The Bounty Hunter

November 6th, 2088

Today is an important day.  It’s been a little over a week since I discovered that Project Redemption is in fact an attempt to emulate God and create a new world.  Today is the live broadcast of the first episode of the new Japan’s Rising Idol and I am currently backstage waiting to go on.  It will also be my first encounter with Alren, aka Fujioka-san, since killing Eual.  Fujioka-san is quite cautious and I can’t risk getting into a full-fledged fight with him.  He’s a powerful wizard and my chances of winning in a fair fight are unknown.  So it’ll be even more important now to not raise his suspicions.  

Based on analysis of Eual’s memories, the barrier he mentioned is beyond my ability to break.  I will have to wait until it dissipates on the night of the ritual, May 20th.  Apparently, the star alignments are just right on that day and everyone is supposed to meet up there.  My only chance to stop this plan is to kill the 3 members whose locations I know and then wait for the last one to show at the ritual site. 

Everyone will be on their guard after Eual’s death, so I’ll have to be patient for a few weeks or even months.  I need to make them think he died due to some matter limited to the other world only and that they have not been exposed.  Then I’ll strike. First though, I need to tank this performance and get kicked off.  I don’t have time for this nonsense.

With a mindset that is likely the exact opposite of all the other contestants here, I walked onto the stage as I was introduced.  We were given free rein with our outfits, as it was a way for us to showcase our individual styles.  Everyone except for me was wearing a variety of dresses or outfits with bright color schemes.  They all went for the cheerful, friendly and cute girl look.  I naturally had no interest in that at all, so I ended up looking most similar to a punk rocker. 

I wore torn black jeans and a black leather jacket over a plain white tank-top.  I had black combat boots on, and I had gathered my hair for a side ponytail this time.  It was simple and understated.  I managed to calmly proceed to the mike with my usual taciturn expression and waited for my song to play.  I didn’t bother with introducing and talking about myself in the space between like all the other contestants did and simply waited to start singing.  I underestimated the length of that space, so everyone sat in silence for about 5 minutes before my song started.  I had chosen an old alternative rock song to sing, which was also completely different from all the modern pop choices the contestants usually sang. 

I looked at the audience and the five judges in front of me... and got massive stage fright.  I have never been the focus of so many people at once and I felt rather exposed without my face covered.  My plans to screw up the song flew right out of my head.  I don’t think I could handle the embarrassment if I got booed.  I’ll have to give it my best shot.  My song started to play and I gave it my all.  When I finished, there was a brief pause.

I trembled inside as I thought that I had screwed it up, but then the audience let loose a thunderous applause that blew all doubts right out the window.  I never had so many people cheering for me before…  The warm feeling from getting the cheers from the crowd combined with the relief that I didn’t screw up and made a shy smile appear on my face, which pumped the audience up even more. 

Eventually they finally calmed down enough for the judges to speak.  “So Miss Yamamoto, are you ready to hear our evaluations?”  the first judge asked me.  I responded “I don’t really care about your opinions.  I’m just satisfied that the audience enjoyed my performance.”  I gave a bow and promptly left the stage as the judges just sat there in a shocked silence.  Good, this should get me kicked off in no time. 

As I got backstage, I saw Fujioka-san come over.  I expected him to start yelling at me but he instead flicked my forehead.  It hurt surprisingly more than I had expected.  As I rubbed my forehead while looking at him with watery eyes, I saw him give a rueful smile as he spoke “When I told you to open up more, this wasn’t what I exactly had in mind.  I meant talk more, not say whatever you are actually thinking as it pops into your head.  Self-confidence is a great asset for an idol, but there is something called time and place.  The judges’ evaluations also include a personality portion.  Your silence during your appeal time combined with your blatant disregard for the judges is going to really hurt you, ya know?  Your singing was absolutely amazing though, so it might balance out.”  He then started patting my head, which actually felt kind of nice… as I realized what I was thinking my face turned red.  Damn this over-emotional body. 

My final scores followed Fujioka-san’s predictions.  My singing was given a unanimous perfect score of 10, which was rare for the show.  My personality was also given a unanimous score of 0, which was a first in the show’s history.  Based on the total, I was definitely going to be cut.  All the other contestants had gotten scores of at least 12 or higher. 

However, there was still the audience support.  For every 1,000,000 votes a contestant gets, they get an additional point added to their final score.  The highest record of audience support on the show thus far was 4,000,000 votes.  As each of the contestants had a few points added on due to audience support, it was my turn. 

It would be somewhat depressing if I didn’t get even one point of support, but I’ll get over it.  The important thing is that I get kicked off without Fujioka-san becoming suspicious.  Oh, the board showing my audience support seems to be broken.  There’s an extra 0 after the 1,000,000… son of a bitch. 

I shot to first place among the contestants thanks to the historic audience support of over 10,000,000… son of a bitch.  I also discovered that my performance on the show went viral and nearly broke the internet… son of a bitch.  I didn’t even manage to reach my house before I started getting calls from multiple talent agencies letting me know that they were extremely interested… son of a bitch.  I saw the late night news and apparently I have become the favorite to win it all… son of a bitch.  The one consolation is that I got a bonus to my pay from Japan’s Rising Idol for getting first place in the first round.  I just hope there isn’t too much talk about it at tomorrow at school.