“Nightstar Machina” was both Chubu Risa’s title and the callsign of her ride, a name like a comet streaking across a dusk-lit sky.

It was kind of like Yekase using “Luciferin” as her English name, a firefly glow bottled in a word. She barely piloted her mech; she bought it like a long-awaited game, then let it sit on a shelf, dust settling like winter frost. The mood came and went like a breeze. In the end, her fists felt truer than steel.

As for Chubu Risa—“Risa” might be an alias—she didn’t tinker with Infinite Power until she became Infinite Power, the way Yekase did, a snake swallowing its tail under lightning. She stayed a pure mechanic and pilot, head down, upgrading cold metal like pruning a winter garden.

Seven units finally fused into the ultimate form, the “Nightstar Machina King,” a crown of gears under a starry mantle. The world called it war‑class without argument, a thunderhead on the horizon. In human history, only Shadow Curtain International’s “Demon God Xeno” and the East Asia Front’s “Thunderbolt Zeus” stood ahead, two storms raking the sea.

Yet a certain self‑styled genius mechanic and Infinite Power engineer buried herself for half a year in making it public‑friendly, turning peaks into plains. It was the kind of audacity that made you sigh, like watching a cliff grow steps.

Facing a genius no worse than herself, Yekase felt a tightness first, a knot behind the ribs. She was nervous, like glass under a hammer.

Infinite Power + mechs sat right in the overlap of her twin specialties, a Venn diagram of sparks. But “Nightlight Torch” wasn’t rule‑tier forbidden tech; it was a bonfire, not a law. It condensed Flash Energy into a black‑hole‑like structure, a dark iris that warped nearby Infinite Power. Like a hot‑blooded shonen hero who “stops time” by running so fast the world blurs, it was brute force making miracles, a storm that fails at the edge of the map.

After Shuangyu was taken, guilt came first, sour and heavy. To cover that she’d “let the rescue target go” on a near‑conspiracy hunch, Yekase whipped out the milestone gadget she’d finally finished over a two‑week leave, a lantern against her own shadow.

“N‑707 ‘Robot Cat’s Moving Castle’!”

“Why a robot cat?” Ivaris asked, eyebrow lifting like a hillcrest.

“Because the tech leap feels two centuries wide?” Yekase shrugged, a willow in wind.

“Don’t ask me. I don’t get it.” Ivaris waved it off, a gull over foam.

Yekase pulled from the teleport box a little thing that looked like a tin lunchbox, plain as noon light. She raised it to the sky, silver catching the sun, then popped the lid with a crisp flick.

Inside were three compartments like any lunchbox, but the slots held model furniture, tiny lives in miniature. The two small rooms were a bathroom and a storeroom: a tub, a sink, a toilet; shelves and a fridge hugged the wall like vines. The big half‑space was a living room, with a sofa and coffee table, plus a sponge‑cut cot like a cloud slice.

“Latest in space compression,” she said, voice rolling like a radio jingle. “Actual living area equals a studio apartment! If you’re handy, DIY away. This unit offers multiple high‑freedom Infinite Power ports, so let your imagination bloom. The storeroom has constant magic preservation, a cool moon over grain. The environment maintenance system uses reliable Labyrinth City tech: closed oxygen loop, green and clean as mountain air!”

…Strange?

Her tone felt less like introducing a tool and more like throwing seed to a market square—an ad in battlefield wind.

Ivaris felt the mismatch first, a pebble in her shoe. “If it’s a moving castle,” she asked, “does it move on its own?”

“It does!” Yekase’s grin flashed like a blade. “It’s got the latest non‑propellant Sorcery–Flash Energy hybrid engine. It displaces by compressing space in the direction of travel, no medium, almost no inertia—faster than normal aircraft, more precise than a surgeon’s hand. Theoretically, it’s spaceworthy straight out of the box. Core advantage: if you can use a super‑type Infinite Power, just give the unit a scheduled charge, and you get macro perpetual motion, a river that never dries. Add Mysidia’s cuisine‑conjuration magi‑machinery (sold separately), and even ordinary folks can set off on long‑haul space trips, sleeping easy under a faithful sky!”

Wait—“sold separately”? That parenthesis stabbed like a thorn.

Ivaris eyed the drones—so many, so close, a school of silver fish packed tight. She finally understood. Yekase was using the Combat District cameras to beam her gadget ad across all Japan, a kite string pulled from chaos.

She must’ve tasted profit at the Huaxia Branch last time, because her hands moved smooth as a river.

Ivaris shrugged, playing along like a drumbeat. “Wow. That strong? Must cost a fortune.”

“Quite the opposite.” Yekase’s smile spread like sunrise. “Paid patents only include Labyrinth City’s environment maintenance and Arcadia’s space compression. Everything else—Infinite Power applications and engine circuits—comes from my previously published Flash Energy paper cluster. Free‑patent domain. So when it hits the market, official suggested pricing won’t exceed two million per set.”

“What?! Two million to buy a self‑sufficient, comfy spaceship, a house that sails the night?”

“That’s right!”

Yekase flicked the lunchbox into the air. It rose on its own like a gull, weaving through a sea of drones, letting every camera drink in its functional lines and postmodern face.

“Preorder now. First hundred get custom paint! For details, contact the Arcadia Infinite Power Engineering Academy office!”

…

“What’s happening?!”

In a dim room somewhere, faces bleached pale by monitor glow turned anxious, eyes tight as knots.

“Drones… The instant heat in Port District S spiked too high. By auto priority, all drones swarmed that airspace like bees. We can’t grasp conditions elsewhere!”

The team lead in thick bottle‑bottom glasses snapped, voice like a ruler on a desk. “Main console, reclaim drone control. Disperse them back to their stations. We have to monitor the entire district at all times. No cheating, no accidents.”

“Yes!” “But, sir—the ratings!”

Ratings?

He glanced up at the LED mounted high on the wall, a red‑digit altar everyone prayed to. It showed the current viewership, the axis of their job, the blade of their evaluation.

49.8%.

“What—?”

Across Japan’s eight thousand satellite channels, digital TV streams, and online platforms, total watch volume had climbed to nearly half the nation. Over forty million pairs of eyes watched one scene, captured from every angle by hundreds of drones, a net cast over a single wave.

What on earth was that?

What was happening in Port District S?

The lead’s finger trembled like a leaf as he hit play.

A heartbeat later, the scene bloomed across the front wall, a lantern lit in a tight room.

Two silver‑haired girls stood in the center of the street, poised like swans in fog.

Okay, they were indeed very pretty, peaches under frost, but still—

“Two million to buy a self‑sufficient, comfy spaceship!”

The girl with a pair of strange dark‑red dragon horns lifted her eyes to the camera, right hand pressed to her straw hat, red scarf streaming like a flame-tail. She smiled bright, and her voice landed like a bell on stone.

“That’s right!”

“!!!”

“Sir, do we still disperse the drones?”

“…”

“Sir?”

“Ah—oh! If the audience likes it, keep filming. Other areas, have the plainclothes step up and watch.”

“Got it!”

Two million for a spaceship… What kind of myth was she selling? Not just a Sinister Organization; even families with modest assets could buy one, rooftops turned to sails. What level of productivity crushes price that low? Was she not making money, or did she milk lightning itself?

Arcadia—something Academy—

“Sir, incoming contact!”

“Who?”

“The leader of one competing side!”

Bad. A neutral unit stealing the spotlight must be filing a complaint, thunder rolling down the line. The lead braced himself for a tongue‑lashing, jaw tight.

“Hello, Combat District management.”

“That interloper advertising a spaceship,” came a lazy voice, a cat in sun. It was the organization’s leader—Chubu Risa.

Ah. Of course.

Too bad about that 49.8% rating, a fire he couldn’t bottle.

“Got a contact for her? Send me one.”

“Huh?”

“Do you have it?”

“N‑no… but she holds the ‘Tower’ identity card for interlopers. You should be able to see her location at all times…”

“Got it.”

…

Crimson Field tugged a pack of cigarettes off the corpse of the man once called household head, a title like a crown of thorns.

She tilted her head, drew one out, lit it from a burning wall, flame licking like a fox. She tried a drag.

Coughs ripped out, dry as sand. She spat smoke, then tossed the stick and ground it out under her heel, ash like snow.

In times like this, Lin Yuqing would laugh at her clumsy tough act, a sparrow pecking steel. Wang Zhewei would remind them not to get scorched, a bucket at the ready. Ling Ya would stretch and yawn like a cat, lids heavy. Professor F would start calculating a safe escape route, chalk lines on night. Fang Tang would black out cameras in sequence according to the path, a shadow knitting seams.

If that Doctor guy were here, he’d end with a line or two to lift spirits, words like banners. That was how Crimson Field remembered it, though Beast King Squadron and Flashblade Red hadn’t actually worked together that many times, two comets crossing once or twice.

Before coming back to Japan, she had reached out to Ling Ya. Ling was now a freshly graduated senior, her Gauntlet confiscated by Shadow Curtain International, forced to focus on exams, dry ink and late nights. But she revealed big news: Lin Yuqing and Wang Zhewei were together. It didn’t feel like a standard boy‑girl romance; proof was that whenever she saw them on the street, Wang Zhewei was in her girl state, a willow in spring. “People are more open now, yeah,” Ling Ya had said, easy as rain.

Left behind in the past, Fang Tang and Professor F had made their choices, cards played into fate. Crimson Field held only guilt and respect for them, two stones in her chest. She planned to return to Huaxia when she could, and handle their affairs herself, incense and closure.

For now, she didn’t have to be a hero resisting evil. She could just be a person who wanted to go home, a swallow seeking eaves.

A wanderer also has a home—precisely because there’s a home waiting, you earn the name “wanderer,” a boat with a harbor. If you’re rootless duckweed, every shore is home; then where’s the wandering, where’s the tide?

All around was silence, only flames swaying like tall grass.

Crimson Field drove her greatsword into the ground, iron singing like a low bell, and looked at her hands. Cadres had fought her to the last, and her arms were cut in several places, red flowing down to slender wrists and palms, now dried black like old bark.

Nothing she had held ever rose from hatred; now that revenge was done, what was left in her hands?

Space to hold more, an open sky inside the fist.

A wide future and more bonds waited ahead, rivers crossing. A mother and Shuangyu, a family scattered for years, ready at last to knit back together, a quilt warmed by breath.

She patted out the fire on her long skirt, sparks dimming like fireflies, and stepped lightly out of the Crimson Field manor, now a sea of flame, a phoenix’s nest.

“Dawn’s almost here… Time to go home.”