On the first morning of school, Yekase had meant to fake it through a few classes, but boredom dripped like a leaky faucet; by second period, she was face-down and asleep.

When she opened her eyes again, the air buzzed like a street market.

“You’re finally awake.”

Ling Ya’s voice rose from the desk ahead, light as a pebble skipping a pond.

Irritation first, then motion; Yekase didn’t feel like answering the traitor who’d left her to the crowd, so she played half-asleep, rolling her stiff shoulders like creaking hinges.

“Okay, it’s on me. I thought someone silver-tongued like you, Sis Ye, would glide through a crowd like that.”

“Apologizing with a side of snark?” Her mood pricked like a thorn before the words slid out.

“It’s a heartfelt compliment.”

“It better be.”

Her mouth curled, a shadow of a smirk flickering like a passing cloud. If it had been Ling Yi, she wouldn’t have bolted in a storm like that… Then a cold bottle of cola slid into view, parked in the crook of her arm like a buoy in still water.

“Treat.”

“…You know your place.”

Only then did Yekase sit up, spine uncoiling like a cat.

“Is it lunch already? I slept that long and no teacher said a word?”

“Who’d dare? You showing up at school is already a comet sighting.”

Ha.

This school day felt like a mirage on hot asphalt.

“Alright, lunch time… You guys allowed to eat off campus?”

“Yeah, but lunch break’s short like a flicker. We don’t go far, usually that food alley nearby.”

“Come on then, show me the world like lifting a curtain.”

She remembered Ling Yi saying Ling Ya had lots of friends, the type who lived under bright neon. Yet as they stepped out to eat, no one else tagged along.

Considerate, huh? After my social-anxiety performance this morning, she probably told them not to come. Admit fault, then fix it—nice and clean, like rain washing dust. Way better than a certain weirdo who plays at neglect.

They cleared the gate and slid into a Lanzhou noodle place, steam curling like ghost flags; each ordered a bowl of knife-cut noodles.

“Sis Ye, there’s something I want to ask.”

“You too, huh…” Her mood dipped like a stone into a pond.

“Eh?”

“It’s fine, ask. What is it?”

Ling Ya rubbed her temples like kneading a knot. “These two days, I keep remembering… things I never lived. But the new memories are crystal-clear, like moonlight on water. So now, I don’t know which side is real.”

As expected, it wasn’t just Yekase. The year that vanished was surfacing like a drowned bell rising slow—whether that was good or bad, the tide hadn’t said.

“In your case, it’s complicated. Remember your brother ZEROS?”

“Of course I remember.”

“Do other people remember him?”

“…”

“Take it easy. Those memories you’re recalling are real. In 2012, Earth was invaded by a race called Exogenous Entities, and many heroes stood up like mountains. Your brother was one of them.”

“Wha—”

Ling Ya’s eyes opened wide, shock flowering like frost on glass.

“And the Magical Girls? As far as I know, no active heroes go by that codename!”

“They were warriors who only shone in 2012, then were forgotten like stars swallowed by dawn. Your brother was one of them too.”

“But why is there no trace left at all? Even if history was rewritten—”

Why indeed?

Because—

“Then I’ll have to lay it out.”

Yekase twisted open the cola Ling Ya bought her, the hiss a little snake, and began:

“The first-generation Magical Girl system just boosted the body with preset Sorcery and Mind Energy, then fought the Exogenous hand-to-hand like iron against stone. Simple principle, no special abilities. So their punches and kicks reached absurd numbers, pure stat monsters. Users included Magical Girl No.1, Super No.1, and v3.”

“Where did they go?”

“They all died in battle like candles blown out by a gale.”

“…”

“The second generation added carefully designed special abilities. But the engine lagged, so while a single skill could hit hard, it stayed narrow like a single note. Considering individuality, they dropped numbers and let users pick their own callsigns. They also began using special activation words. Users included Magical Girl Rainbow, Evening, Aura, Winter Moon, and Shanon.”

“And where did they go?”

“In the final battlefield of the One-Year War, they vanished into the seams of the worldline like threads lost in a loom.”

Ling Ya drew a sharp breath, cold as a sip of ice water.

But Yekase wasn’t done.

“The third generation went big on external plug-ins to boost both variety and power, so a single Magical Girl often had several abilities, and the stats finally caught up like a storm at sea. By then, a Magical Girl could solo most Exogenous Entities. But costs were huge and time was tight, so they made only three units. Users included Ivaris and ZEROS.”

“And the third?”

…

Yekase froze, mind snagged like cloth on a nail.

“—Right. Who’s the other one?”

She couldn’t remember.

She couldn’t remember at all.

If Ling Ya hadn’t asked, she wouldn’t even have noticed the contradiction in her own mouth. Three units in Gen Three—yet she remembered only Ivaris and ZEROS, and hadn’t even noticed she’d miscounted.

But the moment she managed to notice it, the mental tripwire dissolved like mist under sun, as if it had never been set.

“…Thanks, Ling Ya. I think I found a breach.”

Yekase shot to her feet like a spring let go and bolted out of the noodle shop.

“Eh?! Sis Ye, your noodles—”

“Pack ’em for me!”

She sprinted through the school gate, feet drumming like rain, flew up the stairs, and stopped at the little observatory’s door.

“Secret passphrase.”

The sensor door they’d hacked in over summer slid open like a pet’s ear perking up.

Yekase squeezed through the hatch, climbed hand-and-foot up the narrow stair like a raccoon, bit open a marker cap, and started writing on the makeshift whiteboard.

Aura — “Wish for a miracle, and bind us together.”

Evening — “If you’d see the fire, then burn grudges to ash.”

Winter Moon — “In the dark, light our shared dream.”

Rainbow — “From here, we weave the radiance.”

Shanon — “A lamp that descends to the River of the Dead.”

Ivaris — “Punch through the rotting firmament, every last inch.”

ZEROS — “Weigh Anchor.”

And—

The tip hovered in air like a hawk for a long while, then scratched the final marks.

? — “?”

She reeled off a string of titles, words like bright fish slipping from her lips:

“That Which Is Called the World, Unruly Ovation, Winter Moon Goes in Splendor, Light of Resolve, Lamp Beneath the Nether, Prison Break, Sea-Color… the earliest songs are all from 2015? Dr Ika in 2012, just what—”

Using badass lyrics from songs not yet born as Magical Girl activations—yeah, that kind of shameless plagiarism was exactly her flavor, a single thread through years, but how did she do it?

Across time like a river crossed on stepping stones—

and across causality like a knot cut with a blade.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Huh?

You used Azous for this?

Even knowing the jerk nine years ago was just her, standing right here seething helplessly, Yekase still swore out loud like thunder in a teacup.

Even a dumb Japanese pun, twisting “henshin” eight ways with different kanji, would’ve been kinder than this blank maze!

You even dodged the mecha anthems on purpose! Not even Cradle of Eternity or Raise your flag, which you—me—love to this day!

And the most likely pick in her earlier guess—the pre-2012 Gundam track Cocoon of the Moon—looked absurd among this pile of anime songs with zero Steel Soul, and had to be cut like a bad branch.

Ever heard of password recovery, sophomore-year me?

By the time Yekase ran back in with her spark blazing, it guttered to smoke; she flopped into the recliner like a tossed coat and stared at the observatory ceiling, mind blank as winter sky.

If the time window widened beyond 2012—damn it, did she really pick a song from ten or twenty years in the future as her activation? That’d be screwed squared.

“Ha. Good night.”

She rolled over, curled on the recliner like a curled leaf, and slept.

Only sleep could cool the hot, nowhere-to-go regret glowing in her chest like embers.

Might as well sleep through the afternoon, she thought, like letting rain drown a fire.

Just wake when the bell rings.

As for the power of a Magical Girl, let it slumber forever then. Nine years ago she needed teammates to invent the Magical Girl system; now she could invent the Flashblade System alone like forging a blade in her own kiln. New product beating old product is how it goes; this isn’t one of those fantasies where the older it is, the stronger.

“Doctor? I knew you’d be here.”

Ling Yi’s head popped up from the narrow stairwell like a curious fox.

“What’s up?”

“Whoa, your mood’s stormy.”

“It isn’t.”

“You’re absolutely mad! Did a teacher scold you? About skipping a year of classes?”

“Really no. I slept all morning.”

“Oh, good—slept all morning?!”

Ling Yi leaned in, bending down so her face filled Yekase’s sky like a full moon.

“This afternoon is General Technology for both juniors and seniors. You coming?”

“General Technology…?”

In Yekase’s memory, a class with that name was softer than art or music, mostly wood and plastic projects—little cars, little boats—an insult to a genius inventor, like asking a falcon to hop.

“It’s Mind Energy practice. I think you’ll love it—hands-on.”

“I can’t use Mind Energy.”

“The heart that believes is your Mind Energy! Doctor, you’re just not confident enough!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Envy first, then a sigh. She envied how easily they could believe, like flowers opening to sun.

The more you study Infinite Power, the deeper you dive into the underside of the world, the smaller you feel—like a lone boat at sea.

Yekase was no exception.

Forget Shadow Curtain International’s HQ; even the East China division pressing down like a mountain had plenty of researchers a whole tier above her—how was she supposed to be confident?

“If you really can’t use Mind Energy, the teacher hands out training Mind Energy machinery so you can feel the ‘sensation.’ Worst case, we just chat. There’s no downside to going!” Ling Yi shook her arm like ringing a bell.

“Alright, alright…”

Unable to refuse, Yekase sat up from the recliner, lazy as a cat stretching.

“By the way, Ling Yi.”

“What is it?”

“I want to ask you something.”

She repeated today’s line for the second time, words looping like a well-trod path.

“When you hear ‘light,’ ‘lamps,’ ‘fire,’ ‘defiance’—what songs come to mind?”

“Songs…?”

Ling Yi’s face went funny, the thought painting it like a doodle. “Doctor, are we doing Macross now? Mechs powered by singing?”

“There’s no such thing!”

“There isn’t?”

“There might be, but I don’t know.”

Careful. Always careful.

“Mm… Dawn? The Bakayarou one.”

“Noted. What else?”

“Light of Resolve?”

“Used that already.”

“Meru? The PV has lots of glowing little cubes, and the lyrics say ‘lanterns.’”

“Doesn’t scream defiance, but I’ll take it. Next.”

“Sand Planet!”

“Good. Noted.”

“Sailor. It’s got ‘neon,’ and it’s defiant.”

“Chinese songs... right, it could be Chinese! We have to write that down, like catching a firefly in a jar.”

Ling Yi squeezed ideas, like wringing water from a dry cloth.

Yekase sifted and logged them, like panning bright flakes from a stream.

All through lunch, they jotted over twenty songs that might be the activation phrase for that name-lost Magical Girl, like beads sliding onto a string.

Warm trust rose first, like steam from a teacup.

She didn’t ask Yekase what for—the doctor surely had a plan; she would back the doctor, like keeping step in the same shadow.

“Okay, let’s leave it here.”

“Time’s about up, like sand thinning in an hourglass.”

“Where’s the General Tech class? Lead the way, like pointing north with a fingertip.”

Yekase tucked the notes and pen into the teleport case, and clapped her hands, like dusting chalk off after a lesson.

Without thinking, Ling Yi caught the hand she hadn’t pulled back, like a small bird settling on a warm branch.

Softness bloomed first, like spring rain under her ribs.

After disappearance and return, the doctor’s hand felt warmer, and her cheeks looked rosier than in her hermit slump, like peach blossom after snow.

In short, cuter, like a peach after frost.

“Then let’s go,” like wind slipping through the gate.