“Yuri baiting? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

Yu Yunxiu leaned on her great spear like a pillar under moonlight. She was dwarfed beside the Peace Walker, yet her presence rose like tide, buoyed by surging Mind Energy.

Caesar Coliseum— even if it siphons an Omega Ray, does it auto-convert to Mind Energy when it enters her like a river entering a mill?

Something felt off, a grit under the tooth.

“But how do you explain ‘triggered just for you’? You said that in front of a whole crowd!” Yekase pressed, voice like a heel grinding gravel.

“That was to coax her.”

“Huh??”

Yu Yunxiu covered her mouth with a straight face, whispering like wind through reeds. “Don’t spread this. Luzhixing’s pretty chuuni. Set the mood, let her feel cool. If she’s pleased, she might let you win.”

She didn’t seem to care about catching the two intruders. She shelved the star-player airs and began spilling Luzhixing’s private lore like a tea-seller’s gossip.

“Chuuni…”

Yekase replayed Luzhixing’s matches in her mind like flickering lantern slides.

Lines that popped out with no meaning, signature moves more spectacle than edge, a killing trump deliberately held back.

…It kind of fit.

“Then why are you here?”

“Schedule’s empty. I’m doing temp work around the venue.”

She shrugged, shoulders like loose clouds.

Running off to pick up shifts near the arena… given her grassroots background, that checked out like worn shoes.

Yekase weighed options, mind ticking like a clockwork bird.

Her ultimate even absorbs melee. Any Infinite Power I use just feeds her back like rain into a cistern. Do I pull “that move”?

For a tools-and-magic user like me, the side effects dwarf the gains. It’s a big-move-in-name-only— Nightlight Torch.

But Yu Yunxiu’s bodywork is famously formidable, old-school steel in the bones. If I pop mass silence and go in swinging, I’ll get out-bruted. Not viable… damn it.

Magic and Alchemy will go fifty-fifty. My crude Flame Burst Spell will get half its Sorcery siphoned, leaving sparks on wet stone.

Yekase thought and thought, ideas circling like hawks over a field.

“—PeaceWarrior, shoot her!”

“Don’t order me.”

The word and the gunshot landed together like thunder and lightning.

CLANG.

Yu Yunxiu twisted her spear-shaft with a dancer’s wrist, spiking the decisive round aside. Yet the recovery lacked the effortless flow she showed against Luzhixing.

PeaceWarrior dropped to one knee like a statue set firm. Her firing hand left the trigger, and with a clack, she pulled the short side-bolt.

A brass casing flashed in the night as it spun away like a firefly.

—Pure gunpowder round!

Live-round sidearms in single-soldier kits had faded like old banners, replaced by Infinite Power ammo and clean energy guns, erased from the market’s map.

The Sinister Organization adored the creed “high tech is good, period.” They worshiped new products like idols, eager to iterate old bones to dust, and gunpowder was their favored reactionary to flog.

Energy guns are tidy, tough, easy to use, and hit hard— elegance welded to force.

They also sell energy shields like umbrellas in rain season.

Yekase blinked. PeaceWarrior had felt high-tech all the way; her earlier spray had tossed out a stack of energy rounds. Switching to a retro piece— how many guns does she carry under that calm tide?

From World War I to World War II, from modern steel to the unknown future that the Peace Walker hints at—

Yekase caught the flint in Yu Yunxiu’s eyes, that serious stormfront, and the reason clicked like a lock. “Mind Energy users push the ‘gunpowder is obsolete’ line because body Mind Energy neutralizes Mind Energy bullets, and other Infinite Power rounds get softened… but gunpowder has to be eaten by armor.”

Mind Energy can lift Yu Yunxiu to near-superhuman— track bullets with naked eyes, catch them on the shaft like a bat to a fastball. It can’t turn her flesh into true steel.

From that angle, with guns and explosives as main offense, Infinite Power used to assist them like wind behind arrows, PeaceWarrior is the natural counter to Yu Yunxiu’s build.

PeaceWarrior knew exactly how to fight this map. She rose unhurried, then tossed the gleaming big bolt over her shoulder like a silver fish.

A mechanical hand, born from silver-blue squares, reached and caught it as neatly as a waiter taking fine glass.

Second “Generate Peripheral.”

Sixteen metal fists bloomed behind her like lotus buds. Caesar Coliseum bit half of them into particles and dust.

The eight remaining were enough, eight moons in a staggered sky.

Those eight silver hands generated rifles to match the one in PeaceWarrior’s grip. Half were erased as Yu Yunxiu’s supply, but by chance or design, the rifles left gaps— one hand’s width between each barrel.

The hands made their intent plain as banners.

Empty palms cradled the barrels beside them, steady as carpenters’ vises.

One hand held. One hand fired.

The nearest two barrels, left and right, rested across PeaceWarrior’s not-so-broad shoulders like twin yokes.

“Array fire.”

She folded her arms and planted her feet, a commander under night clouds, and gave the order.

Two bangs almost on top of each other, like twin drumbeats.

Pull off, swap hands— keep firing!

Yu Yunxiu kept whirling that great spear, parrying with bone-deep precision no ordinary human could dream. She couldn’t advance an inch; the path ahead was nails and glass.

Two-round volleys stitched on and on, no sign of aiming, yet every shot locked her like a hawk’s eye. By the fourth pair, the first pair had already reloaded— a wheel that turned forever.

Pinned.

But Yu Yunxiu is famed for stability and endurance— prolong this stalemate, and reinforcements will flood in like ants. That’s bad water for PeaceWarrior.

—At that key deadlock, the last one left on her feet— Yekase— besides narrating like a courtroom clerk, what else did she do?

She started coding, keystrokes falling like rain on tin roofs.

“Use flow as concept to perturb star runes, plus guidance runes… Type-2? Oh, Type-3 isomer. Mount wide-area and persistence modules, incubate five seconds under high pressure… 3, 2, 1— coordinates set. Run!”

—Pop!

Yekase slammed Enter like dropping a trump card on a duel disk, the motion sharp as flint.

A blazing Alchemy circle roared to life behind her, brilliant as a festival lantern, with a deep thunk in the bones.

“Super Perseids!”

A flash ripped the dim night where her raised right hand pointed, bright like a match in wind.

A meteor arrowed toward the field, a silver fish diving for the pond.

“…Huh?”

Yu Yunxiu glanced at the dramatic circle effect behind Yekase, then at the meteor swelling in her sight like a fist. Bad omen— tonight’s wage was dust.

Worse, the meteor split itself midair like a seed pod bursting. Not a failure— every fragment took Sorcery thrust, wrapped in flame and light, and hammered down toward Twin Towers like a fiery rain.

“Your death-star glitters overhead— try blocking this!”

Yekase snapped her index finger ninety degrees downward, pointing at Yu Yunxiu already searching for an escape path like a fox in a snare.

As for those Twin Towers fighters still woozy from the Re‑Ecogenesis Bomb, background props in a tragedy— at least they died without much pain, a candle snuffed in a breeze.

If you eat under the Sinister Organization’s table, you accept dying before you spend it. When Yekase graduated and joined, she hadn’t weighed it; after much mud and ash, now she kills without blinking, a blade under frost.

Fighters have families and friends— of course she knows. She’s ready for the day some kid knocks on her door with revenge burning like coal.

“—Blame the world that treats evil as ordinary, and blame yourselves. As ordinary parts of a giant evil, I hope regret finds your hearts before the end.”

Even with Caesar Coliseum erasing more than half the rubble, the heat-soaked Sorcery masses and flames still dropped like hammerstones, sweeping the factory apron that moments ago held a crowd, turning it into hell— scorched stink and ragged screams.

Yekase folded her arms and judged the scene, adding in a low voice like a wick’s whisper:

“Hmph. I’m no exception.”

…

……

…Alright. Time to run.

Super Perseids is my peak on direct output. If that couldn’t finish Yu Yunxiu, staying is slow death, moss over stone.

“…From diamond, release the dream, Perseus—”

Hands in pockets, Yekase hummed and turned away like a passerby under drizzle.

“—Icarus.”

PeaceWarrior stopped her like a hand on a collar.

Expected. Even so, Yekase grimaced and turned her face, hiding like a cat under a cart.

“I heard it.”

“Uh, heard what…”

“I’ll keep watching from the dark. To see whether you become an evil who treats evil as ordinary, or a streak that cuts night— a flash of light.”

It was PeaceWarrior’s longest speech since they met. Her sharp gaze pierced through Yekase’s eyes to the soul behind them, a blade against soft bark, and Yekase’s skin crawled.

“…Always with flashes of light. Sounds like that meteor— bright for a heartbeat, then shatters and falls.”

“Then what do you want to be?”

Yekase pressed her lips and thought, quiet as a pond at dawn.

Her Infinite Force Perception picked up a weak yet firm knot of Mind Energy in the plaza ruins carved by the meteors. It carried several near-fading knots away on the far side. Only then did she breathe, relief washing in like warm tea, a survivor’s smile breaking through ash.

“If I have to light anything, I’d rather be a Nightlight Torch than a flicker. Not just light, but warmth. Most of all, it burns long; with luck, it can set the prairie ablaze.”

PeaceWarrior read another meaning in that smile, like seeing shapes in smoke.

“…I’ll remember.”

She closed her eyes and fell silent, facing the ruins that had just buried dozens, maybe hundreds, of fighters. She stood like a grave marker and let Yekase go.