Yekase had a dream.

At the end of the universe, on the Causal Horizon, there was no beginning and no end, no past and no future; time was a bare number carved on a ruler.

“Why can’t people throw away hope?”

Someone came to stand by Yekase, like a shadow leaning into torchlight.

She tried to turn her head, but sleep glued her neck like wet clay and dragged her down like mud.

“Because a wave function can spread. You rarely come visit me, and you’re in tatters like storm-shredded cloth.”

“Iv…”

Arms wrapped her up, like a net catching a drifting lantern.

“No light here. Even time quits flowing, frozen like a dead river. This is the end of the world.”

Yekase could only keep looking out the window, like a fish pinned to the glass by its own breath.

She saw starships burning at the shoulder of Orion, a bonfire at the rim of night. She saw C-beams glitter near the darkness of the Tannhäuser Gate, like frost catching moonlight. She saw stars born, blaze, gutter, and collapse, a thousand fires kindled and blown out by the same wind. She saw races drive into the deep like schools of silver fish. She saw megastructures rise like cathedrals, run like mills, and fall quiet like abandoned piers.

She saw—

She saw a lance of light, and the universe was born from a blank dusk like dawn cracking an eggshell.

She saw two robots.

One wore a golden helm and golden armor, with wings on its back, like a seraph forged in a furnace.

One had a round, domed head, silver through and through, like a full moon of metal.

The instant she saw them, knowledge flooded her skull like a tide breaking a gate.

Perfect Alexander and Omega.

Were those their names?

Where was the last one?

She turned the head inside her mind, and a realization bloomed like a struck match.

Oh. I’m inside the last one.

Its name was Thunderbolt Zeus.

Then she saw stars.

Each star was the sum of countless happenings, flickering like a swarm of fireflies in a jar.

They were so far, yet so near; if she reached to understand, words crowded her mind like falling snow. It felt like dreaming, when a shape is only outline, yet you just know its name.

In Zeus’s cockpit, pinpricks of red rose like sparks, then fell like embers, in echo with the outdoor sea of stars.

“Warm... light...”

Yekase murmured, her voice feather-soft, like breath on glass.

“Stuff like this... no matter how much it piles up, it...”

“Exactly what you said last time. You’re the type who repeats the same dream, huh?”

She must have annoyed her; the air prickled like a cat’s tail.

“Then I’ll answer you the same way.”

Ivaris slid into her view like a moon entering a window.

Her white hair brushed Yekase’s cheek like cool silk. Her arm circled Yekase’s shoulders like a sash. Her mouth pressed to those finely crafted lips, soft yet firm, like velvet hiding steel.

“...Mm?!”

Something warm and trembling slipped in like a fish darting upstream.

In theory it was only muscle and mucosa making a physical coupling, dry terms like chalk on a board. Yet from a place where only food had ever entered, a restless tide rose like a summer storm.

Yekase’s eyes flew wide, then fogged like glass in rain, her gaze drifting like a boat cut from its moorings.

Their damp breath leaked through the imperfect seam, a twin engine chuffing like a steam locomotive at work. Ivaris had seen such engines among the stars, iron hearts with clouds for lungs.

“Iv... ee...”

She couldn’t tell if she was calling a name or spilling a moan, both thin as silk thread.

“This is to punish you for once forgetting me.”

She said it, and then she advanced again, like surf climbing the shore.

A nimble pink thing stroked Yekase’s lips, as soft as a petal, drawing a flinch like a startled bird. It slipped between, pried open the two rows of snowy hydroxyapatite like a lockpick, and invaded again like a warm tide.

This time she spared no mercy. She swept every corner of the mouth like a wind combing tall grass, even the uvula, which she tapped with her tip, light as rain.

Yekase gagged, like a well touched too deep, and her next breath betrayed her like fog on a mirror.

Ivaris swallowed her spoils with a satisfied calm, like a hunter banking a fire. She drifted to Yekase’s left ear and breathed a warm mist, and won another tremor like a leaf hit by wind.

The woman in her arms only tried to shy away, a deer slipping through reeds, never fighting back. Maybe guilt weighed her down like wet cloth. Maybe the new sweetness flooded her like wine.

“This is so you won’t forget me again.”

Ivaris had staged this reunion in her skull a thousand times, dressing it like a play: the perfect line like a gleaming blade, the tender touch like a hand on a harp. None of it mattered now. None of it fit.

For the first time, she felt she had to do this, like lightning finding the spire.

Tease her, conquer her, then take her, rough as a wave snapping rope.

Maybe the solitude of eternity and the blink had made her hysterical, a storm in human shape. Maybe she actually liked this shell of a beautiful girl, a new ribbon on an old blade. Those were pebbles, not mountains.

What mattered was this: they were at the end of the universe, on the Causal Horizon, inside the cockpit of a legendary mecha that carried human will up to the heavens like incense. They were witnessed by countless events, like stars watching a vow. They were wrapped in the first cluster of Flash Energy, a dawn fire around two hands. They held tight, carving each other into eyes and bone like chisels in marble.

Ivaris let go of the still-dazed Yekase. Their gazes locked like crossing blades.

“I’d answer this: this heat will warm the universe. Because it’s the first thread of Flash Energy in the world, born because of you.”

“Because... of me...?”

“There’s no time here. Beginnings and endings sit together like twins. So leaving me here alone for nine years? That’s a blink. I’m not. At. All. Mad.”

She was mad, fury warm as a clenched ember. Absolutely mad.

Even dazed, Yekase was sure, like a compass finding north.

“I just fed you Flash Energy. Enough to refurbish your pitiful body top to bottom, like rebuilding a ship plank by plank. Cheer up. I didn’t know you had that kink, but your wish to be a real girl came true.”

“I didn’t—”

“You could probably bear a child too. But I won’t allow you to carry anyone’s child but mine. Do you hear me?”

“No—”

“Do you hear me?”

Under pressure like a low sky, Yekase nodded, small as a bobbing cork.

“Now, time to send you back. Then I’ll wait here like a Servant on the Throne of Heroes, bored stiff like a statue, until you summon or visit again. You won’t forget this time, right?”

“Never... will.”

“You said that last time too. ‘Even if the worldline shifts and everything we did falls into history’s shadow, I won’t forget you’... Ugh, still cheesy like melted sugar. You big-talking liar. Serves you right, single for life, you engineering nerd.”

She had no words to fight back; shame pulled her head down like a hand on her crown.

“Liar, tell me your name now.”

“...Yekase.”

“Miss Yekase, remember to ask for me by name next time. If you date another woman, I’ll haunt you as a ghost like a cold wind through a crack. Oh, I’m already a cosmic ghost. Never mind.”

“Ivaris...”

“Light up, Macroscopic Cosmos.”

She lifted a foot and kicked Yekase in the belly, a steel-toed goodbye.

“...Guh?!”

“Go back to your ordinary days. But don’t forget why humans can live in peace—because a wave function can collapse!”

The world spun like a tossed coin.

Everything soaked in mad, chaotic color, then whirled, fused, scattered, and vanished, leaving blood-red motes on her retina like sparks after a firework.

...

...

Later, the spinning dropped away like a curtain.

Yekase felt like she lay on a bed, a raft on still water.

But her body’s sensations were strange, like new boots on old feet, and the colors in her vision refused to fade, a kaleidoscope stuck turning.

“Uh...”

Her mouth and voice still worked, like a flute finding air.

“Doctor? Doctor, you’re awake?!”

It was Ling Yi’s voice, quick as a swallow. Relief flowed like warm tea. She was safe. Ling Ya wouldn’t be hunting her.

Yekase tried to turn her neck, and the kaleidoscope in her view flowed with it like oil on water.

Wait. Did something happen to my eyes...

Thudding steps—Ling Yi, having confirmed she was awake, ran off like a rabbit. A moment later, several sets of footsteps surged into the room like a tide.

“Doctor, how’s the body?” That was Professor F, his tone heavy as rain.

“Doctor...” That was Zhang Wendao, a quiet bell.

“Doctor, we were worried sick these two days!” That was Crimson Field, voice like a drum.

“Good that you’re awake.” That was Ling Ya, cool as shade.

Yekase blinked, trying to pull faces from the glitched feed of her optic nerves, like guessing shapes in clouds. “Yeah, I’m awake... can someone tell me what happened?”

“The ultra-giant robot sleeping in the trench woke up like a volcano and smashed the island flat. Even if the base survived, all kinds of people would nose around like crows. I had to sink the island. Force majeure.”

For the first time, Professor F sounded pained, like a coin scraped on stone. Even the wealthy Beast King Squadron didn’t abandon a base like dropping a pebble.

“We were flying you—barely alive—toward the mainland,” he said, voice steady as a rail. “When we passed that mysterious giant robot, your body turned into a handful of red particles and vanished, like ash on wind.”

Uh. That must be when Zeus carried me to the Causal Horizon. But why?

Did Ivaris pull the string from over there?

“We searched everywhere and couldn’t find you,” he went on, like a map unrolling. “We sent the newly reunited Ling sisters home to rest.”

Ling Yi picked up the thread like a relay baton. “Then I suddenly thought to check your place, Doctor, and found you lying on the ground at your front door!”

Ivaris!!

“What about my body...”

Yekase checked inward. She could feel every finger and toe, like bells tied to strings, but not move them an inch, like ice over a stream. Her eyes saw only mosaic, a field of broken tiles. No one would call this unharmed.

“Your body is very healthy,” Professor F said, like a doctor reading a sunrise. “Healthier than before. But during the disappearance, you were injected with a ridiculous amount of Flash Energy. You’ve become something with no precedent—a fusion of flesh and Flash Energy.”

“Flesh fused with Flash Energy?! How is that even—”

“Brute force makes miracles,” said Crimson Field, like a hammer on anvil.

“Brute force makes miracles,” said Ling Ya, like a blade agreeing.

A hand—she didn’t know whose—gently stroked Yekase’s head, a palm like a warm leaf. The touch soothed her a little, like a breeze leveling ripples.

“Give it a few days for your body to adapt,” Professor F said, steady as a metronome. “You should regain free movement. Don’t worry.”

“Meaning I lie here like a corpse for days?”

“I’d like you to call it full rest,” he said, tone dry as paper. “You desperately need full rest. And a suit of armor for yourself.”

“Armor for myself? I don’t want to fight.”

Laughter erupted through the room like a pot boiling over, lids clattering.

“What?!” Yekase protested, hackles up like a cat’s tail.

“Keeping the desk-job persona now, isn’t that a bit...” someone teased, grin audible like sunlight.

“You’ve done this to your body and still say that...” another chimed in, like a pebble skipping.

“Don’t tell me you just like taking hits with your flesh... pervert...” a third added, wicked as a fox.

“Is this how you treat someone forced to risk life and limb to protect you?!” Yekase shot back, voice sparking like flint.

“No. We want you to face yourself,” came the reply, calm as a mirror.

“Face what?”

“Your kink for taking hits with your flesh.”

“...”

Yekase rolled her eyes so hard the whites flashed like a coin flipping in sunlight.