The semester dawned, and the Flash Energy Integrated Application Lab at Ivalice State University hadn’t welcomed its first cohort yet. Every machine slumbered in dim hush, like beasts lulled by twilight.

Except the one buried deepest. From the outside, it was nothing—just a locked iron cabinet, the kind you’d use to store beakers or reagents, unremarkable as a wall.

A soft hose ran from the cabinet’s top into a funnel bolted to its side. Under a bright lamp and a careful eye, you’d swear you saw porridge smeared inside the hose, a ghost of breakfast clinging to plastic.

That had to be a trick of the light. In a high-end lab like this, who’d dare eat morning congee among centrifuges and lasers?

Another hose snaked from the cabinet’s base into a collector nearby—its line filled with a metallic, shimmering red. It looked like a trending strain of Infinite Power, pulsing like a vein under glass.

Sometimes the outlet’s red flow stuttered and broke. Then, after a brief silence, the cabinet murmured to life. A complicated tremor rose—centrifuge-fast and layered—threaded with creaky mechanical sighs and the faint hiss of fans drinking air dry.

What? Did that sound like sobbing… and breath?

Impossible. No one lives inside lab gear.

“One person, tangling with a dangerous brainwasher and gloating to me about it… You can use this time to reflect. Again. And again.”

Jiang Bailu left the shivering machine behind, stepped out, and turned the key. The door clicked, and the quiet sealed itself.

“Miss Jiang’s checking instruments again today,” a passing custodian said with a half-smile, voice warm as tea steam.

“It’s my job as an assistant,” Jiang Bailu replied. “Luciferin loves playing hide-and-seek.”

They traded no more words and drifted back to their errands, like leaves in different currents.

Yekase hadn’t “disappeared.” She’d gone somewhere only Jiang Bailu knew.

At twenty-three, in her ever-present white lab coat, Yekase hummed bright as a skylark and stepped onto a hover platform.

She didn’t need to go this far. But while Yekase had been busy, Jiang wasn’t just napping in an apartment. She had her own thread to pull.

She took the hover platform up to the open rooftop pad, then flipped to manual and dropped two meters straight down the shaft.

Hover platforms had two modes. Full-service for newbies and tourists—type a keyword, arrive at your stop. That’s what residents used day to day. The other was manual.

You drove it yourself.

In that mode, you could carve shortcuts like a Mario Kart trick—angles autopilot wouldn’t dare.

A shortcut opened beneath Jiang Bailu, a shadow carved in concrete.

The first time they arrived in the City of Ivalice, after the identity check and during their descent, Liu RuoYuan—already pre-appointed in Jiang’s heart as “auntie”—stared at a stretch of shaft wall for five long seconds. Only when the platform swung through a wide turn did she return to the conversation. Jiang hadn’t spotted what she’d seen, but the pause lodged like a seed.

So Jiang scouted that range, then scouted again. Until she found the thread Liu RuoYuan had snagged.

A hidden door that only unlocked when you dared press close.

How did a regular person without any Infinite Power find it? Who knows. Call it a sixth sense.

Behind the panel lay Parking Lot No. 2.

The rooftop had its public pad; this was its shadow. A berth that didn’t exist on maps.

Curiosity tugged. Jiang slipped inside for a peek—then stopped, face-to-face with an old name.

“Peace Walker.”

Lu Yao had returned to the City of Ivalice after everyone left, before the jump coordinates changed back. Quiet as dusk, she’d brought her mech home.

It made sense. You come to a city of gear and guilds—you patch your steel, sharpen your blade. Prep to topple the Huaxia Branch. It was a clean, ruthless logic.

Why tell Yekase or Jiang? She was just built that way. A locked chest you couldn’t pick.

She was still tethered to her too-bright champion sister. Even though the “Red of Resistance” lunar base said everything without words, she hungered for an answer spoken aloud.

For the sake of Huaxia’s tomorrow, she couldn’t fly to the Moon and fight Luzhixing. So she swallowed nine years of loneliness and anger like hot charcoal.

She ran an arms race in the dark.

Lean on Peace Walker alone, make a mark in the second Crimson Cataclysm—that was Lu Yao’s last wordless protest to a farewell unanswered.

You two sisters… if even one of you had a knack for talking, would it ever have come to this?

Jiang Bailu finished the mental gripe, confirmed Lu Yao wasn’t around, then scheduled a text to Yekase explaining her own whereabouts and asking not to be followed. She’d learned that trick from Yekase six months ago.

Lu Yao didn’t want to be a vampire. Jiang was fine with it.

She nicked the base of a finger and tasted the blood. Crimson flashed in her eyes, flickered, then spread like dye through water.

Isn’t this… good, actually?

Three of them crossed into Europe.

Yekase went to Mysidia to seek ancient runes.

Lu Yao stayed in Ivalice to overhaul Peace Walker for war.

Jiang Bailu set off alone for Labyrinth City, to learn how vampires—monsters—fight.

She wasn’t the type to settle when the first cup tasted sweet. After the rush of the “Clockwork Fist,” her wants tilted, subtle as a compass needle.

If raw life-force felt this sharp, then full vampire power could be a blade. She wouldn’t drag Yekase down in the coming storm. She could stand level with Ling Yi and Lu Yao—yes. Easily.

“Body hardened, ageless, undying…”

“—Superpowers!”

Coffee Moon blinked into existence behind her. Nearby pedestrians startled, flinched aside like sparrows.

Then—ambition poured like sunlight. If they toppled the Huaxia Branch, if the dust settled in Twin Towers City, if she worked through the day’s aftermath and went home to the Ambition Divine Ship—she’d open the door and see Yekase in her seventeen-year-old mode, a white apron bright as snow. A smile from the kitchen: Dinner’s almost ready. Ginger-fried shredded potatoes tonight…

And Jiang would quip, What kind of dish is that, so damn weird. Then pin Yekase to the wall and coax her into giving two shades of red at once.

Days like that could stretch on forever. Let lifespan theories go to hell.

If Yekase fretted for centuries, Jiang could wait.

And if Ivaris really returned to the real world, Jiang would grin at her: Me and the Doctor mix it up every other day. You, Miss white moonlight? Haven’t even held hands?

Victory. Mine.

Every cell in Jiang Bailu’s body cheered. Even Coffee Moon’s black surface seemed to take a glaze—brighter, like a riot of luminous black.

“…No. That’s too far ahead.”

She took a long breath, cooled the fever a notch.

To reach that future, the era’s current mattered. Personal grind mattered, too. In practice… she didn’t know any vampires. Lu Yao didn’t count. And if a proper vampire saw her as some defective knockoff, would they get angry?

If she wanted that power, she had to find them.

Whether it went well—she couldn’t say yet. Save the daydreams for after.

Jiang slid her hands into her coat pockets.

Then stepped into empty air and fell from the City of Ivalice rooftop’s edge.

She wasn’t trying to mirror anyone’s tastes. Passionfruit double shot? Couldn’t hack it. Even full sugar was too sour for her tongue.

But she felt it, creeping and clear—she was getting more like that person. Maybe from the day she quit. Maybe earlier. Maybe in the instant she was reassigned to R&D, the route had already been drawn in the dark.

“Flight—let’s go, Coffee Moon.”

…

…

In the Nande Kingdom, near the border, lay Red Fort Town.

Hills rolled like a sleeping spine. Forests sprawled, uncut and thick. Roads were rough; people didn’t drift in and out. Life stayed old-fashioned, worn smooth by years.

From town you could see the City of Ivalice, a colossal iron can on the horizon. Walking into that tin giant was the dream of half the youth.

On April 30th, the peace broke under a roaring thunder.

Residents ducked indoors and peered through curtains, breath tight. The roar’s source marched into view—dozens of Iron Cross Knights in heavy pure-white armor, tower shields gleaming like blank moons.

They advanced in silence, a steel flood rolling. Boots hammered dirt and brick in lockstep. The ground shivered; gray dust bloomed like fog.

Thirty. Forty. Forty-five… Five full squads.

Routine patrols brought one at most. Heretic hunts sent two to four, depending on danger. But five squads…

That was Monster Hunt level.

Why? Was some wicked thing hiding among them?

Faithful elders dropped to their knees, fingers laced, murmuring scripture like rain. Young men and women who wanted to be mechanics had little religion, but Iron Cross Knights stood close, iron and law. They bowed their heads, feigning prayer.

The Iron Cross didn’t bargain facts. If they suspected anyone of traffic with monsters, they wouldn’t stop at the suspect. They’d burn the house, too.

Pious or not, hundreds in Red Fort Town shared one looping question:

What happened?

What… is about to happen?