About Becoming a Magical Girl

As far as the outcome went, though, her little sister was doing just fine without her. Yukina had grown up; she was no longer a child who could not live without her "older brother." That was good, and she was happy for her, but she could not help feeling a trace of loneliness.

Propping herself up with one hand, she slowly leaned back against the chair and picked up the remote to turn on the television.

The TV was reporting on yesterday's "Erosion Disaster" in a small town on the outskirts. The footage showed people evacuating in an orderly fashion, along with Magical Girl Avenil and Gong Tianzuo · Feifina fighting against the "Corruption" amidst the crowd.

Reports on Corruption disasters in the local area and elsewhere were a daily staple. After watching for a while, she changed the channel.

Steam rose gently from the oatmeal milk on the table, but she had no appetite at all.

Before long, Yukina came over and sat at the table. Her expression remained as indifferent as ever. She made no comment about breakfast, quietly picked up a piece of Whale, and began chewing it in small bites.

Yanase Naoto also picked up her spoon and began eating at an unhurried pace.

The two of them were always quiet around each other.

"Big brother."

A voice like wind chimes interrupted Yanase Naoto's thoughts. She looked up to find Yukina staring straight at her, holding warm oatmeal milk in her small hands. Yukina looked hesitant, as though she had something to say.

For Yanase Naoto, being called "big brother" again after so little interaction over such a long time was truly a pleasant thing.

Though now that she was a girl, it felt rather complicated.

"Yukina, what is it?"

She set down her spoon, her expression unchanged.

She glanced at Yukina. Distracted for a moment, she could not read the hesitation in Yukina's eyes. Yukina had become harder to understand than when she was little. Naoto looked at the milk in Yukina's hands and remembered that Yukina had always loved sweets as a child.

"Not enough sugar?"

she asked blandly.

Yukina shook her head and looked directly at Yanase Naoto's face. There was a patch on her "brother's" face—a bright white bandage.

Yukina had noticed that patch when Yanase Naoto came home yesterday. The bloodstain on the bandage had disappeared since last night, so it was clearly a fresh one changed this morning.

Yukina had been concerned about that bandage for a long time.

"Big brother, what happened to your face?"

Only then did Yanase Naoto come back to herself.

So it was the bandage on her face.

It was eye-catching enough that it would naturally draw attention, but Yukina's long-overdue concern still took her by surprise.

She had received the wound in battle, so Yanase Naoto obviously could not tell Yukina the truth.

"This? ...I wasn't paying attention while walking and accidentally scraped myself against a utility pole."

Yanase Naoto looked away, deliberately making her tone casual. But to Yukina, it practically screamed, "I'm lying."

Emergency Mission

"A utility pole?" Yukina pressed.

"Yes... Forget about that. Hurry up and eat, or you'll be late."

At Yanase Naoto's evasion, Yukina's sharply sculpted brows furrowed. She wanted to say something more, but after opening her mouth, she ultimately swallowed the words.

If Yanase Naoto insisted on it, it did seem plausible enough. Everyone had careless moments, and it was only a utility pole—Yukina had walked into one herself before. But she knew her brother had to be lying. Whenever he spoke without meaning it, he would unconsciously avert his eyes, just as he was doing now.

Her brother had never been good at lying. From the time he had gone alone to her school and beaten up the people who bullied her, to later secretly buying her a birthday gift she had wanted for a long time, and even now, her brother had always been like this.

She pressed her lips together and did not ask further, but her heart ached.

Her brother occasionally came home with injuries, then acted as if nothing had happened. Yukina had asked more than once, but he always brushed her off with an unconcerned lie.

At first, Yukina had been anxious and worried about her brother. She worried that he had gotten mixed up with shady people, worried that he might head down a path of no return. On free weekends, she had followed him out, trying to discover something, but every time she came up empty-handed by sheer coincidence. When she returned home, she still had to face that expression pretending nothing had happened. Sometimes, he would even question her about it. Over time, she realized that perhaps she had been too full of herself.

She had also realized that, in this sibling relationship, her brother had been pushing her away unilaterally.

All she could get were evasive answers. Yanase Naoto clearly did not want to tell her the truth, and that indifferent face no longer showed her any smiles.

After making herself unwelcome so many times, she stopped asking. She ought to know her place.

Although she had resolved not to pry, her mood inevitably worsened because of it. After all, Yanase Naoto was her brother. Since childhood, she had always lived in the warmth Yanase Naoto gave her. She could never forget those memories, even if Yanase Naoto no longer doted on her now.

Yukina held her cup without saying a word as the low music from the television filled the room.

A long time passed, until the alarm on her phone rang.

It was time for Yukina to leave for school.

"...I'm full."

The words did not match her heart. The cup struck the table with a crisp sound, and Yukina lowered her gaze, stood up, and returned to her room. She slammed the door shut with a bang, the vibration sending ripples across the water in the cup.

The air fell quiet.

Yanase Naoto stared at the closed bedroom door.

At last, she sighed.

Her little sister was angry. The secret she could not tell Yukina had led to this almost theatrical outcome.

More than once, Yanase Naoto had wondered what expression Yukina would wear if she discovered one day that the "brother" she had spent ten years with was actually a "sister."

People said that sisters could easily become far closer than friends.

But that was not the ending Yanase Naoto wanted.

Besides, how much could a halfway-made "older sister" like her really do? Would it only backfire? Keeping her identity hidden from Yukina was truly rather despicable. To Yukina, it was a kind of deception, or rather...

But revealing her identity would only make things easier for herself. If her own actions brought danger to Yukina, she would probably regret it for the rest of her life.

Compared to that, she would rather live in this distant relationship with her little sister.

Conflicting emotions tangled inside her. Efnir raised her head and simply gave up thinking about it.

Yukina changed into her school uniform, picked up her commuter bag, and came out of her room.

The brown and navy dress, black thigh-high socks, and her jet-black hair made Yukina look beautiful in her autumn uniform no matter how one looked at her. Though her face always bore an indifferent expression, she still possessed a lively youthful air.

"Don't forget about the school matter."

Leaving those words behind, Yukina grabbed her lunchbox and hurried out.

The relationship between Yanase Naoto and Yukina was no longer what it once had been. Yukina's tone was not cold, but it could not be called warm either. More than siblings, they were probably like "roommates merely living together." That was how these two "siblings" got along now.

"Be careful on the way. Call me if anything comes up."

The apartment door closed, and she received no answer.

Yanase Naoto sighed, carelessly stacked the dishes in the sink, and entered her own room.

This room was always locked and never open to her little sister. It contained many of her secrets: feminine products such as sanitary pads hidden in the cabinet, disguises such as wigs and chest binders, communication devices and related documents from the Orderkeepers organization, and a laptop that would expose her identity at a single glance.

Fortunately, Yukina was not the type whose curiosity would compel her to get to the bottom of everything. That spared Yanase Naoto some trouble with explaining and hiding things.

Yanase Naoto took off her jacket and untied her chest binder. The oppressive feeling around her chest was finally released. She let out a long breath and lay down on the bed.

Along with the comfort of freeing her chest came the pain in her waist and her accumulated fatigue, crashing over her like waves.

She was a little sleepy. After lying down for only a while, her consciousness slowly drifted away.

She took out her phone and set an alarm for the afternoon.

"Don't forget about the school matter."

Yukina had said that because today was the day for the class parent-teacher meeting, scheduled for four in the afternoon.

Their parents had not returned to the country. As researchers, they were engaged in some unknown work and were often impossible to contact. As Yukina's brother, Yanase Naoto had become Yukina's only guardian.

The parent-teacher meeting naturally became his responsibility, as well as a chance for her to speak with her little sister a little more.

Yanase Naoto was awakened by a piercing alarm.

It was melodious yet urgent, accompanied by an unpleasant grating noise like sand scraping against glass. It was an alarm the organization issued only when Corruption struck.

This contact alarm, transmitted through phones and communication terminals, was a "signal" sent using specialized devices that restricted its frequency. It filtered out ordinary human hearing; only those who had received Order Force could hear it.

Hearing this alarm meant that Corruption had descended.

Yanase Naoto sprang out of bed, ignoring the tearing pain shooting through her waist as she hurriedly grabbed her phone.

A short number was calling. It was from the Orderkeepers headquarters. She quickly answered, no longer deliberately suppressing her voice. It reverted to the wind-chime-like voice she had as a girl.

"This is Efnir."

"Codename Efnir! Emergency mission!"

The operator's anxious voice came from the other end.

Heading into Battle

"Headquarters is under attack by large-scale 'Corruption'! It has been rated a 'Special A'-class disaster! Please deploy immediately to provide support. I repeat, headquarters—"

The voice on the other end suddenly vanished halfway through, replaced by a burst of chaotic noise.

—The transmission had been cut off.

"Special A-class...?"

Yanase Naoto froze slightly.

Special A-class disasters ranked only below S-class and Special S-class disasters. The enemy from yesterday was something one might not encounter in an entire year. It had attacked that precious food-producing town and devoured countless lives, yet it had only been rated A-class.

And the Corruption had appeared at headquarters.

Corruption disasters interfered with communications, so that was probably why the transmission had been cut off.

It was highly unusual. Yanase Naoto sensed it instinctively.

Since even an injured person like her had been summoned, headquarters had obviously judged that this was no minor incident and that every available combatant had to be deployed to support them.

Though it was difficult to know what exactly had happened now that communications had abruptly cut off, headquarters rarely made a wrong assessment.

Without hesitating again, she braced herself and moved off the bed to get dressed. She dug several pills out of a drawer, shoved them all into her mouth, chewed them up, and swallowed them. Then she looked up at the clock.

The hands pointed to a quarter past two.

A terrible bitterness spread across her tongue.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed open the window, made sure no one was around, and jumped straight down.

In this era threatened by White Hole Erosion, humanity had no choice but to huddle within human cities protected by the Boundary Stele.

The Human Alliance had become the bond connecting the surviving nations in development and survival. Massive cities served as the centers of human settlement and life, surrounded by several small towns. Their functions had gradually been divided, each fulfilling its own role. They had become appendages of the cities, supplying food, steel, and other basic necessities. They were production and processing bases, while also receiving the cities' protection. The cities, in turn, served as the centers of their respective regions and humanity's final strongholds.

The agents' duty was to fight as warriors for humanity's last living space.

The afternoon sun was as scorching as ever, and a wave of heat rushed toward her.

The streets were always packed with oppressive heat, noise, and clamor. Tall, densely packed office buildings rose on both sides of the road like gray mountains.

Efnir sprinted and leaped from one rooftop to another. At times, a moonlight-like afterimage flashed beneath her feet. That was the agents' exclusive skill—Stairway—giving her something to push off from as she jumped.

She crossed the blocks, her petite figure like a moon rabbit racing toward headquarters.

As Yanase Naoto, she could barely reach close to 1.7 meters with height-increasing insoles, making her just a little taller than Yukina. But after becoming "Efnir," her body shrank considerably. She looked like a young girl in middle or high school, even a head shorter than Yukina. Only her chest did not change much. With one growing while the other shrank, it instead looked rather spectacular.

By maintaining deep Resonance with Order Force, agents could enter a special state called Exile Form—the so-called "combat mode," or "transformation." Generally speaking, before and after entering Exile Form, an agent's physical abilities would improve significantly, while her appearance and body would also undergo considerable changes. There were occasionally agents like Efnir, whose body types differed starkly before and after transformation. That was common knowledge.