My name is Mimi Yu a normal first year college student. Despite being grown up I still like taking strolls most of the time until I find myself wandering into unknown places, sometimes rewarding and sometimes too shady to describe but by a mysterious lucky force my legs always led me safely out of it. This evening, I wonder why it doesn’t seem to be going well as usual.

To my right is a two-meter, buff-looking guy with a weird looking pipe. The exposed, shiny teeth made it look like it was laughing until you pay attention to the way he was handling the pipe with both his hands. “Oh my! Cutie. A new member, huh? You want my number?”. The guy on my left seemed more infuriated for some reason when he heard what he said. I couldn’t tell with the white helmet that covered his head. He was a little skinny but seemed more of a bike rider type of thug person. He clenched his fists and a chilling blue energy seemed to come from his hands. “Oh no!! My sister always tells me not to go to dark alleys every morning before I leave the house,” I really feel like crying right now but that would be pathetic. So, I will just shed my tears very quietly while I hold my voice back even a man has his pride.

In the next second, they were right in front of me. I opened my eyes wide open in shock. My mind went from “I’m scared mommy” to “This is aweso…” no I mean “This is not normal at all”. The clash between the glowing hands of the skinny guy and the buff guy in the middle shocked me out of my day-dream as I was pushed back against the wall by the shockwave. Several questions race through my head, to question my normal understanding of the world I’ve been living in up until now; Can a skinny person normally handle a fight like this? Wait, do normal people even have glowing hands? I would get it if it was glowing hair but glowing hands? I just felt like fainting at this point already, but I also knew that staying here would only lead to me being a part of history by tomorrow either way in this situation.

I moved my body trying to escape from my left side since there was a corner near there but in the next moment, I was looking at the floor and felt like I was breathing dust. I realized that I was suddenly on the floor when I tried to lift my head and there was someone above me. “Stay down unless you want to get your head turned to mush.” This voice of the person above was of a girl, and it felt familiar but distant at the same time. The hands pressing my head to the ground were very soft. I guess the skinny guy was a she? More importantly there was a vivid crack on the wall from where my head was.

I closed my eyes imagining myself being the hero rescuing the beauty when the next moment my so-called head was gone, then opened my eyes and looked up at her wanting to say something. My sight was met by a hand covered in a claw looking energy of some sort. I could tell that it was dangerous for me to step in any longer besides the girl didn’t seem to need any of my assistance in any way. I closed my eyes in consolation and smiled thinking “This is good, I don’t need to do anything at all”.

The next exchanges were too much for me to see them all. Eventually though the skinny girl won the battle, took the weird pipe wrench from the other muscular buff guy and while holding it in her hand turned her head around and looked at me. Then the next second the pipe she was holding disappeared after that glow appeared for about two seconds and then stopped. For some reason I felt like I was going to be held accountable, then it struck me, she might want to eliminate the witness involved. For the third time in my life, I felt a numbing chill in my whole body, it was fear. She started slowly walking towards me and stretched out her hand. I put on a serious face and looked at her with clear eyes then stayed quiet as I crossed my arms together.

“I was going to ask if you were alright, but I guess my concern was unnecessary”, she said as she retracted her hand and started walking away. I closed my eyes and stayed composed at that moment, and then I heard a falling thud sound opening my eyes I saw the girl had collapsed right in front of me. I really felt scared for a moment if this was a trick to blackmail me later and just felt like escaping, but also a feeling of guilt crept over me. And so with a brave heart I picked up the fainted masked damsel and graciously took her to my humble abode for safety, my rental room which was two blocks away. This was after I called an ambulance for the other buff guy since he looked so beat up.

As I lay her on the bed, I caught my breath and thank my luck that I wasn’t caught or suspected for human trafficking at this point. From the snoring I could tell that she was just seriously fatigued and will come around once she gets enough sleep, other than that my guest was a girl, so I felt that I should call a trusted female acquaintance, but that could be decided later since she wasn’t critically injured. I just ordered some delicious marinated chicken with some fries. I think I did wait a bit thinking that she would wake up so as we could eat together but no response for waking up. At this moment I just thought why not call my sister since I couldn’t finish the whole food set that I had then later have her take care of the girl at her house instead, and so I called her. My sister’s cellphone ringtone phone rang? … from the jacket of the girl who was lying on my bed.

I went over and checked the phone that was ringing from the girl’s end, and it really was my sister’s phone. I imagined several possibilities as to why she had my sister’s phone from worst to best and back to worst. “Maybe she’s my sister that’s why her voice sounded familiar? But I have to be sure”. Just hoping for the best, I tried to take of the mask, but it was surprisingly very attached to the face, so I left it alone after several attempts to get it off. I went to eat my dinner and just as I was about to think of what to do next someone knocked at my door. When I looked through the keyhole, I was terrified to see the police. I quickly put on my half-business and half-sleepy face and welcomed them inside offered them two of my seats.

“Mr. Yu we are here regarding the incident of the fainted injured man that you reported to us this evening, could you explain everything from your end?’. I quickly told them that I had gotten out for my evening stroll as I wanted to spend the evening having fun with my older sister, but my sister fainted due to lack of sleep for the last 2 days and when I was bringing her home to rest, I saw silhouette of a man in the alley and upon confirming that he was injured I quickly called an ambulance for the man before I left and brought my sister home.

The police left after another round of polite warnings and professional stares that felt anything but casual. The door clicked shut behind them, and only then did I realize my back was soaked with cold sweat. I stood there for a few seconds longer than necessary, listening to their footsteps fade down the narrow hallway, before locking the door twice.

Silence returned to the room.

I turned slowly toward the bed.

The girl—no, my sister-shaped mystery—was no longer snoring.

She was sitting upright.

The mask was still on, smooth and white under the dim ceiling light, but her posture had changed completely. Gone was the limp, exhausted figure I had dragged home. Her back was straight, shoulders relaxed, hands resting neatly on her thighs as if she were attending a meeting rather than waking up in a stranger’s rented room.

“You lied convincingly,” she said.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“G-good evening?” I replied reflexively, then immediately regretted how stupid that sounded.

She tilted her head slightly, the motion precise, mechanical even. “You told them I was your sister. That was an acceptable risk assessment under the circumstances.”

“…You’re not denying it,” I said carefully.

For a moment, she did not respond. Then she reached up and pressed two fingers against the side of her mask. There was a soft click, followed by a faint shimmer of light, and the mask dissolved into particles that vanished like dust in water.

The face beneath it was familiar.

Too familiar.

Same sharp eyes. Same mole near the corner of the lip. Same expression she wore whenever she thought she was smarter than everyone else in the room.

“My-my sister doesn’t wear masks,” I said weakly.

“She does when she’s working,” she replied. “Or when she doesn’t want her client base to trace her civilian identity.”

Client base.

That word landed heavily.

“You’re really my sister,” I said. “Not a clone. Not an impostor. Not some underground cosplayer with identity theft issues.”

She sighed, rubbing her temple. “Mimi, if I wanted you dead, you would not have had time to order chicken.”

That, unfortunately, made sense.

I sat down hard on the chair opposite the bed. My brain felt like it had been stuffed with wet cotton. “You were glowing,” I said at last. “Your hands. And the pipe disappeared. And those men—normal people don’t do that.”

“Correct,” she said calmly. “They are registered irregular users.”

“…Registered what?”

She looked at me then, really looked at me, as if reassessing a variable she had previously marked as irrelevant. “I suppose concealment is no longer cost-effective,” she said. “Especially since you’re already implicated.”

“Implicated in what?” I asked.

“In a Tier-Three unsanctioned transaction dispute,” she replied. “And obstruction of post-incident cleanup, though unintentionally.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “You sell superpowers,” I said finally.

She blinked once. “Abilities,” she corrected. “Powers is a marketing term used by black-market vendors.”

Of course. My sister corrected terminology while casually admitting to something that would rewrite every science textbook on the planet.

She stood up, testing her balance. The fatigue was still there—I could see it now—but it was restrained, controlled. “I am a licensed system vendor,” she continued. “I distribute limited-use frameworks to compatible users. Combat, utility, enhancement, specialized modules. Everything is tracked, metered, and subject to revocation.”

“…There’s a license,” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“…From who?”

She hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second.

“From the system,” she said.

That was not reassuring.

She picked up the jacket from the bed, checking its inner pocket before pulling out her phone—her phone—and silencing the missed call. “The two men in the alley were clients,” she added. “One attempted to force an upgrade outside his authorization tier. The other interfered.”

“And you?” I asked. “You just happened to be there?”

“I was concluding a retrieval,” she said. “You were the anomaly.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I go for a walk, almost get murdered, lie to the police, and find out my sister runs an illegal supernatural shop—and I’m the anomaly?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “You are not registered. You have no interface. Yet you were able to remain conscious within the residual field.”

That made the laughter stop.

She stepped closer, her gaze sharp now, analytical. “Mimi,” she said, lowering her voice, “the system noticed you.”

My stomach dropped.

“And once it notices something,” she continued, “it eventually wants to categorize it.”

I swallowed. “And what happens then?”

She put her hand on my shoulder. It was warm. Real. Familiar.

“That,” she said, “depends on whether you become a user… or a product.”

The room felt suddenly much smaller.

And for the first time since that evening stroll began, I understood one thing with perfect clarity:

My life had already been added to someone’s inventory.