On the rooftop of Canghai City First Senior High School, a group of delinquent boys who had sneaked up after class to smoke huddled in a corner, trembling.
“Li Chi, tell me—why can’t humans fly?”
“If you want to fly, we can go borrow some stuff from the music teacher later and make you a pair of wings to try.”
“Wrong! What I mean is, humans have always been bound by the laws of physics. Even if we built airplanes that can soar freely through the sky, that’s still just relying on external power!”
“So what are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying humans should fly using their own strength! Not by depending on steel and machinery! We should break through the laws of physics with nothing but our bodies and achieve true freedom in the air!”
“Are you okay? Did the wind blow your brain loose or something?”
Li Chi placed a worried hand on Yao Shangxing’s forehead.
“No fever. Did you forget to take your medicine today?”
“Get off me. Your dad’s not sick.”
Yao Shangxing pushed Li Chi away with a look of disgust, then spoke with solemn seriousness.
“All this time, human potential has never been fully unlocked. So I’ve been thinking—what would happen if a human could master one hundred percent of their own cells?”
“I don’t know? Why don’t you test it yourself?”
“Exactly! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”
Yao Shangxing spun around excitedly and looked at his good brother with a relieved expression.
“Best friend, have you finally seen the light?”
“Get lost. If you’ve got something to say, say it. If you’ve got a fart, let it out!”
Li Chi kicked him and spoke grumpily.
“So why did you drag me out here?”
Yao Shangxing rubbed his sore butt, then pulled the schoolbag monster off his back.
“Open wide. Ah.”
Accompanied by a series of disgusting retching sounds, three skyrockets the size of fire hydrants were dragged out of the schoolbag monster’s mouth.
“Hey, one of you—lend me a lighter.”
Yao Shangxing shouted at the trembling delinquents in the corner and unceremoniously confiscated every lighter they had.
“Seriously, you’re still so young and you’re already smoking? Stuff like this should be saved for proper business, understand?!”
“Y-Yes, yes! Can we go now?”
The delinquents huddled together. The tallest and fiercest-looking one among them looked ready to cry.
Yao Shangxing ignored them completely. He turned and handed the three confiscated lighters to Li Chi.
“Come on, Li Chi. Light them for me. Today I’m going to conquer the sky!”
“But aren’t you still using external force?”
“Ah, you can’t look at it that way. These fireworks were made by my own hands. Anything that’s passed through my hands doesn’t count as external force!”
“You’re really good at twisting words.”
Li Chi was full of helplessness, but he still helped his good brother light the fuses.
Such a huge spectacle—if he missed it, he would regret it for life.
After Yao Shangxing tied the three rocket fireworks around his waist, Li Chi finally noticed something special about the fuses.
The three fuses were connected in sequence. Only after one burned down to a certain point would the next one ignite.
“Hehehe, you finally noticed? This is good stuff I got from the music teacher. It’s said that only after one firework completely burns out will the next one activate.”
“What do you take the music teacher for?!”
“Come on, she’s a magical girl. Magical girls can do anything!”
“Don’t drag random people into your nonsense!”
“It doesn’t matter. Come on, Li Chi—light the fuse and send me skyward!”
“Fine.”
Li Chi lit the fuse.
“By the way, what kind of safety measures did you prepare?”
“What safety measures?”
“……”
Li Chi had already foreseen what was about to happen. But by the time he reached out to pinch the fuse out, it was too late.
Fwoosh—!!
Sparks erupted violently. Yao Shangxing shot straight into the sky like a meteor, leaving only a long trail of white smoke behind.
“Trouble…”
Li Chi stared at the sky with a constipated expression.
Seeing that no one else was around—the delinquent boys had somehow already slipped away—he twisted the Accelerator Grip.
“Amazon!”
With a shout, a cyan-black gas wave flashed past. A red-black figure with blood-red wings shot upward, straight into the clouds.
“Guhahaha—!! Magical girls! Your doomsday has arrived!”
Five kilometers away from Canghai City First Senior High School, in a suburban area.
A bird monster circled in the sky, looking down smugly at the three magical girls on the ground.
Although magical girls could fly, they had only just learned the skill. Their flight time was short and their speed was slow. They were no match for a bird monster born to soar.
For the moment, the magical girls could do nothing about the creature in front of them.
Just then—
“Guhahaha—!!”
The three magical girls confronting the bird monster all raised their heads at once.
They watched as an unidentified flying object trailing a long tail flame and letting out some kind of incomprehensible howl approached at a ridiculously sharp angle and collided with perfect precision into the bird monster that had been circling and taunting them.
Boom—!!
A brilliant explosion of sparks burst in midair. Feathers, sparks, and something that looked suspiciously like human tissue scattered in every direction.
“Guh—!!”
The bird monster let out a piercing scream. Its wings lost balance instantly. Like a kite with its string cut, it spun wildly and crashed into the center of the intersection below, smashing a shallow pit into the ground.
It struggled to rise, but its wings were clearly broken. Half its body was still smoking.
As for the unidentified flying object that had caused the crash…
“Hahahahaha—!!! I’m flying! Huh? I think I hit something just now… Whatever!!”
Accompanied by an even fiercer spray of sparks, the figure actually used the recoil to zigzag higher into the sky. Soon it shrank into a tiny dot and vanished into the clouds.
Only a few scraps of burning paper slowly drifted down from above.
“……”
“……”
The three magical girls looked at one another. For a moment, none of them knew how to react.
The bird monster in the pit was still struggling. It pointed at the sky with its one remaining movable claw and let out garbled hissing sounds, as if shouting, “Foul play! You fouled! We agreed on three versus one—how dare you call in outside help!”
“So…” Red was the first to break the silence. She scratched her head, staring blankly at the other two. “Was that… a person just now?”
“Maybe.” Blue swallowed with difficulty. “And it looked like he was flying with fireworks.”
“He blasted himself into the sky with fireworks?” Red’s brain had completely stopped working. “Then he knocked our monster… down?”
The girl finally managed to speak with great difficulty. “…Is this also considered a combat method?”
The last magical girl—the steady one in a green skirt holding a bow and arrow—took a deep breath and decided to handle the situation with the most practical attitude.
“Regardless of where that flying person came from, right now,” she pointed at the bird monster still trying to crawl out of the pit, her tone terrifyingly calm, “let’s first beat this one back to its hometown.”
“Agreed!”
Three figures pounced together toward the pit.
The poor high-ranking flying-type monster, which had been relying on its speed and altitude to toy with the three magical girls and was proudly preparing to show off some aerial acrobatics, had been slammed out of the sky by some lunatic using a human-body firework. Its wings were broken in the process.
Now grounded and stripped of its greatest advantage, it had become nothing more than a living target.
“Let you fly!”
“Let you act cocky!”
“Let you run us around!”
“Guh—!! Don’t hit the face!! Guh—!!”
“This kick is for that unknown smoke-flower warrior!”
“He’s not even on your side, is he?!”
“Doesn’t matter! Who told you to talk back?!”
After a round of merciless beating, the bird monster turned into a shining magic crystal core and quietly lay at the bottom of the pit.
The battle was over.
The three magical girls retracted their attacks and all looked up at the sky.
The tail flame left by the firework had long since disappeared. No one knew which corner the perpetrator had flown off to.
“So…” Red spoke again. “Should we go look for that… warrior? To thank him?”
“No need to search.”
Blue withdrew her gaze with a complicated expression. She had a strange feeling that the figure looked familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before, yet she couldn’t recall where.
“He should be somewhere in that direction. When the fireworks run out, he’ll fall down on his own.”
“Yeah… that makes sense.”
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