Wednesday, September 8
The woman who once called herself a magical girl, Rainbow Nana was awfully small. She had a small stature to begin with but the artificial limbs that supplemented her body were imperfect, giving her a forward leaning posture. As a result her already small body looked even smaller and combined with her slow movements, she gave of the impression of an old woman.
The reason her artificial limbs were imperfect was because the scientific level of her country, the magical kingdom of Folsaria, was low. Thanks to the existence of magic, the scientific technology that should have been developed had fallen behind. Since there was a limit on human assets, with the advent of magic it was only inevitable for scientific development to be delayed. When it came to creating artificial limbs, pure scientific knowledge was required. The reason being that an academic approach was required to understand how joints were structured and how muscles moved. Without that, all that could be done was simply creating parts that were shaped like human limbs, making natural movement was all but impossible. The movement became unnatural, like that of a puppets. So with that in mind, even if Nana was moving like an old lady, it was still amazing that it was still so human-like. That was made possible thanks to Nana's extraordinary efforts.
“Nice to meet you everyone. My name is Nana.”
It was a voice that clearly belonged to an adult woman, but gave off a very cute impression. Not many years had passed since Nana aged past 20. Hearing a voice like that come from someone who moved like an old woman with a cane confused Koutarou and the others a little.
“Yurika-chan is always in your care.”
”Nana-san is my savior and teacher. Please get along well with her.”
Yurika supported Nana's body from the side. Appearance wise it looked like a grandmother and her granddaughter.
No wonder Yurika is so desperate... to think she is just past her twenties. I feel so sorry for her...
Looking at the two together, Koutarou finally understood why Yurika who had been so timid chose to fight as a magical girl. It wasn't simply because Nana was her savior. It was because she had been deprived of her duty as a magical girl and her happiness as a woman that even the Yurika from back then chose to fight.
We definitely have to do something about this... both for Nana-san's and Yurika's sake...
Koutarou's desire to help Nana strengthened further. He didn't know what he could do, but he wanted to do anything he could. When Koutarou turned his eyes back from Yurika to Nana, he found her staring straight into his eyes.
“So it really was you.”
“Eh?”
Not understanding the meaning behind Nana's words, Koutarou was bewildered. Nana smiled as she used her right hand to grab at her let down hair. With many fingers of her hand being prosthetic it was a very awkward movement. But she finally managed to form a pigtail on one side of her head.
“Maybe you can't tell because more than ten years have passed?”
“Ah...”
Seeing pigtails on side of Nana's head, Koutarou recalled the mysterious girl he had met 11 years in the past. She had matured and her face had changed quite a lot, but she still had resemblance of her old self.
“You are... the girl I met in the mountains...?”
”So you do remember. Nice to see you again, good necromancer.”
Happy that Koutarou remembered her, Nana smiled. To her, their meeting that night had been a special one, and she had never once forgotten it all these years. But since she didn't know if the same was true for Koutarou, she was happy that he still remembered.
“So you were Nana-san.”
They had met on a mountain in the night, and she had helped when Kii, when Kiriha, had been kidnapped. Koutarou properly remembered her as well. He wasn't ungrateful, and since he had travelled through time it had just been a couple of months for him.