Haibara felt a little ticklish from the nuzzling, and strands of hair brushed against her eyes, making her squint slightly.
She reached out a hand and, as if scolding a puppy, gently pushed Kazama Kiriori’s face away.
Lifting her head, she looked at the girl clinging to her.
The child still wore the look of a well-behaved darling, gazing at her with gentle, pitiful eyes like a puppy’s.
“I told you, don’t call me Mom.
I’m only twenty-seven.”
Ignoring Kazama Kiriori’s pitiful gaze, Haibara said coldly.
“And don’t come nuzzling up to me, either.
It’s hot in summer, and I don’t want to sweat.”
After being gently pushed away by Haibara, Kazama Kiriori looked a little forlorn.
Then, quite naturally, she moved to Haibara’s side.
Holding one of Haibara’s hands lightly with both of hers, Kazama Kiriori slowly crouched down, and while caressing that hand, said with a smile:
“Then when you’re cold in winter, can I hug you?”
Because Haibara was sitting in a swivel chair while Kazama had crouched down, Kazama was looking up at her.
Haibara shook her head.
“I don’t recall you being such a mushy child before…”
Kazama Kiriori, eighteen years old, was her adopted daughter.
It had been around her own university days that she’d taken this child in.
She’d assumed the girl would be a quiet, well-behaved child, but before she knew it the girl had become clingy and exasperating, just like a puppy.
“So do you hate it when I hug you?”
Kazama Kiriori blinked with an innocent face.
“…”
Haibara disliked intimate relationships, especially when others took the initiative to get close to her.
But if it was her daughter, then there was nothing to be done.
She sighed and reached out to stroke Kazama Kiriori’s head.
Just as before, the girl’s hair was cool and soft, carrying a faint fragrance of flowers.
“Are you in a bad mood lately?
Should I move in with you?
We haven’t slept together in a long time, have we?”
Kazama Kiriori looked at Haibara.
“You’re not a little girl anymore.
I’m not sleeping with you.”
Although Kazama was her adopted daughter, once Kazama had started high school, she’d moved out on her own—because this child was, in various senses, a little dangerous.
Haibara suspected it might be a kind of mother complex, born from the child’s extreme lack of maternal love in her early years.
The first time she’d met this child, she recalled, the girl had been a rather cold little thing.
She lowered her head and glanced at the Kazama Kiriori of now.
The girl was smiling, light and gentle like the wind, like sunlight pouring down in winter, softly brushing over one’s whole body and carrying a faint warmth.
The touch of her hands was a bit cool, yet delicate and soft.
Haibara looked at her and said:
“Still, coming to stay a night now and then is fine.”
It had been a while since they’d spent time together.
Though this child was a bit of a handful, she was, after all, her daughter.
It was just that this child loved to push her luck.
“Then go on a date with me sometime.”
“A date?”
“Isn’t a mother-daughter date perfectly normal?” She tilted her head.
“Nothing normal about it… do as you like.”
After the two of them stayed like that for a while, the lunch break was nearly over, and Kazama Kiriori stood up somewhat reluctantly.
Haibara watched as she skillfully drew the curtains back open, returning to her usual dignified, elegant self, as if nothing that had just happened had happened at all.
Once Kazama Kiriori had gone, Haibara took off her glasses and wiped them a little with a cloth.
Then, recalling her daughter’s suggestion from a moment ago, she fell into thought:
In a few days, should she invite Ms.
Suzuki out on a date?
…
After leaving the office, Kazama Kiriori returned to her usual student council president self.
The lunch break was about to end, and it was time for her to head back to the third-year building where she belonged.
Not long after she’d stepped out of the office, she spotted a figure in a hidden corner not far away—by the looks of it, a first-year student.
If it were just a student, there’d be nothing to mind, but…
She slowly pulled back her sleeve.
There, an intricately openworked silver armband was giving off a faint glow.
“Looks like this time it’s a monster of the same type as me.”
Kazama Kiriori said calmly, and then the furtive figure in her view quickly vanished.
Not long after that, a commotion broke out in the building.
Panicked shouts and screams from students could be heard, and through the windows, figures fleeing at the far end of the corridor could be seen.
“———Wooong!”
Soon, an alarm signaling a monster attack blared through the building.
This city had grown accustomed to the existence of monsters, so there was even a dedicated alarm for when one attacked.
But up to now, incidents of monsters attacking schools had been rare.
As far as Kazama Kiriori could recall, the last time a monster had attacked a school was about three years ago.
Though all the other students had already left, she had no intention of leaving.
After all, Teacher Haibara was still in this building.
She slowly walked to the window and, through the glass, looked down over the campus.
Gazing at the chaos erupting outside, she slowly bent forward, propping her arm on the sill and resting her face in her hand.
“So then, magical girl Silver Feather, what will you do this time?”
…
Rewind the clock to a few minutes earlier.
In some dim corner of the school building, Kirishima Ai sat with a bento box on her lap, chopsticks in one hand, slowly eating her lunch.
The classroom was a bit noisy today, and on top of that she had no friends, so she’d found a corner with hardly anyone around and ate her lunch alone.
Today’s lunch was tonkatsu she’d made herself.
The supermarket had had pork on special yesterday, and since she couldn’t finish it all at dinner on her own, she’d deep-fried the leftovers for lunch.
Deep-fried food was delicious, but once it went cold, the texture turned rather awful.
So she ate with little expression on her face.
When she’d eaten a little less than half, she suddenly heard footsteps and found it strange.
Normally, no one should come around this area.
If it was a teacher, explaining things would be a bit of a hassle…
Kirishima Ai looked up toward the doorway and saw an unusually tall figure with a deeply eerie shape.
The figure was shrouded in shadow, only its terrifying, slender outline barely visible.
Its shadow, cast on the whitewashed wall, looked like a kite that had grown legs.
…A kite?
She instinctively grew wary, gently setting down her lunch box, trying not to make a sound.
But the eerie figure had already turned around, revealing a hollow, indifferent pale mask.
“A monster, just as I thought.”
It was a gaunt, bony monster, almost nothing left but a spine with tattered flesh clinging to it, and on each vertebra grew a kite-like membranous structure.
And this monster had no hands—only ragged, filthy cloth dragging down.
What kind of monster was this?
Just one glance in the darkness left Kirishima Ai a little nauseated and afraid.
“Found the magical girl…”
The kite-like monster said in a low, distorted voice.
Kirishima Ai froze for a moment.
Why could this monster recognize her?
Before she could react, the monster had already lunged.
Despite being so tall, its body was as light as cloth.
Seeing this ghost-like thing drifting toward her so swiftly, Kirishima Ai dodged fast—but the spot where she’d been standing was slammed into by the monster.
“Bang!”
Her lunch box shattered, the uneaten food inside spilling all over the floor…
Kirishima Ai’s face darkened at once.
She wanted to Transform quickly, but the monster moved too fast, once again becoming a flying shadow lunging at her.
It brushed past her, but the wall where she’d just stood was smashed clean through by that blow.
Stone crumbled to the ground with a rumble, and a great cloud of lime dust rained down.
Kirishima Ai choked a little.
But now was her chance.
She ran out through the path the monster had just smashed open, pulling her Magic Tool from the small bag she carried while slamming one hand against the alarm in the corridor.
What came next was simple.
She snapped off the feather of the Magic Tool—
『Which one should I pick, which one should I pick…』
With the wall destroyed, a great cloud of dust and smoke scattered through the air, and the kite-like monster stepped out of the haze one pace at a time, its hideous form fully exposed under the sunlight streaming through the windows.
This time, Kirishima Ai had nowhere left to hide.
She felt the monster seize her by the neck, her whole body slamming into the window along the corridor.
The glass shattered.
She was sent flying by the monster, her whole body hurtling out along with the glass.
The glass sliced open her cheek, blood seeping out, the pain beginning to spread…
Next, Kirishima Ai’s whole body began to fall, and so did the monster.
Both of them were plummeting downward fast—yet with a human body, the only one who would be smashed to pieces in the end was her.
『—Silver-White Feather!』
Her body was plunging swiftly, robbed of anything to hold onto, her eyes nearly forced shut by the fierce wind of the fall.
At the very last, she struck her magic wand, hammering the feather back into place.
The chanting voice of a spirit rang out in the air, and then a dazzling light enveloped her.
Her body gradually grew light, gradually able to master the fierce falling wind.
At the very instant of striking the ground, with a tremendous crash, both she and the monster slammed heavily onto the earth.
The ground cracked apart, dust rising.
As the drifting dust slowly cleared, it revealed the kite monster’s form lying on the ground.
Soon, a figure stepped out from the dust as well, and stamped one foot down hard onto the kite monster’s body—
“—Boom!”
Under that stomp, the kite monster’s entire body sank deep into the concrete.
The girl’s figure gradually came into focus.
『Magical girl—Silver Feather!』
With those final words, the magical girl’s Transformation was complete.
She wiped the trace of blood from her cheek and looked toward the kite monster on the ground.
Magical girl Silver Feather said, her expression grim—
“You’re finished.”