Chapter Text
She was taking photographs of fireflies when it happened. The entire consciousness of 23-year-old Oshima Yuko who was in the middle of performing K6th onstage at the AKB48 theatre in Don Quixote was transported into 13-year-old Kimishima Hikari from the planet of Nikkoustar like an tonne of bricks.
Laying motionless on the grass, Hikari stared at the dual moons that hung low in the night sky and tried to catch her breath from the mystical merging of two very different cultures but somewhat familiar personalities.
It felt like a trickling of liquid flowing from one vessel into another and filling it up to the brim. Hikari was glad her entire body was too numb to move or else she would be flailing around in panic. Not only was she freaking out over the fact that she had all these thoughts and memories of an Oshima Yuko from long past, Yuko was having a mild panic attack from having been transplanted into this foreign body in this faraway time and place.
For the most part, the initial feeling of going crazy from dissociative identity disorder was going away. It started to feel natural for Hikari/Yuko to have all these shared memories and personality traits poured into a single entity. Were it another person of a weaker constitution, they would likely have gone insane- but both Hikari and Yuko were too pragmatic to entertain mental breakdowns.
Oshima Yuko's first act as Kimishima Hikari was to move numb hands up along her torso to grope her own breasts. Grunting in disappointment at the still pubescent figure, she consoled herself with the thought that if she were really Oshima Yuko, they would grow in no time.
"Ohmigod, I'm Oshima Yuko from the original AKB!" Hikari sat up excitedly. She had grown up always only knowing of 00. She was doubly excited as Yuko, knowing that despite it being centuries and light years into the future, AKB still existed somehow.
“Akihabara,” Hikari enunciated, the ancient word sounding strange to her ears, but rolled off her tongue so familiarly. The forgotten etymological name for Akibastar had probably not been spoken in full for a thousand light years.
A second revelation hit her in that very instant. “Ah!” Jumping up suddenly with a loud exclamation, Hikari urgently gathered her precious camera and equipment bag, running all the way down the grassy knoll to her house as swiftly as her short legs could manage.
Clambering up the stairs two at a time, she burst into her room and started laughing uproariously. All four walls of her room were covered with posters and photos of AKB0048, most notably one person in particular- Maeda Atsuko, several different generations worth of Maeda Atsukos, to be more exact.
She held her sides which were starting to ache from the laughter. “Oh god. I’m a wota and my damn oshimen is Acchan!”
“Hii-chan! It’s past midnight- why are you making so much noise?!”
“Ah, sorry, Ma,” Hikari said sheepishly, whirling to face her mother who was glaring at her by the door.
“Did you just come home? Go get some sleep- tomorrow is a school day!”
“Mhm,” Hikari responded absently, her eyes drawn to the newest poster on her wall. All the senbatsu members were lined up, shoulder-to-shoulder and smiling brightly. The latest Atsuko, newly-promoted Acchan the 13th, stood in the center but there was someone missing beside her- Hikari lifted her hand and touched the spot where she should’ve been.
“I’m coming, Acchan. Wait for me,” Yuko whispered at the poster.
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She spent the next week begging her parents to let her attend 00 auditions. Hikari was never a crybaby, nor was Yuko- but the stress from her convoluted circumstance broke her enough to have spontaneous crying fits. After the nth sobbing outburst of ‘where am I? who am I? I need to be in AKB!’, the Kimishimas finally relented and allowed their only daughter to attend the off-world selections.
The auditions were easy- but the practices were tougher than Hikari thought it would be. She had to learn all the dances from scratch because some of the moves were different from what Yuko was used to. So while Yuko was moving perfectly to the original dance, she was out of sync with everyone else who was doing it properly.
Learning new dances seemed harder too, since Hikari’s physical body was incredibly unsuited for coordinated movement. Her doukies were all used to hearing her shout and curse during dance practice- a common outburst being ‘these damn clumsy Kimishima genes’.
Her proficiency at fighting was a surprise- it turned out that the generations of Kimishima farmers perpetuated tough and brutishly strong genes. Coupled with the fact that her home planet had a higher gravity pull than most, Hikari could lift and smash anything with ease. She didn’t mean to most of the time, but they still docked her allowance to pay for some of the damage she’d wreaked around the dorm.
Perhaps it was destiny or sheer luck, but her doukie roommate, Sakuragi Chiharu was definitely shaping up to become Kojiharu the 8th. It took some doing before Hikari got used to calling her by her real name, the instinct to call her Nyannyan was so strong; but settled for calling the tall airhead Hime as a nickname. Also, Chiharu didn’t seem to mind skinship as much as the original Kojiharu did, so that was double luck for Yuko right there.
It was confusing and it took awhile for Yuko to really adjust to being Hikari- and vice versa, but both consciousness merged well together since they were essentially the same being. Hikari decided that while she far preferred the sedentary hobby of photography and people watching, there was something to be said about snowboarding and the million other hobbies Yuko loved so well.
The only display of schizophrenic behavior Hikari displayed due to the original Oshima Yuko’s consciousness was limited to one person only- Maeda Atsuko.
It was just too weird. Hikari was caught between her zealous fangirl love for Atsuko and the affectionate admiration she’d always had as Oshima Yuko. It didn’t help that they looked so similar too- Hikari often overstepped her boundaries and tended to be overfamiliar with the senbatsu members.
Hikari could control most of her urges to a certain degree- but she had always been an Acchan fangirl ever since she was a child and it took all she had to stop herself from freaking out in front of her idol.
Thankfully, the kenkyuusei and succession members’ practice schedules were often different, so the only time Hikari met Atsuko were during performances and mealtimes.
Breakfasts were the worst. That’s when a disoriented Hikari would go through her usual ‘ohgod who am I, where am I’ moments upon waking and then shuffle sleepily to the dining hall. And it was pure hell if Atsuko appeared before she was mentally prepared to deal with her.
“Ohayo, Accha-san, uh, I mean, yes- Maeda-san.” Hikari stammered, head whirling from really mixed emotions. The absurdity of Yuko fangirling so deliriously over Atsuko made her suddenly burst out in laughter. “Ahaha- oh god, sorry I sound insane. G’morning.”
All the senior members were staring bemusedly at the babbling kenkyuusei. Mariko actually moved forward to subtly stand in between Hikari and Atsuko, ready to intercept anything weird. Already they had to replace two bathroom doors because of this tiny girl- if she was really crazy, Mariko wasn’t sure if they could all stop her in time.
“Um, good morning,” Atsuko greeted, smiling shyly at Hikari.
Laughing had helped with the crazy and Hikari snapped out of it enough to wave at her senpais and make her way into the cafeteria. She was still caught between chuckling drolly and wanting to torch herself alive from the mortification of being a spaz.
“It’s just Acchan. It’s no big deal,” Hikari mumbled. Talking to herself seemed to calm herself down but did nothing to endorse her claims of mental stability to the people around her.
“Hikari-chan, are you okay?” Takamina was next to her in line, looking concerned.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Hikari smiled at the captain. “Just takes a while for my brains to kick into gear in the morning, is all.”
“Okay- if you wanna talk or anything, you know where to find me, right?”
“Yep. Thanks!” It was a small comfort to see this new fifth Takamina appear to be just as reliable a character as the original General Manager that Yuko had known. “Would you tell Maeda-san I’m sorry I sounded so crazy? I had a weird dream last night and I think I just haven’t woken up properly yet.”
Takamina smiled kindly. “Sure. In fact, you should tell her yourself. Acchan’s your oshimen, right?”
There was no stopping it. “Fuckyeah, Kami oshi!” Hikari fistpumped enthusiastically.
“I see. I’ll let her know for you.” Takamina intoned flatly, beginning to see that perhaps Mariko-sama wasn't being paranoid after all.
Hikari slapped herself in the forehead and beat a hasty retreat with her breakfast tray.
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Hikari stood in front of the wall where the framed photographs of previous Center Novas were hung. She grinned at one Center after another, especially Miichan. She wished she got to meet her in person- a generation without a Minegishi Minami was a wasted one, in her opinion. They had no clue what they were missing.
"I met her once before she disappeared," a soft voice piped up beside her.
"Wha-? Acchan!" Hikari jumped at the sudden appearance of the ace beside her.
"You were talking to yourself again," Atsuko eyed Hikari a little nervously. "But you were right- we are missing out on a lot without a Miichan. She was always so fun to have around."
Glad Atsuko was still talking to her, Hikari treaded the conversational waters with caution. "So, what was Miichan the 5th like?"
"Hm. If I had to sum her up in one word, it'd be 'alive'."
"Not 'shaku'?" Hikari laughed.
"Miichan the 5th was someone who really lived life to the fullest. She didn't believe in wasting even a single minute of it," Atsuko recalled fondly.
"Oh man, I wish I got to see a Miichan Center in person."
"Center Nova," Atsuko mused, regarding the portraits absently. "Do you know that there has never been an Acchan Center without an existing Oshima Yuko successor in 00 at the same time?"
"More like there's never been an Oshima Yuko successor without Acchan."
Startled, Atsuko glanced at Hikari to see the kenkyuusei looking up pensively at the photographs. “I- never thought of it that way, but you’re right- there really hasn’t been that many Oshima Yukos. The last one was Yuko the 8th.”
“There was always a Maeda Atsuko in the group everytime a Yuko was promoted,” Hikari recalled. “I guess it would’ve been pointless for a Yuko to be called if Acchan wasn’t there.”
“Like it would’ve been pointless for Acchan to be Center Nova if Yuko wasn’t there,” Atsuko smiled at Hikari.
“And vice versa,” Hikari smiled back.
The two girls turned back to their silent contemplation of Center Novas past. It was a beautiful moment, Hikari thought, right up until Mariko subtly insinuated herself in between the both of them and ushered Atsuko away to safety.
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Atsuko was the first person to congratulate Yuko. The usually reserved girl ran up to embrace the newly-promoted Yuko the 9th- both of them sobbing as they held each other tightly.
Centuries into the future, lightyears away from an Earth that no longer existed- Oshima Yuko had never felt so much at home in her life as she did like this in Atsuko’s arms. In the glare of the spotlight, amidst the deafening crowd and twinkling glowsticks.
“Yuko-chan, omedetou,” Atsuko had murmured into her ear.
“Tadaima.”
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END