"Cannon's Verdict!" Amelia.

"Determination!" Ling. (You see a red heart pulsing before you, a lantern in fog that fills you with determination.)

"Heart Command." Amelia.

"Vines of Control!" Alicia. (Mr. Tentacles makes an entrance, willow whips unfurling.)

"Tsk... Sis, you're gross..." Ling.

"Heh... I agree with you, and then..." Amelia.

...

This "game" felt dull, like chewing ink to pass a language exam. Boredom dripped from a gray eave.

To Ling, it was unfair, a tilted board under winter wind. She'd say a word beyond her range, and Amelia would have a spell starting with that syllable.

Worse, the judges called those spells valid, like red lacquer seals. Her blood simmered like a kettle.

She was just a loli with the Magic Cannon, a small firework under a vast night. No other tricks in her sleeves.

Alicia's spell lore was limited too, a bookshelf missing half its scrolls. It wasn’t her fault; this world holds no bizarre creed like “a melee who can’t cast with an axe isn’t a proper assassin.”

She still wondered how Blank in anime planned it, moving chess in mist. Facing unknown terms felt like traveling a night road.

"Hey, your turn, Miss Ling. If you stall, you’ll be judged defeated." Amelia’s reminder rang like a bell over calm water.

She didn’t drag it to fifteen seconds. That restraint felt like courtesy, a tea cup offered before a bout.

"Hey... Amelia, don’t you feel bored?" Ling’s voice curled like smoke from damp firewood.

"Not really," Amelia said, eyes cold as frost on pine. "It decides our future, so I go all in."

"How about you surrender? I don’t want to play. It’s not thrilling." Ling’s heart beat like a trapped sparrow.

Capricious—she asked to play, then wanted out. Worse, she asked the other to yield, a cherry branch bent too far.

"Me, surrender? Impossible," Amelia said, smile thin as a blade. "If you can’t say a word starting with ‘lin’ in five seconds, the game ends."

"Tsk... ‘phosphodiester bond.’" Ling spat the term like a seed. Her tongue skipped stones across a river.

"Key Twenty: Crimson-Black Grand." Amelia’s call cracked like thunder behind a paper screen.

"You and your nonsense spell names are infuriating! — ‘Big-Word Burst!’" Ling lashed out, sparks like fireflies in tall grass.

"Explosion Opening, Thirteen: Return West." Amelia’s reply blew cold through temple halls.

"Xi... xi... ‘Xixing—’" The word snagged like a fishhook.

She almost said "Xixing Yao." Her chest tightened like a drawn bow. Instinct screamed: don’t end on “Yokai,” or the cliff crumbles.

It wasn’t fear of that term itself, but a red thread tugging hard. End on “Yokai,” and doom falls like a guillotine.

"What are you thinking? Thirteen seconds." Amelia’s count was a water clock, each drop icing her spine.

"No... wait!" Ling cried, panic flaring like brushfire. Their eyes met; Amelia’s gaze was a mocking mirror saying, You took the bait.

"Twelve seconds."

"Don’t..." The numbers crawled like ants over a peach. This woman wound her tight like a kite string.

"Eleven seconds."

"Xi... xi... xi... right! — ‘watermelon!’" Ling hurled the word like a stone at crows.

"‘Watermelon’ was used in round seventy-three, so invalid. Nine seconds." Amelia’s tone rang like iron.

"Si—sis!" Hope rushed to Alicia like a spring to parched earth. She met Ling’s eyes, shook her head, and gave a soft, apologetic smile.

Not good. Why won’t anything surface? Her mind was a torn net in a dark river.

Anything but "Xixing Yao," anything that doesn’t end in Yokai. Think. Give me a xi-word, a reed in wind.

She was like a student at finals, a candle guttering in draft. One hard question gnawed, time ticking like beads.

She checked the clock and saw the sand thin. Panic rose with claws. She scratched, glanced around, grasping shadows.

It was the worst way to find an answer, chasing moths in moonlight. The teacher’s mantra echoed: skip it, come back later.

But there was no “next question” here. The board was a single plank over a ravine, no side trail to breathe.

"Six seconds."

Don’t count down. Please. Do something, brain—be thunder, not drizzle. Give me a xi-word, any xi-word, now.

"Five seconds."

Xi xi xi xi xi... Script! The word flared like a lighthouse on black water, towering among stubby xi stumps.

If it’s the Script, there’s a chance. Aer said the Script ties to other worldlines of “me,” a web of rain-lit mirrors.

Among so many “me,” surely one beat Amelia, a hawk on a rising thermal. Surely one used a xi-word, a bell at dawn.

...

But what if none did? The thought slid cold as snow under her collar. Probability felt like a thin bridge in fog.

What if every “me” failed? What if none touched xi? Even if someone did, what if my Script shows the wrong thread?

What should I do?

"Three seconds."