Episode 7: An Outing
It was the first time Momotsuki Haruka had ever submitted an application for permission to go out.
Momotsuki Haruka had become a magical girl… had been taken in by the authorities and had a Magus Engine installed in her heart… five years ago, when she was eight. Since then, she had never once left the organisation’s grounds except on a mission. The training facility known as the [School], the medical building where the examination rooms were located, everything was within the organisation’s grounds. There had never been any need to leave.
When her application for permission to go out was approved without a hitch, Momotsuki Haruka vaguely thought, So that’s all there is to it, then sucked on her strawberry milk to suppress the thought.
And so, for the first time in her life, she boarded a ferry alone.
*
The city.
Magus City Tokyo.
A floating city built over Tokyo Bay, which had become a crater during the Third World War. The skyscrapers on the water were arranged to fit neatly within the crater’s circular outline. At the centre stood a long tower housing the government offices, casting a shadow like the hand of a sundial.
The morning sun sparkled on the water.
Seabirds wheeled overhead.
The sea breeze brushed her skin, reminding Momotsuki Haruka of the season.
It was summer.
The ferry connecting Tokyo with the Kanto region was crowded with families.
*
“Hey, Papa, there’re lots of bad people in Tokyo, right?
Are you gonna be okay?”
“Of course. The magical girls will protect us. And I’ll protect you, too.”
She overheard the conversation.
Momotsuki Haruka pulled the hood of her pink hoodie low over her head and joined the queue at a vending machine, trying to suppress any unnecessary thoughts.
Her turn came.
She tried to buy strawberry milk.
She knew how to use a vending machine, at least. This might be her first time going out alone, but that much was common knowledge. Just tap her device and press the button.
Beep.
She reached out.
She couldn’t reach.
“…”
She stretched up on tiptoe.
Still couldn’t reach.
“…………”
She jumped.
Her fingers brushed it.
She couldn’t press the button.
“…………………..”
She had to suppress her thoughts.
But she had already finished the strawberry milk she’d brought with her.
The button she was reaching for now, on the very top row of the vending machine, was beyond Momotsuki Haruka’s grasp.
“Ah…”
Something was wrong.
Something was terribly wrong.
Something welled up behind her tear ducts.
An incomprehensible sensation. An emotion. She had never felt anything like this before…
“Here you go.”
“Ah!”
*
Beep.
*
Clunk.
A plastic bottle of strawberry milk dropped into the collection slot.
Unlike the little cartons she usually drank, this one was packed with 150 millilitres of milk.
As Momotsuki Haruka stood there in a daze, someone retrieved the bottle and held it out to her.
“Here.”
Momotsuki Haruka looked at the owner of the hand.
A girl.
Beautiful.
And familiar.
“You wanted it, didn’t you? Here. No crying, now.”
The girl appeared in the vision blurred by tears that Haruka hadn’t even realised were falling.
On the ferry’s deck, silver hair glittered in the sunlight.
A white dress swayed in the breeze.
A straw hat.
A girl just a little taller than Momotsuki Haruka.
Her eyes were blue-green, clear as a castle made of ice…
“…[Witch of Pisces]?”
“Hmm?”
The girl tilted her head.
She looked uncannily like the Witch whom Haruka had killed just the other day.