Chapter 2

…?!

(What the—The song cut off?! Is it part of the…? No, this wasn’t in the plan!)

(The sound’s gone too! My voice, Mika-chin’s voice, the recording of the song… The whole thing just died off?!)

(My mic cut too—All I can hear is Oshi-san singing!)

(No, no… Oshi-san must have gotten surprised by what happened; he stopped singing too! Everything’s come to a complete stop!)

(The audience is getting agitated too. What happened, is this an accident? A power failure?)

(No, the lights are still on! It’s just the sound that’s gone! Did the broadcasting equipment malfunction?)

(No, if this is happening now, we can just say it’s part of the performance! We’ll just have to hold down the fort and hope that the music will pick back up soon!)

(I’ll sing! I just have to dust my vocal cords off and sing live! That’s what I did in choir so long ago—It’ll be easy!)

(I’ll be fine, I can sing! I’ve been practicing! Every day, every single day on that rooftop!)

(But I’m so scared…! My song has already been thrown away once before as worthless garbage!)

(Won’t I just make Oshi-san angry again?)

(Won’t I just be thrown away again? If I go off singing without permission, he might yell at me… or even lash out at me or something!)

(If that happens, this live is done for!)

(So wouldn’t it be better to keep silent like usual, instead of suffering through that…?)

~… ♪

♪ ~ ♪ ~ ♪

(Mika-chin… You too, huh? You’ve been practicing too?)

(You’ve always drawn back behind us…)

(You laughed from that position, always saying you were comfortable there. But you wanted to sing too! Because you’re an idol too, aren’t you?)

(Mika-chin, you’ve always been so much more devoted to Oshi-san than I have. Even though he disparaged you, calling you useless, a failure…)

(But you stayed with us.)

(Always laughing, always giving it your all, always desperately trying to keep up!)

(Oh, and you’re so good! Your voice is so much more beautiful than mine! It’s so captivating—You really are an idol!)

(But… you never even spoke a word. You just followed along after us.)

(After someone so prideful, so foul-mouthed, so high-strung as Oshi-san, after someone so expressionless and unfriendly as me!)

(And now, all because you never want the days we spent here, the days we spent as Valkyrie to come to an end—!)

(You overcame the fear of your beloved Oshi-san throwing you away, and you sang!)

(And I…! I don’t want it to end here, either! Not like this!)

(I want to wear more and more of the clothes you make for my birthday!)

(No, this time I’ll give you a present! So…! Let’s sing together!)

(Right now, and forever! We’ll sing our song, Valkyrie’s song…!)

♪ ~ ♪ ~ ♪

(Kagehira… Nito… I see. I see now.)

(Ah… I was the fool to be culled.)

(I never allowed them to fail—I thought that was love. Because if you show your weakness, others will take advantage of that. And that’s why, that’s why I—)

(Well, it’s too late for regrets. Ahh, what unpleasant noise…)

(What immense cacophony. Valkyrie’s lives must always, always be without flaw. And yet, their voices aren’t even in sync.)

(This is the natural result, of course. We never practiced to harmonize our voices. I took it upon myself to shield you…)

(I was too blind to see your true value.)

(If you stumble and throw the balance off just a hair, the whole thing shatters into pieces…)

(We were such antique dolls, relics of the past.)

(By the time we realized this, it was too late. No matter how we struggle now, we will only continue to sink into the mire.)

(But at the very least, I will stay with you to the very end. Nito, Kagehira—My youth, my beloved Valkyrie.)

♪ ~ ♪ ~ ♪

(And so we sang. As if we were coughing up blood, our desperate, keening wail rang out.)

(…The audience looked upon us, unsympathetic.)

(But we sang together, our raw, unrecorded voices… for the first and last time.)