Another week swept by in a blur of summer heat and ink. The seventh and eighth chapters of Anohana were released in back-to-back issues of Crimson Maple. Following these releases, the series began to stabilize, with its popularity ranking fluctuating between the ninth and eighth spots.
Meanwhile, Reina's Star Sea experienced a massive surge in popularity.
After its eighth chapter hit the stands, the series rocketed into the fifth-place spot. This sudden ascent sent shockwaves throughout the Minamijo's light novel industry.
"The genius novelist Airi's new work is a force of nature," one headline read. "It seems poised to break into the top four."
"On the regional popularity charts, Star Sea has cracked the top twenty for the first time," another report noted. "This summer, we are privileged witnesses to the birth of a new literary star."
"The momentum of Star Sea is staggering. To achieve such popularity by only the eighth chapter suggests that its future tankōbon sales will be astronomical."
"Given the combined performance of Star Sea and her debut, Yesterday's Starlight, it is almost a certainty that one of the three seed spots for this year's Ascent of New Gods will go to Airi! One can only wonder what surprises she has in store for the finale."
"What is the secret of Minamijo Third High? Two genius novelists have emerged from its halls this year alone."
"While Shiori has shown a slight decline this summer, Anohana remains a respectable, high-quality work. Conversely, Airi has completely redeemed her past losses, asserting a powerful dominance over her peer."
To the uninitiated, moving from ninth to fifth place might seem like a small step, but in the world of professional publishing, that gap was a vast canyon.
To put it bluntly, a series ranked ninth in Crimson Maple might struggle to sell a hundred thousand copies per volume once the tankōbon was released. A series in the fifth spot, however, would be considered underperforming if it didn't clear at least three hundred thousand copies per volume. The disparity was far deeper than the three-thousand-vote difference between their reader surveys.
Rankings and vote counts were merely rough barometers of a story's reach. In reality, the vast majority of readers are passive; they enjoy the book but are too lazy to participate in surveys. The novel industry is a "winner-take-all" ecosystem. If your work is even slightly better than your rival's, that edge is magnified tenfold in terms of commercial success and cultural impact.
Inside the Crimson Maple Literature editorial department, the atmosphere had shifted significantly. While Anohana's ranking in the eighth spot was considered mediocre to low, it was no longer at the bottom. The threat of an early cancellation had vanished, and the staff were content to let it reach its natural conclusion.
Consequently, the judgmental looks Yukino used to receive when she walked into the office had largely disappeared. Even the Editor-in-Chief, Akira, was no longer the subject of hushed office gossip.
Akira sat in her office, a refined smile playing on her lips as she reviewed the latest performance reports. From a business perspective, things were unfolding perfectly. Anohana had not crumbled under the weight of its slow beginning; instead, it had shown a clear upward trend starting from the sixth chapter.
Crucially, however, that growth had not been explosive. Akira could already foresee the endgame. Anohana would likely finish its run in the eighth or ninth spot, perhaps seventh if a miracle occurred.
According to the terms of the contract Haruto had signed, this meant Crimson Maple Literature was about to secure a three-year exclusive "loyalty" deal with a genius author for virtually no cost.
They hadn't even had to sacrifice a serialization slot on a flop, since Anohana was performing well enough to justify its existence.
Akira wasn't even entertaining the possibility of Anohana experiencing a massive popularity spike in its final five chapters. To reach the top four spot stipulated in Haruto's contract, the series would need to break the ten-thousand-vote barrier.
Given the current competition in the magazine, Anohana was sitting at roughly six thousand votes.
Bridging a four-thousand-vote gap in three weeks was an impossible task. It was the same old logic: it is easy to move a grade from zero to seventy, but moving from seventy to ninety-five is ten times harder than the initial climb.
With the future looking bright for the company, Akira began finalizing a new marketing blitz. She prepared to pull out all the stops starting next week. The company's resources would be heavily invested in promoting both authors. Of course, the strategy was now the reverse of the previous semester: Airi was the primary focus, while Shiori was the supporting act. If the company had two candidates for the Ascent of New Gods seeds, why wouldn't they push for both to win?
As more days passed, many fans of Blue Spring Ride who had initially given up on the new series began hearing rumors that Anohana was actually getting good. They slowly started returning to the fold, becoming part of the active readership once again.
The sixth chapter had been the definitive turning point. It acted as a shot of adrenaline for the fandom, proving that the story wasn't just aimless, fluffy filler. Shiori was crafting a deep narrative about people and trauma; it simply had a very long fuse.
The seventh and eighth chapters had also provided plenty of narrative meat. To discover Menma's true wish so she could finally pass on, Jintan and his former friends had joined forces to visit her old family home, looking for clues from her childhood.
Through this process, the readers were introduced to Menma's family, particularly her grieving mother.
This interaction gave the audience a painful look into the family's dynamics. Eventually, the group discovered Menma's old childhood diary. Inside was a single, simple sentence: "I want to make a big firework with everyone."
In the past, due to various circumstances, that dream had never been realized. This led Jintan and the Super Peace Busters to conclude that her wish was to set off a firework together. At last, the true main plot and the driving motivation of the characters were clear to the readers.
In the ninth chapter, the emotional weight became almost unbearable. When Menma's mother saw her daughter's childhood friends grown up and healthy, her mental state finally collapsed.
"Why?" she wailed, her voice thick with grief. "Why are you the only ones allowed to grow up? Why is Menma... the only one who had to stop?"
Her emotional breakdown sent a shock through the protagonist's team, causing them to fragment once again. They were forced to realize that their actions were rooted in a kind of arrogant selfishness.
They thought they were helping their dead friend, but they hadn't realized that by parading around their childhood memories, they were ripping open the scabs of the family's trauma and rubbing salt in the wounds.
A heavy, suffocating atmosphere settled over every reader.
After the ninth chapter concluded, the official website was flooded with comments.
"This is so heavy," one reader wrote.
"It's starting to hurt," another added. "I don't know if I can keep reading."
"This novel isn't light at all. Why did I ever think this was going to be a happy romance?"
"I don't even understand my own feelings right now!"
"I think it's too late to run away now. Shiori Takahashi-sensei's style shift is insane. This is a completely different beast compared to Blue Spring Ride."
"I just hope the ending provides some actual healing. I want Menma to get her wish and pass on peacefully."
When the data for chapter nine was finalized, Anohana held 6,989 reader votes, placing it seventh in the magazine rankings. Its quality rating remained steady at 8.6, sixth overall.
Meanwhile, Star Sea had reached 10,123 votes, claiming the fourth-place spot in the magazine. Its rating was 8.7, fifth overall.
On that morning, both Haruto and Reina received their respective results. Reina spent a long time contemplating the numbers. She was measuring the likelihood of Anohana catching up to her in the final two weeks of its serialization. A familiar sense of anxiety washed over her, and she began to spiral into a cycle of mental self-exhaustion.
However, while she felt the pressure, she also felt a surge of competitive spirit. She had noticed something lately: the pressure Haruto exerted on her was a powerful catalyst for her own inspiration.
The more she felt him nipping at her heels, the more her creativity seemed to explode.
Wonderful, unexpected plot twists kept occurring to her as she wrote. This phenomenon left her feeling quite confused about her own nature.
As for Haruto, he had spent the last few nights focused entirely on the memory fragments of Shiori.
He had already finished writing the entirety of the Anohana manuscript. All that was left was to hand the final pages over to Yukino later this week.
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