Yekase and Zhang Wendao headed for the alley where the mysterious young man had surfaced, a split in the city’s ribs where shadow pooled.
Because trouble had flared there lately, the area now bristled with people who felt off, like driftwood wedged in a stream—scouts from other groups, no doubt. In that, Yekase was just another ripple, doing the same.
A girl around seventeen, and a loli around ten—a pair like spring willow and pocket-sized sparrow.
No one would doubt their motives; even stepping into the alley, they could hide behind the mist of “naïve and sheltered.”
Not disguising yourself is its own mask, a clear-water mirror that fools the eye.
Yekase stopped beside a splash-shaped stain on the wall, a rust-dark bloom on pale plaster, and traced its trail back to where it started—about seventy or eighty centimeters off the ground.
That height whispered of someone wounded then sitting down, like a felled deer folding its legs.
Yet even slumped in the corner, the target hadn’t gone still; a roundhouse had spun out, and blood fanned sideways, painting the wall with red petals.
Heavy hands—the strike bit like winter hail.
Yekase frowned; in Zhang Wendao’s words, Ling Nuo Si was a proper Magical Girl, a “wielder of starlight,” “gorgeous,” and “gentle”—big-sis face, big-brother backbone—hardly the type for alley brawls.
Did they peg the wrong person, a stray wave in the wrong bay?
But in Yekase’s Infinite Power vision, the walls and pavement shimmered with thick Soul Power residue, like dew clinging at dawn; a simple fistfight would never leave this much fog.
The kicks and punches were only a veil, a paper lantern hiding the real light.
“I’ll check deeper,” Zhang said, her voice a pebble dropped in a well, and slipped past the corner like a swift.
Huh? Relief pricked like sun through cloud—when did her sentences stop stuttering? Maybe Ling Nuo Si’s return tugged at her curse, thinning it like smoke.
“—Back at the scene, huh.” A male voice rolled in behind her like distant thunder.
Yekase slid sideways on instinct, like a leaf dodging rain, hand diving into her pocket to grip Nayuta’s hilt, and turned toward the speaker.
“Easy, easy,” he said.
A young man stood at the mouth of the alley, lantern-light spilling over him like honey. Yekase saw his face clearly, and her pupils snapped tight like a shutter.
That face—!
It was Zhang Wendao’s carnival transformation.
She’d turned this pebble over in her mind these two days—Zhang, a legal loli of ten, with nine years of wandering making her nineteen inside; if she wanted a fighting body, how could she pick some random, unrelated man?
If the fortune-teller’s spell had no loopholes, then this man meant something huge to her, an idol etched in her subconscious like a star carved in jade.
So—who was he?
Zhang had lied.
The Ling parents were nearing their fate-marked year; if they wed at twenty, their first child would have been in his early twenties in 2012, a willow bending into manhood.
No doubt—this man was—
“I’ve got a special sense,” he said, settling his stance like a coiled spring. “I see a ghostly aura—how much sin someone carries, how rotten their heart is. And you…”
“All I see is night.”
“If my cute sisters grew up well, they’d be about your age now. You’re so young, yet—how many innocents have you killed, directly or indirectly? Looks like I’ve hooked a big fish today.”
—Whoosh!
Azure fire surged up, a wave that fenced them in like a circle of sea.
The young man snapped on fingerless gloves, knuckles gleaming like wet stones. “What, still won’t admit it? Then I’ll strike first.”
At ten paces, the gun wins; within ten, the blade wins—but Yekase believed a smooth tongue beats them both, like wind that snuffs a candle before it’s lit.
“That aura reading—is that a Magical Girl ability too? I kinda forgot.”
Yekase mirrored his posture, hands loose in her pockets, smile soft as dusk. Inside those pockets, one hand held her blade, the other sat ready on the teleporter, cards up her sleeve like hidden flint.
“…”
“Long time no see, Magical Girl ZEROS.”
She’d changed her face long ago; enemy in the light, her in the shade—she could smother him with information until Zhang sensed the disturbance at the corner. It wouldn’t take long.
Or she could talk him into a still pond right now; plenty of paths.
He frowned like a storm line. “Investigated me? No…”
He’d been back less than two days, cutting down a few petty thugs like weeds; no one but three unconscious victims had seen his transformed self, much less heard a name.
No trail to follow; no one should jump from blue fire to a Magical Girl gone silent nine years ago.
“Or should I call you…”
Yekase smiled.
But it wasn’t threat, trick, or buttering up; even with his preconception of her as a villain carved in stone, he felt the warmth in it—relief and nostalgia that didn’t belong in this alley.
“Welcome home, Ling Nuo Si.”
“—?!”
“My cute sisters did grow well; they’ve inherited your mantle and become heroes. Neither of them is a Magical Girl, though.”
“What are you… saying…”
Ling Nuo Si’s ready stance collapsed; he rushed in and grabbed Yekase’s shoulders, panic ringing like iron on iron. “Who are you?!”
“Let’s keep a little suspense.”
Yekase slipped her index finger between their faces, tapped his forehead like knocking a temple bell, and pushed him back.
Revealing herself now would be easy water to row with, but it felt early; if he went back and cross-checked with Ling Ya, then uncovered what Dr Ika had done these years, the gentle weather they’d just made would blow apart.
“Anyway, I don’t know what’s wrong with your aura sense…”
The truth was, nothing at all.
“I’m your comrade—that hasn’t changed since nine years ago. For now, call me Yekase.”
The azure flames melted away like frost under sun.
Thud.
Ling Nuo Si’s hand still rested on her shoulder, but his knees folded to the ground like a ship dropping anchor.
“Comrade… have the comrades of the Twenty Second Squad… come back too…!”
“I’ll call one out for you.”
Yekase looked toward the corner Zhang had disappeared into and, at the top of her lungs, shouted, “Pervert!”
“Why are you shouting that?!”
“—Enemy?!”
Zhang Wendao burst from the corner like a startled bird—then froze mid-flight.
Four eyes met, a bridge over still water.
After a pause, she rigidly looked at Yekase.
Yekase nodded.
“Big… bro…?”
“Wen…”
He got out one syllable before the girl dove into him. Ling Nuo Si was still kneeling, matching her height; they hugged tight, like vines twining.
Yekase stood aside, feeling like the brightest third wheel, a lone street lamp in their summer night.
“I’ll step out and get some air…”
She walked to the alley mouth and drew a deep breath to clear the coal-smoke from her lungs, like rinsing dust from glass.
“…Hoo.”
Fear fluttered like sparrows—scared me to death, scared me to death, scared me to death.
If instead of Ling Nuo Si it had been the Sinister Organization, or if he’d started swinging without a word, who knows how it would’ve gone—the alley was so narrow there was nowhere to dodge; by the time Zhang heard and came, she’d have been beaten so badly even her own mother wouldn’t recognize her.
Though right now Mom wouldn’t recognize her anyway, but that’s not the same rain.
Either way, Ling Nuo Si was secured; once they finished their reunion, they’d bring him back to stay for a while. How to arrange the meeting with the Ling family—what a tangle of threads.
Recover, and stumble upon a Magical Girl—not a bad harvest.
Yekase let her mind drift like a kite, eyes wandering over the street…
“…?”
Around them, Mind Energy pulsed in numbers, a chorus under the floor and behind the walls and inside the buildings, the sound of it coursing through bodies like rivers.
Were those organization enforcers coming to settle accounts with Ling Nuo Si, knives wrapped in suits?
Yekase rewound like a tape, face a calm mask, and backed into the alley step by step.
“Sorry to interrupt your reunion, but we’ve got trouble.”
“What’s wrong?”
Ling Nuo Si reacted first, like a hawk: “Are we surrounded by the friends of those three?”
“Mm.”
“I can fight now! I don’t know why the curse is weaker, and big brother is back… but let’s break out first!”
Zhang Wendao pulled her transform device from the air and clipped it to her waist, like catching a falling star.
No transporter in sight; perhaps the device just pops in from the void—a showy function baked in, wasting system space like gilding on a blade.
“Fine. Let me see if nine years have dulled your hands.”
“To behold the fire—let old grudges burn to ash!”
“Weigh Anchor!”
Two blue flames, one pale and one deep, spun up like twin typhoons, covering their figures. When the fireflakes drifted away, two Magical Girls stood there, sisters in cut and color.
Both pairs of eyes fell on Yekase.
“…?”
“You’re not transforming?” Ling asked.
“You’re not taking your knife?” Zhang asked.
“Eh?”
“Eh?”
“Uh, I’m not a Magical Girl.”
Yekase raised a hand like a flag.
“Then you’re… a Shadow Curtain International combatant? I thought their fighters were all men.”
“Stop guessing. You won’t land it.”
As the Twenty Second Squad’s battle leader, Ling Nuo Si had traded countless words with Yekase; back then she hadn’t guarded her tells, and little habits slipped through like sunlight. He might be the easiest person alive to guess her true identity.
But there was no avoiding contact with him now; she’d have to press his guesses down with a firm hand.
“Right, let me ask you something,” Yekase said, tone light as wind.
“What?”
“Do Magical Girls decide their transform lines themselves?”
“Uh, no—Dr Ika, who built the devices, set each phrase to match our personalities.”
Yekase nodded, rain tapping on an umbrella.
If it had been self-designed, it would’ve been simple.
Her memories of 2012 were patchy, like a painting washed in places; she couldn’t recall whether she’d left herself a backdoor.
If Yekase had also fought as a Magical Girl back then—what start-word would she have set for herself?
