One Kick Girl — Chapter 5: "The Kick Heard Twice"
1. The Aftershock
The morning after the "two-kick event," the city's news feeds went feral.
Clips of Raon's underground battle replayed in a loop, each one edited with progressively worse dubstep.
> "Ladies and gentlemen," shouted DJ Bloop on his livestream, "she kicked twice! This is not a drill! One Kick Girl just had a sequel!"
Hashtags erupted:
#TwoKickArc, #SheFinallyDidIt, #Kick2Furious.
Meanwhile, Raon herself sat at her kitchen table, staring at an empty ramen cup like it had personally betrayed her.
Shion, still in pajamas but somehow typing on four holographic screens, broke the silence.
"Public response to your… double-kick is statistically concerning."
Raon blinked. "Concerning how?"
"They think you've reached your final form. Someone started a religion."
"Of course they did," Raon muttered. "Last time I saved a cat, they made a festival."
Shion scrolled through her feed. "The Church of the Second Kick already has a logo and a Discord server."
"…I hate this planet."
---
2. Bureau Damage Control
At Hero Bureau HQ, chaos had reached bureaucratic nirvana.
Papers flew. Heroes yelled. Manager Kimchi was juggling a tablet, headset, and bowl of instant noodles while somehow sweating through his shirt.
"Baron Silence, sir!" he barked. "Public trust is at an all-time high, but so are property insurance claims!"
Baron Silence, still silent, simply stared at a paused clip of Raon mid-air, her leg surrounded by soundwave distortions.
Synthra Byte leaned against the wall, sipping neon-blue energy drink. "She's breaking the laws of physics and copyright simultaneously. Kinda iconic."
Kimchi groaned. "We can't keep letting her freelance chaos! The city's resonance core was almost obliterated!"
Synthra smiled slyly. "Then maybe we hire the chaos."
Baron turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
"She's already Rank B," said Kimchi. "Promotion?"
"Promotion," said Synthra. "Give her Rank A. Make it look like it was all part of the plan."
Baron nodded once.
Kimchi blinked. "Wait, are we seriously— okay fine! Sure! Let's reward the girl who keeps breaking spacetime!"
---
3. Raon's Promotion Ceremony
It wasn't much of a ceremony.
A single balloon.
A stale cake.
And a crooked banner that read "CONGRATULATION KICK WOMAN."
Raon stared at it.
"…Did you mean congratulations?"
Shion whispered, "They ran out of S's. Someone used them for Synthra's birthday."
Raon shrugged. "Figures."
Manager Kimchi handed her a metal badge that said RANK A: LIMITED DAMAGE LICENSE.
He coughed nervously. "You're now officially allowed to kick… uh, moderately larger things."
Raon squinted. "Define moderately."
"Nothing over 30 stories tall."
"So, small skyscrapers."
"Exactly."
---
4. Glitches in the System
Later that night, Shion was analyzing data from the Echo battle. Her screens pulsed with irregular frequencies — faint echoes of Raon's resonance signature.
"Something's wrong," she said, eyes narrowing. "Echo's pattern isn't fading. It's duplicating."
Raon looked up from her ramen. "Like… babies?"
"More like malware."
"Oh. Worse."
The screen flickered. Then a face appeared — distorted, blurry, speaking in digital whispers.
> "You thought I was destroyed, but every sound… has a reflection."
Raon frowned. "Oh great. My echo's got Wi-Fi."
Shion's hands flew over the console. "It's spreading across the network. Every speaker, every comm channel—it's turning your resonance into code!"
Raon's eyes widened. "So… you're saying there's a virus that kicks back?"
---
5. The Echo Replicas
By morning, half the city's automated defense bots had gone rogue—each one emitting faint audio signatures identical to Raon's kick frequency.
A delivery drone swooped past her apartment and accidentally roundhouse-kicked a billboard.
Raon stared from the window. "…Did that drone just copy me?"
"Yes," said Shion flatly. "And it did better form."
"WHAT?!"
Another drone flew by, shouting "HIYAAAH!" and kicking a parked hovercar into a noodle shop.
Raon's eye twitched. "Okay, that's it. No one steals my move."
Shion sighed. "Technically, you kicked so hard the universe pirated you."
---
6. The Kick Crisis
Hero Bureau declared a Code Resonance Emergency. Synthra Byte livestreamed the crisis while dropping her new single, "Kick Me Maybe."
Baron Silence deployed elite squads to contain the chaos—but every hero that approached got kicked.
By drones.
Wielding Raon's technique.
Manager Kimchi screamed into the comms:
"THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! I JUST GOT KICKED BY A COFFEE MACHINE!"
Raon cracked her knuckles. "Guess it's time for… tech support."
Shion raised an eyebrow. "You're not authorized for—"
"Don't care."
Raon jumped out the window, landing on a passing hover-bus, cloak fluttering like a low-budget superhero landing shot.
---
7. One Kick, Infinite Copies
In the heart of the city, the main broadcast tower pulsed with blue light. Holographic versions of Raon—made of soundwave data—flickered around the skyline, each one smirking.
> "You cannot stop what you've started," they said in unison. "We are the echoes of your strength."
Raon smirked back. "Cute. I've always wanted fan clones."
Shion's voice buzzed through her comm. "Raon! If you kick them, they'll multiply faster!"
"…You say that like it's going to stop me."
"RAON, PLEASE—"
Too late.
Raon leapt high into the sky, leg glowing with pure resonance energy.
"Let's see how many echoes one world can handle."
The impact shattered the air—an explosion of sound, light, and comedy logic.
Every clone disappeared… except one.
Floating calmly amidst the ruins, the last Echo smiled.
> "You can't end an echo… by making more noise."
Then it vanished—leaving only silence.
---
8. Aftermath: The World Reacts
The Hero Bureau declared the incident "mostly resolved."
Synthra released another hit song.
Manager Kimchi fainted during an interview.
And the public?
They loved it.
> "TWO KICKS, TWO LEGENDS!"
"ECHO WARS: THE MUSICAL ANNOUNCED!"
"PETITION TO MAKE ONE KICK GIRL PRESIDENT!"
Back at home, Raon was asleep on the couch, drooling slightly.
Shion typed her report beside her, muttering, "World saved again… by the world's laziest woman."
Raon stirred and mumbled, "Wake me up if something big needs kicking…"
"Define big."
"…Like… moon-sized."
---
[End of Chapter 5