Tokyo Dome

  A few days ago, it was as silent as a graveyard. Aside from the sounds of dance practices and maintenance, no sound could be echoed throughout the stadium.

  But by 4:00 PM today, as if the stadium had gone under massive plastic surgery. With fifty thousand fans stomping, screaming, and chanting outside the barricades, the Dome became almost like a live reactor core, vibrating with a low-frequency roar that passed through the reinforced concrete and into Reina’s very marrow.

  And backstage, the air was thick with the smell of chemicals like ozone from the massive generator trucks, cheap hairspray and fear while above them, silver KIZUNA observer drones drifted like mechanical birds, tracking every movement with glowing red optics.

  Reina Shiratori makeup artists fluttered around her like anxious moths, brushing, contouring, and sealing her face beneath a layer of high-definition, sweat-proof foundation, constantly checking her reflection against a translucent KIZUNA AR overlay to ensure her physical face matched her digital, deepfake baseline.

  Reina sat motionless in front of a ring-lit vanity mirror. Three makeup artists moved around her like moths, working on her face using several layers of sweat-proof foundation with extreme precision, constantly using her reflection against a digital overlay hovering on an AR screen on mirror to make sure her real face matched the "perfect" AI version.

  Don't show tired eyes, she told herself.

  Hide the signs of exhaustion.

  Don't show fear.

  Hide the tape.

  Never let them see the tape.

  Under her expensive, glowing costume made with multi-layered silk and LED-laced fabric, the athletic tape was still bound tightly. It dug into her skin, It made every breath a struggle, forcing her to remind of the trap waiting for her.

  "You look absolutely flawless, Reina-chan," the lead makeup artist finished her work and swiped away the AR overlay. stepping back to admire her work.

  "Like an angel stepping down to Earth."

  "Thank you," Reina whispered in her famous but breathless voice. "I'm just... overwhelmed."

  The artist smiled, not realizing she had just painted a living person who will soon turn into a corpse..

  "Five-minute warning for VIP sector clearance!" a stage manager yelled over a walkie-talkie. "All non-essential personnel clear the North and East tunnels! Gate security, lock down the network nodes!"

  Reina stood up. Her dress weighed nearly eight kilograms with crystals and LEDs designed to catch the dazzling stage lights. It was a beautiful masterpiece almost like an armor but it wouldn't give her any protection when needed.

  "I'm going for a walk," Reina whispered to her newly appointed assistant, a cute but shy girl, still untainted by greed "Just for a moment to clear my head before the show."

  "Of course, Shiratori-san. But please, don't go past Sector 4. The VIPs are coming."

  Reina nodded and slipped out of the dressing room. She headed straight towards the North Sector security checkpoint which connected underground loading bays to the backstage area. Instead of heading toward the green room where Ami and others are preparing for the KIZUNA live-streams.

  She moved like a silent prey and from time to time stayed behind the shadows of the massive piles of boxes, designed to withstand the physical shocks and keep the instruments safe.

  Her footsteps were completely silent, a habit born of years evading the obsessive paparazzies and lens of KIZUNA.

  She stopped behind a tower of spare amplifiers, her eyes fixed on the primary security magnetometer.

  Finally she stopped right behind a wall of boxes and spare amplifiers and her eyes locked onto the primary security gateway.

  The gate was a state-of-the-art KIZUNA-integrated scanner connected to both the national security database and Murahachibu national security database. It was designed to scan everyone’s face and check for their identities as well as if they had a ticket or not and many more. But its main job was to detect everything from a razor blade to unauthorized recording equipment.

  But today, the gate was unguarded. Only a single guard was there, wearing low quality massive AR glasses, completely lost in a KIZUNA digital feed.

  Reina watched for a few moments. After sometime four people wearing staff uniforms pushed a massive wheeled cart loaded with heavy steel trusses and thick cables through the gate.

  It was enough metal to set off every alarm in the building.

  Reina waited for the siren.

  Instead,the scanner just blinked a peaceful green.

  Beep. A pleasant, melodic chime echoed in the hall.

  As if it was saying a polite thank-you.

  Reina felt the air leave her lungs. She stared at the green light, her mind racing. The detectors weren't detecting anything. Nor does it scan for suspicious people.

  It was broken. No, at least a broken machine would flash red or lock the gates. It clearly registered heavy metal, but the system called it "safe."

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  And the two more men walked through the gate. Their heavy jackets were bulging unnaturally at the sides.

  Green.

  Beep.

  The gate was unplugged. Not from the power grid, but from both the national security database and Murahachibu national security database. The security was a joke. The firewall hadn't just been bypassed. It had been dropped.

  Reina quickly retreated into the shadows, her heart violently hammering against the athletic tape. She understood immediately.

  The person waiting above their head during the blackout from the rehearsal.

  The missing security personnel from the rehearsal.

  The unlocked hydraulic stage lift.

  And now the blind security gates.

  LUMINA! wasn't just staging an "accident" with the stage equipment. They were letting the predators into the cage.

  If a violent obsessive fan that the KIZUNA network usually flagged and kept at bay made it into the Zero mark with a weapon and suddenly jumped and successfully killed her on live TV then the narrative would be even more explosive and unstoppable.

  Tragic Idol Murdered by Crazed Fan on Final Night.

  The agency would be the "Grieving Parent." They would play the sympathy card until their stock price hit the sky.

  PR waves.

  The outrage.

  Global sympathy...

  It would be a perfect and flawless launchpad for her KIZUNA AI deepfake to take over her life. They would cry in front of the cameras, play sympathy cards and instigate and convince the general mass that despite her physical death and making her digital counterpart immortal they would honour her. And the public would also buy the story and her AI counterpart would be worth billions.

  Kaneshiro was turning the Tokyo Dome into a slaughterhouse and she was the prized calf and he was her butcher.

  Reina suddenly felt fear in her heart. She almost immediately walked towards the Control Room.

  She pushed open the heavy acoustic door. Inside, the room was dark, filled with glowing screens displaying telemetry, stage lighting grids, and swirling, three-dimensional KIZUNA predictive engagement graphs.

  Sayuri stood in the center, perfectly dressed in a sharp charcoal suit. She wasn't watching the security cameras; she was watching a real-time predictive algorithm tracking the crowd's emotions.

  "Sayuri-san," Reina said, forcing a deliberate, trembling panic into her voice

  Sayuri looked up, her expression perfectly composed and calm. "Reina-chan. You should be in your room. You look pale.”

  "The North Gate," Reina stammered, acting like a terrified girl. "I saw men pushing heavy steel through the scanners. The alarms didn't go off. The light just stayed green. Sayuri-san, anyone could be walking in there."

  Sayuri didn't look at the monitors. She just looked at Reina. And then, she smiled.

  It wasn't a malicious smile.

  It wasn't the grin of a cartoon villain.

  It was infinitely worse. It was a cold empty smile.

  "Oh, My cute silly Reina-chan. Don't be silly," Sayuri whispered, her hand cold on Reina’s arm. "You worry too much. We adjusted the sensitivity of the KIZUNA threat-detection gates by Executive Order. We can't have the alarm screaming every time someone walks in with a heavy belt or a camera rig. It’s fine."

  "But—"

  "No, buts. It is handled," Sayuri snapped, her "nice" mask slipping. "Tonight is all about giving the fans a show they will never forget. We want them to feel... close to you. Forever."

  The words send shivers through her body.

  Reina looked into Sayuri’s eyes and saw exactly what LUMINA! was.

  They weren't artists cultivators.

  They weren't even human anymore.

  They were an algorithm wrapped in human flash and skin, always trying to maximize profit, despite the cost.

  Reina lowered her eyes, forcing her body to tremble.

  "Okay. I understand," Reina whispered, bowing her head. "I trust you."

  "Good," Sayuri said, patting Reina’s face like she was a pet. "Now, get to the under-stage lift. It's time to become immortal."

  Reina walked out of the control room. As the heavy door clicked shut behind her, she stopped her trembling.

  Reina walked towards the stage lift through the dark, vibrating hall.

  She knew the truth-

  She knew she could run. She could even find a local police officer outside the Dome and scream for help. But she knew the KIZUNA Network owned the narrative. It would just bury her. Within minutes, the algorithms would label her "unstable." LUMINA! would say she had a breakdown and lock her away forever in a psychiatric facility They would quietly terminate her contract, delete her social footprint and legally harvest her soul forever. She would be erased and the monsters would keep grinding up young girls like Ami.

  If she wanted to win,and kill the monster, she couldn't run from the jaws. She had to let the monster swallow her.

  She reached the 'Zero' lift, a lift made out of reinforced steel waiting thirty feet below the main stage.

  Above, fifty thousand fans were shouting, screaming, and chanting their favorite idols like crazy. The roar of the fifty thousand fans was deafening.

  Reina stepped onto the lift. She looked down. In the red emergency light, she saw four massive hydraulic safety latches. And they were pulled back. The lift was floating on nothing but fluid pressure, a perfect trapdoor capable of being dropped in a fraction of a second.

  Was the stalker out there?

  Was the assassin or a hired professional out there?

  Was the man waiting above their head during the blackout from the rehearsal waiting with a knife?

  Was it a fanatic fan who came with a homemade explosive, successfully pushed through the scanner connected to the Murahachibu national security databases blind spots?

  It didn't matter.

  She stood perfectly straight. The weight of her 8kg costume vanished. The pain in her taped ribs also faded.

  LUMINA! thought they had engineered a perfect tragedy.

  A beautiful bird sacrificed to birth a digital god.

  But as the lift hissed, preparing to shoot her into the blinding light, Reina smiled. It wasn't the "Pure" smile of an idol. It was something more. A smile of an apex predator.

  They failed to realize that they had let a predator into the cage. Kaneshiro, Sayuri and the entire KIZUNA network had no idea that the gentle, shy and timid Reina Shiratori was no longer the prey.

  She was the apex predator. And they had just locked the doors.

  "Going up in five," the stage manager's voice cracked over her earpiece.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two...

  Reina let her "Idol" self die. The ghost took over.

  > [SYSTEM LOG: KIZUNA_NETWORK_OVERRIDE]

  > Node: North Gate Magnetometer (Sector 4 - Murahachibu Local)

  > Status: OFFLINE. (Simulated Green-State active).

  > Authorized By: Executive Order 44 (Kaneshiro).

  > Note: Routine threat detection protocols suppressed for the duration of the event.

  > Priority: Maximize Audience Engagement & Data Harvest.

  > Asset Status: Reina Shiratori ascending to Stage Zero. Biometrics optimal. Deepfake generation on standby.