"Alright, stop laughing, you're deafening me."
Kiana let go and tapped her index finger twice against the micro communicator, forcibly cutting off Bronie's barbell-heavy guffaws.
She lowered her gaze to the Theresa standing before her — eyes still squeezed shut, face flushed crimson, body stiff as a plank of wood.
She sighed.
"Open your eyes. The police are here."
Theresa's eyelashes gave a violent twitch.
She cracked one eye open with utmost caution, only to find that the unspeakable, fanatical-fan behavior she'd been bracing for had not, in fact, occurred.
The white-haired girl in front of her was looking down at her phone, at the Arc City Vigilante app, its screen displaying a countdown to mission completion.
From the mouth of the alley came the rapid clatter of footsteps and the static crackle of a police walkie-talkie.
Two uniformed patrolmen came charging in, batons at the ready.
The older officer leading the way was potbellied and drenched in sweat. The moment he saw the Tiger Claw Gang thugs sprawled every which way across the ground, and Kiana standing in the center of it all, his tensed shoulders immediately slumped.
"Aiyo, it's you again, white-haired kid."
The old officer slotted his baton back into his belt and fished a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his forehead.
"We just got a call up top saying somebody was busting up a place over here. One look at this mess on the ground and I figured eight times out of ten it'd be you. You really are something, little lady. That makes the fifth den this month, doesn't it?"
Kiana stuffed her phone into her pocket and gave a nod — that counted as a greeting.
"They were dealing in forged documents and scalped tickets at jacked-up prices. I've uploaded the evidence to the app backend."
She pointed at the gang boss still whimpering on the ground.
"Sorry to trouble you, Uncle Zhang — haul him in for questioning."
In the grassroots police network of Arc City, the name of the "White-Haired Vigilante" had long since spread far and wide.
The officers working the precincts often spotted this girl active at all manner of scenes where crime syndicates and dark forces were being cracked down on.
It was just that this particular vigilante struck like lightning every time — done and gone, never any lingering loose ends, as if staying even one second longer would cost her her life.
What they didn't know was that this wasn't the way of some seasoned master at all. It was the "activity time limit" the System had clamped down on Kiana, locking her in tight.
For today's outing — a mission to scrape together money for a graphics card — she'd had to bottle herself up at home for several days straight just to bank enough Absolute Freedom Time to leave the range of Su Yu's side.
Even Bronie, hammering away at her keyboard back in the safehouse, couldn't figure out the principle behind the limit. She could only chalk it up to some side effect of high-intensity combat — like how Ultraman can only fight little monsters on Earth for three minutes. Very reasonable.
The old officer's gaze drifted past Kiana and landed on Theresa, who was hiding behind her and peeking out, head bobbing around.
"And this is...?"
"Oh." Kiana didn't bat an eyelash. "A concerned citizen who got cheated out of her money by this bunch of scalpers. They were about to rough her up just now, so I saved her on the side. My little sidekick."
Clearly her talent for talking nonsense had also been learned from Su Yu.
Theresa's eyes instantly went round as saucers.
Little sidekick?!
I, Magical Girl teriri, possessor of innate divine strength who can fling a bread truck one-handed, have actually become the little sidekick of you, my fanatical fan?!
She was about to fire back when Kiana's gaze swept over, cool and level, a faint not-quite-smile warning lurking at the bottom of her eyes.
Theresa immediately swallowed the words that had risen to her lips.
Forget it.
If the police found out that the iron door on the ground had been ripped off by her, tomorrow's entertainment-tabloid headline would read: "Shocking! Sweet Idol Moonlights as Demolition Crew in the Dead of Night."
"Y-yes! Thank you for your hard work, Officer!"
Theresa swiftly switched on that sweet, harmless professional smile, pressed her palms together, and bowed ninety degrees to the old officer.
The old officer waved a cheerful hand and directed the young officer behind him to start cuffing people.
Kiana didn't linger. She glanced at the countdown rapidly draining away on her phone, turned, and headed out of the alley.
Theresa hesitated a moment, then gritted her teeth and trotted after her in quick little steps.
The summer sun came crashing down, unobstructed, onto the streets of Arc City's Old District.
The air shimmered, baked into a faint distortion.
Theresa shadowed Kiana, keeping pace two meters behind that tall figure.
She stared at the back ahead of her, and the more she looked, the more she felt something was off.
That head of snow-white long hair, shimmering faintly in the sunlight.
That left eye, clear as a glacier, sky-blue, from when their eyes had met just now.
This face... why did it look more and more familiar the longer she looked?
Theresa's brows knit tightly together.
Though she operated as an idol, her social circle was hardly narrow.
White hair and blue eyes this distinctive — in her understanding, only one family possessed this dominant gene.
Kaslana.
But that wasn't right.
In this world, the only Kaslana family member she could recall was that Kevin — the one who wore a sour face all day, slaving away as a miserable Office Slave at his company.
And Kevin's parents, Siegfried and Cecilia, were forever gallivanting all over the world.
Could it be...
An utterly horrifying notion detonated in Theresa's mind like a thunderclap on level ground.
That philandering old bastard Siegfried had gone and fathered an illegitimate daughter behind Cecilia's back?!
Theresa's footsteps jerked to a halt.
She stared in terror at Kiana's back, both hands clapped over her mouth.
No wonder! No wonder she knew her so well! No wonder she knew about the red mole on the inside of her thigh! Because she was a stray bloodline of the Kaslana family, secretly observing her, this nominal "elder," all this time!
It all made sense!
"Hey."
Kiana, walking ahead, stopped and turned her head to look at Theresa, whose face was practically printed with "I've uncovered a high-society scandal."
"Where are you taking me?" Theresa retreated half a step warily.
Kiana checked the time. Less than twenty minutes until the limit ran out.
"Back to my place."
"Your place?!"
Theresa's voice shot up eight octaves in an instant, and she sprang up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
She crossed both arms protectively over her chest and fixed Kiana with a deadly stare, those big eyes flashing with a steadfast light known as "defending the ethical bottom line."
"No! Absolutely not! This is completely out of the question!"
Theresa shook her head over and over, her white twin tails whipping afterimages through the air.
"We — we might very well be aunt and niece! Even if there's no proof of a blood relationship, what you're doing is wrong! Immoral love never ends well! No matter how much you idolize me, I cannot agree to this unreasonable demand of yours!"
The corner of Kiana's mouth began to twitch wildly.
She looked at this white-haired shorty in front of her, locked in fierce inner struggle, the way one might look at an alien.
What in the world was all this?!
What kind of trashy late-night melodramas did the aunties of this world even watch in their spare time?
The amount of scrap material packed into her head was even greater than that of Sister Himeko across the hall, who drank herself into a stupor every single day—
"You're overthinking it."
Kiana weakly rubbed her temples and gave up on the notion of explaining anything to this wildly imaginative creature.
"My place has air conditioning, ice-cold bitter melon juice, and — that video of you beating people up just now is still in my friend's hands."
She turned and kept walking.
"Keep up. Or wait to make tomorrow's headlines."
Theresa bit her lip and agonized for three full seconds between "the collapse of ethics and morality" and "the ruin of her idol career."
In the end, she lowered her head and followed along like a put-upon punching bag.
"You win..." she mumbled under her breath.
In her earpiece, Bronie's voice rang out once again.
"Kiana, nicely done! I've already recorded that passionate aunt-and-niece denunciation just now — primo blackmail material, that."
The clatter of the keyboard paused.
"I just checked Su Yu's schedule. He's over at Arc City Tower today casing a target, won't be back till evening, probably. Since I've got nothing better to do, I'm heading over to Su Yu's place to link up with you two right now."
"I really do want to see how Theresa reacts when she lays eyes on me."
Half an hour later.
Happiness Community, Unit 302.
Kiana pulled out her key and twisted open the security door.
Cold air rushed out to meet them, driving off the summer heat.
Filled with a tragic, heroic resolve — as though she were about to venture deep into a dragon's pool and tiger's den — Theresa took a deep breath and stepped into the entryway.
"Pardon the intrusion..."
She was about to say a few face-saving words to assert her dignity as an elder.
Her gaze passed through the entryway and landed on the old sofa in the living room.
A girl in a techwear jacket, with gray spiral twin tails, was lounging brazenly against the sofa's backrest.
She had one leg crossed over the other, the toe of her tactical boot swinging back and forth.
Hearing the door open, the girl pulled down the orange goggles on her face and popped the pink bubble of gum in her mouth.
Those gray eyes glittered with the light of someone settling in to watch a good show.
The corner of her mouth curled into an utterly undisguised, malicious little grin.
"Yo."
Bronie raised one hand and gave a lazy wave of greeting.
"Theresa~"
Clack.
The phone Theresa had been clutching for dear life dropped straight down and smacked onto the floor.
She bulged those already-large eyes even wider, her gaze ricocheting back and forth between the leg-crossed Bronie and the utterly indifferent Kiana beside her, as if she were looking at two aliens who had just dropped onto Earth from Mars.
"You... you two..."
Theresa's lips trembled as she extended a slender finger, pointing tremblingly at the sofa.
"Bronie?! Why are you here? You two are in cahoots?!"
Her brain instantly turned to mush.
Bronie — that rebellious hacker who normally appeared and vanished like a ghost, whom even she, the older sister, often went ten days or half a month without so much as a glimpse of — how could she be sitting here so openly in the home of a "fanatical stalker fan," and lounging around with the air of a master of the house, no less?
Bronie spat out the gum residue in her mouth, casually fished a fresh piece from the box under the coffee table and popped it in, chewed twice, and only then spoke at an unhurried pace.
"Let me correct you, Sister Theresa."
She deliberately put extra stress on the word "Sister," laced with undisguised mockery.
"We're not in cahoots. I'm her technical consultant. As for why I'm here..."
Bronie spread her hands, putting on an innocent smile.
"It's because it's cool in here. And besides — there's a good show to watch."
Theresa could feel her blood pressure climbing in a straight vertical line.
Just as she was preparing to summon the authority of an elder and properly interrogate this troublesome little sister, a sweet, syrupy "meow" suddenly came from down by her feet.
Theresa lowered her head.
A cat, snow-white from head to tail without a single stray hair, was winding around her pink sneakers with its tail held high, rubbing against them.
Theresa's gaze followed that fluffy tail upward and met the cat's eyes.
The left eye was a clear sky-blue.
The right eye was a brilliant gold.
Boom—
Theresa felt her entire worldview let out the splintering crack of something straining past its breaking point.
She snapped her head up and stared fixedly at Kiana's identical heterochromatic eyes, then lowered it again to look at the white cat still licking its paw.
White fur.
Heterochromatic eyes.
Even that sky-blue color was the exact same goddamn shade!
Theresa sucked in a cold breath and staggered back half a step, her back slamming into the shoe cabinet in the entryway.
No way?!
Could it be that even this cat had inherited the fine bloodline of the Kaslana family?! What kind of ghastly genetic miracle was this?!
No, wait.
Theresa shook her head hard, forcing herself to pull her attention away from that absurd cat.
Her brain began whirring at high speed.
The corner of her eye swept across the bottom shelf of the shoe cabinet.
There, arranged neatly, sat a pair of dark-blue plastic slippers that clearly belonged to an adult man — at least size 43.
Her gaze moved further up.
On the coat rack behind the door hung a loose, oversized black men's jacket.
In the corner of the coffee table sat a charging dock for an electric razor.
Every single sign was frantically transmitting one message to Theresa: a man lived here!
An adult man!
And judging from how worn yet clean these items were, this man was absolutely a permanent resident here — quite possibly even the owner of this rundown apartment!
All the clues rapidly slotted into place in Theresa's mind like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
White hair and blue eyes.
Innate monstrous strength.
Living in this kind of old, cramped, rundown apartment without even an elevator, its stairwell plastered with little flyers.
Across the hall, the hungover Himeko sneezed in her dreams.
And one mysterious, cohabiting adult man.
A name split through the fog in Theresa's mind like a bolt of lightning.
Siegfried Kaslana!
That unreliable old bastard who left a trail of broken hearts everywhere he went!
Theresa's eyes instantly rimmed red.
She understood everything now.
This girl before her was absolutely the illegitimate daughter that Siegfried had secretly fathered behind Cecilia's back!
To keep it from prying eyes, that old bastard had hidden the child away in this rundown Old District.
Those men's clothes and shoes in the entryway had to be the disguise he left behind on the occasions he secretly snuck over to visit her!
Despicable! Utterly despicable!
That old scumbag — fathering a child and then not even paying enough in support, leaving the poor girl with no choice but to live in this kind of dump where even the air conditioning could barely manage to cool the place.
To survive, she'd even had to take on dangerous vigilante missions — beating up gangsters and catching wanted criminals just to earn a meager living!
And how old is she even!
Looking at that young face — bearing a faint resemblance to Cecilia, yet written all over with hardship and coldness — Theresa's heart shattered completely.
The image of a brave girl who kept the secret of her birth, who scraped and clawed at the bottom rungs of society, who licked her own wounds alone yet still stood strong against the darkness of the entire world — it sprang up instantly in Theresa's mind, towering and radiant with boundless light.
Members of the Kaslana family all share one fatal flaw: the moment their emotions take over, their reason immediately packs up and leaves home.
At this very moment, Theresa had completely forgotten to press Bronie on why she was tangled up in all this, and had also forgotten that just minutes ago she'd been concocting all those R-rated scenarios in the alley.
Her head was now filled with a single thought: heartache.
So much heartache.
"Wuwaaah—"
Theresa suddenly burst into a wholly undignified wail.
She lunged forward like a pink cannonball, slamming straight into Kiana's arms.
"You poor child! You've had it so hard!"
Theresa clamped her arms around Kiana's waist for dear life, buried her face in that jacket, and let her tears and snot smear all over it without the slightest reservation.
"Auntie knows everything now! That damned old bastard — actually making you live and suffer all alone in a place like this! From now on Auntie will take care of you! Don't anyone even think about bullying you again!"
Kiana's entire body froze stiff as a popsicle.
She lowered her head and looked at the white-haired shorty clinging to her waist for dear life like a koala bear, bawling with a faceful of snot and tears.
After a furious bout of buzzing, her brain came to a complete and total halt.
What was going on?
What old bastard?
What Auntie?
One second ago she was squeezing her eyes shut in the alley, begging her to "go easy." How had this drama queen transformed in the blink of an eye into the maternal-love-overflowing female lead of some tearjerker sob story?!
Wasn't this a bit too big a leap, hey!
Kiana mechanically turned her head and cast a pleading look toward Bronie on the sofa.
Bronie was already laughing so hard she was about to roll off the sofa.
One hand clutching her stomach, the other holding up her phone, its camera trained with precision on the scene of the two embracing, the flash blazing like a strobe light in a nightclub.
"Don't look at me." Bronie wiped the laughter-tears from the corners of her eyes and flashed Kiana a thumbs-up. "I think the mood between you two right now is just great — heart-wrenching, enough to move a person to wet themselves."
Kiana drew in a deep breath.
She looked down at Theresa, still bawling her eyes out in her arms, and listened to those increasingly outrageous made-up lines, feeling nothing but utter mental and physical exhaustion.
She missed Su Yu now more than ever.
If that guy were here, he could surely use a whole pile of ridiculous, garbage talk to bamboozle this lunatic white-haired shorty into submission.
"Um..."
Kiana stiffly extended a finger and poked Theresa's shoulder.
"Could you let go first? Your snot — it's getting smeared onto my clothes. These clothes are very expensive."
These were clothes Su Yu had bought for her. If they got dirty, he'd definitely nag at her for half the evening again.
Theresa's sobbing cut off abruptly.
She lifted her head, that exquisite little face streaked all over with tear tracks, the lingering, not-yet-faded compassion and heartache still pooled at the bottom of her eyes.
"The clothes are expensive?" Theresa hiccuped, her face full of disbelief. "You... you're so poor you've had to go beat up gangsters, and yet that old bastard actually lets you buy clothes this expensive?! Is he — is he using this method to launder dirty money?!"
Kiana shut her eyes in despair.
Tired. Let it all burn.
Hopeless, utterly beyond saving.
This Auntie's brain was officially scrapped beyond repair.
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