“Sounds like a badass leaderboard. Now that’s the essence of the 2D scene!”

Hearing that, Akano Souu swayed, a vertigo like waves breaking in her skull. She decided the abyss and the tower earlier were her sparring with empty air. This girl truly wasn’t thinking at all.

“…You’re not planning to provoke them, are you?”

“No. Not until I get you somewhere safe.”

She’s really going to do it. She’s really going to pick a fight.

Souu looked at Yekase like she was already a ghost, pity shading her gaze like winter frost. “The Fujiwara clan serves House Chubu. If you sour things with Chubu in this proxy war, you won’t need to seek them out. They’ll come for you.”

“Perfect. I’ve got the ashes of one of their clanswomen. I’ll hand them over. Let her return to her homeland.”

“???!”

A warhead dropped in the middle of the room.

Who could it be… No—how did she even get it?

Souu teetered between disbelief and belief, then the scales snapped. A vacant-headed heiress, by sheer coincidence, got the ashes of a Fujiwara? Do Fujiwara die casually on a foreign roadside? When coincidence gets absurd, it isn’t coincidence. When bragging swells past breaking, it’s truth. Only one explanation remained: this “Arco” had weight. Her identity, depth, and hand were far beyond a minor branch girl of the Akano line.

“You… who are you really… No. I won’t ask…”

Yekase watched her fall silent, cold sweat peeking along her hairline, like a cicada freezing at the touch of frost. It felt off.

She hadn’t said anything threatening, right?

She and Fujiwara Ningning had once been enemies, plotting against each other. But since Yekase had won, and Fujiwara had already been burned down to ash, she didn’t mind, within East Asian rites, taking a detour on her trip to send someone on their last road home.

She’d even raised a grave marker for Alicia Alicia by the giant crater in France. The humaneness bar was maxed. If only she didn’t end up brawling with Dorothy at night.

What’s wrong with a warm thousand-mile homecoming? Onmyoji are high-grade fighters. Even if they’re man-eating monsters, they at least wear clothes and pretend to be genteel. They wouldn’t strike a benefactor on sight. They might even teach her a trick or two of yin-yang arts, seeing she trudged all that way to return their relative.

So what was Souu afraid of?

A spark flashed across Yekase’s mind—the relic she’d seen on her character screen back in Europe—

Origin Suppression.

She’d thought it was Nightlight Torch’s official naming inside that black-clad youth’s Terminal World, but… what if, just what if, it was a newly sprouting finisher?

No idea where it came from, though.

The name felt like a mental debuff—a weight pressing down. Anyone hostile toward her would feel an inexplicable pressure, burning through their skill points faster, pushing them to exhaust. It fit the Yekase whose stamina bar lasted three minutes before her Flash Energy rank-up. Shame it arrived late.

Yekase caught Souu’s shoulder, eyes locking like a hawk’s. “Does talking to me make you feel crushed?”

“Eek?!”

Stress bled off her skin like steam. So, yes.

“Is torturing a girl fun?” Ivaris huffed and pulled Yekase away.

Yekase pouted. “I’m testing a new skill…”

Before getting completely dragged off, she tossed Souu a wink. “About my identity—”

Souu clapped her hands over her ears and shook hard, like a willow in a gale. “No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to die!”

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

“I didn’t hear anything! I didn’t hear a thing!”

Watching her shut eyes and block ears, Yekase lost interest. She dropped the topic, waited for Souu’s breathing to settle, then asked:

“About your opponent in this representative war—Chubu Space Tech. What do you know?”

“It’s Chubu Planetary Tech.”

“Same difference.”

Souu thought, then said, “Their leader, Chubu Risa, is a genius who fuses Western magical techniques into machinery.”

It was Ancient Alchemy, really. For outsiders, those near-miss words don’t differ.

Yekase nodded. “I’ve crossed paths with Chubu. Skip the bio. Tell me what their org actually develops.”

Souu flinched again. How did she know everyone?

After two or three repeats, numbness hardened like callus. She continued, “They work on planet-scale machines. The Star Rod—laser from near-Earth orbit to scour ground. The Star Lance—mass drivers for kinetic strikes. The Star Shield—to counter those two. And the Star Ark—escape Earth if the Shield doesn’t get to shine…”

What is this, a serialized disaster?

Classic mad science that blows up Earth by accident.

“But they’ve got non-combat stuff. Star Armor, wrapping a planet’s surface to create artificial atmosphere. Star Chalice, a micro superconducting fusion unit that powers a whole planetary base. Both are hot investments.”

Tools for interstellar development. Chubu Risa was like most Ancient Alchemists and faction heads, yet she had a nose for strategy. Might be worth a chat… Yekase mused.

Ivaris glanced up, only to meet an underground mall ceiling instead of sky. “…Uh, would they use those orbital weapons against you?”

“As if! If the Special Zone gets too damaged to host the proxy war, the responsible party pays several billions.”

“It’s already a ruin.”

“To keep buildings in a ruin from rotting to dust, yet not upkeep them so much the ruin loses its feel—there’s an art. That’s the artisan spirit of the Japan Branch Special Zone Administration.”

“Don’t insist on craftsmanship in places like that!”

…

…

That smuggling boat with one last empty seat kept surfacing in Akano Souu’s dreams like a moon-bleached ghost.

Why was the one who ran… me?

She never told anyone, never sought support, not even from those teammates she pessimistically believed she’d never replace again in her lifetime. Luckily, she was bright by nature. On most days, no one saw the crack.

But at night, alone, the memory climbed back like tidewater—the night, and the two she left behind.

Like now.

“Who the hell are you?! Do you know what happens when you oppose the Crimson Field? Your photo’s already in the clan head’s hands. There’s nowhere to run—”

Whoosh.

“As for your clan head, I’ll drop by personally later.”

The corpse lost strength and pitched forward, only to get swallowed by a fireball before touching ground. Ash drifted away like winter snow.

The remaining cadre watched her crushing force and stepped back two paces in perfect sync, shoulder to shoulder, none willing to be the next bird to stick its head up.

“I once made a promise to the past. I’m here to fulfill it.”

The Magical Girl Phoenix stood calm in what had been the Crimson Field family’s private garden. Everything around was already drowned in flame.

“Revenge? You came to avenge? Blood for blood is meaningless! Hatred’s chain can’t be severed—only emptiness remains! Let’s sit, talk, let hatred drift away—”

Phoenix tilted her head in the sea of fire, almost playful.

Not a speck of blood stained her. Her red dress was clean and splendid, like a debutante at a ballroom, a fresh blossom in high society. Maybe she’d set her life with some young master on that dance floor, then wear a white bridal kimono soon after, a happy bride—

Kidding. Girls born to clans never earn happy marriages.

She parted her lips, smiling. “Who said it has to mean anything?”

“—”

From her, the clan cadres felt something like ghost-air.

No room to negotiate. No room to compromise. No plan to show mercy.

She had decided: tonight, Crimson Field would vanish from the world.

“—!!”

In a world of “pulled punches,” it was a rare, cold sensation.

Her glance alone felt like it could separate head from neck. Hands and feet lost strength, like frostbitten reeds.

Gold tongues of flame licked Phoenix’s hem. The greatsword’s flank threw shifting light across her face, painting it red, a strange beauty.

Her left hand slid into the fire beside her without a flinch, and she drew out a card.

Its material was unknown. A phoenix wing was painted atop. The background flames moved, rising and flowing across the face.

Phoenix lifted the greatsword, pressed the card into the molten groove running along the spine, and brushed down, slow. The card caught. In her fingers it lost form, then broke to ash.

【Survive!】

Her red dress ignited.

Sparks at her hem swelled after the card loaded, becoming a formless blaze wrapping her whole body, swaying gently with the night wind.

Two fans of fire unfolded behind her like wings, the most lavish adornment—

“Once you’ve taken a life, every one of us… can no longer turn back.”

In the cadres’ eyes, those wings became the plumage of death’s descent.