Eyes in the Shadows

"Yang Chen! Hurry up!"

Commercial Street buzzed with voices. Chen Qianqian tugged Yang Chen by the sleeve, weaving through the crowd with a clear destination in mind.

"Slow down..." Yang Chen stumbled as she pulled him along. "Knight's merch store isn't going anywhere..."

"It might! Of course it might!" Chen Qianqian didn't look back. "Ever since the concert announcement, all the merch has been limited edition! If we're late, there won't be a single glow stick left!"

Ever since Knight's concert was announced, Chen Qianqian had been in a state of excitement Yang Chen had never seen before.

Then again, it was the first concert by their city's own Magical Girl. The whole city was celebrating.

The girls at school had already made plans to team up and fight for tickets. Naturally, Chen Qianqian refused to be left behind.

"Besides," she said, suddenly turning back and narrowing her eyes at him, "why aren't you excited at all? It's Knight! The Knight who saved us!"

"I'm excited. I'm incredibly excited," Yang Chen said without expression.

What did he have to be excited about?

He had run straight into "Knight" herself at school and heard her ask someone what they thought of her.

And as for Magical Girls... he was one himself.

The merch store was packed.

Sword-shaped keychains, silver-armor badges, glow sticks, life-size standees... Chen Qianqian plunged into the crowd with the fighting power of a Third-Order Fallen Beast. Yang Chen was jostled every which way and ended up standing beside the register, holding a pile of her spoils like a human shelf.

"Here!" Chen Qianqian slapped two glow sticks into his arms. "One each! We'll go to the concert together!"

"Huh? I'm going too?"

"Obviously!" Chen Qianqian glared at him. "Knight saved your life. How could you not show up to support her?"

"...All right." Yang Chen looked at the silver glow stick in his hand, his feelings complicated.

Show up to support Knight, huh...

Why not? He still hadn't seen a Magical Girl perform live. He had only watched footage uploaded from other places.

They left the merch store and headed back.

As they passed Central Plaza, Yang Chen noticed the people ahead all looking up, phones raised as they snapped photos in the same direction.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Chen Qianqian rose onto her toes.

He followed their gaze—

A petite figure stood atop the tallest billboard at the edge of the plaza.

She wore round glasses, her long hair tied neatly back, and held a thick stack of reference booklets against her chest. Standing at the edge of the billboard more than ten meters above the ground, she steadied the booklets with one hand and held a tablet in the other. Every so often, she looked up to survey the city skyline, then lowered her head to record something.

"It's the new Magical Girl!" someone in the crowd shouted. "The one on the support team! Her name's... Celestial Star?"

"She's so tiny. Isn't she scared, standing that high up...?"

"She's a Magical Girl."

Shutters clicked all around them.

Despite the crowd watching and photographing her, Celestial Star never looked up. She remained focused on her notes.

After all, for a Magical Girl, being watched and photographed while out in public was perfectly normal. She had long since grown used to friendly attention.

As for worrying that someone might see more than they should... that was simply not an issue.

A Magical Girl's Regalia blocked prying eyes. Unless it had been broken through, nothing private would be exposed.

Even the injuries Knight had sustained that day had been nowhere near enough to break hers.

"So that's what the new Magical Girl looks like..." Chen Qianqian raised her phone and took a couple of pictures too. "She looks like a model student."

Yang Chen smiled and was about to reply—

When a faint chill brushed the back of his neck.

Like a cold needle giving him the lightest prick.

The smile stayed on Yang Chen's face, but his steps slowed a fraction.

Malice.

It was faint and well hidden, but he knew it too well. It was the gaze of someone watching prey.

Unlike the murky malice of a Fallen Beast, this malice had a clear target.

It was human malice.

As though by chance, he glanced in the direction the chill had come from.

Across the plaza, two men sat by a second-floor window in a café.

Ordinary jackets, ordinary baseball caps, ordinary cups of coffee on the table before them.

Both men were looking in the same direction.

Not at Celestial Star atop the billboard.

At the structural supports beneath her feet.

That wasn't how people looked at an idol.

It was how combat engineers looked when assessing where to plant explosives.

Yang Chen lowered his eyes, hiding the sharp glint that flashed through them.

Something's wrong with those two...

Were they behind the recent incidents in Our City? Those incidents hadn't caused heavy casualties, but they had still done plenty of harm.

They had even hurt his aunt and uncle.

"What's wrong?" Chen Qianqian noticed him slowing down.

"Nothing." Yang Chen smiled. "My shoelace came loose."

He crouched to tie it, but his ears strained to catch the scraps of conversation drifting over on the wind. Without transforming, his hearing was only a little better than an ordinary person's, but adding just a touch of Magic Power made it more than enough.

"...confirmed... patrol route... ten minutes..."

"...concert..."

"Location..."

Commercial Street was too noisy, and he could draw on only a limited amount of Magic Power without transforming. Yang Chen could catch only the gist.

But even that was enough for him to work out what they intended.

They planned to make their move at the concert!

He finished tying his shoelace.

Yang Chen rose slowly, wearing the exact same smile as before.

"Come on, let's go home!" Chen Qianqian picked up her shopping bags. "My mom said she's making dumplings tonight!"

"Sounds good."

Yang Chen fell into step beside her, chatting and laughing as they merged into the crowd.

No one knew that the boy's hand, tucked into his pocket, had slowly and quietly curled into a fist.

The concert.

Tens of thousands of people.

The Liberation Faction.

Fine.

Just fine.

If you dare touch that concert—

If you touch the mother who wants to stand in the front row and watch her daughter sing, the girl who practices at the Training Ground late into the night, everything the people of this city have looked forward to for so long—

Deep in his pocket, the boy's fingers tightened bit by bit, his knuckles cracking.

No... I'll have to go out and look around tonight. I need to warn Knight or Masked Heroine too.