Her body riddled with cancer after the radiation exposure on the plane, Maori Niizono had worked to improve her own body, too. Having experimented on herself while working to revive Mika Furutsuki, her body was considerably outdated compared to the 2nd Generation Idol. Her original human flesh was little more than a facade. Inside that shell, the only organ still functional was her brain. Cancer had spread to every other organ, so she’d torn them out and thrown them in the garbage. In their place, she’d borrowed organs from other people. These days, there was no shortage of people on the brink of death, so by splitting their heads open and granting a merciful death she could slice the rest of them open and steal their organs. However, it was quite rare to find proper organs with no cancer, and whenever she did find them she preserved them for Mika Furutsuki’s use, so her own organs were all a patchwork of pieces stolen from any number of people. These patchwork organs were not nearly as functional as normal organs.
Since she was cobbling together bits from several bodies, these results were expected. To elevate the poorly functioning organs to ordinary levels, she took the simplistic approach of making them bigger. Maori Niizono stuck all these oversized organs in a large trailer. Her lungs, stomach, esophagus, lower and upper intestines, pancreas, liver and kidneys were all just jammed in there like a disorganized closet. Over time, the pipes that ran to her body that housed her brain had rusted or grew old and fluid began leaking out around them, but she was too focused on reviving Mika Furutsuki to pay that any heed. She’d cultivated a thin layer of skin over the trailer, with Novum Organum within, converting UV rays and radiation to energy. She got enough to keep the trailer functioning and herself alive but not enough to make herself feel full, so she made occasional expeditions to eat corpses. For that reason, the trailer was fitted with caterpillar treads lined with suction cups.
As the 2nd Generation Idol learned to move her body, she began taking walks with Maori Niizono as part of her idol activities. Their base was in Tokyo — Chiba Prefecture. By this time, the bulk of Japan was under Novum Organum control, the national and local governments having long since collapsed. With the high-rise buildings at their cores, spider threads — reinforced with carbon nanotubes to give them the light/long/sturdy trifecta — stretched here and there. A number of giant jellyfish floated in the sky above, secured to the ground by other threads. Jellyfish polyps fell from the sky like snow, dancing in the air. The few remaining humans survived in the shadows of the jellyfish like sewer rats. The violent activity of the solar flare was slowly but surely culling the last traces of mankind from the surface.
Their walks together were not just dates. Gathering and consuming vital provisions from corpses and dying humans was part of their idol activities. Humans were mostly dwelling in the depths of the sewers or in the hearts of buildings surrounded by spider webs. When Maori Niizono used her giant form to smash those buildings, they’d scatter like woodlice when the rock above was removed. Some individuals fought back, but the machine guns on the trailer filled them with holes and they were soon gobbled up.
There was only one group of humans engaged in any sort of organized activity. These women called themselves the Vigilantes. They were die-hard anti-technologists and traditionalists. Vowing to take back the Akihabara of yore, they all wore T-shirts featuring moe characters of a bygone age. These were their traditional iconography. Rejecting advanced technology, they survived in the harsh new world by developing their own low tech gear. Piercing their arms, thighs, and sides with drill bits, they attached springs, and used the force of those springs to fire arrows with climbing ropes attached. The arrows caught in the spider webs and they’d leap forward, reeling in the ropes. Repeating this allowed them to move rapidly around. Armed mainly with Molotov cocktails, machetes, and Kalashnikovs, they slaughtered Novum Organum one by one.
Naturally, the Vigilantes opposed Maori Niizono’s consumption of other humans. While Maori Niizono was once human, she had taken Novum Organum into her own body; they viewed her as a traitor to the human race and a mortal enemy. The Vigilantes made a lair in one of the floating jellyfish and repeatedly descended to the high-rise where Maori Niizono had made her base, attacking her. To fight back, she had assembled an array of machine and laser guns tricked out with night-vision scopes and the like. With her modern military gear, the Vigilantes stood no chance against her, and their war was in the midst of a long cease fire.
The arrival of the 2nd Generation Idol tipped the balance of this delicate peace. Having gone all out to bring Mika Furutsuki back, the culmination of all her dreams, had left Maori Niizono’s guard down. Where she had once seemed invincible, she now had a clear weakness. And the Vigilantes did not let that go unnoticed.
Unaware of this, the two merrily continued their idol activities. Today, they had found an unusually large den of humans and were looking forward to the fresh meat.
“Maorin, one’s running away!”
While Maori Niizono was shoving the group of humans into her trailer, grinding them to mincemeat, one slipped away. A child.
“She’s our future! My daughter! I’m begging you, spare her life!” said one human, stepping forward with arms upraised. Presumably her parent. She was so scared tears and snot were pouring down like waterfalls.
“Oh...well, if it’s a kid, I suppose we could spare her.”
“What? Really?”
“Nope.”
With that harsh warning, bullets pierced both child and parent.
“Wow, Maorin. You’re so merciless!”
“Oh? Well, maybe I’m just excited to be with you, Mika-chan!”
Maori Niizono gathered the humans together with her manipulators, inserting pipes into their flesh, and draining the fluid. The 2nd Generation Idol perched on the mound of flesh, spreading her intestines and spraying digestive fluid, then slurping up the dissolved meat. This might seem cruel, but the world of an idol was a harsh one, and survival of the fittest was an inescapable rule.
They continued their violent idol activities, and before they knew it, it was dark. This was not an error Maori Niizono would ordinarily have made. At night, the sun’s UV rays were gone; it was the realm of traditional life forms. Naturally, mankind had become nocturnal as well, and were far more dangerous at night. She had been too preoccupied with their idol activities and had made a careless mistake.
A powerful voice echoed through their surroundings.
“Your heartless violence ends now!”
“Who?!” Maori Niizono said, dropping her meat in surprise.
“We are the Vigilantes! Those who protect the peace of Akihabara!”
Before they knew it, they were surrounded by at least a few dozen Vigilantes. They all wore goggles to ward off UV rays, and bandages covered their faces. With a machete in their right hand and a Kalashnikov in their left, they wore T-shirts covered in moe characters to protect their torsos. Holes were placed here and there in their bodies, and arrows with hooks on them were peeping out.
“Mika-chan, stay back,” said Maori Niizono, stowing her brain/weak point in the trailer.
“We will purge this holy land of your evil... Unh!”
Before the Vigilante shock troop leader could finish her speech, she was crushed by the trailer, her innards gushing out of her mouth.
“Go, go, go! Start shooting!”
As the Vigilantes raised their Kalashnikovs, Maori Niizono was already charging their formation. Lives were lost as easily as eggs smashed against the wall. The trailer hit their formation and spun hard, sending bodies flying through the air. As it spun it fired machine and laser guns, slicing through skin, destroying flesh, and spraying blood. The difference in power was clear. If they’d taken bets on the outcome of the battle in that moment, the odds would have been heavily in Maori Niizono’s favor. However...
“Hold it! You make the wrong move and your friend here dies.”
Yes, Vigilantes had snuck up behind and captured the 2nd Generation Idol. With a machete held against her intestines, her hands were tied. Not that she had hands to tie.
“Mika-chan!”
Maori Niizono stopped spinning, and the Vigilantes swarmed over her like ants.
“Ha ha ha! Now the evil monsters are...ow!”
The 2nd Generation Idol sprayed her captor with powerful digestive fluid and escaped when she flinched.
“You bitch! You’ll die for that!”
“Mika-chan! Run!”
Seeing a Vigilante taking a swing at the 2nd Generation Idol from behind, Maori Niizono tackled them. The 2nd Generation Idol puffed up her stomach, soaring higher, escaping the battlefield, but the Vigilantes threw their own bodies in Maori Niizono’s caterpillars, and their flesh caused the machinery to jam. Seizing their chance, they fired a small shaped charge at Maori Niizono’s torso, opening a hole in her side. Then they threw a Molotov in the hole, baking her giant organs. Maori Niizono desperately tried to flee, but the Vigilantes got in her wound, pulling the organs out barehanded. Rejoicing at this acquisition of valuable animal protein, they undid the bandages over their faces, and began devouring Maori Niizono’s organs. Maori Niizono was eaten alive. Baked from within, her organs were ripped from her and devoured. The pain was beyond imagination.
As they ate her, Maori Niizono desperately fired her machine guns. From point blank range the bullets turned the faces of the gathered crowd into hashed beef. Their compatriots being turned into masses of meat and blood and shit did nothing to discourage the Vigilantes. If anything, they swarmed around Maori Niizono’s organs with renewed fervor.
The 2nd Generation Idol watched all this from above, helpless to stop the one she loved from being eaten, from dying. And then, she recognized a face among the Vigilantes. It was Miya Furutsuki, the woman who had once been her sister. Tumors from her skin cancer had left half her face swollen up, but it was still recognizable. She was in the front lines, one of the first to start eating Maori Niizono’s organs. Swinging a machete around like a glowstick, she sliced into the organs. As she died, Maori Niizono’s final struggles brought a bullet to her. Where Miya Furutsuki’s eye had been was now a fist-sized hole. A blizzard of brain-bits sprayed out behind her.
The sight of her former sister’s death brought no trace of sadness to the 2nd Generation Idol’s heart. All she felt was a violent rage. Rage at having the one she loved murdered before her.
“I’ll kill you all! I’ll exterminate you!”
Her next idol activity was decided. Revenge. She would bring horrible, painful deaths to the Vigilantes.