Akira smiled at the next group the same way he had smiled at the last twenty.
"Thank you, ladies. Please enjoy your meal."
They melted on cue.
"So cool—"
One of them had already started to ask for his number when Erika's voice came over the speakers.
"Attention, everyone. The Cooking Theater will be temporarily closed for a short break. You are more than welcome to hold your spot in line, or if you're hungry right now, head over to the main restaurant and relax. We'll see you back here in twenty minutes."
The line groaned like a single wounded animal.
Akira's smile did not change.
"Then we will meet again in a bit."
He pulled the shutter down.
The second it locked, the mask fell off.
He dropped into the chair behind the counter and let his whole body go slack.
"Urgh. Finally. There are too many people… I want to go home."
The back door opened.
"Oh, Akira," Erika said. "Are you enjoying yourself?"
He left the chair like a missile.
In the next second, he was clinging to her, climbing onto her, burying his face against her shoulder like a dying phone finding a charger.
"Good, good. I can recharge my Erika energy. I'm running low."
She peeled him off and set him on the floor.
"What the hell is Erika energy? Behave yourself."
Akira whined, flailing his hands.
"But there are so many people."
Erika smiled, but there was something dangerous behind it.
"Yeah. There are so many girls there."
Akira sighed, still thinking about the line.
"Yeah, there are a lot of girls."
Erika stared at him.
"And you were flirting with them quite happily. You don't talk to me like that."
Akira paused, looking confused.
"Wait. What? I was flirting?"
Erika dropped her voice into a terrible copy of his customer-service tone.
"'Oh, ladies. Welcome. Can you give me those cards?'"
Akira explained confidently.
"That's just customer service. Nothing unusual."
Erika smiled even more.
"Then what about, 'No need to be nervous. Take a deep breath and leave everything to me. I will make sure you have a great time.'"
Akira explained unconfidently.
"Th-that's reassuring the customer. Hoping they enjoy the show."
Erika closed in.
"And you even called so many of them big sisters."
Akira leaned back.
"Well. They were older than me."
Erika closed in again.
"You don't even call your real big sister that."
Akira looked serious.
"Because I'm the bigger one."
Selena's voice cut in, telepathic and flat.
No. You are not.
They both ignored her.
Erika crossed her arms.
"And you never talk to me like that."
Akira looked at her properly this time.
"Are you jealous?"
"Yes," she said immediately. "I am jealous."
Akira looked unsure.
"Well… I mean. You told me to talk to them like that."
Erika pointed out,
"You went overboard."
He looked even more confused, but answered honestly.
"I mean, I am just acting, right? But when I'm with you, I can be myself. So that's special, right? If you want, I can talk to you like that too."
Erika stared at him.
Then she let the dangerous smile disappear.
"…No. That would be weird. For now, you pass."
Akira brightened.
"Good."
His stomach chose that second to complain.
Erika sighed.
"Come on. Let's go eat. You only have twenty minutes. I made something good for you."
Akira looked excited.
"What is it?"
Erika smiled.
"Just some fried onigiri. With a lot of things stuffed inside."
Akira beamed.
"That sounds fun."
They went out the back, away from the line, and walked toward the tree behind the old school building.
On the way to the tree, Akira saw all of Class 3-E working.
The foraging team came back from the trees with crates. The ingredient-card team was restocking markers on the mountain path. The minigame stalls counted what they had left. Someone was feeding basketball-sized capsules into the machine at the top. The restaurant line was still moving. The theater crew wiped down the counter he had just abandoned.
Between shifts, students sat on the steps and ate whatever they had stolen from their own menu.
Above all of it, Ritsu's drones moved between stations, counting stock, flagging empty boxes, and dropping spare cards where the path had gone bare.
Erika laid the mat down in the shade.
They sat.
She watched him take the first bite.
"So? How is it?"
Akira's eyes narrowed with happiness.
"Yep. It's good. The tuna mayo is really good. And this crab miso too."
Erika smiled.
"That's good."
He ate and kept looking at the mountain.
"You know, your ideas are great. With a crowd like that, normal treasure hunting is already hard. Then you add the three-card limit and one try for each minigame. That controls how much they consume. Most people don't even get the max."
He took another bite and swallowed.
"And with the gacha capsule at the end, nobody leaves with nothing. Then the portions are small, so they go eat at the main restaurant anyway. That's some great planning."
Erika poked at her own onigiri.
"I can't help it, okay? So many people came the first day, and they're mostly your fans. Then add that guy Nagisa met on the island. The one who thought he was a girl. That food blogger. His fans joined because of the blog, so I think we'll run out soon."
Akira sighed like this was physics.
"I told you it was a bad idea to make me famous. That's just the laws of nature."
Erika pinched his cheeks.
"Don't get too full of yourself."
Akira whined.
"Sorry. Forgive me."
When she let go, he coughed and tried again.
"Anyway. Your plans are amazing."
Erika smiled, smaller this time.
"I'm just used to it. I'm the student council vice president, after all. And my oniisan, the president, is useless, so I had to do all the work."
Akira tried to defend him.
"He isn't useless. He's smart. He's just not being useful."
Erika snapped.
"That's basically what useless means. Anyway, I had to clean up his messes, so I'm used to it."
Akira looked at her for a second.
"When we get back to our world, I'll help you out."
Her face brightened before she could hide it.
"Are you joining the student council then?"
Akira sighed.
"I don't know. Your brother said, 'You may be in the council, but we do not grant you the rank of a member,' back then."
Erika looked pleased.
"That's just because you hadn't joined the school yet. Don't worry. If he tries to say otherwise, I'll beat him up. As long as you're willing."
Akira asked,
"Can student council members join clubs?"
Erika answered with a smile.
"Yes. Of course they can. None of us are in a club right now, but you can join them."
Akira nodded.
"Then it's okay."
"Good. What club do you want to join?"
"I don't know. Is there an anime club?"
"There is. I'm not sure you'd like to join them."
"What about a game club? Or a manga club?"
"Those too. Our school has a lot of clubs. There's also a gourmet club and a literature club. I'm sure you'd like those."
Akira frowned.
"Why would I like that?"
A huge acorn rolled out of the bushes.
"Nuruhuhuhu! Sensei was wondering if there was any food left for—"
Akira looked at it.
"No."
The acorn froze.
"Sensei hasn't even finished asking!"
Erika did not blink.
"Sensei, we are already running out of ingredients, and you already ate a lot of them."
The acorn rolled around.
"Sensei is just hungry, okay."
Erika's phone lit up.
Ritsu's face appeared on the screen.
"Erika-san. The foraging limit you set has been reached."
Erika sat up straight.
"I see. Then tell Yada to close the gate. We'll feed the ones who are already in. No more new guests. And tell everyone it's time for phase two."
Ritsu gave a small salute.
"Understood."
Erika turned to Akira.
"All right. Just feed the remaining guests and get ready for the concert."
Akira stared at the last onigiri like it had betrayed him.
"So it has come to this."
Erika patted his head.
"Come on. All of you trained for it. It would be a waste not to put on the show."
He was quiet for a second.
Then he nodded, tired and dangerous in the same way.
"You know what? Forget it. Since I'm doing this, I might as well go all out."
Erika looked suspicious.
"What do you mean?"
Akira stuffed the rest of the food into his mouth, stood up, and turned to the acorn.
"You'll know. Koro-sensei, come with me. I'll give you some food."
Koro-sensei looked up.
"Sensei will do anything for his students. No need for food."
"You don't want food?"
"…No. I want them."
Erika watched them go and hoped, very quietly, that everything would go well.
---
By evening, Class 3-E and Koro-sensei had torn the Cooking Theater apart and put it back together as a stage.
The yard was already full.
Mostly girls.
They weren't waiting politely. They were screaming his name like the shutter had personally betrayed them.
Akira watched from backstage and went still.
"Seriously, how did they become such big fans? I mean, I know I'm handsome and all, but this is too much, right?"
Karma smirked without looking away from the crowd.
"All of them ate your food and spoke to you. Who knows? Maybe they feel closer to you."
Akira sighed.
"I don't want fans."
Karma shrugged.
"Well. Too late for that."
Erika came in from the side, her headset still on.
"Akira. Everything is ready. You can start anytime."
He looked at the only band they had managed to put together in such a short time.
Isogai on rhythm guitar.
Maehara behind the drums.
Akira on lead.
Three people. Barely enough practice. No extra members.
"Are you guys ready?"
Isogai and Maehara nodded.
Akira turned.
"Ritsu. You're on drone control and special effects."
Ritsu nodded.
"All drones and holographic projectors are fully functional."
Then he turned to the yellow shape currently destroying a chocolate bar.
"Sensei. Don't mess up the wind and temperature control, okay? We have to give them the full experience."
Koro-sensei swallowed.
"Don't worry, Akira-kun. Leave it to Sensei."
Akira looked at the rest of the class packed into the wings.
"All of you. Good luck."
Everyone nodded.
"You too."
Erika lingered for one second longer than the checklist required.
She knew he could handle a stage. She still asked.
"Are you sure it's okay? You might get more fans, you know."
Akira smiled at her, tired but honest.
"It's inevitable. Don't worry. We can handle it."
He walked out with Isogai and Maehara.
Selena's voice slid into his head.
"I never expected you would sing this song here."
"Well," he thought back, "I checked. There is no miHoYo company in this world. Or the guy who sang it."
Selena sighed.
"Still. For you to choose Flares of the Blazing Sun."
Akira also sighed.
"I'm tired. I need to let out all this pent-up frustration. Perfect song for that."
He took his mark, his guitar strap settling against his shoulder, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Besides. I am the blazing sun destined to rise."
In the yard, his fans were ready for the wrong thing.
They had heard the mountain video. The calm song. The one that made people cry into their phones. They thought they were getting that again.
The screen lifted.
Three people. No speech. No smile for the cameras.
The crowd went quiet.
The tension changed.
Then the first hit landed like a truck.
A sun bloomed behind the stage, huge and wrong against a sky that was already growing dark.
Akira started to sing.
English. Rock. No softness left in it.
Most of them didn't know every word.
They felt it anyway.
Hot wind rolled off the mountain and into their faces, Koro-sensei's doing, timed to the drums, until it felt like walking straight into a star.
The guitar climbed.
Ritsu's drones cut light through the smoke and threw images across the old walls until the yard stopped being a school festival and started being a battlefield.
Anger.
Rage.
The will to spit in destiny's face and burn the sky if that was what it took.
They didn't need a translation for the last of it.
"Shatter the skies!"
"No fate, no king, no god!"
"Fall to my name!"
"Fall to my name!"
"Fall to my name!"
"Fall to my name!"
The stage went black.
Not like an ending.
Like a war that had already been lost, and the lights had simply given up.
No cheers.
No screaming.
Nothing.
For a few breaths, the whole mountain held still.
They all knew, without saying it, that they would not forget this.
Backstage was the same kind of quiet.
Akira unhooked the guitar like it had personally exhausted him.
"All right. It's over. I'm going home to sleep. Good night."
Koro-sensei's voice followed him toward the door, gentle and fatal.
"Akira-kun. We need to clean the mountain first before going home."
Akira's scream went up into the dead speakers.
"NOOOOOOOO!"