The air in the factory didn't just smell like dust and decay anymore. It smelled like a short circuit in a high-voltage lab-sharp, metallic, and thick with the cloying sweetness of rotting lilies.

  Takeda stepped over a coil of rusted cable, his boots crunching on the grit. The forensic team was already at work, their white jumpsuits making them look like ghosts in the flickering light of the portable halogen lamps.

  "Watch your step, Takeda," Hoshino said, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. She was already several yards ahead of him, her flashlight beam cutting through the purple-tinged haze. "The air in here... it feels like the mall. My skin is crawling."

  "I noticed," Takeda gritted out, checking the small, handheld device clipped to his belt. The needle on the prototype energy-meter—something the lab guys had cobbled together after the Shinjuku incident—was twitching rhythmically, a nervous tic that mirrored the pulse in his temple. The air felt heavy, like the static before a lightning strike.

  We reached the center of the floor. The black candles had all burned down to stubs, leaving behind puddles of oily wax that looked like congealed blood. In the middle of the circle was a scorch mark-a perfect, jagged starburst of grey ash.

  Hoshino knelt beside it, her eyes wide. "The witnesses said she just... unraveled. One minute there was this seven-foot nightmare, and the next, the 'Ghost' pulled the trigger and it turned into this."

  "A clean kill," Takeda said, though the lack of a body made his stomach churn. He knelt on the other side of the mark, his eyes scanning the floor. The ash was still warm.

  Something caught the light. A small, metallic cylinder, half-buried in the dust. Takeda picked it up with a pair of tweezers, holding it up to the lamp.

  "A spent magnesium flare," he whispered. "M84 pattern. Standard issue for riot control and special operations. No 'magic' here. Just chemistry and kinetic force."

  Hoshino blinked. "A flashbang? But the witnesses said there was a giant explosion of pink light. Why would she need a piece of army gear?"

  "Because she's not just some fairy tale," Takeda said, the pieces starting to click together in a way he didn't like. "She's using standard countermeasures. She's thinking like a soldier, Hoshino. She didn't just blast that thing; she outfought it. The witnesses said the man in the white suit had her pinned. She must have used this to break his hold."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  He stood up, his gaze drifting toward the back wall. A massive, jagged hole led out into the night, the edges of the concrete looking like they'd been chewed by a giant.

  "The structural damage here isn't from an explosion," Takeda noted, walking toward the breach. "There's no blast pattern. No heat scoring. The wall just... vanished. Like it was erased."

  "The man in the white suit," Hoshino said, joining me. Her voice had lost some of its earlier enthusiasm. "The witnesses said he just walked through the wall and it collapsed behind him. Who is he, Takeda?"

  "I don't know. But he's not just some cultist," Takeda said, looking down at the floor near the hole. A small scrap of white fabric was snagged on a piece of rebar. He bagged it carefully. It was silk—high-end, expensive silk. The kind that cost more than his monthly salary. "He has resources. And he's dangerous enough to make a wall disappear without a sound."

  "Takeda! Over here!"

  Hoshino was standing near a pile of discarded grey robes. She was holding something small and pink-a plastic hair clip in the shape of a cherry blossom.

  "The witnesses said a girl touched a piece of glass and... changed," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "They said she turned into that thing. This was near where she was standing. She was eighteen, Takeda. Just a kid from the suburbs. Her parents reported her missing two days ago."

  Takeda looked at the clip, then back at the scorch mark. There was no body. No remains. Just ash and the lingering, ozone-heavy smell of something that shouldn't exist.

  "The 'Ghost' saved the people in this room," Hoshino said, her eyes searching mine for some kind of validation. "If she hadn't been here, that monster would have slaughtered everyone."

  "And the girl?" Takeda asked, his voice dropping into that icy calm. "Where is she, Hoshino? Did the 'Ghost' save her, or did she just kill the monster and move on? Because from where I'm standing, all we have is a missing person and a pile of ash."

  Hoshino didn't answer. She looked down at the hair clip, her thumb tracing the plastic petals.

  "We're counting bodies, Hoshino," Takeda said, turning back toward the exit. "Even if they're made of ash. This isn't a movie. It's a crime scene, and we're just the ones left to clean up the mess. The 'Magical Girl' isn't a hero. She's a combatant."

  Takeda walked out into the cool night air, the weight of the silk scrap in his pocket feeling like a leaden stone. The "Magical Girl of Twin Guns" was out there somewhere, a ghost in a frilly dress with the soul of a mercenary.

  He thought back to the report from the old man in Azabu-Jūban. *Misaki.* That was the name she'd given him. A cousin, she'd said. A lie, most likely. But it was a name.

  Takeda looked up at the moon, half-hidden by the smog of the industrial district.

  "Who are you really, Misaki?" he whispered to the wind. "And what kind of mess have you dragged us into?"

  The only answer was the distant, lonely wail of a siren, echoing through the concrete canyons of the city.