In the East Asia front against external exobodies, the Twenty Second Squad’s second‑gen Magical Girls were the last two on Yekase’s long rescue list through the Void. Over a month ago, they made it back to the world, slipping through the corridor like swallows homing to spring.

Shock hit Yekase like cold rain at dusk. Then reason settled like clear water. The horizon had been linked, a bridge set; return was expected. She was glad she’d overestimated the rescue’s hardship, not underestimated it.

An unexpected joy that felt almost fated, like a lotus opening after storm.

She could finally give Lalabel—and herself—an answer, and the moral burden of abandoning comrades slid off her shoulders like a stone into a river.

“So you really won’t go see them?” Ling Yi asked, voice soft as wind through reeds.

“No. What for?” Yekase waved her hands like shooing sparrows. “Some people you don’t need to meet. Knowing she’s safe is enough. I go recognize them, then what? I parade our great cause, and they join because of face?”

“Isn’t that good? The more, the stronger…”

“They already lost a year of youth and nine years of time. Surviving and returning were a chain of miracles, like stars aligning. I can’t drag them back onto the battlefield.”

Ling Yi’s cheeks flushed like peach blossom. She lowered her head, quiet as falling snow.

“Next, I’m going for a deep tour of the Arcadia Engineering Academy’s registration rite. You just wander.”

“Oh… okay…”

Yekase gave a farewell flick of her hand and slipped into the crowd with a whoosh, like a fish cutting water, vanishing down the stream of people.

Ling Yi snapped back. “Wait, I’m headed that way too! And what does a deep tour even mean?!”

Arcadia Engineering Academy.

Raised on the reborn ruins of old Arcadia, like a phoenix over ash. Founded jointly by Burns, lord of the City of Ivalice, Endymion, lord of Mysidia, and the Scarlet Saint Luciferin. It focuses on Flash Energy, yet cultivates all branches of Infinite Power like a balanced grove.

It enrolls full‑time undergrads, and extends an olive branch to accomplished Infinite Power scholars worldwide. It aims to build, in the twenty‑first century, a Copenhagen for Infinite Power, a lighthouse on the sea of minds.

Today was the first new intake’s day to report, a tide of youth rolling into the square.

A broad plaza slowly filled with young faces, voices intertwining like flocking birds. Some chatted in clusters; some peered at the grounds with wide eyes; some watched the fountain statue said to move and eat people, like a rumor‑fed beast frozen mid‑sip.

Seventeen‑year‑old Flora stood before the gate, a giant pack on her back like a mountain.

To apply here, she had even broken with her family. After a beating and a broom at the door, she was out, clothes torn like wind‑ripped sails, body aching like bruised fruit.

Regret, a touch. Fear, a touch. Sadness, a touch. Only a little, like drizzle on dry earth.

“…?”

A flash of bright red cut through the crowd like a koi.

What was that?

A fairy out of legend?

Curiosity tugged at Flora like a cat at the curtain. That wasn’t mere cloth dye; it flowed, a stream lit by sunset.

She followed.

Through the gaps of bodies, she finally saw the fairy’s true face: a vivid scarf, looped twice, trailing behind like a pair of wings.

The scarf’s owner was a silver‑haired girl about Flora’s age, just short, only chest‑height among the crowd, a sapling amid trunks.

Summer, yet she wore a scarf. A straw sun hat on her head, a white shirt with a pinafore; she looked neat and sprightly, like a fresh lily.

No backpack, no luggage. Maybe she’d come with siblings to register, then got lost, a moth chasing lamps?

Yet even with her back to Flora, the way she moved—hands in pockets, slipping through the seams between people—gave her a strange aura. She seemed to step out of the crowd like the moon from clouds, dimming every boy and girl around her.

So small, yet so composed. The contrast sparkled like sugar on fruit. Too cute.

This had to be a fated meet‑cute, Flora thought, a red thread tugging.

She quickened her pace to ask for contact info, but the silver‑haired girl’s steps were too fast, a swirl of wind, and she was gone.

How… how could this be…

Flora dropped to her knees, helpless as a foal, and her pack hit the ground with a thud.

“—Looking for me?”

The voice in her ear jolted Flora like a sudden bell.

But the pack straps still cinched her tight; to others, she only shivered in place like a leaf.

“Ah, no, um…”

Flora turned, awkward as a rusty hinge.

Beautiful.

A face like sculpted porcelain, lips small and rosy, like berries.

The mysterious silver‑haired girl she’d just lost came in from behind, bracing hands on her knees, leaning down to look, a friendly crane bending to a stream.

Her eyes, same red as the scarf, were deep, gentle, and clear. They held a summer night sky in a basin, a quiet flame at rest, and a smile rich enough to drown in.

“Mom…”

“Calling me mom out of nowhere?!”

“Uh… the horns…”

Flora raised a dazed finger toward the sides of the girl’s head, where dark‑red dragon horns propped up the hat’s brim like crescents.

You couldn’t see them from behind. So she was dragonfolk—?

“That? It’s basically cosplay. A keepsake from a certain ice dragon.”

She grabbed the straw hat, and the two “horns” lifted away with the brim, detaching clean as shells.

“Fake dragon horns?!”

She pressed the hat back into place. “I did suggest making them for general sale, but the craft seems tricky. And horns take time to regrow.”

“Real dragon horns?!”

Meaning, for each hat, a dragon loses its horns? What a terrifying notion, like cutting branches off a sacred tree.

Flora didn’t know why “mom” had slipped out. Maybe after running away from home, unease gnawed at her, and the maternal warmth in this smile bewitched her. Calm down, and you’d see nothing about her shape or words screamed maternal.

“Anyway, as long as you’re not tailing me.”

The girl smiled again and reached toward Flora’s ear.

Snap.

She withdrew her hand, now holding a golden pineapple lollipop, like a small sun on a stick.

“I scared you, right? A peace offering.”

…

In that instant, Flora knew she was in love, a blossom opening in her chest.

The girl straightened, slid her left hand back into her pocket, pressed the hat with her right, and turned to leave, a sparrow lifting off.

Flora called after her back, voice clear as a bell:

“—Excuse me!”

“Hmm?”

“Please tell me your name…”

“My name is a state secret.”

She winked her right eye at Flora, and raised a spring‑green index finger to her lips in a shh.

“It’s only a rumor, but have you heard of ‘Mechbreaker—’”

Just as Flora moved to carve the name deep into memory, a hand shot from a gap in the crowd with stunning speed. It seized the girl’s ear, and shattered her aura like a dropped mirror.

“Leave you alone for one minute, and you’re out here fishing for schoolgirls?”

Ivaris twisted Yekase’s ear and yanked her aside.

“Hey, hey, hey! I wasn’t fishing, I wasn’t—”

They walked off, leaving Flora sitting in a daze. The human tide flowed around her, carrying away the sound of their bickering like foam.

“Hmm? Well, tell me—what was it this time?”

“I just cleared up a misunderstanding! She kept tailing me, so I thought she was from the Church or some outfit… See? I even wore the scarf so you’d spot me. Proof my heart’s clean.”

Ivaris grudgingly accepted that, and held out a hand.

“?”

“Give me one as well.”

“Strawberry milk?”

“Strawberry milk.”

Yekase straightened the straw hat Ivaris had skewed, and nudged the “dragon horns” into place like ornaments.

“Anyway, this glam’s pretty good, right? I think it’s cute. My seventeen‑segment has two hair modes, both black, too similar. This set fills the playful vibe we lacked. It’s also a first step on the ‘nonhuman beauty’ route.”

Yekase began to talk and talk, from rolling out the new persona to slicing traits and age brackets like a bento.

The forms she currently holds and can swap into at will are:

A seven‑year‑old loli Yekase.

The seventeen‑year‑old Yekase and Magical Girl Icarus—plus the already retired Mechbreaker.

A twenty‑seven‑year‑old Yekase and Lilim.

And nonhuman forms: the maid doll Lymriel, and this new straw‑hat dragon girl.

Six personas in all, a whole wardrobe.

Nothing says safety like that. Even if a country breaks one, the rest last for ages, like spare lanterns.

“Cute, cute. You’re cute no matter the face you pinch on.”

Ivaris fondly pinched cheeks a little plumper than the classic skin, and asked, “What’s this form called?”

“Akano Arco.”

“A Japanese name?”

“I want to take you to Japan later. Picture it: Kyoto streets, a mysterious dragon girl with a Japanese name. Something like that. I got lazy with the surname and borrowed an old friend’s.”

Why spin such trivial settings so detailed, like embroidering the back of a curtain?

Ivaris almost cracked, then half gave up, sighing. “Do as you like… But if you want a dragon identity, why not have Aurora put you through the Ancient Dragon Path? You even get a full dragon form thrown in. With your strength, you’d pass in one go.”

“No. I’m not planning that.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There’s a deep difference between acting as a dragon girl and becoming one. You get it and you don’t. I did seek mechanical apotheosis before. But now—precisely because I can stop being human anytime—I choose to keep being human.”

Because Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu have already stepped outside humanity as a species, the last fruit, Yekase, has a duty to remain “human,” like the final candle in a shrine.

She must be known as a human ascended by Infinite Power. That “human” can’t be swapped for any other noun.

Otherwise, on the small scale, it breeds public distrust like fog. On the large scale, it could spark a terrible reverse‑racist disaster, like fire in dry grass.

She still remembers, clear as a mountain stream, that “human” that grew into a double‑helix ring.

“Fair point.”

Ivaris thought for a blink and understood, crunching the candy sphere, a sigh linting the air.

“…A trip to Japan?”

“Yeah. We leave next month.”

“Could it be…”

Gulp.

Even a battle‑tested elite Magical Girl like Ivaris tensed at this wildly unusual, never‑before scene, like hearing thunder in a clear sky.

“…Could it be… a honeymoon?”

Yekase yanked the straw hat down to hide her face, cheeks burning like embers.

“Do you have to make me say it that clearly?!”