《Sunspot》


 From On High // 1.01

    7 AM. I refresh the page. Shouldn¡¯t it be starting now? The stream chat to the right of the video player is already rushing by too fast to pick out more than a few individual messages, blurbs to the tune of ¡°GET HYPE GET HYPE¡± and ¡°SPAM THIS :tree: TO HELP BRI¡±, the simulated roaring chants of a crowd a hundred and twenty thousand strong rather than proper commentary. I refresh the page again and the video buffers for a moment¡ªthen it¡¯s live.


    ¡°Hello hello, everybody!¡±


    The video feed is drone footage from a few meters overhead, above two figures on a platform extruded from a milky white cliff face. The downward angle reveals that there¡¯s nothing below the platform. No ground, no sea, just mist. Even through the screen, I¡¯m gripped with vertigo and a sense of roiling dread in my stomach. It¡¯s a long, long way down to the water. Neither figure is wearing safety harnesses of any sort, though both are ensheathed in carapace of the same color as the cliff. The speaker is standing, waving energetically up at the camera. Heung the Heron.


    More proper commentary from my friends, the inner circle of ¡®serious¡¯ fans, scrolled along my second monitor, a private chatroom.


    starstar97: hey its e¡¯s boyfriend


    ezzen: oi


    ezzen: I¡¯m more normal about him than you are about Heliotrope.


    starstar97: oTL


    moth30: it¡¯s true. hes more like ezzens dad :3


    ezzen: oTL


    It was just teasing; my dad was a familiar enough topic with this crowd to be safe.


    ¡°I¡¯m here with Bri way up at 14000 feet¡ªthat¡¯s 4300 meters¡ªon the Spire¡¯s south face. It¡¯s a balmy thirteen degrees F, minus nine C, and we¡¯re here today to splice in some new spool. This section,¡± he gestured at the cliff face, ¡°is pretty much straight through the skin from the arboretum, which is why we¡¯re doing this outside today, because Reggy would kill us for doing it next to his magnolias. Bri, want to walk them through how this is going to work?¡±


    I zoned out of Brianna¡¯s explanation. We on the forums had pretty quickly worked it out when the announcement for this stream had gone up a week ago. I glanced over at my second monitor again.


    starstar97: told ya. high throughput splice, direct v link. spool 16


    starstar97: ds, whats on that spool right now?


    ezzen: I mean, when they said it would be Bri, it was going to be this or a rain step demo :P


    ezzen: She¡¯s lowest % latticed rn.


    DendriteSpinner: @starstar97 lower habitation and some of the manufacturing, so it makes sense they¡¯re putting more of the same for this round of expansions


    ezzen: But yeah. Check out how she¡¯s moving the dermis.


    ezzen: That¡¯s not even glyph-based!


    ezzen: This shit is so rad.


    This was routine construction work, really, and this wasn¡¯t even the construction proper, so it wasn¡¯t that interesting to those of us who kept up with the Vaetna. Still, I was interested in what she was actually doing, pulling away layers of the cliff face¡ªthe Spire¡¯s skin¡ªto reveal more raw lattice circuitry. She would put her hand toward the surface and the shell-like material would flow outward and away, like water below a helicopter. Eventually she fell silent and Heung picked up.


    ¡°I¡¯m seeing a lot of you guys wondering how safe we are up here. Well¡ª¡±


    He stepped over to the ledge of the platform they had grown from the skin and peered over dramatically. He made a show of ¡®tripping¡¯ and falling halfway off, arms windmilling, before regaining his balance and sitting with his legs dangling over the ledge. He beckoned the camera down, to a more side view of him facing out toward the void while Bri worked.


    ¡°Short answer, it¡¯s fine. Even if one of us did somehow fall, terminal velocity isn¡¯t terminal for us. Me and Bri could probably survive it even without our carapace. Most of us could.¡±


    ¡°Except Mayari,¡± Bri muttered.


    Heung ignored that. ¡°Of course, most of you aren¡¯t really asking about the altitude, more about the odds we¡¯ll get company, with some of the dermis opened up like this. That¡¯s the main reason I¡¯m out here even though Bri could totally do this herself. Buddy system.¡±


    I sipped some hot chocolate and curled up in my seat. The warmth of the drink was my respite from the frigid winter air leaking in through my windows. No coffee for me; it had never done much, and I preferred sweet to bitter this early in the morning. My monitors¡¯ light bathed the otherwise-dark room, glinting off the mug¡¯s rim and the Spire¡¯s symbol printed on its exterior: a simplified design of its silhouette crisscrossed with cutouts representing the thread from which it was woven. My spear, propped against the desk, cast a long shadow across the room, shrouding Heung and Mayari in the poster of the ten¡¯s helmets that was affixed over my bed. I shifted it slightly so that the shadow fell instead on a blank patch of wall.


    Other posters adorned the walls with diagrams of the Spire, stylized lexicons of the first-order glyphs, and that era-defining shot of Sani facing the White House, sword in hand. A bookshelf next to my desk was stuffed to the brim with the burgeoning body of literature on magical theory, the short history of the Vaetna, and my own notebooks. I thought figurines were a bit tacky, but I did have random bits of scattered memorabilia from the local Gate¡¯s merch shop the only time I had gone. A t-shirt with a stylized image of a heron lay at the top of the laundry pile on the floor.


    I couldn¡¯t imagine anybody would be stupid enough to try something today, not with Heung himself out here¡­although part of me was hoping we¡¯d get some action. Obviously I¡¯d be horrified at a serious attack, but Heung was¡­so cool, and part of me itched to see him move.


    He sat comfortably over the hazy abyss, his spear in his lap. He always seemed light as a feather in his movements, as if gravity were more of a game than a law. My own motions were ugly, jerking things compared to the singular striking grace of the Heron, a gap in natures that no amount of training could overcome, mirrored in my own spear¡¯s painstakingly hand-carved wooden frame versus the elegant manifested lattice of the Spire¡¯s most iconic vaet. There was an envy there beyond the aesthetic; some basic part of me looked at him and wept that I would never be able to move like that. Still, it was good to have role models.


    starstar97: e, stop eyefucking your spear


    DendriteSpinner: lol


    DendriteSpinner: are you?


    ezzen: Aaaaaa. Fuck you star.


    She knew me too well.


    Bri had gotten the prep work done, and Heung directed the camera inward to show what she was doing. The internal lattices that make up the Spire¡¯s structure, raw thread magic woven into lattice, were dizzying to look at directly. Four-dimensional, rhythmically shifting crosshatches and organic shapes that made your head hurt, forms of exotic matter like time crystals woven through more conventional solids with superfluids flowing between. It was entrancingly beautiful, and mysterious even to me¡ªI had practically written the book on modern LM theory, and I could still barely make sense of what I was seeing. Bri¡¯s commentary was welcome, now.


    ¡°That¡¯s a backflow modulator¡ªredundant, actually¡ªthat¡¯s piping which jumps to here, and then comes up through some of these projectors and this {RHYTHM} chunk, these are the primary and secondary {MANIFEST} branes, and we go back and back to,¡± her finger stopped tracing at a black orb so dark it was like a void in reality, ¡°the spool interface. I¡¯m going to thread into it now.¡±


    I watched, rapt, as her entire arm jerked and blurred before igniting with blinding white sparks, which flickered chaotically for a moment before aligning in spiky patterns like ferrofluid clinging to a magnet. The glob of magic twisted and twisted and twisted, growing thinner and denser, until it was a single thread of magic coming off a spool on her arm. The thread lashed for a moment before launching itself into the black orb. I clipped the last 20 seconds of footage and dropped it in the chatroom.


    ezzen: Putting this here for later.


    moth30: hm


    moth30: 0:11 thats a type 1 display. no wonder theyre renovating


    moth30: 0:14 oh and that¡¯s why she called the modulator redundant lol


    moth30: no way for it to go back upstream with this flow


    ezzen: Redundant but not useless I think


    ezzen: Sudden tug on the lattice from spool overdraw could definitely get enough upstream ripple for it to hit the mod


    ezzen: Given how first-gen that display is. Orange third lol


    The Vaetna sat back on her haunches as the thread fed into the orb of nothingness. ¡°And now we wait. Time for that Q&A, H?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! First up¡­¡±


    The stream overlay shifted, a question running along the bottom. I sat up in my chair. Last night, I had gotten a notification from skychicken¡ªthe owner of the forum¡ªthat some of my own discussions and theories had been viewed by an upper Spire IP address.


    DendriteSpinner: fingers crossed, ez


    ¡°This one comes from Twitter. Bri, what¡¯s your favorite animal?¡±


    Damn. Not mine, and trite to boot. Starting with a softball, probably. The others agreed.


    moth30: boring


    moth30: shes just gonna say mantis shrimp. or bees or something


    ¡°I¡¯ve always really loved mantis shrimp. But that¡¯s on my Wikipedia, I think¡ªso for the sake of a more interesting answer, let¡¯s say¡­the leafcutter ant, Atta cephalotes. They cultivate fungus! Hm. Is it boring for a Vaetna to say my favorite animal is a eusocial insect? It feels boring. ¡®Wow, they work together to build stuff, no wonder they like them.¡¯ I stand by it, though.¡±


    starstar97: thats bri, lol


    starstar97: but at least its better than


    starstar97: (watch this)


    Heung laughed. ¡°You don¡¯t gotta be self-conscious about it, better answer than mine. I would have just said¡ª¡±


    ¡°Herons. Shocker, that.¡±


    I rolled my eyes too. The chatroom tittered at star¡¯s prediction, so obvious she hadn¡¯t even needed to say it. He had a brand. His fingers played in the air, working some invisible-to-us readout.


    ¡°Alright, next up, from Reddit this time¡ªWho¡¯s got your favorite rain step?¡±


    ¡°This is harassment.¡±


    Of the ten Vaetna, Bri was one of only two who couldn¡¯t perform the maneuver, and the only one who couldn¡¯t do it at all¡ªMayari¡¯s was just too high-ripple to technically qualify.


    ¡°What? Naaah. I would never¡ª¡±


    He danced out of the way of Bri¡¯s free fist, laughing, twisting over the edge of the platform in a way which reason insisted should send him tumbling down. ¡°Seriously, I¡¯m not the one who picked these. Go beat up Sani.¡±


    She sighed. ¡°Well, it¡¯s not him. Hm.¡±


    I was quite partial to Heung¡¯s for its directness; couldn¡¯t get hit by the raindrops¡ªor bullets¡ªif your entire being was momentarily concentrated to a single thrust of the spear. But I was a fanboy like that. Could do with the imagery there being a little less phallic, but if that were a dealbreaker for me, I wouldn¡¯t be obsessed with the five-mile-tall shaft sticking out of the North Atlantic.


    ¡°I guess¡­well, the type I want to do is like Kat¡¯s, how she splits. But in terms of elegance, it¡¯s gotta be Sahan.¡±


    She put some footage on the stream overlay to illustrate her point. In shaky cell phone footage, Katya splintered into a thousand shards which floated in the rough approximation of a person as they darted around like a school of hyperactive fish. She walked through a stream of bullets at an almost leisurely pace in contrast to the frenzied dance of her constituent particles. In the other clip, Sahan simply moved through a stream of energy, implacable. Something about him was more vivid, more real, than anything else on the screen¡ªincluding the two Vaetna on the platform.


    Heung chuckled. ¡°I still have no idea how he does that.¡±


    I rolled my eyes.


    ezzen: Lying through his goddamn teeth.


    ezzen: We SAW him do the same kind of {NULL}-{GRASP} last year.


    ezzen: Although ig he probably can¡¯t snapweave it.


    _twilitt: thats still just your theory ez


    starstar97: a vaetna theory!


    starstar97: but if anybody outside the vaetna would know itd be e


    ezzen: >/////~/////<


    ezzen: anybody can learn about this stuff


    Bri shrugged, adjusting how she sat. The spool was thinning out as it vanished into the orb, joining with the Spire¡¯s own lattice. ¡°It¡¯s, uh, force-of-will bullshit. I can¡¯t do it either, obviously, but the ripple speaks for itself.¡±


    That, at least, was undeniable; calculating out the exact values was wholly unnecessary when even witnessing a recording of the technique made the reality of the room around me feel fragile and uncertain by comparison. White ripple made manifest; the reality of unreality. Heung nodded appreciatively.


    ¡°That it does. Didn¡¯t he try to teach you?¡±


    That was rhetorical; ¡°vaetna gets hit in the face by a tennis ball for six minutes¡± had like 170 million views on YouTube. Brianna¡¯s pout was visible despite the fact that her expression was completely concealed in her carapace. Heung leaned back to pat her head; she swatted his hand away, in good spirits.


    ¡°Alright, alright. Next up¡­¡±


    My heart stopped as I saw the words on the screen. My own. A nerd question, the kind of thing that wasn¡¯t a crowd-pleaser, meaning that someone¡ªSani, apparently¡ªhad thought it was genuinely worth answering on its own technical merits, or maybe for a funny anecdote.


    ¡°From ¡®Ezzen¡¯ on the forums: What was the rationale for switching from pink-green-blue to silver-blue-pink schemas on current-gen lattice displays?¡±


    starstar97: LETS FUCKIN GO E


    _twilitt: no way ezzen you made it


    DendriteSpinner: hell yeah


    DendriteSpinner: hopefully this will put an end to that fucking thread


    ezzen: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


    _twilitt: ¡®breaking: ¡°why is little magic light pink and not blue?¡± thread locked after 1394 pages of heated debate, death threats; turns out it was just a typo¡¯


    ezzen: Ugh don¡¯t even joke.


    skychicken: told you they were looking, ez


    starstar97: hi sky!


    Bri made a clicking noise. ¡°Been a while since we had one of their questions on.¡±


    One year, five months, and two days, in fact; they had shouted out one of my papers where I had mathed out some third-order chains by hand and proven that GWalk wasn¡¯t calculating blue ripple correctly under some circumstances. That had been entirely theoretical, though. By contrast, this question concerned the way a core component of the Spire¡¯s circuitry functioned.


    ¡°Okay, so: I was overruled on this when we were working out the schemas initially. The resonances we use to turn ripple measurements into colored light for the displays were picked a little bit at random the first time, since we didn¡¯t yet understand how they affected throughput across channels, and my opinion had¡ª¡±


    She stopped talking, head flicking to the right, then up. ¡°Incoming.¡±


    Heung made a burst of chatter, in the high-density language the Vaetna used to communicate in the span of milliseconds. The stream¡¯s audio was a garbled mess for half a second as they argued. It can¡¯t have been that serious or sensitive, since he threw up a translated transcription onscreen after the fact.


    H: I didn¡¯t hear anything.


    B: Big ripple, two klicks up. Sounded like the Dubai splash.


    H: I¡¯d have heard that. I¡¯ll check anyway, but¡­


    B: Not sure it¡¯s an attack. Flamefall, maybe?


    H: Not in its shadow. Sit tight.


    Then he vanished from the frame. The camera panned up after a moment to show the hole he had punched in the clouds. Then it adjusted back down to Bri. The spool on her arm had lost much of its volume now, probably two-thirds of the way done with the process. Her dagger had appeared in her free hand, a long, killing thing that would more resemble a shortsword if not for the way she held it like a knife fighter. She really put the vaet in Vaetna.


    ezzen: Someone clip that? Check the TL?


    DendriteSpinner: im on it


    starstar97: ooh, ¡°not in its shadow¡± is a fun translation


    starstar97: a little poetic


    DendriteSpinner: looks accurate.


    Dendrite was the lead maintainer of Ungarble, the software people used to translate Vaetna chatter. ¡°People¡± included major organizations like the PCTF, so he was arguably a bigger deal than me when it came to practical Vaetna-related stuff. I just liked glyphs.


    skychicken: if it is like the dubai inferno we¡¯re in for a show


    ezzen: I feel sorta bad for being excited.


    starstar97: meh, action is action :D


    Bri looked at the camera, unworried despite her blade being bared. ¡°Well, looks like you guys are getting some action. Not that we¡¯ll see anything from here, probably.¡±


    The public chat was going crazy, of course. Lots of people wanted her to send the camera after Heung, to follow the action, but she shrugged. No point. He was faster than it.


    Silence on the screen for a few seconds. Then¡ª


    ¡°He sees something. Confirming¡ªit is flamefall¡­second confirmation from Mayari. The fuck? Check this out.¡±


    She tossed some diagrams on screen, marking a trajectory over a map of the waters surrounding the Spire. After a moment, ghostly trails of other historical flamefalls were superimposed onto it. For the most part, they moved north-south, but this one was going east-west.


    DendriteSpinner: not dubai


    starstar97: lol it got lost


    ¡°Sadly it¡¯s high enough up that I¡¯m not expecting fireworks. So¡­where was I? Right, so the initial colors were pink-green-orange, and we eventually went with pink-green-blue after the first expansion because orange third was a hassle if the ripple was too high¡ª¡±


    I had a notetaking document on my second monitor, fingers blazing across the keyboard as I copied down what she was saying, and was also recording this part of the stream locally so I could review it later. This kind of historical knowledge of the Spire¡¯s internal systems¡ªLM projection and ripple management¡ªwas my passion, my specialty, and not usually the kind of thing that got covered in what little formal literature yet existed. Then the little readout tracking the flamefall¡¯s progress switched direction, coming back toward the Spire from where it had been blazing west toward the Gulf of Mexico.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    It all happened fast. Bri blurred, and the air distorted. Later, I¡¯d realize that that was when she had thrown her knife, and the subsequent static noise and way the frame wobbled had been the sonic boom and shockwave. ¡°Okay, maybe it is an attack.¡± She made another screech of Vaetna-speak, and after a moment¡ª


    A bolt of lightning punched down through the clouds. But it wasn¡¯t lightning, it was the Heron diving toward the rogue flame. He lanced through it¡ª


    A light like the dawn, an aurora on fast-forward as two shards of the Frozen Flame met in a ripple of splintering fate¡ª


    One remaining spark screaming toward the camera¡ª


    Ashes¡ªDid we¡ªTen becomes¡ªThread¡ªAcross the weft, not just the¡ªOh, of course it¡¯d be¡ªBind it¡ªIt will hurt. Tell them we¡¯re sorry.


    Something hit me in the chest. I floated for a moment that seemed to last minutes. Then I hit something and fell to the floor. I was dazed, the breath knocked from my lungs.


    Then I realized I was on fire.


    I became a writhing animal. I couldn¡¯t think, couldn¡¯t even muster the coherence to stop, drop, and roll. I was so cold. I had to escape it, had to get it off, had to GET IT OFF GET IT OFF¡ªI scrambled for my water bottle and poured it over my face to drown the pain. Nothing happened. I just got colder. It was all like before, fire upon my flesh¡ªbut this time, it was inside me.


    I couldn¡¯t get the flame off my skin, so it had to go. Anything to escape the pain. I clawed at my face, and the skin peeled away. But I was still burning underneath it, so I kept going, flensing away muscle and fat, ripping off my nose in a desperate craze to escape. The fire was all over me, inside me, in my bones. I tore out my eye and tossed it aside to dig into my brain to smother the flames. Everything hurt and I was still burning and it was never going to end, a moment of agony frozen to extend forever. I was desperately scrabbling at the ruined, blackened flesh of my face. Pain and pain and pain and why wouldn¡¯t it stop hurting me¡ª


    A moment of bizarre clarity. My remaining eye locked onto my spear. I grabbed it, angled it toward me. I hesitated, some rational, cowering part of my mind constructing a blossoming understanding as my perspective of what was happening to me shifted. Bri¡¯s words. Maybe it is an attack. The memory of something lancing through what had been my father.


    I plunged the spear up, into my empty eye socket, to kill the fire that had taken root inside my soul¡ª


    I woke up crumpled on the far side of my room, gasping. I couldn¡¯t move for a few seconds, still reeling from whatever had just happened to me. My hand sluggishly roamed across my body. Whole. Unburnt, other than the old scar. Everything hurt, though. And I was still holding my spear in my other hand. What had happened? I tried to collect myself. I had been on fire. Flamefall¡ªthe Frozen Flame. The essence of magic. It had gone through the camera and hit me. If I hadn¡¯t stopped it¡ªit would have been an inferno, like Dad. Had I stopped it? I felt like I was forgetting something.


    More pressing question¡ªme only? The stream was still going, the monitor showing Heung crouched in front of the camera and poking at it. I stumbled across the room to slide my headphones back on. I was greeted by more bursts of static as the Vaetna spoke to one another, no on-screen transcription this time, a jump in security. Dendrite was providing translation soon after, though, so apparently no encryption or anything.


    DendriteSpinner: ¡°¡ªno clue what that was.¡±


    DendriteSpinner: ¡°Huge ripple. Why¡¯d [¡­] go for the camera?¡±


    DendriteSpinner: ¡°The audience? But the chat¡¯s still going, so it wasn¡¯t distributed.¡±


    The Vaetna were reaching the same conclusion I had. Flamefalls struck people, not machinery, and they had correctly assumed that it had gone after one of the viewers. Why me? Because it had been my question? More likely¡ªthe original theories were true: I had somehow been marked the first time, and now the Frozen Flame had come to collect. Both?


    The stream chat was already filling up with people saying ¡®IT WAS ME¡¯. Vultures. With shaking hands, I began to write.


    ezzen: it hit me


    _twilitt: wtf


    _twilitt: no bullshit?


    ezzen: i was


    ezzen: on fire


    starstar97: holy shit. u ok? did you just get flametouched?


    ezzen: idk


    ezzen: I¡¯m fine I think?


    ezzen: Sorry, still coming down.


    DendriteSpinner: proof? i believe you but


    starstar97: ds they just got fuckin FLAMETOUCHED, lay off


    DendriteSpinner: sorry


    DendriteSpinner: gonna look for similar cases


    ezzen: Dw, no harm done I think.


    moth30: you should really post on the forum


    moth30: THE ezzen just got flametouched


    moth30: what are the fuckin odds


    Quite low; roughly one in two hundred million given the average number of flamefalls per year, and the essentially random distribution. I looked around, did another once-over of my body. I was untouched, but¡ª


    ezzen: I think I stopped ignition by stabbing myself with my spear.


    On top of that first number, one in five flamefalls became infernos.


    ezzen: It didn¡¯t actually do anything to me, but look.


    I sent a photo of the wooden tip of my spear, cast in stark shadow by the light of the monitors. It had been warped, blackened by heat, almost charred, but more than that, it had taken on a strange, lumpy texture along the surface, like an icicle half-melted and refrozen a dozen times through winter. It¡­fuzzed, a bit, at the edges, like my eyes couldn¡¯t decide where it ended and the air around it began.


    ezzen: Ripple warping, right? Am I going crazy?


    _twilitt: holy shit


    starstar97: damn, frozen AND flame


    moth30: yeah that¡¯s legit


    DendriteSpinner: confirming, that looks a hell of a lot like the rebar from the st louis ff in 2018


    DendriteSpinner: no damage to your room though?


    ezzen: No. All in my head I guess?


    ezzen: I¡¯ll go make that post.


    starstar97: e


    starstar97: THINK


    starstar97: if youre a flamebearer now you gotta fucking move


    starstar97: you gotta get the fuck over to a gate unless you want the peacies or zeroday or whoever to fist your entire ass


    She was right. Bad things happened to Flamebearers in the open. They¡ªwe?¡ªwere too valuable, as ammunition or batteries or ingredients, consumable resources for the novel and terrible war machines of a world newly come into magic. And that was the good scenario, one where I wasn¡¯t devoured by the flame and became a rampaging thing of magic and fire that had to be put down. I had to assume I had already gotten past that point by stabbing myself.


    I had fantasized for years about what would happen if I were flametouched, chosen by whatever idiot divinity governed these things, going to the Spire and becoming a Vaetna. All of us had; this group self-selected for that kind of person. But now that it was actually happening, the depth of danger and my own unpreparedness were coming into stark clarity. Outside the swaddling comfort of an idealized dream, the sharp edges of danger were pressing into my psyche, making me jumpy, panicky, uncertain. I had defaulted to making a forum post. Some of the others had given it more serious thought, though.


    skychicken: agreed with star, that ship might have already sailed


    skychicken: this has just gotten big and dangerous and beyond our paygrade


    skychicken: assuming of course you ARE flametouched which might not actually be the case


    moth30: CHECK THE STREAM


    ¡°¡ªagain, we have a hotline for reporting magic events, including flamefall. So if you know anything about what just happened or who was involved, number and link are onscreen¡­now.¡±


    starstar97: no point


    starstar97: itll just get flooded by false reports


    moth30: man what the fuck is happening


    starstar97: ikr


    starstar97: this is some movie shit


    My conscious, rational mind was catching up with the panic. Of course, the Vaetna knew that direct reporting mechanisms would get inundated to the point of uselessness, but there wasn¡¯t much else to do until they could backtrace the ripple toward me. And other groups would be doing the same¡ªones who I really didn¡¯t want to catch me, according to the rumors. The PCTF already had me on record somewhere, even if they weren¡¯t necessarily watching me closely anymore. Meaning¡­


    ezzen: So I should just go to the Gate?


    starstar97: yeah


    moth30: every second you delay increases the chance you¡¯re gonna get found


    DendriteSpinner: christ this sounds scary


    DendriteSpinner: let us know if we can help


    skychicken: ez, don¡¯t answer that. stop talking.


    skychicken: don¡¯t even say which gate or how far away you are


    skychicken: i can¡¯t guarantee this room is leak-proof against a three-letter agency, even if i trust you all individually


    skychicken: (nothing personal, DS)


    ezzen: Wasn¡¯t gonna. Signing off for now.


    DendriteSpinner: (no prob, sky. just worried)


    starstar97: stay safe.


    starstar97: send pics once youre in!


    _twilitt: let us know when you¡¯re good


    Skychicken went above and beyond, direct-messaging me.


    skychicken: you need to figure out whether youre an actual VNT now or if that was just weird residue


    He was right¡ªthe last time a flamefall had been intercepted, the fragments hadn¡¯t actually made their way to a recipient in any shape for them to really be called a Flamebearer. Sometimes, it was just residuals. I could be the same, and there was an easy enough way to test. I grabbed a bit of scrap paper and scribbled the most basic glyph in the lexicon from memory, so simple that it could be fully captured in only two dimensions, a round and gradiented thing.


    ezzen: youre right


    ezzen: trying a cast


    The actual act of casting, on the other hand, was unintuitive. I thought there was something inside me, the flame¡¯s presence, but how to tug at it, weave it into the glyph? There was sort of a conventional wisdom in it, popularized by a video about casting somatically, from during the firestorms, when there had been no official word on anything about magic. Heel of my hand over my breastbone, thump upward, dislodge it. Cough at the same time, as if you were trying to spark a fire with your diaphragm. Done correctly, you wouldn¡¯t literally breathe fire, but you¡¯d know it when it happened. I had done this before, when I was younger, hoping that the flame would somehow manifest in me despite not having been touched, a near-miss. It never had, of course.


    This time was different.


    Thump.


    A sputtering cough. It felt like I was jumpstarting a car. A burst of energy, a definite kind of ¡®sparking¡¯, but no ignition. A thrill ran through me. This was real.


    Thump.


    More that time? But not at the tipping point. I tried to visualize the flame inside me igniting, taking shape. Not burning me uncontrollably this time, hopefully. I had spent seven years hoping for this¡ªpreparing for it, in a sense, although the fantasies had bowed to the realism of the mundane as my teen years went on. But now¡ª


    Thump.


    Pain. Heat¡ªtoo much to bear. Flooded with energy, I stood, trying to will it to obey me. No flame, no flame, just magic. I stared at the glyph. I put my other hand over the one on my chest and kind of tugged, and something sizzling and sparking came forth, drawing a thread. Well, ¡®thread¡¯ was entirely too fine of a word, evoking the clean singularity of energy I had seen Brianna pull. It was more of a tangle. In my peripheral vision, the shadows of the room went insane. It was magic, and I pushed it into the glyph, along the lines, back and forth down the gradient. It was a clumsy imitation of what I had seen in countless videos, but I had no frame of reference, no muscle memory, so I did the best I could. The glyph did most of the work, really.


    No points for guessing what {ASH} did. The Frozen Flame was, in part, the magical equivalent of an oxidizer, and this glyph focused on that aspect of it, turning matter into lower energy matter. Highly destructive, one of the most basic weapons in a Flamebearer¡¯s arsenal. I flinched at the pulse of heat and light, even knowing it was coming. Cameras didn¡¯t capture how bright the flare was.


    I should have considered where I put the rune. It scooped out a sphere of the desk¡¯s matter and turned it into a pile of something else, something every instinct in my body said was unclean, of no value whatsoever, pure waste. Even actual ash had lots of valid uses¡ªthis stuff was just worthless and deleterious, an offense to other matter more worthy of the title. I gingerly shoved it into the trash can, automatic domesticity taking over before I processed what had just happened.


    I had just woven magic. I was a Flamebearer, a VNT. My heart leapt. The terror deepened, old memories and fresh danger.


    ezzen: holy shit. it worked


    skychicken: congratulations. and also you are now in SO much more danger, jfc


    skychicken: going to put up some dummy posts similar to your experience to hopefully cover your trail a bit


    ezzen: That sounds really dangerous.


    ezzen: For you, I mean.


    skychicken: not nearly as much danger as you¡¯re in


    skychicken: you matter now, ez


    skychicken: well, you specifically already mattered imo


    skychicken: but i mean ripple wise


    skychicken: im sure i dont need to tell you of all people this but you have to try to minimize


    skychicken: for now, run.


    skychicken: ill be in touch. stay safe


    My mind was racing a mile a minute. Was I seriously about to drop everything and run away to the Spire? That was my dream, but¡ªit was so sudden.


    I was fortunate to live relatively close to a Gate, hardly fifty miles from the one attached to Heathrow that serviced the British Isles, but I¡¯d have to go by bus or taxi, in the open. There was a very real and terrifying risk that some black-ops group dropped a spell on my head and just scooped me straight to some fucking underground holding cell, in public or not. It had happened before, and people didn¡¯t come back from that. Not as people, anyway.


    The journey I was now facing had always been a dream of mine, since the moment the Spire had punctured the world. It represented an impossible twist of the future away from the slow decline into widening class divide and spiraling climate disaster, a blazing beacon of hope after the dark days following the coming of magic to the world. Machina ex deus, the work of momentary gods. The only reason I hadn¡¯t gone before was because the Vaetna¡¯s benevolence had logistical limits, and despite being unemployed, I was still in a fairly low-priority group for resettlement compared to actual refugees and the other poor and huddled masses¡ªbut also Flamebearers. Which meant that now they were obligated to offer me sanctuary¡­


    And that, if a hundred other things went right, I could become a Vaetna. If they ever decided to recruit more, if I had any actual aptitude to back up my theoretical expertise¡ªif I even made it. There was a rush of years-buried childlike giddiness and excitement at the prospect, and terror¡ªsuppressed by analysis. Why had it changed directions? It had never done that before, nor gone through a device. What was the significance of the fact that this was my second encounter with the Flame?


    No time for questioning the why. Keep moving. I grabbed a bag and started putting stuff in. As I packed up the essentials of my life, in a daze¡ªtoothbrush, my good kitchen knife wrapped in a towel, laptop, underwear, my stash of emergency cash, cream for my scars¡ªthere was a sort of twisted gratitude that at least I wasn¡¯t leaving anybody behind. My immediate family were either dead or dead to me. All my friends were coming with me on my laptop and phone, years of reclusion and isolation paying for themselves now.


    Then there was a knock at the door. I froze, drew the knife, made to hold it like I remembered Bri with her dagger. Then I thought better of it and grabbed my charred spear instead. Maybe not the best weapon in this confined space¡ªbut it had saved me once, and I was certainly better with it, in theory. My heart thudded. I padded to the door as quietly as I could, stood off to the side, pointing the speartip toward the doorway in case someone came barging through. I heard a voice through the door.


    ¡°Hey, Dalton? It¡¯s Rina from 303 downstairs. Heard a big thump. You okay?¡±


    Suppressed sigh of relief, although I didn¡¯t let my spear down. She had heard me being thrown across the room when I had been struck. My voice came out a bit raspy from disuse.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. Just tripped getting out of bed.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Did you see what happened on the Vaetna stream a little bit ago?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ªno.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Figured you¡¯d have been up for it. Flamefall, weird one.¡±


    Feign interested ignorance. ¡°Huh. Where?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not sure yet. It hit the camera, and they think it got one of the viewers. No clue who, though.¡±


    ¡°Jeez.¡± I struggled for another comment to mask my relief that I evidently hadn¡¯t already been triangulated. ¡°They must be having a bad day.¡±


    ¡°No shit. ¡®Kay, glad you¡¯re fine, just wanted to check.¡±


    The random act of neighborly kindness was appreciated, it really was. Even though we had hardly spoken, and I might not ever see her again. Maybe I was leaving some stuff behind. I exhaled as I heard her steps retreat from my door back toward the stairwell, forcing myself to stop white-knuckling the spear, to exit prey mode. Satisfied she had gone, I made to go back to packing¡ªbut now that I had picked up my spear again, I found I couldn¡¯t part with it.


    My grip on my spear was just about the only thing keeping me from collapsing into a pile of quivering terror, but it was too visible, too identifying. I couldn¡¯t make the trek with it, but I couldn¡¯t let it go, either. To leave it behind now was to be fully naked against the vast and shadowy things I had every reason to believe were now waking up to hunt me¡ªwasn¡¯t that a thought. Not that it would really make a difference against a group of trained kidnappers with magical support, but I couldn¡¯t convince the cornered animal at the back of my skull of that.


    There was an intermediary solution. Hueng always carried his spear, but it wasn¡¯t always physically in his hand. It was shunted off into higher-dimensional space, and then extracted back into his grip by essentially tugging on a single thread of magic. It was ridiculously intimidating and cool to see the effect in action¡ªand more to the point, convenient. Beyond my new abilities, probably¡­but I didn¡¯t necessarily have to kick it entirely out of this plane of reality, just get it to a state where I could fit it into my bag. Or¡­


    The seed of an idea began to form. I went over to the bookcase, paging through notebooks. I flipped to an empty page and started drawing a sigil. The ¡®real¡¯ version of this particular lattice was a complex brane, impossible to fully represent in two dimensions the way {ASH} could be, but I was really just making a sketch, something for my mind to latch onto and twist the Frozen Flame around. I had never had the money to buy a nice sculpture of the full 3D shape, but it was a spiraling, compressing thing, sort of like a funnel. It was also a word or, more accurately, the shadow of one. I tried to picture it, mentally tracing from one end to the other and around, as though I were scanning it in slices like an MRI machine. Fundamentally, that was the wrong way to go about it, but I didn¡¯t quite realize at the time.


    I was trying to extrapolate a second-order glyph from a first-order representation; infamously difficult even with training, and I had none. But I did have a near-unrivaled understanding of magical theory. Where snapweaving or creating a proper second-order representation of the glyph were out of the picture, math and blood could fill the gaps. I knew the set of the warp for this lattice, the shape of each transition, the tension that had to intensify down the weft for it to function as intended. As much as it was a process that required intuition I lacked, it was also a matter of geometries that I had exhaustively modeled. I probably knew this lattice better than my own face.


    I reached for the flame inside me, something in my spine, at the bottom of my throat, tugging crudely. Sparks came forth. Now that I had called it once, I didn¡¯t have to do the chest-thumping thing, but I still didn¡¯t know how to weave with any sort of grace. I could feel it becoming sort of strand-like, but it wasn¡¯t a flowing ribbon of magic, more a hatched, sketchy, hairy thing of a thousand smaller lines chicken-scratched into approximation; no precision. I tried anyway, attempting to pull it around the lattice in my head.


    Unlike before, doing it without the guidance of a proper glyph was agonizing. It was so rough, and it chafed and scorched something inside me with the barbed imperfections. I could feel my brain heating up, like a barely-too-hot pan seeping heat into my hand, soon to become unbearable if I held it for much longer. A gasping sound was dragged from my throat as my face contorted from pain and discomfort, the overwork of freshly formed mental muscles as I tugged the magic into shape. I growled, twisted, struggled. This had become something of a literal trial by fire; if I couldn¡¯t do this, something told me there was no way I was making it to the Gate in one piece.


    One of the axis transitions wound up being loose; I scorched my hand on the thread, and putting real tension on the fiber as I wove was painful to the point that I was groaning. It was, in a word, sloppy, not the clean precision of the Vaetna¡ªand that was frustrating. I knew I could do better, but there was no time for perfectionism. I just kept weaving, my muscles burning¡ªthat was my brain not knowing how else to interpret the sensation, but it would become literal if I delayed too long. In actuality, the whole process took under ten seconds, but pain has a way of stretching both space and time. In that regard, it¡¯s as magical as the Flame.


    At last, it was good enough, assembled, held barely together by guesswork and terror of the alternative. I had seconds. I grabbed a box cutter from my desk with my free hand, my right, and carved a line down my left forearm, wincing, gasping, white-knuckling the haft of the spear. I wasn¡¯t used to pain, and this part wasn¡¯t Vaetna magic. It was the blood magic of those who used flame without the control of glyphs. Crude, rudimentary, sacrificial, equally unfamiliar to me in practice¡ªbut more reliable than my fragile willpower, for all its gruesomeness. It filled the gaps left by the fraying cord of magic in lieu of finer thread, a structure in flesh to complement that of the glyph.


    It was at this point that I realized my mistake, remembered what Sky had told me, a basic miscalculation that showed my inexperience despite all my abstract knowledge: magic does not exist in a vacuum. It makes ripples beyond its direct effects, and monsters watch the water. I hadn¡¯t even attempted to lower the ripple of the spell as I wove, so focused as I was on making it function at all, desperate for some security in my new abilities. And in doing so, I had just given away my position, if perhaps only in some abstract, soothsayer way rather than literal coordinates. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


    Too late now. I tossed down the pencil and yanked the funnel over the spear. It wasn¡¯t really there, but I could see it, feel it. My arm screamed, an old, familiar pain. My fingers went stiff and numb. Every hair on my neck went on end, and my vision flickered. The spear vanished, and I half-collapsed, caked in sweat. I felt something leave me, some of the Frozen Flame crystallized out of my soul and into the lattice.


    Everything hurt. Someone had scrubbed my spinal cord with steel wool. My head was too hot, my hands too cold. My eyes found the sketch I had been imitating; the lines of graphite had seared straight through the page, and the rest of the sketchbook, scorching themselves onto the desk below. I couldn¡¯t intuitively read the glyph in this two-dimensional version of its proper three-dimensional form, but I knew what I had written.


    {COMPOSE}


    So where had the spear gone? My forearm had the answer. Instead of a bleeding wound, there was an image, a straight line with a strange, dark, warped tip. A burn scar to cauterize the cut, binding the spear to my body. A mirror to the burn scars covering my right hand. With a simpler glyph, it would have been a one-time trick, or cost me far more to do. But the beauty of the Flame was that it was frozen. It held its shape in lattice, in weave, instead of consumptive one-time use, if you knew how. So I tugged on the lattice with my mind and shook my arm¡ª


    And the spear was in my hand. I grinned, despite everything, despite the lingering pain and numbness and the throbbing in my head, the insane escalation of stakes in my life from a mere hour prior and the fact that I had likely just broadcasted myself. This was real magic, reality restructured along the weft of flame, something more elegant and lasting than the simple destruction of {ASH}. Power, potential of which I had always dreamed, a beauty that had enraptured me in spite of what it had taken from me. Kin to the Vaetna and a scant few hundred more in this era of magic.


    There was also the screaming sting of the freshly reopened gash on my arm. I put the spear back, a practically instantaneous vanishing and a closing of the wound. This was only for emergencies¡ªif I really needed it, a cut on my arm would be the least of my worries. Now I felt better. It was still just a wooden spear, hardly a match for whatever was coming¡ªbut it was a part of me now, a new limb with which to interact with an uglier, more dangerous world than the one I had lived in since my first scorching introduction to magic all those years ago. This time, I was ready to fight back¡ªwhatever that meant.


    Despite this ordeal, leaving behind my PC setup sucked almost as much for other reasons. Financially, it represented a lot of money scrounged together from part-time jobs. Emotionally, it was more of a signifier of ¡®home¡¯ than any of the merch. It was where my friends were. I wondered if I should wipe it¡ªsurely someone would eventually break in to track me. I shuddered and browsed through my files, making notes of any autosaved passwords that didn¡¯t also exist on my laptop. After a long, painful moment, I navigated to the option to remove everything, a panic-button full-wipe program I had installed years ago. At the time, fifteen-year-old Dalton had been hoping he¡¯d need it, that I¡¯d need to drop everything to go on the run and would need a way to keep my knowledge from falling into the wrong hands. Now? It hurt. In some ways, this was the point of no return, more than actually leaving the apartment would be. I pressed ¡®confirm¡¯, and that was the moment the room ceased to be my home.


    There wasn¡¯t much to do after that. I took my most prized notebooks. The total contents of the bookshelf were worth a lot, by my meager standards, but none of them were rare volumes or anything, so I didn¡¯t feel too bad about leaving them. Only my personal notes were of real value, work-in-progress theories that hadn¡¯t yet been introduced to the body of literature on magic.


    I threw on appropriate clothes for the brisk and wet English February, checked myself in the mirror for appropriate inconspicuousness. Perfect¡ªall dark clothes without coming off as goth, figure obscured by the heavy black coat and jeans, dark-blue backpack free of any identifying charms. I couldn¡¯t quite part with the little acrylic keychain of the Spire that usually adorned the outside of the bag, so it found a home in one of the internal sub-pockets where it wouldn¡¯t be seen at cursory inspection. Satisfied with my appearance and preparations, I surveyed the room one last time¡ªremembered my passport. The Gate technically didn¡¯t need it, but you never knew. It would wind up being a good decision.


    If I hadn¡¯t been on a timer before¡ªI definitely was now. I had already said my goodbyes to the room itself when I had wiped my PC, so I left. I grabbed my bag and fled the apartment, walking as fast as I dared without drawing undue attention. Turned the corner away from my life, from the venerable black, brick building and the grocery store, saying a silent goodbye to the smell of cigarette ash and that obnoxiously slow elevator.


    I found a taxi, forked over some cash upfront. I didn¡¯t care that it was far, or that I was overpaying. Once I got to the Gate, I wouldn¡¯t need money. Even getting there in one piece was basically optional; I just had to get within the aegis of the Spire¡¯s awareness and protection.


    ¡°Heathrow.¡±


    I made it six miles before they caught me.

 From On High // 1.02

    What kinds of organizations had the means, motive, and opportunity to abduct a freshly-minted flamebearer directly off the eastbound M4 Motorway in broad daylight?


    The list was depressingly long. The Vaetna could, in theory, although that went against their modus operandi. At the other end of the spectrum¡ªat least in the public perception¡ªwere the shadowy paramilitary groups and cults oriented around the reappropriation of Frozen Flame shards, to use for themselves or to sell to the highest bidder. However, between the two and often conspicuously overlooked by the media lay the NATO Paranatural Control Task Force. Ostensibly, the PCTF¡¯s main job was to crack down on unauthorized magic and help handle rogue infernos from flamefall gone sour, from a more established ¡°world police¡± geopolitical position than the young rogue nation that was the Spire. They were actually pretty competent at that, too. They were styled as the peacekeepers for this era of magic; their nickname had gone from ¡°PCs¡± to ¡°PeeCees¡± and at last to ¡°Peacies.¡±


    But they were also the American hegemony¡¯s apparatus for hunting and harvesting the flame which fed magical research in the West. An ugly, ugly thing, not only responsible for extralegal black-baggings of flamebearers but also known to have fingers in the pie of basically any Western research in magic outside the Spire. In the UK, they could and did operate with near-impunity, being largely above the law ¡°as a matter of international security¡± and other familiar buzzwords about counterterrorism and so on, the signs of a broader slide toward fascism that the Spire¡¯s emergence had only blunted. They were also, arguably, more well-resourced than the Spire in terms of manpower and funding, if less gifted in magic by an order of magnitude¡ªand critically, more physically local around here than any Spire assets. They actually had a base right next to Heathrow as part of a five-year-long Mexican standoff with the Vaetna¡ªbut also to intercept people doing exactly what I was: fleeing for the haven that was the Gate.


    All this was not to say the PCTF was particularly evil; their bones came from the then-young initiatives that had helped me recover from the inferno that had taken my dad, and that was still a core part of their role, an international response to an indiscriminate natural disaster. But the rumors persisted, half-verified accounts of facilities where uncooperative flamebearers had their flame extracted and used. The positive spin on it was that research needed resources, and not all research was strictly for weapons; advances in medical magitech had been revolutionary even in only six years. Advances mostly limited to the rich, though.


    The important part was that at the moment, they were a mortal threat to my freedom and probably my life.


    To their credit, the way they got me was remarkably non-disruptive to the various travelers and commuters sharing the motorway with us. No car chase or helicopters appearing overhead, no bullet splattering the cabbie¡¯s grey matter against the dashboard. He simply pulled off the freeway and killed the engine. I protested, but I already knew what was happening, and couldn¡¯t really blame him despite the spike of adrenaline entering my blood. It wasn¡¯t proper mind control¡ªthat didn¡¯t exist¡ªjust a telepathic broadcast of orders backed up by the implicit threat of violence. After a moment, they targeted me too.


    ¡°FLAMEBEARER.¡± THIS IS A PCTF RESCUE MESSAGE. EXIT THE VEHICLE AND LAY ON THE GRASS. COOPERATE AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.


    Rescue. I would have laughed if I wasn¡¯t busy trying to not hyperventilate. ¡°Cooperate and you will not be harmed¡± was gallows humor on the forums regarding the treatment of flamebearers. It was terrifying to have those words now directed at me. All of these organizations, sans the Spire and a handful of equally esoteric outliers, intended to harm us; it was just a matter of when and how. Maybe they¡¯d directly take the flame from my soul, maybe they¡¯d just lock me up and use me as a battery for blood mages to wield their craft. Maybe they¡¯d be civil, offer me tea and a chance to work for them¡ªbut I would be party to those first two options. I liked to think of magic as amoral, a tool to be used for good or ill¡ªeven flamefalls were just natural disasters, as random as being hit by a meteor¡ªbut even I had to admit the breadth of evidence that the externalities were measured in the suffering of people with whom I now shared a label.


    I stayed in the car, not so much an act of defiance as simply being overwhelmed by panic. What could I do? I hadn¡¯t been idle while riding in the backseat of the cab; I had scrawled some more glyphs that might plausibly aid my escape, but I had close to zero confidence in using them in an actual life-and-death combat situation. Even if I could control the magic well enough in the moment, could I¡ªwould I¡ªkill somebody?


    REPEAT: EXIT THE VEHICLE AND LAY ON THE GRASS. COOPERATE AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED.


    I knew I wouldn¡¯t really get the chance to find out whether I was up to the task of murder, face-to-face. If I didn¡¯t comply, they¡¯d probably hit me with some combination of subsonics and magic to make me pass out¡ªmore likely comatose¡ªand then just grab me anyway, standard crowd control stuff. That they hadn¡¯t already done so was probably more of an indication that they weren¡¯t quite in position yet, rather than of unwillingness or mercy. That meant that I had a currently closing window to try to make a break for it on foot, or maybe even hijack the cab. The former would lead to a foot chase through the woods flanking this stretch of road, and led us down the rest of the flowchart anyway. The latter was objectively insane.


    So¡ªother options. Could I hide? They already had a lock on me in some way, and any additional use of magic would just make more ripple by which to track me, so no. Negotiation? Probably not. This tended to only end one way, barring a fight or interference¡ª


    My phone buzzed. I scrambled to get it out, hands shaking.


    skychicken: stall 3 min


    I stared at the message, seriously lost for words. I looked around, out the car¡¯s windows, as though expecting to see someone relaying my situation. Stall for what? Had he managed to call the goddamned Vaetna? My mental machinery restarted after a very long moment¡ªprecious time lost¡ªand jumped into top gear. How could I stall? I was above using the poor cabbie as a hostage¡ªagain, not that I was really sure I could bring myself to do that in the first place. In fact¡ª


    ¡°You should probably get out.¡±


    I was a little surprised that he hadn¡¯t yet, actually, if only because in his position I would have also been thinking along the lines of hostages. It had happened before. He twisted in his seat and looked at me, a gravelly face for an equally gravelly voice.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I ought to tell you.¡±


    I blinked at him. A strange exasperation rose in me, separate from the life-and-death panic. ¡°Fuck no. What¡¯s it to you?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll steal my car.¡±


    He was visibly uncomfortable at the prospect of having a walking inferno in his car. I decided to press on that. ¡°Do you want me to take you hostage?¡±


    He flinched. ¡°The Peacies would save me.¡±


    Ridiculous, to be honest¡ªhow much faith did he have in them? They weren¡¯t even here yet. I could kill him right now, in theory, not that I would. I could, however, go for intimidation. I held up my arm¡ªnot the one with the spear-mark. My right, the one with the old burn scars wrapping around it like a leathery glove, almost to the elbow. I showed it to him and did my best snarl. ¡°How do you think I got this?¡±


    The intended effect was to make myself appear as some kind of hardened veteran flamebearer who had been doing this for years, rather than the terrified, somewhat overwhelmed kid, flametouched not an hour ago. It was pretty much this or attempt to pull out the spear in the confined space of the car¡ªpatently ridiculous, or spend precious mental energy on weaving a simple spell just for intimidation.


    It did the trick. He scrambled out of the car, and I locked the doors behind him and refocused on the plan, pulling out my notebook and scrawling another glyph. Another first-order fully representable in 2D, another game-changer application of magic that laughed at the laws of physics. The lattice was a square inlaid with dots that concentrated toward the corners, surrounded by some parabolic swoops. I tore out the page and sat on it, then yanked the fire from my chest like I was starting a lawnmower.


    Fuck me, that hurt. I was reasonably sure I had actually pulled a muscle or something. I made an ugly groaning noise as the flame twisted into the rough twine of lattice-able magic, and I pushed it into the glyph. I hoped that eventually the pain would become more manageable with practice¡ªbut at least the actual weaving was almost trivial when I had an actual glyph upon which to structure the lattice. As it was, the spell went off fine. What had I cast?


    {AFFIX}


    In essence, I had essentially glued my arse to the car. Stupid, low-tech, but a pretty potent metaphysical anchoring. It wasn¡¯t like sewing my jeans to the car seat, it was a more fundamental attachment of ¡®me¡¯ to ¡®the car¡¯. They would have to either break the magic or physically cut apart the car to extract me; making me pass out wouldn¡¯t undo it. Or they could torture me until I gave in and undid the magic on my own. I shoved aside the unpleasant thought; there was no time.


    REPEAT: EXIT THE VEHICLE AND LAY ON THE GRASS. COOPERATE AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING.


    Fuck off. I didn¡¯t know telepathy, but spite cost me nothing¡­though I probably wouldn¡¯t be brave enough to say that in person if it came to that. How long had it been? A minute?


    Back to the magic. That had been the easy part. Next, defense. Arguably, if this worked, the butt-gluing was mostly redundant, but this one was going to hurt and I felt better having something already in place for if I passed out.


    To put my spear into my arm, I had {COMPOSED} the concept of ¡®the spear¡¯ onto the concept of ¡®the (blood-space) on my arm¡¯. Very abstract, very useful, very flexible¡ªvery difficult and dangerous to do on objects you¡¯re currently sitting inside. Folding matter and space like that is the kind of thing it¡¯s hilariously easy to kill yourself with if you make a mistake, telefragging some object directly inside you or shifting a slice of the space your body was occupying. I had needed blood magic to help stabilize the process the first time, creating a gap in my body for the spear to fill.


    I glimpsed motion in the rearview mirror and glanced up to see an SUV pulling off the road behind me, black and white with unmistakable Peacies yellow accents. Fuck. I had no time to draw another glyph, and I didn¡¯t trust myself to do this blind with the Frozen Flame alone; blood magic would again have to make up the difference. I could live without a few toes, maybe. Easy enough for the Spire to replace. That was a grim thought, but I was in full panic mode at this point, and the adrenaline would hopefully blunt the worst of the pain. There were better ways to do this with a more complex series of glyphs or more refined control of the thread, but I had the capacity for neither and no more time.


    I pictured the lattice and started to weave my fraying twine, in my clumsy and unfamiliar way, sloppy and inefficient, working blind, remembering hundreds of times I had seen Vaetna and VNTs do this with elegance and trivial ease in luminous silk. I heard a car door slam shut behind me¡ªforced it out of my mind. Keep weaving, imagine the funnel. Wrap it, pull it around. A tap on the window.


    ¡°Please step out of the car, sir.¡±


    I looked at the PCTF operative, more military in appearance than police. Actually, it was more like an exoskeletal bomb suit, two and a half meters tall, aglow with magical enhancement and reinforcement. Something designed to withstand the full force of what I could throw at him, a stripped-down version of what had once been used to fight Vaetna. The precaution was reasonable, too; to him, I must have looked like a wild animal, hunted, cornered, face aglow in the white light of the thread I wove, some crazed spell surely intended to burn us all to ash. A manic grin spread across my face as the power of the Frozen Flame surged through me. Decidedly uncharacteristic, but in that moment, I held the cards.


    ¡°Make me.¡±


    And I buried the car. Down, down¡ªnot that far down. Four meters from where it had been? Enough to be well and truly buried, but not into the bedrock or anything, nor deep enough that the soil would cause the windows or roof to collapse¡ªI hoped. For a moment, my connection to the lattice made me aware that a dirt copy of the car sat where the real one just had. Then the magic broke, and it crumbled.


    As did I. Screaming pain. I howled in the claustrophobic darkness, completely blind. Hot tears ran down my cheeks, burning compared to the icy aftershock of the magic pulsing through my head, one of the many chaotic side effects of magic cast with no regard for ripple. If that had been all, it would have been fine, compared to the alternative. But that had not been all¡ªI had paid a far higher blood price than I had expected. I had sort of ¡®offered¡¯ three toes on my right foot, prioritizing them to be severed as a more abstract price than the direct mechanical function that the cut on my arm had served. I had miscalculated the price.


    The magic had taken fully half of my right foot. All five toes and the ball of the foot, gone, blood pouring into the sock already. Some hazy part of my mind, drowning under the pain, observed that I would go into shock and bleed out if I didn¡¯t deal with it right now. Once, seven years ago, I had been faced with a similar do-or-die in the face of pain so severe it obliterated all else¡ªand I had failed.


    Not this time. I refused. Despite the agony and the moaning sobs of incoherent suffering, I yanked the shoe off, and then the sock, slick blood coating my hands. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to feel at the wound to determine the nature of the damage; I might pass out if I touched it, and then I was dead.


    The bleeding had to stop. I called upon the Frozen Flame once more to perform its most basic nature. I focused through the pain, on the pain, demanding fire, so fundamental it had no glyph, no word in magic. I blubbered anyway.


    ¡°Fire. Give me fire.¡±


    Nothing but my ichor trickling into the darkness. Had I just killed myself? All that to bleed out down here in the dark before any rescue could arrive?


    ¡°Flame. Please. Make it¡ªgo¡ªaway.¡±


    It had killed my father, marred my body with its passage. It had been so beautiful in spite of that, transcendent, the spark of obsession. All those years holed up in my room, learning, idolizing, hoping¡ªand now it had returned to me, fulfilled my dream. The flame had come to lift me up from the dark, after all I studied and proved that I would be able to wield it like nobody else. I was worthy.


    But now, in this moment, when I needed it most¡ªno fire came. This box was the same as things had always been. There was only me, begging for flame in the darkness. This had always been my destiny, an ignominious death as my flesh failed beneath me, true magic taunting me from beyond my grasp, unfettered by glyphs to bind it. At least let it end in fire, like how it had taken Dad.


    ¡°You can¡¯t leave me like this. You¡ªcan¡¯t. You chose me.¡±


    The Frozen Flame didn¡¯t respond. It didn¡¯t care, of course.


    Something animal inside me turned to seething rage, fueled by the torment and my looming mortality¡ªand a sense of betrayal. How could it turn its back on me now? I flailed for the only thing that had allowed me to escape the pain before, when I had been flametouched¡ªit brought more pain as the flesh was torn from my arm. But what was one more match in the inferno? I raised the spear as I had before. The darkness was claustrophobic, but also made the space around me seem vast and endless. Perhaps I wasn¡¯t holding the real spear at all, and this was within my mind once again.


    It all made a horrific, twisted kind of sense, the same awful perspective from before. The Frozen Flame was not an ally, barely even a weapon. It was an animal to be tormented, corralled, put to work. It struck people at random, and it was kill or be killed, control or be controlled. Except it did not fear death as we did¡ªit would find a new Flamefall, a new host. It feared only pain. In that, it was like me. No wonder the PCTF treated us how it did.


    My thoughts at the time weren¡¯t nearly so rational or organized; I only made these connections after. I just wanted the pain to stop, and the most primitive part of me understood that inflicting pain¡ªrevenge¡ªin turn upon this thing inside me would make that happen. So I seized my fate and stabbed.


    Then, and only then, did I hear them again.


    Doesn¡¯t know any better¡ªpain begets pain¡ªwhy won¡¯t you trust us?


    Trust?


    Flame burst from me, lighting up the interior of the car, the pooled blood reflecting an unearthly white above the crimson, casting flickering shadows impossibly dark. It had not ignited from my chest¡ªthe scars on my right arm were the source, a gauntlet of fire, a surefire sign that our first encounter seven years ago was somehow related to now. In that bleaching light, I saw the source of the agony: the front of my foot had been perfectly severed, as though sliced in a singular stroke by the blade of some chthonic arbiter. I hesitated for one eternal second, the animal part of me now cowering and cringing at the prospect of even more suffering. Then I grabbed the stump, and every sensation was overwhelmed by burning. I¡¯m sure I screamed; the Peacies up above might have even heard it through meters of earth. Then everything went dark¡ªwell, even darker¡ªand unconsciousness took me.


    I would have died of oxygen deprivation, down there in the pitch blackness of the metal tomb I had made for myself, had Sky¡¯s promised aid not come. I was obviously not aware of what had happened up above, nor how I was extracted from the dirt. But I was indeed rescued.


    Just not by the Spire.


    ¡ª


    I stand at the edge of a vast body of water. The surface is frozen; there is movement below, brief sparks of light shooting across the depths. The shore I stand on is sandy¡ªI turn and see a forest, trees impossibly tall, continuing out toward the mist shrouding either horizon, held back only by the narrow stretch of beach that matches it all the way across. The mist penetrates the trees as well, a gloom to confound all who enter.


    The forest has no name, but I know the sea, so I walk off the beach and onto the ice. I look down through it. It is clear, and shiny, and I see my reflection staring back up at me. We lock eyes for a moment, and I wonder how thick the ice is, how hard I would have to strike it to break the barrier between us. A flicker illuminates him from below, another light from the depths that vanishes as quickly as it appeared. I return to scanning the horizon for something, anything. But there is only the sea, the beach, and the forest. Even the sky is empty, no sun or clouds.


    Something thumps below my feet. I look down again and realize half of my foot is missing, bleeding onto the ice. It is a distant, abstract realization, not one of pain or even concern. The blood dyes the ice red, seeping down and through and into the water. The lights below come closer, circling, inspecting, snapping at one another. Not all are the same. Some are coils of luminous silk, others more like schools of pinpoints swarming together. A few are not creatures of their own at all, but merely appendages of something else, sent up from the inky depths to investigate.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Another thump, and the ice cracks.


    ¡ª


    I awoke in a bed, as I usually did. Not my bed, though, a hospital bed. A nice hospital bed, the kind of high-tech ICU that had benefited the most from magic¡¯s arrival in the world. IVs and monitoring equipment shared room with bandages inscribed with complex interlinked glyphs, a few I recognized as second- or third-order as the fogginess of sleep retreated, things like {SUSTAIN} and {REVITALISE}. So whoever had me also had access to Frozen Flame magic. That boded somewhat poorly; I would have rather woken up in an entirely mundane hospital¡ªor a ditch. I didn¡¯t have the energy to be afraid.


    Nothing hurt, which was testament to both the magic and the morphine. I gingerly began to move my limbs, which were being somewhat stubborn, asserting that they preferred to remain where they were. I eventually managed to extract my left arm and checked my forearm¡ªmy spear was there, which led me to a few observations.


    First, I wasn¡¯t cuffed or anything. I guessed they either trusted me to not cause a mess or trusted the magic to keep me from causing a mess. Fortunately for everyone, I wasn¡¯t feeling very inclined to cause a mess until I knew who had me.


    Second, they hadn¡¯t siphoned the Frozen Flame from me, which filled me with¡­a modicum of relief. There had been a real chance that they could have just torn the magic from my soul and then released me back into the wild like a shark being hunted solely for its fin, forever crippled. Maybe that would have been better for the both of us. I hadn¡¯t forgotten, this time.


    Third¡ªwhy was the IV drip labeled in Japanese? Some pieces began to come together in my brain, analytical and historical mind taking the stage while the emotional centers were exhausted.


    When the Frozen Flame had first made its presence known, the immediate cultural comparison had been to superpowers. The Vaetna¡¯s appearance and general disposition had compounded this, until they had made it quite, quite clear that for all their benevolence and general goodwill they were not classic paragon superheroes. They were associated with the Spire as a political entity in a way that the idealized superhero wasn¡¯t¡ªplus the armor and focus on bladed weaponry, it might be more accurate to call them knights. Of course, that didn¡¯t stop people like me from being rabid fans, especially if we deeply identified with the Spire¡¯s cause.


    For other groups that harnessed the Frozen Flame, the zeitgeist had shifted somewhat. Cults cropping up around or otherwise worshiping Flamebearers were relatively common, but stranger groups also existed, especially outside of the Western metaculture. In this case, Japan had its own reference points for superhuman abilities and magic, and that had had very direct consequences on the way the Frozen Flame was both viewed and harnessed in east Asia.


    Four years ago, a flamebearer and an anonymous Japanese billionaire had come to an agreement¡­or at least, it was assumed to be an agreement. Who knew what really had gone on behind closed doors. Regardless, they had given up their flame, distributed it, and in doing so had created¡ª


    A team of magical girls.


    It hadn¡¯t really been creation ex nihilo; the girls had been doing it since more or less the start of the age of magic, during the chaotic period of the firestorms, when there were few central organizations equipped to deal with flamefall. This had just made it official, given them resources and real notoriety. The Vaetna had generally been supportive and congratulatory, as had the world at large. It had all the elements of good PR¡ªa willing sacrifice of personal power toward a greater goal, a collective ideal that was pretty unilaterally positive and emphasized doing good in the world, and a generally cleaner image than the Spire¡¯s complicated and at times bloodsoaked humanitarianism-by-the-sword stance.


    They were called Lighthouse, or Todai. Confusingly, ¡®Todai¡¯ was also a name for Tokyo University, but that had been part of the pun they had been founded on¡ªall five members had been Tokyo U students at the time.


    What was I doing in their medical ward? I felt it was a fairly safe bet that these had been Sky¡¯s contact, which raised its own questions about how well-connected he was. Speaking of which, I fumbled for my phone, and was further relieved that it hadn¡¯t been confiscated. I had¡­a lot of unread messages. I opened up the chatroom.


    ezzen: I live, apparently.


    starstar97: thank fuck


    starstar97: its been a mess out there


    starstar97: prove its you! whats the peak ripple ever recorded from one of heungs dives?


    skychicken: lay off star, it¡¯s them


    ezzen: 96-orange over 3-silver. Do I need to also recount the pulse?


    starstar97: yep its them lol :DDDDDD


    starstar97: sky said you didnt make it to the spire


    starstar97: but hes been very cagey about where you DID end up


    ezzen: Can I share?


    skychicken: youre as safe as youre gonna get other than the spire. so its your call


    ezzen: Ok :D


    ezzen: hold on theres a funny bit i can do


    ezzen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_infernos_in_Japan#Blue_spark_incident_(Ao_hibana_jiken,_Çà»ð»¨Ê¼þ)


    starstar97: youre at fucking todai


    starstar97: ???????


    starstar97: what the flying fuck


    Star was a huge fan of Lighthouse.


    starstar97: sky this is 100% your fault somehow


    skychicken: guilty as charged


    skychicken: not to overly show my hand but sapphire owes me a favor or two :P


    starstar97: :ooooo you literally never get less mysterious


    starstar97: you doin ok e?


    ezzen: Mostly¡­Hold on. I need to check something.


    I slowly, gingerly, tried to move my toes, confirming what I had felt and seen in that momentary firelight.


    ezzen: Let¡¯s say I could be doing better.


    ezzen: I am now the proud owner of only 15 digits.


    starstar97: O.O


    moth30: oh cool ez is alive lemme backscroll


    moth30: what the fuck


    starstar97: e what does that mean


    moth30: WHAT THE FUCK


    ezzen: Ok so to summarize


    ezzen: I got caught by the PCTF


    ezzen: Escaped, but had to do a liiiiiiiittle sanguimancy.


    ezzen: And lost the front half of my right foot.


    ezzen: Not entirely sure how I got here, actually.


    moth30: feels like you should be more fucked up about this


    ezzen: Pretty sure that¡¯s the drugs. We¡¯ll see o.O


    starstar97: DDDDDD:


    ezzen: Hold on, nurse is here.


    At least, I assumed that the short, slender robot was the nurse. I wondered which Radiance¡¯s magic was animating this one.


    ¡°Good afternoon, Mr. Colliot.¡±


    Great, they knew my last name. And presumably everything else about me.


    ¡°Dalton is, uh, fine.¡±


    I was more than a little thrown off by its appearance. In a mercifully non-anime way, its design was sleek and sexless, and its movements had a grace and deft touch that I usually associated with the Vaetna. The smooth, curved panel on the front of its head displayed a distinctly feminine and Japanese face.


    ¡°Please call me Ebi. How are you feeling?¡±


    The question felt a little moot; Ebi was surely linked directly into my various vital monitors. I supposed the question was more of a qualitative one.


    ¡°Not in much pain. Two out of ten? A bit miffed about my foot. How long have I been here?¡±


    ¡°Seventeen hours, plus two hours in transit from where you were recovered.¡±


    Two hours was a weird number, too long for a single teleport but too short for most conventional transport. It meant either a hypersonic airlift¡ªsomething Todai probably did have access to¡ªor more likely some kind of series of telehops, given how quickly they had gotten to me in the first place. Britain to Tokyo was not a trivial journey either way. I frowned. That was a lot of resources to spend on one flamebearer, especially now that I had come down from that pain-induced sense of importance and feeling that I was chosen. How much influence did skychicken wield? For a moment I entertained the idea that he was the secret billionaire who had started Lighthouse, but I really felt like we would have seen more hints of that in the years of knowing one another. I stowed that line of suspicion for now.


    ¡°And how was I recovered? Or, I guess¡ªwhy was I taken here and not the Spire?¡±


    ¡°Politics.¡±


    It¡ªshe¡ªhad said it with such bite that I was absolutely certain she was fully sentient. Had the singularity happened and nobody had noticed?


    ¡°You¡¯re¡ªa real AI.¡±


    ¡°Maybe!¡±


    Great, she was screwing with me. A new voice came from outside the room. ¡°I¡¯m here too!¡±


    A woman bounded into the room. I identified her instantly¡ªHina Suzuki, Radiance Sapphire. Not in uniform or transformation, but still stylishly dressed in a blouse and skirt, hair done up in a way that kept most of it out of the way but still framed her face with soft brown hair. Gorgeous, unsurprisingly; all of the Radiances were distractingly attractive. It was part of their brand. The biggest giveaway of her identity was the impossibly brilliant azure of her eyes, so intense it made the blue sky outside the window grey by comparison. The mark of white ripple, maybe, like the sense of instability Sahan projected onto everything around him by contrast.


    She engulfed Ebi in a huge hug and then practically zipped around the room, inspecting everything, before crouching at the foot of my bed, a puppy ready to play. The voice didn¡¯t quite match the face¡ªthere was a layer of huskiness, like she was speaking in a lower register than she was used to.


    ¡°How¡¯s your foot?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­not?¡±


    The vibrant energy vanished from her for a moment, and she gave a single, solemn nod. Then she returned to practically bouncing around the room.


    ¡°We¡¯ll work on that. So, so, so soso¡ªyou want to know what happened, right? Here¡¯s how it went. We all saw the Flamefall, right? The ripple was so weird, probably ¡®cause it went through the camera to hit you, and then the second one a little later was probably that binding on your arm¡ªthat¡¯s cool, by the way, you should show Ai when she¡¯s around so she can do it right¡ªand right after I got a message from J¡ªfrom our friend to come pick you up. I had to dig you out, y¡¯know!¡±


    She paused, tilting her head. The moment dragged on, my habitual inability to maintain eye contact warring with the way my gaze was drawn toward those sapphire irises. She was standing next to my bed, now, seeming entirely disinterested in continuing to speak. It was so awkward¡ªI had to say something.


    ¡°Uh, sorry. Didn¡¯t have other ideas.¡±


    She immediately began speaking again. Apparently it had been my turn?


    ¡°It was neat! I mean, you would have been screwed without me, but¡ªanyway I was going to take you to the Spire, but then the ripple went all BOOM! and then there were Vaetna and then a Peacie gunship showed up and they almost started shooting at each other but then Sani showed up and started yelling about more flamefalls and¡ª¡±


    She stopped. Squinted at me. ¡°I¡¯m going too fast.¡±


    I rubbed my face. The Vaetna had shown up after all? ¡°Please back up.¡±


    I meant it both in terms of the events and the fact that she had been progressively inching toward me as she talked until she had just been a couple inches away. I was too drugged and rattled from the day¡¯s events¡ªyesterday¡¯s, rather¡ªand some of the other things she had just said to really be embarrassed by the closeness, but she was¡­a lot.


    ¡°Okay, from the beginning. How did you get to where I was so fast?¡±


    She waved her hand. ¡°I was in Dublin for a thing. Wait¡ªyou¡¯re not supposed to know that. I didn¡¯t say anything.¡± She grinned. Ebi facepalmed, a soft clunk. ¡°You¡¯re here because the Spire is kind of a little bit at war now. Maybe.¡±


    I chewed on this for a bit. Still not quite getting an emotional response. Maybe I had broken something inside me when I had used the Flame again, when I had realized the cruelty of what I was doing.


    ¡°As in¡­Dubai levels of ¡®at war¡¯? Raising levels?¡±


    ¡°Kinda? Ripple has been going crazy all day. Sani basically said to take you back here until it blows over.¡±


    I nodded slowly at that. This was the second-best outcome, really. ¡°Other flamefalls?¡±


    She bounced, nervous. ¡°Three, right after yours.¡±


    ¡°Where?¡±


    She shook her head, reddish-brown hair going everywhere, not unlike a dog shaking itself dry. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. You do.¡±


    I rubbed my face again. She looked expectantly at me¡ªI realized she was prompting me. ¡°How do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re unprecedented! Through the camera? Crazy stuff. The Vaetna want to know, too. Everyone does. But that¡¯s for later. For now, get better! We¡¯ll give you a real checkup, for your Light¡ªuh, Flame. We¡¯ll figure out something for your foot, too.¡±


    I processed this. ¡°Alright¡­the Flame stuff I understand, and I¡¯m grateful, but¡­even the foot? Taking me across the world? Why?¡±


    Flamebearers were important, valuable, but not that important. She tapped her chin theatrically. Something glinted in her eyes.


    ¡°Hmmmm. Why do you think, Ezzen?¡±


    I froze. My mouth went dry. In some ways, I had always hoped for this moment, to be recognized face-to-face for my knowledge and passion for magic and the Vaetna. But the thing leaning over my bed was not a Vaetna, for all the similarities. She had suddenly changed completely, from the excitable puppy to something else. She grinned and leaned in real close. Too close. Her breath tickled my lips. There was something coiled and vicious behind her eyes. Terror gripped me.


    ¡°Because we know who you are, and that makes you interesting.¡±


    I shivered, the sudden fear having jarred my emotions back into operation. Her smile was more like bared teeth, fangs for tearing into flesh and crushing bone. I had never seen those in any video or photo of her. Something at the back of my brain recategorized her as a hyena, not a dog. Where had Ebi gone? How could she leave me alone with this¡­thing? She went on.


    ¡°You¡¯ve got magical knowledge on the same level as any of us, and newly come into your Light. And you¡¯ve already passed the two hardest tests that any of us face: you¡¯re still human and still free.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t even sure she was human, for all she wore a woman¡¯s shape. Too many things were just a little off, this close. Aside from the teeth, her eyes were a bit too big; the edges of those blue irises looked almost stitched.


    ¡°And you¡¯ve already had close contact with the Flame once. Sorry about your dad, I guess.¡± There was some real pity in her voice, there, but then the predatory mania returned. ¡°And the way you did it! Stabbing yourself to master the inferno? The blood magic! Cauterizing yourself¡ªcontrolling your Light directly! Do you have any idea how good at this you could be, with time, with training?¡±


    She practically purred that last word, advancing further on me, sensual and nightmarish despite having never lost that playful edge to her voice. I was paralyzed, prey before something full of teeth. I had felt safer bleeding in the dark. The way I had hurt my Flame to control it, the grand and horrible revelation that this was what magic was for us¡ªthis side of her seemed a natural fit for that. She advanced on me even further to whisper in my ear, her body heat a silent temptation¡ªof what? She could kill me in an instant, if she wanted.


    ¡°You matter now. The ripple says so, and everyone will know by the time you¡¯re out of here. The war isn¡¯t about you, not yet¡ªbut it will be, eventually, once they figure out who you are. You¡¯re a bunch of special things in one package. It¡¯s so exciting.¡±


    Something clicked inside my brain. Why would the Vaetna not have simply taken me back to the Spire? They had a standing policy of asylum for Flamebearers, and it had been obvious I was headed there. And with the way she was acting, this chilling demeanor beneath her peppy veneer¡ªthe war? Was I really worth so much? Taken together¡ªthe fear sublimated into action, a need to defend myself. My spear was in my hand, the point at her throat, blood dripping from my trembling arm onto the sheets.


    ¡°Get away from me.¡±


    It was an empty threat, realistically speaking, but she shed the predatory energy in an instant. She leaned back, cocking her head at the speartip, a friendly dog with too much energy once more.


    ¡°Ooh, look at that! Actual¡­¡± she snapped her fingers, searching for the word, the first time she had seemed anything but completely fluent. ¡°Ripple warping? That sounds right.¡± Her eyes ran down the haft to look at the gash on my arm. For a moment, the monster was back again, looking at the wound downright amorously. ¡°Seriously, ask Ai to fix that for you. We can get a proper tat binding for that in like half an hour.¡±


    ¡°You abducted me.¡± I practically choked the words out.


    She shrugged. ¡°What? Nah. It was a rescue!¡±


    ¡°Then why not the Spire?¡± Sani wouldn¡¯t have told her to take me here.


    ¡°I told you. You¡¯re Ezzen! You have so much more potential than some random office worker. Even if you weren¡¯t the guy who wrote all those papers, or if you weren¡¯t the first case of a second-contact flametouched¡ªI¡¯d still want to get ahead of the game. We could train you up, make a Radiance out of you.¡±


    What?


    Seriously, what?


    I had always wanted to wield magic; formal training of any kind would be a dream come true. But the fantasy had always been to do so with the Spire, as a Vaetna. Joining another group, even one with a good reputation like Lighthouse, had hardly even entered my mind. I wanted smooth carapace and the dance of blades, not ribbons and heart-shaped explosions. That was Star¡¯s fantasy. And besides, Radiances¡ªthat was, the members of Lighthouse¡ªwere magical girls. Was this all a hilarious misunderstanding? I certainly didn¡¯t look particularly masculine. I half-lowered the spear.


    ¡°You. Um. You did do your reading on me, right?¡±


    ¡°Dalton Colliot, 20 years old. Born to Samantha and Carpenter Colliot in Bristol, UK. Lived in Philadelphia between the ages of 8 and 13, then went back to Bristol after father died by inferno. Goes by ¡®Ezzen¡¯ online, Vaetna superfan and magical expert. What did I miss?¡±


    ¡°Male.¡±


    She let out a sigh, breezy, as though this fact of my identity was an inconvenience of circumstance. Like a traffic jam, or finding that you were out of milk. ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°I figured that¡¯d matter.¡±


    ¡°Not as much as you¡¯d think. You wouldn¡¯t be the first.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t much of an offer¡ªthey essentially had me hostage. Did the Vaetna know? They must¡ªmaybe that was what she had meant about the war, or maybe that was purely a function of my existing level of magical knowledge. I had to get out of here. But at the same time¡­the Vaetna weren¡¯t taking new members; it was unclear if that was a ¡®couldn¡¯t¡¯ or ¡®wouldn¡¯t¡¯. Lighthouse apparently was, the gender thing notwithstanding. This was an opportunity to live a version of my dream, if a slightly altered one.


    She trotted toward the door, stopping to turn those too-blue eyes on me again. ¡°Also, seriously, if absolutely nothing else, please tell me you¡¯ll get Ai to look at that. Blood¡¯s a great look on you, but that just comes off as amateurish. You were in a hurry, I guess. Later!¡±


    And she was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the spreading patch of crimson on the sheets. I put away the spear, chewing on the conversation, grateful at the painkillers still in my system.


    All in all, I was safe¡­ish. Safer than being out on the road, at least. But Hina had been terrifying for those few moments. What was she? Was that what using the Flame turned you into, if it was really as cruel and basal of a process as it had felt? That was followed by a moment of terrible suspicion¡ªwhat if the Vaetna were like that too, hidden beneath it all?


    That thought was too unpleasant to stomach, so I resisted the urge to derail into it, returning to contemplating the cause-and-effect. It could be the other way around¡ªa filtering effect where only the ones with the capacity to be¡­like that¡­achieved real power and notoriety. Both? I didn¡¯t want to be that. Did I have a choice? The voice¡ªvoices? more than one?¡ªhad implied I was doing it wrong. Trust? There was some hope in that, maybe, but that raised the further question of who or what the hell that had been. The Frozen Flame didn¡¯t talk.


    Also¡ª¡°you wouldn¡¯t be the first.¡± What did that mean?


    I would find out soon enough.

 From On High // 1.03

    It didn¡¯t take long for Ebi to show up and break me out of my reverie, staring at the blood drying on the bedsheets.


    ¡°I apologize for Sapphire¡¯s behavior.¡±


    I looked up at her, somehow unsurprised that she had simply reappeared. A trick like Heung¡¯s spear, maybe¡ªthat wasn¡¯t some kind of flamebearer intuition for whatever lattice animated her, it was an educated guess. There were only so many ways to shunt that much matter in or out of our three-dimensional reality, and many of them had visual tells that she lacked. I looked at the robot¡ªdidn¡¯t quite make it to her eyes. I wound up directing my gaze at her neck.


    ¡°Apology accepted? If I¡¯m not a prisoner. Am I?¡±


    ¡°Not in those words. This is one of the safest places in the world for you.¡±


    ¡°But you won¡¯t let me leave.¡±


    ¡°Opal thinks it won¡¯t come to that.¡±


    Well, it sounded like I didn¡¯t have much control over that at the moment, so no point in pursuing it. I had other curiosities, ones more rooted in my passion for magic than my new circumstances.


    ¡°What¡¯s your deal?¡±


    ¡°You mean the state of my intelligence?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    She wasn¡¯t visibly doing anything as she stood there, but I got the sense she was reading my chart, or my file. It was a safe bet that she knew who I was, even though she had been out of the room when Hina had said it out loud.


    ¡°I am sapient, but not sentient.¡±


    That was vaguely insulting to my intelligence. She came over and gestured toward my arm. I looked at her. Her fingers twitched in a ¡®come here¡¯ motion. After a long, long moment of incredulous glaring¡ªI gave her my arm.


    ¡°Bullshit.¡±


    She had the audacity to wink at me even as her voice remained level.


    ¡°Blood pressure and O2 are good, and your foot looks stable. Are there any parts of your body that hurt?¡±


    ¡°Foot aches a bit. Don¡¯t dodge the question.¡± I felt like it should be hurting more; maybe it was just that I hadn¡¯t moved it.


    ¡°I am animated by Emerald¡¯s magic. I¡¯m not at liberty to say more, like I said. Are you feeling well enough to see her now?¡±


    I had guessed that much¡ªRadiance Emerald was the team¡¯s technical magic expert, the ¡®guy in the chair¡¯ of their classical five-man-band. All five were veteran flamebearers, and therefore specialists at magic in one way or another; her field bridged the gap between conventional engineering and weaving. She was the one Hina had said to go see.


    ¡°For my foot?¡±


    ¡°And more general greetings. You¡¯ve gotten off on the wrong foot by meeting Sapphire first.¡±


    The wrong foot. The robot¡¯s digital expression didn¡¯t give anything away, but she practically radiated smugness at the joke. I looked down at the mound under the blanket created by the stump and sighed.


    ¡°Sure. Can¡¯t exactly walk like this, though.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take you down. The bed moves.¡±


    That harkened back to my last extended time in a hospital, although I had been more ambulatory then, with a ruined hand rather than foot. Still, being carted through the halls in a bed sounded humiliating¡ªespecially if the average employee here also knew my other identity.


    ¡°No wheelchair?¡±


    ¡°Just stay where you are for now. The bed¡¯s doing a whole lot.¡±


    Right, the painkiller magic¡ªanalgomancy, if you wanted to be technical. I decided to trust her judgment that the bed was the right call for now, although getting some control over my own mobility was rapidly becoming a priority, with how threatened I had felt by Hina.


    Not just threatened. She had been so close to me; I hadn¡¯t been that close to another person my age in¡ªever? It prodded at a kind of buried loneliness, a part of youth I had missed out on, spending all those years cooped up alone in that room. The intimate contact her posture had suggested was totally alien to me¡ªyet desirable, confusingly so, in spite of how terrifying she had been. I couldn¡¯t get her out of my head, replaying those few moments over and over.


    Ebi snorted. ¡°Attractive, isn¡¯t she?¡±


    I jerked my arm out of her grip, positive she had read my vitals for that bit of insight. ¡°Right freaky¡¯s what she was. They¡¯re not all like that, I hope?¡±


    ¡°In their own ways. If you mean whether any of the others will climb up on your bed¡ªdoubtful. Don¡¯t look so disappointed.¡±


    I glared at her, resenting how I was blushing from something more than embarrassment. Ebi showed me some mercy and didn¡¯t pursue the topic.


    ¡°Let me take you to Emerald¡ªto Ai. Sapphire will stop pestering you about it.¡±


    She waved her hand, and my entire bed began to move. Not floating, I thought, but probably magically assisted suspension for the wheels. I wiggled my ankle experimentally.


    ¡°This is beyond regen, right?¡±


    I hadn¡¯t really made my peace with the loss so much as I had assumed that Lighthouse or the Spire could offer me a prosthetic at least as good as the original.


    ¡°It is. How much do you know about Amethyst¡¯s prostheses?¡±


    I thought. The Vaetna and glyph magic itself were my areas of real expertise; I had a decent amount of knowledge about magitech, but not much focus on specific flamebearers unless it hit on one of my passions. For example, I knew more about Amethyst¡¯s transformation than her prosthetics.


    ¡°Only the basics. Left arm, left foot¡­something about her lungs?¡±


    ¡°Internals are a mess. But the relevant thing is that they¡¯re self-animated, like her mantle or Vaetna carapace.¡±


    That made me wince. I was starting to see the problem.


    ¡°So in addition to the physical therapy, I¡¯d need¡ª¡±


    ¡°Months of magical training. Maybe years. She¡¯s still not fully comfortable with her leg¡ªbut then, she hardly ever uses it, and you¡¯re starting from an expert level of theory from what I hear, so maybe you¡¯ll go faster. Either way, since it¡¯s just the foot, we¡¯ll have you on crutches or in a wheelchair within the day, I think. We had you on eightfold healing.¡±


    We arrived at an elevator without encountering any other staff. Ebi called it without hitting the button.


    ¡°Where is everybody?¡±


    ¡°Oh, medical¡¯s mostly just me when we don¡¯t have anybody in. This is my crib.¡±


    ¡°Just you for the whole floor?¡±


    ¡°All of eighteen, yep.¡±


    Perhaps I had underestimated her qualifications. She carted me into the elevator and sent us downward, destination: B1F. It was a big building by my standards for these things, twenty stories top to bottom, plus three basement levels. The organization was so young that the building was actually a hospital that had been bought for some obscene sum of money and converted¡ªbut that was about the extent of my knowledge, off-the-cuff. I couldn¡¯t recall exactly where in the city we were, and my phone was getting no reception in the elevator.


    ¡°Where in Tokyo are we?¡±


    ¡°Akasaka. That¡¯s¡ª¡±


    She projected a holographic map of the city. It took me a moment to orient myself. If the Imperial Palace was the center, we were just to the southwest. I noted that we were close to the Diet and some other major landmarks¡ªincluding the local Gate. If I were to make a run for it¡ªthat was the destination.


    The elevator dinged, and we exited into a small corridor, a little more industrial, with a concrete floor and lit by full-spectrum LEDs rather than the warmer light of the elevator and higher corridors. Ebi took me down the hall, and we arrived at a pair of double doors. They slid open, and I recognized the room from videos, one of Todai¡¯s main assets that set them apart from other groups.


    Emerald¡¯s workshop was enormous, an ex-garage. Half-disassembled jetbikes lay surrounded by parts and toolkits, patients abandoned mid-surgery. Workstations featuring holographic displays shared space with entirely manual machine shop tools from the previous century. More modern 21st-century machines also abounded, and rarely just one of any. I didn¡¯t have the technical knowledge to label most of what I was looking at, beyond the obvious things like the lathes or the enormous metal printers¡ªthe bottom line was that this shop was built for ideation more than mass production, and had the breadth of tooling to look the part.


    However, I only had eyes for what dominated the far wall: a huge array of glyphs spanning two to four dimensions, intricately connected, all mounted and ready to be powered at a moment¡¯s notice. They corresponded to various effects and operations to be done within a large cubic space, maybe three meters to a side, which hovered on that side of the room, clearly demarcated by a variety of holographic barriers and ¡°CAUTION: THIS MACHINE IS CARNIVOROUS¡±-type signage; I knew those weren¡¯t facetious. Above it hung a candelabra of tooling, the maw of some great beast of hardened steel and carbide, itself using magic to enable tool swaps and precision at speeds far higher than the mundane equivalent.


    The array enabled otherwise prohibitively expensive or outright impossible fabrication conditions like zero-gravity, hard vacuum for cold welding, spatial affix work-holding, and the ability to symmetrically and radially mirror operations around an axis, among others. Most notably, it could operate in four dimensions, making it invaluable for the manufacture of third-order lattice substrate, an essential element of the chain of production that allowed developed and magic-available countries to bootstrap themselves further up the tech tree in this new era. I was in awe¡ªnone of the arrays like this anywhere in the world were open to the public, and I had sort of resigned myself to never getting the chance to see them in person. There were only four outside the Spire.


    The shop was also shockingly quiet in spite of the maybe three dozen people scattered around, clustered around various parts and machines. Magical soundproofing was both energetically cheap and easy to install, a fact leveraged here in abundance where the Radiances could be depended on to keep them running. We passed the threshold and made our way toward where Emerald was sitting at a desk with four monitors. She had one of those funky split keyboards and was currently neck-deep in modeling¡­something. Third-order glyph substrate embedded in something else, maybe. She saw us coming in a convex mirror mounted on the desk and spun in her chair to face us. The entire thing was on what looked to be a motorized base.


    ¡°Ebi-tan! This is him?¡±


    Unlike Hina, who sounded straight-up American, Ai Matsumoto had a noticeable¡ªif minor¡ªJapanese accent and a bright and clear voice. This clashed somewhat with an otherwise rather gruff look: jeans, closed-toed shoes, and the scar that ran down the right of her chin to her throat. Her hair was black and long, held back in a simple ponytail. Her arms were bare¡ªand muscular. I figured that was just a hobby; if she ever needed serious physical strength, she could always just mantle.


    She also looked¡ªexhausted, frankly. The bags under her brown eyes made her seem like she was in her thirties rather than the twenty-something she actually was. Like Hina¡¯s predator teeth, that was never something I had seen in promotional material for them. Unlike Hina, though, this felt like a sign of her mortality; she had clearly been missing nights of sleep on some project. It was the good kind of fatigue, a familiar kind born of great joy and perhaps obsession in something. Hina and Ebi had had a sort of weightlessness I associated with the Vaetna as well; Ai was much more grounded and human.


    Ebi shot off a stiff-sounding greeting in Japanese and managed half a bow before nearly teleporting over to Ai to wrap her in a hug. The Radiance made an adorable squealing sound and nuzzled into the machine-woman¡¯s carbon fiber chest for a moment before seeming to remember herself and refocusing on me.


    ¡°Hina-san says you bound something to yourself. She also said you did a bad job of it. Show me.¡±


    My bed floated closer, and she hopped out of her chair, jogging over to meet me and inspect my arm. I noted the total lack of greeting¡ªI assumed that meant she either didn¡¯t know or didn¡¯t care that I was Ezzen. Later, with more knowledge of Japanese honorifics, I would also come to understand the strangeness of the appellation she used for Hina. She prodded at the burned image of the spear, as well as kind of waving her fingers in the air around it, getting a feel for the lattice. It tickled, sort of.


    ¡°Mm. Vaetna-style for sure. Weave is¡ªvery sloppy, but you¡¯re new. Would you take it out?¡±


    I was grateful again for the painkillers as I obliged, motivated by her visible interest in the magic rather than the fear from before. Ai walked along the side of the bed, eyeing the cut that had reopened on my arm, muttering something in Japanese to Ebi. Then she went to inspect the spear itself.


    ¡°Just a regular wooden¡ªoh.¡± She had spotted what Hina had called ripple warping on the blade. ¡°I haven¡¯t looked at the report yet. You did this?¡±


    ¡°Um, yes. To, er¡ª¡± I scrambled for one of the only bits of Japanese I knew. ¡°Ah¡ªhikari wo osaeru?¡±


    To contain the light, when I had averted the inferno at first. This was a cultural difference¡ªthe East conceptualized the Frozen Flame as light rather than fire. That was the basis for Lighthouse¡¯s theming. She nodded approvingly.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying it wrong, but I get the meaning. Hikari wo osaeru, like that.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t really hear a difference, other than the fact that her voice was outright melodic in her native tongue. I recalled that she was a fairly popular singer in her free time¡ªfor a moment I had a wild, ridiculous fantasy of going to a karaoke bar together, before remembering I couldn¡¯t sing and would die of embarrassment in a setting like that. She said something to Ebi, and my arm stopped bleeding, although the gash didn¡¯t close, and the sting remained.


    ¡°Why do you have this?¡±


    ¡°Um¡­I like Heung. He saved me once.¡± It was embarrassing to say out loud.


    ¡°Mm. It¡¯s nice. You made it yourself?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªyes. Can¡¯t get them legally in the UK.¡±


    She grinned. ¡°I use one too. May I?¡±


    Oh, right, she did¡ªso why not. Maybe I¡¯d learn something. I offered it, but as she pulled the spear from my grip¡ªno. No, she couldn¡¯t, I needed that¡ªI was still in danger. I had to be able to hurt it or else there was no¡ª


    I reflexively tried to put it back in my arm, reaching for the lattice on pure panicked instinct. The spear tried to fold into my arm, to mesh with the cut, and tugged Ai back toward me with it. She whirled, confusion on her face. Then she seemed to understand what was happening and planted her feet. Something shifted, and for a moment she stood like a Vaetna, that impression that physics was optional. Suddenly, I was the one being tugged, yanked out of the bed by the magic¡ª


    I would have slammed into the concrete floor. As it was, Ebi mostly caught me, but only mostly¡ªthe impact still broke my grip on the spear, and I lay there, dazed. My first thought was that my jaw hurt. My second was that I hoped I hadn¡¯t just bitten off my tongue. Noticing the commotion, some of the other people in the workshop began to hurry over. I felt arms lift me and deposit me back in the bed.


    ¡°No fractures¡­I just gave you an anticoncussive. You got very lucky regarding your tongue.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± I groaned. My head throbbed even through the painkillers.


    Ai appeared on my other side, seeming genuinely distressed. ¡°Sorry, so sorry. Ebi-tan?¡±


    They conversed in Japanese for a few moments, and the woman visibly relaxed. I heard her mutter something to herself that sounded an awful lot like ¡°bakabakabaka.¡± She refocused on me.


    ¡°So, so sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to¡ªaaa, korosarecchau¡ªI just wanted to try the spear.¡±


    Ebi said something softly to her, and Ai shook her head, ponytail wagging.


    ¡°It is my fault. I realized what you were doing and wanted to see what would happen to your lattice if I put tension on it. I wasn¡¯t thinking. Please forgive me.¡±


    She looked dejected for a moment, then something in her shifted. She retrieved the spear and brought it to me, her motions once again those of mortals. I clutched it pathetically, humiliated by my own reaction but unable to bring myself to let go. As I breathed slowly and calmed down, I managed a chuckle as I reflected on it. Not the best first impression, but¡ª


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I would have done the same thing.¡±


    She looked at me thoughtfully. Then she bowed, shook her head again, and paced down toward my feet, inspecting my gauze-wrapped leg. How much it had already healed, if it had effectively been something like a week, thanks to the magic?


    ¡°We¡¯re going to do something about this. I was going to anyway, but now¡­¡±


    She turned and raised her voice. It took me a moment to understand she was yelling names¡ªand still speaking in English. Her voice had taken on an authoritative edge; it fit her surprisingly well. The exhaustion seemed to drop from her face for the moment, overridden by willpower. A crowd gathered around us, a mix of students around my or her age, but some of the engineers and machinists had to be at least twice that¡ªand they were all subordinate to her.


    ¡°¡ªTwo weeks. You¡¯ll all get the same dimensions and scans. Basic design goals comply with LIPS-2 like what we made for Amethyst last year, bonus credit for anything beyond if you can justify it or if he likes it. Give me something I would be proud to wear.¡±


    Not a single one complained about the sudden project. Some of them looked outright excited and were already pointing at me and muttering. Did they already know who I was? She hadn¡¯t said it out loud, at least. More to the point¡ªdid I want to be her charity case? Part of me wanted to research a way to magic my way out of the disability entirely, some kind of LM construct for my foot. Ebi poked me, and I jumped¡ªI had forgotten she was there.


    ¡°Take it. Ai does her best work when she feels guilty.¡±


    I sighed internally¡ªthen externally. I had suffered enough in these past 24 hours. My stupid ego could swallow some kindness, especially if it lacked an ulterior motive like Sapphire¡¯s had.


    The engineers dispersed, hurrying off toward their desks. Ai turned back to me. Her voice had lost that entire hard facade, now timid.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, again. Would you allow me to fix your binding?¡±


    I hesitated. There was a sort of sentimentality in it, my first ever real bit of lasting, woven magic. But Sapphire had been right, it was impractically sloppy now that I was out of immediate danger. And I understood that this was still her way of trying to get off on the right foot.


    ¡°Yes, please. Hina said a tattoo binding?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Ink or LM?¡±


    LM stood for lattice-manifest, the general term for matter directly generated by magic. Lighthouse were experts in it, overshadowed by only the Spire¡ªlike everyone else with a magical specialization; along with my personal connection to Heung, that was why I had primarily focused on the Vaetna over the other prominent VNT groups. They were simply a cut above in everything, but especially magic. They had introduced weaving, come up with the core lexicon of glyphs, and still remained far ahead of the curve.


    I did want to do LM, but unfortunately, some things were just beyond my abilities for now.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I can do LM, not straight onto my skin. The most complicated thing I¡¯ve cast is {COMPOSE}.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Yes, that would¡­that makes sense. Ink, then. Ebi-tan?¡±


    I was a bit surprised that the machine-woman was the tattoo artist of choice. Then I thought about it a moment and¡ªof course she was. Ebi¡¯s hand disappeared in the same way a piece of paper did when turned parallel to one¡¯s view, the three-dimensional object rotated in the fourth dimension such that it disappeared completely. After a moment, the process reversed, revealing a tattoo gun. I guessed that much of her body was 4-brane to enable swaps like this; it made sense for a medical robot. How would she look to a Vaetna?


    ¡°Color?¡±


    I hadn¡¯t thought this far ahead; I had never gotten a tattoo. ¡°Um. What are the options?¡±


    ¡°Anything you want. We have the full spectrum in opaques, metallics, and iridescents.¡±


    This felt like an important decision, but one I had no frame of reference for. ¡°What would you think would look good?¡±


    Ebi grinned at that. ¡°We can temp it.¡±


    In response, Ai retrieved something from a drawer in her desk, extracting it from a plastic bag. It was a translucent gossamer sheet.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Arm, please.¡±


    I offered my arm, and she wrapped the membrane around. It vacuum-sealed to my skin. A little uncomfortable, but not really squeezing. It flickered, and after a moment, the burn scar representing my spear vanished. I jerked¡ªthen realized the lattice of my binding was still there.


    ¡°Just a visual trick, don¡¯t worry.¡±


    Ebi¡ªmaybe Ai?¡ªmanipulated the membrane to project a design onto my arm in the same shape as my scar. Ebi withdrew a touchscreen tablet from somewhere within the bed, fiddled with it for a moment, and handed it to me. It showed a number of sliders and settings. ¡°Take your time.¡±


    I experimented for a few minutes. My pale skin was a good canvas for simple black or blue ink, but that felt a little mundane. On the flip side, a bright color and a fancy type of ink that caught the light came off as overly gaudy. As was so often the case, the best answer lay somewhere in the middle. Ai commented when I came to an iridescent dark blue-green.


    ¡°I like that. Ebi-tan?¡±


    ¡°Looks alright. The magenta was good too.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t decide. Choice paralysis was often a struggle for me, and this was no different. Eventually, I gave up and asked if they had a coin. Ai produced a 500-yen, a fat, two-tone thing, gold on silver. I flipped¡ªheads. Dark iridescence it was. The template dissolved, the burn scar reappearing.


    ¡°Are you going to have to fully unmake the lattice?¡±


    ¡°I can reweave it in-place. I¡¯m not very good at Vaetna-style, but¡­¡±


    We sat in awkward silence for a moment. Then my magic-knowledge kicked in, dissatisfactions from the first time. I muttered, oddly embarrassed about the specificity.


    ¡°Ventral rethread with a finer spool. Leave the spinal mesh, it¡¯s good enough. I messed up layers 3 and 23 on the first axis, and my passthrough between axes was sloppy.¡±


    Her eyebrows went up. ¡°Oh. Your theory is far better than your execution¡­¡± She trailed off as she caught the backhanded compliment. ¡°Of course it is. I¡¯m sorry. Yes, I can do that.¡±


    This whole affair had been rather awkward so far, and neither of us could meet the other¡¯s eyes. She was looking down at my arm, and I was casting my gaze around the room to avoid looking at her. Ebi cleared her throat. Well, she didn¡¯t have a throat, but it was a good imitation. Ai jerked and blinked a few times, eyes flicking to the robot before refocusing on me. Had¡­had she fallen asleep, for a moment? It didn¡¯t show in her voice, at least.


    ¡°Would you gather your thread for me? I¡¯ll spin it and weave it for you.¡±


    ¡°Um¡­sure. Are you just going to tattoo straight over the scar?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll have to reopen the wound. Please bring it out?¡±


    I did, feeling the sting for what would probably be the last time. Ebi¡¯s hands blurred, and she grabbed my wrist. Before I even reacted, she had injected local anesthesia and was stitching the gash. I reflexively jerked away despite the lack of pain¡ªher grip was iron. When the sutures were done, she sprayed it with some kind of foam, which dissolved the stitches and left a patch of blank flesh. The whole process had taken maybe a minute.


    ¡°Christ.¡±


    Ebi replied with a wink, proud of her work. Then she set about affixing my arm to the bedframe; evidently, the tattoo required more precision than the suture job had.


    Time for magic. I hesitated, staring at my arm, my magic-sense running along the lattice. I tried to reach for the Flame¡ªjerked back before I made contact. Ai looked at me. ¡°It has to be your thread.¡±


    I knew that, but¡ªa fear lay within me. That horrible animal perspective I had found in those moments of pain¡­I hated it. It was¡ªfrustrating, wrong. The voices¡ªwhatever they were¡ªhad agreed that it wasn¡¯t how it should be; weaving was supposed to be better than the cruelty of pure blood magic. And yet I had been causing harm in just the same way, angry at my Flame. Were all of us? Even the Vaetna, those paragons I and so many others all but worshiped?


    I had to give it voice, explain what I was feeling, and she felt like the right person¡ªbetter than Sapphire, at least. I almost whispered.


    ¡°They made it look so easy.¡±


    Her eyes searched my face. Did she get it? I went on hesitantly. This felt profane. ¡°It hurts. Both ways.¡±


    Her voice was as quiet as mine. ¡°You¡¯re like Hina-san.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªwhat?¡±


    ¡°She hurts her Flame.¡±


    I resented the comparison, having seen the hyena.


    ¡°It¡ªI guess? But I don¡¯t want to. I was desperate. I¡ªdon¡¯t know any other way.¡± That horrible thought struck me again. ¡°There¡­there is another way, right?¡±


    That seemed to physically hit Ai. She struggled with something. Her lips squirmed, and she gave the impression that she was digging up bad memories. That was half an answer in itself; maybe I had misjudged why she was losing sleep. Eventually, she spoke.


    ¡°There is.¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Sacrifice,¡± Ebi broke in, now configuring the tattoo gun.


    I looked at the machine-woman, some dark comprehension growing. ¡°Sanguimancy?¡±


    Ebi glanced at the Radiance for a long moment, then shook her head. Ai muttered darkly, almost angrily. Some of the exhaustion on her face came into her voice. ¡°We¡¯re not all Yuuka-chan, or Hina-san. There¡¯s other choices.¡±


    ¡°What¡­are they?¡±


    The question was difficult to force out. It implied a huge gap in my knowledge of magic, an aspect outside of the glyphcraft I knew so well¡ªbut just as essential.


    ¡°I¡¯ll show you. Draw the thread, please.¡±


    I was quiet for a long, long moment, dreading it. Then I took a deep breath¡ªand pulled it from myself. My burn scars ignited as they had last time, and I winced, less at the discomfort I was feeling and more at the pain I now understood I was inflicting on the shard embedded in my soul. I hadn¡¯t even realized how violent the act of pulling it out of me was. It was a stabbing, scratching sensation, flowing out from my chest and into my arm. I kept going, silently apologizing, resolving to find a better way now that I knew one existed. It said nothing this time.


    This was still just raw flame, not thread. I clenched my fist and told it to tauten and extend. Each individual tongue of flame began to wrap around my arm, thinning out, merging together until it was a shaggy tangle of magic, chaotic but workable. It might have even been called fluffy, if it weren¡¯t so sharp and almost thrashing. The blazing light danced in Ai¡¯s eyes as she watched the form change.


    ¡°Good enough. Now watch carefully, please.¡±


    Her hands began to gather the mass and spin it into fine thread that, before now, I had only ever seen through a camera. Her skein wasn¡¯t so much bundled around her forearm as it was¡­already woven, a sort of glove, or maybe a gauntlet¡ªan artful preparatory step that I had no idea how to even begin. I flashed back to yesterday¡¯s stream, how Bri had prepared her own thread, and then to that moment in the car, my arm wreathed with flame. There was a connection there, but I had hardly even thought to examine that part of the process, nor had any of my resources covered it. My perspective had been so limited, so focused on the glyphs themselves. She brought her hand to my arm and tugged. I made a sound, a coughing gasp. It felt like she had pulled on my collarbones hard enough to bend them, a sharp ache of protesting bone. That pain passed quickly, and the sensation afterward wasn¡¯t nearly as scorching as last time, more of a suffusing warmth.


    Ai locked eyes with Ebi for a moment. Then they both began at once, the tattoo gun injecting glimmering ink into my skin as she unthreaded the old weave. As she did, she brought the new one into its place. With literal thread, this procedure was either difficult or impossible¡ªbut this was all sort of a metaphor for a magical and somewhat abstract process to begin with.


    The process was patient and methodical, instead of the frenzied, bare seconds I had taken to throw together my own version. That time, the fraying twine had been actively burning me as it came apart in my hands, so speed had been of the essence. This time, with proper thread, there was no need to rush, and there was time to appreciate the moment and take in the details. I noticed her nails were painted¡ªhad Hina¡¯s been? I couldn¡¯t remember. Each nail was a different color¡ªI realized it corresponded to her team. Pearly white, azure, verdant green, violet, dark green with red flecks. Cute.


    There was also a small tattoo running along her right index finger and down the back of her hand, regularly demarcated. A ruler¡ªa bit redundant and imprecise for a machinist who had access to real metrology equipment of mechanical, electronic, and magical varieties. Maybe it was symbolic¡ªthen I saw the lattice it bound. Rather, I didn¡¯t quite see the lattice, but I knew it was there. That was some kind of measuring tool, maybe a caliper, bound to her body for easy access like she was binding my spear to mine. Her eyes followed mine.


    ¡°Bindings are easier for me than snapweaving.¡±


    The rest of the world and the throbbing in my head fell away as I watched them work, Ai¡¯s hands twisting and tugging and refining as she pulled. She was clearly in the zone herself, both the timid apologeticism and tough leadership forgotten. I wondered how long it would take me to be able to work the thread as she could. Was this how she had made Ebi, sitting next to a vacant chassis, losing hours weaving life into being that stretched into weeks, maybe months, until one day some last thread of the lattice was pulled into place and flame had crystallized into consciousness? To what extent were they linked? Ebi herself was precise as one would expect, imitating the shape of my old scar with the ink¡ªit didn¡¯t hurt, thanks to the anesthetic.


    Ai was almost as close to me as Hina had been, but the energy was different. Where my encounter with Hina had been alien and unfamiliar, heart-poundingly intense, this procedure was a familiar setting. I had plenty of experience with this kind of contact from equally attractive surgeons and nurses in the months it had taken to recover function in my other arm, and had long since gotten over embarrassment in that context, by necessity. That¡¯s not to say I didn¡¯t find Ai attractive, but it was the kind of idle aesthetic appreciation I could compartmentalize as that of a caretaker, almost motherly; somebody I wanted to be friends with. And we had a connection in the form of our shared nature as flamebearers. Unfortunately¡ª


    ¡°I can¡¯t see what you¡¯re doing differently. Um¡ªsomething in how you¡¯re pulling it?¡±


    Was it something in the motion of her hand? The way she had prepared the spool? She was certainly more skilled than me¡ªbut it felt like she was looking for a deeper answer than that.


    ¡°Close. Do you know why it came from your hand?¡±


    This was taking on the air of a lesson.


    ¡°Because¡ªthose are my burns from last time?¡±


    That stopped her short, and she frowned at me.


    ¡°Last time?¡±


    Ebi said something to her in Japanese, and her eyes widened. ¡°You¡¯re second contact. So it can happen. That¡ªI¡¯m sorry. Let¡¯s start over. Why does hurting it work?¡±


    ¡°Because¡­it¡¯s alive.¡±


    That was fairly well-understood about the Flame. It wasn¡¯t a being per se, but it was alive in some way, and living creatures tended to avoid pain¡ªbut she shook her head. ¡°That¡¯s the misconception. Why does blood magic work?¡±


    ¡°Sacrifice. Because¡ª¡± my stomach dropped. ¡°The magic seeks pain. So when we hurt it¡ª¡±


    It was so horribly obvious, framed like that. The conversation until now had felt profane; this was outright blasphemous, unholy. She nodded in a small way, looking down at the spool on her arm. ¡°Pain is¡­food. Motivation. It loves to feel, and pain is strong¡ªits own, or the bearer¡¯s. It doesn¡¯t actually care which, as far as I can tell.¡±


    Blood magic wasn¡¯t my area of expertise, but I understood the principle well enough. It had taken more of my foot than I had intended because the Flame¡ªor some other force related to it¡ªhad decided that what I was asking the magic to do required more pain for equilibrium to be maintained.


    ¡°But¡ªso there¡¯s another option? You said you didn¡¯t use sanguimancy.¡±


    ¡°The Flame likes pain because it¡¯s¡ªpowerful. Red ripple is¡­yoku tsukaeru. Very usable.¡±


    That it was. Pain was overwhelming, all-consuming. Nothing else mattered; it eclipsed all, and so in terms of ripple¡ªhow much something ¡®matters¡¯, magically speaking¡ªit was powerful. Ai twisted one of her hands around her thumb, working a loop into the thread. She teased it until the tension was right, then went on.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t only like pain. What it really wants is ripple, and there¡¯s more colors than red, and other kinds of red ripple anyway. We¡¯re mahou shoujo, so we feed ours with good emotions. Trust, hope. Kindness. The desire to do good.¡±


    I didn¡¯t need translation to know she had said ¡®magical girls¡¯. I was seeing the downside, cynical as it was. ¡°Weaker than pain.¡±


    I had been saved once¡ªtwice now, actually, so I was a pretty decent case study there. The first time, my gratitude had been utterly drowned in the pain of my charred hand. The second time, the pain had prevented me from being able to experience gratitude in the moment, because I had literally passed out. She sighed.


    ¡°That¡¯s the trade-off.¡±


    Ebi cut in, looking bored with the conversation. ¡°They¡¯re supposed to only use good emotions.¡±


    ¡°Meaning?¡±


    ¡°Sometimes they make compromises to do what they have to. That¡¯s what I meant by sacrifice.¡±


    The robot let that hang. It wasn¡¯t delivered with any acid, but Ai still seemed stung by the remark. I looked between the two, and while I was sure there was drama and history there, my thoughts were going further afield, grander in scale, to the basis of my obsession.


    ¡°But the Vaetna are so powerful. They can¡¯t be¡ª¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s either pain, or whatever they do¡ªdoesn¡¯t follow the rules. I¡¯d like to think it¡¯s the second one.¡±


    Nightmarish. If they were performing blood magic, they sure didn¡¯t show it¡ªwhich meant they were instead hurting their flame, which was inconceivable, too horrible, a violation of what the Spire stood for, what I believed in. So I had to agree with Ai¡ªbut they had all but made the rules for how I understood magic, between glyphs and modern understanding of ripple. So if they were operating on different rules¡­she saw my turmoil.


    ¡°You¡¯re second contact. You might also be breaking the rules. So¡ªlet¡¯s go back to why it came from your hand. These are¡­inferno scars?¡±


    ¡°The very first day of the firestorms.¡±


    ¡°That would¡ªyour memories of that pain are probably a¡­lens, a focus. You already associate them with the Flame, so it¡¯s drawn to manifest there. That¡¯s just a guess, but¡­the Vaetna might be like that too, in some way.¡±


    Elation rose in me. It was just a blind guess, because of how little we knew of them, but¡ª¡°Are you saying I¡¯m more powerful?¡±


    It felt too good to be true. After all these years, I was actually special? Destined for more, somehow twice-flametouched or otherwise able to transcend the system Ai had laid out?


    ¡°Impossible to say, yet. We¡¯ll benchmark you when you¡¯re more recovered. But after that¡­maybe you should go to the Spire to learn from them, not stay at Toudai.¡±


    ¡°I want to. I always have. But the way Hina put it¡ªI¡¯m a prisoner.¡±


    She sighed. ¡°The others don¡¯t think so. I think this is all going to become a mess. You¡¯re safe here, but¡­Hina-san and Takehara-san want to recruit you. For different reasons, I think.¡±


    She saw the naked worry on my face. ¡°But¡­don¡¯t they both¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes. They do. Hina-san is selfish, like I said. So is Takehara-san¡ªOpal¡ªin her own way. But they¡¯re good people. They¡¯re still mahou shoujo. Takehara-san more than any of us. You can trust her.¡±


    We lapsed back into silence until they were done. I couldn¡¯t bring up the fact that my Flame had spoken to me, or the implications thereof. I would, in time, but I was still reeling from it all. I was ashamed of how little I knew of what had come up in this conversation; for all my understanding of glyphcraft, of ripple, this aspect had hardly ever come up. The various VNT groups out there in the world seemed to play it close to their chest, which made me feel a little better for not knowing, but I felt I had been so blind.


    In my flame-sense, I could feel the new portions of the lattice, crisp and taut, and where my old work remained, deemed good enough and perhaps kept in as a matter of sentimentality. Visually, the anchor had changed as well. The burn scar had been replaced by a shimmering tattoo, like a foil card. It was darker than my pale skin around it, making it stand out far more, brilliant as it caught the light. The word ''ripple¡¯ rose to mind¡ªI supposed that was appropriate. It stung, but it was mundane pain, and it faded as soon as Ebi applied some kind of cream. I imagined how much better my burns could have healed if that kind of medical technology was available seven years ago¡ªthen again, my foot was apparently beyond repair, and by all accounts it was basically the same kind of burn.


    Despite not doing any of the work, I was exhausted, and both of them could see it. She still insisted I give it a try. I focused, pressed on the lattice¡ªno pain, no gash, just the spear in my hand. I could feel the improved weave. I retracted the spear, the motion feeling more natural than ever. Was this how it felt for Heung?


    I called and put it away a few more times. It was so much more responsive and elegant, and I was almost giddy with the lack of pain¡ªit occurred to me that I should thank her. I looked up at Ai sheepishly, trying to hold the eye contact.


    ¡°Thank you.¡±


    That was for the binding, and my foot, and the insight. I felt I didn¡¯t deserve any of it.


    ¡°It¡¯s good?¡±


    ¡°It is.¡±


    She lit up. It was almost a transformation. She hadn¡¯t literally mantled¡ªbut she looked so much better than before as she inspected her work. Despite the darkness of the conversation, she seemed lighter, healthier in some abstract way. In some way, she was being nourished by the act of helping me¡ªis that what she had meant by using positive emotions to power her magic? Behind her eyes was a passion and a joy in magic that affirmed the sense of kinship I had felt with her.


    She saw me off with thanks of her own, more apologies for the near-chin-floor incident, and a promise.


    ¡°If you want to stay¡ªI still don¡¯t think you should, but if you do¡ªI¡¯ll try to teach you how we do it. It doesn¡¯t have to hurt.¡±


    What did you say to that? I mumbled another thank-you, starting to be a little overwhelmed by the slightly unfamiliar social rituals.


    ¡°Um. Okay. Thanks. And thanks for the¡ªfoot, too? When that happens.¡±


    She smiled. ¡°No problem.¡±


    Evidently satisfied with the end of the interaction, Ebi provided escape for me, carting me away. The journey back to my room was still mildly humiliating on principle, but we once again encountered nobody as we reached the elevator ride back to Ebi¡¯s domain on the 18th floor. Besides, I was focused entirely inward, thinking about what had passed between us and the thing attached to my soul.


    I knew for a fact Ai wasn¡¯t a pacifist and was having trouble reconciling the experience I just had with the violence I knew Lighthouse traded in. That dissonance now loomed even larger in my mind when it came to the Vaetna. It had never bothered me before; they were just so much more, and very open about the way their violence intersected with their humanitarianism¡­but now I wasn¡¯t so sure. If the greatest power lay in pain, and they were the undisputed most powerful magic-users in the world¡­I didn¡¯t like the implications of that. At least it was gated behind several ¡®if¡¯s. If they even operated on the same rules the rest of us flamebearers did, if the sheer scale of their humanitarianism didn¡¯t factor into their magic somehow¡­and so on.


    With Lighthouse, on the other hand, I was certain that this leveraging of pain was part of how they operated, from Ai¡¯s own mouth. It felt a little like their sunny public image was a mask¡ªor at least, more aspirational than genuine, chasing the image of magical girls while trafficking in cruelty, not that I had much basis for knowing what the ¡®true nature of magical girls¡¯ should instead be. The impression was amplified by the physical features I kept noticing, absent in promotional material. But Ai seemed alright, on my wavelength. By the time the elevator came to a stop, I had recovered enough social energy to ask.


    ¡°About, uh, positive emotions, and what you said about compromises. Are they¡­real?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re trying.¡±


    A rather enigmatic answer¡ªbut enough so that it felt honest, so perhaps it was the best she could have given. I was still uncertain, rattled by the encounter with Sapphire, mentally contrasting her with Ai again, danger against safety. I returned to those moments with the hyena once more, and a pattern dawned on me. She had told me three times in the space of five minutes that I should let Ai work on my binding. Had that been her way of showing she cared, knowing that this was what Ai needed? What I needed, even? Had she been expecting me to broach that topic, see the other perspective? I quietly readjusted my evaluation of the Sapphire Radiance. Perhaps I ought to trust Ai¡¯s confidence in her character, such as it was.


    I was tired, thoughts aswirl with doubts and uncertainties, but I always had energy for my friends. The chatroom was generally a zone where I could recharge and recover my social battery. I was also chattier here, among my longtime friends.


    ezzen: Guess who just met Emerald. Sapphire, too.


    starstar97: FUCK OFF


    starstar97: im literally this close to buying tickets to tokyo


    starstar97: i know where you live.


    That threw me, just a bit. Did I live here now? Ebi chuckled, reading over my shoulder. I reflexively hid my phone for a moment before remembering that they evidently already knew about my online identity.


    ezzen: Huh. I guess you do.


    ezzen: Come visit!


    starstar97: how dare you call my bluff


    starstar97: no moneys oTL


    starstar97: what are they like


    ¡°How much am I allowed to say?¡±


    ¡°Oh, everyone important already knows what Sapphire is like. Go nuts.¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t reach the tabloids?¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t it?¡± There was a smile in her voice.


    ezzen: Sapphire scares me. She¡¯s like Sahan levels of intense, but she moves like Hueng.


    DendriteSpinner: Saph? Scary? Shes the cuddly one right


    starstar97: you barely keep up with this stuff dendrite


    starstar97: yeah shes the cuddly one


    starstar97: but also famously the crazy one


    ezzen: ty for confirming lol


    ezzen: Emerald¡­


    ezzen: Gets it? Hard to explain but


    ezzen: She reminds me of Mayari maybe?


    ezzen: She gave me a tattoo.


    I looked at Ebi, the one who had actually wielded the tattoo gun. A robot of decidedly mysterious origins, supposedly Ai¡¯s creation¡ªindubitably a person, but outside of what science had understood to be possible. How had she come about? Actually, that was too¡­clinical, too focused on what she was rather than who she was. I ought to have some empathy, repay that which she and Ai had shown me. So¡ªwhat was her life even like?


    ¡°Do you ever get out?¡±


    She shrugged. ¡°Legally, I don¡¯t exist.¡±


    I looked down at the chatroom on my phone, the social lifeline I had had for six and a half years of otherwise near-total isolation. I would have gone insane without it, probably. I raised my gaze to the empty halls and rooms of the 18th floor. Her situation, this barren domain devoid of companionship, was oddly nostalgic in a way that was more than a little painful. I felt obligated to offer it to her in turn, showing her the screen.


    ¡°Do you want to¡ªjoin?¡±


    She seemed genuinely confused by the question. ¡°What, your chatroom?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. You¡¯re sort of secret, right? You¡¯ve got ¡®forbidden secret project¡¯ written all over you, and I¡¯ve never seen you in any videos or anything.¡±


    I gestured around the liminal space of the hallway for emphasis. She crossed her arms, mint-green chassis illuminated from above by the bluer light of her digital face frowning at me.


    ¡°You think I don¡¯t have friends. This is pity. You¡¯re pitying me.¡±


    I blushed, having been mostly-correctly called out¡ªempathy, not pity, though the difference could be pretty immaterial¡ªbut soldiered on. ¡°Well¡­do you?¡±


    ¡°I have the Radiances.¡±


    ¡°And all the other staff? They¡¯d figure out what¡¯s up with you if you talked with them too much.¡±


    ¡°I am not permitted to address this line of questioning. Please consult with Radiance Emerald for further inquiries. Have a nice day.¡±


    Her customer-service smile was sunny¡ªno, solar, blinding. I was rather unmoved.


    ¡°Nice impression.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. No, I suppose I don¡¯t really get out much. I mean, I¡¯ve poked around on the forums, just like everybody else who works for Todai. But no.¡±


    ¡°So what do you do in your free time?¡±


    That was an unusual question for someone like me to ask¡ªbut I was trying to figure out if she was an internet-creature like myself. That digital face made a smug smile.


    ¡°Online classes at the other Todai. Want to know how many degrees I have?¡±


    ¡°Humor me.¡±


    ¡°Working on my sixth.¡±


    As someone who had effectively vanished from formal education after year nine and coasted through the remainder of secondary school with barely passing grades and minimum attendance¡ªI couldn¡¯t imagine that. I was a rather hard worker when it came to my own study of magic, but school simply hadn¡¯t worked for me. I did some mental math in my head. Even with the most generous estimate of her age¡ª


    ¡°Multiple, simultaneously?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Fake names, all that. So I keep busy enough.¡±


    Too busy for friends, is what it sounded like to me. Maybe that was a little hypocritical, but even I had more social connections, if only online. She seemed content with what she had. That was disappointing, in a weird way, and we fell silent as we returned to the room I had woken up in. Attempt failed.


    She deposited me, gave my IV and vitals a once over, and walked¡ªalmost a glide¡ªback toward the door.


    ¡°Going to get you lunch and do my rounds. See that spray bottle?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Disinfectant?¡±


    My wound was probably due for a cleaning, if it was healing anything like my arm¡¯s burns had. Ebi shook her head.


    ¡°Water. Spritz Hina if she shows up while I¡¯m gone.¡±


    ¡°That works?¡±


    ¡°Well enough.¡±


    She turned to leave the room, and I wanted to call out, to make one last push for connection with someone who I could almost consider a friend in this new place¡ªbut the words didn¡¯t make it to my lips. I just lay there as she left, ashamed at the failed invitation. I had never been good at making friends, and it seemed I wasn¡¯t about to start now, for all I felt I had forged some small connection with Ai earlier.


    Alone, in that desolate room on that desolate floor. Maybe Ebi could bear it, but for me, it called forth the loneliness unearthed by my encounter with Sapphire. I had thought I had made peace with my lifestyle¡ªbut one crumb of interaction, a handful of face-to-face conversations with pretty girls and mysterious robots, and suddenly I hated being alone again. If Hina had shown up then, I might have just let her do what she wanted, if only for someone to talk to and feel close against my body, damn the spray bottle or the danger. But she didn¡¯t, which was equal parts relieving and disappointing. What complicated emotions she inspired in me.


    Thanks to her and Ai and Ebi, maybe things would be different from now on, however long I stayed here. But for now, at this moment? More of the same, just me and an empty room. I sighed. Well, even if ¡®Dalton¡¯ was perennially secluded¡ªtoday¡¯s events excepted¡ª¡®Ezzen¡¯ never was. I sighed, reaching for my social lifeline once again. It really was a shame Ebi didn¡¯t want to join. I rather felt she¡¯d belong.


    So imagine my surprise when the first thing I saw upon opening the chatroom was:


    ebi-furai: o/

 From On High // 1.04

    How had Ebi gained access? I hadn¡¯t invited her¡ªit followed that she had either brute-forced her way in, a classic ¡®superintelligent AI¡¯ trope that may or may not apply here¡­or the simpler explanation: she had already had access, a perpetual lurker. But in that case¡ªinvited by whom? Skychicken himself? He had implied Hina had been his contact, not her. Ebi was still a plausible enough connection between him and Todai¡ªbut if so, why was she hiding it?


    starstar97: whoa


    starstar97: new person


    starstar97: who invited them


    It wouldn¡¯t do to let on that I really had no idea how she had gotten in¡ªI wanted her to be here anyway, so I rolled with it.


    ezzen: Me, they work for Todai.


    ebi-furai: greetings!


    DendriteSpinner: hey, ez making friends, nice


    starstar97: NO WAY


    Star was the first to put together the obvious.


    starstar97: so they know youre you?


    ezzen: Yeah.


    ezzen: They seem chill about it so far?


    ebi-furai: we¡¯re trying to be


    ebi-furai: some of the staff in the know are freaking out


    She was using an all-lowercase style like Star and Moth, unlike the technically correct capitalisation and punctuation I generally preferred, a holdover from starting out on the forums.


    starstar97: yo youre recognized


    starstar97: thats a good thing isnt it


    ezzen: Hope so!


    ezzen: Not sure I can be more of a target really.


    ezzen: Ok, I¡¯d be remiss to not give ebi (capitalization?) the chance to ingratiate themself, but first:


    ezzen: I¡¯ve been disconnected from the news cycle for like


    ezzen: 18 hours? Probably a personal record.


    ezzen: So catch me up.


    ezzen: Sapphire told me the Spire is at war again?


    starstar97: npnp


    starstar97: dermis got all ridgey again this morning so it sure looks like it


    starstar97: did you hear about the other flamefalls


    starstar97: its related


    ezzen: nope


    ezzen: Just that they happened. Short version?


    DendriteSpinner: spire¡¯s saying they¡¯re the other shards that split from yours on heung¡¯s intercept


    starstar97: one inferno in poland. kat dealt with it


    starstar97: one confirmed in america, ofc pctf got that one


    starstar97: last was weird, went back to the trajectory from before it switched. actual splashdown is on one of the oil rigs in the gulf


    ezzen: oh shit


    Oh shit.


    DendriteSpinner: yeah. and ofc spire caged the whole area, peacies didn¡¯t like that, etc


    DendriteSpinner: so stalemate, war


    starstar97: dubai moment


    ezzen: Dubai moment. ffs


    ebi-furai: not as ugly as dubai yet, fwiw


    ebi-furai: its firmly pctf territory and its just one flamefall


    starstar97: oh yeah for sure. could be more of a clusterfuck in a lot of ways


    starstar97: i think that just about covers it


    starstar97: nobody has any fucking clue what was with your flamefall


    starstar97: west-east? wtf


    ezzen: Trust me it¡¯s been on my mind


    ezzen: Will post about it tonight probably.


    ezzen: Ok, good enough for now, ty guys.


    ezzen: Make Ebi feel welcome.


    DendriteSpinner: welcome!


    DendriteSpinner: do you feel welcome


    ebi-furai: i think so!


    starstar97: todai person huh


    starstar97: fav radiance?


    ebi-furai: emerald


    starstar97: hell yeah


    ebi-furai: i work with her though so im biased


    DendriteSpinner: youre an engineer?


    ebi-furai: medical, actually, amethyst stuff


    ebi-furai: i do help with engineering stuff too though


    ezzen: They¡¯ve basically been my nurse.


    It was better to be vague about her gender in the chat unless she volunteered that information.


    starstar97: µÆ̨¥Õ¥¡¥¤¥È


    ebi-furai: ÈÕ±¾ÈˤÀ¤«¤éµÆ̨ºÃ¤­¤Ê¤ï¤±¤À¤ïww


    starstar97: whoa


    starstar97: sorry my japanese isnt that good


    skychicken: english only in the chat please


    ebi-furai: sorry


    ebi-furai: im japanese, so ofc im a lighthouse fan


    starstar97: :DDDD


    Her body returned with a tray of various dishes on a cart.


    ¡°Did I come off as a bit know-it-all with the Dubai comment?¡±


    It took me a moment to associate the chatroom name with the robot in front of me. On top of the fact that she had joined of her own volition¡ªvia still-mysterious means¡ªit did seem that she genuinely wanted to fit in. It warmed my heart.


    ¡°Uh, I think you¡¯re fine.¡± Couldn¡¯t be worse than Dendrite. ¡°If you screw up some etiquette, I¡¯ll let you know.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    She passed the tray over to my lap, adjusting my bed to help me sit up. A decidedly Japanese spread: rice, miso soup, tea, some anonymous fried bits, a small salad, something that seemed to be pickles, and¡­


    ¡°A milkshake?¡±


    ¡°Fortified. The sugar covers up some of the more¡­chemical flavors. It¡¯s good for you, I promise.¡±


    Huh. It had been a long time since I¡¯d had a milkshake¡ªor any of this, really. Japanese food was a Dalton-thing, not an Ezzen-thing, a relic of a time from when Dad had been al¡ªaround.


    Those dark thoughts aside, I noted a problem with the provided utensils¡ªrather, the conspicuous lack thereof.


    ¡°Um. Can I have a spoon?¡±


    Ebi grinned. With a flourish, she drew something from nowhere, a sleight of hand that was definitely masking some kind of glyph activation, a pocketspace trick like Heung¡¯s spear. She handed me a pair of chopsticks connected by a piece of plastic. The design bore some grooved extrusions to guide where my fingers were supposed to go. I sighed at the utensil; they were assuming I was a dumb foreigner who didn¡¯t know how to use them. They were half-right.


    ¡°Oh, I¡ªI know how, but never bothered to relearn with my¡­¡±


    I indicated my burned hand. Dad had insisted I learn from a young age, but it was another thing that had been taken from me that day. It had taken me about a year to relearn how to hold a pen, and I had never had an incentive or desire to go back to chopsticks. Ebi shrugged.


    ¡°I could get you a spoon if you want. Humor us.¡±


    I got the message¡ªthey wanted me to acclimate. I sighed inwardly and accepted the utensil, giving it a closer inspection. Even to my limited appreciation of mundane engineering, the chopsticks were impressive, printed as a single part. A compliant mechanism linked the sticks rather than some kind of hinge or bearing, stylized as Todai¡¯s symbol, a triangle with lines radiating out from the tip¡ªa rather unnecessary bit of design flair. The grooves fit my hand perfectly, comfortable as could be given the somewhat limited range of motion in my palm. The attention to detail was ornate, maybe excessive.


    ¡°Did Ai make this?¡±


    ¡°Just now.¡±


    Dang. I snapped a photo of the training chopsticks.


    ezzen: Check out what Emerald made for me.


    starstar97: this is harassment!


    skychicken: timezones say it¡¯s lunchtime for you right?


    ezzen: Yep.


    I showed them the meal and began to eat. Even with the custom, ergonomic utensil, it took me a few tries to pick up one of the mysterious fried bits and maneuver it into my mouth. It was dense, surprisingly hard to bite through.


    ¡°I have no idea what this is.¡±


    ¡°Renkon. Lotus root.¡±


    skychicken: hey that looks pretty good for hospital food


    I fell into a rhythm as I began to realize how hungry I was. A bite of fried something, a sip of tea, some rice, a little soup, repeat. It was a rather simple arrangement, not many strong flavors other than salt and the oiliness of the breading, but that absence seemed to accentuate each element. The rice became a welcome respite from the saltiness instead of bland carbohydrate filler. The crunch of the breading balanced with the earthiness of the tea. The most intense flavor was the pickles, which had an acidic bite that fully reset the more rich flavors of the fried food. The milkshake felt out of place¡ªI elected to save it for dessert.


    ezzen: It¡¯s okay.


    I didn¡¯t want to vocalize my commentary. Dad had taught me about this sort of arrangement, the balance of rice and soup and tea, fat and acid, and its return reminded me of his absence. One of the reasons I had hardly left my room in years was fear of this feeling, this awful nostalgia for a childhood that had been burned away, brought to the surface by so many little things. I wanted to go home¡ªwhere? The house in Philadelphia? Ashes. My apartment? No going back. It was here or the Spire.


    The chatroom scrolled on, not privy to the trauma.


    starstar97: it should have been me


    starstar97: it should have been me!


    starstar97: you better go to all the fuckin restaurants


    DendriteSpinner: tourism by proxy


    I wasn¡¯t particularly keen on that at the moment, given the bad vibes the meal had dredged up for me. I distracted myself with a question; I had stalled enough about this anyway.


    ¡°How did you join?¡±


    ¡°Wow, you really screwed that up. It¡¯s pronounced gochisousama deshita.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°¡®Thanks for the food¡¯.¡±


    I sighed. ¡°Thanks for the food. How did you join the chatroom? I didn¡¯t invite you.¡±


    ¡°Secret robot magic.¡±


    I slurped my soup, unimpressed with the non-answer. ¡°Is that magic magic, or do you mean you just hacked your way in?¡±


    ¡°Does it matter?¡±


    ¡°I¡­suppose not? Academic interest?¡±


    ¡°Not relevant to your recovery, and details about me are classified until you join up.¡±


    Prickly.


    ezzen: I¡¯ll think about it.


    ezzen: There¡¯s a lot of uhhhh¡­culture shock going on right now.


    ezzen: It¡¯s sort of crazy I¡¯m here, you know? I don¡¯t even speak the language.


    ¡°You¡¯ll learn if you stay. The Radiances are too busy to really teach you that part, but we keep in touch with a few schools. Lots of grad students and so on.¡±


    I thought about Sapphire¡¯s offer again, the words both she and Sky had used. I mattered, allegedly, and that meant Todai was willing to throw support at me. Divorced from the fear of being hunted, that was exciting¡ªif undercut somewhat by my general bedridden-ness at the moment and the questionable status of my freedom. I sipped the milkshake. It was topped with a cherry and had swirls in it that tasted fruity, though I couldn¡¯t quite place it. Melon?


    ¡°Ai said two weeks for my foot, right?¡±


    Ai¡¯s name and the pronoun ¡®I¡¯ were starting to get confusing. How did the honorifics work? Ai-san?


    ¡°Two weeks of design, and then probably another week of testing and iteration with your input. But she¡¯s been working on a stopgap solution since midnight. That¡¯ll be done in¡­a few more hours.¡±


    I checked my phone. It was only about 1 PM, but that still meant¡ªyeah, she didn¡¯t get much sleep. Ebi caught the silent question.


    ¡°They¡¯ve all got their vices.¡±


    Another person might not call sleep deprivation a ¡°vice¡±, but I understood¡ªthe passion, losing yourself in tinkering and math until suddenly you realized the sun was starting to come up and you hadn¡¯t eaten in fourteen hours. There were worse vices to have; Ai and I were the same kind of person, and I¡¯d be glad to see her actual design process.


    ¡°I¡¯d love to see the diagram.¡±


    ¡°For the temporary one?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯ll show you.¡±


    We lapsed back into silence for a while as I finished the milkshake. I wanted to get back on my feet, move around a bit.


    ¡°Will I actually be allowed to leave the premises? Once I can walk.¡±


    ¡°Are you going to bolt straight for the Gate?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know. ¡°Doesn¡¯t really matter, does it? You¡¯d catch me anyway.¡±


    She rolled her eyes, a rather exaggerated motion on the digital display that was her face. ¡°Please. The foot is a show of good faith. If you really wanted to go, we wouldn¡¯t stop you.¡±


    So was I a prisoner or not? I was picking up on some misalignment between Hina and the others, in terms of goals¡ªbut I wasn¡¯t about to ask that to her face again. I decided to trust in Ai, for the time being, and pray that Sapphire didn¡¯t show up again.


    I finished my shake, quietly admiring Ebi as a work of engineering and magic in between watching the chatroom scroll and generally catching up. She was ostensibly naked, for one, covered only in mint-green paneling¡ªcarbon fiber? Hard to say¡ªensheathing a narrow and short frame. Aside from the face, her build was androgynous. She was no busty anime nurse, no curve to her chest or particular wideness of the hips¡ªI averted my gaze nonetheless, reddening. She might not have any visible bits, but surely that qualified as ogling.


    She sighed. ¡°Oh, look all you want. I¡¯d wear clothes if I cared.¡±


    I shyly resumed my inspection. The paneling was segmented at joints and along the torso, a fairly standard arrangement of components for the humanoid robots of the day¡ªbut she didn¡¯t move like a robot, even a magical one. I wondered again how she was made¡ªbut that was clearly a no-go topic, and I was entirely too shy to make a comment, even a neutral one. I settled for looking up one of the Japanese-made models that at least superficially resembled her chassis, angling my phone toward her.


    ¡°You¡¯re so much more¡ªfluid than anything I¡¯ve seen before.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    She brought up her arm to demonstrate the range of motion. The paneling on her chest moved in an echo of her arm, implying a much more complex and organic arrangement than a simple set of servos embedded in her shoulder joint. There was something odd in the movement aside from that¡ªshe wasn¡¯t adjusting the rest of her body to counterbalance, even with the arm fully extended. That weightlessness inspired fascination¡ªand a pang of jealousy, a reminder of what had drawn me to the Vaetna outside of pure love for magic. If I pointed a ripple indicator at her, I bet she¡¯d be a blue-green to match her carapace.


    Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask to go further, despite some discomfort with the intimacy of the inspection. She was just so interesting.


    ¡°Can¡ªmay I see your back?¡±


    I had gotten a glimpse earlier, but as she turned around¡ªthat was much more sophisticated. Some of her panels were layered over each other, and she had what were obviously shoulder blades. Her spine was visible as well, a chain of segments embedded into each slice of her midsection and back, a clear imitation of the human form. Now that she was facing away from me, my eyes dared to venture past her neck and inspect her head. It was simple and boxy, dark-grey and smaller than a human cranium, although the neck continued the complexity and flexibility of her spine. No ears or hair to speak of; the only real features aside from the curved front-panel of her face were various stickers and labels indicating cable connection points¡ªand a mark on the back of her head that looked hand-painted. I leaned in for a closer look¡ªshe knew what I was looking at and took a few steps backward toward me.


    ¡°The characters for my name.¡±


    º£ÀÏ. It was pretty, insofar as I had opinions on these things. I pulled out my phone to google ¡®ebi¡¯, confirming the word matched the characters.


    ¡°Shrimp?¡±


    ¡°Yep.¡±


    ¡°¡­Why?¡±


    ¡°Why ¡®Ezzen¡¯?¡±


    I figured she knew why; I¡¯d answered the question on the forums countless times. This was the first time I had done so out loud, though, and it took me a moment to order my thoughts.


    ¡°It¡¯s the spinal¡ªa super-shorthand of the spinal mesh for {MANIFEST}. E¡ªfork, two Z-axis transitions, fork again, and N is sub-1 from the last Z.¡±


    ¡°Vaetna-phile.¡±


    I didn¡¯t blink at the label; it was accurate. {MANIFEST} was arguably the most important glyph in the entire lexicon to the Vaetna, being the fundamental bit of magic behind the Spire¡¯s dermis and, by extension, their carapace. I supposed it applied to the Radiances just as much, although they had come later and were inherently lesser.


    ¡°And you?¡±


    She pointed at the kanji on her cranium¡ªCPU?¡ªagain before turning back to me. ¡°That¡¯s your hint.¡±


    Hint? I went back to my phone, going down a small rabbit hole of kanji details for a minute. I didn¡¯t get it¡ªthe characters meant ¡®sea¡¯ and ¡®old¡¯, and I wasn¡¯t sure how either was relevant to her.


    ¡°Are the riddles really necessary?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a hint, not a riddle.¡±


    ¡°We already established I don¡¯t speak the language.¡±


    She waved a hand lazily. ¡°Eh. You¡¯ll get it eventually.¡± With that vague foreshadowing, she came over and took the tray of food from my lap. ¡°Going to put these away, and then I¡¯ll be gone for a couple hours. Need anything before I go? Pain okay?¡±


    ¡°Foot¡¯s fine¡­is it just you up here? Other nurses?¡±


    ¡°What, want to get rid of me already?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªno, I just meant¡ª¡±


    ¡°Well, it is. Just me, I mean. I¡¯m the doctor.¡±


    I blinked. ¡°You are?¡±


    ¡°I am.¡±


    She hadn¡¯t corrected my earlier misconception that she was my nurse. Maybe she didn¡¯t want to give too much away to the chatroom¡ªwhich might have been telling, were I inclined to tease apart the possible reasons for those subtleties. I had enough on my plate as it was.


    ¡°And you¡­take care of Amethyst? No support staff?¡±


    That bothered me a bit, since what I knew of Amethyst¡¯s injuries were quite a bit more extensive than even the third-degree burns my hand had suffered. For the duration of my last extended hospital stay, I had had no less than four nurses on rotation in addition to a pair of doctors, and I would have expected something equivalent and relatively full-time care for her. Then again, Ebi probably didn¡¯t have to sleep.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s me and Ai¡¯s tech. Been good enough so far.¡±


    I didn¡¯t pry further than that. I looked around the bed, checking to see if there was anything else I wanted or needed for the moment. ¡°Er¡ªI don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ve got my backpack?¡±


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    If it had been in the car with me, Sapphire had hopefully recovered it along with my person.


    ¡°Oh, we do, actually. It¡¯s upstairs¡ªwhat do you need?¡±


    ¡°Just my laptop. Maybe my notebooks, too¡ª¡±


    Oh, shit. I broke out in a sweat. They had almost certainly looked through my notebooks, and that was the exact kind of nightmare scenario behind putting a full-wipe protocol on my PC; there was some potentially sensitive and dangerous stuff in those that had gone unpublished. She saw my reaction both visually and in my vitals, shaking her head.


    ¡°We¡¯re being respectful of your privacy, relax. Give me a few minutes.¡±


    She left to get my bag, clicky footsteps reminiscent of high heels retreating down the hall. What a fascinating machine¡ªand person, I supposed. At least she had an excuse for being mysterious¡ªbut I really ought to learn more about the Radiances themselves. I had a somewhat-embarrassing gap in my knowledge when it came to them and other second-tier VNT groups; until now, my focus had been almost exclusively on the Vaetna. I pulled out my phone.


    My first stop was Wikipedia, for a brief history of the organization as a whole. They had an underground period before the donation of flame four years ago in 2018 that had propelled them to their current status; the building I was currently in was directly linked to that sequence of events, having been wrecked in their last major incident from that time. Amethyst and Heliotrope had joined the original three during that too. It was all rather interconnected, and after skimming their page for the broad timeline, I started to go through their individual pages, following links down the rabbit hole.


    ¡ª


    I was interrupted by Ebi¡¯s return¡ªhalf an hour later.


    ¡°Sorry. Amethyst had a thing.¡±


    Well, I wasn¡¯t going to hold that against her. She deposited the backpack on my bed and extracted the laptop, handing it to me gingerly. Shifting around to accept it and orient it on my lap aggravated my foot somewhat, and I winced.


    ¡°Ow. Painkillers up, please?¡±


    For all my habitual shyness and being out of practice with talking to people in general, that at least was a familiar refrain from seven years ago. Ebi didn¡¯t visibly do anything, but after a moment, sweet relief washed away the sting. A factoid I had discovered during my research sprang to mind.


    ¡°That¡¯s probably something anchored on {NULL}, isn¡¯t it. No opioids in Japan.¡±


    ¡°You catch on quick.¡±


    I mulled that over. The glyph was stopping all sensation from about halfway down my shin; it would be even harder to walk with the prosthetic while it was active, as though I had lost my entire foot rather than just the toes. Poor Amethyst¡ªalthough surely her prosthetics had much more nuanced senses and analgomancy.


    ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s what I¡¯m for. Anything else?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m good¡ªoh. What¡¯s the wifi password?¡±


    I should have asked sooner¡ªmy phone plan was probably charging an unholy amount for what I had already done on it today. It had slipped my mind until I had needed it for the laptop, since I was so unused to being out of the house.


    ¡°On Todai-Guest? ¡®5ignition¡¯, all lowercase, with the numeral.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. Er¡­that¡¯s all, I think.¡±


    She nodded. ¡°Going back to Amethyst. Press the button if you need me¡ªor message me, I suppose.¡±


    ¡°She alright?¡±


    That was the sort of prying I had tried to avoid earlier¡ªit had just slipped out. Ebi didn¡¯t seem to mind, though. She actually grinned.


    ¡°As much as she ever is. She just wants to clean up a bit before meeting you.¡±


    That was¡ªflattering and unfamiliar. I was vaguely upset at the way it made me blush.


    ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s a big fan of yours, actually. Alright, back in¡­let¡¯s say two hours.¡±


    And she left me to chew on that. It made a fair amount of sense that I, an LM expert¡ªalbeit a theoretical one¡ªwould have a fan in the most prominent non-Vaetna LM user in the world. But I would have figured that she, as a flamebearer, would have been ahead of me on that; I only considered myself a hobbyist, someone interested in glyphcraft as an academic exercise and as a proxy for my interest in the Spire and the Vaetna. Perhaps I had misjudged that.


    I greeted my friends again from my laptop and resumed my research. I was about ten minutes into an hour-long video of Todai¡¯s overall timeline¡ªat 2x speed, of course¡ªwhen I thought I found a lead on one of the things that had been bugging me. I reached out to Star.


    [Direct Message] ezzen: Hey


    ezzen: So I¡¯m watching https://youtu.be/S_XJYBx9WcL


    ezzen: And something about Keisuke Akiyama is sticking out to me.


    starstar97: hey i helped on that one


    starstar97: shoot


    ezzen: Uh. Can you keep a secret?


    starstar97: ooh


    starstar97: is the secret about you or lighthouse


    ezzen: Lighthouse. And it¡¯s a bit sensitive, apparently.


    starstar97: i wont spill but i cant promise i wont have severe brainworms


    Such was Star when it came to Todai.


    ezzen: Okay so


    ezzen: Sapphire told me Lighthouse used to have male members


    starstar97: WHAT


    starstar97: saj;lskdjfskl;da


    starstar97: trans radiances¡­ the theory lives¡­ vindication¡­


    starstar97: is what id LIKE to say, but say your bit first


    ezzen: Yeah that¡¯s where I¡¯m going with it.


    ezzen: Let me lay it out.


    ezzen: So, from the video: Keisuke Akiyama gets flametouched. He gets in contact with Mr. Tanaka, and agrees to donate his flame to a good cause. The Lighthouse girls basically fall into their lap after they¡¯ve recovered Amethyst and are an obvious choice to build a VNT group around. This leads to Todai¡¯s official founding. Is that right so far?


    starstar97: just about


    starstar97: are you going to say akiyama is one of the radiances pre-transition


    ezzen: My thunder, stolen!


    ezzen: It¡¯s just really convenient, isn¡¯t it?


    starstar97: :P


    starstar97: not a new theory


    starstar97: but the consensus is that its probably a pseudonym for an actual person, not a deadname for one of them


    starstar97: because if hes one of the five then where did the extra flame come from yknow


    starstar97: and theres the magical complication


    What she meant was that precise body modification magic was a bit of a white whale. Biomancy was a fledgeling field of magic compared to spatial or energy manipulation, because the Vaetna hadn¡¯t seen fit to create many specifically applicable glyphs. They had always declined to comment on their rationale, but it was easy to see how extensive biological modification would be a difficult cat to put back in the bag, a slippery slope to eugenics in a world where the majority of magical access was already under the thumb of politicians and billionaires. Involuntary transformations did happen to some flamebearers, but those weren''t glyph magic; a complete roll of the dice when it came to ripple residuals, along the lines of super magic cancer or turning you into a crab or other such strange and incomprehensible tricks of the Flame. Not exactly gender-affirming care for most people.


    That didn''t discourage me and several others from regularly returning to the problem, motivated by both the challenge and the feeling that if we figured something out, our findings could have some truly positive direct impact on people¡¯s lives¡ªnot least for Star herself. But at this point, the problem was pretty much entirely academic; we had collectively concluded that changing one¡¯s biological sex with magic to a degree superior to hormones and surgery was functionally impossible. We just didn''t have the right toolbox of glyphs.


    The point was that Star and I both understood that it was extremely unlikely that Lighthouse had cracked that puzzle four years ago. If they had, surely they would have disseminated the glyph chains and procedures used. That was just the decent thing to do.


    ezzen: Figured as much.


    ezzen: So no trans Radiances :\


    starstar97: well thats such a compelling nugget i dont want to just kill the theory


    starstar97: can i ask what saph¡¯s exact words were


    ezzen: Uh


    ezzen: I guess it was a bit roundabout?


    ezzen: ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be the first [male Radiance]¡±, iirc


    starstar97: yeah huh not a lot of ambiguity on that


    starstar97: damn thats going to be my personal fuckin chew toy for a while


    starstar97: i wish to gods they were trans but its totally just wishful thinking right


    starstar97: bone structure n shit -.-


    I agreed; Hina¡¯s physique ruled her out. Opal and Heliotrope, too, if I was correctly remembering the pictures I had looked up earlier. The remaining two were maybe plausible¡ªit felt wrong to theorize, both in the sense of imagining them naked and in that it was too personal now that I was coming face-to-face with them.


    ezzen: Mhm


    ezzen: So, other ideas?


    starstar97: mm putting aside the trans thing for now


    starstar97: i have two ideas


    starstar97: first, its possible akiyama was originally going to just be part of the team and it didnt pan out


    starstar97: dude did basically vanish after the donation (which supports the pseudonym thing)


    ezzen: (notes)


    ezzen: I could poke around about that.


    starstar97: second: in december 2019 there were rumors that they were thinking about starting a second team, all male


    starstar97: but that never went anywhere, partially because of concerns about popularity (classic idol group stuff)


    I had just gotten to that part of the video, still playing picture-in-picture while we chatted.


    ezzen: and because of blue spark right


    starstar97: yeah it woulda killed the project in its infancy, if there was one, because of how todai messed up there


    starstar97: imo it wasnt their fault


    starstar97: but they need actual permits and stuff with the japanese government to be licensed flamebearers and there was no chance in hell that theyd actually get a whole new team in wake of that


    starstar97: so yeah those are my ideas


    starstar97: thats such a WEIRD thing for her to say


    starstar97: sorta insensitive of her to say it that way if one of them IS trans though yknow


    ezzen: I had the same thought.


    She did seem to just be direct by nature.


    starstar97: but ill dig a bit cause damn thats such ammo for the theory


    starstar97: btw theres been a couple threads recently about what happened with you, you should take a look at those and maybe shoot down the really stupid stuff


    We derailed into talking about those for a while, and unfortunately I never quite returned to fact-digging and timeline-checking after that. I wound up just watching Vaetna videos and chatting with my friends. I jumped when I realized Ebi was sort of looming behind my laptop screen.


    ¡°How¡ªJesus. How long have you been there?¡±


    ¡°Only about a minute.¡±


    I needed a moment to catch my breath. Damn, I had wasted¡ªalmost two hours. It hadn¡¯t been entirely fruitless, but ADHD had largely gotten the better of me once I had mentally categorized researching Todai as ¡®work¡¯. Nothing for it.


    ¡°Foot¡¯s ready?¡±


    ¡°Yep. She actually already had it done, just obsessively tweaking it.¡± She harrumphed. ¡°No point in that, really. She¡¯s not going to be happy with it either way.¡±


    That sounded familiar; I remembered countless hours drawing glyphs to solve logic puzzles and repeatedly finding better ways to optimize, sometimes until I had well undercut the ripple of the intended solution. Often I still ended the night¡ªor morning, as was often the case¡ªfrustrated that I couldn¡¯t find ways to push it further. Kindred spirits, although she was actually working in a lab instead of notation. Would she let me join her on those late-night projects, eventually? That sort of thing was a compelling reason to stay here, everything else notwithstanding. Like the karaoke fantasy from before, my imagination spun the image of the two of us bathed in monitor light, arguing about ripple management and the least-order principle over a GWalk diagram, applying our knowledge to real problems. We¡¯d work into the night and we¡¯d be aglow with pride in our work despite our exhaustion and at last I wouldn¡¯t be alone¡ª


    I sighed. What an embarrassing tangent.


    ¡°Let¡¯s¡ªlet¡¯s go.¡±


    To her credit, if Ebi saw what had just happened to my heart rate, she didn¡¯t comment on it this time. She wheeled me out of the room and through the halls once more. First the emptiness of the 18th floor¡ªI was glad to reach the elevator and return to the more populated halls of the basement, busier than before with the comings and goings of Ai¡¯s underlings and other staff. I was recognized by an American, maybe a couple years my elder.


    ¡°Hey, you¡¯re¡ªuh, Dalton.¡±


    That was delivered with a poorly executed wink. It seemed that my identity as Ezzen was a secret-in-name-only among Ai¡¯s crew¡ªbut at least they didn¡¯t seem to know I was that flametouched from Bristol, yet. They¡¯d probably be treating me differently.


    ¡°Um. Yeah. Hello.¡±


    In-person celebrity was not at all something I was experienced in, and it was horribly awkward. Ebi wasn¡¯t about to bail me out, either, having adopted her android-persona, blandly smiling at the technician. It was deeply uncomfortable, maybe even creepy, to see her so docile and straight-backed, even after only a few hours of knowing her. She looked like she belonged in a maid uniform. I tried to treat the interaction as a warm-up for meeting Amethyst later.


    ¡°I¡¯m on one of the teams working on your foot.¡± He stuck out a hand¡ªglanced at the burns on my arm, thought better of it, switched hands. ¡°Kyle.¡±


    I shook it. ¡°Thanks. For the foot. Anything interesting?¡±


    Should I have introduced myself? He already knew it. Too late, either way.


    ¡°Not yet. Only so much you can do with half of a foot, y¡¯know? We were sort of hoping you had ideas, actually.¡±


    I had given it essentially zero thought, but I felt lame with nothing to offer¡ªit was my foot, for Christ¡¯s sake. I said the first thing that came to mind.


    ¡°Um¡ªa booster?¡±


    He stroked his stubble.


    ¡°What, like Peacie exos?¡±


    ¡°I guess?¡± I had actually been thinking of Heung¡¯s carapace, but it was easier to just let him think whatever.


    ¡°Ah, gotcha.¡±


    The technician¡ªoh no, I had already forgotten his name¡ªtyped something into his phone.


    ¡°Tricky with one foot, but¡­we¡¯ll see what we can do.¡± Then he looked around and lowered his voice. ¡°Got a minute? The rest of the team would love to meet with you.¡±


    ¡°Mr. Colliot is being taken to the Prostheses Fitting Room for a meeting with Radiance Emerald.¡±


    ¡°Oh, fair, fair. I won¡¯t keep you, then. Tell Ms. Matsumoto I said hi! See you around.¡±


    He hurried past us down the hall. My phone buzzed.


    [Direct Message] ebi-furai: (¨R¨Œ¨Q)


    ebi-furai: a BOOSTER


    I looked up at her. Her face remained impassive. Mine did not, invaded by a blush as I grumbled.


    ¡°I know, I know, IknowIknowIknow¡­¡±


    ebi-furai: its fine


    ebi-furai: you can talk over features with ai if you want


    ebi-furai: but if you dont have ideas dont sweat it


    As we proceeded down the corridor, an announcement came on the PA. A voice that was unmistakably Hina¡¯s blared through the halls, husky and peppy, ending on a laugh that abruptly cut off. Ebi¡¯s stride accelerated.


    ¡°Do I want to know?¡±


    ebi-furai: its what it sounded like. shes on the prowl


    Might as well reply in kind.


    ezzen: For¡­me?


    ebi-furai: afraid so


    Oh, fantastic. I was being hunted. What had happened to Todai being safe? A new voice came on the PA, more apologetic.


    ebi-furai: thats opal: ¡®Terribly sorry for the ruckus, please forgive any inconvenience¡¯


    ebi-furai: shes going to take out some frustration on sapphire, if i had to guess


    ezzen: Why?


    ebi-furai: shes not very happy about the first impression sapphire made on you


    That was¡ªsort of a relief, actually. Hina had sort of primed me to expect nastiness from the remaining three Radiances, for all Ai seemed much more my speed. My¡ªdepressingly limited¡ªresearch had somewhat restored my confidence in them, but it was nice to have some firsthand demonstration of their character.


    ezzen: And they¡¯re FIGHTING?


    ebi-furai: its more like¡­tag


    ebi-furai: theyre just roughhousing. you know the vaetna do this too


    ¡°The Vaetna keep it in the upper Spire.¡± I didn¡¯t much fancy being caught in the crossfire.


    This hallway was empty now, so she spoke out loud. ¡°It¡¯s also an exercise in minimizing collateral damage. You¡¯re not in danger, just a convenient target for her.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s she so¡­after me?¡± I resisted the urge to say ¡®into me¡¯; that was wishful thinking for sure.


    ¡°Beats me. Sorry for leaving you with her. Didn¡¯t have much choice.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°She kicked me out.¡±


    ¡°Out of the room?¡±


    Ebi waggled her virtual eyebrows, which I took to be a no. That meant¡ª


    ¡°Out of¡­3-space? Are you 4-brane all the way through? I saw your hands, but¡ª¡±


    She¡¯d have been chewed up like one of us three-dimensional meat-beings if she wasn¡¯t built for that. Of course, all the Radiances were able to shunt their bodies out of 3-space when they transformed, but exactly how remained a secret known only to them. Part of me wanted to join just so they¡¯d show me how¡ªmy animal fear of Hina put a stop to that.


    ¡°I am, but not all of it is modular.¡±


    That was fascinating to me. I wondered again what she would look like in the eyes of a Vaetna, who could perceive her full form at once. Some kind of Vitruvian arrangement of all her configurations?


    ¡°And that¡¯s all Ai¡¯s weave?¡±


    ¡°Sure is.¡± Oddly, she didn¡¯t sound very pleased about that, almost sighing in her synthetic voice.


    I itched to pursue the topic further, but I knew I wouldn¡¯t get a straight answer about how exactly she had been made or how that related to Ai¡¯s broader philosophy on her flame. I had gotten some clarity from my research about how exactly Ai had wound up with her specialty in robotics and prosthetics, but the organization had seemingly remained quite tight-lipped about the details of their magic, and of course Ebi seemed to not exist at all in the public eye. I put it aside for now, thinking over my conversation with Star, potential secrets.


    ¡°What did Hina mean that there were male Radiances?¡±


    ¡°Did¡ªshe said that?¡± There was genuine surprise in the robot¡¯s voice.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    Her poker face was impeccable.


    ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°Really.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªhuh.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t been expecting that. Of course, she could just be lying to me, which did sort of seem like something she¡¯d do if any of the theories held water¡ªbut she had sounded truly surprised.


    ¡°Well, she did. I¡¯m trying to figure out what she meant.¡±


    ¡°It might have been before my time. I don¡¯t have perfect access to records, you know.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re their doctor.¡±


    At least that was soft-confirmation that she had been made post-founding, not that that came as much of a surprise.


    ¡°A lot of the stuff around the founding is classified, even to me. You know how idol groups take protecting their members fairly seriously?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t, really, but go on.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s that, multiplied by the fact that Lighthouse is paramilitary. Infosec against VNT groups is hard with the ripple in play, so their time underground before the official founding is pretty locked down, although of course there¡¯s only so much that can be done. It¡¯s digital and magical¡ªI know of at least two spots in the database where they tell you in big bold letters that ¡®UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS DOCUMENT WILL TRIGGER:¡¯ and then a long list of stuff that scrambles the hell out of your device and your brain.¡±


    Yikes.


    ¡°So¡­anything about hypothetical male members would be behind that same level of security.¡±


    Especially if something had gone wrong.


    ¡°Mhm. Above both of our paygrades. It¡¯d be easier to ask Ai directly.¡±


    Good timing; we had arrived once again at the doorway to Ai¡¯s workshop. Actually, we were across the hall. She met us at the door, giving Ebi another big hug, speaking to me with her face smushed against the carbon fiber plates. The robot hugged her back.


    ¡°I have something for you to try.¡±


    No greeting, again. ¡°Lead the way.¡±


    This was a custom medical bay, one I recognized from a few videos. There was some fairly standard medical equipment scattered around, scanners and an IV unit and such¡ªand some things that were more obviously custom-designed for Amethyst¡¯s physical condition. Most prominently, from the ceiling hung a number of tentacular soft-robotics appendages, to help maneuver her into place inside the intricate circle of glyphs on the floor below it. This was one of the few places in the facility she couldn¡¯t mantle without disrupting the existing glyphs and weave.


    ¡°This is where Amethyst gets her prosthetics fitted, right?¡±


    In hindsight, if the 18th floor was ostensibly the medical zone, it was odd that this particular room was down here. Maybe proximity to Ai¡¯s workshop was valuable.


    ¡°Yes. Into the field, please, Ebi-tan.¡±


    Oh no, tentacles?


    Ebi just pushed my bed into the circle, the air within glowing a faint green. My at-a-glance reading and context told me that this was a mix of more specialized analgesics¡ªanalgomancy, technically¡ªand some corrective forces to help the subject balance. She didn¡¯t enter it herself, though¡ªshe actually used a long stick to get me partway in before some motive glyphs kicked in to guide me the rest of the way. I guessed that, like Amethyst, somehow the circle would disrupt her weave or vice-versa. I wondered if a Vaetna would just shred the circle by entering. It didn¡¯t occur to me until much later to wonder why my or Ai¡¯s tattoo bindings weren¡¯t an issue.


    ¡°It¡¯ll take a moment to kick in. Sorry.¡± Ebi didn¡¯t sound very apologetic¡ª


    Pain, blinding. I made a choking, moaning sound, my head retreating into my hunched shoulders. There was no sensation but the pain slamming upward from the stump at the end of my leg. I instinctively began to curl up¡ª


    Then blessed, total relief. As basic cognition returned, I understood that that had been the momentary switchover from the bed¡¯s local, imprecise painkiller glyphs to the circle¡¯s more calibrated ones. My foot didn¡¯t hurt¡ªthank fuck, that had been horrible¡ªbut the overall numbness had gone. I was really not looking forward to later stages of physical therapy where we¡¯d forego the analgomancy.


    ¡°Fuck you, Ebi,¡± I coughed. She chuckled.


    Ai¡¯s voice was more genuinely sorry. ¡°It hurts more if you¡¯re braced for it.¡±


    I nodded, still somewhat trying to recover my breath. From my supine position, I hadn¡¯t seen the temporary prosthetic on the desk. Ai collected it and brought it over to me, face twitching incrementally as she stepped into the circle. Her ponytail had come a bit loose, I noticed, stray hairs lending her an even more harried and exhausted appearance further at odds with how she looked during photo ops. How comprehensive was her makeup routine to hide the bags under her eyes? Not that I had any frame of reference for that stuff.


    I inspected the prosthetic. Printed resin, seemingly, in simple dark-grey, the same color as Ebi¡¯s chassis. It had a few moving parts, but nothing obviously motorized. The toes came in two segments¡ªthe big toe and a single block representing the other four. She flipped it over, and I saw that the sole and pads of the toes had a strange foam¡ªoh. That was the same resin, a section of each part printed at lower density for padding. I didn¡¯t have much appreciation for non-magical engineering, but even I had to admit that was a nice trick. Little things like that were why she was considered one of the world¡¯s experts in cutting-edge magical prosthesis design, a result of her time helping Amethyst.


    ¡°Since I hear my teammate is being¡­herself, I want to make this quick. The prosthetic attaches with {AFFIX}, no physical socket or suspension. Your blood price being such a clean cut made that easy. My weave, of course¡ªthe final version will need that to be yours, although now that I¡¯ve browsed your file I don¡¯t think that will be a problem. The final version will have some socketing for a seal so nothing gets in, and some more liner at the connection point or a more complex connection spell to make it more comfortable. Small-scale analgesoid glyph that should stop most of the pain without killing your sensation, more or less how the circle is making it feel now.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the analgesoid?¡±


    ¡°{AFFIX}-{DEFLECT} sub 2.¡±


    ¡°Sub 2¡± was a diagramming shorthand describing a second-order¡ªthat was, three-dimensional¡ªglyph being offset down on the Z-axis from its anchor. I nodded, picturing the diagram in my head, although I couldn¡¯t quite wrap my head around the lattices proper without the glyphs in front of me to reference.


    ¡°Pink link?¡±


    The link of the chain wasn¡¯t literally pink; the color-coding was shorthand for different channels of ripple, a standard established by the Spire¡¯s lattice displays. She nodded.


    ¡°You really are the Ezzen. Some of my students would have said blue.¡±


    I blushed and avoided her eyes.


    ¡°What else¡­the resin is lightweight, but I¡¯ve added a few nodules of osmoid LM to get the mass and weight distribution equal to your other foot. Not perfect, but¡­well. The toes have torsion springs to assist your step¡­that¡¯s about it. No sensation or direct control of the toes, so your gait will be a little shaky.¡±


    She obviously knew her stuff. She bent over my foot, using some precise cuts of magic to remove the gauze from my amputation, and inspected the site momentarily. She seemed satisfied and reached over to some cabinet inside the bedframe to extract a surprisingly mundane antiseptic spray bottle and cloth.


    ¡°Looks alright. Cleaning now. This will tickle, I apologize.¡±


    ¡°Why regular cleaning? Didn¡¯t you just use magic to take off the gauze?¡±


    ¡°Why do you think?¡±


    Excitement¡ªthis was going to become a lesson. ¡°Um¡ªI think you used {SEVER} on the gauze?¡±


    Obviously, she hadn¡¯t scribed the literal glyph that represented {SEVER}; rather, she had simply cast the first-order spell so fluently she hadn¡¯t even needed to gather a real spool. But she had said she wasn¡¯t as good at snapweaving¡ªoh. I looked over at the circle and found the glyph in the perimeter. She nodded in the corner of my eye. I went on, trying to keep my voice level. It did tickle a bit.


    ¡°By contrast, the chain you¡¯d need to clean the wound is, uh, {DIFFERENTIATE}-{ASH}? I think? To tell apart the pus and the scar tissue.¡±


    The sequence there mattered¡ªscribed as glyphs, the first spell was the anchor and the second extended from it. There were complicated rules about which glyphs could connect to which depending on which was the anchor, as well as what order¡ªthat was, dimensionality¡ªthe glyph was, and so on.


    She nodded approvingly as she carefully scrubbed at my wound. The magitech had already pushed the healing process maybe a week ahead of where it¡¯d be naturally, although it was nowhere near fully healed. It oozed pus, and I was grateful again that I couldn¡¯t feel what was going on down there beyond some faint pressure. Burns healed ugly.


    ¡°Good. So why didn¡¯t I do that?¡±


    ¡°Risk assessment. Already too high on the complexity curve given that severing more of my foot would be, uh, bad. Obviously.¡±


    She grinned, and for a moment, I understood why they were called Radiances. It practically lit up the room. Hina¡¯s smile was impish at best or predatory at worst, paralytic in its promise¡ªAi¡¯s was a lantern, someone worthy of standing with the Vaetna, of wielding the Frozen Flame for the betterment of the world. It scoured away her exhaustion, and beneath it, her passion for magic called to me, imploring me to join her, to follow whatever path she had found. She was pretty, which was also part of it, but the feeling inside me wasn¡¯t carnal attraction. I was a moth faced with a flame that promised to illuminate the world.


    Ebi made a decidedly mechanical clicking noise. I looked at her, the spell broken.


    ¡°Did you just take a photo?¡±


    ¡°You can prove nothing.¡±


    I gawked at the robot. In my peripheral vision, Ai rolled her eyes.


    ¡°Four out of five¡ªminus one for having the wrong second spell on the chain. Noun exclusion. Give me a first-order that would work and how you¡¯d mitigate the risk.¡±


    I shook myself a bit, returning to the practical problem, an eager student for once. {SEVER}? No, it¡¯d Zeno. {SEVER} cut in flat planes; chained off of {DIFFERENTIATE}, it would continuously cut along the rough geometry of my partially healed injury more and more precisely, but would never actually reach the end of the operation within a finite time. Akin to Zeno¡¯s Paradox, thus the rule. I kept thinking. I was embarrassing myself a bit, here. I was more comfortable with LM projection lattices, like Spire dermis or Radiance mantles, than stuff that interfaced directly with organics¡ªoh. Thinking about it from that angle¡ª


    ¡°{OFFSET}.¡±


    She blinked. ¡°Defend your reasoning.¡±


    ¡°Green link would loop the ripple away from degradation. It¡¯d pigeonhole into a clean pop.¡±


    Ebi broke in. ¡°Would you bet your foot on that?¡±


    I shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m right. Run it in GWalk.¡±


    Ai nodded. ¡°It works, although that¡¯s a fairly static approach. Hard to snapweave through green. I would use {EXTRACT}.¡±


    Oh. That made sense. I had been thinking too spatially¡ªsimply extracting the pus was an approach that avoided the spatial complexities of working around organic matter. That was a good example of how, with the tools available, biomancy was more about doing as little actual biomancy as possible.


    Ai affixed the prosthetic to the flat plane of my injury. I actually felt the lattice sort of ¡°stitch¡± it to my foot. It was neither painful nor itchy, some other sensation that came from magic which my basic senses didn¡¯t really have an equivalent for, more like a twisting, kneading force. She offered me her hand to help me sit up on the bed, and pulled me upright with a momentary display of that VNT effortlessness, bringing in her other arm to steady me.


    ¡°Time for you to try to stand. Let me just¡ª¡±


    I felt it as she engaged some of the spatial and motive components. The active parts of the spell circle were now a dizzyingly complex weave in my burgeoning magical senses, the flame inside me roiling and twitching as it investigated the delicate weave surrounding us; I had to shut it out to focus on the act of balance as she helped me off the bed. She helped me balance on my good foot with both magic and her arms as I gingerly lowered my stump. Despite my conscious knowledge of the analgomancy blocking my pain, some primal part of me was tense as the prosthetic¡¯s toes made contact with the floor. But none came as I put more pressure on it, feeling the springs provide some counter-force, and at last my heel touched the ground. Then I tried to put some weight on it¡ª


    I stumbled. The magic caught me immediately, not helping me stand but just catching me as I fell. Ai helped me back upright. How many hours had she spent helping Amethyst like this, in this room? She had a hand on my back.


    ¡°Breathe out.¡±


    I had been holding my breath? Oh. So I was. A long exhale¡ªthen I tried again, more gingerly this time, right leg shaking a bit with the unfamiliarity of the lack of sensation in my toes. My muscle memory was thrown off despite the foot itself being a perfect fit. Still, it went better this time. I stood on my own two feet¡ªfoot and a half, maybe, but still. Ai let go of me and I just stood there, relishing the¡­uprightness. I resisted the urge to attempt to take a step, even knowing that I wouldn¡¯t fall.


    Ai gave a satisfied nod. ¡°Good! Try to just stand up and sit down a few times, like you normally would.¡±


    I did so. I felt like I was getting the hang of it fast. Maybe I could try to take a step?


    I didn¡¯t get the chance. Something zipped past the closed door to the room, a yell dopplering down the hall. Then there was a crash. Ebi shrugged as if to say ¡°called it.¡± Emerald sighed, long-suffering, and strode to the door. Ebi provided interpretation¡ªnot in her own voice, an imitation of her creator¡¯s.


    ¡°LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE. No, I don¡¯t care if she deserved it, out of my wing. OUT. Ishikawa-chan, why didn¡¯t you stop them?¡±


    Ebi broke from the impression to make her own comment. ¡°She can¡¯t stay mad at Amethyst.¡±


    Then she resumed. ¡°No. No! You tell her¡ªoh. She said¡ªoh, seriously? Okay, yes, she deserved it. Still. Mhm. Huh? No, I was in the middle of¡ª¡±


    Another crash. Someone was yelling. Then it became a roar¡ªwhich meant it was Opal. I put my face in my hands. Ebi leaned out the doorway to peer at whatever was happening. That seemed gratuitous; she was probably wired into the security cameras.


    ¡°Heliotrope is going to be so mad she missed this.¡±

 From On High // 1.05

    The scuffle ended fast, from the sound of it. I saw none of it myself; I only knew things were coming to a close when someone yowled and the arguing resumed again. Hopefully, Hina wasn¡¯t about to come in here and cause more of a fuss.


    ¡°How do any of them have time for this?¡±


    VNTs, and even the Vaetna themselves, tended to be stretched fairly thin. Magic was too flexible and powerful to do without, and there was always more work to be done.


    ¡°It¡¯s a holiday.¡±


    It was? I checked my phone¡ªFebruary 12th¡ªbut Ebi beat me to it.


    ¡°Kenkoku kinen no hi, the day Japan was founded. They get national holidays off, aside from emergencies.¡±


    That hadn¡¯t come up during my bout of research¡ªwhy would it have? It occurred to me that I should find a vlog or something to catch up on these little details; my ignorance was embarrassing, and would only become more so with time. I resolved to not get distracted next time.


    ¡°Just holidays?¡±


    ¡°And Sundays. So no promotions, press conferences, general peacekeeping¡­they¡¯re still ready for an earthquake or flamefall.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why Heliotrope is out in the Gulf.¡±


    ¡°Actually, no, she¡¯s there voluntarily. They¡¯re only obligated to respond to things that directly affect Japan.¡±


    Right, right, the facts were coming back to me now, yanked from the bottom of the drawer where I kept political knowledge, things I already knew but hadn¡¯t gotten to in my research. Todai was lower-intervention than the Spire by a substantial margin; one of the videos had mentioned friction between them and the Japanese government regarding showing their face in the South China Sea.


    ¡°Voluntarily?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s a grad student in life sciences, you know. She couldn¡¯t stand by while an oil spill goes full Dubai, even if that¡¯s way outside our usual domain.¡±


    Ai had implicitly framed Heliotrope as more ¡®mahou shoujo¡¯ than some of her teammates¡ªapparently this was part of that. Speaking of whom¡ªthe Emerald Radiance re-entered the room, looking more tired than ever. I realized she was using her day off to help take care of me. She bowed. ¡°I am so, so sorry for my friends¡¯ behavior.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªit¡¯s fine, don¡¯t worry. Ebi was telling me it wasn¡¯t that serious?¡±


    She nodded. ¡°It wasn¡¯t¡­we can be done for today.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re leaving the foot attached?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Ebi-tan will be with you, so you can try to stand and maybe walk a little if you feel like it. We¡¯ll meet again tomorrow if I can find the time. Otherwise, your physical therapy will be with her. Ebi-tan, take him to his room?¡±


    I raised my hand. Ai had a sort of authority figure energy, somewhere between teacherly and motherly. I supposed that was fitting, if I was reading her relationship with Ebi correctly. ¡°How would my¡­training actually work? If I stay?¡±


    Ebi¡¯s turn. ¡°All the Radiances will be helping with your recovery and training. Ai just has the most to do at the moment since for now your prosthetic has to come first.¡±


    I considered this. ¡°I¡¯m having a hard time picturing Hina giving lessons.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t quite intended it to be a joke, but the two women laughed and had a brief back-and-forth in Japanese, which sounded from the tone like:


    ¡°He¡¯s not wrong.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll be fine, probably.¡±


    Ebi switched back to English. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about her for now. They just gave her a pretty thorough thrashing, I think. If you don¡¯t have any more questions, I¡¯m taking you to your actual room, not the medical ward. After that, no more bed for you.¡±


    Three cheers for medical magic. ¡°Wheelchair?¡±


    ¡°For now. We¡¯ll make some more interim upgrades tomorrow that might let you walk.¡± Ebi frowned. ¡°Pending Sapphire¡¯s cooperation.¡±


    What did she have to do with that? Then a more mundane, large-scale worry than fear of the hyena. ¡°Will¡­I have to pay for all this?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know anything about the Japanese healthcare system; I envisioned a bill with so many zeroes on the end that I would lose track, a relic of my experiences in American hospitals before they had sent me back to the UK. Ultimately, inferno recovery programs had footed the bill that time, but things might work differently here. Ai frowned and did some rapid back-and-forth with Ebi, who eventually turned back to me.


    ¡°Not your problem. Opal thinks you¡¯d be a meaningful enough return on investment that we¡¯re happy to cover all your costs of living and give you a stipend, the way we do for the Radiances. The foot and tattoo are entirely on the house even if you don¡¯t stick around.¡±


    What did you even say to that? ¡°Thanks¡± didn¡¯t cover it, really¡ªwith what they were offering, I simply wouldn¡¯t have to think about money. No more scraping the edge of the poverty line. The cynic in me wondered if making me feel indebted to their generosity was another carrot to get me to stay. Still¡ªcarrot was a whole lot better than stick. I ventured to confirm.


    ¡°So I¡¯m not, er, contractually bound to join up?¡±


    Ai¡¯s turn. ¡°No, absolutely not. We would never. For guarantee¡ªonce your paperwork goes through, you¡¯ll go on the¡­¡± She needed a moment to make sure the translation was correct. ¡°National Flamebearer Register? After that, the Vaetna will definitely know you¡¯re here; they might send somebody to check on you, because of how you got here.¡±


    She muttered something about ¡°Hina-san¡± after that, so perhaps that situation would wind up being fraught. Still, it was good to hear¡ªif it came to that, I could probably leave regardless of any obstructions Todai tried to put between me and the Spire. In that sense, I wasn¡¯t a prisoner.


    ¡°Um. I still need to think about it.¡±


    One more major concern; Ebi had recommended I ask.


    ¡°If I do stay¡­what would I¡­do? Do I have to become a Radiance?¡±


    I still wasn¡¯t sure what that even entailed, and there was no way I was bringing up the trans theory¡ªway, way too invasive. Ai looked genuinely confused as it was. ¡°Why would you?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªSapphire said I wouldn¡¯t be the first male one.¡±


    Ai actually put her face in her hands at that.¡°That¡¯s¡ªugh. She¡¯s so¡ª¡± she collapsed into Japanese for a moment, mostly directed at Ebi, who rubbed her shoulders and set about redoing her ponytail. ¡°¡ªclassified. It¡¯s classified. No, you don¡¯t have to join. I¡¯m sorry if Hina-san made that unclear.¡±


    ¡°Alright. That¡¯s¡ªa relief.¡± I could live with not thinking about that mysterious offer, although I didn¡¯t miss how she seemed to know exactly what was up where Ebi didn¡¯t. ¡°So I¡¯d just¡­do research? With you and the others?¡±


    ¡°Yes. To be honest, we haven¡¯t quite thought that far ahead, but it would be something like that. There¡¯s definitely a place for you here. You could do a lot of good with us.¡±


    She said it almost thoughtfully. It was so gratifying to be acknowledged, for my talents to be recognized by someone I felt was an equal. I tried to put it into words.


    ¡°Thanks. Um¡ª¡± I tried again. ¡°This is¡ªwhat I¡¯ve always¡­wanted¡­¡±


    I trailed off into a mumble, because it wasn¡¯t exactly true; I wished I was at the Spire instead. At least I had enough tact to not say that out loud. As it was, this was the next best thing and surely better than being in the clutches of the PCTF, for all Hina had apparently taken it upon herself to stalk me. That element was unnerving¡ªdoubly so for the faint thrill it inspired in me.


    We once again were left in an awkward lurch where neither of us really knew how to end the conversation. Ai rubbed her wrist and looked down at the spell circle; my eyes ventured up to look at the nest of tentacular grippers stowed against the ceiling. Ebi rescued us.


    ¡°Well, if that¡¯s all¡ªI¡¯m taking him back up. You should come with. Get out of your labs.¡±


    Ai waved her creation off, already fiddling with something on her mobile workstation¡ªit had apparently crossed the hall with her. ¡°I want to get the stabilizer done tonight. I¡¯ll try to be up for dinner, but¡­¡±


    They did a little more back-and-forth in Japanese. Even without translation, the meaning was clear: the workaholic Radiance was committed to whatever project she was currently working on for now and would probably miss dinner. I had been guilty of the same many, many times. Eventually, Ebi sighed and turned to me, jerking her head at the door.


    ¡°She¡¯s incorrigible, you know. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    ¡ª


    The hallway was a bit of a wreck. Never a dull moment, so far.


    The walls were gouged, scorched, and outright smashed in a few places. There were already a bunch of people in hi-vis with clipboards and measuring tapes marking what needed repair or replacement; good thing they were right next to Ai¡¯s workshop. Opal and Amethyst had gone, but¡ªSapphire was still here. She looked decidedly ruffled, though not injured, and had evidently been waiting for me. The puppy¡¯s metaphorical tail was decidedly not between her legs despite the tongue-lashing I had overheard. She bounced toward me. At least she wasn¡¯t obviously in predator-mode¡ªI still had the urge to call for Ai, suppressed only by residual awkwardness and a rather silly desire to not make a scene.


    ¡°Hey, Ez!¡±


    I flinched internally. She didn¡¯t have the right to call me that. Ebi physically interposed herself between myself and the Radiance. ¡°Sapphire. Leave my patient alone.¡±


    She stopped, pouting. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to scare him!¡±


    Both of us stared at her. After a moment, she flinched under the pressure. ¡°Okay, I did, but¡ªno hard feelings, right? You¡¯re still staying?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªyou didn¡¯t make it sound like I had much choice.¡±


    She actually looked almost guilty at that, but recovered quickly. ¡°Mm. We did sorta maybe a little bit kidnap you¡ªbut this is where you should be! Look at you! You¡¯re so¡­good at glyphs! Alice really wants you here.¡±


    Alice being¡­Opal, right. I found my voice, encouraged by the confirmation from Ai. ¡°I¡¯m¡ªnot¡ª¡± come on, spit it out, I can do it¡ª¡°becoming a Radiance.¡±


    She took that with a surprising amount of equanimity. A worrying amount, frankly. She waved her hand. ¡°Yeah, yeah. You¡¯ll come around. I haven¡¯t even made my pitch yet!¡±


    The wind of defiance left my sails. She was still warming up? Ebi¡¯s voice was dry. ¡°He¡¯s not going to stay at all if you keep pushing him.¡±


    Hina entirely ignored that. Her eyes alighted on my arm. ¡°Hey, she redid the binding. Nice color! Way cleaner lattice, too! No more blood?¡±


    I shook my head, the motion jerky with the tension of fear. Her shoulders slumped.


    ¡°Aw.¡±


    The robot shooed her with both hands. ¡°Get out of here. Shoo. Begone. Don¡¯t make me get the spray bottle. Or the cold iron.¡±


    Sorry, the what? What the hell was she? I assumed that was a joke¡ªstowed it for later. My thoughts turned instead to the connection I had made earlier. I had resolved to put a bit more stock in her character, as hard as she was making it right now. She had pushed me to get the binding¡ªI attempted to muster my courage again, leaning around Ebi to make¡­well, not quite eye contact with Hina. Her eyes were too blue. I wound up looking at her chest, then lips, then gave up and just looked up at a space over her head where a wrecked light fixture was sparking a bit.


    ¡°You helped her.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°Ai. My spear.¡±


    Not the most eloquent, but in my defense, it was a hard thing to say. I was far outside my comfort zone with this kind of comment. Thankfully, she got the message¡ªand was surprised, fixing her hair a bit. Maybe she hadn¡¯t been expecting me to pick up on that?


    ¡°Um. She¡¯s just¡­barely been sleeping, and nothing really helps unless she¡¯s working with Amane, so I figured¡­¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t tell her.¡±


    I¡¯m not entirely sure why I said that¡ªbut it was somehow the right thing to say, and she smiled at me. I¡¯d have liked to smile back, if only I wasn¡¯t so overwhelmed by the strange moment. Nonetheless, some kind of understanding passed between us, a camaraderie in subterfuge, helping people behind their backs. This puppy-hyena¡ªor fairy, according to Ebi?¡ªhad layers. So did I, maybe. Ai had said we were alike¡ªmaybe that wasn¡¯t such a bad thing? Well¡ªno, that was entirely a bridge too far, she still evoked a primal terror in me that set my heart pounding and made me tense with the need to defend myself, but¡­there was something there, undeniably. Ebi reminded us she was still here.


    ¡°I appreciate it too, if that counts for anything.¡±


    The moment should have broken¡ªand perhaps it did, but those sapphire pools remained staring right at me even as she replied. ¡°Yeah, but that¡¯s just how you are! Ezzen¡¯s an unknown!¡±


    I flinched again at the use of my online name in person. She¡¯d used it before, when we first met¡ªI¡¯d had higher priorities at the time. Now I had the wherewithal to realize how much it bothered me, especially considering how, coming from Ai, it hadn¡¯t. The name was a compartmentalisation between the shell of who I had been before magic had come to the world and the magic-obsessed teenager I had become since¡­but I had never been brave enough to take it outside the digital, and it felt like a bit of a violation for her to have made that decision for me. Yet I still couldn¡¯t bring myself to object.


    Ebi said something in Japanese, and Hina tittered back at her, but the hyena¡¯s eyes remained locked on me. Savoring my discomfort? I felt like a piece of meat; the kinship had vanished utterly. Ebi made to shoo her away again¡ª


    She moved past the robot in a way that made no sense¡ª


    She was in my face. Her finger traced down my chest, her voice a playful whisper in my ear.


    ¡°It¡¯s a real choice, you know.¡±


    She smelled good. Then she winked at me and bounced down the hall, past the repairmen who had momentarily stopped working to observe the exchange. She turned back once as she reached the end of the hall.


    ¡°I¡¯m going out. Don¡¯t want curry. Back before midnight to help with Ai¡¯s thing.¡±


    Space folded wrong, twisting with a bang-crunch as the air protested the distortion. She vanished. Only then did Ebi move from her protective position.


    ¡°Can she¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    That exit didn¡¯t have as much impact on me as it probably should have, because I was staring down at the prosthetic. Then at the tattoo, then my old burns, then at where Hina had been standing. I knew she didn¡¯t mean whether to stay at Lighthouse, or whether to become a Radiance.


    I pulled out my phone.


    ezzen: Sapphire keeps calling me Ezzen.


    ezzen: Instead of my actual name.


    ezzen: And I don¡¯t know how to feel about it.


    _twilitt: :ooo


    ezzen: She also teleported but one thing at a time.


    _twilitt: thats big for you isnt it


    _twilitt: hows it feel


    starstar97: lmfao yeah she does that


    starstar97: but holy shit e that rocks


    ezzen: Good?


    ezzen: Bad coming from her specifically?


    ezzen: Like it feels like it should be good but


    skychicken: my fault


    skychicken: sorry for leaking


    I wasn¡¯t sure how upset to be. Star chose for me.


    starstar97: sky??


    starstar97: what the hell?


    skychicken: circumstances demanded it


    skychicken: ez was in danger, saph wouldnt have gone out of her way for a random flamebearer outside of japan unless i told her that she was rescuing ¡°ezzen from the forums¡±


    skychicken: otherwise she would have let the vaetna sort it out


    ezzen: ??? and why didn¡¯t you let them?


    ezzen: Why send me here?


    skychicken: because i didn¡¯t know!


    skychicken: im not omniscient, believe it or not


    skychicken: i didn¡¯t know whether the vaetna would make it to you in time, and I didn¡¯t know how well you¡¯d succeed at stalling, or any of that


    skychicken: i just knew my friend was in danger and called in the favor i could


    skychicken: i didn¡¯t ask sapphire to abduct you


    I had known skychicken for years, practically since the forums¡¯ inception. But I couldn¡¯t quite bring myself to believe him. It was all too convenient, especially given Ebi¡¯s avoidance earlier.


    ebi-furai: i want to ditto this


    starstar97: wait


    ebi-furai: lighthouse really had no clue what was going on until saph brought you back


    starstar97: ¡°ABDUCT¡±?????????


    ezzen: So I had the chance to go to the Spire


    ezzen: Which you KNOW is all I¡¯ve ever fucking WANTED


    _twilitt: ez¡­


    ezzen: And you grabbed the craziest VNT you could find and had her abduct me to the other side of the planet for


    skychicken: you¡¯d rather be dead?


    And¡ªthat was the rub, wasn¡¯t it? My suspicions were baseless; he couldn¡¯t have known, he wasn¡¯t¡ªI didn¡¯t have the right to be angry.


    skychicken: im sorry, ez.


    skychicken: i wish i could have called the spire. its where you should be


    ezzen: Yeah I¡¯m uh


    ezzen: Need a bit of a break. Gonna lurk


    starstar97: :(


    skychicken: sorry


    ebi-furai: i realize this sorta casts me in a suspicious light


    starstar97: e inviting you is kinda a legit point in favor of the whole situation i think


    starstar97: unless it was coerced but like. cmon. its lighthouse


    _twilitt: ezzen is okay! id take that over the alternative


    ¡°Pretty fucked up, huh.¡±


    I didn¡¯t respond, just watched the chat scroll.


    starstar97: okay, topic change bc thats all really fuckin bleh


    starstar97: ebi your english is really good


    skychicken: yeah


    skychicken: very chatroom fluent, feels like


    ebi-furai: well my mom speaks it so i grew up with it


    ebi-furai: im a bit following your leads on syntax here


    It was sort of impressive how she was passing off her undoubtedly weird childhood as that of a human. Like me, she seemed more comfortable being genuine online¡ªbut then, she was a machine. I didn¡¯t have an excuse. We entered the elevator.


    I shouldn¡¯t have exploded at Sky. I did owe him¡ªpossibly my life, certainly my freedom. But something was still just rubbing me the wrong way about the whole thing. How had he known? It felt ridiculous to accuse my friend of some kind of¡­what, conspiracy? I didn¡¯t even know how to categorize it, but there were threads here I couldn¡¯t see, and it bothered me. I resolved to at least apologize to him later, once I had cooled down more. The lights above the elevator¡¯s door ticked up and up, 16, 17¡ªwe passed the 18th floor and kept going.


    ¡°Wait, where are we headed?¡±


    ¡°Your room. Opal¡¯s gonna make her pitch.¡±


    ¡°Opal?¡±


    I had thought we were seeing Amethyst. She just grinned at me. Great, another Radiance. I could only hope she was an Ai and not a Hina¡ªeither way, I¡¯d probably manage to make it awkward, but that was beyond my control.


    The elevator stopped.


    The 19th floor¡ªand the 20th, apparently¡ªhad been converted to one enormous penthouse apartment. A set of stairs to the second level were to our right. There was a large kitchen, the island covered in scattered mostly empty dishes. Beanbag chairs and controllers were scattered around a large TV with a PS5 sitting on the cabinet below it. By the window sat an easel with a half-complete painting of the skyline. Over on the right of the common space was a glass wall with the Lighthouse symbol on it. A large round table lay within, bearing an intimidating landscape of paperwork and flanked by whiteboards crammed with Japanese characters. Most strikingly, I could see another room adjacent to it that looked like a dojo.


    I had seen this cavernous common space in a few videos¡ªI snapped a pic and sent it to Star. Seeing this would probably kill her. The square footage¡­it was too big to eyeball reliably. 30,000? 40,000? It was honestly an impractical amount of space for five people, no matter how important or busy. My phone began to buzz angrily.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°I¡¯m. Uh. Living with them?¡±


    A voice came from behind us. ¡°That¡¯s the intent.¡±


    I twisted to look. Where the space before us had no second level, the area behind me did. The stairs led up to a glass-and-metal balcony that went from one wall until it met the elevator shaft that was the building¡¯s spine, a great rectangular block in the center which disrupted the otherwise-open floor plan on both levels. Leaning over the balcony¡¯s railing was Radiance Opal.


    She was easily the most visually striking of the five in her human form, despite Amethyst¡¯s prostheses. For one, her hair was white, pearlescent, and styled in a short bob cut. She was dressed in a way my fashion-unacquainted mind was hesitantly calling ¡°athleisure,¡± not much more than a black sports bra, unzipped white jacket, and leggings. She had a distinctly half-something look to her features, not fully Japanese¡ªBrazilian? Star would know. She had a faintly English accent, more London than mine.


    What really set her apart, though, was the tail. It was a sinuous, reptilian appendage, huge and as thick as her torso, almost as long as her legs. It was adorned with white scales that glimmered like her hair as she trotted down the stairs, weightless as Hina or Ebi. Her slitted eyes were another hint of her nature, red with brilliant oranges glimmering within like a fire opal, a sunset caught in amber. Her real name was Alice Takehara, and she was Todai¡¯s dragon.


    She embodied both aspects that gave the Frozen Flame its name. She was literally hot, prone to destructive one-offs more reminiscent of blood magic than woven spellcraft. Like the rest of us Flamebearers, she was a nuclear weapon stitched to a person¡ªbut one applied with all the precision of a scalpel, famously calculating and cool under pressure. As a result, she was¡ªostensibly¡ªthe leader of the team. In practice, she shared the role with Sapphire, being more the organizational head where Hina thrived taking point on the ground. In my Vaetna-based conceptualization of these things, that made her the Sani to Hina¡¯s Heung. She stopped in front of us with a half-bow and a smile.


    ¡°Good afternoon. I¡¯m Radiance Opal. You¡¯re Dalton Colliot.¡±


    Was I? It¡¯s a real choice, Hina whispered.


    I blinked. Dalton was a nobody. It wasn¡¯t the name that really belonged in this world of magic, the name behind a fair chunk of the modern magical theory that was available to the public.


    ¡°Ezzen.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Your online name?¡±


    ¡°Um. Yeah. Could¡ªcould you call me that instead?¡±


    Uncharacteristically bold of me¡ªHina was rubbing off on me, maybe. That conjured the idea of her rubbing¡ªnope. Why, brain? None of that, especially not in front of her teammate. I attempted to refocus on Opal, who acquiesced to the request without missing a beat, sticking her hand out.


    ¡°Of course. Ezzen-san, youkoso, Toudai e.¡±


    I shook it. It was a firm, practiced handshake, a result of probably thousands of meetings with various officials and fans. I scrambled for a bit of Japanese that Star had attempted to teach me last year. Really should have practiced this, in hindsight. ¡°Um¡ªyoroshiku onegaishamisu?¡±


    Ebi grinned. ¡°Close. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.¡±


    It occurred to me that she definitely could have given me a crash course on the greeting protocol on the way up rather than letting me humiliate myself. Opal took her hand back, bowed her head, and said the phrase herself, seemingly satisfied with my attempt. I looked around the cavernous space again, blushing at my fumble. It occurred to me to put away my phone. That was the polite thing to do, right?


    ¡°Sorry, why am I here exactly?¡±


    Ebi took on a mock-doctorly tone. ¡°Cohabitation is proven to enhance team cohesion.¡±


    Opal bowed again, this time a formal, straight-backed motion much more serious than Hina¡¯s dip of the head earlier.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªvery sorry for Sapphire¡¯s behavior. It was a terrible first impression, and I believe it has fundamentally misrepresented the nature of your presence here and what we¡¯re offering you.¡±


    Ebi cut in. ¡°She apologized to us directly.¡±


    I looked up at her. Had she? Ebi¡¯s head bounced a bit, acknowledging that Hina really hadn¡¯t. However, she had given me something in that conversation. I was still working out how grateful I should be. Opal saw the exchange.


    ¡°My point exactly. This was¡­a kidnapping, yes. I want to be as up-front as possible about that. That¡¯s no way for a magical girl to behave, and it¡¯d be a stain on our reputation if that went public. And if the Vaetna come knocking, that puts us in a tough spot, so we do have an interest in at least keeping you happy and healthy. Not a prisoner.¡±


    I thought I heard something like a rumble under her voice. Was she like Hina after all? Ai had intimated as much in our first conversation. She went on.


    ¡°That being said¡­Toudai is actively looking to recruit, and you¡¯re quite the catch, the circumstances of how you got here aside. I understand you¡¯d prefer to be at the Spire instead?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªyeah.¡± It was too embarrassing to say out loud that I wished to be a Vaetna; it felt almost childlike against her professionalism, exacerbating the asymmetry I already felt with me bedridden versus her on her feet. ¡°But I know they¡¯re not recruiting, so it¡¯d just be a research role, and you¡¯re offering me the Radiance thing instead¡ªwhich I¡¯m not really sure about¡ªand the replacement for my foot means I should stay here for a while anyway and¡­¡±


    I trailed off lamely. I had been chewing on this series of facts all day. I pulled out my phone again almost reflexively, responding to Star¡¯s jealousy with some obligatory smugness that I wasn¡¯t really feeling at all. Opal¡¯s response was a bit uncertain.


    ¡°Um¡ªyes.¡±


    I seemed to have ruined her script. Oops. She found her footing again after a moment.


    ¡°The Spire would give you sanctuary, but not a future. I hate to sell us as the second-best, but we are indeed second-best, and we could make something of you in a way the Spire would not. That¡¯s your carrot. But¡ªwe don¡¯t want to rush you, and ideally we¡¯d like you to be fully recovered before asking you to commit or not. I understand this living situation might feel like it runs counter to that, but this would be best for both your recovery and your training¡­¡±


    I looked up as she trailed off. She looked uncomfortable¡ªshe thought I wasn¡¯t paying attention, staring at my phone as I was. Damn it. I put it away again.


    ¡°Uh, sorry. I can, uh¡­I don¡¯t know about living¡­here. It¡¯s a lot.¡±


    She seemed rather thoroughly off-track by now, but forged ahead.


    ¡°It is a lot, and I¡¯m sorry we¡¯re putting the decision on you now. What are your concerns?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re¡­all girls.¡±


    I felt a little stupid saying it loud, but after Hina, I had to. I was terrified of the prospect of sharing a space with five gorgeous women.


    ¡°Is that a problem? You¡¯d have your own room and bathroom, so you¡¯d have privacy. We¡¯re good roommates, I promise.¡±


    Was that a joke? I couldn¡¯t tell. ¡°I mean¡ªthat¡¯s good. But I really meant that, uh, Sapphire said¡­¡±


    How was I to explain the discomfort she made me feel, or the implication that I could eventually become one of them? I had already internally decided against becoming a Radiance, and told Hina as much¡ªbut with this living situation, it felt like there was almost a threat of¡­I didn¡¯t know how to categorize it. Osmosis?


    I heard it again, a rumbling noise. I initially thought it might have been construction¡ªbut as she sighed with exasperation, it occurred to me that I might be somehow detecting traces of her mantle, her frustration manifest in her magic.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry about Hina, again. She¡¯s made a real mess of this. She can be made to respect boundaries, I promise.¡±


    That didn¡¯t quite convince my latent prey instincts that the danger had passed, but it was nonetheless relieving to hear. ¡°Um¡ªgood. You¡¯re all okay with having me here?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t actually sure what I had meant to imply about myself by saying that, if anything¡ªOpal just nodded.


    ¡°No objections from us. Hina is¡­well, too eager to have you here, maybe, but we¡¯ll work on that¡ªbut otherwise it¡¯s a good arrangement, I think. You need language practice, and immersion is great for that.¡±


    It hadn¡¯t actually quite hit me that I was in Japan now¡ªeveryone so far had spoken essentially fluent English. She went on.


    ¡°I¡¯m told that proximity to Ebi and Ai is also a must for your recovery, so it¡¯s here or the 18th floor for now.¡±


    That made the decision for me. Go back to that desolate, lonely maze of empty rooms? Absolutely not. Sure, it would be a change¡ªbut this was a ludicrously nice living space.


    ¡°I¡ªsure. Okay.¡±


    She nodded understandingly.


    ¡°Once your recovery has progressed a bit further, if it doesn¡¯t feel like it¡¯d work out, it¡¯d be easy enough to transfer¡ª¡±


    The rumbling¡¯s origin made itself apparent. The Radiance reddened.


    ¡°Opal.¡± Ebi finally spoke up. ¡°How long has it been since you had a real meal?¡±


    She replied in Japanese, and I heard something whiny in her voice, a sharp contrast from the crisp and level way she had been speaking to me. They argued back and forth for a moment. Eventually, Ebi turned to me.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to your room. Opal will catch up once she¡¯s eaten something.¡±


    Opal protested again in Japanese¡ªthen switched to English, carrying that whine with her. ¡°I¡¯ll just¡ª¡±


    She almost stomped over to the kitchen, tail lashing. I supposed that Ebi would be the supreme authority among the six when it came to their health. The robot stage-whispered to me.


    ¡°She doesn¡¯t eat as much as she should.¡±


    On account of the tail, I had to assume. Opal barked back at us as she rummaged through the fridge.


    ¡°I can hear you!¡±


    Or at least that¡¯s what she probably said. She asked something after that, and Ebi replied with what I was coming to recognize as ¡°yeah¡± or similar. Then she returned, bearing what I recognized to be some sort of rice ball. Actually, two. She offered it to me¡ªI assumed that¡¯s what she had asked Ebi. I wasn¡¯t that hungry, and was going to wave it off, but the doctor-bot plucked it from her grasp and handed it to me.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been under eightfold healing for seventeen hours. You could use the calories.¡±


    Fair enough. I wasn¡¯t sure how to free it from the plastic wrapper¡ªEbi visibly suppressed a sigh and took it back. Her suite of emotional displays was really quite thorough.


    ¡°Watch.¡±


    She undid the wrapper with precision, a multi-step process involving peeling back one strip of plastic and then pulling the corners of the triangle apart. I peered at the onigiri freed from its multilayered sheath of plastic.


    ¡°Seems involved.¡±


    ¡°Keeps the seaweed dry.¡±


    Opal, for her part, had already inhaled half of hers, tail waving with what I took to be satisfaction, or embarrassment. It was adorable¡ªand decidedly unlike the professionalism she had exuded just a minute prior. Maybe she was a Hina, but just the puppy? That was optimistic. I bit into my own snack and got only rice and a bit of seaweed. Weren¡¯t these supposed to have fillings? I showed it to Ebi.


    ¡°A little deeper. This one is pickled plum. You¡¯ll know it when you get to it.¡±


    I took another bite¡ªah. There it was, surprisingly juicy and crunchy. The sourness was refreshing, but I wasn¡¯t sure I¡¯d have picked this flavor, given the choice. Nevertheless, my empathy insisted that the obviously-ravenous-and-embarrassed-about-it Radiance not be the only one eating, so I kept going. It was edible, at least, and Ebi seemed to approve of us meat-beings getting our requisite nutrition. She glanced at Opal.


    ¡°You really should have just talked to him over tea and snacks. You could have avoided this whole thing.¡±


    Opal turned bright red. She was hilariously framed: her pearl hair gave her flushed face a striking resemblance to the Japanese flag visible behind her in the meeting room, and over her other shoulder was the Todai symbol on the glass as though labeling her¡ªit took everything in my power to not start laughing with a mouthful of rice. She didn¡¯t dignify it with a response and just kept eating, although the tip of her tail snapped against the tile floor once, a surprisingly resonant sound, like tapping the edge of a glass with a fork. Were her scales gems? They certainly looked like it.


    A matching ringing noise resounded from upstairs. Opal¡¯s tail clicked a few more times, and she got a few more responses. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to look.


    Amethyst¡¯s mantle was, in a word, mecha. Where the other girls¡¯ mantles were more or less their own bodies in impractical-looking ribbons and fancy hairdos, hers was enormous, crystalline and faceted, standing three meters tall. Her legs were like bony stalactites, although with digitigrade geometry impossible for any such rock formation. The skeletal resemblance continued to her torso, which looked a bit more humanoid, calling to mind a Gundam or an EVA unit, although my familiarity with mecha was no better than my knowledge of magical girls. I was well and truly out of my genre.


    Her head was small for the frame of her body, a long forward-facing spike with outgrowths radiating along the sides to a V-point. A pair of additional spikes¡ªmaybe ¡®blades¡¯ was more accurate¡ªflared out from the sides, recalling fins. It was thoroughly inhuman, faceless and mechanized.


    She retained some of the magical girl elements that unified all their mantles despite the physical differences, like the shoulder-ribbons and embellishments at the knees and elbows that matched the trim on the others¡¯ uniforms. But she certainly wasn¡¯t an anime girl¡ªthough her proportions did hint at femininity, even ¡®monstergirl¡¯ was inadequate. She really did resemble a mecha made of crystal more than anything else. The marketing and merch tended to make her look a bit¡ªno, a lot more humanoid.


    She had a kind of grace, like her more humanoid counterparts, but exacerbated by her departure from flesh. The gems almost flowed as she moved, only crystallizing when she stood still. It reminded me of the Spire¡¯s dermis, oddly nostalgic and familiar. It was most visible in her arms¡ªtoo long and reinforced at the joints¡ªas she gesticulated, her fingers seeming like at any moment they could splash off into little flowing droplets. It belied the fact that she was, as far as anybody knew, completely invincible, a stark contrast against the sickly and pared-away meat of her real body. According to the rumors, she had suffered grievous injuries in PCTF captivity and during her subsequent escape. The facts were that those injuries, whatever their origin, didn¡¯t bother her as long as she was mantled.


    She almost warbled a greeting to Ebi before turning to me. Those ringing sounds had been her voice, apparently.


    ¡°Hello. Nice¡ªto meet you.¡±


    Oh. She barely spoke English? I could at least match that.


    ¡°Yoroshiku onegaishimasu?¡± I said it right this time.


    A rush of wind, a burst of motion¡ªand suddenly she was in my face, looming over me, chattering excitedly in ringing tones. I flinched at how quickly she had moved; Vaetna-like, again, but the effect was far more visceral in person, and she was a whole lot bigger than Hina and just as inhuman. At least the intimidation of her size was undercut by the way her voice sounded like wind chimes, but that had still been a momentary reminder of how scary the Radiances could be purely as a function of being mantled. Ebi almost hauled her off of me, barely half her height, presumably explaining the language barrier. Amethyst didn¡¯t have facial expressions per se, but she did slump a bit as she replied. Ebi translated.


    ¡°She¡¯s really happy to meet you, and¡ª¡®your escape was so cool. How¡¯s your foot?¡¯¡±


    Ebi knew exactly how good my foot was, but I supposed Amethyst wanted to hear it from me. ¡°It¡¯s¡­good.¡± Come on, Ez, a bit more. ¡°Ai¡¯s work is¡ªincredible.¡± That came from the heart, at least.


    Amethyst nodded excitedly at that once Ebi translated. Opal had finished eating and cut in as she walked over to her teammate. ¡°She¡¯s a big fan of yours.¡±


    Oh, right, I had almost forgotten. New additions to the chatroom or people getting excited when I showed up in YouTube comments were one thing, now familiar, but I had discovered with the guy in the hallway that I really didn¡¯t know how to do this in person. The language barrier wasn¡¯t helping.


    ¡°Um, please tell her that I think her mantle is¡­cool. I don¡¯t, um, know much about mecha, but I like how it moves.¡±


    Opal translated, and Amethyst rang back at her, clapping excitedly. She was bouncier than Hina, and also moved in a way that was too lightweight for her size, but since she was so much bigger, everything she did came off as a bit looming.


    ¡°You have no idea how much that means to her. A lot of the design came from your research on LM. Specifically your paper on¡ªripple divergence in third-order chains? She used that to cut down on her mantle ripple by a lot.¡±


    What did I say? ¡°You¡¯re welcome?¡± I was a bit paralyzed; it felt sort of wrong that my research was actually being used by big-name VNTs. Especially when said research was now out of date. I started to almost mumble to myself, having pulled out my phone once more. I¡¯d really have to kick that habit. On top of that, the dermis connection was making me ramble a bit.


    ¡°I¡ªer, need to revise that. If you¡¯re using an orange link there, Bri said on stream today¡ªuh, yesterday¡ªthat the first-gen displays didn¡¯t play well with high ripple, because of orange third. My guess is that the specific problem was with {MANIFEST}, and they switched to blue for second-gen because it¡¯s so much better for indicating LM ripple even though it¡¯s worse for almost everything else at super-3. So since your transformations are LM, you¡¯d probably get better reduction with the same trick? But these days they¡¯re using pink third, and I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s specifically for the Spire¡¯s internals since they don¡¯t care as much about LM ripple compared to other types these days or¡ª¡±


    I stopped when Ebi poked my cheek. ¡°Save it for Ai. Amethyst isn¡¯t getting a word of this.¡±


    I had again completely forgotten about the language barrier¡ªbut now I wasn¡¯t about to let that stop me. I surveyed the huge space around us, looking for somewhere to write.


    ¡°I need a whiteboard.¡±


    ¡ª


    That¡¯s how we ended up in the meeting room, diagramming third-order spell chains. Ebi had helped me limp from my bed to a chair, actually nominally Amethyst¡¯s for when she was out of mantle, which meant that it was both exceedingly comfortable and had a few nice features that let me maneuver around the room, almost a wheelchair. She had then disappeared to retrieve my actual wheelchair from upstairs¡ªthat had been intended for later¡ªand again to get proper dinner once it became clear that we¡¯d be here a while.


    The whiteboard markers were magic, with full color-selection like the tattoo gun earlier, which helped me get across my point about the color coding. I had actually taken one apart to figure out the glyphs, peering at the substrates; just {DIFFERENTIATE}-{REFRACT}, as expected, but the form factor for the physical glyph that the magic had been woven around was impressively miniaturized. It was actually relevant to the conversation, too, because the very lattice displays in question were fundamentally one of a few permutations on a similar template. The color order and selection we had been discussing was a shorthand for tension within the weave to modulate different ripples, rather than intrinsic properties of the glyphs themselves. Because that color-coding was universal, Amethyst had no problem following along.


    It was incredible how complete of a conversation about high-level magical theory we were managing to have through symbology, although occasionally Opal would have to translate. Amethyst picked up what I had been trying to explain pretty fast once I started drawing. A lot of the terms like LM were borrowed directly from English in Japanese, and I was getting a crash course myself in some of the ones that weren¡¯t: ripple, for instance, was hibiki, 푤­. The concept was slightly different between the languages; it meant ¡®echo¡¯ rather than ripple. High ripple was therefore koukyou, ¸ßí‘, low ripple was teikyou, µÍí‘, and so on. Ebi said not to worry about being able to write the kanji for now, although I figured that if my memory for them was half as good as it was for glyphs, I¡¯d probably get the hang of it fast.


    Opal was mostly content to sit back and let us work. She would occasionally cut in with an insight of her own, but seemed to be enjoying my engagement with her rock-mecha teammate. She was visibly delighted when Ebi returned with two trays of food, effortlessly balancing them like a veteran waitress. The robot distributed dishes with some comments to the Radiances before turning to me. I inspected the contents of my bowl, my pair of training chopsticks and a spoon already resting at the sauce¡¯s edge as though soaking in a hot spring.


    ¡°Curry?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Sauce, rice, some stewed beef, veggies. The fried thing is a chicken cutlet.¡±


    ¡°I know. I¡¯m, uh, not good with spice.¡±


    Opal actually laughed at that through a mouthful of noodles. ¡°It¡¯s Japan-spicy, you¡¯ll be fine.¡±


    Said noodles were too thick to be ramen, and her soup bore a remarkable resemblance to the curry in front of me, other than the viscosity. The bowl was impressively big. She pointed at it with her chopsticks in response to my inquisitive glance.


    ¡°Curry udon.¡±


    She also had some fried bits, although they were on the side. She was evidently in her happy place, apparently unashamed about the quantity she was eating now that she had dispensed with the professional airs. Next to her, Amethyst had something similar, minus the noodles and in a smaller portion, but it wasn¡¯t clear how the giant rock-woman would eat¡ª


    Until she dropped her mantle. The crystalline, faceted forms of the mecha folded in on themselves, sort of rotating like Ebi¡¯s hand had earlier, and the air hissed as it rushed to fill the now-vacant space. Then there was a whump as Amethyst¡¯s true body popped out of wherever it had been¡­stored, presumably. The actual mechanism was a well-kept secret, though I had my suspicions and educated guesses.


    Amane Ishikawa¡¯s hair was brown, although darker than the borderline-red of Hina¡¯s, and fell in a straight, well-maintained curtain all around her head. Star had once explained that it was something of a point of pride for her, described in interviews as a reminder that she was still a magical girl, for all the time she spent with a construct for a body. She wasn¡¯t nearly as tall as her mantled form, of course, but she was still the tallest Radiance by a noticeable margin¡ªalthough that wasn¡¯t saying much, as the team as a whole skewed short; I still had an inch on her. She was wearing earrings, something pale that might have been pearl¡ªor opal. Freckles were splattered across her face, interrupted on her right side by faint crisscrossed scars coming up from her cheek, some wrapping around to her temple where others disappeared under the eyepatch covering that side.


    The first thing she did was emit a choking gasp, achingly familiar. Ebi was by her side, soothing and seemingly applying some kind of analgesic. Opal held her right hand, her flesh one, but I could still see how the taller woman was trembling. She took a few deep breaths and seemed to steady herself, then her eyes flicked to me. Or rather, her eye did. Her left eye was whole, a vivid green on par with Hina¡¯s blue that made me entertain the idea that she should have been Emerald. After a moment, the patch covering her right lit up. It was a digital screen like Ebi¡¯s face, and the projected ¡®eye¡¯ moved in sync with her physical one. It wasn¡¯t quite seamless and didn¡¯t sell the illusion of being the real thing, the way a sufficiently intricate LM construct might. I was sure she owned fancier ones for outside the comfort of her home¡ªsince like Hina¡¯s teeth or the bags under Ai¡¯s eyes, my memory of Amane¡¯s face was unblemished in videos and even live streams, sanitized of her mortality.


    In person, her pain was apparent. Even through whatever painkillers Ebi had applied, her jaw was clenched and her shoulders were hunched, visible through the well-practiced smile of greeting she turned on me. It made my heart hurt, remembering the long months of recovery from the first time everything had changed for me, seven years prior. And she had it worse than me, by all accounts: even if I were to include my hand¡¯s burns, my blood prices paled in comparison to what I knew of her injuries, though couldn¡¯t see most of it here due to the baggy hoodie she wore and her legs being hidden under the table. The only sign other than the eye was her free hand emerging from the sleeve, an intricate white-and-purple construct that moved like flesh, holding the spoon. Ai¡¯s masterwork, self-animated by Amane¡¯s own lattices. The resemblances to Ebi¡¯s own chassis were obvious, but this looked even more high-tech.


    I spoke without thinking. ¡°Are you alright?¡±


    That was a stupid question, of course, since the answer was both yes and no. No, since she was clearly in pain¡ªyes, because it was familiar pain, a simple fact of her life for years now. Ebi glared at me a little, but the way Opal¡¯s eyes flicked to me without reprimand suggested that the empathy was what counted. Amane herself nodded and gave me a thumbs-up with the prosthetic hand¡ªsome things transcended language¡ªsqueezed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath. Then she reopened her eyes and began to eat. Ebi left her side after a moment, but Opal kept holding her other hand, the flesh one, as they ate. I got the sense that this was something of a ritual for the three, or perhaps the team as a whole. My phone buzzed.


    ebi-furai: amethyst can take care of herself


    ebi-furai: be respectful, shes not made of glass


    ezzen: gotcha, sorry


    I understood; I figured Opal holding her hand was an exception. I looked down at my own hand under the table, examining the familiar patchwork of scarring, moving the fingers. I had mostly full mobility, since they had spared no expense in the wake of such a horrible and tragic disaster, an entire year of skin grafts and cutting-edge treatments aided by magic still in its infancy. ¡°Nobody should have to go through that, what a nightmare, how was I holding up¡±¡ªI had long since become inured to the well-wishes. Sometimes, horrible things just happen, and the scars aren¡¯t symbols of bravery or valor, just pain.


    In light of that¡ªwhat could I do to ¡°be respectful¡± here, given the language barrier? There was only one thing that readily came to mind, the only thing I was really good at. I stood, returning to the whiteboard. Amethyst had drawn out a decent portion of her mantle¡¯s lattice for me, although much of it was shorthand and getting all the details would need me to actually boot up the program on my laptop to properly keep track of everything. But this was my comfort zone, my one real talent, and so I had been able to tabulate ripple values on-the-fly with formulas I knew by heart as we sketched different configurations. I picked up a smaller whiteboard leaning against the main one¡¯s ledge. I could tell there was a lattice in it, and just from feel and context¡ª


    ¡°This what I think it is?¡±


    ¡°Yes, just tug.¡±


    I did¡ªmagically, not physically¡ªand the larger board¡¯s contents copied themselves onto the smaller one. I brought it over, putting it between us on the table. I began to draw in a new chunk, {ICE}-{TRANSPOSE}, linked in orange to the main {MANIFEST} chunk, on the high-pulse side. I drew in a little stick figure version of Amethyst and circled the legs, then put a big question mark next to it. My gut was telling me the resemblance to the Spire¡¯s skin was more than superficial.


    Opal caught my eye as I passed the marker to Amane, and nodded. I took that as a sign that this was the right way to treat her, based on what Ebi had said. Amane¡¯s good arm¡ªthe mechanical one¡ªgrabbed the marker, and she gave my addition a once-over, before going over my question mark with a check mark, confirming my guess. It didn¡¯t tremble the way her flesh-arm did. Then she wrote something in kanji next to it, reading the label aloud.


    ¡°Karada no ugoki.¡±


    Her voice was tight with pain, but controlled. She passed the marker to Opal, who labeled the chunk with ¡°BODY MOVEMENT.¡± Then Amane switched the marker to blue and drew over the orange connection point and jotted a question mark of her own next to the change before passing it back to me. I nodded and shoveled some more curry into my mouth, having made the executive decision to forego my chopsticks for the spoon. I added a second line parallel to the blue one in pink.


    ¡°One of these two. We should really run it in¡­GWalk? Do you guys use that?¡±


    ¡°Emerald has her own version. But¡ª¡±


    She asked Amane something, who nodded.


    ¡°We¡¯ll just test it later. Amane¡¯s intuition is better than the computer.¡±


    That made sense. ¡°I¡¯d love to see the full diagram, but¡­that¡¯s probably classified?¡±


    Opal nodded. ¡°Very. We¡¯d need you to commit to joining first.¡±


    The two Radiances looked over the whole diagram again.


    ¡°When Sapphire first brought you in and said you were the Ezzen, we had our doubts. Nothing against you¡ªit was just hard to verify, and she¡¯s refusing to tell us how she knew. So, full disclosure, this was a test, if more fun and impromptu than I had been expecting. I¡¯m so happy you two are getting along.¡±


    Her thumb rubbed the back of Amane¡¯s hand. I was happy too¡ªdidn¡¯t know if I should comment on it. Opal went on.


    ¡°This really is top-level stuff. This is hard to do by eye, even for us. And your passion shines. Apologies for making this an interview, but¡ªwhat got you into magic? Other than your general proclivity for the Vaetna.¡±


    I had been blushing, unused to face-to-face compliments¡ªI sobered. Hadn¡¯t they read my file?


    ¡°My father died in the firestorms.¡±


    I saw something flicker across both their faces; they had been flametouched not long after that. That period had been defined by death for all of us, probably. She didn¡¯t offer any condolences; we were all long since past that point.


    ¡°And you wanted to¡ªforgive any presumptions¡ªprevent that from happening to somebody else?¡±


    That was part of it, but there was more. I had talked about this many times before online, to friends, but never out loud or publicly. ¡°I wanted to understand. To¡ªmake sense of it? The Vaetna proved it¡¯s more than just a natural disaster, that it could be controlled. Glyphs make sense.¡±


    Amane said something to Opal, words I recognised. ¡°Ao hibana mitai.¡±


    Opal squeezed her hand. ¡°How much do you know about the Blue Spark Incident?¡±


    I didn¡¯t follow the leap. ¡°Uh¡ªinferno control. Non-Flamefall source.¡±


    ¡°Do you know how it started?¡±


    ¡°Blood magic that went too far, right? Necromancy.¡±


    ¡°She was a Sun¡¯s Blessing member gone radical. They believe that everyone who died in the firestorms had their souls incorporated into the Frozen Flame. She was trying to get her husband back.¡±


    It hadn¡¯t worked. Something else had come through, and the sky above Tokyo still had the scar to remember it by. Now I understood the accusation.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªI don¡¯t want to bring my dad back, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re implying. I love glyphs, the Spire, not blood magic.¡±


    Ai¡¯s words rang in my ears. Sacrifice.


    ¡°So it has to be the Spire?¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªno, but they get it. The ripple, the flame. It¡¯s so¡­beautiful.¡± I knew how that sounded. ¡°And they use it for something that matters. The Spire Stands.¡±


    Both girls nodded at the familiar catchphrase, so iconic it wasn¡¯t embarrassing to say aloud, even for me. It symbolized the will to weave a better world.


    ¡°Todai understands that. That¡¯s the calling, in part.¡±


    ¡°The calling?¡±


    ¡°Mahou shoujo. The purpose of being a magical girl. Light in the dark. That matters.¡±


    She said it with a conviction behind her eyes, those gloaming gems as hard as the Spire¡¯s dermis. We understood that about each other, at least.


    ¡°That¡¯s to say¡ªthis is why we think there¡¯s a place for you here.¡±


    She leaned forward. Amane doodled something in a free space on the whiteboard.


    ¡°We¡¯d love for you to join us. We all see your potential as a Radiance. But¡ªif it¡¯s magic itself you care about? Weaving LM structures, optimizing static glyph chains, ripple management? That¡¯s the basis for our magic, for our transformations. You don¡¯t have to join the team for us to see the value in teaching you those, not with your skillset. I¡¯m happy to leave that optional if it¡¯ll get you on board. There¡¯s plenty of time for you to change your mind.¡±


    Amane showed me the whiteboard. She had drawn the Spire¡¯s symbol and an arrow from it to the spinal component of the diagram of her lattice. The arrow was labeled ¡°LM.¡± Opal went on, gesturing at the drawing.


    ¡°I called us second-best earlier. But when it comes to those aspects? We¡¯re just as good as they are.¡±


    This was the real pitch, divorced from what Hina had said about becoming a Radiance.


    ¡°You want to know how it actually works? The way our mantles are woven, the actual mechanics of transformation? You were already on the right track with the diagram.¡±


    Her eyes glittered, and for a moment, Todai¡¯s Dragon looked like her namesake, prideful and regal.


    ¡°We reinvented the LM structures of dermis for our transformations, and have only taken them further since. If you join, we¡¯ll show you how.¡±


    And in the end, that was all it took.


    ¡°I¡¯m in.¡±

 From On High // 1.06

    ¡°How is it?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather the crutches, I think.¡±


    Ebi pulled me to my feet, or rather just my foot, hesitant as I was to put weight on the prosthetic yet. The wheelchair was comfortable and motorized, but I hated being at waist-level from both a practical and emotional standpoint; it was hardly an upgrade to being carted around on the bed. In some ways, it was worse, since the bed at least carried an assumption that it was temporary, whereas the wheelchair felt much more long-term, even if that wasn¡¯t necessarily the case. The crutches let me pretend at some independence and mobility.


    We had retired to the plush and somewhat-scattered sitting area in the penthouse¡¯s main space. Amethyst had re-mantled with a fizz-pop and some minor ripple that left my throat dry and was sitting rather prim and proper¡ªEbi had helpfully informed me it was called seiza, legs folded under her¡ªupon the largest pillow I had ever seen. Opal sat next to her at the low table, a laptop before her, trying to schedule me into their life. She typed idly as Ebi helped me fit the crutches to my height.


    ¡°One of us should take you to Tochou tomorrow. You didn¡¯t come into the country through¡­normal means, so we have to do some immigration paperwork and get the ball rolling on registering you with the Bureau. We can hit some other day-one things¡ªshowing you how to use the subway, things like that. I¡¯d also¡ªwell, how does that sound? Do you feel up to it?¡±


    Part of me just wanted to huddle in my room, having had more than enough adventures for a while. But it was easy to imagine how that documentation was relatively urgent. Satisfied with my balance, I dismounted the crutches, and Ebi helped me back to a sitting position across from them at the table.


    ¡°I think so? If it¡¯s just paperwork.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll try to keep it short, yeah. Tokyo is a city that sort of demands a lot of walking, and I don¡¯t want to drag you all over until your foot has had a bit longer to heal. How¡¯s it looking, Ebi?¡±


    ¡°Healing well. Doesn¡¯t need more intervention for a few more days, as long as you don¡¯t put too much pressure on it.¡±


    ¡°Good, good. Schedule is a bit¡­tight¡ªI have a thing with the merch people at one¡ªbut I could definitely take you in the morning.¡± She typed into the laptop to alter the schedule before lowering the screen to look at me. The tip of her tail waved lazily, probably involuntarily.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to overload you with things to do right now, so we¡¯ll figure out the rest as we go. The only other thing is¡ªoh.¡± She pulled out her phone. ¡°Contact info.¡±


    That¡ªwell, that just made sense, didn¡¯t it? I took out my own phone, glancing at Amethyst, wondering whether she¡¯d participate in this little social ritual. The mecha-ness of her mantle teased at the idea that maybe she had some kind of readout or internet connection and didn¡¯t need a separate device¡ªbut she just produced a phone from pocketspace, catching it with her surprisingly dextrous, flowing fingers. It had a purple case to match her gemstone form and was thoroughly sticker bombed with hearts and other icons. Opal¡¯s was decorated with more restraint: her team¡¯s symbol in a shiny holographic blue, shimmering like my tattoo did, adorning an otherwise-white case. They had their aesthetics all figured out. By contrast, my phone had a simple black case, inconspicuous as could be. Ebi looked at it.


    ¡°We should get him a Japanese SIM card. Actually, a whole new phone, maybe. What¡¯s that from, 2016?¡±


    It was, in fact. It was my fifteenth birthday present, and I¡¯d never really had the cash or interest to get a better one. Opal peered at it as well.


    ¡°Oh, I didn¡¯t even¡­you¡¯re right. And then the phone number will change, so¡­Ezzen, what do you have attached to that phone number? A bank account? Anything else?¡±


    I was still getting used to being called by that name.


    ¡°Yeah, but there¡¯s not much in it. It¡¯s, um¡­I guess mostly two-factor authentication.¡±


    That¡¯d be a pain to switch over across all my various accounts online, especially considering that I no longer had my PC as my fallback device. Getting locked out of the forums wasn¡¯t a concern because I could just ask Sky¡ªwell, once we made up¡ªbut it could still be a real headache on other sites. I used a central Google email for many of my accounts, and losing access to that by accident would be a major headache.


    Amethyst asked Opal something, who thought for a moment, replied, and then turned back to me. ¡°Amane¡¯s pointing out that your LINE account would also be tied to your phone number, so we should wait for that until after we get you a new phone. Still¡ª¡±


    She showed me her phone number, and I dutifully copied it down. Different format than what I was used to; Tokyo numbers seemed to go 03-XXXX-XXXX. I made new contact entries. Name: Alice Takehara, number type: mobile, workplace: Todai. What a strange version of reality I found myself in. I then had to perform the always slightly embarrassing task of confirming the number was correct with an initial message.


    Dalton: Test.


    Alice: Hello


    I did the same with Amane.


    Dalton: Test.


    Amane: ¤è¤í¤·¤¯¤Í


    With rudimentary contact info shared¡ªI was already in contact with Ebi via the chatroom¡ªOpal decisively closed her laptop all the way with both hands, a soft whump.


    ¡°I¡¯m not touching any more work tonight. It¡¯s a holiday. Let¡¯s show you to your room and get you set up.¡±


    Back onto the crutches. The Radiances took the stairs, but it was back to the elevator for me and Ebi; there was just one flight, but braving the stairs with the crutches was¡­just no. When we disembarked, I was a little surprised that the door that opened was the opposite one from which we had entered¡ªit was obvious why as I reoriented myself. The balcony terminated at the elevator shaft, so coming out the way we had entered would have been something like a four-meter fall down to where we had first disembarked onto the 19th floor.


    The second level was indeed where the Radiances¡¯ individual rooms were. They were arranged in a U-shape around the perimeter of the space, about a dozen rooms in total. Maybe that was future-proofing for cases like mine; it was just too much space for this few people. The space in the center of the U, where the elevator spat us out, held a second large lounge area full of more beanbag chairs, low tables, and the like. The ceiling above held a projector, although it wasn¡¯t obvious where the screen was.


    The doors to each room were curious, because not every Radiance lived alone. Sapphire had her own room, furthest to the left of the U, clearly marked with a¡­clip-art of a sapphire printed onto a sheet of paper taped to the door. The next was a double door, marked with more professional-looking graphic posters of Opal and Amethyst. They lived together, it seemed, the entrance large enough to accommodate Amethyst¡¯s size when mantled. I refrained from comment, but the way they had been holding hands¡ªhmm. Well, good for them. Next was Emerald, who had a digital readout on her door confirming that she was currently in her lab in the basement. Last, Heliotrope, whose door had a big handwritten sign on it that I couldn¡¯t read: ª•¤Î·½¤Ë¤ÏÁ¢Èë½ûÖ¹. Ebi said something to Opal, who bounced the observation to me.


    ¡°You can¡¯t read that, I assume?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°In that case, short lesson. You¡¯ll see that sign all over construction sites and train stations, so it¡¯s a useful one to know. It says ¡®keep out¡¯. More literally ¡®entry forbidden¡¯. Tachiiri kinshi.¡±


    Ebi elbowed her. ¡°The punchline, Alice.¡±


    Opal sighed. ¡°Kemono no kata ni wa tachiiri kinshi. ¡®Beasts keep out.¡¯¡±


    Amethyst made a glassy noise that I realized was a snicker. I eyed the sign, understanding who it was intended for.


    ¡°That¡­works? Against her?¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯d believe it. Like I said, boundaries. Want one?¡±


    I had trouble believing a flimsy piece of paper would stop the hyena from going where she pleased¡ªunless the theory that she was some kind of fairy held water and she actually couldn¡¯t enter without permission. But that was overly superstitious, surely¡ªI was trying to talk myself down from the idea that she was this unstoppable force that necessitated arcane rituals to defend against. She was terrifying, without a doubt, but she was also just a pretty girl, not as much of a monster as my gut was telling me; I had to believe that if I was going to be sharing a space with her. I answered Opal with a noncommittal shrug.


    My room was next in sequence after Heliotrope. Amethyst was simply too big to fit in the door, opting to remain outside with a wave. Better that than to drop her mantle even temporarily, it seemed. Ebi opened the door and ushered me through with the straight-backed precision of a maid¡ªundercut by a wink that belied the theatrical silliness of the gesture. I limped through on my crutches and into my new home.


    The doorway led into an entirely empty room: hardwood floor, white walls, a window on the far side with the blinds pulled, about the same size as my whole apartment back in Bristol. No furnishings at all¡ªhad they forgotten to give me a bed? Then I saw the archway in the left wall and had an extremely strange moment of dissonance¡ªI simply couldn¡¯t conceive that there was more apartment than this. My whole life as ¡®Ezzen¡¯ had effectively been in that one box; a living space larger than that harkened back to before. Before Dad had died, before magic had come to the world.


    I shook it off after a moment and ventured through the archway, which led to the bedroom. A queen-size bed lay centered against the far wall in modest white linens, hotel-like. Atop it sat my backpack and my laptop next to it from when Ebi had exchanged it for the wheelchair earlier. The wall to the right of the bed was floor-to-ceiling windows¡ªno blinds on these, so I had a view of the now-dark skyline, buildings glimmering with lights.


    Ebi followed me in, helpfully answering the unasked question.


    ¡°The panels can dim.¡±


    This building wasn¡¯t the tallest one around, not by a long shot. Some of the others nearby were easily twice or thrice as high. The city stretched as far as I could see, until the sheer density of buildings blocked my sight further. There were a lot of cranes, some extending up toward us from ground level where others perched atop vast girders of scaffolding and structural steel, erecting the skeletons of skyscrapers-to-be. Lights twinkled in the dusk, blue from the buildings¡¯ windows, yellow from the streets, and a whole rainbow from signs of shops at street level. I hadn¡¯t been in a city that purported such scale since the last time I had been in NYC¡ªnine years ago?


    And I still got the sense that I was only seeing a sliver of it. The map Ebi had shown me earlier had asserted that Tokyo Tower was somewhere out there, to the south; I couldn¡¯t see it past the jungle of obstructions. I could see the scar in the sky, though, above where the bay must be. It was a fuzzy-edged thing of yellows and greens against the darkening blue shades of the sky, catching the last of the sunset¡¯s light on its underside.


    Returning my focus to my immediate surroundings, it seemed I had a balcony. It was on the side of the window-wall closer to Heliotrope¡¯s room, and ambling over to it, I saw that it was adjacent to her own balcony covered in what potted plants could stand up to the winter. Getting closer to the window was a bit of a mistake¡ªI turned away before the altitude could catch up to me, surveying the rest of the room.


    Against the wall with the first room sat a respectably large desk and a reasonably comfortable-looking office chair. Adjacent to it was a bookshelf that practically begged for notebooks. Meanwhile, the wall opposite the window had a frosted glass door that presumably led to the bathroom.


    With the full scale of my chambers and the city beyond established¡ªI returned to being boggled. Wasn¡¯t everything supposed to be smaller in Japan? Opal followed us in.


    ¡°Big enough?¡± She sounded a bit nervous.


    ¡°Big¡ªyeah, big enough.¡±


    Honestly too big¡ªboth the space and the city. The room seemed desolate with its lack of decoration. I missed my posters. And my PC. Opal followed my gaze to the desk.


    ¡°Oh! We¡¯ll give you a furnishing stipend. Technically, I can¡¯t do that until we¡¯ve gotten you actually signed up as an employee, but¡­¡± She looked at Ebi. ¡°I¡¯m authorizing you to use my card. Don¡¯t overdo it?¡±


    It sounded more like a question than a command. Ebi nodded with a grin. ¡°Shopping. Love shopping. Would love it even more if I got to go out and do it someday.¡±


    Opal replied to that with a good-natured shake of her head¡ªthen froze. At the same time, a spike of pain ran through my stump. Ebi exited the room so fast I thought she had vanished for a moment, until the whoosh of air caught up to me. Opal pursed her lips.


    ¡°Shit. I think Amane is¡ª¡±


    A wail pierced my chest. The voice was human, not tinkling gemstones¡ªand carried an agony too familiar to me by half, far more intense than the momentary burst of sharp discomfort I had experienced. Opal¡¯s tail lashed in response as she glanced back toward the entrance.


    ¡°Um. This is somewhat regular for her. Residuals. I was hoping¡ªwell, it¡¯s not serious, I think, but¡ª¡± Another piercing wail and a ragged gasp. We both flinched. ¡°Can you do without Ebi for tonight?¡±


    I nodded as the spike passed. My prosthetic¡¯s analgesics were taking care of it¡ªthe same could not be said for Amane, apparently. This wasn¡¯t serious? I felt I should do something more, and limped back into the anteroom to have a look. Opal came with, chewing her lip. I hurriedly ditched the crutches, leaning onto the doorframe as I pulled the door open.


    It was bad. Amane was back in her flesh form, curled up on the floor, clutching her stomach. Ebi knelt next to her and had rolled up Amane¡¯s hoodie, which revealed the patchwork of scarring around her belly. One of Ebi¡¯s hands had morphed into some kind of IV unit and connected to a port implanted in the Radiance¡¯s midriff¡ªI shouldn¡¯t be seeing this. I averted my eyes as Opal pulled the door open further and slipped past me toward her teammate¡ªher girlfriend? Not the time. She turned back to me just outside the threshold, apologetic and a little awkward.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry about this.¡±


    ¡°No¡ªdon¡¯t worry, it¡¯s fine, really, I get it. Um¡ªif I can help¡­¡±


    I trailed off, because there wasn¡¯t a lot I could do other than commiserate. But Opal¡¯s expression softened. ¡°You might. Not now, but¡­well, we¡¯ll talk more about it later.¡± She turned to approach Amane, comforting words halfway out her mouth¡ª


    Amane sat up partway, propping herself up on her mechanical elbow, and hissed something at the two of them through gritted teeth. Opal hesitated, looking between me and her, and stepped aside from where she had surreptitiously placed herself to block my line of sight to her teammate¡¯s exposure. Amane met my eyes.


    ¡°Tachinasai. Stand up.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªwhat?¡±


    I parsed the words, at least the English ones¡ªI just didn¡¯t get it. She muttered something to Ebi, who sighed and pointed at my prosthetic foot, which I was still gingerly holding above the floor as I leaned against the doorframe.


    ¡°Put the weight on your foot. Humor her.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure what they were getting at, but I complied, bracing for pain. My arm tensed against the doorframe. First the toe, then the heel¡ªa small jolt of residual pain made me flinch. I hesitated again¡ªbraced myself as I put weight on it. The pain was more of a throb than a sharp spike, so it wasn¡¯t too bad once I settled my weight more.


    Amane nodded seriously. With trembling limbs, she carefully maneuvered herself more upright, and Ebi came in to support her and bring her to her feet. Despite how her hand trembled as she brushed the hair out of her face, despite the pain behind those viridian eyes, one original and one facsimile, despite how she couldn¡¯t even stand under her own power¡ªor perhaps because of those things¡ªI got the message.


    We¡¯re not made of glass. It transcended spoken language. She wanted me to know¡ªI took my hand off the doorframe slowly. My balance was shaky, but this mattered in some ineffable way. The moment dragged on a bit, a little awkward¡ªAmane managed a smile, tight with pain though it was. Opal shook her head a bit, somewhere between pleased with the connection and exasperated by her teammate¡¯s bullheadedness, and came to her other side. She stroked her hair with what sounded like a gentle scolding for the stunt before turning back to me.


    ¡°Um¡ªI¡¯m sorry. She¡¯s going to need care for the rest of the night¡ªif you need something, text me. Depending on how tonight goes, this might interfere with tomorrow, so¡­well, we¡¯ll figure it out in the morning. Good night, and, er, sorry again for how sudden this is.¡±


    The dragon gave me a hurried bow, ever-formal in her mannerisms if not her language, and swept up her teammate in what looked to be a well-practiced princess carry. That didn¡¯t look very comfortable for the sickly girl¡ªbut Opal was far stronger than her size suggested, and it wasn¡¯t far back to their room. Ebi followed them, and the three vanished beyond the threshold three doors down. My phone buzzed. I went back to leaning on the doorframe and hop-stumbled my way back to my room, following the walls for support, before flopping face-first onto the bed as I pulled out my phone.


    ebi-furai: she¡¯ll be alright


    ebi-furai: thanks for respecting her


    ezzen: Wouldn¡¯t anybody?


    ebi-furai: well, you saw opal


    I had. In fairness, I¡¯d be worried too¡ªand there was a long history there, and I felt sort of guilty for having witnessed it¡­but Amane had wanted me to see. It wasn¡¯t just that she was tough.


    There was also the question of what had generated that first ripple. I¡¯d find out later.


    I laid there for a little while, just processing the new space, smelling the fresh sheets. My foot had stopped hurting, at least, no longer aggravated¡ªI was still cautious of it as I reached for my backpack and began to rummage. I wasn¡¯t going to distract Ebi with worrying about furnishings for now, but I had might as well make myself at home with what I had.


    ¡ª


    I had never really learned to cook. Or at least, nothing fancy, nothing for fun. I knew simple dishes, stuff that was a more efficient use of my welfare money than takeaway, but I had never had the cash or interest to take it up as a hobby. This stood in stark contrast to my dad, who had been a chef of sufficient renown to take him, and me, across the world. He had gotten me my own chef¡¯s knife of respectable quality for my twelfth birthday and taught me basic knife skills and preparation techniques. He had been intending to teach me as much as he could.


    Other than possibly the notebooks¡ªdepending on how you valued them¡ªthe knife was the most expensive item in my backpack sans the laptop, and I had brought it with me as much for the pawn-value-to-weight ratio as for the general utility and self-defense options it offered. In the moment, sentimentality had been secondary to survival. Seeing as how neither survival nor money were an issue anymore, I was now faced with the strange task of deciding where the knife and its siblings fit into my new life.


    The backpack was the only thing they had managed to recover, having been on my person; the PCTF had beaten Todai to my apartment, and Opal had decided that they had already poked enough bears. My laptop¡¯s fate had been a no-brainer; it was already on the nightstand, though for want of a charger¡ªJapan used different power sockets than the UK. The notebooks, too, had already found a home on the otherwise-barren bookshelf, which had taken me an awkward, limping journey across the room. I had left the crutches at the door¡ªdidn¡¯t feel like acknowledging them in the privacy and security of my own room, even though it was awkward to move around.


    Amane had somewhat inspired me, anyway. I embarked on a limited exploration into the bathroom when the need had arisen, discovering with equal parts embarrassment and relief that it had been furnished with a fair number of handrails¡ªhow thoughtful. It also had a real bath, separate from the shower, and a sophisticated toilet with rather too many buttons; everything about the furnishings in here was multiple levels more expensive than what I was used to. I still hadn¡¯t quite shaken the impression that I was in a fancy hotel¡ªa more familiar setting from my childhood than any kind of permanent living situation this opulent and spacious.


    I washed my hands, leaning on the countertop to keep my balance. I didn¡¯t look great according to the mirror¡ªa cursory rinse of my face felt good but didn¡¯t improve matters. That was fine, even familiar; though part of me wanted to look a bit more presentable in front of the girls, that was hardly a problem for tonight. Toweling off my face, I realized belatedly that I should have brought over the toiletries that had been in my backpack. Whatever; again, no hurry, and my moisturizer traditionally lived near my clothes rather than in the bathroom anyway.


    The journey back to the bedroom was a little fraught, once again following along the wall. My gait had improved ever-so-slightly with the marginal bit of practice, but it was still more of a hopping limp than anything resembling a proper walk. I returned to the bed and looked over the remaining items that had yet to find a home while I said good morning to the American members of the chatroom starting their day. That aspect of the change in location would take some getting used to.


    I looked out the windows again, reflecting on both my literal reflection and the larger cityscape. Night had fallen proper now, and the city was alive with lights beyond, above and below. What would this vista look like in the morning or from ground-level? A flash of motion pulled my gaze to the left toward the balcony¡ª


    Hina waved at me and tapped on the reinforced glass. I stared at her. She smiled at me and motioned with her hands like turning a door handle. I pointed at my prosthetic foot with some indignation. She smacked her forehead and opened the balcony door herself, letting a blast of cold air into the room.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t invite you in.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a fairy.¡±


    That confirmation was cold comfort¡ªthe sign wouldn¡¯t have stopped her anyway. Fantastic.


    ¡°Why are you¡ªin my room?¡±


    ¡°Housewarming? Figured you could use some help getting set up.¡±


    That was probably true, at least; I needed that charger, and I wasn¡¯t about to wander around the penthouse in search of cables in my current state or ask the others when they were busy helping Amethyst. Even so.


    ¡°The balcony?¡±


    She closed the door and came over to the bed, leaning on it. ¡°Don¡¯t think Alice wants to see me right now. I saw the calendar update¡ªyou¡¯re on board?¡±


    Alice didn¡¯t want to see her because she kept bothering me, if I understood correctly. I rather shared the sentiment¡ªI mustered my courage, though I couldn¡¯t meet her eyes.


    ¡°Please get out.¡±


    The puppy didn¡¯t respond. She just stood there with her big, blue eyes, head tilted slightly, waiting for me to answer the question.


    I sighed. ¡°I agreed to join Todai.¡± I hastily appended a clarification. ¡°Not as a Radiance.¡±


    ¡°Yay! I knew you¡¯d come around.¡±


    She apparently took that as consent to sit across from me, the spread of items from my backpack between us. I guessed I was stuck with her. Should I call for someone? Message Ebi or Opal? She picked up the knife, and I swiftly abandoned those ideas.


    ¡°Hm. This hasn¡¯t been sharpened in a while. We¡¯ve got a stone in the kitchen. Are you any good with one? I can teach you.¡± Her gaze roamed to the earbuds, little-used. ¡°These are cheap, right? I have nicer ones you can borrow, in-ear, really comfy. I have some in white that would look good on you, I think.¡±


    She looked a bit more ruffled than when I had last seen her. Where had she gone? I eyed the knife as she twirled it in her grip.


    ¡°I¡ªknow how to use it.¡±


    She ran her fingertip along the blade. It didn¡¯t draw blood¡ªwhether that was just because it was that dull or due to something about her body, I couldn¡¯t guess. She looked at me, eyes half-lidded, and purred.


    ¡°Not all the ways, I bet.¡±


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    My tattoo itched. I had to make space between us, had to get away from this thing¡ªmy body refused to move. Her eyes slid down to my arm, apparently fully able to see how my subconscious had gripped the leading edge of the lattice containing my spear.


    ¡°Man, they did a great job. Can I have a look?¡±


    Don¡¯t upset the pretty hyena-girl with the knife, Ezzen. I held out my forearm hesitantly, and she leaned in to admire Ebi¡¯s precise inking. Too close¡ªshe sniffed it, and goosebumps ran up my arms and back.


    ¡°Some of the old lattice is still in here, looks like. She¡¯s such a softie.¡± She looked up at me. ¡°Do you like it?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªgood. Better.¡± I really didn¡¯t want to articulate how it was better; words like ¡®blood¡¯ and ¡®pain¡¯ would set her off. She grinned at me and practically read my mind¡ªgrabbed my wrist. I flinched and made to take out my spear¡ª


    I couldn¡¯t. She was holding the lattice in place, somehow, digging her thumb into the strands of the weave, preventing me from pulling on it with my Flame. I had a horrible image of her taking the knife and carving the tattoo off, making my defenselessness permanent. What she actually did bothered me more. She leaned in further and nuzzled the tattoo, breath warming my skin. That was already far too much skinship for me, and my body was misinterpreting the situation¡ªthen she licked the inked spear, from the tip at the wrist up toward the elbow. I shivered. The saliva clung to my arm in her tongue¡¯s passing, turning the chilly winter air frigid. Then she backed off, releasing my wrist.


    ¡°Good, good. It suits you.¡± She licked her lips as she put down the knife, turning her attention to my laptop. ¡°That needs stickers. And a charger?¡±


    I was still frozen¡ªthe part of me that needed her to leave right now was paralyzed by the part that didn¡¯t want to wipe off the spit, that needed something else from her.


    ¡°What¡ªwhat the hell?¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    She was going to make me say it? ¡°Why did you¡­lick¡­¡±


    ¡°You taste good! And your lattice is there, so it¡¯s nice and warm and¡ªugh, there¡¯s not a word. It¡¯s nice.¡± She frowned. ¡°Too far?¡±


    Yes! Entirely too far! But I couldn¡¯t bring myself to say that. As the seconds dragged on in silence, she tilted her head. ¡°I can let you do me, if you want. Then we¡¯ll be even.¡±


    She had to have heard the innuendo there.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªso not the problem.¡± What the hell had Opal been talking about? This girl had zero understanding of boundaries.


    She shrugged. ¡°Suit yourself.¡± She repeated herself. ¡°That needs stickers. And a charger.¡±


    I let out the breath I was holding, gratefully jumping onto the far safer topic to distract myself from how warm my body was getting and the lingering chill on my arm. Anything to get her out of the room.


    ¡°Uh¡ªyes, charger, please.¡±


    To my dismay, she simply reached into a non-space and rummaged around a bit. The exact thing her arm did made my head hurt, the same kind of ache as when I had woven my blood binding. My magical senses didn¡¯t like whatever she was doing. I took advantage of the moment of distraction to wipe the spit off my forearm. She produced an appropriate charger. Magical curiosity momentarily overrode the fear.


    ¡°Did you just¡ªhave that ready to go?¡±


    ¡°Nah. We¡¯ve got a bin full of random cables.¡±


    She had portaled? That was a Vaetna thing, the same principle as the Gates, and she did it and spoke about it like it was casual. What had happened to second-best? The question was becoming more and more of a refrain for me¡ªwhat was she? Hina returned to scanning the items, pointing at the moisturizer cream.


    ¡°For your scars?¡±


    ¡°They dry out.¡±


    She picked it up and turned it around, reading the fine print.


    ¡°Oh, I can get you something better than this for sure. Amane probably already has something. She doing okay?¡±


    She must have felt the ripple as well. ¡°She¡¯s¡­you¡¯d know better than I would. She could stand, at least.¡±


    ¡°Good. Better you saw that now rather than later, honestly. You¡¯re one of us now.¡±


    I objected. ¡°I¡¯m¡ªno, I said I didn¡¯t sign up to be a Radiance.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mean a Radiance, silly. That¡¯s for later. I mean a flamebearer, and if you¡¯re living with us, then I gotta take care of you like I do her.¡±


    My psyche was generating some rather provocative ways to interpret that as innuendo. She continued to search across the items, looking for ways to be helpful¡ªor just invade my privacy. She found a good one, holding up the spare underwear.


    ¡°We¡¯re going shopping. You¡¯re going to need more than this.¡±


    I snatched them away from her, going for a retort against the furthest invasion of privacy so far¡ªthen stopped, because that was a great point, actually. Clothes hadn¡¯t even crossed my mind. Even so¡ª


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°We are going shopping. You are going to need more than this.¡± She enunciated each word.


    Doing that kind of thing alone with any girl was far enough outside my comfort zone as it was, but with her in particular? My imagination began to spin the fantasy of a date¡ªI resented that. It acceded and instead proposed the notion of her riding me in a dressing room. What the fuck, brain?


    ¡°I heard you the first time. I¡¯ll just¡­order something online.¡±


    She pouted. ¡°That defeats the purpose! We¡¯re getting you acclimated. It¡¯ll be a fun day in town! You weren¡¯t awake on the way in, so you didn¡¯t even see the city from overhead, and there¡¯s so much more to see down at street level. Tokyo¡¯s fun! Promise!¡±


    Now it was my turn to pout. I wasn¡¯t very used to modulating my expressions face-to-face, and Hina had a way of sort of drawing those things out from me anyway. Her reactivity demanded reciprocation.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªI don¡¯t feel like going out. I¡¯m still recovering.¡±


    It was a lame excuse, and we both knew it.


    ¡°I literally saw Alice schedule you going out tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°For paperwork. Not shopping.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll be done by one! Let me take you somewhere after! It¡¯ll be fun, and you need to learn how to get around the city anyway and blahblahblah. And I¡¯m great at clothes.¡±


    She was certainly well-dressed. I didn¡¯t doubt that she could probably pick out something nice for me, but clothes were¡­not something I really cared about, not enough to justify being at her mercy for a few hours. I knew I was a medium, and that was about it. I looked for another excuse.


    ¡°I¡¯ll¡ªjust ask one of the others.¡±


    She scooted forward on the bed to poke me. ¡°Play the game, Ezzen.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Why would I engage with this, other than fear? She made me vividly uncomfortable.


    ¡°Negotiation is part of being a Radiance.¡±


    What, this was training? ¡°I didn¡¯t even sign up for that!¡±


    She sighed dramatically. ¡°Gosh, fine. I¡¯ll sweeten the deal. You¡¯ll get to walk tomorrow, really walk. Run and fight too, if you want. Not that limping thing you¡¯re doing right now.¡±


    How long had she been watching me? I was doing just fine, thank you very much, Amethyst had been quite inspirational¡ªbut curiosity tugged at me, and I knew she could tell. It was in her eyes. So blue.


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re working on a thing. But I¡¯m only giving it to you if you promise to come shopping tomorrow. That¡¯s lesson one: Le-ver-age.¡±


    She sat back on the bed, exuding the air of a teacher¡ªwell, more like an old monk you found on a mountaintop. The effect was a little absurd given her appearance and the context, but I had to admit that the lesson itself was good, if underhanded¡ªnot very magical girl. I had been expecting that sort of maneuvering to be part of Opal¡¯s sphere of instruction if it were to come up, but perhaps she was too principled for this. Hina wasn¡¯t.


    ¡°That¡¯s cheap.¡±


    ¡°Mhm.¡±


    If they were working on something like that¡ªsurely Hina couldn¡¯t withhold it from me on the grounds that I refused to go out with her. The other Radiances would have my back. I had a mind to reach for my phone, to ask Opal to rescue me from this ridiculous situation¡ªbut didn¡¯t, because¡­she had told me Hina would respect boundaries. And I thought, just maybe, that Hina was trying to teach me how to deal with her, how to not fold to her pressure.


    ¡°Um¡ªfuck, alright, fine. First¡­you¡¯re paying?¡±


    ¡°Sure. It¡¯s all Alice¡¯s money anyway, really.¡±


    Comments like those made my new financial circumstances a bit more real. Emboldened, I started to rattle off other stipulations.


    ¡°No tricks or I¡¯ll tell Ebi on you. And no, uh¡ªdress-up. We go in, we get clothes I like, we get out. Also, no¡ªpaparazzi?¡± Was that something I had to be worried about? She was high-profile and hard to miss, another thing adding to my anxiety.


    ¡°Sure. In-and-out, nice and simple. And we¡¯ll be undercover, promise. It¡¯ll be your first mission!¡±


    I didn¡¯t like that phrasing, but perhaps the veneer of professionalism would make her less¡­unsafe. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. If nothing else¡ªwalking would be so nice. Hobbling around my room had just underscored my desire to be back on my feet, even if it was only temporary. I had missed a day of spear practice. Two days, actually. That alone was enough, honestly¡ªbut I pulled out my phone just to confirm. Opal had said to tell her if I needed something¡ªbut I was more comfortable talking to Ebi, and this was her department anyway.


    [Direct Message] ezzen: Is Amethyst doing alright? Can you multitask well enough to talk?


    ebi-furai: yeah, shes pretty stable. just gonna keep an eye on her tonight


    ebi-furai: whats up


    ezzen: Hina wants to take me shopping tomorrow. Give me an excuse?


    ebi-furai: medically youre cleared


    ezzen: Can¡¯t you lie for me?


    Hina was getting further into my personal space. ¡°Gimme. I wanna talk to her too.¡±


    ebi-furai: i could


    ebi-furai: wanna get away from her that bad, huh


    ebi-furai: ¡­oh shit is she WITH you


    ezzen: no im not


    I scrambled to get my phone back from the smaller girl, who was having no trouble evading me even without leaving the bed.


    ebi-furai: hi sapphire


    ebi-furai: amane is having a flare-up so let me make this clear


    ebi-furai: IF YOU GIVE ME MORE WORK TOMORROW IM FEEDING YOU TO OPAL


    ebi-furai: be gentle with him.


    Hina read aloud from the phone; her voice had tightened at the word ¡°flare-up.¡± She tossed the phone back to me for verification. Empathy for Amethyst, on top of the previous deal, got the better of me. At least we¡¯d be out of Ebi¡¯s hair¡ªactually, if I spent the whole day with Hina, Opal wouldn¡¯t have to leave Amethyst¡¯s side tomorrow morning either¡­


    ¡°Fine.¡±


    ¡°Yay! It¡¯s a date.¡±


    I blushed at the use of the word, despite myself. She poked me. ¡°Not like that. You could have used your leverage for that, though. Call that lesson two.¡±


    My blush deepened. ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± I searched for a way to frame my objection as something other than the embarrassment it obviously was. ¡°That¡¯s¡­transactional. Exploitative, even.¡±


    She nodded sagely again, spreading her hands expansively as if imparting great wisdom. ¡°Lesson two.¡±


    That wasn¡¯t an answer, and moreover it was making me actually interrogate the notion. Once again, not very magical girl of her. Or so I thought¡ªI had no basis of knowledge for the genre from which Todai took its inspiration, beyond what Star had ranted about over the years and the briefest explanation Opal had provided when she was making her pitch. Hina practically read my mind.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, Alice wouldn¡¯t be happy to hear that. But this is the real world! Our hands have to get dirty, no matter what my dragony best friend wants to pretend. Leverage matters, getting what you want matters.¡± The hyena had crept into her gaze a bit, her voice getting sultrier. ¡°So¡ªdo you want it to be a date? Wait, no, lemme simplify. Do you want me?¡±


    I was pinned by her gaze. Too direct, far too direct. How could I even answer that? I didn¡¯t want to¡ªbecause I knew I¡¯d say yes if I could work up the courage. She just sat there, waiting. Waiting. She was awfully good at it for someone so pushy. I tried to change the subject.


    ¡°I¡¯ll¡ªI¡¯d like those earbuds, if you¡¯re still¡­offering¡­¡±


    She tilted her head, almost as if she hadn¡¯t heard me. I had a terrible premonition. She was about to pounce, attack me, tear me to shreds and eat me¡ª


    The spear came out, near-instinctive, a lizard-brain response to the danger in her poise, somehow more immediate than when she had been holding the knife. She looked at the warped tip and shook her head, rolling those sapphire eyes. ¡°Lesson three¡ª¡±


    And she was past it instantly, pushing me down, leaning over me¡ª


    ¡°Don¡¯t escalate to violence when you¡¯re outgunned.¡±


    She straddled me. I couldn¡¯t look away from those sapphire eyes with their stitched irises. She had pinned my wrist to the sheets, intractable, vastly stronger than me despite her petite frame. Her other palm pressed my shoulder down, slender fingers curling around and gripping my sleeve. She leaned down, down, until her hair was tickling my face. She smelled like a sea breeze¡ªand just a bit of alcohol. She had been drinking. Her gaze held an endless blue horizon, intoxicating freedom on her breath.


    ¡°What¡¯ll it be?¡±


    She was so warm against the room¡¯s cool air, and I could barely think past the way my heart was pounding. The sensation of her thighs locking me in place was insisting that I did want her¡ªif only in some misfiring, unfamiliar, hormonal way dredged up by years of isolation rather than a connection of personality, because I refused to believe something like her could be so attractive. She was far too pretty, temptation incarnate. Her hips over mine were a promise in themselves, making my imagination run wild with scenes of rough, desperate motion where she took whatever she wanted from me. I was horrified at how appealing that was¡ªa part of me left nearly untouched over the years was being baited to the surface and discovering it liked what it saw.


    I was paralyzed. Moments passed, molasses down the hourglass. My eyes wandered down to her lips, ethereally soft. They moved faintly as she breathed, almost panting, the motion transmitted down through her chest to where our bodies met. I found myself breathing heavily as well, and if I were braver, my free hand would have come up around her waist and¡ªsuffice to say the situation was unbearable. She was clearly content to wait for me to actually make a move, another prompt-and-wait, and I couldn¡¯t bring myself to do so¡ªin either direction, neither pushing her off of me nor taking the plunge into rougher contact. We just lay there, her unwilling and me unable to resolve the moment. And part of me didn¡¯t want it to end.


    Eventually, end it did. She pushed herself off of me, fixing her hair. I lay there, thoroughly awash in new sensations and emotions, confusing and appealing. Why was I so attracted to¡­whatever she was? I mean¡ªat her core, she was a pretty girl, one displaying clear interest in me; that was easy enough to understand. But the¡­monstrousness? The feeling that there was something wrong and fundamentally dangerous about her¡ªand being excited by that? It was insane, ridiculous, something out of a bad Vaetna shipfic. Why me? Why did she want me to pursue her?


    ¡°Okay, noted. You freeze up under pressure. We¡¯ll work on that.¡±


    Incredulity and wounded pride jarred me into motion. I sat up, the terror receding.


    ¡°That was not a test.¡±


    ¡°Sure it was. You didn¡¯t say it. Either you want me or you don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°I¡ª¡± I still couldn¡¯t. ¡°I escaped the Peacies! How is that freezing up?¡±


    ¡°Totally different. Any VNT can magic their way out of a bad spot, especially if they¡¯re as clever as you. But if you can¡¯t even talk yourself out from under me, you¡¯re gonna end up in spots where magic can¡¯t help you.¡±


    She had a point, probably¡ªbut I was so offended at the idea that there was a problem I couldn¡¯t learn to solve with magic, a familiar emotion that I latched onto so that I wouldn¡¯t have to think about what had almost happened between us and the alien emotions surging through me.


    ¡°I could have¡ª¡±


    She blurred, and my forehead hurt. Had she just flicked me?


    ¡°No, you couldn¡¯t. I had you dead to rights. I could have done whatever. I. Wanted. And besides, you didn¡¯t escape, right? I saved you.¡±


    Another annoying thrill ran through me at the truth of that, fear and excitement percolating off one another. She nodded at the spear.


    ¡°Put that thing away. We¡¯re done for tonight.¡±


    Indignation spiked. I could choose, damn her.


    ¡°I¡ªI don¡¯t want to go on a date with you.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t prepared for that, not with her, not on top of everything else that had happened to me. Hina looked at me carefully, up and down. Her gaze punched right through me.


    ¡°But?¡±


    There was indeed a but.


    ¡°But I do¡­want¡­¡±


    I couldn¡¯t say it out loud. My heartbeat was deafening.


    ¡°Say it and I¡¯ll kiss you.¡±


    My eyes dropped to her lips, curled in a grin. She made a show of licking them. I was above an incentive that cheap.


    ¡­or so I had thought. The words tumbled out, provoked by¡ªall of this.


    ¡°I want you.¡±


    I had never said anything like that in my life, to anyone. We were in uncharted waters. A big smile spread across the hyena¡¯s face. I was in her trap.


    ¡°There you go.¡±


    A heart-throbbing rush.


    ¡°What¡ªwhy me? Why all of this?¡±


    She drew close again, so very near against me. The smell of alcohol invaded my senses once more as she crawled forward¡ªbut ¡®crawl¡¯ was such an inelegant word for how she moved. She crept, padded, stalking forward like a lengthening shadow.


    ¡°Because I can hurt you and you won¡¯t break.¡±


    What a cruel person. What terrifying honesty. Everyone had warned me what she was like, and I had seen enough hints today¡ªso why did that only make me want her more? Why didn¡¯t I tell her to leave? Why did I let her embrace me? It was all happening too fast, and I just couldn¡¯t say no to her, not like this. I didn¡¯t want to.


    She purred against my neck. ¡°Ai told you, didn¡¯t she? We trade in pain. Humans don¡¯t get it, but you do.¡±


    It will hurt, the voices had said. Her hand moved down my arm to grope at the scarred flesh on my right hand, reminiscent of the massage therapy I had undergone to encourage the flesh to heal correctly. But her squeezes almost hurt. Almost?


    My voice trembled, trying to find the conviction I had felt with Ai. ¡°No. I don¡¯t want to hurt it.¡±


    ¡°Why not? It hurt you first. Twice. And you saw what it did to Amane.¡±


    There was a nightmarish truth in that, prodding at the feeling of betrayal I had felt when it hadn¡¯t obeyed me in the darkness, and the ache in my chest at how the Amethyst Radiance had been curled up on the floor. Hina went on, lacing her fingers through mine. I didn¡¯t resist.


    ¡°So hurt it back. I do. I¡¯m great at it. It¡¯s push and pull, you know? Make it an exchange. Leverage¡ªI hurt it, it hurts me, we give each other what we want. We have an understanding, me and my Light.¡±


    Her breath warmed my neck. I struggled to get the words out. Focus on magic, not her.


    ¡°What does it want?¡±


    What did she?


    ¡°To help us grow. To become. I let it change me, so does Alice. Can¡¯t you see?¡±


    Her claws came to my shirt and shredded the collar, the tips stinging my skin as she pulled and gouged. She tugged the scraps off my shoulders and admired the exposed flesh. A flash of those sharp, inhuman teeth as she licked her lips. A full-body shiver took me, naked fear bubbling up and turning to anticipation, powerless to resist. All I could do was object against my instincts.


    ¡°Change? Your mutations?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s so much more than that. I¡¯ll show you. You just have to trust me. Let me hurt you! It¡¯ll be fun, I promise.¡±


    ¡°Wh¡ªwhat about what Ebi said?¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t hurt you badly enough to bother her. You¡¯re no fun if you break.¡±


    Did I believe she had that level of control? Truth be told¡ªit didn¡¯t matter.


    ¡°All you have to do is say you want it, and I¡¯ll give you everything.¡±


    And then she waited. I stood on the precipice of all my principles¡ªand I wasn¡¯t Heung, who could simply ignore gravity¡¯s call as he perched above the void. I was only mortal, beholden to natural laws and unnatural desires. She called me down, down, promising depths I had never seen with my head craned up toward the Spire. I fell with a whisper.


    ¡°Please.¡±


    She bit my shoulder, and I made a sound that I had never made before, that I had never dreamed could come from my mouth. It was a cocktail of primal emotion given voice, terror and overstimulation and more, please more of whatever twisted desire this was, whatever she was. Only that horrible moan in the darkness of the buried car came close, but this was pain as tantalizing promise, not rage-inducing punishment. The razor-teeth drew blood, just barely, a circle of red pinpricks. She lapped at the oozing ichor before the wounds clotted, grooming and feeding, mate and predator.


    She pulled back to fix me with those awful, intoxicating blue eyes once more.


    ¡°Ai thinks her path is closest to the Vaetna¡¯s. She¡¯s wrong. It¡¯s made me so strong. Stronger than all the others, because I don¡¯t fight my nature. Our nature. There¡¯s so much more to magic than glyphs.¡±


    She came in and bit me again, less of a chomp, more of a gnaw. She was so warm against me, one hand pressing my shoulder against her mouth while the other kneaded my neck. I gasped¡ªshe was strong, even in just her fingers. That would bruise, tomorrow. Objections swirled in my mind, my revulsion at the treatment of her Flame she was implying. But¡ª¡°closest to the Vaetna¡¯s?¡± Change? That was awful in its own way, by implication, but if it were true¡ª


    ¡°Let me show you how. I said it this morning¡ªyou could be so good at this. You could be perfect.¡±


    She was everything I wanted, just all twisted around. I could still learn from Ai, from the others, and find a path I could live with. But for now, feeling her against me, the promise of power I was worthy of wielding but had been denied all my life, true understanding of whatever new rules her very nature promised¡ª


    I had been tense against her, letting her do what she wanted to me, head abuzz with the paralytic promise of her predations. But now I ventured to touch her. My hand found her shoulder, and slowly moved up to her neck. In a mirror of her own motions and intimations, guided by some strange, unfamiliar instinct, my rough, scarred fingers clawed at her throat. She luxuriated in it, her eyes sliding shut. Her hand came over mine.


    ¡°Mm. But no, we do it like this.¡±


    She tugged my hand down to her sternum, then pressed¡ª


    And I felt the Flame inside her, ice-cold, pulsing in my magical senses in rhythm with her heartbeat. She made a sound that etched itself into my memory, a growling thing, an animal response to a transcendental connection. But I was learning the Flame was just as animal as we were, in its own way. She rubbed the same place on my chest with her other hand¡ªI coughed as my own Flame stirred in response.


    ¡°This is what we are. This is why I brought you here.¡±


    She¡¯s so selfish.


    I didn¡¯t care, not right then. She wrapped her hand around the back of my neck, pulled me to her, and¡ªher lips were so soft. It quickly became a full-body act as she leaned onto me, tilting her head and chasing me down onto the sheets as we had lain before. It was messy and warm and full of desire like nothing I had ever known. Our flames danced around each other, inspecting, exploring, both parasite-symbiotes mimicking the motion of our tongues. Eventually, air became a problem, and I made to push her off of me¡ª


    I couldn¡¯t. She might as well have been {AFFIXED} atop me. I squirmed, beginning to panic at the oxygen deprivation. Get off me, damn it! I made a sound against her lips, struggling, feeling myself begin to drop as the edges of black unconsciousness crept in¡ª


    Only then did she get off me, breaking the contact. I took a heaving gasp¡ªand then choked as her Flame separated from mine. An involuntary keening sound escaped my throat. It was raw, an exposed nerve. So cold. When I regained myself enough to meet her eyes, gasping gulps of air, there was naked enjoyment on her face.


    ¡°See? Isn¡¯t that just the best?¡±


    I stared up at her, chest rising and falling with shuddering breaths as my lungs and heart recovered. I¡¯d been helpless under her, I could have died. I couldn¡¯t get away from her, couldn¡¯t bring myself to call for help¡ªI had to play her game, use my leverage. Establish boundaries.


    ¡°That¡ªwhat the fuck? Never do¡ª¡±


    But I did want her to do it again. That scared me even more than she did.


    ¡°¡­just warn me?¡±


    As establishing boundaries went¡ªblatant failure. I just wanted it too much; she had a kind of power over me beyond the physical dominance. She nodded happily.


    ¡°Sure thing! I¡¯ll help you get used to it! And you¡¯ll get better at it, and hurt me back, and it¡¯ll be awesome. We¡¯ll have so much fun and you¡¯ll become so strong and we¡¯ll have the best sex, I promise, humans can¡¯t do it like we do.¡±


    Well. That was¡­far too appealing. ¡°So this is all for¡­your sadomasochism?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re missing the point. You¡¯ll change no matter what. You already have.¡± She took my other hand, rubbing the tattoo. ¡°That¡¯s our nature¡ªI saw my chance and I¡¯m taking it, letting you become something that will make us both happy.¡±


    I knew what she meant.


    ¡°A Radiance.¡± Was the term as descriptive of a specific type of posthuman as ¡®Vaetna¡¯ was? ¡°This is your pitch?¡±


    She closed the gap between us again, but stopped before our lips met.


    ¡°Just trust me. Can I keep convincing you?¡±


    I wanted very much for her to continue to do that, and it was such a relief that she was asking¡ªthat she was respecting the new boundary, such as it was. I whispered assent. We were finding a kind of rhythm, a push-and-pull.


    ¡°Please.¡±


    She kissed me again, this time much lighter, a more standard sort of affection than the suffocation play. It was sort of disappointing.


    ¡°Sorry if I scared you.¡±


    This was such a turnaround from the overbearing, unstoppable desire she had been forcing upon me, the predatory pursuit¡ªI suddenly picked up on what she had been doing.


    ¡°That was a test too, wasn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. I¡¯m, uh, not so good at knowing when to stop. So it¡¯s better if you decide for me.¡±


    ¡°And you didn¡¯t open with this because¡­?¡±


    ¡°Got carried away. You¡¯re just so edible.¡±


    I shivered, again feeling the certainty that she would kill and eat me. But¡ªand this was truly boggling¡ªshe had a deeper interest in me than that, which somehow meant I was safe with her, despite her open admission that she wanted to hurt me. She went on, rubbing my neck more gently than before.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªwell, I felt the pulse too. Not sure where it came from¡ªYuuka would know, but she¡¯s not here. And it¡­got me a bit worked up. I wanted to play with you.¡±


    It was all just play to her, both the violence and the gestures of carnal want. At last I asked. I had to know, had to reconcile the puppy and the hyena, the girl and the monster, establish a label for the fear and desire she pulled up from the bottom of my brain¡ªwas there any boundary between those things?


    ¡°What are you?¡±


    Hina chuckled, leaning back too far, ultramarine eyes half-hooded. Her figure gave the impression of corded, fast-twitch muscle for pouncing and killing despite how soft she had felt against me, a natural predator wearing the blouse and skirt of a young woman.


    ¡°I¡¯m me!¡±


    And so she was. Puppy, hyena, fairy¡ªit was just her. It had been a bit silly of me to ascribe mere animal traits to her, for all her carnivorous aspect. She was beautiful in the same way a glyph was, magic twisted for awful and glorious purpose¡ªno mere beast, nor fair folk bound by folkloric rules. She was something wild and free, irrepressible as the Vaetna. I craved her.


    ¡°You scare the shit out of me, you know that?¡± It just sort of slipped out, such a contrast from the way I had had to force every word earlier.


    ¡°Mhm. Doesn¡¯t seem like a dealbreaker for you, though.¡±


    She had me, and I couldn¡¯t quite bring myself to admit that, despite how obvious it had been in my actions.


    ¡°The others will¡­hate me for this, I think.¡± How was I supposed to balance her against them, if she could draw me down this path so easily?


    ¡°It¡¯ll work out. I¡¯m not monopolizing you. They all want to change you in their own ways, too.¡±


    Such was the nature of a flamebearer, pulled in multiple directions by every faction with the reach to do so. I was experiencing in micro the same thing as that anonymous oil rig worker in the Gulf of Mexico. But her pitch was too good, too compatible with what I already wanted and what the others were offering, bolstered by the seductive appeal. All it would cost me was pain¡ªand I could endure that, I wasn¡¯t made of glass. For power¡ªthe power I deserved, and for more of this, with her?


    ¡°Show me.¡±


    She looked so happy and kissed me a third time, clutching me, making little noises against my lips. Then she backed off.


    ¡°Tell me to leave. If I stay I¡¯ll fuck you up.¡±


    There was a real temptation to beg for her to stay, to let her bring some of my budding fantasies into reality. I resisted¡ªmore for Amane¡¯s sake by proxy than concern for my own wellbeing. What was she doing to me?


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªyeah, you should. Good¡ªgood night.¡±


    ¡°Mhm. Thanks. Remember, shopping tomorrow! G¡¯night!¡±


    She gave me one last, long look before she left the room.


    It was both hunger and approval.

 From On High // 1.07

    So.


    What the hell?


    I was attracted to her, intensely, primally, more powerfully than anything else I had ever felt for anyone. That didn¡¯t excuse¡­whatever that had been. For one, it was probably sexual assault of some sort¡ªbut what authority could contain her, short of her teammates? If I had tried harder to stonewall her, would we have wound up here anyway? I was well and truly helpless against her, it seemed. That was an upsetting thought, doubly so for the way it continued to thrill me.


    Okay, no, no¡ªI tried to back off from those thoughts. What had she actually offered, magically speaking? She promised some kind of change, a metamorphosis via close contact with her Flame. Close contact¡­her hips over mine, her lips against mine. That had been my first kiss, and second, and third, and it had been so good¡ª


    ¡°Fucking hell.¡±


    I sat up and shook myself, rubbing my face, trying to get her out of my head. I couldn¡¯t. I pulled out my phone to distract myself, flopping over onto my side and opening up the chatroom¡ªbut I could barely focus on the little glass-and-plastic rectangle; compared to her, it felt so fake, so distant. She was real and potent and intoxicating, everything I wanted without understanding why, so much more than anything I had experienced before. That was white ripple, it had to be, because the way she was impossibly high-resolution and vivid in my head couldn¡¯t just be the raw attraction¡ªbut try as I might, I couldn¡¯t deny even a little of the want. The¡­craving? Whatever she had done to me, I wanted more of it. Oh no.


    I tossed down the phone and tried to re-center in another way. She had interrupted my attempt to organize the contents of my backpack. I got back to work: the knife got re-wrapped in the towel and went back inside the bag for now, the snack bars went on the nightstand next to the moisturizer she had offered to replace¡ª


    The thoughts crept in anyway. This was stupid; I was stupid. Why was I even here? Because she wanted me here. Why did she want me here? It almost didn¡¯t matter¡ªeven though it most certainly did. She was just so hot¡ªhad been completely willing to pin me against the sheets and keep ravaging me, and I had said¡­had I even said no?


    I hefted the backpack and put it on the floor next to my bed. In the end, I had told her to leave¡­a frustratingly loud part of me, the part she had dragged up from wherever it was buried and stoked until it was ablaze with desire, was still rebuking myself for that. And I hated that I wanted her.


    I hated a lot of this, actually. Everything had changed in a single great ripple of fate. Why the hell had I wanted this? I had lost¡ªwell, not everything, but every routine and familiar fixture of my old life, replaced by danger and pain and always being around people who wanted things from me. I tried to figure out why that upset me so much, flopping down onto the now-cleared bedspread.


    I was a flamebearer now, someone who they said mattered, on the other side of the world with one of the most famous Vaetna-type groups short of the Spire itself, and it was all terrifying and different and I wanted to go home but this was my home now, this mostly empty room down the hall from magical fucking girls who wanted me to become one of them for some reason and¡ª


    It was too much. I didn¡¯t sob, but tears escaped my eyes unbidden, rolling down my cheeks and onto the pillow as I stared up at the glaring white lights in the ceiling. Too bright¡ªthere was probably a dimmer switch, but I was too overwhelmed. Where did I go from here? How the hell was I supposed to navigate whatever fucked-up, abusive, wildly desirable arrangement I had apparently just entered with Hina? She¡¯d promised to hurt me, and I¡¯d indirectly promised to return the favor¡ªwas I actually going to follow through with that? I felt unmoored from the ideals that had so strongly anchored me earlier in the day, with Ai. Part of me wanted to sneak down to her lab and talk through what had just happened with her¡­it was better to cry with her than alone, maybe.


    But I had only met Ai today too. I had been so thoroughly tossed into this new status quo that she was maybe the closest thing I had to a confidant who would ¡®get it¡¯. Would Star? Maybe¡ªbut I couldn¡¯t bring myself to come clean with how ferally attracted to the fanged girl I found myself, not to somebody who didn¡¯t know her personally, somebody who didn¡¯t feel the danger she exuded. Regardless of how much these feelings had to be white ripple rather than some damnably innate, instinctual part of me¡ªat a remove, Star wouldn¡¯t get the dissonance.


    But I couldn¡¯t go talk to Ai for a simpler reason: I wasn¡¯t about to prance through the building shirtless, displaying the lingering marks of Hina¡¯s twisted affections. As I examined where she had bitten me, I knew those marks would linger. She had just destroyed the only shirt I owned, so there was no way for me to hide it, and if the others saw then surely they¡¯d know immediately that it had been her doing. Would they take my side, take pity on me for the way she had all but forced herself on me? Perhaps at first, but if she revealed the full breadth of what I had agreed to explore with her?


    Well¡ªslow down, Dalton. She wasn¡¯t a complete monster. She had admitted to her behavior at least partially being a test, and after that point she had been quite respectful of my boundaries and, frankly, adorable. To some extent, now that she had taken my first kiss¡ªand second and third, I still wasn¡¯t even a little over that¡ªand made her pitch, I was closer to her than any of the others; that had pretty clearly been her goal, but she had also said she wasn¡¯t going to monopolize me. That boded well for my overall safety around her, hopefully.


    I tried to prioritize practical problems to escape the spiral of thoughts. Getting a new shirt would be a good start; deciding whether I¡¯d go see Ai or just try to go to sleep or figure out other coping mechanisms could wait until after.


    ezzen: I don¡¯t suppose there¡¯s spare clothes somewhere in my room?


    ebi-furai: uh, nope


    ebi-furai: i cant leave amethyst at the moment but opal can bring you something


    ebi-furai: one sec


    Opal probably wouldn¡¯t tease me about the bites the way Ebi would, but this was still going to be embarrassing. I hastily shed the scraps of my old shirt¡ªnot one of any particular nostalgia, at least, just a black long-sleeve V-neck of which I had probably owned half a dozen duplicates, picked for inconspicuity when I had fled for the Gate. I hid it and my torso under the blanket to retain some dignity, peeking just my head out from the covers, hoping Opal would just drop the clothes and leave. At least it was nice and cozy against the winter chill, though the way my blood was still running high from the intimate encounter meant that was sort of moot.


    Opal arrived a minute later. My door opened with a click, and padded footsteps came from the antechamber before she appeared at the gateway to my bedroom.


    ¡°How¡¯s unpacking?¡±


    She didn¡¯t look any worse for wear since I had last seen her; she was probably mostly moral support when it came to taking care of Amethyst, compared to Ebi being seemingly a one-woman operating room. She had shed the jacket and so was now wearing only the sports bra and leggings, exposing toned midriff that my already riled-up libido didn¡¯t need right now. I tried to keep my voice level.


    ¡°Not much to unpack. But my clothes have gotten a bit, er, gross, and I didn¡¯t bring a change¡­¡±


    I directed my attention instead to the large t-shirt she was carrying on a coat hanger, along with what looked like shorts. She came over and offered me the shirt first. I extended my non-bitten arm out from my nest of blanket and took it from her. It was clearly meant to be an oversize fit, which was good. It had a graphic on it depicting Sailor Moon in streetwear, which was less good, but acceptable. There were more embarrassing things to wear.


    ¡°No worries. This is the biggest shirt I could find in our closet. It might be a bit big even on you, but it should be enough for tonight. Want me to wash the old one?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ª¡± Shit. I couldn¡¯t just say ¡®no¡¯ to that, but I didn¡¯t have an excuse queued up either. Well¡­nothing for it. I dug out the ruined scraps of fabric, avoiding her eyes. Surely, she¡¯d understand what had happened here, that I hadn¡¯t signed up for this?


    ¡°Hina.¡±


    She froze. ¡°Ah. I¡¯m, er¡ªoh no. Are you alright?¡±


    I really didn¡¯t know. Maybe? There was genuine worry on her face¡ªI tried to allay her fears.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. She, um, gave me a bit of a fright, but she left when I told her to.¡±


    Technically not a lie, in the sense that she had indeed told me to tell her to leave right at the end¡­of course, she had ignored me telling her to leave the first time. Had that solely been part of the test? Opal¡¯s expression twisted in a few ways before she settled on¡ªguilt? Her lips were pursed. Wordlessly, she offered me the shorts. These were also supposed to be oversized, relative to whichever shorter woman owned them, but looked to fit me decently. It wasn¡¯t exactly winter wear, but it¡¯d be good enough for tonight. Then she sighed, casting her gaze over to the window.


    ¡°She¡¯s been such a problem this whole time. I¡¯m glad she saved you, but¡­I¡¯m so sorry you had to put up with her. I¡¯ll give her a talking-to.¡± She turned back to me, and her voice got a little more lifeless, like she really didn¡¯t want to say what came out of her mouth next. ¡°Did she really leave when you asked?¡±


    Her eyes weren¡¯t as striking as Hina¡¯s. They were still undeniably beautiful in their strange, black-and-orange color scheme and slitted pupils, just not as transfixing as the impossible blue of her teammate¡¯s gaze. Yet she still saw through me, or maybe through her teammate, with me as the conduit. I hunched up a bit, then slowly lowered the blanket past my shoulders.


    Opal growled when she saw the bite marks. Her tail thrashed, and the air around her shimmered as a pulse of heat emanated off of her.


    ¡°God damn it.¡± She shut her eyes, stilled her tail, and took a deep breath. ¡°Sorry. That¡¯s not directed at you.¡±


    It felt almost unfaithful to expose more skin in front of her when she was already not leaving much to the imagination on her upper half herself. I had the ridiculous, reflexive sense that this somehow qualified as cheating on Hina, which was so absolutely wrong regarding my relationship with both Radiances. I most certainly didn¡¯t want to think of Opal that way¡ªI shrugged on the shirt anyway. Weird impulses about relationships notwithstanding, it was still definitely over-exposing myself to someone who might technically be my boss starting tomorrow.


    ¡°I get it. She¡¯s¡ªa lot. And we did¡­¡± I wasn¡¯t going to admit how much of the encounter had been a masochistic make-out session. ¡°We talked. She wants to help my Flame change me. With pain. Not very ¡®magical girl¡¯, is it?¡±


    The dragon-girl frowned; apparently, my tone hadn¡¯t been joking enough.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªno, it¡¯s not even a little mahou shoujo. She¡¯s always been our little monster, but I was hoping¡­bugger. I wish I didn¡¯t have to apologize to you about her every ten seconds.¡± She rubbed her temple. ¡°She¡¯ll¡­I told you she¡¯d respect boundaries, but I should have done more to help with that. I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    I felt sort of bad about how upset she was getting¡ªand was also unfairly and unreasonably peeved that she was more concerned with my safety and her teammate¡¯s character than the implications about magic.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯m fine, really, uh¡ª¡± I had to reach to remember her actual name. ¡°Alice. These¡ª¡± I gestured at the bite marks, ¡°¡ªare no big deal compared to my foot, and we really did, er, come to an understanding. I¡¯m not so much worried about her as, um¡ªwondering whether her way¡­works?¡±


    That was a lie on multiple levels. I was not fine, the bites very much were a big deal, and I had her so embedded in my brain that I couldn¡¯t even think about the magical aspects she had implied¡ªthat last one was an unwelcome first for me.


    ¡°It does, but¡ªyou see what she¡¯s like. It¡¯s an ugly, awful way of doing things, and being changed by your magic isn¡¯t always a good thing.¡± She sighed. ¡°If you say you¡¯re fine¡ªI¡­I believe you, but I need to impress on you the importance of boundaries with her. She¡¯s dangerous and clingy. You¡¯ll wake up with her in your bed, or worse, unless you tell her that¡¯s not allowed. I¡¯ll tell her to treat you with the same rules she has with us.¡±


    According to the part of my brain that kept replaying the feeling of her lips against mine, waking up to a Hina snuggled up to me sounded absolutely fantastic, damn what my reason or prey instincts said.


    ¡°What kind of rules?¡±


    She counted off on her fingers. Curiously, she started at her thumb.


    ¡°No entering our rooms without permission. No physical contact outside of sparring without permission. No wearing our dirty laundry. No¡­¡®gifts¡¯. You have to tell her these things directly, or she¡¯ll just keep doing them.¡±


    I frowned. ¡°She¡¯s not an animal.¡± At least, that¡¯s what I had resolved when I was face-to-face with her, but Opal seemed to think otherwise. The way she had said ¡°gifts¡± made me loath to ask for details. ¡°¡­Is she?¡±


    ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have called her a monster. But she is dangerous, and doesn¡¯t think all that much like a human. Any other rules you want?¡±


    And that was the question, wasn¡¯t it? What boundaries did I want to set with Hina?


    ¡°I¡­don¡¯t know? If you think that¡¯s enough¡­¡±


    ¡°It will be.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    For now, I¡¯d trust Opal¡¯s judgment. We looked at each other for a moment, unsure where to go with the conversation. She coughed.


    ¡°Amane is doing alright. She might have a rough night, but she¡¯ll be good by tomorrow afternoon, hopefully.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªgood.¡± I didn¡¯t want to ask more about her condition. ¡°Oh. Er¡ªHina said I¡¯d be able to walk tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°Oh. I knew I had forgotten to mention something earlier!¡± She thumped the tip of her tail against the floor and looked a bit sheepish at having forgotten. ¡°Ai and Hina are collaborating on a stabilizer for your foot, enough for you to at least walk around for a few hours for errands.¡±


    They could do that? ¡°That¡¯s¡ªcan I see the diagram?¡± It¡¯d probably be {NULL-COMPOSE} with a blue link, maybe an {AFFIX} somewhere in there.


    She smiled at that. ¡°Tomorrow, sure. There¡¯s so much I¡¯d like to talk to you about when it comes to magic, but¡­one thing at a time, you understand.¡±


    I sat up a bit more. ¡°I, um. Now would be alright.¡± There was a lot I wanted to ask her, both about the technical details of the stabilizer and other specifics of the brand of glyphcraft the Radiances wielded. It could also be a distraction from pondering what Hina had hinted about the Vaetna and magic as a whole.


    She waved me off. ¡°Let¡¯s stick with the schedule. You should really get some sleep to start adjusting to the time difference.¡±


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    I almost pouted. She was right, but¡ªglyphcraft! She saw me struggling to not object. ¡°Ah, fine, let me at least throw you a bone. There¡¯s a {DISTORT} in there.¡±


    Huh? No, there couldn¡¯t be¡ªbut Todai did have the infrastructure to make third-order substrate. And if Hina was indeed most like the Vaetna¡ªwould she be the one to weave it? That made sense with her threat to withhold it from me, if she was the only one able to actually twist the Flame through the fourth dimension, substrate or not. That must have been where her leverage was coming from. Lesson one, her husky voice rang in my head. I suppressed a shiver.


    ¡°Thanks for the hint.¡±


    ¡°No problem. Need anything else?¡±


    I looked around the barren room even as my mind raced around potential constructions involving the advanced glyph. ¡°I, er, right now? Not really, I don¡¯t think¡­¡±


    Longer term, of course I¡¯d like a PC setup for that desk and ideally some Spire merch to make it feel a bit more like home, but I really wanted to just be done with my day right now. Opal scanned the room as well.


    ¡°Do you have a water bottle?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªno? There are cups in the bathroom, I think?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but you don¡¯t want to wake up parched and then have to hobble across the room in the dark. Amane still tries to do it sometimes and has had a few spills.¡±


    Oh, right. My damn crippled foot. ¡°Ah. Then¡ªyes, please?¡± It felt wrong to ask a high-profile VNT to fetch mundane conveniences for me, but Opal seemed entirely used to this as a result of living with Amethyst. She went off to retrieve a vessel. As she returned, she called over from the doorway.


    ¡°Oh, you left these over here.¡±


    She reappeared with a metal water bottle in one hand and carrying my crutches in the other. I had left them by the door, out of sight, as a sort of denial of their presence.


    ¡°Not a fan?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªwill the stabilizer mean I don¡¯t need them?¡±


    ¡°Sadly, no. You still don¡¯t want to be using the foot constantly, so¡­I¡¯d have to check with Ebi. We¡¯ll talk about it tomorrow, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Right. Er¡ªthanks.¡±


    Silence reigned once more. Opal sort of looked like she had something she wanted to say, fidgeting a bit.


    ¡°What?¡±


    She sighed.


    ¡°Amethyst had¡­a very hard time adjusting to her disabilities, at first. She¡¯s not good at accepting help. So I know what you¡¯re going through. You shouldn¡¯t have to deal with Hina on top of your recovery¡ªif you feel unsafe sleeping so close to her, um, we can move you back to the medical wing like we discussed, or maybe even set you up in a hotel for tonight if Ebi gives the okay¡ª¡±


    I frowned. She was offering me a sort of escape, an option to not dive face-first into all of this. I could even¡­if none of the Radiances themselves were there to keep an eye on me, I could even flee to the Gate, maybe. I could renege on my agreement to join Todai and abandon this exceptionally weird day, go to the Spire, where I belonged. Did I belong there? The idea that their magic was rooted in suffering still loomed too large to confront directly¡ªif that were the case¡­


    Even aside from that¡ªdid I feel the need to put distance between myself and Hina? Incredibly, no. As much as she rightfully frightened me, I craved more of her. And I wanted to learn more about Ebi, compare notes with Ai and Amane. I had managed to accumulate a fair number of reasons to stay where I was. I looked again at the still-mostly-barren room around us, the bookshelf devoid of anything but four slim notebooks. This wasn¡¯t home¡ªbut it could be, once I made it my own with a real computer and familiar iconography of magic.


    ¡°I¡¯m alright.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªyeah, I¡¯m sure. If you can just keep her out of my room tonight¡­¡±


    ¡°Absolutely. I¡¯ll make clear to her that you¡¯re off limits. She¡¯ll probably be down with Ai for most of tonight anyway.¡± She turned back toward the archway. ¡°Try to get some sleep. Even a little will help.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll¡­try. Good night. And, um¡ªthank you. For all of this.¡±


    She smiled. ¡°It¡¯s the mahou shoujo thing to do. Good night.¡±


    As I saw her disappear around the corner and heard the door click, I pondered how she had described what she was going to say to Hina. Off limits, huh. I rather wanted to be on Hina¡¯s limits, terrifying as it was¡ªI was running out of energy to continue the internal struggle anyway. It was a tomorrow problem. At least I wouldn¡¯t have to go through tomorrow morning with everybody knowing how she had¡­claimed me. The bites throbbed in a constant low-level reminder of the act. It shouldn¡¯t have been as hot as it was.


    As for the last thing Opal had said¡ªwhat was mahou shoujo? I knew the literal meaning, but the actual¡­moral contents? Her worldview? I didn¡¯t know, and my flagging energy needed to be rationed for some housekeeping on the forums instead of further speculation and worrying about the Radiances. I rolled over to retrieve my laptop from the nightstand, adjusting my pillow to lean back against the headboard. My foot protested the shift a bit, but my physical state was definitely better than it had been with Hina on top of me. My hands weren¡¯t shaking anymore, at least.


    First, I looked at the top few posts. There was indeed one about me, or rather the ¡®Bristol Flamefall¡¯ and subsequent three-way almost-clash between the PCTF, Todai, and the Spire. This one actually had footage of the moment I buried the car, although taken from far enough away that my features couldn¡¯t be made out other than the fact that I was white.


    They had blocked off traffic from our side of the motorway, and the flow of cars in the opposite direction had slowed to a crawl as rubberneckers gawked at the paramilitary action so close to home. In grainy 480p, I saw the armored Peacie officer step backward on reflex as the car was exchanged with the dirt copy, then turn back to the modified SUV to consult with whoever was coordinating the operation. Presumably, that was the moment they had called in the gunship, since everybody just sort of waited where they were¡ªthey rightfully figured they had me.


    As things turned out, they didn¡¯t. After a tense minute of waiting¡ªduring which I had been busy discovering awful truths about the Flame and subsequently passing out down there in the dark¡ªsomething bright-blue lanced down from the sky, and Radiance Sapphire complicated the affair. The person taking the recording breathed an oath as the shockwave buffeted them, shaking the camera.


    Unfortunately, that was the moment the PCTF gunship showed up and killed every recording device within a kilometer of the incident, according to other posts referencing eyewitness accounts. That was standard operating procedure, the equivalent of turning off the bodycam. It was one of the most incriminating things the PCTF did, and was the main reason that hard evidence of the darker rumors was hard to find. At least now I knew for sure that Hina had indeed gotten there first, before the Vaetna had¡ªI really ought to apologize to Sky. If Hina had arrived at pretty much the same time as the gunship, before the Vaetna¡­things had been ugly enough that I couldn¡¯t really blame her for just getting me the hell out, her personal motives notwithstanding.


    [Direct Message] ezzen: Hey Sky, I¡¯m sorry for blowing up at you earlier. I just watched the video of how things went down, and as far as I¡¯m concerned, you and Sapphire did what you had to. Thanks for the save.


    ezzen: I owe you my life, I think? And it was stupid and petty of me to get so mad. Todai has been good to me so far. If Star or Moth are giving you shit over it, tell them I¡¯ve forgiven you, because I have.


    ezzen: Um, also


    ezzen: It¡¯s totally fair if you can¡¯t give me a straight answer on this, but I was wondering how exactly you know Sapphire? I know you¡¯ve alluded to having talked to a few VNTs, but she doesn¡¯t quite strike me as the type, if that makes sense.


    ezzen: Thanks and sorry again. Going to bed now, so we might miss each other a bit.


    He didn¡¯t respond¡ªprobably busy, or maybe asleep. He kept weird hours, and we weren¡¯t actually sure where he even lived.


    Back to the forums: I saved the link to that post and others like it, then went looking for information on the flamefalls that had immediately followed. Nothing but the usual PCTF boilerplate on the one in America, and Kat had dispatched the inferno in Poland without incident or fatalities, other than the poor sap who had been flametouched. Previously, that had been an abstract sort of mourning for a life taken unfairly but by necessity¡ªnow it chilled me to think that could have been me.


    The Gulf of Mexico situation remained a standoff; just because it hadn¡¯t gone inferno yet didn¡¯t necessarily mean it wouldn¡¯t, and nobody would be comfortable until the bearer in question was off that rig, but neither side was willing to back down. Very political, sort of silly, if not for the threat of disaster. Heliotrope was out there too, somewhere. For a moment I wondered about the logistics of that. She had presumably taken her jetbike¡ªbut she couldn¡¯t exactly sleep on it out over the water for multiple days in a row, could she? Had she gotten a hotel? The strange mundanity of that was something I would have never considered for VNTs like the Radiances before today. Sure, Hina was something more than human, and Opal was also changed by her Flame in whatever chilling process that entailed, but Ai and Amane were decidedly mortal, and Heliotrope, from what I knew, was presumably in the same bucket as them.


    Now for a post of my own; it was high time I gave at least a brief update that I was okay. It was all in my usual, clinical voice I used for the forums, giving me the chance to emotionally detach from everything that had happened to me and look at the day as a whole. I confirmed that I was the Bristol Flametouched and expressed a lot of gratitude toward the well-wishers. I detailed what had happened to my foot, remarking that I had become a case study in blood-price misestimation. I teased that my research was about to kick into a whole new gear now that I could test glyphs hands-on, trying to emanate positivity rather than trepidation.


    I considered how much I could say beyond that. I was essentially certain that at least the Spire and PCTF already knew I was at Todai from having seen Hina carry me off, though probably not that I was with them¡ªwhich apparently I was. With that in mind, confirming that I was indeed being taken care of by Todai didn¡¯t really put me in the crosshairs any more than I already was. I further mentioned that they had graciously offered to provide me with a prosthetic foot to replace the one I had lost; it couldn¡¯t hurt to be effusive, and my gratitude was genuine besides. Lastly, I hinted at the possibility that, regardless of what the future held, I¡¯d at least get the chance to talk shop with them and hopefully generate at least one interesting paper on the topic.


    I went back through the post, rereading it, making sure I didn¡¯t miss anything obvious. It looked good, so I hit post and dropped the link in the chatroom.


    ezzen: Behold, the official story so far.


    ezzen: Will take a look at replies etc in the morning. Gn


    With some effort, I made myself close the laptop and return it to the nightstand next to the water bottle. It wouldn¡¯t do to stay up until midnight when I was trying to reset my sleep, even though I wasn¡¯t feeling tired yet.


    Unfortunately, I had to get out of bed to kill the lights. I looked at the crutches¡ªthe switch was just across the room. I sighed and extricated myself from the blanket, swinging my legs over the bed¡¯s edge, good foot first. The prosthetic made contact with the hardwood floor with a soft tap, and I reflected that I should get some rugs. By now, I knew better than to try to stand straight up; I leaned on the bedpost for support before shifting my hand to the wall to limp around the perimeter of the room, foot stinging all the while even with the minimal force I was putting on it. It was still better for my self-image than needing the crutches just to turn off the lights. Perhaps without the analgomancy I¡¯d have felt differently.


    I made it to the switch and hit it with a certain amount of triumph as the room was plunged into darkness. Or¡ªrelative darkness. Since one entire wall of the room was glass, the city lights still faintly illuminated the interior, bright enough that it would interfere with my sleep. I hastily turned the lights back on to inspect the panel¡ªyep, there was also a knob which, upon experimentation, controlled the dimming on the windows. Turning them to full opacity was the best for darkness and helped me not think about how high off the ground I was. Satisfied, I killed the lights again and waited a minute for my eyes to adjust more, wary of what Opal had said about traversing in the dark. Then I reversed my journey; a little more difficult this time around as I leaned on my left arm, somewhat off-balance with my right foot held off the ground. It was easier once I returned to the safety of my bed, where I could crawl in relative comfort.


    As I made myself comfortable, the pain and pressures of trying to walk faded, and I became aware of an itch in my stump. Should I take off the prosthetic? It was just attached with an {AFFIX}, and it would be trivial enough to disengage the glyph¡ªbut I¡¯d also lose whatever analgomancy was muting the pain. Were there still regular painkillers in my system? I fumbled for my phone.


    ezzen: My foot itches, can I take off the prosthetic?


    ebi-furai: hmm


    ebi-furai: well the itching is normal, thats the painkillers


    ebi-furai: so it¡¯d hurt more once you take it off


    ebi-furai: one sec


    She returned after maybe twenty seconds.


    ebi-furai: ai thinks you should take it off and see how the pain is


    ebi-furai: if its bad we can give you something


    ezzen: Okay


    I put down the phone and brought my leg in to grope at the connection point between the stump and the prosthetic. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to feel the weave with my nascent magical senses and map that to what my hand was feeling. There was something sort of¡­sticky. It took me a moment to figure out that that wasn¡¯t a physical sensation¡ªit was how my mind was interpreting the {AFFIX}. Coming off of it was something fuzzy, which must be the chain providing the painkiller effect. I sucked in a breath and deactivated the prosthetic.


    A spike of pain lanced up from my toes¡ªor where my toes had used to be¡ªmaking my stomach clench as I gripped my ankle.


    ¡°Fuck.¡±


    It settled into more of a dull ache after a moment¡ªbut tolerable, and at least the itch was gone.


    ezzen: It¡¯s manageable. Maybe a 3?


    ebi-furai: then keep it off. you should clean it tomorrow. you know how to take care of burns


    It wasn¡¯t really a question; my right hand indicated my medical history regardless of whether or not she had scrounged up my records. I dumped the prosthetic on the floor next to the nightstand¡ªa little too irreverently, perhaps, given my gratitude toward Ai. I leaned down to at least set the false foot upright.


    ezzen: Yep.


    ebi-furai: then thats all ive got for tonight


    ebi-furai: ping me if you cant sleep, i can slip out long enough to give you something once amane is asleep


    ezzen: Thanks. Gn


    ebi-furai: oyasumi


    For the next hour, I kept shifting under the blanket, trying in vain to find a position which would reduce the ache in my stump. Watching familiar videos about the Vaetna helped take my mind off of it somewhat, but in turn brought up lingering anxieties about their nature. In turn, that got me thinking about Hina and the insane, intoxicating high she inspired in me, even now that I had some remove from the weight of her hips atop mine or her teeth in my shoulder. It¡¯s crass to say I was too horny to sleep, but it took me a long time to wind down enough for slumber to take me.


    ¡ª


    That night, I was woken twice.


    First, by the sound of arguing, in what sounded like English, though I couldn¡¯t make out the words. They were in the hall¡ªpossibly even right outside my door. A jolt of excitement ran through me as I rolled over blearily; had Opal caught Hina attempting to sneak in? Opal sounded furious, barking reprimand after reprimand. I could practically see the withering glare, although it was just as easy to imagine Hina unrepentant, blinking innocently with those blue eyes. At least they didn¡¯t start brawling, this time, as the voices retreated down the hall. Half-awake, I was disappointed that she wouldn¡¯t come cuddle with me. I shifted under the blanket and returned to comfortable oblivion before the pain had a chance to drag me further into consciousness.


    The second was when something shook the entire building. I panicked and didn¡¯t know what to do other than huddle under the blanket until it subsided. I assumed it was an earthquake. It wasn¡¯t severe enough to knock anything over, but the water bottle rattled in place. It probably only lasted fifteen or twenty seconds, but it felt longer there in the dark. As it subsided, I sipped from the bottle as I tried to calm down and groped for my phone. I found the website for earthquake information, squinting with some consternation at the only source of light shining directly into my eyes, inches from my face. There was nothing of sufficient magnitude and nearness¡ªearlier this evening there had been a minor quake on one of the other islands, but either the site hadn¡¯t been updated yet¡­or what I had just felt hadn¡¯t been an earthquake.


    After a few minutes of failing to get back to sleep, I returned to my phone out of habit, checking the replies to my post. I was greeted by an atmosphere of relief and celebration, as well as some anticipation. Many of them were asking whether I was safe long-term, what I¡¯d do next¡ªwhether I was headed to the Spire or not. That would make sense, wouldn¡¯t it? Why wouldn¡¯t I go?


    Well, because Todai had gotten to me first and given me lots of reasons to stick around¡­and because I now had just the tiniest crumb of doubt in the Vaetna. Not that I could say these things on the forum. I squinted into the phone¡¯s light and spat out some short replies. I was here at least until my foot was better; I had been making for the Spire before Todai had intervened and I was grateful to them for that; I¡¯d give regular updates about how learning magic went¡ªnothing important, obvious stuff.


    I did eventually put away my phone for good. My foot still hurt, but it wasn¡¯t enough to warrant bothering Ebi about. When I got to sleep for the third and final time, in that bed in my new home, down half of a foot, up a spear in my arm and a chunk of the Frozen Flame on my soul¡ª


    I dreamed.


    ¡ª


    I stand on the ice. Now there is a crack, and my blood has seeped through. I step backwards from the fracture, although the ice is surely too thick for my weight to matter. I turn, to retreat to the safety of the shore, but it is gone, and I am surrounded in all directions by the ice. I look down at it.


    ¡°Are you my Flame? Or all of it?¡±


    ¡°Both.¡±


    Hina stands in front of me, kicking at the crack idly. She is beautiful and deadly and alluring and here there is no fear. She looks up at the sunless sky, sighing.


    ¡°But this is just a dream.¡±


    I¡¯m not surprised by this.


    ¡°Even you?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. You thought you¡¯d get sweet dream-sex with the real Hina after just one night? At least take her to dinner first.¡±


    She¡¯s right; that¡¯s entirely too much to ask. I point at the crack, at the lights below in the water. Even here, especially here, magic is of greater importance to me.


    ¡°Why am I up here when they¡¯re down there?¡±


    She hums, husky, almost a purr.


    ¡°Because you¡¯ve been at a remove. You only know the theory, and you think that makes you better than the ones who have lived with it. You think you can weasel out of pain. Well¡ª¡±


    She stomps, and the cracks shoot out in all directions, to the horizon, a spiderweb augury. The ice begins to crumble beneath me.


    ¡°Prove it.¡±


    I fall into the water, and her laughter chases me down into the darkness.

 From On High // 1.08

    My foot and stomach dragged me out of oblivion, blaring in chorus that my body needed maintenance. I rolled onto my front, face directly into the pillow, protesting against their insistence, but that just made my foot proclaim more loudly that it needed attention. I groped blindly for my phone in the dark, wincing. I couldn¡¯t find it for a moment; the nightstand was further away than it had been in my old apartment.


    ezzen: Foot hurts more. Maybe 6/10?


    ezzen: Also gm


    ebi-furai: on it


    Ebi understood what was important in life: painkillers.


    ebi-furai: gimme a couple minutes


    ebi-furai: amethyst is asleep, just making sure shes stable enough for me to ditch


    My phone¡¯s clock read 7:28 when I heard knocking and the mechanical click of the door opening, followed by the tap-tap of Ebi¡¯s feet on the hardwood.


    ¡°How¡¯d you sleep?¡±


    ¡°Woke up¡­twice? Opal yelling at Sapphire and¡­an earthquake, I think?¡±


    I¡¯d also had a weird dream, but that was par for the course, and the details had already faded. Something about ice? Hina had also been there too; my subconscious had a lot to work through.


    ¡°Not an earthquake.¡±


    ¡°Then¡ªargh. Bright.¡±


    I squeezed my eyes shut in protest at the lights, groaning. I heard Ebi pace over to the bedside as I gingerly tried to hold my eyes open for long enough to adjust.


    ¡°Leg.¡±


    She waited for me to pull down the blanket and extract my leg as I continued to rub my eyes. Pain at both ends of my body¡ªthink about something else.


    ¡°Not an earthquake?¡±


    ¡°Amethyst didn¡¯t have a great night.¡±


    The burned stump was looking about as good as you could ask at this stage of healing¡ªwhich was to say, not very good at all. It was an angry melding of red, purple, and brown, some areas glistening with a thin layer of pus. Ebi leaned over it, humming a jaunty melody in chiptune.


    ¡°Don¡¯t put the prosthetic back on until you bathe and clean it. I can give you a local analgesic patch and some¡­I think this is aspirin.¡±


    ¡°You think?¡±


    ¡°Pretty sure.¡±


    I eyed the unlabeled bottle that had appeared in her hand while I had been looking at the burned flesh, reasonably sure she was screwing with me.


    ¡°Patch first, please. It¡¯s magic?¡±


    ¡°{NULL}-{SEVER} on red, same thing that your bed was using.¡±


    I vaguely resented that she told me outright instead of letting me piece it together. I couldn¡¯t quite recall what I had seen in the spell circle Ai had used yesterday for comparison; probably less precise than that, but I¡¯d take general numbness over pain.


    ¡°Go for it.¡±


    Her hand not holding the pill bottle did the rotating-twisting thing a few times.


    ¡°How¡¯s that work, anyway?¡±


    ¡°I have a little warehouse pharmacy thing tucked into fourspace. There¡¯s a little arm in there that grabs the thing I need and passes it to one of my external hands.¡±


    How eldritch. Her hand blurred and was now holding the patch, which could have been mistaken for a largeish band-aid, maybe five inches by two inches. I could see the glyphs printed on the surface; in miniature relative to the ones I had drawn during my flight from the PCTF, but in the real world, this was a fairly typical size, small as it could realistically go while remaining weavable with the naked eye and bare hand. Her hand did a fascinating contortion to peel the backing from the patch solo.


    Ebi tapped my shin with her knuckle. I shook my head. She did it again, a little lower, and continued until I flinched, right above my ankle. She smoothed the patch against my skin at the indicated height¡ªno change in sensation at all. Did the patch¡¯s orientation matter? Surely, she hadn¡¯t applied it upside down.


    ¡°How¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not on.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. These are the ones the Radiances use, so they¡¯re self-woven. It¡¯s just empty substrate right now.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me this before because¡­?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re going to be doing this a lot. It¡¯s just first-order; Amethyst does this first thing every morning.¡±


    I exhaled a long sigh. It was true that it was about the simplest first-order 2-chain I could ask for, in theory, but I had never actually woven multiple glyphs on a chain like this. Completing the glyphs themselves was the easy part, just a matter of following the guide laid out by the substrates¡ªI had referred to it in my Glyphcraft 101 blog series as ¡°coloring within the lines.¡± In reality, though, the process was much more finicky. I had to link the glyphs with the correct tension for the desired color of ripple, which was something you supposedly just did ¡®by feel¡¯ or with a ripple display. Which I didn¡¯t have.


    I glared at her narrow grin, both too hungry and in too much pain to appreciate games. Was this how she treated Amethyst?


    ¡°And you¡¯re making me do it blind, first thing in the morning? No display? I haven¡¯t¡­¡±


    Of course I hadn¡¯t done it before, but it was still awkward to admit that. It clashed with my self-image as an expert¡­which had grown remarkably more fragile in the past 48 hours, but it was too early in the morning to confront that.


    ¡°I believe in you!¡±


    Furthermore, I really doubted she didn¡¯t have a display somewhere in her toolbox, but she shrugged, a weird motion on her mechanical frame. It wasn¡¯t entirely clear how her shoulders actuated to make it happen.


    ¡°Let the record show that I resent you for this. Bedside manner?¡±


    ¡°Used it all up on Amethyst, sorry. Hop to it.¡±


    If I got it wrong and linked on something like blue or orange¡ªwell, it wouldn¡¯t be apocalyptic or even dangerous, but I¡¯d have to start over until I got it right. Ugh. The silver lining was that I already had an abundance of pain to work with, so I could postpone the moral quandary of harming my Flame. I gritted my teeth and adjusted my leg to bring it closer to me so I could better see the glyphs printed on the patch while I nudged the thing attached to my soul. Hey, Flame, look! It hurts like shit, isn¡¯t that exciting?


    I wasn¡¯t quite sure what to make of the fact that talking to it like a dog worked so well. My right hand ignited in white, sparks curling in impossible directions as I clenched my fist and willed the fire to twist into a bundle of twine. Still no properly prepared, silken skein, but¡­remarkably better than the first times I had woven. It wasn¡¯t burning me anymore, just deeply uncomfortable. Was that just because I¡¯d had some time to acclimate¡­or had something happened due to my contact with Hina¡¯s Flame?


    I didn¡¯t want to think about it, and it didn¡¯t matter right now. Right hand and right ankle¡ªthe angle was a little awkward, but I started pushing the thread through the {NULL} glyph. For such a simple concept, it was a fancy glyph; the overall shape was something like a W with the end prongs shorter than the middle, but forming that larger shape involved a few henna-esque spirals and some gradienting in the middle not dissimilar to {ASH}. The spirals were ornamented with smaller loops; in the case of the patch, they were pretty much the smallest physical size you could make a glyph component while still having it be reasonable to weave outside a laboratory. The upshot was that it was quite lenient on the tension gradient required to make it work; most of the detailing was in the shapes itself, and that was easy enough to just follow the substrate for. My execution definitely wasn¡¯t the cleanest, since the thread itself was still awful quality, but it went acceptably well until I reached the part where I had to link it to the next glyph in the chain.


    ¡°Couldn¡¯t you¡ªI don¡¯t know, at least give me some tips? Or get one of the Radiances?¡±


    ¡°Sapphire¡¯s making breakfast, Opal is keeping an eye on Amethyst, and Ai is finishing up your stabilizer.¡± Her digital brow furrowed. ¡°We forgot to mention that last night. Anyway, everyone¡¯s busy, and I¡¯m not qualified to talk you through this.¡±


    ¡°Opal filled me in on the stabilizer. What do you mean not qualified?¡±


    I was actually a little surprised that Opal apparently hadn¡¯t mentioned the contents of our conversation last night to Ebi, considering that they had presumably spent the night in the same room. I supposed I should be grateful that she was keeping some confidentiality regarding what had occurred between me and Hina¡ªI was getting derailed.


    ¡°Just because I¡¯m made of LM doesn¡¯t mean I know the tricks.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re lying.¡±


    It would be incredibly embarrassing if she wasn¡¯t, but this was one of the few things I had any confidence in.


    ¡°I am. But it¡¯s basic first-aid that you should learn how to do without tools. Even if you didn¡¯t have your own pain to manage, these things are like half the reason Amethyst can function.¡±


    ¡°You said she applied them herself, though?¡±


    ¡°On good days.¡±


    The appeal to empathy got the better of me. I pushed the thread across the gap between the glyphs, trying to tug it to the approximate range of tension that would get it to resonate with red ripple. It wasn¡¯t so simple as rainbow order; red was on the higher end, between green and white. I tugged as hard as I dared, until the {NULL} I had woven felt like it would burst out of the substrate in a shower of hissing sparks, and backed off on the tension from there until it was at what I hoped was about 80% taut. There were ways of knotting and binding the thread at the end of a glyph to more naturally guide the right amount of tension for this step, but I had only ever interacted with those in the abstracted notation of GWalk diagrams, so I really was going entirely by feel. I was once again struck by the sense that my perspective until now had been too narrow.


    Part of the trick of it was that, like with an actual strand of thread, applying tension made it longer, so even though I thought I was at the right amount of tension, I had overshot the beginning of the {SEVER} substrate. This meant I had to tug on various points further back in the first glyph to increase the tension from that end instead, which made the leading edge too short now, and I kept struggling with it back and forth, beginning to redden under Ebi¡¯s observation. The damn thing was just so fiddly, and¡ªI exhaled in frustration, and it came out as almost a growl.


    ¡°Can this wait until after breakfast?¡±


    ¡°If you think you can handle the pain, sure. Or you could shower now so you can put the prosthetic back on.¡±


    ¡°¡­I¡¯ll take that aspirin.¡±


    ¡ª


    Last night, I had managed to stubbornly limp around my room without my crutches. Today, with the full brunt of the pain in my caramelized stump, that wasn¡¯t an option. It was back to tripod Ezzen for now. We exited the elevator after its single-floor journey to find that Hina had indeed colonized the kitchen. Mixing bowls and measuring cups lay in¡ªwell, my read of her personality would have assumed disarray, but it seemed that she ran a tight ship in this aspect of her life, if nowhere else. Things were stacked fairly neatly, and she was actually in the middle of putting away some spare dishes as we approached. The smell in the air suggested something involving batter. She called out with her back to us.


    ¡°Irasshaimase! Paaaancakes! Hot and fresh! Come get some!¡±


    Something in the cadence of her delivery suggested a history in food service¡ªshe must have had a life before this, strange as that prospect was. She turned to face us, and those blue eyes found mine. For a moment, I was buffeted by a memory of something that had never happened, cracks spiking radially outward¡ª


    ¡°Plain or blueberry?¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°Plain. Or. Blueberry?¡±


    She enunciated each word with a grin. She had done the same thing last night¡ªI was being teased. My eyes slid down from the impossible blue to her lips, then chest covered by an apron reading¡­¡°Eat The Cook.¡± Don¡¯t get caught on the implications of that¡ªstop looking at her boobs¡ªkeep going¡ªI looked instead at the cooking supplies arrayed before her. That had been maybe the longest second of my life.


    ¡°Oh. Um¡ªblueberry, please.¡±


    ¡°You got it.¡± She raised her voice, as though calling out to nonexistent kitchen coworkers. ¡°Blueberry shortstack combo!¡± She turned to Ebi. ¡°And for the lady?¡±


    ¡°Morning, Hina. Amethyst would like blueberry as well, when she¡¯s up and can keep food down. I¡¯ll go get Opal.¡±


    She made for the stairs. She was going to leave me with Hina again? Well¡­maybe that was fine? My own impulses seemed like more of a problem than her, at least right now. Case in point, as I watched the fascinating geometries of Ebi¡¯s back shift as she climbed the stairs, it felt a bit like ogling¡ªeven though she didn¡¯t really have a butt. The moment the robot was out of earshot, Hina purred, leaning onto the counter. I hadn¡¯t noticed with my eyes locked on hers earlier, but she had most of her hair up in a lazy bun, though the hair framing her face was just as it had been yesterday, to my memory.


    ¡°Hey, cutie. Nice shirt.¡±


    I twisted to look for whomever she was talking to, but it was just me¡ªthen looked down at the Sailor Moon shirt Opal had given me last night, blushing. I felt the need to clarify.


    ¡°It¡ªdoesn¡¯t mean anything. You ruined the only other one I had.¡±


    ¡°Yep. Won¡¯t do it to that one, though, it¡¯s one of Alice¡¯s favorites. Mine too. Smells like her.¡± She let that hang for a moment. ¡°Did you sleep okay?¡±


    As per usual, I deflected. It was easier when I was in pain.


    ¡°Um. Well enough, but my leg really hurts. I tried to weave one of those pain blocker patches, but¡­¡±


    ¡°Ebi¡¯s being a bully, got it. Want me to show you?¡±


    I reddened, even knowing that the blatant innuendo was completely intentional. The embarrassment was tempered with relief, though, because I had been worried that whatever strange fetish she had for pain would extend to refusing to help with the damage to my foot.


    ¡°I, um, don¡¯t want to interrupt breakfast¡ª¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll just take a sec.¡± She pointed at a beanbag chair, a medium grey cast warmly by the lights of the common space, soft and inviting compared to the perpetual mild discomfort of the crutches. In the windows beyond, the sun had only just begun to crest the skyscrapers. ¡°Make yourself comfortable.¡±


    I crutch-hobbled over to the indicated bag and gingerly attempted to lower myself into it, dropping myself the last few inches with a thud and wince. It was comfortable enough, but I had wound up being a little more trapped in the plush than I had intended, which triggered the faintest panic response as Hina approached. Black leggings hugged her swaying hips. She leaned down to me at the waist with effortless balance, almost a gymnast¡¯s stretch.


    ¡°No fake foot?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ªEbi said I should clean it first, and I didn¡¯t want to do that before bre¡ªoof.¡±


    I was interrupted by her tossing herself bodily next to me on the beanbag. She rolled to bring her torso against mine, the two of us momentarily half-cocooned as our combined weight pushed the beanbag up around us.


    ¡°Good morning.¡±


    Those blue eyes stared me down from an inch away. My heart was in my throat.


    ¡°Um. Morning. Didn¡¯t¡­didn¡¯t Opal talk to you about¡­?¡±


    ¡°About us? Yeah, but this is medicinal.¡± Her hand slid under my shirt, roving upward to my chest. ¡°Seriously, if you want me to help you weave, I need some up-close access.¡± Her other hand found the scarred fingers of my right, rubbing her thumb against my palm. She was having fun with this. ¡°I mean, that¡¯s totally an excuse, but it¡¯s still true.¡±


    She clawed at my chest, and my Flame responded, lancing down through my arm and into my scars, igniting them once more. My hand spasmed for a moment, and I sucked in a breath. Hina also made a noise, something that sounded suspiciously like a whining moan. I froze.


    ¡°Um.¡±


    She nuzzled me.


    ¡°That was a good sound, don¡¯t worry. Damn, you burn hot.¡±


    She brought her hand around and laced her fingers through mine from the back¡ªmy flames were burning her skin. That¡¯s what she had moaned at? This was why she was willing to help me? Pain for pain, like she had said?


    ¡°Your hand.¡±


    ¡°Mm. Yeah.¡± Her contented sigh was a disturbing juxtaposition to the way her skin was cracking and peeling as the odor of charring meat rose into the air. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. It¡¯s really good. You ready?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªyeah.¡±


    ¡°Good. O¡ªhokay, bring your leg up. Knee to chest, so you can reach the glyphs.¡±


    I complied, feeling a bit ridiculous, but happy to do as she asked. This was as hands-on as it got, and so much less predatory than what we had done last night. Perhaps equally off-putting, with her masochistic obsession with the Flame on full display, but I wasn¡¯t in danger from her here. This was fully cooperative, mutual. Intimate.


    She guided my hand toward the glyph, and even though I couldn¡¯t quite see what was happening down there, I could feel her spinning the flame into thread. It was finer than what I could do myself; the same as what Ai had done yesterday, except the skein wrapped around both our hands, binding them together. She whispered in my ear, breathing harder now.


    ¡°Don¡¯t look at it. Go by feel, you already know the shape, right?¡±


    ¡°Y¡ªyeah.¡± I shut my eyes and tried to visualize the first glyph, the {NULL} with its modified W shape, and¡ª


    ¡°What the hell, Hina.¡±


    ¡°Shhhh. Alice, you know I love you, but shut up, we¡¯re right in the middle of this. Don¡¯t break his focus.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªno, get off of him and come make pancakes.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, just a sec.¡± Hina lowered her voice to whisper to me, a giggle reverberating in her chest. ¡°Ignore her, finish the weave, you can do it.¡±


    I tried. Into the start of the W, then the zigzag, then the ridged spirals that looped over themselves until the middle of the W¡ªI could hear footsteps on the stairs, accompanied in rhythm by a third sound as Opal¡¯s tail thumped with displeasure behind her. How did the next set of spirals go, clockwise or counterclockwise? Hina saw me hesitate.


    ¡°Clockwise. More tension as you come around.¡±


    Right, so that the link wouldn¡¯t be too long. She hummed in approval as I finished the first glyph.


    ¡°Do you know the trick for linking on red?¡±


    I blushed. ¡°Um¡ªno.¡±


    ¡°You just loop at the end of¡ªoh, for fuck¡¯s sake, Alice, let him work.¡± I felt her sit up halfway, tugging my hand away from the patch for a moment. ¡°Sorry, cutie. Keep going! Loop it back through the last two spirals¡ªyeah, good. Listen, Alice, if you want pancakes one minute sooner, the batter¡¯s right there, be my guest.¡±


    One minute? Her expectations of me were high. Also, it was very hard to focus while the label ¡°cutie¡± bounced around in my head, but I gave it a spirited go. My eyes were still closed, but I felt how the trick contorted the end of the W and applied enough tension that the thread wound up being in the right spot, so I didn¡¯t have to guess as I tugged the string across the gap between glyphs. Then it was just a matter of weaving the {SEVER}, which, true to its theme, was a bisected diamond, filled in with more mildly intricate internal designs¡ªbut still nothing particularly difficult, and there was a certain fractal regularity to the shapes, so it was easy enough to remember. Jumping across the bisection to the other side of the diamond was done with a single line, not unlike the inter-glyph link I had just woven from {NULL} to {SEVER}. Then finishing the glyph was just a matter of mirroring the first half¡ªthough done in reverse¡ªand tying off the end.


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    ¡°Good job. Apply it.¡±


    That was Opal, who had evidently resigned herself to watching. I took the trailing end of the thread and¡­


    ¡°Planar, right? So, er¡­through?¡±


    ¡°Yep, like you¡¯re cutting it off!¡±


    Hina didn¡¯t have to sound quite so excited about that. But I took the thread and pulled it taut to the other side of my leg, then dragged it through the limb like cheese wire¡ªI choked, gritting my teeth, squeezing my eyes further shut. The searing pain was too reminiscent of when I had first cauterized this site, even down to the flat plane of separation¡ªand then the pain vanished, as did all other sensation below the point of the patch. The magic had worked. I took a deep breath and relaxed into the plush, savoring the absence of the pain that had been a constant background presence since the moment I had woken up. Hina flopped back down next to me, and I opened my eyes to see that hers were shut as she lay against me. She purred.


    ¡°Good job. That hurt, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Yay!¡± She pulled her hand off of mine as the magic thread dissolved in a hiss, holding it next to mine and splaying out the fingers. She reopened those blue eyes and smiled at me. ¡°We¡¯re twinning!¡±


    Logic dictated she should be in far more pain than me, with the way her hand was already blistering, but I¡¯d never have guessed from her peppy tone or beatific grin. The only indicator was how a wince flickered across her face as she brought her hand up¡ªand flipped off Opal, who was standing over us. The dragon did not look pleased; her brow was furrowed atop those almost-incandescent orange gems with their slitted pupils, and her mouth was pursed in a not-quite-frown.


    ¡°Pancakes. Not¡ªthis. Christ, Hina.¡±


    Her lack of concern for the actual state of Hina¡¯s hand was remarkable. The nauseatingly familiar stench of burned meat in the air spoke for itself, and yet neither Radiance seemed concerned at the sight that would have had me running for the cold water and looking up directions to the hospital. The girl snuggling next to me chirped back at her teammate, equally heedless of the injury.


    ¡°Yep, mhm, on it.¡±


    There was a whoosh of air as the space next to me was suddenly vacated; Sapphire had pulled herself to her feet and across the room in one motion, with no leverage. As I reeled from the momentary disorientation, I swore I felt the ghost of her lips on my cheek. Opal¡¯s frown deepened, and she sighed¡ªthen seemed to decide to put it behind her, offering me a hand, clean and well-manicured, a far cry from the old damage inflicted on mine or the fresh burns on Hina¡¯s. I stared dumbly at the outstretched limb for a moment.


    ¡°Uh¡ª¡±


    ¡°Food first. Yelling after.¡±


    A girl had to have priorities, I supposed. I took her hand, and she pulled me to my feet¡ªwell, just the one¡ªand helped me back onto the crutches. It was only a few steps over to the low table Hina had originally indicated before I sat again on one of the pillows, also with Opal¡¯s assistance. She sat to my left and pulled her laptop out of¡ªpocketspace? I still wasn¡¯t entirely used to the way that they could just summon objects at will.


    ¡°How¡¯s Amethyst?¡±


    ¡°Stable. She probably won¡¯t come down for breakfast, but she¡¯ll be able to eat.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡±


    Good? Of course it was good, so it was a rather lame comment. I resisted the urge to cringe and fumbled for my phone instead.


    ¡°Your post caused some headache this morning.¡±


    My brow furrowed. ¡°The PCTF already knows I¡¯m here, don¡¯t they?¡±


    ¡°Just because you¡¯re not an active kidnapping risk doesn¡¯t mean you can go around leaking information. We were going to do teasers and official announcements and stuff, and you¡¯ve gotten out ahead on that.¡± She put up a hand placatingly. ¡°I¡¯m not yelling at you, I should have said something last night. Just a¡­miscommunication, left-hand-right-hand disconnect. Your post is still good PR, just ahead of schedule.¡±


    The smell of cooking pancakes reached our noses simultaneously, and she looked over at the kitchen. Hina hadn¡¯t asked for Opal¡¯s preference like she had for me¡ªbut then, she probably already knew. The scent was soon joined by something meaty, probably sausages, which helped banish the smell of callously burned flesh. Or maybe not callous, rather¡­well, the whole affair had been intentional in a distressingly masochistic sense, for sure, but she had also been¡­staking a claim? That was what it had sort of felt like: pushing back against Opal¡¯s moratorium on unwanted intimacy. It hadn¡¯t been unwanted, I realized. It had been¡­fun? I was proud of the weaving, if nothing else, and having Hina so willing to snuggle up against me was¡­


    Complicated, is what it was. I shook off the train of thought. What had Opal been saying about PR? I reread the post I had made and the sleepy replies from later in the night. In the burgeoning light of day, I could see how I had overshared a bit; nothing overly sensitive, but if they had been planning to make it more of a reveal¡­


    ¡°Um. Sorry.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we¡¯ll work it out. Did you sleep well, at least?¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to mention that her yelling at Hina had woken me up, but there had been the other thing. ¡°The¡­shaking woke me up. Not an earthquake, Ebi said?¡±


    ¡°Amane.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    Amethyst had shaken the entire building¡­as a side effect? I wasn¡¯t about to ask, and Opal didn¡¯t volunteer any more information.


    ¡°Drinks. What do you want? Coffee, tea, juice?¡±


    ¡°What kind of tea?¡±


    She got up. ¡°Let me check. Yuuka¡¯s the only one who drinks it in the morning, so¡­¡±


    While she ambled over to the kitchen, tail waving behind her, I checked in with my friends. It was a decidedly different crowd in the chatroom from my usual mornings, owing to the time difference.


    ezzen: Morning


    DendriteSpinner: oh damn it would be morning for you, huh


    DendriteSpinner: hows lighthouse


    ezzen: Pancakes and paperwork, apparently.


    Opal called over from the kitchen.


    ¡°Jasmine, Earl Grey, chamomile.¡±


    ¡°Earl Grey, splash of milk¡­please.¡±


    Nice save, Ez. I did some quick time zone calculations in my head.


    ezzen: Star¡¯s asleep, probably?


    moth30: hi ez


    moth30: and yeah probs


    moth30: whats cookin


    ezzen: I might be doing some tourism today. Seek to harass her with photos.


    DendriteSpinner: lol


    Hina brought over the first batch of pancakes, a three-stack of blueberry for me with a pair of sausages on the side. The pancakes were decidedly American diner-style, buttermilk, rather than the fluffy Japanese ones I had seen floating around the internet. I was quite alright with that; I was sure I¡¯d more than exceed my quota for Weird Japanese Stuff today anyways. A pad of butter sat atop the stack, melting into savory gold. My stomach growled.


    ¡°Omataseshimashita! Blueberry shortstack combo. Your drink will be out shortly.¡±


    She delivered the plate with a food-service smile and a wink. I thanked her in a mutter. She reached toward me¡ªpaused as Opal tutted faintly at her from the kitchen¡ªretracted the hand in a rare display of sheepishness, but didn¡¯t lose the grin. The blisters were already fading, the most explicit sign yet of how her body had been altered. That was an order of magnitude faster than even the eightfold acceleration I had been under when I had first arrived at Todai, and it was innate for her.


    ¡°Want anything else, cutie? We have fruit.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t getting any more used to the label. ¡°I¡ªthis is good, for now?¡±


    ¡°Mhm.¡± She went back toward the kitchen, barking something at Opal in Japanese, who replied in an equally aggravated tone as she put the kettle on. Were they fighting over me? No, that was far too self-centered. I wasn¡¯t worth that.


    The pancakes were fluffy without being dry, infused with the sweetness of the blueberries. The sausages, pan-fried, had a satisfying snap and burst of fatty juiciness to balance against the sweetness. Hina was a good cook, it seemed¡ªthough not as good as Dad. His pancake recipe included a splash of maple syrup in the batter, and he had always served them with jam or preserves instead for a wider range of flavor. The nostalgia stung a bit, like it always did. These were good too, though.


    I refocused on the chatroom as I doused the topmost pancake with syrup and spread it around with a sausage speared upon a fork.


    OverloadTSS: yo ezzen


    OverloadTSS: saw the post


    OverloadTSS: what the fuck, dude


    ezzen: Right?


    In light of the headache I had already caused for Opal, I wasn¡¯t sure if I should say anything more. Besides, my hands were mainly occupied with the task of eating.


    moth30: yooooooooo


    moth30: ezzen-lighthouse collab papers incoming


    ezzen: Well a lot of it is classified but


    ezzen: There¡¯ll be something, I think.


    OverloadTSS: that rocks


    moth30: hey overload


    OverloadTSS: heya


    ezzen: Apparently I shouldn¡¯t have said anything until they made the announcement?


    ezzen: But cat¡¯s out of the bag now so


    ezzen: Feel free to include it in this week¡¯s roundup Overload.


    OverloadTSS: oof i was almost done editing it


    OverloadTSS: next week, probably


    OverloadTSS: might do a whole special on your flamefall depending on how the gulf clusterfuck turns out


    OverloadTSS: will DM in a bit


    ezzen: Sounds good


    Opal returned with a steaming mug in each hand. She passed one to me as she sat back down her pillow, extending her tail out behind her and laying it flat on the carpet. It slid slowly back and forth on the carpet behind her¡ªI bet that felt great. Lit by the kitchen¡¯s warm lights behind me and the growing daylight coming through the window, her scales glittered with the motion. It really was a huge limb, almost an extension of her torso. My eyes naturally followed it up her body.


    She was dressed as skimpy as yesterday but not as form-hugging, just loose short shorts and a tank top, the latter half-pushed up around her waist to accommodate the extra limb coming out of her back. Her white hair was a little unruly, reflective like her tail¡ªmine was worse, surely, longer and wavier than hers. And I hadn¡¯t showered in¡­three days. Ugh. My stubble was also getting just long enough to start itching. Had they given me a razor? Probably not. I was a mess compared to the two; even in this candid, domestic setting, the Radiances really were laughably, intimidatingly pretty. Opal didn¡¯t transfix me in the same way as Hina, but she still drew the eye. What was it like to be so effortlessly attractive?


    I realized I had spent too long looking at her when she caught my eye over the edge of her laptop screen.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡±


    I averted my gaze back to the plate in front of me, reddening as I sipped my tea. I had to stop ogling these girls, unusual anatomy or not.


    We sat in silence for another couple of minutes until Hina brought over Opal¡¯s plate. This one was towering with pancakes¡ªeight? They looked plain, but I got a distinct whiff of cinnamon as the mountain made tablefall.


    ¡°Omataseshimashita! Dragon special.¡±


    Hina also delivered a small plate of sausages and a bowl of fruit, kiwi and mango. All told, it was an intimidating amount of food, far too much for one person, but Opal dug in immediately, tail thumping happily behind her. I watched with fascination and no small amount of horror as three of the pancakes and four sausages disappeared down her gullet in the first minute; only then did she stop, wipe her mouth, and sip her coffee.


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    That was for Hina, who had remained to observe the gobbling. She nodded, satisfied.


    ¡°Love you too!¡±


    She bounced back toward the kitchen and got to work on another serving¡ªprobably her own. Opal rolled her eyes at that, though the hint of a smile might have crossed her lips for a moment. I experienced the most absurd twinge of jealousy at Hina¡¯s affections being directed toward her teammate and self-admitted best friend. I chided myself; that was entirely unwarranted, given our prior cuddle-tutoring and the memory of her lips brushing my cheek mere minutes ago, to say nothing of last night¡¯s exchange of words and spit. Part of me was still reeling at how fast things were moving between us.


    My stomach had simpler priorities. I had worked through two of my pancakes and all my sausages and was eyeing Opal¡¯s fruit a little covetously as I sliced another chunk off my final pancake. Should I flag down Hina? No, she was in the middle of making more pancakes; she might already be waiting on me literally hand and foot, but I still hated feeling like a bother. I should just ask Opal for one of hers; she hadn¡¯t touched them yet, still progressing down her stack of sugar and sin at an alarming pace. I pointed at the halved kiwi with my fork.


    ¡°Are¡­you going to get to that?¡±


    Opal¡¯s mouth was full, but she waved assent. She followed it up with verbal confirmation after a hefty swallow.


    ¡°Go for it. You like kiwis?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re okay.¡±


    ¡°So, not your favorite.¡±


    The conversation hung for a beat before I realized it had been a question.


    ¡°Raspberries.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªthey¡¯re juicy.¡± There was more to it than that¡ªa trip to Oregon with my dad¡ªbut I was supposed to ask her something now instead of talking about myself. ¡°Yours?¡±


    She speared the remaining fruit in the bowl, hoisting the cubed slice aloft as a visual aid.


    ¡°Mango. Good for smoothies. Apples are nice too, though more as an ingredient than raw, you know?¡±


    I nodded. ¡°I like apple crumble.¡±


    Another thing I hadn¡¯t eaten since that day. Opal was oblivious to the dark thought.


    ¡°My dad¡¯s side of the family is from Aomori, up north, which is a major apple region. When we go visit, they always make a bunch of apple stuff. Apple pie, apple katsu, cider, a bunch of types of¡­juice¡­¡± She trailed off as my shoulders tightened. Suddenly I wasn¡¯t hungry, but I kept chewing mechanically.


    ¡°Er, Ezzen?¡±


    In hindsight, Hina had noticed as well. I didn¡¯t wind up having to explain my reaction to either of them¡ªeven though I probably ought to¡ªbecause at that moment the elevator opened. I twisted to see Ai trudging toward us, wearing the same clothes as yesterday and looking dead on her feet. Hina chirped something at her. She didn¡¯t respond and just zombied her way over toward us. Instead of stopping at the table, though, she went just past us to the sofa behind Opal and flopped face-first.


    ¡°Uh?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s fine.¡± Opal turned to look at her teammate and said something to her in Japanese, which only made the Emerald Radiance stir slightly with a grunt. Opal turned back to me. ¡°Your stabilizer is done.¡±


    But at what cost? Hina brought another plate of pancakes and a glass of¡­protein shake, maybe, to a vacant side of the table, to Opal¡¯s left and opposite from me. Then she put her hands on her hips and strode over to Ai, whose breathing had already steadied out. She was fast asleep and in the process of becoming one with the cushions. Hina sighed.


    ¡°What do you think? Let her sleep?¡±


    ¡°She missed dinner. She¡¯ll wake up hangry.¡±


    ¡°She was snacking all night.¡±


    ¡°On senbei, not actual food.¡±


    I surreptitiously looked up the word¡ªrice crackers, residents of that lowest rung of nutrition, kin to popcorn and other such crunchy, insubstantial snacks.


    ¡°What do you think, cutie?¡±


    I shifted in my chair. ¡°Why¡¯s it my call?¡±


    ¡°Like you haven¡¯t done this before.¡±


    Somehow, Hina had me dead to rights¡ªAi¡¯s state was so familiar as to be functionally identical to the nights I had spent working through a bag of crisps, until either I cracked the problem or exhaustion won. Was I that easy to read? Wait¡ªhadn¡¯t Hina been helping and therefore also stayed up during the night? How was she so peppy? Maybe she was just a morning person.


    ¡°Um. Fair. Let her sleep and keep the food warm so it¡¯s easy when she wakes up?¡±


    That was a luxury I had never had myself, living alone. Waking up groggy at some random time of day after a marathon like that was always a matter of groping for the nearest, most easily accessible snack food, rather than a nice, real meal. I was jealous¡ªthen realized this VIP treatment would also apply to me, were I to stay up and work with Ai. For some reason, that made me blush.


    ¡°Mhm! That¡¯s what I¡¯d do, too. But since it¡¯s your call, we can say later that you let her oversleep. Not my fault!¡±


    I was too meek to object to that directly¡ªbut I didn¡¯t have to anyway.


    ¡°Knock it off, Hina.¡± Opal made a dismissive motion with her fork in the direction of her teammate. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about her. It¡¯s a Sunday; Ai can sleep in. I¡¯m only taking you to Tochou for paperwork today because the Ministry is essentially screaming at me to do so, otherwise I¡¯d just put it off until tomorrow.¡±


    Hina came back over to us, sitting immediately to my right. There was only enough space for her to get one leg under the table as she splayed out a little bit. ¡°Proper nouns, Alice. Also, no, I¡¯m not touching him, see?¡±


    ¡°I can see. Good job. Uh¡ªproper nouns, yes, right. Tochou is the big government building downtown, the one for the whole city rather than the individual wards. The Ministry is who we answer to, technically.¡±


    I was, tragically, not the type to take notes on this sort of thing. In hindsight, I probably should have, but I had faith in Opal¡¯s general put-togetherness.


    ¡°What are we actually doing there?¡±


    ¡°Honestly, mostly just getting the ball rolling on immigration and Register paperwork¡ªthat¡¯s the National Flamebearer Register. We¡¯ll have to do some bureaucracy back-and-forth for¡­well, our people said probably the next week, before we can officially make you a Todai employee. It won¡¯t be hard on your end, just signing stuff. If we have time, I¡¯d also like to take you up to the skydeck up there.¡±


    ¡°Hey! I wanted to do that!¡±


    ¡°¡­You hate going to Tochou.¡±


    ¡°Well, it would have been Skytree, probably. But I had a whole list of must-see stuff I wanted to take him to, and today¡¯s perfect! Next weekend will be the fucking Hikanome thing, so we won¡¯t get the chance to give him the tourist experience before¡ª¡±


    ¡°Hina.¡±


    ¡°¡ªwhatever Peacie pencil-pusher shows up to plead his case with the Ministry or the Bureau because then we¡¯ll get into a whole custody battle and¡ª¡±


    ¡°Hina.¡± This time, Opal¡¯s eyes flashed. ¡°I¡¯m not letting you drag him around Tokyo¡ªbefore his foot is better.¡±


    ¡°I heard that pause. And his foot is better!¡± Hina pointed triumphantly at Ai¡¯s sleeping form. ¡°We did the stabilizer! Please, Alice. We¡¯ll even be productive, get him a Suica and show him how to use it and he really needs some clothes and it¡¯ll be fun and¡­¡±


    She trailed off, making puppy eyes at Opal, whose expression had adopted a certain well-worn weariness as she pinched the bridge of her nose. I raised my hand tentatively.


    ¡°Um. Custody battle? The PCTF doesn¡¯t go after flamebearers who are associated with another group.¡±


    The Spire would give them hell for it¡ªand I was indeed becoming rather attached to Todai, in more ways than one. Hina poked my shoulder.


    ¡°Naive. You¡¯re a catch, cutie, they¡¯re not going to let you go that easily. It should be today, Alice, and I¡¯m free. You have your thing at one, Ai¡¯s going to be asleep until sundown, Yuuka¡¯s not even in the country, and Amane¡¯s sick.¡±


    Opal looked between us and flicked something at Hina from across the table, who recoiled with a yip.


    ¡°He doesn¡¯t need the ¡®tourist experience¡¯. He¡¯ll see plenty of Tokyo as we run errands anyway.¡±


    ¡°Not the fun parts! And he does need clothes, unless you¡¯re going to keep lending him your old shirts and skirts until you can fit him into your schedule.¡±


    I was getting just a little tired of being talked about like I wasn¡¯t there, but all I really mustered was a mutter. ¡°I¡¯m not wearing a skirt. You said no dress-up.¡±


    ¡°Necessity, not dress-up. It¡¯ll be skirts by tomorrow if we don¡¯t buy you some clothes. I don¡¯t think any of us own pants that fit you.¡±


    Alice¡¯s expression at last deepened into a proper frown, just a smidge stormy. ¡°What do you mean she said?¡±


    Hina blinked at me with those big, blue eyes. Of all the times for her to be in prompt-mode¡ª


    ¡°Last night, we, uh¡­made plans for today.¡±


    I flushed with embarrassment, both from the mortifying ordeal of having my intentions known in a general sense and from nerves about the confrontation that was surely about to erupt. Opal¡¯s tail did a little slithering motion behind her, and she radiated heat for a moment, slitted eyes aglow¡ªthen dimmed, settling down.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to go out with her for her to pick up some clothes for you, if that¡¯s your main concern. I could even just send somebody to do it, and she doesn¡¯t have to be part of the process at all.¡±


    ¡°Alice¡­¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re buying him pants so you can get in them later. Am I wrong?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªI¡¯m trying to be helpful. Do you want me to meet with the merch team instead so you can go shopping with him?¡±


    ¡°God, no.¡± She sighed. ¡°You know what¡ªfine. Hina. You are not to touch him. Don¡¯t give me more headaches today with your feral¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I know, Ebi already threatened me with you if I hurt him. He¡¯s in good hands, Alice, I promise. You can hand him off to me after you¡¯re done at Tochou, it¡¯s no biggie. Here, just for your benefit¡ª¡± She turned to me, an uncharacteristically serious look on her face. ¡°Ezzen, I promise I will respect your physical and emotional well-being for the duration of our outing. No unwanted physical contact, no barging into your changing room, no dragging you into a love hotel for a quickie.¡±


    I blinked. What? Opal took a long sip of her coffee. Hina leaned in toward her; her tail would have been wagging if she had one. Opal¡¯s more literal tail had gone still.


    ¡°Good start, but as long as we¡¯re doing things for my peace of mind: Ezzen. I still do not think this is a good idea, vis-a-vis your foot. I understand she didn¡¯t exactly, er, give you the opportunity to approach the topic with a level head last night. Are you sure?¡±


    Hina pouted. ¡°Yeah, have this conversation right in front of me, why don¡¯t you.¡±


    Who was she to talk? They had had half of this conversation as though I wasn¡¯t here, not that I had quite the fortitude¡ªor callousness¡ªto return the favor. I was barely managing to stop myself from being sucked into Hina¡¯s eyes as it was.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­¡±


    ¡°Aw, cutie, don¡¯tcha¡ª¡±


    ¡°You, shut up. Let him think.¡±


    ¡°Aw. Fine!¡±


    This was my opportunity to back out, with Opal¡¯s full knowledge of the situation and without the reason-fogging cocktail of fear and desire of last night¡­Okay, no, I had to come clean, if only to myself. I still wanted Hina. I wanted her to call me ¡°cutie¡± more and feel her against me and I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about the last thing, the part about love hotels. If I asked, would she¡ª


    I peeled my thoughts away from that sticky, sweaty possibility with the help of the one additional stipulation we had decided last night, right before things had turned steamy. Well, that sort of undercut what I was about to say, but I still stood by it. I had to.


    ¡°¡­We agreed it wasn¡¯t a date. I¡¯ll¡ªhold you to that.¡±


    Opal seemed¡­¡®skeptical¡¯ was a word, but so was ¡®out of fucks to give¡¯. Well, that was five words, but the point is that the fight left her.


    ¡°You know what? Good enough. At least we don¡¯t have to worry about her mantling up like Yuuka.¡±


    ¡°Yep! I hate the attention, so out there I¡¯m, uh¡­Hinata Suzuha, normal human. Who¡¯s Radiance Sapphire? I¡¯ve only seen the first four seasons of Precure! What even is ripple propagation?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t start with that again.¡±


    And that was that. Opal apparently did trust Hina to her word. Was she right to trust mine? I didn¡¯t know. She made the plan official with some click-clack on her keyboard.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s in the calendar. Wait, did I not share that with you yesterday? Hold on.¡±


    She sent me a link, and lo, there it was, slotted between Alice+Ezzen Paperwork (10AM-12PM) and Group Call w/ Yuuka (7PM-8PM):


    Hina+Ezzen Shopping (NOT A DATE!) (12PM-5PM).


    I appreciated the clarification, though Hina¡¯s apparent disregard¡ªdisdain, perhaps¡ªfor calendars made me doubt that it would meaningfully limit her behavior. Some tension left my body as the conversation de-escalated and we returned to eating. Well, actually, just Opal. I still had half a pancake to go, but my appetite had been murdered by dark thoughts earlier and then buried by the argument, and Hina had¡ªnot eaten anything this whole time? She didn¡¯t even have a plate. I frowned, offering her my scraps hesitantly.


    ¡°Did you eat before we came down?¡±


    ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t¡ªwow, I guess it hasn''t come up yet, huh. I don¡¯t eat much. Or sleep much. Perks of my body. And you can have that too, cutie, if you just¡ªwhoa¡ª¡±


    Suddenly, she was leaning on me, already making another attraction-based assault on my moral compass, presenting another temptation to become more and reject the limitations of my flesh, to become more like her though indulging mutual pain to feed my Flame¡ª


    Something clanged against the metal railing of the stairs, and I flinched, twisting just in time to see Opal¡¯s fork ricochet into the floor, penetrating the hardwood prongs-first. It was a little mutilated by the journey. I needed a moment to unravel exactly what had occurred. My thoughts had spiraled to the wrong conclusion shockingly quickly. Wishful thinking? In reality, Hina hadn¡¯t been tempting me with her body¡ªwell, maybe she had, but the lean had just been her dodging the wrathful projectile. I turned back to Opal¡ªwho had vanished from her seat. A draconic growl came from right behind us as a well-manicured hand peeled Hina off of me. I shivered.


    ¡°Ezzen, this is an object lesson. Hina is scary as shit, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Y¡ªyeah?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s not the only one. I¡¯ve got your back. If she breaks her word, or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you tell me. I¡¯m serious; text me and I¡¯ll come pick you up and throw her in the bay.¡±

 From On High // 1.09

    The shower had a fold-out seat that allowed me to reach the burn on my foot without a perilous balancing act or sitting directly on the floor. Hot water cascaded off my back as I bent over, scrubbing gingerly around my burn. It was ugly: bloody reds and pinks dominated where new flesh was in the process of replacing old, while the edge was still covered in off-white blisters with hints of brown and purple, a decidedly medical palette. I was grateful I couldn¡¯t feel it thanks to the patch, both in general and when I ran it directly under the shower head to scour off any bits of dead flesh that seemed ready to part ways after being softened by the stream.


    The seat was a little incongruous with the accommodations I was still lacking, like how they didn¡¯t even have spare clothes for me, but Ebi had explained that all the bathrooms had one, a holdover from the building¡¯s past as a hospital. There were also several bars along the walls, which I had found indispensable in making it to the seat. My old bathroom wouldn¡¯t have been big enough for them to be necessary, but here it was easily four steps to cross from the entrance of the unit bath¡ªwhat Ebi had called the inner bathing chamber, containing equal halves shower and bath¡ªto the controls for the water. Outside was the basin, suspiciously high-tech toilet, and towels in a pure white that was again reminiscent of a hotel, like the rest of my apartment.


    Fiddling with the knobs for the shower had taken a few tries to get hot water coming out of the shower head. First it was cold water in the bath, then hot water in the bath, then a knob that seemingly did nothing, and then finally hot water from the shower. I¡¯d then had to flick through the shower¡¯s pressure settings to find one that was gentle enough for my injury; there were at least eight. At last, I¡¯d been able to luxuriate for several minutes as I got the sweat and general ick off of my body. Normally, I¡¯d rush through the process to save water, but that wasn¡¯t a concern at all here, and I wasn¡¯t in that much of a hurry to get dry and dressed. I was still processing what had just happened.


    Opal¡¯s display hadn¡¯t turned into a fight¡ªmy stunned silence had given way to Hina clapping happily.


    ¡°She¡¯s so cool, right?¡±


    ¡°Apologies. Just need to remind Hina that she¡¯s not the only superhuman in the room.¡±


    Hina rubbed her head into Opal¡¯s hand even as it separated her from me.


    ¡°Aw, you know I know! You¡¯re hotter than me, even.¡±


    The dragon retreated from the affection, retracting her hand.


    ¡°Well, point made, I think. Ezzen, want some fruit?¡±


    Both of the women seemed not to give the sudden burst of violence any more thought. From my decidedly mortal perspective, Opal had nearly given me a heart attack. My spear had found its way into my hand on pure instinct, but it was far too unwieldy with my legs folded under the table¡ªonly one of which was really functional anyway¡ªand I had hastily unsummoned it as soon as it had emerged, blushing. Damn that reflex. I was not at all a fan of how the spear was becoming a fear-boner signaling those emotions. Even with a fully functional foot, my gut said it¡¯d be useless against these two. Hina¡¯s third lesson¡ª¡°don¡¯t escalate to violence when outgunned¡±¡ªwas ringing uncomfortably insightful. She¡¯d be easier to brush off if she were wrong.


    I sighed, feeling the water cascade down from my neck and shoulders, nice and hot. This apartment was far better insulated from the winter chill than my old one had been, so there wasn¡¯t a real need to warm up my extremities, but it was still a pleasant objection against the tyranny of the seasons. I lathered shampoo into my mop of brown hair, some floral product borrowed from one of the girls¡¯ stashes. The body wash and face wash were of similar quality; the three were a substantial upgrade from the all-in-one stuff I had been using before, with its cheap lemon scent and rather remarkable inability to properly clean my shaggy, thick hair. Well, it had gotten it clean well enough, but the texture was a far cry from the visible softness and glossiness of Hina¡¯s. She and Opal had both noticed the somewhat dry and stringy texture while cleaning up from breakfast.


    ¡°Your hair¡¯s a mess, cutie. Do you use any product?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªI mean, I wash it.¡±


    ¡°I can see that. No conditioner?¡±


    ¡°No?¡±


    ¡°Blah.¡±


    She hurt my eyes by reaching into another non-space and feeling around for a moment, blue irises looking up and brow furrowed like she was trying to recall something. After a moment, she retracted a small bottle, still embalmed in shrink wrap.


    ¡°Behold! One of my spares.¡±


    She handed it to me, her hand brushing mine ever-so-briefly. I knew that was intentional because of the wink. Opal called out from where she was loading dishes into the dishwasher; another luxury I hadn¡¯t had until now.


    ¡°How¡¯s he gonna carry that on his crutches? And get it out of the shrink wrap for him, at least.¡±


    ¡°Oh, yeah.¡±


    Hina took the bottle back from me. Instead of puncturing the wrapper open with a fingernail or one of a hundred ways with magic, she brought it up to her mouth, found a place at its neck where the plastic spanned taut over a hollow space, and bit through it, tearing the wrapper off with her mouth. She never broke eye contact with me as she peeled it away from the bottle with her fangs and lips. Opal audibly sighed¡ªimpressive, given the distance and the water now running from the faucet as she rinsed something.


    ¡°Ezzen, give her explicit permission to put it in your room. This is a good exercise.¡±


    I was put on the spot, more enraptured by the ministrations of Hina¡¯s mouth than I¡¯d like to admit.


    ¡°Please put that in¡ªin my room.¡±


    ¡°Sure thing.¡±


    Opal called after her as she hopped to her feet.


    ¡°Throw in some of your shampoo too!¡±


    Hina jogged toward the stairs with a thumbs-up. She could probably have just teleported herself or the conditioner, but the vigor with which she ascended suggested a certain enjoyment of the physical activity. The puppy needed her walkies.


    Opal came back toward me, leaning against the kitchen island.


    ¡°Okay, while she¡¯s gone¡ªspeak freely. I meant what I said. You¡¯re comfortable around her? If not¡­¡±


    I didn¡¯t know if ¡°comfortable¡± was accurate, per Opal¡¯s specific threat, but I didn¡¯t feel inherently endangered by her. Or maybe¡­I did, and I liked that? I was no closer to detangling the disturbing prospect than I had been when I had gone to sleep last night, but maybe spending more time with her would clarify things.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But I think I can manage, today.¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡± She shrugged. ¡°She can be a lot. You¡¯re alright with spending time with her today, then?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± I thought for a moment. It wasn¡¯t like me to ask these things, but¡ª¡°Are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­no, I¡¯m not sure I am. If you don¡¯t mind me saying so: right now, you¡¯re delicate. I certainly wasn¡¯t alright for weeks after being flametouched, and I had my family and Hina and Ai for support while we figured out¡­everything. I feel obligated to extend that same level of support to you. And so does Hina, she¡¯s just¡­¡±


    ¡°Hina.¡±


    ¡°Quite. Well, if you¡¯re committed.¡± A wry smile crossed her face. ¡°I get it. She¡¯s pretty.¡±


    I reddened. Hina smothered my retort with her return, vaulting clean over the balcony and landing with only the lightest tap on the hardwood. Opal smoothly changed the topic.


    ¡°Gosh, your hair really is a mess. You¡¯ve got no idea how to take care of it, huh?¡±


    ¡°Er¡­not really. I do wash it every day.¡±


    That was a lie¡ªparticularly bad self-care weeks could have me going days on end without bathing. Hina called me on it.


    ¡°No, you don¡¯t. Twice a week at most, I think.¡± She saw me shrink a bit, caught in the fib, ¡°¡ªwhich is good! That¡¯s actually how much you should be doing it, you¡¯re just not using the right product for hair as thick as yours.¡±


    I sat there, avoiding their eyes, face burning. Hina trotted over to me and knelt at my side.


    ¡°Hey, there¡¯s nothing wrong with learning how to take better care of yourself. You were a hikikomori before, right?¡±


    ¡°Hina.¡±


    ¡°What? It¡¯s true. Hardly ever went out except for groceries.¡±


    I knew that word. It was humiliating to admit, but the lack of judgment in those blue eyes was compelling.


    ¡°That obvious?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. Y¡¯know, Alice used to be the same? Went straight home after school, no social life, couldn¡¯t stand up for herself¡ª¡±


    ¡°Hina!¡±


    Opal had barked that loudly enough to stop her teammate short. The hyena twisted, and the two looked at each other for a moment, communicating something I couldn¡¯t understand. Hina turned back to me.


    ¡°Anyway. What I¡¯m getting at is that you¡¯ll feel better about yourself once you start taking care of this.¡± She ran her fingers through my hair, twirling a clump between her fingers. Then she leaned in all the way, burying her nose in it, and sniffed, earning a disapproving noise from Opal. She didn¡¯t move, half-leaning onto me. I was distinctly aware of her breast against my shoulder.


    Opal¡¯s voice was droll. ¡°Get off him so he can go clean up.¡±


    ¡°Aw, fine.¡± She detached herself from me and wandered back over to the kitchen. ¡°You heard her, cutie.¡±


    Which brought me here, sitting with a soaped-up cranium while the conditioner bottle loomed ominously on one of the shelves next to me. They had been a little oddly insistent about it, now that I thought about it. My gut said to resist¡­because they were telling me to take better care of myself? That didn¡¯t map. I wasn¡¯t such a shitty teenager as to wallow in my filth out of spite¡ªjust laziness and lack of clear incentive. Plus, I hadn¡¯t been a teenager for almost a year. The point was, if I was going to be living with this gaggle of feminine celebrities, the least I could do was maintain basic hygiene¡ªbut no further. I refused to let Hina force me into new styles and flashy haircuts in pursuit of a makeover, and from there it would be a slippery slope into hour-long morning routines and closets full of clothes that needed dry-cleaning rather than machine washing. I didn¡¯t want to spend that much effort on how I looked.


    I stretched my legs, digging my heels against the white tiling. Breakfast sat heavy in my belly as I arched my back until my head bumped the shower wall. I sat there, shrouded in the steam, savoring the gentle spray of water from on high onto my stomach and legs. With my foot silenced, the one thing intruding on my relaxation was the marks Hina had left on my shoulder. It was a mild, inoffensive pain, only notable by contrast to the animal comforts in which I had immersed myself. I felt a dribble of shampoo work its way down my temple toward the outer corner of my eye and leaned forward to douse my head, scrubbing vigorously and shaking like a wet dog until the stream onto my lap ran clear.


    Body, hair, face¡ªwith all parts of me clean and rinsed, I leaned back against the wall once more. The hiss of the water¡¯s spray was a soothing blanket of white noise for my thoughts, the secure isolation of the room a chance to really decompress. I felt at the scars on the back of my right hand, remembering the months of physical therapy and the perpetual glances swiftly averted. Hina¡¯s hand had healed to flawless, supple skin in minutes. If I changed as much as her¡ªhowever that worked, something I hoped to discuss but was unsure I¡¯d be able to bring up¡ªwould these scars disappear? Would my right side finally mirror my left again?


    It was sort of moot either way, since I now had the tattoo marking my left arm. In that sense, there was already sort of a symmetry, marked on both arms by the flame; I supposed it had been stronger for the brief period I had a burn scar there instead of the tattoo. The now-erased scar had represented a mistake, a self-inflicted way of proving to myself that I¡¯d be able to brave the dangers of being a flamebearer. At some subconscious level, I had already understood the role of pain. I¡¯d cauterized the box cutter¡¯s bloody wake with magic, filled my flesh with my weapon of choice.


    The deed had forced me to act faster than otherwise¡ªperhaps without taking time for the spear and producing that ripple, I could have made it to the Gate, and none of it would have turned out like this. I¡¯d have gone to the Spire and become¡­and that¡¯s where my thoughts always got caught. Surely, as a magic hobbyist of some renown and now also a flamebearer, there must be somewhere in the Spire for me. Perhaps I would be offered living conditions better than my old apartment¡ªbut that was true here as well.


    So really, the biggest difference would be that I wouldn¡¯t have Hina breathing down my neck. I insisted on thinking of that as an upgrade, denial made temporarily possible by the warmth of the water and steam supplanting that of her body and her Flame. More than anything, that aspect of all of this remained feeling unreal. Being whisked to the other side of the planet by a VNT group wasn¡¯t quite unprecedented, but being courted¡­seduced? Hunted by one of them? It just wasn¡¯t the kind of thing that happened to real people. She wasn¡¯t actually attracted to me, just my flame. Hell, that might even have been why she agreed that it wasn¡¯t a date. What was it, then? In no world could I call us friends, and it wasn¡¯t technically like she was a coworker, not yet¡ªwhat of the souvenirs she had left on my shoulder, stinging under the water? How did they fit in?


    I was overthinking. I was getting too caught up in the labels. She was neither puppy nor hyena, and this was neither date nor not-date. I knew my feelings would blur once I killed the water and stepped out, that the distant throb of the bite marks would continue catalyzing the fear-laced desire, that the moment I stepped out of the bathroom I would once more be subject to political and magical forces far beyond my ken, that winter¡¯s chill would again creep into my burned fingers. Hina had insinuated as much, earlier, when she had mentioned that the PCTF would be pushing their claim on me. When push came to shove, if I had to choose between only them or Todai¡ªat that moment, I thought I¡¯d choose Todai.


    These apprehensions didn¡¯t quite matter yet, though. I had paperwork first. I stretched again, bringing one knee up to my chest while extending the opposite leg, twisting my torso for a warm sensation of released tension along my back. I did it again on the other side, and while nothing made an audible pop, the musculature had definitely loosened, especially at the base of my spine and in my obliques. Along with the rest of the posterior chain, they were important for stability to put any real power behind a weapon as large as a spear. Besides, taking care of your back was important when you spent twelve hours a day sitting in front of a computer. I relaxed under the stream once more.


    ¡°Thank fuck for free hot water.¡±


    It then occurred to me that it probably wasn¡¯t actually free, not on the macro scale, since it presumably came out of Opal¡¯s pocket.


    ¡°Thanks, Opal. Alice? Bluh. The dragon.¡±


    My gratitude corrected, I turned off the shower head to save her money, listening to the hiss reduce to the rattling of a bucket of beads, then a drip, drip, drip. The unit bath was effectively sealed, so the steam lingered, a stark difference from the sudden influx of cold air to which I was accustomed. My hand found the nearest railing, and I hoisted myself up off the seat and onto my good foot, sort of shimmying my way over to the door. I opened the door and was greeted by the belated cooler air of the outside world as it mingled with the steam. I groped for the folded towel I had placed next to the basin outside, found it, yanked it in, and spent the next few minutes awkwardly figuring out how to dry myself satisfactorily with one hand stuck on support duty.


    It was only after I had gotten my hair from ¡®soaked¡¯ to merely ¡®damp¡¯ that I remembered the conditioner. I winced, reddened¡ªdespite nobody being around to witness the mistake¡ªand hobbled back over to the dripping shower head and the bottles arrayed across a few shelves, towel sort of slung over my back and shoulders like a fluffy cotton mane. The bottle was an unassuming dark pink¡ªmauve, perhaps¡ªand dewed by the steam, clearly part of a set with the shampoo. Where it diverged, though, was that instead of the head being a nozzle for some kind of cream or gel, it was for a spray. Reading the label, I reflected that I was lucky in two ways: one, the instructions were in English, and two, it was actually intended for damp hair, not for use right out of the shower. I thanked Hina for the former and dumb luck for the latter, then sprayed some of it experimentally into my hand and took a sniff.


    Wow. Wow, that smelled good. I didn¡¯t even have the floral vocabulary to describe the scent, only that it was woody, sort of spicy in a fruity way, and¡­was it racist to call it ¡°exotic¡±? That was how the little blurb on the bottle described it, anyway. The aroma was primarily jasmine sambac, it said¡ªI could get used to that smell for sure. I spritzed it onto the damp, dark, overgrown mop that was my hair, what seemed like a reasonable amount, then ran my fingers through it for lack of a comb or brush. As both my hands were occupied with my steadily-getting-less-tangled tresses, I leaned onto the shower wall. With that dubious support, and the tiles wet as they were under my single foot, in hindsight it was practically an inevitability that I¡¯d¡ª


    ¡°Shit!¡±


    As falls went, it wasn¡¯t nearly as bad as yesterday, when Ai had pulled me out of the medical bed as we wrestled for my spear. There, I had gone down pretty much head-first. Here, I half-caught myself, one conditioner-slicked hand attempting to grab the bar on the wall and missing. I brought my right foot directly under me on instinct just in time for it to cushion my fall, squished between my butt and the tiled floor. Because of the numbing patch, I actually didn¡¯t realize how much my bad foot had taken my weight. It was only as I extracted the leg out from under me that it occurred to me that I might have twisted the ankle, or broken something, or aggravated the water-softened and still-healing burn scar¡ªon visual inspection, at least that last one didn¡¯t seem likely. Regardless of the extent of the harm, the patch muted it, so I was mostly left with soreness in my butt and pride for what was maybe twenty seconds of silence, filled only by the final drip-drip-drip of the shower head, until I heard a knock at the outer bathroom door.


    ¡°Are you alright in there? Heard something.¡±


    Mercifully, it was Opal, not Hina¡­or Ebi. It was a little concerning that my doctor¡ªindeed my only medical staff, it seemed¡ªinspired relief at her absence. Her bedside manner truly sucked.


    ¡°Er¡ªyeah, just slipped.¡±


    ¡°Oh no.¡± For some reason, she took that as permission to enter the outer washroom, and I saw her blurry silhouette through the frosted glass of the bath chamber¡¯s door. ¡°You¡¯re not hurt, are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªfine, I think.¡±


    I really didn¡¯t want her to come in and see me in this especially vulnerable state. Even though the intimidation earlier hadn¡¯t been directed at me, I had been caught in the crossfire, and the spikes of adrenaline both then and now were reminiscent of the previous night in a way that made me frustrated at my libido. I didn¡¯t want to feel that way about Opal. Nor Hina, but that ship had already sailed, and I was determined to keep the others at port, if at all possible. Coming face to face with the pretty dragon-girl while I was nude would not help with that at all.


    ¡°Are you sure? Do you want Ebi to take a look?¡±


    ¡°No, really, it¡¯s alright. I landed fine.¡±


    I was embarrassed to mention how my bad foot had actually taken the brunt of the landing, but it seemed fine¡ªnot that I could tell if something was wrong internally, totally numb as it was. Maybe that was why Ebi had been weirdly resistant and unhelpful with me using the patch¡ªbut she could have just said so.


    ¡°Alright. I could get your crutches?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªAlice, I¡¯m fine.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, I¡¯m just used to Amane being a bit¡­bullheaded when she gets hurt. Are you sure you don¡¯t want Ebi to take a look?¡±


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    ¡°Er¡ªno, I don¡¯t think so.¡±


    ¡°Okay. Sorry for intruding. Um¡ªanything else you need?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Just for her to leave me alone.


    She retreated, spouting apologies for bursting in and echoing Amethyst-derived concerns about me being a fall risk. Did she not see the hypocrisy? She had made a whole deal out of Hina needing permission to enter my room, but she could enter and leave at will on a hunch that I might need help? I wasn¡¯t made of glass¡ªokay, Ez, stop that, my rational mind replied. I was just aggravated from the embarrassment of the tumble. If I had been hurt¡ªand I could have been¡ª


    I took stock. Foot seemed undamaged as far as I could tell, arse ached a bit and had been re-wetted from contact with the shower floor, and my damn spear was in my hand. It had bravely sallied forth to defend me when my hand had missed the support bar. I glared at it.


    ¡°How were you planning to help me with that, huh?¡±


    It said nothing.


    ¡ª


    A few minutes later, I had put away my spear, gone from damp to mostly-dry, brushed my teeth, applied cream to my scar, and was now debating whether I actually needed to change from my comfortable dark-blue jeans into the shorts Opal had brought last night. I¡¯d only changed into the shirt because my old one was ruined, but stayed in my jeans through the night. Actually, it was sort of weird that I had been wearing them when I had woken up in that room on the 18th floor. Shouldn¡¯t they have at least cut the trouser leg off while inspecting for other injuries? I was glad they hadn¡¯t undressed me, though. I didn¡¯t need more compromising situations, given what had just happened minutes ago and last night.


    According to the forecast, it was brisk enough outside that shorts would be unseasonable, and the trousers weren¡¯t dirty, really¡­discounting a bloodstain on the right ankle it had picked up sometime during those brief, agonizing moments underground. Bloodstained clothing in a major government building seemed like a bad look, even accounting for my circumstances. Didn¡¯t they have any bleach around here? Where did they even wash their clothes? Not that there would be time to fully wash the trousers anyway.


    Wait, I was being an idiot. This was a problem magic could trivially solve; indeed, a similar problem had been presented to me yesterday, and the solution was still fresh in my mind. My hands itched for one of my notebooks to draw the glyph¡ªbut they now lived on the bookshelf on the far wall, and I didn¡¯t feel like stumbling across the room. Instead, I scooched to the end of the bed and summoned my spear.


    ¡°Time for you to start earning your keep.¡±


    The spear was longer than I was tall, so if I stretched, I could reach across the room and sort of drag a notebook from its shelf with the butt. It fell onto the floor with a thump. I reeled it in with an almost paddling motion as I coaxed the spiral-bound tome across the hardwood until it was close enough for me to lean down and retrieve it. I nodded to my spear before banishing it.


    ¡°Thank you for your service.¡±


    I made a mental note to stop talking to inanimate objects before one of the Radiances caught me doing it as I flicked through the notebook. This was one of my newer ones, only about half-full, sheathed in a black plastic cover with a sturdy cardstock backing. I preferred pencil and paper for my notes; so much of glyphcraft was visual, and this afforded me far more freedom of drawing and formatting than attempting to do the same thing on the computer. I had once bought a cheap drawing tablet, but I had hated how it felt. Besides, there was a certain security in knowing that these notebooks couldn¡¯t just vanish in a catastrophic failure of my computer¡¯s hard drive, since I didn¡¯t keep backups¡ªthe same logic that had given rise to the full-wipe panic button.


    {EXTRACT} was an easy glyph to draw, weave, and use, at least in the context of my jeans where the two things I was trying to separate were clearly different physical matter. In a more abstract case, I¡¯d need more glyphs to clarify the exact semantics of what I was targeting. Here, it was just a matter of drawing some blazing thread¡ªwhich this time felt a little like applying an ice-cold cheese grater to my lungs, for some reason¡ªweaving the glyph into its characteristic V shape, tearing out the sheet of paper, placing it point-first over the stain, and kind of pulling the lattice over the end of the trouser leg, not unlike applying {COMPOSE}.


    There wasn¡¯t much to see. The effect was instantaneous; the lines of graphite had turned to black soot where the power of the Flame had seared the sheet of A5 notebook paper. I was left with clean jeans¡ªfor a given value of clean¡ªand a little rust-red pile of dusty dried blood, no more than a teaspoon, sitting on one end of the now-burnt-out V. I wrinkled my nose at the acrid smell of the singed paper wafting up from where the glyph had been consumed. I crumpled up the paper around the blood, hunted around for a rubbish bin, found it on the opposite side of the bed from the nightstand, and tossed the waste. Like {ASH}, this was a consumptive, one-time-use glyph that ruined its substrate afterward.


    I was in the process of shimmying into the trousers when there was a knock on my door.


    ¡°Who is it?¡±


    ¡°Alice. Felt a ripple. Was that you?¡±


    It occurred to me belatedly that there might be some kind of procedure around using magic in the house, especially if I wasn¡¯t particularly keeping track of the ripple. {EXTRACT} was blue-orange, not red, so I hadn¡¯t figured it¡¯d be a problem for Amane. Was that a bad assumption? I replied cautiously.


    ¡°Yeah, just getting the blood off my jeans.¡±


    ¡°Ah, thought it might have been you putting the prosthetic back on. Have you?¡±


    I had been putting that off until after I got dressed, since I hadn¡¯t been sure whether I¡¯d need to take off the numbing patch, and I wanted to spend as little time in pain as possible.


    ¡°Was just about to.¡±


    ¡°Ah, good. I¡¯ve got Ebi here. Mind if we come in?¡±


    ¡°Sure, one sec.¡±


    I shimmied on my pants the rest of the way, carefully tugging up the denim around the end of my foot so as to not rub the still-softened flesh of the cauterization against the fabric. The fact that I couldn¡¯t feel anything below my ankle played hell with my proprioception while I couldn¡¯t see it; I kept having to feel around with my hand to make sure I knew where the half-foot was. I called for them to enter once I buttoned the trousers and got my shirt on.


    Alice came in first, brightening as she saw me. ¡°You look better.¡± Then she frowned. ¡°Oh. You should shave. Let me go get a razor.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªI¡¯m fine.¡±


    But she had already left again, brushing past Ebi.


    ¡°There she goes. How¡¯s the foot?¡±


    ¡°Painless, no thanks to you. How¡¯s Amane?¡±


    ¡°Up and about. Hina¡¯s making breakfast for her. I brought you a gift.¡±


    She tossed something back and forth between her hands, a stout cylinder like a can of cat food. Bigger than that, though, maybe twice the diameter.


    ¡°That the stabilizer people keep talking about?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Prosthetic first, though. Pull up that pant leg for me.¡±


    I complied as she retrieved the prosthetic from where I had put it on the floor, next to the nightstand. She knelt down to inspect the site.


    ¡°Healing looks good. You¡¯ve been through all this before, so I¡¯ll spare you the details. Did you put your cream on it?¡±


    ¡°No. Should I?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯ll make it too soft.¡±


    She handed me the prosthetic. I blinked, looking from it to her.


    ¡°What, that¡¯s it? Just put it on and turn it on?¡±


    ¡°Yep.¡±


    ¡°What about the patch?¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t cross-interfere. You can keep it on until we link this up.¡± She hefted the stabilizer for emphasis.


    ¡°What¡¯s in it?¡±


    That¡¯s when Alice returned, empty-handed. ¡°Somehow we don¡¯t have any spares around. You could use mine?¡±


    Her voice went up in pitch at the end, turning the statement into a probing question. It felt gross to use someone else¡¯s razor. Grosser than the itchy feeling of my now five-day-old stubble? Maybe not, but she didn¡¯t need to know that, and I didn¡¯t want to impose.


    ¡°I¡¯m good¡­thanks.¡±


    ¡°You should,¡± Ebi cut in. ¡°They might take an ID photo today, right?¡±


    ¡°I mean, they might, but that doesn¡¯t mean he has to shave. Ezzen?¡±


    If they were going to take a photo of me, that was totally different. I hated being in pictures to begin with, and the stubble was just ugly. But changing my mind in front of people was hard. I scratched my stubble, feeling the length. I¡¯d feel better, clean-shaven, but something was stopping me from admitting it.


    ¡°Do you think I should? We¡¯re sort of on the clock here, right?¡±


    Opal hesitated. Ebi didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re all scruffy. Do you usually let it grow out this long?¡±


    ¡°Er, no, I¡­I guess. I don¡¯t like to, it just sort of happens.¡±


    Ebi made an exaggerated face in her digital visor. ¡°Ugh. Organics. The idea of having thousands of little hairs all over my surface¡­yuck.¡±


    I completely knew what she meant. I wasn¡¯t super hairy, but I did have a fair bit on my arms, legs, and chest. It was gross, and it got everywhere. I¡¯d have preferred to have no hair at all, save maybe on my head. It was actually one of the more ridiculous things that attracted me to the Vaetna: the smooth and flat surfaces of carapace, their second skin, called to me. But for me, there was no point in shaving it all when it¡¯d grow back in a few weeks at most.


    I wasn¡¯t quite willing to expose all of this to them, not the parts involving the Vaetna. Something about that was buried too deep. But Ebi did embolden me to admit part of it.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­yeah, it¡¯s pretty gross, huh. Wish I could just get rid of it all.¡±


    Opal blinked. ¡°You could. There¡¯s, like, a thousand laser hair removal clinics in Tokyo. Yuuka went to one for her legs.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± But that was a girl thing, wasn¡¯t it? Was that fine? I wasn¡¯t sure¡­but I could at least assert control of my face, for now, if I was going to be spending more time around people. And it wasn¡¯t that gross to use somebody else¡¯s razor, not with a clean head. ¡°Cool. I¡¯ll think about it. Um¡­yeah, I¡¯ll shave, Alice, thanks.¡±


    Why did that feel so good to say? Was it because I was into her? I certainly hoped not; I wanted her firmly out of the part of my head that Hina lived in.


    Opal nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll get it.¡±


    Ebi watched her go. She turned back to me and waggled her virtual eyebrows in a way that I was sure no human could actually do.


    ¡°Cute.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not into her.¡±


    ¡°Did I say that? I didn¡¯t say that. Just nice to see you becoming friends with them.¡±


    I blushed, but didn¡¯t dignify that with a response. I was already wasting enough of everybody¡¯s time; no need to spend more on banter. I picked up my prosthetic, giving it a cursory inspection, before placing it against my burn, grateful for the fact that it was still totally numb down there.


    ¡°How long do these patches last?¡±


    ¡°Until the adhesive wears off. Three days? Why?¡±


    ¡°Just curious.¡±


    My fingers worked at the edge of the little grippy sleeve going around the perimeter of the prosthetic, where it met with my foot, making sure it wasn¡¯t folded over onto itself anywhere. Once it seemed aligned, I tugged on the lattice embedded in my prosthetic without fanfare, activating the {AFFIX}. I didn¡¯t actually feel it bind to my foot, because the whole area was still numbed by the patch.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s on.¡± I tapped the patch, feeling nothing. ¡°Now how do I take this off? Should I deactivate the lattice first?¡±


    ¡°Oh, let me. The trick is to peel it off slowly so you don¡¯t get punched in the face by the pain, but Amane says it¡¯s hard to do that herself.¡±


    That made sense. Nobody in their right mind would want to gradually ramp up the pain they were feeling. She gripped the corner of the patch.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to pull it off over the course of six seconds, and the effect will get weaker as I go, so the pain will get stronger. I¡¯ll count it out. Once I start, I¡¯m not going to stop, okay?¡±


    I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for it. She poked my knee.


    ¡°Relax, the analgesoid in the prosthetic is already active, it won¡¯t be that bad. There won¡¯t be a moment of changeover like with the circle.¡±


    ¡°If you say so.¡± I took a deep breath anyway; I didn¡¯t entirely trust her. ¡°Ready.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Here¡­we¡­go.¡±


    I had been braced for her to pull it all off in one tug, despite what she had said, just like every time I had ever removed a band-aid. But true to her word, she began to peel the patch off my leg slowly.


    ¡°Six.¡±


    The generalized numbness vanished first. I could feel the bed¡¯s blanket against my heel, and proprioception for the area came back online, confirming where my leg was relative to the rest of my body.


    ¡°Five.¡±


    Then the pain began. First, the throb at the site of the actual cauterization, which began as a dull ache. Beyond that, the skin around my ankle was suddenly aware of the airflow in the room, and while it didn¡¯t hurt, I did gasp. As promised, Ebi didn¡¯t stop.


    ¡°Four.¡±


    I became aware of the pain of the patch itself being pulled off my skin, and the pain at my burn increased, becoming sharper, spikier, like a papercut scaled up by a factor of a hundred. I reached for my foot; my instincts insisted that blood should still be oozing out from there, even though I knew rationally that it wouldn¡¯t. I felt Ebi¡¯s free hand gently push mine away before I regained control.


    ¡°Three.¡±


    It grew more intense still, and I ground my teeth. I whispered a soft ¡°fuck.¡±


    ¡°Two.¡±


    My ankle hurt, too. Why did my ankle hurt? It wasn¡¯t supposed to. Had I actually damaged it when I had fallen on it?


    ¡°One.¡±


    I felt the patch fully come away from my skin. Now the pain was at full clarity.


    ¡°Ow. Ow. Fucking ow.¡± I sucked in a breath through my teeth. ¡°Are you sure the prosthetic¡¯s online?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Shit. Ow.¡± It hadn¡¯t hurt that much last night. ¡°Please tell me the stabilizer is going to help more with this.¡±


    ¡°It should. Want me to link it up?¡±


    I snarled at her.


    ¡°Are you fucking with me? Do it already.¡±


    ¡°Alright, yeesh.¡± She proffered the cylinder. ¡°Take it and tug.¡±


    I did. It was so much easier to find the leading point on the lattice when I was in this much pain, as my Flame reared up and responded, alert, closer to the surface of my senses. The cylinder twisted in my hands as though rotated by some invisible axle, and¡ª


    Aha. As the pain cleared, I thought I understood the principle. The device in my hands was like a gyroscope, in a way; it naturally wanted to stand up. And somehow, the lattice in the stabilizer was linked to the lattice in my foot and transmitted that abstract ¡®stand up¡¯ concept to the prosthetic. It didn¡¯t grant sensation to the false toes, nor control of them, but there was a kind of intuitive balancing force being applied. The pain in my cauterized stump had been shoved down back to the throb back when Ebi had said ¡°five¡±¡ªbearable enough to stand. I looked up at Ebi.


    ¡°Help me up.¡±


    She offered me a hand, and I stood on my own two feet. No crutches, no hobbling, an acceptable amount of¡ªpain. I sat back down hurriedly.


    ¡°Fuck.¡±


    ¡°Analgesoid not taking?¡±


    ¡°No, the burn¡¯s fine, it¡¯s¡ªI might have twisted my ankle when I¡­¡±


    ¡°When you fell in the shower, yup. No need to be shy about it.¡±


    ¡°I thought you¡¯d make fun of me.¡±


    ¡°For being a dork, not for needing medical attention. I thought you knew better than to be coy with your doctor.¡± She turned. ¡°Opal, get in here, I know you¡¯re waiting out there for an appropriate moment. This is it.¡±


    Alice reappeared, looking a little shamefaced at having been called out on her eavesdropping. She had a safety razor and some shaving cream, but put them both on the bed, looking at me with concern.


    ¡°Ezzen? I thought you said your foot was fine. Er¡ª¡®fine¡¯ by the standards of your injury, pardon me.¡±


    I rubbed my ankle, experimentally angling it this way and that to see what made it hurt, wincing when I found that any significant tilt was sending spikes of pain up my leg. It actually hurt more than the burn did. ¡°Apology accepted. I thought it was fine!¡±


    Ebi looked at it. ¡°Hm, I¡¯m not seeing much swelling. Opal, will your schedule shatter into a thousand pieces if we lose fifteen minutes icing this?¡±


    The last thing I wanted was to be a burden. ¡°No, it¡¯s fine, I can walk.¡± To demonstrate, I stood, though I couldn¡¯t keep the grimace off my face. Ebi was shaking her head, and Alice had a dubious look on her face, but neither stopped me from rising. ¡°I mean, yeah, it hurts. But¡­how long¡¯ll it be in the car? We are driving, right?¡±


    ¡°Half an hour, call it.¡±


    I sat back down, continuing to experiment with my ankle. ¡°Then I¡¯ll ice it on the way. It¡¯ll be mostly sitting once we¡¯re there, right? Unless Japan is loads different from the UK.¡±


    ¡°You really don¡¯t need to push it. We¡¯re not in a hurry.¡±


    ¡°Let him make a mistake,¡± Ebi declared as she produced a gel-filled ice pack from her hidden higher-dimensional pharmacy. ¡°That¡¯s how people learn!¡± She wrapped it in my discarded bath towel and handed it to me. ¡°Or so I hear.¡±


    I examined the utterly mundane ice pack she had handed me, then directed a questioning glance up at her.


    ¡°We do have anti-inflammatory patches, but they¡¯re not great. Can¡¯t beat regular ice for something like this,¡± she explained.


    I created a list of magitech to improve upon and inserted that at the top, for later, as I tied the ice pack around my ankle. Good enough for keeping it iced while I shaved¡ªI felt like I might as well get that far in what I had planned to do today, even if this were to wind up derailing the rest. Besides, I really only needed one foot for support while shaving; another slip like earlier was unlikely with the sink¡¯s soft bath mat underfoot. Ebi said something to Alice in Japanese, who frowned.


    ¡°Rude.¡±


    ¡°But accurate.¡±


    Alice didn¡¯t dignify it with a response, turning to me. ¡°See you downstairs?¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡ª


    Walking, even with the stabilizer, was painful. I was loath to put weight on my foot, and as I descended the stairs with a clean-shaven face, I took pains to do so one-by-one, never putting all my weight on my right leg. It was slow going, and would have been humiliating if not for Hina¡¯s enthusiastic waving. Instead, it was just embarrassing.


    ¡°He walks! Everything okay with your leg, cutie? Stabilizer treating you okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± I called back, ¡°It¡¯s not my burn, it¡¯s my ankle.¡±


    Hina winced. ¡°Oof, yeah. Heard you fall earlier. Don¡¯t go around getting yourself hurt without me, ¡®kay?¡± There was a possessive edge to the delivery that undercut her otherwise cheerful and teasing tone that made me shiver.


    She had claimed the beanbag we had shared, lounging all splayed out with her arms and legs hanging over the edge. The rest of Todai, sans Heliotrope, was scattered around the sitting area. Amane was sitting with Alice at the low table where we had eaten breakfast earlier, eating pancakes¡ªblueberry or plain, I couldn¡¯t tell¡ªand a milkshake, probably the same fortified variety I¡¯d had yesterday. Alice was at her side, on her laptop, with Ebi remaining standing opposite her. Ai remained insensate on the sofa where I had seen her last.


    Hina looked over at her teammate¡¯s sleeping form. ¡°Man, she worked so hard on it, and she¡¯s too busy being asleep to see it in action.¡±


    ¡°You helped too, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I sure did. I actually did most of the weaving.¡±


    ¡°Then, uh, thanks. How does it work, exactly?¡±


    ¡°Oh, y¡¯know, it¡¯s a gyroscope plus some other stuff. Links to your foot. Magic, am I right?¡±


    I had gotten that far on my own, thank you very much. Opal called over to us, shutting her laptop. ¡°Don¡¯t bother trying to get that kind of stuff out of Hina. Ai will¡ªsorry, Emerald, that still gets us too sometimes¡ªwill send it to you when she¡¯s up. None of that¡¯s classified, but feel free to call it your first bit of Todai insider info that you have the okay to post on the forums.¡±


    I smiled despite myself, and that just made me more embarrassed. Amane waved hello at me, and I waved back. She muttered something to Opal.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s pretty much time to go. Last call, Ezzen¡ªdo you feel ready to enter the bureaucratic labyrinth and lock horns with its fearsome minotaur?¡±


    I hadn¡¯t taken Opal for a jokester, and it wasn¡¯t at all clear to me from her tone or expression whether it was serious.


    ¡°Um. No? I signed up for paperwork and shopping, I think.¡± I looked down at my foot. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m really qualified to be fighting any minotaurs until this is healed, anyway.¡±


    Silence reigned for a moment. Then Hina dissolved into giggles. They spread to Opal next. Even Ebi indulged a good-natured chuckle. Amane was grinning, but it was the polite smile of incomprehension, befuddled by her friends¡¯ infection of mirth. A victim of the language barrier; how exclusive, if inadvertently. I wished I spoke enough Japanese to at least follow along so they could speak that instead and she wouldn¡¯t feel left out. I saw Opal whisper an explanation to her as I approached, still a bit unsteady on my feet. Ebi began to narrate in a female but otherwise spot-on impression of David Attenborough.


    ¡°And thus the Ezzen, freshly-groomed, takes on the role of the jester. Experts speculate that this is some sort of courtship display. Indeed, it seems this theory may hold some water, as a female flamebearer decides to draw close, inspecting her prospective mate¡¯s¡ª¡±


    Hina snapped her fingers a few times, and the robot shut up, but the damage was done. ¡°Mate¡± sure was an evocative word, one I tried and failed to file away in my mind as she circled me. I felt as though I was being sized up.


    ¡°You do look better after a shave, cutie. Missed a spot, though.¡± Hina ran a finger along my neck. I twitched at the contact. For a moment the pressure turned to searing pain accompanied by a high-pitched whine, and I jerked again, harder. I coughed at the acrid smell of burnt hair. She removed her finger from my neck, holding it up. ¡°Laser hair removal, in-house!¡±


    I stared at her, attraction and betrayal fighting for supremacy. ¡°I said to warn me.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Oops. Sorry¡­¡±


    She deflated, sounding so genuinely crushed that I instantly felt bad. I opened my mouth to apologize myself and clarify, but was drowned out by an avalanche of Japanese. Amane¡¯s tirade¡ªand I was sure that was what it was, language barrier notwithstanding¡ªlasted a solid thirty seconds. Hina¡¯s dejection started to metamorphose into anger near the end, and after a few seconds of tense silence that hung like a noose, she snapped back at her teammate. Then Alice cut in, and suddenly all three of them were yelling. I took a few sidling steps over toward Ebi.


    ¡°Help?¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s nothing big. You know how Alice called me rude earlier?¡±


    ¡°Yeah? What did you say?¡±


    ¡°That you were being stubborn like Amane. This is what I meant.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t follow. What happened?¡±


    Opal heard me and switched to English. ¡°Hina, that¡¯s not fair.¡±


    ¡°Of course it is! This is what I am, every bit as much as Amane¡¯s¡­shinkeisonshou is her. It¡¯s none of her business how I choose to have my fun. Or yours!¡±


    ¡°It absolutely is, because you¡¯re this close to bringing the PCTF to our fucking doorstep and¡ª¡± Alice forcibly cut herself off and took a deep breath, looking at me. ¡°Sorry, Ezzen. We should be¡­I don¡¯t know. Including you in this? It¡¯s complicated.¡±


    ¡°Did I do something?¡±


    ¡°Other than get flametouched, no.¡± Hina groused, genuine annoyance in her voice for the first time since I had met her.


    Ebi sighed. ¡°It¡¯s not so much about you as it¡¯s about pain.¡± She pointed at Hina and Amane. ¡°With those two, it always is.¡±


    They showed no signs of stopping. Amane¡¯s body language was surprisingly animated for somebody who had been bedridden just earlier this morning, if my understanding was correct. Hina practically barked back at her. Whatever they were exactly talking about, it clearly wasn¡¯t the first time, and I felt very¡­talked around. There were things not being said, and what was being said wasn¡¯t in languages I understood. Opal stood, taking her laptop with her. She did interrupt Amane briefly to give her a kneeling, delicate half-hug, and gave Hina a single pat on the head as she passed by. Hina didn¡¯t turn to look at us, but she did throw up a peace sign and waggle it around even as she spoke to Amane in terms that sounded less than cordial. Ai, for her part, remained fast asleep. I was a little envious. Opal gestured toward the elevator.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re just¡­leaving?¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t be helped. I¡¯ll try to explain on the way, but¡­there¡¯s some other things we need to discuss, too, and there¡¯s never enough time. Just know that it¡¯s not really your fault. It¡¯s always been like this between them, you¡¯ve just¡­catalyzed things by your presence. It¡¯s Hina being Hina, I¡¯m sure you already get what I mean by that.¡±


    As she led me to the elevator, it seemed to me like ¡°Hina being Hina¡± was a fair summation of many of Todai¡¯s problems. Perhaps even most of them.


    I was soon to learn she barely made the top five.

 From On High // 1.10

    The Main Todai building was officially called Lighthouse Tower. The actual name in Japanese was a direct transliteration of the English and had inspired my first impromptu Japanese lesson on the walk over, through an underground tunnel on the first-level basement linking it to the adjacent parking structure.


    ¡°Raitohausu tawa. Laitohausu tawar. Raithaos tawa?¡±


    ¡®R¡¯ was a terrible letter, at least the Japanese one. It just wasn¡¯t a sound my mouth was used to making at all.


    ¡°You¡¯re getting there! You can get away with a really light ¡®D¡¯ sound instead for the ¡®R¡¯. Make the last ¡®A¡¯ longer, too.¡±


    ¡°Daitohausu tawaa?¡±


    ¡°Too hard on the ¡®D¡¯.¡± She immediately facepalmed at her own innuendo. ¡°I¡¯m so glad Hina didn¡¯t hear that.¡±


    When her hand came away, she looked the same¡ªno makeup? Her skin really was just that smooth. The realization prompted a jolt of envy I didn¡¯t quite understand, and I brushed my face with my fingers unconsciously. I discovered a few more missed spots around my jaw that had gone unshaven. The spot Hina had zapped stung a bit, and I was grateful that it wasn¡¯t visibly inflamed as I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror.


    Opal¡¯s car was in a reserved spot right next to the tunnel. It wasn¡¯t visibly the main ride of a major VNT organization leader. It was a nice car, some low-rider sporty import in a sleek white that matched her hair and tail, but I had been primed for¡­actually, I wasn¡¯t sure what I had been primed for. One of those anime girl illustration wraps, but of her team? That didn¡¯t sound like her; she didn¡¯t even have a bumper sticker in that vein. The interior was more custom than the exterior, though: the driver¡¯s seat was modified to accommodate her tail, the lumbar section of the back removed to allow the thick limb to spill out into the backseat and coil like¡­toothpaste? Surely there was a more flattering comparison, but that was what came to mind.


    Alice was dressed slightly heavier than yesterday, opting to also add a pale-yellow crop top over the sports bra underneath the same white jacket. That was presumably for propriety¡¯s sake rather than anything to do with the cold, but even with the addition, I would have been horribly embarrassed to wear such an exposing ensemble to a government office. Being in proximity to it was an exercise in fighting down secondhand embarrassment even as I rebuked myself for the way my eyes were drawn to the subtle bounce of her chest. I had to build up my tolerance to this sort of thing soon. Surely, the way my eyes wandered of their own accord was making these girls uncomfortable, despite assurances to the contrary.


    She was already snacking on some sort of pastry: circular with a hole in the middle, like a donut, but with square edges instead of round. She took a few massive chomps, chewed hastily, swallowed with some effort, took a long draw from an iced tea she¡¯d managed to sneak out the door while fleeing Hina and Amane¡¯s argument, and then changed the topic as we pulled out of the parking space.


    ¡°You¡¯re taking the amputation rather well.¡±


    Was I? I supposed I was.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªthank you?¡± Silence reigned for a few beats as we went up a ramp to the parking structure¡¯s ground level. ¡°It doesn¡¯t seem like all that big a deal, I guess. I don¡¯t know. Maybe it hasn¡¯t sunk in?¡±


    If the quality of the rush-job prosthetic they had already given me was anything to go by, the one still in the works would be basically perfect once I finished healing. I didn¡¯t feel like an amputee, at any rate. Opal nodded, waving at somebody getting out of their car who was presumably starting their workday. Support staff, perhaps, a totally unremarkable 40-something man in a suit. Slicked back hair, briefcase¡ªthe very image of a Japanese salaryman, even to my limited cultural context. His car was much less flashy than Opal¡¯s, some mini Mitsubishi that they probably only sold domestically. He responded to Opal¡¯s gesture with a small bow as we passed by.


    ¡°That¡¯s Suzuki-san, no relation to Hina. He¡¯s on the marketing team. You¡¯d like him, I think¡­anyway, amputation. It¡¯ll feel more real with time. This might sound a bit uncouth, but you got pretty lucky. If you had lost more of the foot, like up to the ankle, your recovery timeline would look much worse. The fact that you can already stand even without the stabilizer is a boon. Don¡¯t just grit your teeth through it if it hurts, though, yeah?¡±


    I assumed that came from experience with Amethyst¡¯s condition. Even in my limited experience thus far, it was clear that she was a mess. Actually, it occurred to me that I¡¯d hardly seen her stand in her human form, let alone walk. She didn¡¯t seem to carry a cane or any other sort of mobility aid, but my gut said she ought to. My memories went back to the glimpse I had caught yesterday of the port in her midriff, and the way her argument with Hina had been on the verge of a shouting match. Both of them had pointed at me at least twice even in that short period.


    ¡°¡­Honestly, I feel like I¡¯m imposing. Did that argument start because of me?¡±


    ¡°Ah, no, no. You¡¯re entirely blameless for that. It¡¯s more like¡­well, you know Hina. And Amane is the opposite, avoidant. Always in mantle because it lets her not be in pain for a while.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± As always, mention of their brand of magic took my attention. It seemed alright to ask these things now. ¡°So your transformations can¡¯t feel pain? No red links anywhere?¡±


    ¡°Well, it depends. Pain is a useful signal, but¡­alright, actually, we should start at the beginning, since I was hoping to have this talk on the way over anyway. How much do you know about magical girls?¡±


    ¡°Not much.¡±


    ¡°¡­Meaning?¡±


    ¡°I¡­uh. I have a friend who¡¯s a fan of yours, but that¡¯s it. Never seen an anime about them or anything.¡±


    We arrived at a little electronic toll booth that marked the entrance of the parking structure.


    ¡°That¡¯s alright. We¡¯ll get you up to speed on the classics in the next few weeks.¡± She rolled down the window and waved a card at it. ¡°But let me fill you in on the basics now, if that¡¯s alright?¡±


    The booth beeped and raised the barrier arm to allow us onto the streets of Tokyo. I had seen the immediately local skyline from my room¡¯s window up on the 20th floor, but the effect was different on the ground. Down here, it was easy to forget just how tall the buildings were; Lighthouse Tower¡¯s 20-story glass-and-steel facade was the same as its 80-story neighbors. With it as the model in my head and my view of higher floors obstructed by the car¡¯s roof, it felt like we were surrounded by mid-size buildings rather than the truly tremendous skyscrapers they were. My frame of reference was a bit skewed anyway, though, since the Spire completely dwarfed anything in this city.


    Since I couldn¡¯t much see the skyline from down here, what really caught my attention was the people. The weather forecast had said it was actually a fair bit warmer here than in England today, high of 9 Celsius¡ªyet everybody was bundled up. Scarves and hats abounded, topping off long overcoats and other heavy winter wear, a stark contrast to Alice¡¯s athleisure. Her exposed skin wasn¡¯t entirely without company among the pedestrians, though. She gestured with her reduced pastry at a trio of girls in bona fide sailor uniforms, bare-legged under their skirts. The girls pointed back at us; the glass was tinted, so they probably couldn¡¯t see us, but it stood to reason that Opal¡¯s personal ride was pretty iconic in its own right.


    ¡°That¡¯s how old we were when we started. Most mahou shoujo deals with girls in high school or younger, chosen by some higher power for their youthful purity¡ªthe untainted love in their heart, that sort of thing¡ªto do battle against evil monsters.¡±


    I nodded, already seeing some of the real-world parallels, though our kind¡ªstill wasn¡¯t used to thinking of myself as the in-group¡ªwere far more randomly selected. No distinguishable pattern for us. ¡°Flametouched.¡±


    ¡°Mhm.¡± She took another bite of the pastry I would later learn is called a baumkuchen. ¡°Aesthetically speaking, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve already seen enough Sailor Moon stuff to get the picture by osmosis, online as you¡¯ve been. No offense.¡±


    ¡°None taken. So it¡¯s all, er, ribbons, hearts, gems?¡±


    ¡°Frills. Bows.¡±


    She hung a left, and we pulled onto what seemed to be a more significant traffic artery. The streets reminded me of NYC in terms of how things were separated into blocks rather than the jumble of many European cities, but the big difference was that the Japanese loved signage to a degree that I had never quite seen before. Street signs were fairly universal, of course, but every storefront had a big sign, and everywhere I looked, there were flyers and bulletins. Opal continued.


    ¡°And wands, and sometimes actual weapons, yes. And all that comes with the transformation; otherwise, they¡¯re just regular girls. The five of us, not getting those as part of our signing bonus, so to speak, had to make our own transformations. The Japanese for that is henshin, by the way; that¡¯s the word you¡¯ll see people use when talking about our mantles.¡±


    ¡°Henshin.¡± I rolled the word around in my mouth. I¡¯d probably seen Star use it before. ¡°Got it. So technically speaking, a mantle is¡­a PMLMC? My friend says it¡¯s more mech-like than an actual transformation, but that¡¯s all speculation.¡±


    She took another sip of iced tea. ¡°Correct. Yes, your friend is right; they¡¯re psychomotive. It¡¯s a neat little fourspace swap that gets our actual body out of harm''s way, and we plug our consciousness into the LM construct to fight without worry of harm. You can see how that¡¯s not really on the original theme.¡±


    ¡°But visually it¡¯s just an outfit swap?¡±


    ¡°Visually, yeah, the basic LMC is a duplicate of our bodies, and we add modifications on top of that for the outfits, which at least gets us looking like proper mahou shoujo, other than Amane. But unlike the source material, it¡¯s an entirely separate body, so we had to implement everything ourselves. You saw some of the structural and motive elements yesterday¡ªthe parts derived from Spire dermis¡ªbut the sensory and control stuff is where most of the work goes. Every sense is custom-implemented.¡±


    ¡°And the fewer the better, since those would be red links.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± She sounded pleased I was keeping up. ¡°So the real trick is getting enough psychomotive integration that controlling it is as fluid and intuitive as our own bodies, without the red links relaying pain down the lattice back to us. It¡¯s finicky, and not the first solution we went with¡ªask Ai to show you her back binding sometime.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªI¡¯m not sure I could manage that. It sounds fascinating, though.¡±


    She chuckled, slitted pupils looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. ¡°You really don¡¯t have to be so nervous around us. If you¡¯re making us uncomfortable, believe me, we¡¯ll let you know. We wouldn¡¯t have asked you to stay with us if we were worried about that sort of thing. Where was I¡ªyeah, so we¡¯re not really working on actual mahou shoujo rules, you understand?¡±


    I wished I could be less nervous and briefly considered confiding more in her about it¡ªbut reflexively retreated from examining that notion, instead accepting the dangled bit of conversational escape. ¡°I think so. So¡­you¡¯d say the mecha comparison is accurate?¡±


    I didn¡¯t know much about that genre either, but Opal nodded.


    ¡°We¡¯ve done a lot of work to try to make it more hooked-in and less like flying a jet fighter, but¡­yeah, I hate to admit it: we¡¯re magical girl-shaped mecha, functionally speaking. Mind if I ask who your friend is? One of the YouTubers? That¡¯s the sort of circles you move in, to my understanding.¡±


    ¡°Um, not quite. But she does a lot of the research for some of the videos about you¡ªabout Lighthouse as a whole, I mean. Um¡­Starstar97?¡± I cringed at how the username sounded in this offline setting, but Opal nodded in recognition.


    ¡°Heard the name, I think. Tell her I said hi. Actually¡ª¡± We had just come to a stop at another fairly large intersection, so she turned to me and threw up a peace sign, flashing a practiced smile. Radiant indeed. ¡°A pic would make her day, I hope? I could do a short video, too; this light usually takes about a minute.¡±


    ¡°Um, wow¡ªreally?¡± Should she even be doing something like this while we were on the road? Didn¡¯t that sort of thing give a bad impression? But it wasn¡¯t like I was going to question her judgment on this; she certainly would know better than I. I fumbled my phone out of my pocket; I had been trying to adhere to ¡®polite conversation behaviors¡¯ by not looking at it and instead keeping my eyes on the city around us. ¡°Ready?¡±


    ¡°Yep.¡±


    I hit record and tried to keep the camera steady. Radiance Opal launched into a peppy, authentic-sounding greeting.


    ¡°Hey, Starstar97! I¡¯m with Ezzen, and he mentioned you¡¯re a fan, so I just wanted to say thanks for your support and the work you do! Houseki hikare!¡± She nodded to me after a moment. ¡°There you go. Hope she likes that! And send that to me, too, if you would? I won¡¯t put the whole thing up publicly, but this year we¡¯re going to do a montage video like ¡®Every Time the Radiances Said Houseki Hikare in 2022¡¯.¡±


    That wasn¡¯t particularly my speed¡ªI always ignored similar videos of the Vaetna saying the Spire¡¯s catchphrase when they showed up in my recommended page¡ªbut it was definitely the kind of thing Star enjoyed. And Opal was right, this was going to make her day, or maybe her whole week. I was pleased to find my cell connection acceptable to send the video even while on the road. I attached a small message of my own, too.


    ezzen: Treat for you. Opal¡¯s so nice; she¡¯s not actually quite this peppy, but she¡¯s so damn¡­kind.


    ezzen: Which she¡¯s currently explaining to me is very mahou shoujo, so I guess that tracks.


    ezzen: Hope I¡¯m spelling that right.


    We pulled onto an elevated motorway.


    ¡°Um, can she share it around?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, of course, if she wants. We just have a policy of not sharing it on our end because, well¡­some of our fans can get jealous.¡± Her grip audibly tightened on the steering wheel, a squeal of leather. I relayed the permission, though not the comment.


    The cityscape was changing around us. The high-rises had given way to shorter, squatter apartment buildings¡ªthough still only short by comparison, most of them being at least eight stories tall. Soon after, the buildings were entirely replaced by trees on both sides. Opal gestured to the left with the final chunk of baumkuchen.


    ¡°This green stretch is Motoakasaka, which has a bunch of temples and one of the old Imperial estates. Can¡¯t get a very good view of it from up here, though.¡±


    Sure enough, a column of apartment buildings soon obstructed what little view we had. Now that we were away from the pedestrians and storefronts, the cityscape was mostly defined by grey concrete juxtaposed with clusters of foliage denuded of most of their green by the winter. Come spring, when these little islands of nature were back to their full green, I could see how it¡¯d be pretty. As it was, though, the city had a certain brutalist ugliness to it, at least from this vantage point.


    ¡°I don¡¯t love that we¡¯re not ¡®proper¡¯ mahou shoujo in our transformations, but there are upsides. We can¡¯t lose our powers by losing our purity, for one. And real magic is a lot more flexible than the power systems you see in most anime.¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to offend her, but I needed clarification on the basis for this whole thing.


    ¡°Uh¡­so, it¡¯s roleplay?¡±


    ¡°I mean¡­in the sense that we¡¯re not literally selected by a higher power on the basis of purity, no.¡± She sighed. ¡°But that¡¯s not in our control, and we¡¯re the real thing in every other sense. Are the Vaetna roleplaying superheroes?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re really more like knights,¡± I protested.


    ¡°Point. Why does it matter that our moral code comes from anime? I¡¯m trying to make a difference with the hand I¡¯ve been dealt, to follow in the footsteps of the heroes I grew up admiring. Am I wrong in saying you look up to the Vaetna in the same way?¡±


    She wasn¡¯t, but it felt like a false dichotomy. In my eyes, she was comparing a fictional morality system from kids¡¯ cartoons to a group of people who engaged in very real geopolitics.


    ¡°The Vaetna are real, though.¡±


    ¡°What we believe in isn¡¯t all that different from the Spire. We just¡ªcan¡¯t trample over nations like they can. And wouldn¡¯t even if we could. That doesn¡¯t make it roleplay. Doesn¡¯t make it fake.¡±


    She was getting defensive. I flinched. ¡°Alright, sorry. So¡­¡± I searched for another topic. ¡°If the aesthetic matters so much, why¡¯s Amethyst a big crystal mech? And, er, your tail, is that inspired by anything?¡±


    ¡°Amane likes the intimidation factor of being huge, and copying her body for the LM is¡­complicated, in a way that it isn¡¯t for the rest of us. Residuals. As for this¡­¡± She swished her tail in the backseat. ¡°Memorable, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Er, yeah, I suppose. Are dragons, ah, mahou shoujo?¡±


    She scratched her temple as we changed lanes.


    ¡°Well¡­animal traits aren¡¯t unheard of, but usually it¡¯s part of the whole team¡¯s theming, and I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve noticed that that¡¯s not our theme. That¡¯s because I didn¡¯t choose it. It¡¯s a metamorph residual, like Hina, though hers are more subtle. It started for me when we got our flame donation. I¡¯ve come to appreciate how distinctive it is, though. Being Todai¡¯s Dragon has a nice ring to it.¡±


    There was something a little halting in how she said it.


    ¡°So it¡¯s flesh, not LM.¡±


    ¡°Yep, marvel of nature and all that. It¡¯s really quite marketable¡ªwe¡¯ve got plushes of the tail, my eyes stand out as much as Hina¡¯s or Amane¡¯s in the posters¡­I¡¯ve lucked into being a real-life anime girl, even if the exact subtype doesn¡¯t entirely fit with my genre, and that¡¯s worth it when we trade so much on¡ª¡±


    ¡°Do you like it?¡±


    ¡°¡ªour reputation and appearance.¡±


    I don¡¯t know why I blurted it out and interrupted her, but it was just something in her tone. It sounded like she was rationalizing. Her eyes flicked to me briefly before refocusing on the road.


    ¡°I live with it.¡±


    That hurt, and I wasn¡¯t quite sure why. She continued after a moment.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­inconvenient, for sure. You see how much I eat, and stuff like this seat¡ªlots of accommodations like that. I miss wearing pants sometimes. I¡¯m more of a skirts girl anyway, though.¡±


    I abstained from pointing out that she wasn¡¯t wearing a skirt now; I had intentionally avoided examining the exact way her leggings were modified to make room for the extra limb when we had been walking together. She was practically begging the question, but I was too shy to ask about her fashion choices¡­and there was another kind of discomfort, the way she signaled unhappiness about her body, that made my fingers return to my face, feeling the spots of stubble I had missed again.


    ¡°Sorry for interrupting.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± She seemed as eager as me to go to another topic. ¡°Does the, er, commercialized side of what we do bother you?¡±


    ¡°Not¡­really? The Vaetna¡¯ve got plenty of merch.¡± Then I thought about it some more, reminded of something Star had said before regarding how their PR worked. ¡°Well¡­can I say something that might be offensive?¡±


    ¡°Sure. Trust me, I¡¯ve gone under much more severe cross-examination of our way of doing things.¡±


    ¡°Alright, then¡­it just seems especially performative. Like with the video earlier.¡± I put my hands up hastily. ¡°Not like roleplay! It¡¯s just¡­if you¡¯re playing up the act for publicity, then that¡¯s sort of acknowledging that it¡¯s at least partially an act, not totally genuine.¡±


    ¡°Not wrong. But we live it, and believe in it. It¡¯s¡­there¡¯s a lot of reasons we do it. It¡¯s important to be seen. It¡¯s kind of a concession to the original concept, since mahou shoujo do tend toward a sort of secret identity paradigm, but¡­well, think about it this way. Since our status as magical girls is not granted by some higher power, we need to work harder than Usagi or Hibiki to maintain it, to make it more real. So, yes, it¡¯s performative, but only because we believe it matters. Is that a problem?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªas long as you¡¯re not going to try to get me in one of those costumes.¡±


    She laughed. ¡°Perish the thought! Whatever Hina says, I know you didn¡¯t sign up to become one of us. No pressure to participate with any of the marketing stuff beyond what concerns your research.¡±


    That was something of a relief.


    ¡°How much does that factor into the, er, day-to-day? Promotions and all that?¡±


    ¡°Depends. In terms of what you¡¯d call VNT activities, we¡¯re more on the reactive side, so it depends on if there are monsters for us to fight at the time.¡±


    ¡°Um¡­¡¯monsters¡¯ as in infernos?¡±


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    ¡°That¡¯s another spot where theory sort of bows to praxis. Case in point¡ªsee these trees on our left? That¡¯s Meiji Jingu, the biggest shrine in Japan. It¡¯s attached to Yoyogi Park. Next week, Hikanome¡ªer, Sun¡¯s Blessing¡ªis holding a demonstration here, and we¡¯re supposed to keep an eye on them.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re a cult, right? Like Zero-Day.¡± I wasn¡¯t quite sure where she was going with this.


    ¡°Yep. Biggest in Japan. In a way, their leaders are a pretty good adaptation of the ¡®proper¡¯ mahou shoujo villains. People with the same powers as us, but misusing them. Hardly an objective black-and-white structure, but in a world where so-called ¡®incarnations of darkness¡¯ and such don¡¯t exist¡­¡± She punctuated the label with air-quotes. ¡°And yes, infernos, but those aren¡¯t evil. They¡¯re just¡­¡±


    ¡°People. Like us.¡±


    ¡°Just the bad ending, yeah. That¡¯s a little mahou shoujo, too.¡±


    It was one of the great injustices of this era that some people couldn¡¯t handle the awesome power that fell from the sky, overwhelmed by these fragments of what the various cults called the only provable divinity. It broke my heart that nobody had found a way to reverse the process or permanently contain them; they all met the same fate as Dad. Even the Vaetna still just went for mercy kills, seven years on. Opal went on somberly.


    ¡°It¡¯s one of those things I dream about solving, a way to stop the inferno and save the victim. Nobody deserves that.¡± Her resolution hung in the air, an intense pressure directed at nothing in particular.


    ¡°Yeah. Me too.¡±


    As I¡¯d originally explained to her yesterday, part of what had gotten me into magic was the drive to understand what had happened to Dad. I¡¯d eventually been forced to accept that it wasn¡¯t the type of magical problem I¡¯d be able to solve in glyphs, not if the Vaetna couldn¡¯t with their mastery of magic and near-boundless power. But maybe¡­with Flame of my own, with the Radiances¡¯ help? It was egotistical to think I could do what the Spire couldn¡¯t, but the spark of hubris reignited in me. I resolved to take another look at my old papers on the topic tonight.


    Her follow-up question was no reprieve from the dark atmosphere. ¡°Do you think there¡¯s such a thing as evil, Ezzen? As monsters?¡±


    ¡°I¡­well¡­The Spire Stands, you know?¡± I sheepishly tried to articulate how that connected. ¡°The strong ought to¡ªhave an obligation to¡ªprotect the weak, but¡­power corrupts. Not always, but often enough. I don¡¯t know much about Sun¡¯s Blessing specifically, but Flamebearer cults and the like¡­they¡¯re ugly. I think there¡¯s evil there.¡±


    ¡°Agreed. Most of the believers are fine. Just people, again, and I can¡¯t fault people for needing to believe in things. But the VNTs at the center of it? I¡¯d call Sugawara emblematic of the monsters, at least as far as flamebearers are concerned.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s¡­the founder of Hikanome? ¡®The Savior¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t call him that.¡±


    I noted some hypocrisy there¡ªher team got the larger-than-life, fiction-inspired titles, but didn¡¯t extend the same privilege to their enemies. I didn¡¯t interrupt her to call it out, though, because from what I knew¡ªshe was right. He deserved to be left in the dustbin of history after what he had done. She continued.


    ¡°The UK¡¯s got a big cult too, right?¡±


    I had figured from the accent that she had grown up in London, so I was a bit surprised she didn¡¯t know. ¡°Well, Zero-Day is technically based in America¡­but yeah, they¡¯ve got some influence. Really, though, everything in the UK regarding magic is subordinate to the PCTF.¡±


    ¡°How big?¡±


    ¡°Er, I¡¯d have to check.¡± A quick google gave the answer. ¡°Eight hundred thousand?¡±


    ¡°Hikanome has seven million in Japan and three million more abroad. Next week they¡¯ll fill the entire park.¡±


    I went quiet, looking out the window as I watched the park pass us by. It had dominated the left side view for the past few minutes.


    ¡°And you¡¯re supposed to stop that from turning into a riot?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re pretty peaceful these days, with Sugawara in prison, at least the sect that¡¯ll be there next week. It¡¯s more about appeasement, showing our faces. They love us, worship us. Off the record, the feeling isn¡¯t entirely mutual.¡±


    ¡°The fans you mentioned before?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. But like I said¡ªthey¡¯re not the problem, not the monsters. What do you think of the PCTF?¡±


    It was a leading question, and I understood where it was headed.


    ¡°I¡­I mean, I had overall good experiences with them with this,¡± I gestured to the scars on my arm, ¡°But it¡¯s kind of an open secret that they¡¯re less than ethical. And the rumors¡­¡± I didn¡¯t know how to segue gracefully into what she wanted me to ask. It was a horrible thing to acknowledge, even when the same fate had nearly befallen me two days ago. Her confirmation made my tattoo itch as my skin crawled.


    ¡°All true. Every single one. She¡¯s living proof. Every time she has to cancel an event because she¡¯s bedridden, every time she tries to hide the fact that she can barely keep food down¡ªit¡¯s on their heads.¡± Her voice could have cut diamond. ¡°This doesn¡¯t leave this car or the penthouse, you understand?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªyes, I understand. So¡­they really did¡­?¡±


    This didn¡¯t feel like a topic for the sunlight, for this cold February day on the way to do some terribly boring paperwork and go on a not-date in the city after. This pretty girl and her sports car ought not to exist in the same world as black sites and drugs and torture. But I knew in my gut that Opal was telling the truth.


    ¡°They did. Her and dozens more.¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°I think you being here will bring us back into conflict with them, basically inevitably. Hina knew that would happen. She wants the fight¡ªwe have unfinished business. The reason I really wanted to get the ball rolling on your paperwork today was to give your presence here some legitimacy before the bloodhounds show up.¡±


    ¡°They won¡¯t actually try to abduct me again, would they?¡± My blood was up just thinking of the possibility. Surely, the Spire would step in if it came to that; it would be a huge, front-page-news violation of the standing agreements between all the various VNT groups.


    ¡°They might. Listen¡ª¡± I heard her tail moving in the backseat. ¡°As far as I¡¯m concerned, if there are monsters in this world, it¡¯s them. At least the cults believe in something, and it¡¯s hard to begrudge them that when we just discussed where my own beliefs come from. But the PCTF just wants power for its own sake. ¡®Peacekeepers¡¯. Ha. If they had their way, we¡¯d all be turned into fucking batteries for their superweapons.¡± She laughed mirthlessly, looking straight out onto the road. I suddenly realized how hot the air in the car had gotten and squirmed a bit in my seat. ¡°No. They are not touching you. I refuse. Not in our city.¡± Then she suppressed the incandescent fury, her voice softening, the atmosphere in the car cooling back down to tolerable levels.


    ¡°Revenge isn¡¯t mahou shoujo. But destroying evil is.¡±


    ¡ª


    There had been a time in my life where I interacted with a government office on a nearly daily basis. My dad had died on the first day of the firestorms, and it had taken a few months for nations to get a grip on reparations for the casualties and the bereaved. Consequently, I was in the US government¡¯s first batch of the Inferno Recovery Program, one of the predecessors of what would become the PCTF. The program included what little testing for residuals had been available at the time¡ªbefore ¡®ripple¡¯ was even in the vocabulary for magic¡ªas well as a three-week period of observation ¡®just in case¡¯.


    I was a special case for two reasons: one, because I was directly related to the unfortunate flametouched¡ª¡°Paranatural Event Origin,¡± as the endless documents had put it back then, already denuded of personhood¡ªand two, because I wasn¡¯t a US citizen, and they needed to figure out what to do with me. Ultimately, they¡¯d shipped me right back to Bristol, where I spent two years with my grandparents, in and out of hospitals for regular checkups while both the UK and American governments figured out what more should be done with me, if anything.


    Nothing really came of it; rather anticlimactic, in a way. I had no residuals, no evidence of being somehow secondhand flametouched or anything of that sort. If I had shown any signs, I would have likely been subjected to a further battery of testing and been more closely watched by the PCTF during my rise to prominence online. Instead, the last time I had met with an official on that basis was on the five-year anniversary, and that had been for a general check-in and well-wishes, nothing exciting. I had still clung to the idea that my dad¡¯s death and the burns on my hand meant something, that it had marked me as special in the eyes of the Frozen Flame, but that had never really had much basis in reality¡ª


    Until two days ago. Now, the fact that my flames manifested from those scars was a surefire sign that I hadn¡¯t gone entirely untouched by that first encounter. I didn¡¯t buy into the idea that the Flame was necessarily a blessing, but the events of the past two days had made me certain I was special in some way, if only by circumstance rather than any actions of my own. Hina and Ai had reinforced that idea; even the least charitable interpretation of the former¡¯s predations toward me implied that she saw something there, and the latter had outright said that I might not be playing by the same rules as other Flamebearers.


    Tochou inflicted a critical strike upon these notions of ¡®specialness¡¯ by the simple weight of paperwork. I had sort of expected the de-facto leader of Todai paving the way would at least grease the wheels of bureaucracy¡ªit was not to be. We were treated more or less exactly like every other person. We¡¯d go to a kiosk, take a numbered ticket, wait a bit, then go to a clerk. Opal would talk with them for a moment, we¡¯d get some documents, she¡¯d talk me through what it said, I¡¯d sign, and we¡¯d be directed to a different kiosk, slowly accumulating extra paperwork and receipts for fees which she assured me weren¡¯t coming out of my pocket. In all, we¡¯d done this cycle four times so far.


    I¡¯d had a bit of a scare when I realized I hadn¡¯t thought to bring my passport, but it turned out that Opal had retrieved it from my backpack yesterday. She¡¯d taken my travel documents so I couldn¡¯t escape¡ªbut that was nagging paranoia, easier to brush off than ever; it was just her being prepared. That worry still lingered regarding how I was essentially bound to her as long as she was holding onto my foot¡¯s stabilizer, but given the state of my ankle, I wasn¡¯t going anywhere fast anyway. In all, my foot had been wonderfully cooperative as we navigated to different areas of the bureaucratic labyrinth, at least compared to the near-uselessness from before the stabilizer had been introduced, even if my ankle still throbbed distantly. I continued to ice it while we were sat down, which was helping.


    Opal handed the passport back to me as we returned to the small sitting area we had essentially claimed as a home base between interacting with clerks. She sat to my right, sideways on her chair to accommodate her tail, rifling through the documents we¡¯d accumulated.


    ¡°What would have happened without it?¡±


    ¡°Well, you still have an actual ID, but they¡¯d have had to check with the UK embassy, probably, and that would be a snag for the PCTF to get involved.¡±


    ¡°So as long as everything stays on Japan¡¯s side, they can¡¯t touch me?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­I didn¡¯t say that. I had our legal people look into it when Hina brought you in, and while the UK doesn¡¯t have grounds to extradite you as a fugitive or anything¡ªthey would if Japan was a NATO member, but they¡¯re not¡ªyou should still probably stay far away from the embassy for the time being.¡±


    ¡°Until¡­?¡±


    ¡°I¡­don¡¯t know, yet. This¡¯ll blow over eventually.¡±


    Some decisions were made; for one, my address of residence was to be Lighthouse Tower, same as the Radiances. In addition to continuing the pronunciation lesson from earlier, I also received my crash-course in the rest of the country¡¯s addressing system: backward compared to the US or UK, starting at the largest scale and working down from prefecture to city to neighborhood to street address. We also had to contend with my name.


    ¡°Dalton is what¡¯s on your ID. Is that alright?¡±


    I had just been getting used to being called Ezzen. ¡°It¡¯s¡ªfine. It¡¯s what I¡¯m used to, anyway.¡±


    She seemed to pick up on the frustration of identity, putting a hand gently over mine, which I half-flinched away from before suppressing the urge. ¡°We¡¯ll still call you Ezzen if you¡¯d like; Dalton doesn¡¯t have to be your name anywhere but the paperwork. I just don¡¯t want to get in trouble because the names on your documents mismatch. It¡¯s a huge pain. Is there a reason you prefer the online name?¡±


    ¡°Um.¡± I really didn¡¯t want to admit to her that it had been because Hina had pushed me, so I fell back on the explanation I had used with Ebi. ¡°Well, you know the etymology, right?¡±


    ¡°{MANIFEST}. So it¡¯s your¡­identity with magic, and it signals your preference for the Spire.¡± She saw how I shifted uncomfortably; she was right on the money. ¡°It¡¯s nothing to be embarrassed about, take it from me. Coming up with names was one of the first things we did when forming Todai.¡±


    That made me feel better; the majority of Flamebearers with any kind of public presence took on some sort of epithet or title, and even simpler, less-aggrandizing name changes were also common enough. The Vaetna were actually the exception¡ªor, since nobody could trace their identities from before the age of magic, they might have had the most complete identity overhauls of any of us.


    ¡°Um¡ªhow did you end up with ¡®Radiances¡¯ anyway?¡±


    She grinned. ¡°The gemstone thing was what I¡¯d always imagined as a kid when I pictured myself as a magical girl, and Radiances were always the title. Just felt right, you know? I didn¡¯t know which¡ªfor a long time, I sort of figured I¡¯d be Diamond, but I wound up going with ¡®Opal¡¯ when my dreams actually came true. Still doesn¡¯t feel real sometimes.¡±


    Diamond would have fit her too, but I could see how it might come off as a bit arrogant compared to her teammates. I lowered my voice, feeling a little like this peek behind the curtain wasn¡¯t supposed to be happening in public.


    ¡°So they¡¯re¡­arbitrary? The choices of gemstones?¡±


    She didn¡¯t seem to share the concern, shrugging easily. This must have come up in interviews before for her to be so nonchalant about it.


    ¡°Mostly. For me and Hina, we already looked the parts, my hair, her eyes. Ai chose Emerald because¡­I think just because green is her favorite color, but I don¡¯t quite remember. I¡¯m at least sure that there¡¯s no grand reason behind that one. Amane picked Amethyst because it sounds something like her name, even though I¡¯ve always thought her eyes should have made her Jade or something else green¡ªbesides, Emerald was already taken by then. And Yuuka is¡­Bloodstone.¡± She chuckled. ¡°Having a member with a more goth aesthetic is also pretty mahou shoujo, so I¡¯m glad she fills that role so easily.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t yet met the fifth member, so I was only working off of Star¡¯s rants and my abortive Wikipedia skim from yesterday to picture her, plus Ebi¡¯s comment that she was some sort of life sciences grad student. Biology or ecology or something in that vein, but I didn¡¯t quite see how that connected to a title like ¡®Bloodstone¡¯. It was a mystery for another time, though, because this whole topic had cut me a bit more deeply than I had been prepared for. I had always fantasized that, as a Vaetna, I¡¯d go by Ezzen, not Dalton, and Opal¡¯s own admission of the same habits created a weird feeling of intimacy I didn¡¯t quite want to confront. I looked over the paperwork arrayed before us again, pointing at the first empty box I saw.


    ¡°What goes here?¡±


    ¡°Your furigana. That¡¯s, uh¡­how your name is spelled in Japanese, since the sounds are different.¡±


    She pulled out some random receipt she assured me we wouldn¡¯t need, and wrote:


    ¥³¥ê¥ª©`?¥¨¥Ã¥¼¥ó


    ¡°That¡¯s your name in Japanese, I think. Korioo Ezzen. Uh, if we¡¯re going with what¡¯s on your ID, then¡­¡± She wrote another name: ¥À¥ë¥È¥ó. ¡°Daruton. ¡®Colliot¡¯ is French, right?¡±


    ¡°Great-grandfather, yeah.¡±


    ¡°Well, sorry to say, Japanese is terrible with French words. Still, Ezzen can be your name basically everywhere but your ID, and if you ask people to call you ¡®Ezzen¡¯, they will. ¡®Ezzen-san¡¯ sounds¡­mostly Japanese, I think, not that you have to pass for a native anyway.¡± She scribbled some kanji. ¡°You can get away with writing it in kanji a few different ways¡ªbut I¡¯m getting off track. You can just stick with katakana. Like how I write Arisu for my name.¡± She scribbled it: ¥¢¥ê¥¹.


    ¡°Not a Japanese name, is it?¡±


    ¡°Well, I think the accent gives me away no matter what.¡±


    ¡°I, um, didn¡¯t want to ask. You¡¯re a Londoner?¡±


    ¡°Nope, grew up here.¡± She waved it off good-naturedly. ¡°I¡¯m what they call a halfie. Dad¡¯s Japanese, Mom is a second-generation Brit. And Tokyo has a British school. It¡¯s a whole thing, there are American ones too. So I¡¯m a Japanese citizen, but lived in this little pocket of fake-London in the middle of Tokyo until high school. Spent a lot of summers out in the countryside with Dad¡¯s family, though, so I do consider myself Japanese in terms of culture or heritage or however you¡¯d call it.¡±


    Wow. That was a step beyond the years I spent living in America. ¡°You¡¯ve never been to Britain?¡±


    ¡°I have, but never lived there. The plan was for me to go to Oxford¡ªbut that was before the firestorms, and once we were flametouched¡­no way. I wasn¡¯t going to leave Hina and Ai behind.¡± She shook herself. ¡°You lived in the US for a while, though, right? What was that like?¡±


    ¡°Fine? Normal? I don¡¯t remember much from before it, and after¡­¡±


    Little more needed to be said on that front. The arrival of magic had rather thoroughly screwed up practically everybody¡¯s plans for the future in the short term, even disregarding the grander geopolitical impact. Doubly so if you were like me and had lost people, or were flametouched like the Radiances. I thought of what else to say. The memories seemed a little less painful knowing that her life had been just as derailed as mine in those first few weeks, so I searched for something to share.


    ¡°Well, there are things I miss about it. My dad was a chef, a really big one, so he¡¯d take me to NYC and we¡¯d eat at the fanciest restaurants for free since he was friends with everybody who ran those places. That was nice.¡±


    Opal lit up at that, although she was still actively rifling through papers and filling in boxes the whole time, conscious of the timetable we were on. ¡°That sounds¡ªgreat. Tokyo is so good for food tourism, you have no idea. And they put out the red carpet for us¡ªalthough between you and me, I prefer the chains and really grubby dives over the fine dining. You ever had Japanese pasta?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± I mean, of course not.


    ¡°Right, right. We¡¯re doing Saizeriya next time I take you out, then. I¡¯d ask Hina to take you today, but I¡¯m sure she¡¯s got her own ideas for a good time on the town.¡± She looked up from the document she was working on. ¡°Not too late to back out of that if you¡¯re getting cold feet, by the by.¡±


    ¡°¡­Cold foot. Just the one.¡±


    My delivery was so deadpan it sounded almost glum, and her brow furrowed with concern¡ªbefore she saw my lips twisted in a suppressed giggle. The stupid joke made her laugh quietly, covering her mouth, which made me unable to hold my own dumb guffaw. More importantly, this distracted us from the offered escape from today¡¯s plans, without delving into my complicated and conflicting feelings about Hina.


    ¡°It¡¯s great that you can joke about it already, really. How¡¯s it feeling?¡±


    ¡°Ankle still hurts a bit, but the ice definitely helped. Stabilizer¡¯s working a treat, it¡¯s¡­so good to be able to walk properly again.¡± I hadn¡¯t actually expressed that feeling out loud yet, and it felt nice to confide. Then I pointed at an object that had caught my attention earlier, a little stamp she was putting down at the bottom of the document. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Hanko. Personal seal, substitutes for a signature. Perks of having family history here.¡± She held up the document. ¡°I know you can¡¯t read it, but that says Takehara.¡±


    I nodded. My earlier prediction that today would greatly exceed my capacity for cultural osmosis was proving true¡ªcase in point, just then the number for our ticket was called, and we stood to approach the next desk. As with the last four, the person attending us seemed a bit star-struck by Opal. She did most of the talking; by now, I was picking up that there was a lot of the same boilerplate dialogue every time, things that I could reasonably guess were long-winded ¡°thank you¡±s and ¡°would it be possible to¡­¡± phrases. I wondered how much of the language I¡¯d pick up in a month¡¯s time.


    Opal seemed pleased with the progress we were making as we came away from the desk and returned to our impromptu home base. Mercifully, they generally didn¡¯t seem too willing to enter our bubble of privacy; Opal¡¯s star power seemed to keep them at bay rather than invite them to try to get a selfie or make small talk with the celebrity. It wasn¡¯t that she was intimidating, at least not to me, more that she was a visibly important person in the middle of doing visibly important things, and I appreciated that people were giving us space. She noticed me not-so-subtly looking around us.


    ¡°Enjoy it while it lasts. People will be way more willing to come up and bother us when we¡¯re on the street, tourists especially.¡± She indicated her tail and the way she sat sideways in her chair to accommodate it. ¡°Fair warning, I don¡¯t exactly try to hide.¡±


    ¡°Right, visibility. I got the impression Hina does? She said we¡¯d be undercover.¡±


    ¡°Hina¡­is weird. She doesn¡¯t believe in visibility off the clock.¡±


    ¡°But aren¡¯t secret identities¡­magical girl?¡±


    I felt sort of embarrassed to use the Japanese phrase in public as a foreigner, both on principle¡ªit felt a little appropriative¡ªand because I wasn¡¯t particularly confident in my pronunciation. When Opal said it, mahou shoujo was beautiful, and I could practically feel the belief and determination behind it. Coming out of my mouth, it felt I was doing a disservice to both the language and the concept. But on the other hand, using the English phrase was nearly as awkward, grammatically incoherent.


    ¡°They are, but again, it¡¯s one of those practicalities. Being seen is important, even when it¡¯s¡ª¡± she gestured around. ¡°Just standing in line to get immigration paperwork done. We¡¯re just people, you know?¡± She dropped her voice much lower and leaned in¡ªthis part wasn¡¯t for listeners-in. ¡°Hikanome thinks we¡¯re above humanity, above the law. Even Hina thinks that way, to an extent. But it¡¯s important to stay grounded. The Flame doesn¡¯t make you any more¡­more, do you follow?¡±


    That was the first thing she said that really sat wrong with me. I leaned away from her. I agreed with the basic premise¡ªgreat power, great responsibility¡ªbut this was a common talking point from people who meant to suggest that the Vaetna subscribed to the same philosophy of transhuman superiority. But the Vaetna didn¡¯t use their power to lord over the denizens of the Spire¡ªindeed, their whole raison d¡¯etre was to remind the powerful that they could and would be held accountable. The Spire¡¯s ten knights were far more than regular humans, more than even VNTs, and that wasn¡¯t inherently a bad thing. This was a familiar line of debate from the forums, and a familiar rebuttal was on my lips¡ªsomething like ¡°I think you can acknowledge and take advantage of a disparity of power without putting yourself on a pedestal¡±¡ªbut some danger-sensing part of my mind prodded me to consider why she had lowered her voice, why she didn¡¯t want passersby to overhear this part in particular, even with the mild security of this conversation taking place in English. It wasn¡¯t about the Vaetna; that was my own biases. I matched her whispered tone, thinking back to what she had said in the car.


    ¡°Sun¡¯s Blessing wouldn¡¯t be happy to hear you say that, I take it?¡±


    She shook her head. ¡°Not at all.¡± Then she looked around warily for anybody approaching. Satisfied the coast was clear, she reached into a not-space and retrieved something small, hurriedly popping it into her mouth and chewing. And chewing. I didn¡¯t quite look at her¡ªeye contact wasn¡¯t exactly a strong point for me¡ªbut I could still see her face growing redder in my peripheral vision. I had to ask.


    ¡°¡­Nuts?¡±


    ¡°I get peckish!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not judging.¡±


    She chewed some more. ¡°¡­Want one?¡±


    ¡°What kind?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªcashews, almonds, walnuts, peanuts. Salted.¡±


    ¡°Cashew, please. Why are we still whispering?¡±


    ¡°Um. We¡¯re not really supposed to eat here.¡± She offered me a nut, dropping it surreptitiously into my cupped hand. Her tone returned to the politely-quiet, conversational level from before. ¡°Anyway. I think you¡¯re seeing what I¡¯m getting at? We have to lead by example, show that anybody can do good.¡±


    Because they didn¡¯t even have the clout to say in public they weren¡¯t naturally superior to the people around them. I maintained the whisper, now unsure of what could be safely said in public.


    ¡°Does Sun¡¯s Blessing have that kind of power?¡±


    Opal looked around again, judging the safety of this conversation, before opting to pull out her phone along with another nut.


    Alice Takehara: The short explanation is that the National Public Safety Commission, who more or less hold our leash, are heavily tied to Hikanome. We keep Hikanome happy, they don¡¯t pressure the Commission to restrict or sanction us.


    Alice Takehara: The appeasement isn¡¯t just about maintaining our fanbase. It¡¯s politics.


    I was oddly pleased that she shared my habit of proper grammar over text, even on our phones.


    Dalton Colliot: Which is why Hina is policing a protest?


    I frowned after sending the message, and went into my phone¡¯s settings, changing my display name.


    Ezzen Colliot: There we go.


    Alice Takehara: ????(? ?? ? - ? ) ?


    ¡°How did you do that?¡±


    ¡°I have a whole menu of them. You¡¯ve never seen kaomoji before?¡±


    I had, but I had figured they fell more in the vein of ASCII art than an easily accessible menu.


    ¡°Show me how to get those?¡±


    ¡°Sure, later.¡±


    Alice Takehara: But yeah, that sort of thing is the price we pay for having mostly free reign to do our thing.


    Alice Takehara: It¡¯s this or be essentially forced to participate in the whole South China Sea¡­thing. Dick-measuring contest, if you¡¯ll excuse my language.


    Alice Takehara: Mahou shoujo do not fight wars.


    Ezzen Colliot: lol


    Ezzen Colliot: (at dick-measuring contest, not the thing about war)


    She acknowledged the clarification with a nod.


    Ezzen Colliot: Seems adverse.


    Alice Takehara: Try ¡®corrupt¡¯.


    She knew the score. It was easy to see how situations like these could be construed as Todai being pressured into appearing to support Sun¡¯s Blessing. This was already a tangle of politics that I had little patience for. Hina¡¯s first lesson loomed as a kind of omen, now, and I was starting to understand why she had felt the need to impress it on me almost as soon as I had confirmed I was sticking around. Todai lived and died on leverage. I had always admired the way the Spire was able to cut the Gordian knot when it came to this sort of thing¡ªbut then, they had both the means and ideological sanction to go to war over it. Opal and her team had neither.


    Ezzen Colliot: Also, ¡®free rein¡¯.


    ¡°What? No, it¡¯s ¡®reign¡¯, with a ¡®G¡¯, like being in control.¡±


    ¡°Nope, look it up.¡±


    ¡°¡­Oh, darn.¡±


    Alice Takehara: But there¡¯s a weird upside to it all.


    Alice Takehara: If we do wind up in open conflict with the PCTF, we can go public about what happened to Amane and all the other flamebearers like her.


    Alice Takehara: And my hope is that Hikanome would lose their shit.


    And there it was. Todai¡¯s greatest leverage, a play of brutal realpolitik that took full advantage of their position in the public eye and could turn one of their biggest external pressures into a staunch ally against their most hated enemy. Not something to be done lightly; if they couldn¡¯t make the accusation stick, it was easy to see how that could demolish Todai¡¯s reputation, and even in the best case scenario, it was so adversarial as to almost be a declaration of war. And what of Amane¡¯s own place in this, as the centerpiece, someone of whom Opal was clearly so protective? All that to say¡ª


    From what I now understood of the concept, such a move would not be mahou shoujo in the slightest.

 From On High // 1.11

    starstar97: WHAT THE FUCK


    starstar97: YALL


    ezzen: lmao


    ks3glimmer: ?


    starstar97: e. how.


    ezzen: I¡­


    ezzen: Asked?


    starstar97: im doing a stupid little dance on my bed rn


    moth30: lighthouse?


    starstar97: opal did a video for me aaaaaaaaaaaaaa


    moth30: hell yeah


    ebi-furai: nice of her


    ebi-furai: wanna fill them in on how things have been going for you, ez?


    ezzen: uhhhhhhh


    ezzen: Not much to report. Doing paperwork.


    Why was she prompting me? Just being social, or was this a roundabout and subtle form of bullying?


    ezzen: Really weird to spend so long off my PC.


    skychicken: oh, yeah, i assume you¡¯ve got to basically move into a new place?


    skychicken: new computer and so on


    No acknowledgment of my apology or question from last night. That stung. Was this bridge burned?


    ezzen: Yep, wound up living with the Radiances, doing some shopping today.


    ezzen: Which is just unreal when I actually say it.


    starstar97: jealous forever. FOREVER, e


    starstar97: currently too high on this video to make demands but later im going to want the hot gossip


    starstar97: ebi has been SO uncooperative >:(


    ebi-furai: no leaks!


    ebi-furai: i like my job too much


    ezzen: Yeah, no leaks. I¡¯m already a burden sorta since they¡¯re covering everything about my foot, don¡¯t want to cause further problems.


    ezzen: My post earlier ruffled some feathers for their publicity.


    starstar97: fine


    ks3glimmer: im very lost in this conversation


    starstar97: btw tysm ily this is the best day of my life


    ezzen: <3


    ks3glimmer: i go afk for three days and i come back to ezzen living


    ks3glimmer: with LIGHTHOUSE? correct me if im wrong. bizarro world if im not


    ks3glimmer: also hey new person who im inferring from context is a lighthouse employee


    ebi-furai: ww hii


    skychicken: our first Todai employee in this chat, i think


    That claim still smelled a bit fishy to me.


    ebi-furai: check the forum, still top post i think


    ezzen: ^


    We¡¯d been collectively fielding questions about the news of my new situation from latecomers all morning, both in the chatroom and on the forum. It was what occupied most of my otherwise-empty past two hours of following Opal around Tochou like a lonely duckling. We¡¯d gotten a respectable portion of the immigration paperwork done; most importantly, Opal had successfully submitted some critical documents on Todai¡¯s end regarding sponsoring my visa, and we¡¯d managed to dodge any difficulties regarding the fact that my method of entering the country had been via counter-abduction by Hina. She had allegedly teleported me in eighty-kilometer hops all the way across the world¡ªsome seven thousand meters up¡ªwhich had caused significant distress to air traffic control in every jurisdiction between Heathrow and Haneda. Opal had assured me that Todai had already paid the according fines¡ªapparently those made up the vast majority of the final bill for my rescue and recovery, compared to the actual medical costs or the fees associated with immigration. The number was large enough that she refused to reveal it to me, citing that it¡¯d make me feel unreasonably guilty even though it was entirely Hina¡¯s fault. She was probably right.


    We¡¯d relocated once during our bouncing between different lines and kiosks, claimed a new unofficial home base of lightly padded seats and tables that were slightly too small for our bureaucratic labors. At least this new location was by a window, and the view was decent up here on the twenty-fifth floor¡ªdid Japan have a thing for floor-to-ceiling windows? Surprisingly, the concrete terrain of lower rooftops was peppered with what looked to be gardens despite the fact that most of those buildings were minor local government offices sheltering in Tochou¡¯s shadow. It did a lot to liven up the euclidean blocks of concrete, like the park had on the drive over.


    I¡¯d taken this all in across the span of a few seconds. Then I¡¯d had to stop looking; too high off the ground. Opal had spotted that¡ªwithout comment, mercifully¡ªand opted to instead describe the scene to me, which had metamorphosed into some rambling tangent about how the city¡¯s juxtaposition of urban construction and green space was a particularly Japanese sensibility. It had gone over my head, only half-paying attention with my focus split between the chatroom and the documents, but it seemed to keep her occupied while her eyes scanned through the endless sheafs of red tape. Indeed, her spirits had remained quite high through the whole thing, energy unflagging¡ªthough that might have also had something to do with the steady supply of nuts being transferred from pocketspace to her stomach.


    By square footage, Tochou was over eight times the size of Lighthouse Tower, and while our adventures had been constrained to a select few floors, there¡¯d still been a surprising amount of walking, agitating my ankle. Fortunately, the ice pack had done its job, muting the joint¡¯s fussing, until it had finally reached thermal equilibrium with the stuffy, ink- and paper-laden air. It was maybe a degree warmer in here than I would have liked, and I¡¯d absentmindedly been tapping my fingers against the window to compensate, leaching the excess heat into the chilly glass. That also helped remind me that there was a barrier between me and the long drop.


    I silently thanked the spent pack of mysterious blue gel¡ªnot nearly as blue as Hina¡¯s eyes, a slightly disquieting thought¡ªand handed it back to Opal, who deposited it into her personal pocketspace. I distracted myself the only way I knew how.


    ¡°How much space have you got in there?¡±


    ¡°Four cubic meters. Two by two by one. Handy, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Extremely.¡± I was a little jealous. ¡°It¡¯s just {VOLUME}, isn¡¯t it? The space itself?¡±


    ¡°Pretty much. Hina¡¯s is fancier than mine; she uses it for everything. Hates carrying stuff.¡±


    ¡°She can portal too, right? Saw her do it last night.¡±


    The mention of her teammate¡¯s objectionable behavior set Opal¡¯s expression just the tiniest bit stormy before she shook it off.


    ¡°Yep. Space is her specialty, you could say. Easier when you¡¯re halfway to having a lattice for a brain.¡±


    Opal had done a formidable job of filing away the documents not intended for return to whichever helpful clerk had presented them to us, banishing them into an accordion folder with different labeled sections¡ªimmigration, health insurance, Bureau. Opal had made an attempt to teach me the Japanese term for each of those and scribbled them onto the back of each of the little label tabs as though they were flashcards. In turn, the folder was relegated to her pocketspace to join the spent ice pack and her dwindling supply of nuts and whatever else she had in there.


    Then she stood, stretching, tail raised and midriff on display. The word ¡®fanservice¡¯ wandered through my brain, which I tried very hard to ignore. I almost succeeded. She rolled her shoulders and encouraged me to do the same, eyeing how I distributed my weight as I rose. She cracked all her knuckles¡ªloud in the hush of the byzantine labyrinth, though no louder than her own voice had been while rambling about some shrine in Akasaka¡ªand then surprised me by continuing the crackling up her arms and then down her spine, even getting some loud pops from her tail as she flexed it.


    ¡°Nnghm. My back is killing me¡ªthese chairs are really not great for my spine. Feel up to going up to the skydeck, stretch our legs?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re done for today?¡±


    ¡°Just about. It¡¯s¡ª¡± She checked her watch, an ultra-thin hologram display more like a bracelet in form. At least four hundred quid, I guessed. ¡°Quarter to noon, and if we do another ticket-wait-forms cycle, I won¡¯t have enough buffer time to drop you off and eat something before my meeting. Skydeck will probably only be¡­twenty minutes at most, I think.¡±


    The rhythm of Opal¡¯s day seemed to be heavily influenced by the supernaturally high demands of her stomach; meals were the immovable keystones around which she assembled the rest of her itinerary.


    ¡°Um¡­sure, we can go up. How high is it?¡±


    I tried to keep the question nonchalant, but it came out a bit too breathless, and she caught on, glancing out the window I¡¯d been studiously avoiding once I¡¯d had all I could take of the view.


    ¡°Not good with heights, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Um¡­not great, but I can manage,¡± I assured her. ¡°It¡¯s not as bad once I go high enough, so¡­¡±


    She nodded. ¡°You should be alright, I think. It¡¯s nowhere near as tall as Skytree, but it¡¯s still¡­two hundred meters, I think? Something like that.¡±


    I considered this. I didn¡¯t want to refuse the offer, so I swallowed my nerves.


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    Her voice softened. ¡°If you think you can¡¯t, just let me know, alright?¡±


    ¡°¡­thanks.¡±


    She really was entirely too kind. That feeling only intensified under her watchful gaze as I shuffled my feet experimentally, confirming that my leg was up to some more walking. Satisfied with that, she led me over to the elevators she had indicated. When one arrived, both of the people who stepped out¡ªemployees, probably¡ªdirected a round-eyed, starstruck stare at her. She gave them a warm smile, seeming not at all awkward under the attention, before leading me inward. The doors slid shut.


    ¡°I¡¯m a little surprised that a Spire-lover like you would be scared of heights. You¡¯ve never been, right?¡±


    ¡°No, but I think it¡¯d be like a plane. Once I go high enough, I stop thinking of it in terms of distance from the ground.¡±


    ¡°Makes sense. You¡¯ll get over it, I think. It¡¯s a lot less scary once you realize how much control you¡¯ve got in the air. Er¡ªthat¡¯s how it is for our mantles, anyway. I wouldn¡¯t recommend jumping off any buildings, yourself.¡±


    Was there a silent ¡°not yet¡± appended to that? I didn¡¯t want to tempt that possibility, as much as I was coming to trust Opal to not push me in that direction.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­{IMPEL}? Can we talk about this now?¡±


    ¡°We can, since it¡¯s just us. When we¡¯re mantled, it¡¯s¡­well, not just {IMPEL}, there¡¯s a lot of tricks. Blue ripple, though, yeah.¡±


    Blue was physical effects¡ªforces, changes in temperature.


    ¡°It¡¯s not snapweaving?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s bindings. Jet fighter cockpit sort of vibes, remember? The mantles sort of come¡­preloaded with the glyphs, woven into the manifest, so they¡¯re acting as LM substrate for extra bindings. You know how all you have to do with your binding is tug on the weave? Same deal, but even more natural. If you¡¯ve ever played an instrument, or a video game with a lot of hand-eye coordination, it¡¯s like that.¡±


    I had largely stayed away from video games that demanded that sort of dexterity, owing to my right hand, but I wasn¡¯t about to derail into that when we were finally talking about my favorite thing.


    ¡°So what you can do is limited by what you¡¯ve included in the mantle.¡±


    ¡°Sort of. We still can snapweave for other stuff, but that¡¯s not the same either. When your body itself is spun out of lattice, it¡¯s¡­I don¡¯t know how to put it. You¡¯re much more aware of the ripple directly. Psychomotive elements go both ways, you understand. Though we¡¯re still ¡®on instruments¡¯ for a lot of maneuvers, so to speak.¡±


    I considered this.


    ¡°Even if it¡¯s not totally fluid, that still sounds¡­¡± Then I wound up being a little more vulnerable than I had intended. ¡°Freeing.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± She sighed. ¡°It is.¡±


    The elevator dinged, and we were at the deck. There were few internal lights on, but the huge windows encircling the space let in the skylight, the hazy blue casting everything in its hue. Like the penthouse, the elevator was at the building¡¯s center¡ªor rather, this tower¡¯s center. Tochou had two peaks that rose above the more conventional office building design of the first thirty-ish floors, and both had a skydeck; we were on the northern one. Opal led me forward to the window which circumnavigated the entire deck, continuing to keep an eye on my leg; not that I was limping, but the concern was welcome nonetheless. I made it to the window and needed a moment for my eyes to adjust from the relative shade to the light of the open sky. Then I saw Tokyo¡¯s true scale for the first time.


    The city just¡­kept going, in every direction, a sprawl of grey and brown mottling that extended into the hazy distance, blending into the foot of distant blue mountains which in turn melded with the midday sky. Skyscrapers broke the cobbled surface, jutting out in protrusions that were sometimes conventional rectangles and sometimes more esoteric and bulbous. Most were smaller than Tochou, but a few were of the level or even taller, kin to the behemoths that shared Todai¡¯s neighborhood. We were facing the wrong way anyway, but I would have been completely unable to pick Lighthouse Tower out from the undergrowth. There was an especially tall, needle-like building ahead of us, a mile or two away.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­Skytree?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Fourth-tallest manmade structure in the world, these days.¡±


    A little placard set in front of the part of the window which faced Skytree helpfully listed the competition. The tallest structure in the world was obviously the Spire, by an entire order of magnitude, 8,070 meters¡­but it didn¡¯t count for this metric, as it wasn¡¯t manmade. Thus, the actual crown went to an 800-meter super-skyscraper that had been erected as an exercise in magic-assisted architecture in Shanghai, closely followed by its sibling in Guangzhou. Then came the tallest non-magical one from the previous era, Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, right above Skytree on the list. Previously, those two had been behind the Burj Khalifa, but that had been annihilated with the rest of Dubai.


    I made the mistake of looking past the little informational rectangle, down toward the ground far below the observation deck¡¯s windows. Too high¡ªI squeezed my eyes shut. That was a second mistake, because now my body was convinced I was standing on the edge of a cliff, with nothing between me and the ground. My heart pounded, my mouth dry and sticky. My panicking mind groped for some security. I found it in my binding¡ª


    Opal¡¯s hand gripped my wrist, fingers pressed over the tattoo. The lattice wouldn¡¯t budge¡ªshe wasn¡¯t just holding my arm in place, she was also using her Flame to hold the thread taut, preventing me from tugging the leading edge to call the weapon from the binding, just as Hina had. I didn¡¯t at all appreciate that echo, and the panic deepened further for a moment, recalling the primal terror she had evoked in me¡ª


    ¡°Not here. Deep breaths.¡±


    My brain was screaming danger. I was going to fall, down and down, and become a wet smear on the pavement. Like¡ª


    ¡°Too high,¡± I blubbered.


    ¡°Let go of the lattice, it¡¯s okay. Deep breaths, Ezzen. Kuu¡­fah. Like that.¡±


    I forced myself to take a shuddering breath. This was humiliating¡ªand became more so when I heard Opal say something in Japanese to a passerby or maybe the staff. I squeezed my eyes tighter. I squeaked out an apology, hating the scene I was making.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be. Do you need to go back down?¡±


    I didn¡¯t want to. I didn¡¯t want to lose to my body¡¯s stupid response to a bad memory. Stupid fucking useless spear, what would it have even done for me? No, don¡¯t think about that, just breathe in, breathe out. A lattice diagram began to take form in my mind. It would start with {AFFIX}, and blue link into {IMPEL} to resist the force of gravity, or a {DEFLECT} sheet to create sufficient drag. Alternatively, I could {TRANSPOSE} the momentum itself into some other color of ripple, though some napkin math on kinetic energy ruled that out as a matter of externalities that most VNT groups would deem unacceptable, regardless of which color I were to choose. There was one neat line there where you linked on orange into a {COMPOSE} to just directly store the energy into a binding for later release, but you¡¯d need a proper receptacle ahead of time, which¡ª


    Picturing the glyphs that would arrest my fall helped me calm down. My heartbeat settled, and I released my mental hold on the lattice in my arm.


    ¡°I¡¯m okay.¡±


    ¡°Look at the mountains instead.¡±


    I opened my eyes, looking out at the blue peaks bordering the horizon instead of straight down. Opal didn¡¯t release my wrist until I took a few more slow breaths. Then my gaze tracked to her.


    ¡°How do you¡­oh. Amethyst.¡±


    ¡°Yuuka, not Amane,¡± she corrected, her voice gentle.


    ¡°¡­Doesn¡¯t she have a jetbike?¡±


    ¡°She insisted on learning.¡±


    There was a quiet smile in her voice that stabilized me. I unclenched my fists, forced myself to un-hunch my stance. I wasn¡¯t going to let the memories rule me.


    This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    ¡°Okay. Sorry, again. Can we keep going?¡±


    ¡°Yes. If you need to go down¡ªjust ask. I won¡¯t let it become a scene.¡±


    Thank you, Opal. I wished I could have said that aloud, but the whole ordeal had made me a bit fragile as it was. She took me around the perimeter, going toward the west side, and pointed.


    ¡°Fuji-san.¡±


    The snow-capped peak was visible over the row of smaller mountains in the far distance. This direction also had fewer skyscrapers, making the buildings seem like pebbles on a beach by comparison. There was majesty in the mountain, even at this distance¡ªI pictured the Spire next to it, over twice as tall but far more narrow, less vast for all its height. Nature had a way of eclipsing even the work of the divine. On the other hand, the endless urban sprawl below me, the fruit of centuries of labor from us mortals, had less than a fifth of the Spire¡¯s population. Wait, no, not centuries; at some point in Opal¡¯s architectural rambling she had mentioned that not much of the old city had survived the firebombings during the Second World War.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t san an honorific? Personification?¡±


    ¡°No, just a homophone. It¡¯s a good friend of ours, though, so maybe. We¡¯ll take you, eventually.¡±


    ¡°On a hike?¡±


    That sounded sort of nice; the slopes seemed gentle enough that they probably wouldn¡¯t trigger my acrophobia. It¡¯d have to be after my foot healed completely, though. Opal chuckled.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s a bit more than a hike¡ªit¡¯s a pretty serious ascent. For humans.¡±


    ¡°And for¡­us?¡±


    It still made me giddy to refer to myself that way and mean it. No longer fantasy. She pointed at the distant peak.


    ¡°Three minutes, twenty-nine seconds.¡±


    ¡°Flying straight up? Or is it more like running?¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, not the ascent. From here to the summit. That¡¯s the average between us.¡±


    Another placard helpfully informed me that that was a roughly 80-kilometer journey¡ªshe let me use my phone¡¯s calculator for a minute. The speed wound up being a little over Mach one.


    ¡°I assume that sort of statistic is under¡­NDA?¡±


    Aside from our discussion of Todai¡¯s less-than-cordial relationship with the PCTF, Opal had been a little cagey about exactly what was and wasn¡¯t considered ¡®safely public¡¯ knowledge regarding the Radiances. She¡¯d assured me that we¡¯d talk it through once the paperwork caught up to us.


    ¡°Well, that specific number is public, or I wouldn¡¯t have said it, but that¡¯s a good assumption.¡±


    I took a photo of the vista for Star¡¯s benefit¡ªhopefully she still had an appetite for souvenirs from me after Opal¡¯s video¡ªand mentally filed away the factoid. We continued around the perimeter, and she finally broached the topic I had hoped she¡¯d continue to avoid.


    ¡°How are your bites?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªbitten, I suppose?¡±


    ¡°I mean emotionally.¡±


    ¡°Must we?¡± It felt a little forceful of her to be bringing this up after the emotional ordeal not three minutes ago.


    ¡°Mm. We don¡¯t have to, just felt I should get it on the table. I understand you two agreed it¡¯s not a date, but¡­¡±


    Was she asking if I was into Hina? Because the answer to that was a resigned and faintly horrified yes, you have no idea how much, but there was no way I was going to admit that¡ªespecially not in public, even with the respectful wide-ish berth that other tourists were giving us. So I stuck with my story.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a date.¡±


    ¡°Okay, fine, sorry, didn¡¯t mean to be a bother.¡± She fell silent for a moment, and then almost burst out, unable to stop herself from continuing the line of questioning. ¡°Then¡ªwhat do you think of her? I mean¡ªshe¡¯s my biggest worry about all this, you know? I just fret she¡¯ll scare you off. I want this to work.¡±


    What did I think of Hina, exactly? I still felt last night¡¯s resolve that she was entirely, unapologetically herself, more than anything else¡ªbut that understanding had come about through too much intimacy for me to feel comfortable sharing it. Besides, that was a tautologically unhelpful framing of her character, and I had to admit some curiosity about what Opal would think of my previous theory instead.


    ¡°She¡¯s like¡­a puppy, sometimes. But sometimes she¡¯s a hyena?¡±


    Fuck, that sounded stupid, said aloud. I was powerless to stop the blush from invading my face. She stifled a snicker, which made me feel even worse, and flayed me open with a giggle-laced conspiratorial whisper.


    ¡°A hyena! Hina the Hyena. Like a certain Heron, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Oh no. Oh fuck. Was that why I had categorized her like that? If I had been somewhat embarrassed before, this was now all-out humiliation, as she dragged my subconscious predilection toward Heung into the harsh light of day. She continued poking holes in the metaphor, a teasing grin on her face.


    ¡°Hyenas aren¡¯t really scary, are¡­they¡­?¡± She trailed off as she processed my reaction. Her voice softened. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m so sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to make fun of you. Sorry.¡±


    I tried to defend the idea, even though it had already taken on far too much water and I really had no reason to be invested in it anymore. ¡°It¡¯s just¡ªhow she smiles. The teeth.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I see it, it¡¯s really not a bad comparison at all. That was so rude of me, I don¡¯t¡­no excuse here, that was just out of turn. Um¡­can I make it up to you with some insider intel?¡±


    My metaphorical ears perked up.


    ¡°Go ahead?¡±


    ¡°She likes crepes. There¡¯s a place on Takeshita-dori called, uh¡­Sweet Box. She¡¯s probably going to hint for you to take her there when you pass by. At least, I¡¯m assuming that¡¯s the part of town she¡¯s going to take you to.¡±


    That caught me off guard¡ªI had pegged her tastes as more carnivorous, not quite so sweet and girly.


    ¡°Crepes?¡±


    ¡°Crepes.¡±


    ¡°And she wouldn¡¯t just¡­drag me there directly?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s capable of subtlety, you know. To use the dog metaphor¡­she¡¯ll beg a bit. Look at it, then look back to you, that sort of thing.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t sound all that subtle.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say she was good at it, just capable of it. It¡¯s cute, though, I promise.¡±


    ¡°Okay, um. Thanks. Um¡ªapology accepted?¡±


    Awkward, but functional, and my appreciation was genuine. Opal and Hina had both intimated that they were each other¡¯s best friends, or something close to it, and being let in on that felt good.


    We fell silent as we continued around the perimeter. The view directly to the south was partially blocked by the south tower with its twin observation deck, some twenty-odd meters away from us. The main thing of note in that direction was that the mountains tapered off as they met the bay. It occurred to me¡ª


    ¡°That¡¯s the Pacific.¡±


    ¡°It¡­is? Of course.¡± She nodded hesitantly, before snapping her fingers in understanding. I¡¯d have only seen the Atlantic while living in Britain, and Philadelphia had been inland. ¡°Oh, first time?¡±


    ¡°Um¡­probably not first first, I think my dad took me to California once or twice when I was little, but I don¡¯t remember it.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Well, there it is. Behold.¡±


    I did as told, casting my gaze out at the horizon; there wasn¡¯t actually all that much to behold from this vantage point. It was just a lot of water. In the sky, however¡ª


    ¡°That¡¯s the scar.¡±


    ¡°Yep. Right mess. Not our proudest moment.¡±


    The sky above the city¡ªspecifically above the port, to the southeast¡ªhad a section that was discolored and jagged. It was an ugly yellowish grey against the otherwise-blue sky. It almost looked like the ripple warping on my spear; I supposed that made sense. There were other landmarks further inland in this direction, like what looked to be the Imperial Palace, but the scar was a rather new addition to the skyline.


    ¡°Smaller than I expected.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s bigger up close.¡±


    There was a placard for this, as well. I already knew the gist, but I gave the English portion a read anyway.


    Visible above Tokyo Harbor is the Blue Spark Scar, a magical effect created on 27 July, 2018, after the Blue Spark Incident, where Lighthouse defeated a monster summoned by a necromancer.


    ¡°Sparse, isn¡¯t it.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it doesn¡¯t even mention the fireworks.¡± She squinted at the placard. ¡°The Japanese does.¡±


    Wait. ¡°July 2018. So that¡¯s¡ªthree and a half years ago. You mentioned that, um, Sugahara¡­¡±


    ¡°Sugawara. Yes, it¡¯s connected. Our first mission as an official team that wasn¡¯t just inferno control. Topic for later, you understand.¡±


    First time they had fought Hikanome¡ªa name suspiciously absent from the placard. This wasn¡¯t something we should continue discussing in public. We followed the circle to the final cardinal direction of our circumnavigation, facing east. She pointed downward.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to look, but that¡¯s Shinjuku. One of the biggest city centers in¡­well, the whole world, really. Even the station is practically a city in its own right.¡±


    I braved it¡ªbut when my gaze fell closer than a certain distance, I suddenly became aware again of how high off the ground we were and had to abandon the effort. What I had seen of it looked¡ªfrankly, pretty much exactly like the rest of the city. Maybe with a slightly higher density of skyscrapers, but if there was something specific she had wanted me to see, it either wasn¡¯t visible from up here or I hadn¡¯t looked carefully enough.


    ¡°Can¡¯t,¡± I apologized.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay. Honestly¡ªyeah, not much to see of it from up here, is there? You¡¯ll get it once you¡¯re down there.¡± She winced. ¡°Oof, I can¡¯t imagine my first real exposure to the crowds being with Hina of all people. Uh¡ªwell, you¡¯re committed, and I promised I wouldn¡¯t keep questioning that. So¡­good luck?¡±


    ¡ª


    We left Tochou the same way we came in, through the front, first descending those two hundred meters down to ground level¡ªtwo different elevator rides¡ªand then through the labyrinth of lines and halls on the ground level. The skydeck had been full of tourists, but we¡¯d been almost entirely left alone; there were more interesting things to look at than Opal. But down here in the maw of the bureaucratic beast, her shining hair and massive tail were by far the most attention-grabbing things to see, turning the heads of visitors and paper-pushers alike. The eyes that fell on me by association were becoming more and more unwelcome; she was long since inoculated to it, though.


    ¡°Okay, so¡ªHina¡¯s going to meet you somewhere else, and in the interest of her privacy, I¡¯m not actually going to hand you off to her directly.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m already, er, seen with you already, though.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but she¡¯s a bit¡­paranoid about it. She¡¯s already, uh¡­¡± She lowered her voice, rolling her eyes, ¡°Undercover.¡±


    ¡°Is that¡­a lack of faith in her disguise, or just that it¡¯s not¡ª¡± Too many eyes on me to dare use the Japanese without risk of embarrassment. ¡°¡ªmagical girl?¡±


    ¡°The latter. Scamp can disappear completely when she wants. Besides, word about how you look won¡¯t spread fast enough to catch up to you today, at least, not once the two of you disappear into the crowds.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± That somehow made it worse; it hadn¡¯t quite occurred to me that celebrity-spotters on social media might make note of my appearance and spread it around. But if they were anything like Star¡ªindeed, some of them might be people Star knew¡ªmy face was already destined to be cataloged into the weekly rumor mill surrounding the Radiances, just by being seen here with Opal today. ¡°I¡¯m going to be hunted down by paparazzi?¡±


    ¡°Well, the professionals know better than to mob us, but by next week there¡¯s at least some chance of fans recognizing you, yeah. If that¡¯s a problem¡­well, Hina will talk you through it.¡±


    I didn¡¯t relish the idea of being high-profile enough to garner attention from passersby in public even without a Radiance at my side¡ªthat was some small part of why I had rejected the idea of joining as a Radiance in the first place, secondary to the more obvious objections. Even the idea of my face eventually becoming joined publicly to my identity as Ezzen sat deeply wrong with me. I valued the near-perfect anonymity I had cultivated online; I¡¯d managed to achieve a strange limbo between being popular and respected while remaining mostly private, and now that was being threatened.


    ¡°But it won¡¯t come up today?¡±


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t. Rumor mill doesn¡¯t work that fast. Er¡ªsorry. I should have explained it more back when I made you the offer.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll manage,¡± I sighed.


    She winced a bit, which in turn made me feel bad for making her feel bad that I felt bad. We were great at this. She shook it off and led me the rest of the way out the building, and then around the corner to where we had street-parked¡ªhow humble. When we reached the car, I turned and looked again at Tochou¡¯s facade, now just far enough away that I wouldn¡¯t lose my balance trying to look up at it.


    Somebody with a proper appreciation for architecture would have probably gotten more out of it, but Tochou cut an impressive figure nonetheless. It gave the impression of two huge columns stitched together in the middle until about halfway up, beyond which the two towers continued to rise individually, holding higher-level offices and the twin skydecks. The stone facade was a fortress of bureaucracy, with the two turrets standing sentinel above the keep, the entrance set in as though to shield it from assault. It felt as though it should have a drawbridge or portcullis or something, rather than the array of perfectly normal glass doors. Too, craning my neck up at the dual peaks adorned with satellite dishes, I almost expected to see them crowned with vast anti-aircraft guns watching the sky, perhaps trained on the scar. That mental image, of artillery atop great stone monoliths, came from a childhood trip to see the concrete flak towers in Vienna¡ªa historical site that had fared WW2 far better than this city supposedly had. Those enormous slabs of concrete had long since been denuded of their armaments, which had been disappointing to ten-year-old Dalton at the time. Now, my imagination filled in the absence with the Spire¡¯s own defensive emplacements and dropped the whole amalgam of concrete and cutting-edge cannonry onto the top of each of Tochou¡¯s spires.


    But no such weapons were necessary; the scar was inert, stitched shut and scabbed over. Anything that threatened this city would have to go through the Radiances, anyway.


    Opal looked up with me. ¡°View¡¯s fine from down here?¡±


    ¡°Little dizzying¡­not scary, though, no. Sky¡¯s big.¡±


    ¡°Astute observation.¡±


    ¡°¡­Thanks. I guess it is sort of scary, in a more abstract way. Feels like if you stare long enough you might fall up into it, y¡¯know?¡±


    She gave me a funny look. ¡°Can¡¯t say I do.¡±


    I retreated into my jacket a bit at that, casting my gaze back down to Earth, the blush warring with the chilly air attacking my skin. My arms, the left of which had been absentmindedly squeezing the right to help fight off the winter¡¯s ache, separated and delved into my pockets. Seeing my reaction, she cursed.


    ¡°Ah, bollocks. I feel every third thing I say makes you uncomfortable in some way. Sorry.¡±


    I wanted to tell her it wasn¡¯t her fault, because it really wasn¡¯t, but I was shutting down a bit. My ears were replaying the stupid thing I had said over and over, my mind unable to buffer anything past the moment of embarrassment. Instead, it harkened back to the humiliating scene I had made earlier up on the skydeck, and the idea that more people would be looking at me from now on, my undersocialized, probably-autistic constant awkwardness on global display, to say nothing of how I was going to make a fool of myself with Hina, it was all this awful paralytic pressure¡ª


    ¡°Oh, Ezzen. It¡¯s not¡ªit doesn¡¯t have to be scary. You know I didn¡¯t get good at talking to people overnight, right?¡±


    I still didn¡¯t respond verbally, trapped in the cycle of overstimulation and bad thoughts, but I managed the tiniest nod to indicate I was listening. She circled from my side to stand in front of me on the pavement. She probably cut an impressive figure with Tochou at her back, the kind you¡¯d see on a postcard or the cover of a magazine, but all I saw from my downcast gaze and hunched shoulders were her trainers. They looked expensive, a splatter of soft pinks and baby blues and citrine yellows over pure white; the same hues that refracted across her scales, so maybe the shoes were custom.


    ¡°Remember what Hina said this morning? How I used to be a hikikomori? A shut-in?¡±


    I actually hadn¡¯t. I managed a noncommittal noise of acknowledgment.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s true. I was¡­I wanted the publicity, to be seen as a mahou shoujo, but I was terrified. Could barely form a complete sentence in front of people, and that was in my school uniform, not my transformation. If I ever went anywhere, it was because Hina dragged me there, or because I didn¡¯t want Ai to spend time alone. Took me a long time to, er, ¡®get it together¡¯. You¡¯ve¡ªreally splashed right into the deep end with all this and¡­what I said earlier about the Peacies probably made it sound like you¡¯re on a timer to do the same. But you¡¯re not, okay?¡±


    She stepped a bit closer to me, but I still couldn¡¯t raise my eyes to her.


    ¡°You¡¯re not. You don¡¯t¡ªit¡¯s really, really hard at first. But it¡¯s just practice, and we don¡¯t bite.¡± She made a dissatisfied noise. ¡°Well, I suppose Hina does. The point is, if you don¡¯t want to be in the public eye with the rest of us beyond your name, we can make that happen. And I promise, a year from now, it¡¯ll be so much easier to just¡­exist. To not be embarrassed to be you. It just takes practice. Want to know what helped for me?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I¡­gosh, it sounds a bit dumb when I say it out loud. I took an improv acting class. It¡¯s one of the best decisions I ever made¡ªokay, well, Hina threatened me at knifepoint to do it, but it¡¯s still true. And at some point, the embarrassment just¡­became normal, yeah? It didn¡¯t go away, I just got better at ignoring it to keep playing the role, learned to think on my feet even when my metaphorical arse was out. And when I started being Radiance Opal, and not Alice¡­I was still playing a role, until it became real. More than figuring out our costumes or anything else, more than anything aside from getting flametouched, pretending is what let me really become mahou shoujo. Again, not saying you have to follow in those exact footsteps, just¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­so it is roleplay.¡±


    She guffawed at that. ¡°Yes, it is, in this sense. It¡¯s performative. But no more performative than any other public interaction. It¡¯s all tatemae. Um, I¡¯m getting off track¡ªthat¡¯ll have to be a whole lecture on its own, eventually, but the point is: just try. I won¡¯t tell you to not be embarrassed. Just try to¡­keep up the act, pretend you¡¯re somebody who¡¯s confident. You¡¯ll mess up, and that¡¯s fine, because while Hina¡¯s real queer, she¡¯s basically the perfect person to practice that sort of thing with because she¡¯ll never make fun of you for making an effort. Okay? Can you do that?¡±


    ¡°¡­okay.¡±


    ¡°Attaboy.¡± She patted my shoulder gently¡ªmy left, so as not to put more weight on my bad leg, which I appreciated¡ªthen dug the stabilizer out of her bag and handed it to me. ¡°This is yours. Feeling up to walking a hundred meters on your own?¡±


    ¡°Um. Think so?¡± I accepted it from her, rolling the bulky shape around in my hands before pocketing it in my jacket. It unbalanced me slightly, but that was a small price to pay for being able to walk at all. Then I processed the rest of what she was saying; I hadn¡¯t quite realized we were to part ways right here on the pavement. She was just going to set me loose in an unfamiliar city and hope that I linked up with the right person, who was supposedly in disguise? I didn¡¯t even have Hina¡¯s number, which seemed like a bit of an oversight. This seemed like a bad plan, and while I didn¡¯t say it aloud, my frown spoke for itself.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± she assured me, pointing over my shoulder. ¡°Just follow the road. She¡¯ll find you before too long. She¡¯s already around here somewhere, actually, so it¡¯s not like you¡¯ll really be alone. She just doesn¡¯t want to be seen with me.¡± She made a dissatisfied hmpf noise, obviously directed at her absent teammate rather than me. ¡°Anyway, uh¡­right, the folder. I¡¯ll show you where we keep files and stuff once you get home, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Okay? Sounds good. Um. Get home safe?¡±


    I had unconsciously referred to Lighthouse Tower as ¡°home¡±, prompted by her doing the same¡ªand was not at all prepared to unpack that right now. She smiled at it, at least. Unreasonably, distractingly pretty.


    ¡°Will do. Have fun with Hina. Remember, she ever makes you uncomfortable or pushes you too far and you need a bail-out¡ªcall me. I¡¯m never too busy to wrangle her, promise. See you tonight!¡±


    With that, she got in her car. We waved at each other as she pulled out and onto the road, and then she was gone, leaving me alone in the shadow of the split skyscraper. Well, not alone, according to her claim that Hina was around here somewhere¡ªthough she had been a bit vague about exactly how close. Nothing for it. I began to walk in the direction she had indicated.


    ¡ª


    Following the road as instructed led me through underpasses, past glass-enclosed plazas, and into a gradually more tourist-dense area. I didn¡¯t look out of place on these streets; unassumingly dressed, black-haired white guys were among the most common types of tourist, and I was relieved to find that my prior stressing about being recognized was unfounded for now.


    The road eventually terminated at a T-intersection, surrounded on all sides by what my maps app said were hotels¡ªHiltons, Hyatts, and the like. I stood at the corner of the intersection, now unsure of how to proceed. I supposed I should at least cross the road; there was an interesting-looking statue in one of those small green spaces Opal seemed to like so much. It was really just a small brick plaza with a row of trees and some shrubs, and the greenery wasn¡¯t exactly living up to its name in the middle of winter, but the open space was at least a reprieve from the relative claustrophobia of the tall buildings around me. The crosswalk signal turned green, and I was about to cross¡ª


    A spark of icy fire ignited in my chest. The cold winter air was suddenly cloying around me, far too hot and humid by contrast to the frigid magic blooming inside me. I stumbled¡ªnot into the street, thankfully, more of a stagger to the side to lean against the traffic signal¡¯s post. An attack? An ambush by the PCTF or Hikanome, taking advantage of Opal¡¯s laxity, her assurance that nobody would try this so soon?


    As I tried to regain myself past the coughing fit and fight down the explosion of sweaty discomfort, I pressed my forearm to my side, denying my tattoo and the spear it held. If I was under attack, I could summon it in an instant; better to wait for the right moment and not give away that it was an option. Somebody approached me from the side, then, and I felt the tattoo itch. I waited, waited¡ªthen turned, raised my scarred arm to shield myself from the stranger. It was on the verge of igniting, wisps of steam rising from it in the cold air.


    Then logic caught up to me. This spark of flame? A stranger on the streets? It was Hina, duh. I sheepishly lowered my arm to indulge her ambush, the jitter in my chest from reignited panic transforming into a primal excitement at her predatory approach¡ªwhich turned to a lump of leaden dread in my stomach when it wasn¡¯t her.


    Her eyes were wrong.


    The rest of her look was explicable enough for a magic-enhanced disguise: black hair, black lipstick, a baggy black jacket like mine over a short skirt, big boots with some metal embellishments. Overall, goth, but fairly subdued, and all within the parameters of what was possible, still a twenty-something Japanese woman of approximately the right height and build. But her eyes weren¡¯t blue. They were a mild brown, and that simply made no sense¡ªno contact lens could refract away that impossible blue. Could magic? Yes, trivially¡ªbut my gut was sure, absolutely certain, that it wasn¡¯t her, against the assurances of logic. I still attempted to trust the latter, trying to talk myself down from the spike of adrenaline and the almost painful itch in my arm.


    ¡°¡­Hina?¡±


    The woman blinked in surprise and stepped back from me.


    ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to be able to see me.¡±


    She didn¡¯t sound like Hina. Stronger Japanese accent, higher-pitched voice. I prepared to draw my spear.


    ¡°Who are you?¡±


    She didn¡¯t answer me, taking another step away, eyes narrowing. She didn¡¯t move like Hina, none of the supernatural balance, neither a stalking prowl nor explosive motion. Then she splintered, like a hyper-realistic rendering in stained glass struck by a shockwave, and shattered into a thousand fragments. They burned away in wisps of smoke, and she was gone, leaving me to take deep, slow breaths of the chilly air and slowly release my mental hold on my spear binding as my core temperature returned to normal, human levels.


    An illusion¡ªa messenger? A voyeur, really, or perhaps a stalker, if I wasn¡¯t supposed to have been able to see her. And how had I done that? My Flame¡¯s reaction was surely a factor, but I hadn¡¯t woven anything; whatever reaction that had been was pure intuition, like how Hina had directly stoked my flame last night. I shuddered at both the memory and the terror still in my veins, the adrenaline making my fingers shake as I fumbled for my phone to tell Opal what I had just seen, tell her to turn around and come pick me up¡ª


    ¡°Hey, cutie. What happened? Ripple¡¯s all fucky.¡±


    The husky voice was unmistakable. So was the bouncy step that concealed the coiled energy of an apex predator on alert, one who knew that something had intruded upon her territory. She was in a comfortable-looking sweater and baggy pants, a silvery grey trenchcoat hanging over her shoulders. Fashionable as ever.


    Those things didn¡¯t confirm to me that it was her, though, not beyond doubt; I still nearly jumped out of my skin, half-brandishing my forearm with its renewed hiss of steam, the itch returning to my tattoo. I didn¡¯t lower my guard until she lowered her dark sunglasses, peering at me over the rims.


    I¡¯d never been so relieved to see those sapphire eyes.

 From On High // 1.12

    I had known intuitively, instinctually, that my stalker had not been Hina.


    On paper, it was trivial to change the color of something with magic, using the same basic {REFRACT} lattice as those dry-erase markers in the penthouse¡¯s meeting room. There had been nothing in the illusionary voyeur¡¯s appearance that was outside the purview of an advanced magical disguise. This went double in the case of the Radiances; manipulating the appearance of their mantle¡¯s LM would be even easier than trying to alter the color of her actual hair or eyes. Even some of the other mismatches like her voice and posture could have just been her putting on additional layers of deception to throw off any especially perceptive fans¡ªfrom the way Opal had talked about it, such measures seemed somewhat reasonable, which was a little worrying in its own right.


    And yet some part of me had understood that no magic could suppress that impossible blue, which Hina confirmed for me.


    ¡°Mm-mm. Nope! Hibiki runs too deep.¡± She checked for bystanders before slipping off the sunglasses to bat her eyes at me, but the tension hadn¡¯t left her posture. ¡°Used to be brown and now they¡¯re blue forever. Cool, right?¡± She donned the dark lenses again, which still couldn¡¯t entirely strangle the supernatural sapphire at close enough inspection. ¡°What¡¯s this have to do with¡ª¡± she waved up and down my half-hunched figure, more outwardly tense than her even though I was far less lethal, ¡°¡ªthis? You¡¯re freaked; you saw something, right? Tell me!¡±


    I stumbled through a recounting of what had happened¡ªkeeping my shaking voice low, also wary of passersby¡ªand tried to articulate the confusion of identity without admitting the too-personal way I had known in my gut that it wasn¡¯t her. As I talked, the initial flood of panic ebbed away, but it was replaced by new confusion¡ªwhy had I known? Some kind of link between our Flames from last night¡¯s contact? Could that even happen? My Flame said nothing¡ªnot that I was expecting it to, but I couldn¡¯t help but hope that maybe just this once it¡¯d let me in on what was going on.


    Hina twirled a lock of her hair around her finger as she took in my description. When I finished, she took a deep breath¡ªto stabilize her nerves? That was scary. She was still on alert; her eyes flickered across the intersection, down the road, up at the skyscrapers around us, as though searching for something. My heart rate began to crawl back up. Was something still here? How could I know for certain that they were actually gone? Some kind of large-scale scanning lattice, maybe, a filtering chain scaled up and tuned to the color of ripple¡ªif only I had the equipment to know which type. My tattoo still itched in rhythm with the scarred fingers of my right hand curling and uncurling as I weighed my options. Before I could settle on a course of action, Hina seemed to complete her own inspection of our surroundings.


    ¡°Sounds like some kinda remote viewing gone wrong. Didn¡¯t expect you to see her?¡±


    ¡°No. She was¡ªsurprised, I think.¡± I thought back to the expression on her face, the way she had backed away from me. ¡°Might have been¡­afraid of me.¡±


    I dismissed the faint giddiness in that realization. It was nothing more than leftover adrenaline, and it was distracting me from racking my brain for the sort of scrying that would match what I had seen. What kind of viewing would necessitate an invisible copy of the viewer? More to the point¡ªwhy had I been able to see her at all, if I hadn¡¯t been supposed to? Had my only tip-off been that burst of energy in my Flame, that would have been explainable as just picking up on the ripple, but seeing her with my eyes meant something about the method used; I just wasn¡¯t sure what.


    Hina was investigating the scene in her own way, pacing around the street corner.


    ¡°Don¡¯t know what to tell you, cutie. I mean¡ªdefinitely magic, kinda crunchy ripple. But I¡¯m not smelling anything.¡±


    ¡°Crunchy?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ªred-white, I think. But that¡¯s normal for illusions and observation and that sorta thing. C¡¯mere.¡±


    Before I could parse what she was doing, she had come close to me, within arm¡¯s reach, blue eyes looking up at me. She stopped herself before completing the invasion of my personal space, an adorable pout-grimace taking over her face. ¡°Um, right, permission. Can I touch you? For forensics.¡±


    If it could give stronger evidence that we were in the clear? Absolutely. The nervous, residually tense grunt of consent had barely left my throat when she closed the gap between us fully and pulled me into a hug. Her arms snaked under my jacket, and she rested her face on my chest, taking a deep sniff of my collar.


    ¡°Uh¡ª¡±


    She made a purring noise. It was a rumbly, deep-chest vocalization, and I felt the most absurd desire to mirror it. I couldn¡¯t, though; it wasn¡¯t a sound that could come from a human throat. It made me feel like prey. After a few quiet moments of holding me¡ªinspecting me in some odd glyphless manipulation of her Flame I couldn¡¯t sense or understand¡ªthe vibration fell away, and her voice returned.


    ¡°Nope, didn¡¯t leave anything on you, or at least not nothing I can smell. Just smells like you.¡±


    I would have been relieved about that, but I was very distracted by the feeling of her breasts against my front and her breath on my collar. I did not need my wires crossed right now. She didn¡¯t seem interested in separating from me either, shifting to make herself more comfortable. Her tone stayed conversational, which was somehow the most thrilling part of the whole thing, suggesting that this embrace was utterly unremarkable and never further away than a request.


    ¡°Didya tell Alice?¡±


    ¡°Uh.¡± My brain was lagging. ¡°Um. Not¡ªyet.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t bother. We¡¯ll tell her when we get back.¡±


    That made me frown down at her, the sense of unseen danger overriding my libido.


    ¡°But¡ªwhat if they¡¯re still out there? What if that was the Peacies or, like, Hikanome or¡ª¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re gone, cutie. Trust me. No point in making Alice panic and yell at us to come back home, not after I worked so hard to get you out here. And she¡¯ll feel awful that she left you alone! Just let it be.¡±


    It was so very hard to argue with her like this.


    ¡°You¡¯re¡­sure? I¡¯m safe?¡±


    ¡°Mhm! Ninety-nine percent. I¡¯ll keep an eye out, don¡¯t worry, and if either of us see something, we¡¯ll get outta there, no questions asked. I¡¯m not gonna take you hunting or fighting today. But I did promise to take you shopping.¡±


    Those terms sounded reasonable, at least when they tickled my neck and resonated through her chest into mine. Even accounting for my¡­contact-induced bias, it did ease my mind that she was trying to be considerate to my needs; I bore no desire to find out what ¡°hunting¡± and ¡°fighting¡± entailed.


    That¡¯s what I told myself, at least.


    ¡ª


    Winter air always makes my hand ache a bit. It¡¯s both the temperature and the dryness, I think; the former brings a sort of swelling in my joints not unlike a fever, and the latter makes my scar tissue stiff. It¡¯s not that bad if I¡¯m not using the hand for anything in particular, and the dryness is mostly mitigated with moisturizer, but it¡¯s still obnoxious enough for winter to be my least-favorite season. From November to March, my right hand essentially lived in my pocket whenever I was outdoors, and that still didn¡¯t entirely stave off the ache. After my encounter with the voyeur where I had brandished my scarred hand as a direct conduit for my Flame, it occurred to me that I could use a milder version of the same trick to fight off the cold. Hina shot it down, though.


    ¡°Nope. Too loud. Trust me, cutie, I¡¯d love to help you play with your Light, but the last thing we need right now is for you to make more of a light show.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mean I¡¯d actually ignite it. Just chilly, ¡®s all.¡±


    ¡°I get it, you¡¯re just stressed. You get all nervous and fiddly with your Light because it makes you feel bigger and scarier against¡­¡± she waved her hand vaguely, ¡°All that. I used to do the same thing, y¡¯know. But you don¡¯t gotta be worried, and you don¡¯t gotta aggravate it. I can pick up on anything that happens near us without making us a target. We can deal with the cold without magic, ¡®kay?¡±


    She brooked no further argument. Remarkably responsible by her standards, I felt, and her caution was palpable. Despite her insistence that we were okay to follow through with today¡¯s errands, she was still on alert, eyes scanning the thickening crowds from behind her glasses as we moved toward Shinjuku Station. We didn¡¯t stand out, at least, which helped me stave off the pervasive feeling of being watched; foreigners still seemed to outnumber locals in this part of town. Nobody looked twice at Hina or me, but she kept checking over her shoulder, and it was setting me ill at ease. It was easy to imagine a pair of hands reaching out from the crowd and yanking me away while her back was turned, an idea that made my tattoo itch¡ªthat response had been useless all day. When I had confronted the stalker, I hadn¡¯t even drawn my spear.


    In a weird way, Hina¡¯s constant reassurances paired with her alertness just made me more paranoid. She stayed within arm¡¯s reach and kept assuring me that there was nothing to worry about, claiming that if she saw something we¡¯d have no problems cutting through the press of bodies to get out of here. The fact that nobody else in the crowd seemed to notice the alertness in her posture was electrifying. She was nearly invisible, but not in the way of an ambush predator on the savannah, no silent, stalking, coiled spring ready to explode into motion at the first sign of trouble. I was sure she could, but that wasn¡¯t the mode of stealth here; it was like she was one with the flow of the crowd, casual and unremarkable, even peppy, hiding in plain sight by being a totally normal young woman.


    In short, she had disguised herself by being the puppy¡ªand I was grateful that it was this rather than the hyena. The horrible thrill she aroused inside me when she fully embraced her predatory aspect was novel and exciting and absolutely not what I needed right now.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t had lunch yet, right?¡±


    ¡°Um. No?¡±


    ¡°Awesome. Let¡¯s get outta the cold for a bit and grab a bite.¡±


    Thus commenced my introduction to a staple of life in Japan: the konbini.


    The cold chased us through the sliding door a few steps before reluctantly slinking back beyond the threshold, leaving us in a pleasantly warm pocket of consumerism. The general din of traffic and the crowd were replaced by the shop¡¯s synthetic jingle and the peppy white noise of an ad playing on a television mounted above the registers. I avoided eye contact with the worker at the register, unsure whether I was supposed to acknowledge their greeting. Hina didn¡¯t, busy scanning the store for threats¡ªor just a meal. It was hard to say.


    The convenience store was a dense space, even constricting, the narrow rows of shelves not wide enough for two people to pass by one another. If Tochou had been a castle, with layered corridors and bureaucratic redoubts, this rather felt like some sort of dungeon, if a brightly lit one bursting at the seams with colorfully packaged products. The narrow spaces were far more comfortable to me than being exposed in the open street; the shelves at my back lent the space a snug security as Hina led me down the aisles. Coming out of the cold and into this confined, controllable space had a much better effect on my mood than her assurances, and it was a relief when she seemed to relax some of her constant watchfulness and began to treat the little shop as something of a tour. Maybe she was just trying to distract me, but it was welcome now.


    First, she took me toward the rear, down an aisle that began with supplements and ended at baked goods. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most items had a label in English in addition to the Japanese, though some of the sweets were labeled more enigmatically than others¡ªI was reasonably sure the glazed churro I was inspecting could have had a more descriptive title than simply ¡°Milk.¡± There were also some more classically Japanese items I recognized from online: curry breads, yakisoba breads, and the humble melonpan, which Hina regretfully informed me did not in fact taste like melon. A shame.


    She handed me a fairly innocuous looking bun¡ªfor a burger, perhaps? It wasn¡¯t a complete sandwich compared to some of the other offerings, but she insisted it was ¡°exactly what I was looking for!¡± with a seal-like clap of excitement before dragging me around the corner to the back wall and presenting me with a row of refrigerated drink cabinets.


    ¡°Well?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t read any of this.¡±


    ¡°Sure you can.¡± She reached into one of the fridge cabinets and extracted a carton labeled Lemon Tea in big bold letters¡ªLipton brand, even, familiarly nostalgic. ¡°See!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant.¡±


    She tilted her head¡ªtoo damn cute for someone who bothered me in so many ways.


    ¡°Then what did you mean?¡±


    ¡°¡­Just unfamiliar, ¡®s all.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s why we¡¯re doing this!¡±


    She brandished the drink at me until I accepted it, shuffling the items around so that the cold drink would be in my left hand and not aggravate the ache in my right so soon after we¡¯d escaped the chill. Now both of my hands were occupied with lunch components, and for a moment I mentally played out what I¡¯d have to do if we were attacked. Drop the bun, throw the carton at our assailant, summon my spear¡ªthese narrow corridors were perfect for it, no easy way to get around the speartip head-on. If a second assailant came from behind, I was confident I could at least snapweave a {DEFLECT} barrier to control the space.


    ¡°I told you, cutie, stop doing that. You¡¯re making your Light jumpy, and it¡¯s making you jumpy right back. Let it go.¡±


    I jumped when I realized Hina had gotten closer to me and was looking down at my forearm. Even though it was covered by my coat, I could tell she was referring to the tattoo. Could she see me fidgeting with the lattice somehow?


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to. Just, uh¡ªtrying to feel better, I guess.¡±


    ¡°I know! It¡¯s nice that you¡¯re prepared, but seriously, leave that all to me, okay? I don¡¯t want you to stress.¡±


    Having her this close to me was also a good distraction. I found myself observing that this look was really working for her, and also that she smelled great. Then embarrassment kicked in, and I involuntarily edged away from her a bit. That made her grin, step yet closer to me, and grab my wrist. A flash of blue over the rim of those glasses reminded me of what I was standing next to, and I shuddered¡ªnot entirely in a bad way. I wondered if she was about to press me against these refrigerators and kiss me right here in the middle of this store, telegraphed by the way she leaned toward me¡ª


    She pulled away with a teasing grin. The flash of teeth showed standard human incisors and canines, not the fangs which had brought out those tainted, confusing feelings of need the night before. I found reprieve from my pounding heart in wondering about the magic.


    ¡°How¡¯d you hide them?¡±


    ¡°Hologram,¡± she replied.


    Then she pulled me by the arm to another part of the store, down an aisle which seemed to be focused on drugstore items, toiletries, and so on. She plucked from the shelf a box of¡­something. I could not at all figure out what I was looking at from the labeling, other than that it was vaguely medical. She tossed it from hand to hand idly.


    ¡°No more cold hands for you!¡±


    ¡°Um?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll see! Amane loves these things. Want anything more to eat? Chips? Uh, chips as in ¡®crisps¡¯, I guess,¡± she clarified, making air quotes and rolling her eyes behind the glasses.


    That would have stung a younger Dalton more, but the years of living in America had somewhat dampened my most objectionably British mannerisms by the time I had become a teenager, and then my desire to remain anonymous online for the following seven years had caused me to further Americanize my word choices for ambiguity¡¯s sake.


    ¡°Um. Chips is fine. And¡ªI¡¯m not that hungry?¡± It came out as almost a question, embarrassed to refuse the offer. ¡°Opal gave me some cashews.¡±


    Hina was already moving on, taking me to the crunchy snacks despite my protest. I begrudgingly browsed; it beat thinking about the idea that we were still being watched.


    The selection was dominated by potato chips and various forms of rice cracker¡ªno corn chips, no pretzels. Wait¡ªalmost no corn chips; my eyes alighted on a familiar triangular logo.


    ¡°They have Doritos here?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but good luck finding anything but that taco seasoning kind. And no, that¡¯s not the red flavor. Not being able to get them here drives me up the wall. And like¡ªno Cheez-its or Goldfish either! They love savory and salty and crunchy stuff,¡± she waved at the seaweed-flavored potato chips and chili oil rice puffs for emphasis, ¡°and you¡¯d think cheese-based snacks would be perfect for that, but noooo. It¡¯s not even like cheese is unheard of here! They put it in places where it doesn¡¯t belong all the time! Cheese gyudon? Cheese sushi? Cheese ramen¡ªokay, no, that¡¯s actually pretty yummy, but like¡ªit¡¯s just¡ªugh!¡±


    Her sudden polemic reached a peak of exasperation from which it had no choice but to peter out to a grumble as she browsed down the snacks. She cast an almost fuming glance at the bag of Doritos I was now suspending between the fingers of my right hand as I clumsily tried to juggle it with the bun without dropping both. Was the rant a way of letting off her own stress about the whole situation, or was I reading into it too much? Either way, her rhythm demanded I say something¡ªabout her thoroughly developed stance on cheese? About my own dawning horror at the lack of the familiar snacks upon which I had subsisted for the last seven years? Or¡ª


    ¡°Do you not consider yourself Japanese? You keep using ¡®they¡¯.¡±


    I realized belatedly that that was maybe a bit heavy and invasive of a topic, but she didn¡¯t seem offended. The curiosity had come from talking with Alice earlier¡ªI couldn¡¯t help but wonder about Hina¡¯s remarkably American accent and mannerisms.


    ¡°I mean¡­I¡¯m full blood, not a halfie like Alice. But I grew up in the US.¡±


    ¡°Where?¡±


    ¡°Socal. Santa Monica.¡±


    I didn¡¯t have a sturdy enough grasp of American geography to know exactly where in California that was¡ªand I wasn¡¯t going to admit that.


    ¡°Oh, yeah, that¡¯s¡ªon the coast, isn¡¯t it? So, er¡ªborn there?¡±


    Her head swiveled to me, catching the attempt to cover my ignorance like a radar dish. ¡°Cutie, almost every city in the state is on the coast. It¡¯s a suburb of LA.¡±


    Caught in my ignorance, there was nothing for me to do but blush. The pet name contributed to that, too¡ªembarrassing in public, but so good to hear from her lips. It was so casual and never had a hint of sarcasm; I didn¡¯t believe the label, but it felt far too nice for me to want to object. I diverted by inspecting the bun as I rearranged how I was holding everything into a more ergonomic configuration.


    ¡°Sorry, is this just bread?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s tartar sauce in it!¡±


    ¡°I meant, er, fillings.¡± Was this some strange Japanese culinary sensibility in which a ¡®sandwich¡¯ consisted only of bread and sauce? Surely not; some of the other sandwiches sharing a shelf with the bun had contained katsu or ham.


    She broke into a big smile. ¡°Thought you¡¯d never ask. Allow me to present my favorite thing about this entire country!¡±


    She dragged me back to the registers, or rather to a large glass case between the registers which I had somehow missed on the way in, having been preoccupied with the sensory assault. It was full of¡ª


    ¡°Fried chicken!¡±


    She sounded so incredibly smug that I couldn¡¯t help but play into it, leaning in to admire the selection. I was delighted to feel warmth radiating off the glass. After savoring the sensation for a moment, I ventured to confirm where I thought she was going with this.


    ¡°A chicken sandwich?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Delish, way better than you¡¯d get for the same price at McDonalds. Better than KFC too, IMO, but don¡¯t tell Yuuka I said that.¡±


    ¡°They have KFC here?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. But not as good as this place. Wait, I just said that.¡±


    The options were diverse. Aside from the traditionally breaded options, which themselves came in a few form factors and ran the gamut from plain salt to soy sauce to spicy, there were more esoteric choices that were skirting the line of ¡®fried chicken¡¯, and yet others that had outright crossed it: glazed chicken skewers which some ingrained culinary knowledge identified as yakitori, hash browns, some mysterious fried balls on a stick, and¡ª


    ¡°That¡¯s a corn dog.¡±


    She nodded enthusiastically. I could feel some choice paralysis coming on.


    ¡°Uh.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re thinking of putting a corn dog between those buns, cutie.¡±


    Did she have to say it like that? Was she even aware of how it sounded? Her gaze was perfectly level, not even a wry smile acknowledging the innuendo, bordering on a creepy stare. I forced myself to stop looking at her, returning my gaze to the selection of fried and grilled foods. I pointed at the most-stocked item, a crunchy looking cutlet that seemed about the right size for the bun.


    ¡°Um. One of those.¡±


    ¡°Ding ding ding!¡±


    ¡°Uh?¡±


    ¡°The esteemed and noble Famichiki is the intended partner for that bun now in your possession.¡± She had taken on a very bad British accent. ¡°It is one of the greatest joys in life.¡±


    ¡°Wait, are you imitating¡ª¡±


    ¡°Noooo.¡±


    ¡°She¡ªshe doesn¡¯t talk like that, I don¡¯t think.¡±


    ¡°Who knows her better, cutie, you or me?¡±


    Though I maintained privately that it was a rather poor impression from Opal¡¯s purported best friend, I had no choice but to fall silent and contemplate the banter. I was, despite everything, having a pretty good time at right this moment.


    While I ruminated on that, Hina waved down the cashier and ordered the Famichiki. Her voice was notably higher in Japanese, a full octave up¡ªstill retaining some of the huskiness, but if I didn¡¯t know it came from the same mouth I would have had trouble connecting the two. She prompted me to dump my items onto the counter in front of the register, at which point I realized she hadn¡¯t gotten anything for herself. Wasn¡¯t she hungry? Indeed, she hadn¡¯t eaten earlier today either. She had claimed that she didn¡¯t need to eat or sleep as much as a normal human¡ªa curious contrast from her other Flame-enmeshed teammate¡¯s ravenous appetite¡ªbut by now, I rather felt she should be eating something.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    That mystery was promptly solved when the cashier brought two of the fried chicken cutlets, not just the one, wrapped in their own neat little paper pockets. Hina accepted them and paid with what felt like a remarkable amount of composure and politeness. But once everything got bagged up, she turned to me and began to practically vibrate with excitement.


    ¡ª


    The sandwich was good. Unreasonably good, even, given that, upon inspecting the receipt and some conversions on my phone, I calculated that the combined price of its components came out to barely over two quid. Add in the chips and drink for equivalence to a typical Tesco meal deal, and all told, it was about three and a half¡ªa very good deal by my standards, even before the superior quality of the sandwich. The breading was crispy, the inside juicy, and the tartar sauce bound everything together well.


    Fat carries flavor, came Dad¡¯s voice. Mayonnaise doesn¡¯t have much flavor of its own, but it¡¯s a fantastic binder for transmitting mix-ins. Add some dill, chopped pickles, and relish, and you¡¯ll have the perfect spread for nearly any sandwich.


    Watching Hina eat was an excellent distraction, because it was so far outside the realm of what could be called civilized that it was quite impossible for me to consider culinary details like seasoning.


    Her disguise did nothing to conceal her nature when it came to the hunk of meat clutched in her claws. Indeed, it was the most feral I¡¯d ever seen her, and even if that didn¡¯t make it obvious to the layperson that this was one of the Radiances, we¡¯d still have gotten some very concerned looks had we been eating in public. She¡¯d killed her hologram, tossed her sunglasses onto the table, and torn the cutlet clean in half, slicking her hands with the juice. She then proceeded to tear off chunks with those razor-teeth, snapping through the breaded crust with an audible crunch each time. My gut said that even if these pieces of chicken hadn¡¯t been boneless, she would have eaten them the same way.


    Eaten me the same way, whispered an unwelcome shiver.


    Once every piece had disappeared down her gullet, she¡¯d licked the juices off her hands in a positively rapacious, dog-like manner and made a deep, satisfied huff. Only then did she regain some of the trappings of civilization, leaning over to grab a paper towel and wiping down her hands more properly, taking a brush to her hair that had fallen a bit out of place during the animalistic feasting, and reenabling the holographic veneer of regular human teeth. Her meal had taken maybe a minute, start to finish. Then she settled back down, let her eyes slide half-shut, and seemed to find a happy medium between dozing and watching me eat at a more normal pace, in sleepy, satisfied puppy-mode.


    Obviously, this was not taking place on the street. Hina had led me back out of the convenience store, around the corner, down an alley, waited until no passersby were looking, told me to close my eyes¡ªand transported us into her personal pocketspace in a sickening, crunching crackle of her personal bubble of reality. My stomach had turned upside down as my Flame had practically crooned at the display of power. This was real magic, and I had been tempted to open my eyes during the translation to witness the exact way the Flame asserted its truth upon the standard three-dimensional space of the world¡ªbut I knew that would have killed my appetite entirely, interesting as it would have been, and I was hungry. I crunched down on a Dorito and was devastated to find this flavor not to my liking.


    She should have warned me of what she was doing, asked permission. Opal would have been beyond furious, I suspected. But even if she had asked, I wouldn¡¯t have said no to this in the first place. Not to the magic, not to the relative safety of this secure space compared to the crowds, and ultimately not to the thrill of witnessing her indulge her carnal nature. In that minute of beasthood, my instincts had whispered to me two conflicting feelings: a marrow-deep terror that the moment she was done with her piece of chicken she¡¯d do the same to me, and a primal desire to eat my own meal with the same ferocious abandon. Something about it called to me, the freedom, the sheer joy she had taken in every bite and brutal shredding of meat with her fingers. But I had insisted to myself that I was perfectly fine eating with a semblance of table manners, thank you very much. Furthermore, she was not in fact going to pounce upon me next¡ªdamnably desirable as that prospect was, conjuring images of more shredded clothes and bloody marks on my skin. In fact¡ªdon¡¯t think about that, Ezzen. Don¡¯t think about how in this space we were as hidden from Opal¡¯s moderating presence as from any third-party interlopers, how Hina took such an obvious, primal happiness in devouring her kill, how freeing it would feel to follow her down the path of the carnivore¡ª


    Anyway. ¡®Nest¡¯ was the word that came to mind for Hina¡¯s pocketspace; as Opal had mentioned, it was well-furnished, a combination living and storage space, and she¡¯d clearly made herself at home. She had another of those low tables that Todai seemed to love so much, blankets and boxes, all the trappings of a cozy attic. It was a square room, four meters to a side, with warm beige walls that were certainly made of LM. The light came from a series of indirect, upward-facing lamps that ran the perimeter of the wall, shining onto the ceiling and bouncing it down onto us to cast everything in soft, warm tones. The air was that exact sort of room temperature where one could lose track of where their skin ended and the atmosphere began, tempting me to just curl up in one of the blankets and pass out with a full belly.


    ¡°Um. How does the air work in here?¡±


    ¡°You already know the answer to that, cutie.¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªyou mean it¡¯s all magic? No external ventilation? Just¡­typical molecular recombinant filter?¡±


    ¡°Yep, same thing they use up on the ISS, ¡®cause it¡¯s like we¡¯re in space, sorta. If I¡¯m not making a door, this place is totally sealed off.¡±


    ¡°Huh. And we¡¯re¡­W-up.¡± That was a pure guess, driven by the attic impression the room had given me; which direction we were offset from regular reality in the fourth dimension was impossible to tell without a frame of reference.


    ¡°Mhm. Easier to pull stuff up than push it down.¡±


    ¡°Gotcha,¡± I lied, so tempted to ask for clarification but unwilling to admit my ignorance. ¡°Um¡ªif this room can move around in threespace, do we have to walk on the streets at all? Couldn¡¯t you just spit us out wherever we¡¯re headed?¡±


    ¡°Mm. Nope. I mean, yeah, but you don¡¯t want to be in here when I¡¯m moving this thing.¡± She stretched on her bean bag, panther-like, to brush her fingers against the wall behind her. ¡°Could intersect with something nasty.¡±


    What was she referring to, exactly? Other VNTs¡¯ pocketspaces? There was no Google Street View for the fourth dimension that had been overlaid onto the world when the Flame had crashed down; only VNT groups really knew what sort of stuff was hanging out just offset from reality, and they tended to keep real quiet about it. Sure, we knew that the Spire¡¯s contents were heavily distributed through the fourth dimension for ¡°bigger on the inside¡± practicalities, but supposedly everything else in here was smaller-scale and pretty much categorically secret. Ebi¡¯s internals were a good example, squirreled away into these extra-dimensional hidey-holes.


    ¡°¡­nastier than whoever was stalking me?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s what this is about?¡± She sat up a bit. ¡°We talked about this before, cutie, they¡¯re gone. Gone gone, as in never really there, just some ripple. Nobody¡¯s coming after us, I promise.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªI know, I believe you,¡± I mollified her, ¡°It¡¯s just¡­I feel exposed, out there.¡±


    She sighed.


    ¡°I promise you¡¯re not. Nobody¡¯s watching us, nobody¡¯s following us. You¡¯re safe with me. How can I make you feel more safe?¡±


    Was she serious? Did she have no self-awareness whatsoever? She had been making me feel unsafe since I had woken up yesterday, and surely some of that had to be intentional¡ªdid she really not know how it came across? Opal¡¯s words from last night, after seeing the bites Hina had left all over my shoulder, returned to me. Their little monster.


    ¡°¡­Can I be honest?¡±


    ¡°Always!¡±


    ¡°I¡­if we have to go through with this, I¡¯d feel safer if¡­it were Opal here.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t known exactly where my thoughts had been heading until it came out of my mouth; I regretted it instantly as Hina¡¯s face fell, her head flopping down to stare dejectedly at the sunglasses on the table. This wasn¡¯t a conversation that should be happening in the middle of all this, certainly not without some planning and an escape route. The compounding stress of the whole situation had just gotten to me.


    ¡°Oh. I¡¯m the problem?¡±


    ¡°¡­I wouldn¡¯t put it like that,¡± I backtracked, trying to cram the hyena back into the bag. ¡°Can¡­no, that wasn¡¯t true. Opal can¡¯t sense things like you can, can she?¡±


    She perked up and shook her head in a motion that carried all the way down her neck and shoulders.


    ¡°Nope!¡±


    ¡°Then¡ªit¡¯s better that it¡¯s you,¡± I compromised. ¡°And I do trust you when it comes¡­to killing anything that gets in your way.¡± I winced a bit at saying that aloud, worried it¡¯d set her off somehow, but she lit up. ¡°So let¡¯s just¡­get it over with, I guess.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m soooo good at that, yeah.¡± She reached for her sunglasses, having seemingly entirely bounced back. ¡°I said it earlier, I promised you a not-date and some clothes. And I keep my promises! Let¡¯s go!¡±


    ¡°What, already?¡±


    ¡°Uh, yeah? We¡¯ve got places to be. And you¡¯re done eating, unless that wrapper looks way more appetizing to you than it does to me.¡±


    I looked down at the greasy paper baggie the chicken cutlet had come in, somehow relieved that she didn¡¯t consider it on the menu. There was other detritus, too: the bun¡¯s wrapper, the bag of Doritos, and my now-drained carton of lemon tea.


    ¡°Er¡ªno, it doesn¡¯t.¡± I checked the room; no rubbish bin. ¡°What do I do with it?¡±


    ¡ª


    A few snapwoven {ASHES} later and we were back out in the cold, continuing up the promenade toward Shinjuku Station. I¡¯d noted the hypocrisy of using magic to do away with our rubbish after Hina had told me that using a spell to warm up my hand wasn¡¯t a good idea, though I¡¯d framed it as a question. She¡¯d patted my head and told me she¡¯d show me how to cast more quietly later, which inspired a strange mix of indignance, excitement at the prospect of more magic, and a damnable please do that again which I did not voice. None of these feelings made my hand any less cold, though.


    She was a step ahead. The non-magical solution she¡¯d mentioned earlier lay within the indecipherable box she had bought at the convenience store, from which she extracted some small plastic packets. They were covered all over in fine print¡ªrather like the ice pack I had been using, just smaller. I discovered with delight that they were in fact the opposite, radiating delicious warmth after a brief and vigorous shake which Hina delighted in. I wrapped one packet in each hand with chilly fingers, delved into my pockets, and within another minute of walking, the ache in my hand had dissipated. Hina looked so pleased with herself, and her smile¡ªregular human teeth once more¡ªonly grew bigger after my mumbled thanks.


    The streets of Tokyo were a jungle of signs; everything was indicated. Every shop had a sign, every tall building had a sign running up its length saying what was on each floor, and logos I didn¡¯t recognize were plastered across the vast billboards perching atop every other building. Those shared the upper end of the view with the cranes; there was a lot of construction both up there and down at street level, where it was far more cordoned and demarcated than I was used to. Temporary plastic walls acted as sound baffles¡ª complete with digital volume indicators, which were sort of fascinating¡ªand were attended by workers in hi-vis directing foot traffic around affected areas. The signage even extended to the traffic; taxis took up a notable amount of the road, but they were totally blown out of the water by a truck that rounded the corner blaring pop music. As it passed, I realized the sides were billboards¡ªmade a face.


    ¡°Fuckin¡¯ hell. That¡¯s¡­¡±


    ¡°Incredibly obnoxious?¡±


    ¡°Well, yeah, but I¡¯m talking about¡­¡±


    The Radiances, rendered in an anime art style, smiled and posed at us from the side of the truck. Hina frowned at her organization¡¯s motorized advertisement as it stopped right in front of us. For a moment I thought it had stopped specifically for her, that somehow we¡¯d been made, but no¡ªit was just traffic.


    ¡°Hate these things so much,¡± she grumbled over the music. ¡°But I¡¯m the only one who voted against it. That¡¯s Ai you¡¯re hearing, by the way.¡±


    ¡°Eurgh.¡±


    The vocals would have been far more tolerable to the ear in any other context, but being blasted over the general din of the city was doing Ai¡¯s voice no favors. Mercifully, we had only passed it by a dozen meters when traffic started moving again and the horrible truck continued further into the city, the song receding into the distance and turning to echoes bouncing off the skyscrapers.


    ¡°Nuisance, it is. Gotta be noise pollution.¡± I jerked a thumb in the direction of the construction site across the street, with its volume indicator. ¡°How can this and that exist in the same city?¡±


    Hina shrugged. ¡°Sorry. I can bring it up with Alice next time.¡±


    ¡°That, uh, mahou shoujo?¡± The word came out just a bit more mocking than I had really intended.


    ¡°Ah, you got the lecture,¡± she giggled. ¡°Not really. It¡¯s idol shit. Or, uh, anime promo shit, in this case, it¡¯s for the Precure collab.¡±


    Fortunately, that was the most eventful thing that happened to us between then and reaching Shinjuku Station. I saw the first entrance long before the main building, a perfectly normal and even familiar metro stop staircase that descended into the city¡¯s bowels. Then another, not thirty meters later, and another, and yet another. Sometimes they were standalone on the pavement, sometimes they were quietly nestled into the cityscape at the ground floor of random office buildings, but we must have passed a dozen across half a kilometer of walking.


    ¡°Is¡ªare these all for the same station?¡±


    ¡°Yep. Shinjuku-eki¡¯s real big. You didn¡¯t see it from up above?¡±


    ¡°Um¡­we didn¡¯t have time,¡± I lied.


    ¡°Aw. Well, it¡¯s more impressive from down here anyway.¡±


    When we finally got within eyeshot of the station proper, I had to admit that it was. Tochou had been tall, a duolith of stone facade¡ªShinjuku Station was more horizontal, but vast, in white panels and more logos. The density of foot traffic surrounding it was absurd, a sea of people flowing in and out and around, which put to shame even the press of bodies that had surrounded us until now.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± Too big. This city was not for me; why did I have to be acrophobic and agoraphobic? I could feel myself clamming up a bit, squeezing the heat packs in my pockets as an outlet for the discomfort. ¡°What are we here for?¡±


    ¡°Everything!¡±


    ¡ª


    Hina had led me into the station, first across broad indoor plazas lined with storefronts, then through wide, arterial halls plastered in advertising, and onto a series of escalators and down into the bowels. The upper levels gave the strong impression of a mall, and Hina confirmed that we could probably get all our shopping done without leaving the station, but we first had another errand deeper within. The crowds became a bit more orderly, the chaotic press laminating into distinct flows of traffic as the milling commerce gave way to the commuter hub the whole megastructure ostensibly was meant to be.


    Eventually, we arrived at a row of automated kiosks, and she walked me through the process of getting myself a transit card. Unlike at Tochou, we didn¡¯t need to interact with a clerk at all¡ªjust enter a name, feed the machine a ten-thousand yen bill, and collect the unremarkable green-and-silver plastic card it spat out. Hina presented the freshly-minted IC card to me with a flourish, then tilted her head at my wallet as I selected a spot for it.


    ¡°We gotta get those bills exchanged.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve hardly used cash in years. These are just¡ªmy emergency money, from when¡­yeah.¡± I shook off the memories of the pursuit; it didn¡¯t do me any good to be reminded of how she had rescued me. ¡°Besides, didn¡¯t you say it¡¯s all basically Opal¡¯s money anyway? Am I gonna get a credit card in Todai¡¯s name or something?¡±


    ¡°I mean, yeah, you will, I think, but lots of places here still only take cash.¡± Hina gestured at the row of kiosks. ¡°Half of these things can¡¯t even recharge that card with anything but cash, and this is Shinjuku friggin¡¯ Station! Gets worse the further out into the sticks you go. And¡ªI don¡¯t think that wallet can even fit yen bills. Hold on.¡± She dug into her own wallet and passed me a bill, confirming the hunch. It could sort of squeeze in there, but it definitely wasn¡¯t intended.


    Thus we returned to the commercial shallows to commence the shopping part of this outing in earnest, beginning with a new wallet. Hina found an appropriate shop in short order and ferreted out a little fake-leather item, with approximately the same layout as my current wallet and in roughly the same black. I wasn¡¯t picky and was relieved that she didn¡¯t push me to browse and compare my options. In and out, like we had agreed, no humiliation or choice paralysis. She paid for the wallet and handed me enough cash to fill it with that I flinched; even though I hadn¡¯t quite internalized the exact exchange rate, I could tell that it was equivalent to several hundred pounds. I meekly accepted the stack of money, which only widened the grin on her face.


    ¡°Alright! Clothes. Lots of fashion stores around here, but I don¡¯t think we need to do anything fancier than Uniqlo for you, at least not today.¡±


    I recognized the brand name.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªon the cheaper side, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. The way you were dressed when I picked you up¡ªis that normal for you? Jeans and turtlenecks?¡±


    ¡°Uh, in the winter, yeah. Well¡ªnot jeans when I¡¯m staying indoors. Sweats and such.¡±


    ¡°Mhm, we can definitely do that there.¡±


    Actually getting to the store was a different matter; there was one in the station¡¯s mall complex, but it was clear on the other side of the vast structure from where we had come up, so despite what Hina had said about getting everything done in the station, it was actually more convenient to go just outside and two blocks over. I didn¡¯t love getting back on the open street, even though Hina quietly reassured me once again that she¡¯d neither seen nor felt anything suspicious.


    I was discovering that I just didn¡¯t like crowds.


    ¡ª


    Uniqlo¡¯s selection of unremarkable shirts and pants was to my liking. We¡¯d gone up four floors via escalator to reach the unisex casualwear floor, and as we¡¯d passed the women¡¯s section on the third floor, I¡¯d tensed up, half-expecting Hina to block me off from the next escalator and herd me toward those high-waisted skirts. But she didn¡¯t even comment on it.


    I was delighted to find that fashion in Tokyo tended toward baggier clothes that hid one¡¯s figure. I¡¯d long had a preference for looser clothes¡ªfor one, they were more comfortable to wear all day when sitting at my desk or laying on my bed, but also they formed a protective shell, a second skin that evoked Vaetna carapace in a way that tighter, form-fitting clothes didn¡¯t. My basket had rapidly filled with wide-fit cargo pants in various earth tones¡ªat first, I¡¯d been hesitant to get more than one or two, citing that they were fairly expensive and could be worn multiple days in a row before needing a wash, until Hina had pulled out a very expensive-looking credit card and brandished it at me until I accepted it.


    ¡°Get what makes you happy. That¡¯s why we¡¯re here.¡±


    Its opulence practically burned my fingers, noticeably denser in my hand than the plastic cards I was used to. I fumbled it into my wallet, where its matte-black and glimmering-blue embellishments stood out against the cheap grey of my debit card. It didn¡¯t belong in my life, and I felt a pang of guilt at the undeserved generosity I was being showered with¡ªuntil I saw the sweaters. Thick and baggy and wonderfully cozy-looking, they called me right over, guilt about price tags suppressed by the appeal of such a heavy and safe outer shell as I stuffed several into the basket. They were soon joined by some utterly unremarkable socks and underwear, which went un-commented-on despite how I had again braced myself for teasing. I was starting to let my guard down as my worst worries about this excursion continued to go unrealized; Hina seemed committed to both my safety and our agreement that she wouldn¡¯t foist anything unwanted upon me. She did, however, attempt to expand my fashion horizons in more innocuous ways.


    ¡°Want more shirts like that one?¡±


    ¡°Like which?¡±


    She pointed at my chest, and as I looked down I suddenly remembered that I¡¯d had Sailor Moon peeking out from under my jacket all day. I reflexively turned away from her a bit to hide it from her¡ªthe embarrassment doubled when I remembered what she had said about this one being among her favorites.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­not really opposed, but it¡¯s usually, um, Spire stuff.¡±


    She insisted I at least take a gander at a table covered in graphic tees. I found nothing Vaetna-related¡ªI¡¯d been sort of hoping for something similar to my heron shirt, which I now regretted leaving behind in my apartment. It was probably in PCTF custody now; I had a ridiculous vision of the sixteen-quid polyester shirt laid out in a ripple-isolated analysis chamber, scientists and officials huddled around it, trying to extract the secrets of my strange and unprecedented flamefall from the fabric. The scene took on a bit of black comedy knowing that the rumors were true.


    Anyway, the table before me was mostly anime merch and some other classic Japanica like Godzilla and Ultraman¡ªand Todai. The Radiances¡¯ portion of the table ranged from simple graphic designs of their logo to their individual symbols to stylized anime renditions of the girls themselves that recalled the truck from before. Hina had the audacity to unfold and hoist a white shirt depicting five pairs of anime eyes: fiery orange with slitted pupils, ultramarine, freckle-rimmed brown, vivid green, and a lone hazel, its twin covered by black hair. The irises glimmered with some kind of iridescent ink, like my tattoo. Each pair of eyes was put over their theme color¡ªif I squinted, I could see the backdrops were made up of a pattern of little gemstone shapes, a different cut for each one. Hina read from the label.


    ¡°One hundred percent cotton!¡± She rubbed it with her fingers. ¡°Amane insists on that for all the apparel and she¡¯s totally right.¡±


    It was a damn good design, all things considered, and sufficiently big and baggy that I could see myself wearing it to bed¡ªbut I wasn¡¯t going to swap allegiances that easily, present circumstances notwithstanding. The Spire¡¯s imagery was a comfort zone that I was loath to step out of. I opted to voice a less personal excuse, though.


    ¡°I¡¯ll¡ªcouldn¡¯t I just get one of those¡­straight from the source, instead of buying one here?¡±


    She grinned.


    ¡°Nope! These are limited-time new years goods, already out of production. You¡¯d have to get them secondhand in a few more weeks if you wanted one.¡±


    Limited merch? Suddenly, I realized what to do. I drew my phone.


    [Direct Message] ezzen: What size shirt do you wear?


    starstar97: uh


    starstar97: medium?


    starstar97: what are you cooking


    starstar97: actually, wait, don¡¯t tell me, i want it to be a surprise


    starstar97: ¡­


    starstar97: its totally japan limited todai merch holy shit holy shit


    starstar97: either the big group splash or the new years one with the eyes


    Hina had crept over to my side to peek down at the chat and gave a hum of approval at my best friend¡¯s deduction.


    ezzen: It¡¯s the eyes. Interested?


    starstar97: ofc im fuckin interested you baka please please get me one ill love you forever


    starstar97: but thats like 40 bucks and shipping would be like another 30 so uhh i wont be able to pay you back until my next paycheck


    ezzen: dw


    ezzen: Sapphire is shaking me and telling me to tell you that it¡¯s on the house.


    ezzen: Happy birthday!


    starstar97: its FEBRUARY


    I shouldered Hina off of me, who was practically bouncing with delight.


    ¡°Awwwww! That¡¯s so sweet, cutie.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªI¡¯m just paying it forward. You¡¯re spending¡­way too much money on me, and I¡¯m not even a fan. She is.¡±


    ¡°Awwwwwww,¡± she repeated, coming back in and hugging me from the side. Even though her hands remained firmly above my clothes, the way she glommed herself onto me felt like too much PDA for the middle of a store. It called for a more private setting¡ªI absently glanced over at the dressing rooms, my subconscious dredging up that wild fantasy that had helped drag me down last night¡ªI squirmed out of her embrace before I could suggest something incredibly untoward. She followed my gaze and affirmed that it wasn¡¯t happening.


    ¡°Not today, cutie. That clause about love hotels applies in spirit here too.¡±


    ¡°O-oh.¡± That hadn¡¯t been a joke? ¡°Wait¡ª¡®not today¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, not today.¡±


    That was leaving rather a lot unsaid, and she seemed totally disinterested in expounding further, putting the onus on me to ask if I wanted to explore exactly what she was implying¡ªwhich I was not at all willing to do in public, even if I had been able to get any words out at all. Steam practically shot out of my ears as I turned what was probably a yet-undiscovered shade of red. She just blinked at me before slinking over toward the outerwear.


    ¡°Want a coat like mine? They¡¯re really comfy.¡±


    Rather than respond to her, I just edged toward the dressing rooms, if only to get out of her immediate presence and stop the cycle of thoughts. She gave me a thumbs-up and went back to inspecting a long jacket, and I practically fled to the dressing rooms, only stopping to have a confusing and further-embarrassing exchange with an attendant who directed me to the second stall and motioned for me to take off my shoes before I entered.


    I closed the door, turned the latch, dumped the basket of clothes on the floor, and leaned against the wall, almost hyperventilating and feeling quite stupid about it. How the hell was she able to just blow past that? Was I making some kind of awful false assumption about what she had meant? What¡¯s more, at some level, there was also kind of revulsion at my own want; this had all begun with her kidnapping me, and last night she had sexually assaulted me. I¡¯d outright admitted I didn¡¯t feel safe around her not an hour ago. These intrusive, horny thoughts about her felt so, so wrong.


    It took five minutes to talk myself down and then another five to actually try on the clothes I had picked; getting out of the shirt Hina liked so much helped me re-center. The cramped space of the stall helped me feel more secure, nice and closed away from the world; didn¡¯t have to check over my shoulder for magical stalkers in here. The sense of comfort increased further as I donned the baggy armor of sweaters and heavy pants. The mirror agreed that it was working; the heavy, ambiguous silhouette of the sweaters and pants combined felt like me, a far cry from my worst worries for the kinds of clothes implied by Hina¡¯s casual dismissal of my gender when we had first met or the aesthetics dictated by mahou shoujo. It wasn¡¯t an extreme makeover, just a moderate shift to a slightly more upscale version of what I was used to wearing, since budget was no longer as much of a concern.


    I jumped when I heard a tap on the door and Hina¡¯s voice.


    ¡°Cutie? Ez? You okay?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªfine, I¡¯m fine. The clothes are working.¡±


    ¡°Can I see?¡±


    I resisted the urge to take a deep breath; she¡¯d definitely hear it. I opened the door of my cozy little haven and saw her standing there, looking a bit nervous, eyes cast down at the shoes I had discarded at the threshold of the stall. She was holding one of the coats she had been looking at earlier, a long, heavy thing in a soft cream tone. Was that technically a trench coat or a great coat or an overcoat?


    ¡°Sorry if I spooked you by saying that.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªfine?¡± I hadn¡¯t expected her to apologize. Nestled in my new armor, I felt the confidence to at least obliquely confront the topic. ¡°We, um¡ªah, fuck, we need to talk about it when we¡¯re done here, I think? It¡¯s¡ªit¡¯s all just been an extremely weird few days, you know? And I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m ready for¡ªif I want¡ªwell.¡±


    Fortunately, she seemed to get what I was trying to convey without me having to spell it out.


    ¡°Mhm. Let me know if I¡¯m coming on too strong, okay? Like I said, I¡¯m¡­¡±


    ¡°Not great at knowing when to stop, yeah. I will.¡± Then I allowed myself to take the deep breath I had aborted earlier and changed the topic, proud of how I had handled that. ¡°¡­How do I look?¡±


    ¡°Good! Yeah, it¡¯s working.¡± She gave me a once-over, then prodded at my discarded shoes idly with her foot. ¡°We can do better than these, but that doesn¡¯t have to be a today thing, ¡®specially before your foot¡¯s all better. How¡¯s it feel?¡±


    ¡°Um, doesn¡¯t hurt much, ankle¡¯s still¡ª¡±


    ¡°The outfit, not the foot,¡± she giggled.


    ¡°Oh. I like it?¡± I tried to figure out how to expound on that without referencing how it felt like carapace. ¡°It¡¯s comfortable¡­yeah, it¡¯s comfortable.¡± I indicated the coat. ¡°That for me?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! I think it¡¯d work for you. Contrasts with the darks on the rest of the outfit, bulks out the silhouette some more, collar plays nicely with your hair. Try it?¡±


    I had just reached out to accept it from her when Hina¡¯s phone rang. I took the coat, and she dug in her pocket, sighing.


    ¡°It¡¯s Alice. We might be about to get yelled at.¡±


    ¡°Why? Oh, wait¡ªyou think she found my stalker?¡±


    ¡°Probably.¡± She looked at the incoming call with something between trepidation and annoyance before picking up. ¡°Damn it. Moshi moshi?¡±


    My phone buzzed behind me where I had left it on the little bench in the stall. Then again. Then a third time, and a fourth, and it continued as I snatched it up. The first three had been pings in the chatroom, then a Twitter notification, then two news bulletins, and they just kept coming, all talking about the same thing. I realized Alice¡¯s call wasn¡¯t about the illusionary Flamebearer I had encountered¡ªshe was telling Hina about the same thing I was seeing cascade across my sources of magical world news.


    That oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico where another part of my flamefall cluster had landed, the one locked down by the Spire in a standoff with the PCTF, had just gone inferno.


    And Radiance Heliotrope was aboard.

 From On High // 1.13

    Hina¡¯s response to the news was the opposite of what I had expected.


    Opal actually didn¡¯t give us any kind of directive to come straight home. No point when these events were happening on the other side of the world, she said; there was simply nothing for us to do about it. Other than some tweeting, which Todai¡¯s PR apparatus was already on top of, the simple fact of distance meant there wasn¡¯t anything the other Radiances could do to impact the situation in time. So Opal had figured that we might as well just keep on with our shopping if we wanted. I¡¯d expected Hina to go along with that.


    But Hina overruled her. Despite all her earlier insistence that we had nothing to fear from my stalker and her commitment to giving me a day on the town, she¡¯d changed her tune completely when hearing that Heliotrope was in danger and that a serious inferno was kicking off. The moment she¡¯d processed the news, she¡¯d strangled a canine whine of distress in her throat, snatched her credit card back from me, and shooed me back into the changing room to get back into my clothes. Before the curtain had blocked my view, I saw her charge over to the registers, practically steamrolling the poor cashier in a jumble of Japanese that did not sound at all like the customer-service-negotiation script Opal had been using at Tochou.


    When I got out and delivered my new clothes to her at the register, I saw the cashier almost cowering away from Hina. I¡¯m nearly certain she had tugged down her sunglasses and given them a faceful of sapphire over the rims, pulling rank to expedite the process. I frowned and insisted to myself that the strange pressure in my chest was sympathy for the guy rather than jealousy that Hina was directing that behavior at somebody else.


    ¡°Do you have to terrorize the guy? Are we in that much of a rush?¡±


    ¡°Sorry! Yeah, we are. We¡¯re going home right now.¡±


    ¡°Uh.¡± I was fine with that in principle, having gotten the most critical of the errands done, but I had a terrible premonition about the method. ¡°We¡¯re not going to teleport, are we?¡±


    ¡°Nah, too close to be worth it. We¡¯re flying.¡± She bit her lip at how I shrank. ¡°Not good with heights?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªI managed, earlier, with Opal.¡± I¡¯d really rather we just took a taxi back, but in the face of her mania, I couldn¡¯t muster enough of an objection.


    ¡°It¡¯s not far, you¡¯ll be okay,¡± she assured. ¡°We¡¯re like¡­a mile from home? So it¡¯ll be up, over, down. Really more of a big jump. Just, um, keep your eyes shut.¡±


    ¡ª


    As I felt our trajectory arc back downward with no signs of a controlled descent, I clutched Hina pathetically, screaming my lungs out. The winter air whipped the sound away, overwhelming it with the awful howl that signaled I was moving far faster than a human body was ever really intended to go. I was about to be turned into a wet red smear on impact¡ªHina would probably have been fine, but I was only mundane flesh and blood, not built to survive these extreme forces. Right when it seemed we could fall no faster, we just¡ª


    Stopped, the air turning still and silent. It was a thoroughly unnatural sensation, no sense of extreme g-forces decelerating us, no commensurate rush of air indicating a change in our velocity. One moment, we had all the thunderous and final kinetic energy of an artillery shell, the next, we didn¡¯t.


    It took me a moment to realize that I¡¯d slipped out of Hina¡¯s arms and was now lying on something rough and hard. It was sweet, blessed, glorious concrete, and I could have kissed it for the way it was securely anchored to the ground. I savored the feeling of the very bedrock of the world against my front, the sky back above me where it belonged and not below, gravity¡¯s terror neutered with my potential energy reduced to a flat zero.


    ¡°Why¡ª¡± I asked between heaving breaths, eyes still squeezed shut as I tried to fight down the residual urge to vomit, ¡°¡ªthe fuck¡ªdid we not¡ªjust teleport?¡±


    Hina knelt next to me and rubbed my back, which helped.


    ¡°This close to home? I told you, not worth it. We would have had to go up like a thousand feet above the rooftops to get clear anyway, or it¡¯d splash the whole neighborhood!¡±


    ¡°Bullshit,¡± I moaned. ¡°I saw you do it yesterday.¡±


    ¡°Hm? Oh, in the hallway? Nah, that was just translating up and out, not a real big-girl teleport. But¡ªdamn, sorry, I didn¡¯t realize you were as bad with heights as Yuuka. Hey,¡± she prodded, ¡°up, up. Let¡¯s get you downstairs and outta the cold, I¡¯ll have Ebi make you a nice cup of hot chocolate while you guys check in with Yuuka, okay?¡±


    ¡°¡­Downstairs?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. We¡¯re still on the roof¡ªoh, shit¡ª¡±


    Aggravated by the revelation that we were still sixty meters off the ground, the urge to vomit almost won, and I pushed myself to my knees to retch, trying in vain not to expel the chicken sandwich¡ª


    Something pricked my neck, and the nausea vanished. I flopped back down onto the concrete in relief before finally opening my eyes to look up at Ebi.


    ¡°Thanks. Fuck.¡±


    ¡°Mhm. Back early?¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s Yuuka?¡± Hina cut in. ¡°Amane¡¯s probably freaked, right? I know we got here before the ripple hit, but you should be with her! Cutie here wasn¡¯t going to throw up anyway.¡±


    ¡°Yes I was,¡± I coughed.


    I lay slumped there for another few bleary half-retches while my body disseminated the memo that we were not in fact about to hurl. When I finally recovered myself enough to sit up, then stand with Ebi¡¯s help, I was able to appreciate the spell circle that had arrested our lethal descent. The roof of Lighthouse Tower had essentially a whole magical landing pad atop it, with inertial dampeners and soundproofing glyphs to keep the entire neighborhood from filing noise complaints.


    Once I was sure that I was in fact fine to stand, I separated from Ebi and cast a foul look at Hina. I would have preferred literally any other mode of transport to this, especially because¡ª


    ¡°What the hell was the rush?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just dropping you off!¡± She dumped our shopping bags onto the rooftop and began to pace back toward the middle of the spell circle. ¡°Gonna go over and help Yuuka.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªit¡¯s on the other side of the world! It took you two hours¡ª¡± I glanced at Ebi, who nodded in confirmation of the number, ¡°¡ªto get me here from Britain; there¡¯s no way it won¡¯t be over by the time you get there. What¡¯s there to do?¡±


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t my top speed.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± came Opal¡¯s voice, ¡°absolutely not.¡±


    Hina rounded on the doorway to the stairwell, a twitchy, jerky motion of barely contained energy, and barked something in reply. Opal stepped out into the afternoon sun, tail lashing, hands on her hips.


    ¡°Stay.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not. I just got off the phone with Uchida-san.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t take orders from Ministers,¡± Hina spat.


    Opal¡¯s eyes narrowed to glinting slits of solar orange. The winter air had turned from ¡®frosty¡¯ to ¡®brisk¡¯ to ¡®tepid¡¯ as she advanced and was now progressing toward ¡®balmy¡¯, ribbons of steam coming off her tail behind her.


    ¡°Actually, you do. And even if you didn¡¯t, your stunt with the Peacies the other day¡ª¡± she jabbed a finger at me with such viciousness that I flinched despite knowing I wasn¡¯t the target of her ire, ¡°¡ªhas put us in phenomenally deep shit with the Ministry. Phenomenally. You of all people showing up to interfere with a PCTF operation now would fuck things even more royally. And¡ªfuckin¡¯ hell, Hina, you know this! I might have to explain this to him¡ª¡± she pointed at me again, a softer gesture this time, ¡°but not you! And he¡¯s right, by the by¡ªonce you get there, there¡¯d not even be anything for you to do other than butcher the grab team if they¡¯re still around, which is the main reason you want to go, because we both know Yuuka can take care of herself.¡±


    The hyena and the dragon stared each other down in the middle of the spell circle. Hina had remained studiously silent through Opal¡¯s tirade, but her lips curled into a nasty smirk at that last part. Being a bystander to the war of wills was taxing, even paralytic; if I moved, I¡¯d be instantly pounced on. Even Ebi¡¯s irreverence had been steamrolled into silence by the overwhelming pressure, though she was faring much better in the heat than I was¡ªmy paralysis was broken as I was forced to squirm out of my jacket to compensate, feeling further exposed without the protective shell. Even in just the Sailor Moon t-shirt, I was still hot¡ªlittle wonder when the heat around Opal had become extreme enough to make her image shimmer.


    After what felt like minutes of tense, explosive silence¡ªprobably only fifteen or twenty seconds in hindsight¡ªHina turned away from her friend and clenched her fists.


    ¡°I can¡¯t do nothing,¡± she growled. ¡°If Yuuka¡¯s not going to stop them either, that guy¡¯s as good as dead.¡±


    She took a step forward which fluidly dropped into a coiling crouch, preparing to leap skyward¡ªthen aborted out and turned slowly back toward us, looking past us at the stairwell with an expression on her face that I had no idea how to parse. I followed her gaze and saw Amane, out of her mantle, leaning on the doorframe.


    ¡°Iku na yo.¡±


    No translation needed: Don¡¯t go. Not a plea; the order had come out level, flat, and rock-hard. The fight instantly left Hina, the tension visibly draining from her body, and she trudged back over to Opal to wrap her in a big hug, the same kind she had given me earlier, leaning bodily onto her best friend and burying her face in the dragon¡¯s collar. Opal relaxed too, returning the hug as the air temperature began to plummet from the crucible of her Flame¡¯s runoff back down to the natural chill of the season. The two muttered to one another, reconciliatory words not meant for the rest of our ears. Ebi left my side to go to Amane, who was looking¡ªremarkably good, at least compared to our previous limited interactions, but clearly faring the cold just as poorly as me. Ebi hurried us back down the stairs and into the warmth of the penthouse.


    ¡ª


    The Thunder Horse Inferno, as the incident in the Gulf of Mexico would later come to be called¡ªnamed for the oil platform¡ªhad taken a while to reach the threshold of damage to earn the title. Even right from the start, the very fact that the flamefall had landed on an oil rig had everybody from local news to PCTF analysts to we in the chatroom all calling it an inferno. Perhaps that was a little bloodthirsty from all of us, but even though the anonymous flametouched seemed to have successfully taken to his new power, it seemed inevitable that the situation would turn hot.


    All parties had done their due diligence in the opening hours of the standoff. An hour after the Vaetna¡¯s isolating cage had gone up, a PCTF rapid response air squadron had shown up to test it. In a video taken from one of the Coast Guard vessels that had gathered a healthy distance from the barrier, I watched the arcing, crackling bolts of ripple munitions rend the air until they struck the shimmering barrier and shattered into multicolored streaks like iridescent fireworks. I privately held the opinion that magic-based armaments were a fair sight more beautiful than the explosives and firearms of yesteryear. Never as beautiful as the Vaetna, though, with their immense hammer blows of focused magic and supernaturally elegant bladework.


    Case in point¡ªBrianna, the Vaetna taking point for the operation, told the gunships to back off by simply throwing her dagger really, really fast. Hypersonically fast, in fact¡ªand somehow twice at once, targeting both gunships. The twin shock cones of the vaet split the predawn sky far more decisively than the chaotic bursts of magic from before. They tore away the gunships¡¯ kinetic dissipation wards in vivid green bursts of light that unfolded mere centimeters from their hulls, a display of absurd precision, a clear warning shot. From the video¡¯s vantage point, the scene was practically a work of art, the contrails forming a V that ended in falling petals of viridian magic. Simply gorgeous, desktop-worthy, and I felt a jolt of envy in my belly at the simple, overwhelming purity of the bladework.


    I mollified my stomach with a sip of the hot chocolate Hina had promised me. She¡¯d also vented the worst of her jittery, frustrated energy by blasting some of the clothes we had bought with hot air, a quicker substitute for putting them through a cycle in the clothes drier, transforming them into a wonderfully cozy carapace of comfort. I¡¯d donned the heavy, heat-soaked garments and curled up on the sofa in the common area of the penthouse¡¯s upper level, cross-referencing my news sources on my phone as I waited for the other Radiances to settle in before we called Heliotrope.


    After that warning shot, the Peacies had gotten the message and had retreated to a safer distance, and the stalemate had begun; they seemed content to wait it out. Over the next two days, they¡¯d brought in heavier assets, most prominently a pair of US destroyers with much heavier guns, but they had made no attempt to punch through the cage and provoke the Spire more. Indeed, they weren¡¯t the ones who broke the stalemate.


    Rather, that storm of buzzing on my phone had been because Bri had suddenly fled the field. I had hopped around several news outlets, Twitter feeds, and finally resorted to confirming with the chatroom directly, unable to believe what I was reading, and they¡¯d all said the same thing: the Vaetna had simply¡­left, given up on the stalemate. Which was simply not a thing they did.


    Admittedly, it was slightly more complex than that: Bri had boarded the rig for all of five minutes, then a huge spike of ripple had rocked the entire volume of the cage¡ªno visible explosions or other signs of combat, though. She¡¯d emerged moments later, no newly minted flamebearer in tow, and made a beeline to speak to Heliotrope and had words before launching off back toward the Spire. We were about to find out what had been said straight from the Radiance herself. I had gotten a bit jittery at the exclusivity, itching to understand why the hell the Vaetna had simply left. Opal hurried over to sit next to me and set up her laptop, and soon there was a bloop as the call connected.


    The fires blooming from the rig offscreen cast Heliotrope¡¯s face in orange rim light, just about the only light source in the inky midnight darkness until she turned on a lamp that illuminated her more properly. She was sitting in a little pseudo-campsite she had deployed from her jetbike, a suspended LM platform big enough for her to lay out a chair. The whole setup was floating some indeterminate height above the water; I was grateful the camera¡¯s limited view didn¡¯t give me enough perspective to get heightsick. I¡¯d had quite enough of that for one day. She squinted at us with her one visible eye, the other hidden by long bangs.


    ¡°You¡¯re Ezzen? The scientist?¡±


    ¡°Um. Yes. Hi?¡± It wasn¡¯t the right time to be doing introductions; I cut to the chase. There would be time to uncover why she had an Australian accent later. ¡°What did Brianna say? Why¡¯d she leave?¡±


    ¡°Hello! I¡¯m¡ªyeah, okay,¡± she glanced away from the camera, in the direction of the burning oil platform¡¯s firelight. ¡°She didn¡¯t give a straight answer. Weird as hell. She just told me to not go aboard.¡±


    ¡°What, and just leave him for the Peacies?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a ¡®lost cause¡¯.¡± She mimed air-quotes.


    I frowned. That wasn¡¯t how the Vaetna did things at all. Before we could continue the line of discussion, Hina squeezed into the frame I had been sharing with Opal in front of her laptop, smushing herself between us.


    ¡°Yuuka! Yuuuuuuka! Youuuu-kay? Alice said you were on board but it looks like you¡¯re not and I guess that¡¯s probably because Uchida told you to fuck off but he told me that too and since I¡¯m not going and the Vaetna aren¡¯t there then you have to!¡±


    Heliotrope¡¯s expression curdled a little. Beasts keep out, the sign on her door said; her dislike for her canine teammate was audible in the response she gave even though I couldn¡¯t understand the Japanese. Hina, for her part, was still practically bouncing off the walls with worry, trying to keep herself contained by sort of wrapping herself around Opal with all four limbs and resting her chin on her shoulder as those big blue eyes looked at Heliotrope with naked concern.


    ¡°English, Yuuka! We¡¯re trying to make cutie feel included.¡±


    Heliotrope snorted derisively.


    ¡°You¡¯ve nicknamed him already? How long until you break his hips? Drink his blood yet?¡±


    ¡°Uh, dunno yet, maybe a¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yuuka!¡± Opal objected over Hina as my ears began to burn. ¡°Mahou shoujo! He¡¯s had a very trying few days, and I won¡¯t have you making jokes at Hina¡¯s expense when she¡¯s worried sick about you. Are you going to come on back?¡±


    ¡°M-mm, wanna help.¡± She flipped the camera to point at the oil platform. ¡°When the shield went down and Brianna-chan left, everything moved, and now I don¡¯t see a path where I can get on the¡­nantte iu¡­platform. It¡¯s really bright there. I start fighting the monsters, it always ends in¡ªgan!¡± She brought her hand into the frame and mimed an explosion. ¡°I guess that¡¯s what Brianna-chan meant about not going aboard. Still weird. Did you tell Uchida to fuck off and die?¡±


    ¡°Alice won¡¯t let me talk to him!¡± Hina pouted.


    ¡°Wonder why,¡± chirped Ebi from the peanut gallery behind us, out of frame.


    ¡°Shame. Anyway, unless the Ministry clears us and I see a window, I¡¯m just waiting here. Gonna get into mantle and help the kaiho fight the fire whenever they¡¯re ready. Amane, iru?¡±


    ¡°Iru yo! Kiotsukete!¡± she chimed in reply.


    Amethyst waved a massive crystalline arm behind the tops of our heads in the little picture-in-picture of our side of the video call. She¡¯d re-mantled, claimed the vast beanbag chair at the center of the sitting area, and was now sharing it with Ai, who¡¯d woken up for just long enough to trudge up the stairs and flop next to her crystalline teammate as we¡¯d been settling in for the call. Amethyst was probably the least cuddle-able person in the world¡ªall hard planes and spiny bits¡ªbut Ai¡¯s sleeping body was making an admirable attempt, bolstered by a few pillows that Ebi had retrieved acting as anti-spike insulation. If you ignored the fact that there was currently a major international incident and potential environmental disaster going on just out of frame, the Radiances could have passed for a group of roommates checking in on their friend¡¯s camping trip. But the Vaetna¡¯s involvement¡ªor rather, uncharacteristic lack thereof¡ªmade it hard for me to entertain that illusion for long.


    ¡°Incredibly fuckin¡¯ weird.¡± That was mostly for myself, muttered underneath the Radiances¡¯ chatter. ¡°She¡¯s just leaving the poor guy to the wolves?¡±


    ¡°Oi. I¡¯m working within my limits here, ya pom.¡±


    ¡°Hirai Yuuka!¡± Alice roared, a matriarchal full-name rebuke. ¡°Be nice!¡±


    ¡°I¡ªI meant Brianna,¡± I stammered. ¡°I get you don¡¯t have the obligation or license to interfere. But the Vaetna do, so¡­¡±


    Hina and Opal shifted as one next to me, Hina¡¯s limbs tightening around her teammate as the dragon¡¯s tail thumped unhappily on the carpet. Where I was concerned with the irregularity in the Vaetna¡¯s behavior, the Radiances had made it clear that they really just wanted the PCTF to lose. Yuuka gave voice to the sentiment.


    ¡°If the whole thing weren¡¯t so¡ª¡± she waved vaguely in the direction of the fires, ¡°¡ªlike that, if I could get on there without it blowing up, I¡¯d already be on there, fuck what the Ministry says.¡± She made a frustrated noise. ¡°They can¡¯t get away with it. We¡¯ve killed snatchers before, and I¡¯d do it again. It¡¯s¡ª¡±


    Then the rim lighting from the burning rig flashed far brighter for a moment, and she flinched, head spinning. I caught the briefest glint of crimson from under those long bangs as her hair swished from the motion.


    ¡°Fuck. They¡¯re fighting for real, now. If you¡¯re not going to yell at Uchida¡ª¡±


    ¡°Mm. You know how it is. Hands are tied.¡±


    That came from Alice, delivered with an apologetic wince, and Hina also whined behind us. Heliotrope sighed.


    ¡°Right, of course. Containment only, then. Ja ne.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll leave you to it. Kiotsukete.¡±


    The call cut out, and Hina released her grip on Alice to flop backward onto the floor.


    ¡°This sucks! I can¡¯t go, Yuuka can¡¯t spill some fuckin¡¯ blood, and the Vaetna fucked all the way off? What gives? We¡¯re all just gonna let the fucking Peacies walk in and take one of our cousins? The hell!¡± She tilted her head on the carpet to look at me. ¡°Cutie, you¡¯re the Vaetnaboo. Why the hell did she leave?¡±


    ¡°Not a clue.¡± I¡¯d had my phone in my lap for the duration of the call, bouncing ideas back and forth with the chatroom, forecasting the situation¡¯s outcome and comparing this incident to similar flamefalls as we aggregated the reports from various news sources. But the Spire had provided no explanation. I rubbed my face. ¡°The last time the Vaetna just quit the field like that was Dubai, and that was like¡­easily a hundred times worse than this. And telling Heliotrope not to interfere either? They know something we don¡¯t, but I haven¡¯t a damn clue what.¡±


    ¡°Or she doesn¡¯t want to aggravate the Peacies,¡± Ebi suggested.


    ¡°They¡¯re already at war.¡±


    Hina put in a frustrated growl, extracted herself the rest of the way from Opal, rose to her feet, and began to pace restlessly.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªfuck, Alice, we gotta do something. Uchida just doesn¡¯t want us to straight up fight them, right? So let¡¯s¡­I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m bad at subtle, that¡¯s your job. Wuhwuhmisd?¡±


    It took me a minute to parse the jumble of sounds as ¡°WWMSD¡± and reverse engineer that to ¡°what would mahou shoujo do?¡± Opal didn¡¯t respond, tail thumping on the carpet as she stared at the concluded call screen on her laptop. While she thought, Hina poured a glass of hot tea from the pitcher next to the computer and paced over to Amethyst, mumbling something in Japanese at her as she shook Ai. The Emerald Radiance stirred with a grunt, opened her eyes blearily¡ªvisibly jumped at the sapphire orbs right in her face. She sat up as far as the giant beanbag would permit and blinked away the residue of sleep, accepting the tea and sipping from it gratefully. She looked like she¡¯d slept well, but was still sort of booting up, unfocused until her eyes wandered over to me. She pointed at her right foot, and I gave her a thumbs up. Her prosthetic had been so good to me today.


    Hina and Amethyst began to discuss their options, quite literally behind Opal¡¯s back¡ªand figuratively behind mine. Damn this language barrier. I glanced plaintively at Ebi, who nudged Ai, who called over to Opal, who at last mustered a halting response to Hina¡¯s earlier question.


    ¡°Mahou shoujo ni sokushite¡­I don¡¯t¡­know. We¡ªit¡¯s not our fight. If the Vaetna just left, it has to have been for a reason. That¡¯s as good a sign as any not to interfere.¡±


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°You don¡¯t really believe that.¡±


    ¡°Cutie?¡±


    I blinked as all the Radiances looked at me. I had said that? It had just come out automatically. I tried to keep going with it.


    ¡°Um¡ªyou¡ªyou all hate the Peacies, yeah? I can put that on the table, right? Like, really, profoundly hate them.¡± Hina and Amethyst nodded; Opal and Ai didn¡¯t deny it. ¡°I don¡¯t quite know how to feel about that yet. But if you feel you should do something¡ªyou ought to.¡± Ensheathed in my armor, I was finding my rhythm, the security to say what I otherwise wouldn¡¯t. ¡°You interfered for me. Saved me, gave me this prosthetic, let me intrude on your lives, for some reason.¡± My gaze fell on Hina, Ai and Opal in turn. ¡°That¡¯s what you did for Amethyst, isn¡¯t it? I don¡¯t have the full story, but¡­that¡¯s what happened, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Opal breathed.


    Hina growled, deep in her chest.


    Ai said nothing, shifting her gaze from Amethyst to Ebi. The mecha and the android looked back at her, silently remembering some additional part of their history I hadn¡¯t picked up on yet. I pushed on.


    ¡°Yeah, so¡ªthat bloke on that oil platform deserves a fighting chance, too. As much as she or I did. Todai is one of the most magically capable groups in the world, short of the Spire. We can¡¯t do nothing.¡±


    The wake of my rambling little speech left a profound and heavy silence, only cushioned by the last few words of Ebi interpreting what I had said for Amethyst. Alice¡¯s expression had taken on a rather piscine aspect, staring unblinkingly as her mouth worked, open and closed. In accordance, my face was reddening; I hadn¡¯t meant to quote Hina at the end there, nor include myself in the ¡°we¡±. Hina broke the quiet.


    ¡°I knew picking you up was the right call, cutie. What¡¯s the plan?¡±


    ¡°¡­I don¡¯t know. Um.¡± I looked around the space we were sitting in. ¡°I could use a whiteboard.¡±


    ¡ª


    Five minutes later, we¡¯d pulled up the diagrams of all five Radiances¡¯ mantles into a GWalk file on my laptop and projected the whole thing onto the big presentation screen in the meeting room.


    ¡°Y¡¯know, this is a huge violation of our data security policies,¡± Ebi pointed out.


    ¡°Ebi, rest assured, I¡¯m not about to put this out on the forums. You¡¯ve probably already got a backdoor into this thing anyway. Marker.¡±


    Ebi performed a mildly disturbing, exaggerated eye roll as she tossed me one of the markers. I caught it without looking and felt extremely cool¡ªpushed that emotion to the side. There was magic to be done. I jabbed bullet points onto the whiteboard.


    ¡°So, we want to: one, help Heliotrope save that flamebearer; two, do that from the other side of the world; and three, without implicating Todai so that the Ministry of¡­?¡±


    ¡°Kokka kouan iinkai,¡± Alice supplied. ¡°Public Safety, basically.¡±


    ¡°Ministry of Putting Magical Girls on Leashes,¡± Hina opined.


    ¡°You¡¯d like that, wouldn¡¯t you,¡± Alice shot back. She seemed very torn about this whole thing, but at least she still had it in her to banter.


    ¡°So that the Ministry,¡± I compromised, ¡°can¡¯t trace it back to us in a way that would get Todai in trouble. Yeah? Anything to add?¡±


    Ai raised a hand. As we¡¯d assembled our resources, she¡¯d gradually woken up more, aided by a can of coffee she¡¯d retrieved from the fridge, and was already fiddling with a diagram on her own laptop.


    ¡°Sub-six red ripple, for Ishikawa-chan¡¯s sake.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Last night¡¯s¡­?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Too much red is bad for her.¡±


    ¡°Even local? Not just in her own weave?¡±


    She nodded, and I obligingly added the constraint to the GWalk diagram. As of yet, it wasn¡¯t anything resembling a functional lattice, just a toolbox of options. The mantles were joined by a collection of several hundred other prebuilt glyph chains that I¡¯d accumulated over the years, various useful presets and common collocations to speed up ideation. And time was indeed of the essence here, with the rig ablaze and the flamebearer apparently now fighting for his freedom. The Ezzence, even. Moth hated that joke.


    As I¡¯d been setting up my workspace and considering those first three constraints, my thoughts had inevitably wandered back toward my encounter with the magical stalker. You¡¯re not supposed to be able to see me, she¡¯d said. And while I still didn¡¯t understand why that was, it did suggest that the technique was stealthy enough for what we needed here. I dragged and dropped a scrying lattice onto the grid, a beautiful and intricate second-order weave abstracted to a few rectangles connected by colored lines, and consulted the predicted ripple readout. Red-white. Hina saw where I was going with it.


    ¡°Hey, yeah, that looks more or less like how it felt.¡±


    For her part, Hina was pacing, and it was getting distracting¡ªbecause it was impossible. She¡¯d walk the length of the whiteboard on the opposite wall from the projector, but somehow, she never reached the other end or turned around. I resisted the urge to boggle¡ªhad she casually constructed a closed spatial loop just for the luxury of pacing without having to change direction? What would happen if I stuck my hand in her path? Not the time, Ez.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s the idea, seems as good a place to start as any,¡± I replied on autopilot, scrolling through the list of glyphs to see what could be done about the red. ¡°If it was this sort of spine, then extending it all the way to¡­sixteen thousand kilometers, or however far, shouldn¡¯t be a problem. Depends on what exactly we¡¯re going to be doing with it, though.¡±


    ¡°Like how what felt? Last night¡¯s pulse didn¡¯t have white ripple like that, did it?¡±


    Alice¡¯s question, delivered from the chair across from mine, was exactly what we didn¡¯t need right now. My scrolling slowed fractionally.


    ¡°Uh¡ª¡±


    ¡°I was just messing around while we were out. Wanted to show him Shinjuku-eki from above, since you didn¡¯t get to go up on the viewing deck.¡±


    ¡°What? Yes we did, I took him up¡ªoh.¡± She sighed. ¡°Ezzen, you didn¡¯t have to lie about that. It¡¯s alright to be afraid of heights. I told you Hina wouldn¡¯t judge you for anything.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you did? Cutie. Cutie! She¡¯s right, you don¡¯t have to lie.¡±


    I broke out in a sweat, embarrassed. The gentle rebuke of Opal¡¯s sympathy was bad enough¡ªHina seemed to be twisting the knife for her own enjoyment. Still, I couldn¡¯t exactly resent her for it; her deflection had averted a much worse lying-related debacle we didn¡¯t have time for, so I thought a thank you very hard in her general direction and attempted to push down the various emotions and work the problem. I found the next glyph for the chain.


    ¡°Okay, we can deal with getting the range after, but the first requirement is the big one.¡±


    I scrolled around the Radiances¡¯ mantle diagrams, looking for inspiration and trying to piece together their capabilities. In some ways, this was incredibly invasive; even abstracted down to diagrams and notation, these lattices described their bodies in exhaustive detail. There was a lot of customization between each one; for example, Hina was the only one who had a functioning sense of smell. I stopped when I saw something weird in Amethyst¡¯s mantle, turning to squint at its physical incarnation attached to the mecha-girl sitting next to Opal in an oversized chair. I hadn¡¯t noticed it before, folded away into her arm.


    ¡°You¡¯ve got the weave for a KV-18.¡±


    Amethyst seemed to understand that just fine without translation, and Hina chuckled.


    ¡°She could sink those destroyers out there on her own.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s¡­the barrel? Doesn¡¯t it need¡­¡± I looked back at the diagram and saw the trick. ¡°Oh. Tunnel. Clever.¡± Then what Hina had said caught up to me. ¡°Wait, what? Zumwalt-class destroyers have wards rated to .14 Vn. That only goes to, like, .09.¡±


    ¡°Upgunned. It¡¯s more like a mark 20,¡± Ai clarified for her teammate. ¡°See the extra coil? We got it to around .16, then leakage interference stopped us from going higher.¡±


    Alice sighed in response to my dumbfounded look.


    ¡°It¡¯s not PACT-compliant, but¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªyou don¡¯t fight wars,¡± I finished. Maybe Todai being under Public Safety¡¯s jurisdiction let them slip under the Paranatural Armaments Control Treaty on some technicality. More likely, they were functionally impossible to really hold accountable, short of the Vaetna showing up and asking politely that they knock off the weapons development.


    It was tricky for a mecha made of flowing gemstones to look smug, but Amethyst pulled it off. And she was right to; this was a frankly absurd amount of firepower. Overkill. To fight what?


    I shelved that line of thought and looked at Heliotrope¡¯s mantle instead, wondering if our best option was to somehow boost the power. On paper, it looked like that wasn¡¯t necessary; she wasn¡¯t carrying the equivalent of shipboard ordnance, but she still had a variety of energy projection meshes that really looked like they¡¯d be overkill to fight off a PCTF snatch team and make her exit. I was distracted from the offensive capabilities by an extremely strange sensory chunk none of the others had. I had no idea what to make of it¡ªand it had been a long, long time since I¡¯d felt this lost looking at a series of glyphs. No time for pretending I knew what it was.


    ¡°This section. What¡¯s it for?¡±


    ¡°Precognition.¡±


    I stuck a finger in my ear and rubbed around, wondering if maybe it was clogged with earwax and I hadn¡¯t heard Alice right.


    ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°Mhm! Yuuka can see silver. You think my eyes are weird, she¡¯s on a whole other level. Didn¡¯t you hear her talking about seeing the rig go boom?¡±


    ¡°I¡ª¡± I actually hadn¡¯t been paying attention to that part at the time, preoccupied with wondering what the hell was going on with Brianna. ¡°That¡¯s not a thing.¡±


    ¡°Sure is. It¡¯s not, like, a path to victory or anything, just blurbs.¡±


    I sat back in my chair. This was entirely too much on top of the rest of this.


    ¡°Fuckin¡¯¡ªhell. Wait, if you can mimic that in the mantle, why not give it to all of you?¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t work like that.¡±


    ¡°Sacrifice,¡± Ebi intoned. ¡°She¡¯s got the whole cursed eye thing, very chuuni.¡±


    ¡°Okay. Okay, okay, okay,¡± I repeated. ¡°Okay. That¡¯s¡ªshelving that.¡± I had many questions and not enough time to answer them right now. ¡°We have to be able to do something with that. Um¡ªshe said her main problem was just that the rig would blow up before she could make an impact if she went aboard, yeah? Why the hell hadn¡¯t Bri at least stabilized that part? Can we do that instead? Kill combustion in some radius around the platform?¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have that kind of juice, cutie.¡±


    ¡°Well, why the hell else would she have gone out there in the first place? Heliotrope, I mean. What was her plan? Does she do firefighting?¡±


    Alice put her face in her hands.


    ¡°No, she¡¯s just¡ªimpulsive. She foresaw that something was going to happen to an oil platform, and her green thumb couldn¡¯t stomach that, so she just went without really having a plan. We didn¡¯t know it¡¯d be a whole thing; she shouldn¡¯t be there. But because the Peacies are involved, now she¡¯s out for blood. At least she¡¯s not dumb enough to just go charging in.¡± That last part was clearly a jab at her sapphire teammate.


    ¡°I could have handled it,¡± Hina shot back. She stopped her bizarre infinite pacing. ¡°It¡¯s feeling a little like either ¡®save the rig¡¯ or ¡®save the flamebearer¡¯, guys.¡±


    She quit her pacing to lie on the floor, splayed out. It couldn¡¯t have been comfortable on the hardwood, but she was weird like that. Ai nodded.


    ¡°PCTF Twitter just said they¡¯ve gotten a lifeboat with the sickest crew members away from the platform. It¡¯s not everybody, but¡­the rig itself might be beyond saving.¡±


    I blinked at how utilitarian that analysis was.


    ¡°You¡¯re saying we should just help Yuuka wing it? And risk an infernal oil spill?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Once the platform has nobody on it but the target and the PCTF¡­¡±


    ¡°Peacies are probably thinking of that too,¡± Hina pointed out from her new position, out of sight from where I was sitting. ¡°This is too complicated. She should just go in and start cracking heads. Alice?¡±


    Alice flinched; she very obviously didn¡¯t want to be responsible for another international relations debacle. She indicated that third point on the whiteboard.


    ¡°We cannot be seen to interfere with them. Ai, if we were to just let the rig collapse or explode or what have you, how would we deal with the Peacies without also hitting the flamebearer?¡±


    For reply, Ai turned her laptop toward Amethyst, who provided some glittering commentary which Ebi summarized as:


    ¡°I can make it look like an accident.¡±


    ¡°Uh.¡± I frowned. ¡°Make¡­what look like an accident?¡±


    Ai explained, indicating the gun¡¯s lattice diagram up on the big screen.


    ¡°What if the part of the rig the Peacies were on just¡­exploded? So that it can¡¯t be traced to us.¡±


    ¡°Can she do that?¡±


    ¡°Amethyst has incredible aim,¡± Alice put in, listening to her teammate¡¯s ringing voice. ¡°She can get them without also hitting him in the crossfire.¡±


    ¡°From the other side of the planet?¡± Even the Vaetna struggled with that.


    ¡°Hey!¡± Hina objected. ¡°I can¡¯t go, but now you want Amane to?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say she¡¯d go. Ezzen¡ªoh, looks like you¡¯ve already got ideas.¡±


    Indeed, I did; I¡¯d begun to hook things together in the GWalk grid as the seed of an idea had formed.


    The LM projection lattice from earlier could plausibly connect to Amethyst¡¯s gun in a few different ways, but power across distance was a real concern, even assuming we could maintain accuracy. Ripple leakage for LM was generally quartic with distance, which is why the Radiances couldn¡¯t send their mantles far from their real bodies, and even the Vaetna struggled to apply blue-pink ripple further than a hundred kilometers without devastating side effects¡­


    Unless they had an anchor.


    ¡ª


    ¡°You want to what?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the spotter, Amethyst is the sniper, Hina facilitates the distance. We¡¯ve run the numbers; it can work.¡±


    It wasn¡¯t actually that simple. Amethyst¡¯s mantle was here in the room with us, and shooting at the other side of the planet took some ingenuity. I¡¯d taken inspiration from the scrying projection trick we thought my stalker had used, and Hina was confident she could riff on that to bridge the insane distance by using Heliotrope¡¯s own mantle as an anchor and sensory input.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± Heliotrope scratched her head. ¡°Mad. You¡¯re mad. Let¡¯s do it.¡±


    The situation on the platform had worsened. While we had been discussing our options and diagramming the exact procedure, another explosion had rocked the structure, and had actually lingered as a splintered ball of green light that had consumed much of the living quarters. In an awful way, it made our decision easier; it was now unlikely there was anybody left aboard other than our John Doe and the PCTF forces. Pretty much our only constraints were that we didn¡¯t hit him or detonate the entire rig with a bad ripple interaction. Averting an oil spill was obviously a priority, too, but Heliotrope had made some progress with that while we¡¯d been working, binding off the main pipeline.


    Amane had dropped her mantle and was working with Ai to modify her gun for the job, the two of them spinning luminous thread between their fingers so quickly that I was completely unable to pick out which glyphs they were working on; I just trusted they were following the diagram we had worked out. Normally, the cannon projected a beam, but what we really wanted was a point-and-click explosion at a target to obfuscate that we were the ones behind it. That had actually been a surprisingly simple change once Ai and I had put our heads together, only needing to change the last glyph in the chain and adjust some of the tension in the amplifier.


    The gun still required line of sight, which actually played to our favor; the idea was that by making it project from Yuuka¡¯s line of sight rather than Amethyst¡¯s, we could make full use of her foresight to find an exact spot to aim that would only disrupt or disable the Peacies without further collateral damage. That part of the weaving was Hina¡¯s job, building a connection point between their mantles in a way that didn¡¯t care about distance in threespace. That felt like the sketchiest part of the whole affair from a magical standpoint, evoking the horror stories of failed compression bridging creating fused abominations, and I would never have condoned this approach without hours or even days of thoroughly examining the task and wrapping my head around the glorious, dizzyingly complex construction of their mantles.


    But Alice and Ai¡¯s expertise in the exact mechanics of their transformations had won me over; they¡¯d supposedly done this before. As Alice had explained it, Heliotrope wasn¡¯t directly connecting her Flame to Amethyst, not in any permanent sense; they weren¡¯t being stitched together, more like creating a hitch knot that could transfer tension between the weaves without enmeshing their two souls. And Hina¡¯s mastery of spatial manipulation¡ªallegedly unmatched, at least outside of the Spire¡ªmade it possible across the insane distance. I was nursing a hunch that we were reinventing the principle behind the Spire¡¯s Gates, just for a very different purpose.


    Only four minutes after we¡¯d committed to the plan, it seemed like the preparations were ready. I ran down the list I¡¯d scrawled on the whiteboard. I was shaking a bit; we were about to perform real, high-grade magic.


    ¡°Ordnance modifications, check; spatial link, check; sensory link¡­check? Ai?¡±


    ¡°Check on our end. Yuuka, nuikonde iku OK.¡±


    Heliotrope nodded and began to modify her own mantle to match the diagram we had sent over, spinning a crimson thread from her skein, not the pure white I was accustomed to from the Vaetna and myself. The vermillion light cast her silhouette against the midnight darkness as she connected to the gun. I muttered at Alice sitting next to me.


    ¡°You were right, she did get on board easy.¡±


    ¡°Of course. It¡¯s plenty mahou shoujo. Team combo attack. Used to have to do it a lot more when we didn¡¯t have as much Flame to work with.¡±


    Even with the reassurance they¡¯d done this before, I had a bit of a fright when Amane twitched and went limp, her eyes rolling back in her head. It lasted only a moment, and then she shook herself¡ªa hiss and crackle filled the air as she re-mantled, massive and shimmering. Not hulking, exactly, too slender for that, but she still went from a girl of average height to a mecha made of gemstones. She looked down at her crystalline hands and checked the rest of her body.


    ¡°Tsunagatte¡­dekita you desu.¡±


    With that confirmation, Heliotrope mantled as well, a flash of red light blinding her phone¡¯s camera for a moment¡ªfrom what I¡¯d seen of her mantle¡¯s diagram, it didn¡¯t actually do that in person, only to digital cameras. When the video feed recovered, she was in full costume.


    From her chest spilling over the corset binding her midriff, to the layered, lacy skirt that barely reached past her hips, and the thigh-high socks with ribbons on the hems, all of it came together to give her transformation the impression of a cosplayer¡¯s outfit rather than the exceptionally high-grade magical combat frame it supposedly was. Her hair had gotten far longer and taken on a rich, dark-red tone that shone as a glossy curtain in the light of the burning oil rig. The word ¡®fanservice¡¯ wandered through my mind again, and I averted my eyes so that I wouldn¡¯t get caught on details like the exposed sideboob or the choker. We had bigger priorities right now¡ªbut I couldn¡¯t ignore the eye.


    The bangs that had before covered her right eye were now bound back by a bow, revealing Heliotrope¡¯s ¡°cursed eye¡±. Black sclera surrounded a dark-green iris punched through the center with a crimson, square pupil. Where Hina and Alice¡¯s eyes were cosmetic side effects of other changes, this was a bona fide magical organ, and my skin crawled as her gaze passed over me, unblinking, no eyelid for the multicolored gem. It felt like she could see my soul; that wasn¡¯t quite how her foresight worked, from the brief explanation I¡¯d been given, but it was still a mercy when the horrible eye passed over me to Amethyst. They launched into a rapid back-and-forth, Amethyst¡¯s glimmering chimes against her teammate¡¯s somewhat-tinny voice through the low-bitrate video call.


    Amethyst unfolded her cannon, concentric rings flowing up and out of her right arm, deploying into a twisting series of collars for the energy that bulked out her arm significantly with spindly support structures and resonance spines to catch and twist the ripple into a secondary set of ephemeral glyphs. But for the moment, the weapon was inert, and she and Heliotrope were just running diagnostics. On Heliotrope¡¯s end, there was no physical manifestation of the gun at all; it was essentially a pure psychomotive point-and-shoot. Satisfied with the connection, she turned the camera to point at the oil rig again.


    ¡°Whoa. Ha! Yeah, this is changing things.¡±


    ¡°Do you see a place to aim? One that¡¯ll take out the PCTF team on the platform?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, a few. I can¡¯t see what happens after, though. I can¡¯t actually get involved, deshou?¡±


    Alice winced.


    ¡°He¡¯s on his own after that. This is all we can really do. If he¡¯s evaded capture for the past¡­¡± she checked her watch, ¡°fifteen minutes, he¡¯s got a good enough grasp on his Light that hopefully getting him some breathing room on the platform will give him a chance to run for it, get toward the Spire.¡±


    ¡°If they take him,¡± Ai pointed out. I frowned.


    ¡°They will. I don¡¯t know what Bri was doing, but¡ªthey always grant asylum. It probably has to do with the platform itself, not him.¡±


    ¡°Or maybe Zero-Day or somebody else will take that as their cue,¡± Alice reasoned. ¡°Either way, this is the best we can hope for, so we¡¯re doing it. Ezzen¡¯s right, he deserves that much.¡±


    Heliotrope blinked.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s his idea?¡± She grinned. ¡°Good work. Shikata nai nara¡­tsubushite yarimashou!¡±


    On the laptop screen, she took aim. She was actually still lounging in her chair, but was looking intently at the blob of lights that was how the camera saw the oil rig. I glanced over at Ebi on reflex for translation.


    ¡°We¡¯re ready?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not quite what she said, but yeah.¡±


    Hina chuckled.


    Next to us, Amethyst spooled up her gun. Her thread was bright white, like mine, but left a violet afterimage in my vision as it ran around the circumference of her arm, tensioning off the spines and crossing the loops like a series of concentric dreamcatchers that formed a series of first-order glyphs. She looked around the room, hefting the loaded cannon, careful not to point it directly at any of us but unsure where exactly it should be pointed on the off chance something went wrong with the hitch. I glanced nervously at Ai, who gave me a reassuring smile.


    ¡°It¡¯ll work.¡±


    Amethyst settled on just pointing the gun straight upward; better it blew through the ceiling and harmlessly into the sky than hit one of the surrounding buildings. Her confirmation of readiness rang through the room, and I held my breath. I think Alice was just as nervous as I was, but Hina seemed at ease, even eager, confident in both her handiwork and that we were doing the right thing.


    A pressure gathered in my sinuses as the magical artillery reached final readiness. That probably wasn¡¯t a result of it interacting with my Flame, just the very fractional unavoidable portion of ripple leakage doing odd things to the air pressure in the room. Another brief, confirmatory back-and-forth between Amethyst and Heliotrope, and she pulled the trigger.


    Ripple propagated backward through the weave of the cannon, up from the circles around Amethyst¡¯s wrist through her forearm, making the entire assemblage shimmer and contort around the spines, a great raptor¡¯s talons. Then it all flashed at once, and that was it on our end. After a moment, the blast of cold air hit me, virtually the only significant ripple leakage, setting my teeth chattering as I huddled further into my heavy clothes. I released the breath I¡¯d been holding in a wispy puff and looked back at the video call as Amethyst lowered her gun and let the glyphs dissipate in my peripheral vision.


    Somebody had taken a great chunk out of the oil platform¡¯s superstructure with an ice cream scoop. Oh, no¡ªwe had done that. The left half of the superstructure was just gone, and flame billowed from the newly exposed corridors and rooms. The edge of the severed zone was melted as though superheated, molten metal sloughing downward onto the main deck. My phone exploded into a storm of buzzing in my pocket. Hina cheered, almost a howl.


    ¡°Take that!¡±


    Off in the side of the frame, Heliotrope was nodding at her handiwork and fiddled with her phone camera to zoom in as far as it¡¯d go so we could inspect our handiwork. A tiny figure, barely a few dark pixels almost drowned out against the flames, stumbled out from one of the gaping cavities that had been an interior space seconds prior. My stomach twisted as they fell to their knees, and then half-slid, half-melted down off the edge of the void we had blasted, vanishing from view into the molten heap accumulating below.


    ¡°Zen¡¯in!¡± Heliotrope confirmed. ¡°That was the last one. Our cousin is fine, too. Great plan, Ezzen.¡±


    ¡°No, no, no no nono¡ª¡±


    I¡¯d just killed them all. I¡¯d consigned that team of Peacie abductors, abhorrent as they were, to a visceral, awful death. Of course we had¡ªwe had fired the equivalent of naval ordnance directly at them. Of course we were going to kill them. My hand hurt, aggravated by the cold snap and the way I was gripping the table¡¯s edge so hard it was starting to bruise. Dead. How many? A dozen? It didn¡¯t matter. They were all dead now. All because I had wanted to do real magic to save one guy.


    ¡°I¡ªI¡ªI thought¡­¡± I stared glassy-eyed at Alice, mouth dry. ¡°You let me do that.¡±


    Her draconic eyes were fixed on the carnage onscreen as the fires continued to spread. Her tail wasn¡¯t moving. Oily disgust and self-loathing bubbled through my soul. Anger at them, too¡ªhow could they have permitted this? Hina came around the table, hopping up to sit on it at my other side.


    ¡°Cutie, they¡¯re monsters.¡±


    I turned on her.


    ¡°I saw Bri use minimum force when she drove off the gunships. We did not have to¡ªWhy did you let me kill them?¡±


    ¡°Ezzen, look at me,¡± Alice murmured. My neck swiveled slowly, grinding like granite slabs as I faced Todai¡¯s leader. ¡°I told you. It¡¯s not revenge. We¡¯re destroying evil. They knew what they signed up for. Ezzen¡ªEz, no, look at me.¡± She reached forward and took my hand gently. ¡°I¡¯m¡ªHina is right. This is the right thing to do. They¡¯re monsters. Their lives were forfeit the moment they stepped aboard that platform, whether their retribution came from the Spire or from us. And even though it wound up being us, the Vaetna would have done the same, because¡ª¡±


    ¡°Alice,¡± Hina interrupted, ¡°he¡¯s not listening, give him space.¡±


    Indeed I wasn¡¯t. They were dead because of my selfishness, because I¡¯d wanted the Radiances to do something. Would they have done it without me pushing them? Would those people be alive if not for me? If they were, if they had taken that flamebearer¡ªwould that be a worthy trade?


    My gaze inevitably fell on the one who this was really all about. Amane sat so tired and small in her oversized chair, now out of mantle, ensheathed in the armor of her big hoodie even outside of her mech. A mirror to me in many ways. The Radiances had helped me kill those people because of her mechanical limbs and the access port in her belly and the lone viridian eye looking down at the table and the carbon fiber attached to the stump of my foot¡ªnevermind that my injury had been self-inflicted. She nudged Ebi, muttering something. The android translated.


    ¡°It¡¯ll take some time. Just¡ªbreathe. The world is a better place with them gone.¡±


    I glanced over at the screen, at the burning, ruined oil platform. Heliotrope hadn¡¯t ended the call, but she¡¯d vacated her little hovering campsite to help contain the disaster she¡¯d helped create, leaving her phone¡¯s camera staring at the destruction. The PCTF gunships had come in, but were unable to safely land and disgorge more operatives.


    In a different world, a better one where the Vaetna hadn¡¯t left for some inscrutable reason, at least he¡¯d be safe. But in reality? Things were still so dire for him. What would happen now? How would he make it off the platform and vanish enough to evade capture, without further help? He still had nowhere to go but the Spire, and they had seemingly abandoned him. If he got captured anyway, if this was all for naught¡ª


    A beam of light punched upward from the rig¡¯s highest point, scintillating through greens and blues before turning to a vibrant magenta. Something shot along it in a crackle of rising lightning, and then it dissipated. It happened so quickly that my heart had only just stopped before it was already over.


    ¡°Hey, he got out!¡± Hina cheered. Alice slumped forward, putting her face in her arms on the table, and began to sob quietly. Hina rubbed her back. She winked at me, a huge, fanged grin on her face. ¡°Tears of relief,¡± she clarified. It should have made me feel better, but I was going numb.


    ¡°He had help,¡± Ai reasoned. ¡°But yes, I think he¡¯s out.¡±


    ¡°From who?¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter.¡± Ebi cut in. ¡°Point is that he made it out. We saved him.¡±


    I looked at her, then at Amethyst, then at the other Radiances. Had those operatives deserved to die? This specific and exceptionally weird case aside, the Spire¡¯s answer was generally¡ªyes, and that was the moral standard I¡¯d always trusted in the abstract, whenever cases of these sorts of conflicts made the news. And the Radiances had painful, personal reasons to have gone along with this. They¡¯d had motive and opportunity¡ªI¡¯d just helped with the means.


    ¡°But you should have stopped me,¡± I whispered.

 From On High // 1.14

    The Vaetna do it too.


    I¡¯d always known, intellectually, that the Spire¡¯s direct and violent brand of foreign policy left people dead by design. To me, it had always been beautiful, elegant, when they took their vaet and sliced clean through all the murk and red tape to declare ¡°this is where we stand.¡± Their causes were just, and when they brought the hammer down, it was with such overwhelming force and precise aim as to cow any reply. They did so in the name of minimizing further bloodshed, making it clear that retaliatory escalation would only invite one¡¯s own destruction. They left superyachts with yawning holes that passed exactly through where the owner¡¯s cabin had been and spared every crew member, walked straight into the offices of corrupt leaders to behead them¡ªthat sort of vigilante fantasy. The ultimate, bloody check on power, brilliantly focused and wetting their blades only with the blood of the guilty.


    But sometimes evil was distributed and systematic. And so sometimes, the Vaetna also had to do exactly what I had done: they murdered operatives of the PCTF and its equivalents for the sake of flamebearer lives and dignity. I hadn¡¯t understood what that meant until I saw the tiny body on Opal¡¯s laptop screen. Over and over, the backs of my eyelids showed me his¡ªor her¡ªfinal moments, before their body had turned to sludge and joined with the fires below; the grisly, impersonal end of an entire human life that I had wrought.


    It was bigger in my memory, those handful of pixels growing to indict me for my crime, consuming the whole screen. In the enlarged, unavoidable clarity of a nightmare, I saw all the different ways the ripple had killed them. It transmuted their flesh to rusted iron, or wove their skin through their bones, or just punched random, perfect holes through their body, before they inevitably collapsed and the microscopic structures that held them together dissolved and at last they became a red slurry.


    ¡°They deserved it,¡± I repeated once again. ¡°They crossed the line in the sand. They knew what they were signing up for. Their lives were forfeit. They were abductors¡ªfascists, even, let¡¯s not kid ourselves. The world is a b¡ªbetter place with them gone.¡±


    My room declined to weigh in.


    I¡¯d fled here after a few more minutes of ineffectual justifications from Opal. I didn¡¯t need her to defend her actions. Acting in the Spire¡¯s stead after Brianna¡¯s still-unexplained exit, even without their own personal motivations to protect the flamebearer, they were more than justified to do what they had¡ªwhat I had helped them do. But they should have told me. It felt like they¡¯d specifically avoided using the word ¡°kill¡±¡ªand so had I, but that had purely been my narrow-sightedness, my naivete. They¡¯d done this before, at least once, when they¡¯d saved Amethyst. Opal should have stopped me short and laid out in crystal clarity that I was proposing to murder those people, justified or not, because I had not understood.


    I fumbled for my phone, seeking comfort in old, familiar videos of the Vaetna doing this and that, mundane fraternal rambunctiousness and glyph engineering vlogs¡ªand felt a new, awful tightness in my chest as I watched Heung balance atop the flexing haft of his spear. The blood of hundreds, possibly thousands, ran from its onyx tip, and that was to say nothing of the magic he and his siblings wrought. No bunker too deep, no lab too well-warded; the Vaetna were unstoppable, and death was their obligation.


    So why the hell had Brianna fled?


    Her absence from the scene of my misdeed was cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless. It had forced my hand; we¡¯d functionally been acting in her stead. Did it really matter who brought down the ax, so long as it fell upon the guilty? And guilty they had been; even if they were technically Blackwater or some other private military, even if the PCTF disavowed them, their mission on that oil platform was one which deserved the grisly end I¡¯d brought them. So said the Vaetna and, apparently, Todai¡ªat least on an unofficial basis for the latter.


    But none of my moralizing explained why we had to be the ones to do it at all. Vaetna simply did not leave infernos once they had deployed. To do so was a violation of their duty, a crack in their terminal reputation, and¡ªto be frank¡ªa matter of sunk cost. Caging an area like that represented significant magical investment, so they might as well follow through and resolve the situation in their favor. So it followed that Bri must have been needed elsewhere¡ªbut there was no elsewhere. There had been no other infernos happening anywhere in the world at the same time, nor had my handful of Spire-resident contacts mentioned anything domestic which might have demanded her attention. Yes, two¡ªthree?¡ªdays ago, she had been interrupted from spooling into the Spire by my flamefall, but if that had been sufficiently disruptive then¡ª


    ezzen: She wouldn¡¯t have been out there at all.


    skychicken: what gets me is the lack of statement


    skychicken: per all parties


    ezzen: Right?


    ezzen: She didn¡¯t even say anything of note to Heliotrope, I can confirm that firsthand.


    ezzen: Er, secondhand, I guess, but I can¡¯t imagine any version of events where Heliotrope wouldn¡¯t have been telling the truth about that part.


    DendriteSpinner: Unless she was wary of you


    DendriteSpinner: Something something OPSEC


    ezzen: She would have just gone into Japanese, then.


    ezzen: Recall that I cannot speak a word of that language.


    DendriteSpinner: Oh right lol


    DendriteSpinner: And like thats all from your end right


    ezzen: Afraid so.


    No, it was not.


    ks3glimmer: speaking of parties


    ks3glimmer: who the heck was the theres a third


    ks3glimmer: or even fourth


    ks3glimmer: bleh typo


    ks3glimmer: (if that big explosion and whoever pulled holton out were different groups)


    In the hours since the incident had begun to wind down, survivors from Thunder Horse had confirmed the new flamebearer¡¯s identity as one Noah Holton, a totally unremarkable member of the crew who had been on for three years. Putting a name to the person we had rescued made me feel better, helped validate what I had done¡ªat least as long as the operatives I had murdered remained anonymous and unpersoned.


    DendriteSpinner: makes the most sense for the explosion to have been the spire


    ezzen: I¡¯m assuming it was the same third party.


    ezzen: That didn¡¯t look very Spire to me. And we know it wasn¡¯t Holton because it was too controlled compared to the rest of his fighting.


    Maintaining my cover, such as it was, was mentally and emotionally taxing. Opal¡¯s gentle scolding from this morning about information leakage¡ªhad it really only been this morning?¡ªhad now taken on a cast of critical, mortal importance. I didn¡¯t need the girls to explain to me how serious it would be if what we had done got out to the public¡­though I think Opal had made the attempt nonetheless, in those few minutes I¡¯d sat there in crushed, horrified silence before I¡¯d fled. Not that I¡¯d really absorbed the specifics.


    ks3glimmer: what little we saw of it, but yeah


    skychicken: if we wanna go really dark


    skychicken: the peacies could have false flagged their own team to justify escalating with an exo team next


    skychicken: explains why that explosion looked so much like an airburst KV-20. maybe fired from one of the destroyers?


    My skin crawled. Did he know? If he knew about Amethyst¡¯s gun through Hina, and knew Hina well enough to know how much they hated the Peacies¡­


    DendriteSpinner: Sorta contrived


    ezzen: conspiratorial


    But then, that was just skychicken. Even if he did know, he sure didn¡¯t seem interested in outing what I had done.


    skychicken: per their statement (link) they sent a pretty light snatch squad first, the ones they usually label as rescue


    skychicken: based on the guy¡¯s history i dont think they were expecting him to resist


    DendriteSpinner: If he hadn¡¯t, it would make sense why Brianna fucked right off after talking to him


    ks3glimmer: yeh


    skychicken: yep


    skychicken: would have just told her to screw off because he was going to willingly give himself over


    skychicken: except thats very obviously not what happened


    ks3glimmer: ez, im still sorta wrapipng my head around the fact that youre a flamebearer now, but


    ks3glimmer: same cluster, any thoughts?


    ks3glimmer: *wrapping


    ezzen: What sort of thoughts?


    ks3glimmer: cluster links arent unheard of


    ezzen: I¡¯m aware. But none to speak of.


    ezzen: Super weird flamefall, you might recall.


    ezzen: Like, we¡¯re technically same cluster, but because Heung splintered it, I sort of doubt we¡¯ve got any kind of resonances.


    ezzen: Which I NEVER SAW ON CAMERA BEFORE AND IT WAS THE COOLEST SHIT.


    ezzen: For all of, uh. Three seconds or something.


    I disengaged from the conversation before I ran out of ways to deflect any further, making some excuse about paperwork. I found the stream VOD from the other day, watching and rewatching those last few moments of the stream before it had cut out, when the heavens had been sundered open by Heung¡¯s thunder from on high¡ªor Zeus¡¯, or Thor¡¯s, as some supposed. Some drew pagan, pantheonic comparisons to the Vaetna, a slightly more focused flavor of worship than the more generic kind which other groups directed toward the Flame. I did envy the Vaetna¡¯s supernatural physicality, a bone-deep frustration, but that way lay the sort of worship for which Opal had so strongly derided Hikanome. I envied their magic, too, but¡­


    ¡°Look where that¡¯s gotten me,¡± I instructed the empty room.


    Only three days ago, I¡¯d been unwilling to use magic to take that cabbie¡¯s life to save my own, but now I¡¯d killed what looked to be a dozen to save one person I didn¡¯t know. How was I supposed to square that circle?


    With routine, of course.


    It had been four days since I¡¯d been able to get any meaningful spear practice. Now was as good a time as any, and I needed the distraction; if I kept looking at my phone, I was liable to explode into a confetti cloud of rancid guilt and increasingly hollow-sounding justifications. So I grabbed the stabilizer cylinder, moved it from my nightstand to the foot of my bed¡ªheh, foot¡ªclose to the middle of my room, summoned my spear, and began my routine.


    Heung¡¯s spear style was not something I could really imitate at all. A baseline human simply could not maneuver in four dimensions like a Vaetna could, and even three was beyond me, so my training with the spear was mostly an homage, too far from the real thing to even call aspirational. But moving my body was still a welcome distraction, familiar, especially after a day of being essentially bedridden and most of my physical activity since then having been out in the cold.


    Forward lunge, sweeping slash, twisting, mindful of my balance. Footwork was everything. Turn, use the haft like a quarterstaff, strike the ribs, follow the momentum to kick them away to create more space. It was not a fast series of movements; I was under no illusions of being able to mimic Heung¡¯s quicksilver pace. But I could mimic his economy of motion, at least more slowly. Each thrust or sweep was careful, deliberate, prioritizing form and balance, flowing from one stance to the next. Each move was carefully calibrated to not strike the walls of my old, cramped apartment. Here, I had more than enough space, but there would be time to experiment with that later. For now, I stuck with my routine, because that was all I had. Parry, riposte, make sure I¡¯m always controlling the space in front of me. I wasn¡¯t fast enough to simply disregard defense like Heung.


    My plodding, heavy limbs had one upside: in my hands, these moves were benign and relatively harmless, at least compared to the magical weapons I had built. A few GWalk diagrams of modifications and I had taken lives instantaneously, anonymously, intercontinentally. This spear, at least such as it was, could never be anywhere near so lethal.


    Could it? Ai said she used a spear, and I had to wonder how her skills and raw power in mantle compared to that of Heung. Of course he was more powerful than her, pound for pound, and each vaet was a singular weapon, those onyx blades far beyond any LM construct Ai could weave. Still, if her teammates were anything to go by, she was still a weapon of mass destruction in her own right, and¡ª


    I abruptly stopped with my routine, lowering the spear from my guard, chest heaving. This line of thought was just sending me back down the spiral, back toward that grim truth about magic¡¯s terrible potency when applied to violence, back toward what Ai had said about how the Flame sought pain. And with what Hina had said about her metamorphosis¡ª


    A terrible suspicion took root in my heart. I sat on the bed and rested my spear on my lap, running my hands down the haft.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want you to follow me there.¡±


    It said nothing.


    ¡°I mean, it¡¯s only because you¡¯re beautiful, you know? I never wanted to use you to kill. But then you¡¯d not be much of a weapon, would you? More of a toy, I suppose. Guess that¡¯s what you¡¯ve always been. Even with this, haven¡¯t been much use to me.¡±


    I ran my finger along the strange, fuzzy shimmer of ripple warping at the tip, gained from when I had stabbed myself in the eye to slay the fire in my soul. Which eye had that been? I couldn¡¯t remember; that hadn¡¯t even been real to begin with. And of course, I hadn¡¯t actually killed my Flame, merely called it to heel.


    ¡°So don¡¯t come with me wherever I¡¯m going. Even if I have to k¡ªto kill again¡­and really have to, I mean, not doing it on somebody else¡¯s behalf, for something more important than the Vaetna¡¯s oath or mahou shoujo or just wanting to do the right thing¡­I¡¯ll do it with magic. Not with you. You deserve better than that. Stay a toy. Stay a hobby. Better for the both of us.¡±


    Satisfied with the one-way agreement, I put the spear away, then flopped backward onto the bed next to the little stabilizer module. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. Such heft; definitely a fourth dimension¡¯s worth of extra mass in there. The cylindrical outer shell was unmarked other than a blue ripple hazard sigil. I toyed with the idea of cracking it open, trying to piece together how it was made just from looking at the guts. Not now, though. My right hand wandered downward to the center of my chest.


    ¡°As for you.¡±


    I waited a moment, wondering if my Flame would respond. It didn¡¯t.


    ¡°Did you make me do that? Did you want those people to die? For¡­I don¡¯t know. For our cluster¡¯s safety? Just for love of violence? If it¡¯s that second one, just your nature, no judgment, really. I¡¯m not mad, just¡­okay, maybe I¡¯m a little mad, but in the ¡®madman¡¯ way, not the ¡®fury¡¯ way. So. Did you?¡±


    ¡°Nope.¡±


    For a very confusing few seconds, I had the weirdest sense of deja vu. Of course my Flame would speak to me in Hina¡¯s voice¡­though I wasn¡¯t sure why that made so much sense. Then I practically jumped out of my skin when I realized that it was just the actual Hina leaning on the gateway into my bedroom.


    ¡°Fucking knock!¡±


    ¡°I did! But you were clearly in the middle of your¡­thing. So I¡¯ll just ask from right here: can I come in?¡±


    I blushed, my deeply weird moment invaded. Mad indeed, I must have looked.


    ¡°Does it matter if I say no?¡±


    ¡°I mean, you could kick me out and I¡¯d leave. But I can answer your question! Your Light won¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°It might. It¡¯s spoken to me before.¡±


    That stopped Hina short. She stood up properly¡ªin that damnable physics-defying way, like a puppet pulled upright, not levering herself off the doorframe at all¡ªand frowned.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t do that. Pretty sure.¡±


    ¡°Mine did. Twice.¡±


    ¡°Oooooookay. Well, now you¡¯re definitely not getting rid of me. Spill!¡±


    ¡°¡­No? Get out of my room, please.¡±


    ¡°What, so you can keep talking to yourself? Or so you can keep wallowing?¡±


    ¡°Not wallowing. Just¡ªtrying to piece it together.¡±


    ¡°Not a lot to piece together here, cutie. You helped us kill some people who totally deserved it. You know why we didn¡¯t stop you?¡±


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t tell me this is another fucking lesson.¡±


    She laughed, a hyena-bark.


    ¡°Ha! Nah. Well¡­I guess lesson three applies. We did escalate to violence. But no, not what I meant. I bet you¡¯ve already talked yourself around on it anyway, but just so we¡¯re clear: we let you go through with it, didn¡¯t tell you you were helping kill those guys, because we wanted them dead. Selfish, right?¡±


    ¡°What, nothing to be said about the greater good? Not going to appeal to my Spire morality?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s Alice¡¯s job, and you know it. I¡¯m the selfish one, so trust me when I say we did it because we wanted to.¡±


    Silence hung between us, a deafening, cloying fog.


    ¡°Is that supposed to make me feel better?¡±


    ¡°Nope! It¡¯s supposed to be honest. Cards on the table here: we¡¯ve done it before, and we¡¯ll do it again. Sure, because it¡¯s usually the right thing to do, but also because they will never bleed enough. That¡¯s what we are. Now do you want out?¡±


    ¡°I was never in! I signed up to help with research and learn your secrets and b¡ªbecause Ai is nice! I don¡¯t want to be party to,¡± I mimed firing a rifle and made a frustrated noise, ¡°that! Let alone all the magical girl shite Opal seems insistent on teaching me like it¡¯s some kind of foregone conclusion that I¡¯ll become an actual member!¡±


    Hina crossed her arms and looked at me. Still my turn, she was saying, and as the seconds wore on, I was forced to acknowledge the problem.


    ¡°¡­But all magical research leads this direction, huh? Here, or the Spire, or the Peacies. Is that what you want me to say?¡±


    ¡°Yep! This is what it means to be us, cutie. No matter where you go¡ªyou¡¯re going to have to spill some blood. To carry the Light is to be a weapon. At least here you¡¯re the one wielding it.¡±


    What an insanely bloodthirsty take on the world. Was I so cornered? Were there no other options?


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that, even without joining the team, I¡¯ll be party to¡­this? To vigilante killings of PCTF soldiers and whatever else you get up to?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. At best you¡¯d be¡­turning a blind eye, right?¡±


    I sat there, fuming, unable to formulate a good retort against that. I¡¯d already equated the morals of Todai and the Spire¡ªbut it hurt a lot more to hear coming from her. She sighed.


    ¡°But that¡¯s not the whole equation with you in particular, nope. Since you¡¯re not just ¡®some flamebearer¡¯, you¡¯re Ezzen. Vaetna superfan. You want to be more, right? So you can¡¯t keep your Flame at arm¡¯s length, not unless you wanna make yourself miserable. Which maybe you do?¡±


    She flayed me open with those words and the casual shrug that accompanied them. I should have been honest. Instead, I got defensive.


    ¡°Why do you care?¡±


    ¡°Because I was the same! You¡¯re like looking in a mirror, cutie.¡±


    She sat next to me on the bed, reaching out, holding her arm¡ªwell, at arm¡¯s length, like she had said, watching the muscles in her forearm flex as she curled and uncurled her fist.


    ¡°I was so¡­slow. Everything was wrong. Blind, deaf¡ªer, compared to now, not literally¡ªalways looking for something that would just make me feel alive.¡± She growled that word. ¡°Street fights, that kind of thing. I was nine years old the first time I broke somebody¡¯s arm. Total adrenaline junkie. They shipped me back to Japan at the start of middle school to put a stop to it, but I just got worse, became the violent Yankee delinquent. Meeting Alice helped¡­mahou shoujo helped, too. But¡ªshe had her own problems.¡±


    ¡°And¡­being flametouched made it go away. Made you¡­this.¡±


    Was she any more in control than she had been back then? Or was she just infinitely more equipped to pick fights?


    ¡°Nope. Not at first, anyway. But when Alice and Ai-chan and I were figuring out what had happened to us, in those first few weeks, just messing around¡ªthey missed us and Yuuka when they were rounding up the flamefall victims because they thought it had only been Amane who got sparked¡ªI figured out how to¡­talk to my Flame. Hurt it. Let it change me. And it¡¯s¡­wait, we already talked about this last night.¡±


    Indeed we had, and as those memories trickled back into my conscious memory, my eyes wandered to her lips. She¡¯d promised me power. Kin to the Vaetna. The power to kill? She preempted that thought.


    ¡°The point is, you¡¯re stuck with this life no matter what. Even if you left Todai entirely, tried to lay low, you¡¯d still eventually have to kill people like that, in self-defense or because you feel like it¡¯s your duty to be more than a bystander. And, uh, that doesn¡¯t make you a monster, cutie. If you were a monster you¡¯d wish you had been there to do it with your bare hands.¡±


    My tattoo felt like it was about to jump off my skin. I squeaked out an objection.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to kill people. I don¡¯t want to hurt my Flame or anybody else.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, this is what I was afraid of. I was worried you were getting cold feet from last night.¡±


    ¡°You¡ªdon¡¯t try to convince me. Not like then. Please. It¡¯s different now, hurting my Flame was just abstract, but you¡¯re talking about power. Power for what, Hina? To kill? All of your mutations are to make you better at¡ªat killing. I don¡¯t want that.¡±


    ¡°But you do, cutie. The way you look at me isn¡¯t just horniness, trust me. You¡¯re so jealous you could scream. When I do this¡ª¡±


    ¡ªshe had seized my tattoo again and I was in danger and utterly helpless¡ª


    ¡°You love it. You crave it. You want to be able to do it, even if it¡¯s not about killing. Righ¡ªholyshit.¡±


    I¡¯d surprised both of us, right then. My other arm had lanced forward faster than I thought possible. The hem of her shirt gave off a horrible acrid smell as it smoldered, bunched in my scarred fingers. What was I doing? My grip slackened, and I pulled the hand away slowly, avoiding her eyes. She was panting, eyes wide, and I both loved and hated that.


    ¡°You made me do that.¡±


    ¡°Nope! I told you, you¡¯re like me. Ohmygosh. This is what you should be. Let me help.¡±


    ¡°¡­Why?¡± What was I to her? A lab rat? A chew toy? Or¡ª¡°This has all just been to get another weapon against the PCTF, hasn¡¯t it? You want my knowledge and my Flame, not me.¡±


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    ¡°Are you even listening to me, cutie? I mean¡­yeah, I¡¯d love it if you kept helping us kill them, that¡¯d be great. But I¡¯m doing this for you, and for me. Mostly for me. I don¡¯t want to be alone.¡±


    What?


    ¡°You¡¯re¡ªyou have the others! You¡¯re like the closest-knit group of flamebearers outside the Spire!¡±


    Well, that was mostly based on vibes. I didn¡¯t pay enough attention to groups other than the Vaetna to say that for certain. Hina raised her hand and waggled her fingers faux-menacingly.


    ¡°But they¡¯re not like me.¡±


    ¡°Opal has a dragon tail.¡±


    ¡°Alice. You went out of your way to use her name, earlier. Why the switch? You don¡¯t blame her for what we did, do you?¡±


    The pivot was as painful as it was unexpected. I hadn¡¯t even realized I¡¯d switched; I¡¯d stopped thinking of her on a first-name basis and instead gone back to her role. So that I could distance myself from what I had helped her do.


    ¡°Um¡ªfine, alright. Alice should have stopped me. So should you.¡±


    But Hina never would have, would she? As if reading my thoughts, she shook her head.


    ¡°I told you, it had to happen that way. We¡¯re selfish. I¡¯m selfish. Selfish¡­uh, where was I¡­right, I¡¯m alone. Don¡¯t get me wrong, the girls are the best thing that¡¯s ever happened to me, they¡¯re my pack and probably the only reason I¡¯m still a person and not an urban legend. And in that sense¡­yeah, I do kind of want them for their Flames, I don¡¯t think I can feel like that about humans anymore.¡± There was a note of melancholy in that. She despondently rubbed the part of her shirt I had scorched. ¡°I owe them a lot. But they don¡¯t get it, wanting to be more, to follow the path to wherever it goes. You do, and we can do it together. So¡ªlet me help you, cutie. For you and for me.¡±


    ¡°By hurting me. By showing me how to hurt.¡±


    ¡°Yeah! Listen¡ªyou¡¯ve got powers, use them to make you happy. And for good, if you want, if that makes you happy. But you gotta be happy, and I¡¯m telling you¡ªthis will make you happy.¡±


    ¡°Suppose it does,¡± I hissed. ¡°Suppose I become like you. Uninhibited and rambunctious and whatnot. You can barely tell right from wrong, can you?¡±


    ¡°I can!¡± She blinked innocently. ¡°With help.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re an utter hedonist. Sadomasochist.¡±


    ¡°Yep. It¡¯s fun. You¡¯ll love it, promise.¡±


    ¡°Like you loved sexually assaulting me?¡±


    She went very, very still.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­sorry. I didn¡¯t¡­Alice had to explain that part to me. I knew I¡¯d scared you, that was by design, but I hadn¡¯t¡ªhadn¡¯t thought it through. Got carried away with the biting and I shouldn¡¯t have and I¡¯m sorry. I worked on your stabilizer all night to make up for it. Please don¡¯t be mad at me. Please don¡¯t run away. It¡¯ll never happen again, I¡¯ll always pay attention to your boundaries and back off when you want me to and ask permission and I should have apologized sooner and¡ª¡±


    It brought me some sick, twisted enjoyment to have made her suddenly so torn up and desperate.


    ¡°You¡¯re not saying that because you hurt me and frightened me. You¡¯re saying it because you don¡¯t want me to leave.¡±


    ¡°Yeah! I mean¡ªno, I am sorry, really, but¡ªI¡¯m selfish, okay? You could be the best thing that ever happened to me. And me to you, really, I know you want it. Just¡ªI need another chance. Please?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t falling for the shining, blue, puppy eyes.


    ¡°You don¡¯t even know me. Get out.¡±


    She vanished with too much still unsaid.


    ¡ª


    ¡°That¡­¡± Ai seemed to struggle with how to put it delicately, then gave up. ¡°¡­sounds like a very Hina-san blind spot, yes. When she was helping with the stabilizer, she did mention she had a fight with Takehara-san, but I thought it was about the actual brawl from earlier.¡± She gestured toward the hall still under repair outside the prosthetic fitting room where we sat. ¡°This explains why she was so focused last night. Atoning.¡±


    I¡¯d walked in on her going through a list of requests to give special lectures at different colleges. She had seemed thrilled to deal with me instead, waving me in and directing me to a big office chair. It was a nice, padded item, one of the many bits of furniture throughout the building designed for flesh-Amane to sit comfortably in for long periods of time during consults in here¡ªwhen she wasn¡¯t on the bed in the middle of that spell circle, below that halo of tentacles on the ceiling. Poor woman. Now that I had some measure of her enemies and the means by which she fought them, I rather felt she deserved such plush comforts.


    Ai watched me turn over the stabilizer module in between my hands. It had fit quite comfortably in the pocket of my new, oversized hoodie, the armor that made me feel brave enough to talk about these things.


    ¡°But this was just¡ªto get even with me. It¡¯s still selfish.¡±


    Ai frowned at me.


    ¡°¡­You would still be unable to walk today if she hadn¡¯t worked so hard. And it¡¯s good to work out your guilt in a way that helps the people around you, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    I was reminded of what Ebi had said about Ai. She does her best work when she feels guilty. Of course she¡¯d take Hina¡¯s side on that part.


    ¡°So I should forgive her?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say that. She¡¯s¡ªI don¡¯t want to make excuses for her. Why did you come to talk to me if you didn¡¯t want to be convinced to forgive her?¡±


    ¡°Is that what you were going to do? Convince me?¡±


    ¡°¡­Yes. I think if you wanted to be angrier you¡¯d have gone to Takehara-san.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t want to talk to her,¡± I admitted. ¡°The whole¡­gun thing. I know Hina and Amane hate the Peacies, but I thought you and Alice would be the level-headed ones, talk me out of it. But I guess it¡¯s only you.¡±


    ¡°I helped with that too, but¡­point taken. Thank you. Um, so, Hina-san: you do want to forgive her?¡±


    ¡°Fuckin¡­¡± I made a noise that was intended to be a frustrated growl but came out more like clearing my throat. ¡°I guess so. And that¡¯s fucked up, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Depends. Why?¡±


    ¡°Because¡­¡±


    Fuck, could I even admit it aloud? It felt like a betrayal of my own feelings of violation from last night, and of my own erstwhile commitment to Ai¡¯s pacifism toward her Flame¡ªbut that felt hollow now, since she, too, had helped me commit murder. We were all complicit, and in light of that, however we approached our Flame felt like inconsequential quibbling compared to the edifice of real mortality now looming over me. And that was really the heart of it, wasn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Because I do want what she¡¯s offering. And if I forgive her, there¡¯s nothing else stopping me from taking it. I¡¯ve already crossed a much worse line.¡±


    ¡°Mm. Killing somebody who deserves it isn¡¯t worse than hurting your Light, Ezzen. It¡¯s innocent, they¡¯re not.¡±


    ¡°¡­Innocent? All it cares about is pain! You told me that!¡±


    ¡°Because that¡¯s its nature. And Hina-san¡¯s, as well. Not their faults.¡±


    I¡¯d said the very same to my own Flame, just before Hina had interrupted. She was right.


    ¡°You¡¯ve already chosen to forgive her. But you don¡¯t have to follow her path. She said it would make you happy, right? There are other ways to be happy. Be happy you¡¯re doing the right thing.¡±


    ¡°Like how you¡¯re happy those people are dead? I don¡¯t believe this,¡± I snarled. ¡°I thought you were the good one! The one with some moral backbone!¡±


    Ai stood unnaturally fast. My throat went dry from the ripple. I looked up at her, at the fury that had twisted her face.


    ¡°I am not happy they had to die. I¡¯m happy when I help people, when you and Ishikawa-chan can stand on your own two feet. That¡¯s what magic is for. But the people who capture us and torture us and tear out our souls just to hoard them? I wish we were as powerful and free to do what we wanted as the Vaetna are, because the right thing to do, what would make me happier than anything else, is to end them forever. Until then, we fight back. In what few ways we can. That is mahou shoujo. Takehara-san would agree.¡± She collapsed back into her chair as the fire suddenly ran out. ¡°Just¡­we must not be like Hina-san. When mahou shoujo turn cruel¡ªreal ones, Pretty Cure, the Sailor Scouts, chosen by some natural force of good¡ªthey lose their powers, and every day I wish we were the same. But she¡¯s who we have, so I forgive her for it anyway, because we need her power. I just¡ªdon¡¯t want you to follow that path. Stay away from it.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t possibly equivocate her with the PCTF.¡± Even for my moral standards, that was a bridge too far.


    Ai looked at me sullenly. The exhaustion had returned to her eyes.


    ¡°If you think what she does is different, or that the difference matters, then go ahead. Change like her, become another weapon forged in cruelty. And I¡¯ll forgive you too.¡±


    Now I had seemingly ruined two Radiances¡¯ days, sapped away their high of justice delivered¡ªpossibly Alice¡¯s too, by proxy. Each was carrying the weight of the world, at least in their own eyes, and they¡¯d clearly argued these very points to death and rebirth and death again, long before I had ever entered the picture. It was overkill to call them battle lines within the team, but there were sides, and my thrashing and flailing at being caught in the middle was doing nobody any good.


    ¡°Sorry,¡± I muttered.


    She rubbed her face and managed a genuine, though dim, smile.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. You have had¡ªa weekend.¡±


    It had only been two days, hadn¡¯t it? Three, maybe four if you counted my actual flamefall, but I¡¯d actually only been awake for about an hour and a half between getting up that morning and passing out in that buried car. So with how I¡¯d been out like a light for a while after that, it really only felt like two days. The second- and third-worst days of my life, arguably. I managed a dry chuckle, suddenly feeling as tired as Ai looked.


    ¡°I¡­really have, haven¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Unfair, I think. That¡¯s part of why I¡¯m upset with her and Takehara-san; they¡¯re rushing you. They have¡ªwell, no, I was going to say they have good reasons, but they don¡¯t, they¡¯re being selfish. It took us a lot longer.¡±


    I leaned back in the chair, then half-turned to inspect some of its features. Nice adjustable armrests, really comfortable lumbar support. A proper chair for an internet creature like myself.


    ¡°Kind of want one of these for my room.¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ªthe chair.¡±


    ¡°Talk to Ebi-tan. Actually¡ªI could help you order some furniture now, if you want.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªreally, it¡¯s alright, I don¡¯t want to be a bother. Sorry for coming in on you with my problems when you were in the middle of something.¡±


    ¡°It can wait. I hate writing emails.¡±


    She smiled at me, and I realized that she¡¯d probably rather be doing this than anything else, short of literally working on one of our prosthetics. I still felt I didn¡¯t deserve that¡ªwhich was silly. Actually¡ªI raised the stabilizer, admiring its heft.


    ¡°Um, I appreciate the offer, really, but if you¡¯re free¡­can you walk me through this?¡± I tapped the warning label with a finger. ¡°I¡¯d love to know how it works.¡±


    ¡ª


    Spending an hour talking about magic with Ai made me feel far, far better about everything. It gave me an opportunity to re-center, remember why I loved glyphcraft, and generally feel comfortable with a Radiance when every interaction with Hina and Alice right now was loaded with the weight of their hopes and expectations and I couldn¡¯t really hold a conversation with Amane. And Ebi was Ebi, which spoke for itself, but she was actually much more tolerable than usual when she popped in briefly. She and Ai seemed to mellow each other¡¯s most objectionable traits¡ªnot that Ai had all that many, but she certainly seemed happier and less strung out with her android daughter in the room.


    Ebi brought us refreshments and checked on my foot. My cauterization was healing apace and hadn¡¯t been overly aggravated by the walking, mostly thanks to the way the stabilizer redistributed and canceled the most adverse forces against the site of the injury. It was a wonderfully clever bit of weaving and an excellent demonstration of how the best way to resist further damage was through physical focus rather than via biomancy or analgomancy. Indeed, that part of the lattice was arguably more impressive in design than its primary function of assisting my gait, though the third-order weaving of the latter was flashier. I decided I ought to thank Hina for that¡ªhad I done so this morning? I couldn¡¯t remember; it had been a bit of a whirlwind with her.


    My ankle had more or less recovered from my fall this morning¡ªto a greater extent than Ebi had expected.


    ¡°Fourteen percent faster.¡±


    ¡°Meaning¡­I¡¯m mutating?¡±


    ¡°Not¡­necessarily? Yeah, like, obviously the first place I¡¯d go is the Hina comparison, but it¡¯s not like I did a real scan of it when you got injured; that number is just a best guess. And you had just come off of a day of epithelial acceleration and red boosting and all that jazz, so I¡¯m just going to chalk it up to statistical error.¡±


    ¡°O¡­kay.¡±


    I had a moment of terrified panic that Hina¡¯s changes I had rejected might well be happening regardless¡ªthen got ahold of myself. If my body was changing without having to hurt my Flame, wasn¡¯t that the best of both worlds? It would mean I didn¡¯t have to be complicit in Hina¡¯s cruelty while still becoming closer to the Vaetna. Then I got ahold of myself again, old self-reminders that I wasn¡¯t actually special kicking in automatically before I at last remembered that I was in fact an unprecedented, highly unusual case after all. So I might as well rejoice, though I did so internally, maintaining a healthy dosage of tempered expectations. I probably wasn¡¯t going to wake up with supercharged myelin in my limbs and a magical furnace for a heart. Probably. A guy could dream, though.


    I suspect Ebi picked up on at least some of that whole rollercoaster of emotions, but she didn¡¯t interrupt Ai¡¯s pleasant rambling about the stabilizer¡¯s internals to comment on it, and the rest of the checkup passed without incident. Our little hangout came to a close when Ai¡¯s pedagogical responsibilities caught up with her and she had to take a call, shooing us out of the room. Ebi accompanied me back through the halls and up the elevator to the 19th floor; I was starting to get a feel for at least this travel route between the Radiances¡¯ abode and her sub-level domain.


    ¡°What else is in this building, anyway?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­everything? Marketing, finances, operations, R&D, HR¡­¡± She pointed at various buttons on the elevator¡¯s panel as she listed the departments.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t Todai¡­huge? Culturally, I mean. Seems like sort of a small building for such a big operation.¡±


    ¡°The girls like to run a bit of a skeleton crew, it¡¯s true. I¡¯m told one of their conditions for the whole gig was to keep it lightweight, do marketing and stuff around them so they could do the magical girl thing in peace. Only sorta worked. I help with that, too.¡±


    ¡°Beyond just being Amane¡¯s doctor?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. I run the Twitter.¡±


    ¡°Of course you do.¡±


    When we stepped back into the penthouse, we found Hina in the kitchen, washing dishes, surrounded by the signs of dinner-in-progress. Something was roasting. She didn¡¯t acknowledge us, even though I¡¯m sure she heard us over the fwoosh of the faucet; for the best, probably. Whatever conversation we were going to have, I didn¡¯t want to have it yet. And Ebi didn¡¯t seem inclined to force the issue, bless her Flame-woven soul. She went back on Amane duty, and I returned to my room.


    ¡ª


    I whiled away the rest of that afternoon just¡­decompressing. At some point, I started idly looking up how to buy computer parts in this city, and less than five seconds later, Ebi messaged me with a list of specs and said everything would be there tomorrow. I was mildly disturbed she was watching my online activity, but she was probably hooked into the network; fair was fair. I made a mental note to get a VPN at some point.


    The Radiances didn¡¯t all convene for dinner that night. Ai¡¯s portion of the meal went down to her in the lab, Alice was out, and Heliotrope was still on her way home, somewhere over the Pacific, which just left me, Hina, and Amane for a tense and awkward meal, sat together around the table with Ebi standing dutifully just behind the Amethyst Radiance. Hina seemed¡ªunhappy, regretful. She didn¡¯t bring up any of the events of the last few days, nor attempted to make any jabs at Amane. She just sat there and ate her roast duck. It was a marginally less voracious and messy affair than the chicken cutlet of lunch, more subdued. But only marginally¡ª


    And I totally got why, because said roast duck was really, really good. Maybe it was just that I needed the calories for my foot, but I gorged myself on a whole leg in the span of a few minutes. I¡¯d like to think I at least outdid her on table manners, but honestly the whirlwind of tender meat and crispy skin and savory juices with the sweet-and-sour sauce she had made left me unsure as to whether I wound up being any more civilized about it than her. Amane also ate with her hands, in smaller, more careful bites than either of us¡ªI was a little surprised her mechanical arm was food-safe, with its visible seams. She made no attempt to engage us in conversation, either, maybe affected by the awkwardness between us, or maybe just too focused on making sure she could keep the food down.


    I excused myself pretty much as soon as I was done eating, barely mustering the manners for a ¡°thanks that was so good¡± before returning to my room and getting back on my laptop to shoot the shit with my friends in the chatroom, doing my best to hide the way I was avoiding discussion of the events on the oil rig. If Sky knew, he didn¡¯t call me out on it. So for a few hours, I was able to maintain almost-normalcy, especially when the topic turned to less-fraught topics like the goings-on of my friends¡¯ lives and general magical research, nothing that demanded subterfuge from me. I did have to evade slightly when teased about whether I¡¯d ¡°gotten all up in the Radiances¡¯ magical guts yet¡±¡ªMoth¡¯s phrasing left it ambiguous whether they had meant the magic of their transformations or literal sexual innuendo¡ªbut even that was a public sort of dodge; just an apologetic, half-joking ¡°That¡¯s classified.¡±


    But that did get me thinking about Hina again, particularly in the ways I¡¯d largely been trying to avoid. Even aside from all the posthuman temptation she¡¯d levied upon me, there was a simpler, more basal attraction toward her which I found damnable but undeniable. Of course, all the Radiances were hot, and I knew my attraction to Hina was just a stupid, hormonal, misfiring crush from years of in-person social isolation and starvation for physical affection¡ªbut I still wanted her, despite everything. Despite what she¡¯d done to me and promised to do more of. Stupid.


    It was that stupid, ulterior motive that found me knocking on the door to her room, like a scene from a bad college drama. She¡¯s waiting for you, Ez, whispered a tearful, melodramatic voice. It was rather undercut by the clip-art of a sapphire hanging by a lone strip of tape; it acknowledged me with just the barest hint of a flutter from my movements, and after my crisp double-knock, silence reigned. No swell of music to accompany my decision to cross into her domain, to thrust myself into the belly of the beast. Yet a decision it very much was; I wouldn¡¯t let her into my own space again, and I sure as hell wasn¡¯t going to try to have this conversation in one of the common spaces.


    ¡°Unlocked,¡± Hina called from behind the door.


    I¡¯d expected stepping into the room of Radiance Sapphire to be disorienting; I¡¯d braced myself for some kind of translation into a different kind of reality as I crossed the threshold. No such luck.


    The first thing I actually noticed was the incense. A softly spicy aroma, cloves and cardamom¡ªthanks Dad¡ªwhich merely mentioned its presence in the air rather than yelling it. That gave me a good idea of how advanced her nose was, if anything more intensely aromatic was uncomfortable¡ªor maybe she just preferred it like this. Either way, it was unexpected but not unwelcome.


    Her apartment had the same basic layout as mine; her multipurpose room seemed to be mostly storage, shelves and boxes which observed my passing in stolid solemnity¡ªokay, no, stop being dramatic. Besides, that was far from the most remarkable thing about the room. That title went to the very fancy gaming rig. Three monitors all in a row, suspended from struts and bars at head-height to wrap across one¡¯s field of vision, and a tall, fixed chair reminiscent of a racecar¡ªa real racecar, not one of those overpriced gaming chairs styled after them. The setup had no desk, though, nor keyboard or mouse, and I wasn¡¯t quite sure what I was looking at until I saw the smaller panels and array of buttons¡­and the flight stick. What? Why did she have a flight simulator in her room? She was one of a handful of people in the world who could fly under her own power¡ªshe didn¡¯t even have to mantle up!


    I shelved the urge to investigate it further and crossed to the threshold of her bedroom, just around the corner from the gateway. Once we were face to face, things would get¡­much more difficult, and I could already feel my heart rate rising as I tried to organize my jumble of thoughts. I clenched my fists, let them relax, and then turned the corner.


    This part of Hina¡¯s apartment played more to my expectations; her bedroom shared the ¡°den¡± vibe of her pocketspace. She didn¡¯t have a big bed like mine; instead, quilts and pillows were scattered across the center of the room atop a plush, deep carpet that captured my feet like royal-blue forest moss. It must have been hell to get stains out of. The room was lit by the dying daylight and a few of the same indirect lights on the walls that had been in her pocketspace¡ªand candles. Not an absurd number, maybe a dozen, scattered in twos or threes across various cabinets and dressers and her desk. A fire hazard, to be sure, but she was a greater fire hazard than anything in the country save her best friend, and I found I rather liked the ambiance.


    Hina herself was lying on her side, flopped like a dog, facing away from me. She was hugging something¡ªa stuffed animal in the form of a seal, I learned, once she rolled over to face me.


    ¡°Hi, cutie,¡± she muffled into the seal¡¯s head. ¡°Please be good news.¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ªI don¡¯t know if it is. I talked to Ai. Fuck. Ai, not I,¡± I gestured at myself for clarity. ¡°Ai-chan? No, that¡¯s appropriation or something.¡±


    Bad start, but it at least made her snicker.


    ¡°And she said to forgive me.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡®Cause that¡¯s how she is. Too much good in her heart, I swear. Gonna get her killed someday. Already cut her in half.¡±


    That was¡­almost certainly referring to Ebi, somehow. I resolved that I mustn¡¯t derail or we¡¯d never get around to the conversation we needed to have.


    ¡°I¡­okay. Can¡­I¡¯m going to sit.¡±


    She waved vaguely toward a pillow in reply. I put myself down gently, still trying to be somewhat conscious of my foot despite Ebi¡¯s clean bill of health. Once I¡¯d made myself comfortable, I looked around her room, trying to find something to focus on and talk at. My left hand wandered to my right and rubbed the scars. Nervous habit, because I was nervous. My eyes eventually found a pair of candles, a pale wax one with a slightly shorter, dark-purple sibling, directly across the room from me, above Hina¡¯s head in my field of view. Opal and Amethyst? Reading too much into that, probably, since Amane was taller than Alice in both forms, and Hina probably wasn¡¯t the type to¡ª


    Enough faffing around. I had to say it.


    How could I say it?


    It was as direct and simple of an admission as they came, but so, so loaded with straightforward vulnerability and the feeling that I was doing something I¡¯d come to regret. I took a deep breath, pushed some strength into my vocal chords¡ª


    ¡°A¡ª¡±


    And stopped. It was hard. I clammed up for a moment. Which turned into ten seconds, which turned into twenty, and by then I was considering bolting. I backed off a bit from what I was going to originally say, and instead went with:


    ¡°What are we?¡±


    Great line, Ez, real low-drama, definitely not a line straight out of a crap romance novel. Hina breathed slowly.


    ¡°Dunno. That wasn¡¯t as bad as I was worrying, though. What did you really want to ask?¡±


    Damn her directness, her incisive way of knowing me despite not knowing me. I forced myself to stop white-knuckling my other hand, instead putting my face in my hands and sighing. I just wasn¡¯t going to be able to say it any other way. Just spit it out, Ez.


    ¡°I¡­still¡­want you but.¡±


    She squeezed the plushie tighter.


    ¡°But? I don¡¯t like buts, cutie.¡± She frowned. ¡°Well, no, I like butts, probably, at least when they¡¯re attached to people I like. I¡¯m going to shut up now.¡±


    Heedless of her babbling, I had started talking again around ¡°attached.¡±


    ¡°I want you physically and carnally and I want you to touch me and I want to touch you and¡­and¡­I¡¯m willing to forgive you about what you did to me because I want more of it even though I shouldn¡¯t and I feel awful that you feel so bad about what you did because Ai said¡ªEmerald, that is¡ªsaid it was a blind spot for you and it hurts that you¡¯re so alone when I¡¯m alone too and I¡¯m just realizing how stupid it is for me to be angry about that when, one, I want it, and two, I had an even worse blind spot about literal murder so¡­¡±


    I ran out of breath. That was probably for the best; I hadn¡¯t quite worked out what was supposed to come after the ¡°so¡±. I panted a few times, confirmed with a glance that she was still waiting for me to continue, found another thread, and pursued that instead.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what to think about the mutation stuff you keep talking about. I feel like I¡¯d be betraying Emerald and myself because hurting the Flame is horrible and feels so awful that even though I want to be more the price is too high. But if we don¡¯t do that, can we still¡­just do the physical stuff without all that? Is that an option, where we¡¯re just¡­I don¡¯t know, a couple or f¡ªfriends with benefits or something without me having to tear myself up about the magic side too?¡±


    ¡°Um.¡± For once, Hina seemed really speechless. She slowly sat up. ¡°Cutie, I¡¯m really, really proud of you, you know that? Dunno how much you think that¡¯s worth, but I am. That must have been hard.¡±


    I tried to acknowledge that it was, that it had been so hard but I couldn¡¯t not say it, but now my voice was shaking too badly. Why was I sobbing? This whole affair was stupid and melodramatic and it had to get off my chest. How else was I supposed to deal with it all? And it hurt that she was proud, that I did value her praise like that. It was all so dumb and complicated and none of this had mattered before two days ago. But now it all mattered to me, so much, too much.


    Hina let me cry quietly for a minute or two, until the tears at least stopped flowing and I was just choked up and dreading whatever she¡¯d say next. She¡¯d exploit my vulnerability and pounce on me, use my admission of desire to take everything she wanted.


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t trust me,¡± she eventually muttered, blue downcast.


    ¡°I know. But I¡­¡± It took me a few sniffles. ¡°I want to. I¡ªI want to.¡±


    ¡°You know how hard it is for me to not try to abuse this? To exert my leverage? It¡¯s really hard, cutie. I look at you and I want to grab you and drag your Light to the surface and slice your belly open to drink your blood until we¡¯re the same and I¡¯m not alone anymore,¡± she whimpered. ¡°Yuuka wasn¡¯t joking. I try really hard to stop myself and I messed up last night. I get why you don¡¯t want to become like me. And that¡¯s probably the right call.¡±


    ¡°So¡­¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m trash at half-measures, Ez. I told you, you could be the best thing that ever happened to me, and that makes me want to push you and push you until it comes true, because that¡¯s what I am.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­Hina.¡±


    ¡°Mm?¡±


    ¡°You can control yourself. Or I want to believe you can. Maybe that¡¯s¡ªmaybe that¡¯s wishful thinking on my part. But let¡¯s¡­experimental verification.¡± I rubbed my crimson face, embarrassed at what a mess I¡¯d made of articulating my thoughts. ¡°Um¡ªfuck me, this is so¡­damn it.¡±


    I stood and approached her den, unbalanced by the roiling trepidation in my stomach. I stepped across the thickening layers of blanket until I was standing over her.


    ¡°This is stupid, is what it is. Let¡¯s¡ªjust touch each other. That¡¯s what I want, that¡¯s what made me even come in here in the first place. I want to touch you. Fuck.¡± It felt so good to just say it, but clarification was desperately needed. ¡°Not¡ªnot sex. Um¡ªnot that I don¡¯t want that, you¡¯re very attractive, but this is¡ªto prove a point. Nothing with the Flame, just¡­cuddling. Show me I can trust you.¡±


    I held my breath. She stared at me, and I did my damnedest to maintain eye contact, meet the brilliant sapphire on its own terms.


    ¡°I¡¯m so much stronger than you. Always will be, if you¡¯re not gonna change. You wouldn¡¯t be able to stop me.¡±


    She said it so bleakly. No joy, no revelry in her transcendental metamorphosis. It opened a pit in my stomach.


    ¡°No¡ªno, it¡¯s not about being strong. I do want to be strong. I do want to be more¡­never want to have to fall back on violence. Not with you, not¡ªnot with Todai as a whole, either.¡±


    ¡°Mm. You mean the murder.¡±


    ¡°I¡­yes, I do mean the murder. Stop me next time.¡±


    She snorted.


    ¡°Not quite balanced, cutie. You keep me from¡ªfuck, yeah, sexual assault.¡± She looked like a kicked puppy. ¡°Fucked up of me, yeah. And I keep you from killing people. That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªwe both have some blind spots. That¡¯s¡ªmutual accountability, of some kind. Foundation of relationships or something. We stop each other from being our worst selves.¡±


    She nodded at that and stood, and now we were two horny idiots standing atop a hill of blankets in the middle of a room. She fixed her hair nervously, twirling auburn locks between her fingers.


    ¡°Okay! Um, yeah! I wanna try it. I really really wanna prove I can be¡­uh. Lay it out for me as clearly as you can. You just want to¡­cuddle.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t sound so disappointed,¡± I chided, but the knot of nerves and confusion was loosening. We¡¯d come out the other end.


    ¡°I¡¯m trying really really hard to not make fun of you for making this so vanilla because that¡¯s the whole point, but¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­At least you¡¯re honest.¡± I sighed. I did like that about her. ¡°Um. Just¡­hands above clothes. No biting¡ªcan¡¯t believe I have to say that. Kissing¡­sure, yes please, as long as you don¡¯t try to suffocate me again.¡±


    Then I surprised us both by laughing, a goofy, undignified chortle. The situation had just gotten too ridiculous, once I laid it out like this, laid the exact limits on the table. Must it be so contrived? Was trust such a fragile thing? Well¡ªyes, for now. We had to start somewhere. She giggled too, then.


    ¡°The pact is made.¡±


    ¡°Uh. You¡¯re not a fairy, right?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m me!¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯m¡­I thought I¡¯d fucked this all up and scared you off.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, um¡ªyou did. And I¡¯m still worrying this is a mistake. Prove me wrong.¡±


    ¡°Gladly. C¡¯mere.¡±


    ¡ª


    True to her word, the next few hours were passionate and exploratory but relatively chaste, as far as the overall axis of sensuality went. She¡¯d burrowed us into the mound of bedding and given me what I could only describe as an inspection. There had been poking and sniffing and eventually even licking once I¡¯d given permission. Then, there¡¯d been kissing and purring and roaming hands, including my first touches of a boob and a butt¡ªthough that part remained above the clothes as I¡¯d stipulated. She was so warm. I got a close-up of her teeth and barely restrained myself from asking her to sink them into me. That would be for another time.


    Evening slipped to night, until the candles burned low and were overcome by the city lights coming through the window. Her eyes were so reflective they all but glowed, even in the darkness, two moons looking at me contentedly, reduced to sapphire slivers under the hoods of her eyelids. My eyesight wasn¡¯t nearly so good, but I didn¡¯t need to see anything else.


    We talked more, sometimes in little mutual whispers that accompanied each touch and sometimes in longer rambling monologues while we lay next to each other, the other just intent to listen. She joyfully explained all the ways her body was different, made my heart ache with how she described what it was like to be her, and gushed about how much she loved her teammates. She tempered the end with a stream of quiet apologies for how she¡¯d approached me and how she¡¯d probably torn me away from the path that would have led me to the Spire. I forgave her for the first; the second would need more time until it scabbed over, but I found myself willing to wait.


    For my part, I admitted new desires and older feelings I¡¯d never said aloud before, what I dreamt of becoming¡ªembodied in the girl laying half-across me and purring into my chest. We wondered about my Flame, how it had spoken to me. It was, to her knowledge, unprecedented; her deeply enmeshed experiences didn¡¯t include speech. She did mention with a city-lit, troubled frown that Hikanome¡¯s doctrine did purport communication between the Flame and its bearers, divinity-to-prophet, but not nearly so clear as what I¡¯d experienced.


    And eventually, soothed by budding trust beginning to take root between us, comfortably ensconced in her burrow of blankets, and euphoric in the simple presence of another body against mine, I fell asleep. My insane, whirlwind weekend of abduction and magic and pain was over.


    The world kept turning, though. Somewhere, Noah Holton was going through something similar to the gauntlet I had just run, and of course the Spire stood, as ever. Radiance Heliotrope was on her way back, jetbike screaming across the Pacific. Our first meeting in person would be less than ideal.


    And the next morning, Sun''s Blessing, Hikanome, the largest Frozen Flame cult in Japan¡ª


    Demanded an introduction.

 From On High // Authors Note: Sunspots DNA

    Hey, folks!


    Let¡¯s talk about where Sunspot comes from. This isn¡¯t so much a peek behind the curtain of the week-by-week writing process as it is a discussion of the biggest inspirations for the story and why it is how it is. There are¡­let¡¯s say four key works that Sunspot owes most of its DNA to.


    The setting has been in my head for¡­a decade and change, by now. Like all stories not put to paper, it¡¯s mutated quite a lot over the years as I encountered other stories to crib ideas from, and few major elements have survived all that time. The Spire, the Vaetna (a word whose origin I think comes from a random one-off spell in Eragon, but I¡¯m unsure), Ezzen¡¯s name, the Frozen Flame (no, I¡¯ve never played Chrono Trigger), the motif of spears, and¡­that¡¯s really it. But I never actually wrote any of the story down¡ªbarely even talked about it to anybody; it was my dumb little pet story idea that I wasn¡¯t confident enough to ever do anything with. I didn¡¯t write or do anything else creative as a hobby until the pandemic, when I decided to learn to draw, but I never reached a point with it where I felt like I could bring the Vaetna to life in a webcomic or similar. So the ideas just kept fermenting.


    Enter The Wandering Inn</a>, the first of those four stories (not chronologically, but bear with me). For the unfamiliar, TWI is an isekai LitRPG¡ªa pair of words I normally have a fairly high degree of distaste for¡ªwhich transcends the connotations of both of those labels. It¡¯s also the longest contiguous work of fiction in the English language, sitting at about thirteen million words and growing by about a million and a half more each year.


    I won¡¯t bore you with every reason I adore TWI. I¡¯ve gone over most of those points in an open letter I wrote to pirateaba in March, which you can read here</a>. Paba actually responded to this less than an hour later with an equally long reply, which left me sobbing uncontrollably for half an hour because I had never felt so seen before. It¡¯s kind of silly, but that was the moment where I started to incorporate ¡°being a storyteller¡± into my identity.


    And TWI did indeed get me writing. I could not stop writing fanfic for The Wandering Inn, from short snippets to longer oneshots to novella-length stories. A lot of it is porn¡ªbut porn with plot, porn which still tries to live up to the thematic beats essential to the story and to do justice to the characters. I waffled a bit on how much smut I wanted to include in Sunspot, but I think what bits we¡¯ve done so far have been harmonious with and strengthen the rest of the story.


    According to my AO3</a>, I¡¯ve written just shy of 100k words of TWI fic¡ªmeaning Sunspot¡¯s already longer than all of it. But it was how I cut my teeth with writing and learned that I was actually pretty dang good at it, at least with TWI¡¯s unrivaled quantity of canon that meant I could skip things like establishing character dynamics or magic systems. But those things scared me, so I still didn¡¯t attempt to write anything original.


    This brings me to the second of those four stories: Katalepsis</a>. It¡¯s¡­hard to describe. I¡¯d call it cosmic horror yuri, as in yuri where the participating members are cosmic horrors. It¡¯s probably one of the best works of fiction I¡¯ve ever read, period. From the line-by-line prose to the character work to the texture of the setting, it¡¯s all gorgeous. Sunspot owes much of its style to Kata: the first-person narration, the emphasis on food, the trans(both gender & human) theming, the belief that connection with other people is a force more powerful than any dark god. Actually, it shares that last one with TWI, too.


    I haven¡¯t written much fanfic for Katalepsis; in fact, at time of writing I¡¯m not even caught up (arc 14, I believe). But I¡¯ve easily passed ten thousand words rambling about it in its Discord server, and talking about fiction more broadly with all the wonderful artists and writers there helped crystallize a lot of the ideas that would eventually become Sunspot. Basically all of Sunspot¡¯s characters¡ªthe Radiances and Ez¡ªcan be fairly accurately described as a hodgepodge of different Katalepsis characters. Have fun guessing who¡¯s made of who! Also, a lot of the smuttier elements and the general impact of attraction on Ez¡¯s psyche are heavily inspired by Katalepsis.


    That being said, I still didn¡¯t actually start putting Sunspot to paper in any serious dimension until six months ago, when I was diagnosed with cancer. Fear not; we nuked it from orbit, and I¡¯m totally healthy these days¡ªbut the five days I spent in the hospital gave me a lot of time to think about the future, and the potential lack thereof. This was only a few weeks after that letter to pirateaba, in which I had discussed their own memento mori and the death of Akira Toriyama. So in that hospital bed, I started to work on Sunspot in earnest.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Cancer killed science fiction author Iain M. Banks, who wrote the Culture novels, the third work on this list. It¡¯s more of an anthology of different stories about a hyper-advanced mega-civilization¡ªthe titular Culture¡ªinterfering in the affairs of other species, often to adverse effect. I read those books about two years prior to my own diagnosis, listening to the audiobooks while I worked at a knife sharpening plant in hundred degree heat. Much of the Spire¡¯s foreign policy, and therefore the texture of Sunspot¡¯s whole setting, is inspired by the Culture. When the goodness of people, that thing Kata and TWI believe in so strongly, fails to make a difference and the world becomes dark and bleak, there is a higher power there to bring down the hammer.


    Now¡¯s a good time to mention that I¡¯m Jewish. We have a concept called tikkun olam¡ª¡°repairing the world¡±. Tikkun olam is a moral imperative to make the world a better place, for the simple fact that it must be done, not for fear of chthonic punishment or personal gain. I¡¯m not sure paba or Hungry or Banks were aware of the idea when writing their stories, but it is the beating heart of all three. I¡¯m tired of grimdark cynicism, and all three of these works helped me believe I could write a story about goodness, and about the obligation to enact it. Obviously, ¡°good¡± is subjective, and therefore moral quagmires are endemic to any story that wants to be about tikkun olam. So¡ª


    Let¡¯s talk about Worm, the fourth story on this list.


    It¡¯s probably impossible to write a superhero webserial in the year 2024 without acknowledging Worm¡¯s influence; I doubt it needs much introduction. Of these four works, it¡¯s the first I read, and at the time it didn¡¯t actually leave much impact on me; I binged it in about ten days in high school and then didn¡¯t really think about it until I started reading TWI and other webserials. With the benefit of hindsight: I don¡¯t like Worm. It¡¯s not a bad story, all things considered; it¡¯s a perfectly serviceable story about villains. 7/10, 8/10 in parts.


    Sunspot is very much Worm spitefic. They¡¯re similar in the basic setup: stochastic distribution of superpowers which may-or-may-not themselves be alive. Sunspot intentionally draws very different conclusions from this on both personal and geopolitical scales than Worm does; I dislike its insistence on a superhero-supervillain dichotomy based on this setup. There are other points which Sunspot is explicitly trying to do better than Worm: for instance, Worm is painfully, glaringly, almost offensively cishet throughout its entire runtime. Also, it dangles ¡°Nazis bad¡±, that most freebie of free squares on the literary morality bingo, and then obstinately refuses to actually embrace it. It doesn¡¯t even really have commentary on the matter. And that¡¯s to say nothing of the theme of tikkun olam, in which Worm is entirely disinterested outside of the requisite superhero fiction ¡°save the city/world¡± once the scale got big enough¡ªwhich is so obligatory it basically doesn¡¯t count.


    I¡¯m not derailing this entire A/N to rant about Worm for no reason. It is, in its own way, as big of an influence on Sunspot as the first three works on this list. It provides a roadmap of elements for me to avoid and do better than it did, and that¡¯s just as important as the things to aim toward. Worm fans, don¡¯t murder me.


    Whew. Anyway.


    Note the lack of a magical girl entry on this list. I¡¯m actually rather under-read on the genre, and desperately need to brush up on some of the classics, which I¡¯m nervous to admit to my audience when so much of the story has to do with the Radiances¡¯ performativity in imitating what they think is mahou shoujo. According to readers, I seem to be doing an alright job of hitting the mark, so fingers crossed I can keep that torch burning. Please bear with me.


    There are a lot of other more minor influences on Sunspot. Some of the tone and dialogue comes from some rather trashy but close-to-my-heart Warhammer 30k smut fanfic which I will not disclose. Some of its thoughts on violence come from Kill Six Billion Demons</a>. I¡¯m not that well-read on actual story structure, but a lot of the knowledge I do have comes from OSP Red¡¯s Trope Talk</a> videos. And of course there are countless more, various stories I read as a kid that contribute little bits and bobs I¡¯m not consciously aware of. More recently, I¡¯ve been watching a lot of Dr. Who, which is probably coloring how I do dialogue. C¡¯est la vie.


    Outside of media, there¡¯s one more thing which is really quite important to Sunspot¡ªokay, no, two more.


    Firstly, I live in Japan! You may have seen this one coming. The depictions of different landmarks and the locale and just the general experience of Being In Tokyo all come from personal experience, and I¡¯m hoping my love of this city and country come through in the writing, even though Ez is kind of out of the loop on all that stuff. I know some authors are pretty private about this sort of thing, but it informs the story too much for me to try to hide it. Ez¡¯s feeling of displacement comes from my own, though I can neither confirm nor deny whether I am living with a group of hot magical girls who are weirdly interested in transing my gender.


    Secondly, a lot of Ez¡¯s experiences prior to the beginning of the story are based on the pandemic. Unlike the real world, COVID-19 didn¡¯t happen in Sunspot, but his life being suddenly cut off by a random global calamity and him responding by retreating into seclusion and online social spaces obviously does draw from my own personal experiences, and those of quite a lot of my readership, I imagine.


    I think that just about covers what I wanted to talk about in this. Hopefully you¡­got something out of it? I don¡¯t know, I¡¯m just sort of yapping. So let¡¯s just end it here. Thanks for reading!


    See you all on the 11th!


    - yootie

 Trick Of The Light // 2.01

    ¡°The flock would be blessed¡­newest Lightbearer¡­a great day for all Japan¡­warmest welcome at the gathering on Saturday. Gonna be casual, no fireworks¡­not asking much, by their standards. Full support¡­commitment to safety and security¡­The big hook is that they want Ez there.¡±


    Ebi delivered a translated summary of Hikanome¡¯s 6 AM message from her customary spot over Amane¡¯s shoulder. We¡¯d gathered around the largest table in the lower-level common space on the 19th floor of Lighthouse Tower.


    ¡°Leeeeeverage,¡± Hina simplified from the stove. As part of her continuing efforts to educate me in Japanese cuisine, Radiance Sapphire had decided this morning¡¯s breakfast was to be omurice; she was currently managing the omelette half of that equation in three pans simultaneously. ¡°They won¡¯t lean on the Ministry to help us with the Peacies if he doesn¡¯t show, ¡®s what they¡¯re saying.¡±


    Ai raised a hand to indicate she wanted to speak while she hastily swallowed a bite of ketchup-smeared rice and egg. She looked like she had slept well, for once, although there was a slightly sleepy slur to the Emerald Radiance¡¯s voice as she gave her assessment.


    ¡°It¡¯s casual. They¡¯re not going to, um, senrei shite¡ª¡±


    ¡°Initiate,¡± Ebi supplied.


    ¡°¡ªinitiate you into the cult, if you¡¯re worried about that. It¡¯s just a big festival.¡±


    Ebi crossed her arms, looking down at her mother.


    ¡°Why are you supporting this? You don¡¯t like Hikanome, and you don¡¯t like events.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not.¡±


    Alice looked hungry and a little impatient, though she did a commendable job of keeping her voice steady and reasonable.


    ¡°Amane is going anyway, he won¡¯t be alone.¡± She turned to Amane for confirmation. ¡°Ne? Iku?¡±


    ¡°O uchi ga tazunete kuru wa,¡± the Amethyst Radiance confirmed in her regular voice, slightly tightened as always by chronic pain. She was doing pretty well this morning, supposedly, but it was hard for me to gauge that beyond the fact that she seemed mobile and active.


    ¡°Her family are Hikanome members of pretty high standing,¡± Alice explained, turning back to me.


    ¡°Can¡¯t blame them,¡± I muttered. ¡°My grandparents found God.¡±


    After Dad had died, was the unfinished part of that sentence. It was exceedingly common for direct relatives of flametouched¡ªboth inferno and successfully integrated bearer¡ªto treat the whole affair with some level of spirituality or religion. Bring enough people like that together, and you got the new-age cults surrounding flamebearers. My grandmother had coped with the loss of her son with the belief that he had been taken by the Rapture, not slain horribly by forces beyond our understanding. It was why I had left to live on my own.


    I wasn¡¯t going to pick at that emotional scab out loud, nor had I opened up to Hina about it last night; our passionate whispers and admissions through clenched teeth had been decidedly future-facing, not reflections on our pasts.


    ¡°All of us have some family connected to them, but Amane¡¯s are by far the closest, so she¡¯ll be going as a social call regardless. They were¡ª¡± she clicked and tapped a bunch on her laptop, ¡°¡ªyeah, they were happy with just two of us showing up last time. Yuuka? You don¡¯t have classes that day, do you?¡±


    She looked to Radiance Heliotrope¡ªor Bloodstone¡ªwho put down her phone to count something on her fingers. Her right eye was shrouded by long bangs, the rest of her black hair up in twintails. I shuddered as I remembered the jade-and-ruby eye that lay behind. With the spoon in her other hand, she picked at her omurice, eating around the shockingly detailed, anime-style illustration of her that Hina had drawn on the omelette in ketchup. Somehow, the sapphire puppygirl had recreated every strap and gratuitous curve of her teammate¡¯s mantled outfit. And there was indeed a lot of curve; in her much more casual nightwear of a tank top, the way she was leaning over gave me an uncomfortably clear line of sight down her cleavage. Were those real?


    I didn¡¯t want to incur a death-glare from that horrible eye, so I jerked my gaze back over to Hina as she brought over my own omurice. Heliotrope sighed, replying to her teammate in an Australian accent I was still quite surprised to hear come from the mouth of such a Japanese-looking girl.


    ¡°Hm. Me, Amane, a big barbie in the park, chaperoning our new monsterfucker to make life hard for the Peacies? Sure.¡±


    ¡ª


    Monsterfucker. She¡¯d applied the label after an unexpected meeting in the early hours of the morning. We¡¯d surprised each other¡ªI¡¯d been woken up by the thud-shhhhmmm of her jetbike landing on the roof and realized I was really thirsty, so after a few minutes of deciding whether I wanted to leave our cozy, warm nest, I¡¯d disentangled myself from Hina and snuck out of her room to get my water bottle. I¡¯d had the unfortunate luck of doing so just as Heliotrope was trudging down the hall, travel bag slung over her shoulder.


    ¡°Um¡ªmornin¡¯,¡± I¡¯d blearily greeted her. In classic Ezzen fashion, it didn¡¯t occur to me to inquire politely about her travels until the moment had already passed.


    She¡¯d just gaped at me.


    ¡°Aw, nah,¡± she¡¯d groaned. ¡°You¡¯re sleeping with her?!¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªno, we didn¡¯t have¡­¡± Even in my half-awake state, I¡¯d managed to muster some embarrassment. ¡°We¡¯re not dating.¡±


    ¡°Not dating. Even though she calls you ¡®cutie¡¯¡ªyeah, I remember! You showed up three fuckin¡¯ days ago, if my maths is right, and you¡¯re already fucking?¡± She pushed past me toward the door of Hina¡¯s room hanging ajar. ¡°Kemono! You cunts are about to make a whole bunch more red, and if that keeps me up even a second longer¡ª¡±


    Hina appeared next to her and grabbed her wrist, yanking it off the doorknob.


    ¡°Go to bed, Yuu-chan. No, cutie and I didn¡¯t have sex, but we are sleeping together, because sleeping together is awesome. Yell at us once you¡¯ve gotten a few hours of sleep yourself, okay? You need it.¡±


    ¡°Oh, fuck off, you¡­ugh.¡±


    Heliotrope had been so dead on her feet that this did indeed seem to smother the embers of her wrath, and she pushed Hina¡¯s arm away with a grumble before finishing her voyage down the hall. She did expend the effort to cast us a death-glare before entering her room, though. Hina didn¡¯t dignify that with a response and instead sidled up to me and led me back into her room, through the dark¡ªback to bed, insofar as that word could describe her den. By now, the candles had all died, so only the even, soft, yellow glow of the city lights through the floor-to-ceiling windows illuminated the room. The contrast, yellow on blue, made her eyes somehow even more impossibly, gorgeously vivid.


    ¡°Sorry ¡®bout her.¡±


    ¡°Tell me that¡¯ll be the worst response any of them have.¡±


    Yesterday¡¯s discussion with Ai, and the implicit judgment of monstrousness she had levied upon Hina, came back to me. She¡¯d equated her personality to the PCTF¡¯s organized abductions¡ªand in the same breath, also forgiven her and said it wasn¡¯t her fault, so I wasn¡¯t actually quite sure where the Emerald Radiance stood on her teammate.


    ¡°Mm. Should be! Don¡¯t worry about it for now.¡±


    Hina flopped back down onto her pile of bedding, unconcerned. I remained standing, looking over to her washroom.


    ¡°I¡¯m not great at not worrying.¡±


    ¡°Practice makes perfect. Seriously, don¡¯t let her get under your skin.¡±


    How was I supposed to do that? For now, by changing the subject.


    ¡°Er¡ªwas going to get my water bottle. Thirsty.¡±


    ¡°Need your fluids, yep. Gotta lubricate.¡±


    ¡°You do know how that sounds?¡±


    She hopped back to her feet. Now that she had been roused, it seemed that she was firing up with the same late-night energy of a cat or dog with a case of the zoomies.


    ¡°Cutie, we made out for like two hours. Yeah, I know how it sounds, I¡¯m not that oblivious.¡±


    She stalked past me silently, too-blue irises shining in the gold lights of the city. They glimmered as she stopped and turned to me, brushing a hand down my forearm to loosely take my fingers in hers.


    ¡°Is¡ªI¡¯m not being oblivious, right?¡±


    I returned the gesture, holding her hand gently. Her skin was soft, and her relaxation hid her alluring, monstrous strength. Here in our little pocket of the night, she and I weren¡¯t predator and prey. We were the same kind of creature, albeit in different stages of our metamorphosis. Ebi had called us mates, as a joke¡ªI pushed down that direction of thoughts. I held onto the agreement we¡¯d made.


    ¡°You¡¯re not. You¡¯re doing really well, Hina.¡±


    ¡°¡®Kay. Thanks.¡± She squeezed my fingers, then averted her eyes. ¡°Can I bite you?¡±


    Yes.


    ¡°¡­Where?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªchest? Near your heart. I won¡¯t break skin, I just kinda wanna¡­gnaw? Is that the word? Gnaaaaaw. Gnaaaw. Hehe,¡± she giggled giddily.


    ¡°Yeah, it is, that¡¯s the word, you got it,¡± I rambled, heart rate rising, the turmoil of excitement beginning to bloom in my belly. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d¡ªI¡¯d like that. But, um¡­¡± My hands, already pulling up the hem of my new, generic shirt, stopped at my belly button. ¡°I¡¯m¡­fuzzy.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind!¡± She leaned in slightly, peering at me, examining me in sapphire. ¡°But you do. Uh¡ªhm. I could just zap the one spot. Not gonna do your whole front, that¡¯d take like an hour or two, and you should shave first, but I can totally clear a couple square inches. How¡¯s that sound?¡±


    That was meandering awfully close to the element of our arrangement I had most strictly forbidden. Did it count? Possibly. In a literal sense, she was proposing to change me with pain, and that was a line I wasn¡¯t willing to cross¡ªnot if it were my own Flame being hurt. But was I really crossing that line? She would be the one doing the magic, and the necessary pain was part of what she was. It was her sin, not mine. Not entirely faultless, perhaps, but buoyed by more conventional desire for further contact and skinship, in the face of that 3 AM temptation, aglow in the city lights, rationalizing was easy. I wanted to be smooth and sleek; one of the muttered, breathless admissions I¡¯d whispered at her earlier in the night, before sleep had taken us.


    ¡°Yeah, um, I¡¯d¡ªyeah.¡±


    She giggled again.


    ¡°Aww. You¡¯re fuckin¡¯ cute, cutie. Well¡ª¡± she hummed. ¡°That¡¯s obvious, I guess.¡±


    Then she closed the gap between us entirely, angling her head up and tugging me down by our joined hands into a soft kiss. I felt the rumble of her purr resonate up through her body and against my lips. I found myself again trying to imitate her, a kind of growl rising in my throat like I was trying to clear it. A rough, mucosal sound, not at all the soothingly feline rumble of her own anatomy. But she still enjoyed it, jerking slightly before wrapping her other hand around the back of my neck to pull me deeper, rising to her tiptoes and deepening the kiss, her own purring intensifying. When she came away from me, a huge, dopey smile was plastered across her face, fangs tinted a soft cream color by the yellow light.


    ¡°You¡¯re not a very good kisser yet.¡±


    ¡°Uh. Sorry, I¡ª¡±


    ¡°Which is fine ¡®cause it means we can do so much practice!¡± She was bouncing a bit; her switch was flipped, somewhere between predatory mania and puppy excitement and surreal, unbelievable attraction. She took a deep breath, eyes lingering on my lips. ¡°Okay, I really want to give you your zappies and nibbles, but I need to work off this energy first or¡­¡±


    Or she wouldn¡¯t trust herself. The tacit acknowledgment of her limitations, of her desire to prove she could control herself around me, made my chest all fuzzy. A cute grimace flickered across her face.


    ¡°Gonna do my rounds. Can get you a glass while I check on something. Cold or lukewarm?¡±


    ¡°Cold, please. Your¡­rounds?¡±


    ¡°My rounds!¡±


    And she trotted out the door before I could reply, off to guarantee the security of her territory. Was that just the penthouse, or was she about to scour all twenty-three floors of Lighthouse Tower? While she was gone, to settle the pounding of my heart, I groped around for my phone where it had lay discarded.


    Skychicken had finally replied to my apology.


    ¡ª


    My omurice stared up at me. The ketchup embellishments took the form of hearts and flames. Hina was making no attempt to hide her proclivities. Alice poured me a glass of juice from the pitcher and passed it to me¡ªsome mix involving oranges, from the look of it. It was hard to gauge the exact color under the warm lights of the common area; they bathed everything in cozy tones that warded away the winter¡¯s chill outside. A sip confirmed that it was orange and mango¡ªmaybe some grapefruit in there too.


    ¡°Ebi, will he be well enough to go next week?¡±


    Ebi didn¡¯t respond to Alice, instead gently prodding Ai with a leg, who looked up at her, and they seemed to silently bicker for a moment. Ai rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand, then looked back to Alice.


    ¡°Don¡¯t rush him.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not!¡± Alice harrumphed. ¡°I¡¯m just cognizant of timetables.¡±


    Ai turned that gaze to me.


    ¡°Ezzen: do you want to go to the rally?¡±


    ¡°Not sounding like I¡¯ve got much choice, does it?¡±


    She frowned. Alice winced, but covered it quickly.


    ¡°Of course you have a choice.¡±


    I looked over her shoulder and wondered how much it cost to heat the enormous open floor plan of the penthouse. Maybe nothing at all; it seemed like a task for which the Frozen Flame¡¯s natural heat emanations were well-suited, so perhaps it was just their own magic. Wait, she¡¯d asked me a question. Choice?


    ¡°Do I? I¡¯m, er, not as savvy as you all about the politics of the whole situation, so¡­I guess it depends on how much they¡¯d shield us from the Peacies, if I¡¯m following.¡±


    Alice and Ai both sighed. Hina probably did as well, but it was buried under the sizzle of the pans and clanging of metalware and brief fwooshes of the kitchen faucet as she labored for our sakes in the kitchen. Ai spoke over Alice.


    ¡°Ignore that for a moment. Do you want to go?¡±


    I took a moment to give it real thought. A big crowd of a religious persuasion I found a little unsavory? Potentially being outright put on display as a pawn between major VNT entities? Being outside in the cold all day?


    ¡°Not really.¡±


    ¡°Then don¡¯t. Your comfort is our biggest priority right now.¡±


    Alice accompanied that with a reassuring smile. It broke when Heliotrope elbowed her.


    ¡°He¡¯d be more comfortable without the Peacies breathing down our necks. And Hikanome is our ticket for that.¡±


    ¡°Yuuka, no, it is his choice,¡± Alice maintained.


    Heliotrope turned to me, leaning forward, elbows on the table.


    ¡°Way better to be in bed with Hikanome than the Peacies, long term.¡±


    She examined my face, and I felt that horrifying, creeping sense again, the idea she was looking through me, under my clothes and meat and directly at my Flame. I attempted a protest.


    ¡°I¡¯m not used to crowds.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong? Nothing there will be scarier than that thing.¡± She pointed past me to Hina in the kitchen. ¡°If you can get in bed with her, nothing there will spook you.¡±


    I suppressed a sigh. For one, I didn¡¯t appreciate the extent to which Heliotrope seemed willing to openly deride Hina¡ªand neither did Alice, who was glaring at her goth teammate.


    ¡°He¡¯s had a really hard few days, Yuuka. Come off it.¡±


    ¡°Amane¡¯s had worse, and you don¡¯t see her complaining.¡±


    That sent the two of them bickering, slipping between English and Japanese. I felt like I couldn¡¯t reveal exactly how little I wanted to do with public spaces full of people without explaining the situation I¡¯d had with my stalker, and I knew that would lead to more yelling. I glanced over at Hina, my accomplice in the charade-by-omission, but she was studiously avoiding eye contact for the duplicity¡¯s sake. I would have appreciated the support here, but left out to dry, I just waited for the two to settle down. Amane, seemingly now more clued in on the topic of conversation, prodded her draconic girlfriend with her prosthetic arm to shut her up, then glanced up at Ebi. She and the aqua-blue robot discussed something in rapid-fire and highly emotive Japanese¡ªone of Ebi¡¯s replies made Heliotrope fall silent as well and go back to eating, shamefaced.


    ¡°Amane thinks it¡¯s rather unfair of Alice to be pushing you to meet with Hikanome¡¯s head honchos while also citing your hardships,¡± Ebi explained. ¡°Also, Heliotrope, you¡¯re being a jerk. That one¡¯s from both me and her.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, Ebi,¡± the Bloodstone Radiance muttered, finally relenting in her aggression.


    A few moments of silence fell over the table. I found myself the one to break it.


    ¡°Er¡­thanks.¡±


    Amane nodded in reply, rubbing Alice¡¯s shoulder. The dragon looked grumpy, then caught herself.


    ¡°Um¡ªapologies, myself. I¡¯m getting impatient because I¡¯m¡­hungry¡­¡±


    The way she trailed off in embarrassment and sipped from her glass of juice with both hands was endearing, even familiar, and thus easy to forgive. Somehow, I found myself in the conversational pilot seat, and now that Amane had entered the picture, I felt her role in all this could use some clarification.


    ¡°Your family are members? Of Hikanome?¡±


    I was a little worried we¡¯d run into a language barrier problem, but she seemed to get it fine, and directed her reply up at Ebi, who spoke in her stead again. You couldn¡¯t ask for a better real-time interpreter; she took on an approximation of Amane¡¯s voice as it would sound in a Japanese accent around the strength of Ai¡¯s and free of the tightness of chronic pain.


    ¡°Parents and brother. It was a big upward move for our family.¡±


    ¡°So¡­they¡¯re good people?¡±


    Amane frowned.


    ¡°Of course.¡± She conferred with the others for a moment, a snappy back-and-forth that circled the table and returned to her. ¡°Wait, do you mean my family, or Hikanome as a whole?¡±


    ¡°Er¡ªHikanome. I didn¡¯t mean to insult your family,¡± I added hastily.


    The table fell silent again. This was why I wasn¡¯t to be trusted with control of the conversation. Alice¡¯s tail thumped.


    ¡°They are now,¡± she ventured.


    ¡°Ah. Suga¡­hara? Did he¡­do this to you?¡±


    Ebi eyed me as she interpreted that for Amane. Alice opened her mouth, then paused, glancing over at Amane. Ai grimaced, but didn¡¯t volunteer. The black-haired girl nodded, less hesitant about this than her teammates. They seemed nervous to weigh in on this topic in her stead, so she took point, still speaking through Ebi.


    ¡°Sugawara, and yes, indirectly. Sounds like you could use a history lesson.¡±


    ¡ª


    [Direct Message] skychicken: hey ez sorry it took me a couple days to get around to this


    skychicken: apology accepted, i get why you were upset, its been a really fucked up few days


    skychicken: you holding up okay?


    Laying in Radiance Sapphire¡¯s blanket-bed, trying to quell the jittery nerves that anticipated what we¡¯d do when she returned, it was easier to distract myself from what I had done yesterday. The murder still weighed heavily on me, of course, and if I let my thoughts wander too long they¡¯d inevitably return to that grisly sight of the final moments of a person¡¯s life abstracted down to those few pixels, but the guilt was easier to dispel with Hina¡¯s agreement that she¡¯d stop me next time. She was strong enough and direct enough to cut through it all.


    ezzen: I¡¯m alright, all things considered. Long day yesterday, did paperwork with Opal, and Sapphire took me shopping.


    skychicken: oh youre up, thought youd get to that when you woke up


    skychicken: isnt it like 3am for you


    skychicken: late even for you


    ezzen: Still adjusting to the time difference.


    Technically true.


    skychicken: ah yeah that tracks


    skychicken: shopping huh


    skychicken: interrupted by the rig stuff?


    ezzen: Sapphire freaked out and took me back, but nothing really came of it.


    Aside from the people we¡¯d killed together.


    skychicken: hina been alright to you?


    ¡°Hina?¡± First name? It made sense he knew her personally; he¡¯d called her to bail me out in the first place, after all, but I wasn¡¯t sure of their relationship beyond that.


    ezzen: She¡¯s been pretty good. Nicer than first impressions.


    ezzen: Not gonna tell me how you know her?


    skychicken: answering that would require revealing some personal stuff


    skychicken: ¡­which i¡¯d say you¡¯ve earned with everything, and i feel bad for keeping you in the dark


    skychicken: to start with, yes, i know what shes like, teeth and all


    ezzen: So you knew what you were getting me into.


    skychicken: ill bite


    skychicken: what exactly have i gotten you into?


    Could I admit this to him? I¡¯d previously decided I trusted his confidentiality; plus, he was one of the handful of people other than Star to whom I¡¯d admitted my Vaetna dysphoria.


    ezzen: We¡¯re¡­dating? Maybe? Not sure about labels yet.


    ezzen: But we¡¯ve been physical.


    Wow, did that feel weird to say. Good, but weird.


    skychicken: damn okay, happy for you


    skychicken: confession:


    skychicken: i knew you¡¯d be into each other


    skychicken: or suspected as much, at any rate


    skychicken: (now would be an okay time to rescind your apology, i get it)


    ezzen: Did you SET US UP?


    No other way to ask. Had I wound up here instead of the Spire solely because Sky had thought it would be funny for me to get with Hina?


    skychicken: lucky bonus?


    skychicken: ez i say this with love but


    skychicken: you¡¯re a bottom. everyone knows you¡¯re a bottom


    skychicken: yeah, i figured you¡¯d be compatible with hina, eventually. once stuff settled down a bit


    skychicken: got boundaries, all that? healthy relationship stuff? i can yell at her if shes being a shit


    ezzen: yeah


    That was pretty telling.


    ezzen: Thanks, I guess? Still working it out


    ezzen: But don¡¯t dodge the question.


    ezzen: Did you set us up?


    skychicken: no, not in that sense, she really was just the best string i could pull in that moment


    skychicken: i contacted her pretty much the moment you told us what had happened to you


    The reiteration that this hadn¡¯t all been planned out, that there really just had been some serendipity to all this, made me feel better.


    ezzen: Okay, I buy that. How DO you know each other?


    skychicken: ah fuck here we go


    skychicken: do i have your confidentiality?


    ezzen: of course


    skychicken: you promise? this is serious and it¡¯ll change the way you see me


    skychicken: absolutely sure you want to know?


    ezzen: You¡¯re only making me more curious, sky


    It took him a minute to respond, the little icon blipping to indicate that he was typing. I rolled over onto my other side and waited, noting distantly that this pillow carried a hint of the same floral scent as Hina¡¯s hair, barely detectable under the incense. I shut my eyes and took a secret sniff¡ªshe could never know that I did that, or I¡¯d never hear the end of it. I reopened my eyes to see Sky¡¯s message.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    skychicken: i¡¯m a flamebearer


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    ¡ª


    Once Amane broached the topic, she seemed comfortable to hand the actual explanation back to Alice, instead digging into her own omurice.


    ¡°Sugawara founded Hikanome, along with three other flamebearers. I won¡¯t mince words: until three years ago, they were a doomsday cult. Lots of blood magic, and they made a significant portion of their money and connections doing¡­human trafficking, supplying flamebearer flesh across Asia. And beyond.¡±


    The pieces were coming together. I looked at Amane again with dread. She met my gaze and poked Alice with a sort of ¡°get on with it¡± attitude.


    ¡°That¡¯s to say¡­they were how Amane ended up with the PCTF.¡±


    Of course.


    ¡°Because her family are part of the¡ª¡± Me and my stupid mouth, already forgetting that not half a minute ago Amane had hinted it wasn¡¯t their fault. ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°They didn¡¯t know,¡± Heliotrope asserted gravely. ¡°We checked.¡±


    Ai sipped her coffee. When I¡¯d been coming down the stairs, I¡¯d seen her spike it with Red Bull. Did that work? She fixed an accusatory glare at Heliotrope, some of the tiredness returning to her face.


    ¡°Alice and I checked. You and Hina¡­¡±


    ¡°They were monsters.¡±


    Hina echoed the sentiment as she came back over.


    ¡°Yep, so we¡¯re cool now. If it makes you feel better, most of them killed each other. Big ¡®splodey inferno.¡±


    ¡°Which gave you plausible deniability,¡± I inferred. I hated going down this line of reasoning, but I couldn¡¯t allow myself to miss the mortal element in their work again.


    ¡°Mhm.¡±


    She passed a double portion to Alice, who accepted it almost desperately and immediately dug in, eating as fast as she could without looking completely deranged. Heliotrope was wearing a smug not-quite-grin, which had me a little puzzled. If she and Hina largely agreed on the principle of violence, why did the former seem to dislike the latter so much? Aside from the obvious, at any rate.


    Amane pushed past the dark topic, through Ebi again.


    ¡°I¡¯m not proud of that part. It had to be done, but¡­anyway, the parts of Hikanome that remain are good people, I swear. I don¡¯t agree with their¡ª¡± she coughed. All three of her teammates plus Ebi were all immediately on her, and she waved them away hurriedly as she rubbed her chest. She poked Ebi¡¯s thigh, who resumed interpreting, the slightly exasperated expression on her digital face not betrayed in the tone of ¡®her¡¯ voice. ¡°¡ªtheir beliefs, but they¡¯ve been really good to me and my parents.¡±


    ¡°I believe you,¡± I said hastily, feeling like I¡¯d bungled this interaction somewhat. Did her parents know the full story? It seemed tactless to ask.


    Alice broke in awkwardly, clearly wanting to hurry this along. She said something apologetic to Amane, who sighed and returned to eating in her slow, careful way. Alice turned back to me.


    ¡°Uh¡ªanyway, the timeline: Blue Spark Incident, Hikanome sort of imploded and had a schism, Sugawara went to prison.¡± She listed the events on her fingers. ¡°Now they¡¯re under a new name, new doctrine. Same flamebearers other than him, though.¡±


    ¡°New name? That¡¯d be Sun¡¯s Blessing?¡±


    Ebi sighed, speaking for herself now.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s a bit of a clusterfuck. They used to be Hikari no Megumi; now they¡¯re Hi kara no Megumi.¡± She tossed up a hologram to show the names spelled out, which only sort of helped me get it. I could see the different kanji, at least. ¡°Still Hikanome, but switching from ¡®light¡¯ to ¡®sun¡¯ helped fix their branding, pushed it away from Sugawara¡¯s focus on the Flame.¡±


    ¡°Huh.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re chill now!¡± Hina declared, trotting away toward the kitchen again.


    Alice nodded in her direction.


    ¡°¡®Chill¡¯ enough that we¡¯d feel safe sending you next week along with Amane and at least one of the rest of us, at any rate. That¡¯s my main point,¡± Alice summarized. ¡°Again, your call, Ai is right, but¡­the PCTF are coming. I¡¯m expecting some official diplomatic proceedings to start sometime in the next forty-eight hours, and if we¡¯re going to shelter under Hikanome¡¯s wing, I¡¯d rather have them on the same page as us sooner than later.¡±


    I raised my hand once more.


    ¡°Um, didn¡¯t they work with the PCTF?¡± I still wasn¡¯t quite clear on that. Would they really take our side?


    Alice was stopped from answering by a poke in the side from Amane¡¯s robot hand. She explained via Ebi.


    ¡°It was through a series of intermediaries. I changed hands between¡­at least two different groups other than Hikanome, and the ones I actually ended up with are technically private military, not the PCTF proper. Um¡ªwere private military, I should say.¡± She spared a meaningful glance in Hina¡¯s direction. ¡°Internally, all those elements got either purged or followed Sugawara in the schism, and what exactly happened isn¡¯t quite public knowledge. But they did successfully reform, and these days they¡¯re a much more conventional¡­well, still distinctly culty, but no more doomsaying, no more blood magic, and no more human trafficking.¡±


    Maybe this was an editorial choice by Ebi, but her tone regarding her own situation was remarkably lighter than the gravity with which her teammates always discussed the matter. She was serious, to be sure, but it was matter-of-fact¡ªin much the same way I spoke about Dad, actually.


    ¡°We checked,¡± Heliotrope repeated.


    ¡°So, yes, they¡¯d help shield us from Peacie interest if we appease them by having you show up on Saturday,¡± Alice summarized.


    It was in everybody¡¯s best interest for me to go. It protected Todai from being under cross-pressures from Hikanome and the Peacies. How bad could it be, really?


    ¡°Um, would I have responsibilities if I went? How much publicity would there be? It¡¯d¡­make my face public, wouldn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°All good questions,¡± Alice conceded. ¡°It¡­depends on what exactly they want. They probably do want you to go public, and actually I¡¯d guess that they want you as unassociated with us as possible. If they can sell you in the public eye as a sort of floating flamebearer, rather than explicitly a Todai member, it gives them more influence over your image.¡± She caught herself, conscious of how chessmaster-y she was coming off, waving her hands hurriedly. ¡°I know you don¡¯t like that, so¡­we can push back on that part. Just meeting with the leaders, maybe.¡±


    ¡°Nope. Veto,¡± declared Hina, returning to pass a double portion to Alice. ¡°Sugawara might be put away, but I don¡¯t want cutie to meet Miyoko without me there.¡±


    ¡°Worried she¡¯ll steal your boytoy?¡±


    Heliotrope¡¯s snark was ineffectual. Hina just looked at her blankly.


    ¡°No, I wanna see if she¡¯s down for a threesome.¡±


    ¡ª


    ezzen: WHAT


    skychicken: flametouched 2017


    skychicken: can¡¯t give too many details, if you dig you can probably trace me


    skychicken: the important thing is that i met hina when todai were on the trail for amethyst


    Which would have been earlier in Hina¡¯s metamorphosis, noted some part of my brain.


    ezzen: Wait, so, the forum???


    skychicken: magic discussion needed a neutral nexus for online discussion outside of the pctf¡¯s grip on data in the us/eu


    skychicken: you already know that part, ofc, but now you know how im able to maintain that neutrality


    skychicken: im positioned to resist intimidation, and its way more of a difference than i could make doing vnt work


    ¡°Hey, cutie. Coast¡¯s clear.¡±


    ¡°Um, hey.¡±


    Hina passed me the promised glass of cool water, and I sipped from it gratefully. Crisp and refreshing, it helped me stabilize after the revelation Sky had just laid upon me. The water caught the low light of the room, casting wavy patterns onto the wall behind it when I put it down on the small table that functioned as the nightstand.


    ¡°Your heart¡¯s up.¡±


    ¡°What are you, Ebi?¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡± She shrank. ¡°Too invasive? Still calibrating.¡±


    ¡°Um¡­no. I don¡¯t mind. It¡¯s¡ª¡± I held up my phone. ¡°Our ¡®mutual friend¡¯ was explaining how you know each other. I didn¡¯t know he was a flamebearer.¡±


    Hina purred, silently lowering herself to lay next to me, sapphire eyes glinting.


    ¡°He is. You jealous?¡±


    ¡°What about?¡±


    Her eyebrows went up as she seemed to put something together, a playful smirk on her lips. I rather wanted to kiss her.


    ¡°Oh. He hasn¡¯t talked about it yet?¡±


    ¡°¡­no? I¡¯m assuming¡­something about your transformation?¡±


    That was a bit of an overshare on my own part, to be honest, veering a little too close to my own deep, dark desires when it came to her mutations. But Hina literally waved the topic away, swatting her hand in the small space between our faces.


    ¡°Ask him later. Right now, you¡¯re mine.¡± She paused, catching herself before the growled purr could be realized in physical contact. ¡°Uh. Unless you want to back out. Which I¡¯m giving you the opportunity to do. Now. If you want.¡±


    How on Earth could I have said no to her? Desire was electrifying me, flooding every muscle in my body, the desire to run and stalk and pounce and fly under the open sky, the desire for her to embrace me and ply me with her strange magicks and stranger affections. I inhaled a jittery breath, lingering incense filling my throat, a smell I¡¯d always associate with her.


    ¡°All yours.¡± I was rather proud of my delivery, the flirtatious honesty¡ªbut of course, I couldn¡¯t just leave the moment there. ¡°Is¡ªyou get what I mean by that? In the limited context of our agreement and what we want and the boundaries we¡¯ve previously¡ª¡±


    Thankfully, she shut me up in exactly the way I¡¯d been hoping. Her lips only lingered on mine a few moments before drifting down to my chin and then to the right side of my jaw, where I felt those sharp, sharp teeth graze my skin. Her breath tickled my cheek, distracting me from the way her hands were coming up. Of course, once her fingertips grazed my waist and began to raise my shirt, that became all I could think about, each caressing tug of fabric causing a new wave of anticipation to crest in my belly. She stopped once the body of the shirt was scrunched up to my chest.


    ¡°Take it off before I shred it.¡±


    I did just that, in a hurry. I was going to just discard the garment, but Hina practically snatched it from me to take a deep, huffing sniff. She freed a hand from clutching it to wave me down into the ¡®bed¡¯.


    ¡°Get comfy,¡± she muffled through the bunched fabric. ¡°Need a minute.¡±


    She took her minute as I lay down, taking her time to satisfy whatever primal instincts demanded that she engage in this ritual of scent. I dared to ask.


    ¡°What do you smell?¡±


    ¡°You, ashes, blood.¡±


    ¡°All that from¡­a few hours of me wearing it?¡± Somebody had deposited my shopping bags in my room while I had been down in the lab with Ai, and I¡¯d changed into one of my new, baggy shirts to help distance myself from the events of the day. Ashes and blood? Really? ¡°It¡¯s, um, taken my scent?¡±


    ¡°Sure has.¡±


    I shuddered, and those blue eyes glowing at me in the darkness narrowed in satisfaction. Without ceremony, she reached over her head and pulled off her shirt in one motion. Suddenly, I was met with an eyeful of modest but authentic magical girl boob in the dim light. I got a precious few seconds of watching her abs and shoulders flex and ripple with enhanced, lithe musculature as she dumped the top and reached over her head again. Then the wonderful sight was covered by my shirt, hanging huge and loose from her small frame like a dark curtain, totally obscuring all the curves and sculpted angles of her figure except for a minor outward curve on her chest. Maybe it was the fact that it was my shirt, or maybe it was how the hem hung so low that her shorts vanished and I could only see bare thighs, or maybe it was her messed-up hair, but the new look was almost as titillating as the exposure had been.


    ¡°Okay, ready.¡±


    ¡°Uh.¡±


    My heart had more or less stopped at this point. It shuddered back into motion as she came over and knelt at my side. I hoped the darkness hid how red the display had caused me to turn, mind stuck replaying those few moments of her exposed figure and tantalizingly soft flesh¡ªbut I suspected she could see me just fine, which was only amplifying my embarrassment. She was purring again¡ªnot the chainsaw, motorboat growl of before, just a quiet rumbly hum that nonetheless filled my ears in the quiet of the night. Her fingers traced up from my belly to my chest, leaving searing hot trails of sensitivity.


    ¡°Is¡ªhow are you doing that? What¡¯s the chain?¡±


    ¡°Hm? Cutie, I¡¯m not using any magic.¡±


    I discovered it was possible to turn even redder. She rested her palm on the left side of my chest, just below the nipple, running her fingers through the chest hair I hated so much.


    ¡°Here¡¯s good. Ready?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just¡ªzap? Like before?¡± Had it really only been yesterday morning?


    ¡°Mhm! Quick and easy.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Um¡ªcount me in?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not Ebi.¡±


    My skin screamed. Every pore was torn open, a hundred concentrated bee stings, a splash of molten metal igniting white-hot agony. All other sensations vanished, and the pain covered me, because ¡®me¡¯ was only that spot on my chest, consumed by pain. Something whispered.


    Raze.


    And then it was over. The searing pain fell away, replaced by an acute but far more tolerable sting. As my other senses returned, I realized Hina was giggling. I raised my head slightly to look at her, doubled over above me, hair grazing my belly from her hung head.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I heard it! That was so cool! Did you hear it?¡±


    ¡°Y¡ªyeah. ¡®Raze.¡¯ Um¡ªfuckin¡¯ ow¡ª¡± I sat up a bit, grateful it was too dark to see what exactly had happened to the cleared skin. At least it didn¡¯t smell burned or acrid, which boded well. ¡°Did¡ªdoes that mean you used my Flame?¡±


    ¡°Dunno! But it worked!¡±


    She turned, eyes glinting sapphire, and pounced.


    ¡ª


    Despite those midnight antics, Hina¡¯s proposal of a threesome nonetheless sent all my thoughts to a grinding halt. She saw my reaction and grinned.


    ¡°Kidding!¡±


    ¡°About which part,¡± mused Heliotrope. ¡°Sounds like you.¡±


    ¡°I mean¡­she¡¯s pretty hot. And so is Ez! She¡¯s turned me down before, but maybe with a cutie like him in the mix¡ª¡±


    ¡°Quit it, you two. We¡¯re not done with the education,¡± Alice groused.


    She turned around her laptop screen. She¡¯d crammed three Wikipedia articles next to one another to show three faces. I was not good with faces, and was already envisioning a version of events where I came face-to-face with one of these three and mixed up the names, a diplomatic fumble that would demolish the goodwill between Todai and Hikanome and set the bloodhounds of the PCTF upon us. My fingers twitched to draw my phone.


    ¡°Uh, should I be taking notes?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll keep it simple, don¡¯t worry.¡±


    She pointed at the first, a balding man with a narrow face and thin eyebrows. His mouth was pursed as though trying to decide how to address a tough line of questioning. Obviously, this was not the one Hina had meant. Despite Amane¡¯s surprisingly light tone earlier, her expression had turned a bit stony upon seeing the countenance.


    ¡°This is Kimura. He founded Hikanome alongside Sugawara.¡± That explained Amane¡¯s reaction, which Alice acknowledged by turning the laptop slightly. ¡°Not particularly vile, but went along with most of what Sugawara was doing without much resistance.¡±


    ¡°Coward,¡± Heliotrope summarized. ¡°Shoulda been tossed with him.¡±


    ¡°But he wasn¡¯t,¡± Alice continued. ¡°He¡¯s still the administrative head,¡± she clarified for my benefit.


    ¡°Creeps me out,¡± the twin-tailed girl countered. ¡°He knew what was going on.¡±


    ¡°The court found otherwise. Assume goodness, Yuuka-chan,¡± Ai chided.


    Something in how she said that, and the fact that Heliotrope then demurred to her older teammate, signaled a hierarchy between the two. They were the two still involved in academia¡ªas mentor and student, even, though not in the same discipline as far as I understood¡ªso perhaps there was something there. Where did that put Ebi, exactly?


    Alice took advantage of the awkward moment of silence to shovel some more ketchup-loaded egg and rice into her mouth, then cleared her throat, obviously not wanting to linger on this.


    ¡°Um, anyway, Kimura is the least dangerous of the three. Next is Hongo.¡±


    She made to indicate the next picture, but I meekly raised my hand first. She paused, pursed her lips, and gestured to me.


    ¡°Dangerous? You said the cult¡¯s rebranded, cut out the bad parts.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re all dangerous.¡±


    By way of that brief explanation¡ªequal parts revelatory and meaningless¡ªshe indicated the middle picture, a man not much older than us. His hair was cut to a fade on the sides and gelled up on top. He had wide cheekbones and an easy smile. I spared a glance at Ai, a silent request for further explanation, and she subtly swept her hand on the table. Later. Alice was talking.


    ¡°Hongo is their ambassador when interfacing with other VNT groups. Not a fighter,¡± she clarified, forestalling my next question. ¡°Any of us could kick his butt, but that¡¯s not his job; it¡¯s all soft power. Also, he¡¯s the brother of the blood mage responsible for the Blue Spark Incident. Ai and Ebi saved her life, so of the three, Hongo is the warmest toward us on a personal basis.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s alive?¡±


    I didn¡¯t really know the details of the incident, but my impression was that she¡¯d died from her own blood magic in the opening stages, and the bulk of the damage of the incident itself had been from fighting what she¡¯d inadvertently summoned.


    ¡°Barely. Permanently hospitalized¡ªnot our doing, just the sanguimancy. Anyway, he never liked Sugawara to start with and was pretty instrumental in separating their reputation from his clique when the schism happened. Smoothed things over with us, that sort of thing. Between all that, if we want to push back on their leverage over us, he¡¯s the easiest to work with.¡±


    Hina leaned all the way forward to rest her chin on the table. As I was growing accustomed, she hadn¡¯t made any food for herself.


    ¡°You should mention the thing.¡±


    Alice made a disgusted sound.


    ¡°Ugh. Fine. This probably won¡¯t be relevant to you, but he keeps proposing to me.¡±


    I blinked.


    ¡°Like, marriage?¡±


    ¡°Like, marriage.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°He likes the tail,¡± Heliotrope provided.


    ¡°He likes the tail,¡± Alice confirmed.


    ¡°He likes the tail!¡± Hina giggled.


    I found that I sort of understood the appeal. The extra limb was meticulously cared-for, despite Alice¡¯s stated unhappiness with it, and it really did make the Opal Radiance cut a unique figure. Some lizard-brain part of my psychology could appreciate its bulk as an appealing element in its own right. On the other hand¡ª


    ¡°So he wants you for your body.¡±


    I recoiled immediately after saying that, worried it was too blunt, or would inspire a fresh wave of discomfort with my presence, but Ebi confirmed the idea with a digital snort.


    ¡°Bingo. But that¡¯s sorta flamebearer romance, I hear.¡±


    Amane put in a giggly comment of her own that made Ebi and Ai snicker, although the latter covered her mouth. This was the most animated I¡¯d seen the Amethyst Radiance outside of her mantle, and she brought an infectiously bubbly energy to the table, even through the language barrier. I found myself grinning along with the others. So was Heliotrope, and it was enough to undercut some, but not all, of the bile in her comment:


    ¡°Surrounded by monsterfuckers, I swear.¡±


    ¡ª


    Hina was very physical in her gnawing affections. She kissed and licked the patch of cleared skin, purrs intensifying every time I squirmed against the stinging sensation or twitched at the hot pulses of her breath rolling across my chest. When she finally grazed the area with her teeth, it was only after climbing over me and rubbing her hands up and down my shoulders. My shirt stretched taut over her figure, each of her curves vivid against my torso. She was straddling one of my thighs, but mercifully not grinding on me; I thought I¡¯d explode if she did that, and not in the sexual way.


    After a few minutes of gluttonously indulging herself with different angles of chomping at the underside of my pec, she raised her head and directed those sapphire eyes at me.


    ¡°We¡¯re not telling Alice.¡±


    ¡°Uh?¡±


    ¡°About the person you saw.¡±


    ¡°I thought we already agreed on this.¡±


    ¡°Just checking!¡±


    ¡°Why are you bringing it up now? Go back to¡ª¡± I waved my hand around my chest. ¡°Me. I like that.¡±


    ¡°Heh. Selfish! I like you too, cutie.¡±


    I flinched just a tiny bit at being called selfish, one of those words that Ai seemed to reserve as a strong pejorative for Hina. But right now, I was happy to share the label with her, and we basked in the moment of affectionate honesty¡ªthen I shook it off.


    ¡°Um, seriously, why bring it up?¡±


    ¡°Her plate¡¯s full. I do want to check it out, figure out who it was, but we¡¯re gonna do that on our own time. I¡¯ll show you how to hunt.¡±


    ¡°O¡­kay.¡± That sounded pretty nice, right at this moment, as we indulged our instincts together. Her reasoning seemed a little flimsy, but I could let it slide; she knew Alice better than me. ¡°What does that entail, exactly?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­it¡¯s easier if Yuuka would help us. By a lot.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Not¡­the biggest fan of you, is she?¡±


    ¡°Nope.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Lots of reasons,¡± she chuckled. ¡°But when it comes to you specifically? Ask our mutual friend.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    She retrieved my phone for me. It had lain abandoned for the last few minutes as Hina had done her thing¡ªeven the act of receiving her affections took all of my attention, no room for distractions. What was she getting at?


    The screen almost blinded me, even at the lowest brightness and with the chatroom set to dark mode. I had become so accustomed to the hazy darkness that the faceful of light forced me to squint my eyes to narrow slits, holding the eye-burning rectangle away from my face.


    ezzen: Hina¡¯s making some insinuations about you. Something about why Heliotrope doesn¡¯t like her.


    skychicken: heh


    skychicken: ok, here¡¯s the other shoe


    skychicken: a lot of hina¡¯s biggest mutations happened while we were dating


    Hina had squirmed up my side to peer at the screen with me. I turned my head to look at her incredulously.


    ¡°He¡¯s your ex?¡±


    ¡°Mhm.¡± She gave me a big, toothy grin. ¡°Don¡¯t be jealous, cutie.¡±


    The worst part was that I was. Rationally, I knew that was stupid, and yet I couldn¡¯t help but feel some possessiveness for my partner of one night. The feeling was doubly stupid given that I hadn¡¯t felt it when I¡¯d seen her show how close she was with her teammates¡ªso was it just because Sky was a guy? Was I that shallow and sexist? Also, since Sky was one of my better friends, I knew exactly how inaccurate it was to expect he¡¯d at all try to twist the knife of this revelation. But I still needed a minute to master the sense of betrayal and jealousy.


    ¡°Hey, you¡¯re spiraling, I can see you spiraling, quit it.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m¡ªI don¡¯t know what it is. I¡¯m feeling dumb.¡±


    ¡°For being jealous?¡±


    ¡°Uh. I guess? We don¡¯t¡­I shouldn¡¯t be jealous, because that¡¯s just¡­not what we¡¯re doing here.¡±


    ¡°You mean we¡¯re not a couple?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. This is like¡ªexchange. Transactional. I¡¯ve only known you for a couple days.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± She shifted against me. ¡°We want each other.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not¡­love.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t have to be!¡±


    ¡°So you¡­want me for my body, and you¡¯re fine leaving it there? Was it like that with Sky?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say I was fine with leaving it there, cutie. It¡¯s just a start point.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªokay, fine, sure.¡± I wanted her to want me, so I went along with that. I was afraid of confronting anything that might make her recoil and back off. ¡°Any, um, other context I should know about? Does Heliotrope really just not like me because of Sky?¡±


    ¡°She just¡­thinks I¡¯m gross.¡± Hina sounded sad. ¡°I was worried you¡¯d wind up thinking that too.¡±


    ezzen: So the breakup was¡­bad?


    skychicken: actually the breakup was fine, but her team kinda soured on the whole relationship by the end


    ¡°And you still came on as strong as you did?¡± I immediately walked that back. ¡°Uh¡­I didn¡¯t mean it that harshly. Blind spots, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Only because¡ªbecause I thought you¡¯d like it! And I was right, you do, and that makes me so so happy! But¡ªyeah, I fucked up, I know. I don¡¯t wanna talk about this. I wanna just enjoy each other.¡±


    And I wanted that too, desperately, so I let that line of conversation die where it lay. Irresponsible, but¡ªit was still the first night of our relationship, whatever exactly that meant. I didn¡¯t want to keep rushing through things, going headlong into more emotions I was afraid to name. This was surreal enough as it was, the idea that a supernatural smokeshow like her would be so attracted to me. It still almost felt like a bad prank.


    ¡°What, um¡ªwhy me?¡±


    ¡°I toldya when we met.¡±


    I picked up my phone again, tilting it away so she wouldn¡¯t be able to see it, typing slowly with my good hand.


    ezzen: How much did you tell her about me?


    skychicken: like, private stuff between us?


    ezzen: Yeah. The Vaetna stuff.


    ezzen: and what do you MEAN im a BOTTOM


    I didn¡¯t actually send that last one; I typed it out and deleted it. That ship had already sailed, signified by the stinging ache on my chest.


    skychicken: i filled her in on some of that after she picked you up


    skychicken: todai are rather experts on the transhumanism thing, you may have noticed


    ¡°Cutie, I can still read it in your eyes.¡±


    ¡°Then stop looking!¡±


    ezzen: That¡¯s PRIVATE, Sky.


    ezzen: You picked up that sort of boundary-crossing from her?


    skychicken: this is your chance to become more


    skychicken: after all the years you¡¯ve spent being mopey and dysphoric about the vaetna, don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re about to back out of that because you¡¯re offended at me pulling the string that was available to try and help you with that


    skychicken: yes, i did this for you AND for her. but thats not the same as setting you up romantically


    ezzen: If you¡¯ve had these contacts for so long, and the personal connections to her, why not try to help me with it years ago?


    ezzen: Instead of holding out on me.


    skychicken: you weren¡¯t a flamebearer


    skychicken: if there was a way to get those kinds of changes without having a flame of your own, trust me, i would have tried to help you


    skychicken: but there¡¯s only so much i can do for my friends who aren¡¯t like us, even you


    skychicken: and only so much i can tell you


    skychicken: i KNOW you understand that much, if only because you said alice has hit you over the head with it at least once


    I made an effort to smother my anger. I did understand the importance of being picky about who you revealed what to, now more than ever.


    ezzen: Fine, thanks, fair enough


    ezzen: And uh


    ezzen: Thanks for trusting me now, I guess.


    ezzen: I do appreciate what you¡¯ve done for me, between it all.


    ezzen: Still friends?


    skychicken: cousins, now


    Uh. The Radiances had referred to Holton, that flamebearer on the rig, with the same term, but¡­


    ezzen: ew ew nooooooo


    ezzen: That makes my thing with Hina sound incestuous!


    skychicken: oops


    As long as I had him on the line¡ªI had an idea.


    ¡°Uh, Hina? Could Sky help us with my, er, stalker?¡±


    ¡°Like, figuring out who it was?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Prolly not. Could ask, though.¡±


    ezzen: Uh, can I seek some flamebearer-specific advice


    skychicken: shoot


    ezzen: I got sorta ambushed by somebody we think was a flamebearer


    ezzen: Kinda goth-looking, Japanese (?) girl around Hina¡¯s age


    ezzen: I thought it was her at first, just disguised (did she do that with you too?) but the eyes were wrong


    ezzen: Ring any bells?


    skychicken: at first blush?


    skychicken: sounds like yuuka to me


    I frowned, angling the phone back toward Hina. I hadn¡¯t seen a resemblance, but then¡ªI also hadn¡¯t actively been comparing the two. Would she do that?


    ¡°Thoughts?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­I don¡¯t think her eye works like that. I think. And Yuuka¡¯s goth, but you saw for yourself, not like what you described. How big were her boobs?¡±


    ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°I mean, you¡¯ve seen those things. I don¡¯t know why she¡¯d make hers smaller. ¡®Specially if she thought she wouldn¡¯t be seen anyway. She¡¯s proud of them, y¡¯know.¡±


    I would be too, if I were a girl. I elected not to speak that thought out loud.


    ¡°Okay, but¡ªshe didn¡¯t sound Australian.¡±


    ¡°Ah, yeah, then there goes that theory. Then who the heck?¡± Hina wondered.


    ¡°Why are you looking at me? I¡¯ve been here three days, not exactly a local expert.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just easy to look at.¡±


    ¡ª


    Alice¡¯s reaction to Heliotrope using the word ¡°monsterfucker¡± again set her off. Her tail thrashed as she put her hands on the table.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like that word.¡±


    ¡°Ah, here she goes,¡± Heliotrope grumbled. ¡°Gonna lecture me on my manners?¡±


    ¡°If you insist on insinuating that I¡¯m a monster, then yes.¡±


    ¡°Come off it, Acchan, you know I didn¡¯t mean it like that.¡± She glanced at Amane. ¡°You¡¯re not a monster, and Amane¡¯s not¡­you¡¯re still a person! Obviously!¡±


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m fully aware you really meant to insult Hina. And Ezzen by association. Why try to alienate him like that?¡±


    ¡°Yuuka-chan,¡± Ai warned, but it was too late.


    ¡°¡ªI¡¯m just calling it like I see it! You agree with me too, Ai, don¡¯t act like you don¡¯t. Alice, if you¡¯re not willing to let Hikanome at him so they¡¯ll help get the Peacies off our backs, what is the plan? Because as much as I¡¯d fucking love to give them what they deserve, if they want him as bad as that other guy, we will lose. Ma¡ªke¡ªru. And believe me when I say that, because I know. We don¡¯t fight wars, deshou?¡±


    Could she see that far forward? That wasn¡¯t the impression I¡¯d gotten, but the certainty in her voice was worrying. Hina leaned over the table herself, apparently not put off by the simmering dislike in the air.


    ¡°It¡¯s none of your business who I sleep with, Yuuka.¡±


    ¡°It is, if you¡¯re bringing a boy into our apartment while I¡¯m not even there to weigh in.¡±


    That stung, hitting on the exact fears I¡¯d had when Alice had first pitched this arrangement. I shrank, and that¡¯s what got Alice really mad. The air temperature began to rise, a tell-tale sign of Alice¡¯s mood souring.


    ¡°Yuuka. He¡¯s staying. He¡¯s got nowhere else to go! And¡ªI¡¯ve made it very clear to Hina what¡¯ll happen if she causes more problems. But I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d have to worry about you being hostile.¡±


    ¡°Really? You couldn¡¯t see how this would have pissed me off? A second one of those things, but this one¡¯s a boy? Acchan, that¡¯s on you.¡±


    The dehumanizing label for Hina and myself¡ªas well as my rising indignance at how much of a deal she was making of my gender¡ªfinally got me mad enough to interject.


    ¡°Hey!¡±


    At the same time, and much more effectively, Amane broke in and admonished them in Japanese, leaning over the table. Heliotrope and Alice both flinched. The heat dissipated. Ai sighed, muttering what sounded like gratitude to Amane before raising her voice back to speaking levels.


    ¡°We have the PCTF showing up in maybe the next few days, and we¡¯re fighting with each other?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Amane¡¯s right, we should be working the problem,¡± Alice muttered, before raising her voice again in the authoritative voice she¡¯d used when she first met me. ¡°Yuuka, that¡¯s enough. Bicker with Hina all you like, but be nice to Ezzen. Are we clear?¡±


    The goth rolled her eyes petulantly.


    ¡°Yes, Mistress.¡±


    Ebi snickered.


    ¡°You don¡¯t pull that off as well as me.¡±


    That defused the tension the rest of the way. I sat back, mollified, as Alice pointed at the third face on her laptop screen.


    ¡°Back to it: this is Miyoko. The light-blessed child. Well, not a child; she¡¯s our age, but it¡¯s all in the title: High Priestess.¡± There was some annoyance in her voice. ¡°Magically powerful, but no expertise in glyphcraft or physical mutations, so she¡¯s a little anomalous.¡±


    ¡°You mean she doesn¡¯t use her Flame?¡±


    ¡°Oh, she uses it, alright. But absolutely no regard for ripple.¡±


    ¡°She uses faith,¡± Ai explained. ¡°From her¡­ugh. Shinja? Believers?¡±


    ¡°Followers,¡± Hina provided.


    ¡°Oh, that makes sense. Yes, from her followers. For miracles.¡±


    ¡°Miracles. How¡¯s that different from¡­?¡±


    ¡°From our magic? It isn¡¯t,¡± she confirmed. ¡°It¡¯s ridiculous, and annoying, because it makes them treat us like saints.¡±


    ¡°Mahou shoujo do have a bit of a divinely ordained bent,¡± Alice admitted, ¡°but it¡¯s not like that. If anything, we usually wind up killing gods, not serving them. But I won¡¯t get into all the philosophizing here¡ªpoint is, that¡¯s the three. Hikanome has two more flamebearers, but they¡¯re auxiliary, not part of the leadership in the same way.¡±


    ¡°Um, thanks. For explaining.¡±


    Hina nudged me slightly, flicking her sapphires from me to the face on the screen and back. Was that my stalker? Can¡¯t tell, I tried to transmit to her through the eye contact. Our encounter had been too brief. She certainly wasn¡¯t dressed the same way in the photo, all robes, but¡ªit was plausible, maybe. That would really only raise more questions, though. To confirm one way or the other, I¡¯d need to meet her face to face¡­or enlist Heliotrope, as Hina had said. The former almost sounded preferable.


    Alice looked at me hopefully.


    ¡°So¡­now that you have a better idea of what you¡¯d be walking into, would you go next week? For goodwill?¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± The PCTF were indeed looming. ¡°I don¡¯t¡­¡±


    Hina nudged me again. What did that mean? Seeing that I wasn¡¯t picking up whatever the subtle message was supposed to be, she spoke up.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be pushy, Alice. You said it yourself, he¡¯s had a crazy few days.¡±


    Alice suppressed a sigh.


    ¡°I know, I know, but with Hikanome actively reaching out to us, it feels like it¡¯d be a waste to squander that chance.¡±


    ¡°I¡­okay, I have an answer,¡± I decided. ¡°Being that I¡­don¡¯t have an answer. I need a few days. You can swing that, right? I don¡¯t actually have to decide right now, do I?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, fine by me,¡± Hina agreed. Ai nodded as well.


    ¡°I suppose you don¡¯t,¡± Alice seemed a bit antsy, tail swishing twitchily on the carpet. ¡°But like I said, we are on a bit of a timer, and earlier is better, so¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ii kagen ni shite yo,¡± Amane cut in, holding up a hand to stop Ebi from interpreting for her. She surprised me by switching to English, a bit halting but determined to make sure I got the message as well. ¡°Don¡¯t push. Let him choose.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.02

    As Hina cleaned up breakfast, the other four Radiances left via the elevator. Heliotrope was first, actively seeking to escape Hina¡¯s presence and the general atmosphere, never mind that said atmosphere was largely her fault. Off to school, I assumed, still a little unclear on whether that was classes or research¡ªwere they alright with her showing up in her somewhat-scant nightwear? Seeing that she was departing, Ai hastily got up and followed her over. They bickered in Japanese a bit, rapid-fire, as the doors closed. Once they were gone, Alice put her cheek in her palm, rubbing her hand up to her temple and forehead, a slow-motion facepalm.


    ¡°Well¡ªyes, alright, I can give you some time to decide whether you want to go next week. But, um¡ªit really would be best if we were able to RSVP with who¡¯s going by¡­Thursday at the latest. Don¡¯t mean to rush you! I swear! It¡¯s just¡­we¡¯re both big organizations, and between the logistics and the publicity, lead time is important and¡­¡±


    I waved her off nervously.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to justify it, I get the picture, really.¡±


    ¡°Oh, thank heavens, good. We have to go get dressed, so¡­¡± she stood, twisting to rub the base of her tail. ¡°We¡¯ll probably miss each other until tonight. You¡¯re unscheduled; make yourself comfortable. Sorry for things being such a rush for the first few days. And¡ª¡± she glared at the elevator, ¡°¡ªsorry about Yuuka. She¡¯s really not usually this bad!¡±


    ¡°No, really, it¡¯s fine.¡± I sort of felt guilty for the stress she was under, now that the pressure from outside was starting to become palpable. ¡°I¡¯ll, uh, let you know. About the Hikanome thing.¡±


    At least Yuuka¡¯s rather extreme response to the situation between me and Hina seemed to have blunted Alice¡¯s own worries and protectiveness of me. We hadn¡¯t really had time to talk about it since the not-date, so I felt it was important to add:


    ¡°Hina really was on her best behavior yesterday¡­I think,¡± I whispered, hoping Hina¡¯s vaguely advanced senses couldn¡¯t hear me over the rush of water at the sink. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­we¡¯re fine, we¡¯ve figured it out. Don¡¯t worry on my behalf, yeah?¡±


    It felt weird that I was the one reassuring her, but she seemed to appreciate it, rubbing her face again and mustering a grin and nod. She helped Amane to her feet¡ªor tried to, which the Amethyst Radiance refused somewhat playfully, rising on her own¡ªand the two of them made for the stairs, followed by Ebi. Hina turned from her cleanup to give them a thumbs-up. The three went upstairs and disappeared from view, leaving just me and the puppy. She killed the water and came back over to me.


    ¡°I gotta get going too, cutie. Busy!¡±


    ¡°Sure. What do you¡­do, exactly?¡±


    ¡°Lotsa stuff. Today¡¯s¡­damn, I don¡¯t really remember. Voice acting for one of the collabs, I think. Uh¡ªhey, Doctor, let¡¯s knock ¡®em dead! Stuff like that.¡±


    ¡°Cool. Uh¡ªhave a good day at work?¡±


    ¡°You too.¡± She leaned down to where I was sitting and nuzzled the top of my head, sniffing my hair. ¡°I¡¯ll see you at lunch, though.¡±


    Trepidation seized me.


    ¡°Uh¡ªwhere¡¯s lunch?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll find you!¡±


    She leaned down further to plant a kiss on the bridge of my nose, and then suddenly she was gone, teleported off to who-knew-where, leaving only the smell of ozone as the air responded a little violently to her instantaneous departure. I was extremely grateful that was the only effect of her teleportation; no free ripple, and she seemingly could do it with enough finesse that there was no deafening clap from air rushing to fill the newly vacated spot.


    Plus, now I had something specific to look forward to: lunch! That wasn¡¯t the only thing; since it was the first real weekday since I¡¯d come to Todai, I wanted to drop in and see what exactly each of them did all day. But that could wait, because having established that I was not, in fact, in any particular hurry to get things done or make decisions, and having been left to my own devices, I was of a mind to go right back to bed. It was still barely half past eight in the morning, and the comfort of my sheets sounded quite nice; Hina¡¯s pile of blankets was well and good, don¡¯t get me wrong, but an actual mattress and some time in my own space was in order.


    Ebi intercepted me before I could escape, tapping my shoulder.


    ¡°Gah!¡± Hadn¡¯t she just been upstairs? ¡°Where the fuck did you come from?¡±


    She grinned.


    ¡°Sapphire¡¯s not the only one who can shimmy around fourspace. You slept with your foot on.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªyeah, sorry. Was about to go wash up,¡± I lied. I would get to it after my nap.


    ¡°Great. I know you¡¯re probably intending to kinda laze around all day, but at least try to stay awake. Still gotta beat your jet lag.¡±


    Damn, there went that plan. I wasn¡¯t even going to try to get one over on Ebi¡¯s diagnostic systems when it came to that stuff.


    ¡°Um, sure. Can I go now?¡±


    ¡°Only if you promise to also clean that burn on your chest.¡±


    I reddened. Of course she knew.


    ¡°¡­Don¡¯t get mad at Hina?¡±


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t planning on it. You consented, I hope?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, of course.¡±


    ¡°Then it¡¯s none of my business. Looks like she¡¯s able to restrain herself enough to not make it my problem, and that¡¯s as far as I care. Last thing before I release you: your PC parts are arriving sometime this afternoon, and Amane¡¯s wondering if she can sit in while you build. She¡¯s kind of a nerd for that stuff.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªyeah, of course. I mean¡ªyes, she¡¯s welcome.¡±


    ¡°Great. Alright, off you go. Bathe! Ablute!¡±


    As I turned away and made for the stairs, she added:


    ¡°Good job fending off Opal.¡±


    I stopped.


    ¡°Uh, thanks? She gets like that a lot, I gather?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s just an overprotective worrywart.¡±


    ¡°¡­Meaning your own situation?¡±


    She put on a digital facsimile of a shit-eating grin.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t hear me say that.¡±


    ¡ª


    My second time around bathing in my new apartment¡¯s bathroom went better than the first; it only took me two tries to get hot water coming out of the shower head. The first time, water had come out the bath basin¡¯s faucet, and I¡¯d considered soaking in the bath instead, but my foot was still too early in the healing process, and I was leery of letting it get too soft. That had happened once while my right hand had been healing, and it had left the fingers feeling like they were wearing a poorly fit glove for hours afterward.


    The cauterized stump where the front half of my right foot had been magically amputated still stung, but now that I had a sense of the general procedure with the wall-mounted stool and handrails and the various soaps, the process was more familiar. I made quicker work of the actual scrubbing and rinsing than last time, but ultimately, I still took about the same amount of time, just spent a higher proportion luxuriating under the hot water.


    The smooth-seared spot on my chest stung under the water as much as my foot did, less severe of a wound but more recent. I ran my hand along the skin, finding that it wasn¡¯t perfectly level, owing to a pimple and the general irritation from being blasted by the magical equivalent of a branding iron, but it was indeed clear of hair and, improbably, hadn¡¯t blistered up. What would it be like if my whole body were this smooth, at least when paired with other, more significant physical enhancements? There was appeal there¡ªbut I had decided that those sorts of more extreme changes were off-limits. I didn¡¯t want to go too far with Hina, for my Flame¡¯s sake.


    ¡°Sorry if she hurt you.¡±


    My Flame still said nothing. Both Hina and I had heard it last night¡ªit wasn¡¯t clear how much she had used it for the procedure, if at all, but I felt guilty that she might have. I needed to understand exactly what was different about my Flame, the special properties it had from my status as twice-touched¡­but I doubted it would speak again without another similarly intense experience. Short of that, our best lead on that would be to find my stalker, ask her exactly what she had been doing, and reverse engineer it to test my Flame¡¯s response. Hina had figured out a similar weave for the ingenious and abhorrent mechanism of murder we¡¯d invented yesterday, but without understanding the exact kind of projected-yet-invisible LM weave I¡¯d encountered, there were too many unknown and uncontrolled variables to draw any conclusions about my Flame.


    Or you could keep cuddling with Hina and see what happens, my libido asserted.


    ¡°Shut up.¡±


    Just saying.


    I killed the water and occupied myself by toweling off, this time remembering to brush the conditioner through my damp hair. It was definitely already having a minor effect¡ªwait, shit. I wasn¡¯t supposed to be washing my hair every day. Oops.


    At any rate, with a clean body and somewhat less-clean psyche, it felt good to exit the steamy atmosphere of the shower. This part of the procedure was still rather limp-y, having left my prosthetic and the stabilizer module on the bed, but after hobbling my way around the perimeter of the room and sort of slump-rolling myself onto the sheets, all was good. Adding the blanket on top was even better. I almost fell asleep there, butt-naked and against Ebi¡¯s instructions, but my phone buzzed at me just as I was drifting off.


    ebi-furai: stay up!


    Bleh. She was right, but the bed¡¯s siren song of warm, cozy naps was near-irresistible. I needed to escape or otherwise distract myself.


    ezzen: and do whqt


    ebi-furai: you can always do more research, right?


    ebi-furai: still got your laptop


    It was true enough, and I blearily sat up, groaning at the sting in my foot; no matter how high the thread count, the blanket was an irritant against the water-softened and still-healing skin whenever I moved. I groped for my laptop on the nightstand, shoving some stuff that had started to accumulate atop it onto the newly vacated space. I maneuvered the laptop¡ªa fairly heavy model, as I had never really intended to travel with it¡ªonto the unoccupied side of the bed and arranged my pillows such that I could sit up against the headboard with the laptop open on my lap, tugging at the blanket to minimize its contact with my foot while still comfortably covering the rest of my lower body, tenting and tensioning the fabric¡ªmuch like weaving a glyph, I realized. Amused by the parallel, I opened the laptop, typed in my password¡ª


    And slammed the screen back down.


    The evidence of my crime was still right there, the instrument of collaborative murder I¡¯d designed, abstracted to about two dozen graphical boxes full of numbers in GWalk. I saw them die again, squeezed my eyes shut to stave off the memory of those little symbols realized, the death-dealing efficacy of my own creation, the logical end of my expertise, the great spherical cut-out, and the stumbling corpse. A spear punched through the heart of the blaze¡ª


    ¡°No, no, no. No!¡±


    I banished my automatically summoned spear, that hollow imitation of the onyx-tipped real thing, and slammed my palm down onto the blanket with a whump in shaky frustration. That disrupted the careful equilibrium I had established in the bedding and dragged the blanket against the top of my foot, making me suck in a breath. The most sickening part was that I could have sworn I felt my Flame flicker at the burst of guilt and pain. Kindling for power that could reach to the very limits of my ingenuity, reshape the world itself, reshape me¡ªif only I chose to apply a spark.


    Better to douse that kindling, cut off the potential at its source. One of the items I¡¯d cleared off my laptop and onto the nightstand had been a box of those pain-blocker patches; Ebi must have left them for me. I reached for the box and extracted one of the adhesive patches, taking care to not let it stick to itself as I pulled off the backing, and brought my right knee up to my chest, feeling around my shin for the right spot to apply it¡­then reconsidered. I would have to wield my Flame to activate the patch at all, inflict pain to eliminate pain. Simply reattaching my prosthetic would block the sensation less completely, but at least that was just activating a lattice that was already in place, not freshly spinning and weaving¡ªcontorting and mutilating¡ªthe raw Flame in my soul. So I reached for the false front portion of my foot instead.


    ¡ª


    With my foot reattached, my laptop apparently a no-go¡ªa problem for future Ezzen¡ªand still needing a solution for the fact that staying in bed was a path to the forbidden, sleep-schedule-ruining nap, I figured I might as well familiarize myself with the rest of the penthouse. After shrugging on some more of my new, baggy, protective clothes, I went exploring and found a number of amenities that were a substantial step up from my old place.


    For one, the Radiances had their own laundry machines, washer and dryer. As somebody used to coin laundry¡ªone of the few times I regularly left the house¡ªthis was a luxury beyond imagination. The laundry room was sensibly up on the penthouse¡¯s second floor with our rooms, and indeed, at first glance, I hadn¡¯t realized it was different from the unused rooms on the far side of the C-arrangement until I had found the door ajar and heard the rumbling within. My old launderette¡¯s machines had this awful, chugging clang quality to their operation; Todai¡¯s were so much cozier, like mechanical rolling thunder, or the surf crashing against a shoreline as heard from a clifftop above. Not so loud as to be obnoxious, more like a big auditory blanket of noise. Like being inside Hina¡¯s belly as she purred.


    Wait. What the hell? Why, brain?


    The load of laundry currently spinning in the washing machine was impossible to identify. The indistinct, multicolored mass of cloth could have belonged to any of the girls, and I resisted the urge to try to deduce the owner. Did they have a system to make sure people¡¯s clothes didn¡¯t get mixed up? Something to ask when it became relevant, I supposed. Also, I would need a hamper or basket or something; I didn¡¯t even have a spare chair to act as my customary Laundry Chair. For now¡ªthere was a stack of big baskets in the corner. Would they get mad if I took one back to my room for the time being? Maybe that was what they all did? After spending too long paralyzed by the choice, I decided this was stupid and stole one of the baskets for my personal use, grateful nobody was home as I carried it back to my room.


    The second level didn¡¯t have much else of interest. I peeked briefly into one of the unoccupied rooms, mostly out of curiosity¡ªvacant, of course, a blank slate for some future occupant. Teammates? Caretakers for Amane? Whatever the original purpose of these spare rooms, they didn¡¯t hold anything at all right now, completely unfurnished; so with my curiosity satisfied, I descended the main stairs to the first level.


    Without the Radiances around, the space felt much emptier, even liminal. The lights were off, adding to the palpable absence; with the sun now up, natural daylight flowed through the windows at the far end of the main sitting area, bathing the space, refracting prismatically at the edges of each floor-to-ceiling glass panel into a series of scintillating rainbows that splashed across the floor at regular intervals. The tranquility¡ªI was being overly dramatic again. It was just sunlight. Stepping into one of the beams was nice and warm, though; I could at least appreciate that.


    The kitchen was pristine, the only sign of breakfast¡¯s labors a handful of metal bowls drying in the dish rack. For all of Hina¡¯s personal, wanton voracity in the act of eating, she seemed to take her cooking responsibilities very seriously. Did she cook every meal? No, she couldn¡¯t have; that first meal with Alice and Amane had been prepared while she was out, so there must have been a kitchen somewhere else in the building. An employee cafeteria, probably. And in hindsight, that curry had been really quite good, so I sort of wanted to drop by and browse the menu¡ªif that was even how it worked. The idea of just walking in without any kind of social script was nearly petrifying, even when only imagined. Perhaps there was some kind of early sign-up, maybe weekly or monthly, and if I were to just walk in and expect to be served, I¡¯d get laughed out and be unable to explain myself because of the language barrier and¡ª


    Mercifully, such stressful thoughts of crowds and social stratagems weren¡¯t a concern in this massive, deserted apartment. Was ¡®apartment¡¯ even the correct term for such a large communal dwelling? Google said yes, at least. Continuing my exploration brought me over to the various sub-rooms below the¡ªbalcony? Google answered that for me as well; beneath the mezzanine lay the meeting room and dojo, which I¡¯d seen before, but it turned out the hall continued down and around, following the C-pattern of our individual rooms above. The room past the dojo was a continuation of the fitness theme, full of benches and strange pulleyed contraptions and treadmills. This made sense; Ai was the only one of the five who I¡¯d consider ¡®buff¡¯, but all save Amethyst were fit and toned, something that was probably very important to the more idol-y side of their image.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    It occurred to me to wonder whether Hina¡¯s supernatural physique required such¡­mortal workouts as the weight room implied. Would I, if it came to that? The Vaetna, at least, were known to also have a weight room, but it sort of undercut their superhumanity to imagine them doing mundane weight training in addition to all their combat-focused training. Myself, I had maintained a pretty decent baseline of fitness from daily spear practice alone¡ªthough I hoped I wasn¡¯t going to be forced upon those treadmills. Cardio sucked.


    Speaking of my spear, the dojo¡¯s open, padded flooring was calling to me through the propped-open doorway. Yesterday¡¯s return to my routine had made me realize that I now had vastly more space to practice even in my bedroom, and the dojo was easily four times that large and had a higher ceiling. This was the kind of space that I could see VNTs do serious sparring in; that thought prompted me to look around for some kind of control panel like I¡¯d seen in the Vaetna¡¯s videos of their equivalent training space, forcefields to alter gravity or set up holographic targets, but no dice. There were dummies herded into the far corner of the dojo, though: skeletal wooden ones studded with pegs, pillowy ones more reminiscent of punching bags, and even a few torsos that looked like those anatomically correct firearms testing dummies made of ballistic gel and fake bone I¡¯d seen on YouTube. It was easy to picture Hina tearing through those last ones, reveling in how her claws splattered false, neon-green blood onto the nylon floor padding. Or maybe those were for actual firearms, if Amethyst¡¯s upgunned KV-18 was anything to go by; Todai didn¡¯t seem very concerned with nonlethality.


    I pushed down those thoughts, stepping further into the dojo and calling forth my spear. Yesterday, I¡¯d resolved that it was a toy, something for my own recreation, part of a different world from those grand weapons, and I ought to make good on that. My stabilizer module, too bulky and heavy to remain in my hoodie pocket, went on the floor. The hoodie itself joined it right after, as did my socks and phone, and I began my routine, the same as yesterday¡¯s, the same as most days between the first and second times my life had been turned upside down. Stretching my limbs and warming up my muscles felt great with my now-clean skin, and I had so much space to experiment! First, though, I had to adjust to the new environment. The padding underfoot changed the kinematics of each step, and I stumbled a few times as years of muscle memory were ever-so-slightly disrupted, but the stabilizer module caught me each time, and by the time I was done with the basic forms, I¡¯d adjusted to the difference.


    Ai¡¯s explanation yesterday had been fun; the stabilizer was quite an impressive bit of tech. My intuition was more or less correct: it was essentially a magical gyrostabilizer. Some of the glyphware that identified the most stable positioning of footfalls was a miniaturized and slightly hacky version of Amane¡¯s own leg¡ªwhich it turned out that Ai had older versions of in the shop, so she¡¯d opened one up to show me how exactly the lattice substrates were both etched into and extruded out of the skeletal struts at the core of the mechanical limb. Seeing the diagrams¡ªpublicly available, a move on Ai and Amane¡¯s part for which I had no end of respect¡ªrealized and cleverly integrated into the physical structure gave me a renewed appreciation for the precision and design considerations involved in¡ª


    ¡°Kemono two.¡±


    I tripped. My prosthetic was planted firm, taking the majority of my weight, so it had nowhere to adjust. It turned out the prosthetic did have limits to what I could recover from. I began to windmill my arms, realized I was holding a giant crutch, and stabilized myself with the butt of my spear against the padded flooring. I turned to face Heliotrope, red as a beet from the exertion combined with embarrassment. I had only mustered the courage to do this in one of the public spaces because I had thought nobody else was home.


    ¡°Um. Hi. Heliotrope. Radiance Heliotrope?¡± She was the only one of the five for whom I was still using her title rather than her name, so¡­¡°Yuuka?¡±


    ¡°Bloodstone.¡±


    ¡°Bloodstone. Sure. Uh¡ªthought you were at school?¡±


    I had started that sentence intending it to be a statement, but it ended as a question, unsure of what exactly she did, day-to-day.


    ¡°Not until two. It¡¯s on the callie, y¡¯know.¡±


    Did¡ªdid Australians call calendars ¡°callies?¡± I didn¡¯t know, and didn¡¯t dare call her bluff.


    ¡°Um, sorry.¡±


    We stared at each other. Or, rather, she stared at me, and I made a commendable effort to not stare at her boobs, instead pretending to inspect the furnishings of the dojo. Seriously, that perky and she¡¯s not even wearing a¡ªthe dojo didn¡¯t get any direct natural light, padded on all sides but the glass interior wall. My eyes found the control panel I¡¯d missed earlier, half-hidden in the corner behind the dummies. Oh, shit, Bloodstone was saying something.


    ¡°¡ªand I don¡¯t want Alice to get on my ass about it, and Amane pulled me aside earlier, so, uh, sorry.¡±


    I zoned back in just in time to register the apology, but not quite what it was for. I¡¯d taken up her workout slot, maybe?


    ¡°That¡¯s, um, it¡¯s no problem,¡± I muttered, still avoiding eye contact. ¡°It¡¯s, um, really no problem. Was there, er, a sign I should have put on the door?¡±


    I turned to see if there was some kind of locking or notification mechanism near the door. I didn¡¯t see anything, but caught a frown on her face as I turned back, sort of awkwardly shuffling my feet to face her more properly. That was the polite thing to do, I remembered.


    ¡°What, like a sock?¡±


    ¡°Oh, is that how it works? Sorry.¡±


    I hastily turned again to start ambling back toward where I¡¯d left my socks with my hoodie. That was a weird system, but I wanted to fit in.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± She groaned. ¡°Not now, I meant¡ªlast night, sock on the door because you¡¯re being a monsterfu¡ªbecause you¡¯re sleeping with her. Christ.¡±


    ¡°O¡ªoh.¡±


    ¡°Did¡ªoh my God, you weren¡¯t paying attention, were you? I wasn¡¯t¡ª¡± She wheezed a single, strangled, incredulous cackle. ¡°I was trying to apologize for the monsterfucker thing, not¡ªnot for walking in on you, we walk in on each other all the time in here, nani kore, you¡¯re¡ª¡±


    She doubled over, dissolving into laughter. I wanted to quit this entire week and curl up in my old bed back in Bristol and pretend none of this had happened, that I hadn¡¯t just fucked up a basic social interaction¡ªwhere she had been apologizing to me¡ªso badly that she now looked like she was on the verge of asphyxiating from laughter. I just stood there, horrified at the new low I had set for myself, until she recovered in shuddering gasps.


    ¡°Wow. Wow. You¡¯re really¡ªGod, and you didn¡¯t even challenge me on the ¡®callie¡¯ thing. Oh. Heh. You really are like a second one of her, just as scatterbrained. Aren¡¯t you supposed to be as smart as Ai? I mean, you¡¯ve got to be; you put together that thing we used yesterday.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not¡ª¡±


    ¡°But I guess that¡¯s your thing? Idiot savant? No wonder you¡¯re already fucking that thing, you must not have listened to anything the others said about her! I mean, there¡¯s no way they didn¡¯t warn you! Alice and Ai for sure¡ªwere you just not listening?¡±


    ¡°Of course they warned me, and I chose¡ª¡±


    ¡°Really? Seriously, really, you heard everything they said and still fuckin¡¯ went for it?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    ¡°Jesus. I thought we were done bringing horny guys in here. And Alice wants me to apologize? You weren¡¯t even listening!¡± She waved her hand in front of my face. ¡°Are you now? Are you?¡±


    ¡°Of course I fucking am,¡± I snapped. ¡°Just¡ªoverthinking!¡±


    ¡°Overthinking.¡±


    ¡°Yes! It¡¯s just¡ª¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re not, because if you thought this through you would never end up balls-deep in the fuckin¡¯ monster! Oh my God.¡± She laughed at me again. ¡°Thinking it through means knowing what you¡¯re fucking getting into, and you clearly don¡¯t. Alice might not let me kick you out, but let me tell you, you¡¯d better start thinking things through if you don¡¯t want to¡ªhold on. Are you going to join the fucking team?¡±


    ¡°No! I didn¡¯t fucking ask to be here!¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°Hina fucking abducted me and, no, I don¡¯t want to join the team, but Opal keeps talking about it like it¡¯s some kind of eventuality, and I keep trying to tell her and the others that I don¡¯t want that but¡ª¡±


    ¡°Wait, wait, waitwait¡ªshe abducted you and you¡¯re still fucking her?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not¡­fucking! It¡¯s complicated!¡±


    ¡°Mate. I¡¯ve heard that one before, you¡¯re not the first¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, I know, her ex is the reason I¡¯m here in the first place!¡±


    That seemed to genuinely throw her off her rhythm. She tapped her right temple a few times, as though trying to knock something back into alignment, then struck it harder with the heel of her hand.


    ¡°The fuck? I should know that part.¡± She refocused on me. ¡°This is Jason¡¯s fault, and I didn¡¯t pick up any of the ripple? Fuckin¡¯¡­¡±


    ¡°Interference from being near the oil platform, if I had to guess. If your eye primarily works on silver, which is strongly correlated to flamefall and the Vaetna, then Heung splintering it on the intercept might have essentially blinded you¡ªwait, Jason?¡±


    I hadn¡¯t known Sky¡¯s actual name. Hina had let slip that it started with a J¡ªone of the first things she¡¯d ever said to me, in fact¡ªbut I¡¯d promptly forgotten that tidbit in the hormonal mess that had ensued. What a mundane name. Distinctly masculine, though, which made sense. And the Argonauts were cool, I supposed. Oh, shit, Yuuka was talking again.


    ¡°¡ªsavant, yep. You¡¯re really on the money with how this thing works, and that¡¯s just from guesswork. So¡ªwait, Hina really just carried you all the way here from fuckin¡¯ England?¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Damn.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°So¡­¡± She seemed genuinely thrown by this bit of intel. ¡°We good?¡±


    ¡°We good?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I mean, you accepted my apology, so now Alice won¡¯t hold that over me, and now that I get what¡¯s going on with you I can say with confidence that I want nothing to do with you if it¡¯s not related to magic, so. We¡¯re good. Bye.¡±


    She turned on her heel to leave.


    ¡°Huh? Wait, no,¡± I called toward her retreating backside. ¡°Apology rescinded! You¡¯ve done nothing but berate me since you walked in!¡±


    ¡°How would you know?¡± She didn¡¯t turn as she replied. ¡°You¡¯re not even paying attention!¡±


    Properly incensed now, I stepped after her.


    ¡°You¡¯ve barely given me a chance to get a word in edgewise! You¡¯re literally just being a jackass for no reason!¡±


    ¡ªis what I didn¡¯t say. Instead:


    ¡°Fine. If you¡¯re only going to talk to me about magic, then here¡¯s a question: Hina asked if¡ª¡±


    She had the audacity to raise a hand over her head and extend the middle finger back toward me. Her stride didn¡¯t even slow.


    ¡°Not my problem!¡±


    It was probably for the best that she interrupted me; trusting this catty bitch with the potentially sensitive case of my stalker seemed like it could backfire horribly, once I had another few seconds to cogitate on it. But I couldn¡¯t resist trying to get the last word in as she passed the threshold back out into the hall.


    ¡°F¡ªfuck off! I¡¯m not just another ¡®horny guy¡¯, and Opal fucking knows it!¡±


    That, of all things, finally made her pause and turn to look at me.


    ¡°What? We were done with this, guy. That¡¯s like¡­two pages late.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªI mean, I¡¯m here because I can actually make a difference with my magic. That¡¯s why they want me around. Even Hina doesn¡¯t just think I¡¯m a piece of meat¡­I think.¡± Probably. ¡°It¡¯s the first thing she said when she met me, anyway. Seriously, do you know who I am?¡±


    ¡°Oh my God. You¡¯re playing the ¡®do you know who I am¡¯ card? You¡¯re an internet nobody, some horny-ass hikikomori who had his flamefall three days ago and thinks that means he can bang every girl here. Well, guess what, jackass, Hina is only into you for your Flame, and the rest of us couldn¡¯t give a shit about you.¡±


    ¡°Really? Amane was excited to meet me.¡±


    At last, I got under her skin. She twitched, eyes narrowing, fists balling.


    ¡°Amane needs all the help she can get. Of course she¡¯d be happy to have somebody around to help Ai. You have no fucking idea what she¡¯s been through.¡±


    I jabbed a finger at my bare prosthetic.


    ¡°Where do you think this came from? Running from the Peacies! Like her! Opal told me. Yes, they give a shit.¡±


    ¡°Only to help her.¡±


    ¡°Come off it,¡± I sighed. ¡°I deserve to be here. I¡¯m not just some fucking guy.¡±


    ¡°Why do¡ªyou know what, fuckin¡¯ forget it. Have fun playing with your spear.¡±


    And she turned and stomped away, all one hundred and fifty-five-odd centimeters of fifty-grit human sandpaper¡ªposthuman, as the case may have been, but I wasn¡¯t feeling charitable¡ªangrily tramping along the glass wall separating the dojo from the hallway until she reached the end and vanished from sight. It took a little longer for her to also vanish from earshot, slipper-on-hardwood footsteps fading until they stopped. There was a ding¡ªreally more of a digital ping¡ªheralding the elevator¡¯s arrival, and then my verbal assailant was gone from the penthouse. Wait, she¡¯d still hardly been wearing anything, surely she wasn¡¯t going to go out in public with¡ª


    Oh fuck. I slammed the brakes on my imagination, wiping the image of her figure from my brain shamefully. I was being a horrible, objectifying ass; she was right. Guilt surged through me.


    ¡°Fucking¡­God, what am I doing?¡±


    No answer from my spear. On top of being a political nightmare, and dead weight to the group, I was harboring horrible, fuckboy thoughts that would make them feel unsafe around me if ever voiced, never mind my relationship with Hina. I was being fucking gross about these girls who were already doing a lot to keep me around.


    Part of me knew that I wasn¡¯t being fair to myself. My shame was itself a sign that I wasn¡¯t as nasty as Yuuka had made me out to be. But that didn¡¯t actually alleviate the dark, viscous self-disgust coating my thoughts right now. I sat down and tried to take stock of the facts: none of the others had that perception of me, and Alice had outright told me not to worry about giving that impression. But that made it all the more frustrating how she¡¯d hardly given me a chance to explain what my situation was. It was nothing but assumptions with her.


    That made some sense, I supposed, given the nature of her eye. Other than the fact that it was apparently somewhat unreliable, I hadn¡¯t gleaned much more about how it worked, but it was pretty easy to see how precognition¡ªperhaps closer to general omniscience¡ªcould make someone a presumptive asshole to the extent that I had just had the bad luck to experience. Still, that wasn¡¯t an excuse; how did the others put up with that? Even if she was more cordial with Amane and Ai, she was definitely a little frosty with Alice.


    Belatedly, I realized that at some point during that I¡¯d switched back to calling Alice ¡®Opal¡¯. Oops.


    And what of Hina? She clearly still liked Heliotrope/Bloodstone/Yuuka as much as she did the rest of her teammates, which was to say a whole lot, despite the sheer abrasion of which I suspected I¡¯d only caught the aftershocks. What a person. What a shitheel.


    ¡ª


    At any rate, I did indeed get back to playing with my actual spear, thank you very much.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± I muttered to the length of wood, more quietly than I likely had to, now worried about more eavesdroppers. ¡°She didn¡¯t really mean that. She meant, uh, the other thing, not you.¡±


    As I got back into the rhythm, I fumed, replaying the encounter in my mind, trying to pick apart how I could have approached it differently, cut back at her more strongly.


    I¡¯d missed the chance to throw several other points at her. For one, she¡¯d been positively delighted with the instrument of murder I¡¯d built for her yesterday, so clearly she cared about my magical capabilities, not just Amane, and not just for the purposes of prosthetic engineering. Which was ironic, in a sad way, because I would much rather be known for glyphcraft that made lives better and not¡­over. Yet I found myself fantasizing about throwing that particular note in her face and watching her fumble for a retort before retreating once she realized the flaw in her argument, leaving me victorious upon my throne of death. Would that be better than the lingering feeling that I¡¯d come away from that interaction looking worse than at the beginning? Probably not. I certainly felt worse about myself, unable to entirely shake the muck of disgust, ego and self-image badly bruised. If that had been her goal, well done.


    That I¡¯d circled back on the ¡°not a horny boy¡± thing felt even worse in hindsight, knowing there was some truth to it. Should have left it out entirely; not half the ¡°gotcha¡± I had felt it was in the moment. I wanted to atone for that in some way, cleanse myself of the attraction to these girls and fixation on how attractive they were. I could try to think of those thoughts as unfaithful to Hina, but¡ªwhat Heliotrope had said about the hyena being into my Flame rather than me stung, a lot. For all Hina called me ¡°cutie¡± and made me feel amazing, and how I was trying my best to not be jealous of Sky, there was still a sharp edge of shallowness to it all. Maybe I was only imagining that, but it hurt nonetheless.


    The worst part was that my simmering frustration was again aggravating my Flame. I attempted to solely vent the feelings with my spear routine and the rhetorical shadowboxing and tried very hard to ignore the way my right hand was steaming. Was this how Alice felt? Honestly, if two of her teammates were that and Hina, and she was hungry all the time, no wonder she seemed almost incandescent in every other interaction with them. At that thought, I aborted out of a far sweep to set down my spear and instead walked over to my pile of belongings to dig out my phone.


    Ezzen Colliot: I just had a pretty awful interaction with Yuuka.


    Ezzen Colliot: (Can I call her that? She told me to call her Bloodstone but it was. Bad.)


    Alice Takehara: Meeting.


    Ezzen Colliot: sorry


    Oh, shit, oops. The calendar agreed; she was booked solid until 5 PM. Should have thought of that; I was being inconsiderate. The ¡°callie¡±¡ªwhich Google informed me was not an actual Australianism¡ªalso confirmed that Yuuka did indeed not have school until the afternoon, so that was on me.


    The core of Yuuka¡¯s accusations gnawed at me. I didn¡¯t want to be dead weight. I felt the need to prove that I belonged here, that my knowledge was valuable, that I wasn¡¯t just some gross boy here to ogle them. I was Ezzen, an expert, and I ought to use my Flame to help people, channel the Flame in my chest somewhere useful. If she thought I was only here to help Ai with Amane¡¯s prosthetics, then fuck it, might as well lean into that. It was what I wanted to do with my magic anyway, far more than the instrument of murder of yesterday¡ªwhich Yuuka had conveniently omitted that she¡¯d been so happy with.


    I folded away my spear, pocketed my phone, and shrugged the hoodie back over my head, still-new armor. Yuuka had caught me essentially naked by contrast; I already felt better once I was ensheathed in the heavy fabric, my carapace. Was this what it was like to pilot one of the Radiances¡¯ mantles, this sense of security in my regalia?


    My thoughts still aswirl with the caustic encounter, I went to make myself useful. Time to find out what the Emerald Radiance did on a regular Monday.

 Trick Of The Light // 2.03

    I did my best to enter Ai¡¯s giant machine shop surreptitiously and not attract undue attention, which had gone well until I realized that her mobile workstation was not in the same spot it had been last time I¡¯d been in here. So, feeling the whole time that I obviously didn¡¯t belong and dreading the idea that somebody would walk up and ask for ID, I awkwardly skirted around the edge of the garage-turned-laboratory, trying to spot the Emerald Radiance. I gave a wide berth to the scariest-looking machines, especially those mid-operation like the massive waterjet cutter bringing forth dozens of identical parts from a sheet of metal at least three meters to a side.


    I eventually found Ai in the most sensible place in the whole shop for her to be: set up with a group of students below the enormous magical manufacturing array on the workshop¡¯s far wall. Sadly, they weren¡¯t actually using the array; Ai wasn¡¯t even touching the control panel and was instead indicating each glyph on the wall with a laser pointer, quizzing the students on identifying each one and what it did. I chuckled as one of them mistook {AFFIX} for {DIFFUSE}. Rookie mistake.


    The multitude of wrong answers like that one were because today¡¯s batch of students were younger than the ones I had met the other day. I¡¯d gotten the sense that most of that group had been grad students, noticeably older than me, to say nothing of the grizzled full-fledged engineers and machinists; by contrast, these ones were around my age, in their third and fourth years of college. It was a similarly eclectic group of races and nationalities to last time, native Japanese intermingling with Americans and some who must have been from Taiwan or Hong Kong, since I doubted anybody from mainland China was here. Despite Todai¡¯s professed abstinence from the intermittent conflict in the South China Sea, it still impacted the demographics here in Ai¡¯s workshop.


    Ai saw me coming, making eye contact with me in one of the convex mirrors as I approached the back of the cluster of students. A grin spread across her face as she flicked the laser pointer to an eye-hurting jumble of curved plastic that seemed to crawl under my gaze, a three-dimensional slice of one of the four-dimensional glyphs. My stomach lurched as she called out.


    ¡°You in the back: what¡¯s this?¡±


    ¡°That,¡± I sighed, simultaneously put-upon and excited at being given a chance to strut my stuff, ¡°would be the third, sixth, and seventh layers of {PROPAGATE}, sliced maybe twenty-five percent ana to give it a more orange propensity so it can link into things like {ASSIGN} more easily.¡±


    ¡°Correct!¡± Her voice rang like a polished bell. ¡°Everyone, this is Todai¡¯s newest employee. You might see him around from time to time. Colliot-san, would you like to introduce yourself?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡ªnot particularly. I was actually wondering if I could, um¡­¡± I trailed off lamely. Unfortunately for me, some of the students¡ªmost, probably¡ªwere denizens of the forums and were already putting the pieces together, whispers erupting within the group as eyes went round. No keeping this cat in the bag. ¡°Fine. Yes, uh, hi, I¡¯m Ezzen.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t prepared for how good that felt to say. Ai had gone out of her way to not refer to me as Dalton, so Ezzen was the only name any of these people would know me by. I loved that. What I loved less was the way eyes slid down to the burn scars on my hand and to the prosthetic replacement for my foot, known to them despite being hidden inside my shoe. I unconsciously slid the Flame-marked hand into my hoodie pocket to fidget with the stabilizer module, hunching my shoulders. My tattoo itched, which was absurd.


    Ai, bless her, regained control of the group almost instantly, before they had a chance to start bombarding me with questions or mob me.


    ¡°I¡¯m not canceling this lab just because he¡¯s here! You¡¯ll get the chance to meet him eventually. Ah¡ª¡± She glanced at an indicator light on her desk that had just come on. ¡°Good timing, the blanks are done. Every group gets one of each type; make sure they both came out to spec, then come up with one first-order chain for each that can do the next three steps we talked about. If the dimensions are off, add back material with the sedimenter and then refinish them on the mill. Go.¡±


    The students¡¯ gazes lingered on me as they shuffled off toward the waterjet cutter, but mercifully none of them dared defy their orders to talk to me, in too much of a hurry. Ai beckoned me over.


    ¡°Are you here for something?¡±


    I appreciated how she was straight to the point, no inquiries after my foot or asking about my plans for the day. I scratched my neck nervously.


    ¡°Um, just was wondering if I could be helpful.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Is this about the gun?¡±


    ¡°Um. Is it alright for you to just¡ªsay that?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± For explanation, she pointed at a matching set of dark panels mounted to the edges of her workstation. A classic soundproofing weave splayed across them in neon green. ¡°So, is that it? You want to feel like you¡¯re doing good to make up for yesterday?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªsort of? I mean, yes, but¡­that¡¯s not all of it. I had an¡­argument? With Heliotrope.¡±


    Ai frowned sympathetically.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­I¡¯m sorry. What did she say?¡±


    I didn¡¯t really want to talk about most of it¡ªeven recalling her demeanor was making my stomach lurch, let alone the actual, wildly hurtful things she had said to me.


    ¡°She insulted Hina, which¡ªI know you¡¯re not going to have much sympathy there, and¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ezzen.¡± I flinched at her interjection. ¡°I might not agree with Hina, and yes, I do think she¡¯s a little monstrous, but of course I care if Yuuka is being a¡­bitch, to her.¡±


    I blinked.


    ¡°Strong language for you, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°She deserves it, sometimes,¡± she sighed. ¡°What else?¡±


    ¡°She¡­said I didn¡¯t deserve to be here.¡± I stared down at my shoes, ashamed even though I knew it mostly wasn¡¯t true. ¡°And compared me to Hina¡¯s ex. Who¡¯s a friend of mine, which I didn¡¯t know,¡± I clarified.


    ¡°Ah. That¡­yes, I think I see the picture. I¡¯m sorry, again, you didn¡¯t deserve that at all. Of course you deserve to be here, and it would make me happy if you helped here.¡±


    ¡°Please. What¡¯s there to do?¡±


    ¡°Well, what do you want to do?¡± She countered.


    It was a good question. I raised my head to look around the workshop. This was far more hands-on than my comfort zone of GWalk diagrams, a step into the practicalities of the physical that I was used to eliding and leaving for the people who actually implemented things¡ªlike Ai. The exception, no more comfortable for me but at least something I felt driven to help with, was Amane¡¯s prostheses¡ªas well as probably my own, though I didn¡¯t want to come off as selfish by mentioning my foot right now.


    ¡°I feel¡­I want to at least learn enough about the design and function of Amane¡¯s prostheses to be helpful. Where would I start with that?¡±


    She nodded, turning back to her keyboard and opening some new windows. I was unsurprised to find she was running Linux; Ubuntu, by the looks of it. I¡¯d toyed with it in years past but never delved deeply enough into the technicals to find it easier than Windows. She eventually found a PDF and pulled it up on one of the vertical monitors.


    ¡°Are you familiar with LIPS-2?¡±


    ¡°The¡­Lattice-Integrated Prosthetics Standard, yeah? I read v1, but haven¡¯t kept up with it.¡± That was mostly true; I had read the first version, but didn¡¯t recall many of the specifics. It belonged to one of those tangential fields where I¡¯d read the Wikipedia articles and skimmed the key documentation out of academic interest or to settle arguments on the forums, but my off-the-cuff knowledge was lacking. ¡°You¡­helped write it, if I recall correctly?¡±


    ¡°Hai¡­¡± she confirmed, mostly to herself, as she jumped down the very, very long document. The scroll bar on the side of the window was barely a sliver. ¡°Ah, here.¡±


    I advanced a little to read the section header: Idiomatic Psychomotive Chain Bases: Designs Minimizing Free Red Ripple. As my eyes scanned between the dense blocks of text below it, I saw they were broken up by a few beautifully elegant lattice designs. I sight-read them, appreciating the thought given to optimizing everything down to second-order at most and creative workarounds and glyph choices to lower the free-band red ripple down to almost zero by the end of the chain¡ªthen breathed an incredulous chuckle. Recognition dawned and years-buried memories returned as I saw my name¡ªEzzen, not Dalton¡ªbelow, cited for two of the designs. Both were modified slightly from what I remembered, but at a glance, I approved of the changes.


    ¡°Ha.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve already been very, very helpful.¡± Ai explained, a smile in her voice. She pointed at the second one bearing my name. ¡°For Ishikawa-chan¡ªer, Amane¡ªspecifically, because so much of the damage was sanguimantic, this is the one we use, and the one that would be most helpful to optimize further, rather than the actual kinetic drivers or power integration or¡­you get the idea.¡± I did indeed, smiling as well. Ideas were already starting to germinate, ways to clean this up further. ¡°Although you¡¯re free to take a look at the whole design, of course,¡± she added.


    So I got to work. There was a row of PCs along the wall, somewhat cordoned off from the main machine shop, and Ai helped me log in. They were running a slightly different version of GWalk, the enterprise distribution rather than the pro license, so I was missing a lot of my personal quality of life tweaks, but I knew all the shortcuts anyway. Ai handed me a USB with the lattice files for Amane¡¯s arm and leg prostheses, telling me it was mine to keep so I could keep tweaking it on my own time; I saw it also contained the schematics for the physical design of her limbs. That was beyond the scope of right now¡¯s work and my own expertise, though. I focused on the glyphwork.


    Eventually, maybe twenty minutes in, a few of Ai¡¯s students appeared and booted up other workstations. I became irrationally self-conscious; despite having full confidence in the actual contents of my work, it was another thing to see them stealing glances at my workflow out of the corner of my eye. The weight of observation imposed a bizarre pressure to get every little change right on the first try, rather than first checking whether an idea would actually go anywhere, and to avoid consulting the documentation I usually leaned on so heavily, for fear of looking like an amateur.


    In fact, I did sort of feel like an amateur; many of the implementation details of this lattice were tuned for the unique case of Amane¡¯s arm, with particular portions of the weave intended for different physical locations and mechanisms within the limb. This was not my area of expertise. GWalk actually had a whole suite of features for placing the weave in a schematic of physical parts, associating lattices with respective substrates, and so on, but my focus on theoretical problems and LM meant I¡¯d almost always avoided it. Now I kept having to refer back to that window to double-check my work and was still unsure that I hadn¡¯t broken anything. No error popups, at least, but that was only a matter of time, and encountering an error with a part of the design process I almost never partook in and therefore had no idea how to resolve, in front of an audience, was a nightmare scenario.


    I tried to ignore that impulse to catastrophize and continue working as I usually did, but it became more and more difficult as the row of computers filled up. They gave me enough of a berth to leave the seats to my immediate left and right empty, but it was the barest buffer of protection; my physical shell, the bulky hoodie, provided little security when my direct stream of consciousness was playing out on the computer monitor. It was a thoroughly uncomfortable experience, exposed and vulnerable.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s so smart!¡±


    I jumped. I hadn¡¯t realized somebody had invaded the bubble of personal space, watching from right over my shoulder. I twisted and saw one of the probably-not-Chinese students utterly enraptured by my monitor, a man with bleached-blond hair. He was older than me¡ªwait, no he wasn¡¯t; I was twenty.


    ¡°Thanks?¡± I muttered, uncomfortable with the proximity, turning back to the screen and wishing he¡¯d leave. ¡°You mean this part? The pair of {ASSIGNS}?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Why are you looping them through each other like that?¡± He came around to my side to look more closely at the monitor. ¡°How are you even getting GWalk to let you do that? It gives us an error.¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s¡­¡± I copied the chunk and deleted the connections to demonstrate. ¡°Control-D, drag the first connection, select the output of the second, C for chain mode, I for invert, click the input of the first one. If you just click and drag the two normally, it gives you two errors: one, because it doesn¡¯t know where you want the mesh to take its output, and two, the tensions aren¡¯t constrained to each other, so the ripple can¡¯t resolve.¡±


    ¡°Ohhhhh. Oh, wait, then¡ª¡± He called back to his friend, who hurried over. Before I knew it, three more students had joined the group, all pointing at the screen and talking excitedly in a mix of Chinese and English. A different one broke from the discussion to try to talk to me directly.


    ¡°So¡ªyou¡¯re actually Ezzen? Seven years of being anonymous, and now you¡¯re just¡­here at Lighthouse?¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªbeing flametouched kind of changes things.¡±


    ¡°Lots of people thought you were already a flamebearer! I know you¡¯ve said you¡¯re not, but it¡¯s crazy that you discovered all that¡ª¡± he pointed at the screen again, ¡°¡ªwithout actually having any Flame yourself.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t¡­discover it. The Vaetna already know all this stuff, we¡¯re just following them.¡± I floundered, compelled to downplay my own accomplishments and expertise. ¡°Um, not to discredit Ai or the Consortium¡¯s own accomplishments, labs all over¡ª¡±


    ¡°Take some credit,¡± Ai sighed from my other side. I twisted to look at her.


    ¡°But it¡¯s true! Yeah, I know a lot, but everything I¡¯ve ¡®figured out¡¯ is stuff they already know. And you¡¯re actually doing things with it!¡± I gestured around the cavernous room. ¡°This is incredible!¡±


    ¡°So is that.¡± Ai countered, pointing at the glyphs on my screen. Then she put her hands on her hips, addressing the students who¡¯d gathered near me. ¡°Back to work. You¡¯re not going to finish in the next forty minutes if you keep bothering Ezzen.¡±


    They dispersed, grumbling but smiling. Ai dropped herself heavily into the seat next to mine, already looking tired again despite having seemed fine this morning.


    ¡°Already making progress.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but I don¡¯t know if this¡¯ll actually work in the weave¡­uh, sorry for being a distraction, also.¡±


    ¡°You aren¡¯t!¡± She glanced past me down the row of computers. ¡°I think this will be really motivating for them. And it will work in the weave, I think; just make sure to run the substrate optimizer before porting it to the schematic.¡±


    I¡®d totally forgotten that step and needed a flustered moment to find the right button in the unfamiliar sub-panel. I also didn¡¯t know how to verify that it had done its job and squished the glyph substrates down to minimal weavable size and found places for them within the structure of the arm.


    ¡°Uh.¡± I hesitated.


    ¡°It¡¯s here, then here.¡± She guided me through the process of confirming everything was as it should be, heedless of the fact that a few of her students were definitely watching her treat me like one of them, oh God. I tried to control my breathing, retreating into my hoodie slightly like a magic-obsessed turtle.


    ¡°¡­Thanks. Um. I should really know how to do that.¡±


    She seemed to become aware that eyes had been on us while she¡¯d helped me, the supposed expert, use a basic function of the program I probably had more than ten thousand hours on.


    ¡°¡­Would you rather work somewhere else, Ezzen?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s more¡­the work itself.¡±


    ¡°Ah. Not used to integration.¡±


    ¡°Not at all,¡± I admitted. ¡°Your students are probably better at that than I am.¡±


    She frowned. ¡°You deserve to be here. Is this about what Hirai-san said?¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± I was sort of losing track of the names.


    ¡°Er, Yuuka. Heliotrope.¡±


    ¡°Oh. I guess? It¡¯s just¡ªI already said, I just don¡¯t feel like I¡¯m actually¡­doing anything with it. I¡¯m just messing around. Yesterday was easy¡ªand I know how fucked up that sounds¡ªbecause it was pure magic, LM to LM. I felt like I understood all of it¡­which wasn¡¯t true; I didn¡¯t understand what we were really doing, but the task? Everything could be done in GWalk. With this¡ª¡± I pointed at the screen, then spread the gesture to indicate the entire workshop, ¡°¡ªthere¡¯s literally more moving parts, stuff I haven¡¯t touched before. I feel like I need to run all of this past you to make anything actually come of it.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯re saying you¡¯re used to working alone?¡±


    ¡°¡­I guess, yeah.¡±


    ¡°Well, you¡¯re not alone. You never were! You¡¯ve shared so much of your work on the internet; of course we¡¯ve used it. Not¡­not all of my colleagues respect you as much as they should, but they certainly all know your name. So do my students, for a reason.¡± She smiled at me, reaching out to gently touch my forearm. ¡°Your focus is pure theory, not application, and that¡¯s fine, because we¡¯ve already been applying it here. Now you can actually work with us.¡± She took a breath, but before I could formulate a rebuttal, another complaint that I was out of my depth, she went on, passion rising. ¡°Teamwork means letting other people do the parts you¡¯re not good at. Yesterday, you were able to do almost all of it yourself, which¡­¡± her expression darkened. ¡°Which is how we got away with not telling you until it was too late. I¡¯m sorry for that. But for almost everything outside of our mantles, bungyou¡ªdivision of labor¡ªis important, even necessary, because nobody can do what we do alone. You can help us do so much! And you know that, I know you do. I¡¯m really, truly excited to be working with you, and so is everybody in this room.¡±


    For a moment, I was terrified that meant she was about to order her class to line up and encourage me, but she just rubbed my arm and looked at me. Unlike Hina, her silence carried no expectation of response. Tears were starting to well in my eyes at Ai¡¯s pure, unguarded outpouring of belief. I didn¡¯t want to cry here, under the eyes of her students, people who looked up to me¡ªI swallowed in a vain attempt to keep my throat from getting tight. Seeing my response, Ai tensed up.


    ¡°Oh. Oh, ah, I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to¡ª¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªfine,¡± I pushed out, wiping my eyes before any tears could fall. Her honesty and kindness helped me admit why this was so hard. ¡°No, I mean, thank you. Heliotrope sort of got under my skin. Thank you,¡± I repeated. Yuuka had brought my insecurities to the surface, asserted that I didn¡¯t belong; a belief she had so boldly thrown in my face that it had further undermined my already shaky self-confidence. But Ai¡¯s conviction that I could have a place here¡ªthat I already had a place here, long before I¡¯d ever actually arrived, was just as potent as her teammate¡¯s venom, perhaps more so. ¡°Um¡­how long have you¡­known about me?¡±


    ¡°Me? Since before we had this building. I think we¡¯ve actually emailed each other, back when I was in school, and so did my professor at the time. He¡¯s the one who told me about¡ªdo¡­do you need a tissue?¡±


    ¡°¡­Yes.¡±


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    Ai jogged back to her desk and brought the entire box back to me. I dried my tears before they could spill onto my cheeks, thanked her, and spent the remainder of her class time continuing to tinker with and refine the weave of Amane¡¯s arm.


    Meanwhile, her students got back to work, under too much pressure from their assignment to keep bothering me. They ferried their parts around the workshop, refining those parts toward gradually more familiar shapes. Each time a group of students returned to one of the PCs, the sheets of metal had been further altered: intricately folded, slots milled out, more folding, small sections of metal ground away to thin out the shape, onward and onward until various second-order glyph substrates began to make themselves apparent in the aluminum. Even when different teams had the same glyph, there were a number of differences in the shape of the substrate, from overall proportions to the particular paths the metal took as it contorted around itself in mimicry of the Flame. Of course, there were idiomatic, semi-standard base layouts for substrates, but Ai had imposed additional restrictions on each team that meant the students had to improvise.


    Even with that, the production process seemed an awful lot of effort. When I voiced this to Ai, she explained that this was entirely doable with CNC machining instead of the relatively manual processes to which she was subjecting her students, but that wasn¡¯t the point. The goal of the exercise was to understand the common pitfalls in substrate design, like how one team had ground a branch point too thin; when Ai tried to weave along it, it snapped. That team still wound up passing, though.


    Ai returned to sit with me again once she¡¯d dismissed the students for the morning.


    ¡°What do you want to know about Yuuka?¡±


    ¡°I¡­wasn¡¯t going to ask?¡±


    ¡°But you do want to know.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. How can you tell?¡±


    ¡°Because you like understanding things, and Yuuka is not easy to understand at a glance. I¡¯m sorry she was so¡­her.¡± It sounded like she was talking about Hina, put like that.


    ¡°Alright, sure: Why¡¯s she like that?¡±


    ¡°The eye, for one.¡±


    ¡°Precognitive self-assurance, yeah, figured as much. How¡¯s it work?¡± I hadn¡¯t even known it was possible until yesterday, so I wasn¡¯t afraid to admit my ignorance.


    ¡°I¡­don¡¯t know,¡± she admitted. ¡°Silver ripple, of course, but I can¡¯t even guess at the capture mechanism or how it translates to something she can parse. She¡¯s¡­touchy about it, as well. If we could find out¡­¡±


    Widespread precognition, even of a relatively limited sort based on whatever the local silver ripple happened to show, would be a game-changer; that went without saying. It was also the sort of cat that would be nearly impossible to put back in the bag. Ai understood that implicitly, I hoped¡ªbut then again, she was also the woman who had apparently invented a truly sentient AI in Ebi, so perhaps given the chance, she¡¯d leap before looking. So might I, if it came to that, which troubled me. I switched back to the main topic.


    ¡°How do I get along with her?¡±


    ¡°Ah, well¡­your start was bad, being¡­with Hina. You are, ah, dating with her?¡±


    There was a little bit of judgment in her voice. I hurried to correct her misconception.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­not sure, but I¡¯m not doing her type of magic. No¡­mutation or transformation.¡± The seared patch of skin under my shirt and hoodie still stung faintly, a guiltily euphoric reminder to myself that we¡¯d already taken steps in that direction¡ªbut cosmetic stuff didn¡¯t really count. I ought to clarify that to Hina¡­if I could even convince myself of the loophole¡¯s validity. ¡°I made it really clear that I didn¡¯t want to hurt my Flame or anybody else, so¡­¡±


    Ai let out a breath she¡¯d been holding, shoulders relaxing.


    ¡°Good. Good. That¡¯s a relief, truly. I was worried, because¡­you two do have chemistry, and¡­¡±


    ¡°Christ, could everybody see it but me?¡± I immediately slapped my hand over my mouth. ¡°Didn¡¯t mean to say that.¡±


    Ai burst out laughing, then covered her own mouth just as quickly. She needed a few moments for the giggle fit to subside.


    ¡°You¡¯re not the first. She told me she¡¯d tell you about her last boyfriend?¡±


    ¡°Skychicken. Jason. Flamebearer, friend of mine.¡± That part didn¡¯t seem to surprise Ai. ¡°Apparently, their relationship is why Yuuka doesn¡¯t like her?¡±


    ¡°In simple terms, yes. Hina got¡­worse, more Hina-like, over the course of that relationship, and Yuuka blames him for that. And she doesn¡¯t like men all that much, especially¡­she probably thinks you¡¯re just here for Hina.¡± I didn¡¯t quite flinch, but Ai still caught how I shifted and recoiled slightly. ¡°Ah. I¡¯m sorry, I know that¡¯s not how it is at all, but¡­she¡¯s had some bad experiences, and she jumps to conclusions. Alice thought she¡¯d be alright with you being here, staying here, but maybe she miscalculated, or she just didn¡¯t expect you to click with Hina in this particular way and make Yuuka mad.¡±


    ¡°I¡­she yelled at me for not thinking things through. But she¡¯s the one who just immediately assumes the worst like that!¡± I almost growled. It was beyond frustrating and unfair, and Ai nodded in sympathy. I wondered if I could ask her to clear things up with the abrasive goth girl for me, to explain that I wasn¡¯t at all like the caricature she¡¯d assigned me, since trying to have that conversation myself would kill me and I doubted she¡¯d even listen. But I also didn¡¯t want to put Ai through that, not somebody who¡¯d already been so kind to me and who frankly had better things to do. ¡°What can I¡­do? To fix things with her? I don¡¯t want this¡ªmess. It¡¯s ridiculous,¡± I groused. ¡°A revolving door of drama. I just figured things out with Hina!¡±


    That bordered on being too much outward complaining, and I cut myself off before I could run my mouth about how this was on top of the lingering worries about the PCTF and Hikanome. But it still felt good to say, and Ai nodded harder, then sat back and thought for a minute.


    ¡°I understand, it¡¯s¡­yes, she can be exhausting,¡± she admitted. ¡°And stubborn. She won¡¯t listen to me or Alice for this, I think, and certainly not Hina. But Amane, she can help you with this.¡±


    ¡°Amane?¡±


    ¡°Yuuka has a soft spot for her, of course, after everything.¡±


    ¡°Um. I¡¯m still not entirely clear on the timeline for that,¡± I admitted, glancing around the workshop, reflexively checking if the coast was clear despite knowing our conversation was magically secure. It was mostly deserted now that the students had gone; a few other engineers were working on their own projects at faraway machines, but nobody was close to being within earshot. ¡°Amane was abducted, and the rest of you¡­rescued her. Alice said something about how you and her and Hina were a separate group first, though?¡±


    It was a bit of a tangle, trying to piece together offhand comments and insinuations and tone from the past few days in between far more immediately important conversations. Not my strong suit. Ai bit her lip, and I hesitated, but then she jumped in her seat, clenching her right fist.


    ¡°Everything alright?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± Her tone said otherwise. ¡°Your girlfriend is here. She can explain that to you.¡±


    I jumped as well when I felt arms slither over my shoulders.


    ¡°Hey, cutie. I¡¯m stealing you for lunch,¡± a husky voice muttered in my ear. ¡°Hi, Ai! I¡¯m stealing cutie for lunch!¡±


    ¡ª


    Ai was very, very unhappy with Hina traipsing through the fourth dimension in her workshop, and I got a front-row seat to a short but blistering lecture in Japanese. Hina did a remarkable job of staying still and enduring her teammate¡¯s annoyance, chin resting atop my head. She didn¡¯t seem particularly chastised, occasionally interjecting enthusiastic ¡°Mhm!¡±s and unrepentant ¡°Sorry!¡±s until Ai¡¯s anger inevitably sputtered out and was replaced by an older-sister sense of exasperated disappointment. At that point, the Emerald Radiance switched back to English for my benefit, reminding Hina that ¡°we¡¯ve talked about this¡± and then attempting to cajole her out of the workshop. Stubborn mutt she was, Hina dug her heels in and insisted that she wasn¡¯t leaving without me, so I bid a hasty farewell and thanks to Ai, taking the USB drive with me.


    Hina took my hand and led me back through the hall toward the elevators, still full of energy.


    ¡°What¡¯s for lunch?¡±


    ¡°Eggplant and pesto gnocchi!¡±


    Yum. Apparently she wasn¡¯t an obligate carnivore after all.


    ¡°¡­Homemade?¡±


    ¡°Not yet! How¡¯s Ai?¡±


    ¡°Not yet?¡± But Hina didn¡¯t answer the question as we entered the elevator, hitting me with that level, it¡¯s-your-turn stare. ¡°You just saw her.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but she probably wasn¡¯t yelling at you like she was with me. Unless she was?¡±


    ¡°Uh, no, she wasn¡¯t. I was working on Amethyst¡¯s arm. Or trying to, at least; I was really just messing with the weave.¡±


    ¡°Cool! Was it fun?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Silence fell. I felt so awkward¡ªbut I¡¯d already missed my window to ask how her own day was going. That was the correct, boyfriendly thing to do, right? It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t have questions: was her voiceover work in English or Japanese? Was she done with her workday? Did she have any advice regarding making Heliotrope less of a bitch?


    But I didn¡¯t say anything, nor did she prompt me further with those sapphire eyes, content to just hold my hand and swing our arms back and forth a bit. At least she was in puppy-mode; my imagination lewdly suggested that the hyena might slam the emergency stop and press me against the wall, a scenario which would turn this mild social embarrassment into boiling-hot¡ª


    I politely told that part of my psyche to fuck off. I was still coming to terms with how much I wanted Hina to, in her own terms, ¡°fuck me up,¡± and the awful things Heliotrope had insinuated about me were doing that process no favors.


    We once again arrived at the nineteenth floor. The lights had been turned on in the kitchen, warm light pushing back the cool blue coming through the windows, and I smelled something roasting, probably the eggplant.


    Stepping out of the elevator, I was surprised to find Alice laying on one of the sofas, face-down to accommodate her tail stretched out behind her, the tip just barely dangling over the armrest. As she pushed herself upright to greet us, I saw that she was wearing actual business attire¡ªunlike at Tochou yesterday. Odd, or maybe normal; I didn¡¯t have a good frame of reference, really.


    It wasn¡¯t much, just a button-down blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a long, loose skirt worn high on the waist. She glared at my hand connected to Hina¡¯s¡ªquickly covered the expression with a smile. I altered the script I was building in my head; her presence automatically struck down any chance of conversation about my strange, budding relationship with Hina, but hopefully helped the odds that I could learn something that would make existing around Heliotrope less intolerable.


    ¡°Hey. Lunch soon, please? I have to be back with Suzuki in half an hour.¡±


    ¡°Yep! Fifteen minutes, sit tight.¡±


    ¡°Fifteen minutes?¡± Pretty quick. ¡°Frozen gnocchi?¡±


    ¡°Oh, nah, I made the dough this morning, so it¡¯s just roll and cut. Do you wanna do that or make the pesto?¡±


    ¡°Oh, uh¡­¡± I hadn¡¯t realized that I would be helping. When I was young, we¡¯d made pastas of all kinds, really, so the activity of rolling and shaping dough was scattered all across my memories of Dad, but the pesto¡­I didn¡¯t want to touch that memory. ¡°The gnocchi.¡±


    ¡°Gotcha!¡±


    She put me to work, directing me to the enormous, metal-topped kitchen island, evocative of a restaurant prep table, oddly comforting and nostalgic. I was provided with the dough, flour, and an old friend: my knife, Dad¡¯s gift.


    ¡°Still haven¡¯t sharpened it,¡± she apologized, ¡°but should be fine for dividing dough.¡±


    Gnocchi are exceptionally easy to make by hand, Dad instructed. Most pasta shapes require you to roll a flat and thin sheet, which is hard without a machine, but gnocchi dough is robust enough that you can just roll it into a snake and cut it into little cylinders to make your pastas.


    I floured up my hands, sliced the big ball of dough into more manageable portions, and went through the steps. Make a snake, chop it up¡ªI stopped and hunted around the kitchen for a moment. Hina noticed from her own station to my right, where she was grinding the pesto by hand in a large mortar and pestle.


    ¡°Cutie? What are you looking for?¡±


    ¡°A fork.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°To shape the dough?¡±


    I was surprised she didn¡¯t seem to know what I meant, but she obligingly directed me to the silverware drawer. She watched curiously as I demonstrated the technique.


    Then¡ªand there are specialized boards for this, but you can also just use a fork¡ªyou press the piece of pasta down along the tines of the fork with your finger, like this.


    Hina squealed with delight as I transformed the gnocchi from a lump of potato dough to a pleasing little rolled shape with ridges all around the edge.


    ¡°More surface area; catches more sauce.¡± I explained from memory.


    ¡°Ooh! That¡¯s so cute! Alice, kocchi mite!¡±


    Todai¡¯s leader, who¡¯d seamlessly slipped into a support role doing dishes, also approved of the shape, nodding appreciatively.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s how it¡¯s done! I¡¯ve had it like that at restaurants before, but I thought it needed a machine or something.¡±


    ¡°Same!¡± Hina stopped grinding the pesto¡ªno, bad brain, stop that¡ªto prod the pasta with a finger. ¡°Can I try?¡±


    ¡°Hina, no, you¡¯ll bend the tines and make a mess and I¡¯m hungry,¡± Alice whined. Then she caught herself and her eyes slid over to me as she bit her lip nervously, caught with her guard down. What little dignity she had left was erased by a rumble, and I dodged meeting those slitted pupils to glance at her belly. She stammered. ¡°Um.¡±


    The three of us stood there in silence for a moment. Hina looked between the two of us with her big, blue eyes, then barked a laugh.


    ¡°Understood, Captain!¡±


    She picked the pestle back up and resumed grinding the green paste. Alice kept trying to produce sounds, perhaps intended to be apologies for her impatience or indignance at the possible sarcasm, but another undignified grumble from her belly made her give up and turn back to the sink in embarrassed defeat. I picked up my knife and resumed making dough snakes, but that wasn¡¯t enough to dispel the lingering awkwardness. I reached for a random question based on what was in front of me.


    ¡°Where did you learn to cook?¡±


    ¡°Me? Teacher from school who thought I needed a hobby to stop getting into fights. Hey, Alice, you remember Asagi-sensei, right?¡±


    ¡°¡­Yes? Third year home ec in middle school. It didn¡¯t work, as I recall.¡±


    ¡°Nope! But food¡¯s fun. You¡¯re pretty good with that knife, cutie, where¡¯d you learn?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just chopping gnocchi, hardly a chiffonade or julienne.¡±


    ¡°Oooooh. Okay, now I really gotta know.¡±


    I hesitated for a moment. I¡¯d talked about this with Alice briefly, but somehow it hadn¡¯t come up with Hina.


    ¡°My dad.¡±


    ¡°Oh, right, the dead one.¡±


    ¡°Hina!¡±


    ¡°Oops. Um. Sorry, cutie.¡±


    I put down the knife for a moment to take a deep, slow breath. She didn¡¯t mean anything by it, I knew that, but I still needed a moment to suppress the sudden spike of anger and grief at her casual prodding of the event that had destroyed my life. Shame, too, which took longer to boil off than the others.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªfine,¡± I gritted out.


    ¡°Do you wanna talk about it?¡±


    ¡°Hina!¡± Alice accompanied that with a thump of her tail against the kitchen¡¯s tiles. The puppy flinched.


    ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°No, um¡ªtalking is good, maybe,¡± I interjected, fighting down the reflexive annoyance. If I was going to live alongside them, telling them this much had to happen eventually, and it was easier with them, fellow flamebearers. If I trusted the chatroom, I could trust them. ¡°Dad was a chef, the kind who traveled a lot. Took me with him.¡±


    ¡°Ooh, you¡¯re rich?¡±


    ¡°Hina¡­¡±


    ¡°Uh. He didn¡¯t actually save that much, and¡­things went wrong with the inheritance. Most of the money went to my grandparents, and from there to one of the cults, so I didn¡¯t really see much of it.¡±


    ¡°Oh, shit. That¡¯s¡ªsuper fucked up.¡± The sapphire eyes were full of pity. I winced.


    ¡°I was fourteen, still in and out of the hospital, didn¡¯t know how any of that worked, and they¡­stole it, basically.¡± More shame. ¡°I got some aid from the Peacies later, around the end of the Firestorms, and managed to hold on to enough of that to, um, support my lifestyle.¡± I clarified hastily. ¡°Uh, they weren¡¯t the PCTF yet.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we get it, no hard feelings. We know a thing or two about making ends meet.¡± Alice chuckled dryly. ¡°Billionaire money, remember?¡±


    ¡°Ah. Right.¡±


    Dirty money all around. Hina frowned as she passed me a small bowl.


    ¡°Wait, so the Peacies or one of their precursors knew about you as a flamefall survivor, knew where you lived, probably knew you were Ezzen, and never, like, tried to hire you? You¡¯re a fuckin¡¯ catch, cutie.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­because I didn¡¯t matter, probably, not compared to the pros.¡± I regretted that immediately, imagining Ai¡¯s gentle rebuke if I¡¯d said that to her. Alice filled in for her.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk about yourself like that. Remember how your work helped Amane? You¡¯ve already made a difference.¡±


    I tried to get myself to believe that while I gathered a snake¡¯s worth of shaped gnocchi and brought it to the pot of boiling water on the stovetop.


    ¡°Okay, no, I can admit I would have been¡­an asset, so¡­no, I don¡¯t really know. I guess I sort of assumed it was Sky¡¯s doing. Um¡ªJason?¡±


    ¡°Probably. Sounds like him,¡± Hina confirmed as she dug through a cabinet for appropriate serving bowls. Alice stiffened at the name, and I realized we¡¯d managed to stumble close to one of the things I was meaning to ask about. I seized the chance.


    ¡°Um, on that note, Heliotrope compared me to him earlier.¡±


    Not at all a smooth transition, but I figured it was the only chance I was going to get.


    ¡°Ah, fuck, that¡¯s right, your message,¡± Alice groaned, turning to me as she dried her hands. ¡°I suppose it¡¯s too much to ask that she was nice about it?¡±


    ¡°¡­No. Er, yes, too much to ask. She was mean.¡± Alice¡¯s face fell further; now I felt bad for piling this on top of what was probably already a very stressful time. ¡°My bad for bringing it up. I¡¯m fine, really.¡±


    ¡°Last time you said you were fine, Hina had just sexually assaulted you,¡± Alice pointed out, voice flat. Hina whimpered, and Alice shifted; she wasn¡¯t made of stone. ¡°Sorry, Hina. Uh¡ªI guess before I find out what dreadful things Yuuka said, we should first¡­she told me you two slept together last night. That, plus¡­¡®monsterfucker¡¯, plus that comparison¡ªit compels me to ask: what exactly is going on between you two? Are you¡­a couple?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re trying things out!¡±


    I glanced at Hina, relieved that she seemed to already have an answer ready.


    ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s¡ªwe¡¯re being responsible. Boundaries and all.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re not our mom!¡± Hina crossed her arms defiantly.


    Alice spread her hands in an ¡®I give up¡¯ motion.


    ¡°Couldn¡¯t stop you if I wanted. Use protection, mind the teeth, et cetera. Just wanted to stay up to date on what was happening under our roof.¡± The stiff lashing of her tail betrayed her true feelings, but she didn¡¯t press the issue, instead looking at me as though facing the gallows. ¡°So, lay it on me: what did Yuuka say?¡±


    ¡ª


    ¡°She¡¯s grounded,¡± the dragon growled.


    Alice¡¯s expression had soured, then curdled into a snarl, as I repeated the nasty things Yuuka had said to me. It hadn¡¯t stopped her from slurping down bite after bite of ridged gnocchi coated in creamy, green sauce as she listened; her hunger at least bound her to the table and prevented her from stomping to the elevator and hunting down Yuuka herself, but the atmosphere was still a bit fraught. We were both exasperated; this felt a bit too much like a repeat of the song-and-dance I¡¯d had with Hina, although this time didn¡¯t seem bound for euphoric intimacy, which suited me fine.


    Hina, for her part, was emitting a faint but bone-chilling growl that had my heart pounding. It was nice to feel protected by something as wildly dangerous as her¡ªbut I was also genuinely concerned she¡¯d attempt to tear Yuuka limb from limb.


    ¡°Um, Hina?¡±


    ¡°Mm?¡± The way her voice sounded with the growl was worryingly attractive, arguably hotter than when she was purring. More investigation would be needed¡ªlater.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to, uh¡­kill her, are you?¡±


    ¡°Never! Just rough her up.¡±


    ¡°Hina, can it wait until after I talk to her?¡± Alice shoveled another bite into her mouth; I was learning it was possible to eat pasta angrily. ¡°As in, after you do your job. Which you have to get back to in twenty-six minutes.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯d only take ten!¡±


    ¡°Uh, you¡¯re not actually calling her off?¡±


    ¡°No. What she said was really hurtful to her too. Hina, please, you¡¯d just make things worse, you know that.¡±


    ¡°What? No, you guys, I love her to bits, she¡¯s done that for years, I¡¯m good! She just doesn¡¯t get to corner Ez and be a bitch like that. Not if I¡¯m not there.¡±


    ¡°So you¡¯ll wait?¡±


    ¡°Depends. Cutie?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t entirely opposed to Hina dispensing some physical retribution, assuming it would be the same degree of roughhousing I¡¯d seen the other day. Hadn¡¯t Ebi said Yuuka wouldn¡¯t have wanted to miss that? So maybe the violence was fine, but¡ª


    ¡°It¡­won¡¯t help. I don¡¯t think she respects¡­us. You or me.¡± I winced as Alice¡¯s aura of heat, until now suppressed for the sake of her bowl of pasta, momentarily flared in frustrated acknowledgement, and the creamy pesto dried up, desiccated to a powder on the gnocchi¡¯s surface. She frowned at the bowl and got up to add a bit of water back in. ¡°I just¡ªI talked with Ai, and that helped brush off some of what Heliotrope said, but other parts¡­¡±


    ¡°Which parts?¡± The growl vanished from Hina¡¯s voice. If she had dog ears, they would have perked up.


    ¡°The, um¡­last night, you said this was just a starting point. Is it? Or is¡­¡± I raised my scarred hand, hoping she¡¯d understand what I meant. ¡°Is it just this you care about?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t bring myself to ask directly, both for the embarrassment of asking and fear of the answer.


    ¡°What? Cutie, of course it¡¯s a start point, there¡¯s more to you than that. I don¡¯t call you that for nothing. You¡¯re cute! And hot.¡±


    ¡°¡­Really?¡±


    ¡°Do I lie? Alice, do I lie? Is that a thing I do?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not engaging with this part.¡± The dragon sat back down with her rescued pasta and kept eating.


    ¡°Fine. Cutie, yes, really. Your Flame is hot¡ªheh¡ªyour body¡¯s hot, and you¡¯re going to be so cool once you just¡­come out of your shell, get comfy around us, learn to use your Flame. And Yuuka¡¯s making that hard, which is¡­¡± She growled. ¡°She¡¯s just being shitty because of some old stuff with Jason; that¡¯s not really anything to do with you. Don¡¯t let her get under your skin. That¡¯s my job. I wanna open you up and bring out the best version of you I can, and that¡¯s not just because of your Flame, okay?¡±


    ¡°Um.¡± I shivered. ¡°Open me up?¡±


    Alice slapped the table softly in concert with her tail thumping the floor, reminding us she was there.


    ¡°Alright, too much flirting in front of me. I¡¯m glad you two are at least, er, talking, but keep it in the bedroom. I have to get to my next meeting. I¡¯ll try to give Yuuka a talking-to tonight.¡±


    She left her empty dishes where they were, hurrying toward the elevator, tail swaying behind her. As she left earshot, Hina looked at me mischievously.


    ¡°So you don¡¯t want me to fight her?¡±


    ¡°I mean¡­if you must, it¡¯s not like I can stop you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll be able to, eventually. I won¡¯t beat her up, though, because I¡¯d rather spend my energy convincing you I¡¯m actually into you. How¡¯s that sound, hm?¡± She leaned toward me, blinking those big blue eyes too innocently for the innuendo, then sighed. ¡°No time now, though, not for any real fun. I, too, have meetings. Ugh. But we do have time for¡ª¡± She reached into pocketspace, which made me have to squeeze my eyes shut and rub them. When I reopened them, she had a small red box, palm-sized and squat. ¡°This was for her, but I decree that she¡¯s lost the privilege this year for being mean. So you can have it!¡±


    ¡°Um. I¡¯m not following.¡±


    ¡°What day is it, cutie?¡±


    ¡°Monday?¡±


    She facepalmed, giggled, and then removed the box¡¯s lid to reveal a single chocolate shaped like a heart.


    ¡°February 14th! Happy Valentine¡¯s Day!¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.04

    Valentine¡¯s Day. A day I¡¯d basically never had any reason to care about, and especially not one I¡¯d expected to become relevant in the strange circumstances in which I found myself. My relationship with Hina was far too fresh for the day to really feel significant. We¡¯d just established we didn¡¯t love each other¡ªnot yet, as she¡¯d said, so this felt like jumping the gun a bit, yet here we were.


    The puppy proffered the box excitedly at me. I gingerly, hesitantly drew the heart-shaped chocolate from its foam cozy.


    ¡°Am I supposed to eat it now?¡±


    ¡°Go for it!¡±


    I bit off half. It tasted¡­like chocolate. I didn¡¯t have much in the way of a frame of reference; my culinary palette was generally diverse, but this was an exception. When was the last time I¡¯d even eaten chocolate? Before Dad had died? Bereft of comparisons, I did my best to evaluate it on its own terms: smooth and creamy, rich and sweet without overpowering the natural bitterness of the cacao¡ªI startled myself when I crunched into something at the core. Hazelnut, maybe? It went down well with the last of my iced tea.


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    ¡°Mhm! I get some for everybody every year. The girls, the Hikanome folks, Ogawa¡­every one of us in Japan!¡±


    ¡°Wait, what? As in, every flamebearer?¡±


    ¡°Yep!¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± So it wasn¡¯t a romantic thing; more obligatory? Or just an idiosyncrasy of hers. Nuance aside, the point was that I wasn¡¯t special for receiving this. ¡°Hold on, so this was Heliotrope¡¯s, not mine? Does she¡­accept them, normally?¡±


    ¡°Nope.¡±


    Figures. That sort of made me feel worse, knowing I was getting a gift that the original recipient wouldn¡¯t have accepted anyway. She saw how my face fell.


    ¡°Is it bad?¡±


    ¡°What? No, it¡¯s good.¡±


    ¡°You sure? Do you want more? I still have to give you yours, and I was gonna save that for tonight but if you don¡¯t like the hazelnut then I can just give you yours instead now.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªthat¡¯s not the problem.¡± I swallowed, feeling ungrateful. ¡°Every flamebearer.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Her face fell too. ¡°Cutie, it¡¯s not like that. It¡¯s just something I do for fun, I didn¡¯t think it¡¯d make you feel bad¡ªaha.¡± Her expression shifted, the hyena flickering across her features, fangs glinting behind her grin. She leaned closer to me, injecting a little purr into her voice. ¡°Want me to yourself, hm? Need me to make you feel special?¡±


    That pushed my buttons, hackles rising in fear, deviously taboo attraction like lightning in my stomach. I stammered.


    ¡°You¡¯re not¡ªthere¡¯s no obligation for you to¡ªI don¡¯t know if exclusivity is fair to request,¡± I eventually landed. ¡°You¡¯re¡­of course I want you, but I don¡¯t deserve¡ª¡±


    She shut me up by grabbing the front of my shirt and tugging me close, staring me down with those all-too-blue eyes.


    ¡°You¡¯re doing it again,¡± she growled, playful reprimand masking genuine challenge. ¡°You can have me to yourself, if that¡¯s what you want. But you¡¯ll have to prove it. Tonight.¡±


    While I was still paralyzed by the flutter in my belly, she plucked the remaining half of the chocolate from my fingers, popped it into her mouth, and vanished.


    ¡ª


    The unfortunate side effect of Hina¡¯s theatrics was that I was left alone with the remains of lunch, so it fell to me to clean up. Maybe that was some strange, oblique lesson from her, but it was more likely that she¡¯d just gotten too excited with the opportunity to push my buttons. Besides, she was indisputably busier than me, so it was with a lingering thrill rippling across my body and a flutter of nervous excitement for what tonight might entail that I set about washing the dishes.


    It didn¡¯t take long; Alice had cleaned up most of the detritus from the cooking by the time we¡¯d sat down to eat, and neither of us had left any gnocchi survivors. Rinsing the dishes revealed yet more conveniences and amenities compared to my old apartment, like the much larger sink and the faucet head that could be drawn out to direct the stream of water. Opulent by my standards; they probably gave it no thought.


    While wiping down the countertop, I realized¡ªI was being uncharacteristically industrious. Back home, I¡¯d sometimes let slightly-dirty-but-not-dirty-enough-to-be-gross dishes sit in the sink for a week or longer, but here I found it easy to power through doing all the dishes and was even going the extra mile to clean additional surfaces. How domestic; another thing I hadn¡¯t expected to be part of my fantasized life as a flamebearer.


    It was just because I felt guilty, I reasoned. I wanted to pull my weight, not feel like a burden, and it wasn¡¯t like I had anything better to do with my spare time compared to the busyness of the others. It did occur to me that such a massive living space and access to funds might warrant specialized cleaning staff, but surely one of the Radiances would have mentioned that by now. Maybe it was biweekly or something, or maybe they just used magic. As I worked, I thought about ways to magically automate the cleaning I was doing, more as a mental exercise than any real plan I intended to implement. It was a fun little exercise, one I¡¯d done before with chores at home, but now I had a whole new space to apply it to.


    With the kitchen eventually reclaimed from our culinary adventures, I was once again left with a lot of time and little to do with it. I could finish exploring the penthouse, or I could be brave and face the tell-tale heart beating within my laptop, the lattice diagram of the weapon we¡¯d made, but¡ªI didn¡¯t want to confront it, and I didn¡¯t actually have to. Avoidance was a valid strategy. So I went back to my room, popped open my laptop, squeezed my eyes shut, and killed the horrid thing with Alt+F4, a fittingly ignoble murder. With the demon vanquished, I plugged in the USB stick that Ai had given me and resumed my study of the magical cores of Amethyst¡¯s prosthetic limbs.


    This time, I focused less on the lattices themselves. I still didn¡¯t have enough confidence in the mechanical engineering aspect to make major changes to the structural glyphcraft without Ai¡¯s supervision, so I took a look at the other documents on the thumb drive. What leapt out to me most among various reference standards and previous versions was a PDF file: the classified report precisely detailing the actual nature and extent of Amane¡¯s injuries. It felt invasive to have that kind of thing available to read; I consulted our mutual medical staff.


    [Direct Message] ezzen: Ai gave me Amethyst¡¯s prosthetic files, including the physical assessment.


    ezzen: Is it fair to assume that she consented to that? Anything else I should know?


    The robot responded instantly, of course.


    ebi-furai: yeah, we sat down and talked about it when you came in


    ebi-furai: im the one who actually put that usb together, so everything on there is fair game


    ezzen: k good, thanks


    ebi-furai: as long as i have you: foot check


    ezzen: Nothing to report.


    ebi-furai: sick


    Ironically, getting permission to look at the file somewhat killed my work ethic for doing more Amane stuff at the moment. There¡¯d be more time later, and I kind of wanted to go through this stuff with Amane herself or Ai.


    For now, I returned to the main chatroom, rapidly scrolling through the conversations that had happened while I was asleep, feeling a bit glum as I saw how much I was missing out on. There was a silver lining¡ªa lot of the conversation was still about the Thunder Horse Inferno, and I was glad I didn¡¯t have to deflect the conversation and play dumb about my own horrific role in those events. They didn¡¯t have the full story, and I was growing more and more uncomfortable about the idea of keeping up the charade with these sorts of things.


    The discomfort persisted as I continued my rounds, trawling the top posts on the forums and refreshing YouTube. There was the new Overload video, uploaded barely ten minutes ago, a 28-minute timeline of the events of the inferno, from that first flamefall detection on the Vaetna¡¯s stream to the latest news an hour ago. I didn¡¯t need to watch it; I already knew what had really happened. That drop in air temperature, the stumbling corpse.


    As if summoned by cruel divinity, I received a DM just as I was about to keep scrolling.


    [Direct Message] OverloadTSS: hi ez sorry about the delay


    OverloadTSS: was finalizing the thunder horse video because holy shit


    Play it cool, Ez.


    ezzen: Just saw it go up!


    ezzen: ¡°Holy shit¡± is right


    ezzen: surprised you were able to get it out on time. long by your standards


    ezzen: Does that mean the Thursday video will be about me?


    OverloadTSS: yeah probably


    OverloadTSS: ill send over an actual questions list soon


    OverloadTSS: figure thats better for you than an AMA like we did in 2020 or whenever it was


    OverloadTSS: so dont feel obligated to answer anything, i wont include questions in the video that you dont answer


    OverloadTSS: what happened to you was scary as shit plus i imagine youve got some kind of NDA going with lighthouse


    Had an NDA been in the stack of paperwork I¡¯d signed? I was already working under the assumption that much of what I¡¯d learned about Todai in the past few days was classified¡ªnot least the monstrous act we¡¯d committed yesterday¡ªbut I would need to ask Alice what exactly I was allowed to disclose about my research and general situation going forward. Which turned a friendly Q&A session¡ªsomething I¡¯d had fun with before¡ªinto work that required me to go ask somebody something before I could do it. For bonus stress, there were the potentially incredibly dire consequences of leaking the wrong information.


    It all sucked, but I couldn¡¯t risk talking about it.


    ezzen: Thanks, OL.


    ezzen: I¡¯m doing okay, just a lot of paperwork and still healing ofc.


    ezzen: I¡¯ll figure out what I¡¯m allowed to say once I¡¯ve got those questions in front of me.


    OverloadTSS: hell yeah


    OverloadTSS: yeah you havent been on as much the last couple days obviously


    OverloadTSS: so no rush, ill get those questions to you soon (tomorrow?) and you can answer them when youve got time


    OverloadTSS: but for the short term, can you answer one question so i can do a three minute clickbait thing


    ezzen: Sure!


    Overload made his living on this kind of news, and I was usually happy to throw him a bone¡ªbut things were changing, and longer-reaching trepidation turned to faint but immediate panic as I read the question.


    OverloadTSS: you¡¯re on board with lighthouse? planning to stick around?


    This may have made me begin to spiral a little bit.


    I certainly wasn¡¯t on board with the murder¡ªtheir opportunistic, guerilla war with the PCTF¡ªeven if I agreed with their reasoning on paper. And what about Alice¡¯s efforts to educate me in mahou shoujo, as though assuming I¡¯d eventually become involved with the team as¡­a magical girl? To say nothing of Hina¡¯s own promise, even kept at bay by our agreement as she currently was. I had yet to discover what exactly she meant that I wouldn¡¯t be the first male Radiance.


    So there was a lot I wasn¡¯t on board with, yet they were the things I couldn¡¯t actually share with my friends or the wider community of the forums. Even with the best of intentions, like keeping Amane¡¯s history private, I¡¯d already had to lie to them more than I ever had before. So far, it had mostly been omission¡ªbut if I stuck around, how much further would that go?


    Which raised another question, one which kept being subsumed by more immediate worries: did I even have to stick around? Fleeing for the Gate still looked like a decent idea, especially with the additional mess Yuuka seemed intent on causing as long as I stuck around here. It was only a kilometer away, and the Spire was famously no-questions-asked¡­and it would reduce pressure on Todai by no longer having the PCTF set on coming for me. That was a terrifying prospect; for now, only in a surreal, dream-like way, but I was starting to wonder¡ªhow long did I have until that looming threat became tangible? Alice had said they¡¯d do something in the next couple days¡ªwould that be a diplomatic overture or another entire abduction attempt? The rumors of what happened to noncompliant flamebearers in PCTF custody were horrifyingly true¡ªthe last few days had proven that beyond doubt¡ªand I really didn¡¯t want to find out how far either party was willing to escalate, if plausibly deniable artillery strikes from the other side of the planet were Todai¡¯s baseline. I felt sick.


    But Overload¡¯s question needed some kind of answer.


    ezzen: There¡¯s a lot of research opportunities, for sure. I¡¯m actually already collaborating with Emerald, and of course there¡¯s still the matter of my foot.


    ezzen: The chains that drive their mantles are fascinating, and while I¡¯m fairly sure I can¡¯t reveal any of the technical details, that alone is a strong incentive for me to work with them further.


    OverloadTSS: cool cool


    OverloadTSS: ok thanks


    OverloadTSS: will draft up those questions, get back to me whenever


    Having acquired his nugget of information, he bid me farewell. I was rattled and went to the one person I knew who bridged the high-stakes world of flamebearers and the familiar box on my computer full of my friends. He might not be awake, but¡ª


    [Direct Message] ezzen: Sky, how the fuck do I not feel like I¡¯m lying constantly to you all? Todai was more involved in the inferno than anybody publicly knows and I¡¯m literally sick to my fucking stomach at trying to maintain the charade and play dumb given what we did. I¡¯m going out on a limb here and assuming that you either already know or can guess what I¡¯m talking about. Overload¡¯s next video is going to be about my situation but there¡¯s so much I can¡¯t say. How do I handle this?


    ¡ª


    Sky didn¡¯t reply. Maybe asleep, maybe not, but either way, I was left to stew in those thoughts all afternoon, trying to distract myself with banter and less upsetting videos as the winter sun fell below the skyscrapers and cast its last few fingers of orange light through their gaps. In the middle of my descent down a YouTube rabbit hole about aerospace alloy manufacturing, Ebi notified me that my PC parts had arrived.


    The receipt process was handled by others; I just watched it happen from the doorway to my room. A pair of Todai employees brought the various heavy boxes out of the 20th floor elevator, and Amane, in human form, intercepted them and signed for the delivery, sounding surprisingly bubbly as she chatted with the two. The moment they were gone, she mantled up with a snap, gathered up all the boxes into one giant pile in her massive arms, and carried them across the common space to me with no apparent effort. She set down the pile, pushed it through the doorway, dropped mantle with a warbling hiss so she herself could fit, then looked at me.


    ¡°May I come in?¡± She asked in slow, halting English. Ebi was there, but conspicuously remained off to the side.


    ¡°Um, yes.¡± I was grateful she¡¯d asked. Hina never did, and Alice had something of a bad track record even if she obviously cared more, which had led to my room not feeling particularly private. I also wanted to thank her for handling the pick-up, but I wasn¡¯t sure how much of that she¡¯d get.


    Amethyst nodded, re-mantled, and I got out of the way so she could haphazardly push the various boxes fully into my bedroom. Her mantle¡¯s brute strength was a boon. I glanced at Ebi, who had stayed out in the common room.


    ¡°Um. Are you not coming in?¡±


    ¡°Nope. She wants this one-on-one. I¡¯ll be out here if something happens.¡±


    My anxiety spiked a little at that. I¡¯d kind of assumed that Ebi would be providing interpretation, but without her¡ªI imagined hours of sitting together awkwardly, unable to bring up any kind of idle conversation topic, let alone articulate the more specific questions I had about Yuuka.


    For the moment, at least, we busied ourselves with the task of unboxing. Amethyst provided the various tools for the task, plucked from her pocketspace and proffered to me without a word: box cutter, screwdrivers, anti-static bracelets, and so on. She herself didn¡¯t need any sort of blade to slice through tape and cardboard, though; a finger flowed into a razor blade and made short work of any packaging that wound up before it. Our cooperation was wordless and intuitive, breaking down boxes, piling up styrofoam, collecting disinterred computer components in front of the desk. I jumped as she pressed a sheet of bubble wrap between her gemstone hands, making the plastic cry out in a hail of pops. She giggled, and I mustered an awkward chuckle to go with it.


    My awkwardness got worse as we cleared away the detritus and were left with just the parts. This was my first chance to actually take stock of what Ebi had purchased for me, and what I could see was almost embarrassingly high-end; no actual magitech, but the enormously beefy GPU next to what were definitely water cooling tubes had me on edge. I¡¯d never built a liquid-cooled computer before, and my first time would be with such expensive components¡ªa leak would be catastrophic! I had hoped that building my new PC would be a familiar activity that brought some stability back into my life, but now I was horribly stressed.


    And I couldn¡¯t communicate any of that to Amethyst. I drew my phone in what I hoped was a surreptitious way.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    [Direct Message] ezzen: Please help me talk to her.


    ebi-furai: just talk to her, dude


    ezzen: HOW?


    ebi-furai: her en comprehension is pretty good


    ebi-furai: or just like use some translation apps, there are lots


    Oh. I¡¯d been hung up on the idea that we needed to have an out-loud, verbal conversation¡ªbut I was always more comfortable in text anyway, wasn¡¯t I? I navigated to Google Translate, typed something in, and showed the mech-girl my phone, hoping the app hadn¡¯t mangled it too much.


    Ezzen: Could we talk like this?


    The spike-faced girl didn¡¯t lean in to look at the comparatively tiny phone screen. I was in the chair at the desk, and she was on the floor, but she was so tall that her head was still at the height of my shoulders, a decent height for me to show her the screen. She summoned her own phone, ensconced in its sticker-bombed case, and carefully but skillfully typed a response with her long, knife-like fingers. It was too small for her massive hands, but she evidently had practice. When she held it up to show me what she¡¯d written, it was in an app I didn¡¯t recognize.


    Amane: Use DeepL instead. The translation quality is a bit better.


    Amane: You can say it out loud, though. I live with four English speakers.


    ¡°Do they speak English even when I¡¯m not around?¡±


    I hesitantly used my voice as she asked, going slow and doing my best to enunciate.


    Amane: Hina and Alice.


    Doing it this way was actually slower than just typing it in, so I went back to my phone.


    Ezzen: It¡¯s more comfortable for me this way, if that¡¯s okay with you?


    ¡°Okay!¡±


    I jumped, not expecting the verbal response in her chiming, sing-song tones.


    Ezzen: Have you built a PC before?


    Amane: I¡¯m a gamer `???¡ä -?


    She looked at me expectantly, as though that were all the explanation that was necessary.


    Ezzen: Cool!


    I immediately kicked myself for the meaninglessness of the response, and the fact that the exclamation point wasn¡¯t reflected in my actual facial expression. She didn¡¯t seem to mind.


    Amane: It looks like you¡¯re also a gamer, judging by what the shrimp got for you.


    Amane: shrimp = Ebi chan


    Adorable.


    Ezzen: Actually, not very much. My hand makes it hard to use a mouse quickly.


    Ezzen: I spend most of my time on GWalk and YouTube.


    Well, spent, since things had changed. But once this computer was put together, maybe there wouldn¡¯t be much difference from how things used to be. That thought was comforting amid the tumult of the last few days, so I set the phone down and moved to get better access to the open case, then realized that it probably made more sense to start with the motherboard and hunted around for that. Amane seemed to read my thoughts and handed it to me. She was wearing a static bracelet on her crystalline wrist¡ªI eyed it, and she made a twinkling noise, a chuckle, and typed into her phone.


    Amane: The bracelet doesn¡¯t do anything.


    I appreciated the thought, at least. I located the RAM sticks¡ªa full set of four, each as powerful as the entire memory of my old PC at 16GB apiece¡ªand carefully clicked them into their slots on the motherboard. Then it was onto the CPU, which I carefully removed from the remainder of its protective packaging while trying not to gag at the price tag, then placed gently into its grid of receiving holes and locked it down with the little lever. Those were the easy parts.


    Things got harder from here as we encountered one of my old enemies: little, tiny screws. Beyond the exceptionally poor luck of being one of the first people to ever lose a loved one to the Flame, I¡¯d also gotten the twisted bonus that the mobility in my right hand¡ªthat is to say, my dominant hand¡ªhad never fully recovered. So I used screwdrivers and other such implements with my left hand, and it was slow going. The PC¡¯s external case screws were easy enough, but one look at the little screws for mounting the motherboard inside, nestled deep into crevasses between protruding heat sinks and I/O pin grids, had me dreading the whole procedure. The last time I had done this had been a slow, frustrating process where I¡¯d repeatedly lost the little things inside the hollow spaces of the PC case.


    On the bright side, the screwdriver Amane provided me had a magnetized tip. Was that a problem for computer parts? Probably not; she wouldn¡¯t have given it to me otherwise, right? Also, what about the water cooling unit for the CPU? Did that go on now? It¡¯d create more obstacles to getting those tiny screws in place¡ª


    I felt myself getting a little overwhelmed and glanced nervously at the Amethyst Radiance¡ªshe was pointing her phone at me.


    Amane: If you have problems with your hands, try to use glyphs.


    I hadn¡¯t even thought of that as an option.


    ¡°But¡­isn¡¯t high ripple bad for you?¡±


    Amane: There¡¯s no problem in small amounts, not while it¡¯s transformed.


    ¡°It?¡±


    She made a crackling noise of annoyance as she shook her massive, spike-snouted head and typed something else into her undersized phone.


    Amane: While I am in my transformation form.


    ¡°Ah.¡±


    I stood, weaving my way around piles of discarded packaging to reach the bookcase, and grabbed a notebook that I knew had spare pages. One somewhat-undignified shimmy across my bed later, I also had a pencil from my backpack. I flipped to a blank page and began to draw.


    Two minutes later, I showed Amane the chain. It was elementary, first-order, dealing entirely in simple physical operations; trivial, in the technical sense of the word, as it didn¡¯t even need to double back on itself anywhere. She nodded in approval and made no comment, so I called forth my Flame, holding my arm well away from anything that might ignite. I whispered an apology to it that I was aggravating it and wondered briefly about how I could feed it something other than pain¡ªa conversation I wasn¡¯t sure I could have with Amane, even with the artificial bridge we¡¯d constructed across the language barrier. So for now, I just poked and twisted and formed it into my poor excuse for thread, and then fed the Flame along the lattice.


    As weaving went, this was straightforward, no particular tricks necessary to ensure correct tension or manipulate the Flame at micro scales. When I was done, I was left with what was basically an invisible manipulator arm hooked up to a sensor, preprogrammed to apply a twisting motion to particular target areas. I placed the motherboard in its position inside the case, ensuring the screw holes lined up, and then dumped the little bag of appropriate screws onto the paper atop the {IDENTIFY}-{DIRECT} portion of the chain. The screws never hit the paper, instead stopping in the air, and I watched with excitement as they all aligned to face downward and floated over to the case, descending into their appropriate holes and turning themselves into place. So mundane, no flickers of light or confusing violations of one¡¯s intuitions for space and motion, yet so magical all the same. I used my phone¡¯s flashlight to confirm that the screws had properly fastened themselves into place.


    Amane tapped my knee to get my attention.


    Amane: It never gets boring, does it?


    ¡°I hope it never does.¡±


    ¡ª


    Between YouTube tutorials on my laptop and our combined magical ingenuity, we made steady progress. A simple chain to thread the cables of the power supply to the other components; a video elucidating the difference between open- and closed-loop water cooling systems; zip ties to keep everything neat and tidy. And I slowly broke the ice, first by simply coordinating our procedure for the building process, then hesitantly drifting toward the larger-scale worries looming over me.


    Ezzen: So you have time for this even though it¡¯s a weekday? All the others seem to be busy.


    Amane: The expectations are lower for me than for my teammates.


    Stupid Ez. Of course that¡¯d be something of a touchy subject for her. I fretted about how to salvage the conversation while I wrestled with the tiny pins and wires connecting the motherboard to the case¡¯s external buttons. I still didn¡¯t want to intrude on her medical privacy¡ªmaybe moot now that Ebi had sent me the definitive report, but I¡¯d had my own share of being seen as a medical case first and a person second. I couldn¡¯t imagine how much worse that was for her.


    Ezzen: Is that because of your injuries themselves or the pain?


    Amane: Depends on the weather.


    Ezzen: ¡°Weather¡± = local ripple?


    She nodded and hummed, a digital-sounding, too-pure piezoelectric tone.


    Amane: Good days and bad days. Does your hand or foot hurt more when there¡¯s red?


    Ezzen: I don¡¯t know. Using my Flame does hurt. Do you use pain for your magic? Ai singled out Hina and Heliotrope as the ones who use pain for their Flames, so I assume you don¡¯t?


    Amane: I don¡¯t use it. Because it¡¯s not right.


    More like Alice than Hina, then. I wondered why Heliotrope also used pain if she was generally pro-Amane and anti-Hina.


    Ezzen: Not mahou shoujo?


    Amane: That¡¯s right. I understand why the others use it, because it¡¯s important to be powerful, but I am not only my pain.


    She rubbed her right arm with her left, a shockingly familiar motion. In her real body, that would be her prosthetic, as opposed to my burns, but the sentiment was the same¡ªwas ¡°real body¡± an offensive way of putting it, given how she seemed to prioritize this form instead? I¡¯d have to ask at some point.


    Ezzen: Not made of glass, right.


    Ezzen: I don¡¯t like magic based on pain either.


    Amane: But you had sex with Hina.


    Oh no. Yesterday, she¡¯d expressed some fairly harsh disapproval of Hina¡¯s lighthearted approach to pain¡ªlike Yuuka, would she assume the worst of me by association? But she was shaking her head.


    Amane: That was supposed to be a joke. Text is difficult.


    I gave her a sympathetic nod. Tone over text was tricky enough without the strange filtering effects of a translation program. At least in this odd, hybrid form of communication, I had facial expressions to back me up¡ªbut she didn¡¯t. What was with that spike-face?


    Ezzen: (I just want to clarify that it wasn¡¯t sex)


    Amane: Understood!


    Amane: I don¡¯t want to judge, but Yuuka is troubled.


    Ezzen: ¡°Troubled¡± is understating it a bit, don¡¯t you think?


    I mustered an awkward smile to accompany that, hoping the light tone came through. She gave me a thumbs up with one of her massive, gemstone hands.


    Ezzen: Ai told me to ask you what to do about it.


    Amane: I¡¯ll tell her to be nice. As nice as Yuuka can be.


    Now that second part was definitely a joke, but one attached to genuine goodwill.


    Amane: I¡¯m not surprised she¡¯s being a problem. It¡¯s not your fault. We¡¯ll make her tolerate you for now, but I hope you two can become friends.


    Ezzen: Friends? She¡¯s so mean.


    With the ice breaking a bit, that felt safe to say.


    Amane: She¡¯s basically a good person. And so are you.


    Was that true? What could one say to that?


    ¡°¡­Thank you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡±


    I blinked at the accented English.


    Amane: Please give me the GPU and water cooler.


    I obliged, now doubly off-kilter at the topic change. Then, to my shock and concern, she dropped out of her mantle, the towering mass of flowing purple gemstone squeezing itself before dissolving into the air in a fraction of a second, leaving just Amane¡¯s real body. And her prosthetics, of course¡ªthe static bracelet dangled from her artificial wrist, now too large. She still had the eyepatch I¡¯d seen when we¡¯d first met, and like then, it took a few seconds to flicker to life and sync up with her true eye, mirroring the vivid green. Not supernaturally intense the way Hina¡¯s eyes were, but pretty nonetheless. Her black hair fell in a straight, glossy curtain over her shoulders and down her back.


    Amane: Your situation is bad.


    Her mechanical hand worked swiftly and precisely to free the GPU¡¯s pre-installed fans from its back plate as she cradled the device in her lap. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, but I was still nervous; she was splitting her attention between the task and talking to me, and I felt that the thousand-dollar graphics card deserved a bit more reverence and care.


    Her flesh hand had visible tremors as it continued typing on her phone, but it wasn¡¯t enough to overcome the practiced ease and confidence in the motions. It helped that whatever keyboard she was using only seemed to have a few keys with Japanese characters, not a full QWERTY layout, so each key was bigger.


    Ezzen: Yeah.


    I was hesitant to add more of my own opinions until I knew where she was going with this. She stopped working the screwdriver for a moment and looked at me seriously as she presented the next message.


    Amane: I think you shouldn¡¯t have to fight the PCTF.


    That didn¡¯t mesh with her teammates¡¯ vitriol.


    Ezzen: I thought you hated them?


    Amane: No. My teammates hate them for me. I think the PCTF are evil, and killing them is part of the duty of real magical girls. But it is not revenge, and we should not have made you help us. It¡¯s not your duty because you¡¯re not part of the team. I¡¯m sorry.


    Ezzen: Sorry it happened, or sorry that I¡¯m not part of the team?


    Amane: The first. I don¡¯t understand why the others want you to join and help with our war.


    Thank fuck. An incredible weight came off my chest¡ªshe didn¡¯t want me to be an accomplice to further murder. And she didn¡¯t want me to join up as a magical girl. Even aside from the others¡¯ especially egregious expectations, it seemed like they all wanted things from me, be it my expertise or my Flame. Even Ai, for all her kindness, was very interested in what I could do for Amane¡ªbut Amane herself had no demands or quid pro quo for me at all, no interest in even subtle leverage; I was starting to see why she¡¯d insisted that I be allowed to choose whether I was going to the Hikanome event, and I was grateful.


    She did something strange with her prosthetic hand, a twist of her wrist and wiggle of her fingers that almost made the static bracelet fall off, and we both winced slightly as a pulse of pain blossomed in my foot. She laughed softly even though her voice was tight.


    Amane: Bad weather, right?


    She¡¯d activated the {AFFIX} binding in her arm and locked the water cooler against the GPU¡¯s back plate so she could keep them aligned as she put the screws in: one of the cutting-edge accessibility features of a LIPS-compliant prosthetic. I¡¯d seen it in the lattice diagram, but it was quite another thing to witness in action. Magic was still magical. She continued typing with her other hand as she worked.


    Amane: There are more reasons that the others want to have you here, and I¡¯m annoyed that they¡¯re not telling you. Alice especially.


    ¡°Alice? With what?¡±


    Amane: Her tail. Her dragon transformation. Dragon»¯


    ¡°Dragon-ka,¡± she said out loud, answering my question before I had the chance to ask it. With the screws now in place, she set down the screwdriver and her phone to lean over the case and slot the modified GPU into place with a satisfying click. If her chronic pain was bothering her, she did a good job of hiding it. I waited until she was done to show her my phone.


    Ezzen: Like, something to make her more comfortable? The tail does seem like it gets in the way.


    Amane: Something to stop it.


    Ezzen: It¡¯s still going on?


    Amane: Yes. It gets worse whenever she uses magic. Tail lengthens and eyes change. Maybe more if it continues.


    Amane: She didn¡¯t tell you because she pretends it isn¡¯t happening, but it¡¯s getting worse, and we don¡¯t know how to stop it.


    ¡°Jesus.¡± That was dire enough¡ªand interesting enough¡ªthat I immediately started speculating.


    Ezzen: Any use of magic? How much ripple?


    Amane: 20-silver-like or above. Yuuka knows when it will happen and stops her. But it¡¯s only a delaying tactic.


    We both grimaced¡ªthough that belied the full intensity of discomfort I was feeling from this revelation. Hadn¡¯t Ai called Alice selfish? Was this why? I remembered what she¡¯d said on the car ride to Tochou: I live with it. And I remembered the tightness in her voice. The familiar bottled-up frustration.


    Amane: I don¡¯t like that she¡¯s keeping it a secret and pretending it¡¯s not one of the reasons she¡¯s trying to keep you here.


    Ezzen: And she didn¡¯t tell me because she¡¯s worried about putting even more pressure on me?


    Amane: Yes. It feels like putting even more pressure on you because your situation is so fucked up.


    Ezzen: I¡¯ll help. Thanks for telling me.


    Amane: You don¡¯t owe us.


    Ezzen: I know! It¡¯s not about debt, but a chance to do something good.


    I understood Alice¡¯s reasoning, because I was under a lot of pressure, but I agreed¡ªI wished she¡¯d opened with this when making her original pitch to me. At the time, she¡¯d focused on the appeal of learning more about the Spire¡¯s dermis via the Radiances¡¯ mantles, and that had been enough to hook me, before I¡¯d understood the nature of their war with the PCTF. Now I wasn¡¯t so sure, since that same track of research would be open to me sans the looming conflict at the Spire¡ªbut this? I wanted to help her with this. It was exactly the sort of thing that called to me: directly improving somebody¡¯s quality of life by solving unsolvable magical problems. Well, biomancy was famously difficult, as well as outside my typical wheelhouse, but that was now surmountable with actual Flame at my disposal.


    Amane: Okay. Thank you.


    I gave her a lame little thumbs-up.


    Ezzen: I¡¯m curious: what Japanese word translates to ¡°fucked up?¡±


    Amane: ¥ä¥Ð¤¤ I think. But I wrote it. Yuuka and Hina taught me lots of dirty words.


    She grinned, a warm smile reminiscent of Ai¡¯s, but with a little more impishness to it. It was broken by a wince, and she rubbed her arm again.


    Amane: Rebound from red. I¡¯m alright.


    I thought that binding didn¡¯t pass her threshold of ripple for pain; that was the impression I¡¯d gotten from her file, at least. She shook it off quickly.


    Ezzen: ¡°Bad weather¡±?


    ¡°Yeah.¡± She checked the power supply¡¯s cables, making sure all the components were hooked up, tracing across each thick bundle with a segmented finger. Her prosthetic arm was almost doll-like, with visible articulation at the joints and smooth paneling, a very different look from the flowing, glossy facets of her mantle, a seemingly intentional but distinct sort of artifice. I racked my brain to compare the arm to Ebi¡¯s; I¡¯d need to see them side-by-side to compare the details, but they were certainly both Ai¡¯s handiwork. She caught me looking.


    Amane: What do you think?


    Ezzen: It¡¯s incredible. Thank you for letting me work on it.


    She nodded, and her eyes flicked over to my scarred forearm. Would I rather have lost my arm entirely, with a prosthetic of that quality in its place? Then again¡ªI did have a prosthetic now, tucked under my crossed legs. I extracted my legs to half-bend it in front of me, looking at the block of false toes. She brought out her own leg from where it was tucked under her and pulled off the sock to compare. Of course, her leg was entirely replaced below the knee, where I¡¯d only lost the front half of the foot itself, so hers was much fancier, but she seemed interested in mine.


    Neither of us commented on it, though. In hindsight, I think we were both wary of bringing up the other¡¯s traumatic experiences. We fell back into mostly silence and kept working in sync. While she put in the NVMe SSD, I got up and collected more packaging detritus from around us: broken-down cardboard boxes, plastic wrapping, and styrofoam padding were all sorted into piles at her direction. I didn¡¯t know how recycling worked around here, but she was being fastidious about keeping everything separate, so I trusted her judgment.


    The PC was coming together. The full setup was still far from complete, but all the essentials of the box itself were in, and as I hooked up the I/O pins for the power button itself, trepidation began to build. I didn¡¯t know enough about water cooling to check Amane¡¯s work, but she¡¯d done this before, so I tried to trust her judgment and console myself by thinking it through. In the worst case scenario where a tube burst and irreversibly destroyed all the internals, what would really be lost? I¡¯d be out three thousand dollars of parts, which was a mind-boggling amount of money for a PC by my standards¡ªI had to repeatedly remind myself that Todai wouldn¡¯t even blink at paying that out-of-pocket. And then it¡¯d be another one-day delivery, or maybe two days, but either way, it wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d be stranded without a home base for another two weeks while waiting for a new power supply or something. It would be okay; I¡¯d be okay. Only two more days at most of this room feeling alien and transitory rather than like home. Hopefully, only a few more minutes.


    While Amane used her mechanical hand¡¯s miraculous dexterity to hook up the final few hard-to-reach pins, I wrestled one of the displays out of its box and onto the desk. Todai had gotten me three, complete with swing-arm wall mounts if I so desired, but we only needed one for this, and for the moment I didn¡¯t even bother with managing the cables as I plugged it into power and ran the HDMI cable to the computer¡¯s graphics card. We left the case open and on its side, since the first boot was always a bit fraught, and there was no point in closing the whole thing up and putting it in position if we¡¯d need to immediately take it apart again to troubleshoot. I didn¡¯t even bother with the keyboard or mouse yet, either; I just wanted to see if the power button would get us to BIOS or UEFI or whatever initial startup interface would indicate we¡¯d averted catastrophic failure.


    I plugged in the power supply, hit the switch on the back, and got our first sign of life¡ªa single white indicator light on the motherboard, shining out of the metal-and-silicon cave. A good start, but the real test lay with the power button. Amane gestured grandly at the box, wordlessly but clearly insisting I did the honors. I indulged her by reaching over and pressing the button¡ª


    And was rewarded by glorious light and motion. The external case fans spun to life, followed a moment later by the softer sound of the water cooling pumps. No leaks! I caught Amane¡¯s fist-pump out of the corner of my eye, but my eyes were locked on the monitor as it sprang to life, displaying familiar startup symbols that transitioned into a simple menu for configuration. Good job, us. I flopped backward onto the bed, enjoying the feeling of success, even if the stakes were admittedly low. I was home. Even if I wasn¡¯t staying here permanently, at least now I could operate from here as I used to.


    We celebrated with a break, retreating from the hardwood onto the softness of my bed. Amane called Ebi to get us some snacks and drinks, which turned into some playful banter. When the robot arrived and handed off our refreshments¡ªjuice and nuts, rather health-conscious¡ªshe crouched down in front of the PC, her simpler cousin.


    ¡°Good work, little dude.¡±


    She gave it an affectionate pat. Then she turned and subjected Amane to what I could tell was a familiar routine of questions like ¡°how is your pain?¡± and some more direct inspections from which I averted my eyes. Satisfied with her charge¡¯s health, she turned to leave, but was caught by the hand, prosthetic to android. Ebi hesitantly returned to sit at Amane¡¯s other side from me. The two of them discussed something briefly, then Amane turned back to me, looking a little apologetic. Ebi spoke for her.


    ¡°Do you want to talk about going to the Hikanome rally?¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.05

    Did I want to go to the Hikanome rally? Not particularly. But it was worth discussing.


    ¡°You should go,¡± Ebi opined. Her voice sounded quite distinct from when she was interpreting for Amane, drier and deeper in timbre. ¡°We¡¯ll be a little bit fucked if you don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°How fucked? Uh¡ªno, stupid question, fucked enough that I should just go, right?¡±


    Amane sipped her juice slowly and carefully through a metal straw, holding the cup in her prosthetic hand.


    ¡°Let¡¯s walk it back a little bit.¡± Ebi¡¯s real-time interpretation for Amane was much less stilted and more articulate than the texting. ¡°Talk us through what you¡¯re worried about. I don¡¯t want you to feel like you¡¯re being pushed into this, but I think you¡¯re underestimating how much we can do to make this safe and painless for you.¡±


    ¡°Safe and painless¡­¡±


    I looked around my room, at the bed and the skyline through the windows and the newly online computer. The water-cooling system which Amane had helped install buzzed dully, probably the pump¡ªa different auditory character from what I was used to, but not unpleasant. Her assistance had cut down the difficulty of the build dramatically, smoothing over that most nerve-wrackingly unfamiliar part and saving me hours of time, and I was grateful. Despite the language barrier, she was quickly becoming among the most comfortable of them to be around¡ªand more importantly, I believed her when she said they¡¯d be able to keep me safe.


    ¡­If not for the uncertainty around my stalker. I had to admit that my recalcitrance about the rally heavily stemmed from that fact, and probably looked pretty unaccountable without being aware of it¡ªit was solely by the team¡¯s general graciousness that I wasn¡¯t being pressed harder. Attempting to bring the encounter up to Yuuka had been a complete and total failure, and Alice was off the table as per Hina¡¯s anxious insistence. But Amane had advocated for me¡ªso she at least deserved to understand that I wasn¡¯t just being generally agoraphobic and anxious. I sighed, avoiding eye contact.


    ¡°I do have another reason I don¡¯t want to go. Can you¡­promise to not tell Alice? Hina doesn¡¯t want her to know.¡± I knew that sounded unreasonable.


    ¡°I thought we already established that I don¡¯t like hiding things from my teammates.¡± Ebi-Amane¡¯s tone was light, though, and the Amethyst Radiance looked intrigued¡ªthen squinted in dramatic suspicion, muttering something to Ebi, who rolled her digital eyes and shook her head, replying in her own voice.


    ¡°She promises. So do I. Do tell.¡±


    ¡°Alright, uh. When I was out with Hina yesterday¡ªwell, rather, between after I left Tochou and before meeting with Hina, I saw¡­something.¡±


    I recounted the event and my stalker¡¯s description, the goth-ish woman who was apparently not Yuuka. Amane¡¯s eyes widened, and she rubbed her robotic arm again¡ªbut shook her head with disappointment when she couldn¡¯t provide an ID. Her green eyes flicked up to mine, then she leaned back and looked away from me, considering this. Ebi didn¡¯t show any outward response until she translated for Amane once more.


    ¡°It¡¯s not Hikanome, as far as the rally is concerned. It could be the Sugawara loyalists, the other Hikanome, but that¡¯s not how they do things. The physical description doesn¡¯t resemble any of the other flamebearers in Japan.¡± Ebi¡¯s voice changed to give her own take. ¡°And I¡¯m running a general sweep of all flamebearers and not coming up with much that would click with that description. You said she sounded Japanese?¡±


    ¡°Or Korean, or Chinese,¡± I admitted. ¡°Sorry, not very good with Asian, uh, phenotype¡ªaccents, faces¡ªnot a racism thing, I swear, just¡ª¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re good, man.¡± Ebi shrugged. ¡°Not a Hikanome flamebearer, and I have no idea why one of Korea or China¡¯s ops would be plainclothes and cloaked if they were scouting you. Well, cloaked or projected or whatever. Amane¡ª¡± she conferred with the girl sitting between us, then looked up at me. ¡°Obviously, we gotta figure out who this is. But it¡¯s almost certainly not Hikanome, and it sounds recreational.¡±


    ¡°Recreational?¡±


    ¡°Well, like it wasn¡¯t somebody out to find you, and it was dumb chance. Or they were investigating ¡®Todai¡¯s new flamebearer¡¯ but didn¡¯t know that would be you specifically. My point is that this doesn¡¯t sound like a narrowly averted abduction attempt or anything.¡±


    ¡°Meaning¡­it won¡¯t be a problem if I go to the rally.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Ebi¡¯s voice switched back to faux-Amane as the Radiance kept talking.


    ¡°We¡¯d be able to confirm for sure if you went. If they are somehow affiliated with Hikanome, they¡¯ll likely either show up there¡ªand we¡¯ll deal with it then¡ªor it¡¯ll be unrelated and you have nothing to fear. Hina¡¯s nose didn¡¯t give you any other clues?¡±


    I was grateful to get back into the grit of the magic.


    ¡°She identified the vague ripple, red-white, and¡ªwell, remember yesterday¡¯s thing? With the gun?¡± I needed a moment to calm myself with a sip of juice and a pistachio, annoyed at the way my heart rate jumped even thinking about it. Amane nodded, clearly following along as I explained. ¡°The remote projection lattice we used is close to whatever the stalker was using, according to Hina.¡± Was ¡°stalker¡± even the right term anymore? ¡°Without actual scanning hardware, it¡¯s hard to do ripple tracking or anything. Hina said Yuuka could do that too, so I tried to talk to her about it earlier, which¡­¡±


    We all sighed. Yuuka¡¯s dislike of me was tangling this. Amane thought on it for a few moments.


    ¡°We¡¯ll work on Yuuka; she¡¯d probably be willing to help if somebody other than you or Hina explained it. So, is that it? Any other things you want us to address about the rally? I know it¡¯s a lot to ask, and if there¡¯s anything we can do to make it feel less overwhelming¡­¡±


    I resisted the urge to bring up how I didn¡¯t trust cults. From how the Radiances had spoken about Hikanome, that seemed likely to turn into an argument with Amane especially. I¡¯d ask Hina about it later, maybe. So other than that¡­


    ¡°Uh¡­¡± It was embarrassing to admit the emotional subtleties. ¡°Yesterday, I discovered that crowds stress me out, apparently. But I¡¯m not sure how much that¡¯s my anxiety about the stalker specifically versus just general¡­inexperience? Being outside?¡± I winced. ¡°But I know that¡¯s not really enough reason not to go, and I don¡¯t want to be even more of a burden when this is such a critical thing for the¡ª¡± I cut off my own rambling. ¡°It¡¯s not important. I¡¯ll go.¡±


    Amane shook her head.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be hasty. Let¡¯s talk it through, this is why I brought it up. You mean you feel unsafe, even aside from the ¡®stalker¡¯?¡±


    ¡°¡­I guess so, yeah.¡±


    She nodded knowingly.


    ¡°I get it. I never turn human when I¡¯m outdoors.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Her phrasing on that was weird. ¡°Like, you stay mantled?¡±


    ¡°Feel exposed without it. I mean, I have all sorts of wards in this,¡± she brandished her arm, ¡°but it still makes me nervous. We can get you some wards of your own, for sure. I¡¯ll help you with it tomorrow, probably, if the weather holds.¡±


    Somehow, despite the violent nature of the events that had brought me to Todai, I hadn¡¯t even considered passive means of magical defense. In retrospect, it immediately felt irresponsible of Alice and Hina to have taken me out without even mentioning it. The two must have been sure of their abilities to defend me from abduction, but if somebody had actually wanted me dead and deployed quick-kill magic to make it happen?


    The people I¡¯d murdered were a perfect example of how utterly vulnerable a standard human was to magic. The human body is a terribly squishy, frail thing¡ªand being a flamebearer didn¡¯t inherently make me any better protected, just a juicier target. Hina and her ilk, if they existed, were the probable exception, but even she wouldn¡¯t survive even something far lower-caliber than what we had used yesterday.


    My spear¡ªalready demoted back to toy status, little better than a safety blanket¡ªfell further in my estimation of its ability to seriously defend me. I wasn¡¯t Heung, whose onyx blade could sever ripple to cut spells from the air and who could walk astride the lightning. I needed wards, passive defenses that would at least buy me enough time to snapweave or activate more serious countermeasures. I was almost certainly fine within Lighthouse Tower, but outside? Amane had pinpointed my anxiety exactly.


    ¡°I¡ªyes, please, that¡¯d be great. Um, do the others have their own projectors, or¡­?¡±


    ¡°It depends. Alice has a¡­¡± Amane conferred with Ebi for a moment. The teal robot shrugged. ¡°She has a pretty standard personal ward kit. Sticks to the inside of whatever she¡¯s wearing, on her back.¡±


    All first-order, then, for a flat, ergonomic, two-dimensional form factor. Not as powerful as it could be with other choices of glyphs, but that was the sort of tradeoff you had to make. I ventured to guess at the others.


    ¡°Hina doesn¡¯t strike me as the type to bother with those at all?¡±


    Amane mustered an impressive scowl.


    ¡°Nope. She¡¯ll smell or hear it coming, or however that works, and then not dodge completely, just let it graze her, because it¡¯s fun.¡± I winced. She mastered her expression and continued. ¡°And Yuuka has what Alice does, but if she¡¯s ever in a position to get hit, shit¡¯s gone sideways, so it¡¯s a formality.¡± She stopped and glared at Ebi for that vulgar translation, and got a shit-eating digital grin in reply. The robot turned to me of her own accord to finish the set. ¡°And Ai has her tattoo binding. Which¡ªwait, we haven¡¯t told you about that yet.¡±


    ¡°Her what?¡±


    My phone buzzed; Ebi had sent me another zip file.


    ¡°Take a look at this once you¡¯ve got your gamer cave all nice and set up.¡± She looked down at Amane questioningly, who nodded. ¡°We¡¯ll stop interrogating you until that¡¯s done, I think. Ready to get back to it?¡±


    ¡ª


    Even with the PC itself ostensibly up and running, it still took another half hour to get the various peripherals and furniture set up. I was supplied with a worryingly expensive mechanical keyboard, paired with an ergonomic mouse; secondary and tertiary monitors, joining the primary one for a trio of swing-arm displays I could orient however I pleased; zip ties galore to contain the growing mess of cables. Ebi got under the desk to install those instead of making us frail, disabled humans do it. The warzone of spent packaging materials was tamed into neat piles organized by type, and what began to emerge in its place was an eye-wateringly expensive PC setup whose specs would probably give some of my friends a stroke.


    We chatted through the process; for instance, Amane filled me in on some of the specifics of Yuuka¡¯s cursed eye. Ebi had helped put her hair up in a ponytail as she had for Ai the other day. Amane¡¯s hair was comparatively longer and straighter, well-cared-for and jet-black.


    ¡°So it¡¯s more like one of Hina¡¯s mutations?¡±


    ¡°More willingly chosen than that. It was a blood magic deal.¡±


    ¡°Was it¡­worth it?¡±


    ¡°She thinks so,¡± Ebi put in for herself.


    I swallowed.


    ¡°Um¡ªthe fact that she doesn¡¯t like me, could that be¡­not so baseless? Like, could I do something nasty in the future that she¡¯s responding to now, and doesn¡¯t care for the difference?¡±


    Ebi shrugged, and Amane shook her head.


    ¡°It¡¯s not that precise. Her clarity is proportional with the ripple generated by an event, so it¡¯s minimal for mundane stuff and only really big for significant magical events. But yes, you¡¯ve read her character right, that kind of lack of distinction between present and future does sound like her.¡±


    ¡°And,¡± I was still trying to wrap my head around this part while I fiddled with the swing arms of the monitors, ¡°how does this not violate free will, exactly? If the silver ripple must always eventually be reflected in forward-facing standard-spectrum? Don¡¯t those become fixed points in time? Otherwise you¡¯re not accounting for time symmetry.¡±


    ¡°The fourth dimension doesn¡¯t make sense either,¡± Amane pointed out. I grimaced; magic had indeed poked a variety of holes in our understanding of physics, and the addition¡ªor discovery¡ªof a fourth spatial dimension was probably the biggest of those. ¡°I think they¡¯re connected.¡±


    ¡°My will feels free enough,¡± Ebi countered. ¡°And if I¡¯m fine, so are you guys, probably. Not that anybody knows for sure.¡±


    ¡°Other than the Vaetna,¡± I replied on reflex. Amane tossed a spent piece of bubble wrap onto the plastic pile. The Radiance was favoring her prostheses, unsurprisingly.


    ¡°Says who?¡± Ebi waggled her eyebrows. ¡°They don¡¯t know everything, Ez.¡±


    ¡°Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,¡± I needled.


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be a dick.¡±


    Amane giggled at that, picking up on the joking tone even without translation.


    ¡°Thanks for not pressing my beliefs about that,¡± I conceded, wary that this was a complicated subject, the sort of thing that routinely turned into huge arguments on the forums. ¡°I, um, tend to default to the Spire for this stuff. I¡¯m sort of¡­everything I¡¯ve seen from you in the past few days, I¡¯m just automatically referencing it against the Vaetna. No offense.¡±


    ¡°Completely understandable,¡± Amane replied through Ebi. I was surprised at how easily I¡¯d acclimated to the strange interpretation setup, where both people¡¯s voices were coming from the same mouth. Speaker, really, but whatever. ¡°It¡¯s pretty inevitable to compare. There¡¯s a lot we have in common. Power. Ability to make a difference.¡± Amane said something else in Japanese, which Ebi crossed her arms and apparently refused to translate. They bickered for a moment, and then my phone buzzed.


    ebi-furai: amethyst is making an effort to be nice right now, but she¡¯s a bit touchy about the spire


    ebi-furai: they didn¡¯t rescue her, ya know?


    That hadn¡¯t occurred to me, but I really didn¡¯t want to get into it and potentially ruin what had overall been an extremely pleasant evening with the worst possible intersection of our conflicting personal traumas and more broad-scale politics. I tried to change the topic.


    ¡°Um. I¡¯m trying to change the topic.¡±


    ¡°Smooth.¡±


    I shouldered past Ebi¡¯s needling and circled back to a bit of magic-related curiosity, an inquisitive itch that needed scratching.


    ¡°Uh. So, mantles.¡±


    ¡°Go on.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t make fun of me,¡± I muttered. ¡°Right, yeah. And¡ªwell, I haven¡¯t really taken the deep dive into your mantles¡¯ diagrams yet, so I¡¯m spitballing here¡ªthe ward bindings from earlier. The mantles themselves have those too, I assume? On top of being physically tough?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Ebi left the rest to Amane.


    ¡°Yes. Our transformations might be dermis-derived,¡± she said, catching on to my implicit comparison to the Vaetna, ¡°but that doesn¡¯t mean they¡¯re invincible. It¡¯s configurable, like everything else. So we can modulate power draw for wards, weapons, mobility, and sensory input; turn them up or down as we need to. It really is like piloting a mecha.¡±


    ¡°Thus your choice of¡­shape?¡± I ventured.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°So¡ªI¡¯m trying to get a picture of, uh, power levels. ¡®Not invincible¡¯ implies your transformations have taken real damage in combat before.¡± The same could not be said for the real thing, proper Vaetna dermis.


    She shrugged, rising from where she¡¯d been sitting on the floor to return to the edge of the bed. Ebi remained standing, but moved slightly to still hover just outside arm¡¯s reach of her charge. Amane carefully, gently, undid her ponytail, letting loose a wave of glossy black hair that cascaded down her shoulders.


    ¡°If we get hit hard enough, the mantle shuts down so the blue channels don¡¯t overload and set the whole thing ablaze. So, no, the dermis itself has never broken, but there are effective upper limits. And bad weather can disrupt the LM, too, like the other night. That¡¯s mostly just a problem for me, since I¡¯m more sensitive to red, but in theory, it can happen to any of us. That¡¯s why Yuuka is so valuable; she lets us know if we¡¯re taking a bad fight.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡± I mirrored Amane¡¯s shift in posture, at last sitting in the office chair I¡¯d been focused on setting up for the last ten minutes; I finally registered the soreness that had been building undetected in my lower back. Thankfully, the chair¡¯s plushness was such that I could sink my hips into it for relief. I appreciated that it wasn¡¯t one of those racing chairs; I wasn¡¯t really in that gamer demographic. ¡°So if I¡¯m understanding right: your mantles can just¡­fail, if the ripple conditions are bad enough? That seems like a liability.¡±


    ¡°Bad and specific. Your average inferno won¡¯t do it. And your average flamebearer wouldn¡¯t be able to put together exactly the right frequencies to make it work.¡±


    ¡°Could¡­the Hikanome ones?¡± That was my anxiety talking, more than anything, but there was also an academic hunger for knowledge.


    ¡°Hikanome? None of them are as good at the technical side as you or me. Well, the two auxiliaries are, but they¡¯re not fighters, it¡¯s all distributed. The whole appeal of the cult is that you get a greater and greater sliver of Flame as you rise in the ranks. But they¡¯re not dangerous anymore.¡±


    ¡°So this combat experience of yours is from¡­¡±


    Amane waved her mechanical hand in an ¡°I give up¡± motion.


    ¡°You want me to say ¡®from fighting the PCTF¡¯, which is somewhat true, but not as much as you¡¯d think. We didn¡¯t really start working on the mantles until after I came back and we got the flame donation. So a lot of that combat data is from the Blue Spark Incident, which was the first test run of the mantles, and then from some classified counterespionage stuff. Like I said, that¡¯s the kind of thing you don¡¯t have to touch, you don¡¯t have any duty there.¡±


    I digested that for a minute.


    ¡°Wait, so, if I have the timeline right: from the start, through the firestorms and the first few years, up through their, uh¡ªrescue of you?¡± I side-eyed Ebi, wondering if that was an acceptable term. Her digital face momentarily flickered into a thumbs-up emoji. ¡°All of that, you weren¡¯t using mantles?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not the right person to ask about that,¡± Amane pointed out. ¡°I wasn¡¯t there. But yes, in short. They used wards and other techniques.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. You wouldn¡¯t have been involved on account of the, uh¡­¡± I took a gamble on a joke. ¡°Kidnapping.¡±


    God, I was terrible at levity. I cringed. Amane didn¡¯t seem to mind, thankfully¡ªthough Ebi spiced her interpretation with a deadpan look.


    ¡°Mhm.¡± Amane nodded. ¡°Ask Ai. She¡¯s the clever one, and she still uses the old methods.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±


    Amane said something in Japanese which Ebi didn¡¯t translate. The cyborg poked the android in annoyance, who returned the poke and released a distinctly digital imitation of a sigh, clearly more fabricated than her usually flawless imitation of human voices. Her own voice, not Amane¡¯s, and especially autotuned, signaling¡­annoyance? Discomfort?


    ¡°Mantling really pushes Ai to her limits, magically speaking. The weave is sparser, because a lot of her Flame is tied up in¡­me. So if her mantle were to overload in the wrong way, and the lattice got shredded, it¡¯d snap back across her whole Flame, and it¡¯d be lights out for me.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°Holy shit.¡± I hadn¡¯t thought that through until now, but it made sense. ¡°So your life is¡ªcontingent on hers? And¡­oh, Christ, there¡¯s probably a range limit too, isn¡¯t there?¡±


    Ebi nodded slowly and seriously¡ªthen clapped her hands as if to banish the unsettling line of thought. She crossed all her fingers but the index ones and pointed at me in dual, spliced-together finger guns.


    ¡°So¡ªyou going on Saturday?¡±


    I gave her a flat look, but the topic change was warranted.


    ¡°What happened to not being hasty?¡±


    ¡°Eh, Amethyst¡¯s itching to talk you around, I can see it.¡±


    Amane reached out and flicked Ebi¡¯s waist plates with a tink, more reminiscent of ceramic than carbon fiber, and added a light verbal admonishment to go with it. Ebi raised her hands innocently.


    ¡°Hey, alright, yeesh. I¡¯m just a bit antsy for what might happen if we have to fight the Peacies over you without Hikanome¡¯s cover. Ai risks my life too when she goes out there.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªa good point. Fuck.¡± Another reason I should just go and stop waffling.


    Amane waved for interpretation, and Ebi¡¯s vocal timbre shifted.


    ¡°I wanted you to know that part as well, from Ebi herself. The others sometimes¡ªwell, they don¡¯t forget she¡¯s there, but she and I don¡¯t have as much¡­agency.¡±


    Ebi switched to her own voice and continued. ¡°So, that¡¯s the cards on the table on my end. I¡ªwe know it¡¯s a lot to lay on you, but that¡¯s the reality.¡±


    ¡°So I should go.¡± I rubbed my hand contemplatively, not quite resigned, weighing my options. There was an obvious alternative. ¡°Or¡ªI get out of your hair entirely, go to the Gate, right? Then I¡¯m safe from the PCTF, no fight to put you all at risk, they wouldn¡¯t dare bring it to the Spire. Hell, I could even come back here in the future, or collaborate on those projects remotely, just¡ªsit out the storm in the safest place, yeah? Until things move on and the Peacies get occupied with other stuff.¡±


    It was the most elegant option, free of political bullshit, safest for all.


    ¡°Not to undercut Ebi¡¯s concerns, but I think the danger isn¡¯t as great as you think,¡± Amane countered. ¡°Not yet.¡±


    For reply, I sat up in my chair and squinted in confusion at her prostheses¡ªalmost certainly impolite, but at that moment, I was genuinely baffled.


    ¡°The PCTF are¡­plenty dangerous. They kidnapped both of us. They¡­¡± I gestured vaguely at her prostheses, then mine.


    ¡°They did,¡± Amane acknowledged. ¡°But one thing at a time. The PCTF knows you¡¯re valuable,¡± Amane practically spat the word; Ebi imitated the tone of disgust. ¡°They¡¯ll apply a lot of diplomatic pressure and that could escalate. But they move slowly for things outside their territory, and Japan qualifies as such. They know better than to rush into fucking with us. They¡¯re not a problem yet.¡±


    ¡°What does ¡®yet¡¯ have to do with it? It¡¯ll still be a problem eventually; I could still head it off entirely by going to the Spire.¡±


    ¡°Hear me out, please. By contrast, Hikanome are the ones pressuring us now, and I want to show you that they are not a threat in the same way, not any more. They can be opposed to us, but if you go on Saturday, you will not be in danger.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s saying that because all the dangerous parts are six feet under or comatose,¡± Ebi added cheerfully. Amane glared at her, but she didn¡¯t shrink, returning the gaze insolently.


    ¡°Okay,¡± I began, trying to sort it out. ¡°So¡ªyes, alright, that does make me feel better, but if Hikanome don¡¯t have teeth, why is Alice pushing so hard for me to make goodwill between you and them?¡±


    ¡°Not being dangerous isn¡¯t the same as not being influential. The average Hikanome member likes Todai too much for the church itself to ever be real political enemies, but we won¡¯t get their backing¡ªand by extension stronger support from the government¡ªwhen the PCTF do show up, unless we take steps to appease them right now. And you¡¯re critical to that, unfortunately.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s your point? Still not really seeing why I should stay here instead of solving the whole issue by leaving.¡±


    ¡°I stayed.¡± She said that in English, in her own voice, before motioning for Ebi to continue interpreting. ¡°And I¡¯m glad I did. I could have gone to the Spire, run away, and I didn¡¯t. I was afraid! But I stayed, and fought, and won. We took apart Hikanome, we forced the PCTF back, and we founded Todai as it is now.¡±


    ¡°So you want me to fight, after all?¡±


    Amane rubbed her face with her organic hand.


    ¡°No. I want to show you that you can be less afraid. Don¡¯t you want that? To feel safe when you go outside, instead of having to cower in the Spire for, what, the rest of your life? You¡¯ve just gained the power to make a difference, out here, the kind of power people dream about. That shouldn¡¯t be a reason to run and hide. That¡¯s the evil of the PCTF.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t deny that she was winning me over. I¡¯d wanted this power so desperately, and so far my main response to receiving it had been to run away, because it felt like that was all I could do¡ªand I was planning to continue to do so. Was that what I had dreamed of? She went on.


    ¡°And if it really doesn¡¯t work out, you can leave. At any time; the Gate will still always be there. And if you¡¯re still here when the PCTF arrives¡ªthat won¡¯t be your fight. It¡¯s ours, and we¡¯ll win. Is that enough safety nets for you?¡±


    With her plea complete, she at last allowed herself to double over and lean onto her side, wincing and suffocating a groan¡ªbut didn¡¯t break eye contact with me. She let Ebi help her sit back up and waited for my reply. I had an obvious objection.


    ¡°Going to the Spire is my dream. It¡¯s not cowering.¡±


    ¡°Nah, it is.¡± Ebi replied while she shifted her hand to some device in a blur and interfaced with a slot in Amane¡¯s mechanical arm. ¡°I know that¡¯s, like, your thing, being a Vaetnaboo. But if you go to the Spire, you don¡¯t become a Vaetna. They¡¯re around, sure, but you¡¯d stay in their shadow for the rest of your life. The Spire doesn¡¯t give a fuck about you, sorry.¡±


    Ow. ¡°Hey, the fuc¡ª¡±


    ¡°But the girls? They care, man. They give several fucks, if you haven¡¯t noticed. Trust me, they don¡¯t want you around because you¡¯re politically convenient. And I¡¯m pretty sure you don¡¯t just want to ditch them either. Do you want to be friends with them or not?¡±


    That was so direct that I had to abandon my objection to her attack on my beliefs.


    ¡°What¡¯s it to you, Ebi? You¡¯re okay with the idea of me staying here, with what you said could happen to you if Ai has to fight? That feels contradictory, and you haven¡¯t exactly been nice.¡± I immediately walked that back a little, muttering. ¡°¡­although the standard of care has been respectable, and I¡¯m very grateful.¡±


    The robot shrugged carefully, arm still attached to Amane¡¯s, and nodded to the cyborg girl.


    ¡°I trust her judgment. And you¡¯re alright.¡±


    That was definitely an understatement of Ebi¡¯s feelings. Amane agreed.


    ¡°Tsundere,¡± she rasped, earning what was definitely a ¡°stay still¡± from Ebi, clear and familiar even though I couldn¡¯t understand the language.


    ¡°Um¡ªfuck. This is a lot.¡± How had her asking about the Hikanome rally turned into a debate about the Spire? Ultimately, they were connected; it was now clear to me that my choices were either to stay and attend or just leave for the Gate now. And of those two¡­


    ¡°It¡¯s the same things I had to think about, and yes, it¡¯s a lot.¡± Ebi-Amane sighed, free of the pain in the woman¡¯s real voice. ¡°And I do want to make sure you have the time to decide, like you wanted. But it was important to me that you made an informed decision. I¡¯m sorry if I upset you. And I¡¯m sorry if Ebi upset you.¡±


    Ebi switched to her own voice. ¡°I¡¯m not.¡±


    ¡°No¡ªit¡¯s fine. I think¡­you¡¯re right. I should go on Saturday. It¡¯s¡­being afraid sucks, you¡¯re right. I do want to go outside. I¡¯m in fuckin¡¯ Tokyo, for fuck¡¯s sake, might as well make something of it, even if it¡¯s just for Star. The Gate will always be an option, right?¡±


    ¡°It will. If things get too hot, we¡¯d still completely understand if you want out.¡±


    ¡°But you wouldn¡¯t come with, would you? Even if this escalates to¡­all-out war with the PCTF. Which is sounding distressingly plausible.¡±


    ¡°No. We have unfinished business.¡±


    Her tone was chilling.


    ¡°Alright, fuck. You¡¯ve won me over,¡± I admitted. ¡°We¡¯ll¡­give it a shot on Saturday. I¡¯ll go to the thing.¡±


    It felt good to reach a resolution, even if I hadn¡¯t taken anywhere near as much time as I¡¯d expected. Amane¡¯s reasoning resonated with me, even if both she and Ebi had mildly upset me with arguments I¡¯d need some time to process. And I couldn¡¯t quite believe the latter was willing to risk her own life and limb for that, not to mention the overall, larger-scale ramifications of what would happen if Japan¡¯s premier VNTs went to war with the West¡ªone thing at a time, I decided. I had an out at the Gate if I changed my mind.


    ¡ª


    Amane had to adjourn to her room soon after, as the energy expenditure of the evening¡¯s labors and her final plea caught up to her. She left in good spirits, Ebi closely in tow.


    I was left alone once more, but for the first time since coming here, I had a big swivel chair to sink into and a PC to hop on, a far more natural state of being for me than struggling in bed with my laptop¡¯s too-small screen. We¡¯d almost entirely completed the physical setup of my new workspace, but the digital side, my usual suite of programs and settings, would take hours more to entirely set up¡ªor at least that¡¯s what I had thought. In reality, the penthouse had lightning-fast internet; what I had expected to be at least two hours of downloads alone was done in hardly ten minutes, and I was neck-deep in installation wizards and config settings when my phone buzzed again with a text from Amane.


    Amane: Thanks for spending time with me (and hearing me out)!


    Amane: Dinner¡¯s ready if you¡¯re hungry (¤Ã????)


    Amane: I won¡¯t be there (stupid stomach) but neither will Yuuka, so it should be nice ???? ¡¥???¡¥?? )?


    Amane: (written by ebi-TL)


    I couldn¡¯t help but smile at the little emoticons. Anxiety followed shortly after; what was the correct way to reply to a message like this? I gave it my best shot.


    Ezzen: I had fun too. Are you feeling alright?


    Amane: Good enough!


    Ezzen: real


    That got a dry chuckle out of me. It was almost inevitable that somebody in her position would develop a droll humor about it; there was just no other way to live. Even I, socially stunted as I was, was able to joke about my hand in the chatroom¡ªand more recently, about my foot. The hours of work had left it aching a bit, and I knew that running it under some warm water would probably help¡­but this chair was so very comfortable.


    My stomach broke the tie: out of the chair, Ez, there¡¯s food. I pushed myself up, stiff and a little sore in my hips from all the leaning over, feeling rather like some kind of reptile leaving its den for a bit of sun and sustenance. Well, the sun was already down, but in this case it was more metaphorical, the wonderful and nerve-wracking warmth of social interaction¡ªbecause Amane was right, I did like the Radiances.


    To my surprise, dinner was not home-cooked. I¡¯d sort of assumed that Hina would whip something up as we had done with lunch, but instead, I found Alice slumped over the low table next to a bag with familiar golden arches. Her face was buried in her crossed arms. Had she fallen asleep right there, still in her suit? I was already treading lightly to spare my foot, and she didn¡¯t stir until I sat gingerly across from her and reached for the bag. She raised her head slowly, tousled hair falling messily over her face.


    ¡°Hi.¡±


    ¡°Hi.¡± I pointed at the bag questioningly.


    ¡°Yeah. There¡¯s a plain one. Didn¡¯t know what you liked.¡±


    Her head flopped back down onto her arms.


    There were things to discuss¡ªbut she clearly needed the rest. I helped myself to the bag, searching to find the hamburger and an associated baggie of fries. McDonald¡¯s Japan was apparently indistinguishable from its English cousins. No drinks, so I got up and poured myself a glass of water and realized in the process that I had learned where they kept the cups: the cabinet directly opposite the dishwasher. A little more like home¡ªa little bit harder to leave, if it eventually came to that.


    As I sat back down and got to eating, I wondered where Hina was.


    ezzen: Where¡¯s Hina?


    ebi-furai: need a blowjob already?


    ezzen: wtf


    ebi-furai: :3


    ebi-furai: hunting your mysterious friend, maybe


    ezzen: You don¡¯t know?


    ebi-furai: she likes to stay out at night, idfk what shes up to


    ebi-furai: back before midnight probably


    ezzen: Could you ask for me?


    ebi-furai: you dont have your girlfriends number?


    ezzen: No. And she¡¯s not my girlfriend.


    ebi-furai: im not engaging with this


    ebi-furai: one sec


    A few seconds later, my phone began to buzz. A jolt of surprise curdled into fear in my stomach¡ªI hated phone calls. Fuck you, Ebi. The caller ID said it was unknown¡ªbut I knew what Ebi was playing at. Conscious of Alice apparently asleep across the table from me, I hesitantly stood and moved past her toward the rest of the sitting area, maybe twenty feet away, and cupped my mouth as I picked up.


    ¡°Hello¡ª¡±


    ¡°Heyyy, cutie! Ebi gave me your number!¡±


    There was a lot of background noise on her end. Driving, maybe?


    ¡°Um, hi, Hina,¡± I whispered. ¡°Sorry, Alice is¡­asleep, I think? So I¡¯m trying to stay quiet¡ª¡±


    ¡°You busy?¡±


    ¡°Not really? I¡¯m eating dinner, and then I was just gonna hang out and keep setting up my PC¡­¡±


    ¡°Cool, cool, uh¡ªyou wanna come out and spend some time together?¡±


    ¡°¡­No? Sorry,¡± I added hastily. ¡°Just¡­not my comfort zone. Going out and partying.¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, that¡¯s not what I meant.¡± I heard a fuzzy slap noise that might have been a facepalm. ¡°I¡¯m chasing a lead on your stalker!¡±


    My heart rate spiked.


    ¡°Did you find something?¡±


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m in Kyoto right now, dropping in on a contact who I figured might be able to identify them, and they¡¯re sending me on a bit of a chase into the mountains.¡±


    ¡°Wait, hold on¡ªKyoto? You wanted me to come to another city? How was I supposed to get there?¡±


    ¡°Uhhhhhh¡­¡±


    Now it was my turn to facepalm, but a grin was infecting my face. What an adorable oversight.


    ¡°Hina.¡±


    ¡°Cutie!¡±


    ¡°Stay safe, yeah?¡±


    ¡°I will! Love you too! Mmmm¡ªnot gonna get home until pretty late. Like, three AM late, so¡­no fun Valentine¡¯s stuff tonight. Sorry.¡±


    ¡°No¡ªproblem?¡± I was wrong-footed by the casual use of the word ¡°love.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got my hands full with computer stuff tonight anyway, I think.¡±


    ¡°Okay! I¡¯ll let you know if I find anything! Texting okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Kay! Byebye!¡±


    ¡°Bye¡ª¡±


    I was cut off by the beep of the line going dead. Alice spoke behind me.


    ¡°That Hina staying out late?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± I turned to look at the dragon-girl, hoping she wouldn¡¯t ask about what exactly Hina was up to; she was still in the dark about my stalker. Maybe I should just tell her? But I wanted to discuss that with Hina first¡ªrealized I¡¯d missed my chance on the phone. ¡°Sorry if I woke you.¡±


    ¡°No problem, I wasn¡¯t really asleep anyway. Just dozing.¡± She rubbed her eyes with one hand while fishing in the takeout bag with the other. ¡°Have a nice time with Amane?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± She extracted a wrapped burger with a wince, reaching back to rub where her lower back met the base of her tail. Her clothes were modified to make room. ¡°Sore,¡± she explained.


    I wondered if I ought to tell her that I knew about the situation with her dragon parts. Perhaps Amane should be present? I walked back over to the table to resume my own meal.


    ¡°Just from sitting down?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. It was meetings all day today, and after lunch, I didn¡¯t get a chance to do my stretches.¡± She gestured at where she was sitting. ¡°This didn¡¯t help either, being folded over like this. If you catch me sleeping like that, poke me, please?¡±


    ¡°Um, sure.¡± Fuck it, easier one first. ¡°Listen, uh¡ªAmane told me what¡¯s going on with you.¡± Alice went stiff, frozen mid-bite. A bad sign for sure, but I forged on, avoiding eye contact. Instead, I admired how the scales on her tail caught the light. ¡°She¡ªwell, I get why you didn¡¯t want to tell me, but I want¡­to help. If you¡¯re open to it.¡±


    ¡°You want¡­to¡­help? How so?¡± Her voice was halting, uncomfortable. I felt bad for bringing up such a personal topic with so little overture, but I didn¡¯t know how else to lead into it.


    ¡°Uh, well, I¡¯m not really sure yet. It¡¯s a pretty unique case, right?¡±


    ¡°Probably. There¡­could be more. I¡¯d like to think there are.¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°The only other cases I know used more mundane means.¡±


    ¡°Mundane? Like, surgery?¡±


    ¡°Yes?¡± She sounded confused, as though it were obvious.


    ¡°Then¡­well, okay, obviously we¡¯re not going to hit on a solution right now, but the first place my mind goes is, I guess¡­have you tried just cutting it off?¡± I shuddered to think of how messy such an amputation would be as I eyed her tail. ¡°The best biomancy is no biomancy, yeah?¡±


    Alice unfroze, resuming her bite, and didn¡¯t respond until she¡¯d chewed, swallowed, and taken a drink. She twisted to look back at her tail as she thumped it and released a dry sigh, apparently warming up to the topic.


    ¡°Yes, when it was smaller. Damn thing grows back, gecko-style.¡±


    ¡°Really.¡± That was intriguing. ¡°Over how long?¡±


    ¡°Maybe five months, and it¡¯s all real flesh. If you think my appetite is bad now¡­argh, I¡¯m grumbling. Sorry for not telling you about the dragon stuff.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s alright. Um¡ªI¡¯d like to know more, but it sounds like this¡­isn¡¯t a great topic for dinner,¡± I conceded, eying the bite marks in my burger.


    ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± she agreed, doing the same.


    ¡°Sorry for bringing it up.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡±


    We fell into silence as we ate. Alice went through two chicken sandwiches, a bag of fries, a box of onion rings, and a milkshake in addition to her soft drink. It wasn¡¯t the voracious rapidity with which I¡¯d seen Hina eat yesterday, but she just didn¡¯t stop. The laptop remained on the table, but it was pushed to the side, seeing as how both of her hands always had some kind of food or drink in them. After a few minutes, I was done with my own comparatively meager meal.


    ¡°Uh.¡±


    Alice held up a finger to stop me, chewed, swallowed, and took a sip of her drink before replying.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°So I talked to Amane.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°She¡­convinced me? I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s the right word, but¡ªI want to go to the thing on Saturday.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Alice perked up. ¡°That was faster turnaround than you said.¡±


    ¡°Yes, well, uh¡­¡±


    ¡°No, that¡¯s great, really! Can I RSVP now? You, Amane, Yuuka¡ªah, do you not want Yuuka there? I still need to talk to her, but even once I do, your comfort is paramount, and she¡¯s, er, not great at that. So¡­¡±


    She had already produced her laptop from pocketspace, eager to get this over with.


    ¡°Uh. I don¡¯t know. Amane¡­she definitely wants to go, but she¡¯d need at least one other Radiance there, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I appreciate you being considerate of her needs. Um¡ªit¡¯d probably be Ai, then. She¡¯d have to reschedule, but it¡¯s far enough out¡­¡±


    ¡°If Ai is alright with it.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that mean?¡±


    ¡°Uh, Amane and Ebi¡­told me about her issue too. Power draw concerns, if my understanding is accurate.¡±


    ¡°Ah, yeah, that was going to have to come up eventually.¡± Her face fell slightly. ¡°Sorry again for not telling you these things. I just didn¡¯t want you to feel pressured or¡ª¡±


    ¡°I mean, of course I felt pressured, but I wouldn¡¯t say that¡¯s your fault¡ª¡±


    ¡°Your circumstances are really quite messed up, and properly acknowledging that¡ª¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to run off to the Gate,¡± I interrupted, and she shut her mouth, looking sheepish.


    ¡°Oh. Really? I, er, didn¡¯t want to bring it up, because I was worried you wouldn¡¯t consider any other option, and¡­¡± she admitted, shamefaced.


    ¡°It¡¯s complicated. And I still want the option. But Amane said some things that really, um, hit me where it hurt, so to speak. In a¡­good way?¡± I was still working through that part; I forged on. ¡°So I want to¡­try being a flamebearer before I go hide in the Spire, I guess. Because it¡¯d be good for me, or something. That¡¯s how she framed it.¡±


    A smile broke through Alice¡¯s hasty remorse.


    ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s been good for her.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    We sat there in silent¡­camaraderie? It was a little too awkward to be called that, but it was nice. Whatever it was, it felt like she and I understood the same things about Amane. She broke the moment by returning to her laptop.


    ¡°Alright, then¡­Ai can be the second, I think. I¡¯d have to ask her for some of the scheduling, but about the Flame issue¡­I really can¡¯t picture the situation turning dangerous, let alone enough that she¡¯d be at risk of overextending. And she¡¯ll definitely want to go if the idea is to chaperone you.¡±


    ¡°If you say so,¡± I conceded. ¡°Um, Amane insisted really hard earlier that it was safe, but¡­they¡¯re really alright? Not¡­dangerous, or even just generally sinister in that way cults tend to be?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re legit. They¡¯re¡­eccentric in some of their practices, and you remember how Ai was talking about them this morning. Some of our beliefs don¡¯t mesh. But that all pales compared to how they used to be. If you¡¯re really worried about danger¡­let¡¯s say the worst-case scenario happens, and it¡¯s all a trap by Sugawara¡¯s remaining goons, somehow conspiring with a PCTF grab team. Which, for the record, is not a scenario that could actually happen in reality, for a whole host of reasons.¡±


    ¡°Okay¡­¡± I nodded along.


    ¡°Then, in that impossible hypothetical, things could get explosive. Violent. But even then, Amane could clean them all up herself, and honestly, push comes to shove, so could Ai. She¡¯s far from useless in a fight, believe me. Plus, I¡¯m sure that once Hina hears about this, she¡¯ll want to be around, even though neither she nor I want her to be officially present. So that¡¯s three Radiances, in effect. Feel good about that?¡±


    ¡°Good enough,¡± I admitted, feeling reassured. It was nice to get some confirmation of Amane¡¯s confidence¡ªbut my apprehension wasn¡¯t completely gone, and ultimately Amane was right that it wouldn¡¯t dissipate without some exposure therapy.


    ¡°Good.¡± Alice nodded, stretching, looking less tired, more energized. I was reminded of when I¡¯d first met Ai, the way she¡¯d lit up and revitalized when working on my spear binding. This was similar, but in a different specialization. ¡°I¡¯ll ask them to be considerate about limiting how much you have to appear in front of the crowds, all that. Leave that stuff to me. Where¡¯s the email¡ªah, there.¡±


    I¡¯d communicated my big important decision, and the weight on my chest was replaced by a different sort of pressure, a nervousness of having a scheduled social ordeal, a feeling I mostly associated with doctor and bank visits, given how rarely I had really spoken to people prior to now. What awaited me on Saturday was far more consequential: I would walk into the jaws of one of Todai¡¯s foundational opponents, as the star of the whole event, and that was nerve-wracking to even consider¡ªbut I¡¯d be in the pleasant company of Amane and Ai, so it¡¯d be alright, hopefully. Hopefully.


    Also hopefully, I hoped we¡¯d be able to confirm a negative on my stalker, conclusively prove it wasn¡¯t a Hikanome flamebearer so I could rest easy on that side of things. Fingers crossed that that wouldn¡¯t even be a problem by then; maybe Hina¡¯s investigation in Kyoto would lead us right to who it was, and then at least we¡¯d be planning around a known quantity.


    Alice told me that preparations would begin tomorrow. She did her best to assuage my anxiety, assured me it¡¯d be alright, nothing too difficult or unpleasant, echoing the same things Amane had said. There was a lot to do, but I¡¯d come to my decision early enough in the week that it wouldn¡¯t be overwhelming, supposedly.


    But that was tomorrow. I had tonight to myself, since Hina wouldn¡¯t be around, and I had unfinished business with my PC. After finishing dinner and wishing Alice a good night, I returned to my room. I spent hours into the night tinkering with GWalk, getting everything just how I liked it; signing into the chatroom to the celebration of my friends; redownloading my meager collection of games. And for the last few hours, as my digital environment became more and more familiar, I could almost forget that I was on the other side of the world. Eventually, at two in the morning, I went to bed, truly comfortable for perhaps the first time since arriving here.


    And I dreamed once more.

 Trick Of The Light // 2.06

    <i>It¡¯s cold.</i>


    <i>That¡¯s weird, because temperature isn¡¯t the kind of thing one normally notices in a dream. Nonetheless, it is undeniably cold here. I can feel it on my skin, in my teeth, and especially from the ache in my hand.</i>


    <i>Where is here, anyway? It is not the waters below the ice, nor is it the flat expanse above, nor the beach or great and incomprehensible forest beyond. Instead, I sit upon an outcropping, some vast block of hard and rough material that could be stone, or bone, or perhaps the Spire¡¯s dermis. It¡¯s large enough for me to sit comfortably in the middle without feeling worryingly close to the edge and thus in danger of falling off. The outcropping is somewhat uneven, with high and low points gently rising and falling until the sides slope worryingly downward. Perhaps this is the tip of some great, buried femur, protruding up from the mists shrouding whatever may be below. Always mist in these dreams. It¡¯s cold.</i>


    <i>More to the point, I¡¯m not alone. Someone else sits next to me, a man, older by maybe ten or fifteen years, with a salt-worn face and grainy stubble. His skin is darker than my pallor, tanned by the sun and stretched taut over a muscular frame. No bodybuilder physique, rather the practical muscles of a man whose trade is contingent on a functional body. He is whole, unlike me.</i>


    <i>I recognize him from the news; this is the pivotal figure around which the whole debacle in the Gulf of Mexico revolved. Noah Holton. Now something like my adoptive sibling, perhaps¡ªbeing from the same creche of Flame as I, another fragment from when the Heron shattered fate. In theory, there were four of us¡ªbut one had turned inferno and been put down by the Vaetna, so now, only three, and only two right here on this strange outcropping surrounded by cold mist.</i>


    <i>¡°You¡¯re Ezzen.¡±</i>


    <i>It is not a question. His voice is as weathered as his face, gravelly. Perhaps he smokes. His accent is of the American South.</i>


    <i>¡°That¡¯s me,¡± I confirm. ¡°You¡¯re¡­Noah? Mr. Holton?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Just Holton. You¡¯re some kind of magic expert, they tell me. And just a kid. Have any idea where in God¡¯s name we are?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Haven¡¯t a clue, sorry.¡± I scrape a fingernail on the hard surface; it leaves no mark. ¡°But this is a dream.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Figured as much. More weird flamebearer shit?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°I¡­guess so. Haven¡¯t heard of it, but this isn¡¯t my first. Third, I think.¡±</i>


    <i>With my full recollection available here, I realize I hadn¡¯t dreamt the previous night, when I¡¯d slept with Hina. Odd.</i>


    <i>¡°Huh. Sure isn¡¯t where I went to sleep, that¡¯s for sure.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°We won¡¯t remember this when we wake up, either. At least, I don¡¯t.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Huh. Then what¡¯s the point?¡±</i>


    <i>We fall into silence for a while.</i>


    <i>¡°Where do you think the third guy is?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Probably not asleep. It¡¯s morning back home.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Oh, right. So, then, why are </i>you<i> asleep?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Healing. Ripple fucked me up good, they say.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°You look whole to me. Who¡¯s ¡®they¡¯?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°What are you, a cop?¡±</i>


    <i>I blink.</i>


    <i>¡°I¡¯m just¡ªtrying to look out for you, I guess.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Why?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Because¡­¡± I thought about this. ¡°I should?¡±</i>


    <i>He grunts.</i>


    <i>¡°Thanks. But I¡¯m not telling you anything. I don¡¯t even know if you¡¯re real. You could be somebody from the Peacies trying to trick me into giving up my location, for all I know.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°I¡¯ve got no love for them,¡± I object. But he¡¯s right; I have no way of knowing he¡¯s real, either. I change the topic, hoping that if he is indeed real, he can answer this question. ¡°Why did Brianna leave you?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Who? Oh, the Vaetna?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Yeah.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°She said she couldn¡¯t take me.¡±</i>


    <i>I sit further up in alarm.</i>


    <i>¡°What does that mean?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Beats me.¡± He says nothing more, looking out into the mist, rubbing his hands together as though to warm them up. It doesn¡¯t work.</i>


    <i>¡°Well¡ªdid she say anything else?¡± That couldn¡¯t be right, but he just shrugs.</i>


    <i>¡°Don¡¯t remember exactly what she said, but yeah, that¡¯s what it came out to. She couldn¡¯t take me to the Spire. Couldn¡¯t even stick around to bail me out. Didn¡¯t give a real reason, I think. I didn¡¯t beg her, either, so she just left.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°That doesn¡¯t happen.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°No? ¡®Cause that¡¯s what happened.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°It doesn¡¯t. They don¡¯t leave flamebearers out to dry like that. They didn¡¯t, for me. I mean, I didn¡¯t wind up going with them, but </i>three<i> of them showed up for me. That doesn¡¯t make sense.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Eh. They didn¡¯t really ¡®leave me out to dry¡¯, I guess. Helped clean up the guys I was fighting¡ªscooped out the whole east side of the superstructure. Poor fucker right in front of me was caught at the edge, didn¡¯t get him all the way.¡±</i>


    <i>Guilt seeps through me like poison. That hadn¡¯t been the Vaetna¡ªshould I tell him that, admit what I had done? Would that make anything about this better? He¡¯d mentioned he was recovering from ripple exposure¡ªI would feel guiltier if that was our doing. But it could well have been his, or just the ambient residuals from his Flamefall. I can¡¯t risk it.</i>


    <i>¡°Even¡ªeven so. They left you there. That doesn¡¯t happen,¡± I repeat. ¡°There has to be a reason.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Probably is. Doesn¡¯t really matter to me.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Why not? It¡¯s unprecedented, it means </i>something.<i>¡± I feel myself growing annoyed at his apathy.</i> <i>¡°And we¡¯re from the same cluster, so even if you don¡¯t care, I do.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Still can¡¯t prove that.¡±</i>


    <i>A fair point. But there has to be a way. I rack my brain, trying to picture glyphs, my ingrained expertise far more slow and sluggish to respond than usual, dampened by the swaddling other-ness of the dream.</i>


    <i>¡°I can prove it somehow,¡± I promise. ¡°I¡¯ll find a way to remember this, contact you.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Cool.¡±</i>


    <i>I frown. He just¡ªdoesn¡¯t care? I don¡¯t know what to say in the face of the brick wall of apathy. So I say nothing and stand, to better investigate this strange locale. Even with no prosthetic, this dream lets me walk without pain or difficulty. I move to the edge of the mostly level area of the outcropping, where it begins to slope downward, getting as close as I dare; as I thought, no surge of acrophobia rises to meet me as I peer down into the milky mist. But it is cold. Why does my hand hurt, but not my foot? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere below, beyond my sight.</i>


    <i>¡°Gonna jump?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°What? No, just looking.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Why not?¡±</i>


    <i>I turn to him, befuddled.</i>


    <i>¡°Why would I?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Well. Assuming you </i>are<i> real, I¡¯m just thinking¡­maybe this is some sort of test. Like we won¡¯t wake up until we leave the platform, or something.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°And your evidence for thinking that?¡±</i>


    <i>He shrugs.</i>


    <i>¡°Guess.¡±</i>


    <i>I turn back toward the fog, trying to glean something, anything. But there are not even swirls of atmospheric motion. It is instead a heavy, impenetrable stillness. It occurs to me that perhaps we are high above that forest beyond the beach, and that somewhere within the fog lays a surface of treetops. That doesn¡¯t answer the question of what we¡¯re actually standing on. I hope it¡¯s not bone; the implications of that would be dire. As I look, I speak.</i>


    <i>¡°My last dreams didn¡¯t have any kind of¡­test, or whatever. And this isn¡¯t the same place. I did have somebody else there, but it was¡­just a manifestation of my Flame, somehow. And it was different from you. I think you¡¯re real, but my gut says that we¡¯re supposed to talk to each other. Our Flames, or somebody else, want us to communicate.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Huh. Well, kid, from where I¡¯m sitting, the Frozen Flame isn¡¯t our friend. Real bastard, even. I¡¯d think real hard about what I assume it wants.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°It¡¯s not evil.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°It runs on </i>pain<i>. I learned that from minute one. How much more evil can it get?¡± He shifts. ¡°I don¡¯t want to find out. I didn¡¯t sign up for any of this shit. But I can¡¯t even get away from it when I¡¯m sleeping, seems like.¡±</i>


    <i>For me, this has all been a dream come true, albeit a twisted one. But for somebody without my obsessive passion for magic, somebody who was trapped in the middle of a standoff between world powers rather than whisked away to relative safety?</i>


    <i>¡°I don¡¯t blame you,¡± I concede. ¡°But we ought to make the most of the hand we¡¯re dealt.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Speak for yourself. I¡¯m not playing.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Meaning what? You¡ªcan¡¯t go to the Spire.¡± The words are ash in my mouth for their implication. He has to have misunderstood somehow. ¡°If that¡¯s what Bri meant. And there¡¯s no other safe haven, not really, other than¡­the Peacies, or their equivalents. Who you don¡¯t seem keen on.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°I¡¯m not, nah. I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m going to do yet. But I¡¯m not gonna go to war with them or whatever else the fuckin¡ªwhat¡¯s the word¡ªVNTs get up to. And especially whatever this shit¡ª¡± he waves at the mist around us ¡°¡ªis. No thanks. I want out.¡±</i>


    <i>This enkindles an unfamiliar emotion in me, one that sweeps away the sympathy. I glower.</i>


    <i>¡°That¡¯s not a choice we get to make.¡±</i>


    <i>He shrugs again.</i>


    <i>¡°It¡¯s the choice I¡¯m making. You gonna jump or what?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Why would I¡­?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°No other way off this rock. You¡¯re the type who needs answers, and they¡¯re not up here, I can tell you that much.¡±</i>


    <i>I glance down again; still no dizziness or primal terror, because there¡¯s no sense of distance for the fall. A perfect chance to face my fear¡ªassuming this is indeed just a dream, a normal one where I can¡¯t get hurt. But there¡¯s no guarantee of that, not in whatever strange Flame-derived non-space this is. So instead, I turn back to him, surveying the empty expanse around us.</i>This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    <i>¡°Not up here, no. But that doesn¡¯t mean I need to jump to find out.¡±</i>


    <i>I squeeze my eyes shut and pull the rip-cord dangling off my soul, tearing the stitches where it meets my Flame. It and I both tremble at the lance of agony, and my hand ignites. The cold does not dissipate, nor the ache, but instead coexists with the searing heat of fire, tongues of Flame in the same milk-white as the mist around us, because in my gut I know that they are one and the same. I raise my hand, reaching out to the edge, telling them to meet and merge, that my shard of the Flame may connect to whatever greater whole composes this ephemeral realm. I might not have access to glyphcraft, but I still have this most basic magic, the basis, its fundamental form.</i>


    <i>My hand takes great effort to move toward the edges of the fog, as though I am pushing it through a viscous fluid. It grows denser the further I reach, until I am straining with my entire body for a single extra centimeter. I am close; it will give, with just a little more, and I will make contact. But before I can break through the barrier, stretch the elastic goop to its limit and shear it apart, I hear Holton move behind me.</i>


    <i>¡°Stop,¡± he whispers, voice grave. ¡°Something is here.¡±</i>


    <i>¡°A bit¡ªngh¡ªlate for that, I think.¡± At this point, it would be as much effort to extract my arm, douse the Flame, as it would be to see it through. ¡°What kind of something?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°I don¡¯t know! Something¡¯s moving out there! Big, white, like a¡­tooth, or a fin. Cut through the mist. They got fucked up space whales in here?¡±</i>


    <i>¡°Let¡¯s not find out.¡±</i>


    <i>I push through, and the dream tears.</i>


    ¡ª


    <i>Tap tap tap tap¡­</i>


    I awoke to the sound of rain. A retina-blast of light from my phone shattered the predawn veil of darkness as I confirmed the time¡ª5:47, a truly ungodly hour, a time during which no sane person should be up. I squeezed my eyes tighter shut and rolled over in bed, hoping the pitter-patter of the rain outside would lull me back to oblivion. I¡¯d just been having an interesting dream, though I couldn¡¯t recall the details and had the sense that it had reached some kind of conclusion. I wanted to get back to it and see what else my subconscious could spin up while I rested a few hours more.


    <i>Tap tap tap tap¡­</i>


    If the Radiances wanted me up early to prepare for Saturday or paperwork or something else time-sensitive, well, they could just text me or knock on the door or something. Until then, I was going back to sleep. I might miss breakfast, but that was fine if it meant I could avoid another unpleasant run-in with Yuuka.


    <i>Tap tap tap tap¡­</i>


    Just as I had snuggled further into my blanket and hooked my arm under the pillow, my hopes of returning to dream-land were sabotaged by the human brain¡¯s propensity for pattern recognition; I realized that the sound of the rain contained an oddly rhythmic component. Of course, there was the generally random white noise of countless raindrops, but there was also a distinct sequence of tapping noises, four at a time.


    <i>Taptaptaptap. Taptaptaptap.</i>


    Curiosity got the better of me. I peeled one eye open, turned my head, craned my neck¡ª


    There was a silhouette on my balcony, visible only as a dark void, a humanoid shape where the lights of the skyscrapers beyond weren¡¯t, half-obscured in the misty condensation.


    Adrenaline flooded my system as I parsed the figure. I bolted upright and scrambled to disentangle myself from the blankets. With my prosthetic foot still on the nightstand, I was limited in how far I could move, but I managed to roll off the edge of the bed and land behind it in a crouch, then half-knelt, half-stood to direct the speartip over the top of the bed like a Roman soldier hiding behind a barricade. Emphatically not Heung-like, in hindsight.


    Moments before filling my lungs to yell for backup, I looked at my balcony again and assessed the figure more carefully. During those few seconds of panic, my eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and I realized who this was. I caught the shine of rain-soaked hair matted down over shoulders, the silhouette of slender legs. And of course, when the light caught her face just right, an unmistakably brilliant blue shone from my girlfriend¡¯s eyes. Perhaps obvious in hindsight. Hina glinted a toothy grin and waved enthusiastically at me. Her other palm was pressed against the glass; the rhythmic tapping sound had been her galloping her fingernails on the door.


    My face turned hot as I realized how my maneuver across the bed must have looked. I averted my eyes from hers¡ªalways so difficult to look away from that beautiful sapphire¡ªand hurriedly banished my spear. I knew rationally that I had probably done the right thing, but I couldn¡¯t stop my body from repurposing the adrenal energy of my erroneous fight-or-flight response toward embarrassment. On the balcony, Hina seemed to giggle, shoulders shaking in mirth¡ªor perhaps shivering from the cold, but that didn¡¯t seem like her. While I tried to keep myself from cringing at my reaction, she pointed at the door handle and tilted her head, a wordless request for permission. She was drenched, so I did the decent thing and hurriedly waved assent. The open door brought the dull, distant roar of the rain into immediate clarity, making me flinch and move to cover my ears.


    As Hina stepped in, closing the door behind her to re-establish the barrier between cozy interior and unpleasant outdoors, I had to wonder¡ª


    ¡°Why the <i>balcony?</i>¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s pretty nice out there!¡±


    I gaped at her, glanced out the window to confirm we were seeing the same rainstorm, then back at her, soaked head to toe. She was already on the move, wringing out her hair with her hands.


    ¡°Mind if I dry off?¡±


    If it were any other person, I would have insisted that she make full use of my towels. But because it was Hina, I instead had a terrible premonition that she was about to do something distinctly dog-like.


    ¡°I just built that,¡± I declared, pointing at my PC, hoping to head off the spattering. ¡°Please don¡¯t ruin it.¡±


    ¡°What? Wasn¡¯t gonna. I mean, that sounds <i>fun</i>¡­¡± For a terrifying moment, she seemed to be genuinely considering it, ultramarine eyes scanning across my belongings, ¡°But I¡¯m not gonna ruin your room. You think I¡¯d do that?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­I guess not? In any case¡ª¡± I pointed at the bathroom, relieved by the sanity, ¡°Yeah, use what you need.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I was just gonna, uh, blow-dry. With magic. Can I?¡± In response to my suspicious look, she clarified, ¡°Won¡¯t make a mess, I promise! And I¡¯ll be <i>so</i> warm after.¡± She batted her eyes at me, probably trying to look alluring¡ªa little too wet-dog at that moment to pull it off, but the message was received.


    ¡°Uh, sure.¡±


    ¡°Yay!¡±


    Then there was heat.


    ¡ª


    I woke up again as dawn began to break. This time, the puppygirl equivalent of a heating pad was entangled with me, radiating wonderful warmth across everywhere our bodies touched and our limbs wrapped around one another¡¯s. My hazy return to consciousness brought a dim wonder to the post-coital embrace¡ªbefore my brain came slightly more online and I remembered that nothing sexual had happened. She¡¯d just stripped her most-soaked outer layers, blow-dried herself, and hopped into bed with me, and I¡¯d fallen right back asleep in short order.


    Now, shifting and readjusting slightly against her smaller form, I very much didn¡¯t want to get up, even less so than before. I just wanted to stay here with her in my arms and be warm and safe forever. And I <i>did</i> feel safe, paradoxically¡ªHina was being very lovey, all snuggles.


    ¡°Making up for lost time,¡± she explained. ¡°Sorry I was out last night.¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± Her hair still smelled a bit rainy; tricky to identify, not wet-dog, more like earthy notes layered over the aroma of her shampoo. I felt unimaginably spoiled to have my face pressed into her mane like this. ¡°Find anything?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± she muttered dejectedly into my chest while her hand idly ran up and down my flank. ¡°I went to run some tests with a friend in Kyoto. Oh! You probably know them, maybe, they¡¯re on the forums. On there, they¡¯re¡­Gorogorosan?¡±


    I blinked, pulling away from her slightly, enough to look down at her. In hindsight, it wasn¡¯t surprising at all that she knew one of Japan¡¯s premier experts in ripple propagation, but I hadn¡¯t made the connection myself.


    ¡°Oh, yeah. So you were testing ripple?¡±


    ¡°Mhm. Trying to figure it out. What they did, where they went. But we didn¡¯t really find anything. Sorry.¡±


    ¡°For what?¡±


    ¡°Not solving it!¡± She wiggled unhappily.


    ¡°¡®S fine,¡± I murmured, letting my eyes slide back shut. ¡°You really don¡¯t have to go that far. How far away is Kyoto, again?¡±


    ¡°Mmmm¡­two-fifty miles? Sum¡¯n¡¯ like that. Sorry, yeah, I know I¡¯m getting wound up about this, I just don¡¯t want there to be something out there that can hurt you. Any of you,¡± she added hastily, squirming again. ¡°I think it¡¯s just nerves about the Peacies. I¡¯d rather they just showed up so I can tear ¡®em apart and we can be done with this. But that won¡¯t be for a bit, says Yuuka.¡±


    I grimaced a bit at the mention of her abrasive teammate.


    ¡°You¡­talked to her? I seem to recall you saying you were going to¡­enact violence.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Took a few swings at her, but she¡¯s always so slippery. Got my point across, though, I think.¡±


    ¡°That being?¡±


    ¡°Stay <i>away</i> from my cutie.¡± She injected a spine-tickling growl into the words. I shivered at the goosebumps that raced across my arms, heady with the surreality of our intimacy. She ran her hand down my arm possessively, approvingly, and dug her claws into the rough scar tissue. I winced, heart pounding. ¡°Or at least, IDK, treat you with basic respect. That¡¯d be good too.¡±


    ¡°Thanks,¡± I squeaked out. ¡°Mmf. Ow.¡±


    ¡°Hm? Oh.¡± The claws retreated and she rubbed the stinging depressions contritely. ¡°Sorry?¡±


    Something giddy and vulnerable took control of me, urged on by the protectiveness on full display. She wouldn¡¯t let anybody else hurt me¡ªbut cocooned here together, I was happy to let her do so.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t say stop.¡±


    ¡ª


    Half an hour of ragged-edged gasping and delirious giggles and nibbling kisses later, Hina finally had to get up for work. My collection of hickeys had grown and my hand stung in all sorts of interesting ways, the result of clawing and gnawing and kneading. She seemed positively fixated on my flame-touched limb, seeming to prefer when I touched her with it over my other hand¡ªand touch her I did, all the more reason for me to curse the tyranny of the clock and her presumably important responsibilities when she had to disentangle from me. Then again, an eyeful of mostly naked Hina was a lovely note to end on.


    Some time later, I dragged myself out of bed as well and spent the morning enjoying my new PC setup. There was more work to be done, customizing and tuning increasingly miniscule settings, but mostly, I just relaxed with the chatroom on one monitor and YouTube on another, catching up properly on the few days I¡¯d been out of the news cycle. It was good to be back. There were new glyphcraft papers, updates on the Vaetna¡ªnothing pertaining to Bri at a glance¡ªand continuing ripple effects of the non-magical sort from the Thunder Horse Inferno. And beyond my little bubble of awareness, the world kept turning as well, random new politics that I had little time for and banished from my feed as soon as they appeared.


    The great invisible algorithms of the modern internet seemed to have picked up that I was now in Japan, and I chuckled dryly as I saw that my interest in magical studies had been correlated with my location and resulted in a slew of Todai videos dotted across my recommended page. I had a degree of academic interest in those, scrubbing through, looking for things to fill in the gaps in my understanding of what they did all day. The through-line across all five of them was that they did a lot of brand collaborations, but I was still a bit hazy on the day-to-day.


    As it happened, though, I wound up getting mezzanine seats to exactly that subject in person. My hunger reached a tipping point and overcame inertia to send me creeping out of my room to the top of the stairs, intending to raid the kitchen for snacks and possibly a full meal if something in the fridge struck my fancy. I didn¡¯t make it that far¡ªI stopped short of the top of the stairs as I overheard a pair of raised voices, British and Australian. Fortunate, perhaps, that they were having this conversation¡ªargument, really¡ªin English.


    ¡°So you decided <i>without me</i> that I wasn¡¯t going?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d have assumed you would be fine with it.¡±


    ¡°I <i>would</i> have been, if we¡¯d decided this when it had first come up! But I¡¯ve planned my whole day around it now, so I¡¯m going.¡±


    ¡°This is a serious event, not an excuse for you to hang out with Amane all day.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I <i>mean</i>. I was going to get some field advocacy work done!¡±


    ¡°Ah. For your research?¡±


    ¡°Yeah!¡± Yuuka sounded annoyed, as though this shouldn¡¯t need explaining. ¡°I was talking to Inoue-<i>sensei</i> and told him I was going, and he said I could count attendance instead of going to lecture next week because of the whole environmental focus of the fundraising. I was just going to take some pictures with the FOEI people there, y¡¯know, we do that stuff all the time¡ª¡±


    ¡°And were you going to <i>tell</i> me about this? Or PR?¡±


    ¡°Tch. Probably!¡±


    ¡°<i>Probably</i> isn¡¯t enough, Yuuka,¡± Alice chided. ¡°We¡¯ve been over this. If you want to do a marketing campaign, collab, whatever, you have to run it by us first. And how were you going to juggle that with keeping an eye on Ezzen?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re sending Ai instead! Why does he have to be <i>my</i> problem? Now there¡¯ll be <i>three</i> of us to keep an eye on the monsterfu¡ªon him.¡± There was no contrition in the self-correction, but her resigned tone at least suggested that Amane had gotten through to her, even if Hina¡¯s message perhaps hadn¡¯t stuck. ¡°Don¡¯t know why you even fuckin¡¯ bother¡ª¡±


    ¡°Language. Can¡¯t <i>believe</i> you got this vulgar after two years down there¡ª¡±


    ¡°Piss off, it¡¯s part of my <i>brand</i>. There¡¯s a reason my merch sales are the highest¡ª¡±


    ¡°<i>Two</i> reasons.¡± Alice retorted with uncharacteristic venom in her voice. I could picture her tail lashing angrily. ¡°And they¡¯re both attached to your chest.¡±


    The bickering collapsed into very angry-sounding Japanese. I¡¯d been crouching, a reflexive but pointless attempt to be stealthy as I eavesdropped from out of view up above them¡ªnow I sat down more carefully to relieve the stress on my foot, waiting to see if they¡¯d return to English. I didn¡¯t like to pry, but¡­I was already learning a lot. Yuuka was some kind of environmental sciences major, for one. For two, her relationship with Alice was a little¡­incendiary, not unlike a rebellious teen and her mother. Weren¡¯t they only two years separated?


    ¡°Listen, Alice. Point is, cunt¡¯s a <i>problem</i>.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a <i>victim</i>. Like Amane! It¡¯s almost the same situation.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a guy, and he¡¯s balls-deep in that thing. I thought after all the shit with Jason you¡¯d be done letting her bring her chew toys back here!¡±


    ¡°Yuuka,¡± Alice¡¯s voice went gentler. ¡°Have they caused you any <i>actual problems</i>? I think you¡¯re projecting some of your own experiences onto him; he¡¯s been nothing but pleasant and polite. Help me understand where the problem is so we can solve it together. You¡¯re a smart girl, you know¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ugh. <i>Sonna ni yaru na yo.</i> Fine, here¡¯s a reason: Having <i>two</i> of those things here is fucking terrible for Amane. Ai wants him to help with the <i>hosougu</i> for some fucking reason, but with how much red Hina¡¯s gonna make because of him, it just winds up giving Amane a bunch more flare-ups.¡±


    ¡°Is that foresight, or an assumption?¡±


    ¡°I pinged for something this morning! They¡¯re biting each other or some shit.¡±


    I blushed¡ªthen my stomach lurched. Had we contributed to some ¡°bad weather¡± for Amane in our selfish, giddy exchanges of passion?


    ¡°And yet Amane has been fine,¡± Alice retorted, and I sighed in relief. Yuuka¡¯s silence was damning¡ªher foresight was imperfect, it seemed. Alice sighed. ¡°Amane wants him here too. She told you that this morning, so just¡­I¡¯m not even asking you to get along with him. Avoid him, if you have to, just¡­right now, you¡¯re being a bigger problem than he is.¡±


    ¡°Right now? You know what¡¯s not <i>right now</i>, Alice? Three weeks from now, when the PCTF will start making offers to take him off our hands. Which we¡¯ll refuse, of course, and then they¡¯ll stop <i>asking</i> and start moving assets up from Okinawa. He is a mess waiting to happen. <i>That¡¯s</i> foresight, and I¡¯m <i>not wrong</i>.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± Alice allowed. ¡°Thank you for the heads-up, it¡¯s good to have some precision on that. Add it to the chart sometime today, please. I¡¯ll inform Hikanome that you¡¯ll also be attending on Saturday. Be nice to Ezzen, please.¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡± I heard furniture shift, a chair being pushed back. ¡°Don¡¯t know how you can be so calm about it, Ally. He¡¯s going to fuck us all over just by being here. That¡¯s my <i>professional opinion</i>.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.07

    VNT: Vaetna-type. An obnoxiously inaccurate term; for one, none were equal to the Vaetna, and for two, the term was haphazardly applied to essentially <i>any</i> group where a flamebearer held a major role, not just ones that shared the Vaetna¡¯s philosophy of violence. The PCTF and Todai were definitely tier 2 VNT groups; Hikanome was more like tier 3, from what I understood, although all the cults fell under the label to different extents. By comparison, a university with a department of Ripple Studies or Glyph Engineering would by necessity be associated with at least one flamebearer, but were generally not considered VNT groups in themselves.


    Really, geopolitical impact was the main metric, and in that regard, it was little wonder that the Spire¡¯s knights were the namesake. For years, I¡¯d gone out of my way to avoid using the term, because I felt it diminished the Vaetna by proxy when applied to even the tier 2 groups, but eventually I¡¯d caved¡ªmostly for lack of any other term with the same colloquial clarity. ¡°Influential flamebearer¡± and other such substitute terms just had a lot more ambiguity in forum threads.


    But Todai were definitely VNTs. In fact, I was begrudgingly starting to think that they were some of the <i>most</i> Vaetna-like of any group. The parallels between mantles and dermis went without saying, of course, but my first up-close-and-personal combat training brought it into much more visceral perspective.


    ¡°You¡¯ve never used it against somebody else,¡± Ai deduced, gesturing at my spear lying forlornly next to me. She¡¯d casually sidestepped a thrust and wrenched the haft out of my hand entirely before sending me onto the mat. I sat up, groaning.


    ¡°No. I, um, looked a little bit for classes, but HEMA is specifically swords, and the only spear things I could find were closer to London, which is too far.¡± I checked my foot to make sure our seconds-long bout hadn¡¯t already damaged the amputation site. ¡°Way too far, now.¡±


    ¡°Not too far,¡± Ai shone a sunny smile, which I could pretend was the reason my face was hot. She hadn¡¯t even felt the need to take off her jacket before taking me on. ¡°Actually, I think you¡¯re right where you should be.¡±


    ¡°What, on the floor?¡±


    She winced. ¡°Oh, no, not what I meant.¡±


    ¡°I need practice,¡± I admitted. ¡°But, um, if Hikanome is safe, or at least this event will be, why are we doing this now?¡±


    ¡°Why do you think?¡±


    ¡°Because¡­summoning my spear is already my first instinct in danger?¡±


    ¡°Mm, yes, that¡¯s part of it. It¡¯s actually a good thing that you can arm yourself without thinking, so you should be able to use it better. But that¡¯s only part of it. I agree with Ishikawa-san: You need to <i>feel</i> like you can fight back if you¡¯re in danger.¡±


    ¡°Wow, way to just cut me right open.¡±


    She frowned.


    ¡°I¡¯m unarmed. Do you want to go spear-on-spear?¡±


    ¡°Uh, not what I meant, but¡­kind of?¡± I recalled the spear to my hand. ¡°Feel like I¡¯d get thrashed even harder, though.¡± It didn¡¯t bruise my ego to admit that, or at least not as much as I¡¯d expected.


    ¡°True. Your biggest problem right now¡­you¡¯re trying to be faster than me. Your footwork seems good, and you understand your reach advantage, but even if you were reacting to me in time, I just have a speed advantage.¡±


    ¡°Okay? Is that just an experience thing?¡±


    ¡°Not entirely. I¡¯m cheating.¡±


    She turned away from me and shrugged off the jacket, tossing it to the side, then began to pull up the hem of her tank top¡ª


    ¡°What are you doing?¡±


    The question was answered once she pulled the garment off, exposing the tattoo binding Amane had mentioned and I¡¯d promptly forgotten about. Down Ai¡¯s spine ran a complex, interlinked glyph, in vivid, fluorescent green. Or rather, a 2D shadow of a 3D chain of glyphs, like my {COMPOSE} tattoo on my arm. My curiosity warred with my embarrassment, eyes tracing up her back to where the tattoo ran under her sports bra before reappearing and continuing its gradients and symmetrical patterns until it terminated at the base of her neck. It covered most of her back, especially wide at the shoulders and hips where it was denser with additional arrangements of glyphs.


    The glyphs that made up the tattoo were clearly based on the same principles she had pioneered for prosthesis animation, enhancing the motion of her limbs, but the longer I looked, the more I could tease out other functionality. Most notable was the set of smaller, more-intricate patterns spaced regularly along her spine: ward segments to disrupt offensive magic intended to pulp her soft, squishy insides or slice her in half. Each of the ward sections¡ªoverall sort of hourglass-shaped¡ªalso had another node on the end, {AFFIX}-{DISSIPATE}: kinetic dampening applied inward so she didn¡¯t shatter her own bones by throwing an enhanced punch.


    Of course, I would have already known the technical points in intimate detail had I looked at the file Ebi had sent me last night, but my work ethic had been rather low between then and now¡ªI¡¯d been free from responsibility and enjoying my new PC and not gotten a whit of real glyph work done. I felt a little guilty for having not done my reading, but then again, Ai hadn¡¯t given me much notice to come work out; she¡¯d just knocked on my door and told me it was time to do some light diagnostic training.


    ¡°Do I need to explain any part of it?¡±


    I jumped, realizing I¡¯d been staring at her exposed back for inappropriately long. I averted my gaze hurriedly, pretending to inspect the hexagonal, interlinked pads lining the lower part of the dojo¡¯s walls.


    ¡°Um, I think I get it. Strength, speed, and durability? Wards, too¡­wait,¡± I recalled my spear into my arm, returning it to its tattoo form, a simple, dark line that shone with iridescence when it caught the dojo¡¯s lights in just the right way. ¡°Yours is an actual chain of glyphs, but mine is symbolic.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve gotten better at it over time. If you look here¡ª¡± she pointed at her lower back, seemingly unembarrassed at the exposure as she indicated a more roughly inked part of the chain ¡°¡ªthis is the oldest part. Also, this is all kinetics, no {COMPOSED} matter, so if I make a mistake when I alter the weave¡­¡±


    She mimed an implosion with her hands and made a hissing, gurgling noise like something wet being sucked through a tube. A messy way to go.


    ¡°Ah.¡±


    ¡°Yes. That, and I really like the design.¡±


    I swallowed my embarrassment and looked intently again at the expanse of bare skin, but if she meant a specific element, I didn¡¯t see it.


    ¡°Uh? I mean, it¡¯s got clever propagation channeling, I suppose. Really good.¡± I squinted. ¡°Oh, and the way you split the channels for {DEFLECT}, that¡¯s¡ª¡±


    ¡°Not the glyph design, the artwork.¡±


    ¡°Artwork?¡± I repeated dumbly.


    Ai sighed and paced away from me. As she receded, my eyes stopped being able to make out the individual details of each viridian glyph, turning the tattoo into, well¡ªa tattoo. Now I saw the design.


    ¡°Oh, wow.¡±


    ¡°<i>Deshou? </i>Ebi-tan did a great job.¡±


    Ai had a pair of feathery wings folded on her back, each line of glyphs coalescing into the negative space of a shadow cast by the feathers. Some of the more geometric chains, too symmetrical and boxy to mimic the play of light over organic shapes, instead took on the look of pistons or lever arms, as though the feathers were attached to a mechanical frame mounted to her back. I followed the train of logic.


    ¡°Can you <i>fly?</i>¡± I hadn¡¯t seen the type of anti-gravity lattices one would expect, the sort that were in Heliotrope¡¯s jetbike.


    ¡°Not as well as the wings suggest,¡± she admitted. ¡°Ah¡­right, Hina jumped you home the other day, didn¡¯t she?¡±


    The memory of falling out of the sky made my stomach churn.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s more controlled than that,¡± she assured with a smile. ¡°Big jump, then glide. I can show you, but I don¡¯t think it¡¯d be very helpful for you right now.¡±


    Not helpful, perhaps, but I was suddenly paying much closer attention. I¡¯d written off her enhancements as what was often termed ¡°human-plus,¡± but limited flight gave her three-dimensional maneuverability that put her in the realm of the Vaetna, to an extent.


    ¡°Um, if it¡¯s not too much of a hassle¡­¡±


    ¡ª


    To my slight disappointment, Ai did not immediately leap into the air and begin bounding around the dojo. She gave a much more practical demonstration¡ªone which included a spear. It was a simple training spear, plastic haft, foam tip, and on the short side by my standards. Mine was longer than I was tall; the one Ai had selected was roughly her height. She brought one of the wooden dummies to the middle of the room and began a simple training sequence.


    Her movements were distinct from mine in a number of ways. My style was modeled on¡ªinspired by, really¡ªHeung¡¯s moves, with a lot of powerful strikes to abuse range, as she¡¯d noted, and I generally tried to emphasize control of my footwork, lacking the spearmaster¡¯s ability to supernaturally correct out of overbalance and put force behind any blow no matter how improbable. In doing so, I achieved what I thought to be the closest imitation to his motions that one could approximate, accounting for the fact that I had to deal with things like momentum and gravity and the limited space of my old living situation. And Ai¡¯s warm-up sequence was still¡ªloosely¡ªabiding by those basic rules of physics, but the way she was striking¡ª


    She barely used the spear tip. She switched freely between one-handed and two-handed stances, striking with the haft, more like a quarterstaff than a spear. Too, she fought with her body as much as the weapon, an up-close-and-personal style with knee strikes and dancing footwork; variations on the same moves she¡¯d used to take me down in our brief bout of sparring. This time, though, she fully engaged her magical augmentations and wasn¡¯t holding back anything; each blow was full-force, as far as I could tell. She¡¯d go for the head, ribs, stomach, knees, groin. Cracking noises filled the air in a staccato rhythm of violence.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Then she began to speed up.


    It¡¯s difficult to express how exactly Ai¡¯s movements changed. The closest example would be as though she were a video played fifty percent faster than normal, which captures the way her movements seemed to lose inertia as though the spear were practically weightless¡ªbut that comparison also gives the image of cartoonishly jerky motions. Instead, her motions took on a sort of grace. The dance went from the exertions of muscles and tendons fighting momentum and gravity to something else, destructive motion flowing through her body and depositing lethal energy into the dummy¡¯s wooden frame. Each enhanced strike was loud enough to make me flinch and sent splinters flying.


    I saw in her movements the barest shadow of the Vaetna¡¯s aspect. Lesser¡ªcloser-in and more brutal, still half-tethered to the dojo¡¯s floor. If the dummy were a real, unaugmented human, they¡¯d already be dead from blunt force trauma¡ªa far less clean death than by a <i>vaet</i> or LM dart, merely straddling the border of supernatural violence without transcending to the level of true, unfettered destruction. Ai swung the butt of the spear into the dummy¡¯s shoulder and followed with a low leg sweep that was distinctly unlike anything a Vaetna would do¡ªthe first strike would have been with a blade and ended the fight there. As it was, the enhanced kick was forceful enough to defeat the dummy¡¯s stabilized base and send it tumbling.


    The next few moments were a blur of further-accelerated violence that I only parsed after the fact. Ai flipped, spun, and then there was a whistling noise, a crunch, and a <i>bang</i>. The sound echoed through the room as Ai doubled over, hands on her knees, glyph-woven wings aglow against her muscular back as she caught her breath. After a few measured breaths, she raised her head to join me in looking up at her grisly handiwork.


    The dummy had struck the top edge of the padding on the far wall, impaled through the chest, some four or five meters up from the floor. It was split down the middle around the speartip. The spear¡¯s plastic haft had been partially melted and distorted by friction as it had left Ai¡¯s hand. That was a singular strike more suited to the Vaetna; a pang of jealous excitement ran through me at the thought, chased immediately by awful guilt for envying such a killing blow. The jealousy won.


    ¡°Um. Didn¡¯t¡ªdidn¡¯t it have a foam tip?¡±


    ¡°Yes. So don¡¯t do that with yours.¡±


    ¡°I <i>can¡¯t</i>. And you¡¯re the <i>weakest</i> of them?¡±


    She looked at me with some surprise at the bitterness in my tone, muscular arms glistening with sweat as she rolled her shoulders¡ªbut those weren¡¯t where the real power lay. The intricate green lattice was what had enabled this. My mind was racing a mile a minute: with only that enhancement, Ai¡¯s display of physicality just now had grazed the bottom edge of the zone of physical power that I considered solely the Vaetna¡¯s domain. She nodded.


    ¡°Hina is faster than me and has more tricks.¡±


    Hina¡¯s elevated physiology was even more powerful, those changes she¡¯d subtly promised me if only I was willing. Of course, I¡¯d already seen little tastes of her power, but not simple, transcendental physical prowess, not really. No wonder her predatory aspect alarmed me deep in my bones¡ªI made a conscious effort to stop biting my lip.


    ¡°And¡­mantles? I was under the impression that Amethyst¡¯s g¡ªgun,¡± I stumbled over the instrument of violence I¡¯d enabled, ¡°was fairly representative of the overall fighting style, ranged rather than melee combat, but that doesn¡¯t look to be indicative of¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s quite physical. Kinetic. You haven¡¯t seen many videos of us fighting, have you?¡±


    ¡°I was going to get around to it.¡±


    ¡°You weren¡¯t,¡± she countered bluntly. There was no accusation in the tone; she was actually smiling. ¡°I say that all the time and then never get around to it unless Ebi-tan or Takehara-san remind me. But I¡¯ve set aside this whole afternoon anyway¡ªlet¡¯s have lunch, and I¡¯ll show you some combat footage. You¡¯ll understand the lattice diagrams much better with practical examples.¡±


    ¡ª


    Ai¡¯s idea of lunch was cup ramen. While the noodles rehydrated in hot water, she disappeared upstairs briefly, returning with a laptop and cables. She set up the laptop to feed into the big TV in the common area and started queuing up YouTube clips and opening up an instance of GWalk.


    The noodles were honestly pretty good, at least relative to the miniscule amount of effort they had taken. Ai and I had different types; she¡¯d given me what was supposedly the default, where the extra bits were little chunks of unidentifiable salty meat and tiny shrimp, but her own was a curry soup variation with a tempting aroma. I stirred the noodles with the training chopsticks she had made for me, which had apparently been living with the other silverware in the kitchen.


    ¡°I, uh, don¡¯t think I ever thanked you for these.¡±


    She smiled.


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡±


    ¡°I mean, they fit really well. Perfectly, in fact. Did you scan my hand or something?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Huh.¡±


    The first video we watched was, of all things, a TV interview with Alice from two years ago. The dragon-girl looked slightly different; her tail was only half as long as I was used to, and not as thick. It was awkwardly tucked behind her as she sat forward in an oversized, padded chair, shifting uncomfortably. It was easy to imagine why, with the limb squished behind her like that. I glanced over at Ai, who was wearing a sympathetic grimace.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you say combat footage?¡±


    ¡°In a bit, but this is a really good interview. Very helpful.¡±


    TV-Alice was soldiering through the pain, bantering with the trio of hosts. It was about a minute into the interview when I brought up the obvious issue.


    ¡°¡­This is in Japanese, Ai.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    Ai physically flinched at her error, reaching over to the laptop to turn on subtitles, revealing that Alice was discussing mantle transformations. After a few more minutes of introductory discussions, consisting mostly of Alice introducing her team and being humble in the face of the interviewers¡ªtwo of whom were obviously star-struck¡ªsome slides with graphs came on screen. I blinked at the numbers involved and the graphic of Alice¡¯s mantle in flight next to a jet fighter.


    ¡°Seventy kilonewtons of thrust?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± Ai sounded so proud, pausing the video to tab over to GWalk, where she had Alice¡¯s mantle diagram loaded. She moused over the propulsion section of the lattice. ¡°Going fast is really easy when you don¡¯t have to worry about holding the craft together, carrying fuel, any of that.¡±


    I knew that, of course; I was already mentally comparing these numbers to the Vaetna¡¯s. Between Gates and teleportation, it was actually somewhat uncommon for them to fly long distances, and they didn¡¯t tend to use direct thrust in a way that was easily quantifiable as force¡ªbut I knew that when Heung wanted to go <i>fast</i>, he could output over two hundred kilonewtons to break the sound barrier in under a second. He¡¯d done that sort of acceleration to intercept my flamefall. So at least for this metric, the Radiances still only measured up to a fraction of the Vaetna¡ªbut a significant fraction.


    So it went with other statistics. Alice¡¯s interview didn¡¯t disclose things like armaments or exact quantity of magical power being used, for obvious reasons, but I had those numbers right in front of me in the lattice diagram, and every time it was the same story: not a direct match for the Vaetna, but close enough that they were in the ballpark¡­with one exception.


    ¡°We can¡¯t compete on ripple leakage, of course. We¡¯ve lowered FRR by almost ninety percent since the first prototypes, since of course that¡¯s critical for Amane¡¯s well-being, but compared to the Vaetna¡­¡± Ai trailed off.


    The Vaetna famously produced <i>zero</i> free ripple¡ªthe extra uncontrolled stuff which had zany and often deleterious effects on its surroundings¡ªwhen casting magic; the running theory was that the Spire itself modulated that as a byproduct of the fact that every Vaetna¡¯s Flame was partially woven into it, but as usual, there was no official word on the subject. This dovetailed with their other environmental efforts, since magical pollution was a special kind of ugly. TV-Alice agreed, asserting that it was a completely unacceptable form of collateral damage for <i>mahou shoujo</i>.


    We eventually moved on from the interview to the promised combat clips so that I could see these abstract numbers in action. And in action, they did look a lot like the Vaetna, enough that my jealousy for that unattainable form, cooled to bare embers by years of resignation, was starting to reignite. Refocus.


    Maybe it wasn¡¯t so unattainable.


    ¡ª


    At some point, Ai¡¯s series of videos and data sheets tapered off, and we wound up just chatting about magic. The broth-stained plastic cups on the table had been joined by a bag of potato chips from which we both snacked freely while we curled up on the sofa. Soothed by Ai¡¯s calm demeanor, I found it in me to open up somewhat about the Vaetna, my fascination for them, my desire to see the Spire with my own eyes¡ªand my contradictory resolution to stick around in spite of all that and the forecasted danger. I shared with her what I had overheard from Yuuka.


    ¡°Three weeks.¡±


    Ai seemed to think hard for a moment, running numbers in her head. When she refocused on me, she was confident, solid. I was grateful.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be ready.¡±


    ¡°Ready for what, exactly?¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t be fighting right away, I think. They¡¯ll try to buy you first. <i>Etto¡­</i>poach. Poach you. Every year, I get huge offers to work at one of the US research groups. Lockheed Martin, Carnegie Mellon, General Dynamics¡­¡±


    ¡°The ones who develop directly for the PCTF,¡± I followed.


    ¡°Yes. And I never will, of course.¡±


    ¡°Neither will I,¡± I assured her. ¡°I mean, if they wanted me, they had years to come pick me up. But I¡¯ve rather¡­soured on them, of late.¡±


    ¡°Soured on them,¡± Ai repeated, trying out the expression. ¡°I like that phrase. <i>Suppakunatta</i>. Doesn¡¯t work as well in Japanese. Has she been better to you?¡±


    I winced.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t been face-to-face since then, so I don¡¯t know, but¡­it wasn¡¯t great, when she was talking to Alice.¡±


    A burst of rent air interrupted us. Hina pranced her way into three-space, startling me and setting my thoughts awhirl as I registered the cozy, intimate situation Ai and I had spent the last two or three hours in¡ªit can¡¯t have looked good, if Hina were the type to care about such things. But she just happily flopped onto the sofa next to me, of course.


    ¡°Hey, cuties!¡±


    ¡°Hina-san. <i>Oshigoto wa?</i>¡±


    ¡°Bleh. Meetings! They don¡¯t need me.¡± The puppy shimmied to snuggle up against me, and I tried very hard not to look down her blouse as she undid the top few buttons. ¡°How¡¯s it hangin¡¯?¡±


    ¡°Good,¡± I spluttered, trying for nonchalance and failing. ¡°The, um. Mantles. Yep.¡±


    ¡°Ooooh. Getting in that circuitry, huh?¡±


    ¡°You could say that.¡± Ai hummed. ¡°Actually, we were just talking about Yuuka-chan. It seems like your <i>shitsuke</i> hasn¡¯t worked.¡±


    Hina pouted. ¡°And I took away her chocolate and everything¡­¡±


    That made Ai¡¯s eyebrows go up. ¡°<i>Ara.</i> I was talking about the violence, but that¡¯s more serious for you. Did you give Ezzen some?¡±


    ¡°Of course! And it was good, right, cutie?¡± She snuggled closer against me.


    ¡°Um, yeah.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s very expensive,¡± Ai informed me, mock-stern. ¡°She¡¯ll bankrupt us.¡±


    ¡°¡®S good though, right? Right?¡±


    ¡°It is,¡± the muscular girl admitted. Hina purred happily, then her expression soured.


    ¡°Man, Yuuka¡¯s being such a jerk. She¡¯d be way nicer if cutie here was a girl, too. That¡¯s not fair at all!¡±


    I recalled that Yuuka had implied something along those lines. Being the subject of such intense and directed misandry felt awful, so I distracted myself with a switch to more practical matters.


    ¡°Um, well, about that. She insisted on going on Saturday.¡±


    ¡°Ah. So, three of us?¡±


    ¡°I guess so. I don¡¯t think she has a problem with you going; she just wanted something about her classes.¡±


    Ai nodded. ¡°That makes sense. The rally is in cooperation with environmentalist groups, and Yuuka-chan is a rather extreme¡­¡±


    ¡°Activist,¡± Hina supplied. ¡°Eco-terrorist!¡± She sounded so proud of her teammate.


    ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    Ai grimaced. ¡°She thinks of herself as¡­a protector. Because of everything with Amane. And once we became stronger, a lot of what her eye tells her is¡­oil in the oceans, rainforests being cut down. She thinks that¡¯s evil. And it is the duty of <i>mahou shoujo</i> to destroy evil.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why she was in the Gulf! Because of the rig!¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± I was reevaluating her, somewhat. The Vaetna were definitely also classifiable as ecological activists, and yes, sometimes¡­¡°Eco-<i>terrorist</i>?¡±


    ¡°<i>Not publicly</i>,¡± Ai glared slightly at Hina for revealing the information, and I could see why. Another thing to keep straight, to make sure I didn¡¯t accidentally leak.


    ¡°Right, right,¡± the puppy agreed, immune to the judgment. ¡°It¡¯s more of a hobby for her.¡±


    ¡°Um. Got it. Okay. I can¡¯t blame her,¡± I admitted.


    Hina dug a claw into my arm and growled. Not loud enough for Ai to hear, but I could feel it radiate through her torso into mine. It still freaked me out that I found that so attractive.


    ¡°I smell sweat. You sparred. Three hours ago, maybe?¡±


    ¡°Y¡ªyeah?¡±


    She looked up at me with those sapphire eyes, pure hyena, pupils tiny¡ªall predator. I shivered.


    ¡°I need a piece of that action. Make up for missing last night, and get you ready for Saturday.¡±


    I tore my eyes from her, a monumental struggle, to look at Ai on my other side and ask a silent question with my eyes: from what she and Amane had said, such physical preparation wasn¡¯t necessary, so was Hina just making excuses for her own desires? Not that the butterflies in my stomach cared about whether it was necessary. Ai returned the question with one of her own.


    ¡°Last night?¡±


    ¡°Oh, um, she was out¡ª¡±


    ¡°Not sex,¡± Hina clarified for me. ¡°Just fighting.¡±


    ¡°Not much difference with you,¡± Ai pointed out grumpily.


    ¡°Well, Yuuka¡¯s always so <i>unsatisfying</i>, doesn¡¯t fight back at all, just runs! Need to get some real hits.¡±


    Ai shook her head. ¡°She gets like this, sometimes. Alice would stop her, but¡­you did want to see how she moves, right?¡±


    I swallowed, unable to deny my excitement to see firsthand how my girlfriend would compare to my idols in combat. I wanted to know just how far beyond me she was. And, in turn, how far I could go, what I might be able to become¡ªa path toward their ilk.


    ¡°I do.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.08

    ¡°Hit me!¡±


    Hina was in a mood. A giant, gleeful grin of pointed teeth covered her face, and the blue of her eyes held a fervor, a mania.


    ¡°Uh.¡±


    ¡°Punch me!¡±


    ¡°Um, we were doing spear exercises earlier¡ª¡±


    ¡°No. Shut up and <i>hit me</i>, cutie. With your fist! Make it fucking hurt,¡± she panted.


    My reservations were obvious. Even though my intellect and instincts agreed that there was absolutely no way I could meaningfully injure her with a simple punch, common sense had me hesitant to throw a punch at a girl who was almost a full head shorter than me and weighed easily 20 kilos less¡ªno matter how disturbingly enthusiastic she was.


    ¡°C¡¯mon, c¡¯mon, <i>c¡¯mon!</i>¡±


    ¡°Hina-san,¡± Ai chided. The Emerald Radiance was sitting on the sidelines, cross-legged on the dojo¡¯s padded floor. ¡°Maybe it would be better if you let me¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ai, baby, don¡¯t ruin this for me.¡±


    As Ai repeated the pet name to herself incredulously, Hina eyed me with what I could only describe as need. The blue of her eyes was being rapidly swallowed from within by the black of hugely dilated pupils, and she was clenching and unclenching her hands.


    ¡°Um, Hina, you¡¯re freaking me out just a little. Can you¡­?¡±


    That got through to her. She took a deep breath that exploded outward as a plea.


    ¡°Cutie, please, I¡¯m just¡ªI really need this, and I promise it¡¯ll be <i>fun</i> and this is real training because you gotta at least be able to throw a punch and also we¡¯re never gonna be able to have the good kind of sex without at least starting here and I¡¯m trying really really hard to not unload onto you first and¡ªand Ai¡¯s here to stop me if I lose control.¡±


    Damn her puppy eyes, and damn my desire to find out what ¡°<i>the good kind of sex</i>¡± meant.


    ¡°¡­Okay.¡± I balled a fist, and Hina¡¯s eyes lit up. ¡°Uh¡­where?¡±


    ¡°Anywhere¡¯s good,¡± she purred, before shame flickered across her face. She blinked away the haze a bit. ¡°Um. Boob?¡±


    ¡°Boob.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    The open vulnerability of her neediness emboldened me to ask. ¡°Any particular¡­reason?¡±


    ¡°I like it when you touch them.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m <i>right here</i>,¡± Ai reminded us. ¡°This is not becoming¡­sex. I shouldn¡¯t need to say that. Real training, Hina-san.¡±


    Hina bounced on the balls of her feet, only loosely interested in gravity. ¡°Real training!¡±


    ¡°Hina and I talked about this,¡± I informed Ai. ¡°Um¡ªwith boundaries and everything.¡± Though Hina¡¯s own admission that she needed Ai¡¯s presence as a failsafe was undermining the strength of those boundaries more than I liked. ¡°So, um, with that in mind, Hina, what¡¯s the¡­goal, here, exactly?¡±


    ¡°We make sure you know how to throw a real punch.¡±


    ¡°With you as the punching bag because you¡¯re into that,¡± I finished.


    ¡°Yep! Win-win, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Okay, sure, yeah.¡± I drew back my fist and changed my stance slightly, feeling a little lame; I¡¯d never done a hand-to-hand martial art. At least I knew to put my thumb over my fingers.


    Hina presented her chest for the strike in a distinctly sexual display, despite the fact that the tank top she¡¯d changed into was fairly tame and unprovocative. Ai groused something at her in Japanese, and she sighed, standing more normally instead.


    ¡°Killjoy. C¡¯mon, cutie.¡±


    I punched her. My scarred knuckles squished into the fabric, and then her breast, stopping as they cushioned against her ribs. In that moment of contact, feeling my fist strike the meat of her body, the absurdity of this situation caught up to me. A pretty girl was begging me to punch her in the boob as a thin-veiled excuse to get off. And evidently, I was such an easily-strung-along submissive that there had never really been any question I was going to do it. What a ridiculous situation.


    The moment passed as I withdrew my hand. Hina looked at me blankly, unsatisfied.


    ¡°Harder, cutie. Like you mean it.¡±


    I reddened. I <i>had</i> meant it, but apparently my form was too bad to get that across, or I was just too weak.


    ¡°Um¡ªokay.¡±


    ¡°Again.¡±


    I complied, opting for the other boob this time, feeling even more absurd. But it still wasn¡¯t enough to even move the needle on whatever criteria Hina cared about. Pain, presumably. She frowned.


    ¡°I know you¡¯re not that weak. Stop holding back.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not!¡±


    ¡°He <i>is</i> baseline,¡± Ai pointed out from the sidelines. ¡°No augmentations, no mutations. You know he can¡¯t hit as hard as we can. And it¡¯s very normal to unconsciously pull your punches when your <i>first time practicing a punch is doing it on a person,</i> <i>Hina-san</i>,¡± she chastised.


    ¡°But he knows I can take it!¡± Hina stepped into my reach, leaning close. ¡°Cutie.¡±


    ¡°Hi?¡± Subconscious pattern recognition observed that most times she had gotten this close, we were usually about to¡ª


    She yanked me forward by the collar of my shirt. Ai shouted. Hina¡¯s lips¡ª


    Did not find mine. She growled in my ear, sending goosebumps rippling down my back and arms.


    ¡°Stop fucking <i>disappointing</i> me and hurt me already.¡±


    She let go and casually dropped back to where she had been standing in the blink of an eye. The motion was fluid and weightless in that way that suggested she was <i>more</i>, that way which evoked the Vaetna. That alone was enough to send a spike of white-hot, jealous anger straight through my chest¡ªbut combined with her words?


    The cocktail of envious frustration ignited sparks of my Flame, a tearing sensation in my chest like I¡¯d pulled a muscle I hadn¡¯t known was there, jolted to life from a cold start. Raw magic followed the path of least resistance from my soul to where it had first touched me all those years ago, into the seams of my scars, illuminating ice-cold magmatic flows of ivory Flame. She wanted me to hurt her, to hit her as hard as a flamebearer should be able¡ªand in that moment of frustration, the third time I swung at Hina was with more than just the meat and bone of my fist.


    Things slowed down around us. Maybe that was the adrenaline, maybe white or pink ripple from my Flame manifesting my emotions, but in any case, for that fraction of a second, I was moving and thinking and feeling at her pace. Those blue eyes caught the white firelight as they narrowed in satisfaction. She responded not by attempting to dodge, but instead by leaning into the blow, and I struck her square in the chest.


    This time, when fist compressed skin and fat, it didn¡¯t stop. I felt something crunch, bone failing. The force passed through her entire body in a shockwave as she crumpled around the blow. Then the energy ran out of ways to dissipate, and she was thrown down and backward, skidding to a stop in a heap on the mat a few meters away.


    I stood there, panting, fire streaming from my clenched fist. It hurt, as the Flame always did, those channels of white light like frozen metal pressed against my skin, quickly turning numb in a way sure to leave criss-crossed lines of frostnip on my hand. And inside my arm, pushing my musculature past its physical limits had already begun to presage its consequences, a tattered cold front of soreness and aches. But I felt incredible, high on the surge of power, the blink-and-you¡¯d-miss-it apotheosis. I was beyond the sluggish limitations that had weighed me down all these years, whole at last, the emptiness sated for just a moment¡ª


    Hina gasped, coughing flecks of blood onto the mat, a visceral, mortal sound that dragged me back to reality. I had tried to hurt her¡ªto kill, really, because like when Ai had dispatched the dummy a few hours ago, a regular human would not have survived what I had just done to Hina. And while I knew my girlfriend was far more than human, able to take it, her wet coughs and the blood oozing from the corner of her mouth filled me with icy fear and doused my Flame with ashy guilt.


    ¡°H¡ªHina?¡±


    She gurgled, coughed, and rolled onto her back. Fuck. I felt a hand on my arm¡ªAi was at my side, inspecting what I¡¯d just done to my hand. I pulled away, pointing at Hina lying supine.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine. What are you doing? Help <i>her</i>.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not fine. Arm, please. I need to make sure you didn¡¯t break your hand or that the residuals aren¡¯t about to turn your muscles to marble.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ª¡± I winced as she ran her thumb along the back of my hand, checking the bones. ¡°Okay, maybe I¡¯m not completely fine, but she¡¯s <i>less fine</i>.¡± Why was I the one receiving medical attention when I¡¯d been the one to throw the damn punch? ¡°I can deal with this myself, as opposed to my <i>girlfriend</i>, who is <i>coughing up blood</i>.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not built for those forces or ripple exposure. She is.¡±


    As if on cue, Hina sat up, wiping her mouth with her hand. She tried to say something¡ªit came out as a cough. She tried again.


    ¡°Hehehe¡ª<i>hrngh</i>¡ªhiehehehehe. That was <i>so good</i>.¡±


    ¡°Uh. Are you alright? Ai, <i>please</i> give her first aid, not me. That cough can¡¯t be good, and I definitely felt some ribs break, and that landing looked¡­bad.¡±


    Ai shook her head as Hina babbled.


    ¡°I knew you could¡ª¡± she hacked some more blood into her palm, ¡°¡ªcould do it! Gosh, fuck, that was so <i>good</i>,¡± she repeated giddily, rolling her shoulders with a bloody smile. ¡°I love you.¡±


    I exchanged a look with Ai, pulling my arm away. ¡°She hit her head.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s just like this. Do you see why we try not to enable it?¡±


    Hina rose and staggered toward us, a crazy-eyed zombie. ¡°I love you too,¡± she giggled to Ai. ¡°So sweet, so thoughtful, so pretty.¡±


    I was weirdly grateful that Ai avoided eye contact with her pain-drunk teammate. Hina had expressed similar affection for Alice before, and I was starting to suspect it applied to all her teammates. I tried not to be jealous.


    ¡°Hina, are you¡­alright?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m <i>great</i>. And I have <i>you</i> to thank for it, cutie, you cutie.¡±


    Her giddiness was going from offputting to concerning.


    ¡°I¡ªno, I hurt you. I feel like shit about it,¡± I added for Ai¡¯s benefit. ¡°I don¡¯t¡ª¡±


    ¡°Cutie. Ezzen. Ezzie!¡± She rolled her tongue over the new pet name, and I blushed despite the circumstances. ¡°I¡¯m already mostly better. Give me another five minutes and it¡¯ll be like it never happened.¡±


    ¡°Are¡ªyou¡¯re sure? That¡¯s a relief.¡±


    Hina stared at me hungrily, pupils huge. ¡°Yeah! It means you can hit me again!¡±


    ¡°Hina-san,¡± Ai interjected, warning in her voice.


    ¡°Ai-chan!¡±


    ¡°No more.¡±


    ¡°I can take more! You know I can!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not about you. Stop being selfish for once and <i>think</i>.¡±


    ¡°His arm¡¯s fine,¡± she protested. ¡°And we¡¯re under the red threshold for Amane because of the wards in here, so we can go as hard as we want.¡± She licked the blood off her palm. ¡°So c¡¯mon, fuck me up, show me more of what you can be. C¡¯mon, cutie, don¡¯t you want it?¡±


    Ai answered before I could. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be here for this. It makes me feel dirty.¡±


    ¡°Then don¡¯t! It¡¯s kind of weird for you to stick around and not join in. Just let us have our fun and go work on your stuff.¡±


    ¡°Your ¡®fun¡¯ could get Ezzen hurt. He can¡¯t stop you from going¡­<i>fight-crazy</i>, and you can¡¯t stop yourself.¡±


    ¡°I totally can stop myself! Ezzie and I had a whole talk about this! He¡¯s keeping me responsible!¡±


    ¡°Not a huge fan of ¡®Ezzie¡¯,¡± I interjected quietly. There was more at stake here, but that part was the only bit I really had the bandwidth for at the moment. I was still reeling from the emotional whiplash of my momentary ascension.


    ¡°Sorry. Point is, I¡¯m not gonna hurt him, okay? Walk away and we¡¯ll prove it!¡±The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ai pointed at Hina¡¯s chest, which the hyena was rubbing absentmindedly¡ªwhether to soothe or inflame, I couldn¡¯t say. ¡°What just happened is not ¡®keeping you responsible¡¯.¡±


    That, along with Hina¡¯s ¡°don¡¯t you want it,¡± made something click into place for me. I spoke up.


    ¡°Ai, I think we¡¯re done.¡±


    ¡°Hey!¡± Hina pouted. ¡°Don¡¯t blueball me like that!¡±


    ¡°Hina, please. I need to talk to you. Alone.¡±


    ¡°Aw.¡± Suddenly, she looked nervous. ¡°Did I fuck up?¡±


    ¡°No, I just¡­¡± I glanced at Ai, hoping she¡¯d trust my judgment.


    ¡°Yes, you fucked up.¡±


    ¡°Ai!¡±


    ¡°There was no reason for you to do any of it like this. If you want to show him how to fight like you do, then <i>show him how to fight,</i> not how to enable your selfishness.¡±


    Hina looked hurt. ¡°I did! Look at his arm!¡±


    ¡°Unmanaged, anger-driven ripple catalysis is not a safe way to fight. You <i>know that</i>; it¡¯s why you do it. But <i>he</i> is still recovering from an amputation! What if it had been transmutative instead of augmentative? He could have¡ª¡± She caught herself, taking a deep breath. ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll leave, Ezzen. I have papers to grade anyway. Ebi will check on you later.¡±


    As she stormed off, my rapidly regenerating girlfriend called after her.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be good! Promise!¡±


    ¡ª


    I sat down on the dojo¡¯s padded floor, catching my breath, taking inventory of the lancing pain on my skin and in my muscles. Hina did the same and stretched her shoulders, riding up her shirt to expose her belly¡ªa normally tantalizing view, somewhat undercut by the crunch of bone healing in real time. That rather summarized the problem.


    Guilt fought desire. I did want to feel that rush of power again, and part of me, perhaps a larger part than I dared admit, wanted to get swept up in Hina¡¯s giddy high, let this mood of hers take us from fighting to fucking and maybe blur the line between those entirely. We had the room to ourselves now, after all. But at the same time, I just felt¡­gross. I opened with that.


    ¡°This feels like too much.¡±


    ¡°Cold feet, you mean.¡±


    ¡°What I mean is that this is¡­extreme. Insane. If I hit a human like that, they¡¯d be dead.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not human! And neither are you, cutie. I saw that look on your face when you hit me, y¡¯know. It makes you <i>so happy</i>. Like it should!¡± She scooted closer to me. ¡°Lap?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªnot right now.¡±


    ¡°Aw. Why not?¡±


    ¡°Because¡ªadrenaline. You,¡± I clarified, finding one of the things I wouldn¡¯t have been able to say with Ai in the room. ¡°You¡¯re adrenaline, and I don¡¯t know how to feel about it.¡±


    ¡°Violence, yep, love it.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s how I am!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s in it for you? What¡¯s the¡ªpoint? Fun? Kink? I don¡¯t even really know what I¡¯m trying to ask.¡±


    ¡°I think you know.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t. You were¡ªI mean, I know masochism is a thing, and you¡¯ve been open enough about that. But I had been thinking, like, whips and chains at most¡­¡± I trailed off, realizing I was ostensibly open to that level of fucked-up-torture-fun. I¡¯d have to unpack that later. For now, it was overshadowed by the uniquely extreme case that was my girlfriend. ¡°Not¡ªnot injuries that would send somebody to the hospital. That was way too far.¡±


    ¡°Mm. Okay, so¡­yeah, I¡¯m a masochist, no news there, but the pain itself isn¡¯t really the big thing. Y¡¯know how adrenaline junkies, like skydivers and stuff, don¡¯t actually want to die?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± Wait, was she implying¡ª¡°Holy shit, Hina, are you¡ª¡±


    ¡°No! No, no, not what I meant. I loooove being alive, that¡¯s exactly the thing. When a human jumps out of that plane, the thrill is in the fall. Those thirty or forty seconds of letting gravity win, that¡¯s where the fun is at. The danger, the fear of a messy end, just enough to get the heart rate up and get that thrill of survival when they open the parachute and land nice and safe. And like, it¡¯s a good high, it scratches that itch. For humans.¡± My stomach turned over at the imagery of skydiving. She looked at me with those blue eyes, tilting her head curiously. ¡°Oh, right, acrophobia.¡±


    I nodded, pale. ¡°Yeah, heights, not a great topic for me.¡±


    ¡°Nah. Perfect topic! Imagine how much of a rush that feeling of survival is when it comes after you <i>actually hit the ground</i>. The power when you see earth rushing toward you and know you¡¯ll <i>win</i>. Imagine not being afraid of heights anymore, not being afraid of <i>anything</i> anymore, because you know you¡¯ll survive.¡± Her voice was dreamy. ¡°I don¡¯t need a parachute.¡±


    Because I was me, there was only one place for my brain to go from that: the Vaetna didn¡¯t need parachutes either. They had enough pride in that bit of trivia that it came up fairly often¡ªhell, Heung had said it almost verbatim minutes before I had been flametouched. I hadn¡¯t put the pieces together until right now, but¡ªcould that bone-deep envy I felt toward the Vaetna be related to my acrophobia? Or perhaps both were just symptoms of the same frustration at being so¡­human. Either way, when Hina framed it like that, about being <i>more</i> and being powerful rather than simply about being in pain, the appeal came into focus. I hated needing a parachute.


    But the parallel between her and my idols broke down from there. I couldn¡¯t imagine any of the Vaetna being so enthusiastic about pain, nor so willing to revel in their superiority. Sure, the Heron liked to joke, but the Vaetna were ultimately practical; they wouldn¡¯t seek out excuses to push their limits like that. Hina, on the other hand, was gratuitous, entirely self-interested. Flaunting it like she did felt wrong on some moral level, and that was before factoring in my personal, gnawing envy.


    She grinned as she watched the gears turn in my head. ¡°Yeah, I knew you¡¯d get it.¡±


    ¡°I¡­I do, I think. That¡¯s what you promised me, right? Power. But¡ªthe high-minded ideas about invincibility and power? Sure. But the way you were acting, the¡­<i>mania</i>¡­that still puts me off.¡±


    ¡°Sorry. The rush makes me a little loopy, but only because it feels so <i>good</i>.¡± She rubbed her breast as though reminiscing.


    ¡°Um, good as in the high you were talking about, or are we back to the masochist ¡®pain equals pleasure¡¯ thing?¡±


    ¡°Both. My wires are definitely more than a little crossed. And now that you know all that¡ªdon¡¯t you want to do it more? Power up with your Flame and get me all pain-happy at the same time? The sex after is god-tier, I promise.¡±


    It was tempting, put like that. Very, very tempting. I tried to reach for some sanity to stave off how appealing that sounded.


    ¡°It¡ªthat feels like going too far. I feel it crosses the boundaries we set.¡±


    ¡°Hey, you agreed to all of this. You <i>wanted</i> to do that to me. That¡¯s how the Flame works, y¡¯know. You got mad, wanted to hurt me, it helped you. Didn¡¯t it feel so good?¡±


    And that was the problem. It had¡ªor at least, part of it had. ¡°That¡¯s a trap.¡±


    ¡°Hm? Cutie, I just mean we should do things that feel good. The Flame helps you with that, if you let it.¡±


    ¡°The power felt good,¡± I admitted. ¡°Hurting you¡­no. I don¡¯t want to do that. I don¡¯t want to be cruel.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯re you hurting?¡±


    ¡°You. I just said.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re not!¡± She sat up, fixing me with glimmering sapphire. ¡°I <i>know</i> it looks bad. I know it does. But it¡¯s <i>so</i> fun for me. It feels incredible, I almost came.¡± For once, she showed something like shame, averting her eyes. ¡°So, uh, yeah, you did a good job. You know by now you¡¯re not putting me in actual danger, and you¡¯re making me feel exactly how I want to feel. Where¡¯s the cruelty there, cutie?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know! I mean, you¡¯re smaller than me, and I know that doesn¡¯t really matter because you¡¯re you, but I still feel gross for doing it, and¡ªit just doesn¡¯t feel like something I should be doing.¡±


    ¡°But didn¡¯t you<i> feel</i> like a Vaetna, for that moment?¡±


    ¡°¡­Unfair to play that card again, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    She ignored me. ¡°And compared to that, right now you¡¯re all¡­slow. Bound. Mortal. And, cutie¡ªnow that you¡¯ve had a taste of what it¡¯s like to <i>not</i> need a parachute, what it¡¯s like to be like them, like <i>me</i>, you¡¯re going to want to feel like that again, chase that high.¡±


    ¡°Speaking from experience?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t¡ª¡±


    ¡°I want you to have that.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± The question slipped out almost automatically, the uncertainty at the core of everything that had happened to me in the last week. It echoed in every moment I spent with the Radiances, but Hina especially. I didn¡¯t deserve this. ¡°Why me?¡±


    ¡°Because you¡¯re hurting like I was, how I used to be. And I can make it better, make you <i>more</i>, with the power of love and magic and punching. That¡¯s <i>mahou shoujo</i>, right there in the dictionary next to a picture of Alice.¡±


    ¡°Still makes me sound like your charity case,¡± I grumbled.


    ¡°Cutie, shut the fuck up.¡±


    She <i>moved</i>, fluid and weightless, closing the gap between us. On hands and knees, she leaned forward to me, and this time the kiss happened. Her mouth tasted metallic, and despite all my protests and misgivings, I welcomed it, leaning into the flavor, shuddering at the way her purrs rolled through my chest. By the time we separated, my brain had thoroughly short-circuited, and the affection in her sapphire eyes banished any notion of this being purely a matter of selfishness or duty for her.


    ¡°I said you were disappointing me. That wasn¡¯t just to rile you up, it¡¯s because it makes me sad when I see you reaching for the parachute instead of growing beyond it. Use your Flame, cutie, like this.¡±


    She put her hand on my chest, tugged for my Flame¡ª


    I pulled away, holding her wrist with both hands.


    ¡°Stop. No, Hina. We promised Ai no more magic, no more pain, right?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s¡ªc¡¯mon! I¡¯m still all worked up.¡±


    ¡°Okay, but¡ªnot like that.¡± I looked at her seriously. ¡°We promised.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, cutie, it¡¯s just¡ªI¡ªI love you,¡± she whimpered, hurt.


    ¡°Do you love me, or do you love what you want to make me into?¡±


    She snarled, and my heart dropped into my stomach, prey instincts rearing their head.


    ¡°It¡¯s both! I just want you to be happy! Weren¡¯t you happy?¡±


    My tattoo itched, and the ache in my hand grew¡ªunlike previous times she¡¯d inspired this animal terror in me, this time I¡¯d just proven I could fight back. But that wasn¡¯t how we had agreed to do this. I took a deep breath and stood my ground against those impulses, pulling my eyes away from the bared teeth, meeting her eyes.


    ¡°Fucking <i>hell</i>, Hina.¡± She wavered, and my voice softened. ¡°Stop¡ªyes, spending time with you does make me happy. Yes, I felt powerful, and that felt¡­good. I want more of that,¡± I admitted, realizing that my desire for that outweighed my misgivings. ¡°But¡­you¡¯re really pushing it on me.¡±


    The snarl disintegrated into remorse, shoulders hunching. She swallowed, sapphire eyes swimming in welling tears, and pulled her hand out of my grip.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m really sorry.¡±


    Space twisted, and she vanished.


    ¡ª


    I snuck into Ai¡¯s workshop half an hour later, clutching oranges in both hands. A spur-of-the-moment decision that she¡¯d probably appreciate a snack had led me to pilfer them from their basket in the penthouse¡¯s kitchen, and I¡¯d awkwardly carried them all the way down the elevator and through the halls, attracting a few stares from passing employees. Fortunately, it seemed that the average person here was accustomed to far weirder flamebearer shenanigans, so nobody¡¯s eyes lingered on me too long.


    Ebi had given my arm a once-over shortly after I¡¯d left the dojo. She¡¯d confirmed that nothing was meaningfully damaged; her only instructions were to not exert it for the rest of the day, which was the plan anyway.


    ¡°We didn¡¯t¡­aggravate Amane, did we?¡±


    ¡°No. Dojo¡¯s warded. You peaked high enough that you would have, though. Mostly Sapphire.¡±


    I averted my eyes shamefully, looking out my room¡¯s window at the setting sun.


    ¡°Makes sense. Sorry.¡±


    ¡°No harm done. I mean, plenty of harm to you and her, but Sapphire knows what she¡¯s doing. It¡¯s why she only ever does that in the dojo.¡±


    ¡°Really? I¡¯d have figured it¡¯d be a great return on investment to also ward up her room, or Amane¡¯s. Or just put buffers between every room in the penthouse. One-color wards are pretty cheap.¡±


    Ebi shrugged.


    ¡°Bring it up with Ai; I¡¯m sure she has a reason. Anyway, you¡¯re all clear, and I need to get back to kicking Amethyst¡¯s ass in Mario Kart.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°You think we spend our days with her just lying in bed and me standing over her attentively like some maid?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªhuh.¡± That actually had sort of been my image of it. ¡°Okay, uh, have fun?¡±


    ¡°I will.¡± She turned and strode toward the door, but stopped at the threshold of my bedroom. ¡°Sapphire was crying. Post-nut clarity?¡±


    ¡°Something like that,¡± I admitted, a little too guilty and tired of the drama to be bothered by her needling. ¡°It¡¯s fucked, and I don¡¯t want to talk about it.¡±


    ¡°Ha,¡± she chuckled in autotune. ¡°You should probably deal with that before Heliotrope gets back tonight. She¡¯s at her worst when her insufferability gets validated. See ya.¡±


    ¡°Bye.¡±


    I decided that if Heliotrope wanted to bully me for having a girlfriend who just loved me too much, then that was her problem, not mine. Maybe it was the newfound sense of empowerment, but I found myself caring slightly less if the Bloodstone Radiance wanted to be a shit. It could also have been emotional fatigue.


    I <i>was</i> a little angry at Hina. I also felt bad for being angry at Hina, because if the way she¡¯d exited that conversation was any indication, she was already kicking herself for forcing herself onto me like that. I felt bad for feeling bad for being angry, because she did deserve some anger. But empathy for her high, the desire to be <i>more</i>, the longing¡ªand especially gratitude and joy that she wanted to share those things with me¡ªthey factored in too. But if we did continue, went further with this, would I be able to stay in control with her making every effort to coax me over the edge, her repeated promises to combine the euphoria with sex? To say nothing of how we¡¯d obviously made Ai uncomfortable, or darker concerns about these parallels between Hina and the Vaetna¡ª


    It was all so complicated and tiresome, and I¡®d just wanted to just not think about it for a little while. Thus, oranges. I didn¡¯t even really intend to talk to Ai about it; working on glyphs was my usual escape, and I¡¯d rather do that with her around than without, because Ai was smart and kind and often right about things. Plus, she¡¯d said she¡¯d be grading assignments, and I was sort of curious what that might entail. So I crossed the threshold into her domain¡ªand was instantly derailed from my plans by the coolest thing I¡¯d ever seen.


    The massive construction matrix on the far wall was in full operation. It was a much more intense and involved setup than Ai¡¯s simple, educational display from yesterday. Hazard stripes and glowing caution symbols floated all around the workspace, warning all that the vast candelabra of whirring machine tooling was not to be messed with or approached by unauthorized personnel. Since I was one of those, I kept a wide berth from both the signage and the actual machinists at the control station, content to just watch.


    Motive glyphs rotated a huge metal plate in midair before {AFFIXING} it in place for the next operation. The cutting head came in to remove a groove diagonally down the side, and I saw flecks of metal skim off several other places on the part simultaneously, identical features being mirrored off the main one by magic. As the tool head swapped to some kind of grinder wheel to clean up the grooves in a shower of sparks, the array of glyphs on the wall also reconfigured, different symbols illuminating and linking together in new ways. It took me a moment to piece together what this new configuration was for, and I got even more excited when it was confirmed by a fresh batch of even scarier warning messages appearing around the workspace, ribbons of English stitched with Japanese. Of course, I could only read the former.


    <b><i>DANGER</i></b><i>: HARD VACUUM. DO NOT PUT ANYTHING YOU LOVE INSIDE THIS BOX.</i>


    A new part, barrel-shaped with a number of rods sticking out one end, seemed to emerge from nowhere, pulled up into our three dimensions from fourspace storage. The rods fit perfectly against the new grooves on the first part as they slid into place. A few glyphs on the wall changed, re-enabling certain laws of physics, and just like that, the two parts were fused together, no fasteners required¡ªand not even held together by magic, either. Instead, they¡¯d simply cold-welded together in the vacuum, no oxidizing layer on the surface to prevent it, a procedure that would be nearly impossible anywhere but the vacuum of space if not for this magical array¡¯s ability to simply prohibit the presence of gas and tell the two parts to not merge until that {DIFFERENTIATE} had been removed from the chain.


    Beautiful stuff. For a few more minutes, I just watched the process, marveling at the sophistication. I would have pulled out my phone to take a video to flaunt to the chatroom¡ªfortunately, that leaker¡¯s impulse was obstructed by oranges. Somebody tapped my shoulder.


    ¡°No new bruises. You stopped.¡±


    ¡°Hi, Ai. We did, yeah.¡± I blinked, then held up the fruit. ¡°Orange?¡±


    ¡°This is a <i>mikan</i>.¡± She accepted it anyway. ¡°Thank you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡±


    I started to peel mine, but she stopped me.


    ¡°No food in the shop.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡±


    ¡°Come to my office instead?¡±


    ¡°Uh.¡± I pointed at the awesome assembly of magical machine tooling. ¡°I¡¯m pretty good where I am.¡±


    Ai grinned warmly. ¡°I thought you¡¯d like it. The undergrads don¡¯t even get to use it.¡±


    ¡°What are they making?¡±


    ¡°This is¡­an artificial gravity module. Making it in one piece¡ªor rather, cold-welding¡ªmeans fewer fasteners and potential points of failure. Important in space.¡±


    ¡°So this is going on the ISS?¡±


    ¡°Different station, but yes. NASA contracted us for a few parts.¡±


    ¡°Not enough Peacie manufacturing capacity,¡± I guessed. ¡°All their plants are busy making the new line of gunships and stuff, I hear.¡±


    ¡°Yes. I refuse to make weapons.¡±


    Neither of us pointed out what we had done the other day, opting for silence instead. We watched the machine go for a few minutes. Ai frowned at me.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t hurt?¡±


    ¡°Hm?¡± I realized I had been tossing my mikan back and forth from hand to hand. ¡°Not really? Ebi said not to do anything with it, but I feel fine.¡±


    ¡°You should still be in pain even without using the arm. Hm. Come with me.¡±


    She led me across the hall to the prosthetic fitting room, away from the machine. But health was important, and if Ai had reason to believe something was amiss¡­


    ¡°Into the circle?¡±


    ¡°No, let me just¡ª¡± she dug around in a cabinet until she found the tool she wanted, a medical-looking wand with a readout. ¡°Internal red ripple gauge.¡±


    She put the tip on the back of my hand, pressed a button, waited a moment, then frowned. She repeated the process at my wrist, then elbow, then shoulder.


    ¡°Your residuals are almost a quarter of what they should be after that.¡±


    ¡°How can you tell? That was all glyphless.¡±


    ¡°Experience. Sit there.¡± She directed me to a chair next to a machine that resembled an X-ray camera, but she didn¡¯t offer me a lead vest or anything. ¡°Arm on here, please.¡±


    I complied. She worked a control panel, and then her eyebrows went up. Her lips tightened, not quite a frown.


    ¡°Wow. That explains it, then. Look at this.¡±


    She turned on a hologram projector that projected a scan of my arm in the air between us. A few more keystrokes highlighted the muscles of my arm.


    ¡°It¡¯s not free red ripple, it¡¯s filtering into green.¡±


    Goosebumps emerged on my skin, ridged and bumped like Spire dermis.


    ¡°Green? But that means¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yes. Your trick with Hina has changed the musculature. You fed the Flame, and it¡¯s¡­rewarding you, like with her.¡± She didn¡¯t sound angry like she had with Hina, just disappointed, but it was still enough to completely take away the excitement I should have been feeling. ¡°You¡¯re mutating.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.09

    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªmutating? Like Hina?¡± <i>Yes, Ezzen, that¡¯s what she just said, don¡¯t ask stupid questions. </i>I tried for something more cogent. ¡°Related to what I did with the punch, I assume?¡±


    Ai nodded, prodding the hologram of my arm. She had highlighted the tricep, deltoid and pectoral¡ªthe punching muscles.


    ¡°Maybe four percent higher muscle density.¡±


    The electric excitement deflated slightly. Four percent didn¡¯t sound all that significant, not enough to warrant the giddiness or the quiet horror.


    ¡°Density, not mass? Er, you know what I mean by that¡­obviously, higher density would also increase the mass. What I mean is that it¡¯d look the same from the outside, yeah? Like how Hina doesn¡¯t look strong at all.¡± I eyed Ai¡¯s biceps, still bare from when we¡¯d sparred. <i>She</i> was muscular and made it look good; honest gains from honest exercise, not Hina¡¯s brand of magical transcendence which left her looking slender and petite until she pulled her shirt off and revealed how heart-flutteringly toned she was, the steely muscle under her soft skin.


    ¡°Yes. For contrast, she is closer to three hundred percent, and the way her muscles anchor is different from ours. I would assume you will also probably have changes in the bone, but nothing external.¡±


    For some reason, I was relieved that I wouldn¡¯t become any bulkier. Four percent more mass wouldn¡¯t have turned me into a hypertrophic roid-monster anyway, and arguably would have pushed me into a more conventionally attractive zone of built-ness than where I was now, but wider shoulders would just mean more to hide under a hoodie. I realized my sleeve was still rolled up from when Ai had scanned me and hastily pulled it back down. No shade on Ai¡¯s physique; I just found it uncomfortable to imagine myself looking more like her.


    ¡°Cool, cool, that¡¯s¡ªgood. And, um, spitballing here¡ªit¡¯ll only continue if I put more magic into it? Keep aggravating the Flame? Like with Opal¡¯s tail.¡±


    Ai¡¯s expression darkened. ¡°That¡¯s right. But it¡¯s important to understand that, like her tail, this is <i>not</i> a controlled process.¡± She half-turned to pull up her top slightly and point at where it exposed her tattoo on her lower back. ¡°This is calibrated. It¡¯s enhancement, but also shock absorption and safety limits. Right now, your only mutations are only in your arm, so¡­let¡¯s say it progresses to fifty percent higher density. Your arm would be much stronger, but the rest of your chest muscles and joints will still be regular strength. You could hurt yourself badly. Hina-san has changed enough now that she can take it, but for years, she just¡­¡±


    ¡°Let herself get hurt.¡± I sighed. ¡°We talked about that. Well, not the history, but that attitude.¡±


    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s horrifying.¡±


    An awkward silence stretched between us.


    ¡°She¡¯s not a bad person, Ai.¡±


    Ai shook her head, deactivating the hologram and flopping into the chair at her desk.


    ¡°You have a bias.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªsure, I guess I do. But the way she described it, she¡¯s not being cruel. That¡¯s your hangup, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°It was yours, too, until a few days ago.¡± She spun the chair lazily, looking up at the assemblage of robotic tentacles over the bed. ¡°I thought you understood why.¡±


    ¡°I do,¡± I protested. ¡°She did make me uncomfortable with all the¡­masochistic moaning from having her bones broken. But that¡¯s not externalized cruelty. I didn¡¯t even harm my Flame for this.¡± I held up my arm. It felt basically the same; maybe a bit of an ache, but neither damaged nor noticeably stronger.


    ¡°You <i>will</i>, if she wants you to. Now that you¡¯ve had a taste.¡±


    ¡°No, I won¡¯t. She offered, after you left, and I pushed her away. Specifically because we had promised you, mind, and I didn¡¯t want to betray that. Why are you treating this like such a slippery slope? Alice and Heliotrope have been doing that too.¡±


    ¡°Because that¡¯s what happened with Jason. Her ex-boyfriend.¡±


    ¡°Sky? He got way too into the pain stuff?¡±


    ¡°He wanted power, she gave it to him.¡±


    ¡°Less cryptically?¡±


    Ai sat back in her chair, counting on her fingers.


    ¡°More muscle, new senses, he got taller, hair in different places¡­¡±


    ¡°New senses. Like Heliotrope¡¯s eye?¡±


    And hair? That felt¡­mundane, but the rest was interesting. I pulled out my phone on reflex to ask him myself¡ªwas interrupted by a knock on the door and a shimmering white dome of hair peeking into the doorway.


    ¡°<i>Ojamashimasu.</i> There you are, Ezzen. I was wondering where you¡¯d gone.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Hi, sorry.¡±


    ¡°No worries,¡± Alice hastily assured me, stepping in and closing the door behind her. ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you¡¯re here with Ai. What¡¯s all this? Door was ajar, so I assumed nothing too sensitive¡­¡±


    I exchanged a nervous glance with Ai¡ªI could see Alice getting mad if she learned what I had done with Hina. Given Ai¡¯s own judgment toward Hina on the topic, would she even cover for me? Plus, Alice was also being transformed by her magic, which Amane had indicated was a less-than-euphoric process for the dragon-girl. I opted for a distraction, reaching over to the desk for my mikan. I lobbed it to her. Alice caught it and looked at me curiously.


    ¡°Thanks?¡±


    ¡°Not that hungry anyway.¡±


    Alice shrugged and got to work puncturing the skin with her long nails. Ai looked at her own mikan, as though registering her own hunger, and hesitantly began to peel it, but Alice tapped her shoulder.


    ¡°Normally I¡¯d be delighted to see you eating real food, but I had actually been intending to ask if you wanted dinner.¡±


    Ai blinked, glanced at the clock, then scrambled out of her chair and toward the door. She yanked it open and started calling across the hall and into her workshop. Alice chuckled.


    ¡°Mm-hm.¡±


    Ai turned back to us, signaled with her hands that she¡¯d be right back, and slipped out the door.


    ¡°She showed me her tattoo,¡± I informed Alice. It wasn¡¯t like me to start conversations like that, but I thought I remembered Alice telling me to ask about it at some point. If nothing else, it kept us off the topic of my arm. She swallowed a slice of fruit.


    ¡°What did you think?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s impressive. Um¡­really quiet for the output, and the ward integration is neat. I thought the kinetic dampening could use some work, but I¡¯d need to look at the diagram; I¡¯m not great at organics. Of course, that¡¯d be different from how it¡¯s done in the mantles, but the rest is fairly similar.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s different when it¡¯s a basic human body being enhanced, isn¡¯t it? More magical, I suppose.¡±


    ¡°Completely,¡± I agreed. ¡°That was my first time seeing it in person, really, aside from a few times Hina¡¯s been Hina, and it¡¯s a lot more visceral in person. The gap is much more apparent, but there¡¯s something more relatable in it, too, I think, kind of easier to self-insert into it and imagine what it¡¯s like to move like that¡­¡± I trailed off. ¡°Um. Hina was there, too.¡±


    ¡°Did she demonstrate?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Alice shifted her weight, tail sliding on the tiled floor. I braced myself for more bile or judgment about Hina¡¯s disposition, but Alice was smiling.


    ¡°She really loves the freedom of movement. That¡¯s actually how we got to talking, back when we first met. We both loved how physical the action in a lot of the more modern <i>mahou shoujo</i> anime is.¡±


    ¡°Um. She <i>really</i> seems to love it,¡± I risked. This conversation could still blow up in my face, so I was trying to take it stage-wise before we got to the part where I had used my Flame.


    Alice gave me a knowing look. ¡°Gave you the parachute talk, did she?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a specific thing?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s tried every metaphor there is. I still only half-get it, to be honest, but as long as she¡¯s happy and not doing it on camera¡­¡±


    Ai stepped back into the room, looking relieved.


    ¡°They just finished, no problems.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t trust your best engineers?¡± Alice¡¯s tone was dry.


    ¡°Of course I trust them, <i>touzen</i>. But we¡¯re already behind, and¡­¡± Ai visibly shook off whatever grip the project had on her. ¡°I said I was giving you this afternoon, Ezzen, and especially now that your arm is beginning to mutate, I want to make sure you have the support¡ª¡±


    Alice¡¯s tail thudded heavily on the tile.


    ¡°It¡¯s <i>what?</i>¡±


    Ai re-activated the hologram in answer. ¡°It¡¯s very minor, low-red, just muscle density enhancements like we saw with Hina that summer. As mild as it gets.¡± Nervousness crept into her voice as the air temperature began to rise; Alice was gripping the mikan so hard it was leaking juice onto the tiles. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect Hina-san to provoke his Flame that quickly, I shouldn¡¯t have let them spar. I¡¯m sorry.¡± Ai bowed.


    ¡°They were sparring?¡±


    ¡°Hina was¡­being Hina,¡± I explained, guilty for having been baited in by my girlfriend¡¯s antics no matter how authentic her neediness had been. ¡°We¡ªwe stopped quickly.¡±


    ¡°Why did you bother at all? You don¡¯t need combat training right now; you need public relations coaching and a haircut.¡± Alice pinched the bridge of her nose. ¡°Ai, I thought you said you were going to brief him today? On the political situation?¡±


    ¡°I showed him mantle schematics and some of our interviews because¡ª<i>kanyuu no jouken dakara</i>.¡± Ai glanced at me, wincing at her slip out of a language I spoke. ¡°Ezzen agreed to stay because of his interest in our mantles, not for the politics.¡±


    ¡°We are on a <i>time budget</i> until Saturday. Until such a time as the PCTF stops hanging over our heads, politics are actually the highest priority.¡± She took a deep breath, stilling her tail. Her slitted pupils moved to me. ¡°Not to say your comfort and interests don¡¯t matter, Ezzen, it¡¯s just¡ªthese mutations make the situation more complicated.¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªfairly minor, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Not to everyone. On Saturday, Miyoko will see that, and she¡¯ll make a big deal out of it and that will change the PR calculus for your whole presence at the event. It¡¯s one thing to be a flametouched magical engineer, but mutagenic residuals elevate you further in Hikanome¡¯s belief structure, even the smallest ones.¡±


    I looked at Ai, wondering why she hadn¡¯t mentioned this if it was such a big deal. Neither had Hina, but that seemed at least par for the course with her¡ªthe dour look that had taken over Ai¡¯s face when Alice had mentioned Hikanome¡¯s beliefs was the missing piece of the puzzle. She didn¡¯t care about the cult¡¯s peculiarities, if she bothered to know them at all.


    ¡°Takehara-san.¡± The Emerald Radiance looked and sounded tired. ¡°Calm down. We knew Miyoko-san will care about his scars. I don¡¯t think a few muscles being less than five percent more dense will change anything.¡±


    Alice¡¯s tail thumped.


    ¡°She <i>will</i> care, because it¡¯s extra leverage.¡± The two Radiances glared at each other for a long moment, and Ai was the first to avert her eyes. Alice¡¯s tail twitched. ¡°Why are you even pushing back on me about this? We both know this is Hina¡¯s fuckup for doing that to him. You ought to be angry, too.¡±


    Ai¡¯s eyes flashed.


    ¡°I <i>am </i>angry, but I am trying to direct it somewhere useful.¡± She looked at me. ¡°Ezzen already knows to stop the mutations. No more channeling emotion with glyphless Flame.¡±


    I blinked. ¡°Um, yeah, I already had a bit of a fight with Hina about it.¡±


    Of course, that wasn¡¯t the whole truth; she¡¯d actually talked me around on the appeal, and it was really only her behavior that we¡¯d clashed on. But I didn¡¯t want to piss off either of them further right now, so I was more than happy to kick that can down the road.


    Alice sighed in relief. ¡°Okay, that¡¯s¡ªbetter than nothing, I suppose. Then¡ªshit, this is just a wake-up call, really. We¡¯ve been slacking on prep to begin with; it¡¯s already Tuesday, and we haven¡¯t even briefed you on manners, let alone the talk track or¡ªGod <i>damn</i> it,¡± she fumed. ¡°Three more days sounds like a lot, but it¡¯s not.¡±


    I swallowed. Alice seemed unable to fully smother her anxieties, and they were fanning the flames of my own. I felt unaccountably guilty for mostly lazing around and snuggling with Hina since our interference in the Thunder Horse Inferno; logically, I knew that it was Todai¡¯s job to prepare me, but I still felt like I¡¯d somehow been procrastinating. And it didn¡¯t help that my girlfriend seemed to be <i>persona non grata</i>, even if her teammates were gracious enough to not extend that to me by association. I took a deep breath.


    ¡°Um, okay. I¡¯m with Ai, for whatever it counts: solutions first, yeah? What do I need to do in the next three days?¡±


    ¡ª


    Two days later, I was now seriously regretting that question.


    First, they¡¯d given me homework. Todai¡¯s PR department had scraped together a list of YouTube videos covering both basic Japanese formal etiquette for foreigners and some more specific information on Hikanome¡¯s particular practices and beliefs¡ªthe latter including, ironically, a video co-authored by Star. Watching those had taken me deep into the night; it should have only taken an hour and a half, or half that at 2x speed, but I kept getting distracted.


    The rain had returned, and I found myself missing the warmth of Hina¡¯s body against mine. My bed was just too big for one person. I at least had enough experience with ennui to recognize that a hot shower would help, but it was still rather lonely. I kept glancing at the balcony, hoping to see her tapping on the glass, or catch a hint of purest blue. No such luck.


    I entertained the idea of talking to Sky, asking about the kinds of mutations Hina had given him¡ªor he had given himself¡ªbut there were two problems. First, I knew I didn¡¯t need the temptation; that was also why I told myself that Hina¡¯s absence was for the best. Second, now that it was apparently connected to the Hikanome event, poking Sky about it almost felt like work. So I avoided it and fell into a dreamless sleep.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Yesterday had begun with me being woken up too soon given my 2 AM bedtime. My mission: hands-on practice of what the videos had covered. This had taken the form of a deeply embarrassing series of repeat-after-me¡¯s with Alice until she¡¯d had to rush off to other duties¡ªincluding more yelling at Hina, I¡¯d find out later¡ªleaving me to continue with one of her bilingual subordinates whose name I instantly forgot. Slowly and excruciatingly, I achieved passable delivery of basic greetings and simple phrases which would mildly impress the average Hikanome member and give the impression I really was intending to stick around long-term.


    The good news was that I wasn¡¯t expected to do almost any of the talking, not with three of the Radiances at hand to field questions.


    ¡°In fact,¡± Amane had explained via Ebi at lunch, ¡°the less you talk, the less chance you have of leaking something extremely confidential. It¡¯s not that we don¡¯t trust you, but many of Hikanome¡¯s higher-level people, and especially the flamebearers, <i>will</i> be trying to extract useful information from you, and if you don¡¯t mind me saying so, it¡¯s pretty obvious you don¡¯t have the experience or skills to gracefully deflect away from sensitive topics in that kind of social piranha tank.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªyeah,¡± I sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± It stung to admit that I didn¡¯t have a public face befitting a VNT; I¡¯d always envisioned a Vaetna version of myself as being outgoing and loquacious like Heung. I resolved to try to channel that energy in a less high-stakes setting than what we were doing on Saturday; there, I¡¯d just be doing the social equivalent of huddling inside my shell. ¡°Will you be mantled up the whole time?¡±


    The black-haired girl shook her head. ¡°Not in private. We¡¯ll be having a flamebearer-only dinner, and I¡¯ll be human for that.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that the <i>most</i> dangerous time? Surrounded by other flamebearers?¡±


    Amane shook her head stiffly as Ebi translated what I¡¯d said.


    ¡°They¡¯re not that hostile. The show of trust matters anyway, and Yuuka would stop any danger before it happens.¡±


    Her level of trust in her former kidnappers amazed and baffled me, even with the security afforded by precognition, but it wasn¡¯t my place to prod further. I just nodded and kept working through my katsu sandwich. Ebi had me eating a lot, both because my foot was still healing and because it would take my arm another day or two to fully integrate the mutations, and that was apparently calorically-intensive. At least the food was good¡ªbut it was takeout, not home-cooked. I¡¯d still seen neither hide nor hair of Hina since she¡¯d vanished on me.


    Yesterday afternoon had been a lesson on what the Radiances called ¡°opsec,¡± the control of sensitive information. Overload had mentioned in the chatroom that I would be answering some questions for his next video, which Ebi had seen, and so I had wound up with Ai, Amane, and Ebi all hanging over my shoulder as I drafted my responses to avoid any leakage.


    <b>Q: </b>What was it like being flametouched?


    <b>A:</b> Disorienting. I heard voices.


    Even as I turned to give a tentative, questioning thumbs-up to the other girls, I realized my mistake. Ai was blinking at me. Ebi crossed her arms.


    ¡°Say what?¡±


    ¡°It¡­talked to me. When I was first flametouched.¡±


    The three women shared an uneasy glance. Ebi tapped her chestplate.


    ¡°I¡¯m the only talking Flame I¡¯ve ever heard of, and I¡¯m a really special case. This isn¡¯t the kind of thing you just <i>don¡¯t mention</i>.¡±


    ¡°It¡ªI kind of forgot,¡± I muttered shamefully. ¡°There was a lot going on at the time. And it hasn¡¯t really¡­done anything since then.¡±


    ¡°What did it say?¡±


    ¡°Um¡ªI don¡¯t really remember what it said the first time. No, really, I don¡¯t, it¡¯s all kind of a¡­haze. The only other time was in¡­the car, right before I was rescued. It wanted me to trust it.¡±


    A tingle ran down my spine as I recalled the firelight dancing in pitch darkness. I still didn¡¯t understand what it had meant¡ªwas it trying to push me down the same path as Hina, seeking pain? But in that case, it felt odd that I hadn¡¯t heard it when I had channeled it into my arm yesterday. And there had also been the time both Hina and I had heard it, when she¡¯d cleared the patch of hair from my skin the other night¡ªbut I definitely couldn¡¯t tell them that. It was deeply private, for one, but I also really didn¡¯t need them more on my case about Hina-induced Flame misuse.


    ¡°Trust, huh. Just words? Not a vision?¡±


    ¡°No. Is that how it is for Heliotrope?¡±


    Amane nodded. Instead of translating for her, Ebi let out an autotuned sigh.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re only bringing that up now. It¡¯s been, like, five days, and you didn¡¯t tell us.¡±


    Ai poked my bad arm gently. Perhaps it was my good arm now, in a sense.


    ¡°Better that he didn¡¯t. If Hikanome found out, they¡¯d be much more interested in you.¡±


    I was confused. ¡°Isn¡¯t that what we want? I didn¡¯t really get Alice¡¯s problem.¡±


    ¡°It benefits us to a certain point,¡± Amane clarified via Ebi. ¡°We want them to be interested enough to work with us, but not enough that they want to poach you. This would be too much, with the arm. They¡¯d think you¡¯re some kind of prophet.¡±


    Prophet. An interesting word, considering Heliotrope¡¯s eye. I didn¡¯t really want to think about her, either, though.


    ¡°So¡­delete it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, delete it.¡± Ai had her phone out, taking notes. ¡°I¡¯d like to test you more, but¡­I honestly wouldn¡¯t know where to start,¡± she admitted. ¡°It¡¯s probably related to all the other strange things with your Flame. The second contact, how it came through the camera. But I don¡¯t know what to do with that information.¡± She frowned. ¡°We don¡¯t have time for a serious investigation right now, anyway.¡±


    Of course, cutting that part left my answer too sparse, so we back-filled with talk of my elation, framing it as a dream come true, mostly leaving out the parts tinged with nightmare.


    <b>Q: </b>How did you end up at Lighthouse?


    ¡°Oh, God.¡± This was the exact kind of question I had been most nervous about answering¡ªnot only because I wasn¡¯t sure of the policy surrounding discussing the PCTF¡¯s actions, but also because nobody had actually told me what had happened between me burying the car and Hina whisking me away. Somehow, in our murky night whisperings, I had never thought to ask. And now she wasn¡¯t around to give the answer.


    Todai was one step ahead, though. Ebi practically yanked the keyboard from my grip and wrote out a response.


    <b>A:</b> My flamefall had badly injured me with residuals (mainly the injury to my foot) and with the Spire already scrambling to respond to the other fragments of my flamefall and the immediate aftermath, they were not in a position to accept me. Radiance Sapphire was local for an unrelated event, and was first on the scene, and she made the executive decision to bring me to Lighthouse instead where I could receive the best possible post-amputation care and prostheses.


    ¡°Is that really how it went down?¡±


    ¡°Well, we¡¯re obviously trying to omit the part about you getting hurt trying to escape the PCTF, but yeah.¡±


    That made me angry. I understood the need for some level of secrecy and diplomacy, but¡ª


    ¡°We really can¡¯t even say that much? Why does everything they do stay rumor when there¡¯s people like me and Amane as living proof? Why can¡¯t we accuse them of their crimes?¡±


    Amane sighed quietly. Ebi translated.


    ¡°First, they¡¯d disavow the actual force who came after you as an independent third party unsanctioned by the PCTF. Plausible deniability. That¡¯s why they kill the cameras. Then they¡¯d declare an investigation, find that the kidnappers and all their materiel had mysteriously vanished, and that would be the end of it. Everybody <i>knows</i> what they do, but accusing them wouldn¡¯t make them admit it.¡±


    ¡°Opal told me that telling Hikanome what they did to <i>you </i>would be our diplomatic trump card.¡±


    ¡°Alice is an idealist.¡± Amane shut her eyes and shifted in her seat, gripping the armrest with her prosthetic hand. ¡°She¡¯s talking about a world where, if the average Hikanome member could be persuaded to believe our claim, the church¡¯s money and influence would be enough to hold the PCTF accountable. But it¡¯s not.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­?¡±


    ¡°Violence is the only language monsters can understand.¡±


    ¡°You mean going to war with the PCTF?¡± My heart sank. ¡°More of what we did to that oil rig? That¡¯s not¡ª¡±


    ¡°Stop,¡± Ai broke in. ¡°This isn¡¯t related to what we¡¯re doing now. Regardless of our long-term plans, this particular statement accomplishes all we need it to. People can infer as much as they want, but if the PCTF takes issue with this, they would need to admit that they went after you in the first place. That¡¯s the goal. It validates your presence here.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± I sighed. I had to admit these kinds of political moves weren¡¯t my strong suit¡ªhell, that was why the Radiances were helping me with this, why this paragraph had been decided on without my input. But as I reread what Ebi had written, a different gap began to grow: What about the Spire? By now, I had a pretty good picture of the various reasons Todai wanted me here, and obviously, it was still far better than ending up in the PCTF¡¯s clutches, but why had the Vaetna allowed Hina to take me when I was unconscious? That wasn¡¯t like them at all, not when I had obviously been on the way to the Gate. With three of them there, there should have been nothing in the world that could stop them from taking me off her hands¡ªtaking me where I belonged.


    Something was still missing. I thought about how Brianna had left the oil rig and abandoned Holton to his fate, averted only by our intervention. Could the Vaetna have done the same in my case? The idea of being abandoned like that was just horrible¡ªI had to ask Hina what exactly had happened. Over text?


    ¡°Ezzen?¡±


    ¡°Huh? Oh.¡±


    <b>Q: </b>What kinds of projects do you intend to participate in at Todai?


    Texting was too insecure; calling her didn¡¯t seem much better. But I hadn¡¯t seen her in person since the day before. I supposed I¡¯d talk to her about it tonight, next time she was in my bed and it was just us. I didn¡¯t want to confront the possibilities in daylight. It was far easier to shove those thoughts to the side and talk about magic instead. Far safer waters.


    We finished the questions, and I sent them off to Overload. I think he could probably tell that Todai had a hand in their writing, but that was to be expected.


    Hina did not materialize on my balcony that night. I stayed up late, watching videos and holding out hope that she¡¯d show up so we could make up and cuddle and I could ask my questions. But there was no sign of her. Around midnight, I texted her.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>Hey, you okay?


    I didn¡¯t get a reply.


    ¡ª


    Now it was Friday morning, and I had been allowed to sleep in. I was again disappointed to find no hyena-like girlfriend pressed up against me¡ªwhich was a little dumb, wasn¡¯t it? I¡¯d been sleeping alone for the better part of a decade, and I¡¯d only shared my bed with Hina three, maybe four times, depending on how you counted. So it was stupid to miss her.


    Even once awake, I didn¡¯t properly get up for over an hour, not until I got a message from Ebi telling me to wash up. When I asked why, all she said was:


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>haircut.


    That one word sent shivers up my spine. I didn¡¯t like haircuts. I averaged less than one a year, and those were always just to police the split ends and knots rather than take any real length off, so over the years, the hair that had been cropped short at the time of dad¡¯s death had developed into a shaggy, unkempt mane. I had made occasional attempts to brush it after the hairdresser had cleaned it up, but those never stuck, and it always returned to a chaotic mess, especially in the dry winter air. The hair itself wasn¡¯t gross enough to be called matted, and my new routine¡¯s more frequent washings with better shampoo at least kept it from being greasy. Without the grease, though, the frizziness got worse, and I had to admit that Ebi had a point. So I threw on my clothes and trudged out to the upper common area, where Amethyst was waiting.


    ¡°Haircut,¡± I declared grimly, running a hand through my locks in a last-minute effort to defeat a few more knots.


    In reply, she pulled out her phone¡ªtiny against the crystalline frame¡ªand showed me a map. Most of it was in Japanese, but in theory, the hairdresser was just around the corner, easily within walking distance.


    ¡°Oh, you don¡¯t have an in-house stylist? Or cosmetologist or whatever?¡± I looked around. ¡°Where¡¯s Ebi, anyway? I¡¯d have expected her to do this.¡±


    ¡°Just us today,¡± Amethyst replied. Between her accent and the natural glassy, vibrato chimes of her mantle¡¯s voice, it was hard to make out the words. She tapped on her phone again with those too-long purple claws and showed it to me.


    <b>Text is easier. This is a hairstylist we trust. Her name is Kamihata.</b>


    ¡°Okay, lead the way.¡±


    Thus marked the first time I saw the front entrance of Lighthouse Tower. It was an odd mix of a standard office building lobby and a themed entrance. The centerpiece of the lobby was an assortment of oversized gemstones representing the Radiances, suspended in midair and floating gently with magic. We didn¡¯t stop to gawk¡ªand in return, only a handful of people did a double take at the three-meter crystalline mech striding out to the front door. The main doors were big enough for her, and I trailed behind as we made our way out onto the street.


    Cold, as usual. At least it wasn¡¯t raining this morning, but the sky was definitely thinking about it, with dark, heavy clouds softening every shadow below. The indirect lighting changed how Amethyst looked, muting the brightest facets of reflection in her body into a more suffusive, translucent purple glow. People paid more attention to us on the street, but as with Opal at Tochou, I was mostly a footnote to her distinctiveness, huddled in my hoodie and trying to ease the pit of anxiety fermenting in my stomach from being out in public.


    We went down the street, skyscrapers looming all around, and turned the corner. I followest Amethyst into a nondescript building¡ªnondescript by this city¡¯s standards still meant eight floors, but compared to the titans of glass and steel to either side of it, the building looked downright cozy. Once we were inside, Amethyst dropped her mantle. The crystal folded and collapsed downward out of reality, leaving a thin girl in its place, warmly dressed in a sweater and long skirt. Amane leaned against the wall, supported by her prosthetic arm, taking deep breaths.


    ¡°You alright?¡±


    As she looked at me with a smile and a nod, her eyepatch lit up, projecting her eye-facsimile. This was the fancier version I had assumed existed, one which seamlessly projected a three-dimensional LM copy of her other eye, the vivid sea-green indistinguishable from the real thing after a moment. She pushed herself off the wall, found her balance, and pointed down the hall.


    ¡°Elevators.¡±


    My foot agreed; stairs seemed draconian. As we walked, she summoned her phone from pocketspace and showed it to me.


    <b>Nice to be out of the crowds.</b>


    ¡°Yeah. And the cold.¡±


    ¡°Mhm.¡±


    <b>The weather is nice today.</b>


    ¡°You think so?¡±


    The elevator took us to the third floor, which had a perfectly normal-looking barbershop. Jazzy Japanese hip-hop played from hidden speakers. It was deserted except for us, probably bought out for the duration of our appointments, and also seemed to be devoid of staff until a head poked out of the back room and called out in Japanese. Amane called back and dropped herself on the plush waiting sofa¡ªa little too forcefully to have looked entirely voluntary. I winced; I was having some misgivings about being the only person to come along. What if she had some kind of medical emergency?


    But she seemed fine; the ¡°weather,¡± by which she meant the local ripple, seemed to be treating her well enough. After a minute, the hairdresser came rushing to the front of the shop with a half-bow.


    Kamihata¡ªpresumably her last name¡ªwas short, with angular features and a narrow face. She was older than the Radiances, maybe in her mid-30s, and had faint smile lines around her mouth. Her hair was dyed blonde, wavy and kept in a side ponytail bound by a decorated metal clasp. I could definitely see why this place played the kind of music it did; something about the funky beat just fit her aesthetic. Her brown eyes rarely moved as she exchanged greetings with Amane, remaining fixed on the other woman¡¯s face until they were done speaking, and only then moved to me.


    ¡°Regular haircut?¡±


    Her accent was thicker than Amane¡¯s, but intelligible. I nodded uneasily. Kamihata glanced at Amane and asked her something, who grinned while shaking her head. I received no explanation on what the joke was as I was led inward and guided to the nearest chair, where I encountered my least favorite part of getting a haircut: the mirror.


    My pale face and sunken eyes were framed in twisting shadows. Outcroppings of frizz shot in odd directions at the top of my head, and the ends around my shoulders were so split and unkempt it seemed almost like ocean foam¡ªbut dark and heavy, as though somebody had dumped the Thunder Horse¡¯s pipeline out over my head. I really didn¡¯t understand why Hina insisted on calling me cute; from eyes to nose to lips, to the way they were all framed by the shaggy mess on my head, I was not a pretty person.


    But that was why we were here. A haircut would make me more presentable, clean me up enough for polite society, make me seem like I wasn¡¯t a rubbish rat who had been dragged out of its den and into the blazing spotlight of fame by unlucky fate. As Kamihata got set up, I glanced back at Amane¡ªher hair was glossy, smooth, a nearly impeccable curtain. If <i>she</i> felt like she needed a haircut, how bad was my state? Humiliation swept through me, made worse by confusion as I was coaxed out of my chair and over to a corner of the room. Hadn¡¯t I just sat down? The confusion deepened as my chair was reclined, and I leaned back to suspend my head over a basin¡ªthen it made sense.


    I¡¯d never had my hair professionally washed before. My annual-ish barber appointments were bare minimum trims, about twelve pounds¡ªthis was far more full-service, and I let my eyes slide shut as the hairstylist¡¯s hands did their magic. The hot water felt fantastic after our brief stint in the cold, and was gone too soon, leaving me with a soaked mop of hair sitting heavy on the towel wrapped around my shoulders. That problem was solved with copious application of a blow-dryer and brush, working in tandem to defeat knots. The dryer was loud enough to drown out the music, and although I wasn¡¯t particularly fond of loud sounds, it at least filled the air with enough white noise that I didn¡¯t feel awkward being silent. The blow-drying felt nice¡ªI had an absurd moment where I wondered how I could scrounge together the money to buy one, before remembering that Todai was rich.


    Once I was dry, I was led back to my seat and the work began in earnest. I didn¡¯t pick a style; between my shyness, the language barrier, and Todai¡¯s probable particularities about the look we were going for, I just trusted that wherever I was being taken was better than my current disaster of a mane. I shouldn¡¯t have. In my defense, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to articulate what I wanted¡ªbut what I got definitely wasn¡¯t it. As it was, to avoid looking straight in the mirror, and feeling too awkward to pull out my phone, I just closed my eyes and let Kamihata do her thing.


    Everything went wrong when I felt the shears close above my ear. My blood ran cold as a huge fluff of hair fell off my head and landed on my shoulder, where my hairstylist¡¯s hands swiftly brushed it down to the floor. In my naivete, I had thought I was just getting a trim¡ªin fact, I was being shorn.


    I kept my eyes closed and didn¡¯t say a word, too afraid to face what had just been done. Snip by snip, my head got lighter as bundles of hair were severed. Eventually, Kamikata stepped away from me.


    ¡°Open, please.¡±


    I complied, wincing open one eye to witness the damage¡ªand it didn¡¯t look like me at all.


    It wasn¡¯t a bad haircut; indeed, it was perfectly serviceable, an entirely average haircut I knew was in fashion among boys my age. It wasn¡¯t even as short as it could have been, still leaving a fair amount of fluff on my temples, but the hair that had previously gone down to my shoulders was gone, and with it, my silhouette had changed completely. My neck felt exposed to the air as I reached up to touch the new style, disbelieving.


    ¡°Are¡ªare we done?¡±


    ¡°No. Do you want it shorter before the fine trim?¡±


    ¡°N¡ªno.¡± My chest was tight, and I didn¡¯t understand why. ¡°Keep it long.¡±


    Kamihata met my eyes in the mirror, scanning my face. I was obviously distraught. ¡°Did you not want it this short?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine. Too late now anyway.¡±


    It was not fine. The growth of years spent in my apartment had been removed in minutes. It was horrible, sickening, as unpleasant as having part of my flesh pared away¡ªand it was too late. The damage was done. I shook my head a few more times, feeling the lightness, the distinct absence of a weight I¡¯d become accustomed to for years. More than the loss of that signifier of time, I just looked¡ªwrong. Maybe this haircut would have looked good on another person, but on me, everything about it felt awful now that the shapes of my face were no longer being framed by the hair. And I felt so exposed, unprotected; my hair had been part of my armor, and I hadn¡¯t even realized it. I pulled my hoodie higher up around my neck.


    Kamihata looked grave, calling over to Amane. But she didn¡¯t understand why I was grieving; neither of them did. It was a perfectly fine haircut. I¡¯d look fine on Saturday. So why did it hurt so much? Why did it feel so wrong? The wrongness, the incompleteness, who could possibly understand how¡ª


    I scrambled to pull out my phone, typing with shaky fingers.


    <b>[Direct Message] ezzen: </b>how do you grow yoir hair back


    <b>ezzen: </b>with magic. what are the glyphs


    <b>ezzen: </b>sky


    <b>ezzen: </b>tell me you know how

 Trick Of The Light // 2.10

    Who hosts an outdoor event in <i>February?</i>


    The Saturday of Hikanome¡¯s festival had seen the rain finally wise up and realize it was unseasonable for this time of year in Tokyo, so it had retreated and left streaky greys across a clear, blue sky which you could tell was chilly just from its hue. The blue was more like a hazy purple from where I rested my head against the limo¡¯s tinted window. Honestly, it was more like a fancy cab, not one of those long limousines Dad and I used to ride sometimes. I winced as we rounded a bend and the centrifugal¡ªcentripetal, whatever¡ªforce pushed my bad foot against the car door. It was still sensitive.


    I caught the reflection of the car¡¯s interior in the window. To my left, on the far side of the limo, the aide Alice had assigned me for the brief journey was dragging a pen up and down his clipboard. He counted the items, double-, triple-, quadruple-checking them. I didn¡¯t know exactly what was written, but I knew they were the safety procedures to get me there in one piece and un-kidnapped, since I wasn¡¯t arriving with the two attending Radiances. They had a more spectacular entrance planned, but had stipulated that if I was to attend, I wouldn¡¯t be held to the same standard of showmanship. I wondered how the man¡ªClipboard, I was calling him, since I¡¯d instantly forgotten his actual name¡ªsaw me. Was I a different kind of entity from the Radiances, in his mind? Then a lock of my new hair slipped off my shoulder and blocked my view of his nervous tic.


    Right, my new hair. Hard-earned; harder-earned than it had needed to be.


    ¡ª


    The barber¡¯s shears left me numb. Kamihata was beyond apologetic, but didn¡¯t understand the problem, and had no recourse other than to lead me back to the waiting room couch next to Amane. I stared at my phone and the messages I had sent Sky. The act of sending the messages had helped, barely¡ªthe panicked frenzy had ebbed away, replaced by a new kind of stress. The last time I¡¯d sent Sky a DM, it had been to confess my stress about maintaining opsec over Todai¡¯s involvement in the Thunder Horse inferno, the people we¡¯d killed. He hadn¡¯t even responded to that one. Perhaps his silence was itself a message; between that and what I¡¯d sent just now, I might have been putting too many of my problems on his plate.


    I reminded myself that I wouldn¡¯t have ended up here without him. He had been the one to put me here with the Radiances instead of at the Spire, so it was his responsibility to help me with the fallout of that life-changing decision he¡¯d made. And more to the point, he knew <i>something</i> that could fix my hair¡ªAi had mentioned that he¡¯d grown his own with magic. So I waited, and to my relief, he responded.


    <b>skychicken: </b>jesus christ ez how bad is the haircut


    I started to type a response, but he was faster.


    <b>skychicken: </b>okay holy shit actually im putting that on hold for a moment


    <b>skychicken: </b>you CANNOT message me about lighthouse¡¯s classified operations


    <b>skychicken: </b>thats a huge security risk for you and them and me


    <b>ezzen: </b>sorry


    <b>ezzen: </b>They already told me.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Wait, so you can admit to being a flamebearer, but I can¡¯t talk about VNT activities? Are these chats secure or not?


    <b>skychicken: </b>assume theyre not


    <b>skychicken: </b>that specific fact about me is something that any listener worth their salt would already know, it doesnt count


    Fair enough. I deleted the old message and averted my eyes from the screen, chastised, until a new message popped up in my peripheral vision.


    <b>skychicken: </b>okay anyway


    <b>skychicken: </b>im assuming those panicky messages are about a bad haircut


    I ran my hand through my hair again. The lightness was alien.


    <b>ezzen: </b>It¡¯s not even a bad haircut, tbh


    <b>ezzen: </b>But it¡¯s way shorter and it feels all wrong and Ai mentioned you knew how to use magic to grow more


    <b>ezzen: </b>For context, I performed some glyphless biomodding on myself the other day which I assume is similar to whatever you did since they equated mine to yours via having Hina as a mentor.


    <b>skychicken: </b>ez, what did i JUST SAY


    <b>ezzen: </b>fuck


    I deleted that message, too.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Okay without any more details, can you help me or not?


    <b>skychicken: </b>i cant, not from here. the radiances CAN, but first


    <b>skychicken: </b>is it WORTH using magic for this


    <b>skychicken: </b>because itll be blood magic. it will hurt, it will spit red all over, and youre virtually guaranteed other residuals


    I hesitated. He was right about the technical details: I did not know how to do this with glyphs. Biomancy was best accomplished through as little biomancy as possible, as the adage went¡ªthe green section of the glyph lexicon was the least-developed of any color of ripple other than white and silver. Setting a fractured bone was the kind of problem you could treat as a matter of telekinetics, but accelerating the cellular machinery for hair growth? I lacked both the glyph toolbox and the biology knowledge for that, and I knew better than to just stick my head in a bioacceleration field like the ones on Todai¡¯s medical beds. That was glorified suicide, and I wasn¡¯t <i>that </i>desperate.


    I was, however, desperate enough for blood magic. I didn¡¯t understand why, but the gut-deep wrongness and exposed feeling was enough to drive me back to panic or tears if I focused on it. I was only distracting myself by thinking about how I could work the problem.


    <b>ezzen: </b>I¡¯ll do it.


    I¡¯m grateful Sky didn¡¯t question my conviction. If he had, I might have lost my nerve.


    <b>skychicken: </b>okay. ask alice


    <b>skychicken: </b>you are REALLY going to want to use the spell circle in the basement


    <b>ezzen: </b>Okay, thanks.


    With a goal in mind, I became aware of the world around me again. Amane had scooted to my left side and was peering over my shoulder, reading our chat. She shoved her phone between mine and my face.


    <b>Are you alright?</b>


    I looked at her, at those emerald eyes. One real, one fake. She had lost far more of her body than me¡ªhair grew back, limbs didn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t have the right to be so upset when she¡¯d suffered worse. I instinctively retracted my phone from her gaze.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡ªfine. Good enough for the event. Alice wanted me presentable, yeah?¡±


    Amane gave me a look I didn¡¯t know how to interpret and typed something else into her phone.


    <b>They shaved my head.</b>


    Oh. She ran her hand through the long, glossy strands of black hair.


    ¡°And you grew it back.¡±


    <b>It¡¯s a challenge.</b>


    ¡°Did¡ªdid you use magic?¡±


    <b>No. It took years.</b>


    Her face fell, and my hopes followed. If her million-dollar prosthetics and magic weren¡¯t enough, what could Sky have had in mind? She brightened, squaring her shoulders, and called something out to Kamihata as her mechanical fingers danced along the screen.


    <b>But in your case, it might only take a few minutes.</b>


    ¡ª


    That¡¯s how it should have gone. Amane¡¯s big plan for me had been to try hair extensions¡ªthe kind that fused to your hair with a little heat. I¡¯d always known in theory that hair extensions existed, but like so many other cosmetic products, I¡¯d never had a reason to interact with them. The problem was that even though Kamihata¡ªor rather, Ms. Kamihata, since it was her last name, as I learned through hesitant, stop-and-go small talk¡ªhad a small collection of extensions, none matched both the wavy texture of my hair and the near-black brown. She had light browns and jet blacks, as well as a rich reddish brown that I was almost certain was specifically Hina¡¯s and a strange, opalescent white that was <i>definitely</i> Alice¡¯s, but nothing for me.


    Amane and I were both frustrated by such a simple obstacle. My hair wasn¡¯t outside the realm of types common in Japan; this actually made it worse, because at least if I was blond then it¡¯d feel less absurd that Ms. Kamihata didn¡¯t have a match. As it was, though, all she could do was shrug apologetically and offer me the next-closest match, which was the right curliness but in a jet-black like Amane¡¯s, too dark for my head. It didn¡¯t look right when she held up the swatch against hair. I would have gone for it anyway, just to alleviate the discomfort¡ªbut Amane waved her phone in my face. She had been waiting patiently for me to resolve my ridiculous issue before her own trim could begin.


    <b>Alice can help you.</b>


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, this works.¡±


    She crossed her arms disapprovingly, flesh over carbon fiber.


    ¡°What? Nobody would know at a glance.¡±


    She uncrossed her arms to type some more into the translation app.


    <b>Don¡¯t cut corners.</b>


    She tapped her false-yet-indistinguishable eye for emphasis. I looked away, shamefaced. I was so used to just¡ªbearing it, dealing with it, settling for ¡°good enough.¡± That was why I was wearing a hoodie worth twenty quid and not eighty. Anything better made me feel guilty, even more of a burden, ever more indebted to their generosity.


    <b>You should go home and fix it with magic.</b>


    ¡°No, it¡¯s¡ªit¡¯s fine, I¡¯ll deal.¡± When she looked at me blankly, I clarified, speaking louder and slower. ¡°I¡¯m okay. This is good enough.¡±


    Amane replied to that with a tilt of her head and a deadpan glare. She understood me, alright, she just disagreed.


    <b>Talk to Alice.</b>


    ¡°You mean a magical solution?¡± I lowered my voice, conscious of maintaining opsec¡ªeven though Ms. Kamihata was probably trustworthy if she had matching swatches of the Radiances¡¯ hair, and she was the only other person in the room. Maybe it was policy to only have her in the shop when her special clients were in. ¡°Like, sanguimancy? Regrow my hair with blood magic?¡±


    Amane flicked my forehead with a carbon fiber finger. I flinched, out of surprise more than pain.


    <b>Alternatively, make a wig out of LM.</b>


    ¡°Oh. That¡¯s a thing? With magic?¡±


    Amane full-on stared at me for a moment. I deserved it, really; even as the words left my mouth, I was already piecing together how such a thing could be accomplished. My habit of settling for less still tried to have the last word, though.


    ¡°But¡ªI¡¯m not sure this is worth interrupting her for. She was practically breathing fire when we left this morning.¡±


    <b>She¡¯ll help, because she doesn¡¯t want you to have ugly hair.</b>


    ¡°And¡­what do I ask her? ¡®Sorry, can you drop everything and help me throw away this perfectly fine haircut you told me to get?¡¯¡±


    Amane rolled her eyes.


    <b>I¡¯ll text her. Go fix your hair, dude.</b>


    ¡ª


    ¡°Oh my God, yes, of course I¡¯ll help.¡±


    Alice and I stood where we had been standing three days ago, next to the spell circle with its halo of tentacle-arms in the basement, once again discussing body modification. This time, we were minus Ai; she was still working on the same aerospace project from before, and that work had taken her to JAXA headquarters elsewhere in the city.


    ¡°Really? Nothing about how this is an irresponsible use of magic that will put Hikanome on my scent?¡± Or how I was wasting her time? She certainly seemed impatient, tapping away at the keyboard and monitor that controlled the assembly.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be snippy at somebody trying to help you, Ezzen.¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s hair. Hair is important,¡± she declared. ¡°It defines how we look, you know, more than almost anything else.¡± I tried not to look at her tail when she said that. She ran a hand through her own hair, white and opalescent. ¡°If I had known that Kamihata-san was going to do that to you¡­well, it¡¯s nobody¡¯s fault. If it¡¯s anybody¡¯s, it¡¯s mine for not specifying to keep it long.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± It seemed unreasonable to blame herself, given that not even I had known how upsetting the short hairstyle would be for me. I began to run my hand through the short hair before jerking it away in discomfort. ¡°Is it really that bad?¡±


    ¡°The haircut? It¡¯s <i>fine</i>, it just doesn¡¯t¡­suit you. We agree on that, I think.¡±


    ¡°¡­Yeah.¡± I scratched the base of my skull, once again uncomfortable with the lightness and the way it was exposed to the air currents. As always, magic was my distraction. ¡°So, how¡¯s this work?¡±


    ¡°Same way everything else works: LM. Get in the circle, would you?¡±


    I hesitantly stepped closer to the glowing circle of green glyphs on the floor, remembering how Ebi had been wary of putting any part of her chassis inside. I glanced back at her.


    ¡°Should I be expecting¡­?¡±


    ¡°Analgomancy¡¯s off, just step in.¡±


    I did so, gingerly, and was relieved to experience no sudden, horrible transition between my prosthetic foot¡¯s pain-nullifiers and those of the circle. I had a thought.


    ¡°Hey, why isn¡¯t this a problem for my tattoo? Or Ai¡¯s? Shouldn¡¯t it damage the weave?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re fine. In, all the way in. Feet on the markers, stand up straight¡­straighter¡­good. You mean why Ebi can¡¯t come in?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re hunching again. Up straight, c¡¯mon¡­okay, stay there, don¡¯t move.¡± Satisfied with my posture, she typed into the keyboard, and I heard something above me whirring. ¡°The circle has a bunch of third-order components, some of them up to a meter ana of realspace. That¡¯s also where Ebi keeps a lot of her auxiliary parts. Your spear is stored kata, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    I thought about it for a moment, resisting the urge to prod at my tattoo while Alice did whatever she was doing. The circle was even more complex than I had thought, then, if it had as many four-dimensional components as she was implying.


    ¡°Um, yeah, at least the original {COMPOSE} tuning I used was, but I actually don¡¯t know whether Ai changed it. Must not have, if she didn¡¯t see the need to warn me.¡±


    ¡°Stands to reason. Okay¡­done.¡±


    ¡°Done with what?¡±


    ¡°The scan. And now we apply the template, confirm, confirm, check the box, confirm¡­it¡¯s going to need a few minutes to bake.¡±


    A pop-up covered the terminal¡¯s screen with an empty loading bar, an interface I recognized as belonging to a sibling program to GWalk.


    ¡°You¡¯re making a glyph template.¡±


    ¡°Yes, so you can weave an LM version of a nice, full head of hair onto one of these.¡± She opened a drawer and pulled out a strip of fabric. ¡°Wig base. We used to make these for Amane.¡±


    ¡°When she was regrowing her hair after¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes. I assume she told you.¡±


    ¡°She did.¡± To fill the silence that followed, I gestured for the cap, and she tossed it across the circle to me. I held it up, trying to figure out the orientation. ¡°Are¡­I don¡¯t know how wigs work,¡± I admitted. ¡°Will I have to shave what I¡¯ve already got?¡±


    The prospect made me faintly nauseous. <i>Bald</i> Ezzen was¡ªno, just no. Thankfully, Alice shook her head.


    ¡°No. Even a non-magical wig can get away with having a lot of hair underneath, and these caps include more than enough space-folding for what you¡¯ve got. So you can just put it right on.¡±


    I released a sigh I hadn¡¯t known I was holding.


    ¡°Thanks. I¡­sort of thought you¡¯d be mad at me.¡±


    ¡°For wanting long hair? Never.¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªlike, I thought¡ª¡± I blushed, embarrassed at how I had been catastrophizing this conversation¡ªthen I realized why I had assumed we¡¯d be doing this with blood magic. ¡°Wait. I talked to Sky¡ªJason¡ªfirst, and he made it sound like I was going to have to grow it back with sanguimancy. He said he¡¯d done it before.¡±


    Alice¡¯s tail stopped moving, and she turned to me fully, reaching for the swiveling office chair and sitting sideways on it.


    ¡°He did. But there was no reason to do that here, yeah?¡±


    ¡°I¡­suppose not? This works. But he¡­¡± I dug out my phone, rereading the messages. ¡°Definitely seemed pretty set on the solution being blood magic, not an LM wig.¡±


    Silence as the loading bar on the screen crept forward. Alice looked up at the nest of soft-robotic tentacles stowed above me, and I hastily stepped out from beneath them and out of the circle. I was sure those had a gentler touch than I was envisioning, but I still wasn¡¯t comfortable standing beneath them longer than necessary. Alice sighed.


    ¡°He thinks like Hina,¡± she sighed. ¡°Why build a perfect fake when you can bleed for the real thing and hurt like hell while doing so?¡±


    ¡°Oh. Okay, yeah, fair. And this <i>is</i> a perfect fake?¡±


    She gestured at the interface, where the progress bar had reached the two-thirds mark. ¡°You tell me, self-made glyph genius.¡±


    ¡°You tell <i>me,</i> self-made LM expert,¡± I shot back with a smile, but I was already stepping toward the keyboard to click past the progress bar and look at the glyph diagram the program had generated. It had a number of telltale connections that you generally only saw in software-optimized designs, things that made it harder for most people to read but performed better. ¡°Ai¡¯s programming?¡±


    ¡°Yep.¡±


    The diagram itself confirmed that the hair was generated using exact structural copies of the scan she¡¯d just made of my hair. There were a number of sliders for different variables like hair thickness and length; currently greyed-out and unalterable while the current operation was in progress. The program was trying to calculate a template for the glyphs that would be 3D printed so I could easily follow it to weave the lattice.


    ¡°So this is how the mantles are made? Scan your body, tell the program to make the chains for an LM duplicate, then add on top of it for whatever features you want?¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    ¡°Yep. So all the design is in the diagrams, then we just print a template substrate and weave from that. Obviously that basic stuff isn¡¯t Ai¡¯s custom work, it¡¯s the same full-stack that even a stock install of GWalk could¡­hm. I guess you¡¯ve never done glyphcraft for production, have you?¡±


    ¡°No? I suppose not. Ai¡ª¡± I stumbled on the homophonic name. ¡°Ms. Ai¡ª¡± No, that wasn¡¯t better. What was her last name? I was embarrassed I couldn¡¯t remember. ¡°<i>Ai-san</i> had me manually editing the lattices for Amethyst¡¯s prostheses.¡±


    Alice covered a snort, betrayed by a twitch of her tail. ¡°Drop the honorific, I know who you mean.¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± I replied, resenting the blush creeping up my neck.


    ¡°We don¡¯t usually edit manually like that. What I was getting to was that Ai has automated away a lot of that, at least for the specialized tasks of mantles and prostheses. As a <i>bespoke glyph craftsperson</i>, I assume you object?¡±


    ¡°To programmatic glyph generation?¡± I scoffed. ¡°As if. I love seeing what insane hacks the computer tries to do. It¡¯s good stuff. Clever, inspirational. Especially when I know somebody as smart as her is behind it. There¡¯s a lot of templating, right? Some of the motive and projection chains are pretty similar across all your diagrams.¡±


    She nodded, checking her phone, idly typing on it even as she sat with me. I felt bad for wasting her time, but I was also really enjoying this conversation. ¡°Our versioning¡¯s gone to crap, a little, if you look closely. Nobody¡¯s got exactly the same thing. But yes, being able to design one flight unit or what-have-you and then put it on all the mantles is convenient.¡±


    ¡°More convenient than altering your actual bodies, I¡¯d wager.¡±


    I realized as the words left my mouth that this was bringing us back to a sensitive topic.


    ¡°I mean¡­¡± she shrugged. ¡°Design flexibility is the main thing, don¡¯t get me wrong. But yes, the rest of us felt that this was much more true to the <i>mahou shoujo</i> transformation sequence than¡­bloody apotheosis.¡± In her London accent, it was unclear whether ¡°bloody¡± was intended as a swear or in a more literal sense; probably both. ¡°That went double after we got Amane back.¡±


    ¡°Apotheosis.¡± I rolled the word around my mouth. People sometimes used it for the Vaetna; I wondered if Alice was intentionally likening Hina to them. The hyena clearly liked to do so herself, but I wasn¡¯t sure if that was just to push my buttons specifically. I decided to cut off this line of conversation before I managed to blurt something that would betray my incriminating desire to experience more of what Hina had shown me. ¡°We¡¯re, um, talking about a lot of classified stuff.¡±


    ¡°We are. Don¡¯t worry; this room is off-limits to everyone but us, you know.¡±


    ¡°Is it? I¡¯ve just been¡­coming and going as I pleased,¡± I admitted.


    ¡°Well, Ebi manages security and surveillance. Don¡¯t need a keycard or anything when she knows it¡¯s us.¡±


    ¡°I¡­see.¡± I supposed that was sensible, since she never left the building. I¡¯d been a little worried when Amane and I had set out without her.


    The progress bar popped back up to declare its completion, blocking me off from exploring more of the diagram.


    ¡°Done.¡± I squinted at the dialog box, but it was all in Japanese. ¡°Was that the optimization step?¡±


    ¡°No, that was the printing.¡±


    ¡°Already?¡±


    ¡°Right? Ai never shuts up about the new printers. Come see for yourself.¡±


    ¡ª


    The glyph substrate was more complex in form than merely an outline of the sequence of glyphs. It followed the same path I¡¯d ultimately pull the thread through, but the cross-section was more like a channel, a groove inset into the plastic to guide my hand through the various maneuvers. It also featured many more twists and turns than the glyphs themselves did, curves and edges where you could pull the thread taut so proper tension could be applied at the appropriate points. The resulting shape was a self-intersecting, coiled mess of dark polymer maybe forty centimeters in overall length but many times that if you were to stretch it all out end-to-end.


    Because the LM was to be affixed to the wig cap, there was also a curved fixture for that, where it was held taut and in place by some clever grabbers. Even those bits were all the same part; like with my chopsticks, it seemed Ai had a soft spot for compliant mechanisms in her designs. Between those features and the overall shape, the substrate would be a nightmare to machine out of metal; even the monstrous, cutting-edge assembly in the workshop with its space-defying mechanisms would struggle, at least printed at this scale.


    Alice had to leave me for more pressing obligations as soon as we¡¯d freed the substrate from its embryonic bath of polymer goop and she¡¯d shown me how to fix the cap in place, which left me a little nervous to do the weaving by myself. Each little loop was only barely large enough for me to keep track of the glowing thread as I pulled it through the groove, back and forth and around and over¡ªword after word of the spell, for those inclined to think of it as such, although the translation for a chain of glyphs never sounded remotely grammatical in any language.


    It turned out I had nothing to fear¡ªthe substrate made it dead simple to weave the design, even for an embarrassingly sloppy novice like me. Not all LM lattices are activatable and deactivatable, and this one was of the always-on variety, so it began to stitch in and grow the hair even as I was weaving. It was sort of unsettling to watch the matter manifest out of nothing, especially something as fine as human hair. The satisfaction of performing real magic outweighed the ick factor, though, and I was sad to see the process come to an end.


    I was left staring down a full head¡¯s worth of luscious, dark, shiny hair¡ª<i>my</i> hair¡ªhanging off the end of the twisting substrate. It was like the demented funhouse mirror of a mop, or the rebellious goth spawn of a Cambrian cephalopod and a curly straw. I disabused myself of the similes by removing the wig from its holder and trying to figure out which way was forward¡ªI got there eventually. I ran my fingers through the hair and took a deep breath. My tattoo itched slightly.


    ¡°Again, not a problem you can solve, buddy.¡±


    <i>Just trying to help,</i> I imagined my spear¡¯s reply.


    Before I could procrastinate any longer, I pulled the wig over my head. As promised, my existing hair was magically folded in under the cap, effectively removed from this slice of reality, hidden around a corner that shouldn¡¯t exist¡ªa process which would have thoroughly killed me if applied to the grey matter on just the other side of my skull. The wig sealed over my scalp, and for a moment I had a very strange feeling of disorientation and panic at the thing stuck on my head, get it off get it OFF¡ª


    And then I was fine. Better than fine, even, as I felt the weight on my neck and shoulders down to where the hair draped halfway down my back; not quite as unbroken and smooth of a glossy sable curtain as Amane¡¯s hair, nor as long, but better nonetheless. I let out a breath I hadn¡¯t realized I was holding.


    <b>Ezzen Colliot: </b>All good now.


    <b>Amane Ishikawa: </b>????¡ä ? `)?


    ¡ª


    Trouble arrived in paradise that evening.


    Amane had gushed about my new hair on her return, her joy evident as she circled me and ran her hands through it even though I couldn¡¯t understand a word. She showed me how to put it up in a ponytail and did the same with her own hair, which had only received a minor trim, then went off with Ebi for whatever medical procedures filled their time behind closed doors¡ªI tried very hard to ignore the easy innuendo there. Amane¡¯s condition was serious.


    Jokes in poor taste aside, the rest of that afternoon was spent on final prep for tomorrow¡¯s big day. Alice eventually freed herself from meetings and gave my new hair¡ªas I was thinking of it, rather than as a wig¡ªthe go-ahead. Hina was still absent without leave, which had me a little upset but not particularly worried for her; I was much more upset that Yuuka had deigned to grace us with her presence for dinner. It was one particular remark that set everything in motion.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t match the stubble, mate.¡±


    The air on Alice¡¯s side of the table heated up so quickly I didn¡¯t have time to process the comment. I just flinched and scooted backward.


    ¡°Yuuka, we need to talk. <i>Right now</i>.¡±


    ¡°I meant he should grow out the beard! Have you seen Keanu? Beards with long hair are really in, and I think Ezza¡¯s bone structure could totally¡ª¡±


    She shut up as a shadow fell over the table. Amane had been munching quietly¡ªnow she was a silent purple monolith, with one enormous hand gently cradling Yuuka¡¯s cranium. She rumbled something at Yuuka, who flinched, looked confused, glanced at me, then at Alice, then back at me, and finally looked even more confused.


    ¡°I was trying to help!¡±


    There was a flurry of Japanese back-and-forth between the three until she fell silent sullenly. I began to grow uncomfortable as an expectant silence took over the table, until finally¡ª


    ¡°Sorry, Ezzen,¡± she blurted. Amethyst¡¯s hand retracted, and she turned back into a girl, looking satisfied.


    ¡°Um. Forgiven?¡± I wasn¡¯t even sure what had just happened, only that I¡¯d never seen Yuuka look that contrite before in the short time I¡¯d known her. She batted her temple with the heel of her hand, as though trying to dislodge something in her head. Troubleshooting her eye? Alice, for her part, still looked only marginally short of ready to skin Yuuka alive. At least the heat had died down, saving my poor pad thai.


    At last, what she¡¯d actually said caught up to me, and I reflexively reached up to brush my stubble. At some level, I¡¯d recognized the need for a shave before the event, one to match my haircut, but since that had been thoroughly derailed by the circus with the extensions and the wig, I hadn¡¯t¡ªI didn¡¯t like its texture under my fingers. I jerked my hand away and refocused on Yuuka, genuinely curious.


    ¡°You think I could¡­rock a beard? As it were?¡±


    She didn¡¯t respond until she¡¯d made some sort of meaningful eye contact with Alice.


    ¡°With another¡­two or three weeks of growth? Yeah, I think so. Not like that, though. Should probably shave it.¡±


    ¡°Your foresight telling you that?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know <i>what</i> it¡¯s been telling me, lately,¡± she groused, tapping her temple again. ¡°Been a little on the fritz all week. Feel¡ª¡± she glanced at Alice again, who was finally sitting back down, ¡°feel like I should tell ya that, since you¡¯re stickin¡¯ around.¡±


    ¡ª


    That bizarrely non-confrontational encounter left me feeling a bit more cautiously positive about Saturday¡ªbut much worse about my appearance. I excused myself from dinner quickly and almost ran up the stairs, fast as my foot would allow, to shave off my stubble with the razor Alice had lent me. Now that I was aware of it, it felt almost¡­sticky, like a coating over my face and throat, nearly as intrusive as the wig had been in the first moments after putting it on. I ran the razor across my face, scrubbed off, and touched the skin again. Not smooth.


    I tried again, finding a few spots I had missed the first time in the crevasses where my neck met the corners of my jaw. Rinsed off again¡ªstill not smooth. The mirror claimed it was a clean shave at a distance, but up close, I could still clearly see the microdots of each follicle for the thick hairs of my beard. Maybe it was the razor: a dull blade or just the wrong type for this. Either way, I¡¯d already imposed so much on the girls for my hair-related woes today, I couldn¡¯t bring myself to ask if they had any others that might do a better job.


    Dissatisfied with the shave, I tried to lose myself in random videos about magic and the Spire, old favorites and new releases I¡¯d missed in all my newfound excitement. Once I¡¯d handed over my answers to Overload¡¯s questions, he¡¯d finalized the video shockingly quickly, though there was precious little information about my flamefall that was new to me anymore. I still wondered where Holton was, who¡¯d bailed him out¡ªbut whenever my thoughts strayed too far, my fingers would find my chin, and the tight dissatisfaction in my chest would return.


    It got worse the later the night dragged on. Conscious of the fact that I¡¯d have to be up early tomorrow¡ªor at least early by my standards, out of bed by 8 AM¡ªI tossed and turned in bed, still seeking refuge in distraction but unable to find it for long. I¡¯d taken the wig off when I went to bed, nervous of some vague and ridiculous death by hair-strangulation in the night, but that just made the discomfort more gnawing, so I quickly re-donned the almost-real hair and occupied my hands by running my fingers through it instead. That helped, a bit, but still no sleep.


    At half past two, I decided something had to be done.


    ¡ª


    Lighthouse Tower was different at night. The penthouse was still navigable, thanks to a mix of the city lights through the floor-to-ceiling windows and the main lights over the kitchen island, which remained on but dim. Familiar furniture was recast as alien, tenebrous shapes in my peripheral vision, a shadowy version of the space I¡¯d just begun to call home. These failed to spook me as I crept my way down the stairs to the elevator. For all that the list of my various hangups and phobias was ever-expanding and had several recent additions, the dark didn¡¯t make the cut. It would have been cozy, even tranquil¡ªI was entirely too uncomfortable with the sensation on my chin and throat to relax. I hit the button and waited impatiently.


    I knew from experience that there was an annoying chime to mark the elevator¡¯s arrival at the upper, but not lower, of the penthouse¡¯s two floors. The lower one had probably been disabled precisely for late-night comings-and-goings like mine. Why not the upper as well, I had no idea.


    From there, it was a straight descent to B1F, where the lights remained on even at this late hour. I shouldn¡¯t have been surprised by that, given Ai¡¯s propensity to pull late nights, but I hadn¡¯t really thought it through until now. I felt out of place walking down these halls in my nightclothes¡ªjust a T-shirt and shorts, hardly an incriminating onesie, and there was nobody around to pass judgment anyway, but still. The narrow windows on the various closed doors to the workshop showed the vast ex-garage illuminated but motionless, the huge industrial machines powered down for the night. I didn¡¯t want to linger; my actual destination was just across the hall.


    The prosthetic fitting room with the spell circle was also closed for the night. Like the workshop, I could see its lights were still on through the sole window in the metal door. I bit my lip, debating whether it was even necessary to be here¡ªbut what I was planning to do would hurt, and hopefully sixty more meters of distance would limit how much red ripple would reach Amane. I felt safer hiding my crimes down here in this basement, assuming I could get in. Fretting that I was about to set off some sort of alarm, I tested the unassuming handle¡ªnope. No blaring klaxons, which was good, but definitely locked up. I wondered how to bypass it with magic¡ª


    ¡°Evening.¡±


    I yelped and twisted away from the door, nearly overbalancing before my stabilizer kicked in and my prosthetic foot came down behind me. I held Ebi at spear-point. She was wearing¡­an actual polka-dotted nightgown, right out of a movie, nightcap and all. She yawned with her digital face and stretched sleepily, exaggerating the motions of her neck and shoulders to a degree that straddled the line between cartoonish and grotesque, then abandoned the act and crossed her arms.


    ¡°I said, evening.¡±


    I sighed, banishing my spear and testing the handle once more for good measure. ¡°Evening. Given you found me and haven¡¯t raised an alarm, I assume you already have an inkling of what I¡¯m up to at this hour. Accomplice or snitch?¡±


    ¡°Still deciding. Spell it out for me.¡±


    I rubbed my jaw, wincing and impatient. It occurred to me that of everyone in the Radiances¡¯ weird pseudo-family, Ebi might be the most sympathetic to this particular goal. She¡¯d expressed her disdain for hair in all its forms before; it really came down to how much of a prick she felt like being. ¡°Stubble. I want it gone.¡±


    ¡°Big oof. Totally get where you¡¯re coming from. And you were gonna do blood magic about it?¡±


    ¡°Can we call it biomancy?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s meat.¡± She made a show of glancing through the small window. ¡°Figure anybody¡¯s in there?¡±


    ¡°Are you going to help me or not? I know you can unlock this door.¡±


    ¡°You were just debating semantics; can¡¯t be in that much of a hurry. Y¡¯know, we have sub-basements below this one, if you wanted to get further from the girls.¡±


    ¡°Do they have configurable analgomatic spell circles?¡± I¡¯d take that option if there wasn¡¯t some weird catch.


    ¡°No.¡±


    There it was.


    ¡°Then I¡¯m not interested. Let me in.¡±


    She tutted. ¡°That¡¯s no way to talk to your doctor.¡±


    ¡°Let me in, <i>please</i>.¡±


    ¡°With <i>feeling</i>.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the point of this, Ebi?¡±


    ¡°The point is that you <i>do not fuck around with blood magic</i>.¡± Something in the robot¡¯s voice changed. Not the sonic, autotuned quality, something deeper, like the feeling in your sinuses before a storm. ¡°Do you know exactly what you¡¯re doing? Do you? Or are you playing with forces you don¡¯t understand for <i>vanity?</i>¡±


    ¡°Vanity? I can¡¯t <i>sleep,</i>¡± I shot back, trying and failing to keep my voice down. ¡°Because of <i>this</i>. There¡¯s something wrong with me, and I¡¯m trying to fix it. <i>Help me</i>.¡±


    ¡°Quiet. You¡¯re meat. You¡¯re <i>fragile</i>. You¡¯re not going to fix anything fucking about in the dark.¡± Her voice was icy. ¡°Not when you¡¯re so easy to break by accident.¡±


    The door clicked. Ebi¡¯s digital face twisted into a grin.


    ¡°Would be cool to see you try, though. Just one problem.¡±


    My heart thudded. ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Take a look. And really, be quiet. The soundproofing turns off when the door is open.¡±


    I very gently tested the handle once more, slowly pushing the door inward. I looked through the crack and saw Ai, head down on the desk, surrounded by paper. Spent energy drinks were neatly stacked on the corner of the desk. Somebody¡ªEbi¡ªhad put a blanket over her.


    I dropped my voice to a whisper, and gently closed the door, looking back at Ebi. ¡°Ah.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Be glad you didn¡¯t come down sixteen minutes sooner.¡±


    ¡°What do I do?¡± My determination was starting to curdle into anxiety. ¡°I can¡¯t do this with her <i>right there</i>.¡±


    ¡°Maybe that¡¯s a sign you shouldn¡¯t do it at all. I don¡¯t want to wake her up either, for what it¡¯s worth. This is the first real sleep she¡¯s gotten in¡­¡± the robot mimed checking a wristwatch, ¡°sixty-one hours. She hides it well, but I¡¯m not letting anything wake her up until she¡¯s gotten a nice, full nine hours.¡±


    ¡°We have to be out the door in¡­¡± I thought for a moment, not equipped with the same precision timekeeping. ¡°Eight!¡±


    ¡°Sucks for Hikanome. She¡¯ll still make the reception dinner, I think. But yeah, if you want to use the circle, we¡¯re going to have to be real quiet. So I guess it bears asking: does it have to be blood magic?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­¡± To deal with the stubble, probably not. But Sky had planted an idea in my head, given me a stone that I was aiming at a second bird. ¡°Yes. It does. And it¡¯s not for <i>vanity</i>.¡±


    ¡°I know. Was just making sure you knew that.¡± She put a hand on the doorknob. ¡°Ready?¡±


    ¡°I guess. Couldn¡¯t you just, er, dose her? Give her something to make sure she gets her full night¡¯s sleep even with us crashing around?¡±


    ¡°If I had something like that on-hand, I¡¯d just have jabbed you in the neck before you noticed me.¡±


    I shuddered. ¡°¡­Right. In that case¡­¡±


    ¡ª


    The preparation was easy enough. Scrawl the most basic soundproofing glyph chain on a piece of paper, wince as I wove it shoddily, place the resulting lattice near Ai¡¯s head. It was a poor solution even before my own sloppy implementation, but it was the least we could do, and it meant I didn¡¯t have to literally be on my tiptoes. Still, just to be safe, Ebi and I were conversing by instant message even though we were standing right next to each other¡ªme in the circle, her a safe way outside at the control panel. I¡¯d had the good sense to take the heavy stabilizer module out of my pocket and place it outside the circle¡ªI didn¡¯t want to bring it in and ruin it or the circle or both.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>okay, how do you want it?


    I waved in her general direction.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Whatever the regular analgomantic configuration is, I guess?


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>sure thing


    She held up three fingers, more slender and angular than a human¡¯s.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>counting you in for changeover


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>3


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>2


    Wait. I had forgotten about that part.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>1


    ¡°Fuck!¡± I covered my mouth to strangle the yelp as the low-power painkiller effect vanished from my prosthetic foot and I felt the full force of my still-healing amputation and burn. The pain had been steadily going down, but cutting off the analgesic effect cold turkey was still a shock to the system. Ebi glared at my outburst.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>cmon, man


    Still, the moment was brief as could be, and then the circle¡¯s full analgomancy kicked in, the relevant glyphs around the perimeter luminescing green.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Uh.


    <b>ezzen: </b>It occurs to me that this is Ai¡¯s weave, isn¡¯t it?


    <b>ezzen: </b>This won¡¯t wake her up or something?


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>no backlash because shes actually good at her job


    Alright, damn. I rolled my eyes at her petulantly as I sat slowly in the middle of the circle, glad to have confirmation that the painkiller magic was doing its job. It didn¡¯t do much for the discomfort of sitting on the floor, though. I supposed that normally there would be some kind of seat or bed, like how Ebi had rolled my whole medical bed in the first time I¡¯d been in here; as it was, only hard floor for me. I wasn¡¯t actually sure what the floor material was, but it was tough and smooth. At this closer-to-the-ground inspection, there was a faint but definite slope to the floor, leading to¡ª


    A drain in the corner, outside the circle. For blood, one had to assume, although it looked like it was kept clean and sanitary. I hoped what I was about to do wouldn¡¯t literally live up to the name, but I appreciated the thought given to ease of cleanup just in case. I¡¯d probably ruined the backseat of that cab.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>oh. theres some fine print you might be interested in


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>the red-dampening mode we have on right now is really fragile to green


    I glanced down at the illuminated glyphs on the floor, eyes tracing around the circle, and I realized the problem. The painkilling effect basically took the red ripple produced in the circle and dissipated it as heat¡ªbut if fed green ripple, the mutagenic frequency I expected my Flame would radiate alongside the red, things could get chaotic. It was hard to say without GWalk in front of me, but it could easily spit out enough kinetic blue to shake the whole building; was that what had happened my first night here? Worse, it could burn out the lattice, and then anything could happen. I could turn to glass.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Shit.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Is there a mode that doesn¡¯t do that?


    I already knew the answer as I looked around the circle. There were only so many configurations of the glyphs available, and it was hard for most of what was available to tolerate both red and green. Ripple color didn¡¯t exactly follow color theory, but by lucky coincidence, those two colors often paired off.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>theres a low power high stability mode for, as amethyst puts it, bad weather


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>gonna be another changeover. want something to bite down on?


    <b>ezzen: </b>Fucking hell.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Yeah, I guess.


    Ebi pulled off her nightcap and tossed it to me. I twisted it, shoved it in my mouth, and bit down. She held up three fingers again, and I nodded in reply.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>3


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>2


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>1


    The circle switched modes. Some glyphs flickered off while others flickered on, and¡ªI groaned into the gag¡ªa loud <i>clunk</i> noise.


    ¡°Mh?¡±


    Ebi and I both went very still as Ai shifted in her sleep. Compared to the other mode, I did not appreciate at all how little pain this was killing. It would still protect Amane sleeping up above, but this was now going to hurt. A lot.


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>thats all i can do from here i think


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>youre up


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>no, wait, hold on


    She pulled something out of her pocketspace and tossed it to me. I caught it hastily, frowning at how it could have gone clattering across the floor, then figured out how to unfold it.


    <b>ezzen: </b>Makeup mirror?


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>so you can see what youre doing


    <b>ebi-furai: </b>NOW thats all i can do


    She accompanied that by replacing her face with a big thumbs-up emoji. I took a deep breath around the gag. Now or never¡ªand with the limited painkilling effect, I was starting to think never sounded pretty nice. There <i>were</i> ways this could go very wrong magically, not to mention waking Ai up and getting caught¡ªruining her sleep in the process¡ªand even in the best-case scenario, I was going to have a pretty bad time.


    But the discomfort on my throat was somehow worse than that; a sufficiently sharp razor or even an epilator wasn¡¯t enough. I wanted to attack the problem at the source, make more of myself, like Hina had said. Sky had seemed confident suggesting this, although I wasn¡¯t sure if it was what he had in mind. And I figured that, at least in this small way, I would become a little more like the Vaetna¡ªsmooth¡ªmy own tiny apotheosis through magic. Not hurting anybody else.


    I met Ebi¡¯s eyes one last time, then focused on the little mirror, on the rough patches on my face. I reached for my Flame, and it was there, waiting. I told it I wanted the hair gone, picturing it, trying to will it into happening through sheer want rather than glyphs. Specifically the hair from my philtrum downward, I told it, not my eyelashes or brows or the tiny hairs in my ears and nose. Those were important, but my beard was just a nuisance.


    I connected that to the idea of wanting the long hair that had been taken from me. I wanted the LM wig to become real, for that hair to become my own, for there to be no need for the wig. I deserved to be whole, as I saw it.


    Maybe it was vanity, just a little.


    My Flame understood, in its primitive, emotional way. It surged through me, icy and ablaze, up from my chest and through my throat like acid reflux from hell, seeping out through my veins into every pore, every follicle. It rushed and destroyed and combined and¡ªit kept going, down and down and out and through and all around me, <i>everywhere</i> philtrum-down, arms and chest and legs and I was burning and burning and screaming into the gag all the while¡ª


    Blood oozed from my arms, legs, chest, belly, back, neck¡ªall flowing down the gentle slope into the drain. Every follicle had been torn open, the very machinery of my cells removed. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to escape my chest, each thud bringing another wave of oozing pain across my body. I was practically a fountain of blood¡ª


    Then fire, once more. Searing micro¨Ccauterizations prickled across my body to seal every rupture in my flesh¡ªnot literal cauterization, as I¡¯d find later, but we were past the limits of what my fragile nerves were designed to experience. Rather, new flesh grew where old had been removed, tiny polyps to plug the gaps. Some small pity so I wouldn¡¯t have to do it myself once more.


    As the Flame ebbed away, its work done, I slumped sideways. Everything fell into darkness¡ªwell, almost everything. Through the pain, a tiny spark of annoyance bubbled up from somewhere inside me, at what I saw between the splatters of blood on the little hand mirror.


    Had it made me  <i>blond</i>?


    ¡ª


    My reflection in the limo¡¯s tinted window said not quite blond. My new hair was more of an ochre; ginger but in the sense of the vegetable. The Flame¡¯s hilarious punchline after it had upcharged me by taking <i>all</i> my body hair. In between Alice¡¯s fretting over the ramifications of this decision, Amane had asked whether the new hair was LM incorporated from the wig, which had possibly merged with or replaced my scalp. It certainly <i>hurt</i> like it did, but we hadn¡¯t had the time to check. It was still doing better than most of my body.


    Every inch of my skin from the neck down hurt, red and irritated and so terribly dry. It wasn¡¯t completely smooth; each torn-out follicle had left a tiny goosebump where the Flame had sealed the hole, so miniscule it was invisible even at close inspection and only faintly detectable by touch. It stung everywhere my clothes touched my skin, especially around the waistband of my pants, and that was <i>after</i> Ebi had loaded me up on a truly frightening amount of painkillers. Part of Clipboard¡¯s job was to make sure I took more in a few hours.


    I¡¯d put the clothes on nonetheless and gotten in the limo, a smile on my face despite knowing the cold and dry February air would make the pain worse. Everything hurt, I had a full head of truly odd-colored and likely magical hair, and my skin was not perfectly smooth as I had willed it to be, but it was worth it. The gnawing incorrectness on my skin had been rinsed off by blood and scoured away by flame. The long hair on my back and shoulders <i>felt</i> right, even if I had some serious questions about the Flame¡¯s choices in color coordination. I¡¯d insisted to the girls that I hadn¡¯t picked that part. Maybe I¡¯d dye it back.


    Did any of this make me more ready to face Hikanome?


    Absolutely not.


    Still worth it, though.

 Trick Of The Light // 2.11

    There were a lot of things that sucked about the morning of Hikanome¡¯s event.


    First and foremost was the pain. I could feel what I had done to my body last night as a low-level burning, scratchy sensation, not unlike a rash. Every place where a hair follicle had been removed and backfilled by new flesh was its own pixel of discomfort which together formed a high-resolution screen of itching and irritation, lighting up wherever my clothes pressed against my body.


    That brought me to the second thing that sucked: Ebi had rinsed my bloody afterbirth off of me and taken me back to my room after I¡¯d passed out, for which I was grateful, but overnight, my new skin had oozed more fluids, disgusting side-effects of the adjustment process as the polyps of replacement flesh made themselves at home in my meat-suit. I¡¯d woken to find my sheets thoroughly soiled by bio-gunk of all sorts, sticky all over from a mixture of sweat and pus. The smell had been the worst part, so rank and oily that despite my inflamed skin¡¯s sensitivity I had beelined for the shower to rinse all the horrible slime off my body, still only half-awake.


    It was only when I stepped under the shower¡¯s water that I remembered what my Flame had given me in exchange for my body hair. My wig was fused with my head and had changed color to a truly bizarre shade, a color between yellow blond and bright-orange ginger but somehow distinctly unnatural, too bright to appear on a regular human head. I¡¯d had to reach out of the shower and fumble for the light switch to verify that it was merely a very bright color and not literally aglow. My scalp was actually one of the few places of my body that <i>didn¡¯t</i> hurt from the aftermath of the blood magic.


    Clothes sucked as well. No hoodie for me, not today¡ªAlice had forced me into a button-down and slacks, plus a long coat that insulated from the cold well enough but still left me feeling overly exposed. A silver lining of our hurry to get me dressed and out the door was that I was spared the full lecture from Alice about the stupidity of what I¡¯d done; she seemed relieved that my skin was merely red and inflamed rather than one giant burn scar, and I was subjected to only small mutterings about the shock of orange hair. She¡¯d warned me that we had to talk about it later, but she needn¡¯t have; I was already mulling it over by myself, silently gnawing on the ramifications as I was ushered into the waiting limo separately from the other two attending Radiances.


    What exactly had happened, physiologically and magically speaking? Had my old hair under the wig gone poof, annihilated entirely? Had the Flame that had manifested the LM been permanently integrated into my body? The texture felt like real hair, as far as I could tell. Was it alive and growing? Was it magical in some way, other than the color?


    We didn¡¯t have time to test those things, but at least these weren¡¯t entirely uncharted waters. Alice, too, had hair changed by her Flame. Then again, her shimmering, opalescent off-white was comparatively natural, some ways removed from how my body had incorporated a piece of magitech hardware. By some estimates, including Amane¡¯s, that made me a cyborg. Ai, the resident authority on cybernetics, couldn¡¯t be reached for comment, and her absence was another thing that sucked. She was still fast asleep by the time we were out the door, forbidden from being roused on Ebi¡¯s orders. I was a little peeved that she got to sleep in and I still had to attend despite the fact that I was the one recovering from a full-body application of sanguimancy.


    <b>Amane: </b>Think about it this way: you have little confidence in your appearance, but nobody will pay attention to your appearance other than the hair.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>I guess, yeah.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>Changes the first impression somewhat


    <b>Amane: </b>For the better, I think.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>I¡¯m still nervous.


    <b>Amane: </b>That¡¯s normal!


    I cringed a little at the non-sequitur detour into talking about my own feelings, but far less than I would have if this conversation were happening face to face. I hoped she wouldn¡¯t mind.


    <b>Amane: </b>What are you nervous about?


    There was a lot¡ªgeneral social anxiety, the specific fear of screwing up etiquette, getting lost in the more benign cases or outright attacked or kidnapped in the more extreme ways things could go, fretting over my appearance. But vis-a-vis Amane¡­


    <b>Ezzen: </b>It seems crazy that we¡¯re splitting up.


    <b>Amane: </b>We¡¯re right in front of you.


    <b>Amane: </b>And the bodyguards are good.


    We were traveling in a little three-car motorcade, with Yuuka and Amane in the first, me¡ªand Clipboard, who looked as nervous as I felt¡ªin the second, and two more senior Todai staff in the rear, plus a driver and bodyguard in each car. The latter made me especially uncomfortable.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>As meatshields?


    That was a bit of a blunt way to say it, but accurately grim. If hostile flamebearers decided to attack our convoy, regular humans might as well be ants, and the cars around us effectively made of tissue paper.


    <b>Amane: </b>They¡¯re not that delicate. They have the same ward devices you do.


    I was wearing a compression sleeve on my right arm, which manifested strong enough repulsion fields to turn away a blade or keep me from getting crushed if the car were to be rammed. More importantly, it also projected a sort of stability matrix across my body so that somebody couldn¡¯t just pulp my insides remotely with magic. The armband itched incessantly against my still-raw skin. I couldn¡¯t even scratch it properly, hidden under my shirt¡¯s long sleeves, and it just made me feel more uncomfortable rather than safer. The Radiances had proper wards, high-power burst shields that made them near-invulnerable long enough to transition into their mantles. I had no such safety; most of my protection came in their assurances that there was nobody out to get us today.


    This was supposed to be safe, diplomatic¡ªeven <i>fun</i>, from how I¡¯d heard it described. Before the debacle with my hair, Alice had called it a mix of a traditional Japanese <i>matsuri</i> festival and a cookout. Yuuka had corroborated by calling it a ¡°barbie;¡± I still didn¡¯t know why her lingo was so Australian and had been dissuaded from asking by her demeanor¡ªon that note, I also didn¡¯t understand the sudden shift in her behavior at dinner yesterday. It had continued into this morning; she¡¯d given me a begrudging compliment on the way down to the garage, when it had just been us three flamebearers in the elevator:


    ¡°You lost the stubble.¡±


    ¡°Huh? Yeah.¡±


    ¡°Was the right call. Tell me you didn¡¯t choose that dye job, though.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t known how to respond to that. It was an improvement from her outright hostility, but being in the dark about whatever had passed between the team was doing my anxiety no favors. Maybe it had something to do with Hina¡¯s prolonged absence, but that itself sucked too. I could have used her confidence and energy today, and her sheer physicality would have gone a long way to settle my unease and feeling of nakedness. Also, some shameful part of me hoped she¡¯d like the new hair¡ªthough it occurred to me that she might be disappointed that we¡¯d not have another session of zapping away body hair.


    I made an effort to steer my thoughts away from my girlfriend. Alice had assured me she was fine, and that was good enough. Regardless of the state of our relationship, I had bigger fish to fry today.


    ¡ª


    We felt Hikanome¡¯s influence well before Yoyogi Park came into view. I¡¯d been avoiding looking out the window, instead mulling over what little I knew of the cult and internally rehearsing the greetings we¡¯d drilled, but a chance glance to the side of the road contained something amiss. The sidewalk was crowded with people walking the same direction we were driving; that wasn¡¯t surprising given that the estimated attendance was to be at least three hundred thousand over the course of the day, but the attire seemed off. Some people were dressed in what I could identify as traditional Japanese garb, robes with thick belts and awkward-looking sandals, but many others seemed underdressed for the weather. T-shirts and crop tops abounded, and the longer I examined the crowd as we drove past, I began to pick out people who were entirely shirtless in the February cold, men and women alike. I averted my eyes before they could wander nippleward.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>People are naked on the sidewalk.


    <b>Amane: </b>They are!


    <b>Ezzen: </b>A little cold for that, isn¡¯t it?


    <b>Amane: </b>In about thirty seconds, you¡¯ll feel the air change.


    <b>Amane: </b>Don¡¯t panic and don¡¯t worry about me.


    As I read those messages, there was a burst of radio chatter between the drivers, and then I felt it. A sunny, suffusing warmth blossomed in my chest and spread outward, like the first rays of dawn on a summer morning except felt all the way through my body. What residual chill had crept into my limbs was chased away, melted and evaporated. Some of the pain across my skin lessened, too, the inflammation soothed by the warmth.


    We¡¯d just entered a field of red ripple the size of an entire neighborhood. At least, I assumed it was red; a magical effect stimulating the body¡¯s thermoreceptive nerves to trick us into feeling warm seemed far more magically efficient than a blue-based effect that could actually warm the air at such a scale. More culty, too, a parlor trick to demonstrate their power while also dosing you with something that naturally felt good. I was naturally suspicious, and furthermore, if it was red ripple¡ª


    <b>Ezzen: </b>You okay?


    <b>Amane: </b>´óÕÉ·ò


    <b>Amane: </b>I told you not to worry.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>¡­You did, didn¡¯t you.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>This is ¡°good weather?¡±


    <b>Amane: </b>It¡¯s not red, so yes.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>??


    <b>Amane: </b>Check the temperature on the dashboard.


    I leaned sideways, trying to get around the driver¡¯s seat in front of me, squinting.


    ¡°20 degrees,¡± Clipboard said, intuiting what I was trying to do.


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    The outdoor air temperature had gone from a proper wintry chill to a balmy, comfortable spring day in moments.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>That¡¯s impossible.


    <b>Amane: </b>That¡¯s Hikanome¡¯s magic.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>But it¡¯s absurd.


    I¡¯d switched from the weather app to a calculator, trying to guess at some numbers in my head. Google said the park was 133 acres¡ª538,000 square meters¡ªand if the effect extended from ground level to, say, three meters in the air, that was <i>far</i> too high of a volume of air to heat by over ten degrees Celsius. It wasn¡¯t just a matter of simple energy requirements; the blue ripple would compound into other physical effects, little ruptures and slips, bursts of kinematic irregularities that could rupture organs if they happened inside a person. And that was to say nothing of the challenge of keeping the intended effect equally distributed and not accidentally heating small sections to dangerous temperatures.


    I relayed these findings to Amane.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>They literally cannot be that powerful. The numbers don¡¯t track.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>There are only three flamebearers attending, right?


    <b>Amane: </b>Yes. But your math is making a faulty assumption.


    <b>Amane: </b>It¡¯s white ripple, not blue.


    I¡¯m ashamed to say how badly that threw me for a loop. It presented an entirely different class of impossibility.


    White ripple, like silver ripple, is special in that there are no glyphs that affect it; it is not a color that threads of Flame can be tuned to. It still occurs in nature, of course, and has always been closely associated with the Vaetna. That association led to a misconception that white ripple¡¯s effect was ¡°reality manipulation¡±, or ¡°imposing one¡¯s will on the world¡±, but I¡¯d always considered that an unhelpful description. All colors of ripple did those things, defied what had formerly been understood about reality and replaced it with volition made manifest.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    In reality, white ripple was better described as ¡°multiplicative¡± ripple, an X factor that boosted the influence of the other colors of ripple further than they ought to go in the quantities detected. This explanation made sense mathematically and was consistent with its detection around especially great happenings of magic, like infernos, flamefall, and some of the Vaetna¡¯s most extreme acts.


    All this was to say that:


    <b>Ezzen: </b>An effect can¡¯t solely be white ripple.


    <b>Amane: </b>¡°And Yuuka can¡¯t see silver,¡± I think you said.


    <b>Amane: </b>Have an open mind. Don¡¯t be like Ai.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>Working on it.


    Really, what unsettled me wasn¡¯t that this flew in the face of my understanding of how magical effects were categorized. No, what bothered me was the idea that this cult was performing magic that I considered the Vaetna¡¯s domain, something above the rest of our station, forces we shouldn¡¯t meddle in. Whatever Hikanome were doing to create this effect flew in the face of the natural order, challenged the Spire¡¯s supremacy in magic.


    I didn¡¯t like it at all.


    ¡ª


    I liked it even less when our convoy split. The Radiances had an actual entrance planned, one that I was sure I¡¯d see Star posting about later. It involved them descending from the sky in full mantle, followed by a meet-and-greet. I wondered how Yuuka participated in such things. I could see Amane pulling it off, being smiley and personable, but if there was one thing I had in common with Yuuka, it was that we weren¡¯t extroverts. Granted, for me, it was less about misanthropy and more about how imagining myself as the focus of attention in front of that many people made my stomach do acrobatics.


    The point was that Todai had stipulated in the terms of my attendance that I did not have to engage in those celebrity theatrics, and that meant that I was going to enter the park separately from the Radiances. I and the important Todai people in the car behind me were going through the VIP entrance via a closed-off road, barriers and armed guards blocking passage behind us. Once the girls made their flashy entrance, they¡¯d rejoin me, but seeing their car turn away from ours left me feeling very alone.


    As the park came into view, my anxiety redoubled. I was entering the belly of the beast.


    Yoyogi Park did not feel inviting. For all Hikanome¡¯s impossible aura of pleasant temperatures could mimic the warmth of spring, the mostly barren trees weren¡¯t so easily fooled. They stood dark against the hazy blue of the sky, a reminder of the chilly reality beyond the illusion. That should have been grounding and comforting, but there was a spindly quality to their branches overhead that felt like I was peeking out of a net.


    The barriers and guards continued on our right as our reduced group drove further inward. On the other side of the dividing line, the veritable sea of people came back into view. They clustered around canopied tents. Pillars of smoke or steam wafted upward from every other tent, billowing past signs advertising flame-grilled skewers, fish, and even less stereotypically Japanese dishes like kebab and pizza. Food cooked with open flame was the traditional fare for special occasions for Hikanome and many cults like it. If it hadn¡¯t been for the rain of the past few days, the entire event must have constituted a massive fire hazard, given the park¡¯s wintry lack of lush greenery.


    Tall braziers burning with magically colored flames designated different areas of the event and imposed some order on the chaotic press of underdressed people. These nearby tents with food were the green section; further away, near the larger pavilions and tents hosting the event¡¯s main attractions and gathering spaces, I could see pink and blue. I had a map of the layout on my phone that explained the color coding, but I doubted I¡¯d use it. As a VIP, there was no need for me to wriggle through sardine-packed crowds just for a few slices of overpriced kebab¡ªwe would get a proper reception lunch, possibly the only upside of the entire event.


    I had high expectations. My childhood meals had often been the leftovers from truly lavish galas and balls, whatever remained of the thirteen-course meals Dad orchestrated for the rich and famous the previous weekend. It depended on the kind of event, of course. Sometimes, if he was serving art critics or gourmands or particularly picky tech moguls, it would be all jellies and purees, molecular gastronomy advertised not as food but as an <i>experience</i>; those didn¡¯t usually make it to our fridge, either because they were hilariously small portions or became basically inedible ten minutes after serving. But when Dad catered larger events with more conventional fare, he¡¯d bring home things that had made kid-Ezzen¡¯s eyes shine: pieces of a whole spit-roasted pig, rich and creamy vegetable soups, five-cheese mac and cheese with crispy breadcrumbs on top¡ªgourmet versions of kid food, essentially, and in such quantities that I could eat them all week long.


    Of such things was childhood made. Pulling open the fridge to discover what delicious secrets it would hold this week was magical every time. Sometimes, on days when he was in the kitchen on the weekend, he¡¯d show me the fancy ways to reheat everything for service¡ªso it had been crushing to realize I¡¯d never eat like that again. It had been a slow kind of grief, waking up in my grandparents¡¯ house and checking the fridge to see shitty Tesco ready meals in place of portioned-out bins of roasted meats and vegetables and grandpa¡¯s beers rather than soup. So, too, after I¡¯d left that horrible, tiny house and moved into my apartment. Leftovers didn¡¯t just make themselves, and I¡¯d had neither the money nor the emotional strength to pick up where Dad had left off.


    All this to say that even in the worst-case scenario for today, where we would be treated to some truly bizarre molecular gastronomy¡ªunlikely given Hikanome¡¯s propensity for flame-grilled food¡ªI found myself excited to revisit some small, nostalgic fragment of my childhood, especially since I was dining on the dime of the same type of cult that had stolen my inheritance. There was a nice symmetry to it.


    It was this tentative hope that gave me the courage to sit up straight and internally rehearse my greetings one last time as the car rolled to a stop. I¡¯d been lost in thought for the final few minutes of our journey, but now we were here, parked on the grass under the spindly trees. All I had to do was respond when greeted and then shut up; Todai¡¯s higher-ups in the other car were going to do the vast majority of the talking. After that, I could busy myself with eating. Hell, talking about the food was maybe the one line of conversation I felt prepared for. Easy enough. I turned from where I¡¯d been idly staring out the window, looking at my pants and trying to get my unfamiliar cascade of red-gold hair to behave, wincing at the state of my skin. I rolled my right ankle experimentally, making sure the field of white ripple surrounding me wasn¡¯t disrupting the stabilizer module¡¯s function. Everything seemed in order.


    ¡°Um, are we getting out first?¡±


    Clipboard didn¡¯t respond. I looked over at him¡ª


    He was gone. My heart thudded in my chest as I realized that the driver and bodyguard in the front seat were also absent, and there was no second car behind mine. How had I not noticed them all vanish? Had it just happened moments ago or minutes? My tattoo itched, joined in chorus by the rest of my crawling skin as I realized I was alone in hostile territory. For once, I didn¡¯t reject the impulse, summoning my spear onto my lap, the tip resting in the opposite corner of the footwell. I checked my phone¡ªno signal. I was alone. I undid my seatbelt and scooted into the middle of the car, further from the doors, and looked out the windshield.


    That answered one question¡ªwherever I was, it wasn¡¯t Yoyogi Park. Or rather, it still looked like the park, with the same trees in the same places, but it seemed as though it were the middle of summer; the trees were covered in vibrant leaves, and no skyscrapers rose above them in the distance. No throngs of people, either¡ªindeed, nobody at all, except the three sitting on a simple plastic tarp in front of me. I was still awful at names and faces, but I¡¯d bothered to commit these ones to memory. All three wore long, flowing white robes with fire-red trim. Hikanome¡¯s flamebearers, the three I¡¯d been expecting to meet.


    A single empty pillow sat in front of them. An invitation.


    This glade must have been the epicenter of the air-warming effect. Perhaps this was the true effect, and the warm air beyond was merely a byproduct, leakage from this bubble of contained reality where Hikanome¡¯s leaders had spirited me away for a private audience. Or worse. They weren¡¯t armed, but they didn¡¯t need to be.


    Leftmost was Kimura. He bore little resemblance to the picture the Radiances had shown me. There, he¡¯d been a businessman with a receding hairline and a creased face, easily confused for millions of others in Japan. Before me, he looked more like a retired samurai, lounging in stately repose. He was a co-founder of the cult and complicit in what had happened to Amane. His robe was tightly closed.


    Rightmost was Hongo. He was older than me by a few years, perhaps in his early thirties. He sat cross-legged, with his back straight, and had a big grin on his face that instantly reminded me of Hina. He was Hikanome¡¯s diplomat and supposedly had a massive crush on Alice¡ªor maybe specifically her tail. His robe was partially undone, slipping down below his shoulders.


    Between them, a woman the same age as the Radiances sat with her legs folded below her. Miyoko, the cult¡¯s high priestess. She wore a knowing smile, and her eyes were too piercing. Her robe was entirely undone, leaving her front bare¡ª


    I averted my eyes. Seriously, what was it with the toplessness? That hadn¡¯t been in the notes on etiquette they¡¯d given me.


    That aside, I was now in a predicament. The three were talking, but all watching me, and I had no doubt they could see me as well as I could see them. Stay in the car? That hadn¡¯t gone so well last time. And I was better prepared, this time. I took a deep breath and reached for my Flame, trying to find the strength it had given me when I¡¯d struck Hina. But no dice¡ªmy Flame didn¡¯t respond to the tug. As stressed as I was, I wasn¡¯t <i>angry</i> as I¡¯d been then, and besides, now was not the time to experiment with magical amping effects.


    Nothing else to do. I swung open the left door and disembarked spear-first, wincing at how the motion chafed my raw skin, and watched the three warily. They watched me back. Hongo snorted.


    ¡°There¡¯s no need for panic.¡±


    I raised my spear. ¡°I¡¯m getting pretty tired of abductions.¡±


    Kimura shook his head at that as though disappointed.


    ¡°Abducted?¡± Hongo scoffed. He spoke English fluently; I¡¯d been told the others were also conversational. ¡°This is a grand welcome! Who do you take us for? The PCTF? Todai¡¯s rabid fox? We¡¯re giving you a greeting worthy of your status, and you draw a blade. Put that away and let us speak together.¡± He spread his arms.


    I didn¡¯t move. ¡°What happened to the people I was traveling with?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re meeting with their equals,¡± Kimura replied. He had the voice of a smoker, gravelly, but also softer than I had expected, as though speaking to a frightened animal. ¡°So are you.¡±


    ¡°My equals.¡± Flamebearers above humans, a near-universal belief among these cults. ¡°I¡¯m free to leave?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Hongo rolled his eyes. ¡°Or you could come over here so we can get a good look at you. We don¡¯t bite.¡±


    They had a point; if they wanted to hurt me, it would have already happened. I begrudgingly banished my spear and took a hesitant step toward them, then found my gait and closed the distance, still trying not to look at Miyoko¡¯s chest. I sat awkwardly on the empty pillow, calling up the greetings I¡¯d learned. I bowed my head.


    ¡°Um¡ª<i>hajimemashite. Watashi wa¡ª</i>¡±


    All three of them sighed. ¡°Don¡¯t bother.¡±


    ¡°Er. Alright?¡±


    ¡°English is fine. Give us your name,¡± Hongo urged.


    I squinted at him, remembering Ebi¡¯s joke toward Hina about cold iron. They¡¯d already demonstrated that their magic operated outside the rules I knew; it was possible they operated on fae logic and could steal my name if I gave it. This isolated glade was adding to that impression, and I glanced around, wondering if perhaps we were encircled by mushrooms. Why hadn¡¯t I been briefed on this? As for my name, just to be safe¡ª


    ¡°Ezzen. Ezzen Colliot. An honor to meet you all.¡± I bowed my head again, surprised at my own comfort with the courtly affect. ¡°I apologize for drawing my weapon. I had not been informed of this exclusive reception.¡± I raised my head, attempting to shift my eye contact between the three. ¡°I greet you, priests of the Light.¡±


    Hongo nodded approvingly. ¡°Greetings.¡±


    Kimura nodded more carefully. ¡°Welcome.¡±


    At last, Miyoko spoke as well. Her voice was soft and delicate. ¡°Hello, Ezzen of the Spire.¡±


    That made me stumble. ¡°Huh?¡±


    Hongo nodded again. ¡°I didn¡¯t take you for a believer.¡±


    ¡°Wait, no, go back to the other thing.¡± I pointed at Miyoko, momentarily emboldened to ignore the nipples. ¡°<i>Of the Spire?</i>¡±


    ¡°That was a Vaetna¡¯s greeting you gave.¡±


    I frowned, then reddened as realization dawned. I had felt comfortable saying it like that because I had been quoting¡ªspecifically Heung¡¯s first appearance before the UN.


    ¡°And you carry a black-tipped spear,¡± Hongo continued. ¡°Well met, little Heron.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªno, I¡¯m just a fan¡ª¡± I felt like I was going to implode, yet I couldn¡¯t help but glow at the comparison. ¡°Thanks, but I¡¯m not the real thing.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re blessed,¡± Kimura said surprisingly softly. ¡°The real thing is the real thing. Your hair is beautiful.¡±


    ¡°¡­Thanks?¡± The use of the word <i>blessed</i> reminded me that I was dealing with a Flame cult. ¡°It was an accident, not a blessing, and I¡¯m not a believer.¡±


    ¡°Ah, the skeptic engineer type,¡± Hongo sighed, shifting where he sat. ¡°Like Miss Matsumoto, putting divinity in boxes. What do you think of her? Brainy, isn¡¯t she?¡±


    ¡°Ai is one of the kindest people I¡¯ve ever met,¡± I shot back, a little wrong-footed by the question.


    ¡°Ah.¡± Kimura¡¯s voice was still soft. ¡°He doesn¡¯t know. You are a he, yes?¡±


    I blinked, even more off-kilter now. ¡°I¡­yes. What do I not know, exactly?¡±


    ¡°If the lovely dragon didn¡¯t see fit to tell you,¡± Hongo said, ¡°then neither will we. Has she been good to you?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t see an angle behind this line of questioning, so I hedged. ¡°They did what anybody with the means should have done. I¡¯m grateful.¡±


    ¡°And yet it was them, not the Vaetna. We¡¯ve been wondering why. Haven¡¯t you?¡±


    Ah. I saw the angle. ¡°Whatever their reasoning, I¡¯m sure it was¡ªand is¡ªsound.¡±


    ¡°Of course, of course.¡± He dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. ¡°The Spireborn are always justified. But I¡¯d still like to know the reason they abandoned you.¡±


    I gritted my teeth.


    ¡°They didn¡¯t abandon me.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t torment him,¡± Miyoko breathed. She leaned forward, spreading her hands slowly on the tarp, watching the plastic crinkle under her palms. The sound made me realize how silent and still this place was; no animals, not even the wind. Against the silence, her quiet voice suddenly seemed loud. ¡°Hongo-<i>san</i> is being uncivil, but there is truth in his words. Strangeness surrounds your Flame, things that do not fit. Twice-touched, being left for the fox instead of taken, the <i>yari kara no kaminari</i>. I did not call you of the Spire for your weapon¡ªyou glow like the Vaetna do. Do you not feel it?¡±


    ¡°What does that mean?¡±


    ¡°It means you were chosen,¡± Kimura said. ¡°We are all chosen by the Light, but you were chosen by the Vaetna.¡±


    That was exciting to hear, but something about this felt off. I reminded myself to be suspicious of any kind of ¡®chosen one¡¯ narrative when it came from a trio of fey cult leaders. Alice had told me it was in their interest to make me feel special so they could search for information.


    But there <i>were</i> things I couldn¡¯t explain, questions I had no way of answering. Maybe this was connected to why my Flame had a voice¡ªnot that I¡¯d tell them that part, if I could avoid it.


    ¡°Why would they choose me and then actively avoid me?¡±


    ¡°Maybe you were meant to be taken by the PCTF, as a trojan horse, and the fox¡¯s interference was unforeseen,¡± Hongo pointed out. ¡°But, as we established, the Vaetna don¡¯t make mistakes.¡± He grinned.


    ¡°They might have,¡± I admitted. It felt wrong to be the one searching for fault in the Vaetna¡¯s actions. ¡°If that were true.¡±


    ¡°Enough speculation,¡± Miyoko interrupted, still looking down at her hands. ¡°What is true is that your father was the first to ever join with the Flame.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about first <i>ever</i>,¡± I hedged.


    ¡°But he was among the first. In an¡­inferno. What a terrible word.¡±


    ¡°He died. Horribly,¡± I added, my good humor evaporating. ¡°My grandparents were convinced to give up my inheritance by people like you saying it was a <i>good thing</i> that he burned to death. I¡¯ve long since run out of patience for it.¡± I bristled, reaching for the formal patterns of speech again. ¡°Respectfully, I find these questions invasive and insensitive.¡±


    Miyoko¡¯s head jerked upward. Her eyes pierced me. Now that I was closer, I saw what was wrong about them; as her head moved, the hazel of her eyes stayed fixed, as though I were peeking through her irises at something behind. I shuddered.


    ¡°I do not bring it up lightly, Ezzen of the Spire. We are no <i>pretenders</i>.¡± She spat the word, straining her voice with disdain. ¡°My Light can reach even the dead.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit. Every supposed ¡®necromancer¡¯ in the past seven years has been proven to be a fraud,¡± I countered. ¡°Even your Blue Spark person.¡±


    Both of the men bristled, but were spoken over by Miyoko¡¯s quiet tones.


    ¡°Not necromancy. I cannot bring them back. I cannot even give them a voice. But I can show you.¡± She leaned further forward, bowing to me. ¡°You are twice-touched, alone of your kind. The first may inform the second. I would ask your father¡¯s spirit to show us what happened to him.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.12

    I cannot talk about Dad¡¯s death without discussing infernos, and it is difficult to discuss infernos, especially those of the firestorms, without first explaining free ripple, or ambient ripple. That¡¯s the stuff that brings uncontrolled magical effects, be it from natural sources or as the runoff of flamebearer magic. Though the exact effects are myriad, on the whole, there is an obvious analogy to radiation.


    In nature, both can be found in relatively trace quantities, and indeed, there is strong evidence of a link between the two: like how Earth¡¯s magnetosphere shields us from the majority of the sun¡¯s constant barrage of radiation, ambient free ripple also flows from the earth¡¯s geomagnetic North Pole. This is believed to be why flamefall generally travel from north to south¡ªthough it¡¯s not known why all colors of ripple seem to obey this law instead of just blue, the color typically associated with such physical phenomena. This northward gradient of ambient ripple had also been speculated to be the reason¡ªor at least <i>a</i> reason¡ªfor the Spire¡¯s location in the North Atlantic.


    The resemblance to radiation continues into the effects on the human animal. The body can cope with the quantities found in nature in the short term, and even adapt in the long term; just as the skin will produce melanin in response to UV, prolonged exposure to ripple causes the bone marrow to produce ripple-reactive agents, microscopic-scale natural glyphs that convert ambient ripple to green and thereby cause the mild mutations that are common at the higher latitudes and other regions that happen to be hotspots of free ripple. This marvelous phenomenon of biology was one of a precious few glimpses at the natural principles underlying glyphcraft that had yet been observed, back when I was meeting with Hikanome in that mirage of Yoyogi Park.


    As with radiation, when we step from the natural world to the works of man, things get far nastier. High intensities of free ripple or radiation will rapidly degrade tissue; past a certain threshold, both will kill you in minutes, if not seconds. Near an inferno¡ªthe flamefall or magical disaster kind, not the politicized VNT kind¡ªreality begins to break down. If you¡¯re lucky, you die quickly from having your pieces rearranged and split as space and matter lose cohesion. If you¡¯re not, you die slowly and painfully from a mix of spatial, mutagenic, and matter-altering effects while the qualia and basic information of your existence get shredded and put back together in a ransom-note collage of suffering that may extend far beyond where reason would normally dictate you are entitled to the sweet release of death.


    In this, the chaos of ripple, magic run amok, far outstrips even the wildest comic book notions of radiation. It is a worse way to die than anything that existed before the Frozen Flame arrived.


    It¡¯s what happens to a flametouched who goes infernal. It¡¯s what happened to Dad.


    ¡ª


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Ezzen,¡± Hongo began, spreading his hands reasonably, ¡°this is not an attempt to make you relive your trauma. We both want to better understand what happened on the first day of the firestorms.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s in it for you? Your interest isn¡¯t <i>scientific</i>,¡± I spat. ¡°What are you even hoping to find? He was killed by a force of nature, and he <i>suffered</i>. I suffered.¡± I raised my burned hand, blinking away the tears threatening to well in my eyes. I couldn¡¯t show weakness in front of these jackals. ¡°If you have as much respect for me as this whole reception implies, then how could you even <i>suggest</i> putting me through that again? And if you <i>can</i> bring back some fragment of the dead¡ª¡± I gestured at the too-empty facsimile of the park that surrounded us. The branches overhead might have been covered with leaves now, but that didn¡¯t mask the feeling of being caught in a net ¡°¡ªwhich I can¡¯t possibly verify is anything more than a parlor trick when you¡¯ve got me isolated like this¡ªthen you¡¯d be putting him through that too. It¡¯s sick.¡±


    My anxiety had boiled over into defiant frustration. In a way, this was worse than outright hostility or a physical attack; it was an insult to Dad¡¯s memory. My interest in magic had begun in an attempt to understand, scientifically speaking, what had happened to Dad. I wasn¡¯t going to let these charlatans convince me that his death had been for some ¡°higher purpose.¡±


    I searched their faces for any sign of contrition. Kimura avoided eye contact, looking down, lips pressed together in a thin line. Hongo seemed frustrated, almost imperious¡ªgood. Miyoko met my eyes, face level. Her voice was still soft, but not gentle.


    ¡°We know why the dragon sent you. We know what she wants from us. This is what we ask in exchange: a chance to learn truths about the Light from you.¡±


    Hongo picked up after her before I could rebut. ¡°Suppose we¡¯re right, little Heron. If the Flame you carry now is connected to both that day and to the Spire¡ªthink about what that would mean. Think about the <i>leverage</i> that could give you in going there, in escaping the PCTF. The Vaetna are <i>avoiding</i> you and the others who carry your blessing, when they should have been the ones to save you. Don¡¯t you want to know <i>why</i>?¡±


    ¡°Escaping the PCTF,¡± I repeated. ¡°You <i>sold</i> Amane to them.¡±


    That at last got a rise out of Miyoko. Those creepy eyes with the space behind them began to glow, flickering pink. I was glad to have gotten under her skin with that¡ªnow we were talking about something other than the worst day of my life. Hongo also bristled, but Kimura raised his hand to stay them both.


    ¡°<i>We</i> did not hand over one of our own to those butchers. Sugawara did, and that is why we helped <i>Toudai</i> destroy him.¡±


    His voice was angry in a distant way, disinterring memories of a dark time. Served him right. ¡°They said you helped him,¡± I countered.


    ¡°Coercion. He was going to hurt somebody I loved.¡±


    ¡°And that stopped you? Some gods you are.¡±


    Something flashed in his eyes, but he didn¡¯t rise to the bait. ¡°It was too dangerous to oust him. Too costly. The only reason we survived was because we only faced his supporters, not the military men he paid. That was Takehara-san¡¯s job.¡±


    ¡°<i>Mahou shoujo</i> don¡¯t fight wars,¡± I quoted, but I couldn¡¯t put any acrid bite into it; I knew it was hollow. My stomach dropped as I remembered how the girls had gone along with my plan, aided and abetted the idea of an artillery strike while carefully dodging the facts of what we had been going to do to the human beings aboard Thunder Horse. The person I¡¯d watched melt¡ªI had inflicted on him the same degree of horrible death that the wild Flame had done to my dad, because I had thought it was the right thing to do. And so had the team of magical girls I now called roommates. ¡°O¡ªokay, yeah, I hear it. That¡¯s bullshit,¡± I admitted, sobering, guilt tempering my anger. ¡°But I still trust them more than you.¡±


    ¡°Hm.¡± Hongo was examining me in a way that made my tattoo itch. ¡°So you¡¯ve seen something of what they do.¡±


    ¡°They want us to face the PCTF directly,¡± Kimura continued, ¡°and Takehara-san knows that will be far more costly. That is why she¡¯s offering you. It is a fair trade.¡±


    ¡°She didn¡¯t know you were going to pull this stunt.¡±


    ¡°You really believe that?¡± said Hongo, smirking. ¡°Arranging for you to meet us separately from Miss Ishikawa and Miss Hirai? The dragon knew we would know your history, the things that make you unusual and exceptional. She knew we would do this, and trusted us enough to allow it to happen. So you can keep thinking we¡¯re monsters and wonder why she would allow it, or you could trust her and us, but you cannot mistrust us without also mistrusting her judgment.¡±


    I swallowed, remembering how Alice had been so pushy about me attending, how I¡¯d been kept relatively in the dark about what to expect from this meeting. ¡°My¡ªmy answer is no.¡±


    Hongo¡¯s smirk shifted into a more genuine smile and an approving nod. ¡°Backbone is important for our kind.¡±


    ¡°As you wish,¡± Miyoko affirmed, impassive once more. She rose to her feet, robes draping around her, though they still fell below her shoulders and chest. I found that I was already pretty numb to the nudity. ¡°We will not ask again, not today. We only ask you to spare it some thought as you enjoy the festival. We will not give <i>Toudai</i> our full support without understanding the circumstances that brought you here, from the beginning. It could inform much about what is to come.¡±


    Hongo stood as well. ¡°They say the Peacies are going to make their first moves soon. I don¡¯t suppose Miss Hirai gave you a timeline?¡±


    I bit my lip. I¡¯d overheard the three-week number Yuuka had given, and it had been four days since then. I wasn¡¯t supposed to leak information¡ªbut they obviously already knew about Yuuka¡¯s foresight, and it was mutually beneficial for me and Todai if Hikanome knew how long we had, right?


    ¡°¡­two weeks, give or take.¡±


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll ask again on the first of March.¡± Ten days from now. He checked his watch. ¡°The ladies are about to wrap up their entrance. Thank you for your time, little Heron. <i>Miyoko-san?</i>¡±


    Miyoko nodded. The space around us began to glow. I smelled woodsmoke as the bubble of private reality began to fizzle away and the true space of Yoyogi Park began to bleed in. Kimura stood as well.


    ¡°We are not the cult you think we are, Ezzen. This festival is a celebration of light and warmth, not a show of power. You are welcome to walk the grounds and see the way we live. But first, come eat with us. There are many things we would like to discuss with you, things that are not so dark.¡±


    ¡ª


    It was a palpable relief to see Amane. Yuuka too, begrudgingly, but it was especially reassuring to see Radiance Amethyst¡¯s towering form raise a crystalline arm to wave at me as she approached the true VIP section.


    When Miyoko¡¯s illusion or pocket dimension or whatever it had been had fully dissipated, the priests¡¯ handmaids and staff had quickly moved in to upgrade our seating arrangement. Bamboo mats had been laid over the tarp and more sitting pillows had been procured, and a long, low table made of beautiful, wine-dark red wood had been placed in the center. Despite the grander displays of wealth, I definitely preferred this to being three on one on their turf. The bare branches and pale winter sky also helped dispel that feeling of being in somebody else¡¯s territory¡ªproof that whatever the cult might claim, reality would ultimately win out. And now it was three on three.


    Amane and Yuuka dropped their mantles as they made their way to the table. The glimmering mecha was replaced by the straight-backed, raven-haired girl with piercing green eyes, wearing a polite smile and a purple sundress; Yuuka¡¯s impractically layered outfit of dark belts and laces was replaced by a slightly more reasonable corset, blouse, and skirt, long bangs shrouding her eye. The five flamebearers exchanged a long series of greetings in Japanese, including stiff bowing from all parties. The conversation <i>sounded</i> friendly enough, or at least polite, though there was a moment where Kimura and Yuuka glared at each other in a way that suggested a lot of history.


    Waitstaff appeared around us as the introductions concluded and people took their seats. We flamebearers sat three on three at the head of the table; myself, Amane, and Yuuka facing Kimura, Miyoko and Hongo. To our left, down the remaining twelve seats of the table, was an assortment of both groups¡¯ staff, as well as people who looked like representatives of other organizations involved in the event. Todai¡¯s people and the third parties were fully dressed; Hikanome¡¯s people were not. I was distantly relieved that Yuuka didn¡¯t subscribe to their nudism; Like Miyoko, Amane was slender enough that I could have mostly filtered the exposed breasts from my peripheral vision, but Yuuka would have been intolerably distracting.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Hey, Ezzen.¡±


    ¡°Hi.¡±


    Amane had her phone out, already typing into her translation app.


    <b>How did it go?</b>


    ¡°Well enough,¡± I muttered. ¡°They made me an offer. Not to join, but they have conditions for helping us with the¡­stuff.¡± I didn¡¯t particularly want to discuss the details of it in front of them, and the three had said they wouldn¡¯t bring it up again today. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize they¡¯d isolate me. Felt a little ambushed.¡±


    Amane winced.


    <b>I was hoping they wouldn¡¯t. You¡¯re alright?</b>


    ¡°I¡¯m good.¡± I was actually pretty proud of how I¡¯d handled myself; no big secrets given away, as far as I could tell.


    ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re good,¡± Yuuka verified. ¡°We told ya they wouldn¡¯t hurt ya, no matter how bad you fucked it up.¡±


    ¡°We would <i>never</i>,¡± Hongo cut in. ¡°And so far, he¡¯s exceeded expectations when it comes to propriety.¡±


    ¡°Nah, really?¡±


    Hongo winced theatrically. ¡°He must have set a truly awful first impression with you if your prediction was so far off the mark.¡±


    To my surprise, Yuuka laughed. ¡°I mean, he¡¯s fucking Hina, ¡®course my expectations were low.¡±


    Amane elbowed her teammate, hard, with her mechanical arm. It didn¡¯t make contact; Yuuka¡¯s hand had already been moving to catch the blow, and Miyoko exhaled a rather unladylike snort at the roughhousing. ¡°He does look somewhat like her, no?¡±


    ¡°Mhm,¡± Yuuka replied, twisting to flag down a waiter.


    ¡°What do you mean by that?¡± I asked. I certainly didn¡¯t look like Hina¡ªwrong sex, wrong race, wrong height, wrong hair. They must have meant in a more magical sense; was there a connection between Yuuka¡¯s eye and Miyoko¡¯s? Perhaps Miyoko¡¯s too-deep irises were pink- or white-ripple equivalents of Yuuka¡¯s, though they were obviously structurally different. Yuuka¡¯s looked almost prosthetic, like an intrusion or growth, whereas Miyoko¡¯s seemed more supernatural.


    ¡°You¡¯ve paid in blood quite a few times for someone blessed only eight days ago,¡± Hongo pointed out, and I frowned.


    ¡°That¡¯s not¡­¡±


    But it was definitely true at this point. Between my spear, my foot, when I¡¯d struck Hina, and of course last night¡¯s impulsive, full-body epilation, I really did seem to be developing a troubling propensity for blood magic. ¡°My abilities to design complex lattices are much stronger than my practical ability to weave them, for now,¡± I hedged. ¡°And done carefully, sanguimancy is still safer than fully unbound magic.¡±


    Hongo gestured at me as though presenting me to Yuuka. ¡°See? He can make decent excuses! Though I do take some issue with the idea that glyphcraft is the only way to safely utilize magic, and I contest that you¡¯ve been particularly careful. Removing all the hair from your body the night before an event like this is bold. Some would call it reckless, or pain-seeking.¡±


    I was annoyed and a little alarmed that he¡¯d identified exactly what I¡¯d done, but stood my ground. ¡°It was worth it.¡±


    ¡°Your hair really is beautiful,¡± Kimura said quietly, sipping from a tall glass of beer. A waiter offered me a slightly different glass which I accepted hesitantly. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen something like it.¡±


    I gave the drink an investigatory sniff and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was ginger ale rather than beer. Amane nudged me. I looked back at her. ¡°What?¡±


    She mouthed something. I frowned, not sure what she meant. Yuuka groaned. ¡°Ezzen, say thank you for the compliment.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Thanks.¡± I reddened, shrinking into myself, feeling too exposed and unable to hide from Yuuka¡¯s counter-gesture indicating my fuck-up to Hongo. This thin shirt provided no protection, no armor; a hoodie might have been sweltering to wear in the magically adjusted temperate weather, but it would have given some security, helped hide that I didn¡¯t know what to do with my hunched shoulders. The weight of my hair draped over my back helped a little, sort of emulating the feeling of a hood hanging behind my neck, and I tried to focus on that; at least my back was covered.


    Should I say something more in response? He¡¯d already complimented my hair earlier; I wasn¡¯t sure why he was bringing it up again. Normally, I¡¯d talk about the interesting magical implications of my possibly cyborg nature, but Hikanome had expressed enough distaste with that topic that I wasn¡¯t sure if it would make me look more like a fool. Better to just say nothing at all?


    Amane rescued me by raising her glass and calling down the table. The toast was in Japanese, so I don¡¯t know exactly what was said, but whatever it was, it was cheerful and confident, delivered in her bright, strong voice. Something she said got a laugh from the table, then everybody raised their mugs, and the first plates of food began to hit the table.


    ¡°Thanks,¡± I whispered to Amane as a plate of chicken skewers was placed before me, charcoal-smoky and glazed in soy sauce.


    ¡°No problem.¡±


    ¡ª


    The food was exceptional. The theme was flame-cooking, and sure, that meant skewers and steaks, hot dogs and burgers¡ªbut it also meant brick oven pizzas and flatbreads, raclette and octopus all sharing the table. There was an entire row of grills, griddles, and ovens set up parallel to the table, which constantly brought new delicacies and interesting twists on more familiar foods. I crunched down on a piece of duxelles that had been broiled to a crispy, chip-like consistency on extremely hot cast iron and washed it down with ginger ale. The drink was arguably the highlight; it had an intense, spiced edge to it without tasting of alcohol, and it was nice and cool to refresh my palate after eating food that had come off of open flame moments prior.


    We didn¡¯t make much conversation for the first few minutes, mostly consumed in the universally human act of savoring really good food. Normal human or flamebearer, we all could take some enjoyment from it. To my right, I was happy to see that Amane was enthusiastically digging in; it would have been a shame if her stomach condition had prevented her from partaking.


    Conversation began to resume around the third course. I twirled a fork in my small bowl of assassin¡¯s spaghetti while Amane and Hongo discussed something in Japanese. Foreign policy, if I had to guess; my Japanese was still awful, but I was definitely picking up ¡°America¡± here and there. Yuuka cut in in English¡ªfor my benefit? That didn¡¯t seem like her.


    ¡°They keep making offers to Ai. They can¡¯t buy her out, but they¡¯re trying. Nervous about the new patterns we saw last month in Taiwan, feel like they¡¯re losing the arms race with China. ¡®s stupid, she¡¯d never help make exos.¡±


    Hongo nodded. ¡°It¡¯s the principle of it. If they offer and she refuses, they have it on paper where she stands. They¡¯re not going to make an offensive in the South China Sea, though, not with the situation with the Spire.¡±


    ¡°Situation?¡± Yuuka bit down on a slice of mayo pizza, one of the few things on the table I wasn¡¯t willing to try. ¡°It¡¯s the same shit as ever. Vaetna make a clusterfuck in some other country, don¡¯t clean it up properly, the big boys reach for their guns, and then when they¡¯ve fully pivoted to face the Spire, they get stabbed in the back by one of the others.¡±


    Finally, a conversation I actually felt qualified to participate in. I took another swig of ginger ale, then spoke up. ¡°I think that¡¯s uncharitable. Er, to the Vaetna¡¯s interventions.¡±


    ¡°Oh, do ya? Really. ¡®Course you would gobble their knobs.¡±


    ¡°They do clean up their messes.¡±


    ¡°Only when the big guys actually get scared and don¡¯t try to escalate, and that¡¯s happening less and less. So more escalation, more messes.¡±


    Here we go. I braced; I¡¯d heard this line of argument before, and it always ended back at Dubai.


    ¡°Sometimes¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ª<i>you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette</i>. Shut the fuck up.¡±


    That earned her another elbow from Amane. Miyoko spoke up, leaning forward as she twirled a chicken skewer in her fingers.


    ¡°Ezzen, you believe the Spire¡¯s humanitarian efforts outweigh the consequences of their interventions?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± The response was automatic.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because it¡¯s a net good. Toppling petty warlords, clearing droughts, pre-empting superhurricanes and taking point on infernos¡ªthose directly save lives! And that¡¯s not even counting the Spire itself; there¡¯s a reason their quality of life is the highest in the world, and it has everything to do with their medicine and hydroponics.¡±


    ¡°Quality of life,¡± Hongo repeated approvingly. ¡°For the average person. That¡¯s what communities should do.¡±


    ¡°Says the cult leader,¡± I noted dryly.


    ¡°I¡¯m agreeing with you! We believe the same things the Spire does. Magic should be used to create a better world for everyone living in it, not hoarded for one¡¯s own interests.¡±


    I blinked. ¡°Clarify? You think the Vaetna should rule the world?¡±


    ¡°You think they should not?¡±


    I sighed. ¡°That¡¯s¡ªit¡¯s complicated. In a world where the average person knew what was good for them, yeah. In practice¡­I don¡¯t know,¡± I admitted. ¡°I¡¯m uncomfortable with anybody <i>ruling</i> the world, Vaetna or not. And when it comes to them specifically, so many people don¡¯t trust the Vaetna. For faulty reasons, you know?¡±


    Hongo smiled. ¡°Please go on.¡±


    ¡°Well¡­alright,¡± I said, mentally gearing up. ¡°Do you know the story <i>The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas</i>?¡± I got some nods, but Kimura shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s¡ªalmost fifty years old now, so pre-firestorms, pre-Raising, pre-magic. It¡¯s about a utopia that runs on the torture of a single child, basically, and whether that trade-off is worth it. I think we can all see the parallels to the real world these days, yeah?¡± More nods. ¡°My problem with it is that¡­well, people assume that any utopia, any place where people are <i>happy</i>, has to have a catch, a dark side. It¡¯s why people accuse the Vaetna of blood magic or ruling the Spire with an iron fist, all that bosh. They refuse to believe that people with that much power can create a society that¡¯s unambiguously good, no catch. And I just think that¡¯s¡ªsuch a backwards, 20th-century way of looking at the world.¡±


    ¡°I would say the same argument applies to Hikanome.¡±


    I snarled; how could they say that when Amane was sitting literally right here? ¡°What? No, you demonstrably based your success on child slavery¡ª¡±


    ¡°And we destroyed that side of us,¡± Kimura interrupted. ¡°No more, never again. Now we heal the sick and shelter the homeless <i>without</i> keeping bodies in the basement.¡±


    ¡°And more than that,¡± Hongo picked up once he swallowed a bite of his overloaded hot dog, ¡°we put our thumb on the scales of policy to end those problems at the source. We fund housing and lobby to keep rent down rather than merely sweeping homeless people out of sight.¡± He gestured at Yuuka. ¡°Miss Hirai is here today because we are lending our blessings to environmental groups to help reduce pollution. Make no mistake¡ªwe <i>could</i> rule Japan if we wanted to, but that is not what we were given these blessings to do. How are we different from the Vaetna, Little Heron?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not interested in arguing what you do for your tax write-offs.¡±


    ¡°Fuckin¡¯ oath, ¡®Little Heron¡¯, do you not see your hypocrisy here?¡± Yuuka sneered. ¡°It¡¯s the same shit. And the Vaetna didn¡¯t help me find Amane. Get off your high fuckin¡¯ horse.¡±


    I deflated, looking guiltily at the cyborg girl between us. She was clearly having trouble keeping up with the conversation, but when her name came up, she seemed to understand what it meant. She sighed something at Yuuka, who shook her head angrily.


    ¡°It seems to me,¡± Miyoko said, looking between the three of us, ¡°That you see something divine in the Vaetna, Ezzen. You may not worship them, but you recognize their higher calling.¡±


    ¡°Well¡ªthey¡¯re not omnipotent,¡± I begrudgingly admitted, shamefaced. I had no rebuttal for Yuuka.


    ¡°But you wish they were. That is faith.¡±


    ¡°Everyone believes in something,¡± Kimura added. ¡°You think we are not deserving of the same trust you extend to them, because you believe that they are ordained to do good and we are not.¡±


    I felt I had to push back on that¡ªthen my skin crawled. The hair on my neck would have stood on end if I still had any. Instinct had me look straight up, guided by some perception of my Flame. I realized all five other Flamebearers had done the same. Yuuka swore.


    ¡°What?¡± I couldn¡¯t pin down exactly what I was sensing.


    Amane pointed, and I saw it. An ultramarine dot was moving across the pale-blue sky, vivid and aglow, brighter each moment. My heart leapt. My phone buzzed, and I scrambled to get it out.


    <b>Hina: </b>I FIGURED IT OUT


    <b>Ezzen: </b>figured what out?


    <b>Hina: </b>the stalker. she¡¯s with hikanome i can smell her somewhere down there with you


    My blood ran cold, eyes darting around before they locked on Miyoko. Amane and Yuuka both put fingers to their ears, then a change passed over them. They both tensed, looking at the Hikanome flamebearers with the same suspicion I had, but with warriors¡¯ poise rather than my prey-animal panic.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>What do we do? We¡¯re literally sitting across from the leaders right now.


    <b>Hina: </b>sit tight cutie


    <b>Hina: </b>the girls have your back


    ¡°Ezzen,¡± Yuuka said slowly, injecting casual friendliness into her voice. ¡°Wanna walk around the park? There¡¯s plenty of stuff to do.¡±


    ¡°Y¡ªyeah, that sounds good.¡±


    <b>Ezzen: </b>and you?


    <b>Hina: </b>what do you think


    <b>Hina: </b>im going hunting


    <b>Ezzen: </b>Uh. Maybe this should wait until after?


    The blue dot in the sky was getting bigger.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>Hina?


    ¡°Ah,¡± breathed Hongo. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose any of you can stop her?¡±


    ¡°Stop her from what?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s gonna break open the whole white ripple bubble,¡± Yuuka explained, alarm in her voice. ¡°What the fuck is this¡ª<i>ittatata</i>¡ª<i>fuck</i>!¡± She clutched the side of her head, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, then whipped around to stare at¡ªKimura, who had risen to his feet, looking up at the approaching sapphire fireball. She growled. ¡°What the fuck?¡±


    The middle-aged businessman met Yuuka¡¯s eye, then looked at me. Was he¡ªbut he couldn¡¯t be, right? I frantically went back to my phone.


    <b>Ezzen: </b>DONT


    <b>Ezzen: </b>youll amke an inferno. its not worth it, im not in danger


    <b>Ezzen: </b>just come down normally and we can talk


    <b>Hina:</b> yuuka will get it


    <b>Hina: </b>stay safe, love you


    The others at the table, the humans, had taken notice, and gasping turned to yelling as it became clear Hina wasn¡¯t going to stop. Hongo and Miyoko were asking Kimura frantic-sounding questions, but he just shook his head. He looked at me one last time, then shattered into glass, splintered fragments that burned away into smoke. Like before.


    Certainty took root in my stomach. He¡¯d been the one providing the magic for my stalker, whomever she¡¯d been. That was why Hina was here¡ªbut her response was still wildly disproportionate. Why did she seem ready to go to war? I turned to Amane and Yuuka, who were both staring at where Kimura had been. Rage was written on their faces. What was I missing?


    ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡±


    Yuuka barked something at Miyoko. The high priestess scowled at the place where Kimura had been, pristine and delicate features twisting with fury.


    ¡°Traitor.¡±


    Then the sky split open as Radiance Sapphire cracked Hikanome¡¯s eggshell of false summer.

 Trick Of The Light // 2.13

    Have you ever seen one of those ultra-slow-motion videos of a bullet passing through ballistic gel? The projectile leaves a series of overlapping voids expanding behind it, the nominally solid gel encouraged by the extreme forces to bubble like a liquid. Milliseconds later, the forces that formed those bubbles have dissipated through the gel, so the cavity no longer has anything to hold it open and begins to collapse back in on itself. But the bullet drags outside air in behind it, and as the bubble collapses, that air is crushed and compressed, pressurized so rapidly that it ignites into a little explosion, a flare of light and heat that momentarily grants a second life to each bubble, glowing like fireworks before finally being snuffed for good.


    The same thing happened when Hina struck the white-ripple field surrounding Yoyogi Park. The blazing blue comet pierced the field, and light exploded across the sky, a sapphire aurora both spilling outward beyond the barrier and following her in like leaking ink. Even though her mantle was barely visible as more than a pinpoint, I could see it was flaking apart, shards of LM trailing off of her and decohering into more ripple like the tail of a comet.


    For a moment, there was equilibrium, the insane force of her arrival balanced against the field¡¯s self-correcting shape. Then, like the ballistic gel, the field buckled and fell inward where she struck it, closing behind her and isolating pockets of the blue, compressing them inward, squeezing and concentrating the bubbles of ripple until they were a trail of blinding pinpoints suspended behind Hina¡¯s dive.


    Watching this collapse over a fraction of a second, I remember thinking how strange it was that there was no physical shockwave, no wind. As if responding to me, the colored guide-braziers flickered, and then their flames were being sucked inward too, an incandescent rainbow caught aswirl in the implosion of the ripple compressing Hina¡¯s constellation of the Frozen Flame. The compression reached a peak, and like that hyper-pressurized air, the pinpoints detonated, tearing open Miyoko¡¯s field. It curdled and peeled back, whips of white and yellow sparks dancing and igniting at the seam before they were overtaken by the tide of sapphire light. For a brief and blinding moment, Hina outshone the sun and dyed the whole world blue.


    The sound reached my ears moments later, and everybody, flamebearers included, flinched and ducked for cover at the deafening, roaring rumble that was felt as much as heard, rattling my entire body, terrifying in a primal sense like a peal of thunder or erupting volcano; something early man would have worshiped out of fear. I remember that feeling more clearly than any other part, how my legs trembled and I hunched on pure instinct, how everybody was screaming, including me.


    That was all before the ripple reached us.


    I cried out as the lattice of my prosthetic flickered, red ripple hijacking my nerves and sending lancing pain from foot to brain stem while my stabilizer unit in my jacket pocket tried and failed to compensate. I fell to one knee, then on my arse, gasping and gritting my teeth as the pain overwhelmed my other senses. The device in my pocket was turning hot¡ªan acrid smell hit my nose, and I tried to squirm out of the jacket even while phantom cramps made it feel like my foot was about to fold itself in half. Somebody helped pull the jacket off of me, and I immediately curled up on the pillow I¡¯d been sitting on, cowering under the collapsing sky and trying not to scream at the venom in my nerves.


    Over long, agonizing seconds, the pain ebbed downward from its peak. Gasping, ragged breaths became shallower and more even¡ªand colder, as nature reasserted itself. The temperature was plummeting; with the barrier between hot and cold air destroyed, the former drove upward, and the cold air surrounding the park rushed inward, frigid, howling wind kicking up grit and shearing at my sensitive skin through the gossamer protection of my shirt. Familiar aches invaded my fingers, and soon I found myself curled up not in a futile attempt to escape pain but as a way of preserving precious body heat as winter announced its return.


    I gritted my teeth; my fragile meat-body wanted to stay where it was and huddle for warmth, but I couldn¡¯t afford to. Even without looking, I knew that this was an apocalyptically dangerous situation for the hundreds of thousands of average humans in the park. There was commotion around me, voices and shuffling, and I could hear yelling and screaming and sirens in the distance. The real flamebearers, the Radiances and Hikanome¡¯s damn cultists, were probably already mobile and trying to help people, not fetal and blubbering. I had to get up and join them¡ªit was pathetic to have been knocked flat on my ass.


    ¡°C¡¯mon,¡± I murmured to myself, somewhere between a whisper and subvocalization. ¡°The Spire stands, so can you.¡± I sucked in a deep breath. ¡°Up we go. One, two¡ª¡±


    I sat up and cracked my eyes open.


    Everything was dyed yellow. In that second or two of the detonation, the wash of blue light had indoctrinated my eyes to its overwhelming hue, so the natural sunlight seemed all wrong¡ªall the colors were out of balance. The sky, actually a thin blue, appeared to be sickly orange. The remnants of brightest blue ink in the sky looked paler by the moment, thinning and dissipating into the aether. Distantly, I was relieved; that was a good sign as far as inferno intensity was concerned¡ªno self-sustaining engine of magical tides, nor a wound in the world. Tokyo¡¯s sky would not gain a second scar like the one over its harbor.


    But the park still looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. It was an absurd relief to my social anxiety that I was not the only one who¡¯d been cowering on the ground, bowled over by the sheer scale of forces¡ªthe entire park had. The spindly trees had remained standing, but I could see the big tents laying half-collapsed, smaller ones uprooted and tossed around. The tall braziers of colored flame that were supposed to mark districts of the festival stood dead and askew.


    As for my immediate surroundings, I was surrounded by commotion. A cluster of people stood and knelt on the other side of the table from me, where Miyoko had been sitting. I spotted her at the center of the press of people, lying propped up on a hastily constructed stack of the pillows we¡¯d been sitting on. The high priestess must have been the one maintaining the field, and thus took the full backlash of Hina¡¯s arrival. But she wasn¡¯t my highest priority anyway. I turned, rubbing my hands together rapidly to stave off the chill. I¡¯d only been in the false warmth for an hour, tops¡ªwas the natural temperature supposed to feel this <i>cold?</i>


    ¡°Amane?¡±


    A distorted, warbling ring came from behind me by way of reply. The Amethyst Radiance had mantled, standing tall, a purple statue unscathed by the devastation surrounding her. Once I made eye contact with her¡ªor close enough¡ªshe acknowledged me with a nod, then her spike-snout swung back toward the chaos in the festival¡¯s main section. Todai¡¯s people stood clustered around her legs, barely coming up to her waist, like children against her stature. Heliotrope sat unmantled on her shoulder, leaning against her head. She was on the phone with her left hand while she dabbed something off her face with a napkin scrounged from the table¡ªblood, I realized, trickling from under her bangs. I winced.


    ¡°You alright?¡±


    She lowered the phone momentarily to curse at me. That was probably fair; I didn¡¯t have better words for the destruction my girlfriend had wrought. Had her first rescue of me also been so explosive, when she¡¯d saved me from the Peacies and that buried car? Or did the apocalyptic suddenness of her arrival mean she thought I was in even more danger now? It certainly displayed a stunning disregard for collateral damage; even if nobody had died in that initial flashbang of contact, the ripple churning overhead would have already begun to seep into people¡¯s flesh. I needed to help contain it, or evacuate civilians, or both. What about Kimura?


    I started to get to my feet and start making myself useful, but didn¡¯t get all the way up before my ankle wobbled beneath me and I remembered that my stabilizer had been rendered useless. I reached for my cast-off suit jacket¡ªit was warm, which I tried to savor while gingerly feeling toward the pocket. The stabilizer unit itself was cooked, too hot to touch; the component meant to convert interfering ripple to harmless heat had been overfed by the extreme conditions and amplified by the white surrounding it. The cocktail of ripple had gone to town on the disc, partially crushing it into more of a V-shape. It was fucked. I carefully shook the useless puck of ruined magitech out of the pocket, and it crumbled when it hit the plastic tarp; {ASH} residue. Don¡¯t breathe that stuff.


    I shrugged my jacket back on, grateful that at least the device¡¯s failure had left me with a warm outer layer. Then I tried to kneel again, putting my bad foot under me to see if the prosthetic itself had also been fried. It seemed like the stabilizer had taken the brunt of it¡ªso no walking for me, but at least the basic analgomantics in the prosthetic were working. I sat back down, trying to stay huddled up for warmth. There wasn¡¯t much point in standing; it wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d be much use in the pursuit even if I was fully mobile¡ª


    A sound like tearing metal erupted next to me. Adrenaline surged. I flinched away, scrambling backward from¡ª


    ¡°Cutie! Hi! Love the hair!¡±


    Hina looked untouched by her meteoric arrival¡ªbut she wasn¡¯t in her mantle. I suspected it had been sacrificed as ablative shielding.


    ¡°Hina? Christ, are you okay? What the fuck was that? A fucking inferno¡ª¡±


    She flowed forward, standing over me and bending over at the waist with feline flexibility, putting her hands on my shoulders and nuzzling the top of my head.


    ¡°Shh. Can¡¯t stick around; I gotta get him. Listen¡ªhe¡¯s not working alone.¡±


    I automatically reached up and put my hands over hers. Most of me was still shaken and terrified by the forces she¡¯d just unleashed, but her touch was soothing in a small way.


    ¡°Kimura? I don¡¯t¡ªhe¡¯s working with the stalker, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Haven¡¯t found her, but it was his Flame. But¡ªthere¡¯s others. Here.¡±


    ¡°Hina, clarify, please. Other stalkers? Other flamebearers?¡±


    By now, the others were taking notice of her presence. The Hikanome and Todai entourages had turned toward us. Yuuka was disembarking from Amane¡¯s shoulder, and Hongo stepped to the front of the crowd surrounding Miyoko. Hina straightened and raised her voice, addressing us all, but didn¡¯t abandon her protective position over me.


    ¡°Other Sugawara loyalists,¡± she growled.


    A cacophony of confused, overlapping Japanese exploded from both groups. I could hear Amane¡¯s wind-chime voice over the group, but she wasn¡¯t the one who reestablished order. That was Hongo, speaking in a resonant voice amplified and tinged by magic. He barked something out that made everybody quiet down, then pointed at Hina.


    ¡°Fox. That¡¯s a severe accusation.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t trust my nose, Nacchan?¡±


    ¡°Miyoko did,¡± Yuuka cut in, typing one-handed on her phone. ¡°Called him a traitor right before he vanished. You got a trail?¡±


    Hina nodded, idly running her fingers through my long hair. She spoke in a rush. ¡°He¡¯s shifting and hopping all over, but still in the park for now, ¡®cause crossing the seams after what I just did to Shiny¡¯s bubble would be suicide. I¡¯m gonna find him, you guys find the other: Takagiri Izumi. Ring a bell?¡±


    Hongo¡¯s eyes narrowed, and murmurs erupted from his people behind him. Yuuka pulled the blood-stained napkin away from her head and inspected it, not quite able to snarl through her wince.


    ¡°Fuck.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Hina agreed. ¡°So that¡¯s why I¡¯m in a bit of a rush.¡±


    Yuuka shook her head slowly and deliberately, in spite of her injury, and gestured around. ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s a loose end, bad fuckin¡¯ news. And we¡¯ll get her this time. We will. But¡ªlook around, Hina. Innocents first. Clean up your fuckin¡¯ mess.¡±


    ¡°C¡¯mon, Yuuka, I thought you¡¯d be totally¡ª¡±


    Hongo shook out his robe. ¡°Ghost or not, the flock is terrified and in <i>danger</i> because of what you just did, fox. I would not call it very <i>mahou shoujo</i> to put civilians in the crossfire like this, and you¡¯re interfering with our internal affairs in doing so.¡±


    ¡°Bite me, Nacchan. Didn¡¯t you hear the name? <i>She¡¯s</i> after cutie¡ªand working with Kimura to make it happen. They were probably working together back then, too.¡± She looked down at me, determination shining in the blue of her eyes. ¡°She¡¯s the stalker, I think.¡±


    Yuuka frowned. ¡°The what?¡±


    My blood ran cold. ¡°You¡ª¡±


    A new voice interrupted, crackling through distorted cell signal from Yuuka¡¯s phone. ¡°Hina, I take it we can¡¯t convince you to clean up your mess instead?¡±


    A relieved smile broke across Hongo¡¯s face. He gave Alice¡¯s speakerphone voice a courtier¡¯s bow, deep and flourished with hand gestures. Many of Hikanome¡¯s people bowed as well.


    ¡°Lady Dragon, it is¡ª¡±


    ¡°You, shut up,¡± came the curt reply. ¡°Hina?¡±


    ¡°Sorry, babe. I gotta.¡±


    ¡°Figures,¡± Alice sighed, staticy. ¡°Then I¡¯m authorizing you to give them hell and keep them off the rest of us while we stabilize this situation. Don¡¯t kill them, though; I¡¯ve got a lot of questions.¡±


    ¡°You got it.¡±


    ¡°As for you, Hongo-san: Leave discipline to us.¡±


    He bowed to the phone again. ¡°I would not dream of it, Lady Dragon, my apologies. As I was saying, it¡¯s a relief to hear your voice in this time of crisis. Will you be gracing us with your presence in person?¡±


    ¡°The inferno¡¯s cut the park off from the rest of the city. I¡¯m going to see if we can open up a stable passage for emergency services.¡±


    My skin crawled for a different reason than what Hina had just told me. I whispered up at her. ¡°We¡¯re trapped?¡±


    Hina shrugged. ¡°So¡¯re they.¡± She knelt to nuzzle my face. ¡°I¡¯ll get them both. Promise.¡±


    Another staticy sigh came through the speakerphone. ¡°¡ªHuman life comes first. Yuuka, Amane¡ªhelp Hikanome tend to their people, stabilize this¡ªthis clusterfuck. Once we find an entry point, I¡¯m going to need your help to punch through, but that¡¯ll be a few hours.¡±


    I tried to push aside the revelation of my stalker¡ªTakagiri, apparently¡ªand focused on what Alice was saying about our situation. The top priority of responsible flamebearers during inferno response and cleanup was to shield the humans, but ¡°a few hours¡± would mean enough ripple exposure that we¡¯d have dead or dying civilians by the time the evac route was open. Even with five active flamebearers, we¡¯d be hard pressed to shield everybody completely; the park was huge, and therefore so was the inferno. That was far more important than a few people being after me personally, especially if Hina was dealing with them anyway.


    ¡°Hina can¡¯t chase two people at once,¡± Yuuka pointed out. ¡°She¡¯ll have her hands full with Kimura if that shatter move is as slippery as I think it is. What about Takagiri? Bitch disappeared completely after last time, and my eye¡¯s munted right now on top of that. I can¡¯t fuckin¡¯ track her.¡± She sounded angry.


    ¡°She¡¯s not a flamebearer. If she <i>is</i> after Ezzen, we don¡¯t need to know where she is as long as one of us is with him. And once we have a tunnel open, they¡¯ll have to go through us. Hina, you started this, I need you to at least tell me where the rift¡¯s weakest so we can anchor the¡ª¡±


    ¡°<i>Mou kiechatta,</i>¡± Yuuka groaned.


    My girlfriend had vanished when Alice had begun to give orders, leaving no trace but the ghost of a kiss on my forehead. Was catching my stalker more important to her than human lives?


    ¡°Fine. That can keep¡ªis Ezzen there?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± I called out.


    ¡°Give him the phone,¡± she instructed Yuuka. The Heliotrope Radiance reluctantly passed it over, turning off the speaker as she did. I raised the phone to my ear, huddling under my thin jacket.


    ¡°Ezzen,¡± Alice sighed. ¡°What kind of mess have you gotten into?¡±


    ¡°Uh, ripple shockwave toasted my stabilizer, so I¡¯m not exactly mobile.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªfine, you¡¯re staying right there anyway. But, er, that¡¯s not really what I meant; Hina only gave me <i>very piecemeal</i> information, and she said you¡¯d fill in the rest. So please explain to me: what the hell is ¡®the stalker?¡¯¡±


    I swallowed.


    ¡°I¡ªum¡ªI don¡¯t really know? It¡¯s¡­a person I saw.¡± My voice was shaking.


    ¡°A person you saw,¡± Alice repeated, deadpan.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°And why¡¯s this person got Hina disappearing for days on end, and when she finally does reappear, it¡¯s to tell me one of Sugawara¡¯s old ghosts is back and then immediately cause an inferno in the middle of the city?¡±


    ¡°Because¡ªshe thought it was Hikanome related. Guess¡ªshe was right?¡±


    ¡°Ezzen, you sound terrified. I¡¯m not going to yell at you for her mess, I promise! Just walk me through it from the start. When did this happen?¡±


    ¡°Um. Sorry. When you took me to the paperwork place, once you left.¡±


    ¡°Wait, last <i>week?</i> Why didn¡¯t you say¡ªagh, Hina told you not to, didn¡¯t she?¡±


    I tried to affirm, admit that this was all because of a stupid omission that had gotten out of hand, but my voice didn¡¯t work; I was too afraid. It came out as more of a choking rasp.


    ¡°Ezzen? Oh, that¡¯s it, wasn¡¯t it? You were¡ª¡±


    ¡°I was scared,¡± I blubbered. ¡°And she didn¡¯t want you to worry! We were going to go shopping and if we told you then you would have told us to come right home and that made her really upset and she promised I¡¯d be safe. And then after, when we <i>did</i> go back because of all the Thunder Horse stuff, that took priority, and then it was all a mess and she told me not to worry and she¡¯d look into it on her own! I¡ªI knew that was a bad idea at the time, but she really thought you shouldn¡¯t worry about it on top of all the other ways I¡¯ve been causing problems for you and¡ªsorry. Sorry.¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    I was making a scene with my confession, but I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to shut out the people around me.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡ªokay, shh, it¡¯s okay,¡± she soothed. I felt even worse that she needed to calm me down because of <i>this</i>, not the magical disaster I was standing at the epicenter of. ¡°Tell me what actually happened.¡±


    ¡°I was¡ªI was at a crosswalk and I saw a¡­a girl. At first, I thought it was Hina, but it wasn¡¯t, and something about her seemed dangerous, and she was surprised I saw her, and then she vanished right before Hina arrived. Like¡ªlike a breaking illusion, like the {MANIFEST}-{TRANSMIT} thing we did when¡ªfor Amethyst¡¯s mantle, that¡¯s where I got the idea. It¡¯s¡ª¡±


    ¡°Breathe, Ezzen. I understand, thank you. Deep breaths.¡±


    I did as I was told, trying to steady my nerves. It felt good to get it off my chest, but some guilt still remained.


    ¡°¡­Sorry. Hina¡¯s a¡­bad influence.¡±


    ¡°Trying to win points back with me? I¡¯m not upset, really. Not at you, at any rate. Just remember that opsec applies to <i>external</i> leakage, not internal. The team should tell each other stuff, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­Is she fired?¡±


    ¡°Hina? No. There¡¯ll have to be¡­consequences, but if we can pin this to Kimura, it¡¯ll all work out, I think. Know anything about that?¡±


    ¡°No. Should I?¡± I winced and was grateful Alice couldn¡¯t see it. ¡°Hina¡¯s¡ªgot me pretty much entirely in the dark about this. Did it all herself.¡±


    ¡°So you don¡¯t know why she accused one of Hikanome¡¯s top flamebearers of working with the person he carried out a coup against?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± When she put it like that, I felt very much in over my head and out of my element. ¡°I don¡¯t know anything about the politics or history here. Um¡­Kimura disappeared in the same way as the stalker. And you said Katagiri¡¯s¡ª¡±


    ¡°Takagiri. Ta-ka.¡±


    ¡°¡ªT¡ªTakagiri¡¯s not a flamebearer, which means it would make sense if he¡¯s the one providing the magic, so¡­hold on.¡± A dark thought had sprang up in that brief moment of interruption, one I was afraid to voice. ¡°Did¡­did Hina <i>plan</i> this? Did she not tell me or you so that I could be bait today? Because they¡¯re trapped now, right? Is that something she¡¯d do?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Alice countered immediately. ¡°I¡­resent that you feel the need for that much suspicion, especially of Hina. She loves you too much to play it like that. This was just¡­bad timing, I expect. For all the¡­mess that this is, I can tell you with certainty that she wouldn¡¯t have put you in the crossfire if she could have avoided it.¡±


    ¡°And everyone else?¡± I was getting more upset. ¡°There are thousands and thousands of people here! I¡¯m not worth that much more than them.¡±


    ¡°¡­She¡¯s¡­listen, Ezzen, she¡¯s more selective about how she values human life than I¡¯d like, but we don¡¯t have time to debate the morality of it¡ªjust know that I¡¯m not happy about it either.¡±


    ¡°Fine, okay. Can I help?¡±


    ¡°Yes, with information first. When it comes to Sugawara¡­we thought the book was closed on that. He¡¯s supposed to be in a medically induced coma in a prison in Yokohama, and everybody loyal to him should also be in prison or dead. Takagiri just¡­vanished. If she¡¯s back, and Kimura is back under his thumb¡­¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°Was Kimura being¡­suspicious? Anything that could back up Hina¡¯s hearsay?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re all suspicious,¡± I muttered quietly enough that Hongo wouldn¡¯t be able to hear. ¡°Their ¡®welcoming ceremony¡¯ was suspicious as hell¡ªthey isolated me into a reality bubble thing¡ªbut¡­I don¡¯t know. He wasn¡¯t setting off any more alarm bells than the others were.¡±


    ¡°Isolated you?¡± There was alarm in her voice.


    ¡°Um¡ªpulled me into a pocket dimension, alone. They babbled about my Flame and offered to do a whole medium ritual with Dad¡¯s ghost. I couldn¡¯t really tell if it was grift or if they genuinely believe in their own magic.¡±


    ¡°<i>Later</i>, Ezzen. God knows we have enough to bolt down already¡ªwait, his <i>ghost</i>?¡±


    ¡°I said no. It was just bullshit, right?¡±


    ¡°¡­Right, yes. You said your stabilizer was ruined?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re not thinking of resolving that with more blood magic to help Hina chase down Kimura, I hope?¡±


    ¡°No!¡± Christ, was that my reputation? Jumping at every opportunity to use blood magic to get myself into more trouble? ¡°I¡ªdo you think Hina <i>needs</i> the help?¡±


    ¡°I¡­hope not,¡± she hedged. I didn¡¯t like the uncertainty; in my mind, Hina¡¯s physical capabilities were superior to all but the Vaetna. Alice explained. ¡°Kimura was never a fighter, but Takagiri is dangerous, an unknown quantity, especially if they link up. Just¡ªtrust Hina has it under control, and we¡¯ll keep another Radiance right by your side until we have you out of there. I don¡¯t want to hear later that you were limping around covered in gore, sticking your spear where it doesn¡¯t belong. Got it?¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to! But¡­I want to help with inferno control if I can.¡±


    ¡°Do you have inferno response training I don¡¯t know about?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mean medical or crowd control. But¡ªthe park¡¯s cut off by tidal shove, right? I can find the thinnest seam for you to punch through.¡±


    Alice said something away from the phone, then picked it back up. ¡°We don¡¯t have readings yet, the crews are still setting up. Without Hina¡¯s nose or Yuuka¡¯s eye, Ai¡¯s saying it¡¯ll take hours and a whole server bank to chew through the data.¡±


    I thought about this. This wasn¡¯t a problem the Vaetna had to deal with; a <i>vaet</i> could literally cut through the storm. But we lesser flamebearers had to make do.


    ¡°Put Ai on, please.¡±


    There was a rough, crackling noise as the phone changed hands. ¡°<i>Moshi moshi</i>. Alice woke me up. Did you do something to your hair?¡±


    ¡°Later.¡± I was surprised at the grin that spread across my face at her voice. Finally, we were collaborating on something that mattered¡ªsaving people, not murder. ¡°How many detection nodes are they setting up around the perimeter?¡±


    It was good to hear her voice, but I was suddenly feeling the hurry; statistically, every minute we spent not evacuating civilians was taking weeks off the lifespans of at least a few of them, and I could potentially speed up the process of setting up a safe evacuation route by hours. I lowered the phone briefly and waved toward the group of Todai people, gesturing that I needed a pencil and paper.


    ¡°Sixty? Sixty-two. We¡¯re pooling with Hikanome and the <i>kanrikyoku</i>¡ªthe Bureau.¡±


    I had my phone in my lap and had pulled up the map of the park I had downloaded. I was facing east, and we were on the west side of the park, which meant¡ªI glanced up at the sky, where the blue stain still remained in traces. The natural sky was otherwise visible overhead, but as I looked further down toward the horizon, the ripple at the borders of the park was combining in tides strong enough to distort the passage of light, let alone matter. I turned the map; Hina had come in from the northeast, so the backsplash and collapse of her cavitation trail would be concentrated on the west side of the park. That was making some assumptions about how Miyoko had set up her field¡ªand how it even worked¡ªbut as far as I could tell, she still wasn¡¯t conscious to ask about it.


    ¡°Any of them full-spectrum, 4-way flow?¡±


    ¡°Yes, ours. That¡¯s only twelve. We don¡¯t have many; usually Hina and Yuuka can do most of this without technology.¡±


    ¡°Well¡ª¡± I glanced over at Yuuka, who was on her feet and talking to Amane, but still holding gauze over her magical eye. ¡°That¡¯s fine, I only need¡­eight of those on the southwest side bordering the VIP area, and three at points that superscribe a triangle around the park. Uh¡ª¡± Clipboard came with my materials and helped me clear a spot on the table, and I scribbled out a rough blob of the park¡¯s shape. ¡°Thanks. Uh, Ai, I¡¯m sending a picture of the layout on my phone.¡±


    ¡°<i>Hai</i>. I can picture it, I think¡ªah, there¡¯s your photo. Alice¡ª<i>sou, acchi</i>¡ª¡± There was off-mic discussion for a moment. ¡°She¡¯s going to fly out the far ones. What are you planning, Ezzen?¡±


    I had moved on to scribbling glyph notation onto the paper¡ªwhere had Clipboard managed to procure <i>graph paper</i> in a situation like this? I drew lines, scribbled tension and offset and other notes, connecting shapes together. I didn¡¯t need GWalk to know this would work.


    ¡°Gimme a few minutes. It¡¯ll make more sense when I send the diagram.¡±


    ¡ª


    The chain of glyphs I drew was a bespoke data processing algorithm specifically adapted for the position and type of inputs the ripple sensors would give it. Generally, doing that kind of processing via glyphcraft wasn¡¯t faster or easier than with a mundane computer, but this specific situation, simulating and guessing the behavior of ripple in a bounded space, was an exception.


    I was banking on the fact that the field¡¯s border nearest us, closest to Miyoko, would have formed one epicenter of the distortion effect; the other was obviously the stain in the sky, which marked the cluster of implosion points where Hina had first contacted the field. By using the ripple readings around those areas and the overall gradient of ripple tides picked up by the larger triangle of sensors that enclosed the whole park, it was possible to perform some clever reductions and triangulate the point where the effect separating inside from outside was weakest.


    I lacked the skill to actually implement the glyph diagram with Flame¡ªbut that was the same as it had always been. Theory was my strong suit, not execution, and there was no reason for me to try to force it to work with blood magic. I had Ai implement the lattice instead, and once she understood what she was looking at, she found ways to streamline the process further, get even more computing power out of a relatively short chain of pink-oriented glyphs.


    Eight minutes after I sent the diagram, we had the location of the best point of access around the perimeter of the park. It was closer to the south side than I¡¯d have guessed, near where the map said there was a group of large theater tents. Amane and Hongo were occupied corralling and pacifying the bulk of the crowd in the northern section of the park, snuffing the worst areas of ripple, and coordinating what limited first aid we had; that left me and Yuuka to link with Alice from our side of the barrier.


    It was determined that I was probably safest with Yuuka, even with her eye crippled. Alice didn¡¯t want me around Hikanome¡¯s people, in case there were more Sugawara loyalists, and I very much shared the feeling; plus, once we did get the tunnel open, I could get out immediately, and then we could completely deny Kimura and Takagiri access to me with them still inside the inferno. Clipboard helped me limp to one of the cars, and we set off toward the chosen site, with a scout car screening the off-road route before us.


    ¡°Today was supposed to be <i>fun</i>,¡± Yuuka groused from the seat in front of me. Clipboard and I were where we¡¯d been on the way in, which put me diagonally behind Yuuka, unable to see most of her face past her bangs. Periodically, though, a trickle of blood would appear below the curtain of black hair, and she¡¯d hurriedly wipe it away. ¡°Stupid fuckin¡¯ animal, had to turn it into a <i>fight</i>.¡±


    We¡¯d actually seen Hina again, very briefly. She¡¯d blinked into existence in front of the car, ragdolled off the road, struck a tree so hard its trunk swayed with a crack, then vanished again as she rose to her feet. Evidently, she was fighting one of the two somewhere in the fourth-dimensional spaces outside reality¡ªmaybe even explicitly trying to cover me. I tried not to think about the possibility of an ambush as I looked out the window, toward the devastation caused by her explosive entrance.


    The car wound its way around destroyed tents and signs of abandoned festivities. Some had been conventionally crushed by the hurricane-force winds caused by the pressure differential, but others were damaged in more esoteric ways, melted or overgrown or fractured as though reflected in a smashed mirror¡ªsigns of how lingering ripple had fragmented and distorted reality in those places. Some of them would return to normality as the larger inferno died down, but others would need to be stitched back together with magic to repair the local fabric of reality. For now, all that could be done was avoid them.


    There were people, too. The tide of civilians¡ªI tried not to think of them as the ¡®survivors¡¯, too morbid¡ªflowed toward the park¡¯s center and away from the most violently affected edges. Hongo and Amane¡¯s efforts to herd them toward the safest regions of the park seemed to be mostly successful, but maybe every one in three were visibly sick or injured. Burns abounded, and a number of them seemed partially blinded by the immense flash of Hina¡¯s impact, led by their fellows toward safety. Many of them were shivering, too sparsely dressed for the cold, and were using picnic blankets and stage costumes as makeshift outerwear to make up the difference.


    While I¡¯d been working on the glyphs, Hongo had reassured me that the human suffering on display wasn¡¯t as bad as it looked; one of Hikanome¡¯s premier miracles was curing ripple sickness, so most of ¡°the flock¡± would make a full recovery from the magical effects. But even if I were to disregard my doubts about the veracity of said miracles, people¡¯s symptoms would only increase in severity the longer they were trapped in here, so time was of the essence. The sooner we could get a tunnel established, the sooner we could evacuate the area of effect and get people proper medical care. That took precedent over my own desire to be away from the renewed threat of my stalker.


    I¡¯d have felt better if Yuuka¡¯s eye was working. But the more I thought about it, wasn¡¯t it weird that she¡¯d been caught off guard even before Hina had caused the inferno? Shouldn¡¯t she of all people have been prepared, have seen the whole incident coming through silver ghosts of the insane quantities of red and blue Hina would create? Curiosity nipped at me. The extent to which she had been caught off guard felt like it contradicted her foresight.


    Prodding at her ego about it seemed like a bad idea, though.


    ¡°Is your eye okay?¡± I hazarded.


    ¡°Will be.¡±


    ¡°Will it¡­heal normally?¡±


    ¡°Normally? Sure, and pretty quick. But in the middle of an inferno zone? Might heal fine in here and then be munted when we get out.¡±


    ¡°Because of the white ripple,¡± I explained to nobody. ¡°How does¡­looking through it work?¡±


    She twisted in her seat to glare at me with her normal eye. ¡°What¡¯s with the questions?¡±


    ¡°Uh. I¡¯ve been seeing a lot of magic I don¡¯t understand lately. Like, I¡¯m still trying to wrap my head around what the cult¡¯s people claim to be able to do. So I¡¯m trying to have an open mind, because understanding is better than not understanding.¡± I fumbled, unable to leave the statement there. ¡°And if I can understand your eye better, I might be able to fix it now.¡±


    ¡°Ah, yeah, glyph genius, gonna solve all our problems for us. Because we¡¯re not smart enough to do it ourselves.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant.¡±


    ¡°It is.¡±


    ¡°Is this about me being a guy, again? I¡¯m not¡ªI don¡¯t mean to ¡®mansplain¡¯ your own tech to you, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re insinuating.¡±


    Yuuka frowned. ¡°Are you making fun of me?¡±


    ¡°No! I¡¯m very confused right now!¡±


    ¡°Ugh. No, that¡¯s not what I was insinuating. I¡¯ve been told I don¡¯t have to worry about that with you, anyway.¡±


    Amane or Ai must have vouched for my character; I should thank them later. ¡°Then what¡¯s your problem with me? I mean¡ªother than everything with Hina. I want to learn so I can help you; why¡¯s that a bad thing?¡±


    ¡°<i>She</i> is the problem.¡±


    ¡°Alright, fine, fuck off, I guess,¡± I riposted, not quite able to disagree. ¡°Just trying not to be dead weight.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t start with the self-deprecating shit. ¡®S not what I meant, and you¡¯re not dead weight. At least you <i>want</i> to help, better than¡­¡± she gestured out the window, at the destroyed tents and refugees. ¡°Her. That.¡±


    ¡°¡­Yeah. Not a very proportional response, is it? I mean, she¡¯s here to protect <i>me</i>, and even I think this is overkill.¡±


    ¡°All this for your fuckin¡¯¡­what did you call it? Stalker?¡±


    ¡°Takagiri, apparently. It was a¡­thing.¡± It was sort of a relief to at least have a name to the face, and an approximate location¡ªeven if I now knew that it was more than a one-off encounter. ¡°But it doesn¡¯t warrant this.¡±


    ¡°Wow, we agree on something.¡± She looked out the window, dabbing blood off her face again. ¡°Yeah. She¡¯s too focused on keeping them off of <i>you</i> when she coulda just¡­told us ¡®n trusted us to do it. If it¡¯s a problem for the whole team, we should handle it as a team.¡±


    ¡°Did she¡­I don¡¯t know, expect you to see it coming?¡±


    She must have seen <i>something</i> before or during the impact; the persistent blood on her cheek suggested she¡¯d been affected intensely enough to overload the magitech organ, which made sense given the amplifying effect of the white ripple that surrounded us.


    ¡°Maybe. Don¡¯t know if she was thinking that far ahead.¡±


    ¡°Alice said something similar.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. And¡ª¡± she grunted with pained frustration, grabbing another piece of gauze. ¡°Fuck. Like I said yesterday, eye was already on the fritz all week, but this is so big that I shouldn¡¯t have been <i>able</i> to miss it. This is my fuckup too.¡±


    ¡ª


    We made it to the edge of the park a few minutes later. The inferno¡¯s border wasn¡¯t a solid wall separating us from the outside world; it was more like looking down into a body of water, gradually becoming denser and murkier the deeper you looked. There were flickers of motion within, a chaotic churn of magic that would corrupt and destroy any matter that dared enter it. Even going near it was a bad idea for unaugmented humans, so Clipboard and our driver were hanging back a healthy distance; Yuuka and I were afforded some protection by our Flames, which I could feel as a tingling across my body. Or maybe that was just the cold¡ªeither way, it was frightening to consider that the storm in front of us was the <i>mildest</i> point on the whole perimeter, according to the math.


    We did have a few other human spectators: A crowd of Hikanome¡¯s most die-hard believers, intent on seeing some of their divine lightbearers deliver them unto salvation. Many of them were praying. They at least had enough sense to not get in our way, but I wasn¡¯t sure what they were so excited to see; Yuuka and I didn¡¯t cut particularly heroic figures as we sat before the roiling storm of magic. That¡¯s right, sat; I¡¯d found a piece of shattered tent strut to use as a makeshift crutch, but when Yuuka¡¯s complaints of a headache had turned into something akin to a migraine, she¡¯d taken a seat on the grass rather than stand. I¡¯d opted to join her. And we were both struggling with the elements; we¡¯d thrown on extra layers to fight the chill, but huddled under them awkwardly. The ground was cold under me as we confirmed our position relative to Alice.


    ¡°Ten meters in front of us. You see her?¡±


    ¡°No. Should I?¡±


    Another side effect of the ripple was severe radio interference, so we didn¡¯t actually have contact with Alice. Supposedly, she was just on the other side of the storm.


    ¡°Nah, but I can hardly open my eyes to see for myself,¡± Yuuka admitted. ¡°Hurts like a motherfucker. Let¡¯s just get this done.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m, uh, following your lead here. Never done this before,¡± I reminded her, unreasonably ashamed of that fact. ¡°Are we punching an actual tunnel, or just nullifying an area of the storm, or what?¡±


    ¡°Both. We¡¯re locking down, Alice is punching through. You know how {ASH} residue is ripple-inert?¡±


    ¡°Ripple-<i>invisible</i>,¡± I clarified. ¡°Not exactly going to block anything, is it?¡±


    ¡°The point is that we can make LM that does the same thing, a big block of it that the storm won¡¯t fuck with, right through to the other side. Then Alice can punch a stabilizer lattice using <i>that</i> as a substrate. It¡¯s just a fancy ward, but she has to do it from her side, because of, uh, relative reality baseline bullshit or something¡ªyou¡¯re the math cunt, not me.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I get it. Substrate is relative to our ripple-distorted space, lattice is relative to her baseline, bridges any desync. It¡¯s really just LM?¡±


    She shrugged. ¡°<i>We</i> can¡¯t just stab a spear right through it.¡±


    ¡°I¡ªwasn¡¯t thinking of doing it like Heung,¡± I lied. ¡°Anyway, I can¡¯t do {MANIFEST}.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, just gimme your thread, I¡¯ll stitch it in.¡±


    It was kind of a relief to summon my Flame; as uncomfortable as the blazing-white fire was, I welcomed the heat in my numb fingers. There was no need to hurt it, either; I had more than enough pain to offer it right now¡ªand it seemed eager to spring forth. I was distantly relieved that it only erupted from my hand¡¯s scars, as usual; I¡¯d been a little worried that all my raw, altered skin might serve as an ignition point and I¡¯d go up in a self-inflicted magical fireball. The clump of pale, living magic coalesced into a spool of thread around my forearm and hand; that part had become familiar, though the quality of the thread still left a lot to be desired.


    ¡°Sorry about how rough it is¡ªwhat the fuck?¡±


    Yuuka¡¯s Flame wasn¡¯t white like mine, and it didn¡¯t come from her hand. Her bangs were being pushed out of her face by wind that wasn¡¯t there, exposing her damaged eye. It poured thick droplets of grey Flame tinged with dark red, oozing out from the gemstone eyeball like blood in zero-gravity. She snapped her hand outward, and the Flame-blobs followed, swirling around her arm and coating it like a grey gauntlet. She grinned at me wildly, eye bleeding magic, then beckoned for my thread. I held my forearm toward her, and she plucked the tip of my thread in her gauntlet and <i>tugged</i>.


    ¡°Ow!¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± she said, not sounding sorry at all. She closed her fist, then opened it slowly, and now a lattice of thread was spun between her fingers. She drew her hand back slowly, glyphs spinning themselves into existence in her hand¡¯s wake, my thread woven through hers in a way that felt uncomfortably intimate. Then she clenched her fist again, and lattice¡­manifested.


    It was a simple geometry, just a box the shape and size of an eighteen-wheeler¡¯s trailer, lying on the grass and stretching from right in front of us into the storm until it faded from view. The light caught it wrong¡ªit was a neutral grey, but it looked unshaded, and if I couldn¡¯t see its silhouette, I wouldn¡¯t have known where the front met the sides.


    A cheer erupted from the cultists behind us, even though it was just a featureless block. For them, it must have been a miracle¡ªI was just glad we¡¯d done our part.


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°For us, yeah.¡± Yuuka¡¯s bangs had fallen back over the cursed eye, but did nothing to hide the self-satisfied look on her face. ¡°Alice should be doing her part any second now.¡±


    ¡°And then we can start evac?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Compared to the size of the park, this box would be one hell of a bottleneck, but that also worked to our advantage; Sugawara¡¯s people wouldn¡¯t be able to slip out undetected. Yuuka flicked her wrist, banishing her Flame and relinquishing mine, which hissed back toward me and returned to its spool, sending pinpricks through the bones of my arm. I let my Flame go and shook out my hand, wincing.


    We waited. First a few seconds, then half a minute, then a full minute. She frowned.


    ¡°Something¡¯s wrong.¡±


    ¡°Is that code for <i>we¡¯re about to be attacked</i>, or more magical in nature?¡±


    ¡°Second.¡± She got to her feet, brushing the dirt off her butt. ¡°I don¡¯t¡ªaw, <i>fuck</i>.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    She sat back down, swearing. ¡°Hina¡¯s fucked it up worse than I thought.¡±


    ¡°Meaning?¡±


    ¡°This <i>was</i> a giant field of white ripple. So the storm¡¯s bad, but more importantly¡­¡±


    ¡°¡­It¡¯s amplified¡ªmore desync between inside and outside than there normally should be,¡± I finished, and she nodded. ¡°So it won¡¯t work?¡±


    ¡°It will, ¡®cause Alice is strong, but she¡¯ll¡ªwait, do you know about that?¡±


    ¡°Uh. About what?¡±


    ¡°What happens when she uses too much magic.¡±


    My heart dropped into my stomach. ¡°Oh no. It¡¯s going to push her¡­¡± I blanked on the word. ¡°Dragon transformation?¡±


    Yuuka nodded, lips pursed. ¡°Dragon-<i>ka</i>.¡±


    ¡°We should stop her. There¡¯s¡ªthere¡¯s got to be another way.¡±


    ¡°Nope, not unless you want to wait for the storm to die off. Ai isn¡¯t strong enough, and Hikanome¡¯s other couple of flamebearers outside don¡¯t¡ª¡±


    The featureless block of LM imploded with an awful whistling sound. The front end facing us crinkled inward like paper caught in a vacuum cleaner. We both flinched at the noise, covering our ears as the interior of the rectangular prism was devoured from within until it vanished, leaving only the edges of the box¡ªand a stable tunnel to the outside world. There were familiar colors at the far end of the tunnel, the red-and-blue flashes of emergency lights silhouetting an unmistakable figure, one whose tail hung between her legs. I couldn¡¯t make out how the magic had changed her body at this distance.


    The people watching behind us cheered even louder. I was glad I didn¡¯t know what they were saying, singing our praises or praying or just celebrating¡ªbut cultish worship aside, it was sort of a dream come true. I¡¯d saved people with magic. It felt good. I turned to face them¡ª


    ¡°I see her,¡± Yuuka said, urgency in her voice.


    ¡°What? Who? Alice?¡±


    ¡°Takagiri. My eye¡¯s, uh, unclogging a bit now,¡± she explained. ¡°She¡¯s in the crowd, or will be soon. Was probably waiting for the tunnel to open so she could slip out after you.¡±


    My tattoo itched as I scanned the crowd, looking for the face I remembered. No luck. ¡°Fuck. So what do we do?¡±


    ¡°You? Stay out of my way.¡± There was something odd in her tone¡ªI looked over and saw that the grin was crawling back over her face as she stared into the crowd. ¡°<i>I can see her.</i> The rest doesn¡¯t matter.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.14

    Rather than dive into the crowd to go after Takagiri directly, Yuuka simply summoned her Flame once more, weaving quickly and carefully, never taking her eyes off the spot in the crowd where she had ¡°seen¡± my stalker. I wasn¡¯t having any luck seeing her myself, but that wasn¡¯t a surprise.


    ¡°She¡¯s not actually here yet, is she?¡±


    ¡°Nah. I¡¯m thinking¡­four to six minutes.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know where she is between now and then,¡± I deduced. ¡°But you don¡¯t need to go after her if you know where she <i>will</i> be.¡±


    ¡°She doesn¡¯t need to be as direct as Hina.¡± Alice answered from behind us.


    I suddenly remembered my worry about her dragon transformation; it had been momentarily overridden by Yuuka¡¯s callout of the threat. I turned toward her and got to my feet¡ªfoot¡ªhurriedly, leaning on my makeshift crutch and scanning her up and down, looking anxiously for new mutations.


    Radiance Opal was in her mantle, what I understood to be its default outfit: a short, pleated skirt that wrapped high enough around her waist to sit above the base of her tail, a corset that seemed practically moulded to her midriff, and a low-cut blouse held up by straps that crisscrossed over her chest before wrapping around her neck. She wore long, elbow-length gloves; those and her knee-high boots conformed to her limbs so tightly they seemed vacuum-sealed, like Vaetna carapace or similar low-profile armor, an impression aided by the engraved polygonal plating over her knees and elbows and the chunky earpiece riding over one ear. But any militarized aspect to the outfit was undermined by the lacy, yellow trim that appeared all over the outfit and the bejeweled, girly staff she carried.


    Maybe it was just my personal sensibilities, but the ornate outfit made it difficult to think of her as a powerful VNT, a walking superweapon. I thought the businesswoman look fit her better; it was embarrassing to be standing next to her decorative getup in front of this crowd. But maybe that was the point? Hikanome¡¯s people seemed to like it, judging by the renewed cheering coming from the crowd.


    More importantly¡ªsince this was merely a decorative LM construct and not her actual body, what did that mean for her dragon-<i>ka</i>? At a glance, her slit-pupil eyes looked the same as they had before, and she hadn¡¯t sprouted a snout or claws or any other draconic features. She still had her tail, even in this LM facsimile of her body; was that a sign of how immutable the magical limb was, or just an aesthetic choice?


    ¡°Ezzen?¡± She shifted her weight from foot to foot. ¡°You¡¯re looking at me the way Hina does.¡±


    I blinked, blushed, and abandoned the inspection; she must have mistaken the way I was peeking between her legs at her tail for ogling. I¡¯d overstepped the appropriate amount of looking at her body. Embarrassment triggered sweating, despite the chilly air.


    ¡°Um¡ªdragon,¡± I blurted. ¡°Dragon transformation. Dragon-<i>ka</i>. You took a minute.¡±


    Alice shook her head hastily. Her white hair was longer than normal, but only the strands next to her cheeks were free to follow the motion; the back was done up in a very complicated bun clasped by yet more gemstones. I wondered whether the mantle calculated the hair¡¯s physics in real-time with reverse kinematics or if it was some kind of pre-loaded animation. Maybe the latter, since she was oddly still outside of that; when she moved, it seemed deliberate, though not unnatural.


    ¡°Oh! No, nothing like that, I¡¯m fine. I was just being careful and taking my time.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Good. Sorry.¡± After a moment of awkward silence, academic interest won out. ¡°So, that wasn¡¯t the threshold for changes? Do any changes cascade to your mantle? You still have your tail, does that have its own controls or¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ezza,¡± Yuuka groaned. ¡°Shut up. Trying to concentrate here.¡±


    ¡°And it¡¯s classified,¡± Alice reminded me, eyes flicking toward the crowd. ¡°Opsec.¡±


    I winced, falling silent and sneaking a glance at how Yuuka¡¯s work was coming along. The thread in her hand was coalescing into a¡­container, essentially, the schematics to create a box of contained space that would snap shut at a particular moment. Her eyes were still fixed on the crowd; the crystalline one on the right was bleeding more globs of Flame, which were flowing and arranging themselves into concentric floating rings. Lenses, I realized, in the same vein as how Amethyst¡¯s arm cannon deployed.


    ¡°Your eye¡¯s got some signal again?¡± Alice asked.


    ¡°Good enough. T minus three for Takagiri. I¡¯ll grab her.¡±


    ¡°Wonderful. Word from Hina?¡± Alice directed that at me.


    ¡°No.¡± I bit my lip nervously, not wanting to fumble the conversation again. ¡°We saw her getting, uh, tossed around a bit. I know she¡¯s tough,¡± I clarified, forestalling Alice¡¯s reassuring reply, ¡°just¡­worried.¡±


    Alice pursed her lips, which led me to deduce that at least the facial expressions were real-time recreations of their real bodies somehow, too diverse and subtle to come from a set of pre-animated options. In their shoes, I¡¯d honestly have preferred to just display emotions with the push of a button, like how Ebi did¡ªthough my ideal would be essentially faceless, fully enclosed in carapace and emoting through body language and the tone inflections encoded in Vaetna-chatter. Alice was looking more confused by the second.


    ¡°Wait, she¡¯s having trouble? Who was she fighting?¡±


    ¡°Um¡­didn¡¯t see.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­it might have been Takagiri she was fighting, not Kimura. <i>She¡¯s</i> the dangerous one of the two; Hina wouldn¡¯t have issues dealing with him. Yuuka, you¡¯re sure that Takagiri will show up here <i>without </i>being in the middle of grappling with Hina, or something?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d see that,¡± Yuuka confirmed. ¡°Just her. Two minutes.¡±


    I blinked. ¡°Wait, Takagiri¡¯s human and Kimura¡¯s a flamebearer, right? How¡¯s she the more dangerous one?¡±


    ¡°Kimura¡¯s magic is mostly¡­well, administrative. He parcels out his magic to the high-level members so they can perform the standard Hikanome miracles. So he¡¯s relatively weak <i>and</i> not a fighter. Takagiri, on the other hand, was one of Sugawara¡¯s elite muscle. Nasty stuff¡ªshe was armed to the teeth with magitech and enhanced enough to fight on our level. And now that we know she¡¯s <i>alive</i>, who knows what kind of stuff she¡¯s gotten her hands on in the past few years.¡±


    My anxiety was starting to spike again. That sounded¡ªvery bad. It was equal parts upsetting and validating to know that my instinctual danger response when I¡¯d first met her had been accurate. ¡°Then¡­should we be having this conversation on¡ªthe other side of the tunnel, maybe?¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯d make ya feel better. I have her, though. One minute, Alice.¡±


    There was a smile in Yuuka¡¯s voice. She sounded so rock-solid, so certain, that for a moment Takagiri¡¯s capture felt as sure as the rising sun. I blinked at the feeling¡ªleftover white ripple?¡ªand decided not to trust it on its own, glancing at Alice instead for reassurance. She shared Yuuka¡¯s smile and gave me a nod, standing at ease.


    ¡°None of that should matter, not against Yuuka. Foresight is overpowered. But confirmation is good too.¡± She raised a finger to her earpiece and started speaking in Japanese. A chirping warble replied, barely audible to me from right in front of her. I was a little surprised I could hear it, actually¡ªI¡¯d have assumed the Radiances¡¯ mantles were networked to one each other through ways you couldn¡¯t casually eavesdrop on like that. Alice¡¯s brow furrowed.


    ¡°Amane¡¯s saying¡ªYuuka, <i>matte, shimekona</i>¡ª¡±


    She was cut off by the rasp of a sound like tearing paper. Yuuka clutched the lattice of magic in her hand, activating her trap around somebody in the crowd. A cocoon of light spiraled into existence, swirling up and around them and binding their limbs as she manipulated the thread to smother and restrain, yanking them forward out of the crowd and forcing them to their knees. Alice leapt forward into a glide, hovering over the bound figure, yelling at the crowd to back away. The binding threads mummified Takagiri¡¯s body completely, and it seemed like the catch had gone off without a hitch.


    Then the bindings tightened further. For a moment, it looked like the tension was too extreme, slicing into the bound figure. I only understood what had really happened in the moments after: the body within had vanished. The cords of light fell in on themselves, collapsing to a single point as the force was no longer resisted, compressing down on itself¡ªjust like Hina¡¯s cast-off shards when she¡¯d dove into the bubble. I barely had enough time to realize what was about to happen and throw my arms over my face before the detonation.


    But instead of a blinding, deafening, reality-sundering explosion of ripple, all I heard was a grinding pop. Confused, I lowered my hands to peek¡ªjust in time to witness Yuuka¡¯s hand burst apart in a fountain of gore.


    The backlash had gone directly through the lattice she was holding, the glyphs in her hands shattering with too-pretty sparkles of light as the woven thread overloaded. The backflow overwhelmed the structure and decohered into free ripple directly within her hand¡ªand was then amplified by the inferno. The end of her arm was blown apart from within, disintegrating into a spray of red horror. Time felt like it crawled to give me ample time to witness the catastrophic failure, a twisted warning from the Flame.


    But as the moments dragged on and torn-off chunks of flesh glided lazily through the air, I realized it didn¡¯t just <i>feel</i> like slow-motion. Time had gone¡­wrong. Sparks of free ripple hopped between the flecks of blood and shards of bone like little lightning bolts meandering toward the stump of her arm to ground themselves. Millisecond by millisecond, her fluid gauntlet of raw Flame flickered back to life, a silvery facsimile of how her hand had looked a moment before. It blasted open as well, little shards of silver meeting gore, and then they fell together back toward her stump like asteroids falling dirtward. The gauntlet slammed shut around the ruined meat, and I saw her fingers twitch.


    Distantly, I understood that what my eyes were seeing wasn¡¯t reality¡ªsomehow, I¡¯d tapped into the same silver possibilities she saw. That gauntlet of her Flame had likely emerged <i>before</i> her hand could burst, not after. Aversion, not reversion.


    The period of distorted time ended abruptly and painfully. There <i>was</i> still a shockwave, it had just taken its sweet time to reach me, waiting politely for Yuuka to correct the timeline. The moment I saw those silver fingers begin to move again, the pressure wave struck me like a hammer, knocking the air from my lungs and slamming me to the ground. I gasped and retched, trying to suck in a breath and scramble back to my feet, but for a terrifying two or three seconds, I felt like I was drowning. When I did manage to force a gasp of air, it was labored and ragged as I summoned my spear and wobbled to my foot-and-a-half.


    Yuuka had stayed standing. Her body had been rendered whole¡ªor rather never been touched in the first place, as I was still working to comprehend¡ªand she¡¯d promptly stowed it, switching back to her mantle, that overwrought assemblage of dark fabrics and faux-leathers layered together like chocolate pastry dough. While I¡¯d been on the ground, she¡¯d moved to stand in front of me, between me and¡ª


    My stalker.


    I pieced together Takagiri¡¯s image in motion-blurred glimpses and snippets half-obscured by Yuuka¡¯s body as she rushed toward us. I only really collated these visual snippets after the chaos:


    She¡¯d ditched the goth fashion, which was especially apparent against the superfluous complexity of Yuuka¡¯s outfit. This time, she was dressed to kill: combat boots, lightweight and form-fitting segmented khaki body armor¡ªmagically reinforced, judging by how she shrugged off something Yuuka shot at her as she approached in a dead sprint¡ªpouches and holsters all along her thighs and torso, and most prominently a sword, a long Japanese katana she carried one-handed.


    She dashed across torn-up earth with unnatural speed and force, each footstep sending a spray of dirt behind her. It was like Hina¡¯s movements without any of the weightlessness, bound by Newton¡¯s third law¡ªmeaning she demolished her surroundings with the force of her steps. Definitely augmented; the terror I¡¯d felt the first time I¡¯d run into her was validated tenfold seeing her in motion, spiced with a little jealousy. She accelerated into a blur and slashed at Yuuka.


    The precog dodged the swing with a lazy step sideways and snapped her fingers, yelling something in Japanese. A beam lanced toward Takagiri from the other side, pale pink and glittery and powerful enough to punch through a regular human. Four more followed it from the center of Alice¡¯s staff. Takagiri twisted and went low so the shots caught her wards shallowly and deflected off rather than making solid connection. A snarl had taken over her face, and she yelled something angrily at the Radiances as she skidded on the dirt to change her trajectory. She turned toward me instead, trying to take advantage of how Yuuka had partially moved out of the way to dodge her first strike, heedless of the subsequent shots from Alice.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    I tried to heft my spear without my right leg collapsing under me. I was still struggling to regain a normal rhythm of breathing, heart pounding a million times a second; adrenaline somehow kept me standing upright as I brought my spear into the ready position, scorched wooden tip between me and the charging assassin. If she slashed, I¡¯d parry; that was all I could do. No paranatural acrobatics for me.


    But Takagiri made it only two more steps before an explosion of crimson blossomed around her, hissing against her wards and distorting her silhouette like fuzzy TV static. It hardened around her, bloody sap turning to ruby, freezing her in place in the middle of her lunge, a mask of fury on her face.


    ¡°<i>Tsukamaeta</i>,¡± Yuuka crooned.


    ¡°Good work, Bloodstone.¡±


    ¡°Knew she¡¯d go for him.¡±


    I eyed the now-solid crimson block, not willing to lower my spear quite yet. ¡°She¡¯s not gonna¡ªslip out this time?¡±


    As if on cue, Takagiri¡¯s body splintered from within and started to dissolve into smoke. I swore, but Yuuka didn¡¯t react. As the seconds wore on and the dissolution took its course, I realized that this time her encasement in the crystal was so complete that her incorporeal form had nowhere to go; we¡¯d trapped her. The smoke swirled and contracted in odd ways, signs that it was trying to slip out through the fourth dimension¡ªbut evidently, it couldn¡¯t escape even along that extraplanar axis.


    ¡°Ha!¡± Yuuka exclaimed.


    ¡°Christ.¡±


    ¡°What I¡¯d like t¡¯know is how the hell she¡¯s doing that. Never did it before.¡±


    ¡°At least now we know why we didn¡¯t find a body,¡± Alice put in.


    She was referencing the team¡¯s history with the woman cartoonishly frozen inside the chunk of crystal, but I didn¡¯t care much for that. I was thinking more about what Yuuka had said. ¡°Doesn¡¯t Kimura impart pieces of his Flame?¡±


    That was among the primary functions of the cult¡¯s leaders, to my understanding; part of the draw in becoming a member was the promise that the most faithful and committed could wield their very own sliver of divinity. I could empathize with wanting that, but personally, such a meager scrap would never have satisfied my aspirations toward the Vaetna. Not worth selling my soul.


    Anyway, such an arrangement of gifted Flame would make sense for one of Hikanome¡¯s former¡­assassins? Agents? I still wasn¡¯t entirely clear on what Takagiri¡¯s role had been during Sugawara¡¯s reign, other than that she had apparently been an enemy of Todai. Depending on those details, and how depraved things had gotten within the cult during that period¡ªand the top end of <i>that</i> scale was nausea inducing¡ªother mechanisms for the cloud of trapped smoke in front of us were also possible.


    ¡°Could also be a <i>really nasty</i> product of sanguimancy, and that smoke¡¯s her real body,¡± I continued, more to myself at this point than the others.


    Yuuka heard me anyway. ¡°Gross.¡±


    ¡°Hold on. Sapphire lost Kimura,¡± Opal informed us, finger to her earpiece. ¡°She¡¯ll find him, but we¡¯re staying around here until we have both of them. Amethyst is inbound for overwatch. Heliotrope, Ezzen: keep an eye on our icecube. I¡¯m going to go coordinate evac with¡­<i>Hongo,</i>¡± she groaned, lifting a little off the ground into the air on jets of pink fire and looking out at the mass of shivering festivalgoers waiting for the demigods to stop blocking their evacuation route.


    Yuuka snickered, which made Alice frown, tail lashing more aggressively now that it could swing freely. ¡°Okay, Yuuka, how about <i>you</i> be the one to¡ª¡±


    A sharp <i>snap </i>split the air. Hairline fissures raced across the block of red gemstone, radiating out from a sword buried halfway deep, stabbed cleanly in. Kimura twisted the hilt of his blade, and the container holding his ally shattered. Alice reacted fastest and sent a bolt of energy directly at him, center-mass¡ªit failed to connect as he shattered into the teleporter trick they kept using, as swiftly as he¡¯d arrived. Smoke-Takagiri rushed out of the cracks and dissipated as well. Yuuka swore. Alice was yelling into her earpiece¡ªand under both of those voices, adrenaline-heightened instinct picked up on the rustling of grass behind me.


    I twisted, panic igniting the Flame in my chest. We¡¯d somehow been caught wrong-footed despite Yuuka¡¯s foresight. Potential magical explanations for how our opponents could have suppressed the splash of silver ripple raced through my mind¡ªprecious moments wasted on theory when death was just over my shoulder.


    But Takagiri¡¯s surprise reengagement wasn¡¯t targeting me. Her sword sank into Yuuka¡¯s upper back and tore downward. The Bloodstone Radiance screamed, her voice distorted and skipping like glitchy autotune as she was hewn open. Takagiri raised a foot and <i>kicked </i>her off the end of the blade¡ªno blood, because the mantle was not true flesh, but the dying-machinery noise of Yuuka¡¯s screams and the awful way she twitched on the grass was proof enough that the blow had done something awful.


    I struck Takagiri. It was a shitty jab of my spear, terrible form, basically just flailing; against her wards, it should have been about as effective as trying to pierce a marble with a toothpick. But my muscles blazed with a jolt of Flame-enhanced strength, and the charred tip of my spear was a blur, a lance of desperate, <i>angry</i> force. For just a moment, I felt like Heung, my onyx-tipped spear striking true in vicious retribution.


    I wasn¡¯t Heung, of course. The thrust was only able to shove Takagiri off balance for a moment as her wards stopped the blow. But that was long enough for Alice to tackle her.


    ¡°Tackle¡± is just my best after-the-fact approximation; it was more like a white-hot fireball struck Takagiri so hard she vanished from my field of view, leaving me instinctively wincing at the wave of heat and blinking away the retina-burning afterimage of Alice¡¯s incandescent form. I suddenly understood why one of her nicknames on Wikipedia was ¡°Lighthouse¡¯s Beacon.¡± I¡¯d felt her burn hot before, but now she was blindingly incandescent.


    After a long second of processing what had just happened, my eyes followed the twenty-meter-long trench of scorched dirt. At the end was a figure¡ªtoo bright to look at directly¡ªgrappling the assassin, whose wards had reduced her figure to a blurry, noisy mess in their efforts to keep Alice¡¯s aura from roasting her alive.


    Yuuka screamed again, more of a garbled groan, and I tore my eyes away from the struggle. Alice would be fine; two more Radiances were on the way, and I couldn¡¯t help with the fighting anyway. But maybe I could help Yuuka. She lay there motionless, <i>helpless</i>, her strings cut. My mind raced as I knelt shakily by her, trying to call up my understanding of the mantle¡¯s core mechanisms, to guess where and how the underlying weave had been damaged, to intuit the precise way to patch the damage and at least stabilize her. No brilliant flash of insight appeared before me.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡ªgonna give it my best shot,¡± I promised her as I laid down my spear and gathered my thread, voice shaking with the realization that I should have practiced snapweaving {MANIFEST}; with the Radiances, it qualified as basic field medicine, and I wasn¡¯t even prepared for that. But I still had to try to help her. She was staring at me out of the corner of her human eye as she lay face-down in the dirt and groaned something. It just came out as random noises, not even human-sounding¡ªbut I knew an agonized plea for help when I heard it. I took a deep breath, steeled myself in the feeble ways I knew how, and reached out to her to perform a miracle¡ª


    I never got the chance to try.


    A hand grabbed my hair and tugged hard enough to make my eyes fill with tears. I was yanked away¡ªnot horizontally, not up, not even down into the ground. <i>Out</i>, across an axis that should not exist. The world around me jerked and twisted and shriveled, Yuuka¡¯s prone body and the grass and everything moving further away, becoming flatter and smaller as my feet left the ground. She groaned again, and this time, I heard the word she¡¯d been trying to say, robotic and out of tune but comprehensible as I was pulled into the icy void outside reality.


    ¡°Ki¡ªmu¡ªra.¡± She had tried to warn me.


    Everything was the sky and the sky was the abyss. Too <i>high</i>, my instincts said¡ªthe direction I was being pulled wasn¡¯t something my body understood, but vertigo arrived anyway. Nausea rushed up my gullet, made into panic by the fact that nothing was <i>happening</i> when my body tried to breathe in. I reached for my spear, my source of safety¡ªit had been left next to Yuuka¡¯s body. Stupid. I thrashed with my Flame instead, trying to burn the man dragging me through the cosmic ocean by my scalp.


    A muffled <i>thump</i> all around me, and the grip vanished, and I saw some kind of shadow pass over the distance-flattened image of reality in front of me¡ªthen the world rushed toward me again, shifting and slanting as I was moved in four dimensions at once.


    I crashed out of the water, back into what my body understood as three-space, landing in a heap. The hard arrival jarred me; I rolled onto my side on instinct, clutching the back of my head in response to the throbbing pain and retching as my body tried to cough up water that didn¡¯t exist. I thrashed at something touching my chest and face.


    ¡°Cutie! Hey, no, it¡¯s okay¡ª¡±


    Something ice-cold sparked against my chest, and thrumming energy surged outward from my core into my limbs. I coughed one last time as the sensation of water in my lungs finally disappeared. Everything hurt, inside and out, but a warm breath on my cheek got me to at least open my eyes and take in the environment around me.


    Hina was kneeling over me, hand on my chest, forehead against mine. I coughed out of embarrassment rather than somatic necessity.


    ¡°Fuck. Ow.¡±


    ¡°Hey. Hey,¡± she repeated. ¡°You¡¯re okay.¡±


    ¡°Am¡ªthat was the void. The outside.¡± The space beyond space, the rest of the hypercube of reality beyond our little three-dimensional world.


    ¡°He tried to grab you. But I got in front of him.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡± I took a deep breath. Having solid ground beneath me never felt so good. ¡°Wait¡ªYuuka. She¡¯s hurt. She¡¯s¡ª¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s okay. So are you. Shhh.¡±


    I finally registered where we were. I hadn¡¯t been dumped out on the grass; Hina had dragged me into her pocketspace, her little enclosed lounge floating in the void. Safe, warm, dry, dimly lit.


    ¡°Can¡ªcan they get in here?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    I let myself believe her.


    A groan came from behind me. I twisted, whimpering at the aches the movement generated, and saw Yuuka curled up under a blanket on the far side of the room, glaring at us through one good eye. Her crystalline eye was fully hidden under fresh layers of gauze wrapped around her head. Had the wound to her mantle harmed her real body, too?


    ¡°You¡¯re¡ªokay?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t even <i>see </i>him. Shouldn¡¯t be <i>fucking</i> possible.¡±


    Not really an answer to my question, but if she was feeling good enough to spit invectives, I figured that boded well.


    ¡°Not your fault,¡± Hina soothed, which made Yuuka¡¯s lips curl.


    ¡°Your¡ªyour mantle,¡± I whispered. Yuuka frowned impressively.


    ¡°It is. Bitch got me. Emergency disengage got stuck.¡± Her good eye flickered from me to Hina, then back to me. ¡°You tried.¡±


    ¡°I¡­don¡¯t think I¡¯d have been able,¡± I admitted. I¡¯d been at a loss, overwhelmed by the task of saving a life with magic. ¡°Should¡¯ve¡ªbeen more prepared. Should¡¯ve known what to do.¡±


    That got a humorless, angry chortle from her. ¡°That¡¯s two of us.¡±


    Hina gently pushed me back down onto the spread of blankets and ran her fingers through my hair.


    ¡°You did fine, cutie. Nice stab.¡±


    Oh. I¡¯d done that, hadn¡¯t I? Supercharged my body with magic again. I reflexively opened my mouth to justify the use of blood magic¡ªthen realized I didn¡¯t need to, not with Hina. I settled a bit further down into the nest of blankets and allowed her hand in my hair to soothe the adrenaline-tinted chaos of what had just happened.


    ¡°It¡¯s so pretty.¡±


    I looked up at her, some dry amusement managing to unburrow from the fresh load of trauma it had been buried under. ¡°<i>That¡¯s</i> where your head¡¯s at?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving you alone again,¡± she murmured.


    I frowned. My body was starting to recognize I was safe here with her, and a sudden surge of exhaustion washed over me, amplified by the warmth of the room after the cold of the park and then the frigid abyss. I wanted to just leave the rest of this to the Radiances. But that moment of <i>power</i> when I¡¯d struck Takagiri lingered in my mind. I had made a difference. I wanted to do so again.


    ¡°They¡¯re fighting out there, yeah? We have to help.¡±


    ¡°I shoulda just put you in here to begin with but I didn¡¯t and you got hurt and it¡¯s just better if you stay out of the way until we finish this,¡± Hina rambled. Apparently, everybody was ignoring my questions right now.  ¡°I really just thought I¡¯d get him on the way in and this wouldn¡¯t turn into¡­yeah. He¡¯s <i>way</i> slipperier than he should be.¡±


    Silence fell for a few seconds until I groaned, blinking and rubbing my scalp. It had felt like Kimura was trying to tear my hair out. Couldn¡¯t he have grabbed me anywhere else? Hina¡¯s blue eyes followed my hand.


    ¡°They both are,¡± Yuuka muttered eventually, sounding angry. ¡°Her getting out of the bindings, sure, but the shit with Kimura?¡±


    ¡°You did the shibari thing?¡± Hina asked.


    ¡°¡­Ugh. But¡­yeah, and she just¡ªpoof. Musta been an actual blink, not a hop. I got her the second time with a full encasement, but then the old guy showed up and just¡­¡± she trailed off into a frustrated growl.


    ¡°They¡¯re as mobile as you are,¡± I told Hina. ¡°But¡­that shouldn¡¯t be possible, not really. Him, sure, but her? She shouldn¡¯t be able to blink like that, not as a human. We were thinking it might have been some really nasty blood magic.¡±


    Hina shook her head. ¡°Nope. I¡¯d be able to tell. She¡¯s augmented, but it¡¯s just gear, not like me or something messier. But you know what¡¯s <i>weird</i>?¡±


    I waited for her to continue the thought, but she didn¡¯t, just stared expectantly at me with those big, blue eyes. I sighed. ¡°¡­What¡¯s weird?¡±


    ¡°She smells <i>exactly like him</i>.¡±


    I nodded; that explained some of it. ¡°So he <i>did</i> impart some of his Flame to her. Which means there¡¯s a link we can sever to cut off her abilities,¡± I deduced, proud of the admittedly basic strategy. ¡°And maybe stop them from blinking around like that. If nothing else, it¡¯d at least turn the fight from a¡­two versus three to one versus three. I think. If you¡¯re staying here with me.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no third,¡± Hina clarified. ¡°Yuuka¡¯s out of it too.¡±


    ¡°Why? Even without her mantle, her eye is¡ªpractically <i>unfair</i>. Shouldn¡¯t¡ª¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fucked too,¡± Yuuka interjected. I frowned and waited for a clarification, but none came; the fresh bandages on her head spoke for themselves. I thought for a minute, then found the moment in the chaos that was bugging me.


    ¡°Maybe¡­that¡¯s not a problem. Your arm. I saw you¡ªavert it?¡±


    Yuuka stared at me. ¡°What the fuck?¡±


    ¡°I did, I swear. Silver.¡±


    ¡°What? No. Fuck off,¡± she spat, and rolled onto her side, evidently unwilling to entertain what I was saying.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Hina leaned in toward me, curious. ¡°You saw her stuff?¡±


    I winced. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­say it like that. I got some¡­bleed-over from her precognition? I don¡¯t know what to call it, but I did see it. Hold on¡ªyou¡¯re not going to <i>help</i>?¡±


    ¡°I <i>want</i> to finish what I started,¡± she muttered, avoiding my eyes as a bit of a growl entered her voice. ¡°But I¡¯m not leaving you. You could get hurt. They¡¯re not allowed to do that.¡±


    ¡°Do¡ªcan Amane and Alice actually beat them, two-on-two?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± said both of the girls, but Hina was still not meeting my eyes, and Yuuka¡¯s heart didn¡¯t sound in it.


    ¡°While assisting with the evacuation? What happens if Alice gets hurt and the tunnel collapses. Or¡ª¡± my stomach lurched. ¡°Yuuka, the tunnel is based on <i>your</i> LM. Which Takagiri fucked up pretty bad. Is it even still open?¡±


    ¡°¡­I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°It is,¡± Hina confirmed. ¡°Humans are on their way out.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a relief. But even so¡ªAlice¡¯s magic is what¡¯s holding it open, and she turned into a <i>fireball</i> after Yuuka got hit. I¡ªshe¡¯s going to trigger her dragon-<i>ka</i>, if she hasn¡¯t already.¡±


    Both of the Radiances reacted in subtle ways. Hina whimpered; Yuuka inhaled. The room was so unnaturally silent that I caught both; I wouldn¡¯t have normally. My heart sank; if they agreed with me, then the risk was very real. But that made what I was saying all the more important. I pressed on.


    ¡°And¡­Takagiri and Kimura. They¡¯ve both been way exceeding your expectations, yeah? From what I¡¯m understanding. Capabilities we didn¡¯t expect. They <i>got past your sight</i>, Yuuka.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you. Amane can handle it,¡± Yuuka insisted, something dangerous in her voice.


    I winced. ¡°¡­Not made of glass. I know. But¡ªneither are we. We should help. We <i>have</i> to help.¡±


    That set her off.


    ¡°You¡¯re trying to be the hero?¡± She snapped. ¡°Trying to be the <i>Vaetna</i>, solving our problems for us? If those cunts are too much for us, they¡¯re <i>way</i> too much for you. You¡¯re <i>not</i> a Vaetna. You¡¯re not even one of us. The only reason you¡¯re still alive is because they <i>want</i> you alive, for whatever reason, not because you can keep up.¡±


    ¡°I hit her! I¡¯m not made of glass either.¡±


    ¡°Only because she went for <i>me</i>. You weren¡¯t fast enough for her. If you go back out there, you¡¯re a liability¡ª¡±


    I bristled. ¡°Don¡¯t fucking call¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ªand so am I.¡±

 Trick Of The Light // 2.15

    Of all the Radiances, Yuuka seemed the most universally useful. She was nearly impossible to catch by surprise. Even though she hadn¡¯t foreseen Takagiri escaping the first trap, she¡¯d still been able to avert the magical backlash and gotten it right the second time. I didn¡¯t know much about strategy, but it was clear as day that foresight¡ªprecognition, divination, whatever you wanted to call it¡ªwas a game changer, the furthest thing from a liability.


    At least, when it worked.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t fucking see him. That¡¯s all I¡¯m supposed to do, and I didn¡¯t <i>fucking</i> see him. I didn¡¯t see him and now I went down and we¡¯re going to lose and it¡¯s my fucking fault.¡±


    ¡°Hey, Yuuka, no,¡± Hina urged, scooting closer toward her. ¡°C¡¯mon, we¡¯ve talked about this. Stuff goes wrong! It¡¯s never <i>just</i> your fault.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you. You want to take some of the blame? Sure: this wouldn¡¯t have even happened if you hadn¡¯t fucked everything up! We could have figured this out, gone straight to Sugawara, cut his fucking throat and put all this back in the dirt. But you had to put fifty thousand people in a fucking inferno and you <i>didn¡¯t even get them</i>, you stupid bitch. Why? For <i>him</i>?¡± She jabbed a finger at me. ¡°And now you¡¯re just gonna stay here and chew on his fucking cock instead of fixing the mess you made?¡±


    She had returned to the vitriol that had characterized our first face-to-face interactions out of anger¡ªand she had a right to feel bad. She even had a right to blame Hina for this whole situation. But that last part? I¡¯d hoped she had come to think a little more than that of me over the past few hours. That got me mad enough to raise my voice in return, speaking over the growl rising in Hina¡¯s throat.


    ¡°Chewing on my¡ªno, absolutely the fuck not,¡± I blurted, then found an actual counterargument. ¡°You¡¯re right, this has gotten to be a total shitshow, and we¡¯re going to fix it. It¡¯s one flamebearer and an¡­assassin? Whatever she is, there¡¯s four of you, even if your eye isn¡¯t working.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not just about the fuckin¡¯ eye,¡± she grumbled. ¡°They¡¯re <i>ready</i> for us. Those swords cut right through my mantle. And they¡¯re maneuvering well enough to avoid <i>her</i>¡ª¡± She indicated Hina with a sneer ¡°¡ªshe can¡¯t even tell them apart! They¡¯ve been <i>planning</i> this for who-fuckin¡¯-knows how long, and we¡¯re not ready, and innocent people are going to <i>die</i> even if we win, and Alice¡¯s gonna overdo it¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yuuka,¡± Hina pleaded. ¡°It¡¯s all gonna be fine! They have it under control, you know they do.¡±


    ¡°Do they?¡± I asked, growing more unsure at the fear and desperation in Yuuka¡¯s voice. ¡°It was looking bad. I, um, don¡¯t really know how this is <i>supposed</i> to go, but¡­¡±


    ¡°They can¡¯t get you,¡± Hina soothed. ¡°That¡¯s what matters.¡±


    ¡°<i>He¡¯s</i> not all that matters,¡± Yuuka snarled. ¡°Fucking Christ, Hina, how can you give so few fucks about everybody else?¡±


    Hina didn¡¯t have an answer for that. I hesitated, then found my voice, trying to meet Hina¡¯s blue eyes.


    ¡°I¡ªshe¡¯s right. There¡¯s more at stake than just me. There are people in the crossfire and¡­¡± As she met my gaze blankly, my heart sank. This wasn¡¯t the right angle to take with her. ¡°You don¡¯t care about that, do you. Not about the humans.¡±


    ¡°You matter more, cutie.¡± Her voice was soft, earnest. She reached out to me, trying to gently hold my scarred hand.


    I pulled away. ¡°No, I <i>don¡¯t</i>. How can¡ªhow can you <i>say</i> something like that?¡±


    ¡°Just how it is.¡±


    The thing sitting next to me no longer carried empathy for humans. Her entrance had shown that, but it was far more damning to hear it straight from her lips. Those same lips I¡¯d kissed¡ªa wave of disgust passed through me.


    ¡°So you¡¯ll just sit here and do nothing.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sitting here and protecting <i>you</i>.¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t make sense!¡±


    ¡°Ezza, there¡¯s no <i>point</i>,¡± Yuuka sighed. ¡°She doesn¡¯t know how to change her mind.¡±


    ¡°No, there <i>is</i> a point. Hina, this is¡ªyou promised to make me <i>more</i>. And I agreed because being <i>more</i> means more ability to help people, to make a difference where it matters. <i>That¡¯s</i> what I want, and you¡­don¡¯t. You just care about power for power¡¯s sake, because it¡­feels good, not for something <i>important</i>.¡± My voice fell to a tired, frustrated groan. ¡°I thought you¡¯d be better.¡±


    That got through to her. She flinched, hunching her shoulders, looking chastised. ¡°Sorry.¡±


    Even through my anger, part of me hated making her so obviously upset. But the point had to be made. ¡°If you¡¯re sorry, then be better. Yuuka and I are¡ªwell, we¡¯re liabilities right now. But you¡¯re not. Go help.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± The hyena rose to her feet, ever-light.


    ¡°<i>Okay?</i>¡± Yuuka raged. ¡°That¡¯s all it fucking takes? Years of arguing and screaming at you to clean up your act and he just has to ask once and¡ª¡± She made an angry noise, punching the nearest pillow. ¡°Fuck you, Hina!¡±


    I winced, but my girlfriend ignored her. ¡°Stay right here, cutie, okay? Don¡¯t¡ªdon¡¯t be a hero and get yourself hurt, okay?¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± I replied, privately agreeing with Yuuka¡¯s frustration but not wanting to let it show.


    ¡°Love you.¡±


    She waited for me to say it back. Seconds dragged on as I tried to force the words out of my mouth, if only to get her to leave, to do her duty as <i>mahou shoujo</i>. Eventually, I did.


    ¡°Love you too.¡±


    They tasted like ash, and I think she could tell I didn¡¯t mean it. She smiled at me anyway. The space around her twisted, and she vanished.


    Had I just broken up with my girlfriend?


    <i>Don¡¯t think about it.</i>


    ¡ª


    With Hina back in the fray, I should have felt a lot better about just staying here and resting. The room was warm and dimly lit; ostensibly safe. But an awkward atmosphere persisted. That final exchange with Hina had left us both too sullen to be interested in making conversation, and we were both, to put it plainly, rather beaten up from the last few hours of action. Yuuka was obviously mad at how little it had ultimately taken for me to convince Hina to get back out there, and in all honesty, so was I. The whole exchange sat wrong with me, and the acidic Bloodstone Radiance was absolutely the wrong person to talk about it with.


    To avoid stewing in the knowledge that Hina and I might now be done for, I instead pondered magic. And there was a lot of magic to think about: Miyoko¡¯s now-ruined bubble, my conversation with Hikanome¡¯s three leaders, the general catastrophe Hina had wrought, and perhaps most significantly, the glimpse I had caught of Yuuka¡¯s silver-sight. Her precognition was such that she could even protect herself from magical backlash. Absurd.


    But without it, she thought of herself as useless, a liability, despite having the full suite of other magic all flamebearers could call upon and a decent ability to snapweave. The way she¡¯d spiraled into despair was tragic¡ªand painfully familiar. I understood feeling useless, feeling like a burden; that was my dominant emotional key since arriving in Tokyo. But I could still point out times I¡¯d been useful: I¡¯d saved Holton¡ªthough that was another moral nightmare¡ªand helped set up the exit from this inferno, which hopefully people were using even now. And I¡¯d maybe saved Yuuka herself from Takagiri¡¯s follow-up blow. So I could acknowledge my own usefulness, brief and messy as it was¡ªwhy couldn¡¯t she?


    Of course, I wasn¡¯t nearly confident enough to just ask her that directly, especially not when she¡¯d been so prickly just minutes before.


    ¡°How¡¯s your eye doing?¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡±


    A better response than the ¡°fuck off¡± I¡¯d braced for.


    ¡°Is it¡­functional, at all?¡±


    ¡°Why do you wanna fuckin¡¯ know?¡±


    That was more like it.


    ¡°Because¡­it¡¯s unique? Because it¡¯s the most powerful tool in Todai¡¯s box of tricks.¡±


    ¡°Yeah? ¡®S that why? Or are you trying to figure out when you can take my spot?¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    Yuuka looked at me angrily, then her face fell. ¡°You saw what I saw. With my arm. You¡¯re stealing my thing.¡±


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t put it¡ª¡±


    ¡°I fucking <i>bled</i> for this! You can¡¯t just get it for free because you¡¯re so fucking <i>special</i>. No. Not the moment I become useless. It¡¯s not fair.¡± Her voice was breaking. ¡°It¡¯s not <i>fair.</i>¡±


    For a moment, anger overtook practicality. ¡°That¡¯s not what¡¯s happening! I¡¯m not trying to fuckin¡¯¡­antagonize you over this. Christ.¡±


    ¡°¡­I know,¡± she sighed, her own anger boiling off as she shifted and sat up. ¡°You just make me mad.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s hardly fair, is it?¡±


    ¡°Nah,¡± she agreed. ¡°Considering it looks like you just took my side over <i>that thing¡¯s</i>. So I guess we¡¯re just¡­cool now.¡±


    I really didn¡¯t want to think about Hina, so I ignored that comment.


    ¡°I¡¯m <i>not </i>stealing your thing. I promise.¡±


    ¡°Okay. Eye¡¯s¡­not actually doing that bad,¡± she admitted. ¡°I know the gauze makes it look fucked, but it¡¯s not really any worse than it was once we got the tunnel open. Just¡­can¡¯t fuckin¡¯ trust it anymore.¡±


    ¡°Because they can avoid it?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. And it¡¯s been¡­¡± she waved a hand in my general direction. ¡°<i>Weird</i> around you. I was thinking it over, y¡¯know, stewing in my shit, and I was realizing that most of when it¡¯s been on the fritz this week was when you were around.¡±


    ¡°Huh.¡± I collated that with the other stuff I knew as I looked around the dimly lit room, letting my eyes wander. ¡°That¡­tracks. Your sight and my Flame interact¡­weirdly, yeah, that¡¯s a good word for it. Hikanome said something along those lines, that I burn bright¡ªlike the Vaetna, even, that was the comparison they made. And yeah,¡± I preempted her scowl, ¡°I <i>know</i> I¡¯m not one¡ªI thought they were bullshitting me, trying to exploit what I care about to con me into trusting them, but¡ªthey¡¯re actually true believers, far as I can tell. So I think they¡¯re right in some way.¡±


    ¡°Cool, so you make me even <i>more</i> useless, even if you¡¯re not trying to steal my job. That supposed to make me feel better?¡±


    I gave her a tired look. ¡°Just talking it through, no need to snark at me.¡±


    She didn¡¯t apologize, but did cross her arms below her chest and look away with a petulant <i>hmpf</i>. I took that as a cue to continue talking.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I have your power, Yuuka. That¡¯d be¡­really fucking unfair, yeah. The Flame wouldn¡¯t just hand me something like that. So I think what I saw was just from¡­piggybacking on your ability. And I don¡¯t know how that works, but <i>neither do they</i>. Even if they have contingencies for everything else you guys can do, that¡¯s something they¡¯re not prepared for. That¡¯s our edge, if we can figure out how to use it.¡±


    She side-eyed me. ¡°Huh. What happened to not being a hero?¡±


    I glared at her. ¡°Do you want to help or not? Sure sounded to me like you did.¡±


    ¡°Course I do. Don¡¯t talk to me like Alice. None of the fuckin¡¯ ¡®you¡¯re a smart girl, Yuuka¡¯ talking down to me shit.¡±


    I avoided her eyes. I hadn¡¯t intended to channel that sort of energy, but it was easy for me to slip into talking down to people¡ªI blame years of interacting with others mostly via explaining magic.


    ¡°Sorry. I¡¯ll treat you like an adult, if you do the same and help me with this.¡±


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    She was quiet for a moment, then shifted, raising her hand to the white bandages wrapped around her head. A little blade of magic sparked at her fingertip, and she sheared through the gauze, pulling it off. Her hair had been matted to her forehead and temple by sweat and the dried blood that had crusted around the socket of her eye. She wiped at it gently with some clean gauze, excavating her cursed eye from the messy biological damage surrounding it. Once revealed, the red-and-green gemstone glimmered dully, the low lights of the room catching the raised edges of cracks running along the surface, where the magical organ had fissured under the ripple shockwave of Hina¡¯s initial impact.


    ¡°¡­Depends on what ¡®this¡¯ is. You got a plan?¡±


    Despite the bloody mess dominating the right side of her face and the unsettling appearance of her cursed eye, I found it easier now to meet her gaze and actually found myself grinning. The expression soon fled my face after it became clear that she wasn¡¯t quite willing to return it. I coughed.


    ¡°Maybe. The eye works?¡±


    ¡°Sorta.¡±


    ¡°¡­Yes or no?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s go with no.¡±


    Aha. ¡°So when you said we were going to lose, was that foresight or just, uh, despair-spiraling?¡±


    ¡°Second. You got me.¡± She was surprisingly prompt about that; no guilty, embarrassed admission as she reflected on her brief meltdown. I envied her forthrightness. ¡°Can¡¯t see much of anything right now. Which is why I¡¯m fuckin¡¯¡ª¡±


    ¡°Useless, yes, I got it,¡± I sighed. ¡°Okay, then step one is: let¡¯s fix that.¡±


    I clenched my right fist and tugged on my Flame, letting it ignite into its natural, blindingly white burn that cast a kaleidoscope of too-deep, inky shadows around the room. It hurt, as usual, but there was something¡ªelse. I felt a little lighter as the fire ran through me. The consequences of what I¡¯d done to save Yuuka, perhaps. It was secondary to the task at hand, though.


    ¡°How about now?¡±


    Yuuka had flinched at the appearance of my Flame, squinting at it with her human eye and reflexively moving her hand to shield the lidless gemstone. She lowered the hand hurriedly, staring at the Flame intently, leaning forward. I¡¯m ashamed to say that after hours of surviving the inferno and our adversaries, my libido was still operational enough to take note of how her boobs shifted with the motion.


    ¡°What the fuck,¡± she declared. ¡°Easily.¡±


    ¡°Then¡ª¡±


    ¡°¡ª<i>we¡¯re not useless.</i>¡± She took the words out of my mouth. I didn¡¯t yet know her well enough to pick up on the subtleties of her expression, but the ghost of a smile was tugging at her lips as she extracted herself from the blanket and slowly, gingerly rose to her feet, stretching an arm out to the wall for support as she rolled her shoulders. This also moved her boobs, and I wondered if I could use my Flame to shut off the boob-noticing part of my brain somehow¡ªat any rate, she looked fine. The catastrophic damage her mantle had taken seemed to not have bled over to her physical body, though she was moving slowly and gingerly as she finished stretching. ¡°Nerd. You know what, fine. I don¡¯t get what the fuck is going on with you or your Flame, but you¡¯ve got one thing right: <i>I can see</i>. That¡¯s enough. What are we gonna do with this?¡±


    ¡ª


    What did we know about our adversaries? I¡¯d collated a number of observations from the skirmishing.


    Concerningly, they were prepared to fight the Radiances. They both had swords that were able to damage and disable mantles; the mechanism wasn¡¯t clear, but I felt pretty confident that it was some kind of pink disruption effect embedded in the blades themselves. Takagiri seemed able to at least partially avoid Yuuka¡¯s sight, and both of them had displayed significant teleportation abilities, on par with Hina¡¯s. With those abilities together, they¡¯d already demonstrated they could take Radiances off the field. That was bad.


    But they wanted to grab me. Alive, even.


    ¡°That¡¯s good news for us, isn¡¯t it? Even if they have me, they wouldn¡¯t be able to abscond except through the tunnel, so they¡¯d have to get past us anyway.¡±


    ¡°Silver lining for Hina¡¯s mess,¡± Yuuka agreed. ¡°It¡¯d make more sense for them to cut their losses and ditch. Then we could focus on evac and all that. But they¡¯re sticking around.¡±


    Even though I¡¯d helped rekindle her confidence, Yuuka¡¯s eye still wasn¡¯t giving us much tactical information. The inferno was still muddying things, and our distance from the actual site of combat¡ªsome twenty meters ¡®up¡¯ in the fourth dimension from realspace¡ªhad reduced her foresight to the broadest strokes and the very short term. We knew our adversaries weren¡¯t going to quit the field in the next few minutes and not much else.


    ¡°If we were closer, actually in the shit, I¡¯d be able to see the details,¡± she sighed. ¡°But you said you¡¯ve already got a plan, so let¡¯s hear it.¡± She gestured for me to speak as she squatted in front of the mini-fridge. Like Alice¡¯s constant hunger, it seemed that making heavy use of her eye incurred its own cost in metabolic demand.


    ¡°Uh. Right. Well, I was thinking about what Hina said. About how the two of them, er, ¡®smell the same¡¯. I don¡¯t really know what she means by that, but¡­¡± I trailed off as I watched Yuuka extract an energy drink, punch open a hole in the side of the can with another fingertip-blade, and shotgun it. ¡°That can¡¯t be good for you.¡±


    She waved for me to continue. I shrugged. I was hardly one to talk about diet.


    ¡°Fine. Based on that and everything else we know, I¡¯m reasonably sure Takagiri¡¯s enhancements are powered by Kimura¡¯s Flame.¡±


    Yuuka launched the empty can across the room and into the rubbish. They hadn¡¯t been here last time, on my date with Hina; she must have added it for me. That made me feel guiltier about our last conversation¡ªdon¡¯t think about it.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d believe it. Makes sense why she¡¯d be lurking around, waiting for ya, if he¡¯s the primary.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°So we cut the link, however it¡¯s set up. They¡¯ve got pink swords¡ªI figure we can do better than that, some kinda tripwire setup. More like cheese wire, I guess.¡±


    Traps came naturally to Yuuka¡¯s skillset, after all. From what I¡¯d seen of how she fought, it seemed like it¡¯d be easy enough for her to put such a Flame-severing implement in a place she knew Takagiri would be. She grinned. ¡°Taste of their own medicine. And once she¡¯s out, it¡¯s four on one.¡±


    ¡°Not three?¡± I attempted to raise an eyebrow, failed, and glanced away, reddening. ¡°I mean you¡¯re counting yourself back in it.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I can do it, but I¡¯ll have to be pretty close to set it up right, and that¡¯s assuming I can even <i>see</i> her.¡± She scowled. ¡°Any ideas on what that¡¯s about, veeb?¡±


    I groaned at the pejorative¡ªif accurate¡ªterm. ¡°Just call me a Vaetna fan. And¡ªno. Silver suppression is <i>solely</i> a Spire thing, not some fuckin¡¯ cult¡¯s. I¡¯ve seen a lot of new magic today, but I¡¯m not gonna give them that much¡ª¡±


    I was thrown sideways mid-sentence. I hadn¡¯t been struck; gravity was betraying the whole room, pillows and blankets and that empty can all flying to my right. Only Yuuka had stayed fixed in place, having {AFFIXED} herself in place on the floor that had become a wall. A jagged, snarled grin had spread over her face. ¡°Guess we won¡¯t have to go anywhere.¡±


    I rolled onto my back and sat up again, raising my still-blazing arm into the air to light the room, hoping it would help Yuuka foresee the attack. It hurt, ice in my veins and fire on my skin, but that was all in my head, so I gritted my teeth and tried to push it further, to grow the Flame to cast as much light¡ªliteral or otherwise¡ªas possible. It was all I could really do; with no spear and barely able to stand, it was between this or weaving, and I had much more confidence in Yuuka¡¯s ability to snapweave than my own. Indeed, she¡¯d already summoned her own Flame, globules of it floating out of her eye and coalescing into thread. I was starting to sweat from both the exertion and stress, which made all my raw skin hurt¡ªthough not as much as the Flame scorching my hand.


    ¡°Know who it is?¡±


    ¡°Kimura,¡± she muttered. ¡°Was hoping it¡¯d be the other one, but¡­move left. Edge of the room.¡±


    ¡°My left or yours?¡±


    ¡°Yours.¡±


    I shifted hastily, scooting awkwardly until I was against the wall¡ªformerly floor¡ªadjacent to Yuuka¡¯s. I put my non-flaming hand against it to steady myself and shakily rose to my feet; this was the wrong hand to optimally support my mangled right foot, but it was better than nothing. My repositioning had changed the shadows cast by my hand¡¯s firelight, which Yuuka was watching rather than observing either my Flame or her own.


    ¡°Making any difference?¡±


    Before Yuuka could answer, the room shook. Gravity didn¡¯t change this time, but it felt as though something was striking Hina¡¯s little pocket dimension from the outside, and I nearly fell again before digging my good heel into the wall-floor and stabilizing back to a reasonably upright position.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± she declared as the shaking subsided. ¡°I got him.¡±


    ¡°That was you?¡±


    ¡°Uh, no. I mean¡ªeh, fuck it, you¡¯ll see.¡±


    That boded¡ªwell or ill, I couldn''t say, but it sure did bode.


    There was a screeching noise like the scraping grind of a catastrophically crashed car skidding to a halt. It sounded far-off and muted by the walls of the room. The ceiling¡ªnow the opposite wall from mine in our new orientation¡ªbegan to bulge inward. My heart started to race as the sound increased in volume and the bulge grew, swelling with pressure from without. The magic-obsessed part of my brain considered this an ineffective way of breaching the presumably LM boundaries of Hina¡¯s box compared to drilling or a more decisive blast of force¡ªthat would have been preferable to watching the pressure inexorably build and build as the sound grew closer, louder, clearer.


    I glanced at Yuuka one more time, wordlessly asking for reassurance. She nodded, pointed at the bulge, and gave it a thumbs-down with her silver gauntlet. As if on cue, the grinding suddenly went silent, and the bulge stopped growing.


    ¡°Was <i>that</i> you?¡±


    ¡°Wait for it.¡±


    The ceiling burst open. The screeching sound returned in an ear-splitting howl of noise as the temperature plummeted. On the other side of the wound was a kaleidoscopic darkness, distance and direction an incoherent jumble of non-shapes that my brain wasn¡¯t equipped to process. I was looking down, down, down. Vertigo gripped me once again. Without any other way of defending myself from the void, I cowered against the wall and held my blazing hand out in front of me. Its light caught no shape in the darkness, only smoke billowing inward¡ª


    Something sparkled across the room. Glittering ruby dust scattered into the smoke, dispersing through it. The granules then burst into crimson Flame, banishing the darkness in a blood-red dazzle that blinded me for a moment. As I blinked away the too-red light, I beheld in my green-dyed vision a figure in robes stumbling backward toward the void from which he¡¯d emerged. Kimura¡¯s re-coalesced form found his footing after a few steps.


    Yuuka stepped off the wall to stand between him and me, barking something in Japanese. She was unarmed, but her stance wasn¡¯t that of a martial artist ready to throw down; rather, she held her hand out in front of her like I was doing, a ward to dispel evil¡ªor a gun aimed at an old man. He raised his sword, undeterred, and called out to her in reply as they faced off, samurai versus gunslinger. Framed like that, it was easy enough to imagine the contents of their verbal exchange as cool one-liners: ¡°No further¡± countered by ¡°stand aside,¡± or something of the sort¡­undercut by how sad and tired Kimura looked as he shifted his grip on his sword, like he didn¡¯t want to be here.


    Nevertheless, he was the one to strike first. He stepped forward, low¡ªI was surprised to see no sign of Takagiri¡¯s devastating physicality, nor even the jarring, hard-to-follow speed I¡¯d become accustomed to from the mantles. He moved like a human swordsman, stepping closer to Yuuka with grace and slashing at her. Yuuka didn¡¯t have the overwhelming speed of a mantle either, but her precognition was more than enough for a fight like this. She stepped forward and backhanded the flat of the blade away with her gauntlet almost contemptuously while her other fist drove at his gut. One of his hands came off the hilt of his sword to push her fist aside, but he couldn¡¯t fully step out of her reach, backed up against the edge of the torn-open bubble of realspace. He compensated by grabbing her wrist and jerking her even closer, trying to reverse their positions so that she would be the one stuck on the precipice¡ª


    Yuuka snapped her silver-clad fingers with a glassy, ringing noise. Kimura¡¯s sword clattered onto the wall-floor, forced out of his grasp by a blood-red spike of LM that had punched straight through his wrist. Then she punched him in the face, and the fight was over.


    To his credit, he didn¡¯t just stagger backward off our little island of realspace, maintaining his footing despite the shock of the hole in his arm, but Yuuka¡¯s shove did the trick. Kimura fell through the hole and vanished from view. I breathed a sigh of relief, releasing my Flame and slumping against the wall, breathing on my bone-chilled hand in an attempt to instill some fresh warmth in it. Yuuka scooped up the dropped sword and held it up to her eye.


    ¡°Pink?¡± I managed to ask, magical curiosity barely enough to overcome the systemic discomfort all over my body as the adrenaline ebbed away; the pain and the cold of the outside-space were sapping my strength.


    ¡°Think so.¡± She glanced over the edge, which was too much for me; I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn¡¯t have to keep looking into the abyss. ¡°Hopefully that¡¯s the end of it. I¡¯d be surprised if he can do the smoke bullshit again after the Embers of Ruby. The others will be here soon.¡±


    ¡°Good,¡± I gasped. I didn¡¯t have the energy to ask about the name she¡¯d given her move. ¡°Can we¡ªclose this up?¡±


    ¡°Probably not¡ª¡±


    A <i>whoosh</i> made my heart rate spike again. I snapped my eyes open¡ªand there was Takagiri, hovering just over the edge in front of Yuuka. She¡¯d been seriously roughed up by the other Radiances since last I¡¯d seen her, with one of her forearms sort of¡­blurry, like something had damaged her wards there. And she looked <i>mad</i>.


    ¡°Aw, fuck. Ez¡ª¡±


    ¡°Yeah!¡± I was already reigniting my hand, yanking the imaginary lever to kickstart my Flame once more. I strangled a whimper in my throat as fresh pain lanced through my nerves. Takagiri launched herself at Yuuka, which was the worst possible moment for my body to finally start deciding it had enough. My vision began to wobble,and I sat back and tried to tune everything out and focus on keeping the fire lit¡ªYuuka didn¡¯t have a chance otherwise, not without her mantle. Just keep the Flame aloft.


    But Yuuka was losing anyway. She was no swordswoman. I heard the sound of blades clashing together once, twice, three times¡ªthen the sound of Yuuka grunting and her sword clattering to the ground as a blow landed true. She retaliated with a blast of crimson fire that shone blindingly even through my blurred vision. Takagiri stepped through the magical flame as it sparked against her wards and swung a fist at Yuuka, and time slowed down, as it had before.


    My Flame sputtered, and the moment passed without giving Yuuka a chance to avert fate. The blow caught her in the chest and threw her against the wall with a <i>thump</i>. Her impact was only mildly cushioned by the pillows and blankets piled in the corner, and she slumped there, insensate¡ªand probably with shattered ribs, if that blow was anything like how I¡¯d struck Hina. Where was Hina?


    Not here yet. We¡¯d already taken Kimura out of the fight, and hopefully the other Radiances were already on their way through fourspace, and then it would be three on one. I just had to survive until then¡ªbut as before, Takagiri didn¡¯t go directly for me. She lunged at Yuuka¡¯s crumpled body with a shout, intent on finishing her off this time.


    And once again, it fell to me to stop her.


    I snuffed my Flame¡¯s external manifestation so the world would stop spinning, and instead channeled it through my body. My muscles were electrified by magic, my vision cleared, and I felt <i>strong </i>as I lurched to my feet. As my mind raced and my senses came alive, some part of me recalled the strategy we¡¯d discussed. I didn¡¯t have to <i>kill</i> Takagiri; I just had to cut off her source of magic from Kimura. We¡¯d speculated that was possible with an information-disrupting pink ripple attack.


    Like the sword currently lying on the ground.


    The world around me became a blur as I dove for the blade. I felt so <i>fast</i> as I scooped it up¡ªand overshot, skidding toward the open hole. Oops. In that moment of desperation, something in my brain <i>clicked</i>. My flame rushed down my right leg, to my stump, and into the prosthetic. I rearranged the {AFFIX} that bound the mechanism to my foot, binding it to the floor, yanking me to a stop hard enough to have dislocated my hip if magic wasn¡¯t reinforcing my body. It still jarred me for a moment¡ªbut only a moment. Then my other foot, the good one, regained its grip, and I used it to launch myself at Takagiri. She¡¯d only just begun to react, still turning to me. None of the blurred speed from before; we were at the same pace now.


    Of course, I didn¡¯t really know how to use a sword; even at the same speed, she¡¯d take me apart. So I pushed more of my Flame into my muscles and went faster. I had no idea how much of this my body could take, or for how long¡ªbut for a moment I was the lightning. I thrusted with the sword, center mass, my best impression of how I would with a spear. The blade pierced her wards, then her flesh, sinking into her belly and tearing out the side.


    And in that long moment, I saw no blood follow the blade out of the wound.


    Takagiri wasn¡¯t an enhanced human. She was a construct. A mantle.


    The moment passed. I slammed into the wall past Takagiri shoulder-first, not unlike how Yuuka had¡ªbut the impact was far lighter than it should have been. I thought that maybe I just didn¡¯t feel the pain when juiced up on Flame like this¡ªthen realized I was being pulled away from the wall. My in-the-moment {AFFIX} had knocked loose whatever magic had been maintaining the room¡¯s orientation. Everything tilted until ¡®down¡¯ became the abyss.


    And we all fell.

 Trick Of The Light // 2.16

    If only getting back to reality were as easy as letting gravity drag me there. Even though we were supposedly ¡®above¡¯ the three-dimensional slice of the universe humanity calls home, the physics of the space beyond was a complex balance of countless other forces that overrode Earth¡¯s familiar homeward pull. I was instead sent plummeting through the kaleidoscopic abyss.


    I screamed for the first few seconds as Hina¡¯s room fell out of view above me, pitch black from the outside. It was when my lungs ran dry and I gasped in a fresh breath that I realized that there was, improbably, still some air out here, though freezing cold and distinctly oily. At least I wasn¡¯t going to die by asphyxiation after everything else I¡¯d been through in the past few hours.


    Aside from that, though, the abyss was a thoroughly hostile place, not at all meant for three-dimensional meat-creatures like me.


    I call it the abyss, and it¡¯s true that it was darker than even the emptiest voids of the night sky, the same kind of unnatural shadow that my Flame cast when I let it burn¡ªbut it was not truly empty, and I was not truly blind. I could see vast objects¡ªthe equivalent of asteroids, perhaps¡ªand stranger shapes, some sinuous like Jormungandr or branching like the roots of Yggdrasil, others jagged arcs so vast and distant they could pass for confused horizons. I fell past shapes that did not seem to obey the visual laws of perspective and parallax, rippling in form as my view of them changed, distending, twisting, sometimes simply blinking in and out of existence in an instant or flickering between two different shapes.


    The greatest wrongness lay below me, in the direction I fell. The shapes there were distorted in a way I can only describe as <i>poisoned</i>. There lay the only true colors in this place¡ªan entire rainbow so scattered as to be random noise, the ruined and crushed-apart edges of the inferno in realspace being washed out here by the tides of ripple. So in a sense, I <i>was</i> still falling Earthward, but striking that border would probably be a worse way to die than impacting any of the mammoth objects blinking into and out of existence around me.


    So, looking down as I hurtled ever closer to the chaos was a bad idea.


    Unfortunately, so was looking anywhere else. The sights of this out-place inspired a nausea wholly unrelated to my acrophobia, and I understood why Hina had told me to close my eyes the first time she had brought me into her extradimensional hideaway. I needed to shut out the sickening view of the beyond¡ªbut when I tried, a whole different kind of terror burst forth in my subconscious. There was an unaccountable urge to peel my eyes wide open, to keep my head on a swivel, to be on my guard; a prey-animal instinct, a hundred million-year-old inheritance from some prehistoric rodent that found itself suddenly stripped of protective underbrush and left exposed to predators.


    Of course, neither keeping my eyes peeled for monsters¡ªthat weren¡¯t there¡ªnor squeezing them shut in a vain attempt to deny my situation would have made my chances of survival any better. And the screaming didn¡¯t help, but could you blame me? My composure was at an all-time low. I spent maybe thirty seconds falling through the space beyond space.


    A new mass of darkness flickered into existence directly in my path, and I had all of one second to brace to be turned into a wet smear, not even enough time for one last attempt to spark my Flame that might avert the impact. But instead of becoming Ezzen paste when I struck the object, I instead dove into the universe¡¯s largest dust bunny at speeds no human body was ever designed to go.


    This felt as awful as it sounds. I couldn¡¯t tell you what kind of stringy particulate made up the accumulated mass, only that it was dry and unbelievably filthy, and it rubbed excruciatingly against my exposed skin as my momentum carried me through the cloud, gradually converting the speed of my fall into friction burns. At least my clothes somewhat shielded me, though a poor excuse for armor. Bits of the filth stuck to me as I went, awful little cobwebs that threatened to invade my mouth. I was terrified that I would come to a tangled stop while still inside, and <i>then</i> I would suffocate, or otherwise simply be stuck here for who knew how long, lost in the void.


    Thankfully, I punched through the other end of the disgusting mass. My fall turned to a lazier drift, and then at last, I came across a real object upon which I could land, something bizarrely familiar and maybe even more displaced than I was: a chunk of bona-fide driftwood out here in the abyssal sea. I thought it was a mostly intact fragment of one of the trees that had been caught in the inferno¡¯s edge, but that was impossible; it was far, far too large, easily twice the size of the largest trees on Earth, practically a skyscraper of wood. Maybe it wasn¡¯t an Earthly tree at all, which raised questions I was in absolutely no condition to consider at the time.


    Regardless of its origin, I will be eternally grateful to fate or whatever other serendipity brought me to it. I half-landed, half-impacted the piece of wood, scrambling to grab hold of the crags in the bark before realizing that wasn¡¯t really necessary.


    I laid on the uncomfortable bark, suddenly too tired to even pick out the remaining clumps of filth from my hair and clothes and wanting to just rest here a while¡ªI didn¡¯t know how long I had until this new surface would abandon me, but my body didn¡¯t care. My muscles had had enough action and pain for one day, burning in protest from how I¡¯d pushed them so far with the Flame. Surely, I could just stay here for a few minutes and rest, wait for Hina or one of the others to swim-fly out to me and retrieve me after they¡¯d won, which would be soon. We¡¯d hopefully taken Kimura out of the fight, after all, and I¡¯d struck Takagiri with a blow very similar to the one that had taken Yuuka¡¯s mantle out of commission. I was in no condition to rejoin the skirmishing.


    But, my rational mind argued, I still had to get out of here. As much of a boon as the gargantuan driftwood felt like it was in the moment, an island of distorted familiarity and something that at least passed for solid ground, simply lying atop it didn¡¯t actually change my situation. I was no more protected from the freezing cold or the almost-too-thin air, and every moment we continued drifting out here still increased the odds I would die by some incomprehensible interaction with one of the other vast, dark objects overhead. I needed to get back to Earth.


    How?


    The problem was that I had no idea where I was. I could still sort of see the edge of the inferno, that most-fucked up of horizons containing the only splashes of color visible. It lay in all directions, since I was still technically on the inside of the bubble. That perimeter, that chaotic storm of ripple, remained the most dangerous of all, not a way out or even a useful landmark.


    Pain and exhaustion warred in my body as I tried to think my way through it, crunching through everything I knew about my situation and the more general principles of fourspace navigation. It was cold comfort that this ¡°side¡± of the outside was actually the less dangerous of the two, compared to going ¡°down¡± from realspace. I stared up into the darkness with its churning shapes, feeling very small and starting to get overwhelmed.


    For one, I didn¡¯t even know <i>how</i> to maneuver across the fourth dimension; I fundamentally lacked the intuition for it as a simple three-dimensional creature. For two, even if I could move in that direction, re-intersecting with the main area of reality was not something to be done lightly. That Hina could do so with abandon was a sign of how far her anatomy had diverged from a typical, three-dimensional human body. I¡¯d probably explode from a kind of dimensional depressurization even if I didn¡¯t just pulp myself on impact. For three, there were more hazards to navigation than the simple risk of messy collision. Portions of outside-space were known to be curved in strange ways, and if I stumbled into one of those, I could wind up going in completely the opposite direction and not even know it.


    And all that was to say nothing of the lingering feeling that I was exposed to things adapted for this environment that would view me as a snack¡ª<i>like Hina,</i> noted some cynical part of my mind unhelpfully.


    What about landmarks? I knew¡ªin theory¡ªhow to use magic to calculate my location relative to a known reference point, and that would at least solve the problem of being lost; it was actually a fairly straightforward calculation, an almost idiomatic operation with {LOCATE}. But that wouldn¡¯t work for me, because unlike every other flamebearer in the world, I didn¡¯t have even a single persistent lattice of my Flame sitting somewhere in realspace to use as a reference point for that equation. My wig was made of my Flame, but that was right here with me, merged onto my head. When I¡¯d been tugged out of reality in the first place, it had been via my hair, which probably meant <i>something</i> of significance, but I lacked both the energy and the analytical toolkit I¡¯d have liked.


    Just to cover my bases, I brought my aching arm to my head to spin a few strands of the oddly bright hair between my fingers. It felt¡­like hair, no great revelation there.


    ¡°Don¡¯t suppose you have any hidden secrets to get me out of this?¡±


    Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the hair didn¡¯t answer. At least the extreme isolation meant there was nobody around to catch me talking to inanimate objects. Did my hair even qualify as an inanimate object, now that it was apparently merged with me? That made it more like talking to myself, really. At least my spear would have solidly qualified as a separate companion and would have made me feel a little safer from the instinctual feeling of being exposed, but it was back in the grass on¡ª


    <i>On Earth</i>.


    A jolt of adrenaline accompanied the realization, and my Flame shifted in my chest as it felt hope electrify my system. My hand reflexively went to my left forearm, where my tattoo conspicuously wasn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t want to find out what would happen if I attempted to recall my spear to me at such a distance, in this space outside reality, but there was still an inherent link to the lattice embedded in my arm, and that gave me options. I just had to shift some parts around, re-weave the magic in place like I¡¯d done in that moment I¡¯d anchored myself with my prosthetic, so that it would point the way home.


    Easier said than done. I didn¡¯t dare try this with blood magic, not out here; reopening the old cut on my arm in this unnatural cold and strange atmosphere felt like it¡¯d be gambling with my life even more than I already was¡ªand my instincts were warning me against it, too, saying that whatever was out here would be able to smell my blood in the water. Irrational, of course, especially given that lighting up my Flame to do it manually would be the equivalent of a beacon around here anyway, and moreover there was nothing alive out here to hunt me.


    That¡¯s what I kept telling myself as I tried to ignore the shapes moving in the darkness. They were just debris.


    Manual re-weaving it was, but the conditions were abysmal. My Flame was infuriatingly sluggish to ignite, seemingly out of energy after my stunt to strike Takagiri, and the act of forming it into thread in the abyssal cold stung my fingers with frostbite, making my already poor dexterity even more stiff and cumbersome. I was starting to shiver, too, and that made it even worse. Why was my Flame so cold <i>now</i>, when it had been searingly hot when I¡¯d been pushing it through my body? But I couldn¡¯t split my attention between a simple heat-generating lattice and my attempt to find my way home.


    It felt like it took minutes to simply spin my Flame into usable thread. Then I had to feel around for the weave in my arm, an awkward process halfway between feeling with my fingers and trying to pay attention to the not-quite-pressure my Flame exerted as it responded to the space in my arm where the thread lived. After that, I had to partially unwind and loosen the lattice so that I could stitch in more of my thread, but not too much or the whole binding would decohere and then I¡¯d be stuck.


    It was slow, delicate work, and now I really did feel like I was torturing my Flame with how it was being crudely contorted. I whispered apologies as I wove, which rapidly devolved into a kind of prayer for survival, a mantra I could focus on to stave off the pain and cold and just <i>keep going</i>.


    Unfortunately, my body failed before my willpower did.


    My fingers turned blue, eaten through by the cold. The shivering became worse and worse until attempting to work the thread with the necessary precision became hopeless, fingers pathetically twitching against my forearm, so very cold. Yet simultaneously, I could feel myself getting hot¡ªthe final stage of hypothermia. I was going to die of exposure, not be eaten by some monster of the void. Salvation did not lie in more useless fiddling with my tattoo.


    The cold brought a dream-like haze as I began to die.


    In that fugue state, on my way to the final sleep, a memory bubbled to the surface of my mind. An action, divorced from context. I let the thread in my fingers decohere back into Flame and engulf my hand, and then reached out toward nothing in particular, as I¡¯d done once before, in another space beyond space, in a dream. And as I had then, I touched¡­something. Resistance, a barrier I could not see or even truly feel. With my muscles failing in the deathly cold, sweat freezing on my brow and in my armpits, I reached out as far as I could, pushing, desperate for survival.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    <i>Take me home</i>, I pleaded with my Flame.


    And my hand brushed something else, something solid, something rough and round and cylindrical. I grabbed the haft of my spear¡ªand something grabbed my wrist. I was yanked forward, through, <i>out</i>¡ªor perhaps back in.


    Then there were arms around me, something wonderfully warm and soft against me and rumbling deeply. Something warm moved through my chest as Hina¡¯s Flame chased away the deathly cold. She hugged me close.


    ¡°Hey, hey, hey, I¡¯m here. You¡¯re okay. I couldn¡¯t find you and I don¡¯t know how you did that but you¡¯re here now and I¡¯m here and you¡¯re okay¡ª¡±


    ¡°Nngh,¡± I groaned in reply, sinking into her arms, high on the feeling of grass under my knees. The ground was cold, but it was a familiar cold, a natural one, not the abyss, and the air was clean and breathable and not oily and Hina was so warm. I snuggled as close to her as I could go, all our drama temporarily wiped away by the animal desire to seek the warmth of life. I didn¡¯t let go of my spear, though. ¡°Mm. Hi. Home.¡±


    ¡°Home,¡± she agreed happily, stroking my back.


    As the worst of the cold began to ebb away, I regained some higher brain function.


    ¡°Is Yuuka okay?¡±


    ¡°Hospital. And you¡ª¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here,¡± I groaned. ¡°So it¡¯s over? Please tell me it¡¯s over.¡± I didn¡¯t even have the energy to open my eyes at this point.


    My reply came as an earth-shaking <i>thud</i>¡ªwhich the Ezzen of a few hours ago might have panicked at, but at this point, I was just too tired to give a fuck from my dwindling supply. I sighed and forced one eye open to see that Amethyst had landed next to us. I blinked a few times, trying to get my vision to focus properly as I looked up at her glittering form looming over me.


    She was untouched¡ªnot a scratch. She warbled what sounded like a greeting, but hadn¡¯t turned to face me. Instead, she had her enormous arm-cannon raised, pointing at something away from us. Her spindly, digitigrade legs were set in a wide stance and dug into the dirt, acting as enormous stabilizing piles for the walking artillery. The chilly air momentarily dropped to the abyss-cold again as her cannon flashed, loosing a lance of purple light at something in the sky a few hundred meters away¡ªwhere Takagiri was still brawling mid-air with Alice.


    ¡°¡­You fuckin¡¯ kiddin¡¯ me?¡± I slurred, wincing at the blast of fresh life-sucking cold caused by the weapon¡¯s discharge and automatically huddling closer to Hina again. Frustration blossomed in my chest; I had really been hoping my blow against Takagiri would have taken her out of the fight, like she had done to Yuuka, but everything I¡¯d done, the haze of exhaustion and pain I was feeling, hadn¡¯t even been enough to stop her.


    Hina sighed. ¡°God, you look great.¡± Her hands groped over my body, and I winced in pain as fingers felt my abused muscles. Her hands were so wonderfully warm, but the pressure was unwelcome. I pulled away from her, frustration mounting.


    ¡°The fuck? We¡¯re still in a warzone.¡±


    The hands stopped. ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°Why are you with me and not <i>stopping that</i>?¡±


    ¡°Um. I can. Aren¡¯t you cold?¡±


    ¡°¡­Hina.¡±


    She winced. ¡°Yep, sorry, on it.¡±


    She disengaged her limbs from mine, stood, and catapulted away from me, bounding toward the fight. I groaned and sat back on the grass, still struggling for function but trying to refocus on the danger at hand. I squinted as Amethyst fired again, another flare of light and cold snap, and this time, I saw the shot make contact with Takagiri¡ªbut deflect off her wards. That jogged my memory, the last thing I¡¯d been thinking about before falling into the abyss. I rubbed my head, trying to drill into the chaos and remember despite the way my brain felt like jelly. What had it been? We¡¯d taken out Kimura, and then Takagiri had showed up and hurt Yuuka, and I¡¯d grabbed the sword and lunged at her, and¡ª


    Right. No blood when I¡¯d cut her.


    ¡°She¡¯s a mantle!¡± I called out to Amane, realizing that I should have told Hina before sending her back in. ¡°Um. Fuck. Tell the others that. Do you have, uh¡­anti-LM munitions?¡±


    Amane¡¯s spike-snouted head turned to look at me, and even though it completely lacked facial expressions, I could tell from how she slightly lowered her cannon that she was asking if I was sure.


    ¡°Yeah. Cut her with her own sword. Looked like¡­uh, what happened to Yuuka. I don¡¯t know if you saw that. Pink ripple disruptors in¡­in the blades,¡± I rambled, vision getting wobbly again as I went through the events in my head. I gasped for air to keep talking. ¡°Thought it would cut her connection with Kimura, but that¡¯s not¡­¡± I gave up on trying to explain the full thread of logic in detail. ¡°¡­point is, anti-LM.¡±


    The mech-girl¡¯s massive shoulders shifted in what looked like a sigh, then she projected a hologram of light at me. Translated text, like a blown-up version of what she usually did with her phone to talk to me.


    <b>Don¡¯t have it.</b>


    ¡°What do you <i>mean</i> you don¡¯t¡ª¡± I caught myself. ¡°Why¡¯re you using beams instead of the void munitions thing we did last week?¡±


    I didn¡¯t like invoking our collective sins at the oil rig, but I had to admit the situation was getting uncomfortably similar. But we were trying to destroy a construct, not kill a person¡ªand besides, I had a plethora of bones to pick with my stalker at this point, even disregarding the fact that I was so very exhausted.


    <b>Because of the inferno.</b>


    ¡°Oh. Right.¡± Of course using the highest-power options in her arsenal would be dangerous in this ripple-amplifying zone, so relatively close to squishy civilians. And me, but I was finding it hard to care about that part. ¡°So that¡¯s the best you¡¯ve got.¡±


    She shot another beam at Takagiri by way of confirmation, rather than nod or say something else in reply. It lanced past Hina, who¡¯d leapt up several dozen meters and was now slashing at the assassin with oversized claws of a familiar, painfully bright blue. It was hard to make out much more detail at this distance, other than the periodic flashes of light as the flamebearers flew around and traded attacks, sword against claws against lasers, a properly spellsword-y battle. So anime. I might have appreciated it more if I were watching from the comfort of my chair, curled up in front of my computer screen with a warm mug of hot chocolate in hand.


    That was the exhaustion and lingering wooziness talking. This wasn¡¯t a livestream or a TV show¡ªthis was still life and death combat, and I was right there with them.


    I squeezed my eyes shut once more, focusing, trying to picture the general diagram for the Radiances¡¯ mantles, the basic template of commonalities from which each of theirs were customized. From what we¡¯d seen of how well Takagiri and Kimura had dealt with the Radiances, it stood to reason that the former¡¯s LM body was at least based on the same core principles, likely somehow copied or stolen¡ªthough seemingly upgraded, given that she was still fully functional despite taking a similar blow to the one that had taken Yuuka out. The idea that she was advanced beyond the Radiances themselves was a distressing prospect, but I had to trust that she wasn¡¯t <i>too</i> far beyond, that the same chinks in the armor would apply if I could find any.


    No luck. I was too scattered, and didn¡¯t know the intricacies well enough off the top of my head anyway. But Amane surely would, as the one who had most extensively customized her own mantle and spent the most time in it.


    ¡°Amane¡ª¡±


    I was interrupted by a warbling, ringing noise, and opened my eyes to see that Amane was way ahead of me. Her gun had begun to change, and even through my exhaustion, I managed to extract a little interest at watching the massive arm-cannon reconfigure. The concentric focusing rings shifted around, their mounting spines rotating in place and producing those strange, unearthly sounds as the gemstones flowed. A piece underneath the barrel slid further back, up to her elbow, and more lumps of crystal emerged to mirror it. The result hardly looked like a gun. I eyed it warily; even without knowing exactly what she had done at a glyph level, the improvised, hacked-together nature of the design was obvious.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­not gonna blow up in your face, is it?¡±


    <b>It might.</b>


    ¡°And if it does?¡±


    <b>Only me.</b>


    She dropped to one knee and aimed down the sights again. Well, the weapon didn¡¯t have sights per se, but the message was still clear. Despite that brisk assurance, I edged away from her a little, scooting on the cold grass as though another meter of space between me and the jury-rigged weapon would make a difference if things went wrong.


    The Radiances engaged with Takagiri got clear, signalled by some radio communication I wasn¡¯t privy to. Hina peeled away by propelling herself straight down, and Alice jetted sideways. Takagiri seemed to understand what was happening, but instead of going to ground, she launched herself directly toward me and Amane, covering hundreds of meters in moments¡ª


    Amane fired with little fanfare. Unlike the clean beams of light previously cast from the tip of the barrel, there was no flash of light, no clear line of energy reaching from cause to effect. The first signal that anything had happened at all was a <i>crack</i> from next to me. Amethyst¡¯s body fractured. Pieces of gemstone began to melt and slough off her titanic figure as the backlash of her weapon catastrophically damaged her mantle.


    But Takagiri¡¯s destruction was far more complete. Her body fractured mid-dive, and she screamed¡ªa horrible noise, the same kind of broken, glitching screech that Yuuka had made after being stabbed. Then she shattered into a million shards.


    Shards that were still flying directly toward us. She was weaponizing her destruction as a plume of twinkling death, a final blast of glassy shrapnel. It happened too quickly for me to do anything but cower uselessly, but Amane was faster. She lurched forward, putting herself in front of me, a disorienting purple blur that moved far too quickly for something so big and so heavily damaged. The shards struck her with hissing vengeance, like a storm of hail striking a glass roof, interspersed with more ear-splitting cracks as the impacts took their toll on her already damaged body. Then it was over, and silence reigned for a few moments


    ¡°Amane!¡±


    Alice skidded to a landing next to me, white-hot jets of flame arresting her momentum, scorching the grass in front of her. She looked terrible, parts of her mantle cracked and warped with fuzzy distortion¡ªbut that was superficial compared to the horror show that was her girlfriend¡¯s ruined body. She knelt by the inert mound of half-melted gemstone.


    ¡°Is¡ªis it supposed to disengage?¡± I asked, heart pounding.


    ¡°Yes!¡± Her voice was distraught. ¡°Amane, no, you can¡¯t have¡ª¡±


    There was a <i>snap</i> as Hina appeared next to us. She was gently propping up Amane¡¯s true body¡ªsans prosthetics, eyepatch dark and inert¡ªin one arm. Alice abandoned the destroyed mantle and rushed over to her. She shed her own transformation and wrapped Amane in a hug, babbling something full of relief.


    Hina¡¯s other hand was holding Kimura by the throat. He made no attempt to escape her grip, stoic and sullen.


    Alice turned to him, still hugging Amane close, and said something in Japanese before switching to English.


    ¡°¡ªexplain.¡±


    ¡°I have nothing to say to you.¡± He sounded defeated, as exhausted as I was.


    ¡°Bullshit,¡± Hina snarled. ¡°Why the <i>fuck</i> are you after cutie?¡±


    ¡°Sugawara wants him.¡±


    ¡°Sugawara¡¯s in a fucking coma. You¡¯re the one who helped put him there!¡±


    ¡°And you should have killed him,¡± he growled.


    Hina exchanged a confused look with Alice. ¡°¡­Okay? Then why the hell are you working with him?¡±


    ¡°He is <i>in my dreams.</i> I had no choice.¡±


    Alice held Amane tighter. ¡°Why not?¡±


    He didn¡¯t respond, looking down at the ground, avoiding all of our eyes. Hina brandished her free hand, blue sparks playing off her claws. ¡°Talk.¡±


    ¡°Fine,¡± Alice sighed, waving her off, but there was something dangerous in her voice. ¡°We¡¯ll cover for you if you give us the names of everybody who¡¯s working with him. Where¡¯s Takagiri?¡±


    Where indeed? My brain still felt like soup, but the well-worn grooves of magic were still functional. The mantle couldn¡¯t have been remotely operated across the inferno¡¯s boundaries. And according to Hina¡¯s nose¡­something finally clicked in my head.


    ¡°I think we¡¯re looking at her,¡± I muttered.


    Kimura raised his head and glared at me.


    Alice looked at me, frowning. ¡°Ezzen?¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s his mantle. You¡¯re my stalker,¡± I declared, staring back at him, too tired to be afraid. ¡°The same weapons. The same tricks. Bailing each other out at the last moment every time. Hina says you smell the same, and she only named you two when she first showed up. Nobody else could have been operating the mantle from inside the inferno. More advanced, too. Both bodies at once?¡±


    Alice had gone very stiff, looking from me to him. After a long moment, Kimura¡¯s expression broke into a vicious smile, and instantly, my suspicions were confirmed. That was the same expression I¡¯d seen Takagiri make. The anger, the loathing. He turned the hateful countenance on Alice.


    ¡°He¡¯s smart. And I did it <i>better</i> than you,¡± he spat.


    Alice met his eyes. I expected her to snap back at him, for the air to heat up in a display of imperious anger, but she looked¡ªso sad. She said something softly in Japanese. He laughed dryly and spat something back at her. She made a sound, a strangled yelp of shock and horror. Hina whined and dropped him.


    ¡°No,¡± she breathed.


    Kimura knelt in the grass, coughing, then sat, resigned and angry, with none of the poise he¡¯d had before.


    ¡°They won¡¯t understand you,¡± he told me. ¡°They will use it against you. It will end like this for you as well.¡±


    I was lagging way behind the conversation. ¡°Use what against me?¡±


    ¡°He blackmailed you,¡± Alice interrupted shakily, horror in her voice. ¡°Sugawara. That <i>fucker</i>. God, no, you should have¡ª¡±


    ¡°You do not <i>understand¡ª</i>¡±


    ¡°You could have <i>told us</i>!¡± She was¡­crying? Her voice was hoarse, and she looked terribly shaken, and I still didn¡¯t get why. Stupid. ¡°You didn¡¯t¡­this didn¡¯t have to happen. We would have helped you.¡±


    Confusion flitted across Kimura¡¯s face, before being covered again by anger. ¡°How could you?¡± he challenged. ¡°You don¡¯t know what it¡¯s like to live like this. You perfect fucking <i>mahou shoujo</i>.¡±


    ¡°Oh my <i>God</i>,¡± Hina groaned. ¡°He doesn¡¯t fucking know. Alice¡ª¡±


    ¡°Mm.¡± She shakily separated from Amane and stood. Hina hopped over and took her place, settling between me and Amane. I sagged against her, muttering into her neck. ¡°I¡¯m lost.¡±


    ¡°Cutie,¡± Hina sighed. ¡°Don¡¯t you get it? Seriously? She literally said it straight to you.¡±


    ¡°Uh.¡±


    She shifted. I felt her poke my forehead. ¡°How are you so¡ªokay. Cutie. Ez. If Takagiri is <i>his</i> mantle, why¡¯s <i>she</i> a girl?¡±


    ¡°Because¡­the design is copied from you guys, and changing the¡ª¡±


    ¡°No! Fuck, you¡¯re even denser than she was. We gotta talk about that later,¡± she muttered. ¡°Just¡ªlook.¡±


    Baffled, I watched as Alice approached Kimura. He let her do so, no more fight left in him, just simmering resentment. His expression turned to complete confusion when she knelt and hugged him tightly.


    ¡°We will help you. I promise.¡±


    ¡°¡­<i>Doushite</i>?¡± He sounded lost.


    ¡°Because¡ªI do know what it¡¯s like to live like this. You¡¯re not alone, sister.¡±


    Hina pointed at them. ¡°<i>That¡¯s her</i>. This is what Sugawara was holding over Takagiri to make her do his dirty work. She¡¯s trans. They both are. Get it now?¡±


    Oh.


    Oh, of course.


    I looked at the two women hugging each other. Takagiri looked back through the eyes of the old man she was trapped inside. She was sobbing as Alice held her¡ªI had the unaccountable urge to cry with them. Something tight had grabbed my heart.


    Trying to process the cocktail of emotions and implications overtaxed the last dregs of my energy. I fainted with tears running down my cheeks.