"Aura...?"

How did she...

Yekase thinks, then the knot loosens. Two personas inside her watch each other, like twin mirrors echoing endless light, forming a pseudo perpetual engine against the curse.

She evolved mid-fight, hacked the rules, dyed Infinite Power, like ink blooming through water.

Monstrous, like frost under the skin.

From mind to flesh, from skill to luck, inside to outside, top to bottom—a storm flipping earth and sky, utterly monstrous.

Mira doesn’t know Yekase’s inner grade for her just dropped to a new low. She keeps that needling tone: "Save the reunion talk. ZEROS looks rough. What are you even doing? Can’t handle a single afterimage?"

"Sorry our battle power’s trash, like a paper sword in a storm."

Yekase tries to speak, but Mira steamrolls on: "Ivaris, same to you. You drag Azous out just to sweep trash? What a waste. Give him to me, and I’ll rob an A-class org’s vault tomorrow."

"I don’t..."

I’m not Ivaris. I’m inverted Ivaris, Icarus in an Ivaris Alter coat...

She wants to say it, but her tongue locks like a frozen blade.

Luck favors her mask today. She lets Mira keep the mistake. If Mira links her to Dr Ika, going home tonight becomes a burning question.

Mira reaches for Zhang Wendao and pulls her down beside the red-dressed girl, both crouching like sparrows under a ledge.

"Eh?! What are you—"

"Do you want to ask me to save her?"

"..."

"Speak!"

"I do! I want..."

Zhang Wendao’s voice breaks again, like rain on a thin roof.

Before Ling Nuo Si’s last normal transformation, she forced a refresh on herself, and her save point stuck, like a bookmark that held through a storm.

The Beast King Squadron watch the Magical Girls drop the organization mask and play kin. As outsiders who missed the One-Year War, they feel adrift, boats in fog.

"Next, I’ll bind your existences together."

"...Eh?!"

She says a terrifying thing as if it were tea-talk, a blade slipped into silk.

"This way ZEROS won’t fade. But if you two stay too close, gravity will melt you together, and you’ll become like me—one body, two souls."

"I..."

Zhang Wendao looks at Ling Nuo Si. Her heart knots like wet rope.

I can save her... but can’t be near her. A fairy-tale curse, thorned and sweet.

"...I accept."

"Neat. The little crybaby from back then can decide now."

"I’m not... a crybaby...!"

"Yeah, sure, sure."

Mira takes Zhang Wendao with one hand and Ling Nuo Si with the other, like holding two kites in wind.

"Let’s wrap it and get off this cursed place. Do your farewells later; I’m busy. And if the media see me with you heroes, my reputation sinks."

She presses their hands together, palms gluing like leaves in rain.

"—'We pray for a miracle. Let us be linked.'"

The red-dress girl still lies unconscious. Under Mira’s touch, the fire-sparks on her body stop burning and gutter out, embers under snow.

So... that wasn’t special effects? The thought ripples through everyone, wind through reeds.

"Done. Her existence is fixed in this shape. Ivaris, open a door! We’re leaving." Mira orders without a blink.

Uh? Ivaris does have teleport. But it’s like the Beast King Squadron’s Infinite Power bio-teleport. Simply put, Yekase can’t use it.

It’s basic energy manipulation, not included in the borrowed power set.

"Uh, I can’t."

Yekase raises both hands in surrender, a flag in wind.

"Ah?"

Mira frowns. "Comrade Ivaris, you’ve fallen this far?"

"Because I’m not Ivaris. I’m Icarus."

"........."

She says it anyway, this tongue-twister of a pun. Relief slides in like warm tea. She peeks at Mira’s face, wary as a cat watching thunderclouds.

She dares because her transformation still holds. Like a masked rider in a suit, she keeps one layer of disguise, safe from a door-kicking visit.

"Good, Ika. You even fooled me. Good."

...She sounds angry, thunder rolling under a calm sky.

There’s doom in the air, and it’s Yekase’s doom.

"I’ll stop chasing your vanishing act. From now on, I’ll chase the mess you made, this knot of threads."

"You’re willing to drop the disappearance?"

Yekase seizes the advantage, like a fish catching light. "As for why it became like this... I wanted to see possibilities. Sadly, this possibility leaks everywhere; even Ling Yi can list them. Lalabel has flown west with the cranes now. The road stays winding. The work isn’t done. Comrades still need to strive."

"Doctor, are you mocking me?!"

Ling Yi yells. Ignore it. The thought drifts like smoke.

Objectively, this was ugly. We saved almost no one. No power-up. We dragged out a boss we beat nine years ago and punched him again. Nothing truly changed, footprints retraced on wet sand.

But Yekase feels she already bled effort. No one here holds the right to cast stones.

Especially Mira, a bargain-hunter on a battlefield.

Even so, Yekase must give face to this dangerous Magical Girl—this fallen Magical Girl. "You were my comrade. You just saved another. I owe you something."

"Of course." Mira doesn’t flinch.

"What do you want me to do? Patents and R&D guidance for my new inventions? Represent you at some conference?"

"We’ll consider that as an organizational decision. Right now, I need to get off this airship that who-knows-how-many eyes are watching."

"Be my guest."

Yekase steps back into the crowd with a mild smile, curious as a cat, watching how Mira plans to descend.

Jump straight from the breach? Call a plane?

Both fit her like knives fit a sheath.

"Praise my poise!"

She forces one line of a three-step chant. She spreads her arms under all eyes, and night coils into shape—

She becomes a dragon.

A long supple neck, glossy black scales, powerful wings and limbs—no doubt a dragon from Western myth.

...Huh?

"You still need to turn into a dragon?"

And where’s the Celestial Speech? Casting without it—Yekase has never seen that, a stone dropped in clear water.

"No, is that really your focus..." Ling Yi mutters behind her.

"This isn’t magic. It’s bodily change!" Mira’s dragon voice turns rougher. She flips the line to hammer it in. "Real bodily change, not a magic trick!"

So, the usual mage uses magic to convert themselves into a dragon. She uses Mind Energy to sculpt herself on the spot, full-body reshape into a dragon, with organs that channel Sorcery for lift. The process is another beast altogether... more monstrous by the word.

But why morph at all? At this altitude, if she says she’d get hurt jumping, Yekase won’t buy it. Doubt curls like mist.

"Roaaar!!"

Black-dragon Mira lets out a thunder-roar, beats her wings, and dives into the night Azous’s Shadow has seeded with light-particles.

...She probably just wanted to flex, a peacock flicking its tail at midnight.

Everyone, properly dazzled, slinks along corridors back to the boarding hatch. They ride the Beast King Squadron’s mechs down. To cover tracks, they rest at Liudong City’s quarry, a secret base tucked in stone.

It’s Yekase’s second time here. Clear as a bell, a thought echoes in her head: "I want a secret base too."

The red-dress girl, out of mortal danger, rides on Crimson Field’s back. Zhang Wendao fears the fusion Mira warned about and won’t touch her. Back on the ground, she wakes slowly. After Professor F gives a brisk recount, her eyes settle on Yekase like rain finding a window.

She waits for several answers. Silence hums like wires.

"You all go rest." Yekase gives the order, a broom sweep in words.

Two remain. They sit on a plain bench along the quarry road. Yekase’s rewritten body clock drifts; drowsiness settles like dusk.

"...Lalabel, and the other Magical Girls—I’m sorry." Her tone falls like ash.

"You... knew she had no time left. The promise you gave her..." The red-dress girl carries no blame, only a pale regret, winter light through thin curtains.

Yekase wants a beer in her hand, a cold anchor. She shakes her head. "She knew too. To bait me in, she staged a whole play. She locked herself in a prison of time, likely to save strength before a possible break."

"...I see."

"Even if we fail, we pass on will and intent. You... we all do that, don’t we?" The words drift like lanterns on a river.

"How much of your promise was bluff?"

"I don’t know. Only what can be done counts as a promise. If not, take it as comfort at the end." Her voice is dry as old paper.

Saying that is one thing. It likely won’t happen. The differential closed universe is gone. No one will spend a second, third, or countless nine-year spans chasing that Big-Bang-thin chance again, smoke among stars.

"..........."

"...Is that so."

The red-dress girl shifts, like a leaf turning.

"I have one last question. What tie exists between you and Azous?"

"Uh?"

"Don’t tell me you just sang, and Azous happily came out to help."

"...You were awake then?"

"Not fully. But I can remember."

But can remember. The phrase glows like a candle stub.

What a luxury that is.

Yekase lowers her brows, still as water first.

"If I tell you, will you believe?"

"If you say it, how can I not? Even if you lie, I’d gladly be lied to." Her trust feels like a shawl in night.

Yekase hears how iron-strong they once were—then meets the blank snow in her heart now, no ripple, no warmth.

The One-Year War still had sticky notes and parrots. How do you remember lost comrades?

"...My father, Liu Qizhou, made his brain into Azous’s final component."

"..........."

Strictly speaking, he still lives. So history didn’t correct him. In my memory he’s still here, even just an office worker. During the One-Year War I had arrived in Twin Towers City and never caught his disappearance.

Yekase takes out her phone and stares at the message that can’t be sent, a bottle tossed into a dry sea.

At least I still remember his face, she thinks. The thought stands like a lone tree.

"In that year of loss, among arrays against exosources, we likely talked. After that, I walked the Flash Energy path without turning. My mother raged at my choice and cut ties to this day. Now I wonder if, deep down, she refused to lose a second loved one to this cursed name."

The red-dress girl thinks long. She murmurs, voice like a stream under stones:

"Azous... so there’s this inside story. In that case, perhaps we let him sleep at the horizon."

"Mm."

"Then I’m off. If we wait for Wendao to catch up and stage some grand farewell, I can’t handle it."

"Where are you going?"

"Head inland, into sun-baked earth. Head for the great northwest, where winds run like horses. This body doesn't need food and never gets tired; the days ahead stretch like a long river. I'll travel with a tourist's heart, like a kite in fair weather, walking and playing as I go. Someday I'll reach Europe, along a thin road like a needle's trail. I want to settle in Florence, where stone glows like honey. Maybe dabble in art, paint women who can't afford clothes, skin like moonlight."

"That's so you, sharp as a grin."

She rose and brushed off the dust, like ash shaken from a moth's wing. She carried no bundle, not even a bag, light as a reed. She headed up the quarry's mountain path toward the surface, along a gray spine of stone.

Ahead lay a dim, barren mountain, like a sleeping beast. Above, a thousand stars scattered like salt across black velvet.

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her lavish gown, still burning bright like fire even after the flames had died. She never glanced back at Yekase on the bench, eyes like arrows aimed ahead. She drew in a lungful of night, dark as wine, and sang out:

"A laugh across the vast sea—"

"The rolling tides between both shores—"