Ling Yi lifted her knife, quiet as a still crescent.
[I'm pulling her background now.]
As long as the doctor's voice hummed in her ear like an anchor line, impostor heroes and staged theater didn't scare her.
On the other end, Yekase cracked open the spare laptop from the transport box. Ten fingers fell like rain, ghosting across a breathing-light membrane keyboard, digging for MAYA’s recent tracks.
Mostly Twin Spires and Liudong… the international port city of Shangyin in the southeast. First sighted half a year ago, right when Yekase had just fled.
Back then, MAYA’s outfit wasn’t this gaudy. Though born from Huaxia’s biggest southeastern megacity, the private footage showed a timid shadow.
Like a country kid stepping into a glass-and-steel forest.
Yekase knew that aura like the smell of rain.
No city-born ease like Ling Yi. Careful, earnest fighting—like the quiet girl back home who studied hard and never dressed up.
“This… she’s a countryside girl,” Liu RuoYuan said, already seated beside Yekase and watching with her.
“Yeah. Feels familiar. Then slowly… how to say it… she ‘transformed.’”
Each pass, cuter clothes bloomed. Each fight, more effects sparkled. In the last three months, it turned full-on flashy kiddie style.
“What happened in between…”
“Sponsor money,” Yekase said, a nail driven clean.
“No precedent, but give it two months and she’ll be shilling merch.”
She hit the call key. “Don’t get hooked by her patter. If she says she’s met other heroes, press for what kind. I’ll verify…”
[Uh, she admitted.]
“…Admitted she’s a fake?”
[Admitted she hasn’t met other heroes.]
“…Huh?”
That wasn’t right.
If she had backing, they’d see through Yekase’s fishing and counter. Who bites the line that fast? Can that IQ even reverse-bait?
“Uh… then? What else?”
[She said we used to be like others, and now we look ‘darkened’!]
Darkened?!
What the hell is “darkened”?!
A numb prickle ran through Yekase. This flowing combo of brainless moves—could MAYA actually be a hero, just dimmer than Ling Yi? Was she judging by herself?
“Uh, maybe we misread. Try calming her?”
[Too late, she’s not listening… Oh, I get it—an ‘we only understand after we fight’ misunderstanding opener!]
“Don’t you go brainless too!”
Two not-bright heads can spark a misunderstanding. Two not-bright heads holding weapons spark more than that.
“Ling Ya! Grab your sister—”
[———!]
Fight sounds!
They were already trading blows!
Yekase slammed the desk, grabbed the Polaris Staff, and sprinted—then froze mid-step like a statue about to step off a ledge.
Like this… what’s different from before?
Whenever things swerved, Yekase caught them, wrapped tactics under them.
If life and death came, it’d be too late.
She sat back down, a tape rewound.
Liu RuoYuan slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“Heroes can bond blade to blade, right? After a bout they’ll understand each other.”
“Bond hearts? More like cross swords,” Yekase said, with a helpless grin.
“Won’t stop fighting to protect a little flower?”
“What kind of dumb hero stops mid-fight to save a bloom? If you cherish life, don’t start swinging!”
She vented, and the weight lifted. She patched the Flashblade System’s front camera into the laptop.
The figure on the feed—the self-styled “Magical Girl MAYA.”
The world never had that term. Weekend morning shows were PreCure, or Sailor Moon, or whatever—just not “Magical Girl.”
“Magical Girl” was a coined word Yekase and Ivaris made up. The cut candidate “Dream Star Shift” later became the tag for form changes of the second- and third-gen Magical Girls.
“‘Miss Bunny’s—’”
Light gathered at the cute short staff’s tip as she cried out.
“‘—Star Dash’!”
The staff spat a cartoon gold five-point star. It spun toward the camera—toward Ling Yi.
Only when the star drifted fast-slow to her face and she raised her blade did Ling Yi realize it wasn’t mere glow, but hard and real.
Steel bit spin. The blade and the star screeched like a saw biting tin.
“Ugh… heavy?!”
The gap between cutesy look and brutal heft hit her. After seconds of deadlock, she bled the force sideways. The star’s path skewed, smashed into the floor, and slipped into the seam between levels.
If she hadn’t blocked—
She’s here to hit for real.
“Ya… Sharky, watch the hostages.”
“Why are you calling me—”
“Gale!”
“Code-02! HAYATE!”
Armor flashed from red to green. Steam fanned out like morning mist. Ling Yi slid along the shroud, carved an arc, and rushed MAYA.
At two-fifths strength now, Ling Ya avoided a head-on. She pulled out the Beast King cube and twisted twice.
A blue sheen flowed over the shark-tooth visor, then across her body, like ultra-thin clear water-skin wrapped tight.
Then, like clipping through a wall, she dropped into the floor and vanished.
Super Sentai loves teamwork (and robots), but human-scale fights cherish forms and signature skills.
Ling Ya had no form beyond Dragon God Shark. Her signature—“Shark-Sea Submerge”—was a tactical toolkit.
It lets you swim through matter.
Seen in a lot of places.
Usually tied to sharks.
It’s how the world imagines sharks—built to swim and hunt. Designers slap it on anything with shark flavor. Successors fear being “not shark enough,” add similar powers, and tradition calcifies.
Ling Ya swam under the duel, looped around, and surfaced by Fang Tang’s side.
Most others were still out cold. Fang Tang’s tougher build had her stirring. Ling Ya tapped her, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Whew… eh?”
“Time to go.”
Ling Ya poked up half a head from the ground. She grabbed one person with one hand, kicked soft and quick like fins, and swam outward.
“Sharky, those two… are foot soldiers…” Fang Tang murmured.
“…Huh?”
Ling Ya looked at the two in hand, then at the ones still sprawled.
A possibility flickered.
Maybe MAYA’s a good guy?
But that deliberate cutesy…
“Burst Wind Bias!”
Across the way, Ling Yi had invoked a Blade Spell. Surge-green current frothed from the electromagnetic cannon, lashing for MAYA.
“‘Miss Cat’s Begging Roll’!”
MAYA met it with her staff.
On contact, the crackling bloom Ling Yi expected didn’t happen.
The drifting current spun.
It whirled, tightened, then turned like a flock and flew back at Ling Yi.
Her trusty kite-and-punish strat failed for the first time. She dodged the reflected strike, then grudgingly switched to Kagari and closed in again.
She raised the Sky Striker and slashed for MAYA’s short staff.
Ling Yi didn’t want to hurt her—especially when the whole stupid fight began from their side’s misunderstanding. If possible, she wanted to disarm her, let her cool down, then soothe and apologize.
But the Sky Striker got parried by a staff that shouldn’t suit close quarters.
From blade against staff came a force.
A certain…
“Huh?”
Her view flipped upside down.
Was her body turned one-eighty? However she did it—whatever. Ling Yi throttled the thrusters, regained balance midair, then used the head-down posture and her weight to press into MAYA.
“…Nngh!”
Under the swell of pressure, MAYA’s voice strained. Her stance shook, near collapse.
Just before she toppled—
Bang!
A shot cracked from the stairwell.
A sniper round slammed Ling Yi’s shoulder. It couldn’t pierce the Blade Armor, but its punch knocked her skewed in the air and broke her hold on MAYA.
Misfortune doubled. In that instant, something inside Ling Yi surged.
Her arms—then chest, then abdomen and legs—each flared with a brutal spinning force. The Sky Striker slipped from her hands. She fell, hard.
“This is—”
In her forearms—the radius and ulna. Those two bones started to rotate on their own under that force. Left hand turning inward, right hand outward.
At this rate, her arms would twist off—
“‘Miss Dragon’s—’”
MAYA in darkened rampage wouldn’t stop.
“‘—Head and Tail Reveal!’”
Creak,
Creak-creak—
The top of the unfinished tower began to tremble.
Ling Yi had already hauled both foot soldiers and hostages toward the main doors with Fang Tang. Feeling the quake and crackle underfoot, she murmured, “No… way…”
This was the 22nd floor.
