The peaceful lunch hour was sliced open by a sound like a giant serrated knife tearing through silk. Below them, in the school’s art courtyard, the reality of the campus seemed to buckle.
"Over there!" Konone pointed, her distress from earlier replaced by the cold, sharp focus of a commander.
Standing atop a fountain was Eza, looking down at a sobbing student who had just seen her prize-winning portfolio ruined by a spilled bottle of ink. "Oh, the agony of a ruined vision," Eza sighed, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "Why strive for perfection when the world is so... fragile? Let's simplify things. Let's just cut it all away."
He raised a dark, ink-stained quill and slashed the air.
"Rise, Draft-Slasher!"
From the spilled ink and the student's discarded charcoal sticks, a nightmare took form. It was a spindly, seven-foot-tall creature with a body made of compressed, yellowed parchment. Its head was a massive, sharpened HB Pencil, and its arms were two enormous, gleaming Scissor Blades that hissed as they opened and closed.
"SNIP... ERASE... SNIP..." the monster wheezed.
"He's targeting the art club!" Yui cried, reaching for her card.
"Wait!" Konone grabbed her arm. "The track team... they're trapped in the courtyard! If we transform now, they'll see us!"
The Draft-Slasher lunged, its scissor-arms snapping toward a group of girls—the same girls who had been whispering about Konone earlier. They were paralyzed with fear, huddled against a brick wall as the massive blades prepared to "snip" the air around them.
Konone didn't wait for a transformation. She didn't wait for a card.
She vaulted over the rooftop railing, falling three stories with a grace that silenced every scream in the courtyard. She landed in a three-point stance directly between the monster and the students.
"Konone-chan?!" one of the track girls gasped.
The monster swung a scissor-blade horizontally. Konone didn't flinch. She used her bare hands—her palms conditioned by years of combat—to slap the flat side of the blade, redirecting the strike into the brick wall. CRACK. The bricks shattered, but the girls were untouched.
"Run! Get to the gym!" Konone commanded, her voice vibrating with authority. "Now!"
The girls scrambled away, looking back in awe. They didn't see a "freak" anymore. They saw a shield.
"Yui, now! While they're distracted!" Konone shouted, diving behind a row of hedges to meet her partner.
"Blazing Heart! Ignite!"
"Blazing Heart! Crystallize!"
In a twin burst of red and blue light, Blazing Fire and Blazing Ice emerged.
The Draft-Slasher turned its pencil-head toward them, the lead tip glowing with a dark, graphite energy. It began to "draw" in the air, creating sharp, paper-thin rifts that flew toward the duo like boomerangs.
"These rifts are like razors!" Yui warned, skating around a projectile that sliced a nearby tree branch clean off.
"Then we break the lead!" Konone roared. She propelled herself forward, her fists wreathed in white-hot flames. "You provide the anchor, I'll provide the heat!"
"Got it!" Yui thrust her rapier into the ground. "Frozen Binding!"
Ice surged forward, encasing the monster’s spindly parchment legs in a heavy block of frost. The Draft-Slasher screeched, its pencil-head vibrating as it tried to erase the ice.
"Too slow!" Konone was already airborne. She slammed her flaming fist directly into the "neck" of the pencil-head. The intense heat caused the graphite to shatter and the wood to splinter.
As the monster stumbled, Yui delivered a precision strike to the hinge of the scissors. "Class dismissed!"
With a final, shivering "SNIP," the monster dissolved into a flurry of clean, white paper that fluttered away in the wind.
Eza narrowed his eyes, clicking his tongue. "A crude lesson, but effective. Enjoy your 'friends' while you can, Konone." He vanished into a swirl of dark ink.
As the 4th Heart Card (The Card of Creativity) hovered in the air, Konone caught it. Her transformation faded, and she stood there, panting, as the track team girls slowly crept back into the courtyard.
One of them, the girl who had run the 100m dash against her, stepped forward. She wasn't backing away this time. She reached out and touched Konone’s shoulder.
"That was... incredible," the girl whispered. "You saved us. We... we thought you were just scary, but you're actually a hero, aren't you?"
Konone looked at Yui, who gave her a massive, teary-eyed wink.
"I am just... Konone," she said, her voice finally reaching a 'Level 1' softness. And then, she did it. She gave them a smile—a real one. It was a little shaky, a little shy, but it was the brightest thing in the courtyard.57Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ22mZrpj3pn
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