"It sounds good enough, but are you sure this is the quality you want for an album?" Aeryx asked Miki.

The girls, Ms. Yoshida, Aya, and I stared at Miki, whose jaw dropped but no words came out. Even though she didn't mean to, Aeryx's menacing glare was the most threatening gaze that had been laid upon me, so I understood Miki's fear. To my surprise, he was able to recover before I had to intervene.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Miki.

"Exactly that," answered Aeryx. "The sound is good, but I'm suggesting you should buy better equipment now that your popularity is growing exponentially. It's alright if you can't afford it, though."

I looked at Aya, expecting some kind of magical solution, but she merely looked back at me. Obviously, it was something I had to decide on my own.

I let out a long sigh and replied, "We should be able to. I'll check today."

"That means we'd have to re-record everything," Umi said.

Although Umi referred to the entire album, Aeryx replied, "I don't mind coming back to record again. It's fun seeing the girls."

The girls smiled and the mood lifted slightly, but that didn't last long.

"As good as that would be, you'll only be here for two days," Ms. Yoshida said. "Then you'll leave for another three weeks."

"But we only have two weeks before the album's release," worried Sanae.

Everyone stared at me, waiting for the magical solution I was waiting for too. Knowing it wouldn't come, I asked Ms. Yoshida, "What if it can't be done in two days?"

"It would make it hard," she answered. "You'll still have the current recordings, though."

"The quality mismatch would suck," complained Aeryx. "I'm totally fine with using one of my rest days to come and record. I wouldn't care even if it's a show day."

Everyone's eyes opened wide at her statement, including mine. I didn't believe it was possible for my respect for her to increase even more, yet it did.

"If those are Aeryx's wishes, I'm no one to refuse," smirked Ms. Yoshida. "Even if it means more work for me and the organization."

"Don't worry, I'll try my best to make it in two days," I asserted.

Although Ms. Yoshida kept smiling, it seemed like she was holding back from saying something.

"Did you hire a music producer?" asked Aeryx.

"No, we didn't," I answered.

"May I suggest one more thing?"

"Please do."

"You should take advantage of the re-recording and hire a producer as well, or multiple, if their taste doesn't suit you. There's nothing wrong with Umi's work, she did a splendid job with your first album, but believe me, your eyes will be opened when an expert in the field gets their hands on your songs."

I glanced at Umi, whose face showed no expression.

Aeryx continued, "You can always choose not to hire a producer for specific songs if that's what you want. Still, I recommend you do. Rumi can put you in touch with some producers, right?" she said and glanced at Ms. Yoshida.

Rumi?

"That's right," smiled Ms. Yoshida.

Ah, right. That's Ms. Yoshida's first name.

"Well, it seems like we're done for today," she continued. "Please confirm if Aeryx should come to record as soon as possible."

"Will do," I replied. "Please let me walk to the door with you."

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She and Aeryx waved goodbye at everyone before stepping out of the studio. I followed them downstairs toward the entrance, where Butcher quickly stood up and pushed the door open for them.

"Thank you," Ms. Yoshida said.

Scared of them being recognized, I asked, "Aren't you going to wait—" However, the car they had arrived in was already parked in front of HQ. Now, that's efficiency.

Ms. Yoshida turned around with a smirk. "I'll contact you soon to discuss the other thing," she winked.

Both she and Aeryx hopped in the car, which promptly flew away. I turned around to get back inside HQ, just to be surprised by Aya and the girls standing in front of me.

"What other thing?" Aki questioned with her arms crossed.

"Ah…. It's a surprise."

"I love surprises!"

"I hate surprises."

Astra and Umi said at the same time.

Being scrutinized by all of them and with no real reason to hide it from them, I gave up. "You're going to perform one song at Aeryx's last concert."

Their eyes opened wide.

"Really?" asked Risa.

I nodded.

"Why only one?" wondered Umi.

"Because we're afraid of a negative reaction from the fans if we retract the decision to stop opening for Aeryx after canceling. It'll be a surprise appearance. You'll perform Auras along with Aeryx and you'll be able to promote the tour for our album."

The girls' eyes glimmered as they all smiled at each other.

"There's one more thing you might have to promote, though," I added and the girls stopped celebrating to look at me. "You might open for Aeryx again, but this time during her world tour."

Silence encompassed the room until the girls burst at the same time.

"What?!"

"I said you might, okay? Although it's almost certain you will, don't get your hopes too high just yet."

Unsurprisingly, they were too excited to listen to me.

Risa grabbed Sanae by her shoulders and shook her. "Did you hear that? We're going on a world tour!"

Sanae wouldn't react at all. Her mouth merely stayed open as her gaze aimed down at a void on the floor.

Aki squeezed Astra, who was barely able to say, "Can't… breathe…."

Meanwhile, Umi glanced at them, looking just as shocked. I approached her and asked, "Do you want to hug someone?"

"Not you."

"Harsh, but I wasn't talking about me."

Her brows furrowed as I signaled Aya to come with my head. Umi had just turned around to see who I was looking at when Aya hugged her. Umi's entire face reddened as I had never seen before, then the rest of the girls joined their hug, except for Sanae, who still was petrified.

I stood in front of her. "Sanae? Are you okay?"

Out of nowhere, she wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. "Thank you," she said as her voice broke.

I didn't expect to struggle to hold back the tears.

The rest of the girls then joined our hug, including Umi. I smiled and shook my head before stepping away.

"Alright, that's enough," I said. "Celebrations have to wait. The tour is still far away and we have a lot of work to do before that happens. Understood?"

"Yes!" everyone replied.

The first thing I did was ask the girls to work even harder to come up with the choreographies as Miki and I looked for better sound equipment that was of excellent quality without having an exorbitant price.

Although it was a titanic task, we managed to choose the providers in one day, but it still was too late. The delivery of all of the equipment took two days, even with the fastest delivery option, then I realized it still had to be installed, calibrated, and tested before it could be used professionally. I had made a fool of myself by suggesting to Ms. Yoshida that it could be done in two days.

By the time the equipment was ready, Ms. Yoshida had already sent me the contact information of three producers. Of course, they were all expensive, so I made Umi choose one. She chose the most expensive one since he was the one that worked the most on pop songs.

Our eyes were opened as soon as he started working with us, just as Aeryx had suggested. He adjusted the songs in ways we hadn't thought about before, while still maintaining their intended essence. Luckily for us, neither the choreographies nor the animations needed a lot of modifications to fit the newly produced songs.

Aeryx was only able to come to HQ and record three days before the album's release. Although crazy, it was doable, but our plans to publish an excerpt of the song were flushed down the drain.

Still, we published a short, mysterious animation to announce the collaboration with Aeryx, along with our second fan meeting in the same mall as our first one on the same day of the album's release.

The announcement also made our sales and streams recover from the decline they had been suffering since we had been quiet for too long.

Before we realized it, the day arrived.