Those who'd concluded that Aoyama was unhinged weren't wrong. And they weren't alone.
Edgerunners was gaining readers steadily. If you were going to carry seventeen titles in Manga World GoGo, already the top-tier publication in the industry, every single one had to have earned its way through hundreds of submissions.
Readers knew that. They paid attention to everything in those pages.
And one of them had just walked through Aoyama's front door.
"Hey, isn't it the end of term soon?"
he said, blinking. "Shouldn't you be revising? Final papers?"
The month had tipped into late May, nearly June: exam season for every university student in the city.
Akane's expression went flat. "Don't try to change the subject."
Aoyama scratched the back of his head and stepped aside to let her in.
"Pochitaaa."
She went straight to Pochita, as always, lifted the dog up, and settled onto the living room sofa.
"Why did you come by today?"
"Relax," Akane said. "I'm not here because you killed off a character in your manga. That's completely normal."
Her voice was calm. She'd been a dedicated consumer of ACG media long enough that character deaths registered as a creative tool, not a personal affront. Most people who saw her, a brilliant student and effortlessly composed, would never guess that the same person had strong opinions about narrative structure and had watched enough fictional deaths to be largely desensitised to them.
A supporting character's death? That was practically routine.
Although, Aoyama's approach was unusual, she had to admit. No buildup, no foreshadowing, no personal significance to the moment of death. A random encounter, a random end.
And she'd already seen the original drafts for Maine and Dorio's eventual exits. Pilar, by comparison, barely registered on her emotional scale.
"I genuinely love this work," she said, stroking Pochita's ears. "Edgerunners is a really good story."
She looked up at him. "But I still want David and Lucy to both make it out."
It had been building chapter by chapter, with every scene with Lucy and David together quietly accumulating weight.
Akane had fallen for the pairing like most of the readership had. And David had lost enough already.
Aoyama met her eyes and didn't hesitate. "Lucy definitely makes it."
She let out a small breath. "Good."
A beat.
"Actually," Akane said, "we're planning a group dinner next weekend. Come with us."
"...Hm?"
Aoyama blinked.
---
"Sensei, this week's reader poll results for Spiritmancer: twelfth place. Congratulations."
"Twelfth."
Tsuruki Junsei repeated the number quietly to himself, phone pressed to his ear. There was a small, specific sourness to that word.
He had gone down one rank.
His pen name was "ItchyMouse," one of the four debuting entrants in Manga World Publishers' New Creator Competition.
His work, Spiritmancer, had never once cracked the top ten. Eleventh on its best week. That was the ceiling.
Eleventh on its best week, that was the ceiling. Until recently, eleventh among all seventeen serialized titles was still respectable, as well as first among the four competition entrants, which was the bracket that actually mattered for the prize.
Then Edgerunners had appeared.
"Tetsuken," he said, "what did Edgerunners place this week?"
He'd been following it since the beginning. The art was extraordinary; that much had been clear from the first issue.
The cyberpunk worldbuilding didn't look like anything anyone else was doing. Even from the position of a direct competitor, he'd found himself absorbed in it.
He'd hoped, quietly and a little guiltily, that Pilar's sudden death might shake the readership.
Confuse them, alienate them. Push some votes his way.
His editor's voice came back apologetically: "Edgerunners placed seventh this week."
Tsuruki said nothing for a moment.
"I see. Understood." A short breath. "Tetsuken, please keep a close eye on my work going forward. More editorial involvement. Whatever you think needs tightening."
"I will. You still have time, Sensei: the final vote doesn't open for another three months. If you can find the right arc before then..."
"Yes." He cut in gently. "Thank you. We'll talk again soon."
He set the phone down.
Thirty years old. Eight years as a mangaka's assistant, learning the craft from the inside of someone else's studio, waiting for the moment to step forward.
Spiritmancer was supposed to be that moment: his experience, his craft, his first real work.
Conventional setup, clean execution, solid craft. He'd built it deliberately, along the lines that had worked before: genre-standard power progression with his own aesthetics layered in.
Exactly the kind of reliable manga that editors trusted and readers consumed without noticing.
And then Edgerunners had done the opposite of everything he'd done, and the readers had lost their minds over it.
He felt that stinging, particular envy of someone who respected the work that was beating him.
But he set his jaw.
The competition's prize wasn't just the money. The winner got priority serialization of their next long-form work directly in Manga World, with an animation production deal attached.
That combination was a career-defining outcome.
He was not walking away from this empty-handed.
Whatever it cost, he would finish if he gave everything he had.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]