The red scarf had been white once.
That's what most people didn't know, couldn't know, because they only saw the vibrant crimson wrapped around Burst Shōgeki's neck every single day, rain or shine, summer heat or winter cold. They assumed it was a fashion choice, maybe a good luck charm, something quirky that made the cheerful student council member memorable.
They had no idea it was a burial shroud she wore like armor.
Shōgeki adjusted the scarf as she led the new transfer student Hoshino Kagayaku through Yotou High's corridors, her fingers touching the fabric the way someone might touch a scar—checking that it was still there, still covering what needed to be covered.
"The main building has four floors," she explained in her practiced tour-guide voice, bright and helpful and completely hollow. "First floor is administration and freshman classrooms. Second floor is sophomores. Third floor juniors and seniors. Fourth floor is the performing arts wing—theaters, practice rooms, recording studios."
Kagayaku nodded along, his blue eyes taking in everything with an intensity that seemed wrong for someone supposedly overwhelmed by a new school. He didn't look lost. He looked like he was mapping escape routes.
They passed a bulletin board plastered with flyers—upcoming auditions, club recruitment, a memorial notice for a student who'd died three years ago. Shōgeki saw Kagayaku's eyes linger on the memorial, something flickering across his face before his expression smoothed back to polite interest.
"Did you know them?" Shōgeki asked, curious. "No. Just... noticed it." His voice was carefully neutral. "Do people die here often?"
"Suicide, actually. Third-year. Couldn't handle the pressure of debut competition." She said it matter-of-factly, watching his reaction. "Entertainment industry kills people in lots of ways. Not all of them are obvious."
Kagayaku's eyes met hers, and for just a moment, she saw those stars again—orange and black, swirling like a binary star system about to collapse. "No," he said quietly. "I suppose they're not."
They understood each other. That much was clear. Two people carrying corpses they couldn't bury, walking through a school full of students who thought trauma was a character trait for fictional protagonists, not the weight you carried every waking moment.
"Your classroom is down this hall," Shōgeki said, breaking the moment. "I'll introduce you to the homeroom teacher. After that, you're on your own. Think you can handle it?"
"I've handled worse," Kagayaku said, and it wasn't a boast. Just a statement of fact. Shōgeki believed him.
[TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO - FIRST LIFE]
Her name had been Kurushimi Yoru in her previous life—"Suffering Night," because her parents had a cruel sense of poetry—and she'd died at twenty-eight on a Tuesday afternoon, jumping from her sixth-floor apartment in Shibuya.
Nobody called it suicide in the news. "Tragic accident," the reports said. "Struggling actress falls to her death." As if she'd tripped. As if the deliberate step off the balcony had been anything other than the final performance in a life that had become unbearable.
Yoru had wanted to be an actress since childhood. Not for fame or money, but because acting meant being someone else, somewhere else, living in stories where suffering had meaning and happy endings existed.
Reality had other plans.
She'd been talented—everyone said so. Drama school teachers praised her emotional range. Small theater directors cast her in leads. She'd had the skill, the dedication, the raw hunger that separated people who wanted it from people who needed it.
What she didn't have was willingness to reach her way to the top.
Director Tanaka Kasuke—no relation to Kagayaku's father, just another person who happened to share a common name—had made it very clear during their private meeting about a role in his upcoming film.
"You're talented, Kurushimi-san. But talent isn't enough in this industry. You need... connections. Friendships. Trust." His eyes promising opportunity. Yoru had said no. Had walked out. Had thought that would be the end of it.
She'd been so naive.
Within a month, she was blacklisted. Auditions she'd been confirmed for suddenly "went another direction." Her agent dropped her, citing "creative differences." Other directors who'd worked with her stopped returning calls.
Tanaka had connections. Tanaka had power. And Tanaka had decided that a person who rejected him didn't deserve to work.
Yoru spent the next three years watching her dream die by inches. Took waitressing jobs to pay rent. Auditioned for commercials that never called back. Watched other, more compliant actresses book the roles she'd been promised.
Depression settled in like a houseguest who never left. Then the debt—medical bills from a car accident, credit cards maxed trying to survive between jobs. Then the eviction notice.
At twenty-eight, Kurushimi Yoru stood on her balcony and calculated the physics. Six floors. Enough. Quick. Her last thought before stepping off wasn't fear or regret.
It was relief. Finally, a role I can't fail at. The fall took three seconds. The impact was instant. And then—light. Warmth. Voices. "She's not sick anymore," a person sobbed with joy. "Our daughter. Our daughter Shōgeki is just fine now. She's still boiling up though. But that'll pass soon dear."
Shōgeki. "Impact." A name that meant force, collision, the moment everything changes. More appropriate than anyone knew.
[REINCARNATION - AGE 3 TO 7]
Being reincarnated with full memory of her previous life was a special kind of torture.
Yoru—no, Shōgeki now. Her new parents were Yoru Akemi and Burst Takeshi—a stage actress and a sound engineer, both working in theater. Not famous, but stable. Happy.
It should have been perfect.
Shōgeki remembered her previous life's loveless parents who'd resented her existence, who'd named her "Suffering Night" because they thought she was useless. This new life was everything that one hadn't been.
But memory was a curse. She couldn't just be herself. Couldn't experience love when she remembered twenty-eight years of disillusionment. Couldn't enjoy simple joys when she knew how easily happiness could be destroyed.
They had no idea their daughter was a reincarnated suicide.
At age five, Shōgeki asked to watch her mother perform. Akemi was playing Ophelia in a small theater production of Hamlet—the mad scene, drowning in grief and flowers.
Watching her mother perform madness so convincingly triggered something in Shōgeki's memory. The way Akemi inhabited Ophelia's breakdown, making audience members uncomfortable with how real it felt—that was art. That was what Yoru had wanted to do in her previous life.
That was dangerous. "Mama," five-year-old Shōgeki had asked after the show, "why do people like watching sad things?"
Akemi, knelt down to her daughter's level. "Because sad things help us feel less alone, Shōgeki. When we watch someone else's pain, our own pain feels smaller."
"Does performing it make you feel smaller too?" Akemi's smile had faltered. "Sometimes. Sometimes it makes the pain bigger. But that's the job." That's the job. Words that would echo years later when everything burned.
At age seven, Shōgeki understood she loved her parents more than she'd loved anything in either life. Understood that this second chance was precious. Understood she'd do anything to protect it.
That's when the letters started arriving.
[AGE 7 - THE LETTERS]
At first, they seemed harmless. Fan mail for Akemi, forwarded through the theater company. Enthusiastic praise for her performances. Requests for autographs. Normal things that came with being a working actress.
Then they got specific.
Akemi showed these to Takeshi, worried. He reported them to the theater management, who promised to increase security. The police were notified, took a report, said they'd keep an eye out.
Everyone said the right words, made the right promises. Nobody actually stopped what was coming.
Shōgeki—with her reincarnated consciousness screaming warnings she was to weak to do anything about—watched her mother's smile get tighter, watched her father start checking locks obsessively, watched security theater replace actual safety.
She'd seen this before. In her previous life, Tanaka had made promises too. "Work with me and you'll go far." The industry was built on promises that dissolved the moment they became inconvenient.
One night, Shōgeki woke at 2:47 AM to the sound of breaking glass.
Her bedroom was small, cozy, walls painted lavender because Akemi said it was a color that inspired dreams. Shōgeki's mind had found that painfully ironic—she had no dreams left, just the memory of dreams that had killed her.
But that night, lying down in her bed, all she could feel was pure terror. Footsteps in the apartment. Multiple people. Voices whispering urgently. Her door opened—Takeshi, his face pale, finger to his lips.
"Shōgeki," he whispered frantically, "get in the closet. Don't come out. Don't make a sound. No matter what you hear. Promise me." "Papa—" "Promise me!" His hands were shaking as he pushed her toward the closet, his eyes wild with fear.
"I promise," she whispered, her voice breaking. Takeshi kissed her forehead, shoved her into the closet, closed the door. Through the slats, Shōgeki watched him grab a baseball bat from another room—when had he put that there?—and run back into the hallway.
Then the sounds started.
Akemi screaming. Peoples voices, angry. Takeshi roaring, the bat connecting with something solid. A body hitting the floor. "RUN, AKEMI! GET SHŌGEKI AND RUN—"
A gunshot. Impossibly loud in the small apartment. Takeshi's voice cutting off mid-scream. Shōgeki's hands clamped over her mouth, stopping the scream trying to escape. She froze. Akemi's voice: "Takeshi! TAKESHI!" Sobbing, desperate.
"He's dead," one of the people said flatly. Another gunshot. The sound of Akemi's body hitting the floor. Then silence. Terrible, absolute silence.
Shōgeki stayed in the closet, hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her face, her reincarnated consciousness fragmenting under the weight of watching parents die twice.
The people searched the apartment for anyone else. She heard them opening doors, checking rooms. "Find the kid," one said. "Can't leave witnesses."
They opened her closet door. Light flooded in. Shōgeki looked up at three people wearing black masks, all of them staring down at her with eyes that held nothing human.
"There you are," one said, reaching for her. Shōgeki's eyes—brown and normal until that moment—suddenly flared crimson-red. Not stars, but solid red, like her irises had filled with blood.
The people actually flinched. "What the fuck—" Sirens. Distant but approaching. Someone in the building had called the police after hearing gunshots.
"Leave her," another person hissed. "We gotta go. Now." They ran. Just left her there, crouched in her closet with red eyes blazing, her dead parents in the hallway, her second chance at life murdered just like the first.
[AFTERMATH]
Shōgeki didn't leave the closet until the police forced the door open three hours later.
They found her sitting there, silent, eyes back to normal brown, the white scarf her mother had been wearing that day clutched in her hands. The scarf Akemi had worn during her final performance, the one she'd planned to give to Shōgeki as a good luck charm.
It was soaked in blood. Akemi's blood, from where she'd fallen. White fabric turned red. The police tried to take it from her. Evidence, they said. Important for the investigation.
Shōgeki held on with desperate strength, her crimson eyes flaring again, her voice, forty-nine years of accumulated life bleeding through—saying one word: "No." They let her keep it.
The three people were never caught. "Professional killers," the investigation concluded. "Part of a fan collective that had become obsessed with Yoru Akemi's fame. Likely fled the country."
Likely. Probably. Maybe.
Shōgeki knew better. Knew the same way Yoru had known about Tanaka's blacklist—the entertainment industry protected its own darkness. Those people were probably still out there, still going after other acters, still believing their obsession justified murder.
And nobody would stop them because nobody really wanted to look that closely at how celebrity worship could form into violence.
At seven years old, Burst Shōgeki entered the foster care system with nothing but trauma and a blood-soaked scarf she'd washed carefully, lovingly, until the white fabric took on a permanent reddish tint.
She wore it every day. A reminder. A memorial. A promise to the parents who'd died protecting her.
I'll find them, she'd promised in the dark of her first foster home. Whoever they were, whoever sent them, I'll find the source. And I'll make sure they can't do this to anyone else.
Just like Kagayaku with his revenge against family. Just like Aqua with his revenge against his mother's killer. Another broken soul, another revenge quest, another performance of normalcy hiding the screaming void inside.
Her eyes had stayed crimson for a full year after that night, only returning to brown when she'd learned to control them the same way Kagayaku controlled his stars.
Red when she felt determination. Silver-white when grief overwhelmed her. Brown when she needed to be normal. The scarf stayed red permanently.
[PRESENT DAY - YOTOU HIGH SCHOOL]
After leaving Kagayaku at his classroom, Shōgeki walked to the student council room with her usual cheerful demeanor firmly in place. Inside, she was screaming.
Because she'd recognized those stars in Kagayaku's eyes. Orange and black, flickering with the same controlled rage she kept locked behind her own practiced smile.
He was like her. Reincarnated. Traumatized. Here for reasons that had nothing to do with education and everything to do with revenge.
How many of us are there? she wondered, touching her red scarf. How many broken souls did whatever force controls reincarnation stuff into this one school, this one industry, this one endless flesh grinder of dreams and corpses?
Two of them, at least. Maybe more. All gathered in one place by cosmic coincidence or cruel design.
The student council meeting was routine—budget discussions, event planning, the mundane machinery of school bureaucracy. Shōgeki played her part perfectly, smiling and suggesting and being helpful.
Nobody noticed the crimson flicker in her eyes when they discussed the upcoming talent showcase. Nobody saw the way her fingers tightened on her scarf when someone mentioned inviting industry scouts.
Because Shōgeki had spent nine years learning the same lesson Kagayaku had: the best performances happened off-stage. The best lies were the ones people wanted to believe.
After the meeting, she stood at the fourth-floor window overlooking the courtyard. Below, she saw Kagayaku walking with another student, his expression friendly and open and completely false.
We're both performing, she thought. All pretending to be normal students while carrying a reincarnated consciousness and childhood trauma and revenge fantasies we can't share with anyone.
What happens when we all finally stop pretending? Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: "I know what you are. We should talk. - A friend who understands"
Shōgeki stared at the message, her crimson eyes flaring briefly before she controlled them back to brown. Someone else knew. Someone else saw through the performance.
The question was: friend or threat? She deleted the message without responding, but the damage was done. Her carefully constructed normal life had a crack in it now.
And cracks, she knew from painful experience, always widened. She touched the red scarf, felt her mother's blood memory soaked into the fabric, and made a decision.
If they know about me, I need to know about them. All of them. Every broken piece in this school. Because we're either going to destroy each other, or we're going to burn this whole industry down together.
Outside, cherry blossoms fell like snow, beautiful and temporary. Inside, Burst Shōgeki adjusted her scarf and prepared for war.
TO BE CONTINUED... [Next Episode: "Recognition"]