Inside the Skyship, the girls’ “struggles” rang, like birds beating wings against tangled vines.

“A righteous Special Envoy Ranger won’t get dragged under by an evil tide of tentacles!”

“Lady Maria, this isn’t a tentacle monster; tentacle monsters don’t attack boys, like wolves that shun certain prey.”

“San Hua! Don’t mind me—run, like wind before a storm!”

“Lady Dawn Goose, I’m tangled too! If we fall, then let’s fall together again, like late autumn leaves.”

“Vines, don’t bully the sisters! Come at Ailuna instead!! >0<”

If you ignored the bright tremor of excitement in Ailuna’s voice, the girls’ words did sound righteous, like sparrows scolding a hawk.

But through layers of vines, Yue Liuyi couldn’t tell what had happened to everyone; the Skyship’s halls were choked with countless creepers, green leaves crawling like ivy over walls, like stepping into a long-abandoned forest ruin.

Thank the stars, those vines didn’t bind Yue Liuyi; when she moved, they parted slightly, like reeds opening for water, leaving her a narrow path.

“Ugh… I gotta hurry to the kitchen,” she breathed, like a fish fighting upstream.

She pushed the kitchen door through the foliage. What she saw first was Breeze, the World Tree Maiden, hanging by vines in midair, like a doll left on a branch.

The expressionless World Tree Maiden didn’t struggle at all, still as a carved figurine.

Around the tiles lay torn wrappers, Jinkela packets and dried fish snacks scattered like shed shells.

“Breeze, are you okay?” Yue’s voice trembled, like a thread in the wind.

“I’m sorry… Sis Yue, I won’t steal again,” Breeze whispered, like rain admitting its fall.

“Huh? Steal?”

“I won’t… steal Jinkela again,” she said, like a child hiding seeds behind her back.

Zaocun had egged Breeze on earlier; they’d slipped into the kitchen to steal snacks, like raccoons at night.

But the sudden vines had wrapped Breeze at once; obedient Breeze thought she’d triggered a trap, a punishment for stealing, like a net closing on a fish.

“Breeze, this isn’t punishment for stealing.”

“…?”

Breeze lifted her head a little, eyes clouded with doubt, like mist over a pond.

“Though I triggered these vines, it was an accident,” Yue said, voice thin as frost.

“Wasn’t Sis Yue going to teach me? Ailuna said, when kids make mistakes, they should be hung like this for public training,” Breeze recited, like a sparrow quoting thunder.

“Ugh! Don’t learn that from Ailuna!” Yue clutched her head, like willow leaves in a gust.

Facing the naïve World Tree Maiden, Yue Liuyi felt her temples throb; she didn’t realize she’d worried others the same way when she’d first become a girl, like a fledgling shaken from the nest.

“Anyway—this isn’t punishment. Breeze, try to open the vines,” Yue said, smoothing her tone like water over stone.

“No problem,” Breeze answered, calm as moss.

She gave a small tremor. The vines around her loosened and sagged, like boneless snakes slipping from branches.

Thud!

Yue Liuyi darted forward and caught the girl who’d been hanging, and the World Tree Maiden in her arms breathed a faint forest scent, like dew on cedar.

“Breeze, can you undo the other vines too?” Yue asked, hope flickering like a lantern.

“Of course… no problem,” Breeze replied, steady as roots.

“Then we—”

Yue reached for Breeze’s hand and stepped toward the door, when the world swam; her vision blackened, like a candle snuffed by wind.

“Sis Yue?”

“Th-this is…?” Her voice thinned, like fog pulling away from a cliff.

The déjà vu blurred like a dream she couldn’t catch; the world fell deeper and farther, and she felt herself dropping toward darkness, like a stone sinking into a lake.

Finally, the blue-haired girl passed out completely, like a night bloom closing.

…

…

Yue Liuyi didn’t know how long she slept. She woke, yet no light greeted her eyes, only a weight of dark, like wet earth in midnight rain.

“Huh? Where am I…” Her whisper drifted like a moth.

She was still in the kitchen; Breeze’s silhouette had vanished like a shadow peeled from a wall.

More crumpled snack bags littered the floor around her, chaotic as leaves after a storm.

“Where’s Breeze…?” Yue rubbed her tired forehead, propping herself up with both hands, standing like bamboo bending under snow.

The vines were gone, but outside the window lay a pitch-black night, no glimmer at all; only the fridge’s indicator lamp gave the kitchen a faint glow, like a firefly hovering.

“I actually… slept this long?” The thought clawed like thorn.

A prickle of wrongness rose. If she’d been out that long, LittleSnow would’ve come to wake her; no one would leave her lying on a cold kitchen floor, like driftwood on ice.

“Could it be…?” Anxiety bit, like frost under skin.

She rushed to the kitchen doorway and shoved the sliding door, but it felt sealed, immovable as a stone gate in a cliff.

“The door isn’t locked! What’s going on!?” Her breath came sharp, like a sparrow striking glass.

Through the thick frosted glass, she couldn’t see the restaurant; the door’s black pane meant the lights were off there too, like a cave swallowed the room.

“In that case…” A nameless urgency wrapped the blue-haired girl, tight as nettles.

She raised a hand at the door and shaped a spell. Magic surged at her fingertips with a whoosh, like spring water breaking ice; the sliding door opened, and light washed the room—then what appeared froze her, like winter gripped bone.

Purple-red vines strangled the restaurant, glowing with an eerie crimson in the boundless dark, like embers breathing under ash.

The leaves that had covered them were gone; in their place were rows of blood-red barbs, like thorns on a poison rose.

With each beat of Yue Liuyi’s heart, the vines writhed in answer, like eels in a red tide.

Tables and chairs lay broken; furniture disjointed, tangled in spined vines, wreckage strewn like a storm-torn grove.

A cold to the marrow spread up Yue Liuyi’s back, like ice threading a river; she didn’t know what had happened to stain the vines into this.

“LittleSnow!? Senior Dawn Goose? Maria?” She called into the crimson thicket, voice ringing like a bell in a tomb.

No answer came. The once warm, playful Skyship had turned cold as an old grave; only Yue Liuyi’s cries fell back on her, like snow falling into snow.

Her walk snapped into a run; her steps beat the floor like rain. She craved a voice to answer, anything to keep the worst thought from taking root, like weeds in spring.

“Huff, huff…” Her breath rasped, like wind through reeds.

At last she reached the sunroom on the third floor—a place where Breeze had once healed, green and bright; before Yue left, both Dixue and Zaocun had been confined there, like butterflies pinned to a page.

“LittleSnow, I’m late! Are you—huh?” Her words broke, like a string cut.

And then—

Yue Liuyi dropped to her knees with a thump, like a tree felled.

What lay before her felt impossible, like a storm in a clear sky.

Yet reality stood there, hard as rock.

…

In the center of the room, a mass of blood-red vines,

wrapped around a

corpse.

Eyes once emerald were dull gray, like pond water after soot.

A face that had been flawless was speckled with blood-blotches, like rotten fruit skins clinging.

The lips were gone; the jaw with them; only teeth remained, jagged and gleaming, like shards of ice.

Silver hair lay in a matted heap, wild like roadside dead grass.

The barbed meat-hooks of the vines had sunk into skin piece by piece; yet no fresh blood flowed, the flesh ashen and drained, like a mummy dried by desert wind.

On the other side, it was the same…

Cat ears once lively were still forever, like frost-stilled flowers.

A pitch-black tail drooped powerless, yet denied mercy; barbed vines hauled it tight, like a rope around a branch.

The chaos showed she’d struggled, frantically, like a trapped fox tearing at snares.

Biting or clawing, nothing broke those bindings, like teeth against iron.

In the end, under layer after layer of interwoven vines,

life reached its final hush, like dusk swallowing a field.

…

Yue Liuyi couldn’t believe it, couldn’t breathe.

Those two familiar shapes were the ones she knew—

the impish LittleSnow who adored her, bright as sparrow song,

and the guileless Zaocun who loved dried fish, cheerful as a brook in spring.

…

“This can’t be! It can’t!! It’s not real!!!!!!!” The blue-haired girl screamed and fled the room, like a deer bursting from brush.

But a girl,

blocked her path, like a shadow stepping from moonlight.

From the gloom rose a maiden with emerald hair; she looked eerily calm, like a statue in a shrine.

She didn’t smile or cry; she simply stared at Yue Liuyi, blank as mist.

“B-Breeze!?” Yue’s voice shook, like a reed.

“Sis Yue, do you know? There are no living people in the Skyship now,” Breeze said, light as falling ash.

“!?” Yue’s eyes widened; she crumpled to her knees, like clay.

“It was Sis Yue who killed everyone. Otherwise, there was no way to stop your rampage,” Breeze murmured, like winter speaking through leaves.

“M-my… my…?” Yue looked at her own hands, heart knocking like a trapped bird.

She didn’t know when her hands had turned—

blood-red like those vines, slick as crimson sap.

“Dixue told me before she died… Please let Sis Yue live on alone,” Breeze said, voice tender as moss.

“Before… died… live on alone?” The words scraped like gravel.

“Mm. That’s everyone’s wish,” Breeze nodded, gentle as dusk.

Yue Liuyi’s eyes stretched wide. In her mind swam the corpses again, pictures like knives.

Her heart collapsed, like a levee breaking.

The body was, without a doubt, LittleSnow.

The body was, without a doubt, Zaocun.

It was her who killed them.

It was her who killed everyone.

Breeze drifted close, looking at the shattered blue-haired girl, like a moth to a lantern.

On her blank face bloomed a first smile.

It was a wicked smile,

curved like a blade.

“Everyone forgave you, but I don’t plan to,” she breathed, soft as poison.

“Eh…?”

“Die, you devil who slaughtered your companions,” she said, voice cold as iron.

Blood-red vines surged at Breeze’s command and wrapped Yue Liuyi, like serpents knotting a trunk.

Pain like needles stabbed her skin; agony rushed her nerves, sharp as frost-burn.

Her blood was drawn away, sucked like tide leaving the shore.

Her body went numb with pain, like limbs buried in snow.

Yet she laughed, a cracked sound like a dry branch.

Because like this, she could—

be free.