"One, two, three, smile!"
Before finally making their exit, Reina, Yukino, and Haruto posed for one last group photo together.
They then departed the venue carrying the numerous bags of loot they had acquired throughout the day.
However, that very evening, a bizarre rumor began to ripple through the various Shiori and Airi fan groups, as well as the official Crimson Maple Literature forums. The claim was bold: not only did the authors Shiori and Airi know each other, but one of them was likely a boy.
The post was accompanied by a photograph showing the back of a young man pulling two girls along as they sprinted through the convention hall in full cosplay. The story originated from a few dedicated Crimson Maple fans who had been at the Minamijo Convention Center promoting Anohana and Star Sea.
They had chanced upon a trio consisting of one male and two females. Based on a few snatches of overheard conversation and the trio's frantic flight after realizing they had misspoken, the fans made a daring deduction. One witness had the presence of mind to snap a photo of their retreat.
"One picture and the rest is pure fiction," one skeptic commented.
"People these days will make up anything. Shiori or Airi being a boy? That's the joke of the year," another wrote.
"Wait a second. I was at that convention today too. I won't comment on the boy or the other girl, but look at the person on the right cosplaying the Demon King. If I'm not mistaken, that's Yukino Aoyama, an editor at Crimson Maple Literature."
"What? Are you serious?"
"Is the person in the red leather armor really an editor?"
"Yeah, absolutely. I once submitted a manuscript to Crimson Maple that got rejected, but her looks were so striking that I never forgot her face. I recognized her the moment I saw her cosplaying the Demon King."
"If the person on the right is a professional editor, then the boy in the middle and the girl on the left... could they really be Shiori and Airi?"
"Is there anyone here who actually works at Crimson Maple? Can you confirm if Shiori and Airi are both signed under Editor Yukino?"
As the night wore on, various factions of the fandom grew increasingly agitated, digging deep into every available scrap of information. While the initial post had been treated as a joke, the supporting evidence began to pile up. It was already public knowledge that Shiori and Airi were high schoolers, and the ages of the people in the photo seemed to match perfectly.
However, without a clear shot of their faces or a direct confirmation, a single photo of three people running away couldn't prove anything definitive. The fervor eventually began to cool, but the seed of the idea had been firmly planted in the minds of the readership.
Haruto had projected Anohana to run for thirteen chapters, which meant the series would conclude in just over a month. This speed highlighted the unique advantage that light novels held over animation or film.
A twelve-episode anime required months of pre-production and a full season of broadcasting. A movie script of thirty thousand words could take a year to transform into a two-hour feature. Yet, for a truly prolific writer, a hundred-thousand-word novel could be produced in a single week. This was perhaps why the medium of the novel persisted in an era overflowing with multimedia entertainment. An author could produce enough content in a year to keep an animation studio busy for a decade.
As time passed, the plot of Anohana progressed at a rapid clip. After the introduction of the leads in chapter one and the rest of the childhood friends in chapter two, the third chapter officially launched the main narrative.
On the surface, the story followed a dead girl who wished to reunite her childhood friends so they could help her fulfill a final wish, allowing her to "pass on."
In this context, passing on didn't just mean a literal journey to the afterlife; it represented a soul finding peace and moving on without regrets. This was the objective the audience saw on the surface as of chapter three.
In reality, the true core of the story was the heroine saving her friends. Because of Menma's death, the once-inseparable group had shattered.
Yukiatsu looked down on Jintan, Poppo, and Anaru, closing off his heart and lashing out at everyone with twisted emotions because he couldn't cope with losing the girl he loved.
Tsuruko, who had always loved Yukiatsu, suffered in silence because she could see his pain but couldn't reach him.
The protagonist, Jintan, had completely given up on himself. He had transformed from a bright, energetic boy into a shut-in who ignored his future and his life entirely. Beneath his lethargy lay a soul numbed by years of self-loathing. His last words to Menma had been a cruel insult, and she had died while chasing after him. The weight of that guilt had paralyzed him.
The true goal of Anohana was for the ghostly Menma to save these lost souls, helping them untangle their trauma and reclaim the friendship they once shared. Using Poppo's "Super Peace Busters" as a catalyst, the group gathered for the first time since the tragedy at their childhood secret base, the "Super Peace Busters" shack on the mountain.
When Jintan claimed he could see and talk to Menma, the reactions varied from hesitant belief to the cold assumption that he had suffered a mental breakdown. Even when Jintan presented them with the steamed bread Menma had supposedly helped make, Yukiatsu greeted the gesture with nothing but heartless mockery.
The turning point came at the end of the fifth chapter. After a team member claimed to have seen Menma's ghost in the dark woods, the group went on a midnight search to find her. Ultimately, they discovered the truth. The ghost Poppo had seen wasn't Menma at all. It was Yukiatsu, a grown man, wandering the forest in a white sundress identical to the one Menma used to wear.
With this revelation, the long period of setup for Anohana had finally come to an end.
Inside the halls of Crimson Maple Literature, Anohana had ranked last in popularity for three consecutive issues. However, the raw data told a different story. The number of reader votes was steadily climbing: from three thousand in chapter two, to thirty-five hundred in chapter three, and thirty-eight hundred in chapter four. By the end of the fifth chapter, Anohana held the thirteenth spot with 4,112 votes. Its reader rating had climbed to 8.4, placing it seventh in terms of quality.
Meanwhile, Reina's Star Sea continued its meteoric rise.
Starting at ninth place, it had climbed to seventh by the fifth chapter. It boasted 8,231 reader votes and a rating of 8.5, which placed it fifth overall in the magazine.
_______________________
Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
Support me at patreon.com/CulturedOne and read 50 Advanced Chapters