Night Frost and Kaneko went to the park, the morning light trailing behind them like a pale ribbon.

Last night they told Zhao Qingsnow the plan might need to be pushed back, like a kite held in wind.

They had time to spare, and District Twenty One’s branch hadn’t sensed their tracks, like wolves missing a scent.

But the Old Woman couldn’t wait, her urgency tight as frost on a blade, because the Key weighed on everything.

She couldn’t afford delay; the Key tied to too many fates, like roots binding a mountain.

She had to find the contingency Night Frost’s father left, a hidden ember under ash, or she couldn’t guard the Key alone.

Before that, she would hand Night Frost the true Key and take back the false one, like trading masks at dusk.

It was safer that way; even if she was caught, they’d grasp only the fake, a hollow shell like a dried gourd.

The fake wasn’t the same as the real; it could be destroyed, like glass under a hammer.

She’d crush it before capture, like snuffing a candle in wind, and District Twenty One’s branch would lose Night Frost’s trail.

So the Old Woman left first, a shadow slipping between trees.

Night Frost meant to resolve this and then chase without rest, like a hawk catching a thermal.

But today, she let herself loosen, like ice thawing under sun.

District Twenty One’s park charged admission, the gate a toll like a narrow ford on a river.

In those years, good scenery in District Twenty One was priced like gold, bright yet out of reach.

Rapid growth swept the district like a storm, leaving few quiet sanctuaries to nest in.

Scenting profit, the wealthy invested and raised this park, planting a banner of “beautify nature” like a silk screen.

They also won funding from Magic Maidens, bright feathers in their cap.

One hand scooped the neighbors’ cash like grain, the other carved a playground for their own circles.

The landlady had recommended this park, her words like a lantern from a distance.

Distance aside, the reviews and reputation looked clear as still water.

They reached the park at ten, the hour pinned like a bright coin on the sky.

A line already coiled outside like a gray snake, but thank heaven it wasn’t a weekend.

Otherwise the queue would have been a dragon’s tail dragging across the road.

Long lines kill the mood like cold rain, and Night Frost would’ve skipped the place.

The staff moved fast, their hands like sparrows, and soon it was Night Frost and Kaneko’s turn.

Kaneko was young, still a child in spring leaves, so Night Frost bought her a half-price ticket.

Every time she saw “half-price,” envy pricked like nettles; why wasn’t she a child too.

It stayed as a thought, a cloud that didn’t rain; turning young again would be a mess right now.

She carried urgent duties like stones in her pack; shrinking back would only trip her steps.

They strode into a forest park, the theme held up like a green canopy.

The entry path was a stair for at most three abreast, a narrow ridge like a spine.

Conifers crowded both sides like ranks of spears, pine-like, though Night Frost couldn’t name the breed.

The view tugged at a memory of hills by the Twelfth District, two mirrors with different light.

Not identical, but similar as cousins; the Twelfth District’s pines were sparser and grew on hills.

The map on the board showed that beyond this trail lay the park’s only food-and-souvenir street, a smoky hearth of human life.

Like other attractions, water and food here were gold coins dressed as bread, heavy and bright.

With the usual tourist markup piled like bricks, prices towered.

Night Frost wouldn’t give these stalls a coin of tribute; she’d packed food like a squirrel.

She’d still peek at the souvenir prices, like a fox sniffing a trap.

She hadn’t come to places like this often, a traveler with few stamps.

Once, a school trip took her, a current carrying driftwood for a day.

The Twelfth District’s parks were middling, a flat horizon that didn’t call her back.

At a shop hawking souvenirs, she saw faint Mana coiling around the owner like mist.

Judging the Mana, the owner was a First Symphony, a small wave in the sea.

Night Frost wasn’t surprised; bottom-tier Magic Maidens had reached saturation like rain beads on glass.

You could bump into them anywhere; running a park stall was another way to till the soil.

She glanced twice; the workmanship was plain as unvarnished wood, the souvenirs ordinary.

The prices were District Twenty One steep, cliffs instead of steps.

Night Frost sighed inwardly, a breeze through reeds, and led Kaneko away.

Those twenty coins would taste better as a meal outside, steam rising like a home kitchen.

The suburban park’s scenery deserved its praise, a scroll of green unrolling.

Late summer shading into early autumn, yet the trees stayed evergreen, lanterns that refused to dim.

Bird calls flicked by like pebbles in a pond, and the mood cleared like washed sky.

With fair weather roofed above, Night Frost felt she’d chosen right.

A sunlit slope held many people, bodies strewn like leaves.

The slope faced an artificial lake, not the park’s largest, a silver plate set in grass.

Sun poured down, and the water glittered like scales; from here, willow branches brushed the surface, stirring light.

The tightness in Night Frost eased, a knot loosening in warm water.

She felt she could truly rest here, like a fox curling in its den.

She had just lain back when Kaneko jostled her, finger pointing across the lake like an arrow.

Kaneko let out a gasp, quick as a sparrow’s chirp.

Night Frost followed the line of that finger and saw only flat water, a mask without ripples.

She opened her mouth to say there was nothing, but Kaneko’s eyes were winter—fear glazed like ice.

Something was truly there, a shadow behind a screen; only Night Frost couldn’t see it.

“What did you see?” she asked, a question floated like a leaf.

“A Magic Maiden, and a Monster as big as a little mountain,” Kaneko said, the words like thrown stones.

Night Frost narrowed her eyes, lids like shutters, but the lake stayed still.

It couldn’t be Kaneko under some mental illusion, seeing ghosts… or was it Night Frost under the veil.

People around them hadn’t noticed a thing, a whole field of heads like wheat in calm wind.

Night Frost hadn’t either; only Kaneko sensed it, like a cat hearing a note humans miss.

Night Frost sparked the Crimson Gold Flame, a small sun cupped in her chest.

Crimson-gold eyes looked through the quiet lake, spears of light through water.

Her mind slipped past an unseen barrier, a film like dragonfly wing, and crossed to the other side.

There she saw a girl entwined with a giant beast, a knot of struggle in deep tide.

The Monster was unlike any Night Frost had seen, a mountain of flesh braided in viscous tendrils.

A massive Eye Orb crowned its head like a cold moon; it had no limbs, a fish-octopus hybrid from nightmares.

Night Frost pulled out her phone, a small slate of light.

On the Twelfth District’s secret comms, she entered the Monster’s traits like carving runes.

No results came back, an empty net dragged from a black river.

Without doubt, this was an unseen Monster; the archives held no trace, just dust.

The Magic Maiden should be an Order Keeper of District Twenty One, a badge like iron on her soul.

The Monster wasn’t weak; it fought a District Twenty One Cantata Two to a draw, two storms colliding.

The Monster opened its maw and spat black sludge, a tar tide.

It missed the Cantata Two, but it stained the lake night-black, ink spilled on silk.

So the view was ruined, a painting smudged by soot, and Night Frost thought to leave.

Then a quarrel rose from the far slope, a rasping crow in this quiet.

Ignoring the giant Monster and the dueling girl, the noise still jarred like a cracked bell.

It wasn’t so much a quarrel as a scolding, the tone a whip-lash in air.

The voice felt familiar, a scent on wind; she focused her gaze.

A youth with messy hair strode ahead, a tangle like brambles, with two suited bodyguards trailing like shadows.

They tried to explain, words like pebbles thrown at his back, but he kept walking.

Anger and resentment burned in his eyes, twin coals under ash.

Looking closer, she saw metal plates on the guards, glints like scales; cyborgs, plain as day.

The youth wore no such signs, skin clean as bark.

“I’ve been here a month,” the youth barked, breath like steam.

“Holed up in that dump every day. ‘Ensure safety?’ It’s house arrest, the same rotten rope of talk.”

Then he paused, a step like a hitch in a drumbeat.

“Yo, this place is actually nice; I’ve wanted to see it,” he muttered, eyes drinking light like a thirsty deer.

The bodyguards wanted to stop him, but their boss had banned force, a chain on their wrists.

Worse, the young master held a Magic Tool, a thorned rose they didn’t dare grab.

They silently cursed the woman who’d tossed that Magic Tool around like trash; without it, he wouldn’t be tangled.

If they dragged him back and he triggered it and got hurt, the lord’s wrath would be thunder.

Night Frost knew the young master—her unreliable bunkmate, Xun Xun, a comet across a dull sky.

She hadn’t expected to meet him here, wrong time, wrong stage, wrong cast, like actors in the wrong play.

Xun Xun didn’t know Night Frost, but she knew him, a face kept like a pressed leaf in memory.

He was a rich kid with the airs but not the temper, a peacock without the bite.

He seemed hard to approach, a thorny hedge, but in truth he was decent enough.

Now he was throwing a real tantrum, a pot boiling over.

Night Frost had never seen him angry; by their talk, he’d been hauled back to District Twenty One and grounded like a boat.

Who knew what happened in between; this time he bolted out, and the guards tried to reel him in.

Xun Xun didn’t slow; he admired the view while quickening his steps toward Night Frost, like a moth skimming to a lantern.

If nothing goes wrong, something will, she thought, a bitter taste like rain.

She’d chosen to ignore the lake’s secret battle, but if an area attack bloomed, how would she stay hidden.

Suspended sludge swelled in midair like an ink-dyed lotus and burst open.

Stinking muck fell like rain, corrosive as acid, carving black traces into the ground.

Even the hard paving stones dented like softened wax, proof of that sludge’s bite.

People jolted and screamed, a flock startled into flight.

On bare skin, the sludge ate flesh like lye; the residue turned to more sludge and kept growing.

Given time, the stained would melt into a lifeless puddle, a candle pooled out.

Xun Xun, in short sleeves, was hit as well, the muck climbing his skin like leeches.

Classmates once, Night Frost felt she should help, a duty like a thread tugging.

She pressed a defense array disc into Kaneko’s hands, a round shield like a moon, and told her to hold tight.

The defense disc could block the sludge for a time, a bubble under rain, and guard Kaneko.

That window was enough for Night Frost to haul Xun Xun to safety, like dragging someone from a riptide.

She moved fast; in almost a heartbeat, she finished suiting up, quick as a spark.

The Crimson Gold Flame wrapped her whole body, a cloak of sunrise, and veiled her face.

Then she launched toward Xun Xun, an arrow loosed from a taut string.