The Agencies Coalition Headquarters was a suitably lavish building. Rising high above the neon-painted streets of Neo-Edo, it was imposing without standing out too much. Unless one was too deep into a rabbit hole, they would probably just look at it and brush it off as another building owned by some rich dude they knew nothing about. And for a group that wasn’t meant to go public no matter what, that was ideal.

  Kana got out of the sedan first, followed by Jina. Nobuko had been riding shotgun, so she took a more roundabout way. Not that Kana cared. She kept the girl in her thoughts, but only because her cuteness hadn’t been ruined by her brain-dead behavior. There was still enough time for her to endear herself to Kana again. Especially after that monstrous test result from the therapist’s facility.

  Without waiting for Aiko to lead her, she started walking to the main entrance. The black veil and coat that she had been given were more than enough to do everything she needed. It signaled to any lurkers that her identity was not for them to know, and it told the guards at the gate that they needed to open the gates for her. That was exactly what happened. Even though she didn’t have the representative in front of her, she stepped right into the building.

  Kana smirked. She could get used to this feeling. Nay, she was going to get used to this feeling. She wiped the smile off her face and stopped that happy feeling. There was nothing fun about something that was going to happen to her every day. Nothing special about having someone else open your doors. A year from now, that would be her reality, and nobody was stopping her.

  She stopped at the elevator and looked back at the others. Jina and Nobuko walked behind Aiko, speaking in hushed tones. Once they got to her, Aiko smiled, “Want to do the honors?”

  Kana reached out for the card that she was passing her and slid it into her hands. Pressing it against the sensor to call the elevator, a single satisfying beep confirmed that it had worked. She passed it back to Aiko without looking, and the doors opened. All the while, despite her best efforts to convince herself that she was overreacting, a wave of giddiness took over her. This was it. This was everything she needed in life. This validation of her existence.

  The elevator ride was funny. To her, at least.

  Jina and Nobuko stopped talking because they clearly did not want Aiko and Kana to hear their discussion. Aiko took out a tablet and started to tap some numbers into a database sheet. Kana, meanwhile, paid attention to the number rising on the digital display above the doors. Higher and higher, they went all the way to the forty-fourth floor. There were fifty in total, which made her a bit mad, but this was still fine.

  Together, all four of them got off and entered through the main door. This one, she let Aiko handle. She didn’t open doors. Any doors.

  Sitting in front of them were seven old men in chairs. The heads of the major agencies that ran the industry, and the ones who had signed the devil’s deal with the government. Kana did not know which one belonged to which, since she had never cared enough to check. They meant nothing to her. All she knew was that one of them was going to be the one who would make her dreams come true.

  Standing beside the four other girls who had been brought in other than them, Kana felt slightly accomplished. Seven months ago, she had been bickering with her family about quitting her studies. Now, she was standing in front of some of the richest bastards in the country. Without any instructions, she took the veil and coat off and threw them to the ground.

  With a beaming smile, tongue out and hand in a victory pose, she laughed, “Kana Minami is here! Nice to meet you, you all!”

  Four of the men smiled. One laughed. The other two remained silent. Death to them, for all she cared. Those five reactions had been enough for her. Aiko cleared her throat, and that made the other girls drop theirs too. Instead of being as loud as her, though, they just took their names and gave the men short bows.

  Kana didn’t get why all of that was necessary. They were all humans here. Some rich and some poor, sure. But that was no reason to bow to them. She stood as she was, looking into the eyes of every single one of them. They needed to know who they were looking at. The biggest star they had ever seen. One that was going to uproot their darling, Ruby Passion, and take their place.

  One of these bastards owned them, didn’t he?

  “I’ll just quickly announce the scores.” Aiko walked forward and gave them a quick nod. The men nodded back, and she pulled out the tablet. That is what she had been working on in the elevator.

  Kana looked at their expressions carefully. She knew that the points didn’t mean anything, but they would still pay attention. At the end of the day, skill in every avenue triumphed over everything else. But if there was a girl who was average at doing everything, but amassed insanely high points, she would be a blind pick. At the end of the day, it was the points that led to a larger audience.

  And once you had the audience, you could feed them whatever trash you wanted and disguise it as a flashy, cute melody. Merch still sold. Money still rolled in.

  “Sakura Kato gathered 1925 points.”

  Blue dress, no distinguishing features. A fake blonde wig.

  “Yuko Kamioka gathered 1740 points.”

  Better looking girl with brown hair. But her dress was a dull orange.

  “Kana Minami gathered 2325 points.”

  A grin spread across her face. She looked at the impressed faces of the men, and a satisfying chill spread across her body. This was her day. This was the day.

  Aiko read out the points of two more girls, but Kana could not care to listen or pay attention. None of them was even close to her score. One even scored below 1000. She was only here because she looked that good. That one, Kana was not going to deny. She was way, way prettier than Nobuko. But she also had a nasty attitude that Kana didn’t prefer in her girls.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Jina Ohara gathered 2175 points.”

  Kana looked at the girl with a smug expression. Jina looked at her too, which certainly surprised her. But while she was busy putting her down with a tease with her tongue, the goth girl just smiled and gave her a wink. What a bitch. It pissed Kana off. Somehow, despite being such a fake, Jina just had a way of getting under her nerves. Kana turned away and decided to ignore her.

  Then, the final score.

  “Nobuko Kimura gathered…” Aiko stopped, as if she was making sure that it was a mistake. Then, she tapped a few times and went through six different slides on her tablet before shaking her head and nodding, “Nobuko Kimura has gathered 3890 points.”

  A strange silence settled across the room. The men leaned closer to each other and started whispering. Kana stayed still. For a second, she wondered if Aiko had read the points wrong. That maybe she had read some other number completely unrelated to the competition. But that was not possible. She was better than deluding herself like that. Kana had lost.

  She had lost to that quiet, shy girl. Or rather, whoever that monster posing as a shy girl was. Kana took a glance at her, but only found the same pitiable face that she had seen throughout the day. Nothing new. Nothing impressive.

  “What class is Nobuko Kimura?” one of the men finally asked.

  Aiko looked at Nobuko, and then at him, “Nobuko Kimura’s class is classified. It will only be revealed to the agency that signs her.”

  Kana clicked her tongue. It was only after everyone stopped and looked at her that she realized that she had done it a bit too loudly. She looked up and met their eyes. Then, with a sly laugh and hand on her head, she tilted her neck and explained with her always-cute, always-dependable voice,

  “Ahh, what a shame. I really wanted to know what Nobuko-chan got! She has such an amazing point total that I got excited to find out how she did it. But that’s a trade secret, huh? That makes me sad…”

  One of the men nodded. He was the one who had laughed at her introduction before. White suit with a yellow shirt inside. He looked at her and spoke up, “Well, if she told everyone, then it would become a massive contention issue. The secret is what keeps the competition alive, Minami-san.”

  “Yes, I understand!” She chirpily agreed, “Thank you for the clarification, sir!”

  He waved her off with a smile.

  Aiko then brought the situation back under control and moved the program forward. With another swipe of the tablet, she began the final recruitment, “Well then, we will be going in order of points gained. That means Nobuko Kimura will be up first. You can now begin presenting your contracts!”

  The men burst into a clamor. Four of them stood up and took papers out of small briefcases beside them. Loudly, trying to impose themselves, they made their way to Aiko and started handing them to her. A few tried to address Nobuko directly, but she cringed and hid behind Jina in terror. The goth bitch, obviously, gave her full cover with a caring smile on her face.

  Once the men were done handing in their contracts, they went back and settled down. Then, another one of the men stood up. In a bright red suit, he was certainly making a statement. But at the same time, he hadn’t stood out until now. Spiky hair and inconspicuous sunglasses even inside the building. He handed his contract to Aiko and sat back down.

  The process did not last long after that. The representative presented the papers to the idol, and she started to go through them one by one. For some reason, she also invited Jina to participate in her selection ritual. And so, with the help of both Aiko and her new best friend, she decided upon the contract.

  Aiko stepped to the center and announced, “Nobuko Kimura has decided to join Lilac Shower. She will now be in the care of President Kenji Tanaka.”

  As Kana shuddered with anger, the man in the red suit gave the girl a quick nod. She also happily bowed back to him, and that was that. Aiko started Kana’s audition, and four more men stood up with contracts. But that didn’t matter to her. She had stopped paying attention. Her eyes were locked on Kenji. This was the man.

  This was the man who had given those girls a stage. The man who owned Lilac Shower, and under that banner, Ruby Passion. Those girls who put out such disgrace in the name of music. The group led by that bitch A-

  “Minami-san?”

  “Yeah?” She looked back up with her cheery personality.

  It was Aiko with all the contracts. Kana took them from her and started to go through them one by one. All of them were offering middling amounts of money, but that was to be expected. There was nothing special about it. She put the third contract aside and looked at the final one. Within a second, she knew this was it.

  Kana looked up at the men and then back at the contract. In that split second, she noticed the disgusting smile on the man with the white suit. She paid a bit more attention to his face and hair. Or, well, lack of it. He was a completely bald man with a thick French beard. The one who had made this dastardly contract. One specially crafted for her after that interview.

  Eight hundred thousand yen per month. She would also get to keep ninety percent of the profits from any commercials or promotions she did. Last, but not least, an apartment in the greater Neo-Edo area. A semi-luxury property, all signed in her name, in Ward B. It wasn’t her goal. Nowhere close to it. But it was something. It was closer than she had ever been before.

  Sure, she would have to put in extra hours in return, and the schedule was a bit too evil, but that didn’t matter to her. She wasn’t going to adhere to it anyway. All she needed to do was talk her way out of this hellish work, and he would do it. Kana knew one thing, and it was how to twist dirty men like him to do her work. So, she accepted it. She took the contract without a second thought.

  “Kana Minami has decided to join Sakai Entertainment. She will now be in the care of President Ryu Sakai.”

  She looked at him and gave him a quick bow. He waved her off once more with a smile.

  And that was that. That was all she needed to make her day better. The auction continued, but she did not need to know anything else. She was getting a better payment than any of the other girls here. Tomorrow, at this time, she would be halfway to her dream already. It wasn’t the billions and trillions she wanted, but she was going to leave her mark from here on.

  Nothing could stop her. Nothing could ruin this. Absolutely nothing.

  “Jina Ohara has decided to join Sakai Entertainment. She will now be in the care of President Ryu Sakai.”

  As the other men erupted in anger over such unfairness, Kana’s hearing went silent. She looked at the floor, unable to discern if it was fear, anger, or shame. All she could do was whisper.

  “Eh?”