...

......

"...Huff."

Failed.

Failed failed failed failed failed.

Ling Yi got up like a practiced breeze, transformed like a quicksilver flame, scooped Yekase up, and carried her out. She propped her in the corner like a sleeping cat, felt her way to the foyer, shut the window with a soft thud, then sat in the hallway like a rock cooling in shade.

Those last fifteen seconds—she’d held on, like a lantern in wind—yet nothing happened. In the straight-up duel between Kagari and Dew, she lost like a spark drowned by rain.

Pull yourself together, power type—show some spine, like a mountain holding cloud.

Maybe it was the illusion they cast, like fog over marsh. In the fight her limbs felt bound like reeds, her swings went limp like rope in water, and everything was suffocating like air gone stale.

Dew carried no special gear, just the same Sky Striker as hers and a shoulder cannon weaker than a laser. That alone pinned her like a moth to glass. In the end her armor got punched through; she hit the floor, and with her last strength she went down with the window, like ice shattering in one breath.

"...Don’t… I don’t want overtime…"

While Ling Yi wrung her brain like a towel for a post-fight debrief, the household god of sleep beside her started sleep-talking like a drifting cloud.

She grabbed Yekase’s cheeks and twisted them like dough.

"...Ugh! Ugh… ugh-ow…"

Still asleep, like a stone in a stream.

Ling Yi stared at the ceiling like a moon-watcher, thought for a beat, then gritted her teeth. She grabbed the almost-nonexistent softness on Yekase’s chest and kneaded it at high speed like a baker on a deadline.

"...What the— What are you doing!!"

Finally awake, like a bell jolted by thunder.

Yekase snapped up from the floor like a carp springing from water, gasped with wide eyes, then remembered to swat Ling Yi’s hands away like a sparrow batting a leaf.

"Who wakes people like that! …Which loop is this? How’s the run?"

Ling Yi shook her head, a willow in wind. "After 11:59, it boots the Dew armor, phases through the wall, and starts a brawl. I can’t beat it."

"Kagari loses a duel to Dew, and I’m supposed to dream that? That’s sand in my tea."

"This is real. It’s not a dream!"

Ling Yi grabbed the still-denying Yekase and shook her like sleet rattling a window.

Yekase still couldn’t parse it. "How? Kagari’s built for offense. It’s faster and stronger than Dew. Losing makes no sense. We’re not selling new toys—why would the balance break like a bridge in flood?"

"It just won’t go down!" Ling Yi pouted like a small storm. "In the fight I felt constrained, like I was subconsciously avoiding smashing the furniture…"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. That’s Dew’s Blade Spell—Hindrance Ripples—working like cold rain."

...

"You forgot to tell me!"

"You didn’t ask."

Yekase looked innocent, like a fox with clean paws.

"I’m asking now! Right now!"

"Okay. A Blade Spell is a signature finisher I designed for each form, like a comet shot. Hindrance Ripples scrambles Sorcery, slows human reflexes like syrup, makes machines glitch like frost, and blocks signals like fog. From your description, it’s still intact."

"What’s Kagari’s spell? Can it counter that?"

"Blazing Rekindle. You can hear the sizzle in the name—it’s a high-damage finisher, full special effects like fireworks. Since it’s flame born from Flash Energy, it’s just warm enough to comfort allies, like a campfire."

Ling Yi’s tired eyes lit up like lanterns. "Yes! We need that, a cool finisher! You kick, a giant skill name fills the screen, and the enemy falls back and explodes like a firework. How do I fire it?"

"Shout the spell’s name, then push hard."

"Push?"

Yekase clenched both fists, made a straining pose like a wrestler before a throw.

"Like trying to force it out and failing. It stirs emotion, deepens your resonance with Flash Energy, and amps the strike like a bell rung thrice. The Flashblade System recognizes your voice and fires the spell where you’re aiming. Try it now? Send one at the ceiling."

"Okay!"

Ling Yi adjusted her stance like a pine in wind, set her feet like a horse stance.

"Mmmm—mmm—mm—"

"I didn’t mean literal straining! If you pull something down there, I’m not liable."

"You taught me this, Doctor!"

"It’s a metaphor. A metaphor."

It was about time, the hunt opening like a steel trap—Yekase moved to a spot that gave her all three windows—living room, foyer, bedroom—like a hawk’s perch. She talked to Ling Yi while scanning for the machine, like a lighthouse sweeping black water.

"Let your feelings steep like tea. Prefer the bright ones—guarding, justice—pure as spring water. If it’s 'I want to hit someone,' that’s muddy. Flash Energy won’t answer."

That’s why the Consortium X fighters can’t drive the Flashblade System—everyone’s here for a paycheck, not to end the world. They do what the pay covers. With that boss’s stingy ways, it’s a miracle they haven’t fermented pure hatred yet.

"Guarding, justice… Then my feeling is to protect family and friends! Doctor! I feel your hope like a banner. I understand your creed like clear sky!"

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Flash Energy ignited. Red light surged around Ling Yi, rising like a wildfire, swelling like a tide, punching like a drum. Burn, burn, burn, burn, burn. Her aura was fiftyfold, a furnace roaring, a will like iron heated bright.

"Blade Spell—"

Ling Yi’s eyes widened like full moons. She lifted the Sky Striker over her head, aimed at the spot where the robot caught her strike in the previous loop.

"—Blazing Rekindle!"

She slashed.

A flaming arc, laced with blood-red lightning, burst from the blade like a comet. It streaked forward like a firebird.

The blade-light swelled and burned, and when its tip touched the ceiling, it cut a charred mouth into it like a brand. Even then it held shape, pressing on like a river through rock.

"...Where did you aim?"

"Where it came in last time…"

"What if you shatter the window? Turn it!"

"How?!"

"Use momentum. Use aura!"

"Hn—aaah—aaah—aaah—!!"

Ling Yi flipped the Sky Striker into the floor, like yanking a plane’s control stick, and leaned back hard like a willow bent by gale.

"Pitch—angle—not—enough—"

The blade-light answered her intent. Right before the foyer, it shrank tight like a clenched fist, snap-turned more than ninety degrees, and speared upward like a rocket.

—Boom!!

Smoke thinned like mist at dawn.

A savage hole gaped in the ceiling like a black moon.

Beyond it, under moonlight like silver silk, the familiar silhouette appeared like a shadow on water.

"Hiding the model before spawn…"

Jiang Bailu doesn’t play games; this clever trick smelled of Yekase or Ling Yi’s subconscious, like ink from their own brush.

That tied up the off-notes. The bot’s “do or don’t” choices, the random-feeling rules—they all made sense like a riddle solved.

"A modded Hindrance Ripples," Yekase had thought. She slipped into Ling Yi’s room, shut the door to a thin line of light like a reed slit.

"This robot’s model is old. Its AI is basic, like a wind-up clock. It can’t supply the emotional fuel that lets Flash Energy resonate. Even if its inventor found a bypass to force activation, it would be baseline, not enough to paint illusions this vivid and whole."

"So, Doctor, you mean…"

"We and your family fed it feelings, like a village sharing fire. Our subconscious helped build the illusion’s walls."

Yekase leaned on the wall and laughed softly, like a sparrow’s chirp.

"This is a big dream we all made together."

Because they helped build it, they could interfere—restart, define “rules,” and hem the bot in like stakes around a sapling.

If they’d just feared and hid, Dew would have swelled under that fear, a storm you can’t bottle. Ling Yi’s refusal to lose flipped the tide like a river turned.

—Bailu, you lost.

Yekase said it in her heart, cool as a blade in scabbard.

Charging the base and letting her glimpse the new body—that was Yekase’s mistake, a footprint in wet clay. But Jiang Bailu, pushed by nameless fury, sent an unfinished Dew to strike like a half-forged spear. They unmasked the mod-illusion’s bluff, exposing it as empty thunder, and the loss rolled back like a wave returning.

Hope she calms down, at least a little, like ash after fire.

Or maybe I should find a quiet chance to reach out and talk her down? Jiang Bailu’s last words still echo in Yekase’s ear like wind in bamboo. If she keeps dodging, “settling the past” stays a bridge of air…

"—Doctor?"

"Mm. I’m here."

"The robot’s not reacting. I’ll go up and take it apart, okay?"

"Go."

Ling Yi nodded like a drumbeat, spread her mechanical claws like metal wings, and flew through the ceiling hole like a hawk into moonlight.

Moonlight laid a silver veil over the robot, like frost on steel. It was almost a nightmare made flesh, yet Ling Yi finally had a chance to stand before it and study it, calm as a lake.

Doctor said the enemy used unknown means to let Flash Energy—which resonates with feelings—be forced by a robot with none. That was theft of fire, like Prometheus in reverse.

But Ling Yi felt it was more.

Could it be carrying… someone’s feelings, like a sealed letter in a chest?

On a strange impulse, she pushed her hand into the seam deep in its chest, toward the emergency cutoff Yekase had once used to unlock her armor, like finding a knot in rope.

Naturally, there was nothing—

"...Holy— there is."

Ling Yi pulled out a Sky Striker pendant, stunned like a deer in snow. It was the same key she used to transform, mirror to mirror.

"Then I’ll take it. No hard feelings. Okay, time’s about up. Say goodbye—"

She set the Sky Striker to the robot’s neck like a cold moon. A light pull would draw a slash and split it clean in two, like bamboo cut on a frost morning.

"—Give it back… That’s the Doctor… left for…"

—?!

The robot suddenly moved, words she’d never heard slipping out like a cracked bell. It raised its right hand, slow as drained power, reaching for the key in Ling Yi’s left like a leaf to sun.

Ling Yi didn’t know what that meant. Yekase below gave no signal, quiet as night. She didn’t risk a sidetrack—she pressed down and cut the robot clean, like rain severing dust.

Then the world around them blurred, like ink in water.

"...It’s over. It’s 12:01 a.m., August 16th. Finally… sleep."

Sleeping on a roof would chill you like dew… No, in the real world, she should still be in her bed, warm as cotton. Right before she fell into deep sleep, one thought floated up in her loosened mind like a lantern.

That last line from the robot—whose interference did it come from?