Gradually... like silt settling in a riverbed, something was building up.

Gradually... like frost threading a windowpane, a quiet wrongness crawled in.

Strapped in the Boron Reaper’s cockpit, Punk Jack felt the air tilt off true.

I... should be invincible, right?

He was Ice-Water Sprite’s proud experiment, a pillar carved from jade and pride. He’d tapped Arcadia’s Soul Power field. The tech wasn’t perfect. It couldn’t spread all damage to his neighbors on the net. But resistances added together like stacked shields.

Meaning: a single shot from Yekase, with one unit of Flash Energy, got divided by Arcadia’s 100,000 souls first. If it couldn’t pierce the shield, it died like rain on stone.

That’s how it should’ve been.

So why were hairline cracks webbing the Boron Reaper’s pumpkin-shaped hull, like lightning frozen in amber?

“—Hey, you.”

Yekase’s voice poured from his cockpit speakers, a bell chime turned knife. She’d hacked the light-and-sound controls? Since when?

“Ever heard of dielectric breakdown?”

“...?”

A tiny bulge swelled on the forward armor, a dark dot at first, then a growing thorn pressing in. It looked like—

Like something was forcing its way through, a worm of night tunneling through paper.

No, impossible. This was the core zone, sealed under five armor plates. What could—

Krk.

Krrrk-krrrk.

“...!”

A senseless chill flooded Punk Jack’s gut, like cold seawater filling a lung.

He popped his harness on instinct and threw himself to the side, skidding across metal like a fish on wet slate—

The next instant, the forward armor peeled back like a page, and a black steel blade thrust through. It pinned the seat cushion right at neck height, a nail through a shrine charm.

“Gyaa—?!”

Why?!

How?!

His mind filled with white static and questions. The blade’s edge winked inches from his nose. If he’d hesitated a heartbeat, he’d be hanging on it like a lantern fish.

The Boron Reaper’s defense—got pierced?!

The black blade, meters long, spanned the cockpit like a dark river. It dragged down with a long, tooth-aching squeal, cutting armor like warm butter.

The console and seat parted with it, woodchips in a saw’s path.

Then the blade vanished, like a shadow slipping into reeds.

Not salvation—because a face slid into the opened seam.

“Here is Luciferin~”

“Ah... a-a-a-a?!”

The face was objectively pretty—clean lines, a touch of sweet. But Punk Jack saw a ghost lantern on a grave wind, and terror pooled like ink.

“I forgot to mention. My trait? It’s perfect against turtle-shell players like you.”

Her voice was honey over a razor.

“Nothing in this universe is absolute. Even a black hole leaks radiation like smoke from a kiln. How’s your defense against that, compared with a black hole’s pull?”

She set both hands on the metal. And pulled it apart.

“Ahhh?!”

Punk Jack was from an onmyoji family, raised on talismans and temple bells. He’d met strong spirits. None had ever ripped a mech like rice paper.

He himself was an indoor type—even the bravest onmyoji can’t fistfight a humanoid mech.

Yekase stepped into the Boron Reaper’s cockpit.

Black smoke clung to her hands like ink clouds. She’d borrowed Beast Claws from Shanon; that black slicing blade was the same trick. After ten-plus minutes of chain fighting, her stacks were monstrous. Weapons didn’t scale with them. She worried she’d snap Dawn of Eden like a twig, so she used pure energy claws.

“Your control suite’s retro. Too many sticks. A modded GBT-02 from thirty years ago?”

“...”

She folded her arms, circling the ruined seat, eyes cool and professional. “Shame. In one piece, an antique collector would pay. I sliced it to ribbons... my bad.”

“M—”

Punk Jack forced out a syllable.

“Hm?”

“Marry me!”

“...Huh?”

Before she came in, Yekase had prepped outcomes like a storm chart. If Punk Jack resisted to the death, she had a top ten list of ruthless lines, every one a guarantee. If he folded and dumped his organization’s secrets, she’d ride the momentum and push the dungeon.

Instead... what was this?

“You okay in the head? No—if you joined this kind of outfit, being okay would be weirder.”

She flicked to Lu Yao’s feed through his monitors. Peace Walker had Tirfon face-down in the dirt. Good. Time to deal with the clown at hand.

Punk Jack stared at her like a pilgrim at a mountain spring.

“So beautiful. So beautiful...”

“I am cute. Your point?”

“My true name is Kujo Tetsuya! You want the organization’s secrets, right? Be my girlfriend, and I’ll tell you everything! Don’t judge by appearances. My family’s loaded. We own an entire mountain! When this war ends, we’ll—”

Shff!

The black claw reappeared, a shadowed crescent. It traced his cheek, a hair-thin line of blood like a red thread.

Joy burst in Kujo’s chest like fireworks. She didn’t really hurt me. She’s being tsundere! She’s already falling for me—just playing coy!

He grinned and pressed on. “And my soul’s linked to the locals here! You can’t kill me. A random, innocent ghost will die in my place, and I’ll be fine until Arcadia’s emptied. You’re a hero, right? You pity bound spirits, right? Then be my girlfriend, okay?”

“You’ve got nerve. And a vivid imagination.”

Yekase crouched, hugging her knees. Her smile bloomed like a chrysanthemum after frost.

Her doll-pretty face hovered inches away. Praise and that smile turned Kujo’s head to mist. He reached for her—

Cold kissed his wrist. His hand no longer obeyed him.

Clack.

Something fell to the floor.

He glanced down, stomach dropping like an elevator.

Oh... that’s my right hand.

“Eh? A-ah... ah?!”

Yekase still smiled. She held his severed wrist between both palms, gentle as a healer. Warm, milky runes pulsed like fireflies. The gruesome cross-section stopped bleeding. It smoothed, sealing into a rounded stump.

“I ‘can’t kill you,’ is that it?”

Kujo jolted like struck by thunder, every tendon humming.

“You dug up Harrison’s origins. Did you dig up mine? I’ll save you time. Before I became a hero, I spent six years in a Sinister Organization. R&D. Those six years... guess how many ways I built to make life worse. Than. Death.”

“...Eh?”

“Twenty-seven. Ten of them portable. No heavy machinery required.”

“Y-you can’t... does this still count as a hero?!”

“Still more hero than you. Now, good luck on your one-life clear.”

...

...

Silence from Yekase’s side.

Luciferin and the Boron Reaper stood frozen in a tiny plaza, their ship-cutting blades driven into each other’s core zones like dueling spears.

Lu Yao called on comms and got nothing back. Had Yekase fainted in the cockpit? No. Not possible. She probably ran along the blade and started tearing the mech by hand.

Then this side had to speed up.

Vala of War Sovereigns Curse excelled at dual casting. Inside a mech, her feints dulled, like a dancer in chains. Beyond a fancy magic immunity already cracked, there wasn’t much left.

So why stay aboard?

What can only be done on the mech?

“Looks like he’s useless now.”

“Looks like he’s done for now.”

Vala turned toward the other two and spoke in a voice like twin echoes under a bridge.

Tirfon backed off, circling behind a taller stone tower. Peace Walker’s two chasing shots hit the structure, throwing up rubble and smoke like a sandstorm.

Tirfon’s cockpit opened. A red-robed figure stepped out and stood on a metal palm, a statue come alive.

She drew her staff and began to chant, syllables like moths around a flame.

Lu Yao rushed two steps, then felt the air turn viscous, like wading into syrup. Peace Walker’s movements halved. Comms lagged like winter molasses.

“Signal jamming? No—it’s—”

The Soul Power field.

Lu Yao’s eyes widened inside the cockpit.

Peace Walker’s veins ran Omega Ray, bright and clinical. But its bones were sentai steel. Even with no partner linked now, the old Soul Power circuits still existed, like old temple wiring.

Soul Power is the will to understand each other. It doesn’t move flesh. It resonates wills and grants buffs, like incense smoke blessing a crowd. The Soul Power field around Arcadia—a sea they all swam in—suddenly went hyperactive. It began to bleed into Peace Walker’s circuits like dye in clear water.

Vala’s trick. She forced the sync rate up.

“We set these souls ablaze.”

“They’ll turn to junk data and freeze your mech.”

“They’ll turn to Soul Power fuel, and sharpen my magic.”

Wha—

Through the projection on her cockpit glass, Lu Yao looked at Arcadia’s residents along the street.

People who had ignored their brawl now showed twisted faces, pain blooming like bruises. Some crumpled and unraveled into light, fireflies snuffed by dawn.

“You... you’d even use the dead?”

Lu Yao had been a sentai member. Her sense for soulfields ran deep, like roots under stone. Deeper than Yekase or Ling Yi, who learned midstream.

Pain. Confusion. Sorrow. Refusal. Anger.

Despair. Despair. Despair. Despair. Despair.

A flood of negatives spilled from Peace Walker’s circuits, drills of ice screwing into her skull.

“...!”

No—like this, I’ll—

A shriek of cutting metal screeched, salt on the wound.

Vala flicked two Helen Disks gone black. They carved for Peace Walker’s wrists, eager to unhand a statue.

CLANG!

Two mechanical arms hit the ground, heavy as tombstones.

Lu Yao felt her own arms vanish. The forced sync tricked her brain—her body believed her limbs were gone.

The Helen Disks kept chewing, from shoulders to chest, opening the cockpit like a clam.

Lu Yao slumped, arms slack, swaying against the console.

Light steps entered. Vala came to stand before her.

“You lost.”

“I won.”

Vala gazed at the blood trailing from Lu Yao’s eyes and ears. She smiled like a kindly mother at a sick child.

“No feeling in your hands?”

“Body won’t answer you?”

“Then let me give you permanent peace.”

Invisible force caught Lu Yao’s arms, lifting her like a crucifix raised against storm clouds.

Vala leveled her staff at Lu Yao’s chest. A smaller, just-as-deadly disk-saw bloomed at the tip, a hungry moon—

“—So what?”

Silver flashed like a fish breaking water.

Lu Yao’s body dropped, slipping the saw by a hair.

“You cut off your own arms?!”

She staggered to her feet.

No blood fountained. Two mechanical hands unfolded at her sides, steel petals where flesh had been.

“You think brute force over Soul Power means you rule all things...”

“Then hear me.”

“Even without hands, there are things you can still seize.”

Ended Up Updating After All