Episode 6: Examination
When [Strawberry Pink] returned to [Momotsuki Haruka].
When her pink twin tails returned to their natural black.
When the dress she wore reverted to her rumpled pink hoodie.
[Thought] was sealed away.
She returned to being a mere doll, a girl-shaped doll that could not think or form thoughts of her own. Even the impression that this is suffocating flashed through her mind for only an instant, while the Magus Engine was being deactivated. After that, she thought absolutely nothing.
That was how things always went.
Or, at least, they were supposed to.
“…Ah.”
The bed in her quarters.
A pink bed, covered in pink stuffed toys.
Momotsuki Haruka noticed that her pillow was wet.
＊
“You cried? You?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Momotsuki Haruka sat in a chair in the examination room and sucked on a straw, drinking the strawberry milk she’d been given. An astonishing sweetness assaulted her brain.
Momotsuki Haruka was supposed to like strawberry milk.
Drinking it made her happy.
Drinking it felt good.
Drinking it soothed her heart and banished her anxiety.
That was how she had been programmed. So whenever Momotsuki Haruka came in for an examination, she was always given strawberry milk. A little carton, the small kind for young children that cost a hundred yen from a vending machine.
The programming was powerful.
And so Momotsuki Haruka felt a sense of security that required no thought.
Without it, she would be thinking about running away this very instant… Momotsuki Haruka was uncomfortable around Kimoto Yuki, the doctor who presided over the examination room.
“Hmm… Well, Shizuki-chan did die, after all.
You two were close, weren’t you? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel a little lonely.”
That was why she disliked her.
The female doctor, that was.
“…We magical girls undergo conditioning.
Things like ‘loneliness’, ‘sadness’, and ‘fear’.
Those are supposed to have been removed, burned out and cut away from parts of our brains during the initial surgery.”
It wasn’t something that should be considered reasonable.
Kimoto Yuki’s understanding of magical girls was out of step with everyone else’s.
Her long, unkempt brown hair and white coat; her voluptuous figure, unlike Momotsuki Haruka’s; her perpetually sleepy eyes; her sloppy attitude towards work… Haruka disliked how the woman seemed to flaunt the idea that adults were free right in front of her.
But more than anything else…
“Magical girls are still girls, you know. Crying is a perfectly normal reaction.”
She said things like that.
A magical girl was a girl.
But she was not a girl in the sense that people generally meant when they used the word.
She merely looked like a little girl. In essence, she was no different from a weapon.
A tool capable of using magic, conditioned with vast quantities of chemicals, sometimes dismantled for maintenance, and forced more absolutely than anything else to operate according to orders.
“…There’s no way a girl could be this filthy.”
Momotsuki Haruka hurriedly sucked on her strawberry milk.
It was a pointless thought.
Kimoto Yuki watched her, her gaze turning distant.
“You and Shizuki worked together for five years. You were eight when you started, and she was ten. When you’ve been together since you were that young… when you’ve kept fighting side by side… it’s only natural that you might come to feel some kind of connection with the other person.
That’s why you’re feeling the loss.
That’s about the size of my diagnosis.”
“…Then which medicine should I take, and how many tablets?”
“Visit her grave. One tablet.”
Kimoto Yuki tapped away at her computer.
Then, the inactive M-particles quietly notified Momotsuki Haruka.
A message rang through her brain:
Payment received: ¥1,000
From: Yuki Kimoto
Title: Pocket money
“…Doctor, what is this…?”
“Put an end to that feeling of loss. Buy some flowers while you’re there. If you have anything left over… let’s see. Treat yourself to your favourite sweets.”
“My favourite…”
“Ah… Oh, right. We have to programme your favourite things, too, don’t we? What a nuisance you lot are.”
Kimoto Yuki rested a hand against her chin.
“…Potato crisps, then. Buy some cola to go with them. Any cheap flowers will do.
It’s not as though you’ll have much to do until that right arm of yours heals, anyway, is it?”