If the City of Ivalice is a water town stacked in three layers of sky, then the floating platforms are ferries, and the lanes between decks, shops, and housing are dry canals.

Up, down, left, right—the place coils like a dragon’s gut through mist and steel.

Good thing Yekase wasn’t rushing; the map wore dozens of little labels like lanterns on a night river, the principal’s “Ivalice travel tips” to drift an afternoon away.

A pity, though: he didn’t know Yekase’s soul had slipped past gender, and he’d picked spots for a bright eighteen-year-old girl—milk tea, desserts, glitter trinkets, soft pockets of cute in a city of iron.

She could picture him, kinder grandfather before physicist and principal, fearing she’d sulk in this metal can, combing alleys for treasure shops and pinning them like fireflies on a map.

That simple goodwill from fellow researchers rose like steam in winter hands; warmth and gratitude settled in her chest.

So she had no reason to refuse; she let the current carry her.

“Little girl, then little girl,” she thought, like shrugging into borrowed silk; she could live with a harmless mistake when her face already wrote the script.

It was absolutely not because those milk tea bars and dessert dens and knickknack caves were exactly her favorites, absolutely not, she told herself with a straight face.

She bought a seasonal sweet latte, like caramel sun in a paper cup, and sipped as she wandered.

A sign flashed by: South City Tea House. But behind the glass, the shelves held alchemical automata, lined like porcelain swans.

Alchemical automata… she remembered Alicia Alicia, the Ancient Alchemy artisan who once drag-raced a flying bed across open sky like a comet on a dare.

Humanoid robots? Yekase had built her share; “doll” versus “robot” is often just what the maker feels like calling a thing, a name pinned like a paper charm.

Still, Alicia’s automata were baroque marvels, marrying sharp function to inorganic grace, jewels in brass halos—well beyond the mass-market tin soldiers of a small shop.

“Boss, how much for an alchemical automaton? Got a housekeeping model?” Her voice was casual, like tapping a wrench on a rail.

Yekase being Yekase, she loved cheap, durable, beat-me-all-day mass production—though her coat and tools were master-made alchemical pieces; her mechanic’s soul still smelled like oil and ozone.

The owner, an East-Asian woman with a newspaper like a folding fan, looked up; delight bloomed on her face like dawn. “Professor Luciferin! Welcome to my humble shop! I heard yesterday you arrived in Ivalice—first time seeing you in person!”

“Hm?” Recognition pricked like a nettle; being famous is a sand in the boot.

Still, the corner of her mouth lifted; she let warmth show. “I’ll be living here a while, so I want a housekeeping automaton,” she said, as if discussing clouds and kettles.

“Of course, of course. Mechanics live messy as windblown sheds. Housekeeping automata were made for you. The tech’s mature—far beyond those Roombas outside. Please check the catalog.”

The owner slid her a piece of cardstock, dense with models and specs like a field of ciphers. Yekase’s translator was just an earbud—no text—but she read foreign manuals like weather, easy and clear.

While Yekase scanned, the owner orbited her like a fan circling a shrine lamp, murmuring, “So cute,” and, “Just like a doll,” like petals falling.

Yekase ignored the static and pointed with the pen. “This one, Caihua. I like the Gaudner i7900 processor. Got a cheaper peripheral package? It’s only a dorm. I don’t need bells.”

“For a complete unit, no…” The owner smelled an opening and moved like a shop cat. “But we can sell every part for self-assembly; you’ll save labor. You’re a mechanic—assembling a pre-circuited alchemical automaton won’t stump you.”

“Mm. Works.” Her answer snapped into place like a gear.

The owner led her into the back, laid parts on the bench like bones for a shrine, tied on an apron, wiped her hands, and stood aside to watch.

It felt like snapping a model kit together, wind in the fingers; the limbs were pre-assembled, so it was torso and head only—life-sized, but faster than resin and glue.

In no time, a down-specced Caihua-class automaton sat obedient on the workbench, quiet as a tea cup. Yekase took two steps back to see the whole, and her shoulders bumped a wall like a soft gong.

“One-week return, three-year warranty—any issues, call us. I’ll deliver it free. Could you sign for our little shop?” The owner’s voice poured like warm tea.

She offered a clean square signature board, white as a winter pond.

“Mm, sure.” Yekase watched the delivery bot crate Caihua into a person-high box and hum away like a beetle. She twirled the pen twice, silver fish in her fingers. “Boss, what’s your name?”

“Fujiwara Ningning.”

“Cute name,” she said, like tasting honey.

“Thank you!”

She signed quickly:

To Fujiwara Nene

Best wishes

From Iuciferin

Then she passed the board back, dipped her head, and drifted out like a leaf on a current.

Fujiwara watched Yekase’s back vanish around a distant corridor corner, the way tide swallows a boat’s stern; she cradled the board, then slipped into the back and dialed.

“I’ve got the true name,” she said, voice low as incense smoke.

The reply carried a metallic overtone, like a bell behind a veil. [I’ll fetch it tonight.]

“From one name alone you can extract a rune? I heard only alchemists who touched the Akasha Records can pull that off…” Her curiosity peered like a cat.

[The ‘I heard’ in your mouth is me.]

“All right, all right—you’re the strongest alchemist, far beyond that Sandryon,” she said, half teasing, half bowing.

[Ancient Alchemy.]

“I know, I know.” She smiled like a paper fan.

[True names bite deep. That person left her name in the Akasha Records; she’s a walking bundle of concepts. Each name she signs becomes an extension of her will.]

“So strong? She feels like an ordinary girl. Robe neat as a folded scroll, no spell-sheen on her. No caution about signing a true name,” Fujiwara said, curiosity bright as glass.

[No one is omnipotent. She may be deep on the tech side. In the occult, she’s a naive girl who can’t keep knives from her back.]

“Okay. I’ll wait on the bottom level tonight…” Her voice trailed like a rope into fog.

…

…

Leaving the automata shop, Yekase called Sandryon as if tossing a pebble into a quiet pond.

“Hello, Master.”

[What do you seek? Lonely in Europe already?] The voice came like dry wine.

Yekase watched a floating platform whoosh past like a silver fish and asked softly, “In Japan’s alchemical circles, does anyone use the ancient surname Fujiwara?”

[…Ran into something?] Sandryon’s tone turned warm, a shawl thrown over shoulders.

“Mm. Met someone claiming that name.”

[Ancient Alchemy in Japan braided with onmyodo; there is a Fujiwara line, but I haven’t dealt with them.]

“Got it.” Her breath was steady as a metronome.

[They didn’t touch you, did they? Check yourself for any odd charms stuck on like burrs.]

“No move. She tried to fish my true name.”

[True name?! I recall—the most infamous onmyodo hex: the Thought-Command Rite!]

Yekase kept silent, listening like a stone under rain.

[Once they get your true name, they draw an array and trigger it before you. It can meddle with your thoughts. Its edge is cruel: it doesn’t hollow you into a puppet. Your memories and character stay intact, yet you obey as if it’s common sense.]

“Oh. A common-sense rewrite.” Her tone was flat as glass.

[How can you sound so detached?! Even if it’s an English name, if you accept it as yours, the rite holds!]

“I wrote the L as an I.”

[…]

“True names have weight in the occult. Anyone who’s read a few fantasy novels knows that.”

[…As long as you’re fine.] The sigh felt like a lamp dimming.

Yekase thanked Sandryon and hung up, the line clicking like a bead on a string.

That shopkeeper, Fujiwara Ningning—her first words rang odd as a bent note. Yekase hadn’t hidden her itinerary, but she hadn’t blasted it either, and no photo had leaked. How did she know Professor Luciferin on sight?

Unless someone told her to look for a red Infinite Power Ascender.

And she’d pulled a snow-white signature board from a workstation grimy as a coal scuttle. With Yekase already wary, that move nailed the coffin shut.

Was someone behind her, hand on the string?

Were they tied to the two spies from yesterday, shadows from the same lantern?

No peace anywhere… Yekase sighed inwardly, then took a long pull of latte, sweetness like armor on the tongue.

If Fujiwara spotted the forged signature, she’d best retreat like a crab; if she didn’t and tried that Thought-Command, Yekase would ride the hook and reel her in.

One knot still wouldn’t loosen.

Fujiwara Ningning—if she worked that rite, she’d know names cut like knives; yet she declared an eye-catching, chunni “Fujiwara” as if waving a banner.

Even if another faction wanted to frame the real Fujiwara house, that’s the same as pointing at Yekase’s nose and shouting, “An onmyoji is coming for you.” With the play blown, what frame-up? Cart before horse, wheel in the ditch.

Can’t parse it. Can’t get it.

Of course, one more possibility keeps knocking like rain on the eaves.

Yekase’s reason refused to swallow it.

Which is—

“Just a fool being used as a gun? Really… onmyoji of Japan, have some spine.”