When Yekase opened her eyes again, night had lacquered the institute’s window black.

“Ugh… my head hurts,” she groaned, a drum pounding behind her eyes.

So this is what a hangover feels like?

Maybe useful next time… though there’ve already been plenty of “next times,” she thought, the idea drifting like smoke.

Professor F sprawled across the opposite desk like a corpse; her pointy hat lay on the floor, a wilted cone.

“Robot?”

The robot stood statue-still mid-serve with a tray, ignoring her call like a clock that only ticks for one owner.

Yekase couldn’t lift an adult woman; she pushed chairs together into a raft of a bed, settled Professor F on it, and drifted out.

She pressed her temples as she walked the residential street; the summer breeze flowed like cool water, washing heat from cheeks and neck.

…Hah.

She’d come for special training, yet let a forty-year baijiu’s rich lure hook her; guilt pricked for Ling Yi like a thorn.

Right—check on Ling Yi…

She pulled her phone; three missed calls from the same name, spaced like stones three hours apart.

It was already eight.

Silence pooled like ink inside.

Ling Yi probably thought Yekase was buried in research, too busy to pick up.

She wanted to talk, yet feared to intrude, so she dialed every three hours like a cautious tide.

A small sting bloomed inside.

“Hello?”

“Doctor, are you done over there? Can you rest now?” Ling Yi’s voice came soft, like a lamp in fog.

“Uh… yeah. We… were pretty absorbed,” Yekase said, words wobbling like jelly.

“Tonight, will you keep me company? Let’s hit the nearest city.”

“Just the two of us flying back to the mainland? Won’t we be seen?”

“Mm. Professor F already agreed.”

Professor’s still asleep in there, Yekase thought, the truth sitting like a cat under the table.

“Where are you now?”

“On the beach, looking toward the continent.”

She’d planned this; had she been waiting since afternoon, like a gull on a post?

“I’m coming now.”

Yekase cast a Levitation Spell like a light cloak, willed her still-wobbly legs, and ran toward the beach.

Ling Yi sat on a boulder at the waterline, facing the sea; her moonlit silhouette stole Yekase’s breath like a thief.

“No wonder the mecha I built—standing still, it still looks cool,” Yekase muttered, her pride fluttering like a shy lantern.

“Doctor, what are you even saying?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

Yekase stepped up and took Ling Yi’s right hand, like catching a falling star.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“I worry a bad man will sweet-talk you away someday, like a fox with honey.”

“Huh? If I get tricked, it’ll be by a bad woman, like a rose with thorns.”

“So you won’t deny the ‘tricked’ part!”

Your doctor’s top skill might be lying… She bit her tongue; the thought slipped away like a fish.

Ling Yi disliked hauling her only by the hand; she scooped Yekase up in a princess carry, light as lifting a cloud.

Thrusters flared behind her like twin comets, and they rose three, four meters.

“I grabbed your hand exactly to stop you from carrying me like this…”

“Isn’t it common wisdom? Read the read.”

“I hope you keep that level in battle, like a blade that anticipates.”

Yekase obediently looped her arms around Ling Yi’s neck; they flew over the night sea like a silent kite.

Twenty minutes later, they touched down lightly at the shadowed edge of a beach beyond the lights.

Street noise spilled from the city, a warm tide tugging them back to the human world.

Colored bulbs twined around lampposts and trees like strings of fireflies; people moved livelier than usual, a festival drum in their step.

Many held balloons, pinwheels, glow sticks—small toys flashing like tiny planets; smiles floated bright as lanterns.

Ling Yi dismissed her armor with a shimmer; excitement bled through her voice like sunrise. “Is this… a little summer night fair? What a perfect stroke of luck!”

“I don’t know. I’ve never joined anything like this,” Yekase admitted, her social calendar a barren field.

“So I’m the date for the doctor’s first fair?”

“Is that supposed to be a milestone?”

“It is.”

Ling Yi’s smile, lit by the street’s colors, sparkled like rain on glass.

“I hope, in twenty or thirty years, when we say August 26, 2021, I still recall the feel of your thigh when I carried you like a princess!”

“Don’t remember that!”

They slipped into the quick, bright current of people like leaves on a stream.

Guilt for Ling Yi sat in Yekase’s chest like a small stone.

Her temples still throbbed with a hangover’s drum, yet she shelved pride and went all in.

Ring toss, marbles, air rifles, bumper cars—games glittered like feral fish.

Ling Yi excelled at ring toss and marbles; with the air rifle she missed, shots scattering like fireflies.

She bought another magazine and asked Yekase to shoot; only then did they win an animated phone charm for ten balls.

Hugging a plush with no clear species, a wooden katana, and a palm-sized plastic tank, Yekase flopped onto a bench like a beached seal.

“Doctor, that’s all you got?” Ling Yi stood with arms crossed, sipping soda from a plastic bag like a street memory.

Yekase eyed the distant night sky like a deep lake and spoke slow.

“Ling Yi, I once had a dream.”

“In that dream, I never felt tired, and I could run wild.”

“I ran from one street to the next, and just that made me cry with joy like rain.”

“I— I see,” Ling Yi stammered; a warning light flashed in her mind like a red beacon.

Did the doctor suffer something? A serious illness? A body too fragile to run long?

“How… would that be?” Yekase’s voice came light as a feather.

“Because I never exercise.”

“So it’s self-inflicted!”

She dropped onto the doctor’s belly with a thump like a sack of rice; a wail rose from below.

After ten minutes of rest, Yekase rallied like a kite tugging back to wind.

“Second half—go!”

Following the crowd, they left the beach and slipped into the city; the fair still held them like a net.

Bigger stalls ruled this half: Company A’s VR immersion room, Organization B’s human cannon, Club C’s Transformation Magic experience.

“…Transformation magic?” Yekase’s eyes lit like lanterns.

The name hooked her at once.

If she could shapeshift at will, eighty percent of her troubles would vanish like mist.

Disguise, hide, muddy identity—an invincible kit.

In a society under law, a finger-snap that levels a city only earns you more money.

But with a mask that hides who you are, you become the one they kill for, like a shadowed boss.

“Doctor, which one—oh, I can tell.”

Yekase stared at Club C’s sign with feverish eyes, feet rooted like a tree.

Luckily, the line was short; the human cannon had stolen most folks away.

Behind its marquee, a huge barrel poked out like a dragon’s snout; people shot skyward with booms, thrilling as fireworks.

But they’d just crossed the sea; more flying held no charm.

Club C’s receptionist tapped a tablet, registering guests briskly like a sparrow. “Ms. Yekase and Ms. Ling, together, right? Welcome. Please enter through this gate.”

Her hand pointed toward a tunnel slanting down like a burrow.

They followed it to a redwood long table.

Across it sat a woman in a purple mage’s robe, pointy hat on her head—she looked familiar, like a face in a dream.

Thankfully, not Professor F.

“Please sit,” she said. “I’m the fortune-teller here.”

“I’ll use unfathomable magic to find the desire hidden in your heart.”

“I’ll make you into the ideal you want to be, like a mirror made flesh.”

It sounded legit, like incense curling toward heaven.

Yekase thought a moment and still couldn’t pick what she longed to be.

As long as she didn’t turn back into Dr Ika, hunted on all sides like a stag, anything else would do.

“Any shape possible, or only human?”

“If I become an object, and can’t move, what then?”

The fortune-teller hadn’t expected such a stray question.

Under the wide brim, her mouth twitched like a thread.

“…It’s basically other people’s appearance.”

“How long does it last?”

“At midnight, it lifts automatically, like Cinderella at the bell.”

Cinderella, huh.

“I’m good. Let’s begin,” Yekase said, settling into the chair like a cat.

The fortune-teller coughed for effect, a little thunder. “Then please close your eyes.”

They obeyed, lids falling like curtains.

Curiosity sharpened inside Yekase like a blade.

This room sat underground; it couldn’t be a fair-only special.

How many people did this fortune-teller transform each day, with high-tier tricks that looked like real Sorcery?

How much Sorcery did she hold, like a reservoir?

With talent like that, why not join a war and carve a name, instead of busking in a small place?

What reason forced her to dress her craft as carnival magic, like silk under burlap?

“It’s done. Please open your eyes.”

Yekase opened them; her view stood higher, like she’d climbed onto stilts.

What had she become?

She looked down at herself; white, blue, yellow, and red armor blocked in squares filled her sight like a mosaic.

Uh…

Gundam?

She adored mecha, so she’d become mecha.

But the model was the classic she liked less; she’d rather be Barbatos or Crossbone, blades like wolves.

With lukewarm acceptance, Yekase turned to Ling Yi.

Lately Ling Yi craved strength.

She might become someone from the Beast King Squadron, or a TV-famous hero, even the Heavenly Prison King’s shadow.

…Huh?

Beside her sat a girl Yekase had never seen.

Thirteen at most, face still round with baby fat, like a ripe peach.

She wore a light, gorgeous dress frothing with lace and bows like whipped cream.

Black tights hugged her legs in mock maturity; small pony boots carried her like hooves.

…Is she a Magical Girl from some show?

Ling Yi looked puzzled at her own result.

“Who is this? Childhood anime?”

“No, I watched Pokémon, Digimon, and Conan; none had a girl this cute,” she said, voice skipping like a stone.

“Fortune-teller, can someone appear that we never saw, or already forgot?”

The fortune-teller shook her head slowly; the gesture fell like a leaf.

“My magic can’t create from nothing, nor make dead wood bloom.”

“What presents itself is a target once fiercely desired, even if memory erases the trail.”

“Your heart won’t let it die.”

“As for its meaning, find it yourselves, like a map drawn inside.”

Then she waved them off, a quiet dismissal like a fan.

Yekase scanned the code on the placard and paid, a digital ripple.

She pulled Ling Yi, still wringing her mind like a towel, through the other door.

They climbed back to the surface and left the Transformation Magic experience.