Morning in Tokyo tasted like clean metal and citrus. Suncrest HQ ran quieter after a good day; the ops floor hummed with tidy graphs and the liminal clatter of keyboards. Anastasia Shimizu stretched in the training bay, rolling her neck until it clicked like a polite metronome. Kana was doing handstand pushups against a wall while complaining about gravity's poor customer service. Raina had her rifle disassembled on a charm-cloth, a prismatic naga eye set aside like a jewel she wasn't quite ready to spend. Miyu stood by a practice dummy, tracing careful circles of antiseptic light, rehearsing whole-body mend sequences the way a pianist runs scales.
Ootori clapped once. "Quick notes. Coalition commendations posted. City Hall sent the fruit basket. Do not eat the mystery durian."
Kana, upside-down: "What if it eats me first?"
"Let it," Raina murmured, slotting a spring. "We'll bill it."
Anastasia smiled and fastened the Aegis to her forearm, feeling the familiar weight find home. The Aegis thrummed low—a cat purr only she could hear.
Her HUD chimed, a soft bell:
[CIVIC APTITUDE UNLOCKED]
Public Assurance — Passive: When broadcasting on open channel within 50m of civilians or non-combat staff, allies gain +1% HP/sec morale regen and –20% Panic Spread. Stacks with Sanctuary Field diminutively.
Condition: Keep voice calm. (You always do.)
"New trick?" Miyu asked, noticing her blink.
"Just a little Public Assurance," Anastasia said, amused. "Apparently, bureaucracy likes it when we speak softly."
Kana thumped back to floor. "Do you get paid extra for being soothing? Because I can try my customer service voice."
Raina, dry: "Your customer service voice owes back taxes."
Ootori's wristband buzzed. A second later, everyone's did. The ops screens pivoted to an emergency slate.
IGA PRIORITY: PROTECTED ZONE GATE — SETAGAYA (KINUTA GENERAL HOSPITAL).
CLASS: Bronze swarm initial → Silver/Gold probability rising. TYPE: INVERSION (internal dungeon).
NOTE: Gate anchored inside hospital atrium. Bystanders include patients, staff. Civic escalator Tier V if damage < threshold.
Orders: Suncrest primary, Dragonspear support en route, East-Ward staging outside. Cloud Ladder unavailable (Yokohama).
Ootori didn't raise her voice. "We'll be kind inside a hospital," she said. "And fast. Load med-friendly gear. No explosives. No shock grenades. Kana, you'll want the foam gauntlets. Raina, subsonic rounds for close quarters. Miyu, you'll triage as we move. Nana—anchor as usual. But remember, walls echo differently in a place like that."
"Yes," Anastasia said, already stepping into motion. "We'll make a hallway and call it safe."
Kana whooped, securing soft-padded gauntlets that looked like cartoon hands but hid smart foam that stiffened on impact. "Hospital money is the good kind—righteous yen!"
Raina slid a suppressor on and checked her sling. "Righteous yen still gets taxed," she said. "Let's earn and file."
Miyu tucked extra field kits into her pack and, as they jogged for the van, tugged at Anastasia's sleeve. "You said chiffon again after training."
"We'll earn it twice," Anastasia said, and there was a promise in how she shouldered her shield that made Miyu's pulse settle.
Kinuta General Hospital had that smell everyone knows: antiseptic, rubber, coffee trying its best. The atrium ceiling soared with skylights and little potted trees that made illness feel like it might tolerate sunlight. Patients in gowns stared, nurses shepherded, a doctor barked orders that had nothing to do with monsters and everything to do with keeping a ward together.
The Gate hung under the skylight like a folded iris—petals of glassy air bending inward. The warning boards had updated: INVERSION GATE: ENTRY REQUIRED. EXIT ON BOSS CLAIM.
Officer Takada stood at the sliding doors, looking relieved and out of place. "They keep putting me on your shifts," he said, trying to grin.
"And you keep doing great work," Anastasia said. "Hello, Doctor…?"
"Fujimoto," said a compact woman in a lab coat with tired eyes and perfect posture. "Chief of Emergency. The thing is singing, and I don't mean metaphorically. People are weepy."
"Auditory compulsion," Miyu said, already weaving a small ward near the admissions desk. "We'll counter with dampeners."
"Gate type?" Raina asked, peering up.
"Inversion," Ootori's voice came over comms from the sidewalk post. "Environment inside is typically… themed. This hospital gives it an anchor to pull at. Expect 'caretaker' motifs and corridor mechanics. Keep collateral down."
Kana flexed the foam. "If a boss throws a bed at me, I'm keeping it."
"Beds are expensive," Dr. Fujimoto said reflexively. "Please don't."
"Understood," Anastasia said. She stepped into the atrium and lifted her voice on open channel. "Kinuta staff, patients, and visitors—thank you for staying calm. We'll be in and out as quickly as we can. The gate will attempt to echo your worries. That's its trick. Ours is better."
You could feel the room ease—Public Assurance layering under the hospital's hum, bending fear away from panic.
She checked her slate:
[STATUS — ANASTASIA SHIMIZU]
Class: Paladin (Tank) Tier: S (x1,000 Human baseline)
Guild: Suncrest (Tokyo Chapter)
Vitals: HP 100% | Stamina 100% | Resolve 100%
Mitigation: DEF +320% (gear), RES +65% (baseline), Block 45%
Auras: Sanctuary Field (–30% enemy ATK, +2% HP/sec ally regen) [Ready]
Passives: Perfect Guard; Public Assurance (Civic) [Active]
Oath: Mother's Aegis — Redirect lethal hit on ally within 15m; 60s CD
Environment Prep: Soft-surface boot caps; Non-sparking edges; Hydrophobic Overlay [Standby]
Actives:
• Divine Bulwark — 10s 90% DR behind shield. [Ready]
• Provocation of the Saint — 15m AoE taunt; +20% DEF (10s). [Ready]
• Radiant Maul — Charged DEF-scale strike; stuns Bronze/Silver; staggers Gold. [Ready]
• Aegis Surge — Shield rush corridor. [Ready]
• Breakwater Vow — Horizontal curtain; absorbs wave/breath. [Ready]
• NEW: Wardwalk — For 8s, Aegis treats doors, curtains, and non-loadbearing obstacles as compliant—passes without damage, leaving frames intact. 60s CD. [Ready]
"Wardwalk?" Kana said, peeking. "Oh that's tasteful."
"Hospital-specific boon," Miyu said. "Gate likes theme; so do helpers."
Anastasia faced the Inversion's petals. "We go in, we respect the space, we keep it small." She nodded to Takada and Dr. Fujimoto. "We'll bring your atrium back in one piece."
"Bring yourselves back," Dr. Fujimoto said. "Atriums can be rebuilt."
Anastasia bowed. "We will."
They stepped through.
Inversion space is the eerie comfort of a place you know, crooked. Suncrest emerged into a corridor that almost was a hospital: floors too shiny, light too soft, signs in a font that looked like the memory of a font. The ceiling hissed with a faint wind like breath in a mask. Doors lined either side; each had a window glazed with fog that cleared when you looked away.
Kana cracked her neck. "Hate it."
Raina adjusted her sling and kept her muzzle down. "Left is a loop. Right is the boss lane. The place wants us to walk story beats."
Miyu closed her eyes. "There's a pull toward… kindness. Like the world is asking for a gentle answer."
"Then we answer gently," Anastasia said, setting the Aegis. "Sanctuary up."
The dome unfolded in warm gold. The corridor stopped trying to breathe at them and settled for being a corridor.
A bronze Caretaker Wisp drifted out of the first door, wearing the suggestion of a cardigan and a pocketful of sadness. It reached for Kana, hands like mist.
"Pardon me," Kana said, and palmed it into the wall so softly she might as well have tucked it into bed. It dissolved like dust in sunlight.
"Subjugation payout?" Kana chirped, habit.
Raina scanned the floating tooltip. "¥6,500 here. Hospital rates are lower for trash; bonuses are in completion and collateral."
"Roger," Kana said, slightly put out. "We're doing it for the hugs."
"Some of us always were," Anastasia said.
Bronzes clumped thick around signage points; Silvers pressed in as elbowless orderlies with IV pole spears that clicked against her shield like impatient knitting needles. She didn't slam them. She re-directed—angles, fulcrums, gentle damage that read as denial in matrices. The Aegis soaked a "sedative fog" exhale; numbers scrolled—converted to heat; status resist; negligible—and the fog softened to the smell of hand soap, less sinister than nostalgic.
They took stairs that bent sideways in the middle like an anxious thought. The boss arena announced itself in architecture even before the gate framed it: a ward with curtains pulled, clocks without hands, a nurses' station at the center like an altar.
The Boss stood on the far side, or maybe uncoiled—a tall figure draped in white with sleeves that turned to streamers of gauze, face hidden behind a mirror-bright mask. Where feet should be, a nest of cables and tubes writhed gently, attached to nothing. Bells hung from IV poles, ringing at no one's touch.
BELL-MOTHER WARDEN — Gold-Class (Thematic).
Mechanics: Care Call (pull), Curtain Sweep (cone), Chart Audit (debuff), Code Blue (adds).
Harmony Risk: Medium (Hospital clocks).
"Hello," Anastasia said, because she always did. "We're here to keep people safe."
The Bell-Mother turned its mask toward her. Anastasia saw—very clearly, very clinically—herself holding this entire corridor together while her own knees shook.
"Honestly," Anastasia said gently, "same."
Kana cracked gauntlets until the foam squeaked. "Money check?"
Ootori's voice came in: "Base Gold in protected zone is ¥240,000,000. Tier V civics multiplier if collateral minimal: +1.7x on the pot. Materials yield hospital-lore stuff. Please do not steal beds."
"Copy," Kana sighed. "No bed heists."
Miyu set two circles—one calm, one stitch—on either side of the nurses' station. Raina positioned behind a supply cart, sightline threading through hanging curtains.
"Suncrest," Anastasia said. "We treat this like a ward. Quiet feet. Clean hands. We'll use Wardwalk to preserve doors and lines."
The Bell-Mother raised a hand. Curtains slammed outward in a Curtain Sweep that should have carved them into lanes of compliance.
"Breakwater," Anastasia called, turning the curtain to a gentle billow. Fabric rippled past, snapping like applause without sting.
"On me," she told the boss in that mother-soft timbre that re-sculpted attention. Provocation pulsed. The mask tilted, fixating. Threads that had been snaking toward Raina retracted and sought the Aegis like vines searching a trellis.
"Code Blue," Raina said calmly as spectral gurneys rolled in from side doors, pushed by Orderly Echoes in munin-white.
"Dibs," Kana said, and shouldered the first gurney aside with surprising tenderness, spinning it into a harmless corner. To the orderly that tried to wedge past her: "No running in the halls."
"Chart Audit," Miyu warned as symbols—jagged ECG scribbles—crawled up Anastasia's shield, looking for something to turn into a penalty.
Anastasia rotated the Aegis, let the scribbles read her instead of her team, and smiled. "Yes, yes, I know—insufficient rest. We'll fix it after cake."
The boss's hand went up again. A bell rang—not in the air but in the sternum. Nurses' station pens rattled. The clocks on the wall spun, stopped, then faced her.
"Harmony build," Raina said. "If we drop adds too evenly with boss under 50, we might get a fusion—Ward Confluence. Avoid."
"Understood," Anastasia said. She took the Care Call pull with the effortless give of a tree swaying rather than a wall trying to resist wind, and the boss's streamers tangled in the Aegis lip. Radiant Maul flashed in close, not brutish but precise—cutting gauze with light that crisped edges to keep them from fraying.
Numbers:
[BELL-MOTHER WARDEN]
HP: 92% → 88%
Aggro: 98% (Anastasia)
Mechanics seen: Curtain Sweep (converted), Care Call (anchored), Chart Audit (redirected)
Harmony: 14% (clocks echoing)
"Side note," Kana said, punching an orderly into a pile of pillows. "This is the weirdest gym."
"Every gym is weird," Raina said, pinging a bell-cord to keep it from striking a monitor. "They make you pay to be tired."
"Shh," Miyu said, threading mend across the line. "Hospitals can hear you."
The Warden changed tactics—turned the bells inward, and for a breath the room filled with voices: a chorus of Please help, Please stay, Please don't go, I'm scared. Public Assurance flexed under Anastasia's ribs.
She toggled open broadcast. "Everyone on this floor," she said softly, "you aren't alone. We are here. You can worry. We'll do the lifting part."
A ripple went through the air like a sigh that belonged to a hundred throats. Panic bleed stopped.
Public Assurance synergy: Panic Spread –20% → –40% (overlap with Sanctuary + environment).
"Window for cut," Anastasia said. "Raina—hinge; Dragonspear ETA?"
"Two minutes," Ootori said. "But if you finish before they arrive, they'll just clap."
"Let's give them a show," Kana said, grinning.
The Warden stabbed a stand of IV poles toward Anastasia's calves, trying to pin. She hopped, light for a tank, and Wardwalk shimmered—the Aegis passing through a tangle of wheeled obstacles without bruising them, leaving neatly parted lines as if a nurse had just organized the world.
"Beautiful," Miyu breathed.
"Tea later," Anastasia said, because flirting is a spice. "Black sesame roll?"
"Y-yes," Miyu said, cheeks warm even as her hands stayed professional.
Raina's subsonic rounds pinned bell clappers. Kana used foam palms to catch a Chart Audit arc and fold it into a drawer like paperwork someone else was scheduled to handle.
The boss hit 70%. The gate sighed. Harmony 22%. The walls tried to flex their story: Be overwhelmed, be small, be tired in a way that made you want to sit down.
Anastasia did not sit. She set her feet. "Suncrest," she said softly, "count: in four, hold, out four. Kana on adds; Raina pluck bells; Miyu keep me unfair."
"Unfair," Miyu repeated, smiling with the seriousness of a doctor signing off a chart. "Captain at 92% stamina. Shield core heat low. I can increase field density by three points for thirty seconds."
"Do it when you like," Anastasia said. "I will like it."
Miyu liked it immediately. Sanctuary brightened, honey-thick where the Warden's sleeve-blades tried to press. They sloughed, less blade than cloth.
The Warden lunged with a Curtain Sweep that dragged IV lines like nets. Anastasia met it not with Breakwater this time but with a short Bulwark and a step into the swing—absorbing force, refusing drama. The curtain wrapped the shield like a hug and fell away, dignity intact.
Kana pointed. "Boss is trying a 'Code Blue'."
Alarms trilled—not the hospital kind, but a dream's idea of them. Gurneys rolled in with Chart-Shades lying under thin blankets, monitor lines flat.
Raina, calm: "Adds will try to siphon attention emotively. We ignore the guilt mechanic."
"Noted," Anastasia said. "I'll tank their need. You finish the parent."
"Wow," Kana said, soft. "That sentence was intense."
They executed: Kana intercepted gurneys and spun them to the nurses' station where Miyu slapped wards on their headboards so they'd stop haunting the lanes. Raina threaded the Warden's sleeves with shots so precise they pinned fabric to the floor without bending needles. Anastasia bullied the centerline, setting the Aegis like a friendly barricade the boss somehow wanted to push against because pushing on her felt like relief.
At 51%, bells started to align. Clocks pulled toward twelve. The Harmony pushed 32%.
Ootori: "Dragonspear thirty seconds. Keep it below Confluence risk."
"Understood," Anastasia said. "Kana, we do not greed. We make Tokyo tidy. Miyu—how's your breath?"
"I can do this all day," Miyu said, which from her meant exactly that long and not a second more. "But cake is still better than bed rest."
"Always," Anastasia said.
The Warden tried a new cruelty: it lifted its mask and for a moment showed; not a face, but a mirror that filled Anastasia's HUD with reports of "insufficient." Insufficient rest, insufficient fear, insufficient selfishness.
Anastasia looked into the mirror, into every line that said she could hold more than she should. She smiled like a teacher at a student who almost had it. "I bring teams home and I eat cake," she said, the words steady as a drip. "That's enough."
The mirror cracked. The boss staggered.
"Window," Raina called, already moving.
"Dragonspear on your left," Ootori added as a red coat flashed between curtains. The captain nodded once to Anastasia, blades low.
"Sign here," Anastasia said, and tilted the Warden by the edge of its mask with a shield shove only a woman who deadlifts buses can make look polite.
Steel wrote its signature. The boss's HP slid 49% → 41%—and held when Anastasia said, "Stop," because discipline is what keeps hard fights from becoming math problems you fail at the end.
"Adds," Kana said, and carried a Chart-Shade like a misbehaving puppy back to the warded pile. "No more hallway galloping."
Harmony dipped. Confluence risk eased.
"Finish on three," Anastasia said when the Harmony fell to 18%. "Three."
The last exchange was not cinematic. It was crisp. Curtain attempted; Breakwater flicked it aside like a towel folded and put away. The Warden reached; Provocation sang; it looked where she told it to look. Kana palmed a bed brake so the gurney wouldn't roll into a curtain. Raina set two rounds into two bells and they went still. Miyu wrapped a mend around a strain in Anastasia's left shoulder before it became a hurt tomorrow. Dragonspear drew a single, perfect downward line.
The Bell-Mother Warden collapsed into sheets, bells settling with the tiny clinks that accompany the end of visiting hours.
BOSS SUBJUGATED. CLAIM REWARDS TO EXIT.
The ward brightened. Doors that had been anxious ideas became doors. The clocks recovered their hands and resumed telling time.
Loot confetti scrolled:
[REWARD // TEAM: SUNCREST (with Dragonspear assist)]
Primary: Bell-Mother Warden (Gold) — Base ¥240,000,000
Protected Zone Multiplier (Tier V, collateral minimal): +1.7x → ¥408,000,000
Materials:
• Warden's Mask (1) — Allocated: Suncrest (Civic Relic)*
• Hygieia Thread (x18) — Allocated: Miyu (Fieldcraft)
• Bell-Clapper (x9, silenced) — Allocated: Raina (Sound-damp runes)
• Compliant Curtain (x6) — Allocated: Kana (Gym… décor?)
• Nurse's Station Key (1, ceremonial) — Allocated: Suncrest (HQ)
Assist Credit (Dragonspear): 22% of pot
Suncrest Share: 78% → ¥318,240,000
Suncrest Member Split (per contract):
Anastasia — 35% → ¥111,384,000
Raina — 22% → ¥70,012,800
Miyu — 22% → ¥70,012,800
Kana — 21% → ¥66,830,400
Civic Merit: +6 (all present)
* Relic Note: Warden's Mask (Civic). When worn at a hospital gate, increases Public Assurance radius and grants –10% Panic Spread base to bystanders.
Kana whistled, bowing to the empty air. "Ma'am, this was the most polite pile of money I've ever met."
Raina, already tapping labels for silenced clappers: "That's a new sound profile. We'll dampen recoil songs."
Miyu touched the Hygieia Thread and shivered. "This will help stitching… it remembers how to close wounds nicely."
Anastasia exhaled. A little tremor in her legs—not fear. After-drop. She put a palm on her shield, loving it the way a carpenter loves a table—more for the use than the look.
The Inversion sighed them back out. The atrium came into focus with a gentle stomach-lift. Dr. Fujimoto was exactly where they'd left her, though her eyes looked like they'd been somewhere else and come back stronger.
"Your atrium," Anastasia said, doing a slow 360 to make sure—no gouges, no shredded plants, just a faint glitter like good dust—"is intact."
Dr. Fujimoto surprised herself by laughing, just once. "I appreciate your… bedside manner."
Anastasia bowed. "We tried to chart correctly."
Nurses had tears they pretended were eye drops. A little kid in a too-big hoodie whispered to his mother, "They talk like normal people." The mother whispered back, "They are."
Officer Takada swiped his eyes unabashed. "Civic escalator Tier V confirmed. City will write nice letters."
"Tell City to fund more staff," Miyu said gently, eyes on Dr. Fujimoto.
The doctor inclined her head. "We will take your nice letters and your subtle threats."
Raina glanced at the skylight. "Harmony's quiet. No echo. Good work."
Ootori stepped into the atrium to meet them. She offered a small velvet box. "Civic Affairs asked me to present this here. 'For the woman who treats Tokyo like her ward.'"
Anastasia opened it. Inside: a narrow ribbon pin—white with a gold edge and a tiny bell etched like a promise. Saint's Ribbon — Civic Honor. Her HUD chimed.
[OATH EVOLUTION MILESTONE MET]
Mother's Aegis → City's Aegis (Locked)
Condition: Accept a city's vow. Requirements remaining (1/3): Community Recognition (met), Coalition Citation (met), Personal Bound (pending)
Effect (on unlock): Expand lethal-redirect radius to 30m, charges 2, CD 45s; increases Public Assurance potency.
"Personal bound?" Kana said, peeking. "Like—marriage to Tokyo?"
"Like a promise you make out loud," Miyu said softly.
Anastasia looked at the atrium—the potted trees, the exhausted doctor hiding a grin, the kid clinging to his mom's flannel, the nurse trying not to cry in a way that wouldn't terrify a patient. She pinned the ribbon to her haori.
"I'll keep it safe," she said, to the room, to the city, to herself.
The room breathed easier.
Ootori cleared her throat, businesslike because that's how commanders hide feelings. "Debrief in an hour. Eat something. Dragonspear says they'll take the Setagaya perimeter so Suncrest can… be human for thirty minutes."
"Permission to be human," Anastasia said, saluting with two fingers.
"Granted," Ootori said, dry. "Don't adopt any medical equipment."
Kana, already eyeing a particularly comfortable-looking chair: "Define adopt."
"Don't," everyone said.
They chose a café across the street because coffee shops are neutral ground where monsters don't follow and managers respect a good shield leaned near the door. The barista had seen the ribbons, the haori, the weapons; he simply made four matcha lattes and a black coffee (Raina), slid a plate of anpan across (on the house), and pretended not to hear Kana negotiating with her foam gauntlets about whether they were allowed to operate cups.
"After this," Raina said, opening a weather app like it could tell the future, "I'm filing for a scope grant. The silenced clappers might let me write quiet holes."
"You already write quiet holes," Kana said, mouth full. "You're poetry."
Miyu carefully unspooled a single Hygieia Thread, bound it back up, and tucked it away like a talisman. "I'll test it on synthetic," she said. "Not on people."
"On me if you need to," Anastasia said.
Miyu's eyes flicked up, startled and fond. "You're not synthetic."
Anastasia tipped her head, flirtation warm as steam. "I can be very compliant if a doctor tells me to rest."
Kana made a strangled sound. "Get a room," she said, and then, because she was Kana: "Get a gym."
Raina's phone buzzed. She read, brows arching. "IGA Research. They've been correlating yesterday's Twin Bells and today's Inversion. Harmonics are making shapes around us. Not random."
"Meaning?" Ootori had joined them, taking her coffee black and her news without sugar.
Raina scrolled. "Meaning someone—or something—learns. The gates tested our curtain at the bay, then tried to wrap us in curtains today. And failed."
"Imitation as evolution," Miyu said. "If it can't beat a wall, it tries to be a wall and get invited in."
Ootori nodded once. "Then we will be very disciplined about what we teach in public."
Anastasia set her cup down. "We'll also be generous," she said. "Because cities survive on shared tricks. We didn't win because we had a secret. We won because we had good manners and better friends."
Kana raised her latte. "To manners."
Raina clinked. "To friends."
Miyu touched cups, hesitant and brave. "To chiffon cake."
Anastasia smiled. "To Tokyo."
Her phone buzzed with a quiet, personal ping. A message from Dr. Fujimoto: We have a small staff break room with a terrible kettle and good mugs. If you ever want a place that isn't a café to sit for ten minutes… it will be unlocked for you. Also, we found this under a plant— [photo: tiny bell clapper, etched with a heart] —is it yours?
She typed back: It belongs to all of us. Keep it somewhere it can ring for something nice. Also, please, more staff.
A reply: Working on it. Thank you for speaking softly and carrying a ridiculous shield.
Kana peered at the window, where the reflection showed four people who looked like themselves again and not like the math a city needed. "So," she said. "Training later? I want to practice punching curtains."
"Consent first," Miyu said, deadpan.
Raina barked a laugh. "We're trending again. #Wardwalk. Also—oh no—#MarryTheTank is back."
Kana immediately reached for her phone. "I can manage this. I will like all the posts and then challenge anyone in the comments to a friendly pushup contest."
"Please do not menace the internet," Ootori said mildly.
Anastasia set a reminder to send a fruit basket to Kinuta General herself, this time labeled. For staff who told the clock to wait a minute until the monsters were gone. She attached a note: We promise to keep the hallway clear.
Her HUD pinged one more time:
[PERSONAL BOUND — OPEN]
City's Aegis unlock condition 3/3 can be satisfied with a vow made and recognized by witness.
Prompt: Do you accept Tokyo as charge? (Y/N)
She didn't hit Y yet. She wanted to say it where the city could hear—maybe at the bay, maybe at Shibuya crossing, maybe under a lantern where a child had stopped being scared because a woman with a shield had said hello.
"Dinner?" Raina said, standing.
"Training, dinner, and then cake," Miyu said, sounding like she liked being a person with a schedule that included normal things.
"Cake twice in one day," Kana said, awed. "We are gods."
Anastasia rose, lifted the Aegis, and felt the comfortable pull of the day's work follow. "No," she said, and her smile held the softness and the steel of someone who had already decided how tomorrow would go. "We're people. We just stand very well."
Outside, a breeze moved down the street that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with a city exhaling. Somewhere, a bell rang for a good reason—shift change, a discharge, a healthy heartbeat.
Suncrest stepped into the light, already talking about money and mop-up and how to make Raina's scope more quiet than it already was. They moved the way a good sentence reads—inevitable and satisfying—and Tokyo, their patient and their lover and their employer and their home, kept time.