for them outside with a cigarette between his fingers. The moment he noticed them, he put it out and threw it in the trash can, giving them a little bow as they started to move towards the elevator. Kana didn’t feel like talking to either of them for very long. There was something about Sakai that pissed her off and made her get angry again. If either of them tried to ask something right now, she was probably just going to snap at them.

  “Yamazaki-san.” She slipped right back into her authoritative tone, “Cancel all the dance lessons as planned. We’ll handle the rest for now. You can do that, right?”

  “Right away.” He confirmed, “It will be a piece of cake. Do you want me to keep the instructor available, or just permanently remove him?”

  “Ohara,” She looked at her, “Is Pink Beats’ dancing good?”

  “Not really.” Jina shook her head, “They move like children dancing at a school festival.”

  Kana smiled, “That means we’re getting rid of him, Yamazaki-san. We have no need of the person who is choreographing something like that. I’ve got someone better sitting at home right now.”

  “Emi-chan?” Her partner asked, confused.

  “Yeah.” The three of them got out of the building and into their car. “Emi used to be quite good at dancing until her father started forcing her to get into translation. She’s still better than this so-called professional who gets upstaged by school kids. We get a few hook steps and ideas from her tomorrow, and then push forward with Pink Beats and the Angels when next week’s competition begins.”

  “Can I take the Angels? Please, please, please!?”

  “Are you insane?” Kana scoffed, “That would leave me with Kelsey, all alone. Do you realize how much of a death sentence that is for my sanity?”

  “Well, I wrote whatever lyrics you wanted, didn’t I?”

  “Ugh, fine. I guess I’ll talk to that bitch.”

  The car quietly moved through the wards of Neo-Edo as they headed back for the day. It had been a fairly productive one. The Railgun was now Level 2. They had written down and gotten their lyrics passed. Pink Beats’ crumbling was getting closer and closer. Kana wondered if the people walking around the street knew right now. Whether they knew that the future queen of this entire industry was in a car right here.

  Because she could see it now. She could see it shining so clearly and brightly.

  21 chapters ahead of ScribbleHub! I will be releasing new chapters every day there until we are caught up with this new schedule. You get all of that for $8 a month, so now is the best time to check it out if you want to!