Flight Magic

"Hayate, the flying Device I had custom-made for you is ready."

Huo Lin had stopped Hayate after her bath not because of the poster-the poster was just an extra-but mainly because of this Device.

She had spent quite a while making it.

Four weeks counted as quite a while, surely. Compared with the Changing Stage, the Disguise Hairpin, and the Voice-Changing Bow Tie, it had certainly taken more time.

Flight Magic was complicated, after all.

Flight itself was nothing special; safety was what mattered most. After all, Huo Lin would not be using it herself. If it were for her own use, she would dare take to the skies with nothing but a flamethrower strapped on. This was for Hayate.

Flight speed, altitude, agility, and the like did not matter. All that mattered was safety! Safety! Safety!

Important things had to be said three times.

Huo Lin had borrowed the Fly Card from Sakura for two days specifically to use it as a reference. Whatever the power of the Clow Cards, at least their safety was guaranteed. Even an elementary school student could use them right away.

So this Device of Huo Lin's was based on the magical principles of the Fly Card.

The Device took the form of a wristband. Normally, while locked, it was simply a watch that kept time.

Huo Lin had modified an ordinary watch, retaining its original functions. Once activated, it would generate a pair of wings on the wearer's back.

Following the Fly Card's example and growing wings on a wand was still a little dangerous. Generating them directly on the wearer's back was safer, avoiding the risk of a beginner losing hold of her wand.

The downside was that using this magic made the wearer look like an angel. It was far too conspicuous.

Still, magic could not be displayed in front of ordinary people anyway.

"Come on, let's go outside and try it."

"Outside? Where?" Hayate had just finished her bath and was still wearing the pajamas she had only just changed into.

"Don't worry. No one will see us."

Huo Lin snapped her fingers as she spoke.

Hayate felt as though some sort of power had spread outward, but when she looked around, nothing seemed to have changed. Everything in the living room was as usual.

"What did you do?"

"Go outside and you'll see."

Hayate opened the front door. She had intended to change her shoes in the entryway, but Huo Lin told her there was no need.

"You don't need to put your feet on the ground. Just fly straight out."

"But are we doing it right outside?"

It was nine in the evening. Although it was already nighttime, Shinjuku was still bustling with people. Hayate could not imagine what would happen if people saw a girl flying through the sky with a pair of wings on her back.

Would a TV station come to interview me?

Or maybe the police would come too.

But when Hayate actually got a clear look outside, she found no one there. The scenery was unchanged, but there were no people.

Not only was there no one around the main house, she could not hear a single sound.

Hayate cautiously tried lifting her feet off the ground. She really was flying!

It was much easier than she had imagined.

It felt as though this were not her first time flying, or as though she had always had wings and had simply forgotten to spread them before.

Strolling through the sky turned out to be little different from walking on the ground, only much more fun, and quite romantic.

Looking back, Hayate saw Huo Lin right beside her. Huo Lin was not using a Device, but she was flying just as effortlessly.

"Why isn't there anyone around?"

From the sky, Hayate could see it more clearly: the area around their neighborhood, including the main road outside, was completely deserted. It was as though the two of them were the only people left in the world.

"I just put up a Barrier around us. We're inside it now, and people without magical power can't enter. So it's just us here. You can do whatever you like, even destroy houses or other things. Once the Barrier is removed, everything will return to normal. It won't have any actual effect on the outside world."

The fact that Hayate could enter meant she possessed magical power herself, as well as the potential to become a Magical Girl. But that was extremely rare in this world.

Generally speaking, Barrier Magic was used for battles between Mages, keeping their fighting from spilling over into the surrounding area and providing a battlefield that would not affect the ordinary world.

They would not be seen, nor would they cause any damage.

It was a remarkably considerate spell, though the basics were difficult to master. Usually, only Mages skilled in support and Barriers could specialize in it.

For Huo Lin, however, it had only taken three days of dedicated practice to learn.

Unlimited magical power meant unlimited room for trial and error. Others needed to rest after practicing a few times, but Huo Lin did not need to stop at all, which let her take a much more unrestrained approach to learning.

She could keep trying over and over, regardless of the cost. That was just how extravagant unlimited magical power allowed her to be.

"This Barrier has a radius of five kilometers, including the sky above and the ground below. You'll be fine as long as you stay within that range. Don't fly out of it."

Hayate certainly would not fly out. Five kilometers was already plenty of space. This Flight Magic was not particularly fast, a little slower than a car, at around thirty or forty kilometers per hour. She would have to fly continuously in one direction for seven or eight minutes to cover five kilometers.

"Oh, right. When the Barrier is removed, do we appear where we started, or wherever we are when it's removed?"

"Hehe." Huo Lin knew what Hayate had in mind. They were twins, after all, and understood each other instinctively. "Of course we appear wherever we are when it's removed. So yes, you can fly to school."

Their school was less than five kilometers from home.

They could simply put up a Barrier at home, fly to school, then find a deserted spot there, such as the roof, and remove it. No one would see them fly to school, making their daily commute much more convenient.

A twenty-minute trip would become a five-minute one. They would never have to worry about being late again.

The only condition was that Huo Lin had to come along, because only she could put up and remove the Barrier. That spell was rather difficult and hard to inscribe into a Device.

Although they were inside the Barrier, apart from the absence of people, the scenery looked no different from usual to the naked eye. Hayate flew all the way to school like that, gazing down from high above at the dark school buildings, which lay silent below.

"How long can this Device keep flying?"

"That depends on how much magical power you can supply. The Device itself doesn't store any energy."

"Huh?"

Although Huo Lin had already told her that she possessed magical power too, Hayate had never really felt it. After all, magic had been a thing of fantasy her entire life. Even though Huo Lin had suddenly become a Magical Girl, Hayate still felt that world was far removed from her own.

"I really have magical power too?"

"Do you feel tired right now?"

Hayate shook her head. She did not feel anything out of the ordinary.

"Then that means you not only have magical power, but quite a lot of it. Enough to sustain Flight Magic without feeling any drain. Based on what I've read, you're at least at the level of a C-Rank Mage."

C-rank was the lowest rank among members of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, but it also meant one was already qualified to join.

C-rank was merely the lower limit. Hayate's magical power might well be higher, but without a clear standard for measuring it, Huo Lin could not say for certain.

She was certainly much weaker than Clow Reed, nowhere near his level. But comparing a girl who had never received any magical training to a great magician from the age of the gods was hardly realistic in the first place.

From how it felt, Hayate's magical power was probably about the same as Sakura's current level.