Saturday, 17 July 2001.
Akaishidan Offices.
Ayumi was currently sitting at her desk inside the Akaishidan office, working seriously while several windows were open on her computer. Design documents, rough character sketches, animation references, story notes, and Slack messages filled the screen in front of her. Akaishidan had already started using Slack internally, even though the tool had not been released to the public market yet.
Naturally, this was because of Zaboru.
He had shared ZAGE's internal Slack system with Akaishidan early, allowing Ayumi and her brother's company to work far more smoothly than most businesses in 2001 could even imagine. For ZAGE, Slack was already becoming one of the most useful tools for communication between teams, branches, and projects. For Akaishidan, which still only had one main office, it almost felt like overkill.
But Ayumi loved it.
She could message developers instantly, share design notes, check progress, send references, assign small corrections, and discuss ideas without constantly walking around the office. It made development feel cleaner and faster. Even though Akaishidan was nowhere near ZAGE's scale, using a ZAGE-level tool made the company feel far more advanced than it should have been.
Of course, everyone knew why Akaishidan received such special treatment.
Because Ayumi worked there.
And because Ayumi was extremely good at "convincing" Zaboru to give her brother's company what she wanted.
Sometimes she convinced him through logic.
Sometimes through game-development passion.
Sometimes through a soft smile.
Sometimes by hugging his arm and saying, "Zabo, please?"
And honestly, that last method had a terrifying success rate.
Right now, Ayumi was designing characters for Akaishidan's newest game, which was planned for release next year. The project had already moved into the design phase because the core gameplay had mostly been decided. This new game would be called Mysterie AniMAX, though internally some employees still jokingly called it Bunny-Man because of the main character concept.
The main hero could transform into a tokusatsu-like warrior known as Bunny-Man, a half-cyborg animal hero connected to strange alien beings called MAXIMILIAN. These MAXIMILIAN were not simple aliens with one fixed shape. Each of them had different forms, identities, abilities, and personalities. Some looked monstrous. Some looked cute. Some looked like strange machines. Others almost looked like gods wearing animal skins.
The transformation system was called AniMAX.
Each AniMAX form combined animal traits, alien biology, cyborg enhancement, and emotional compatibility with the host. The result was a bizarre mix of tokusatsu hero drama, alien mystery, body transformation, and dark science fiction.
Ayumi was extremely proud of it.
The gameplay itself would not be purely action-based. That was the part that made the project unusual. Ayumi had always wanted to create something close to a visual novel, especially after Zaboru introduced her to his own game, FATE. She loved how visual novels could use choices, emotional tension, mystery, and character routes to create strong attachment between players and the story.
However, Ayumi did not want to make a simple text-only game.
That would be too normal.
Instead, she wanted Mysterie AniMAX to combine visual novel storytelling with 3D action sequences, investigative sections, transformation battles, animated cutscenes, branching decisions, and relationship-based consequences. The player would spend a lot of time reading dialogue, making choices, investigating strange incidents, and deciding how the main character responded to the alien MAXIMILIAN. But when danger appeared, the game would suddenly shift into cinematic 3D action sequences where Bunny-Man transformed and fought.
That meant the animation team had a lot of work to do.
A lot.
Beside Ayumi, Kazu Bukio, the head of Akaishidan's developers and Ayumi's main assistant, was coding while looking as though his soul had already partially left his body.
"Ayumi-san…" Kazu groaned, fingers still moving across the keyboard. "Come on… why do we need to work on Saturday? We can just continue this on Monday, right?"
Ayumi chuckled while continuing to draw a new AniMAX design. "Well, Kazu-kun, I'm just spirited today. Besides, I miss my husband. If I stay at home without him, I'll just feel lonely, and my children are with my parents right now, so it's fine."
Then she looked around the office innocently.
"But why did most of you come to the office too?"
Several engineers near her immediately groaned.
That question was unfair.
Everyone knew exactly why they were here.
Whenever Ayumi entered her development "zone" and decided to work overtime, the boss of Akaishidan, Akechi "Rashomon" Hamazou, would usually appear with his terrifyingly calm expression and say something like, "You all need to help her."
That was it.
No shouting.
No threat.
No long explanation.
Just one calm sentence from Rashomon.
And suddenly, every employee remembered they had a deep love for teamwork.
Of course, Akaishidan paid them well. Very well, actually. Akechi did not mistreat employees, and Ayumi herself was kind, polite, and grateful toward everyone who helped her. But still, refusing Akechi's order felt like trying to slap a sleeping tiger to check whether it was really asleep.
No sane employee wanted to test that.
One programmer quietly whispered to another, "I was supposed to watch a movie today."
The other whispered back, "I was supposed to sleep."
A third employee muttered, "I was supposed to remember what sunlight looks like."
Kazu glanced at them with dead eyes. "At least you guys aren't sitting beside the source of the storm."
Ayumi turned to him. "Did you say something, Kazu-kun?"
Kazu immediately smiled. "I said I'm honored to support your creative storm, Ayumi-san."
The other employees silently respected his survival instinct.
Nearby, Akechi sighed while watching his younger sister continue working. His usual emotionless face looked calm, but the people who knew him well could tell that he was deeply worried.
"Kazu is right, Ayumi," Akechi said. "You should rest. You're pregnant with twins, damn it."
Ayumi was almost four months pregnant now, and because she was carrying twins, her belly had already started becoming quite noticeable. She was still energetic, beautiful, and mentally sharp, but Akechi could not stop worrying. To him, Ayumi was not merely an important creative talent at Akaishidan. She was his beloved little sister.
Ayumi chuckled softly and placed one hand on her stomach. "You know I'm not that weak, Nii-sama."
Akechi narrowed his eyes. "That is not the point."
"I'm sitting down, drinking water, and not carrying anything heavy. I'm fine."
"You are also making an entire game concept at high speed on a weekend."
Ayumi smiled proudly. "That's different. This is mental exercise."
Kazu muttered, "Then why does my mental body feel injured?"
Ayumi ignored him.
Akechi sighed again, but his eyes moved toward the character sketches on Ayumi's desk. Despite his worry, even he had to admit that the project was interesting.
"But still," Akechi said, picking up one of the sketches, "this game of yours is very unique. Why did you think of something like AniMAX and the MAXIMILIAN aliens?"
Ayumi's eyes brightened immediately.
That was a dangerous sign.
Kazu saw it and whispered, "Oh no. She's entering explanation mode."
Ayumi chuckled and pointed toward one of the designs. "Well, I was thinking about one of the Marvel characters Zabo created. Venom, remember? Venom is a symbiote, an alien that bonds with its host and transforms them. I thought that concept was extremely cool. But then I wondered, what if I combined that with tokusatsu heroes, animal motifs especially my favorite rabbit, cyborg technology, and a mystery-dark-story structure?"
She flipped to another page showing a rabbit-like armored hero with mechanical ears, glowing red eyes, and strange alien markings along the armor.
"So instead of only one alien bonding with one person, there are many MAXIMILIAN. Each one has its own identity, its own instinct, and its own hidden purpose. Some want to protect humans. Some want to manipulate them. Some don't even understand human emotions. The player needs to figure out which MAXIMILIAN can be trusted."
Akechi looked at the sketch more carefully.
Ayumi continued with growing excitement. "The main character transforms into Bunny-Man first, but that's only the beginning. Bunny-Man looks like a simple hero at first, but the more the story progresses, the more the player realizes the AniMAX system is connected to something much darker. The transformations are not just power-ups. They change the host little by little."
Kazu stopped typing for a moment despite himself.
Ayumi smiled mischievously. "So the visual novel choices affect not only the story, but also the transformation compatibility. If the player makes aggressive choices, certain MAXIMILIAN become easier to bond with. If they act kindly, other forms open. If they keep lying, some alien forms might become unstable. And if they rely too much on one transformation…"
She paused dramatically.
"It might start influencing the protagonist's personality."
Several nearby developers slowly turned toward her.
One animator whispered, "That's actually really cool."
Another said, "Also horrifying."
Ayumi nodded happily. "Exactly! It will be chaos."
Akechi looked at his sister in silence for several seconds.
Then a faint smile appeared on his face.
He might never meet another monster like Zaboru, whose game-development ability was so far beyond normal people that it became almost unfair. But Ayumi was also terrifyingly talented in her own way. She was not simply copying Zaboru. She had learned from him, yes, but her imagination moved differently.
Ayumi is literally what akechi said "1 Tier Below Zaboru"
That was why she was so important to Akaishidan.
Kazu Bukio was also an excellent developer, Akechi think he is (2 Tier Below Zaboru) but he was not the type who could naturally lead a whole creative vision by himself. He worked best as a support pillar. Give him a clear direction, and he could produce 120% of what was needed. Add a little "motivation" from Akechi, and that number sometimes became 150%, though Kazu personally believed that should be illegal.
Inside Akaishidan, Ayumi was practically the superstar.
Everyone respected her.
Not because she flaunted her status as Zaboru's wife.
Not because she was Akechi's sister.
Not because she came from the Hamazou family.
They respected her because she worked hard, listened seriously, gave credit to others, and never acted like she was above the development team. She was beautiful, intelligent, talented, and humble. Even the employees who initially felt nervous around her eventually relaxed because Ayumi treated them warmly.
Of course, the fact that she was extremely beautiful did not hurt workplace morale either.
Even though everyone knew she was married, working with a beautiful, smart, kind woman who genuinely appreciated their effort made the office atmosphere surprisingly positive. Some employees even joked privately that Akaishidan's motivation system had three pillars: salary, fear of Akechi, and Ayumi's smile.
The third one was somehow the strongest and most dangerous or maybe the second one?".
Ayumi was also becoming increasingly famous in the development world under her developer name:
U-Bunny.
Among game developers and serious fans, U-Bunny had started to gain a mysterious reputation. People knew she was connected to Akaishidan, and some suspected she had ties to ZAGE because her design sense felt unusually advanced. But Ayumi rarely appeared publicly. Even when she did, she wore heavy disguises, large glasses, hats, masks, or outfits that made her look like a suspicious background character in a spy comedy.
Because of that, rumors about U-Bunny became ridiculous.
Some thought U-Bunny was a genius male developer pretending to be a woman.
Some thought U-Bunny was actually a whole team.
Some thought U-Bunny was Zaboru's secret alternate account.
One forum user even claimed U-Bunny was a rabbit-themed artificial intelligence created by ZAGE.
Ayumi had laughed so hard at that rumor that she almost cried.
Zaboru, unfortunately, had only made the rumor worse by joking once, "U-Bunny is real, and she is very dangerous."
After that, the theory became even stronger.
Akechi knew the truth, of course. U-Bunny was simply Ayumi. His little sister. His pregnant little sister who was currently working overtime on a Saturday despite carrying twins.
That was why he did not know what to do.
Part of him wanted to hate Zaboru for getting Ayumi pregnant again so quickly.
But that would be unfair.
Ayumi was extremely happy. She loved Zaboru deeply, loved their children, and was genuinely excited about the twins. Akechi knew Zaboru treasured her. He knew Zaboru would never deliberately endanger her. He also knew Ayumi was stubborn enough that even Zaboru himself sometimes failed to stop her when she entered creative mode.
So Akechi could not truly get angry at Zaboru.
Instead, he could only stand there, sigh repeatedly, and quietly prepare backup plans in case Ayumi overworked herself.
He had already ordered extra food.
He had already called a doctor just in case.
He had already arranged a car to take Ayumi home the moment she looked tired.
He had also secretly ordered Kazu to report any sign of Ayumi pushing herself too hard.
Kazu had accepted the mission with the expression of a soldier being sent behind enemy lines.
Ayumi, meanwhile, continued drawing as if none of this was happening.
"Kazu-kun," she said brightly, "what do you think if one MAXIMILIAN form looks cute at first but becomes more disturbing every time the player uses it?"
Kazu stared at her.
"Ayumi-san, are you asking as a designer or as a threat?"
"As a designer."
"Then yes, that sounds interesting."
Ayumi smiled. "Good. Please write that down."
Kazu sighed and typed it into the document.
Akechi looked at the growing concept page and shook his head.
This game was definitely going to become strange.
A dark mystery visual novel about alien animal cyborg transformations, tokusatsu heroes, branching emotional corruption, and 3D action scenes.
It sounded ridiculous.
It also sounded exactly like something Ayumi would somehow make work.
And so, Akaishidan continued working overtime on their new game.
Its official project name would be:
Mysterie AniMAX!
Meanwhile right now on E-SPORT Japan are heated now…
To be continued.
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