Sophie Marshall felt the air wasn’t clean. The sight of that oddly dressed girl pricked at her like a thorn under silk. It looked like pure cosplay, a lantern in daylight. But this was the West, not the East. No festival wind was blowing—so why the costume?

The reporter’s doubt pooled like rainwater in a gutter. She slipped into the girl’s shadow and tailed Yun Shi.

At first, Yun Shi sensed nothing behind her, her focus like a compass needle. She followed the faint ghost of footprints, letting instinct sift through light and shade.

The island looked ordinary, a pebble on a blue plate. In truth, it was one of the Kananin Family’s battle sites against the Church. Ever since the all-out war ignited, firelines stitched the map like lightning. Asia burned quieter, but Europe and the Americas crackled like a dry forest.

Confirmed fronts had flared up everywhere. In Italy, the Asakura Family and the True Palace Family fought like twin rivers crashing into stone. In Germany, part of the Single Leaf Clan bled against the steel cross. In America, Yanbu Junichi’s units and the followers of Shitou Yuya and Shen Ling Zou tried to hold the tide like sandbags in a flood. Out in the Atlantic, teams from the Magic Institution drifted like hidden reefs.

Here on this little rock, the Kananin Family held the line, a lighthouse in spray and gun-smoke.

Each battlefield had its own weather and weight. What Yun Shi knew was a cold current: the Church held the advantage in America. The fighting strength there had been thin as mist for years, and even the young heirs of the three main Clans couldn’t turn that tide with bare hands.

The Magic Institution held steadier, like a breakwater with a few brave boats. The Asakura Family fought smoother still, cutting forward like a sharp oar—maybe a few days to win and shift the front.

At this pace, she thought, the storm won’t blow out till year’s end. Her mind moved like a rosary, stone to stone, as she walked.

She was about to go deeper when a chill brushed the back of her neck, a strand of winter in summer. She turned. Only rock and birdcall stared back. Sophie crouched behind a boulder, breath held like a moth under a leaf.

Sharp girl, Sophie thought, a prickle running down her spine. Her alertness bites like frost.

Yun Shi glanced left and right, eyes skimming like swallows. Nothing read wrong. Yet the gut knows what the face lies about. Three years in the Underworld’s war had carved that truth into her bones.

Whoever tailed her had no soldier’s gait. The steps were clumsy, an outsider’s splash in a black river. That meant not an enemy—more like a bystander straying into a storm.

Good. Easier to handle. Time to mislead with a little theater, like a fox flicking its tail in the reeds.

She turned and drifted toward the forest, a shadow sliding under green.

“She’s moving,” Sophie whispered, heart thudding like a drum. She readied her camera, lens glinting like a fish eye, and hurried after. The scent of a scoop pulled her like tide. With luck, she’d catch pirates—salt, smoke, and headlines.

They went on, the distance like a taut string between them. Sophie didn’t notice the loop tightening into a snare. Yun Shi cut left, then straight, then left again, then up a slope, weaving like mist between trunks. Sophie huffed up the hill, lungs burning like hot glass. Ten minutes and it felt like circles inside circles, a maze sketched on bark.

A hidden smile tugged at Yun Shi’s lip, a crescent behind the cloak. She stepped down out of sight like a drop into a well. Sophie blinked—and the girl vanished. Panic flared, a match in the wind. She turned in a slow circle. The forest held its breath; only birds tossed their bright notes into the hush.

“Foreigner, right?” said a girl’s voice behind her, cool as water.

Sophie jerked around. The black-cloaked girl stood there in goggles, walking closer with the stillness of a cat. She tilted her face up, eyes like a covered blade.

“Who are you?” Yun Shi asked, straight as an arrow.

“Uh… I…” Words snagged in Sophie’s throat like fabric on a nail. She wasn’t used to being the one caught by the collar.

“Hm? I think I’ve seen you on TV,” Yun Shi said, mild as rain. “You’re… that Mary Sue reporter?”

“It’s Sophie Marshall, reporter!” The correction flew out loud as a clap, a reflex like a knee-jerk. She almost never snapped like that.

“So it is you,” Yun Shi said, voice light as ash. “You admitted it.” A little net had fallen silent over the clearing. If the woman had thrown out a false name, this would’ve been messier. But a fish that leaps names its own hook.

“Damn it—you set me up!” Realization stung like a nettle. For a reporter who loved to go incognito, this was a stain on a white shirt.

Done. Outer World, no doubt, Yun Shi thought, a line drawn clean on a page. She was here for footage, not blood. But if she learned the truth of the Underworld, she’d shout it from rooftops. That would be a wildfire.

Unlike Miyuki Kiseki, this identity couldn’t be allowed to touch the dark. She needed to be handled.

“Miss Sophie.”

“Mm? What now?” Her heartbeat fluttered, a trapped sparrow.

“You’ve seen a lot. Tell me—those people over there, are they pirates or savages?”

“What, there are pirates?!”

She whipped her head to look. She never saw the shadow lift.

Thwack.

Yun Shi’s hand chopped the back of her neck, clean as a falling branch. Sophie folded to the ground, breath snuffed like a candle. Yun Shi exhaled, a long breath that felt like dropping a stone. Letting an Outer World reporter glimpse the Underworld would’ve torn the sky.

She hoisted the woman, step by careful step, and lugged her back to the beach. In the shade of a rock she set her down, like putting a fish back under waterweed. Nothing broken. Good. She left the reporter to her dreams and slipped into the trees, eyes hunting for threads of usable truth.

Poor Sophie woke at dusk, the light copper on the water. She took a speedboat back and nearly got hauled in for stowing away, luck flipping like a bad coin—but that was another story.

Deeper into the forest, Yun Shi kept her guard tight as a drum. One hand rested on her holster, ready to draw like lightning if the sky split.

“Listen. Only you and I and he know this. Understood?”

“Yes. Not a fourth soul will hear it!”

Voices drifted like smoke. Yun Shi crept through brush, parting the grass with a silent wave. Three figures stood in Church uniforms, their hems like black knives. One had a heavier weight about him, like a stone in a sling; his words hit harder.

The other two—errand men, straw in the wind—received orders and turned away, no doubt to whisper upward. The important one relaxed, shoulders dropping like a pack, and pivoted to leave.

This won’t do. The thought was a cold coin in Yun Shi’s palm. He has to die. A gunshot here would flare like a beacon. She palmed a short blade instead, felt its balance, and let it fly like a hawk for the heart.

It struck dead center with a muted knock. He toppled like a felled tree, and only the spreading red said he’d ever been alive.

Yun Shi knelt and searched the body, fingers quick as mice. A folded slip brushed her knuckles. She opened it. Japanese scrawled across the paper like winter reeds. Surprise ran cold through her ribs.

“Operational theater: Japan. Objective: strike while the Eastern front is hollowed out; launch a surprise attack; seize key terrain. Pros: seize the initiative and crush resistance. Cons: possible exposure of the Underworld to the Outer World. Planners: General Akamatsu, Rebecca. Operational support: Professor Hori.”

When she finished, sweat had slicked her back like a sudden rain. The plan was nakedly mad, a cyclone spun to win at any cost—even if it tore the veil before the Outer World.

No wonder the face felt familiar: Japan’s well-known Mr. Akamatsu. “Lord Lu—” She frowned. That had to be Rebecca. “Professor Hori” could only be the Japanese arms supplier.

This blueprint would hand the Church a gale-force advantage. From Yun Shi’s shore, it was unforgivable. She pulled out paper and copied every word like marking a map. Then she slipped the original back into the dead man’s pocket, a leaf back onto a branch. If the Church found the corpse empty, questions would fly like crows. With the note in place, it would look like simple bad luck, an assassin’s shadow and nothing more.

Done, she called Moa to rally at the beach. No delays. She ran for the shore, heartbeat drumming the order: return to Japan now.

“What’s wrong, Yun Shi-chan? You called me back so fast. I didn’t find anything yet.” Moa’s voice was a puzzled ripple.

“Forget that. We’re leaving now.”

The severity on Yun Shi’s face was a stormfront. Moa read it and didn’t ask again. She nodded and moved with her toward the submarine.

Boom.

Before they reached the hatch, a thick thunder rolled over the water. A patrol sliced toward them, white wakes like knives.

“Not good. The Church’s patrol spotted us!”

“Wh-what do we do?”

“Don’t panic. If they don’t call backup, we’re fine. Listen and follow my lead.”

Small fry in little boats—Yun Shi never counted them as waves. If she wished to leave, no ripple would stop her.

A bolt came down with a cannon-crack, white fire spearing a ship apart. As the enemy froze, the air split like a seam, and a shear of force scissored another hull. For a witch, the sea was just a table; men who leaned on weapons alone were twigs in a storm.

“They’re trying to stall us. So we end it fast. Understood?”

“Yes! Give the word!”

Violet energy poured into her limbs like wine. Lightning thickened in her hands, a cord swelling into a serpent. A violent pressure rose over the sea, the sky darkening like ink tipped into water. Black clouds gathered; thunder walked the air. Bolts fell mercilessly, ripping ships like paper boats in rain.

“Now.” Yun Shi let the submarine surface, hatch yawning like a mouth. Moa dropped in. Yun Shi tossed a grenade onto a deck, then slipped through the hatch. The blast bloomed behind her, a red flower on gray water.

“We’re done. Back to Japan.”

“On it.”

The sub slid under, a whale into green silence. Before the enemy could raise a hand, the ocean swallowed the trail. Without torpedoes, fury was just foam.

“Fuck!” Boots hammered decks, a tantrum stomping puddles. They’d been fighting the Kananin Family cleanly enough, and then two witches slipped through like smoke. An insult branded on a steel plate. But water always runs faster than rage, and they couldn’t chase shadows.

On the island, steel still rang. Kananin Rin commanded alone, a hawk over a field, and kept the logistics line fed like a kiln.

“Report to the Clan Head: the enemy vanguard has been wiped out!”

“Good work. Pull back the Thirteenth from cover. Throw them into the charge.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

When the runner left, Kananin Rin sank into the command chair, fatigue draping her shoulders like wet cloth. She pressed her brow; a headache throbbed like a dull drum.

“Yuuya and the other one in America should be fine… right?” The question hung like mist. Sending them to the States had snagged her heart from the start. News from there wasn’t bright; the wind blew against them.

She worried too about Yuuya’s sister. No word. Maybe she’d returned to Japan, maybe she’d slipped into another country. Unease pecked like a crow. If that little girl came to harm, how would she face Yuuya?

She didn’t know the one she kept thinking of was, at that very moment, sitting in a submarine cutting a black path back to Japan.