Flora stared at Jiang Bailu, stunned.

"You... are you a hero too?"

"I'm not. I'm just atoning."

An updraft from nowhere tugged her lab coat, the hem snapping like a white banner.

Once the Coffee Moon's field formed, it sipped power. Without changing parameters, upkeep was light. So even with sweat beading her brow, Jiang Bailu could speak.

"Now, there's a task only a hero can handle."

"What—what is it?!"

"By safety regs, everyone's gathered at the Academy plaza and the Krasus Platform. I need you to warn them—evacuate all from the Cloud-Crown Archipelago."

"Abandon the hard-won home and run? What kind of hero does that!"

Jiang Bailu shot her a glance.

It was ice with grit, a chill blade of annoyance. The naked malice made Flora shiver like a leaf.

"...!"

She barely registered herself standing. When she came to, she was ten meters away. The distance felt skipped—no, compressed.

Flora stopped thinking. She ran down Arcadia's streets, ran and ran and ran—

She reached the gate of the Arcadia Engineering Academy.

Students and teachers filled the plaza, a tide waiting on fate's next wave.

"There's someone at the gate!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"Flora? Finally. We thought you vanished!" Her counselor shouldered through, waving. "We've raised a shield, but that thing above—who knows. Where'd you go?"

"Everyone, quick—"

Run, please—

Flora opened her mouth as wide as it would go. Only her ragged breath came out. The rest stuck like thorns.

Is it really no use?

No way out?

What can we still do—

"Everyone—aim upward and deploy your Floating Discs together! If we mesh all our discs, we can catch that black stuff and buy the hero a chance!"

...

Her voice was small, broken by gaps.

Yet silence fell. Even the whispering students turned to her.

"Yeah..." "I'm a mage too..." "Protect the Academy together!" "I failed in Sorcery Dynamics, not thrilled to protect—"

After a rustle of murmurs,

With a bright shout of "Oz Floating Disc!" a blue disc appeared in the sky. To mark placement for long-range coordination, the once-transparent Sorcery construct took color via parameter tweaks.

A second, yellow disc flared beside it.

Then a red third, a purple fourth—

Casting rose and fell like surf. Dots of color sprouted like bamboo after rain, stitching themselves onto the canvas of the sky, as if to dye the dreadful black energy with lively hues.

An apocalypse-sized whirl, a literal drowning doom, could be nothing more than one dark cloud.

With every breath, the cluster grew wider. At last it spread into a shield, broader and thicker than the first wave of Hindrance Ripples.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "This is our city, Arcadia... we protect it with our own hands!"

Property rights were messy in practice, but everyone cheered in rough harmony, an "oh-oh-oh" rising like drums.

...

...

Inside the black egg.

"Haa... haa..."

In a black space that shouldn't exist, Ling Yi lay spent on the ground.

She had thrown out Hindrance Ripples at full spread, then taken a micro-black-hole blast at zero range. She had burned out. Nothing left.

The android dressed as Jiang Bailu shed its last armor. It wasn't unscathed either, patches exposing innards not meant for flesh.

Compared to Ling Yi, it was a scratch.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The android walked toward Ling Yi, steps like a metronome.

Is it ending here—

"What silly talk, Mom..."

Luo Jie's voice rose from the other side.

"We... still have our lives!"

Ling Yi turned her neck toward Luo Jie. Even that motion drained her. Since the Sky Striker system evolved, it had been ages since she felt this total burn.

Luo Jie lay on her side, watching Ling Yi.

Her gaze was steady. Fight burned in those ruby eyes.

"Luo... Jie..."

"Mom, use this!"

A red streak split the dark.

Ling Yi reached out and caught it—a Flashblade Key.

"...Ah!"

A relic left by myself from a parallel world?

Ling Yi felt her heartbeat drum. She pushed the new spark of Flash Energy into it. The key booted up. No armor appeared. Instead, a voice spoke.

Her own voice.

I staked hope on the past.

—You I have never met. If your heart holds any strength, take one more step forward.

Then...

Go in my stead. Walk to the final battlefield.

...

It was only a handful of words.

"But... enough."

Ling Yi pressed up with a hand, then a knee, and finally, wavering, she stood.

If my heart still holds strength—other than the lone power called life—

It does.

"The one who gives the final answer..."

Not the Sky Striker system. Not the dragon form. A power recognized only as Ling Yi. Unique under the sky.

"...is me."

Crack—!

A bolt of crimson thunder tore the endless black curtain and struck Ling Yi.

In the lightning, her long hair shed to gray, tying itself into twin tails. Rags became a black uniform. A peaked cap drifted down.

Ling Yi set the cap on her head.

She held the brim and swept it right.

"The one who roams the world, spending a life connecting the stars upon the earth—if none exists yet, I'll be the first."

Bang!

A bright pillar burst before Ling Yi, driving back the android lunging at her.

It was the skill of Magical Girl "Rainbow"... and yet it felt different. Like Yekase borrowed Carol's beast claws, yet with a different core. Ling Yi had borrowed a senior's special effects for now.

The light folded in an instant. A figure appeared.

"What in—"

Jiang Bailu stood between them, at a loss.

A second ago she was on Arcadia's ground, admiring how Flora handled things, while dialing down the Coffee Moon to catch her breath. She blinked. The world shifted.

And now another "her" stood before her.

"Doctor... where is she..." Metal rasped in the copy's voice.

...

...?

What is going on?

The resolve she had just tempered seemed to slip away.

"As I thought! Connecting the stars upon the earth—my Magical Girl ability is to call people in!"

"Explain that to me clearly!" Jiang Bailu snapped, composure cracking.

"That one comes from another worldline! Over there, the Magical Girl never revived. The Doctor turned into an actual high-school girl! That other me lacked the last piece, so she told me, 'If your heart still holds strength.'"

"So it's your 'my humble guess' again?!"

"Yep!"

She admitted it without shame. When she turns the hacks up, even basic law bends. That chaotic flair—pure Ling Yi.

"Then call more people. We'll mob it."

Jiang Bailu eyed the thing that looked exactly like her, reluctant to make a rash move. If the body data matched hers, did that mean her weak spots were exposed?

"I can't. The ability... seems to auto-pick whoever fits this moment best."

"Me? It's me?"

Fine. Park the resolve and feelings. If I'm dragged here, I beat what's in front of me, then we talk—

Jiang Bailu raised her hand. She tried to send the Coffee Moon to punch "herself." Her finger pointed. The black phantom didn't move.

"Doctor... where is she?"

Her heart stalled on the order.

That so-called parallel self kept murmuring about the Doctor...

So that's it. Even in another line, she couldn't win the Doctor's sole love. She could only be a near-family, standing aside, feeling extra.

"I..." Jiang Bailu's hand sank. "Can't I let her... see the Doctor once? I'll restrain her. Just one look..."

"She's lying!"

"What?"

"In that line, the Doctor is a high-school girl. Everyone's memory is rewritten! The real other Bailu wouldn't remember the Doctor at all! You're better than her!"

...

"Ah. Right." The Coffee Moon.

Jiang Bailu muttered, half-blank, half-enlightened. She walked over and helped Luo Jie up. Behind her, Coffee Moon's twin fists blurred and slammed the android's chest, twisting and tearing it into a storm of parts and wire.

"Bailu, welcome back." Ling Yi watched Jiang Bailu cradling Luo Jie, moved. "Done with your sulk?"

"Uh—yeah. No next time. Turns out compulsion and compulsion aren't the same... Love's too complicated. Let's shelve it for two hundred years. I still owe the Doctor an apology first..."

Jiang Bailu babbled on, then remembered everything she'd done. She turned her head aside, embarrassed.

"So I'll make a vow to the present... and the me to come will be the answer to today."