Phase Shifter, OK.

Nayuta, OK.

Hypnosis audio, OK.

“Secret weapon,” OK.

—All clear. The plan lay ready like knives on a lacquer tray, gleaming cold for a D-tier logistics plant.

The message from Shen Shanshan dropped like a pebble into night water: factory located. Yekase didn’t wait; her heartbeat steadied like a drum, and she moved.

She wanted the thread cut clean like silk under a blade, so she’d sheath all Sorcery. No spells, no glow.

In this global age, a few baby tricks were normal for an East Asian face, like paper lanterns in a foreign fair—but Yekase’s style shone too bright, like lightning in clear sky. She’d learned a showy Flame Burst Spell just for cover, and filled every other slot with tools and utility; a couple floating discs and minds would start painting dragons in the clouds.

Better to seal the spellbook like a shrine door and go back to first principles—fight with gear, not light.

Match pace with Shen Shanshan, mirror her ripples, and maybe mislead the watchers like mist over reeds. “怪盗姐妹”—phantom thieves, sister shadows—sounded cute in the mouth, but using her Mechbreaker persona felt wrong like red ink on white rice paper. So Yekase forged new skins and handed one to Shanshan before they set out.

One blue, one red: two frameless lab goggles, slick as glass on winter ponds.

“You really think these alone—”

Yekase answered with quiet wind instead of words. She slid the blue goggles on, and the air around her changed like a room after incense.

“...?”

Something shifted, like a tide under moonlight—aura, presence, the brushstrokes people feel but can’t name.

“Sized just for us from the blueprint. N-668, ‘Twin Demons.’”

She nudged the bridge with a middle finger, the gesture sharp as a sparrow’s peck. “The long version’s a headache: one invention of mine mutated into a cognitive-interference ripple. These goggles are the reverse-engineered net catching that ripple.”

“Interference on the mind?” Shen Shanshan’s eyes lit like fireworks. “How deep? Can we walk in and shoulder the goods like geese over a field?”

“Nope. I’m not Doraemon pulling miracles from a blue pouch. At best you get low-key invisibility—people’s eyes slide off you like rain off bamboo, and it doesn’t last.”

Yekase wagged a finger, light as a willow switch, meaning no.

“Fair. That’s already strong.”

Tool users don’t scold toolmakers; Shanshan kept her thorn hidden like a fishhook under water. And truthfully, this much felt enough.

“By the way, heard you reconnected with the old boss? What did Mikara offer to make you forgive past knives?” Her tone went gossip-sweet, like a cat nosing fish.

“You know her?”

“Mm. We bump into each other at the foot spa, and our kink profiles rhyme like paired couplets, so we got familiar.”

“...”

Suddenly the “phantom thief sisters” idea tasted sour, like tea gone stale.

You two should start a “foot spa sisters” duo instead.

Speechless, Yekase stared into the bus’s dim like a pond at dusk. The last night bus hummed toward Twin Towers City’s outskirts.

The late bus carried a few scattered souls like fallen leaves. At each stop, more drifted away; near the end, only Yekase, Shen Shanshan, and one woman remained.

Yekase played ghost on her phone, then watched from the goggles’ edge like a fox behind reeds.

A woman in navy OL wear sat mid-car, single seat, temple against the glass like a drooping flower. She dozed.

What’s a normal person doing riding out to the industrial night past eleven? No housing out there. Maybe she worked her bones to paste and missed her stop like a moth circling the wrong lamp.

Yekase almost rose to nudge her awake, but the thought cooled like ash. Tonight was theft, not heroics; fewer ripples meant less trace.

Shen Shanshan felt the gaze like wind and looked forward. After a beat, she sucked in a small breath like a pinprick.

“What?”

“Muscle mass is off,” she whispered, voice flat as winter light.

“...?”

Yekase waited, calm as stone, for her explanation.

“The sleeves and pencil skirt hide full contours. And her calves—oh, you can’t see them from there—what looks like black stockings is the latest black-market tactical tight, built for combat. It’s popular like hot buns.”

Yekase thought, and the thought flowed like ink.

A combatant heading in at this hour?

She thought again, deeper, like a second brushstroke.

“She’s a hero.”

...

Shen Shanshan stared with a “what the hell” face, sharp as a cracked tile.

“Think it through,” Yekase said, voice even as rain. “If they sensed us and tightened defense, they’d never have a fighter riding a bus this late. Prep time’s a river; they wouldn’t send a twig at midnight.”

“True... but how do you know she’s a hero and not a gym rat in heels?”

“I just know.”

The long version would be a forest of branches.

Once Yekase’s attention touched the woman, her Infinite Power vision bloomed like night blossoms, and the picture sketched itself. The OL suit was custom; every inner pocket carried clean Sorcery traces like neat stitches, an alchemical enchantment widening space like a folded fan.

Inside those folds, one thing glowed clear—an ocean of Omega Rays, packed like coals in a brazier.

All weapons.

Omega Rays scream modern heat; that already scrubs “civilian” like sand off a pebble.

“Stay sharp. If we bump into her in the plant, we claim we’re fresh to the scene—new heroes testing the waters.” Yekase exhaled, breath steady like tea steam.

“What about the haul?”

“Teleport it. Don’t tell me you broke the box I gave you?”

Shen Shanshan’s eyes popped like lanterns. “It can send stuff inside?”

“You heard half like a sparrow stealing only rice.”

Shanshan drifted into a blank stare, the “where am I, what am I doing” kind, like a kite without wind. Yekase lowered her eyes to her phone, leaving a sliver of attention on the mystery OL.

At the terminus, the woman woke as if pulled from fog and stepped off through the rear door, heels tapping like rain.

Yekase and Shen Shanshan followed at a distance, feet soft as cats’.

Same direction. Same path. The air felt tight, like a bowstring.

Robbery should be a secret shared like wine. More hands can lift more weight, but if she’s a justice-first type, fists fly before loot moves, and the night shatters like glass.

Yekase raised a hand to stop Shanshan, plan shifting like a reed in wind.

“We stagger our time.”

Watch if she’s here to wreck, or after the same target. Test the plant’s defenses like tapping a drum.

“She’s really going that way... I haven’t seen her in the merc circles,” Shanshan muttered, thinking hard like a monk over a sutra.

The industrial park looked standard—late-night marts and coffee shops flickering like warm lamps. Yekase pulled Shanshan into a café with full glass windows, sat by the pane, and watched the OL’s back vanish into shadow like a brushstroke.

“What type of hero?” Shen Shanshan whispered, voice thin as silk. “Solo at midnight, picking fights with an org—radical, right? Radical and alive this long means skill like a sword.”

“You’re answering yourself,” Yekase said, flipping the menu like a fan.

“I can match her to a hero.”

Then she set the menu down, face flat as a calm pond.

Forty yuan for an Americano—let someone else drink that bitter river.

“So fast? Tell me.”

“She’s crossing the gate right now. Her walking pace and the yard’s size give us the count.”

Yekase lifted her hand: index and middle together, thumb perched like a crane.

“Seven seconds?”

“Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

—BOOM!!

A shockwave punched the night, and smoke boiled off the roofs like storm clouds. Under lamps and flame, the orange-red looked like demon lacquer.

Shen Shanshan stared at Yekase, eyes wide as moons.

“Your backup?”

“Please. I know plenty of heroes, but they don’t know me,” Yekase said with a shrug light as falling leaves. “I just read the Twin Towers hero thread today. It’s fresh ink.”

“Codename?”

“PeaceWarrior.”

“Uh... her...”

Shanshan clutched her head and folded forward like a wilted lotus. “Maybe we come back another day?”

“No. Chaos is a cloak; we walk under it like rain under a cape. Miss this window, and the plant moves like a caravan.” Her gaze held the blazing buildings, finger tapping the table like temple wood. “Worst case, PeaceWarrior gets ground into paste by the guards—unlikely—but even then, we claim we tracked her here as hero hunters. Might even collect a bounty like picking fruit.”

“That... makes sense.”

Shanshan tasted the logic like spice and hummed.

“Hey, you’re a hero now. Why are your tricks still muddy like river silt?”

Yekase’s face stayed calm as a stone bridge. “To be a hero today, the key is knowing when to bow like bamboo.”

She could preach like strings of pearls, one after another.

And later she’d rush in, no questions, to pull someone out of fire like a fisherman saving a child. Shen Shanshan knew her friend’s temper—a thunderstorm wrapped in quiet—and didn’t poke the cloud. She nodded with a perfunctory “yeah-yeah,” smile thin as paper.

As they traded this feather-light banter, explosions and gunfire rolled from the plant like drumbeats. In the café, the few customers and staff barely glanced up; their silence lay heavy like snow.

To everyone, this was everyday weather—one org devouring another, or vice versa. The sun still rises like a copper coin tomorrow.

Instinct tugged; Yekase reached for a cup that wasn’t there, fingers closing on air like chasing dragonflies. She clicked her tongue and stood.

“...It’s about time.”

“Mm.”

They rose together. Shen Shanshan flicked her collar into place like a blade’s line. Side by side, they stepped onto the park’s avenue, feet quick as sparrows.

“Listen. We loot the warehouse under cover of chaos, as deep as we can reach. Priority is the upgraded Evolution Gauntlet. If we can’t find it, the old model will do. Skip raw materials—they’re bulky and cheap like wet clay.”

“Got it—”

Yekase pushed the goggles’ bridge, the motion crisp as a bell.

“Let’s go.”