Tuesday.
After seeing Alice and Aoko off to school, Ryōgi Minato returned to the living room and picked up the pile of magecraft materials Alice had pressed on him that morning.
—Principles of Magic Circuit Usage, A Complete Guide to Magecraft Attributes, The Creation and Transplantation of Magic Crests, The Circulation of Magical Energy, An Encyclopedia of Basic Magecraft Formulas…
It was a hefty stack, but his teacher had told him it all fell within the bounds of basic knowledge, and that he didn’t need to understand or memorize every word of it.
A rough impression would do, to begin with.
Ryōgi Minato sat on the sofa, drew one book from the pile, and was soon deep in reading.
For someone hailed as a “prodigy,” committing words to memory was no great feat; he could practically retain anything at a single glance.
Understanding it, though, might take a little more time.
A short morning slipped by just like that.
Having stored the contents of the last book in his head for the time being, Ryōgi Minato set the materials down, glanced at the wall clock, and found that it was already afternoon.
For lunch, he had made do with whatever was in the refrigerator.
At this hour, though, there was still a good while before Aoko and Alice came home from school, so there was no need to rush dinner.
He went upstairs to fetch Yamato, then stepped out into the garden, meaning to put himself through some basic sword practice while slowly digesting the magecraft knowledge he’d just memorized.
But something he hadn’t noticed before now caught his eye: the garden encircling the mansion looked as though no one had tended it in a very long time.
Weeds and shrubs had sprawled out everywhere.
Left to itself any longer, the place would likely have become a jungle by next summer.
Ryōgi Minato frowned at the unruly garden, Yamato clasped in his arms, weighing whether to deal with the tangled weeds first or get on with his training.
What he failed to notice, however, was that on a slightly overgrown shrub nearby, a blue robin had alighted, watching him with some curiosity—as if observing just what the boy meant to do.
After a moment, Ryōgi Minato reached a decision.
Since the weeds and shrubs all needed clearing, he could simply cut them down—conveniently, that wouldn’t hold up his training either.
He laid his hand on the hilt, and his mind settled at once into perfect stillness.
And as if it sensed something, the robin—which had grown a little bored of waiting—looked the boy’s way once more.
The next second, a cold gleam too swift for the eye to follow flashed soundlessly before its eyes.
…
The sun sank in the west.
Hauling herself up the slope that always sapped her strength, Aoko let out a long breath—and happened to catch sight of her housemate walking toward the mansion as well.
There had been no school business to handle today, so she’d come home early the moment classes let out, which was exactly why their timing had lined up.
Quickening her pace, Aoko caught up with Alice and fell into step beside her, smiling as she spoke.
“You’re back earlier than usual today, Alice.”
“Mm.”
With no intention of explaining, Alice merely gave a soft acknowledgment and kept walking.
Aoko didn’t find it awkward; after living together this long, she had a fair read on Alice’s temperament, so she simply carried on chattering to herself.
“I wonder if Minato’s been behaving at home… Though, come to think of it, wasn’t the coursework you set this morning a little heavy?”
Remembering that thick stack of books, Aoko shivered without meaning to, oddly reminded of her own early days learning magecraft.
“Don’t worry.
Unlike a certain someone who’s only good at getting magical energy to flow, that child’s talent is the real thing.”
The cool remark landed especially harshly in Aoko’s ears.
She knew Alice was frustrated by how little progress she herself had made, and, guilty as charged, she slid her gaze away and let the matter drop.
By the time their idle chatter had run its course, the two of them had reached the garden gate.
But contrary to its usual “haunted house” impression, the garden was now spotless.
The weeds and shrubs had vanished entirely, leaving the view across the garden wide open.
Aoko and Alice pushed the gate open and stepped inside.
Glancing around, they finally spotted a small figure off in one corner, broom in hand, back turned to them, sweeping up the fallen twigs on the ground.
After a brief moment of surprise, Aoko felt oddly conflicted.
In that instant, she even felt the impulse to dig out some money and pay the boy for his trouble.
But thinking it might cause a misunderstanding, Aoko suppressed the urge and called out toward him in her usual bright voice.
“Minato!”
What struck Aoko and Alice as strange, though, was that on hearing the greeting, the boy gave a start and shuddered—for whatever reason—as if he’d been caught at something he shouldn’t have done.
“Welcome back, Aoko, Sensei.”
Both hands gripping the broom, Ryōgi Minato returned the greeting, and a faintly apologetic look came over his small face at once.
“Thank you, Minato.
Alice and I had been meaning to find time to tidy the garden ourselves—you really went to a lot of trouble this time.”
He could do housework, and he was a marvel in the kitchen besides.
Stacked up against the boy, Aoko thought, she really wasn’t much of an adult.
It was only the unusual expression on his face that made her ask:
“Is something the matter, Minato?”
Ryōgi Minato knit his brow, troubled, then looked toward Alice at the girl’s side and offered an apology.
“I’m terribly sorry, Sensei.
I accidentally shaved off your pet’s fur.”
Alice blinked in confusion, not following the boy’s words for a moment, and Aoko wore the same puzzled look.
A pet?
Where had Alice ever kept a pet?
Wait—it couldn’t be…
A blue shape flashed through Aoko’s mind.
She looked at the hand the boy had drawn from inside his clothes, and there, plain to see, lying on his open palm, was a blue robin.
Only, the little thing—usually all chirps and flitting about—now lay foaming at the mouth in the boy’s hand as if it had been frightened half to death, twitching every so often.
More to the point, the blue tuft that normally stood up from the top of its head had vanished without a trace, taking a small patch of the surrounding feathers with it and leaving the spot smooth and bare, like a balding middle-aged man.
“Is that… Robin?”
Aoko blinked in astonishment—then, unable to hold it back, burst out with a “pfft” of laughter.
Alice, meanwhile, stood rooted to the spot, gazing at the familiar cradled in the boy’s hands, and fell silent.
Seeing Alice say nothing at all, Ryōgi Minato apologized again.
“I’m sorry, Sensei.
If compensation is needed…”
“It’s fine.
He’s a familiar—he’ll change back in a few days.”
After all, Robin wasn’t strictly a living creature but a construct fused with magecraft.
“Damage” like this could be set right with a little repair.
So Alice didn’t take it to heart, shaking her head to put the boy at ease.
Besides, she had long wanted this overly restless robin to suffer a little hardship, in hopes it might settle down some.
As it turned out, she’d been spared the trouble of doing it herself.
Still, she was a touch curious as to just what the boy had done to leave her familiar in such a state.
Ryōgi Minato blinked, inwardly relieved.
To be honest, he hadn’t expected the blue robin to be hiding in the very shrubs he’d swung his blade through.
Had he not noticed in time and altered the path of the cut, the poor thing might have been split clean in two.
But a mistake was a mistake.
Even if his teacher didn’t mind, the boy felt he ought to make amends for his fault.
He decided that come dinner, he’d get serious and go all out with his cooking.
By then, the robin—which had been out cold for quite a while—finally came to.
The moment it opened its eyes and discovered its “transformation,” it began chirping up an unbroken storm, alighting on Alice’s shoulder as if pouring out its grievances, while shooting the boy a slightly fearful glance.
“I already know what happened, Robin.
Minato was only helping tidy the garden—it was you who insisted on hiding in the shrubs.”
The girl’s cool words wounded the robin deeply.
After all the years it had kept her company, here it was, feeling “betrayed.”
Add to that Aoko’s laughter, which still hadn’t let up, and the robin—steeped in “humiliation”—was abruptly struck by the sense that life simply wasn’t worth it.
But just then, a childish voice called it back to itself.
“Um, it’s Mr.
Robin, isn’t it?
I’m very sorry for the harm I caused you.
If you don’t mind, I could actually stick it back on for you.”
Looking at the small blue tuft pinched between the boy’s fingers, the robin froze as if in astonishment.
Had it not been able to tell the boy bore it no ill will whatsoever, it might have taken this for some newfangled form of bullying.
But compared with a certain someone who only ever laughed at it, and a master who paid it little mind, the angelic boy before it plainly seemed far more comforting.
Forgiving him outright, the robin alighted on the boy’s head, patted his hair with one wing, and used the other to wipe away tears that weren’t there.
—In this cold, indifferent world, only the boy could offer a little bird like him a sliver of warmth.
“Ha—never thought I’d see the day, Robin…”
Aoko, having finally caught her breath, pressed a hand to her aching belly, careful not to keep her eyes on the robin perched atop the boy’s head for fear of losing her composure again.
Still, her heart felt wonderfully unburdened.
The thing had always come squawking out whenever one of her magecraft experiments failed, as though mocking her, and it had long left her quietly seething.
“Well done, Minato.
Looks like tonight calls for a proper celebration.”
Aoko smiled, and Ryōgi Minato, not understanding why she was so pleased, only grew more bewildered.
“All right, let’s head back.
And Minato—I’ll be checking your coursework shortly.”
The young witch was as expressionless as ever, but the lightness in her voice made it clear: her mood, too, was actually rather good.
Just before she walked toward the mansion, however, Alice’s gaze met the robin’s atop the boy’s head—and in her eyes was a question.
The little blue bird knew well enough what its master wanted to learn.
Because for it, too, the scene that had unfolded in the garden that afternoon had gone clean past anything it could have imagined.