That evening, Tokyo TV-5's news program briefly broadcast the reporter's interview with Aika. The clip immediately ignited a firestorm of discussion on the official Ascent of New Gods forums.
"What is going on? Even Aika, the author of Cyberpunk: Sin Domain and current number one on the charts, thinks To the Moon is a threat?"
"Titles like The Great Scientist of Another World, Eye of the Eerie, and Bones in the Wilderness are breathing down her neck. Why would she claim that To the Moon, a story with less than half her vote count, is the real danger? Did we all miss something?"
In the metropolitan hubs of Tokyo and Osaka, rival authors like Konning, Yuma Kanda, Takashi Yamamoto, Fuji, and Riku Shibata all eventually saw the interview.
"Huh? To the Moon?"
Konning was utterly baffled. He quickly dug out his copies of the Ascent of New Gods magazine and read through the first two chapters of the novel. When he finished, his expression was skeptical.
"This is it? This is what she's worried about?"
In Tokyo, Yuma Kanda went through the exact same process. He carefully analyzed the first two chapters and arrived at a single conclusion.
"Aika must be blind. Or she's just saying this to spite me."
He was especially annoyed because his own work, The Great Scientist of Another World, was only ten thousand votes shy of her top spot, yet she chose to ignore him in favor of a regional nobody. The others shared his sentiment. They couldn't find anything objectively "bad" about the prose, but they couldn't find anything brilliant either. It was just... ordinary.
However, even though they were obsessed with Aika's words, not a single one of them was willing to spend fifty yen to buy the Anohana volumes to see what the author was truly capable of.
---
That night, at Yukino's apartment...
"This is incredible, Haruto! Even Aika from the Osaka is paying attention to you now. You've officially made a name for yourself on the national stage."
Yukino, who lived for industry news, was actually more excited than Haruto himself. She looked at him with a puzzled expression. "Why are you so calm?"
"Why shouldn't I be?" Haruto replied, his eyes focused on the To the Moon posters and illustrations that Reina had just finished for him.
"This is Aika Miyamoto we're talking about! She's one of the top two most popular rookie authors in Japan from the last two years. And she's out here praising To the Moon!" Yukino emphasized each word as if he hadn't heard her.
"Actually... I've read her novels," Reina chimed in from the side. "I don't think her previous works were better than Haruto's Anohana. The only reason she has this level of fame and status is because Haruto and I weren't in Tokyo or Osaka to compete with her."
Yukino and Haruto exchanged a look. On one hand, Reina wasn't being humble because she was praising Haruto. On the other hand, she wasn't being humble because she was completely dismissing a national celebrity.
Haruto understood her better than anyone. He felt that ever since Reina had lost to him twice, her pride had taken a bit of a hit, but only a tiny bit.
"She probably read Anohana and realized how strong Haruto is. It's a logical conclusion. Just like me," Reina added after a moment of thought.
"You?" Haruto turned to look at her.
"I feel the same way."
"Out of the fifty entries in the Ascent of New Gods magazine, the most dangerous one is To the Moon," Reina said without a hint of hesitation. "At least among the rookies who debuted in the last two years, anyone who has finished Anohana is going to get more and more nervous the longer they read To the Moon, because they recognize the rhythm."
As she spoke, she realized the room had gone silent. Both Haruto and Yukino were staring at her.
"What?" she asked, curious.
"That's the first time I've ever heard you praise someone so openly," Yukino noted.
Haruto kept his mouth shut. Anything he said right now would feel awkward or boastful. Reina froze for a second, then her expression returned to its usual cool state, though the slight reddening of her ears gave her away.
---
On February 4th, the third issue of the Ascent of New Gods magazine was released. In this issue, To the Moon continued... to lay the groundwork.
Picking up from the previous chapter, Neil and Eva used the machine to journey into Johnny's early adulthood. Once again, much of the text focused on their search for clues. However, the emotional core of this chapter was a scene at the lighthouse on the cliff within Johnny's memory.
Under the brilliant moonlight, the lighthouse was not yet the derelict ruin it would become. It was perfectly maintained, a stark contrast to the abandoned structure from the earlier chapters. The story finally offered a clue as to why River had suddenly started folding paper rabbits after their marriage.
It was because of a conversation Johnny had with River on this very night, a conversation that was vital to both of them.
Why had River and Johnny fallen in love and married in the first place? What was Johnny's original motivation for approaching her? The chapter didn't reveal the specific answer, only River's reaction to it.
"Is that why you came near me?" River asked, her expression turning somber and quiet.
After a long silence, River pulled out a beanbag that she had carried with her for a very long time. She intentionally held it up in the moonlight so Johnny could see it clearly. But she was met with disappointment; Johnny had no reaction to the beanbag at all.
She then told Johnny to pick it up. "Can you throw it toward Anya?"
Anya was the name River had given to the lighthouse.
Johnny picked it up and threw it, but even then, he failed to notice anything wrong with his wife's behavior. In fact, he threw it with such force that it went over the cliff beside the lighthouse. In that split second, River instinctively lunged toward the edge to save the beanbag, nearly falling off herself before Johnny pulled her back.
"River, are you crazy? Stay away from the edge!"
River's eyes, however, remained fixed on the spot where the beanbag had disappeared into the darkness below. In that moment, she seemed profoundly alone.
Many readers found this segment confusing, yet they could feel the heavy atmosphere of sadness through the prose. Furthermore, the narration emphasized a specific detail: during this period, River had long, beautiful hair. But after this night, and for the rest of her life, she cut it short. She began her obsessive habit of folding paper rabbits, over and over again, tirelessly asking Johnny to describe the details of the rabbits.
The memory jumped once more.
At the end of the third chapter, the reason for River's strange behavior was finally revealed.
She suffered from a severe case of Asperger's Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum. While many think of autism as a lack of desire to communicate, Asperger's often involves a desperate wish to connect with others, but the condition makes it impossible to express those inner feelings.
Normal people might struggle to understand how someone could simply "not be able" to say what they feel. But that is why it is a disorder. The thoughts are there, but the bridge to language is broken. With this revelation, the readers finally understood why River had spent three chapters keeping her feelings locked away and why she was perpetually silent during critical moments.
She literally couldn't say the words.
The story was a slow burn, yes, but it wasn't boring.
Just like the original game, the steady buildup didn't prevent it from being deeply compelling. Readers who had finished all three chapters were now consumed by a powerful curiosity.
What exactly was the history between Johnny and River? If River couldn't express her truest emotions through words, were her actions, the paper rabbits, the platypus, the beanbag, the lighthouse, the house, the decision to cut her hair, and her burial site, all part of a desperate, silent code?
By the third issue of Ascent of New Gods, To the Moon had received a total of 68,541 votes. Its popularity held steady at eighth place, while its rating climbed to eleventh. The Anohana fans were incredibly loyal; regardless of how exciting the other stories were, they refused to stop voting for Haruto.
Even though they were still confused, they were beginning to be moved by the atmosphere he was crafting. Experienced readers could sense it. This was going to be a tragedy.
However, for the casual readers of the magazine, the slow pace of To the Moon didn't offer the same immediate gratification as the other entries. On the official website, people were still mostly talking about Cyberpunk and the Isekai Scientist. But there was one other work that saw its popularity explode this issue.
Reina's Fate of the Rainbow.
In the third issue, it jumped to eighteenth in popularity and reached sixth in the ratings. Reina didn't have the massive pre-existing fanbase that Haruto did to keep him in the top ten, but she had climbed from twenty-ninth in the first issue to eighteenth in the third. That kind of trajectory was impossible to ignore.
In the eyes of the general public, it looked like this: Shiori Takahashi, the author from Minamijo who had been hyped so much before the launch, was writing a mediocre story and was only being kept afloat by his old fans. If anyone else had written To the Moon, it would be in the bottom ten.
But this "Airi" was different. Curious readers saw her meteoric rise in the rankings and flipped back to find her story. They were instantly captivated.
Because it was, quite simply, brilliantly written.
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