“Today. It’s surgery day.”

Chiwawa Yellow hugged her stuffed toy and told Momotsuki Haruka this in that square, where the sunlight felt pleasantly warm.

“The tumour in my stomach and the cancer… well, the condition has improved.”

Chiwawa Yellow stammered through the difficult words, her speech still a little slurred.
The girl clutched the pink bear stuffed toy tightly, her eyes downcast with unease. Even her bright golden eyes seemed to lack their usual sparkle today.

“Right.”

Haruka Momotsuki replied with only that.
Thought itself was forbidden.
Therefore, she acted accordingly. Haruka Momotsuki did not think. She did not think about the inner workings of a tearful girl who was merely a junior, merely a roommate, merely someone she’d spent a week or two with.

—‘Isn’t it rather sad?’

　She drowned out the troublesome thought with strawberry milk.
Cow’s milk.
Even the thought of disgust was swallowed deep into her throat by the astonishing sweetness, washed away.

“…Weren’t you scared, Senpai?”
“It’s gone now, thanks to the surgery.”
“What about before the surgery?”

Thought.
Reset with strawberry milk.

“【Recollection】 is forbidden… Can you manage it properly? Yellow.”
“Oh dear, y-yes… I forgot… Ugh… It’s difficult…”
“It’s alright. After the surgery, everyone just becomes like that automatically.”

There was no thought of reassuring her.
Just the facts.
Just the facts, calmly conveyed to a girl five years younger than herself.

“…You really forget your name too? Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Father and Mother, and Yu… and family too?”
“Yes. Because 【Recollection】 is forbidden.”
“…Does that mean…”

Haruka Momotsuki pulled the M-Particle, severing the auditory connection from her brain.

“――――――――Doesn’t that hurt?”

She reconnected her auditory function.

“Don’t ever say that again. Not in front of me, and absolutely not in front of adults.”
“Eh? Ah, I… I’m… I’m sorry. Senpai…”
“No need for apologies.”

Haruka Momotsuki drank her strawberry milk.
It was a pointless thought.
Not a thought.
That’s just how it was.
Because that’s how it was, Haruka Momotsuki decided this wasn’t a thought.

“Name…”
“Eh?”
“…Only your name won’t disappear.”

That was the final conversation with the girl before the operation.

＊

The girl returned in a wheelchair.

They’d tampered with her brain. Naturally, she couldn’t walk again immediately.
It would take a long, long time for her body to catch up. A magical girl might manage it in weeks thanks to drug boosts, but for an ordinary human, it was commonplace for it to take a lifetime and still not fully adapt.
The beat of the new heart, the Magus Engine.
　The shape of a new, thoughtless brain.

“Ugh…”

A round head, its fluffy golden hair—shorn off.
Vacant, golden eyes.
The language centre hadn’t activated yet either.

In the hospital ward corridor, a young girl in a wheelchair, pushed by an adult.
Sitting directly opposite her, Momotsuki Haruka performed that ritual.

“Welcome. 【Chiwawa Yellow】”
“Ah…?”
“【Kizuki Natsuki】-chan”

Yellow, hence yellow.
She’s very affectionate, and since she comes after Haru, Natsu.
Haruka Momotsuki didn’t know why the name included ‘moon’. She didn’t think about it. Viola Purple… Ever since the days of 【Murasaki Tsuki Fuyumi】, it had always been that way.

“…You’re not alone.”

That’s how it was. A set phrase.
Haruka Momotsuki wasn’t permitted to think about the meaning behind the gentle voice she murmured, nor the warmth of embracing the girl, nor even the pulse beating against her skin.