In the end, we tore the blockage open with the Beast Claw I borrowed from Shanon, like talons ripping canvas.

It wasn’t exactly newly borrowed; we used it back when the exo-form went berserk, a trial ticket, not a passport. Now it sits in Yekase’s grip like a blade that finally belongs.

She doesn’t know the principle; she just feels the lock click. Thanks, Shanon.

Which means… a few more runs and I might restore the glory of full Magical Girl power, like re-setting a shattered crown?

Great. We’re writing a chronicle on stone now.

“Doctor, why the serious face?”

“Ah. Oh. I was thinking—Nayuta snapped this time. Next time maybe a Polaris Staff breaks, then a Magical Girl satellite, dominoes in a row. Even bodies shrink. What power can I trust like bedrock?”

“Hm… if it comes to that, you’ll invent stronger gear, like a smith feeding a hot forge. Digital stuff wears down anyway… and the friends we meet become our strength, like trees sharing the same wind. That’s how I see it.”

“…Fair enough.”

Yekase shows a tired smile, a thin crescent like a wan moon; Ling Yi nearly walks into a wall like a moth chasing light.

They step through the administrative sector’s ruined gate, a jagged mouth in concrete. Ling Yi carries Yekase, who cradles the Neptune Cat, and they skim over the living sector while cheers rise like surf.

Up on the upper level, they see Lu Yao.

She’s sprawled on a Protein Goddess’s lap pillow, like a cat tamed by a sun-warmed sill.

“…?”

“Ping, you…”

Nine-year-old memories stir, and Yekase recognizes the one who holds the Bull seat among the Steel Seven—Aldebaran. The picture clicks, but she feigns ignorance to tease Lu Yao, like jingling a bell before a cat.

Lu Yao’s eyes fly open when she sees them. She tries to sit up, and the Bull presses her down with a hand like an anchor.

The Bull’s smile burns like a brazier. “You’re back! Good fight, and welcome home! Go rest in the tent. I made white fungus soup. You too, Yao-Yao.”

“…Tent? …White fungus soup?”

Ling Yi blinks, thoughts scattering like beads.

They really pitched tents in the gaps between containers, a camp blooming like a desert flower.

The Bull hauls Lu Yao up and herds all three toward a camo tent, big hands steering like oars.

“Wait, wait, I want a private word—”

Yekase tries to slip into her usual side alley.

Whether the Bull didn’t recognize her or just refused, she gets firmer, voice iron-straight. “No. Growing bodies first. Fill your stomachs, then talk.”

They’re pushed into the tent like parcels on a belt.

Sat in chairs, pinned like leaves under stones.

Handed iron bowls and spoons, cool as river pebbles.

Ling Yi glances around, lost like a deer in a strange meadow. Yekase rolls her eyes, a brief squall under lashes. The Neptune Cat curls in her arms, a pocket of night. Lu Yao slumps, a reed giving to wind.

Thump!

A canteen uncle—Steel Seven logistics, ex-Disc Arena wage slaves who stayed after the arena was freed—hefts a metal drum and plants it with a clang like a temple bell.

He ladles goji-and-white-fungus soup, steam coiling like pale ghosts.

Yekase peeks at Lu Yao, fishing for a reaction like watching a float. Lu Yao just raises bowl and spoon and drinks, steady as rain.

“Ping, you…?”

That’s… not normal.

Lu Yao, obedient? Did Neptune slip through the crowd and swap her, like a shell game?

“The Bull taught me. Habits.”

“Oh. Oh…”

Exactly what that big sister would do, like a drill sergeant with warm hands.

So… training complete?

As for Lu Yao’s habits—Yekase hasn’t run a study, but her gut says they’re as wrecked as her own. Health-freak Ling Yi is another species, and Yekase got more “regular” after school started (meaning: not sleeping at night, sleeping at school). Lu Yao could win worst-schedule champion, like a bat that missed the memo.

Pff pff.

Halfway through, the thought cracks Yekase up and she snorts into the soup, blowing bubbles like a carp.

She points at her face. “By the way, me looking like this… no reaction at all?”

“Whatever you become has nothing to do with me.”

Lu Yao clings to her cool-sis aura like a shawl in summer.

“Shame. If you turned into a loli, I’d roast you so hard the smoke would spell your name.”

“Drop it, Doctor. With that face, your teasing hits like a pillow; it’s cute,” Ling Yi says, a sliver of sun.

“Huh?”

“What’s that trope called again? Gremlin-loli?”

“Don’t throw around a tag you barely learned!”

Yekase lunges to cover Ling Yi’s mouth; they tumble into a kitten tangle—

Clang, clang, clang!

A bronze-deep knocking rings at the flap, metal on metal like a bell. They freeze and turn. The Bull sits at the entrance with a bowl, spoon still raised.

“No roughhousing while you eat,” the Bull says, steady as a mountain.

“Y-yes…”

Pressed by her quiet weight, they draw in their necks like turtles and sit down.

They finish the white fungus soup, clean as rain rinsing stone.

Ling Yi even gets a second bowl, appetite like a tide.

After the meal, Ling Yi relaxes and gets drowsy, eyelids falling like leaves. Lu Yao slips off somewhere, a shadow among crates. Yekase leaves the Neptune Cat in the tent’s care and finally gets a moment alone with the Bull.

“What did you want to tell me?”

With a gentle smile, the Bull half-forces Yekase onto her thigh. That leg is a pillar; Yekase has shrunk; the picture sits smooth.

“Oh, first, thank you. Because of you, we remembered the three comrades who fell nine years ago. Thank you, little Icarus.”

“I’m not a little sister…”

“?”

“Fine. I can be.”

Yekase yields where it doesn’t matter, like water around a stone. She slides into the point. “How’s the King’s wound? Any better after all these years?”

“Thanks to you, much better,” the Bull says, then pauses, words snagging like cloth on a nail.

“How did you…”

“Remember the Twenty Second Squad?” Yekase watches the bustle like ants rebuilding a hill.

“That Magical Girl company of martyrs, wiped to the last…”

Disbelief rises in the Bull’s eyes like a tide.

“Icarus… Dr Ika… so this isn’t coincidence? The Twenty Second’s logistics—was it only Dr Ika? Who are you really—”

Yekase turns back. She meets the Bull’s eyes and lets a smile curve like a blade.

“I want to be proof they existed. Does that—mm?!”

The Bull hugs her tight.

Arms and back encircle her; a solid, massive warmth presses from the front, like a sun-soaked cliff. For a heartbeat, she feels truly small, a child tucked in a safe harbor.

“I see… Us meeting them, and them meeting you—pure miracle, like two comets crossing.”

“…”

Yekase rests her head on the Bull’s shoulder and goes quiet, still as a leaf on water.

Ah. Slipped another secret… Am I going soft because of women?

Wait. Telling the Bull means the whole Steel Seven; one spill just splashed seven.

Combo 7!

Back in the One-Year War, the Twenty Second and the Steel Seven worked in different sectors, stars in separate constellations. We barely overlapped; only all-hands briefings let us trade nods. As logistics lead, Yekase attended every meeting, so she saw three.

The King. The Lily. And the Bull.

And the Emerald Pool reinforcements happen to be those three… Maybe only those three are extroverts? Maybe years of hiding were the 3:4 minority obeying the majority?

“Didn’t expect you to change faces and step onto the front line. That takes resolve,” the Bull says, voice like warm tea.

Yekase twists a wry smile. “Honestly, not that much…”

She hadn’t planned to be a hero.

Twenty-seven-year-old corporate-brain Yekase thought like this:

I’m running. Mira can’t find me. Hiding isn’t enough; I need a new face. If I change, I’ll change completely. What counts as complete?

Flip gender and be a high school girl.

And so it went—utilitarianism sharp as a box cutter.

The Bull strokes Yekase’s hair, fingers combing like wind through grass. “Since it’s like this, let’s talk about this dungeon’s future.”

“This dungeon? Staff and families will likely get dispersed, and Twin Towers will refit it into an arms plant, like vines swallowing an old wall.”

“Xuanyuan, Zhuyu, Arashia, and I don’t want that,” the Bull says, names laid like stones on a path.

“You’ve got a way?”

“Mm. We plan to move our base here, like shifting a hearth to a cave.”

Four people say move and you move… minority ruling majority, huh.

“Not bad, though. It’s bigger than the Disc Arena, and the facilities are whole, like a city’s bones. But after lying low so long, going big—sure you won’t cramp up?”

“Don’t worry. Even old dogs have a few teeth.”

The Bull grins, flashing two neat rows of snow-white teeth, bright as porcelain.

“…We want this to be a refuge, a hideout for people persecuted by the Organization—here, the Steel Seven will be their wall. The environment’s rough, no sun, but it’s a place to lay a head. Thunderclap has already cleared it with the Lily Sword; their people will handle entry screening.”

“The Lily Sword? With screening that strict, can anyone get a pass?”

“Heh. True. I’ll talk to them.”

Together they look over the battered living sector.

With the fighters gone, people crawl out of their container hideouts like survivors from dugouts, faces stunned by survival, like deer after a forest fire.

“They built a small society here already. If we take over, we can’t drag them backward.”

Yekase nods, simple as a hammer tap.

“Got a name for the base?”

“Not yet. You beat the boss; you name it. The others will agree.”

“Then… in the administrative sector I picked up a Siamese cat,” Yekase lies smooth as silk. “The one I carried in. No name yet. How about a trade? I name the base; you name the cat.”

“A cat? Let me think…”

They both fall silent for a breath, a string held taut.

Then they lift their heads together.

“Looks like we’ve got them. You first.”

“There’s machinery everywhere. Too flashy for a sanctuary if we lean into it—call it Gear Street.”

“They say Siamese darken as they grow, white turning to black. White cat, black cat—let’s call it Rice Rice.”

They share a smile, an easy bridge over a new river.