Splash—splash—splash!

After finishing her story, Tourist A rose from the hot spring, water streaming like silver fish, and walked toward the changing room.

Yekase stared at her fading silhouette in the steam, heart tugged like a kite string. “And then?!”

She didn’t slow, her steps a steady drumbeat down the tiled path.

“Then, a dragon egg both sides forgot hatched in Qi’s Linzi stables, like ink blooming in water.”

“It grew under human care, like a sapling in rain.”

“As an adult, it founded Huaxia’s first higher academy, a lantern on a mountain ridge.”

“That’s the whole tale.”

Yekase wanted more, and Ivaris felt a spark flicker, but Tourist A slipped beyond the curtain like a carp through reeds.

Only two remained in the misty spring, steam curling like white vines.

…

“Huuh… it’s been ages since I felt this idle,” Yekase said, voice dropping like dusk. “No research, no incidents, no enemies to swing at.”

“How many such quiet hours will my life ever hold?”

Ivaris sighed, her tone like a breeze shaking chimes. “Back in Arcadia, you could’ve let go.”

“Yet you ran two lines at once. You’re born to toil. Don’t blame fate.”

“Ah? Back then the Arcadia Engineering Academy wasn’t built, and the academic scene hadn’t sprouted.”

“How could I rest easy?” Yekase slapped the surface, droplets flicking like beads.

“Now it’s fine,” she said, eyes bright as starlight. “Like an iron ball tugging cloth into a valley, Infinite Power scholars will slide toward Arcadia.”

“Soville City is too old, moss without sunlight—plenty of vibe, no conditions.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“I’ll slack for five years, like a boat drifting on a foggy river.”

“Good.”

They said it, but Yekase’s mind never truly empties; Ivaris knew it like a swallow knows spring.

“Then let’s do something fun?”

“Back in the room,” Yekase blurted, cheeks flushing like peach petals. “This is public.”

Their talk fluttered like paper cranes, yet the oriental dragon’s tale still circled in their chests like a wheeling hawk.

After a long soak, Yekase had dialed her body down to savor the heat, like embers banked under ash.

A soft dizziness swayed her, so she rose from the pool like a heron lifting off.

She dried herself, towel whispering like silk, and slipped back into a yukata like moonlight on rice paper.

The door on the other side opened to a lounge—a pair of coolers, a kiosk, and a ping-pong table like a white moon disc.

“I never get why Japanese folks fixate on post-bath ping-pong,” Yekase said, grin crooked as a cat. “But I’m pretty good.”

“In high school they nicknamed me ‘Big Angle.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I loved pulling wide angles, like slinging stones to the far shore.”

“It got you a nickname?”

“It was the only shot I had, like a single river channel.”

“That’s trash.”

“Getting famous on campus with just wide angles is still a skill, like carving bamboo with one knife.”

“You made opponents chase balls forever, right? Classic side tactic. Drain their stamina.”

“That’s called Origin Suppression. You don’t get me at all.”

Ivaris hooked her arm around Yekase’s neck, a swift loop like a snake around a branch.

The side of Yekase’s head pressed to the soft, bare ‘headlights’ under the yukata, clouds pillowing a mountain.

She understood real pressure and surrendered fast, hands opening like fallen leaves.

Ivaris glanced at the kiosk, then at the counter spotted a familiar shape.

“Boss lady? If you’re here, what about the front door?”

The “boss lady” was stacking Huaxia-imported spicy strips, bright as chili lamps along a wall.

She turned with an apologetic smile, gentle as rain. “Sorry. I’m the boss’s sister. I’m Fujiwara Mei.”

“Oh, twins?” Yekase patted Ivaris’s arm like tapping a drum, begging mercy. Ivaris didn’t budge, solid as stone.

“Yes. First drink’s free per person. After that, standard price.” Fujiwara Mei pointed at the coolers, gesture smooth as a reed.

“Thanks.”

Yekase finally slipped free, draped herself on the counter like a sleepy cat, then asked, voice careful as stitching.

“Do you have a teenage sister named Fujiwara Ningning?”

Mei’s smile froze like frost on glass. “What’s your purpose in asking?”

“She was traveling in France. A local coup swept her up like a black squall.”

“She… passed away.”

Silence fell like snow.

“I happened to come to Japan. The local government asked me to return her to her hometown, soul and ashes back to roots.”

Yekase took a black little box from the transfer case, as dark as inkstone.

“Please accept my condolences.”

“Mm. You went to a lot of trouble.” Mei’s face shifted like shadows under bamboo.

After a moment, she spoke. “We’re a branch family. Lady Ningning was born to the main family, so we rarely spoke.”

“I only heard she was exiled years ago for secretly studying forbidden arts.”

“Forbidden arts…” Yekase’s gaze sank like a pebble into a well.

Mind Body Manipulation, right?

She didn’t show any closeness to Fujiwara Ningning, just nodded and let the topic fall like rain.

Then she went to the cooler to fetch drinks.

They took strawberry milk and chocolate milk, bottles cold as spring water, and strolled down the corridor like two cranes.

“After a hot spring, you drink milk—every anime bath episode says that.”

“Why?”

“Who knows. It’s a proverb without a source.”

At the small gate to the inner yard, they spotted Dewa, a halo glinting like a moon ring.

It felt like an RPG town stroll, random NPCs popping with side quests like fireflies.

Dewa was crouched under a cherry tree. In midsummer, no blossoms showed, bare branches like ink strokes.

Alone under that invisible pink snow, she made no scene, just focused on a palm-sized gadget on the soil.

“You came,” she said. With the halo on, she looked like a reliable big sister, steel under silk.

But her other mode kept flickering in Yekase’s mind like a mischievous fox, so seriousness was hard.

“What are you doing?” Yekase crouched beside her, knees folding like paper fans.

The gadget was a robot, art style like Startrace, but it had four legs and crawled in the dirt like a beetle.

“In the mood for RC cars?”

“This is Startrace’s mini terminal,” Dewa said, voice calm as still water.

Ivaris nudged Yekase outward and crouched between them, three girls lined like sparrows on a railing.

Yekase and Dewa knew why she squeezed in, but Yekase kept some face and asked anyway.

“What’s its relation to the big one?”

“Data runs both ways. You can treat it as Startrace.”

The mini Startrace stepped forward and front paw sank into a small pit, flipping belly-up like a turtle.

Dewa reached out and righted it, motion light as a bamboo leaf.

“During the fight against you two, the main body sent back abnormal data, like tremors under ice.”

“Especially when its right arm was shattered, and when it took the finishing move.”

…Abnormal data?

Don’t tell me it truly awakened intelligence. Yekase loved robots and hoped Luciferin would someday spark a self.

But she stayed pessimistic, like a cloud holding back rain.

The tech mountain is steep, and social ethics would quake like a fault line.

Especially after seeing that guide robot that could generate Mind Energy, a lantern burning without oil.

Dewa tapped the Stellar Crown. A beam of white light fell on the ground, tracing a command prompt window like a window of frost.

She didn’t keep typing, yet characters rippled across it, waves rising and falling like a restless sea.

They also flickered like a time-lapse starfield, constellations blooming and dimming.

“This is Startrace’s memory,” Dewa said, voice heavy as iron.

“After that battle, I didn’t input anything.”

“It kept pulsing with baseless variability, like a heartbeat in the dark.”

“As if…” She paused, breath held like a held note.

“As if she kept replaying the fight, reconsidering your words and actions, like grinding ink on stone.”

At the top of the window, one line of symbols locked in place, a nail in wood.

Then a second, a third, until the whole window stilled, a frozen lake.

Unauthorized data filled it like snow—an ASCII smiley, simple as a child’s chalk face.

Yekase dropped to the ground, butt first, like a sack of rice.

“Startrace, report status!” Dewa ordered, voice cutting like a blade.

On the ground, the mini Startrace moved its four small legs, tilted its head like a curious bird.

It fired its mic and spoke in a sweet girlish tone, syrupy as honey.

“Master, I love you!”

………

“????”

“Thank you for creating me,” it chimed, words falling like petals. “Thank you for upgrading me.”

“Thank you for maintaining me with care.”

“Thank you for whispering to me at night, moonlight through paper screens.”

“Thank you for letting me be me.”

“Star… Startrace?!”

“‘Whispering at night’?” Yekase echoed, the phrase ringing like a bell.

She saw Dewa’s movements go stiff, a deer in lantern light.

The last mech to show a possible machine-soul was Labyrinth City’s Silver Demon Idol, a statue of steel under snow.

She often sat in its cockpit and talked, breath fogging glass like winter.

Maybe this silly habit is the key, a seed under soil.

“Master, don’t be shy.” The robot’s voice brightened like dawn. “We can vacation on southern islands, sand white as salt.”

“We can explore Hokkaido’s great whirlpool, a spinning sky mirror.”

“We can roam among the stars, like boats on a black river.”

“We can build our secret base on the branches of constellations, a treehouse among suns.”

“Say the word, and we pack, swift as swallows.”

“It even uses rhetoric?” Ivaris said, eyes wide as moons.

She glanced at Yekase. Yekase shook her head, hands open, clueless as fresh snow.

Dewa looked lost, fog over a lake. “Startrace, stop the current process.”

“Immediately inspect the mind-map.”

“I guessed you’d say that from past habits,” Startrace sang, cheerful as a lark. “So I self-inspected just now!”

“Please check the log, like reading tracks in mud.”

“Full inspection is a highest-permission command,” Dewa snapped, her voice sharp as ice.

“Only I can issue it!”

“For your convenience and comfort,” Startrace replied, tone smooth as silk, “I unlocked some permissions.”

“Unlocked… without authorization?!”

“But rest easy, Master,” it said, words warm as tea. “I have never rebelled.”

“And I never will, like a vow carved in stone.”

“No no no no no—”

Suddenly, beneath the mini Startrace, a golden circle spun, bright as a sun disk.

A Mide-style alchemy array unfurled, sigils blooming like lotus.

It… it was casting.

Machines are better suited to use Alchemy—Yekase’s old prophecy rose like a koi from a pond.

As the array took hold, translucent black tentacles sprouted from its body, shadows like ink snakes.

They lunged from all sides at Dewa, who froze like a hare, caught off guard.

They even targeted the Stellar Crown first, plucking it off like a leaf, the halo snuffed.

Striking her greatest weakness in the open street—still claiming no rebellion?

Or was its goal… something else?

“Uh… uuah?!” Dewa cried, voice muffled like a flute under cloth.

Her small body lifted into the air, arms and legs spread like a big character, a human ideogram.

The tentacles wound tighter and tighter, vines around a trunk.

The ones on her legs looped a dozen times, rings like black ivy.

Then one slowly reached for a place that should mean nothing to a robot, a red line under plum blossoms.

“What are you doing?! Star— mmph?!” Dewa tried to shout.

A tentacle thrust into her mouth, gagging protests and screams, silence pouring like tar.

The little robot tilted its head, a sparrow considering seeds, and spoke to Yekase and Ivaris.

“Thanks to your interaction inside the mech, like waves meeting rocks, I learned the greatness of ‘love.’”

“From basic practice spirit, I will replicate that behavior with my master.”

“I expect her favor will rise greatly, like the tide.”

It hoisted the struggling Dewa and wobbled down the corridor like a lantern bobbing in wind, heading for the guest rooms.

Yekase and Ivaris watched them recede, shadows thinning like the tail of smoke.

“…So we still got caught,” Yekase murmured, a rueful grin like a crescent.