“Haha!” Raven jumped up and down excitedly. “Good! It has to be like this! This is how it should be!”
“Mm.”
Yuan Qing had already turned and walked toward the center of the room.
Raven froze for a second, then quickly flapped its wings and flew over. “I’m coming, I’m coming!”
Pitch-black feathers surged upward.
At 5:30 AM at a construction site somewhere in Tokyo, a massive monster was moving through the steel and concrete. Its body was covered in rock-like scales, and every step left tiny cracks in the ground.
Yuan Qing stepped out from a swirl of raven feathers, his black robe snapping in the morning wind. The monster turned its head, its giant eyes locking onto the intruder.
“Falcon.”
Feathers pierced through the air.
The monster’s head was skewered. Its massive body crashed to the ground and began to disintegrate.
Raven landed on Yuan Qing’s shoulder and let out a yawn. “The first one… it’s only 5:30 AM. I’m usually still dreaming at this hour…”
Yuan Qing ignored Raven’s slight complaint.
“Next one,” he simply said.
Raven immediately changed its attitude and forced a response. “Fine!”
The feathers surged once more.
The second battlefield.
The third.
The fourth.
The sun gradually rose, casting golden light across Tokyo.
Miss Raven’s figure appeared in every corner of the city even earlier than the sunlight.
The sixth monster.
The seventh.
The eighth.
Raven was starting to run out of physical strength. “I… I can’t do it… let me rest for a while…”
“No,” Yuan Qing said, preparing for the next teleportation.
Raven could only gasp for air as it replied, “Fine! I’ll risk my life to accompany you!”
It watched Yuan Qing’s posture as his wings spread, the arc of his surging black robe, and the clean, decisive movements of every strike.
It was exactly the same as yesterday.
No, it was faster than yesterday.
The ninth monster.
The tenth.
The eleventh.
At 8:00 AM, in the Tokyo Bay warehouse district.
Yuan Qing stood before a monster that had just fallen, his breathing slightly hurried.
“The twelfth one…” Raven sprawled on Yuan Qing’s head, its voice weak. “You’ve finished off every monster in the entire Tokyo metropolitan area…”
Yuan Qing did not answer.
He just stood there, looking at the crowd and cameras gradually gathering in the distance.
Those lenses, those flashes, and those exclamations—they all belonged to “Miss Raven.”
They were all his, and yet he was…
“Is that enough?” Raven asked.
Before the words could fully leave its beak, Yuan Qing suddenly felt something—a familiar presence, a familiar pressure.
Yuan Qing turned around. On top of a warehouse in the distance, a white figure stood there. Her black hair reached her waist, and her white dress fluttered in the wind.
Kazama Hifumi.
He did not know when she had appeared, but she was quietly watching him. Their gazes met in the morning light.
Hifumi did not move, and neither did Yuan Qing.
Sensing the tension in the air, Raven followed Yuan Qing’s gaze and then stiffened.
“Hi… Hifumi?”
It instinctively shrunk behind Yuan Qing’s neck.
Even though it had done nothing wrong, that woman’s aura made it want to hide by instinct.
Hifumi moved first.
She leaped from the top of the warehouse, her white figure drawing an elegant arc in the air before landing 10 meters in front of Yuan Qing.
The two stood face-to-face as the morning light flowed between them.
“Twelve,” she spoke. “From 5:30 AM until now, twelve. Every single one was a one-hit kill.”
“That’s right,” Yuan Qing, playing the role of Miss Raven, admitted openly.
“I watched yesterday’s livestream as well. Your speed is getting faster, and your movements are becoming more fluid.” She lifted her chin slightly. “You’re doing this to defeat me.”
“Mm,” Yuan Qing admitted again.
Hifumi was silent for a moment before speaking again. “…And what do you think? Do you believe you can defeat me using this method?”
There was no hint of mockery; she was simply stating a fact.
“…”
“You have indeed become stronger, but you are merely repeating the same fighting style. This style is very effective against monsters because they lack the capacity for thought and only attack on instinct. But I am different. I have already seen your ‘Crane’ and ‘Falcon’ many times. The next time we fight, I won’t let you use those techniques so easily.”
Hifumi’s gaze was incredibly cold.
Raven whispered behind Yuan Qing’s neck, ‘Is she… threatening us?’
Hifumi glanced at Raven, and the bird immediately shut up and stood at attention.
“I know you’re different.” Yuan Qing ignored the raven on his shoulder. “That’s why I don’t plan on dealing with you in the same way.”
“Then how will you deal with me?” Hifumi asked.
The morning breeze blew in from the sea, ruffling his black robe and Hifumi’s white dress. The morning light spread out behind them.
Yuan Qing asked in return, “How do you want to be defeated?”
“Can you actually do it?”
Hifumi’s expression remained steady, while Raven’s face was plastered with shock.
“Any way is fine with me,” Yuan Qing said, looking directly into Hifumi’s eyes. “A head-on defeat? A defeat from the flank? Should I let you use your full strength before losing? Or should I make you lose before you even have a chance to strike?”
Hifumi was silent for an instant, and then she smiled. The smile was very faint—faint enough to be almost unnoticeable—but it was definitely there.
“You really are…” She paused. “Different from when we first met.”
“I just want to win. Is that not allowed?”
Yuan Qing’s answer was extremely cold.
“Fine.” She nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”
She turned around, preparing to leave.
After taking two steps, she stopped and turned her head. “By the way.”
“Mm?”
Yuan Qing looked at her.
“Of the twelve monsters you killed today, two were in areas I was originally responsible for,” Hifumi said. “I was planning to handle them myself. So, you’ve left me with nothing to do today.”
“…”
Yuan Qing had nothing to say.
Raven couldn’t help but let out a snicker but immediately stifled it.
Hifumi said nothing more. Her white figure leaped onto the warehouse roof and quickly disappeared into the morning light.
Yuan Qing stood in place, looking in that direction.
Raven poked its head out from behind his neck and took a long breath. “That scared me to death… I thought a fight was about to break out…”
Yuan Qing didn’t speak.
Raven looked at him, then at the direction where Hifumi had disappeared. “Hey, did you listen to what she just said?”
“Mm.”
“Then what do you plan to do?”
Yuan Qing thought for a moment.
“Keep fighting,” he replied.
Raven said in disbelief, “More fighting? The monsters are all gone!”
“Then we wait,” Yuan Qing said, unbothered. “There will always be more.”
Feathers surged, and his figure vanished into the morning light.
—
It was currently 8:30 AM. At a magazine photo shoot, Mizuho stood under the spotlights, changing poses according to the photographer’s requests.
The lens was aimed at her, flashes went off continuously, and staff members bustled around her.
“Good! Great! That’s the angle!”
“Miss Yonai, look this way!”
“Make the expression a bit softer. Yes, just like that!”
Mizuho cooperated with every instruction, a standard idol’s smile fixed on her face, but her mind was on something else entirely.
This morning, her clone had been so excited she was barely coherent.
‘5:30 AM! It was 5:30 AM! He actually woke up on his own!’
‘Twelve! Twelve of them!’
‘And Hifumi appeared! She talked to Yuan Qing!’
‘Hifumi appeared? She talked to Yuan Qing? What did they say?’
She really wanted to ask, but the clone only said ‘I’ll tell you later’ before disappearing. It was clear the clone was exhausted from the main body’s side.
So, Mizuho could only try to imagine the scene of that confrontation in her mind while she continued her shoot.
“Miss Yonai?” The photographer’s voice pulled her back to reality. “Can we change poses? Turn sideways and look into the distance.”
Mizuho snapped out of it, nodded, and struck the pose as requested.
The camera flashed again.