In a dimly lit corner of the grand concert hall, far from the blinding stage lights, a prominent pop artist crossed her arms over her glittering dress, a sharp smirk playing on her lips.
"Heh," she whispered to the producer standing beside her. "It seems he is all talk after all."
The producer frowned, keeping his eyes on the stage where Percival was still casually leaning against the grand piano. "Why is that?"
"Because he just told Nico his song was 'good,'" the artist sneered softly, shaking her head. "It's an incredibly transparent deflection. He's basically softening the blow before he plays because he hasn't actually created anything. He knows he can't beat that performance on the spot, so he's trying to look like the 'bigger man' before he fails."
The producer tilted his head, his brow furrowing as he observed the masked prodigy. "Now that you mention it... I haven't seen him write down a single word or even test a chord progression since the challenge was issued. He's just been standing there."
Before the artist could gloat further, a voice cut through the ambient chatter from the other side of their small circle.
"No. He is better than Tealeaf."
The artist turned sharply, her eyes narrowing behind her feathered mask at the intrusion. "And what do you know about it?"
The man who had spoken stepped slightly forward from the shadows. He wore a simple, unadorned suit, his expression a mixture of profound respect and lingering, complex trauma.
"I've seen him make a masterpiece in fifteen minutes before," the man stated quietly, his eyes fixed entirely on the silver-clad figure on the stage.
The pop artist let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. "Hah! You're actually saying his blatant PR lies about creating 'Yesterday' in fifteen minutes are true? That's impossible."
"Yes," the man replied firmly, not breaking his gaze from the stage.
The artist glared at him. "And how exactly do you know that?"
The man finally turned his head to look at her. It was Lorin Dolla. The same man who had been utterly, systematically crushed by Percival during their first, fateful duel on Percival's debut party.
"Because," Lorin said, his voice dropping into a solemn, almost haunted register, "I have been on the other side of him."
Up on the stage, the sudden silence was broken by the first, gentle strike of the grand piano keys.
[Labi Siffre – My Song]
Percival simply stood at the keyboard, his fingers resting lightly on the ivories. The first chord rang out through the flawless acoustics of the hall. It wasn't the dark, defensive minor progression Nico had used.
It was a standard, achingly simple major chord. It sounded incredibly happy. It sounded entirely, beautifully resolved.
Percival closed his eyes beneath his mask and leaned slightly toward the microphone.
"This is my song..."
His voice was a deep, resonant baritone, smooth and completely unbothered by the crushing pressure of the room. The piano struck a sequence of Major 7th chords, but what struck the audience the most was the incredible, breathtaking space between them. He let the chords ring out and breathe, filling the silence of the hall with pure warmth.
"And no one can take it away..."
The celebrities and executives in the front rows felt a sudden, collective chill run down their spines. The lyrics were devastatingly simple, yet layered with absolute, unshakable power. By stating his song could not be taken, he wasn't just addressing Nico's plagiarism scandal; he was declaring himself entirely invulnerable to the vicious whims of the Selanian music machine.
"It's been so long, but now you're here..." Percival sang softly, his voice carrying a profound, almost overwhelming sense of relief. "Here to stay."
The transition in his voice from "so long," a period of intense lack and struggle, to "here to stay," a feeling of absolute permanence, created a sudden, solid ground beneath the entire audience. The unadulterated sincerity in his delivery was intoxicating.
The executives, the managers, the cynical artist... they all began to realize the true depth of the incredibly simple lyrics. This was the Composer's definitive answer. His music, his soul, this very song he was pulling from the air, it was unequivocally his.
"And I wonder if you know what it means..."
The harmony abruptly shifted. The piano moved effortlessly from the stable, resting chords of the verse into a descending, searching progression that pulled at the heartstrings of every single person in the room.
"To find your dreams come true..."
It was the sound of someone looking at their current reality; standing on a stage, singing to the galaxy, and finding it far more beautiful than their wildest imagination.
All across the grand hall, eyes widened in genuine shock. In an industry built entirely on manufactured drama, heartbreak, and cutthroat ambition, the optimistic unjaded view radiating from the masked boy was a blinding, impossible light.
The acoustics of the grand hall perfectly carried the resonance of the grand piano. Percival's fingers moved across the keys with an effortless, fluid grace, striking another sequence of bright, major chords.
He leaned back toward the microphone, his voice cutting through the stunned silence.
"This is my song..."
He let the chord ring out, filling the room with a warm, golden sound.
"And no one can make it a lie."
In the center aisle, Briane Taleini let out a soft gasp, her hands instantly flying up to cover her mouth in shock.
The audacity of the line struck the entire audience like a physical blow. Percival wasn't defending himself against Nico's accusations, he was completely dismissing them. He was asserting that no matter what lies the industry spun, or how anyone else perceived his creations, the absolute reality of his music and his feelings was indisputable. It was his.
"It's been so long since someone..." Percival sang, his deep baritone dropping into a soft, intimately vulnerable cadence. "Could make me cry."
The collective breath of the room hitched. The restored vulnerability in his voice was devastating. In an industry built on cold, impenetrable facades and carefully constructed personas, his admission of tears was a profound sign that his heart had finally been reached.
To cry, in the context of his song, was to be beautifully alive again.
"And I wonder if you know what it means..."
The piano swelled, the harmony shifting back into that beautiful, descending progression.
"To laugh as tears go by."
A wave of pure, unfiltered catharsis rippled violently through the audience of hardened executives and jaded artists. It was the breathtaking paradox of pure joy and profound emotional release happening simultaneously. For a fleeting second, the masks they all wore seemed entirely pointless.
Suddenly, the rhythm of the piano shifted. The heavy, resonant chords became slightly more regular, almost adopting the cadence of a clumsy, endearing waltz. The chords rocked back and forth beneath his fingers, moving smoothly from the stable tonic to the tense dominant and back again.
"I may not always sing in tune..." Percival smiled beneath his mask, his voice holding a hint of warm, self-deprecating humor.
The feeling washing over the crowd was one of humble honesty. The supposed "genius of the century" was standing on a stage, publicly acknowledging his own imperfections to the most critical audience in the galaxy.
"And sometimes you don't hear me..."
The waltzing rhythm slowed, the piano notes dropping away until only a fragile, hanging chord remained.
"But you don't have to be near me..."
This was a massive, powerful shift in the narrative. His voice grew stronger, anchoring the entire room. He was singing about a bond that had entirely transcended the physical realm.
"To know that I'm singing."
He let the word echo into the silence. He was declaring that his "singing," his soul, his very essence, existed on a frequency that everyone could hear even in the absolute silence of the void. It was a connection that transcended distance, fame, and the suffocating weight of the Selanian industry.
Floating invisibly above the stunned, completely captivated crowd, Aphrodite stared down at the stage in absolute awe.
The Goddess of Beauty, who had witnessed millennia of mortal desire, obsession, and lust, felt the overwhelming wave of emotion rolling off the stage.
"I have never..." Aphrodite whispered, her divine voice trembling slightly. "I have never felt pure love this potent. It is a charm that transcends even faith itself."
She looked down at her cousin in a new light. A fierce, protective pride swelling in her immortal chest.
"Keep going, my little godling!" she cheered, her voice a silent roar only he could hear. "Show them!"
Percival's fingers struck a resonant, grounding chord. He leaned into the microphone, his voice carrying the absolute weight of his soul.
"This is my song..." He let the silence hang for a fraction of a second.
"And nothing can make it die."
The feeling washing over the grand hall shifted from raw vulnerability to absolute immortality. He had moved gracefully from claiming ownership; "no one can take it," to declaring its eternal duration. He was telling the room that this song, and the feelings behind it, had become a permanent, indestructible feature of the universe.
"It's been so long and it's stronger..." Percival sang softly, an intimate smile touching his lips beneath the mask. "I know why."
It was a quiet, private nod to the partner who wasn't even in the room. He had analyzed his own heart and found that the passage of time, the grueling pressure of fame, and the distance had only reinforced the structure of his love.
The piano chords swelled, rich and full of life.
"And I wonder if you really, really know..." The repetition added a layer of desperate earnestness to his smooth baritone. He wanted her to understand the sheer, staggering scale of his commitment. "That as long as I live, I will sing my song for you."
The feeling in the room was one of solemn, lifelong devotion. It was a vow made not to the industry, but to a single, unseen soul.
The outro began. The piano notes started to soften, the tempo slowing organically.
"That as long as I live, I will sing my song..."
As the final lines repeated and the music began to fade, it didn't feel like the song was ending. The delicate, lingering notes suggested that the melody was simply moving into a place where the audience could no longer hear it, continuing on as a permanent, invisible pulse in the background of his life.
His hands slowly lifted from the keys.
The grand hall went absolutely, entirely silent.
It left the audience sitting in the twilight of the acoustics, suspended right there in the room with Percival. They were trapped in the overwhelming feeling that the love he had just sung about was still continuing, echoing out into the world long after his hands had left the piano.
For five agonizingly long, breathless seconds, nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Then...
HIC!
The sudden, loud hiccup from the Composer completely shattered the ethereal spell.
Clap! ... Clap! ... Clap!
It was Briane Taleini. She stood up from her seat in the center aisle, tears brimming in her summer-sky eyes, and began a slow, deliberate standing ovation.
The spell was broken, but the reverence remained. The clapping rippled outward. Within seconds, the entire hall of cynical celebrities, cutthroat executives, and rival artists was on its feet, delivering a thunderous, roaring standing ovation for the boy in the mask.
Down in the front row, Ezil Zesel sat frozen, his dark eyes wide open in genuine, unadulterated shock. He had wanted to see the ant bite the elephant. Instead, he had just watched the elephant casually reshape the entire landscape.
Beside him, Mar Raila leaned over, her voice dripping with triumphant venom. "Got someone on his level under your label, Ezil?"
Ezil's head snapped toward Raila, his eyes narrowing into a furious, murderous glare. He looked back at the stage, watching the slightly swaying, drunk Composer accepting the applause. Without a single word, the Qerrian CEO stood up from his plush seat, turned his back on the stage, and stormed out of the hall.
Mar Raila watched him leave, a smirk on her lips. She turned her attention back to the stage, her eyes locked onto Percival. 'This boy,' she thought, a thrill of genuine excitement running through her veins, 'is truly special.'
Up on the stage, the MC rushed forward with his microphone, completely ignoring the humiliated Nico Tealeaf who was staring blankly at his own keyboard.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" the MC shouted over the roaring applause. "I think it is safe to announce the winner of this–!"
"We don't care," a sharp voice cut him off.
Ratik had already marched up the stage stairs. She entirely bypassed the MC, grabbed Percival firmly by the arm, and began steering him away from the piano. "We are leaving. Now."
She dragged the Composer off the stage and shoved through the heavy curtains into the dimly lit backstage area. Briane and Kio were hot on their heels, rushing through the backstage corridors to avoid the surging crowd of reporters that would inevitably flood the exit hall.
Percival stumbled slightly, heavily leaning his weight onto Ratik's shoulder.
"Manager?" Percival mumbled, his words slurring as the adrenaline of the performance faded, leaving only the alcohol in its wake. "Why are you here?"
"I am the one who has to ask you that!" Ratik hissed, wrapping an arm around his waist to keep him upright. "How many drinks did you actually have?!"
Percival blinked sluggishly beneath his mask. "Nothing much... hic... Oh, but there was this one server who gave me a drink. It was... it was way more bubbly than the usual ones."
Ratik stopped dead in her tracks, her blood turning to absolute ice.
"What?!?" Ratik demanded, her grip tightening on his suit. "Who?! What did they look like?!"
But it was too late. The combination of the mysterious drink, the sheer emotional exhaustion of the performance, and the crushing weight of the gala finally caught up to him. Percival's head lolled forward, and he fell fast asleep against her shoulder, completely dead to the world.
"Dorian! Wake up!" Ratik shook him, panic rising in her chest.
Briane and Kio caught up to them, rounding the corner.
"Is the Composer okay?" Briane asked, her eyes wide with concern as she saw him slumped against his manager.
Ratik quickly masked her panic, nodding sharply. "He's fine. He just crashed."
"Right here," Kio instructed, a heavy metal slid open, revealing a private freight elevator. "This leads directly to the underground VIP transport tunnels. We already have a speeder parked and waiting."
"Thank you, Kio," Ratik breathed, immensely grateful.
With Briane and Kio's help, they practically carried the sleeping genius into the elevator. The doors slid shut, hiding them from the chaos above, and began its descent, leaving behind a hall full of stunned celebrities, media executives, and a galaxy that had just witnessed the absolute truth of Composer Percival.
…
Far away from the glittering, treacherous heights of Sela, the neon-drenched streets of the transit planet Lanides had quieted down into a deep, midnight lull.
Inside the small, woven flap of the food stall, four empty bowls sat stacked on the scratched wooden counter; two in front of Kasavin, and two in front of Kre Jalirelg. The Lanidesian chef was quietly wiping down the cooking vats in the background, leaving the two men in peace.
They had been talking for hours, the conversation stretching from the early evening all the way to midnight. They had discussed the real history of Yustea Prime, Kre's harrowing experiences on the ground, and exactly how the native people had been systematically corralled into durasteel fortresses under the guise of 'cultural preservation.'
Kasavin slowly dropped his head into his hands, the sheer weight of the tragedy washing over him. It was jarring and deeply pitiful. The Yusteans were being choked out of their own ancestral valleys, yet no one in the Core Worlds believed it. Worst of all, they were entirely unheard, physically unable to speak up without breaking the very 'Silent Vow' the Accord tourists paid to see.
Kasavin rubbed his tired eyes and looked up. "How about those Yusteans who have already assimilated into the Accord? The ones who live off-world, working in the cities or the outer rims? Surely they can speak out."
Kre took a slow sip from a small glass of clear, burning liquor. He shook his head, his weathered face looking older under the harsh neon light.
"We tracked down dozens of them during our investigation," Kre explained, his voice thick with frustration. "But they all refused to be interviewed. And it wasn't just a handful. All of them. Entire communities of assimilated Yusteans, completely silent."
Kasavin's brow furrowed in disbelief. "Why? If Volantis, my home planet, was being choked down like this, I would shout it to the stars. I would talk until my mouth dried up and my throat bled."
"I used to think the same way," Kre sighed, staring at his glass. "But the reality of Accord politics is terrifying. There were some who tried. In fact, there was a specific reason and a small spark that made my team launch this investigation in the first place. There were ripples of murmurs from the assimilated natives. Small protests, whispered warnings..."
Kre paused, his eyes hardening. "But they were fleeting. The Accord Bureau of Stellar Order is ruthless. If you speak up, you get silenced. You lose your job, your family loses their housing credits, or you simply disappear into a penal colony. As the old proverb goes, Kasavin: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
Kasavin looked down at his empty bowl stack, staring at the small puddle of rich broth left at the very bottom. His mind, previously completely stuck on the narrative for the Stardew DLC, was suddenly overflowing. He now had a profound, urgent purpose.
Kasavin looked up, his eyes meeting the tired journalist's. "Kre... can I share this story?"
Kre looked at the newly met writer in surprise, then offered a bitter, weary smile. He reached into his heavy coat and pulled out a small, encrypted datalog holding months of useless evidence.
"Go for it," Kre chuckled humorlessly, tossing the datalog onto the counter. "My network just officially shut down my investigation this morning anyway. They said it was 'too politically sensitive' ahead of the Centennial Showers. This whole story is just going to be piled up and buried in some corporate storage room."
Kre picked up his glass, raising it slightly toward Kasavin. "If my investigative writing can somehow inspire your fictional writing, Kasavin... then at the very least, I can tell myself it wasn't all for nothing."
Kasavin smiled. It wasn't a smile of pity, but one of fierce, undeniable resolve. He didn't tell Kre that his 'simple writing' reached hundreds of millions of active players across the galaxy. He didn't tell him that Round Table Studio was about to drop an event that would make the entire Accord look at Yustea Prime.
Kasavin simply picked up his own shot glass, clinking it gently against Kre's.
"Thanks, Kre," Kasavin said quietly, downing the burning liquid in one go. He set the glass down and picked up his pen. "You won't regret it."
⋘ 𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒂.. .⋙
🎮:
- Stardwey Valley: Completed.
- Hades: Completed.
🎬: -
♬:
- Your Song – Elton John (ch.9)
- A Lovely Night – La La Land (ch.20)
- Merry Go Round of Life – Howl's Moving Castle (ch.25)
- Small Fragile Hearts – Victor Lundberg (ch. 27)
- Skyfall – Adele (ch. 29)
- No Time To Die – Billie Eilish (ch. 30)
- Yesterday – The Beatles (ch. 32)
- Lovely – Billie Eilish, Khalid (ch. 47)
- Best Part – H.E.R. feat. Daniel Caesar (ch. 67)
- Lovely Day – Bill Withers (ch. 68)
- My Song – Labi Siffre (ch. 75)
**A/N**
~Read Advance Chapter and Support me on [email protected]/SmilinKujo~
~🧣KujoW
**A/N**