Chapter 6: Magical Binding

The hotel gym is empty at 5 AM.

Hana discovered this three hours ago, when sleep became impossible and the walls of her room started closing in. The treadmill belt whirs beneath her feet, a steady mechanical rhythm that drowns out the voices arguing in her head.

Forty-two minutes. Heart rate elevated but sustainable.

This body is different. Faster recovery. Better cardiovascular response.

Stop analyzing. Just run.

The gym occupies a corner of the hotel's basement level, all polished chrome and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Emergency lighting casts everything in a dim amber glow. Her reflection runs alongside her in the glass—a stranger with her gait, her arm swing, her expression of grim determination.

She doesn't look at the reflection.

The display reads 6.2 kilometers covered. Her lungs burn in a way that feels productive rather than painful. Whatever body she's been given, it responds to exertion differently than her old one. Lighter. More efficient. The stride pattern feels natural even though she's never programmed it, never built this particular muscle memory through years of—

Don't think about years. Think about now.

She slows the belt to a walking pace. Cool down. Basic physiology doesn't change regardless of magical intervention. Her breathing settles into an even pattern as she watches the kilometer count tick up.

The gym door opens.

Yuki enters in running clothes—leggings, an oversized t-shirt, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She stops when she sees Hana, her expression flickering through surprise, guilt, and something that might be relief.

"You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep."

"Me neither." Yuki moves to an adjacent treadmill, not making eye contact. "The flight is at nine. Ren wants everyone packed and ready by seven."

"I know."

Silence. The belt whirs. Yuki doesn't start her machine.

"I keep dreaming about that night," she says finally. "On the pool deck. I keep seeing your face change and I can't—" Her voice catches. "I wake up and I don't know if it was real or if I imagined everything."

She's seeking absolution. Don't give it.

Maybe she deserves some.

No one deserves anything. That's not how the world works.

Hana steps off the treadmill. Wipes her face with a towel. Doesn't respond.

"I'm sorry," Yuki whispers. "I know that doesn't help. I know it doesn't change anything. But I am. I'm so sorry."

"I know." Hana heads toward the door. Pauses. "The running helps. With the voices, I mean. The ones in my head. Exercise quiets them down."

She doesn't look back to see Yuki's reaction.

The flight boards at Haneda International, a fourteen-hour transpacific crossing on a Boeing 747-400 operated by Japan National Airways. Business class seats, arranged by Crescent Moon for their promotional tour. Hana notes the aircraft type automatically—she's rated for 747s, though she hasn't flown one in years—and settles into the window seat with her tablet open to the calorie tracking app.

Log breakfast: 340 calories. Protein: 18g. Below optimal but within acceptable range.

The others arrange themselves around her. Sora takes the aisle seat across the row, tablet already displaying scheduling documents. Rei stretches out in the seat behind, headphones in, eyes closed. Miya sits beside her, small and silent, a book open in her lap that she isn't reading. Yuki takes the seat directly next to Hana, her presence a constant reminder of guilt neither of them knows how to process.

Ren is four rows ahead in first class. "Management visibility," she'd called it. "Important for the press we're expecting on arrival."

The plane taxis. Takes off. Tokyo shrinks to a grid of lights below, then disappears into cloud cover.

Six hours pass without incident. Hana watches three in-flight movies without absorbing any of them, her attention split between the screen and the analytical processes running in the back of her mind. Flight path. Weather patterns. Fuel consumption estimates based on aircraft weight and atmospheric conditions.

Old habits.

Useful habits.

Somewhere over the Pacific, the cabin service cart stops in its tracks.

"Excuse me." A flight attendant leans toward Sora, her face pale. "Are any of you medical professionals? We have an emergency."

Sora straightens. "What kind of emergency?"

"Food poisoning. The flight crew—" The attendant's voice wavers. "Most of the flight crew. Including both pilots."

The words take a moment to register. Hana watches Sora's expression shift from confusion to alarm. Watches Rei pull out her headphones. Watches Miya's book fall from nerveless fingers.

"Both pilots?" Yuki's voice is thin.

"The captain collapsed twenty minutes ago. The first officer is barely conscious. They're both in the crew rest area and they can't—" The attendant stops. Takes a breath. "The autopilot is engaged but we're running out of time. We need someone who can fly the plane."

Silence.

Then, before Hana fully processes the decision, she's standing.

"I can fly it."

Every eye in business class turns toward her.

"What?" Rei is on her feet. "You can fly a plane?"

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me." Hana is already moving toward the aisle, her body operating on training that predates this transformation by decades. "Where's the cockpit access?"

The flight attendant stares at her—this young Japanese woman in casual clothes, maybe nineteen years old—and hesitates.

"I need access now," Hana says, and something in her voice cuts through the attendant's doubt.

The cockpit of a 747-400 is a cathedral of instrumentation.

Hana slides into the captain's seat and her hands find the controls with muscle memory that belongs to a different body, a different life. The primary flight display glows blue-green in front of her, showing altitude, airspeed, heading, vertical speed. The autopilot indicator light is solid green: Engaged.

"Japan National 847, this is Oakland Oceanic," a voice crackles through the headset she's pulled over her ears. "We're showing your flight crew emergency transponder. What is your status?"

Hana adjusts the radio frequency. "Oakland Oceanic, this is Japan National 847. Both pilots incapacitated due to suspected food poisoning. I'm a passenger with flight training. Currently at flight level 390, autopilot engaged, 847 nautical miles from Tokyo Haneda."

A long pause.

"847, confirm your flight qualifications."

"Type-rated on the C-40, smaller but similar avionics. Instrument current as of eighteen months ago." The certification is in a different name, tied to a different identity, but the skills translate. "I can land this aircraft."

Another pause. She imagines the controllers scrambling, pulling up procedures for passenger-piloted emergencies, calculating weather windows and fuel reserves.

"847, understood. We're coordinating with Tokyo control. Maintain current heading and altitude. We'll have vectors for Narita approach in approximately forty minutes."

"Copy, Oakland. Request current weather at Narita and Haneda."

"Narita showing 2,000 foot ceilings, visibility 6 miles, crosswind component 8 knots. Haneda showing 3,500 foot ceiling, visibility 10 miles, crosswind component 12 knots. Tokyo control recommends Narita for approach."

"Negative on Narita. I'll take Haneda." The crosswind is manageable and Haneda's runways are longer. Better margin for error. "Also need fuel status confirmation—I'm showing 47,000 kilograms remaining."

"Copy 847. Stand by for Tokyo handoff."

The radio goes quiet. Hana takes a breath and looks around the cockpit, cataloguing systems. The autopilot will handle most of the work until the final approach. Her job is to stay calm, follow procedures, and not make any mistakes.

Simple. Mechanically simple.

Nothing about this is simple.

The cockpit door opens behind her.

"What can I do?"

Yuki's voice. Hana doesn't turn around.

"Close the door and stay quiet unless I ask for something."

"I can help—"

"You can help by not distracting me." The words come out sharper than intended. Hana modulates her tone. "I need to focus. The approach is going to be complicated and I haven't done this in a long time."

"You've actually flown one of these before?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before." The word is flat. Final.

Yuki doesn't ask any more questions.

The next two hours pass in a blur of radio calls and checklist procedures. Tokyo Control takes over communication, walking Hana through the descent profile and approach sequence with professional calm that masks whatever alarm they must be feeling. She descends through 30,000 feet, then 20,000, then 10,000, the landscape of Japan appearing below as a patchwork of lights and shadows in the afternoon sun.

"Japan National 847, turn left heading 270, descend and maintain 4,000. You are cleared ILS Runway 34L approach, Haneda."

"Left 270, down to 4,000, cleared ILS 34L, 847."

The approach is textbook. Glideslope captured at 3,000 feet. Landing gear down and locked. Flaps extended in sequence. The runway materializes out of the haze ahead, white centerline stripes stretching toward her like a path home.

You've done this before. You can do it again.

But not in this body. Not with these hands.

The physics don't care about the body. Focus.

100 feet. 50 feet. The runway rises to meet her. Hana pulls back on the yoke, flares the aircraft, and feels the main wheels touch the concrete with a solid thump.

Spoilers deploy. Reverse thrust engages. The aircraft slows, shuddering against its own momentum, until the speed drops below 80 knots and she can apply brakes without skidding.

"Japan National 847, welcome to Haneda. Fire and rescue standing by. Turn right at taxiway Delta and proceed to gate 47."

"Copy, Haneda. Thanks for the assist."

She taxis the aircraft toward the waiting emergency vehicles, her hands steady on the controls, her heart rate finally beginning to slow.

Behind her, Yuki lets out a sound that might be a sob.

The terminal is chaos.

News crews have already assembled by the time the jetway connects. Cameras flash through the windows of the aircraft door. Voices shout questions in Japanese and English, a cacophony of demands for information, for interviews, for the name of the hero pilot who saved three hundred passengers.

Hana steps into the jetway and stops.

"I'm not doing interviews."

Ren appears at her elbow, materializing from somewhere in the crowd with the practiced ease of a handler. "You have to. Contract clause 7—promotional appearances are mandatory."

"I didn't sign up to be a media spectacle."

“You many not have, but you have too. It’s a part of the job.”

Test her.

Hana tries to turn around. To walk back into the aircraft, away from the cameras and the questions and the unbearable exposure.

Her feet don't move.

She tries again. Forces every ounce of willpower into the simple act of taking a step backward.

Nothing.

The magic holds her in place like invisible chains.

"Contract clause 7," Ren repeats softly. "Promotional appearances. Public-facing interactions. Media engagement."

Something twists in Hana's chest. Not anger—she's past anger now. Something colder. More dangerous.

But even that doesn't change the physics of magical binding.

She turns toward the cameras. Her lips curve into something that feels nothing like a smile but probably looks like one.

"Ready when you are," she says, and the flashbulbs explode.