Chapter 95: Not Enough

I sat in front of the mirror in the waiting room, holding my phone sideways and watching the livestream.

The countdown on the screen was already over. Contestants took the stage one after another, and Mira Solis’s voice faded into the background whenever the music swelled. Even with the door closed, I could hear some of the applause from beyond the hallway before it reached my phone.

I gathered the skirt of my wedding dress around the chair. Umbrella supported my broken arm, keeping it close to my body. Sitting in the same position for too long made my shoulder ache, forcing me to adjust my posture.

Just as I was about to look at the comments scrolling along the bottom of the screen, the hall lights went out.

KuroNeko’s name was announced.

‘Let’s see what someone with two million followers can do…’

I brought the phone a little closer.

For several seconds, nothing was visible onstage. Then a single bell rang. An old temple appeared on the screen behind the stage, its stone steps cracked. One side of its red gate hung crookedly, and mist drifted down between the steps. As it blended with the real fog spreading across the front of the stage, it became difficult to tell where the image ended.

A hand appeared beneath a narrow beam of light on the left.

Then the tip of a sword.

KuroNeko stepped slowly onto the stage. The long skirt of their black outfit was torn on one side, revealing white fabric underneath. The end of a red ribbon hanging from their shoulder swayed slightly with every step. Fine black cracks covered the white mask hiding half their face.

The first thing I noticed was the costume.

The second was the way they walked.

They placed one foot on the floor more cautiously than the other, carrying their sword so low that it almost dragged. Without raising their head, they looked at the empty space in front of the temple, and their shoulders relaxed slightly.

They looked like someone arriving home after a long journey.

The gate on the screen opened.

A small silhouette ran out. Its face was unclear, but I could plainly see it raising both arms and waving.

KuroNeko’s head lifted at that moment.

The hand holding the sword lowered. They raised their other hand and touched the mask. Their fingers hesitated before pulling it away from their face. Thanks to the camera moving in for a close-up, I could see the change in their expression. Their exhausted eyes had widened, and a faint smile appeared at the corners of their lips.

They reached toward the silhouette.

At that exact moment, the faint sound of strings beneath the music stopped.

A crack formed across the image of the temple. The red gate darkened, and the waving silhouette shattered into pieces. KuroNeko’s outstretched hand froze in the air.

A few voices rose from the hall, audible through my phone.

Now the screen showed only burned wood and an empty entrance.

KuroNeko took another step. They didn’t lower their hand immediately. As their fingers slowly curled closed, they seemed to realize that what they were reaching for was no longer there.

I didn’t know who the character was. I didn’t know who they were looking for at the temple either.

Even so, watching that hand fall made my throat tighten slightly.

When the music returned, it was much harsher.

KuroNeko turned their head to the right. As they raised their sword, a red light came on at that side of the stage. Their first strike was short and sharp. For the second, they turned their whole body, making the black skirt flare out. The white layer beneath it appeared at the same moment the sword traced an arc.

The shadows on the screen scattered with every strike.

There were clear pauses between their movements. After an attack, they bent forward to catch their breath, trying to hold on to the anger in their expression as they straightened again. They didn’t seem to be rushing to keep up with the music. Every pause in it had been arranged to let them finish a movement.

With the final strike, they dropped to one knee.

They held the sword’s hilt with both hands. Their head remained bowed for several seconds. Then they picked up the white mask they had placed beside them, turned toward the temple entrance, and carefully set it on the floor.

The last thing I saw before the lights went out was their empty hand lingering above the mask for another moment.

When the applause began, my phone’s speaker crackled.

I sat a little straighter.

All right. That… was really good.

When KuroNeko returned to the light to take a bow, the heavy expression had left their face. They smiled and waved at the audience. Despite having the same face as the person I had watched a few seconds earlier, they looked completely different.

I lowered the phone onto my lap.

There was a much bigger difference than I had expected between looking cold for a photo and telling everyone a story for several minutes.

—

Before ScarletDoll took the stage, the comments on the stream began moving faster.

Last year’s champion.

Remembering the armor in the photos Eris had shown me, I returned my attention to the screen.

This time, the stage lit up with a metallic hum. The background showed the inside of a giant clock tower. Interlocking gears turned slowly, each rotation accompanied by a heavy thud beneath the music.

A figure knelt at the center of the stage.

At first, I couldn’t even make out the costume’s shape. Metal wings folded down from the shoulders, almost completely covering the body. Thin gold lines ran between silver surfaces, and pieces of armor on either side of the head formed sharp points in the darkness.

A light fell across their face.

ScarletDoll raised their head.

The circular piece on their chest began glowing faintly. The same light spread first along the lines on their arms, then to the joints of the wings on their back.

How did they do that?

When the camera moved to the side, I saw the small mechanisms beneath the wings. The folded pieces separated one after another, and as the overlapping metal feathers opened, each caught the light at a different angle.

The wings still weren’t fully open when ScarletDoll stood.

They struck the floor with the long spear in their hand.

At the first heavy beat of the music, the gears on the screen stopped.

At the second, the clock tower’s walls cracked.

At the third, the wings spread to either side.

Even on my phone’s small screen, they seemed to fill the entire stage. The upper pieces curved upward while the lower rows unfolded and spread behind them. Fog drifted in front of the floor lights, and the wings cast their shadows across the ruined walls on the screen.

The crowd’s screams rose above the music.

ScarletDoll gripped the spear with both hands and spun it. Pieces at the tip unfolded as it moved. Each time they turned their body, the wings folded slightly, then spread again once the movement ended. The costume hadn’t been designed only to look good while standing still. It took on a different shape with every turn.

When the camera moved closer, I could see scratches on the armor. The gold coating on one shoulder piece was worn, and a dark scorch mark had been added around the edge of the circle on their chest.

I thought about someone spending hours putting those little marks in exactly the right places.

Then I looked at the wing joints again.

Hours? How many days had they spent working on this?

At the end of the performance, ScarletDoll raised their spear. The clock on the screen began working again. As the gears turned, the dark areas of the stage lit up one by one.

The wings opened fully one last time.

Surrounded by bright light, ScarletDoll turned toward the audience and held the pose until the applause began.

As I watched the screen, I found myself touching the raven on my shoulder.

It tilted its black head toward my finger.

I remembered how excited I had been when I first did that this morning. Now I was watching someone turn to the music with a huge mechanism on their back.

I turned the raven’s head again, making it look as though it were facing an audience.

Suddenly, that alone no longer seemed enough.

—

For Argent’s performance, the stage turned ice blue.

The skirt of his pale dress spread in thin layers, and the silver ornaments on his head formed a small crown around his face. He held a long white fan.

This was the male cosplayer Eris had said came fourth last year.

When the camera moved in for a close-up, I studied his face for several seconds.

So I wasn’t alone in this.

Argent walked to the front of the stage and opened his fan in front of his lips. As his eyes moved over the audience, the music shifted into a light, almost playful rhythm.

His first few steps were relaxed, as though he was in no hurry to impress anyone. He turned his head, paused as if choosing someone in the front rows, and gave a small, mocking smile over the top of his fan.

Laughter rose from the hall.

Then the music changed.

The fan snapped shut. Argent’s smile disappeared at the same moment. Ice crystals formed on the screen behind him and began spreading to either side as he raised his hand.

He spun. As the skirt of his dress flared into a circle, he bent toward the floor and swept his fan downward. The floor lights followed the movement, blue lines lighting up from his feet to the edge of the stage.

The face that had been joking with the audience a few seconds earlier was now cold, as though giving someone an order.

When he finished his turn, he opened the fan again. He remained completely still until the final note of the music.

At the sound of applause, he smiled from behind the fan.

I pressed my lips together.

All these people knew what they were doing.

Where to stand, when to look, which movement would earn applause…

Meanwhile, I had spent the entire morning making the skirt of my wedding dress ripple and moving the bird on my shoulder.