“I'm going to help too.”
Lightweaver placed the program back on the desk.
The banner Kohinata was holding slipped from her arms, but Amamiya caught it with lightning-fast reflexes.
All three of them stared at Lightweaver, as if trying to confirm whether they had just experienced a collective hallucination.
“...Really?”
“Just kidding. Go back to what you were doing.” Lightweaver turned and made a show of walking out the door, only for Kohinata to lunge forward and grab her sleeve.
The stack of banners almost scattered all over the floor, but Amamiya caught them again, her face entirely blank.
Lightweaver turned back around and lightly flicked Kohinata's forehead with her finger.
“It's real. Now tell me, how far along are you guys?”
Since it was a surprise for the Store Owner, they had to go all out. It couldn't just be some half-hearted effort.
Night Sakura immediately dragged a chair over for Lightweaver and spread a stack of printed papers across the desk between them.
The other two cleared the clutter off the desk, making room for Lightweaver to rest her elbows.
The three of them crowded around Lightweaver, talking faster and faster as if terrified she would change her mind.
“We're still working on the banner. Kohinata wants to draw chibi versions of all the Wings of Freedom members on it, but she's not satisfied with it yet. I actually think it's really cute, but she's being too much of a perfectionist.”
Night Sakura pointed to several sheets of draft paper on the desk that had been crumpled up and then smoothed out again.
“The lyrics are still being revised too. We're already on the third draft.”
Amamiya silently pushed a neatly folded sheet of paper toward Lightweaver. It was covered in lyrics written in handwriting so neat it looked almost printed.
Lightweaver looked down. The paper was filled with strike-throughs and corrections.
It looked exactly like a certain idiot idol's.
“Alright. What's my job?”
“The time capsule,” Night Sakura said, pushing the drawing of the ginkgo tree toward her and tapping the small square beneath it with her finger.
“None of us are students at Tachibana High School. Even though the campus will be open to the public during the school festival, carrying a shovel and digging under the ginkgo tree would still look way too suspicious. You're different. Even if you're crouching there digging up dirt, people will just assume you're preparing for some class activity.”
“Why don't you guys just transform and dig it up at night? There are no security cameras at night, and you won't have to report to the school.”
The three of them exchanged looks. Finally, Night Sakura spoke up. “...Oh, right. We spent days trying to figure out how to bypass the administration office, and we were even planning to have Kohinata fake a stomachache to distract the security guard—”
“‘Right’ my foot! You seriously spent days overthinking something this simple?”
These idiots. They could have easily solved this by transforming at night, yet they came up with all these convoluted plans.
Then again, that was very typical of them. They always managed to turn the simplest tasks into a major production.
She folded the drawing and slipped it into her pocket, then tapped the desk with her finger. “Leave the time capsule to me. I'll dig it up. You guys keep working on the lyrics. Don't let me come back with the capsule only to find you still haven't finalized the draft.”
Kohinata opened her mouth to argue, but realized she couldn't find a single counterargument.
By the time Lightweaver stepped out of the headquarters, the sky had completely darkened.
She zipped her coat all the way to the top and stood under a streetlamp, lost in thought.
Still, Qiluo wasn't about to be stupid enough to go digging all by herself.
I'm Lightweaver!
The mysterious Magical Girl, Lightweaver!
The soil under the ginkgo tree might not be hard, but crouching under a tree with a flashlight all alone was just too pathetic.
I need an assistant. Someone reliable who won't ask questions.
When it came to reliable help, the first person who came to Qiluo's mind was Shizuru Kirishima.
She was strong, tight-lipped, and most importantly... she never seemed to say no to her requests.
If she asked for her help digging something up, she probably wouldn't ask too many questions either.
But telling her outright that she needed help digging up dirt was a bit too blunt.
She needed to phrase it in a way that would get her to come without making it look like she cared too much.
Leaning against the lamppost, Qiluo gently released a tiny thread of Lightweaver's mana.
Just like when she had delivered the cookies, a warm white thread of light flashed through the night sky, looking like a shooting star flying in reverse.
...
Shizuru Kirishima sat at her bedroom desk, a half-finished reference book open in front of her.
She had been staring at the same page for who knew how long, her pen cap covered in faint teeth marks.
Lately, Erosion Bodies had been abnormally scarce, and the patrol schedule was filled with 'on standby' next to her name.
She had dropped by to watch Snowrealm's training a few times, but the girl was progressing so quickly that she no longer needed her guidance.
As for Lightweaver—
Ever since she had accepted that bag of cookies in the alleyway, she hadn't sensed that warm white mana signature again.
It had taken her several days to finish the cookies. She had savored the very last piece with some black tea, chewing slowly, and had even washed the empty wrapper, flattened it, and tucked it inside her notebook.
Over the past few days, she had almost asked Snowrealm, 'Have you seen Lightweaver lately?' multiple times, but she always swallowed the words before they could escape.
Asking a junior a question like that would just be too weird.
Nuomi was curled up on a cushion at the corner of the bed, its tail draped over its nose, breathing softly and evenly.
The room was so quiet that only the faint ticking of the clock could be heard.
Shizuru closed the reference book and looked out the window at the moon, which was nearly full.
But then, the familiar mana signature rippled across the edge of her perception, like a stone dropped into a still lake.
She recognized this signature. She had been waiting for it.
Shizuru stood up from her chair so quickly her knee nearly slammed into the desk leg.
The reference book slid off the edge of the desk and hit the floor with a loud thud, startling Nuomi awake.
“Shizuru?” Nuomi raised its head from the cushion, its ears not even fully upright before it saw its contractor already grabbing the coat hanging on the back of her chair.
“She's looking for me.” Shizuru slid the window open. The night breeze rushed in, rustling the pages of the notebook on her desk.
With one foot already on the windowsill, she glanced back at Nuomi, the beauty mark at the corner of her eye curving upward.
“Nuomi, stay here.”
Nuomi pinned its ears back, curled back down onto the cushion, and gave a gentle flick of its tail.
It knew exactly who the 'she' Shizuru spoke of was. As Shizuru leapt out of the window, it let out a tiny yawn toward the open pane, wondering how many cookies she would bring back this time.
Moments later, a figure descended from the night sky, a scythe flashing with a cold gleam under the streetlamp.
Mingyue landed in front of her, her long hair still settling from the momentum of her transformation.
“What is it this time?” Mingyue rested her scythe on the ground, looking as if she had already grown accustomed to being at her beck and call. “More cookies?”
“No. I have a job that requires two people. Are you free tonight?”
Lightweaver offered a slightly innocent smile.
Rate on N.U.
