Chapter 3: “Girls Can Fly. Boys Can Cry.”

  Scene 1: Grandpa’s Mission

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The sun was already climbing by the time Ren trudged out to the practice yard, toolbox in hand, breakfast nowhere in sight. His school uniform was rolled to the elbows, boots scuffed from yesterday’s hangar crawl, and his hair was still damp from a shower that ran out of hot water halfway through rinsing.

  He glared at the wrench in his hand like it had personally betrayed him.

  “This is the last time I answer a note that says ‘quick fix, easy job, be back before class,’” he muttered, gripping the folded paper Grandpa had left in the kitchen:

  ‘Emergency coolant leak on line seven. Yardside junction. Save the school. Wear boots.’ –G.G.

  He crested the ridge leading to the Sky League practice yard, blinking into the early morning glare—and froze.

  The yard was alive with sound and motion.

  Airships in various stages of launch floated above the dusty grass, crystal exhaust hissing like slow geysers. Girls in pilot uniforms yelled orders across the tarmac. One ship banked low overhead, turning a tight spiral before leveling out to hover precisely between two signal flags.

  Ren ducked instinctively.

  “Okay… maybe Grandpa forgot to mention there’s an active training drill happening.”

  He kept low, skirting the outer fence and eyeing the coolant lines running along the base of the maintenance wall. Most were dusty, quiet, leaking nothing but old memories. But Line Seven? It whistled faintly, vibrating against its bracket like an annoyed cat.

  Ren dropped to one knee and popped open the access valve, steam puffing in his face. He pulled a clamp from his belt, wedged a copper sleeve under the joint, and started tightening—

  A sudden boom of pressure roared overhead.

  Ren flinched, nearly dropping the wrench. A ship had just swept over him, its gasbag glittering with reinforced crystal plating. The engine hummed smooth as silk, twin props glowing with blue resonance arcs. It executed a tight arc turn—

  Then began its descent.

  Fast.

  Ren looked up.

  Oh no.

  Oh no no no—

  He was directly in the glide path.

  The ship came down like a blade. Its shadow swallowed the ground around him as the hoverfield kicked in, scattering dust and bits of paper in a wide arc.

  Ren scrambled to his feet and tried to run—

  Too late.

  The landing gear missed him by centimeters. The downdraft slammed into his chest and flung him back into the dirt like a crumpled pamphlet.

  He coughed, blinked… and found a face hovering upside down above him.

  Rin Arisaka.

  Flight jacket open, sleeves rolled, hair wind-whipped and unbothered. She didn’t even look winded.

  Her expression? Pure disdain.

  “If I wanted a prop stand,” she said coolly, “I’d have used a tree.”

  Ren wheezed. “Good to know.”

  Scene 2: Interrupting Royalty

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  Ren sat up slowly, coughing dirt from his lungs and blinking against the settling dust. His uniform was now officially half-soiled, his pride fully so. His elbow throbbed from the landing, and something warm and sticky was dripping from his ear.

  Please let that be coolant, he thought.

  Above him, Rin Arisaka still stood, one boot planted beside the landing skid of her gleaming racer. The ship’s forward panel bore the school crest — twin feathered wings cradling a stylized crystal — and her call sign, painted in red:

  “RIN-01 // Aether Crown”

  The ship was immaculate. Not flashy, but lethal-looking. Polished piping. Precision-bladed twin props. The gasbag overhead glimmered faintly, its contours smooth and proud like a falcon mid-dive.

  The pilot looked just as deadly.

  “You’re in a restricted zone,” Rin said flatly. “This is an active drill lane. Didn’t you read the red flags?”

  Ren stood, brushing dirt off his pants. “I was told coolant line seven had a leak—”

  “You thought you’d just waltz through a Sky League practice unannounced?”

  “I wasn’t waltzing,” Ren said. “I was crouching. Very professionally.”

  She arched a single perfect eyebrow. “Oh. That makes it better.”

  A chorus of voices rose around them as the other pilots arrived, having landed or parked their ships. A dozen girls in matching training jackets gathered around the confrontation, all radiating practiced control… and thinly veiled amusement.

  “Oh wow,” someone whispered. “That’s the transfer student, right?”

  “Did he try to die today?”

  “Or is this just performance art?”

  Ren straightened his back. “Look, I didn’t mean to interrupt your queen-of-the-skies routine. I was fixing a coolant line. Your exhaust nearly boiled my eyebrows off.”

  That did it.

  The group gasped audibly. Even Rin’s expression shifted—just barely—from steel to spark.

  “You’re accusing my ship of running hot?” she asked, stepping forward.

  “I’m accusing the pilot of aiming for my face.”

  Rin’s eyes narrowed.

  The other girls backed up a step. A drama was unfolding. History demanded documentation.

  Rin’s voice dropped half an octave. “You think you can fly better than me?”

  Ren opened his mouth. Thought about it. Closed it again.

  Then, as his brain screamed in protest, his mouth moved on its own.

  “…If I had a working engine? Maybe.”

  Silence.

  Even the airships seemed to stop humming.

  Ren. You absolute walnut, he thought.

  Rin’s mouth curved upward. Not a smile. A baring of fangs.

  “Race me,” she said.

  The girls gasped. Jiro, arriving just in time to witness the last five seconds, groaned audibly.

  “If you win,” Rin continued, “I’ll consider you for team tryouts.”

  “And if I lose?” Ren asked, already regretting everything.

  She turned on her heel.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Crawl back into the tool shed and stay there.”

  Scene 3: The Challenge

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  Ren didn’t remember walking off the field.

  He remembered dust. He remembered Rin’s glare. He remembered a dozen girls whispering in stereo as he muttered something half-coherent and backed away from her like she was a lioness who’d just said you may run now.

  But walking? No clue. His feet did the driving while his brain locked up.

  By the time he blinked back to awareness, he was in the shade of the east dorm tower, hands on his knees, sweat cooling against his neck.

  “Well,” said Jiro casually, “that’s one way to make friends.”

  Ren nearly jumped out of his skin. “How long have you been following me?”

  “Long enough to know you’ve officially been challenged to a one-on-one by Rin Arisaka on school property during Sky League prep week.” Jiro handed him a bottle of cold barley tea. “Also, long enough to know you’re either brave or dumb, and I’m leaning heavy into dumb.”

  Ren took the bottle with numb fingers. “I didn’t mean to challenge her. I was just trying to not get steam-roasted. She landed on me.”

  “Yeah, but instead of bowing and making small terrified noises like the rest of us would’ve done, you opened your big main character mouth.”

  Ren groaned, leaning back against the wall. “Is this going to get me expelled?”

  “Nah.” Jiro sat next to him, slouched and easy. “But it might get you publicly humiliated. That’s almost as fun.”

  Ren closed his eyes and let his head thump against the wall. “I just got here. I haven’t even had a chance to blow up a boiler.”

  “Yet,” Jiro said helpfully. “You haven’t blown up a boiler yet.”

  They sat in silence for a beat. Distant whistles echoed from the practice yard. Someone shouted about pressure levels. A crystal conduit whined as a nearby airship lifted off.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Ren said, cracking one eye open, “what are the rules for school-sanctioned races?”

  Jiro whistled low. “Oof. You’re serious?”

  Ren gave him a sideways look.

  Jiro stood up, stretched theatrically, and offered a hand. “Come on. We need the roof for this. And probably diagrams.”

  Scene 4: Classroom Fallout

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  By the time Ren shuffled into homeroom the next morning, the damage was done.

  He could feel it before he even opened the door. That strange atmospheric pressure where people weren’t just talking about you — they were building legends.

  He stepped into Room 2-A and froze at the threshold.

  Eyes.

  Everywhere.

  Half the girls immediately looked away in that very specific way people look away when they were just definitely talking about you. A cluster near the window burst into quiet giggles. The boy in the corner with the mechanical limb gave him a solemn thumbs-up.

  Jiro, already slouched at his desk with a toothpick in his mouth and his chair tilted just a little too far back, waved him in like a ringmaster calling the next act into the tent.

  “Good morning, Sky King,” he said.

  Ren dropped into his seat with the grace of a shot-down glider. “No.”

  “Oh, absolutely yes,” Jiro said. “Rumors say you challenged Rin to a duel over coolant maintenance rights, declared yourself her equal, and then flew off laughing into the sunrise.”

  “That’s… none of what happened.”

  “Tell that to the chalkboard.”

  Ren glanced up.

  At the top of the board, written in flawless cursive:

  “Will Ren Live Through Today?”

  ? Yes

  ? No

  ? Already Dead

  Underneath were tally marks. A lot of tally marks in the “Yes” column. More than he expected.

  Jiro gestured casually. “That was Mei. Her odds board is usually 90% accurate. She cleaned up during the Second-Year Boiling Incident.”

  Ren buried his face in his arms. “I just wanted to fix a pipe.”

  A girl across the aisle leaned toward her friend, whispering in perfect volume for Ren to hear: “Is he suicidal or just dumb-cute?”

  “I think both,” the friend replied.

  From the front of the class, Ms. Shiraishi entered with a satchel full of grading folders and a half-lidded look of I will tolerate your existence today, but barely.

  “Before we begin,” she said, “I would like to remind everyone that unsanctioned challenges to Sky League team captains are not encouraged. However…” — she let her gaze drift toward Ren, who shrank slightly in his seat — “…if they are accepted, they are binding under Hinode Academy’s Duel Code.”

  Ren’s heart hit a skip.

  Wait. Duel Code?

  “Training time will be allocated. Safety measures must be observed. And losing students may not sulk for more than forty-eight hours.”

  A few students clapped.

  Jiro leaned in. “Congratulations. You’re officially a school event.”

  Scene 5: Lunch on the Roof

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The rooftop of Building B was flat, sun-warmed, and blessedly empty — except for two students sitting on the edge, legs dangling over the reinforced gutter, bento boxes balanced on their knees.

  Ren picked at a lukewarm rice ball while Jiro demolished fried pork like the world was ending.

  “Okay,” Ren said, trying to sound casual. “I need to know what exactly I’ve done.”

  “You’ve accelerated the plot,” Jiro replied through a mouthful of cabbage.

  “Please pretend I’m a normal transfer student who just mildly ticked off the top-ranked pilot in school.”

  Jiro grinned. “You’re not. You challenged Rin Arisaka in front of her full crew. During a Sky League drill. In practice week. In the landing zone.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Jiro said, popping a pickled plum in his mouth. “This school lives and breathes its racing circuit. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s on the recruitment posters.”

  Ren looked over the edge at the airfield below, where students were still wheeling engine carts and refitting prop blades. “So how does this all work, exactly?”

  Jiro sat up, brushing crumbs from his pants. “Alright. Crash course.”

  He ticked off fingers.

  “One: Everyone’s placed in a racing team — up to four members per airship. Pilots, engineers, navigators. Sometimes mechanics float in if they’re good enough.”

  “Sounds like an RPG party.”

  “Exactly,” Jiro said, delighted. “Two: Rankings are based on race wins, airship performance, and team synergy. High ranks get first access to parts, crystal allocation, and hangar privileges.”

  Ren winced. “So I’ve challenged the person with the best everything.”

  “Yup. Three: Rin hasn’t lost a school-level race since she was twelve.”

  “Cool. Cool cool cool.” Ren lay back on the rooftop tiles. “I’m going to die.”

  “Not necessarily.” Jiro leaned over him, blocking the sun. “If you lose in style, people will still remember you.”

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “Not helping is my specialty.”

  Ren sighed.

  From down below, a crystal engine spun up, sending a light womp-womp-womp into the air — the rhythmic beat of flight beginning. Somewhere, gears clanked. Steam hissed. And a voice shouted from a hangar door, “WHO LEFT A SPANNER IN THE PRESSURE VALVE?!”

  Ren closed his eyes.

  “You’ve got three days,” Jiro said, reclining beside him. “Three days to fix, prep, and fly your ship.”

  “My ship,” Ren muttered. “Which technically hasn’t flown since ‘61 and may or may not be haunted.”

  “Then you better get to haunting it back.”

  Scene 6: Team Tension

  —-: Rin Arisaka

  The Faculty Planning Office always smelled like old parchment, solder smoke, and tea left too long on the warmer. Rin stood near the window, arms crossed, trying not to scowl while pretending she wasn’t scowling.

  Across the desk sat Ms. Shiraishi, spectacles perched on her nose, gloved fingers rhythmically tapping a folder labeled:

  DUEL CODE CHALLENGE // R. Arisaka vs. R. Kisaragi

  Rin’s name stared up at her in sharp, cold letters. Beneath it, Ren’s scribbled signature looked like a side note someone had added in pencil and forgotten to erase.

  “He’s unqualified,” Rin said flatly.

  “I’m aware.”

  “He’s a transfer.”

  Shiraishi nodded. “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t even have an airship!”

  Shiraishi gave a small, noncommittal smile. “He will.”

  Rin’s hands clenched behind her back. “I shouldn’t have to waste my time on someone who wandered into a practice zone and started flapping his mouth like he was born in a cockpit.”

  “He challenged you,” Shiraishi said simply, “and you accepted.”

  Rin turned sharply. “Only because—”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me,” Shiraishi interrupted. “But you do have to honor it.”

  Silence stretched between them. Outside, the bell tower let out a slow, metallic clang, marking the start of club hour.

  Shiraishi adjusted her glasses. “You’re the top pilot in this school. Ranked number one nationally. Triple-qualified for the summer league. If he can’t get the Dart in the air, this ends before it begins.”

  Rin didn’t answer.

  “But if he does,” Shiraishi added, voice softening just enough to be dangerous, “then he’s your problem.”

  Rin’s jaw tightened.

  She hated this part. The waiting. The possibility that someone — anyone — could appear and threaten the clean order she had built with speed, sweat, and sheer dominance.

  “If he loses,” she said, “he’s gone.”

  Shiraishi shrugged. “That’s the rule.”

  Rin turned and walked to the door, ponytail flicking with precision.

  “He won’t fly it,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s a wreck. And he’s just a boy with a wrench.”

  Then she was gone.

  Shiraishi watched the door for a long moment. Then, with the barest hint of a smirk, she opened the drawer beside her and pulled out a worn, folded photograph.

  Goro. His old team. And in the background… the Silver Dart on its first day out of the hangar.

  Some machines didn’t die.

  They just waited.

  Scene 7: Training Montage Tease

  —-: Ren Kisaragi

  The inside of Hangar 7 smelled like warm copper, solder smoke, and possibility.

  Ren had stripped down to his undershirt, sleeves tied around his waist, hands black with grease. The Silver Dart loomed like a half-assembled dream, its hull now supported on jacks, wiring bundles peeled back and coiled like nerves in surgery.

  Across the hull, Hana balanced delicately on the support struts, a wrench in one hand and a pressure valve blueprint in the other.

  “This bolt pattern makes no sense,” she muttered. “Why would they feed phase coolant back through the outer struts unless—”

  “—unless they were trying to use the liftfield exhaust as a secondary thrust stabilizer,” Ren finished, upside down beneath the cockpit with his head halfway inside a throttle linkage.

  Silence.

  Then: “You were listening?”

  “I'm not just here to be pretty,” Ren said. “Though I am very good at it.”

  A clatter. Hana had dropped her wrench.

  “Slipped!” she called down quickly.

  “Sure it did,” he muttered.

  Above them, the lanterns swayed faintly as a breeze rolled in through the warped window slats. The entire hangar glowed softly from the crystal test rig set up on the back table — humming low and constant as it stabilized the pressure feed lines they were reworking.

  Near the entrance, a ratty hammock swayed between two posts.

  In it: Grandpa Goro, hat over his face, steaming tea in one hand, dozing. He hadn’t lifted a finger all afternoon, except to flick a bolt back toward Ren when it rolled under his foot.

  Ren slid out from under the Dart, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.

  “I think the left-side stabilizer bracket is missing three bolts.”

  “Two,” Hana said. “I counted. But one’s the wrong size.”

  They locked eyes. Something between a grin and a dare passed silently between them.

  Click.

  The vent relay clicked on. A rush of steam vented through the test pipes, and the central shaft of the Dart shuddered — not violently, but just enough to make every conduit hum in harmony.

  They both froze.

  Grandpa shifted slightly in the hammock but didn’t open his eyes.

  “This,” he said, “is either genius or a smoking crater waiting to happen.”

  Ren looked at Hana.

  She looked at him.

  He grinned.

  “Let’s find out.”