Yekase hadn’t climbed in ages; the urge came back like sap rising in spring.

As a child, she—he—would haul her little sister up trees for nests, or slip over walls into empty houses, a pair of shadows chasing dust motes.

The Oz Floating Disc was still a game-texture kind of thing, someone else’s asset; even piled thick by Dorothy, it felt like mist over a cliff.

So Yekase half-stepped, half-scrambled, and fought her way up.

She rose slowly on the roof of the car, spine straight as a flagpole under stormlight.

Underfoot ran the suspended magi-rail, an iron river in the sky; all around, a boundless blue like an open sea, and wind like knives tore at her black-and-white maid dress.

Behind her, the knight-ghost called Tin Knight drifted through the roof like a pale fish breaching, serving as Dorothy’s eyes.

Cosmic Wizard called three ghosts. They weren’t total blanks. The Scarecrow could mirror a spell. The Tin Knight could share sight. The Lion… the Lion might truly be a blank slate.

Huh…

Yekase saw it.

A red cloak stood on the last two cars, a splash of blood at sunset; looked like that kid’s teammate.

“A guest approaches, Left.”

“Coming in hot, Right.”

She turned with dancer’s lightness, and faced Yekase.

A woman, all but mouth and chin buried under the cloak; the figure said adult, the voice rang like a clear bell, teenage-fresh.

She stood there, talking to herself—or to someone who wasn’t there, a split reflection on still water.

Yekase had never met a true split personality. Mila was two souls fused, not textbook. It was lilies vs. switches, same word, different world.

“War never changes.”

“War changes in a heartbeat.”

“We design war.”

“We exploit war.”

“But we don’t bring war.”

Riddles? Why was a Riddler on this roof?

So the subtext: nations and city-states light their own fires. They just fan the flames?

Yekase wanted to carve her open right now. But this was the open air; who knew what eyes watched. Dawn of Eden stayed sheathed.

Nothing else to draw… fine. She pulled her Gunblade instead, steel like a held breath.

She tapped her heel. Threefold Levitation Spell surged. She blitzed in like a thunderbolt clearing cloud.

“She hasn’t seen this before, Left.”

“Let’s educate her, Right.”

The red-robed woman didn’t move, let Yekase close to three meters, a cold gleam lunging straight for her heart.

“I’m Left.”

“I’m Right.”

“We are, War Sovereigns Curse.”

…The thrust hit air.

No—she hadn’t dodged.

Dawn of Eden’s tip pierced the space the Curse occupied, yet touched nothing, sliding through like moonlight through fog.

Only then did Yekase notice. They stood on a roof with wind howling like wolves, yet the red robe didn’t stir, hugging her shape like a painted veil—like a Caster in FGO stripped of her key art.

“You’re… a Sorcery Ascender?”

Those who fused with Infinite Power shared a trait—they hoarded survival cheats like a fox hoards dens. Mind Energy’s deathless loop. Flash Energy’s stacking evolutions. And… Sorcery’s ghost-form.

By merging with the raging Sorcery around the car, she entered a macro superposition, present at every point in space and at none, like a mist spread across a valley.

But that trick fails against the same Infinite Power.

Yekase squeezed the trigger; Flash Energy flooded Dawn of Eden, the blade lighting like lightning trapped in steel.

“Looks like she figured it out, Left.”

“Looks like you miscalculated, Right.”

The woman finally moved. From within the cloak, she drew a staff taller than a man, a tree-limb of black iron, and leveled it.

In a blink, two Helen Disks bloomed behind her, three meters wide, silver moons spinning like sawblades; they bit into the roof and scissored toward Yekase.

Oz and Helen were both transparent by default; with senses wide open, they were as solid as bone, so the Curse didn’t even bother to hide them.

Yekase slipped aside to buy a heartbeat, then chopped at one disk; no collapse on contact with Infinite Power, just sparks like fireflies and the rasp of teeth on steel.

Helen Disk isn’t—wait, “collapses on contact with magic”—so other Infinite Power doesn’t count?

What kind of rules-text hair-splitting is that?

Magic… Yekase wasn’t a Sorcery Ascender; she couldn’t cast here.

A minute ago it felt like a duel on a storm peak. The next, she was a horror-film extra, chased by a giant buzzing saw called Helen Disk down a sky-rail spine.

“Oz Floating Disc!”

Dorothy, watching through the knight’s eyes, threw Oz Discs into the saw’s path, a hail of glass moons to stall it.

For a moment, they were dead even. Yekase used that breath to close again.

She raised her blade for a cleaving strike. Their eyes met. And her gut blared like a fire alarm. She kicked the nearest Oz Disc—hadn’t been dispelled yet—and let herself fall into the blue like a dropped petal.

Where she’d stood, a fresh Helen Disk birthed itself and screamed forward with a reaper’s howl.

Then the lion called Little Guts bounded out a window and caught Yekase mid-fall, a tawny comet. He darted across a new Oz Disc, returned to the roof, set her down, and popped like a soap bubble.

“You know this train,”

“is actually a giant weapon.”

said War Sovereigns Curse.

“A weapon…?”

That… she hadn’t known.

Yekase looked down through the jagged cuts the saws had carved, and her gaze fell on shapes she knew by touch, yet never expected here.

Guns.

Barrels.

Ammo crates.

Transformation gear.

A laser generator.

…?!

Why—why would a train that preached peace and diplomacy carry these, like thorns under a silk glove?

“Do you see?”

“Do you understand?”

“We follow war, we don’t forge it.”

“We walk with the dead, we don’t defile them.”

Yekase’s face tightened, a cloud pulled over sun. Whether Dorothy’s “Shadow Realm War” or the Curse’s version was truer, she had to admit she’d underestimated “relations between nations and city-states.”

A turret-train dressed as a friendly envoy spoke louder than drums. Today it carried merchants and nobles. Tomorrow, soldiers. How many bodies could it swallow?

Anyone who didn’t box themselves into “modern magic,” and understood the core of Infinite Power, could draw the same line with a fingertip.

Magi-rails ride Sorcery streamlines at high speed. Mysidia—the World Tree—is the source and sink of every streamline on Earth.

Ailian Qingcheng was a war machine that could reach anywhere on Earth in a short window, a red spear hidden in a bouquet.

And by the black-clad youth’s claim, Shadow Realm War had come here to destroy it.

Yekase didn’t get it.

If they were truly chaotic-good, why recruit that black-dressed piece of work?

If their aim was to seize Ailian Qingcheng, why not strike first, sow casualties, stir chaos?

“You’re a wanderer cut from your roots; your homeland left you no place. We can help you take it all back.”

“How about it, will you join us?”

“How about it, will you walk with me?”

“Red Realm Demon King,”

“Shadow Realm War,”

“will greet a new dawn together.”

“…If I join you, you’ll protect the passengers with me, and wreck these weapons?” Yekase asked.

“Of course.”

“If I join you, you’ll help me fight home, and cut the Sinister Organization’s influence in Huaxia down to Europe’s level?” Yekase asked.

“Of course.”

Yekase stood silent, hands steady, heart like a tightened bowstring.

Dorothy cried out, disbelief surfacing like a fish. “Teacher?! Why are you just standing there?! Are you really—”

The maid doll’s perfect smile hid Yekase’s true face. She flicked Dawn of Eden aside. The Gunblade broke into motes and slipped into a spatial buckle.

She looked at the outstretched palm of War Sovereigns Curse.

She raised her right hand…

and showed the red cloak a middle finger.

“However—I refuse.”

Will focused like a blade. She skipped the callouts. Nightlight Torch bloomed in a flash, a black sun. It ground the two Helen Disks spinning a few inches from Dorothy’s neck into glittering dust.

“…Huh?!”

Loose streamlines of Sorcery brushed Dorothy’s nape like cold rain. Only then did she realize she’d been a hostage without knowing, a chip tucked under a queen.

“My favorite thing,” Yekase said, “is saying no to people who think they’ve already won.”

“Recruitment failed.”

“Reputation decreased.”

The Curse didn’t look surprised. Her emotions had been flat water from the start; her twin-voice cadence was as unreadable as a veil.

In disguise, Yekase conceded, the red cloak matched her—always smiling, or never; either way, a poker face.

Snuffing magic with Nightlight Torch meant Yekase could barely hurt her now. Both were Ascenders; if one chose to run, the other couldn’t catch a shadow.

The magi-rail was a bad field for her. Yekase gave up on winning here, but she didn’t plan to flee.

She’d complete the goal the Shadow Realm War member—leader? hard to tell—had just spoken aloud.

Destroy Ailian Qingcheng’s weapons.

Wow, what a coincidence. You came to bomb the train too?

A group that recruited with hostages, a “noble outlaw” chapter-house in Europe—if Yekase did the job for them, they’d surely clap from the shadows.

Yekase stood on the last passenger car’s roof, facing the Curse on the machinery car.

“Friendly tip. You should come to my side. Now.”

“…?”

“Protocol: Cross Assault!”

Time stretched like pulled sugar.

Two silver screens flared on either side of the moving cars. Peace Walker and Balafaruth leapt out like heroes from a scroll.

One swung a beam saber and cut the coupler. One bit the falling car and climbed, a dragon chewing a comet, the two passing like crossed meteors.

“Come to think of it, there’s no cross at all,” Yekase muttered, wry as rain.

When the red meteor shrank to a firefly, the turret module finally lost to force and heat. It burst in a chain of flowers against the high air and died.

Between machine and dragon, with nowhere to run, the figure of War Sovereigns Curse was nowhere to be seen, like smoke swallowed by wind.