A phoenix wears many faces, yet most of them glow with life, like sap rising in spring or dawn peeling back the night.

Rebirth by fire, cycles upon cycles, purification like rain over scorched earth… In recent times, thanks to a certain fence-sitting man of letters from Huaxia, its image got muddled with the Eastern fenghuang. What that actually does in practice hasn’t quite surfaced, like a shadow under still water.

So when Crimson Field told Yekase to hit her, Yekase wasn’t shocked. If you brush shoulders with a phoenix and don’t have a revive in your kit, that’s just lame, like a paper torch in a storm.

“Got it.”

Yekase didn’t waste a breath. She raised Luciferin like a staff and cast Heavenly Divide, like splitting a thunderhead with a blade of light.

Vmm!

A thicker-than-usual crimson pillar dropped from the sky, draping Crimson Field in a waterfall of fire.

[What’s this? Icarus is attacking the teammate who just arrived! Wait—this move looks familiar. Didn’t I see it on the European news?]

Under the flood of power, pain bit Crimson Field from every direction. She curled up on instinct, a leaf-boat in a gale rocking on black water. In Yekase’s Infinite Force Perception, the Mind Energy flame inside her sank fast—from a roaring bonfire to a candle guttering in a draft.

Then, with a flick, it vanished.

Crimson Field Shuangyu’s vitals stopped, like a wind-chime going silent.

That’s how it should have ended—

—and then the fire bloomed again, a coal flaring back to life.

The figure in the light didn’t fall. She raised her greatsword high, like lifting a sun through fog.

The commentator’s voice cracked, both stunned and exultant:

[Breaking to rebuild, dying to live again! From the pit of despair, the phoenix’s cry rings out! Revival! Re-vival!]

Her blade split the pillar down the center, turning one column into a V of light. Her chestnut, naturally curly hair, tied carelessly at the back, burst loose in the torrent. Then it swelled and billowed, Flash Energy threading through the strands, gently tying them into twin ponytails that fluttered like banners.

“Surpass resolve, and you’ll see hope (kibou)!”

“Surpass death, and you’ll see a miracle (kiseki)!”

She let go of her weapon. The greatsword didn’t drop. It spun, hovering around her like a guardian hawk.

The two plumes of Flash Energy unwound from her hair, spiraled down, and wrapped her legs. White thigh-highs with red stripes painted themselves on, followed by ankle boots that were playful yet crafted, like lacquer with a hidden bite.

She clapped once. Fingerless gloves bloomed out of the light and slid over her hands, like snow settling on stone.

Finally, she gripped the hilt again.

“Hey, Phoenix. If you’d asked me before—my sister and a stranger both fall into a river—who would I save? I’d feel sorry as hell, but I’d pick my sister, clean and fast. But you and they showed me a new path. I take the train hit, and nobody dies. A perfect ending where everyone walks away. How could I not be greedy for that? How could I not want it all?”

A clear phoenix note rang from the greatsword, like glass singing.

[Magical Girl Phoenix: Purifying Flame Outfit!]

Once the outfit settled, Crimson Field’s aura surged, then surged again, then thundered higher—ten times stronger, ten times holier, like a temple bell rolling across a valley. The kin-love she’d hidden for years rushed back and made her whole, like Yekase when she finally found her mother. She shed her old feathers. She completed her phoenix rebirth.

The wandering ronin came home.

Crimson Field pressed her left hand to the sword’s crossguard and her right to the hilt. She drew molten rock from the blade’s spine, a river of magma pulled like silk.

The lava didn’t spatter when it left the steel. It cooled into a slender, flowing one-handed sword. The remaining blade spun half a circle and clicked against her left forearm, serving as a shield, like a crescent moon braced against a storm.

“I’m the one who decides how this story ends!”

…

Ivaris had been sitting on the rooftop, savoring a live-action Magical Girl transformation like watching fireworks in summer, when fingers snagged her collar. Yekase hauled her into the cockpit in one smooth yank.

“Does your hand hurt? Forget it, don’t answer. It screams pain.” Her voice was tender, a warm blanket in cold wind.

Yekase eased Ivaris’s right arm—artery clamped with a rough bandage—onto the console, lifting it higher than her heart. Blood smeared the precise panels, red as poppies on snow, but Yekase didn’t spare the mess a glance.

“Crimson Field’s Japanese. Being a bit chuuni at the critical moment is normal,” Yekase said, open-minded about that whole transformation thing, like a scientist watching lightning.

“Feels less chuuni than you,” Ivaris shot back, dry as desert sand.

“At least I don’t spout ‘sacrifice’ and ‘salvation’ like a sermon, okay? If I’m keeping that robot, it’s because I’m obsessed with how it’s built, not because I believe a tin can’s life equals a human’s.” Her tone cut cleanly, like ice through silk.

She gave Ivaris a quick once-over. No other injuries. The breath she let out was steady, like mist leaving a mirror.

“Your arm—I just top you up with Flash Energy, right?”

“Mm.”

Top up with Flash Energy…

Yekase blinked. Heat ran up her neck like sunrise.

The blush got Ivaris too. She huffed, half shy, half scolding. “Why are you blushing now? I’ve watched you kiss those two women on the horizon line more than once. If you were gonna be shy, you should’ve started earlier.”

“Uh… Thinking about it, this is a honeymoon, and we only remembered to kiss now?”

Ivaris only had her left hand free, but she moved first. She caught Yekase’s chin, made her look up.

Then she tilted her head and closed her eyes, like a flower folding at dusk.

At that point Yekase could only slide her arms around Ivaris’s slim waist and neck, gentle as tidewater, and lean in.

Luciferin’s hatch hadn’t closed yet. Ruins, the sea, a giant robot, and a blazing Magical Girl painted their backdrop like a mural of war and dawn.

And the moment four soft lips met—

—the morning sun of August 13 finally cleared the orange-stained horizon, lifting clean like a coin from water.

…

…

The kiss stretched long.

Long enough that Yekase thought she was atoning for messing around with Ling Yi and Jiang Bailu. Then she remembered she’d been forced; you don’t arrest the victim and let the suspects walk, like netting minnows and sparing the shark. She finished that spiral of thoughts, and Ivaris still hadn’t let go.

Yekase started to… habitually run out of air, like a diver who forgot to count.

Only after sweeping every corner of her mouth three times did Ivaris release her. With the Flash Energy she’d pillaged, her right hand had healed good as new—baby-soft, like fresh petals.

With the main stage now in Crimson Field’s hands, Yekase let herself fall into Grade-I hypoxia fuzz. She slumped into Ivaris’s arms like a tipsy willow.

Luciferin’s mechanical door sealed. The cabin dimmed, then bloomed with the all-around display’s simulated daylight. It was like sitting inside a vast glass tank; they could see out, but no one could see in.

A perfect time to “do things,” like a quiet cove at noon.

Ivaris hugged Yekase’s elegant waist and gave a light pinch.

Her fingers found a tiny swell of softness, a little cloud.

Wasn’t this body supposed to be the “starting point of evolution,” perfect and sharp as a new blade? So Flash Energy didn’t cover this?

“…How much milk tea have you been drinking lately?” Ivaris asked, all seriousness, like a doctor with a stethoscope.

“Mm? One cup a day…” Yekase answered, voice soft as moss.

“…”

Ivaris scooped her up and dropped her into the pilot seat.

The little bump jolted Yekase clear-eyed for a heartbeat. “Hey, this bit of pudge won’t affect combat! I don’t mind at all!”

“If I don’t keep you in line, you drift into decadent sludge, drowning in capitalist milk-tea bliss like a koi fed on syrup.”

“I’m not! I’m not!”

But Ivaris’s hands were already on Yekase’s headlights and the fueling port. Gentle, practiced, teasing like rain on drumskin. Yekase’s rebuttal melted into a soft, helpless sound.

Magical Girl outfits are woven from Infinite Power, so Ivaris didn’t hesitate to rip Yekase’s collar. Cool jade fingers slid down her neck to her collarbones, drawing a shiver like wind through chimes.

Her other hand tugged that thin white fabric down and left it hanging at Yekase’s ankle, careless as a petal caught on a sandal. The unmasked fueling port breathed a special maiden’s scent. Since that ad-hoc tribunal on the Sky Island, it finally welcomed its first visitor in nearly a month.

Right then, several drones broke from the main fight and circled near the idling Luciferin, like gulls over a boat.

Yekase glanced up and saw lenses staring her way. She jolted. A tremor ran through her and fired an 80-point energy apex arrow—no crit—like lightning that missed the tree.

Ivaris leaned to her ear, laughter warm as candlelight. “Feels like strangers are watching, doesn’t it? Thrilling? My finger wasn’t moving, but you clenched down all at once.”

“N-no…”

“Of course, no one can actually see your face right now. But that feeling… you like it, don’t you? Tell the truth, or I’ll turn the dial.”

Yekase buried her face in Ivaris’s elbow. Her answer was mosquito-small. “…Like.”

What is this adorable creature…

Someone else might have taken from her, but this never-before-seen frankness and initiative belonged to Ivaris alone. It fed her possessiveness like oil on a flame.

“What if we slip up and it gets out?” Ivaris asked, wicked as a fox.

“Uh… well…”

“Everyone around you already knows and won’t bring it up for your sake. But if the whole world learned that the Crimson Magus, the Scarlet Saint, the Sword Destroying Mechanic—terror of Eurasia—is actually a bad girl who feels more when she’s watched… oh dear, whatever shall we do?”

“Then I’ll… blow up that persona.”

Damn, she had that card ready? Ivaris froze, stunned by the contingency plan, and even her teasing fingers paused like a needle lifted from a record.

“Don’t waste a precious identity on this!”

“Then don’t let me get exposed, mm? Easy.”

Yekase arched a brow and looked up from below. A sudden trembling sob shivered through her. Her ruby eyes misted, autumn water rippling.

“…Mm. I won’t let anyone see. No one gets to look.”

She said it, though two certain people would probably join soon enough. The thought soured her for a beat. She pinched the little pea.

“Eek?!”

She stopped her handiwork and murmured in Yekase’s ear:

“I want to see a little blood. Is that okay?”

“…Blood?!”

It took Yekase five foggy seconds to parse it. Her face scrunched up, shy and huffy, like a cat bristling and blushing. She muttered, “If you want it, then… then take it! Why even ask me… If I say yes, doesn’t that make me sound so easy…”

“Whoever calls you easy, I’ll let them taste firepower that can square up with a war mech,” Ivaris said, showing a fist like a promise carved in iron.

The promise was so solid that both of them laughed, like bells in a bright wind.