Sometimes Yekase forgets she’s twenty-seven, a leaf already yellowing at the edge.

“Mmm—ah… mm… ahh—” Her breath hitched like a flute snagging on a reed.

“Just a little more, Doctor… almost…” Ling Yi’s voice pushed like a soft tide against a stubborn rock.

“Ow… ow, ow! It hurts—aaah!” Pain flared like a struck match in a dry field.

Ling Yi bore down with her hands and pressed Yekase’s waist flat, like bending a stubborn bow till it creaked.

Yekase’s scream split the field like a siren through noon heat. Half the playground turned their heads, a field of sunflowers tilting at once.

Sit-and-reach is terrifying, like a cold river you can’t wade across.

Even reinforced muscles can’t bargain with it, like iron arguing with frost.

“Alright, next!” The teacher’s clap cracked like a bamboo switch in the wind.

Yekase quivered on the spot like a snapped branch, then toppled onto the mat like a felled sapling.

“Doctor! That’s enough, Doctor! No more pressing!” Ling Yi’s words fluttered like sparrows scattering from a hedge.

Ling Yi scooped the limp Yekase up princess-style, her arms firm as a cradle, and carried her into the tree shade like retreating to a cool cave.

PE today mixed juniors and seniors, two streams flowing into one river, so Ling Yi naturally teamed with Yekase like two leaves drifting together.

“Weren’t you a devil cyborg or something? How can you fail a sit-and-reach?” Ling Yi’s doubt pricked like a pine needle.

“What’s a devil cyborg supposed to be?” Yekase rubbed her waist, breath hissing like wind through a crack. “My adaptation buff stacks in layers, like bricks laid one by one.”

“Then pre-stack the layers, all at once,” Ling Yi said, tossing it out like a pebble into a pond.

“Even if I stack them, time resets them to zero, like tides wiping footprints.”

“Feels like a trash skill,” she muttered, like biting into a floury persimmon.

“It’s no cheat, but it’s not trash,” Yekase said, eyes glinting like steel under cloud. “It’s a resource-accumulation, component-compatible, beat-to-win deck, like building a fortress out of many small stones.”

“Uh, you beat enemies to win? Hardcore, Doctor,” Ling Yi said, thumbs-up bobbing like a cattail in breeze.

“Yeah, yeah… as if!” Yekase’s hand-chop tapped Ling Yi’s forehead, a woodpecker rap on bark.

They sat shoulder to shoulder against the trunk, backs to rough bark like armor, watching people ebb and flow on the track like tides along a shore.

On a plain autumn afternoon, with plain high-schoolers in plain PE, the air cooled like tea left to breathe. For Yekase, after several storms, the quiet felt like mist on a traveler’s face.

Being a student like this sounds nice, like folding into a mild dream.

At least the school has no Sinister Organization nonsense, like weeds kept outside the gate.

“Ah, looks like sit-and-reach is done. What’s next?” Her question drifted like a leaf asking the wind.

“How would I know,” Ling Yi said, shrugging like a cloud unsure where to rain.

The PE teacher’s bullhorn boomed, a drum across the field: [Three thousand meters now! Numbers under twenty, you’re Group One. Warm up!]

Yekase glanced at Ling Yi, eyes flicking like fish in a clear stream.

“I’m number one,” Ling Yi said, simple as a sunrise.

“What number am I…” Yekase dug in memory like sifting sand. “Oh, I got held back. Old number’s void. Now what?”

She asked the teacher, words tossed like a paper plane. Answer came easy as a hand-wave: just pick any group and run.

So Yekase followed Ling Yi to the start line, feet finding chalk like birds finding a branch.

“Doctor, you good for this?” Ling Yi’s worry hovered like fog over grass.

“I’m very good,” Yekase said, confidence bright as fresh lacquer. “It’s like plus five to every stat. Burst doesn’t rise much, but stamina doubles like a field after rain.”

“Your old stamina wasn’t even five?” Ling Yi’s eyebrows arched like drawn bows.

“Why do you think I need a breather after three minutes of fighting?” Yekase grinned, a fox in the bamboo.

“You always lean into the scholar archetype,” she teased, words fluttering like paper fans.

Yet lately she’d been on the field more and more, like a pen traded for a spear, until even she felt sheepish calling herself desk-bound.

They warmed up lightly, heat growing like dusk on bricks, then pressed into a mass of students at the line, a flock packed wing to wing.

“Ready—run!” The shout cracked like thunder over a hill.

Yekase felt she could sprint the whole way, like a wolf loping the plain, but she reined herself in to match Ling Yi, steps smooth as oars in calm water.

She also didn’t want to act like those urban novel protagonists, all “hidden strength” while hogging the spotlight, like a peacock crashing a tea garden.

She kept a relaxed jog, floating around the back two-thirds of the pack, a leaf choosing the slow current.

Someone nudged her. Her foot slipped into the inner grass, a step sinking like a boot in moss.

“…?”

“Don’t run the inner lane! Don’t step on grass!” The teacher’s call snapped like a banner in wind.

Her ears caught a tiny laugh behind her, a mosquito hum in summer silence.

Is that a friendly nudge between classmates? The thought wandered like a stray cat. But she had no friends here, not even names; wasn’t this a bit familiar, like hands grabbing your sleeve uninvited?

“Isn’t this Yekase?” A voice came bright and sharp, like scissors snipping thread.

She looked back. A short-haired girl in senior uniform paced there, steps crisp as metronome ticks.

“It’s been a year. How’d you become my junior? Come on, call me ‘senior.’” The demand dangled like a hooked worm.

…Who is this? The question hung like mist over a pond.

Yekase rewound memory, film stuttering like old reels. When her ‘student’ persona was first set up, she’d shown up a few days—then found it dull and stopped, like a kite cut loose. She flunked and repeated, and met no one of note.

“And you are?” she asked, honest as clear water.

The short-haired girl bristled, temper flaring like a match: “I told you to call me senior! Didn’t you hear?”

Yekase blinked, uncomprehending as a deer. She turned to Ling Yi jogging beside her, breath even as a drum. “Who is she? A friend of yours?”

Ling Yi looked a bit troubled, lips pursed like a knot. “Our classmate. Those few days you attended last term, there was a monthly exam. Remember? She’s usually top five. That time you knocked her out.”

“Oh, right… that happened,” Yekase said, memory landing like a feather.

Monthly exams. The culprit that made her drop the second-chance school life, like a stone that broke the bridge.

Then she got it, the light flipping on like a lantern. “Oh, so you were trying to mess with me! Over one test? Really?” Her laugh rang like chimes.

The girl’s tricks were childish, her words too mild, like paper swords. No wonder she hadn’t clocked it.

“I’ve gone from top ten to rock bottom before,” Yekase said, voice easy as wind in reeds. “Didn’t make a fuss like you, and you stewed for half a year?”

The ring of runners had watched tight as drums; now they cracked up, laughter rippling like rain on a pond.

“You… you…” The girl’s face reddened like a pomegranate, words stuck like rice in the throat.

Yekase didn’t speed up to drop her. She kept that lazy pace, feet tapping like a metronome in a sunlit room.

“You’re pretty cocky… Remember this!” The short-haired girl flung the line like a pebble, then cut to the outer lane, trying to surge ahead like a hound off leash.

Normally, Yekase would float a step ahead, blocking her line like a heron in a narrow stream. But it felt like bullying a kid, like snuffing a candle in a shrine. She let it go.

“Doctor, you’re not teaching her a lesson?” Ling Yi pouted, mouth tilting like a petal, eyes following the girl’s back like arrows.

“She’s awful,” Ling Yi added, voice tight as wire. “Bossing the class because of her grades. Even making boys do her cleaning shifts.”

“Our Ling Yi knows how to borrow a knife now?” Yekase teased, tone light as silk.

“I—I don’t!” Ling Yi flailed, hands fluttering like startled finches.

Yekase laughed, sound warm as sunlight on a wall. “If it really sticks in your throat, I can go say hello,” she offered, grin sharp as a folding fan.

“It’s not that big…” Ling Yi’s gaze softened, anger cooling like tea.

“Exactly,” Yekase said, letting the moment drift like a cloud past a peak.

From real battlefields back to daily halls, even Ling Yi felt the misfit, like a warrior trying on school shoes.

Huh? Last night I traded shots in a high-rise, and today I’m solving linear equations? The contrast clanged like temple bells in a kitchen.

Yekase saw it. Ling Yi had only this one mismatch, a twisted thread easy to smooth, unlike Yekase who’d rewoven almost everything, like a loom resetting its warp.

No one else hassled them. They settled into the run and finished steady, breath like oars pulling through a calm lake.

After class, Yekase tugged Ling Yi to the small observatory, excitement hiding like a spark under ash. She pulled out her phone. “I’m gonna show you something.”

“A new invention?” Ling Yi’s eyes brightened like two small moons.

“Better than a new invention,” Yekase said, grin sly as a cat on a wall.

She cabled the phone to the projector. White wall became screen, pale as winter rice paper.

Up came the homepage of their usual video site, icons blooming like lanterns along a street.

Ling Yi scanned the recommendations, eyes snagging like thread on a burr. “Mutilation, Bio-Merge, Mechanization… What is that? The thumbnail’s so blurry, like fogged glass.”

“Ahem. Don’t mind that,” Yekase coughed, two polite taps like knuckles on a door, then typed into the search bar, fingers dancing like minnows.

“Because of you, I’ll remember that one minute.” She hit enter. A short meme video popped up: a chubby crew cut guy dancing in a plaza, limbs flapping like a kite in lulls.

“Just… this?” Ling Yi’s doubt hung like a question lantern.

“Of course not. Watch. This is the recommendation chain,” Yekase said, voice bright as a bell.

She scrolled down into the recommended zone, a river of thumbnails flowing like colored leaves. Similar remixes stacked there, many with near-identical covers, mirror faces in a hall.

She clicked one, then another, always diving back into recommendations, slipping node to node like stepping stones over a stream.

Soon the theme drifted off memes into travel vlogs, sun and sea rolling like postcards.

But Yekase didn’t stop. Yekase never stops, like a kite tugging toward wind.

Music, dance, music again, VTubers, games—categories flicked past like shoji doors sliding open.

Her clicking sped up, fingers a blur like swallows at dusk, videos pouring past that slender fingertip like stars born and dying at the Causal Horizon.

“D-Doctor, what are you doing?” Ling Yi’s voice rose, a string drawn tight as night.

“Ever heard of speedrunning?” Yekase asked, eyes gleaming like wet lacquer.

“No!” The word popped like a seed in hot oil.

“Start on a random video. Follow only recommendations. Reach a target. That’s a video speedrun,” she said, each clause a flag in the wind.

“And this road… where does it go?” Ling Yi’s heartbeat thudded like drums before battle.

“It starts at a keyword that woke the One-Year War,” Yekase said, tone low as a gong. “It winds through a thousand loops to the end of the sea of information.”

Only one recommendation remained. It sat alone like a lone boat at a fog pier.

“Look, Valhalla.”

Yekase tapped it. The page opened with a hush, like a door in an empty house.

The uploader had one video and zero followers, a ghost’s footprint in fresh snow. Likely throttled by site mechanisms, buried so deep you could reach it only by this chain, like a well behind a hidden gate.

Only someone fluent in the site’s censorship currents could pull this off, like an old fisherman reading riptides. In an age where the net is broader than the sky we see, the secret hides in a tiny corner, invisible as moss on a temple stone—hiding in plain sight.

“Anyone who opens this sees a bar,” Yekase said, voice soft as velvet. “No voiceover. Amateur shooting, shaky as a hand in winter. Most will close it, bored. They won’t notice the Mechbreaker mask and the Dragon God Shark helmet flickering at the frame’s edge for under three seconds, like fish flashing under a bridge.”

“Incredible… That’s so bold,” Ling Yi whispered, eyes wide as pools.

“I wrote Valhalla’s address on the mask,” Yekase said, smile thin as a blade. “And on Ling Ya’s helmet visor, if you lift the brightness, at second twenty-two, an English line appears, like ink rising from water.”

She dragged the slider to 0:22, grabbed a screenshot, and opened the simplest image app, tools plain as wooden chopsticks. She slammed the brightness to max, a sun over snow.

“Three w at the start. That’s a URL… So it’s…” Ling Yi’s breath caught, a kite snagged in a tree.

Right in front of Ling Yi’s dawning look, Yekase typed the address into the browser, letters marching like ants.

“Yep. It’s Valhalla Forum’s dark web address.” Her words rang like a temple bell in a cave.

Yekase stepped in front of the projection, arms spread like wings, smiling wide as spring.

“UI is crude, layout a mess, content half nonsense, and it drops connection often—like a high school IT-class website project, right?” Her laugh tumbled like dice on a wooden table.