Bonus Chapter: “The Phantom Wrench”

  Scene 1: Wrong Door. Right Set-Up. Again.

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  “I swear, this wasn’t here yesterday.”

  Ren stared in growing horror at the frosted glass panel now swinging shut behind him — faint steam curling under the door, wooden signage overhead burned in kanji:

  桜湯 — Sakura Spring.

  Girls.

  Voices.

  Approaching.

  He spun. Pulled the door.

  Locked.

  “Oh no. Oh no no no—”

  Too late.

  “KYAAAAAAAAAAA!”

  Towels flew. Soap trays hit the tile like gunfire. A shriek from somewhere close enough to rattle his soul.

  Ren did what any honorable man with zero social skills and exactly one grandfather in his life would do:

  He sprinted, half-slipped, flailed through a cloud of jasmine-scented chaos, and dove headfirst through the adjacent linen closet door.

  Fifteen seconds later, with his heart still racing and his dignity in tatters, he emerged covered in bath towels and shame, face-to-face with a very calm, very suspicious Vice Principal Kondo.

  “Again?” Kondo muttered, glancing over his clipboard.

  “I was told the third door was the boiler room!”

  “It was.”

  Kondo sighed. “Goro…”

  Later, as Ren limped out the side exit wrapped in apology papers and regret, he found Grandpa lounging against the water pump system, chewing dried squid and whistling off-key.

  Ren glared. “You changed the signs again.”

  Grandpa didn’t even blink. “You figured it out faster this time. Progress.”

  “I could’ve been expelled!”

  “You weren’t.” He tossed Ren a roll of gaskets. “Now go fix the Dart’s left stabilizer. It’s about to teach you something.”

  Ren caught it midair. Paused.

  “…Why does that sound like a threat?”

  Grandpa just grinned.

  Scene 2: Sabotage or Legacy?

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  By mid-afternoon, Ren was elbow-deep in the Dart’s left stabilizer housing, steam fogging up his goggles and grease slicked under his fingernails.

  The guidance struts should’ve been smooth. Balanced. Harmonized with the yaw tensioner like dancing gears in a ballroom. Instead…

  “This is sabotage,” he muttered.

  The bolt threading was mismatched — not stripped from wear, but filed flat at the corners. The torque guide had been deliberately flipped, like someone wanted the tension to snap under pressure. And there, tucked into a rear bracket, was a makeshift shim… carved from what looked like an old academy award plaque.

  He pulled it out slowly.

  Engraved in faded brass:

  Racing Excellence Award, 1961 – Hinode Sky League

  “…No way.”

  This was no careless mistake. This was sabotage by craftsmanship.

  Worse — it was custom sabotage.

  He wiped his hands and sat down hard on an overturned parts crate, holding the brass wedge up to the fading light filtering through the hangar skylight. A faint crackle of steam rolled overhead.

  “Grandpa…” he muttered, “what were you doing back then?”

  Jiro wandered in right then, sipping from a pouch of juice and chewing on jerky like he’d just woken up inside a vending machine.

  “Yo. Hana said you yelled at the stabilizer.”

  Ren held up the shim. “This was planted. Decades ago. Intentionally.”

  Jiro leaned in. Squinted.

  Then grinned.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Ohhhh. That’s not a defect.” He clapped Ren on the shoulder. “That’s part of the Phantom Wrench legacy.”

  “…The what now?”

  “Old mechanic’s tale,” Jiro said, mouth full. “Grandpa Goro used to rig his own ships so only the worthy could fly them. Called it his ‘mechanical rite of passage.’ Said if you could find the fake fix, you deserved the real flight.”

  Ren stared at him. “He sabotaged his own ship… on purpose?”

  “Legend says,” Jiro said, striking a dramatic pose with his juice pouch, “that the Wrench shows itself to only those who dare fix what they’re not supposed to touch.”

  Ren dropped his head into his hands. “I’m being hazed by a myth.”

  “And by your grandpa.”

  “That too.”

  Scene 3: The Phantom Wrench Lives

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The wrench didn’t match anything in the toolkit.

  Ren found it at the bottom of an oil-stained rag bag behind the hangar's oldest bench press — a place so dusty it probably hadn't been touched since the late Meiji era. It was slim, brass-handled, with uneven teeth and no standard brand. The number “369” was etched into the grip in tiny, hand-filed numerals.

  He held it up.

  The tool was warm.

  It hummed.

  “…You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Ren muttered.

  From the rafters, Grandpa Goro’s voice drifted down like it had been waiting all day.

  “If the wrench fits — fly it.”

  Ren spun around. “You planted this!”

  “Nope. That thing finds who it wants.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Fully certified.”

  Grandpa swung down from the upper gantry like a retired pirate on a rope swing, boots clanging against the side wall, landing with a creaky grunt. He wiped his hands on his coveralls, inspected the wrench, and tapped it gently on Ren’s forehead.

  “Know what that is?”

  “A myth? A prank? A very specific hallucination caused by inhaling too much compressed crystal vapor?”

  “It’s the only tool that works on the stabilizer bracket you found.”

  Ren blinked. “So… you did sabotage the Dart.”

  “I prepared the Dart,” Grandpa corrected, leaning against a worktable with the swagger of a man who’d built six flying machines and married two women smarter than him. “If you can’t fix what’s broken, you don’t deserve what works.”

  Ren stared at him.

  “You sabotaged it.”

  “It was already broken. I just made it selective.” He winked.

  “I could’ve crashed.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I could’ve died!”

  “You didn’t.”

  Ren threw his hands up. “That’s not a defense!”

  Grandpa just grinned. “Wrong bolts teach better lessons than perfect ones. You figured it out, didn’t you?”

  “…Barely.”

  “Exactly.”

  He turned, dusted off a clipboard, and walked away like nothing had happened — just another day at the academy.

  Ren looked down at the wrench again. It still hummed faintly in his grip.

  The number etched into the handle — 3, 6, 9 — pulsed softly in the workshop light.

  Maybe it wasn’t just a myth.

  Maybe it was the start of something.

  Scene 4: Grandpa’s Terrible Advice (That Somehow Works)

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  It was almost midnight when Ren found Grandpa outside the dorms, perched on an overturned shipping crate, munching pickled plum onigiri and sipping something that definitely wasn’t tea out of a chipped flask.

  The moon was high. The wind carried the scent of solder smoke and hot crystal residue. Somewhere in the distance, a liftbag hissed softly as it deflated for the night. The campus had gone quiet — but Ren’s brain hadn’t.

  He slumped onto the crate beside the old man.

  “I rewired the entire throttle linkage,” he said.

  Grandpa nodded. “Still lags?”

  “By two seconds.”

  Grandpa chewed. Swallowed. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Try replacing the forward pressure valves.”

  Ren frowned. “That won’t help the lag.”

  “Nope.”

  “…Then why would I—”

  “Because you’ll find the real problem two valves downstream once you fix the wrong one.”

  Ren stared.

  Grandpa grinned, eyes crinkling under thick brows. “You kids always want to fix things in straight lines. Airships don’t work like that. Steam’s alive. So are crystals. They don’t ask where you think the problem is — they show you, once you start turning bolts.”

  Ren dragged a hand through his hair. “So your advice is… fix the wrong part until the right part screams at me?”

  “Exactly!”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “Worked for me.”

  Ren opened his mouth, then closed it. Then sighed. “…I hate that it makes sense.”

  Grandpa slapped his back. “Then you’re starting to learn.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, steam curling from the nearby vents. The moonlight gleamed off the edge of the wrench still tucked in Ren’s tool belt — the numbers on the side faint but pulsing, like breath.

  “Hey,” Ren asked, quieter now. “Was it always like this for you?”

  Grandpa didn’t answer right away.

  Finally, he nodded, just once. “Yeah. Always. Half smoke, half miracle. You never know if it’ll hold… but if it does, it’s yours.”

  He stood, stretched with a groan, and shuffled back toward the maintenance tunnels.

  “Fix the wrong part, Kisaragi. The sky’s got its own logic. You just have to meet it halfway.”

  Ren sat alone for a while, the wrench humming softly in his hand.

  Then he stood. And went to fix the wrong valve.

  Scene 5: The Note

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The workshop was too quiet.

  No rattling from the wall vent. No humming from the kettle Grandpa swore was faster than electricity. No off-key singing about flying gearboxes and women who “wore brass better than lace.”

  Ren walked into the hangar expecting chaos. Instead, he found stillness — as if the air itself was holding its breath.

  The Silver Dart sat half-lit in the worklight haze. The stabilizer gleamed with fresh polish. The wiring looms had been wrapped in heat tape. The crystal housing had been buffed.

  Ren frowned.

  He hadn’t done all that.

  On the pilot seat, there was a folded note held in place by a half-eaten rice cracker.

  Ren —

  You’re gonna want to check the ignition coil before your test fire.

  (Or don’t. Might be fun either way.)

  Either way, if you trust the sky, it’ll catch you.

  Or drop you.

  Either way — you’ll learn.

  —Goro

  P.S. Don't forget to reattach the pressure return line this time.

  And don’t tell the headmistress about the paint thinner “accident.”

  I’m still banned from Home Ec.

  Ren picked up the note. The paper was oil-stained, edges curled from heat. Familiar.

  He laughed softly. Then looked at the ignition system.

  Sure enough — two wires were crossed. Deliberately. Not enough to cause a fire, but just enough to fail ignition. Or, if you were new, make you think the entire core had died.

  He corrected it. No sparks. No fuss. Just a clean click.

  Ren sat down in the pilot seat. The cushions still smelled like rust and mothballs and old stories.

  He tucked the note into his inner jacket pocket.

  Then, slowly — reverently — placed the Phantom Wrench on the dashboard. It clicked softly into place, like it had always belonged there.

  Somewhere in the rafters, a bolt loosened on its own and clattered to the ground.

  Ren looked up.

  Grinned.

  “I see you, old man.”

  Mini Payoff:

  Ren realizes the truth — that Grandpa wasn’t trying to help him win. He was making sure Ren earned every inch of flight.

  And somehow… Ren wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.