I couldn't stop looking at the card as we walked through the unfamiliar streets of Bay City. Rank F. In any ranking system, any game I'd ever heard of, F-Rank characters were the trash you used as fodder. Replaceable, utterly worthless. They were the background NPCs - the ones who died to show how dangerous a monster or villain was. And now, I was one of them. Was that for the best, though? After all, I didn't want to be a hero. I was too afraid to be one.

  "Cheer up, Kurumi," Yuna said, giving my arm a supportive squeeze that lingered just a second too long than I was expecting. "Maybe you're a late bloomer. Or maybe the machine was just intimidated by your ... well, your everything. Sometimes the sensors can't handle a unique signature, you know?"

  It was a nice gesture, but I didn't believe it for a minute. Yuna led me to a small, bustling restaurant tucked between two neon-soaked skyscrapers. The smell hit me before we even sat down - spicy, seafood-rich, and mouth-watering. It was the kind of place that felt cozy despite the frantic pace of Bay City outside.

  "Two bowls of Jjamppong! Extra spicy!" Yuna called out to the chef as she steered me toward a small table on the outdoor patio.

  I sat down, carefully smoothing the wool of the sweater dress. I felt incredibly exposed. Not just because of the backless dress, or the crotchless lace panties, or the way the silver heels made my legs look like something out of a high-end fashion. But because I felt like an utter fraud. All of these people walking by, staring at me with wide eyes and whispering to their friends ... they thought I was someone important. An Idol. A Super.

  They didn't know I was a glorified phone charger with an F-Rank ID.

  "Hey," Yuna whispered, leaning across the table. Her eyes were the color of the sunset, of amber, and soft - reflecting the flickering neon of a nearby billboard. "Stop overthinking it. You're still the girl who fell out of the sky and saved me. That's an S-Rank move in my book. Besides, look at the bright side. If you're F-Rank, the Hero Association won't bother asking you to handle boring crime patrol shifts. We can just hang out and be friends."

  I looked up to thank her, but before I could speak, I felt a strange prickle at the base of my spine. It wasn't shame this time. It was a physical heat.

  At the table next to us, a group of guys in corporate suits were openly staring at us. One of them had his phone held under the table, angled toward us, clearly trying to record us. I could feel his gaze like a physical weight on my bare back, tracing the line of my spine where the sweater was wide open.

  "Dude, look at her," one whispered loudly, not even bothering to be subtle. "Is she in cosplay as a some heroine? She's a ten - minimum. Look at those heels, man!"

  "Do you think she's a Super?," another replied, his voice thick with a mixture of awe and hunger. "Check the apps? She doesn't look like one I recognize, but man - you'd think with a body like that, I'd know her."

  As he spoke, my chest tightened. It was as if their collective belief that I was a Super, their focused attention, was acting as a fuel source. The battery I thought was empty - the one that had failed the test just thirty minutes earlier - seemed to spark to life. It didn't feel like a broken microwave anymore. It felt like a dam that was starting to crack under the pressure of a rising river.

  "Yuna," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I think ... I think something weird is happening."

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  The guys at the next table noticed the change. The atmosphere around me was thickening, becoming heavy and electric. My hands were shaking and I watched in horror as tiny, hair-thin lines of indigo light began to etch themselves into my skin. It looked almost like bio-luminescent ink, tracing complex circuit-like patterns from my wrists up toward my elbows.

  "Oh my god," Yuna breathed, her amber eyes widening until the gold centers seemed to glow. She wasn't looking at her phone anymore. She was looking at the way my violet hair was starting to drift upward, as if caught in a rising current of static. "Kurumi, your skin ... you're literally glowing."

  The guys started to cheer and the more they cheered, the harder the battery I felt inside of my stomach slammed against my ribs. I started to feel a vibration - an almost electric sensation hitting my body. It wasn't just a hum; it was a bone-deep rattle that started in my marrow and radiated outward. It made my knees weak and my breath come in shallow, ragged gasps.

  "She's activating," one of the guys yelled, standing up so quickly his chair fell over. "Look at the eyes! She's pulsing!"

  He stepped toward me, his hand reaching out as if he wanted to see if the glowing ink was real. He didn't look like a fan; he looked like a man who wanted to claim something.

  "Don't touch her!," Yuna barked, jumping to her feet.

  But it was too late. He reached for my shoulder and the moment his fingers came within an inch of my skin, a massive, jagged bolt of indigo lightning arced from my collarbone to his chest. *CRACK*.

  The man didn't just get shocked. He was thrown backward, over his own table and through the window into the street beyond, landing in a heap of spicy noodles and broken glass. The entire patio went dead silent.

  "Yuna," I gasped, my vision swimming with violet sparks. The ink on my arms was pulsing in time with my racing heart and I could feel the electricity leaking out of me, snapping at the air. "We have to go. Now. I can't ... I can't hold it in."

  I tried to stand but the vibrations were so intense I nearly collapsed. Yuna caught me, her hands gripping my waist. The moment our bodies touched, she let out a sharp, choked sound, her own body jolting from the contact.

  "H-holy shit ... you're like a live wire," she panted, her face flushed a deep crimson. "Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. We're going. Lean on me."

  As we stumbled away from the restaurant, I caught a glimpse of a holographic billboard across the street. It was showing a live feed of the Western District's trending topics. I caught glimpses of Neon Reaper giving a press conference, of a hand-held recording of someone named the Soju Samurai fighting against a villain named Frost-Byte. Another advertisement offering a bounty for tips that led to the capture of the Velvet Rope.

  By the time we reached the elevator of her apartment building, I was practically vibrating out of my skin. Every time the elevator car moved, the friction of the cables seemed to feed into me. I was a capacitor filled to the absolute limit, leaking spare energy in all directions, about to blow.

  "Just a little further," Yuna whispered, her voice shaking as she fumbled with her key-card. She was leaning against me to keep me upright, and I could feel her heart hammering against my side-boob through the thin wool of the sweater. "We'll get you inside. We'll figure out how to ground you. Just don't ... don't explode. Don't electrocute me."

  The door clicked open and we tumbled into the dark foyer of her apartment. I didn't even make it to the couch, I collapsed against the wall, the silver heels finally giving out as I slid to the floor, my breath hitching in a rhythmic, electric sob as arcs of purple lightning crawled over my skin in time with my heartbeat.

  "I can't ... I can't turn it off, Yuna," I cried out, my hands clutching at the hem of the dress, trying to find something to grab on, to cling to. "It's too much! Help me!"

  Yuna dropped to her knees in front of me, her amber eyes wide and filled with a frantic, desperate focus. She looked at the glowing ink etched across my skin, then at my face, then my body's frantic trembling. Her mind was clearly spinning rapidly, considering and discarding options of how to help.

  "Okay," she whispered, reaching for the hem of my sweater dress. "Okay, Kurumi. I'm going to help you. We're going to discharge this. It'll be a little unconventional, so I need you to trust me..."

  I nodded frantically, willing to do whatever she needed. My nerves were on fire, a mix of pleasure and pain threatening to fry my brain as violet tendrils of electricity crawled across my skin once more. Please make this stop, Yuna. Anything to make this stop.