The Jester's Leap

"Seventy."

Jade counts down the seconds. KARTIKEYA's hydraulic rams smash into the roof's armored door. Titanium splinters rain down on the tar.

I grab the Circus General's hand. Her nails dig into my gauntlet. No hesitation allowed. I pull. We pitch forward into the abyss.

The wind tears at our skin. Seventy stories of free fall. Kyoto-Ame welcomes us with open arms, a chasm paved with pallid neon lights. Below, a drone squadron weaves a steel web to catch us. Their riot spotlights scour the darkness.

We need a miracle. The miracle demands a toll.

Laugh, UZUME.AKARI orders deep within my skull, her voice plagued by the Order's firewalls. Laugh, or you smash into pieces.

The TEN'KAI-JOKER armor claims its payment to bend physics. I open my mouth. I drag a shard from my gut, a guttural sound that morphs into a cascade of hilarity, demented, monstrous.

The spell clicks into place. The drone beams snap to stroboscopic pink. The lethal cables soften into giant trampoline webs. We strike the mesh, the fabric dips deep, then spits us back toward the clouds in a grotesque spin.

I keep cackling like a possessed madman. And the mask takes its cut.

A woman's face. A soft voice singing a Tagalog lullaby on the grimy docks of Manila-Drift. My mother. The final thread tethering Mana to the human world. The warmth of that image disintegrates. Her features blur, swallowed by dead pixels. A page erased with no backup. My laughter doubles in volume, thunderous, drowning out the gaping hole tearing open in my flesh. I just bought Jade's survival ticket with my last ghost.

The metropolis floor swoops down on us. The illusion flickers, the neons bleed, the gag's energy is running on fumes. Will the bounce hold until the pavement, or are we about to end up as red stains on the Parade's concrete?