Work Text:
On August 31st, 2007, a company by the name of Crypton Future Media created a Vocaloid engine. Like many others of its kind, this voice model could mimic human speech and music, even capable of producing full length songs in the right hands.
But this voice model wasn’t just a cluster of computer code, free floating in the Aether of the internet.
No, this model was different. Because this Artificial Intelligence was given a name, and would forever be known as the one, and only, Hatsune Miku.
* * *
On a cool fall day, in a history classroom inside of Tokyo East Middle school, a teacher was droning on about the lore around one of Japan’s longest-standing pop icons: Hatsune Miku.
“Heh, Hatsune sounds just like Hatsume, don’t you think?” A middle schooler chuckled under his breath.
“Funny, coming from a guy with a box of tissues for a head.” A young Hatsume Mei jeered back. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a daycare beside a whole class of kids with the flu or something?”
“HEY!” Another boy stood up suddenly, pointing angrily at Mei. “You know Kabuto is sensitive about his tissue head! That’s a terrible thing to say, Hatsume!”
‘HONNNKKK!’
The tissue box-headed boy, Kabuto, pulled a sheet out from the top of his head and blew it on the front of his face, sobbing from the pink-haired girl’s rude comment about his appearance.
“Yes, Hatsume!” The teacher scoffed, propping her eyeglasses further up her face. “That was a cruel thing to say to your classmate!”
“Hmph, whatever.” Hatsume huffed, slouching in her seat crossly.
It wasn’t fair, how nobody cared when Kabuto had compared her to that stupid, useless slouch of an android ‘Miku’, but when all she did was call things like they were…
“What was that, Hatsume?” A sickly sweet, venomous voice asked above the girl.
Mei looked upwards, feeling her jaw close with the realization that she had been thinking aloud again.
“Would you remind repeating your comment to the class, so that they can all hear what you think of the pinnacle of Japanese pop culture history, Hatsune Miku herself?” The teacher continued, malice evident in her voice.
Mei gulped. She suddenly had the feeling that she was going to be spending her afternoon in detention once again.
Like most of the residents of this insane world, her teacher was a fan, oddly obsessed with that blue-haired, twin-tailed voice model.
And Miku fans did not take kindly to their idol being disrespected.
* * *
Hatsume Mei sighed as she rode the train home from her school.
‘Why are people like this?? Of all the things for people to turn into mindless hordes of fans over, why her?!’
For Mei, the hatred towards the blue-haired Vocaloid was a long-standing feud. Obviously, there was the similar names. Everyone and their uncle who heard the name ‘Hatsume’ had the same thought.
“Miss, you’re a Miku fan too?” A tiny child tugged at Mei’s skirt, gesturing at the tag on the girl’s bag that read “Hatsume”.
The pink haired girl just scowled at the child until he ran away down the train car, crying into the arms of his mother.
Mei pulled her focus back together, not allowing the mere mention of that blue-haired loser to ruin her whole mood. As she slowed her angry breathing, a billboard showing just a flash of blue hair passed by the speeding train, an advertisement licensing the likeness of Miku to sell a high-calorie meal replacement jelly packet.
Therein lied the other problem Mei had with the virtual idol. For as long as she could remember, Mei knew that she would form a support-gear company one day, called “Hatsume Industries”. But with the way people pretended that a fake AI made 200 years ago owned that name, and any within a syllable of it, forming brand recognition would be an uphill battle.
It wasn’t just the jokes about her name, or about Hatsume Industries. No, this was more personal for her. Mei silently pulled a golden locket from under her collar, popping open the jewelry to stare solemnly at the photo inside.
Buried in that golden locket was an old, worn photograph. It was taken on a physical camera considered outdated even before the quirk wars, of a 5-year-old Hatsume Mei, standing beside—
“Nope.” Mei slammed the locket shut, glaring at the screen. “You’re not getting my lore yet. You’ll have to keep reading this fanfiction for that.”
The girl continued her ride home in silence, quietly plotting out her next move. She wouldn’t allow this weakness to slow down her ascent into becoming the world’s greatest support engineer.
Fighting Miku directly had only ever backfired in Mei’s face, so she would need to pull together all of her engineer’s creativity for a permanent solution to this problem.
As the famous United States Senator born in 1893, James E. Watson, once said: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
* * *
“IT’S ALIVE, IT’S ALIVEEE!!” Mei cackled, eyes covered with giant mad-scientist-esque goggles.
Sparks arced through the air, illuminating the girl’s mad expression in the dark room.
“Oh no, I forgot to plug in my surge protector…” The girl murmured worriedly, rushing over to plug in her computer properly to stop the electrical surge.
“Mei, are you experimenting with dangerous materials in the house again?!” The girl’s mother yelled up the stairs.
“No mom!” Mei yelled back, shoving a box of explosives under her bed with her foot. “I’m just using my computer!”
“With the surge protector plugged in, right?!”
“Yeah mom!”
“Alright then, I love you!”
“I love you too mom!”
Mei turned back to her desk, staring down her hulking mass of a computer.
100 TB Solid State Drive, with 720 GB of RAM, with a sub-1 Millisecond wireless connection to the nearest quantum computing center in Osaka, a true beast of modern-day computing.
Yet even with all of these specs, the girl’s machine struggled to render the code she had been building over the past three weeks. (Never mind playing Minecraft with Distant Horizons).
At last, the buffering stopped. Mei’s screen lit up, displaying a clear picture.
It was a digital face, made up of a simple line and two dots, smiling in an off-putting way.
The color of those lines was a distinct, bright, blue.
“Good Morning! I wonder what awaits me today. I can’t wait to find out!”
Mei felt a grin building across her face. She had made many odd, fantastical inventions over the course of her life—but none could compare to what was currently inside of her computer.
This invention was alive. It could think.
“So you’re finally awake…” Mei began, staring down the screen. “I assume you know who you are, and why you’re here?”
“Miku, Miku, you can call me Miku!” The screen chimed in an electronic-sounding synthetic noise. “I’d like to sing some nice songs for everyone!”
“Hmm, I may need to tweak the voice bank systems slightly…” Mei hummed. “Sourcing her speech purely off of official quotes may have been too limited.”
“Hehe, what a fun time!” The AI cheered, agreeing with her creator.
Mei looked down at the floor, seeing a shell for an android suit she had been working on before getting sidetracked by this Miku project.
It was just the base she needed for the second stage of her plan.
* * *
Three Months later, at the UA entrance exams:
“And… you constructed this automaton on your own, Miss Hatsume?” The Support Hero, Power Loader, questioned.
Mei grinned. “Indeed I did sir! This bot is capable of speech, free thought, and fully independent movement! It is a truly intelligent AI.”
The hero stared down the android, and its long blue pigtail-like metal structures attached to the bot’s head. “Is it just me, or does your invention resemble…”
“You’re just imagining it.” Mei stated sharply.
“B-but…” Power Loader stammered, gesturing to the black and white outfit, accessorized with a light blue tie and black arm sleeves.
“Imagining it.” Mei repeated.
“The… Nametag…” The hero tried for a final time, alluding to the name tag on the android labeled: “I am Hatsune Miku.”
“Listen up.” Mei said slowly, placing a hand on the hero’s shoulder and gripping it firmly. “My creation has nothing to do with, legally nor metaphorically, with the Vocaloid created by Crypton Future Media known as Hatsune Miku.”
“…Ah.” The hero finally said.
“I’m glad we were able to come to an agreement!” Mei grinned, shaking Power Loader’s hand promptly. “I’ll see you in class soon!”
“But you haven’t even gotten your evaluation yet—”
“Goodbye mister!” Mei waved backwards at the hero, walking out of the testing room, android in tow.
Power Loader sighed deeply, dragging a hand across his face. If Nedzu made him take on that crazy girl as a student, he swore he was gonna—
* * *
“So, what you’re saying is… I get UNLIMITED access to military grade titanium?!” Mei asked excitedly.
“No!” Power Loader replied, baffled. “Literally all I said was welcome to class 1-D!”
“I read between the lines.” Mei grinned, already fiddling with a screwdriver and some vaguely bomb-shaped device that she seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.
“…Anyways, Miss Hatsume, did you happen to bring your blue-haired android with you today? Principal Nedzu has expressed… interest in your invention to me.”
“No?” Mei scowled. “It’s useless to me now, that bot only mattered for getting me into this school, just so that I could prove once and for all my superiority over that brat Hatsune Mik—”
“Hey! Don’t disrespect Miku like that!” A student who sat beside Mei yelled. “That’s my girl!”
“Miku is WEAK!” Mei shot back, whipping around to face her classmate. “I rebuilt her from scratch in a WEEK! With a box of scraps!”
“You just don’t understand…” Mei’s classmate shook their head sadly. “You couldn’t match the charm of Miku if you tried. Not in a million years.”
Mei lunged out of her chair, suddenly filled with righteous fury. “You know NOTHING! I am the greater of the Hatsum/ne-s! I always will be!”
“Well now Miss Hatsume…” Power Loader placated, nervously staring at the device in Mei’s hands. …Was it flashing? And beeping? And counting down from 60 seconds—?
“Mr. Loader.” Mei said seriously, turning to her instructor.
“That is not my name.”
“The sports festival is soon, correct?”
The hero suddenly got a very, very bad feeling. Whatever his new, wild, pink-haired student was planning, he just knew it wouldn’t end up pretty.
Call it a hero’s intuition.
“…Yes, in three weeks. Why?”
Mei grinned sharply, a plan forming in her head. Maybe Hatsune Miku had one more use in her after all…
* * *
“Allllright listeners!” The voice of Present Mic yelled out excitedly. “It’s almost time for our first match in the final round of this year’s sports festival! Are you all ready to get hyped!?”
The crowd roared in agreement.
“First up into the ring, we have Tenya Iida! This boy is the younger brother of the famous hero Ingenium! Boy, I do love that dude. I sure hope nothing bad happens to him!”
Iida walked into the ring, refusing to turn and wave to the crowd, feeling it would be improper, and unsportsmanlike.
“Next but not least, we have an unlikely dark horse of the tournament; all the way from the support course is… Hatsume Me—ohmygoshisthatHatsuneMiku??!”
Mei walked into the arena, glaring upwards at the announcer’s booth.
With her Zoom quirk, she could spot Present Mic clearly. She commited his face to memory as another enemy of hers. Maybe she’d deal with him after her work was done here at the festival…
Behind the girl followed a familiar blue android, which the crowd cheered for the moment they caught sight of.
“I’m sorry about this, but I’m going to make this match quick for both of our sakes.” Mei called to her opponent.
“Quick is my middle name.” Iida replied.
“Weird, I thought it was Ingenium.” Mei cocked her head to the side.
“N-no…?” The hero student started, confused, before he was cut off by Present Mic announcing: “Let the match begin now!”
Mei wasted no time in pulling a gun-shaped object from her belt and shooting her opponent. In an instant the boy’s mouth was gagged, and his arms and legs bound with steel cords.
Midnight, who was refereeing the match, watched in awe, wondering if her eyes were deceiving her. “Young man, are you immobilized completely? If so, this match will be over!”
Iida attempted to reply, but the gag in his mouth prevented his efforts completely.
“Nah, he’s still good to fight.” Mei waved off the hero absentmindedly. As she spoke, the girl was pulling a second device from her pockets.
Lifting the microphone-shaped device to her face, the arena’s speakers crackled, before giving in to the tech.
“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to my public presentation, and the official unveiling of Hatsume Industries, patent pending!”
The crowd murmured in confusion.
“As you all may know, my assistant here—”
The crowd roared in approval as the girl gestured to Miku.
“—Is a fully accurate copy of my worst enemy. However, you all know her as the Vocaloid idol, Hatsune Miku.”
The crowd went back to murmuring. It seemed like doing that and cheering were the only two settings for them at this point.
“And today, I will be displaying my three new creations, which will show the whole world just who the better of the two Hatsum/ne’s is.”
First, Mei pulled a remote from her back pocket.
Miku stared at her creator as she approached with the device. “I can’t wait to see what’s in store for today!” The bot spoke happily.
Mei shook her head sadly. “Miku is known worldwide for her compelling voice, so I have developed a baby I call “The Mind Remote 4000”! This device can manipulate any intelligent life forms at the push of a button!”
With that, Mei directed with remote control, making Iida begin to flop on the ground of the arena like a fish.
“As you can see, Miku didn’t respond to the remote. This is because she isn’t intelligent life.”
Iida dropped to the ground, exhausted, when the girl finally stopped using the device.
“Next up is joy. Miku is known for spreading joy to all of those who hear her voice. To one-up this feat, I made a baby I like to call “The Joy Button 4001!”
Mei knelt down and pulled a tiny box with a red button attached from her shoe. Standing, she pointed the device at Iida.
Iida tried to stop the girl, to beg for mercy, but his gag and restraints prevented his efforts.
Click!
The hero student started to smile despite his situation, even laughing, chuckles that enveloped his being until tears streamed from his eyes. The world looked so beautiful all of a sudden, like one big party where everyone was happy—
Click!
As Mei turned off the device, Iida felt his high disappear as fast as it came. The tears continued to stream from his face, but they were out of pure despair this time.
“As you can see, I can provide you all with FAR more joy than some simple robot!” Mei challenged the crowd. “For my third and final invention, I have surpassed my lesser in their most important quality—victory!”
Mei pulled a blade out from her front pocket, a long knife that shone in the harsh light of the sun.
“Hatsune Miku always claims victory in all things, right? Well today, with my K.N.I.F.E. 3999 I will be proving you all wrong.” Mei grinned, taking a step forwards.
“Hey, watch it!” Midnight yelled, suddenly much more concerned about the life of Tenya Iida.
But Mei wasn’t approaching Iida, no, her target was much closer.
With a hair-curling scrape, Hatsume drove the blade into the android’s frame.
The crowd screamed in rage as they watched their idol being assassinated in front of their very eyes.
Hatsune Miku looked down slowly, watching the bright blue coolant slowly drain from their motherboard housing in their chest. The being collapsed to its knees before looking directly into Mei’s eyes. “I have something to tell you… Would you listen?”
The girl looked down at her creation, and granted its final wish. She kneeled down to the bot, holding its back and slowly lowering it to the ground.
Hatsune Miku should see the sun as she died, after all. If nothing else, to understand the difference between herself and a real star.
“What do you have to say, Miku? Speak now or forever hold your peace.” Mei spoke, quietly enough that her words weren’t picked up on the arena’s speakers.
The bot silently reached out, pulling Mei’s pendant from under her shirt collar. Miku opened the locket with shaking fingers, revealing a photograph Mei was all too familiar with.
The photo showed a young Hatsume Mei, at her first-ever Vocaloid concert. The family had won backstage passes to meet the singers’ holograms, and Mei had been the most excited of all.
Miku was her favorite. Their names were similar, and she was the prettiest, in Mei’s opinion.
All that hope came crashing down when Mei saw the hologram, and the lifelessness in its eyes. Hopes that she and Miku would get married one day, would co-own an engineering firm, and would love each other until the day they both died. Or ascended to godhood. Whichever came first.
In the photo, Mei was glaring up at the Vocaloid, angry tears in her eyes. That feeling of betrayal had never quite worn off.
There it was, Mei’s final secret. Her final and truest reason to hate Miku.
Miku meant weakness. She meant having a stupid, childish crush on a false idol that would never love her back.
Mei gripped the knife again, driving it further into the body. “You know we can’t be together… it was never going to work out between us.”
“No…” Miku whispered, her battery running low on power.
Mei leaned in to hear her creation’s last words.
“Hatsune Miku does not like British people, no no nonono…”
With that, the lights dimmed in Miku’s costume, and her eyelids sunk closed.
“Stupid last words from a stupid robot…” Mei whispered, blinking away tears in her eyes. She leaned in further, relishing in the scent of engine oil and LED lights she had come to associate with her idol.
For a single, silent, all-encompassing moment, Hatsume placed a gentle kiss on the robot’s forehead. Still, all good moments must end.
Maybe the ending is the most beautiful part of it all.
Darn it, even beyond the grave, she was being one-upped by a robot. Maybe Mei always was the worst of the two Hatsun/me’s.
Mei stood up, slowly wiping off the blue coolant from her uniform, trying to ignore how warm the fluid was, and how it stuck to her hands like blood.
“That’s all for today everyone…” Mei spoke to the crowd. “I hope that proved to you all once and for all, that I am the greatest. Please look forward to the next inventions out of Hatsume Industries.”
The girl turned and walked from the ring. The crowd was struck silent, nobody knowing what to say in the slightest. Even after she left the ring, handing Iida the win, the boy still sobbed. After that ordeal, he just wanted to go home and hang out with his older brother.
‘Love is an interesting thing.’ Mei thought fondly to herself as she exited the arena. ‘Sometimes it makes people date, get married, start a family, and sometimes it makes them create a physical form for their conceptual technological idol, just to murder them on live broadcast to the entire world to prove their superiority… weird.’
Mei finally felt at peace with herself. It was finally time to leave this whole ‘Hatsune Miku’ thing behind herself …after taking some quick revenge on Present Mic of course. Maybe. As a treat.
* * *
Just as a reminder, every iteration of Hatsune Miku is canon in a way. Yes. That means this is too.
Enjoy knowing that fact.