Yekase strolled to the kneeling mech’s flank, pacing up toward its torso. She peered in, curious as a crane by a river, and her thin long dagger tapped, poked, pried, and skimmed like a dragonfly on water.
The avenue fell into an unreal hush, frost laid over sound.
Everyone watched this logic-breaking tableau—
One single cut had crippled the mech. And every follow-up—she meant to strip it to bolts and bones.
“Hmm... this main spring’s fatigued. Let me relieve the tension.”
Another cut.
Several joints groaned past breaking, then the entire torso slumped, upper and lower halves parting like a felled tree.
That thing could swing a turf war the moment it arrived—a strategic weapon in all but name!
And like this? Shredded by a lone woman with a little knife?
No— not sliced, dismantled! The fallen parts lay intact, ready to slot back in, like a hobbyist cradling her collectibles.
“You gotta be kidding...”
The lieutenant’s faction, who’d fielded the mech, took her for the boss’s secret enforcer. Their courage leaked away; a few dropped to the curb.
The boss’s faction should’ve cheered—someone had handled their headache. Instead the bizarreness left them lost for words.
She doesn’t look like an ally at all! Who did the other side bring in?!
Both sides thought the same, echoes under one roof.
Yekase didn’t overthink. The massive Mind Energy specimen held her whole focus; she pried every seam, mapping its special guts, a cartographer of steel.
Only then, satisfied like a cat after a hunt, did she stop.
She rapped the mech’s head, drooping on the pavement.
“Hey. You in there?”
...
“I didn’t cut power to your cameras. I’d advise against playing dead.”
At that, the pilot caved, voice trembling: [H-hello... Pilot here... What do you need...?]
“What’s this mech called?”
[A name? N-no... It’s a weapon. Why name it?]
“A pity.”
Without a name, it’ll be “that Mind Energy mech” in my head—ten, twenty years, then a blur.
She hates that. Everything she invents gets equal treatment: a number, a name, big or small.
For example, B-001, the “Flashblade System”—
[Boss, goddess, I’m just feeding myself under the lieutenant. My mother’s sick. Please spare me...]
Yekase blinked, then snorted a laugh. This wasn’t her first time masked, stripping machines in a melee; she’d never drawn this much fear.
Her combat’s hilariously specialized. The moment a human targets her, the act collapses.
Once someone even stopped her to charge repair fees. Freshly retired and broke, she reassembled what she’d taken apart and bolted.
She climbed onto the mech’s head, sat cross-legged, back to the building husk it had burst from, and swept the street like a hawk.
Good. Few still standing... With Ling Yi covering, I can slip out.
She flicked a switch under her mask, cranked the volume, and announced to all:
“Evening, folks. Keep fighting. Don’t mind me.”
...
......
How are we supposed to just keep fighting?!
And who the hell are you?!
“Th-that mask... I remember now...!”
A black-suited, sunglassed man finally matched her to a rumor.
“She pops up anywhere in Twin Towers City, belongs to no faction, only cares about machines—an urban legend...”
“I think I’ve heard that!”
“She stripped Witch Machine Works’ Gundam to the pavement, then reassembled it stronger with extra parts!” “Mechs aren’t Gundam!” “A woman? Really a woman?”
“They say she hums while dismantling!” “Terrifying!”
“...”
Okay, her public image is... odd?
She was just a bored retiree chasing new machines to gawk at. Sometimes the itch hit and she took them apart. How did that become folklore?
“Her name is—”
—the “Singing Wrecking Lady”!
......??
What “lady”? What even is that?
[Doctor, that title’s kind of...]
Yekase cracked, dropped the act, and swore: Who coined that goddamn nickname? Freaks! Absolute clowns!
The suits ducked their heads, silent as quail.
No, she had to salvage the mystique. Leave before this dumb chuunibyou tag ruins the image...
“Ling Yi, transform and pick me up.”
[Is that okay? Looking like this, people might think Flashblade Red’s a villain...]
Damn, even Ling Yi’s embarrassed!
“I can’t walk out.”
[Where’d your dodge-and-feint, pull-shield, last-hit aura go?]
“No one watched me coming in; I could play. Now they’ll block the exits. Crowd fights I can fake. One-on-one? I can’t even beat you.”
[Mm, okay. Let me think...]
Ling Yi thought five seconds, found no better plan, then shifted in-place under optical camouflage and took off like a red comet.
She swept in a wide arc, like she’d flown from the corner, rose above the scene, and pulled every gaze skyward.
“I’m Flashblade Red! You... stop fighting! What’s going on?”
It was a heroic line with zero punch, a banner flapping without wind.
“Tch. A hero, huh...”
Someone frowned and stepped back.
“All because that bitch meddled. We’d have—”
Grumbling rolled like smoke through reeds.
“Not a day to play king. Withdraw!”
Pairs tugged each other toward alleys like shadows breaking apart.
“Who are you calling a bitch?!”
Yekase yelled.
But people peeled away in clumps. Two interlopers, same root once, and the suits reached consensus: disperse.
Yekase exhaled in secret and readied to slip out—
“Brother, leave me! Go!”
“No! We leave together!”
What now?
She glanced down. Two suits hadn’t moved: one sprawled, clutching his bleeding gut; the other held him, not even staunching it, lost as a child.
“My life... without regret... ugh!”
“Big Bro—!!”
Yeah, better to ignore them...
Yekase told the pilot goodbye, hopped off the mech’s head, and planned to slip away in the confusion.
“Then I let go of everything... That damned woman... Even if she’s stronger than a Gundam, I’ll bare my blade!”
Eh?
Wait—no way?
She felt a stare burn her back. Turning, she saw the man hefting a knife, stalking her like a wolf.
Oh hell— he’s suicidal!
But if he caught her, the one without a life would be Yekase, all bluff and no bite—
“Running now’s too cowardly!”
“Yeah! Avenge Big Bro!”
“If I die, I die with Big Bro!”
They closed in from all sides, a tightening net.
Your boss dying—how’s that my—
She looked at the “Big Bro” on the ground. No breath. A steel rod stuck through his belly.
A rod that had popped from the mech.
Uh.
Okay, that one’s on her.
“Ling Yi, save me!”
[Didn’t they disperse? How are they— I’m coming!]
At Yekase’s heartfelt plea, Ling Yi streaked over. But the suits had ringed Yekase tight and were about to strike—
—Celestial Speech.
Their motions hitched, like gears catching in cold oil.
Even primed for a last stand, the sudden ritual words made them hesitate.
Celestial Speech? Isn’t that how mages start?
Not only could she bully machines, she could cast too?
What spell would she call next?
Surely some terrifying death-curse?
Like, Galactic Phantom Ultraman Super .44 Magnum Mc-something Extreme—
...Levitation Spell.
Basic and harmless, sure—yet Yekase rode the brief lift like a shell leaving the barrel, vaulting three, four meters high!
“Incoming!”
Ling Yi swept past at the perfect moment.
Their hands locked. Kagari’s thrusters spat hot air, climbed hard, and vanished into the night’s velvet.
Dangling in the dark, Yekase watched the street shrink below, finally breathed out, and pulled off her mask with her free hand.
“Thanks.”
“Just now, you felt like someone else. Right—the ‘Singing Wrecking Lady.’”
“Don’t say that nickname. Please.”
“The old Doctor feels safer.”
“Ha, that so...”
Yekase let it hang.
Dr Ika, Yekase, “Mechbreaker”... Which one was real? Maybe none. She was done puzzling it out, like smoke slipping past fingers.
“Let’s go back. Rest tonight.”
“Mm.”
