Ling Yi seemed to get it, but she’d rather not. Her heart sank like a stone, then floated up again, unsure which way the current ran.

Yekase had been a little worried about Neptune. Then she heard her own off‑beat idea, and the wind left her like a deflated bellows. “What are you even here to do?”

“Doesn’t it feel like that guy in Ultraman? You hit it, it bounces you back. So I figured, go full close contact, let it feel kindness. Totally normal logic, right?”

She said it with a straight face, like tossing pebbles into a quiet pond.

Yekase stared at her own green‑glowing hands. “But we still gotta push deeper… How do I talk this thing into getting off me?”

“You don’t know?” Ling Yi’s anxiety fluttered like sparrows. She circled Yekase twice. Except for the round outline of her butt, she got nothing.

“Uh?”

“What now?”

“I can’t move. It hardened!”

Yekase’s whole body turned glossy, hands raised, a statue caught under fresh glaze.

…

Ling Yi dared to stick out a finger.

She poked.

Hard as a rock—like tapping petrified wood.

Yekase started making suspicious little breaths. “Don’t… ah! …ee–ah…”

Those crisp gasps cracked in Ling Yi’s ear like candy shells. Heat surged under her mask, rose like a blush into a flame, and some nameless impulse brewed in her chest. She fled to PeaceWarrior for help.

“PeaceWarrior, wh–what do we do?!”

“How would I know.”

Lu Yao didn’t want to play stand‑up on a battlefield. She folded her arms like closing a gate. They’d wiped a wave of reinforcements, but reinforcements meant Emerald Pool still reacted fast. The organization hadn’t lost its spine. The mountain wasn’t cornered yet.

“I’ll hit it?”

“Don’t. What if it rebounds?”

“Oh… Right.”

The two locked eyes, silence like a taut wire, for almost a minute.

Ling Yi backed to Lu Yao’s side and folded her arms too. “Then keep pushing.”

Yekase flushed to the ears. “I am pushing. I’m pushing with my whole body, okay?”

“Doesn’t look like it at all!”

Yekase gave up on useless struggle and tried a brain‑dead chat with Neptune. “Bro, if I push harder I’m gonna leak. You don’t want me leaking inside you, do you?”

“Wh–what are you even saying, Doctor?!”

As if it understood, amber shell rippled like rain in a bowl. Joints split, softened, turned to a transparent latex sheen. The film moved like a living creature, waves layered upon waves. Some parts cinched tight; some stretched out, ruffling into frills that looked almost crafted.

The skirt hem grew longer. A wavy ribbon train unfurled behind, while the front gathered into an apron‑like lace. Dreamy, like fog caught on sunlight.

The film behind her shoulders curled into a hood and a tiny capelet, adding a playful lift like a red kite tail.

The film at her waist drew in, corset‑tight. A corset over a sailor uniform looked odd, but only the scarf and chest stayed visible, so the mismatch felt surprising light, like a breeze through reeds.

Once the shape settled, a second ripple flowed. Color bloomed like ink in water. No more single green.

Hood, capelet, and skirt flared red. The corset browned like leather. The apron turned clean, snow‑white.

“Kinda… looks good? What is this, second‑stage reinforced armor?”

Yekase knew nothing about cute skirt design. So this had to be the fingerprint of someone else who’d touched Neptune. Someone with time for aesthetics mid‑battle. She only knew one.

MAYA—Magical Girl MAYA.

She didn’t pull out with Silver Star from the Emerald Pool battlefield? She even broke into admin ahead of them?

A sudden chill rose at Yekase’s ankles and climbed her spine like frost.

MAYA’s sunny smile. Her blackened face. Her unconscious ticks. Her fighting silhouette. The tone when she called skill names. Images flickered, auto‑playing in her mind like lantern slides.

Find her weak point… her opening… her contradiction…

“PeaceWarrior.”

“Hm?”

“How far can Omega Ray’s self‑clean and repair go? Do you have a counter for internal torsion?”

“What do you think?”

“Good.”

Lu Yao had watched MAYA far longer than Yekase. With her temperament, she wouldn’t come unprepared. Still, asking eased the heart… anti‑MAYA armor and the like.

“I figured it out on the fly!” Ling Yi straightened, pride puffing like a sail.

“Two‑Color Flame was on the fly too, right? Your spur‑of‑the‑moment ideal burst is strong…”

She should’ve followed with a “but.” She looked at Ling Yi, and the word dried up like a drop of ink. Letting praise stand felt right.

“Move on. PeaceWarrior, door’s yours.”

“Partial deployment. Part 2.”

Peace Walker’s Part 2 is the arms. Part 3 is wings. Part 4 is legs. Part 5 is the main body. Why that order? Only the first Beast King Squadron professor—dead for years—could answer.

Yekase suspected he had ties to Omega‑F. Too little data. Silence like dust.

A steel giant fist clenched, reached through a silver curtain of light. It touched the gate like a falling feather, yet punched through a three‑story iron door as if it were paper. Clean split. Tear like a storm line.

“I’ve been meaning to ask. Is the full‑armor Peace Walker hand really that big?”

Lu Yao gave Yekase a look reserved for fools, cold as a pane of ice.

“Oh, it splits in two when combining?”

Ling Yi went deeper. “What about fingers? Two on one side, three on the other?”

“Fingers split too. Ten overall. Five per side.”

“Wouldn’t the thumb side end up shorter?”

“Thumb and pinky look close in length. Maybe it’s like the Flashblade System—recall data and regen. But that’s snake‑painting legs…”

They debated, then got nowhere. They turned back. Lu Yao had already ditched them, riding the Part 3 little plane forward like a gull skimming the surf.

“…All I can say is—mystery.”

Yekase wrapped it up and hurried after.

Once Nightlight Torch dropped, Ling Yi finally swapped forms. She cut to Gale, like a windblade. The three entered the next room.

…

Someone stood there.

“Wh—”

A sound of disbelief slipped from Ling Yi’s lips, light as a startled bird.

“Why… you?”

The person in the center

slowly turned.

Magical Girl MAYA.

She wore an expression like a dam about to break. She dodged Yekase’s and Lu Yao’s eyes like a deer avoiding headlights.

“Instructor told me to wait in this room. To defeat the enemies who show up next…”

“...But how is it you?”

Yekase and Lu Yao watched her in silence, like dark water without ripples.

“Hey, your instructor must’ve messed up, right? MAYA, you get it, don’t you? He probably thought grunts were coming.”

It wasn’t just for MAYA. Ling Yi was trying to sway her two companions too. They acted like lightning. If a misunderstanding made them fight MAYA, the fragile bond they’d finally built would—

[They’re just thugs cloaked in a hero’s name. Beat them. You can do it.]

MAYA shook her head, refusing the instructor’s dripping words.

“Thugs? They’re not thugs! They’re—”

[MAYA.]

“Y–yes…?”

[You dare talk back to me.]

“...uh!”

Terror flooded MAYA’s face. Her hands trembled, staff almost slipping like a wet reed. Her gaze swept past Ling Yi, past Lu Yao, landed on Yekase—

Yekase used Dancing Light to write two characters in the air.

“Public feed.”

[You didn’t think you could do anything by yourself, did you? You, a country bumpkin from out of town—landing in Yinshang City, becoming a hero—who do you think you relied on?]

“I…”

[Without me, without the company, you’re just another small‑town kid who never did a thing. You got addicted to being a hero. You think you’re actually capable now?]

All three heard every word, clear as frost on glass.

Yekase glanced at Lu Yao, a look that said, See? Told you. The truth lay there, bare as bones.

Ling Yi finally understood. The strange resonance she felt with MAYA—because they were the same.

She met a Doctor. MAYA met her Instructor. That was the only difference.

“All those people who supported me… who loved me…”

[Just bought traffic. Got it?]

“I’m only… a false hero… right?”

[Good. Now do your job. If you can’t, we’ll give this hero title to someone more obedient.]

MAYA’s eyes widened. Her carefully drawn brows and shaded lids didn’t look at anything at all. Emptiness breathed like a cold cave.

“…If I lose here—whether claps or cards, bouquets or presents…”

“Even the little afternoon snacks will be gone…”

[So you do understand. Then hurry—]

It wouldn’t work, would it.

Yekase sighed inside, a long exhale like steam from a kettle. A good seedling, crushed to splinters. Even if this ended smoothly, MAYA’s nerves might not bear being a hero anymore.

No. Even that unstable state of mind—very likely the instructor’s handiwork. False support and perks to coax her in. Personality belittling to break her confidence and will. Dependency and servility, cultivated like mold in damp.

But—

MAYA looked back at the three. Especially Ling Yi, fists clenched, head lowered. Her voice and body had stopped shaking. The wind in her chest settled like a blade in its sheath.

“…No, Instructor. I’m thinking.”

“If I was never a true hero,”

“Then being a thug… might be nice.”