CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—that 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—or her—final 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—fascists, even, let’s not kid ourselves. The world is a b—better 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—what I had helped them do. But they should have told me. It felt like they’d specifically avoided using the word “kill”—and 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—and 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—at 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—to be frank—a 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—but 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—three?—days ago, she had been interrupted from spooling into the Spire by my flamefall, but if that had been sufficiently disruptive then—

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—at 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—had it really only been this morning?—had 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—or 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—heh, foot—close 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—

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 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—to 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—in that damnable physics-defying way, like a puppet pulled upright, not levering herself off the doorframe at all—and 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—trying 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—because 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—you’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—but 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—well, 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—er, compared to now, not literally—always 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—she 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—they missed us and Yuuka when they were rounding up the flamefall victims because they thought it had only been Amane who got sparked—I 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—don’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—at 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—”

—she had seized my tattoo again and I was in danger and utterly helpless—

“You love it. You crave it. You want to be able to do it, even if it’s not about killing. Righ—holyshit.”

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—“This has all just been to get another weapon against the PCTF, hasn’t it? You want my knowledge and my Flame, not me.”

“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—you 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—fine, 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—let me help you, cutie. For you and for me.”

“By hurting me. By showing me how to hurt.”

“Yeah! Listen—you’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—this 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—hadn’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—”

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—no, I am sorry, really, but—I’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—I 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.

—

“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—when 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—to 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—I 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—but 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—real ones, Pretty Cure, the Sailor Scouts, chosen by some natural force of good—they 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—don’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—possibly 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—a 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—well, 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—the chair.”

“Talk to Ebi-tan. Actually—I could help you order some furniture now, if you want.”

“Um—really, 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—which was silly. Actually—I 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.”

—

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—not 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—had 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—to 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—then 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.

—

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—unhappy, 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—

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—I 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”—Moth’s phrasing left it ambiguous whether they had meant the magic of their transformations or literal sexual innuendo—but 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—but 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—thanks Dad—which 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—or 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—okay, 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—a 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—she 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—and 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—a 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—I 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—”

“‘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—

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—”

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—Emerald, that is—said 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—friends 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—I 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—maybe 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—fuck 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—just 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—not sex. Um—not that I don’t want that, you’re very attractive, but this is—to 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—no, 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—not 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—fuck, 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—we both have some blind spots. That’s—mutual 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—can’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—yes, 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—you did. And I’m still worrying this is a mistake. Prove me wrong.”

“Gladly. C’mere.”

—

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—though 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—embodied 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—

Demanded an introduction.

---

Author’s Note:

And, scene!

Thus concludes Arc 1: From On High. Really more like a book than an “arc”, cause really what does that word even mean, but that’s my naming convention and I’m sticking to it.

The story’s success across these past few months has just blown me away. From avid discussion in the Discord and beyond, to out-of-the-blue shoutouts (those are two separate links) that did silly and beautiful things to the story’s numbers, to being #1 on TopWebFiction for a little while; it’s been so surreal and incredible. Thank you all so much. It’s been incredibly rewarding for my first original story to do so well.

And, of course, thank you to the beta readers, without whom Sunspot would simply not be possible. Softies, Maria, Zak, Cassiopeia, I know I thank you incessantly, but here’s an extra one.

Also, I’m thinking about bringing on a few new beta readers, maybe. If you’re interested, reach out in the Discord!

---

Let’s talk about what happens from now.

Tomorrow, you’ll see another chapter go up: an end-of-arc postmortem, in which I’ll ramble about Sunspot’s DNA. It’ll be fun!

2.01 dropped on Royal Road and on Scribblehub on October 11th, 2024. Which is a Friday. We’re releasing on Fridays, once a week. Specifically, three Fridays in a row, then one off. That’s right: starting next arc, Sunspot will be on a 3-1 schedule where I take the first week of every month off (approximately. there may be some drift at first). This is for planning’s sake; I want the story to be as good as possible, and doing enough roadmapping and writing ahead to ensure that while maintaining an average of 1200 words a day without breaks isn’t feasible for now.

Next up: along with 2.01 releasing publicly, 2.02 will also release, but only on the…

Patreon! Super happy to announce that you can now throw money at me every month to help support Sunspot and for benefits. Depending on the tier, rewards (starting when arc 2 does) will include:

• Being one week ahead of public chapters (note: as stated above, this inter-arc hiatus will still be a full three weeks for both public and Patreon. Gotta build up my backlog, you know how it is)
• Bonus dubiously-canon side stories which are mostly an excuse for me to spitball fun ideas, depending on the tier.
• Patreon-only discussion rooms in the Discord for discussion of those first two things

Further details are on the page.

Long term, I’d like to write Sunspot full time, and the idea of being able to support myself financially through writing is really exciting. But I don’t want to put the cart before the horse on that, so we’ll see how this goes. There are other ways to monetize, but I don’t want to sign onto a Kindle Unlimited exclusivity contract; I always want Sunspot to be free to read. Maybe the side stories could eventually be bundled for itch.io or something, though. Comments and suggestions appreciated!

So, yeah. That’s arc 1, done and dusted. To recap, big postmortem author’s note thing tomorrow, and after that, Sunspot will resume with Arc 2: Trick Of The Light on Friday, October 11.

Join the Discord to discuss the story and hang out with other Sunspot readers!

Join the Patreon to support the story and read chapters three weeks ahead of public!

September 21, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—I 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.”

—

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—Hina 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—

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—” I asked between heaving breaths, eyes still squeezed shut as I tried to fight down the residual urge to vomit, “—the fuck—did we not—just 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—damn, 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—oh, shit—”

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—

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—

“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—it’s on the other side of the world! It took you two hours—” I glanced at Ebi, who nodded in confirmation of the number, “—to 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—” she jabbed a finger at me with such viciousness that I flinched despite knowing I wasn’t the target of her ire, “—has 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—fuckin’ hell, Hina, you know this! I might have to explain this to him—” she pointed at me again, a softer gesture this time, “but not you! And he’s right, by the by—once 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—my 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—little wonder when the heat around Opal had become extreme enough to make her image shimmer.

After what felt like minutes of tense, explosive silence—probably only fifteen or twenty seconds in hindsight—Hina 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—then 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—remarkably 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.

—

The Thunder Horse Inferno, as the incident in the Gulf of Mexico would later come to be called—named for the oil platform—had 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—Brianna, 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—and 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—no 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—yeah, 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—”

“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—gan!” 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—all hard planes and spiny bits—but 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—or rather, uncharacteristic lack thereof—made 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—I 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—” she waved vaguely in the direction of the fires, “—like 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—”

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—”

“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—fuck, 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—visibly 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—and 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—it’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.”

“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—you—you 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—you 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—that 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.”

—

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—pushed 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—because 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—had 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—”

“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—oh.” 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—Hina 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—”

“—you 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—and 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—” 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’—hell. 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—shelving 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—she 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—impulsive. 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—oh, 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.

—

“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—allegedly unmatched, at least outside of the Spire—made 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—a 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—from 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—but 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—they 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—we 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—”

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—we 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—I—I 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—how 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—Why 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—Ez, no, look at me.” She reached forward and took my hand gently. “I’m—Hina 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—”

“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—would 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—nevermind that my injury had been self-inflicted. She nudged Ebi, muttering something. The android translated.

“It’ll take some time. Just—breathe. 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 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—yes, 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—I’d just helped with the means.

“But you should have stopped me,” I whispered.

---

Author’s Note:

FYI: Heliotrope is both a gemstone (AKA bloodstone) and a flower. Yuuka is based on the former, in keeping with the team’s theme. Yes, she gets annoyed when people mix them up and wonder why she’s not purple.

Anyway. Murder, am I right? Very 魔法少女, so I hear. All the cool girls are doing it. Especially when they’re giant mecha girls with magic artillery and the people they’re murdering are MIC-backed kidnappers. If you’re not at least a little bit of an Amethyst fan after this chapter, I don’t know what to tell you.

Huge thanks as usual to Cassiopeia, Maria, Softies, and Zak. Beta reading really elevated this chapter.

One other thing: Boost on TopWebFiction! Back when this chapter first came out, we were #1 (above Worm!) and it’d be cool to see that again on rerelease here.

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September 15, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—from 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—” she waved up and down my half-hunched figure, more outwardly tense than her even though I was far less lethal, “—this? You’re freaked; you saw something, right? Tell me!”

I stumbled through a recounting of what had happened—keeping my shaking voice low, also wary of passersby—and 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—why had I known? Some kind of link between our Flames from last night’s contact? Could that even happen? My Flame said nothing—not 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—to 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—if 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—surprised, 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—why 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—definitely magic, kinda crunchy ripple. But I’m not smelling anything.”

“Crunchy?”

“Uh—red-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—”

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—inspecting me in some odd glyphless manipulation of her Flame I couldn’t sense or understand—the 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—yet.”

“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—what if they’re still out there? What if that was the Peacies or, like, Hikanome or—”

“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.

—

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—that 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—and 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—or 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—I 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—for 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—Lipton brand, even, familiarly nostalgic. “See!”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She tilted her head—too 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—these 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—trying 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—not 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—

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—I’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—no corn chips, no pretzels. Wait—almost 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—no 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—okay, no, that’s actually pretty yummy, but like—it’s just—ugh!”

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—about 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—

“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—I 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—and I wasn’t going to admit that.

“Oh, yeah, that’s—on the coast, isn’t it? So, er—born 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—embarrassing 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—

“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—

“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—”

“Noooo.”

“She—she 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—still 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—a curious contrast from her other Flame-enmeshed teammate’s ravenous appetite—but by now, I rather felt she should be eating something.

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.

—

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—a 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—and 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—but 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—damnably desirable as that prospect was, conjuring images of more shredded clothes and bloody marks on my skin. In fact—don’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—

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—you 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—if 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—I 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—did 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—it’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—no, it doesn’t.” I checked the room; no rubbish bin. “What do I do with it?”

—

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—rather 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—regular human teeth once more—only 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— complete with digital volume indicators, which were sort of fascinating—and 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—made 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—it 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—are 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—Shinjuku 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!”

—

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—just 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—my 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—I 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—on the cheaper side, yeah?”

“Mhm. The way you were dressed when I picked you up—is that normal for you? Jeans and turtlenecks?”

“Uh, in the winter, yeah. Well—not 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.

—

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—for 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—at 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—until 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—the 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—I’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—and 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—if 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—but 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—couldn’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—I’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—I absently glanced over at the dressing rooms, my subconscious dredging up that wild fantasy that had helped drag me down last night—I 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—‘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—which 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—fine, 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—fine?” 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—ah, fuck, we need to talk about it when we’re done here, I think? It’s—it’s all just been an extremely weird few days, you know? And I don’t know if I’m ready for—if I want—well.”

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—”

“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—you 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—she 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.

---

Author’s Note:

Ahem. Anyway.

Thank you as usual to the beta readers: Softies, Maria, Zak, and Cassiopeia. As always, this chapter would not be half as good without their feedback; heck, this chapter wouldn’t have even been out on time if not for their regular prodding to get me onto the keyboard.

Join the Discord to discuss the story and hang out with other Sunspot readers!

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September 7, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—some seven thousand meters up—which 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—apparently 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—did 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—without comment, mercifully—and 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—though 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—not nearly as blue as Hina’s eyes, a slightly disquieting thought—and 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—immigration, 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—loud in the hush of the byzantine labyrinth, though no louder than her own voice had been while rambling about some shrine in Akasaka—and 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—these 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—” 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—employees, probably—directed 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—that’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—forces, 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—or 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—I 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—

Opal’s hand gripped my wrist, fingers pressed over the tattoo. The lattice wouldn’t budge—she 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—

“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—

“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—and 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—

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.

“Okay. Sorry, again. Can we keep going?”

“Yes. If you need to go down—just 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—I 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—it’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—she 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—hopefully she still had an appetite for souvenirs from me after Opal’s video—and 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—bitten, 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—especially 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—what do you think of her? I mean—she’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—but 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—how 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—I 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—apology 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—

“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—

“That’s the scar.”

“Yep. Right mess. Not our proudest moment.”

The sky above the city—specifically above the port, to the southeast—had 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—three 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—a 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—but 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—frankly, 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—yeah, 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—well, you’re committed, and I promised I wouldn’t keep questioning that. So…good luck?”

—

We left Tochou the same way we came in, through the front, first descending those two hundred meters down to ground level—two different elevator rides—and 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—Hina’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—” Too many eyes on me to dare use the Japanese without risk of embarrassment. “—magical 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—indeed, some of them might be people Star knew—my 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—that 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—sorry. 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—how 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—a 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—

“Oh, Ezzen. It’s not—it 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—really 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—it’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—okay, 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—that’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—my left, so as not to put more weight on my bad leg, which I appreciated—then 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—and 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—call 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—though she had been a bit vague about exactly how close. Nothing for it. I began to walk in the direction she had indicated.

—

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—Hiltons, 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 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—not 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—then 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—which 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—no contact lens could refract away that impossible blue. Could magic? Yes, trivially—but 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—a 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—

“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.

---

Author’s Note:

If you’re ever in Tokyo, I highly, highly recommend visiting one of the observation decks, either at Tochou, Roppongi Hills, Shibuya Sky, or especially Skytree. It’s incredible, especially if you don’t have hangups about altitude like Ez does; hopefully the prose conveys the sheer absurd scale. It really does just sort of fade into the horizon.

Thanks to the beta readers: Softies, Maria, Cassiopeia, and Zak.

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August 31, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—no 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—thank 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—the 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—yet 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—the untainted love in their heart, that sort of thing—to do battle against evil monsters.”

I nodded, already seeing some of the real-world parallels, though our kind—still wasn’t used to thinking of myself as the in-group—were 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—the parts derived from Spire dermis—but 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—ask Ai to show you her back binding sometime.”

“I—I’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—yeah, 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—but 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—about 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—” 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—really?” 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—I always ignored similar videos of the Vaetna saying the Spire’s catchphrase when they showed up in my recommended page—but 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—though 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—can’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—we’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—”

“Do you like it?”

“—our 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—lots 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—as 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?”

“That’s another spot where theory sort of bows to praxis. Case in point—see these trees on our left? That’s Meiji Jingu, the biggest shrine in Japan. It’s attached to Yoyogi Park. Next week, Hikanome—er, Sun’s Blessing—is 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—have an obligation to—protect 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—her 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—she 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—they’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—it’s on their heads.” Her voice could have cut diamond. “This doesn’t leave this car or the penthouse, you understand?”

“I—yes, 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—we 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—” 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.”

—

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—before ‘ripple’ was even in the vocabulary for magic—as 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—“Paranatural Event Origin,” as the endless documents had put it back then, already denuded of personhood—and 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—

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—it 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—but 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—they would if Japan was a NATO member, but they’re not—you 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—fine. 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—or, 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—how 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—for 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—besides, 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:

コリオー・エッゼン

“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: ダルトン. “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—but I’m getting off track. You can just stick with katakana. Like how I write Arisu for my name.” She scribbled it: アリス.

“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—but 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—great. Tokyo is so good for food tourism, you have no idea. And they put out the red carpet for us—although 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—before 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—case 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—it felt a little appropriative—and 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—” 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—this 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—great power, great responsibility—but 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—indeed, 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—something like “I think you can acknowledge and take advantage of a disparity of power without putting yourself on a pedestal”—but 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—eye contact wasn’t exactly a strong point for me—but 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—cashews, 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: ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ – ˵ ) ✧

“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—but 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—

From what I now understood of the concept, such a move would not be mahou shoujo in the slightest.

---

Author’s Note:

Now we’re really crunching into some of the politics. Magical girls are serious business!

Thanks to the beta readers: Softies, Cassiopeia, Zak, and Maria.

If you want to gush about Ezzen’s eggness, make predictions, or dissect all the flaws in the worldbuilding directly to my face, I invite you to do so in the Discord!

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August 24, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—what Ebi had called the inner bathing chamber, containing equal halves shower and bath—to 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—my 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—only one of which was really functional anyway—and 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—“don’t escalate to violence when outgunned”—was 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—I 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—impressive, 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—in 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—speak 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—“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—particularly 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, “—which 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—”

“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—just 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—but 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—with 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—however that worked, something I hoped to discuss but was unsure I’d be able to bring up—would 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—perhaps 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—but 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—what 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—at 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—despite nobody being around to witness the mistake—and 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—mauve, perhaps—and 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—I 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—

“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—on 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—indeed my only medical staff, it seemed—inspired relief at her absence. Her bedside manner truly sucked.

“Er—yeah, 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—fine, 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—not 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—but she could have just said so.

“Alright. I could get your crutches?”

“I—Alice, 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?”

“Er—no, I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Sorry for intruding. Um—anything 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—okay, Ez, stop that, my rational mind replied. I was just aggravated from the embarrassment of the tumble. If I had been hurt—and I could have been—

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 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—but 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—the 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—which this time felt a little like applying an ice-cold cheese grater to my lungs, for some reason—weaving 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—for a given value of clean—and 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—I’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—

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”—bearable 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—pain. I sat back down hurriedly.

“Fuck.”

“Analgesoid not taking?”

“No, the burn’s fine, it’s—I 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—‘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—I 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.

—

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—blueberry or plain, I couldn’t tell—and 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—sorry, Emerald, that still gets us too sometimes—will 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—do 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—”

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—and I was sure that was what it was, language barrier notwithstanding—lasted 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—” 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.

---

Author’s Note:

Ezzen’s poor spear. It’s trying its best. (unbelievably, not a euphemism!)

Extra special thanks to the beta readers for putting in overtime for the last few hours of editing this. Cassiopeia, Softies, Zak, Maria: You guys rock.

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August 10, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—argh. 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—think 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—which 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—no 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—I 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—well, 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—the 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—I 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—I 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—I 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.”

—

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—well, 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—she 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—

“Plain or blueberry?”

“Huh?”

“Plain. Or. Blueberry?”

She enunciated each word with a grin. She had done the same thing last night—I 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—stop looking at her boobs—keep going—I looked instead at the cooking supplies arrayed before her. That had been maybe the longest second of my life.

“Oh. Um—blueberry, 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—even 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—then looked down at the Sailor Moon shirt Opal had given me last night, blushing. I felt the need to clarify.

“It—doesn’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—”

“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—Ebi said I should clean it first, and I didn’t want to do that before bre—oof.”

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—my 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—yeah.”

“Good. O—hokay, 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—yeah.” I shut my eyes and tried to visualize the first glyph, the {NULL} with its modified W shape, and—

“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—no, 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—I 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—no.”

“You just loop at the end of—oh, 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—yeah, 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—but 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—though done in reverse—and tying off the end.

“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—I 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—and 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—and 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—this. 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—then 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—”

“Food first. Yelling after.”

A girl had to have priorities, I supposed. I took her hand, and she pulled me to my feet—well, just the one—and 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—pocketspace? 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—but 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—paused as Opal tutted faintly at her from the kitchen—retracted 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—this 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—though 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—I 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—mine 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—eight? 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—probably 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—they’re juicy.” There was more to it than that—a trip to Oregon with my dad—but 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—even though I probably ought to—because 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—rice 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—Ai’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—hadn’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—then 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—but 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—proper 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—that’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—”

“Hina.”

“—whatever 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—”

“Hina.” This time, Opal’s eyes flashed. “I’m not letting you drag him around Tokyo—before 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—and 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—

“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—then 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—I’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—fine. Hina. You are not to touch him. Don’t give me more headaches today with your feral—”

“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—” 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—or callousness—to 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—”

“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—

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—hold 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—disdain, perhaps—for 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—not 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—wow, 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—whoa—”

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—

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—well, maybe she had, but the lean had just been her dodging the wrathful projectile. I turned back to Opal—who 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—yeah?”

“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.”

---

Author’s Note:

Oh no, Ez, you’d have to wear skirts. This outcome must be avoided at all costs. Right?

Thanks to the beta readers: Cassiopeia, Softies, Zak, Maria. I feel like I say it every week, but this chapter got a lot stronger with their feedback.

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August 3, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—but 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—I 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—

“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—but 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—but 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—

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—even though it most certainly did. She was just so hot—had 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—well, 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—

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—there 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—was 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—but 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—at 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—slow 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—and second and third, I still wasn’t even a little over that—and 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—not 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—” 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—oh no. Are you alright?”

I really didn’t know. Maybe? There was genuine worry on her face—I 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—guilt? 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—I 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—a 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—no, 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—and 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—” I had to reach to remember her actual name. “Alice. These—” I gestured at the bite marks, “—are 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—wondering 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—that last one was an unwelcome first for me.

“It does, but—you 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—I…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—good.” I didn’t want to ask more about her condition. “Oh. Er—Hina 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—can 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.”

I almost pouted. She was right, but—glyphcraft! 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—but Todai did have the infrastructure to make third-order substrate. And if Hina was indeed most like the Vaetna—would 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—no? 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—yes, 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—will 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—thanks.”

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—if 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—”

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—if that were the case…

Even aside from that—did 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—but 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—yeah, 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—thank 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—I 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—what 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—they rightfully figured they had me.

As things turned out, they didn’t. After a tense minute of waiting—during which I had been busy discovering awful truths about the Flame and subsequently passing out down there in the dark—something 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—I 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—probably 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—now 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—but 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—which 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—the 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—relative 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—yep, 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—but 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—it 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—or where my toes had used to be—making my stomach clench as I gripped my ankle.

“Fuck.”

It settled into more of a dull ache after a moment—but 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—a 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.

—

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—possibly 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—earlier 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—whether 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—nothing 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—

I dreamed.

—

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—”

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.

---

Author’s Note:

As usual, thanks to the beta readers: Softies, Cassiopeia, Zak, and Maria.

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July 27, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

Sexual content with dubious consent.

“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—Ebi had helpfully informed me it was called seiza, legs folded under her—upon 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—showing you how to use the subway, things like that. I’d also—well, 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—I have a thing with the merch people at one—but 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—oh.” She pulled out her phone. “Contact info.”

That—well, 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—but 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—well, once we made up—but 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—”

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: よろしくね

With rudimentary contact info shared—I was already in contact with Ebi via the chatroom—Opal 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—it 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—hmm. 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: 獣の方には立入禁止. 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—unless 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—I 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—undercut 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—had they forgotten to give me a bed? Then I saw the archway in the left wall and had an extremely strange moment of dissonance—I 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—no 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—nine 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—I 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—I 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—yeah, big enough.”

Honestly too big—both 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—then 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 wail pierced my chest. The voice was human, not tinkling gemstones—and 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—well, it’s not serious, I think, but—” 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—the 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—I shouldn’t be seeing this. I averted my eyes as Opal pulled the door open further and slipped past me toward her teammate—her girlfriend? Not the time. She turned back to me just outside the threshold, apologetic and a little awkward.

“I’m sorry about this.”

“No—don’t worry, it’s fine, really, I get it. Um—if 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—

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—what?”

I parsed the words, at least the English ones—I 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—a small jolt of residual pain made me flinch. I hesitated again—braced 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—or perhaps because of those things—I got the message.

We’re not made of glass. It transcended spoken language. She wanted me to know—I 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—Amane 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—I’m sorry. She’s going to need care for the rest of the night—if 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—but 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—and 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—I 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.

—

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—depending on how you valued them—the 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—Japan 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—didn’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—how 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—a 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—a 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—

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—the sign wouldn’t have stopped her anyway. Fantastic.

“Why are you—in 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—you’re on board?”

Alice didn’t want to see her because she kept bothering me, if I understood correctly. I rather shared the sentiment—I 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—know how to use it.”

She ran her fingertip along the blade. It didn’t draw blood—whether 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.”

My tattoo itched. I had to make space between us, had to get away from this thing—my 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—she 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—good. 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—grabbed my wrist. I flinched and made to take out my spear—

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—then 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—the 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—what 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—ugh, 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—so 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—yes, 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—have 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—what 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—no, 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—or 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—then stopped, because that was a great point, actually. Clothes hadn’t even crossed my mind. Even so—

“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—I 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—I 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—just 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—but 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—well, 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—not 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—surely 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—but 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—fuck, 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—dress-up. We go in, we get clothes I like, we get out. Also, no—paparazzi?” 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—walking 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—but I pulled out my phone just to confirm. Opal had said to tell her if I needed something—but 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—actually, 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—I 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—do 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—because 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—I’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—

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—”

And she was past it instantly, pushing me down, leaning over me—

“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—and 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—if 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—a 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—suffice 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—in 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—at 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—and 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—” 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—but 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—”

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—I 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—all 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—why 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—but ‘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—so 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—I 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—what 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—it 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—and 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—she 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—“closest to the Vaetna’s?” Change? That was awful in its own way, by implication, but if it were true—

“Let me show you how. I said it this morning—you 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—

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—

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—I 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—her 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—

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—

Only then did she get off me, breaking the contact. I took a heaving gasp—and 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—I had to play her game, use my leverage. Establish boundaries.

“That—what the fuck? Never do—”

But I did want her to do it again. That scared me even more than she did.

“…just warn me?”

As establishing boundaries went—blatant 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—I 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—that 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—I 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—and this was truly boggling—she 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—well, I felt the pulse too. Not sure where it came from—Yuuka 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—was 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—it 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—no 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—and I could endure that, I wasn’t made of glass. For power—the 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—more for Amane’s sake by proxy than concern for my own wellbeing. What was she doing to me?

“That’s—yeah, you should. Good—good 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.

---

Author’s Note:

Whew. Spicy.

Uh, hi, website readers! These chapters are being put up months after they were first posted over on Scribblehub, so the author’s notes have been pretty sparse until now to keep me from muddying the chapter’s impression with my retrospective rambling. But I’m breaking my silence, because I know that for some readers, this chapter will put them off the story as a whole.

Back when I originally posted this chapter, I was very, very nervous, and indeed the reaction to Hina after this chapter has been rather…split, though overall far more positive than I was expecting. Who knows, that may have partially been SHub selection bias. Either way, for those of you who got a lot of ick from this chapter but made it to the end: I’m going to ask you to trust me. This won’t get glossed over.

For the rest of you, those who did like this scene: teeth! That will be all.

Thanks as usual to Softies, Zak, Maria, Cassiopeia for beta reading.

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July 20, 2024

CONTENT WARNINGS

None

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—February 12th—but 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—why 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—apparently this was part of that. Speaking of whom—the 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—it’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—with 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—carrot 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—once 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—if 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—way, way too invasive. Ai looked genuinely confused as it was. “Why would you?”

“Er—Sapphire said I wouldn’t be the first male one.”

Ai actually put her face in her hands at that.“That’s—ugh. She’s so—” she collapsed into Japanese for a moment, mostly directed at Ebi, who rubbed her shoulders and set about redoing her ponytail. “—classified. It’s classified. No, you don’t have to join. I’m sorry if Hina-san made that unclear.”

“Alright. That’s—a 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—” I tried again. “This is—what 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—doubly 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—I’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—it 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.”

—

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—Sapphire 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—I 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—no hard feelings, right? You’re still staying?”

“I—you 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—but 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—not—” come on, spit it out, I can do it—“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—stowed 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—I 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—and 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—but 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—or fairy, according to Ebi?—had layers. So did I, maybe. Ai had said we were alike—maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing? Well—no, 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—and 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—I’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—

She moved past the robot in a way that made no sense—

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—”

“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—that was the rub, wasn’t it? My suspicions were baseless; he couldn’t have known, he wasn’t—I 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—but 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—possibly 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—we 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—either way, I’d probably manage to make it awkward, but that was beyond my control.

The elevator stopped.

The 19th floor—and the 20th, apparently—had 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—I 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.

“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—Brazilian? 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—but one applied with all the precision of a scalpel, famously calculating and cool under pressure. As a result, she was—ostensibly—the 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—could you call me that instead?”

Uncharacteristically bold of me—Hina was rubbing off on me, maybe. That conjured the idea of her rubbing—nope. 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—yoroshiku 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—very 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—yeah.” 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—which I’m not really sure about—and 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—yes.”

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—we 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—she 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—that’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—but 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—but 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—good. 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—Opal just nodded.

“No objections from us. Hina is…well, too eager to have you here, maybe, but we’ll work on that—but 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—everyone 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—but this was a ludicrously nice living space.

“I—sure. 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—”

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—then switched to English, carrying that whine with her. “I’ll just—”

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—I 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—Ebi 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—and 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—ah. 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—it 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—maybe ‘blades’ was more accurate—flared 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—though 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—no, 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—too long and reinforced at the joints—as 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—to 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—and 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—‘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—incredible.” 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—ripple 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—er, need to revise that. If you’re using an orange link there, Bri said on stream today—uh, yesterday—that 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—”

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—but 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.”

—

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—that had been intended for later—and 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, 響き. The concept was slightly different between the languages; it meant ‘echo’ rather than ripple. High ripple was therefore koukyou, 高響, low ripple was teikyou, 低響, 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—

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—although 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—or 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—since 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—yes, 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—some things transcended language—squeezed 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”—I 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—what 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—

“This what I think it is?”

“Yes, just tug.”

I did—magically, not physically—and 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—the mechanical one—grabbed 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—”

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—it 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—didn’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—what got you into magic? Other than your general proclivity for the Vaetna.”

I had been blushing, unused to face-to-face compliments—I 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—forgive any presumptions—prevent 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—make 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—inferno 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—I 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—no, 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—this 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—if 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.”

---

Author’s Note:

As usual, thanks to the beta readers: Cassiopeia, Maria, Zak, and Softies. You rock.

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July 13, 2024