“Thank you for listening!” Mashiro’s voice rang out, filled with warmth and excitement as she beamed at the roaring crowd. Her golden eyes swept across the sea of fans, lingering on her four bandmates who stood beside her, catching their breath after the exhilarating performance. The energy in the air was electric, the lights casting brilliant colors across the stage, illuminating their figures like celestial beings.

  The audience erupted into cheers, waving their light sticks, their voices overlapping in an overwhelming chorus of admiration. I could see the exhaustion on Mashiro’s face, but more than that, I saw joy, pure, unfiltered joy. This was her world. This was where she belonged.

  And then a crack split the sky.

  It started as a thin, jagged line, barely noticeable against the flashing concert lights. But then, with a sickening creak, it widened, fracturing like a broken mirror. Shards of glowing red scattered downward, and before anyone could react, the crack burst open. A deep, resounding roar echoed from beyond, and something started falling, a piece of the sky itself, crashing toward the stage.

  Screams. Chaos. The audience erupted in panic. People shoved against each other, trying to flee. The once-unified wave of light sticks became erratic, a mess of flailing arms and bodies as fear took over.

  From the gaping wound in the sky, portals bled into existence, dark and swirling, pulsing with an eerie crimson glow. One by one, grotesque creatures slithered, crawled, and poured out of them. Their bodies twisted unnaturally, their forms shifting between humanoid and beast, eyes glowing with unholy hunger. Clawed limbs, gaping maws, chittering sounds that didn’t belong in this world, all of it melded into a horrifying nightmare.

  On stage, Mashiro and her bandmates froze. Their instruments clattered to the floor as they stared in horror at the impending disaster.

  “That’s when it happened.” Soft, almost amused, yet undeniably eerie. I turned my head sharply, my breath catching in my throat.

  Furukawa Shiro stood beside me, her silver hair bathed in the flickering red light of the broken sky. Her eyes, calm as ever, reflected the chaos unfolding before us.

  And then everything stopped. The screams were cut short. The frantic movement of the crowd ceased in an instant. The grotesque creatures remained frozen in mid-air, some with their claws extended toward fleeing fans, others with their gaping jaws mid-snap. Even the five members of Ammonia Butterfly on stage, Mashiro included, stood completely still, their expressions locked in place, as if someone had pressed the pause button on reality itself.

  Silence. The kind that made my ears ring.

  Furukawa Shiro exhaled softly, almost wistfully, before turning to me with that same unreadable smile. A soft sigh escaped her lips, her silver eyes reflecting the frozen carnage around us.

  “We didn’t know what it was, or where it came from,” she murmured, as if recalling a distant memory rather than watching the nightmare unfold in front of us. “All we knew was that the world turned upside down from that day.”

  She gestured toward the stage with a slow, deliberate motion. Mashiro, Yuzu, and the other band members were still frozen in time, their expressions locked in a mixture of shock and terror. The creatures hovering above the crowd, mid-lunge, remained suspended like grotesque puppets with their strings cut.

  “This moment is where everything began.” She turned away, walking forward through the motionless sea of people. With each step, her silver hair seemed to shimmer unnaturally, reflecting the eerie crimson glow of the portals still hanging in the shattered sky. “You don’t remember it, do you?”

  I clenched my fists. “Remember what?”

  Furukawa glanced over her shoulder. “The first time you died.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  My breath caught in my throat before frustration took over. My hands clenched into fists as I snapped back at her, my voice echoing across the silent, frozen stadium. “Of course I do! You freaking stabbed me!”

  Furukawa, however, remained eerily calm, her expression unreadable as she shook her head. “No,” she corrected, her tone almost pitiful, as if I had misunderstood something painfully obvious. “I didn’t mean the first time you died as Mikan.”

  I froze. My stomach twisted. Before I could ask what she meant, she casually lifted her hand and snapped her fingers.

  The sound was small, barely more than a crisp click, but the moment it rang through the still air, the world lurched.

  Like a dam bursting, time resumed all at once. The crowd erupted into panicked screams, the grotesque creatures that had been hanging in midair launched themselves forward, and the stage where Mashiro and her bandmates stood trembled under the weight of the encroaching disaster.

  And then, Furukawa Shiro spoke again.

  “I meant when Mashiro died.”

  My heart barely had time to process those words before a deafening roar shook the world. The sky split.

  From one of the gaping portals overhead, a monstrous form emerged. Massive, shadowed wings unfurled, blocking out the crimson light. Glowing, molten eyes locked onto the world below as a massive, obsidian-scaled dragon descended. The impact was instant.

  The beast crashed down from the heavens like a falling meteor. A tidal wave of force exploded outward, and I barely had time to see before my vision blurred, my body flung weightlessly through the air.

  And then, darkness.

  Cold.

  Crushing.

  Nothing.

  “Wake up! Please! I’m begging you!”

  A desperate, almost unbearably adorable voice rang out, piercing through the thick fog of unconsciousness that held me captive. It was distant at first, muffled and dreamlike, like an echo bouncing through an endless void. But as it called again, clearer and more insistent, it yanked me toward the waking world like an unseen force pulling on my very soul.

  Then came the cold. A sharp, biting chill pressed against my forehead, stinging like fresh snow melting against bare skin. My body shivered involuntarily, instinctively recoiling from the freezing sensation. The contrast between the warmth of sleep and the sudden iciness was enough to jolt my senses, but before I could fully process it, a far more intense sensation struck me.

  A sharp, stinging pain shot through my wrist, sudden and fierce like a jolt of lightning surging through my veins. My entire body reacted instantly, my muscles tensing as if to flee from an unseen threat. A strangled yelp escaped my lips before I even knew what was happening.

  "Ow!" I gasped, my eyes snapping open as a wave of disoriented panic surged through me. My breath came out in uneven puffs, visible in the crisp, cold air. My senses were slow to adjust, my vision blurring for a brief moment before finally settling on the strange, surreal scene in front of me.

  The familiar warmth of a bed beneath me, the soft scent of freshly fallen snow in the air. My vision blurred for a second before finally settling on a face hovering just above me. And there, biting my wrist like some kind of adorable little gremlin, was a small girl.

  A pair of bright, icy-blue eyes filled with worry met mine. Snowflakes gently fluttered down, landing on her long, pure white hair like delicate crystals.

  “Thank goodness you’re awake!” Ai let out a long sigh, her tense shoulders finally relaxing as a small, relieved smile graced her lips. The sight of it sent an unexpected warmth through my chest, though I was still too dazed to fully grasp why.

  I groaned, rubbing my aching wrist, still feeling the dull throb where her tiny fangs had punctured my skin. "Ugh…" I mumbled, my thoughts sluggish and tangled. Then, as if my brain had finally decided to start functioning again, a stray thought slipped from my mouth before I could stop it. “Wait, you’re right… Usually, I’d still be up playing gacha games until morning…”

  Ai tilted her head slightly, her fox ears twitching with a mix of curiosity and confusion. “I don’t know what Gacha is,” she admitted, her voice soft and laced with concern. "But I was really worried when you slept through the whole night… even though you’re a fox girl."

  I yawned, stretching my arms lazily before rolling onto my side, nestling deeper into the blankets. “Yeah, yeah… I’m awake, Ai.”

  As warmth slowly returned to my limbs, I let my eyes linger on her for a moment longer. Even through the haze of grogginess, I could tell she had really been worried about me. And for some reason, that thought made my heart feel just a little bit lighter.

  "Wait, Ai?!" My voice came out more startled than I expected, my mind scrambling to catch up with reality. I pushed myself up on the bed, my ears twitching as I stared at the small girl hovering beside me. "Why are you here?"