mystique as iris is an original instrumental track composed by かねこちはる (Chiharu Kaneko) for maimai でらっくす FESTiVAL, released on September 15, 2022. The song builds on a longstanding collaboration between Kaneko and the maimai series, it follows TEmPTaTiON (2021) and sølips (2022) as her third original contribution to the game. All three of Kaneko's maimai songs share the distinction of debuting with MASTER-level 14+ charts, though mystique as iris briefly dipped to 14 during the FESTiVAL PLUS update before being restored to 14+ in BUDDiES. The track premiered on the PERFECT CHALLENGE DiSC PLUS -UNiVERSE- mini soundtrack album before arriving in-game. In a nod familiar to Kaneko's previous maimai work, the initial letters of the three words in the title, mystique **a**s **i**ris, spell out "mai," a subtle callback to the game's name itself, much like TEmPTaTiON before it. The jacket art and in-game movie were created by 桜井貴志 (Takashi Sakurai). Kaneko clarified via Twitter that the title can be read as either ミスティーク アズ アイリス or ミスティーク アズ イリス. Upon its FESTiVAL launch, mystique as iris was gated behind a demanding unlock: players needed to defeat the boss friend at SSS1 class and reach LEGEND class, after which it could also be "conducted" (伝導) to other players in multiplayer. It became available by default starting in FESTiVAL PLUS. The song received a timing adjustment on October 7, 2022, shortly after release.