One Kick Girl — Chapter 38: "The Silence After the Beat"
Smoke.
Or what passed for smoke in Neon City — drifting holographic fragments of burned data, pixelated and stuttering in midair.
Raon stood at the epicenter, one boot half-buried in a crater shaped suspiciously like an earphone. Her jacket fluttered in the artificial wind, lit by the flickering remnants of the Echo-3 signal.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Even the city seemed to hold its breath.
Then — crack!
Her knee gave out.
She wobbled, stumbled, and landed squarely on her butt with an undignified "ow."
"Okay…" Raon muttered, rubbing her head. "That was… not one kick."
She sighed and looked up at the sky.
The holographic waveform that had towered above the skyline was now fading, pixel by pixel. Its final echoes rippled outward, dissolving into shimmering silence.
Shion's voice crackled through her comm link.
"Raon! Can you hear me?"
"Yeah," Raon groaned. "Barely. My ears are ringing like they just got front-row seats to a death metal concert."
"That's because they did. You triggered a full Resonance feedback loop. I thought your pulseband was going to melt!"
Raon glanced at her wrist device — the Pulseband was indeed smoking faintly.
"Eh. It'll buff out."
"It won't."
Raon grinned weakly. "Still… I kicked it, right?"
"'It' was an ethereal sound algorithm capable of rewriting neural frequencies across all digital channels. So yes, you kicked an idea."
"Sweet."
---
Somewhere across the skyline, the chaos began to subside.
Lights rebooted. Traffic AI unglitched. Billboards resumed their regularly scheduled nonsense.
> "Buy the NEW Kick Cola! Now with 10% more caffeine and 100% less existential dread!"
Raon smiled tiredly. "Back to normal, huh?"
Shion sighed. "Define normal. Half the city's sound systems are fried. You accidentally caused a 12-minute citywide rave in minor key. And Dome fainted."
"Maestro Dome?"
"Collapsed mid-chorus. He'll live, but his ego might not."
Raon leaned back against a crumbling air vent. For the first time, she felt the stillness. The post-fight quiet that was somehow louder than the fight itself. A familiar silence — not of peace, but of waiting.
"Hey, Shion."
"Yes?"
"When it all stopped… I heard something."
There was a pause.
"What did you hear?"
Raon hesitated. "A voice. Not the Echo. Different. Softer. Said something like… 'this isn't over.'"
Shion's visor dimmed. "Residual data maybe. Or…"
"Or what?"
Shion's voice dropped. "Or it means there's a fourth one."
Raon blinked. "Echo-4? Please tell me it's just an acoustic guitar version."
Shion didn't answer.
Raon looked out over the smoldering skyline, lips quirking into that reckless smile that made heroes nervous and fans cheer.
"Well… bring it on," she muttered. "One more remix won't kill me."
Beat.
"Probably."