Chapter 12: A Signal Across Oceans
The rain hadn't stopped all day.
It fell against the windows of Cal's apartment in slow, deliberate drops, each one a soft reminder of how far the world outside drifted from the one in his screen.
Inside, a warm orange glow from the monitor lit his face. No notifications. No visitors. No messages. Only the hum of the computer, the shifting light of his desktop background—a looping scanline animation he'd rendered himself.
Two days had passed since the Ado and Creepy Nuts music stream.
The data trail from that night was still unfolding. Quiet bootleg sites in Japan had picked it up, but something unusual had appeared in the system logs today.
[Ping: External Node]
[Origin: France – Forum Mirror Detected]
[Thread Title: "Mysterious Japanese Stream – Unknown Artist/Tracklist?"]
[Initial Poster: 'BetaTapes_FR' | Language: French / English Blend]
[View Count: 71 | Replies: 22 | Shares: 14]
Cal blinked slowly.
That was new.
He opened the trace viewer.
The system displayed a thread hosted on a low-traffic music enthusiast board—a place for cassette collectors and radio show diggers. Someone had recorded a portion of his previous music stream and uploaded it with a title: Unknown Japanese Experimental Broadcast – Real or ARG?
A few replies speculated it was a hoax.
Others called it "too polished" to be fake.
One post stood out:
"There's something about her voice. Raw. Almost… prophetic? Sounds like something from 2025, not 2010. Who's behind this?"
Cal's fingers hovered over his keyboard.
He didn't reply.
Of course not.
He never would.
But he smiled—just slightly.
That night, Cal began preparing his next stream.
It would be another late-night session in 2010-A. This time, a thematic mix: modern anime opening and ending themes from international breakout series. A showcase of emotional storytelling through song.
He titled the playlist "Across Borders, Across Time."
It would include:
"Kaikai Kitan" by Eve (Jujutsu Kaisen)
"Gurenge" by LiSA (Demon Slayer)
"KICK BACK" by Kenshi Yonezu (Chainsaw Man)
And finally, something gentler:
"Blue Bird" (Orchestra ver.) — a remixed performance from a 2023 live concert, never released publicly in his original timeline.
The last track was for nostalgia. A kind of closing prayer.
The system responded quickly.
[Playlist Approved]
[Sync Engine: Activated | Timeline A 2010 – Stream Version Rendering in 4K + Enhanced Audio Fidelity]
[Live Stream Ready | Countdown: 3 Hours, 12 Minutes]
Cal leaned back in his chair.
He reached for a cup of instant miso soup on his desk. Steam drifted upward in a thin ribbon as the rain outside thickened.
He didn't know what would happen with this one.
But something inside him stirred—an itch, a pull.
The feeling that someone out there, far from Tokyo or Osaka, might be listening in the dark with the same longing he had always carried.
At 11:55 p.m., the stream went live.
No title.
No chat.
Just a glowing screen.
The first song began—Kaikai Kitan. Eve's voice cut through like an incantation—half-riddle, half-confession. The animation accompanying the song wasn't pulled from the anime. Instead, Cal had cut together a stream of abstract visuals—ink drips, flashing lights, eyes opening and closing like clockwork.
Then Gurenge. LiSA's voice rang out like steel clashing in the sky.
Each track transitioned with care—short instrumental bridges between them, so as not to break the mood.
The system quietly tallied live listeners.
[Live Viewers: 32… 41… 58… 79…]
A third of them from Japan.
But the rest?
[Location Ping: France, Germany, United Kingdom, Brazil, California (USA)]
That last one lingered.
A small blue dot pulsed on the West Coast of the U.S.
Someone was watching. In silence.
In a dim studio apartment in Los Angeles, a young woman named Rina clicked the edge of her browser window, watching the silent stream in full-screen mode.
She was a film school dropout, working nights at a Korean fried chicken joint and spending her breaks scrolling music threads. Someone on a niche Discord had shared the link to the stream under the heading "Future Sound, No Source."
It wasn't like anything she'd heard.
She didn't know Japanese fluently, but music didn't need translation.
The third song—KICK BACK—hit like a rush of energy through her spine.
She leaned forward as the animation transitioned to flickering video fragments: blades of grass, teeth, a blender, a businessman running in loops.
It was alive.
Half-sick, half-beautiful.
What is this? she whispered.
She didn't know it, but five years from now, she would go on to co-direct an animated short for an emerging artist inspired by Kenshi Yonezu.
But tonight, she just listened.
Back in Cal's apartment, the stream reached its final track.
The orchestral version of Blue Bird began—its strings delicate, the melody slower than the original. More solemn. Like something returning home after years of wandering.
The visuals dimmed into a soft blue gradient.
No lyrics this time.
Just music.
Pure and unfiltered.
It played for four minutes and twenty-six seconds.
When it ended, there was no outro. No message. The screen simply faded to black.
Stream over.
But the ripples had already begun.
[Stream Summary – "Across Borders, Across Time"]
[Live Viewers: 142 | Peak Concurrent: 91]
[Foreign Mirrors: 3 (France, US, Brazil)]
[Discussion Threads Detected: 6 | Translations: 2 Volunteer Subs in Progress]
[Impact Report: International Listener Chain Initiated]
[System Reward: +215 Points]
[New Feature Unlocked – Global Map Echo: Visualize Cultural Resonance Outside Japan]
[Optional Mission: Trace + Archive Fan Creations Sparked by Streams]
Cal blinked.
There it was.
Proof.
Not just that people were watching. But that his choices—his careful curation—were shaping voices outside the timeline he streamed to.
It was slow.
But it was happening.
He clicked into the new map view.
Small lines now extended from Tokyo outward—curving faintly across the Pacific, arcing into points in Los Angeles, São Paulo, and Paris.
Tiny flickers of light.
Whispers turning into echoes.
Later that night, Cal stood by his window.
The rain had stopped. The street below glistened under yellow streetlamps, empty and silent.
He didn't feel powerful.
He felt responsible.
These songs, these voices—Ado, Eve, LiSA, Kenshi—they weren't just content. They were future creators, artists who had poured years of soul into their music.
And now, their messages had crossed time zones and languages.
He sipped his coffee in the quiet.
[System Notice: You Are The Only Host Across Timelines]
[Reminder: All Influence Has Origin Point – User Cal]
He stared at that message a long time.
It wasn't pride he felt.
It was gravity.
A kind of unseen weight pulling gently on his heart.
He closed the window, returned to his desk, and began jotting down ideas for the next stream.
Nothing flashy.
Just carefully chosen pieces of the future, handed to the past like secret postcards.
One stream at a time.
End of Chapter 12