I cut this out a long time ago and have been meaning to paste it in sometime. Today is as good a day as any. I have no words.

Akihabara Kanda girl, recent Otonokizaka graduate was among injured in crash: JR East

January 3, 2014 (Mainichi Japan)

TOKYO - The recent derailment of a JR East train under icy conditions, which killed 17 people, many of them crew members, injured an additional hundred people, according to JRE officials.

Among the grievously injured was Yazawa Niko, 18, an Akihabara resident who had just graduated from Otonokizaka Academy, where she was part of the group ยต's (Myuzu) which won this year's regional "Love Live" idol contest against hundreds of other area schools.

Yazawa was found and pulled from a pile of bodies, mostly crew members, and rescue personnel believed she would not survive. However, Yazawa survived and is unconscious and in critical condition. She has already had two surgeries that preserved her life, but doctors are uncertain if Yazawa will survive long-term or regain consciousness. If she does not survive, the death toll will rise to at least 18. This is already the most fatal train derailment in recent history (the four trains that went missing in 2011 during the Touhoku earthquake and tsunami are not counted as derailments).

Yazawa's father is deceased, and the girl was caring for her three younger siblings after school. Yazawa Kotono, who works in an insurance office in Akihabara and also processes paperwork part-time for the city services department, said she and her children "would not know what to do without Niko." When contacted by phone, the Yazawas were at a shrine praying for the injured girl.

The other former members of Muse have gathered and immediately released a song written the day the crash was reported by Sonoda Umi and Nishikino Maki called, simply, "We Love You Niko, Get Well, Please." The school idols are all wearing simple robes and moving slowly like monks praying as they walk, and the music is somber compared to other Muse songs. "We want Niko to wake up and hear this," group founder Kousaka Honoka says, at the end. The song was placed, appropriately on the NicoNico Douga, (search WeLoveUNiko).

"Nico Nico Ni" was Yazawa's school idol catch-phrase.