The Underworld shifts like storm clouds, turning in a heartbeat, a weather vane no one can read.

After a meeting at the Magic Institution, Bena Svoren slipped back into her office, the fluorescent hum like a quiet swarm. She aimed for coffee dark as dusk and a few good cigarettes to smooth the nerves.

As the Institution’s leader in name, she wasn’t some lotus above the mud. She had a mortal side, feet on soil, smoke in lungs.

Witches ran in countless small squads, banners scattered like stars across a night map. Bena merely stood highest among them, a drum that set the pace.

She wasn’t the true top general, just the voice with the broadest reach, a banner without inscription yet heavy in the wind.

She pushed open the door, the pile of files like a snowbank she refused to shovel. She fished a cigarette from the box, lit the ember like a firefly, and drew in smoke like fog over water.

It was a Chinese brand her subordinates had carried across oceans, a bitter sweetness only she could taste.

After hard work, one cigarette feels like rain after drought, the first cool sip to the roots.

“Artifact Spirits, huh…”

Bena breathed out a silver ribbon and let the thought rise like incense.

Not long ago, that intel landed like a stamp on warm wax. The Church had crafted an Artifact Spirit Magical Stone that fused with a Witch.

That meant Artifact Spirits could sign with special Witches, proof inked like a seal on silk.

The Witch’s agent named Sham also sent a telegram, words crisp as telegraph taps in the dark. The contract with the Artifact Spirit Witch succeeded.

She even noted her Mystic Power store had swelled because of the pact, a reservoir after fresh rain.

So the old guess turned into a milestone stone: after signing, the Magical Stone could boost the agent’s power.

The Underworld had started to shift, a slow tide under moonlight. The ripples were faint, yet Bena could see a storm line on the horizon.

“Let it be a blessing,” she murmured, sending the wish like a paper boat downstream.

History said Artifact Spirits were wild cards, seeds blown in from another shore. Would the map be redrawn by that stray wind? No one knew.

She crushed the ember, a small star going dark, and sat to face another grind of gears.

……

Few would guess the hands behind the failed snatch weren’t small fish but the Flamebu Family. To be precise, the young heir, Yanbu Junichi.

He listened as his men piled excuses like sandbags. The weather turned, the ground was wrong, the enemy hit like iron, reinforcements came like thunder.

“Enough, I got it. Save it,” he said, flicking his hand like shooing crows at dawn.

Keep this up and they’d talk till sunrise, and his patience was a wick burning low.

He had moved to seize an Artifact Spirit, yet the net came up empty, mood sour as old tea. He weighed ways to claw back the loss, a gambler counting chips in the dark.

“Yanbu, why chase Artifact Spirits so hard?” Anlise De Eilte leaned on the wall, calm as shade. “In the whole Underworld, only you still care for that strange beast.”

“You won’t get it,” he said, voice cool as steel. “The Church has been weaving this web for years. If I don’t move now, what window will be left?”

“If you care that much, talk to the Family Head,” she said, words light as drifting ash.

“I’m not telling my old man,” Junichi replied, the corner of his mouth a blade. “We don’t see the same sky. I won’t bother him.”

He drew a pack, sparked a flame, and let smoke bloom like a pale flower.

“Want one?”

“Dutch?” she asked, one brow a hooked feather.

“No, Chinese.”

“Fine by me. Give me one.”

Their rapport had long settled like well-worn stone. They were partners on the road, not lovers on a bridge, business more than blush.

The night would not sleep, and their cigarettes would glow like twin fireflies.

While the Flamebu men fed their gloom with smoke, the Quadra Eye Family was far from idle.

Quadra Eye’s Yuuya returned from the battlefield with shine on his shoulders, and came home for the victory feast. The clan buzzed like a hive, energy spilling like wine, and Yuuya only answered with a quiet smile.

“By the way, do you know where the graves of the two traitors who died a year ago are?”

He stopped a gentle-looking girl, his tone light but his eyes steady as still water.

“Why ask that, young master? Isn’t that a taboo at the main house?”

“Just tell me.”

“Oh—on the back hill across the way.”

Yuuya nodded, a lantern flicking once in the wind. After sending her off, he wondered when to pay respects at Mia and Eil’s grave.

He didn’t know how his sister was now, a thread lost in fog. But as keepsake, he would visit the friends from when his sister was still here.

Maybe that was his duty as an older brother, a weight like a hand on the shoulder.

Yuuya smiled with a shade of dusk and lit a cigarette that burned like a lone star.

……

Japan. The hallway churned like a river after morning exams. Some faces shone like sun, others sagged like rain-soaked paper.

Through the crowd walked a boy with the looks of a pretty girl, unhurried as a leaf on current.

“Told you I’d pass. Eyes wide yet?” she said, chest proud as a small drum, even if the drum was flat as a board.

“Honestly, it makes no sense. How’d you score that high?” Sham stared at Yun Shi like spotting a mythical beast in a city park.

It made a kind of sense. She’d never attended school, yet she passed the high school entrance exam and landed in the honor ranks, a comet out of season.

She was a full year younger than the gate’s proper age, a sapling outgrowing old trees.

What are diligent students supposed to do with that, bang their heads like drums?

Yun Shi could say she had studied, in another life, a book under a different sky.

“There are many things you can’t foresee,” she said, a smile like light on ripples. “Like this one.”

The exam had shocked Sham to the roots, so Yun Shi felt bright as spring. Every word carried a curve of joy.

For a face that usually kept winter, this thaw was rare. She hadn’t been this happy in years.

“But Xiaoyun, you’re really enrolling as a boy? Feels like throwing pearls into a drawer,” Sham said, eyes running over the neat male outfit like a tailor appraising cloth.

On her, it worked—cute spun through with cool, a cherry branch tied with blue ribbon. Yet the thought of a girl in boys’ clothes tugged at Sham’s sense like a misstruck note.

She still felt girls ought to dress like blossoms in season.

“This is fine. I’m going in as a boy. No debate,” Yun Shi said, voice steady as a plank bridge. “You too. Don’t call me a girl. Got it?”

“Okay, okay, I won’t. Still a shame though. You’re a bona fide beauty.”

They left the school, and the road was full of chatter like wind bells. The warmth in the air felt like a family meal, steam and laughter mingling.

Soaking in it, Yun Shi realized it had been more than ten years since she’d seen a scene like this. From the day she came to this world, seasons had slipped past like water.

“Sham, did you bring what I asked for?”

“Of course. I had a classmate make it,” Sham said, pulling out an item like a magician’s handkerchief.

It was a pair of Goggles with green lenses, the frame shaped like a small mask. The lines were sharp, like a hawk’s profile.

“It’s got infrared scanning and zoom built in. You can wear it as a mask too. Not bad, right?”

“It’s great. Thanks,” Yun Shi said, eyes catching light like glass. She tucked it away for the Underworld, a tool for shadowed nights.

“Don’t you have something for me, Xiaoyun?” Sham grinned, fishing for praise like a kid with a net.

Yun Shi had expected that, and she kept her face a cool lake. “I’ll come to your place tonight. I happen to want a rice bowl with grilled topping.”

“Banzai!”

“For the record, I’m not cooking for you,” she added, finger like a chopstick tapping the air. “I just want to eat it. It’s for me.”

“Mm-hmm, got it, got it,” Sham said, long used to her weather. For a foodie, a clear head could still be a knife.

“By the way, you go on ahead. I need to step out.”

“Where to? Want me to come?”

“No. I’ve got it.”

She took off without a backward glance, a swallow cutting the air. Sham couldn’t figure it out, but with dinner swirling in her head like steam, she didn’t press. She bounced home like a song.

Yun Shi ran down the street, brushing past a thousand shoulders like reeds in wind. Smiles flashed like lanterns, frowns like low clouds, and she didn’t look back.

She moved through people like a lone boat threading a crowded harbor, running toward a road without a signpost.

Her breath steamed and vanished like dew. Her eyes met strangers’ for less than a second, like fish in a clear stream.

She looked like someone chasing a dream, pressing forward no matter the wall. But she wasn’t chasing anything, just running a track with no finish line.

Leaving the buzz behind, she climbed a hill, breath ragged like torn paper. A cliff waited there, not high, the drop a step into grass.

No one stood nearby. Only her shadow kept pace, the old loneliness folding around her like a coat.

Yun Shi smiled at the far side of the cliff, a curve like a crescent moon. She took out a bracelet she had kept close, beads missing like teeth in an old comb, the cord repaired with careful stitches.

Imperfection is the most beautiful cut, a crack that lets light in.

“Mia, Eil, I’ll live with you,” she said, smile soft as spring rain. She pressed the bracelet to her heart and felt the warmth like a small hearth.

“I have a new life now. I’ll stand in the light and feel this world.”

“Mia, I promise I’ll mind my image. I’ll dress better, like a flower set right.”

“Eil, I won’t fail your words. I won’t waste my time again, not a drop.”

“And the things you wanted to do, I’ll finish them one by one. Don’t worry over there. I can care for myself.”

“It’s too cold over there. I might not come soon. I’m sorry,” she said, sending the apology like a kite into high air.

“I have so much to say, but I don’t know how to start, because you won’t answer even once,” she whispered, voice a reed in wind.

Without noticing, two clean lines of tears slid down, twin streams on a quiet hill. Only the smile stayed, bright as dawn through mist.

Her smile held memories like seeds, and both smile and tears sank into the earth.

“I’ve always wanted to say one thing most of all,” she breathed, gathering herself like a wave. “I never found the moment.”

“I’ll say it now…”

“Thank you, truly. Being your friend made me happy,” she cried, throwing her voice across the gap like a bridge of string.

Her feeling, her words, reached the other side like birds finding a branch.

She seemed to glimpse, faint in the sky, Mia and Eil smiling like twin stars through thin cloud.

With tears shining, Yun Shi bloomed the most beautiful smile of this life, a peony after rain.

Tears and smile drifted inward like falling petals and settled as memory.