“It’s already online,” Katrina responded weakly. She turned and walked back upstairs.

“Katrina?”

Shizuka motioned to Astrid, and they followed Katrina to her room.

“Katrina, what happened? Katrina?”

“Here,” she said vacantly as she showed them her computer screen.

Astrid peeked over at Katrina’s screen. At first, she smiled—this was the live performance at Temple City, where the two of them had played together.

But wait, didn’t Shirley remove that?

“It’s a phone recording,” Katrina said flatly.

And then, she scrolled down to the comments.

“Didn’t Aerosmith write a song about him?”

“In the words of the great Austin Powers, That’s a MAN, baybee!!!”

“Man hands!”

And it wasn’t just the live video. Astrid’s favorite studio video was one where Katrina was some sort of elf under the sea. Earlier comments were all about the music and how Katrina in real life had to be beautiful to make music like that.

Now?

“A man is a man. A woman is a woman. And that is just ugly.”

“KILL. IT. WITH. FIRE.”

“No wonder he hides himself. If I looked like that, I’d hide, too.”

“Shirley is erasing the worst of them. But they keep coming back,” Katrina said blankly. And even as they spoke, more comments appeared.

Astrid turned away.

“I can’t read any more. How could people say such things?”

“Because they do.”

Shizuka could hear Katrina breaking under the weight of her words. Astrid could turn away. Katrina could not.

Furthermore, Shizuka immediately noticed something even more insidious than the hate. For not all the responses attacked Katrina’s womanhood. Some people were vehemently defending her right to gender representation. Some were calling out racism. Some messages were well wishes and hearts and “You’re so inspiring,” and “Good luck.”

Some people were accusing others of being like Nazis, while others said Katrina deserved justice.

But in all this, where were the comments about the music?

Shizuka remembered the previous comments about the playing style, the costumes, her recording system, or even why her student should record the theme to Gurren Lagann.

And then Tremon published one short bio.

And with one disclosure, Tremon had split Katrina from her music as cleanly as he’d cleaved Shizuka from hers.

“I—I’m so sorry. I will go to the kitchen now,” said Astrid. “I think there is still some pie. I’ll get you some pie.”

Tremon didn’t create this world. But, as usual, he played it perfectly.

Shizuka thought of her students, the ones who had given their brilliant existences to be remembered by this same world. Shizuka cursed under her breath.

One can run away. One can hide. But that does not mean it is not there.

Hate.

All this sacrifice, all this genius, and still there was so much hate.