After leaving the Land of No-Where, Yekase briefed Dewa, Fujiwara, and the rest, then aimed like an arrow at the next stop. The first target—Second Neo-Tokyo.

“Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that,” Dewa said, voice light as a breeze over neon.

“Why?”

“New cities turn into hives of capital and hunger, a maze of glitter and empty rooms. If it’s a vacation, go somewhere irreplaceable, where the sky still breathes.”

Dewa sprawled on the floor like a cat in sun, playing pat-a-cake with the palm-sized robot on her chest—the thing they’d later name Ibu. She looked every bit a new mom fresh from postpartum confinement, soft as warm milk. But their faces, and the things they’d done in the closet, made Yekase’s gaze skitter like a spooked sparrow.

A little mom with a robot daughter?

Does probing life’s secrets with a newborn machine count as grooming, or as some heavy-metal kink hammered in a furnace?

“Mm. Sounds right,” Yekase said, her tone cool as tea at dawn.

Ivaris nodded, then turned, eyes bright as lake-light. “Then let’s go to Hokkaido.”

…Hokkaido.

Before she left, Yekase had skimmed Japan’s files. Hokkaido had been sunk years ago by a Sinister Organization that “planted mushrooms,” rumor drifting like fog. The government sealed lips until last year, slipped up, then held a public apology with three deep bows. The details evaporated like mist.

“Hokkaido, huh. Not bad,” Dewa chimed in, like wind catching chimes.

“Hold up. Didn’t they plant mushrooms? Are the radiation levels okay? Even if we’re fine, what’s to see in a nuclear ruin?”

Dewa explained as if reciting weather: “Actually a hydrogen bomb. No pollution. The central mass dropped into the sea, became a giant, never-ending vortex, but three corners of land still remain—East Capital, West Capital, and North Capital. The locals moved up.”

I see.

Yet Yekase’s gut stirred like clouds before a storm. “You said the locals…”

“Yes. During the blackout years, the government recruited groups to develop the ruins, and build the world’s first underwater megacity. My company is in the mix. The city’s grown big, now at final inspection. I can make a call. You’ll get in early.”

“…Why do you Japanese love playing in ruins?” Yekase’s smile was thin as a blade’s reflection.

And for some reason, whenever she heard “the government guarantees the seawater’s not radioactive,” laughter pricked like sleet.

Whatever. Immunity is its own umbrella.

Dewa planned to stay at the inn a few days to observe Ibu’s evolution. Yekase and Ivaris said goodbye, crossed the corridor like leaves on a breeze, climbed the stairs, and stepped onto the helipad.

Yekase patted her hip, then drew out the magical flying bed, the Swordfish.

In a few days, she’d rebuilt like a river carving banks. She didn’t dare touch the inner rune board, but added external parts galore—opaque carbon fiber shields in five directions, snack bags and a game console hung on the panels, a 30-inch screen mounted on top.

Comfort deepened like a hot spring, bigger and stronger, turning the bed into an RV with wings.

Alicia Alicia, bound by a Grand Magus—sorry, Grand Alchemist—demeanor, wouldn’t go that far into industrial fun. But a flying bed betrays a wish. Yekase had hauled that wish up like a pearl.

Ivaris ducked through the plank-door and into the bed’s space, then blinked at the full 360-degree view blooming like glass water.

“So you really like the one-way glass play?”

“Pure coincidence, coincidence…”

Yekase locked the plank, cheeks pink as sunset. The bed rose with a soft whoosh and flew northeast like a silver fish.

When Mount Fuji shrank into a bump in the rearview, Yekase booted the console, handed Ivaris a controller, and said offhand, as if tossing a stone into a pond, “Dewa’s got little gears turning. We should keep an eye.”

“What? She pulling something under the table?”

Yekase paused, then told it like a fireside tale, voice cool as moonlight:

“Say there’s a mechanic. He invents something new, only needing real combat to test. It might harm the user. So, on the surface, he halts research. In secret, he lets it leak. A would-be conqueror snatches it, thinking luck fell like gold. Without knowing, they become his lab rat. The tech leaps forward on a bloodless track, the mechanic’s hands stay white as lilies, and he even plays the victim. Then, thanks to a passerby’s good deed, he steps in, reclaims the improved tech, washes his slate clean, and strolls away with the harvest.”

“…”

Simulated daylight slid over Yekase’s face like cold glass.

“Then the mechanic tells the Samaritan—‘I was good from the start. Technology has no morals. Only users do.’ Would you trust that line?”

“…Back at the inn, you didn’t look that mad at her.”

“Of course not. She’s a tech talent. Smile like spring, and nudge her to our side—even if it’s just leaning with the wind. Arcadia’s collab announcement drops soon. Then she’ll learn no fence-sitter gets to sway twice.”

The game boot tones chimed like coins in a well.

“So the Stellar Crown was so easy to grab. Later she let you win again, pretending to weaken. Your two grabs were mutual tests, a dance in fog.”

“Yeah.”

Yekase laughed, light as rain on leaves.

“Acting. Just acting. But I’ll make her act turn real. Whose gambit is deeper? We’ll know soon enough.”

Ivaris scoffed, then pounced, pinning Yekase like a hawk on a rabbit. She tugged Yekase’s cheeks and snapped, “Black-on-black crime, huh? Look at you! Is this what heroes do?”

“I call myself a hero for branding! A persona to walk under the public glare! Do I look heroic when I switch up ways to interrogate fighters?”

“Fine, fine, fine! Then I, the last Magical Girl, will punish you, Motherlander, in the name of justice!”

…

…

The Swordfish landed at the southwestern edge of Hokkaido, the bed’s shadow long as a kite’s tail.

Before the upheaval, it was a port city. After, the function barely changed. People in workwear flowed like a tide. Something rang and throbbed behind the walls, tight as drums in war.

Yekase stayed sprawled in the RV-bed, unwilling to move, a cat refusing the rain. Ivaris, flushed like dawn, hopped off, and headed to the undersea city’s Origin Dragon Palace Immigration.

She handed over Dewa’s handwritten letter. The permit arrived like a seal dropping on warm wax.

With a “ally” forced onto the roof beam, doors in Japan swung open like bamboo blinds. Ivaris felt, for the first time, what a Sinister Organization society means. Her grasp of Yekase’s methods deepened like roots in black earth.

You can’t just dive in with your own ride. The vortex’s flow is wild as horses; one slip, and you’re flung into the Pacific like a twig. You follow the official submarine, joining the engineers like ants marching in line.

Ivaris dragged the still-twitching Yekase off the bed, a fish yanked from silk water.

“Next time, do some foreplay. Don’t go straight for the red beans. It hurts.”

“Aren’t you into the forced flavor?”

“You—!”

She’s got a hint of sadist, and found her winter window.

They shoved and bickered their way into the northern port, laughter like sparrows, steps like waves.

A submarine waited in the harbor, steel gray as a rain cloud. Far off, the sea spread hundreds of kilometers wide. From the island, you could only glimpse a wedge of the circle. One of the world’s largest islands had sunk, and the small volcanoes left no scars, as if the earth had been scrubbed clean.

In their place roared a vortex so vast it stole breath. The sea surface caved toward the center like a sky-bowl inverted, a giant mouth ready to swallow all songs. The water churned under some hidden force, never resting, hammering the right-side flood barrier thickened like a mountain’s rib. Distant islands bobbed like a single leaf in a typhoon.

Natural? Artificial? The labels fell away like leaves in autumn.

“They built under this… It’ll be a new world wonder. The Japanese eye is sharp,” Ivaris whispered, awe like incense.

Yekase turned to a captain-looking uncle. “What about water pressure below? Do people live in pods?”

“Gods, she’s ice-calm before a miracle,” Ivaris muttered, grin crooked as lightning.

“I’ll save my reaction for the city itself,” Yekase said, voice smooth as river stone.

“I can react twice,” Ivaris shot back, bright as a flare.

“Then you win.”

Only then did the captain notice the two hitchhikers. He explained, words steady as oars. “Staff pilot subs and drones. New citizens wear special suits, so they can live long-term underwater.”

“What about us?”

“You can wear them too. We’ve got spares.”

Yekase thanked him, warm as tea, and they followed the team down the open hatch, climbing the vertical ladder into the submarine belly, air smelling of iron and salt.

First time on a sub, nothing special—no grand whale chorus, no storybook blue. Through the porthole, they saw only froth. The white churn swallowed sight like snow over ink.

Everyone else got busy. The captain stood with them in the corridor, eyes on foam. “We’re at the vortex’s outer rim. The current here runs fastest, so you can’t see far. We’ll head inward. Then distance shows itself. Around Origin Dragon Palace it’s calm as a monastery—quiet and beautiful. But you two should suit up soon. They’re a pain to put on.”

He led them to the prep room by the intake chamber, steps echoing like drums.

“Suits are in the locker. Clothes go in the waterproof boxes below,” he said, then drifted off like smoke.

Ivaris popped the locker. A row of black rubber suits hung like shadows.

Why only one leg?

“This is a mermaid tail!” she yelped, delight and shock fluttering like fish scales in light.