Europe, Soville City.

Fae Greenfield, founder of the Greenfield School, stepped into the Land of Reincarnation, where time coils like a serpent biting its tail.

It’s also the hometown of Shadow Curtain International’s first Infinite Power engineer, Konstantin, a forge where genius burns like a blue flame.

An era’s dawn and dusk replayed here twice, like twin eclipses crossing the same sky.

Yekase and Ling Yi touched down lightly on the outskirts, feathers settling onto cold grass.

This wasn’t far from where she’d dropped a squad of church knights, a familiar stain on the map like dried ink.

But the town’s face had turned strange, an old friend wearing a wax mask in a dim chapel.

“Such thick fog…”

“Such thick fog…” Ling Yi murmured, breath a pale cloud in a pale sea.

Before them, the whole region was drowned in white, a quilt of mist pulled tight over sleeping roofs.

The buildings were silhouettes, crouched beasts in a blackout or night-mountains shouldering down on Yekase’s chest.

The road from the fields into town was a gaping maw, a cold throat ready to swallow footsteps and names.

…What is this?

Last time, this place felt brutally materialist, brick and bread under noon sun, not a ghost market at twilight.

This hard cut, like swapping maps in a game, scraped the senses like sandpaper on bone.

And of all places, Jiang Bailu ran into this?

Yekase’s brow pinched tight, a knot tied in the rain. “What happened here?”

“With fog this thick, losing a dog isn’t even weird,” Ling Yi muttered, a pebble dropped into milk.

Not a dog. Not anymore.

Jiang Bailu, flesh and breath, stepped into this fog and vanished like a lantern snuffed by wet wind.

“You two here to investigate as well?”

A grown man’s voice rang from behind, a brass bell inside cotton.

Yekase turned and saw a middle-aged hiker, mountain-born and trail-stained like bark and clay.

He wore a sun hat useless under this gray sea, carried a lantern like a captive star in a jar.

A huge pack hunched on his back, a rolled tent strapped like a coiled snake waiting for night.

“…Hi. What’s going on here?”

The hiker looked them over with warm eyes, a campfire in drizzle, and explained.

“A week ago the fog rolled in and never left. Folks seem trapped in their houses like moths under jars.”

“Could it be a Cosmic Bubble, or some other anomaly?”

“No idea. People came from all over to investigate and help, but nobody’s nailed it down.”

Yekase and Ling Yi traded a glance, sparrows flicking wings under low sky.

If people came from everywhere, this should be drums and banners, firecrackers popping, red flags fluttering, a tide of bodies.

Not a dead city’s whisper, not streets like empty ribs bleaching in salt air.

“They say people who go in get lost in the mist. Be careful. You don’t seem equipped—are you sure?”

“Uh…”

They hadn’t expected this kind of mood, this theater of fog and quiet footsteps.

Normally, with a setup like this, they’d charge straight in, bare hands like blades cutting paper.

Luckily, Yekase doesn’t let atmosphere pull her strings like a puppeteer behind silk.

She waved the hiker on, then pivoted and sprinted back to town like a black swallow shot from a bow.

She bought every bit of kit a catalog could dream and returned to the rim of Soville City, a ring of pale ash.

“Headlamp.” She handed one to Ling Yi, a tiny sun for a paper sky.

Ling Yi took it and strapped it on, a halo snug against dark hair.

“Hand-crank flashlight.” She passed another over, a little lighthouse that eats wrist-work.

Ling Yi took it and started cranking, her wrist a small windmill turning in fog.

“Emergency rations and a tent. If it’s a Cosmic Bubble inside, I’ll pop the offline space button.”

“Okay.”

“Waist safety clip. The fog’s too heavy to stick shoulder to shoulder. We’ll tie in with a climbing rope.”

“We can’t stay pressed together?” Ling Yi sounded disappointed, a bird denied a warm perch.

“How would we investigate like that?”

“…Fair point.”

She felt more like a camper than a rescuer, calm as a winter lake under glass.

Was it faith in Yekase’s fighting power, or was Balafaruth whispering from the dark again?

Once everything was set, Yekase hooked the rope to her safety clip and stepped into the fog like a diver into milk.

She’d considered popping a skill right away, sparks before questions and thunder before rain.

But blind moves spook whatever’s hiding; better to keep the pond still and watch ripples.

Besides, margin for error scales with HP bar length, and both of theirs are maxed like red banners on city walls.

Half a year since she last walked Soville’s streets, and the feel had flipped like a coin under a magician’s hand.

It was like crossing into foggy London, waiting for Jack the Ripper to peel out of an alley with a dull knife.

Oh—he probably couldn’t beat either of them. So, no pressure, no prayer.

“Lights are on inside the houses, and I can hear voices, thin as wind through reeds.”

“At least no ridiculous ‘everyone evaporated’ twist. Better than a horror flick.”

“We’re already comparing it to horror films…?”

Ling Yi thought she was brave; now inside, fear pooled like cold ink under her ribs.

Moisture in the fog beaded on their cheeks and necks, tiny pearls threading along skin like fine rain.

Yekase barely felt such fine touches, but Ling Yi, senses boosted by Mind Energy, felt every drop like pinpricks of ice.

It was like a cold hand stroking her face, an ice palm with patient fingers and no warmth.

Everyone says cheap jump scares are for B-grade gore flicks; true terror hangs a mood and lets you spook yourself.

Ling Yi felt spooked, shadow crawling like ants under a leaf.

She slowed without thinking and wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing dew like wet paint.

The more she wiped, the wetter it got, half her face slick like rain glass.

She wanted to ask Yekase for a napkin, a square of dry sky folded in a pocket.

She raised her head, eyes seeking the rope’s lead like a lifeline in storm.

The rope lay quiet on the ground, a pale snake asleep in dust.

No one was at the end.

…

…

Yekase had stepped into the bar where she’d met Fae before, a door back to a crossing like a memory folded in wood.

The door wasn’t locked; it breathed like a tired lung under old paint.

She pushed it gently, and night air sighed through like a flute note.

The lights and layout matched her memory, a stage frozen in amber and cigarette haze.

A half-finished Long Island Iced Tea sat on the bar, a sunset trapped in glass and ice.

A girl sat there, back toward Yekase, cool as moonlight rippling over a deep pond.

White hair spilled down, a snow river, while a scarf of dark red flowed like a waterfall over a black sailor collar.

It spilled at her waist and pooled on the floor like dusk gathering in corners.

“Yo.”

She leaned against the bar, cheek propped by her palm, a lazy smile like a cat in sun.

“Ivar…is?!”

“Finally caught you. Seeing you is never easy, dear.”

“Why—”

Ivaris hopped off the stool and came over, patting and checking Yekase like a tailor with quick hands.

“Still well kept. I can appear when the wave function’s turbulence spikes like storm seas.”

“Those moments hold more branching futures; it’s easier for Dad to find the probabilities where I exist.”

“No, you called him ‘Dad’? That’s my dad!”

“Your dad is my dad, isn’t he?”

Here it was—the straightest fastball, the one even Jiang Bailu, queen of shameless, wouldn’t throw across the plate.

Yekase took the hit, stunned, and dodged with a topic shift like a swallow cutting wind. “Do you know what’s happening here?”

“Someone’s superpower, probably.”

“Probably? Can’t you see cause and effect from the horizon?”

“On the horizon, I watch only you.”

…

Nope. If she kept talking, she’d die of embarrassment like a cherry in boiling syrup.

Her eyes swept the bar, found no obvious oddities, and she turned to head back out like a tide pulling from shore.

She stepped toward the door and felt a tug— Ivaris’s hand, a silk clamp on her sleeve.

“Night’s coming fast.”

“It’s fine. I brought a light.” Yekase shoved a flashlight into Ivaris’s hand like passing a torch.

“It’s not the light.” Ivaris took it anyway, slipping it into her sailor skirt pouch like a coin into velvet.

“I got here earlier. Day and night here are scrambled, flipping every ten minutes or so like shutters in wind.”

“After dark, visibility drops so low even my laser can’t push beyond a meter, a blade dulled by fog.”

“Ghostlike things patrol the streets.”

“Oh, come on?”

Was this really a single person’s power, not rules inside a Cosmic Bubble misaligned with reality’s grid?

“Walk with me. Don’t want to?”

“No objections…”

They went back near the bar, whiskey and wood a pocket of warmth.

No bartender, no fuss. Yekase grabbed a bottle of apple cider from the cabinet, amber sleeping in glass.

She drew Dawn of Eden and shaved off the cap with the lip, steel whispering like frost along pottery.

She poured herself a glass, amber rain into a short cup, scent of apples under mist.

Ivaris lifted her Long Island Iced Tea, sipped, then spoke with a soft sigh, tide on stones.

“Those two you’re all tangled with are good girls.”

—Pfft!

Right. “I only watch you” meant exactly that arrow into the heart.

“Let me be blunt. You’re a brain-missing dummy, same as nine years ago, my dear ‘Doctor.’”

“Huh? Why the sudden insults? I haven’t accepted their confessions—”

“That’s the point.”

“…?”

“You give them everything without limits.”

“When it’s their turn to do something for you, you start spouting independent-woman jargon like cardboard armor.”

“That’s not how hearts work.”

“???”

Yekase hadn’t expected Ivaris to take Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu’s side, doubts stacking like plates in a sink.

“Weren’t you the one who told me not to date…”

“You listen just because I said it?”

“Huh??”

“Where’s your independence now?”

“Girls or boys, when it’s for someone they truly love, giving feels like joy, like spring water rising.”

“It’s not simping, it’s not submission; it’s the craft of devotion, a chosen vow.”

…

Did she overhear that bathhouse talk, steam and confession curling like smoke?

Wait. Does that mean every time Yekase got worked over, Ivaris watched from the horizon like a patron at a play?

Yekase’s expression went rainbow-bright, but Ivaris ignored the side-show and pressed on, voice a steady bell.

“They weren’t born to be someone’s harem, brains full of romance and price tags like stickers.”

“And you aren’t some soft-hearted, useless protagonist plodding through tropes.”

“Don’t you dare belittle them, and don’t you dare belittle yourself.”

“Uh… so you mean—”

“Not telling. Use this chance to practice reading a girl’s heart.”

“I’ll teach you everything later—how girls love someone, and how to love as a girl.”

Ivaris smiled, sly as a fox in frost.

Her white hair flicked, snowfall turned whip under lamplight.

She downed the rest of her Long Island Iced Tea, sunset gulped in one swallow, then pulled a staff from the air like a star drawn to hand.

Polaris Staff.

She walked to the door and looked out, eyes a lighthouse in soup-thick fog.

The first short night since Yekase entered the mist had passed, a hidden light straining through fog like bruised dawn.

Come to think of it, Polaris Staff was originally hers… Yekase remembered late, a page found in an old book.

She reached into her space button and drew Southern Sky Cross, a wooden compass warm in her palm.

Right. There’s a line that belongs here—

“I feel you by my side.”

The whirlpool of air faded, a curtain pulled back on gray stage.

Two Magical Girls stood shoulder to shoulder, mirror and mirror under a silent sky.

One in black with white hair, wielding an iron staff like a storm rod.

One in white with black hair, carrying a wooden staff like a living branch.

“Mm. That’s right. One point to you.”

“See? I learn fast.”

They bumped fists, light as dragonflies tapping, then stepped into the bar’s exterior.

Beyond waited an endless field of fog, a white ocean with no shore and no sound.