When 【Strawberry Pink】 returns to 【Haruka Momotsuki】.
When the pink twin tails revert to her natural black hair.
When the dress she wears changes back to a crumpled pink hoodie.

　【Thought】 is sealed away.

She reverts to being merely a doll —a girl-type doll incapable of thought or feeling. Even the fleeting thought ‘This is stifling’ merely flashes through her mind as the Magus Engine deactivates; beyond that, she thinks nothing at all.

That was the usual state of affairs.
It should have been the usual state of affairs.

“…Ah”

　The dormitory bed.
Upon the pink bed, filled with pink stuffed toys.
Haruka Momotsuki noticed her pillow was damp.

＊

“You cried? You?”
“Yes. Sensei.”

Haruka Momotsuki sat in the examination room chair, sipping the straw-fed strawberry milk she’d been given. A startling sweetness assaulted her brain.
　Haruka Momotsuki was programmed to ‘like strawberry milk’.
Drinking it made her happy.
Drinking it felt good.
Drinking it calmed her heart and made her anxiety disappear.
Yes, that was her programming. So whenever Haruka Momotsuki had an examination, she was always given strawberry milk. A paper carton. The kind from the vending machine, a hundred yen, the tiny ones for little kids.

The programming was powerful.
　So Momozuki Haruka felt a sense of ‘security’ that required no thought.
Without this, she would start to think she wanted to run away right now… Momozuki Haruka disliked the doctor in charge of the examination room, Kimoto Yuki.

“Hmm… Well, Shizuki-chan died, didn’t she.
　You were close, weren’t you?
It’s only natural to feel a little lonely now.”

That’s why she disliked her.
Haruka Momotsuki disliked this doctor.

“…We magical girls undergo adjustments.
Things like ‘loneliness’, ‘sadness’, ‘fear’.
They should have been burned out, cut out, and eliminated during the initial surgery.”

　It wasn’t ‘unavoidable’.
Yuki Kimoto’s perception of magical girls was skewed compared to others.
Her long, messy brown hair, white coat, voluptuous figure unlike Haruka Momotsuki’s, perpetually sleepy eyes, slovenly work attitude… She disliked being confronted with such a glaring example of ‘adults being free’.
Above all.

“Even if they’re called magical girls, they’re still girls. Crying is a perfectly normal reaction.”

She says things like this.

Magical girls are girls.
But they are different from what society generally considers a girl.
They merely take the form of young girls —their essence is no different from that of weapons.

Tools capable of magic, adjusted with vast quantities of chemicals, sometimes dismantled and overhauled, forced to operate on command more than anything else.

“…A girl couldn’t possibly be this filthy, could she?”

Panicking, Momotsuki Haruka gulps down her strawberry milk.
A futile thought.
Kimoto Yuki watches her, her gaze distant.

“You and Shizuki worked together for five years. You from age eight, her from ten. Spending that much time together from such a young age… continuing to fight side by side, you inevitably feel some connection to the other person.
That’s why you feel this sense of loss.
“My diagnosis is as good as any.”
“…Then, which medicine should I take, and how many tablets?”
“Grave-visiting. One tablet.”

　Yuki Kimoto tapped her computer.
Then, the dormant M-particles discreetly notified Momotsuki Haruka.
A notification resonated in her brain: ‘Deposit: 1000 yen from::Yuki Kimoto Title::Pocket money’.

“…Sensei, this…”
“Kick that sense of loss into touch. Buy some flowers or something. If there’s any left over… well then. Have some sweets you like.”
“Like…”
“Ah… Oh, I see. I have to set your preferences too? You lot are a bother, aren’t you?”

Yuki Kimoto rested her chin on her hand.

“…Potato chips, then. Get some cola too. Any cheap flowers will do.
You’ll be bored anyway until that right arm heals, won’t you?”