"Okay," Maya breathed, the pink light of her transformation dissolving into a shower of motes. "Okay..."

  She was back in her civilian clothes a pastel yellow t-shirt and denim skirt. She looked exhausted, her knees trembling. "Okay. That was... a lot. Inspector Thorne is gone, right? Did he buy it?"

  "He bought it," I said quietly, keeping my eyes on the kitchen window. The blinds were drawn, but I could see the silhouettes of Mr. and Mrs. Hoshino moving in the living room. They were debriefing. "He thinks you're a clumsy loose cannon with too much horsepower. It's a good cover."

  Maya stared at the melted trench in the grass. "My dad is going to freak out. He saw the blast, but when he sees the bill for the landscaping..."

  "Tell him you're working on it," I suggested, turning away from the window. "Tell him you'll pay for it out of your allowance."

  "My allowance is fifty dollars a week!" Maya protested. "I'd be paying off the landscaping company for a year!"

  I shrugged. "Should have thought of that before you tried to vaporize the Eastern seaboard. Besides, doesn't dungeon crawling pay well?"

  Maya scrunched her nose. "Yeah, I guess so. But we haven't gone on any raids - and that's where the real money is. I was going to use the cash to help my parents pay for some of the upgrades to the house. There's some stuff they've been putting off for a while, like fixing the pipes in the bathroom and getting a new water heater."

  I sighed. "You can't save the world and fix your plumbing. You have to pick one, Magical Girl."

  Maya looked at the melted golem again, and I saw her face soften. "Yeah. You're right. My dad will understand. He's a Sentinel. He gets it."

  I looked at her, a faint spark of pity flickering in my chest. I didn't remember my mother. I barely remembered my father.

  I'd been raised by scientists. By doctors. By the Cult. The things they made me do, the horrors they'd inflicted on me... I couldn't imagine a loving family. I couldn't imagine a world where my father would have put himself in front of me.

  Maya was a stranger to pain. She was naive. Sheltered. Soft. That would change, the deeper she got into this life. The more she saw of the dungeons. The more she learned of the rot festering under a bureaucracy's skin.

  I clenched my fist, slinking against the wall. The sun was bright. The day was warm. But I still felt cold.

  "Hey," Maya said, stepping in front of me. "What's wrong? You seem... I don't know. Distracted? Sad? Like you're a million miles away."

  I looked at her, my expression flat. "I'm fine."

  Scritch. Thud.

  My head snapped to the left.

  The perimeter was compromised.

  Someone was climbing the wooden fence separating the Hoshino yard from the hilly roads below. I summoned the slightest bit of mana to my body, blending into the shadows of the treeline.

  It wasn't a stealth approach, but it was practiced. A pair of worn-out sneakers hooked over the top, followed by a grunt of effort. A figure vaulted over, landing in the Hoshino household's flowerbed with a soft, controlled whump.

  "Maya!" a voice hissed. "You alive?"

  I stepped further back into the darkness.

  The intruder straightened up. He was male, roughly Maya’s age. He was a mess - shaggy black hair that fell over his eyes, a faded red hoodie with grease stains, and torn jeans. He held an aluminum baseball bat, tapping it anxiously against his leg.

  Civilian, my assessment tagged him.

  Threat Level: Negligible.

  "Julian?" Maya squeaked, spinning around. "Shhh! What are you doing here?"

  The boy stepped out of the flowers, his dark eyes scanning the yard.

  He didn't look at Maya's face first; he looked at her hands, then the house, then the ground.

  "I heard a boom," he whispered, creeping closer. "It shook my windows. I thought your dad’s garage experiments finally went nuclear."

  Garage experiments, huh?

  I filed that away for later.

  He stopped at the edge of the melted trench. He crouched down, touching the edge of the blackened grass.

  "Jesus, Maya," he breathed. "What happened? Did a meteor hit your lawn? The soil is... vitrified."

  He said the word vitrified casually, like it was normal slang for a teenager in a grease-stained hoodie.

  "I... uh..." Maya stammered, stepping in front of him. "It was... a science project! For... chemistry!"

  Julian looked up. He raised a thick, expressive eyebrow.

  "Chemistry," he repeated dryly. "Right. Because mixing baking soda and vinegar usually results in localized fusion. And what looks like a slagged construct."

  "Umm..." Maya laughed, rubbing the back of her head. "It's a... very advanced experiment?"

  "Maya," Julian said, standing up.

  He was tall. Taller than me. Taller than Maya. He looked at her with a mix of exasperation and concern, like an older brother looking at a younger sister who was trying to convince him she hadn't broken the vase.

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

  He put his hands on his hips.

  "Maya," he repeated, his voice softer. "What's going on?"

  "Nothing," Maya squeaked, her cheeks turning red. "It's... umm..."

  I scanned him with my Cinder Eyes. His mana levels were miniscule. He was definitely a civilian.

  He looked at the house, then back at her. His posture shifted. The sarcasm vanished, replaced by a tense, alert readiness.

  "Who's... who's been watching us?" he asked, his voice barely audible.

  "What?"

  He looked past her, staring directly into the shadows of the overhang where I was leaning.

  Sharp senses, I noted. Abnormally sharp.

  I stepped out.

  I didn't rush. I didn't sneak. I just walked into the dying sunlight.

  Julian flinched. He took a half-step back, his knuckles turning white on the bat handle.

  "Who the hell are you?" he demanded, keeping his voice low.

  "Reimi," Maya blurted out. "This is Reimi! She's... my cousin! From... Canada!"

  "Cousin," Julian repeated flatly. He looked at the faded scars on my arms. He looked at the way I stood—feet shoulder-width apart, weight balanced.

  "She looks like she's from a Russian gulag."

  "I'm a transfer student," I said, my voice flat and cold. I kept my gaze fixed on his, unblinking. "I'm staying with the Hoshinos for the summer."

  Julian stiffened. He looked at the crater, then at me.

  "You did this," he whispered. "You're the one who made the boom. Are you threatening them? Is this a shakedown?"

  "Oh piss off," I said, taking a step forward. "This doesn't concern you."

  "I'm not going anywhere," Julian snapped.

  He didn't run. He didn't back down. Instead, he stepped fully between me and Maya, raising the bat.

  "Get behind me, Maya," he muttered.

  I stopped. I tilted my head.

  Foolish, I thought. You have no stance. Your center of gravity is high. You have no weapon, just a toy.

  "Jules!" Maya squeaked. "No! It's not like that!"

  "Don't," I warned. "You'll just hurt yourself. This isn't a fight you can win."

  "Jules, stop! She's my cousin!"

  "She's not your cousin," Julian shot back. "You don't have a Canadian cousin like that on your dad's side. You have an aunt in Florida and an uncle in Singapore."

  "She's my second cousin!" Maya protested.

  "You're not fooling anyone, Maya," Julian snapped. "And you're not threatening the Hoshinos. Get out of here."

  "I'm not going anywhere," I replied calmly. "And you are no threat to me. Go home, kid. You don't want this."

  "Get out of here," I ordered.

  "Make me," Julian shot back. His eyes were fierce. There was a fire there. A stupid, reckless fire.

  "Reimi, don't!" Maya hissed, grabbing Julian's arm. "Julian, stop! She's nice! She's just... intense! And please keep your voice down, my parents will hear!"

  "She has bloodlust rolling off her like an oven, Maya!" Julian whispered. "And you're telling me she's nice?"

  I moved.

  I didn't use mana. I just sighed and took a step inside his guard. He swung the bat - a clumsy arc. I caught the fulcrum with my left hand, stopping it dead.

  Julian’s eyes went wide. He tried to yank it back. I didn't let go.

  "Too slow," I said.

  With my right hand, I grabbed his wrist. I twisted.

  "Gah!" Julian gasped as his grip broke.

  I spun him around. I lightly tapped the back of his knee, forcing him to buckle, and wrenched his arm up behind his back in a standard compliance lock. It was the same move Kaito used to use on me when I was being an idiot. Efficient. Painful. Humiliating.

  "Ow, ow, ow! Okay!"

  "Reimi!" Maya whispered-shouted. "Let him go!"

  "He has weak joints," I critiqued, applying a fraction more pressure. "And zero situational awareness. Why did you engage a target you couldn't identify? That is how you get killed."

  "I was... protecting... her!" Julian gritted out.

  "You failed," I said coldly.

  Suddenly, Julian moved.

  It wasn't a counter-attack. It was a shift in physics. He dropped his shoulder, stomped on my foot with his heel, and twisted into the pain rather than away from it.

  It shouldn't have worked.

  But he leveraged his own falling weight against my grip. He understood the fulcrum. My fingers slipped on the greasy fabric of his hoodie.

  He tore his arm free and scrambled back, stumbling over his own feet but landing in a defensive crouch, the bat raised again.

  I stared at him.

  He was panting, clutching his shoulder. He looked terrified. But he was still standing. And his eyes... his eyes were calculating the distance between us.

  He broke the hold.

  "Okay," Julian wheezed, glaring at me. "You know judo. Cool. You're still crazy."

  I took a step forward, intending to finish the lesson.

  The side door door slid open.

  We all froze.

  Althea stepped out. She looked pristine. She closed the door behind her with a soft click, shielding us from the kitchen.

  "You three are louder than a monster truck rally," Althea hissed. "Mrs. Hoshino is making tea. If she looks out the window and sees you assaulting the neighbors, we are all grounded until college."

  She turned her glare on Julian.

  "Julian," she said. "Why are you threatening our guest with sporting equipment?"

  Julian straightened up, looking flustered. "Alfie? I wasn't... she started it! She almost broke my arm! And look at the lawn!"

  "Reimi is from Canada," Althea lied smoothly, walking down the steps to block his view of the crater. "They play rough there. Hockey rules. And the lawn is none of your business. Put the bat down, you look ridiculous."

  Julian looked from Althea to Maya, then back to me. The fight drained out of him, replaced by the overwhelming social pressure of being scolded by the big sis of the friend group.

  He lowered the bat.

  "I just... I heard a boom," he muttered, rubbing his shoulder. He looked at Maya. His expression softened into something genuine. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Hoshino. That sounded bad."

  Maya smiled weakly. "I'm okay, Julian. Really. Just... chemistry."

  Julian sighed. He ran a hand through his messy hair.

  "Fine. Chemistry." He shot me one last, suspicious glare.

  His eyes lingered on my hands, analyzing the way I stood. "But if your 'cousin' tries to put me in a pretzel again, I'm calling the cops. I don't care if she is family."

  He turned and marched back to the fence. He paused at the top, looking back.

  "Be careful," he said to Maya. "Something's weird tonight. The air feels... heavy. You know how my gut feelings usually go, yeah?"

  Then he dropped down the other side.

  Silence descended on the yard.

  I stared at the fence.

  "He sensed the pressure drop," I commented out loud. "He felt the mana density shift."

  "Julian?" Maya laughed nervously. "No way. He's... he's just Julian. He's a bit of a himbo."

  "He broke my hold," I said. "And he used 'vitrified' correctly in a sentence."

  "He watches a lot of sci-fi?" Maya offered.

  "He's an annoyance," I decided. "A civilian obstacle. Next time, I will render him unconscious immediately."

  "Please don't render my friends unconscious," Maya begged.

  I walked past them, heading for the Hoshino household.

  "Reimi?" Maya called out.

  I paused at the door.

  "Thank you," she said softly. "For... not hurting him. I know you could have."

  I didn't turn around.

  "He wasn't worth the ammo," I grunted.

  I slipped into the cool dark of the house. My heart was beating faster than it should have been.

  Julian, I thought, testing the name.

  He was nothing like Kaito. Kaito was elegant, if a bit of a total poser.

  This boy was a blunt instrument. A hammer wrapped in a hoodie.

  And yet...

  He had stepped between a monster and the girl he wanted to protect, armed with nothing but a stick.

  Stupid, I thought, waving at Mr. Hoshino as I walked back inside and took my shoes off. Suicidally stupid.

  Just like someone else I used to know.

  I shoved the thought down.

  "Welcome back, Reimi. Did you enjoy your walk?"

  I looked up. Maya's father was walking towards me, smiling gently.

  "Umm... yes I did..." I mumbled.

  "Good. Now... would you happen to have a minute or two to chat?"