Mom and Dad
When I opened my eyes, I was in a car.
"You coming around?"
Silver hair tickled across my face. What on earth had happened? I blinked, and blinked again.
"The detox is all done."
The blue-eyed girl peering down at me wore an unmistakably apologetic look. I seemed to be lying with my head in her lap. The ceiling of the car filled my vision—and then the girl leaned her face right into it.
"You okay? Nothing feel weird or hurt anywhere?"
"Who... r'you?"
Slurring my words at the worst possible moment had apparently become a habit of mine. I'd been trying to say Who are you? The girl looking down at me let out a little puff of laughter.
"I'm Eve."
It felt a bit much to just keep lying there, so I sat up. The car had been flying along this whole time, and yet it remained utterly silent—no engine noise, no vibration at all.
Eve watched me with those blue eyes as I pushed myself upright and settled properly into the seat.
"Magical Girl Association. The president. Eve."
"I see. I'm Mother."
"Nice to meet you. Though this isn't how I wanted our first meeting to go."
"What exactly happened?"
I remembered drinking the wine. I remembered my whole body growing hot. I remembered Frilly coming toward me. After that, nothing.
"An aphrodisiac. No, wait. She slipped you a love potion."
"Excuse me?"
"I mean. Frilly. Dosed you. With a love potion."
"A love potion as in... an aphrodisiac?"
"Y-yeah. An aphrodisiac."
So it wasn't a joke. I had actually, genuinely, come within a hair of losing my virtue. A fresh cold sweat slid down my back. I groaned and leaned back—and something dug into my rear.
"Ah, that's a thermos. Figured it was yours, so I brought it along."
"That's right. My adjutant Dusick packed it for me. I was worried I'd lost it."
A pink body with a matching pink holder, plus a strap you could sling over a shoulder or hang around your neck—the kind of design an elementary schooler might go for. I hugged it to my chest like it was treasure.
Of course it was treasure. My first adjutant had prepared it because she was worried about me. Losing it would have been a disaster.
"I'm sorry. As president of the Magical Girl Association, I failed to keep my subordinates in line. Putting you through something this awful at our very first meeting... I have no excuse."
"Yeah. I nearly lost my maidenhood before I even got to lose my virginity."
"Virginity? As in... a guy's?"
Oops.
"Ah, never mind. That came out wrong. Come to think of it, I was supposed to show you an estimate."
The estimate. I'd brought it with me, too. Where had it gone?
"An estimate?"
"You know Precure?"
"She caused trouble again, huh."
No matter how absurd the situation, just dropping Precure's name was enough to make people immediately understand. Just what kind of havoc did that girl wreak on a regular basis to get this kind of reaction from everyone?
"She smashed in the front entrance of our base."
"R-right... We're headed back there anyway, so I'll pay you in cash on the spot. Don't even worry about a receipt."
"Alright."
I couldn't exactly refuse. The state of our base's front door was too pathetic for that.
After that, neither of us spoke for a long while. The silence gave me a chance to sneak glances at this magical girl called Eve, taking her in properly.
She might have been twenty, or thereabouts. Traces of youth still clung to her here and there. Long silver hair—longer than mine, even. Snow-white skin and reddish lips. Fine-boned, her face a little sharp. All in all, she had the look of a Western beauty.
"Come to think of it, how's Dusick doing?"
"Dusick..."
That's right. Dusick used to be a magical girl, too. Of course she'd know the Association president.
"She's doing well."
"She's such a sweet kid. I was worried she wouldn't adjust after switching sides. The last Mogumogu boss was way too soft—too tenderhearted. Dusick probably had a rough time filling in as boss for her."
"What kind of person was she?"
"Apparently a girl who worked at a flower shop. Someone who'd never been in a fight in her life."
"Well, in that case..."
It must have been hard. A delicate young woman trying to hold her own in a den crawling with nothing but men—the Mains. Me, I used to be a guy, so it doesn't really faze me.
But she'd been talking casually this whole time, hadn't she.
"Eve, right?"
"Huh?"
"Eve."
"Uh, yeah, that's right. Eve."
"I'm dropping the formal speech too, starting now. That cool?"
"Ah—yeah, that's fine. Sure."
She'd been talking down to me this whole time, so I was going to talk down to her too. I couldn't be the one to yield. Mogumogu might be broke, but we've still got our pride. If I bow my head, Mogumogu bows its head. That was not happening.
"A lot happened before we even got to introduce ourselves, but anyway—looking forward to working with you, Eve. Keru told me... hmm."
My gaze drifted toward the driver in the front seat. Catching on, Eve gave a light flick of her fingers. A translucent film spread outward and curved into a rounded dome around the two of us.
"Nobody can hear us now."
"Yeah. Keru filled me in. I get why the magical girls and Mogumogu-dan have to keep their fights at a reasonable level."
"I see. Keru's a capable guardian. Mine's Karin, but I didn't bring him today. I'll introduce you next time we get the chance."
"Yeah. We've both got it rough."
"Not much we can do about it."
The hollow little laugh Eve gave made her look, somehow, profoundly exhausted.
"Wow. This is bad..."
Roughly half the stairs leading underground had been demolished, and a small, circular crater sat in the stretch that curved back toward the entrance.
"Good lord."
The front door was so crumpled—nearly half of it caved in—that you could see straight through to the inside even with it shut.
"Precure did this."
"That little—"
Eve clutched her head as though just thinking about it were giving her a migraine. I couldn't help a little smirk.
"We need to get this repaired first thing. I'm really sorry. I wasn't good enough to keep my subordinates from running around doing stuff like this."
"Yeah, try a little harder."
"..."
Eve shot me a sharp glare, but she was the one in the wrong here. Glare all she wanted—what was she going to do about it?
"Anyway, keep what happened to me a secret from the kids. It's mortifying."
"Got it."
Only after getting Eve's word did I wrench the warped front door open, twisting it aside.
"Keru, Dusick. I'm back."
"Oh, welcome ba—"
"Unni, you're ba—"
The two of them—or more precisely, one person and one animal—came out to greet me, then froze the instant they spotted Eve behind me.
"Keru, Dusick. Long time no see. You two been well?"
"Eve Unniiii!"
Dusick came barreling over and leaped straight into Eve's arms. Eve caught her and spun her around.
"You look healthy, Dusick."
"Yeah, Mother Unni takes really good care of me."
"That's a relief."
Eve looked genuinely happy. She might have been terrible at managing her subordinates, but she seemed like a kindhearted boss, at least.
"And Keru... wow, you've gotten huge. It is you, right?"
"Yeah. It's been a while, Eve. How's Karin doing?"
"He's doing well."
"I see. Mother, did you eat a lot of tasty things?"
"Unni, did you eat lots of meat?"
Yeah, I'd eaten plenty of meat. Eaten some things that weren't meat, too. And nearly gotten my maidenhood eaten.
"I ate well enough. Nothing happen here?"
"Nope!"
Keru came up and rubbed his head against my ankle. The longer this went on, the more he acted like an actual cat.
"Perfect timing, actually. It's a bit late, but since Eve's already here, how about we test the production machine?"
"Is it okay for Eve to watch too?"
She was the enemy, strictly speaking. We didn't even know what the machine would produce—was it really all right to show that to the other side? Keru seemed to pick up on my hesitation and rumbled at me.
"It's fine if Eve watches. Better, actually. If something goes wrong during production, she can help. And the Mains are going to be fighting magical girls anyway. If we want to avoid fatalities on their side, it's better they get a look in advance."
"Well, if you say so. Alright."
The production room, which I hadn't been in for some time, had been cleaned up considerably. Before, the setup had required me to climb into a coffin. That wasn't the case anymore.
"Put your hand here. Focus everything into your palm, and push your energy in—like you're breathing it into the orb."
I placed my hand on the orb Keru indicated. It nestled perfectly in my palm, and a faint tingling ran through my skin. Push energy into it, huh.
What does that even feel like?
I understood it was the kind of sensation that was hard to put into words, but still. It was awfully vague.
Breathe energy into it...
I tensed, and pushed.
That ticklish sensation stirred again, somewhere deep in my core. It tried to spread through my whole body. This time, I funneled it down into my hand.
"H-hey—Mother, you can't put in that much—!"
Keru was yammering about something, but I was already too deep in to hear him. All my focus was on pushing that ticklish feeling through my palm.
"Hnh!"
—Whiiiiirrrrr...
The mechanical hum faded. I wasn't even sure when it had started, but it faded all the same. Then smoke puffed out of the output port at the end of the line.
Like a rice cooker. The "steam will be released shortly" kind.
Wisps of smoke curled lazily upward. Keru, Dusick, Eve, and I all edged carefully toward the port.
"I think I poured in way too much mana. Hope that's okay."
"The machine didn't explode, at least."
It hadn't blown up, so something proper must have come out. And this being my first product, I was curious what it would be. The smoke gradually cleared, and the shape within slowly began to emerge.
Keru and Dusick spoke at the same time.
"Mini Mother...?"
"Mini Unni...?"
She looked about eight years old, the childishness still written all over her face. Vertical pupils in a deep, vivid red. A cold, blank expression, at least at first glance. Black hair. And a black gothic lolita dress, to top it all off.
Anyone could see it. A tiny Mother. In other words, me, shrunk down to about eight years old.
Slowly, the girl shifted her gaze. She looked at Dusick. She looked at Keru. She looked at Eve, and smiled, just a little. And then, last of all, she looked at me—and broke into the biggest, brightest smile she could manage.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter—the girl came running straight at me. She latched onto my thigh and nuzzled her face against it over and over.
"Mom!"
What?
Then she peeled herself off me and threw herself into Eve's arms as well.
"Dad!"
What??