Reimi

  The light was wrong.

  That was the first thing I registered. A slow, warm diffusion against my eyelids, not the hard, clinical edge of a basement window or the familiar, gloomy dark of Majalis's safebox.

  The second thing was the smell.

  Not the sterile, recycled air of a safehouse or the coppery tang of blood and oil. It was clean. A faint, sweet scent of linen and sunshine and something else... something floral and soapy.

  My eyes snapped open.

  White ceiling. A slow-moving ceiling fan. Pale yellow walls. A window, the curtains sheer enough to let the morning sun bleed through, painting the room in a soft, hazy glow.

  I sat up, my body coiled, my muscles screaming a silent protest.

  I was in a bed.

  A soft bed.

  The sheets were some kind of high-thread-count cotton, cool against my skin. I was wearing a clean, soft white t-shirt that smelled like fabric softener. My clothes were gone. My gear was gone.

  Everything was gone.

  I was naked.

  Not literally. But functionally.

  I swung my legs out of bed, my feet sinking into a plush rug. The room was... civilian. A poster of a band I didn't recognize was taped to the wall. A desk was cluttered with textbooks and a half-finished drawing of a dog. There were clothes thrown over a chair. Normal. Messy. Vulnerable.

  My skin crawled.

  I had told them. I was explicit. "The basement. I'll sleep in the basement." It was concrete. It was subterranean. It had one exit. It was defensible. It was a place to rest, not a place to live.

  But no.

  Maya's mother had insisted. Her name was Helen. A whirlwind of maternal energy and an aggressive refusal to comprehend the word 'no.'

  "You will not sleep in a basement, young lady. It's damp. And full of spiders. Do I look like a woman who raises children in a basement? Now, my guest room is empty. You will take it, young lady, and that is not a request!"

  I had tried to argue. To reason. To simply state my preference and retreat.

  It was like arguing with a typhoon. She simply... steamrolled me. Words, gestures, and an unassailable wall of maternal certainty.

  "You need a real bed. Not a pile of old Army blankets my husband has down there. You'll catch your death. Honestly, the way you kids try to tough it out. A bed is not a luxury, it's a basic human right! Now get in there."

  I had no frame of reference for this. My mother was a concept. A file. A genetic template. The closest I'd come to this kind of... interaction... was Kohaku. And even then, her care was as a peer. A girl who adored children and would fuss over me, but as a friend. A sister.

  A memory, unbidden.

  Star Marigold, her yellow magical girl dress still shimmering with residual energy, helping me to my feet.

  We were enemies. We should have been trying to kill each other.

  Instead, she was dusting off my jacket after the team left me buried in rubble to foil my plot.

  "You push yourself too hard," she'd said, her smile and blue eyes glowing. "How long will we continue this stupid dance?"

  She glowed bright like the sun. Annoyingly cheerful, motherly, and beautiful, but her care was genuine.

  This... this was an alien life form operating on a completely different set of social physics.

  My gaze fell on a folded pile of clothes on the desk chair. Not my gear. Not my black hoodie and cargo pants. This was different.

  A pair of worn-in, blue jeans and belt somehow my exact size. A plain, soft blue hoodie. A simple white t-shirt.

  Civilian clothes. For a civilian.

  A costume.

  My hands moved on their own, my fingers tracing the soft, worn denim. I felt a phantom ache in my knuckles, the ghost of a trigger, the comforting weight of The Withered Calyx gone.

  I dressed mechanically. The jeans were too soft, the hoodie too warm. They smelled like them. Like sunshine and laundry detergent.

  I was a weapon, pretending to be a girl, pretending to be a person. Every fiber of this costume was a lie.

  The floorboards creaked under my feet as I moved to the door. I placed my hand on the cool metal of the doorknob, my senses flaring. I could hear the house breathing. The low hum of the refrigerator. The distant, rhythmic thump-thump of a washing machine in the basement.

  I turned the knob.

  The hallway was quiet. A row of family photos lined the wall. Smiling faces. Birthdays. Vacations. A life. A history. It was a museum of a happiness.

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  I crept down the stairs, silent as a shadow.

  The living room was empty. The morning sun streamed through the windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air.

  And then, a smell hit me.

  Coffee.

  Not the bitter, sludge-like sustenance I brewed over a chemical heat pack. This was rich. Hot. Aromatic.

  And something else.

  Bacon.

  My stomach, a traitorous organ, let out a low, quiet growl.

  I followed the scent to the kitchen.

  Maya's father was standing at the stove, his back to me. He was wearing a pair of gray sweat pants and a simple black v-neck t-shirt that showed off his thick, well-trained forearms.

  He turned, and his face broke into a wide, bright smile.

  "Well, look who's finally up!" he chirped. "Sleeping Beauty, I was about to send out a search party. How'd you sleep?"

  The question hung in the air.

  How did I sleep?

  I didn't sleep. I entered a state of forced dormancy, a low-power mode designed to conserve energy while maintaining minimal situational awareness. I slept with one eye open, my senses attuned to any change in air pressure, any anomalous sound, any shift in the ambient mana field.

  I had cataloged every creak of the house, every distant car alarm, every insect buzzing outside the window.

  "Fine," I said, my voice flat.

  "Fine? Reimi, you were out for twelve hours!" he said, a look of genuine surprise on his face. "The girls said you were running on fumes. You must have been exhausted."

  He turned back to the stove, flipping a strip of bacon with a spatula. The sizzle was a loud, aggressive sound in the quiet kitchen.

  "Toast or english muffin?" he asked.

  I didn't answer. I just stood there, my mind racing.

  What was this?

  ...

  Well.

  This was... breakfast.

  "I'll take that as a toast," he said, not waiting for an answer. He grabbed two slices of a big fancy-looking loaf from a bag on the counter and popped them into a toaster oven.

  He poured two mugs of coffee, black, from a pitcher.

  "Here," he said, holding one out to me. "Careful, it's hot."

  I took the mug. The ceramic was warm against my palms. The steam curled up, carrying the rich, bitter smell. It was... real.

  I took a sip. It was strong. Black. No sugar. No cream. Just coffee.

  It was perfect.

  I hadn't had coffee like this since... since before. Since the Starlight Blossoms.

  I remembered a small, cluttered kitchen in a safe house. A young hafu girl with long, blonde hair tied up with a polka dot ribbon, humming a tuneless song as she swept the floor while brewing tea.

  She had the same look in her eyes. A tired, unrelenting warmth.

  She made the coffee and tea for us too.

  But that was different. That was a team. A unit. A found family forged in the crucible of a war we were losing.

  This was... almost unsettlingly... normal.

  "So," Mr. Hoshino said, his back to me as he arranged bacon on a plate. "Helen's already gone to the bakery. She wanted me to tell you to help yourself to whatever you want. The fridge is your fridge. The pantry is your pantry. Don't be shy."

  He turned, holding out a plate piled high with crispy bacon and scrambled eggs.

  My stomach growled again, louder this time. A deep, primal hunger that I hadn't felt in... a long, long time.

  "We don't stand on ceremony here, Reimi," he said, his voice soft. "You're a guest. But more importantly, you're a friend of my daughter's."

  I frowned.

  "I've known her for all of a day," I stated. "Your judgment is... premature."

  He just smiled, a knowing, gentle smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. His eyes glowed faintly, a soft, green light. He was looking at me.

  Really looking.

  "You and I both know that's not the point," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I saw you two last night. After the... 'mall.'"

  He placed the plate on the kitchen table, along with the toast that had just popped up, golden-brown and perfect.

  "I know what magical exhaustion looks like, kid," he said, his voice dropping to a quiet, serious tone. "I've seen it a thousand times. In my own mirror. You were running on nothing. And she was... she and the girls had to carry you back in from what my wife told me."

  He looked at me, a long, silent, understanding look.

  "You needed a safe place to land," he said. "And this is it. For as long as you need."

  I just stood there, my mind a complete and total blank. I had no response. No protocol. No pre-programmed retort.

  "How much can you see, really? With your eyes?" I asked.

  He chuckled.

  "Enough," he said, his voice quiet. "I can see auras. The wear and tear. Details some might miss. I can see the... scars. Not the ones on your skin. The ones on your soul graph."

  My hands clenched into fists at my sides.

  "What the hell do you know about my soul?" I snarled, my anger flaring, hot and sharp.

  He didn't flinch. He didn't even look surprised.

  "I know enough to know that it's been through a war or two," he said, his voice calm, steady. "And I know enough to know that it deserves a hot breakfast and a quiet morning. Now, are you going to eat those eggs, or am I going to have to eat them for you?"

  He pushed a chair out from the table. An invitation.

  I hesitated for a long, silent moment. My mind was screaming at me to run. To find my gear. To find a dark corner and wait for the next fight.

  But my body... my body was tired. And hungry.

  And the eggs smelled really, really good.

  I sat down.

  The chair was hard. The table was solid.

  "Maya's gone off with her friends already," he said, sitting down across from me. "She said something about a 'strategic debriefing' at the library. She wanted to wait for you, but, well, she also didn't want to wake you."

  He took a sip of his coffee.

  "She's a good kid," he said. "A little naive. A little too trusting. But she's got a good heart. A strong one. She gets that from her mom."

  He looked at me, a long, silent, searching look.

  "And she sees something in you," he said. "And frankly, that's good enough for me."

  I didn't say anything. I just picked up a piece of toast. The crust was perfect. A little bit of butter was melting into the warm, soft bread.

  I took a bite.

  It was... good.

  It was just a toast.

  But it was the best toast I had ever tasted in my entire life.

  We ate in silence. The only sounds were the clinking of forks against plates and the distant, rhythmic hum of the washing machine.

  It was... quiet.

  Too quiet.

  "So," he said, breaking the silence. "What's the plan?"

  I looked up from my plate.

  "The plan?"

  "Yeah," he said, a small smile playing on his lips. "You know. The plan. What are you going to do now? Are you sticking around? Are you heading out? Going to take up some of those bounties as Hanako? What's the next move?"

  I didn't have an answer.

  My plan was to survive. To complete my mission. To continue chasing after Momoka's... spark. But crossing the boundary between worlds wasn't exactly easy.

  But that plan had been... complicated. By a girl with pink pigtails and a ridiculously optimistic worldview. By a boy with a martyr complex and a baseball bat.

  By a plate of eggs.

  "I... I don't know," I said, the words feeling foreign and strange on my tongue.

  He nodded, a slow, thoughtful nod.

  "Well," he said, pushing his empty plate away. "Take your time. Figure it out. There's no rush."

  He stood up, taking his plate and mug to the sink.

  "Towels are in the linen closet. And there's a new toothbrush in the drawer. Still in the plastic."

  He turned on the water, the sound a steady, soothing rush.

  "And... like you. I can see mana too. More importantly, mana density and saturation, you know?" he turned from the sink, a warm smile on his face. "You've got more now. More than yesterday. It looks good on you. Figure you could probably fight at a Class 5 or 6 level right now. Maybe even 7."

  He turned back to the sink, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a half-eaten plate of eggs.

  I looked down at my hands. My fingers. My palms.

  They were clean. No blood. No oil. No grime.

  Just... me.

  A woman. A stranger.

  A weapon without a war, sitting in a sunny kitchen in the suburbs, eating breakfast with a retired hero who not only knew what a soul graph was, but saw mine and wasn't afraid or wary in the slightest.

  I was so completely and utterly out of my depth I didn't know what to think.