“Hey, that Ma Dongmei—” Her voice skipped like a pebble across a pond.

“Ma’am, I’m Ma Donghua.” Her correction landed like a straight chop of a blade.

“Ma Dong-what?” The question snapped like a twig.

“Ma Donghua.” Her patience was a tight-held kite in no wind.

“Hey, Ma, do you know where Year Two, Class One is?” Yekase spoke with hands in pockets, easy as a cat in sun.

The bell’s nearness thinned the air like a drawn wire, yet she strolled like drifting cloud, unbothered by any clock.

Admiration and alarm rose in me like twin flags on one pole. A year of skipping without blinking—rules were mist to her eyes.

In my head, her danger meter clicked up a notch like a red needle tapping a stop.

“Oh, wait. On back-to-school day two weeks ago, did Year Three reserves go to Year Two rooms or Year Three?” Her words turned like a compass seeking north.

“Year Two rooms.” The reply fell clean as a raindrop.

“Then I’m set. Good luck on duty.” She patted Ma Donghua’s shoulder, light as a moth’s wing.

She savored that first contact with a real student outside the Ling sisters, like tasting a new tea under rain eaves.

Not bad, she thought, though a bit oily, like too much gloss on lacquer. Still, close enough to her nature, the mask didn’t crack.

Next came the main act—stepping into the class, like crossing a stage lit by winter sun.

Year Two, Class One. She stopped under the plaque like a bird under a gate beam.

Class One is usually the honors class, a lantern hung high. You could tell from the room’s quiet, steady as a pond.

The other rooms she passed were clusters of chatter, like sparrows in bamboo. Many seats were still empty, like gaps in a fence.

Here, most sat in place, speaking in small ripples, their volume a soft drizzle.

By contrast, Ling Yi was in Class Ten, a row farther down the river. Yet her grades seemed decent, a quiet current under reeds.

Why did the academic office favor me, she wondered, like a door opening to a stranger? Skipping a year, yet placed in the honors room.

Unless Heavenly Heart High School’s top-university rate was low, like thin harvest after storm?

Before first period, she had already pasted a straw-hat label on the school, flimsy under wind.

Yekase drew a breath, deep as a well, and stepped inside.

The light talk died completely, like a candle pinched between fingers.

Every gaze turned to her like sunflowers to the sun.

Some faces showed surprise, some doubt, some curiosity, like different clouds in one sky. None held the old knives of hostility she knew.

Maybe, she thought, I could come to like school, like finding shade on a hot road.

“Everyone, a warm welcome!” Liu RuoYuan’s call rang like a bell, and the class clapped as if a drumline had practiced.

“Uh—uh.” Her voice fluttered like a moth caught in light.

“Alright, that’s enough! Yekase, introduce yourself.” Liu RuoYuan smiled, eyes crescent as a new moon, and offered her a piece of chalk.

“Uh… I’m Yekase. I skipped a year, so I got held back here. I like machines,” she said, voice flat as steel.

That felt cold as a stone bench, so she added a bright paper kite: “And Magical Girls.”

During the One-Year War, she and other researchers built the Magical Girl system, hammer to spark. She’d even set activation phrases for the fighters.

Saying she liked Magical Girls wasn’t a lie, just a lantern hung at a different height. However they understood it was their own river.

How long had it been since she did a self-intro, she wondered, face a stiff mask like lacquer. She turned and wrote her name, stroke by stone stroke.

Then she heard a second familiar voice, a wind chime beside Liu RuoYuan’s bell.

“Yezi-jie! Over here.” The call flicked like a sparrow’s wing.

Ling Ya sat by the window, second-to-last row, waving small as a willow leaf.

Yezi-jie again? The nickname rose from the dead like spring shoots. Hadn’t she and Ling Yi been calling her Doctor?

She didn’t know what that tiny shift meant, so she nodded back, a pebble’s dip in a stream.

“Oh? Ling Ya’s your friend?” The question floated like a paper boat.

“Met in summer.” The answer was a clean leaf on water.

“Then sit with her. The back corner’s empty… Is that too far?” The offer was a shaded bench.

“I’m fine. I like corners.” Her smile was a fox curled in brush.

Yekase strode over and sat, ending the bare-bones intro like a string knotted short.

Ling Ya turned, eyes bright as morning dew. “Didn’t think you’d actually come to school. And in my class.”

“All sorts of things happened,” she said, words drifting like mist across fields.

“You’re not just here for today?” The suspicion was a needle under silk.

“For the next month, all thirty days, you’ll see me,” she said, planting a flag on a small hill.

“You’d better.” Ling Ya’s grin was a sunbeam through leaves.

After she’d “come clean,” Ling Ya’s earlier doubt melted like frost under dawn. Her warmth was gentler than her sister’s blaze.

For Yekase, that level felt right, like tea at the perfect heat.

Morning study ended. The class surged toward her corner, a tide filling a narrow cove.

“Yekase, why were you held back?” “Don’t ask that first!” “Karaoke after school?” “You like milk tea?” “Please go out with me!”

She glanced at Ling Ya for rescue, but saw only empty air, like a kite string cut.

Traitor! Her thought flared like a thrown spark.

Where’s your hero spirit?! Her heart beat a drum for a phantom ally.

What happened to fighting shoulder to shoulder?! Her stare chased a vanishing back like a hawk over stubble.

“Uh—”

“Alright, alright, don’t mob the new classmate! Can’t you see she’s gasping? You’ve used up all the air!” A voice sliced the crowd like a fan blade.

Here came the classic class monitor, a figure like a bamboo rod holding up the net.

A girl pushed through, parted the press one meter, clean as a plow through soil, and stood in front of Yekase.

Winning the goodwill of someone kind and respected was a talisman against hassles, a charm on the door. Yekase looked up with hope bright as flint—

Todo Moka.

…

“You’re here too!” The words jumped like a startled fish.

Todo turned, surprised, eyes round as coins. “Eh? You know me—oh! You’re the lady from the water park!”

“Just noticing?” Her reply was a thin blade under paper.

Truth was, Yekase had just noticed too, like recognizing a shadow when the lantern swings.

“Heh, I was dozing. Didn’t pay attention.” Todo scratched her head, a puppy embarrassed by its own pawprints.

Yekase felt no cuteness, only a cold stone in her gut. She knew the truth of this one’s shadow.

No—truth was a fog. Was she sharing a body with Mira, or split like twin moons in one pool?

Either way, she and the Heavenly Prison King were of one breath, a sword and its sheath born together.

Yekase’s fear of her former boss still coiled like a snake. After the water park fight, it bit deeper, a fang that wouldn’t pull free.

“I’ve got something to tell you, too. Can you come to the rooftop?” Todo took Yekase’s hand, fingers like a net closing soft.

?! Her heart popped like hot oil. What kind of talk?

It had to be about the water park, a storm cloud she could smell.

“T-T-Todo, I wanted to nap on my desk before class—” Her excuse fluttered like a torn flag.

“It’s about the other side.” The whisper dropped like a pebble into a deep well.

So, you know. The thought cooled like ink on silk.

She had to sound out Todo’s stance now, like tapping porcelain for cracks. Yekase stood and followed, their footsteps climbing like beads on a string.

They stepped onto the empty rooftop. The sky was a blank scroll.

Todo shut the door behind them, a thud like a seal on lacquer.

Strangely, Yekase’s fear eased, a tide pulling back from shore. If Mira dared cause trouble at school, that would be madness wearing bells.

Given the chance of madness, her Levitation Spell plus phase shift would carry her off like a swallow into haze.

If that failed, she’d brute-force it on the spot, reciting every possible activation lyric like counting prayer beads.

Odd, how since Ling Nuo Si returned, memories of the One-Year War unlocked daily, blooming like night flowers.

A breach in one ward made the rest crumble, like ice thawing along cracks. Now, most of the Magical Girl map had returned.

For example: three generations, eleven members, like constellations in three rings.

Each generation leaned toward different performance, and each person had a unique blade. From the second, everyone had an activation phrase.

From those seven phrases, she could chart the currents, find her own line, like a fisherman reading tide. Please, eighteen-year-old me, don’t make the form too cute.

“Yekase,” Todo said, voice hesitant, a bird on a thorn.

“Mm? I’m here.” Her answer steadied like a hand on rail.

“That day, I sensed danger. I blacked out. I woke at home and learned the water park was destroyed… Mikara caused you trouble, didn’t she?” Her eyes were rain-glossed.

“Uh, if anything, she helped.” The truth balanced like a scale with grains of sand.

Trouble was true; help was true. Trouble came like a shove; help came because Yekase had planned the latch.

While the air stayed soft, Yekase cut straight, a knife through tofu. “What’s your relationship with her? Same body, different minds?”

“I don’t know.” She looked inward, like peering into a well. “Years ago, I came to, and she was already… in my body.”

So Todo seemed the main host, the face in the mirror at dawn.

Classic multiple personality, like that American case across the ocean—he flipped a coin each morning. Heads, the good one. Tails, the bad. Absurd as a circus trick.

“She usually sleeps, and only comes out when your life’s in danger?” The pattern sat like a trap diagram.

“Yes.” Her nod was a falling leaf.

So during Sinister Organization ops, with ambush always possible, Mira stayed front, like a sword kept bared.

“What happened after, that day?” Todo asked, urgency bright as fire. “What did Mira do? Please tell me.”

“Mm… We got out of the maze,” Yekase said, threading events like beads. “Then a mech flew in. The construction crew was demanding back pay.”

“You turned into Mira and dismantled the mech, clean as pulling nails from a plank.”

“And then?” Todo’s breath tightened like a bowstring.

“Then? The tourists evacuated.” People flowed out like water from a cracked jar.

“And then?” Her eyes pressed forward, two lamps in fog.

“A few heroes joined, kept it going until Shadow Curtain International came to arbitrate,” Yekase said, laying stones across a stream.

“Why? Hadn’t Mira already dismantled the mech?” Todo’s confusion was clear as glass.

Yekase mirrored the confusion back, like two mirrors facing.

“Why? Because they were stalling Mira,” she said. “If she won, Emerald Pool couldn’t stiff the workers. So everyone pushed hard.”

“But they attacked during business hours,” Todo said. “They broke order. Many innocents could be hurt. There should be a better, gentler way.”

“You said order?” The word rang in Yekase’s ear like a temple bell.

Understanding clicked open, a latch in the dark. She slid her hands into her pockets and rocked back a step, a reed bending from wind.

“Maybe we think differently.” Her tone cooled like night on stone. “I’ve told you all the details. I’ll take my leave.”

She pushed the door and went down, her footsteps falling like rain.

Todo reached out, a hand catching air, words on her tongue like birds in a cage. The door closed slow, a lid on a box.

“Then why do you know details the news never reported, Yekase?” she murmured to the wind, a question hanging like a lone lantern.