Reincarnated Without a Cheat, I Adopted the Former Hero as My Mom

Up on the roof, beams of light kept cutting through the air without a sound. The faint scorched-sweet smell of burnt mana lingered in the air for a second before the wind scattered it.

Tian crouched at the edge of the rooftop wall, firing off the occasional mana bolt with the same effort most people put into swatting away a fly. After a while, she sat down.

Each shot was followed by a dull thud from below.

One by one, the isolated operatives on the path dropped.

She pulled her hand back and leaned against the wall, posture completely relaxed, the same casual energy as someone who'd just flicked a couple of mosquitoes off their wrist.

Then she tilted her head and looked over at Uriel, sitting about two steps away.

Uriel had the notebook open on his knees, pencil frozen mid-air, a faint crease between his brows.

He was staring at the page, though there wasn't much on it. A few rough lines, the outline of a wide-brimmed hat, a dense scrawl of notes beside it, most of them crossed out. Eraser shavings had piled up across both knees. He hadn't noticed.

This Witch look. What do I even do here. What did I even draw the first time?

He shifted his weight, sliding against the unforgiving brick.

I think it was something like… military uniform, flashy lights, magical girl. Something in that direction.

The sketch on the page was, honestly, underwhelming.

Wide-brimmed hat, oversized cape, wand, ornamental stars. Textbook standard. The kind of design you'd find as a stock illustration in a beginner's spellbook.

He held the notebook at arm's length, squinted, tilted his head, and examined his own work from every angle he could manage.

Conclusion: it looked exactly like every other magical-girl design on the market. If this were a game, it would be the default starter skin for an NPC.

Costume's not even commissioned yet.

He shelved the wardrobe question for later — find a tailor when this was over — and let the pencil drop back to the page, scratching away again.

New page, new sketch: a red-and-white uniform paired with a rapier.

He finished the outline and stopped.

Wait. Can't copy this too closely. Needs changes.

He erased the waistline.

Reworked it into an asymmetrical slit design.

Better. The uncomfortable sense of deja vu eased off a little.

He bit down on the end of the pencil, teeth clicking lightly against the wood.

Colors. Red? Too loud. White? Too plain.

He pictured a red-and-green combo for a second, nearly bit a permanent groove into the pencil.

Ugh. Red and green together is a war crime.

Red and black, then? Bit menacing. Actually has some edge to it—

"Uriel."

Tian's voice came from beside him.

The pencil didn't stop. Another image had already surfaced — military coat, white hair. Hadn't Mom actually gone with that look at some point?

"Mm?"

"Something's come up. You should look."

Tian's tone was slightly off from usual.

Uriel was busy drawing an iron cross onto the lapel of the uniform.

"There's a target. I hit her."

"Mm-hm."

Uriel didn't look up.

"She's fine."

The pencil tip stuttered against the page.

Uriel's brow furrowed — not from what he'd just heard, but because he was struggling to get the angle right on a particularly long pair of legs, which currently looked more like two carrots than anything human.

"Just hit her again, then."

"She seems different from the others." Tian's pace had slowed by half a beat. "Also… it's a woman."

"Mm."

Military coat has to be black and white, right? Trimmed in silver? Gold? Silver. Understated. Has weight to it.

"She ducked behind the flower beds. She's working her way back over here."

"…Mm."

He answered on autopilot.

"She's coming up now."

"Mm-hm, almost there, just this last part—"

A brief silence.

Something about the wind on the rooftop suddenly felt colder.

Uriel's pencil froze mid-stroke.

Somewhere a wire finally connected, and the last several exchanges replayed themselves in full.

"WAIT, WHAT?!"

Uriel's head snapped up from the notebook.

"Knock her back down —!"

He didn't get to finish.

Shff.

Left side. Over the wall.

A figure cleared the edge in one clean, light motion, landing without a single excess sound against the tile. The hem of a long coat flared and resettled in midair. The figure was already standing, balanced, steady.

Almost the same instant —

A soft scuff sounded from the right. A boot heel against tile. A bushy tail swept a tight arc through the air, helping its owner stick the landing.

Two figures. One on each side.

Black coats. Hoods pulled low, faces unreadable beneath them.

Both bodies snapped taut in the same instant. Shoulders dropped, weight shifted, weapons twitched toward each other on pure reflex.

Then — both froze.

Uriel looked left. Then right. Then left again.

He recognized both faces under those hoods. They'd grown, sure. Filled out.

But not enough to matter.

Not enough that his brain didn't lock up completely for a solid three seconds.

"…Scribe?"

The one on the left spoke first. That particular title nearly finished Uriel off on the spot.

Her voice had a certain ice-queen quality to it. A few strands of green hair, cut shoulder-length, slipped loose from under her hood and stirred in the wind. Her expression barely moved, but somewhere underneath it sat the faintest trace of shock — like a crack spreading through a sheet of ice.

Lumina.

The one on the right hadn't said anything yet.

Her ears had already shot straight up — dog ears, the hood lifting right along with them. Her tail flared out into a wide, bristling halo, every strand of fur standing on end. Nose twitching, sniffing the air in rapid little pulls, eyes narrowed in that specific way dogs narrow their eyes when a scent doesn't quite add up.

Fenria.

Uriel arched an eyebrow, mind already running calculations at full speed.

Both of them are here.

Which means whatever Tian was just talking about — hit with a mana bolt, ducked behind the flower beds, climbed back up…

He turned on instinct and looked toward the back of the roof.

Thump.

A head popped over the brick ledge. Right smack in the center of her crown sat a textbook-perfect, violently red bump.

The face beneath it was supposed to be murderous. Brows knit, mouth twisted downward, teeth bared — except the whole effect was almost entirely undercut by the bump dominating the top of her head. The climb up clearly hadn't gone smoothly either; her grip slipped on the ledge, one knee scraped down the brick, and she came over the edge at an angle, stumbling a half-step sideways on landing.

Kira.

…

Absolute silence descended on the rooftop.

The wind howled between the four of them, loudly flipping the hem of a black coat.

A standoff? No.

This was a family reunion where everyone had shown up expecting a knife fight.

Tian let the last trace of mana fade from her fingertips.

She tucked her hands behind her back. Her expression settled into something almost suspiciously innocent, the universal look of someone broadcasting nothing happened here. But underneath it, her eyes kept drifting back toward the three of them with the unmistakable warmth of a parent seeing her kids again after far too long — and the visible internal conflict of wanting to scoop all three of them up at once while remembering she was currently supposed to be Tian.

All three sets of eyes turned toward her at almost the same instant.

Locked on.

There was no hostility in the look. No suspicion either. Just analysis.

Who is this?

Identity?

Threat level?

Her expression stayed that way long enough to feel like a visible status readout.

Then —

"Wi—"

Kira went off first.

The bump on her head was still throbbing. None of that mattered right now. Something flipped inside her, and she lunged forward two full steps, boots hammering twin sharp clicks against the tile, eyes bright enough to light the whole rooftop.

"The Holy Sword Witch!!"

Her volume was low, but the emotion behind it was screaming at 120 decibels. Her mouth twitched, caught somewhere between trying desperately to hold it together and failing completely.

"The short-haired Lady Witch…!!"

She sucked in a breath, eyes raking up and down Tian's frame — the haircut, the features, the posture — and her whole body gave a small overloaded shudder.

"So sharp, so dashing... this overwhelming presence, this immaculate silhouette, this, this —!!"

Another sharp, desperate intake of oxygen.

Her vocabulary engine had completely seized up. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, lips trembling as every adjective in her head collided at once and detonated into static. What finally came out was a single garbled, half-formed sound of pure feeling, the pitch climbing at the end like a kite slipping its string.

She was practically floating off the ground, heels barely touching tile. Uriel could swear he could actually hear her hyperventilating internally.

Fenria didn't say anything.

She just launched herself forward.

Not even half a second of hesitation.

Like a big dog that had spent all day waiting by the door and finally heard the lock click — home at last! — she buried her face in Tian's chest.

Forehead pressed against the softest part of her, only to find it noticeably less soft than memory promised. She pulled back, genuinely confused, glanced down at a chest that had lost roughly two zip codes’ worth of volume, decided she didn't care, and firmly pressed her face right back into it.

Her tail thrashed hard enough to shake her entire body — shoulders, spine, legs, all of it moving on the same frequency as the tail.

No words. None needed.

Tian rocked back half a step under the impact, heel knocking lightly against the tile.

She looked down at the fuzzy head buried against her.

Rested a palm against it. Rubbed the base of one ear with her thumb.

"Look how big you've all gotten."

Her voice wasn't loud, but every word landed with complete weight.

Same as it always had, years ago. The exact same tone she'd used every time she'd had to settle these three down.

Effortlessly, unquestionably gentle.

Only Lumina hadn't moved.

She stood where she was, tilting her head just enough to take in the scene. Her gaze passed over Kira, then Fenria, lingering on each for less than a second.

"Mind your composure."

A small clearing of the throat first. Four words, quieter than the wind.

The effect was immediate.

Fenria's tail slowed. Full-speed thrashing dropped down to half-speed — something like switching from propeller mode to standard fan mode.

Kira's gaze pulled off Tian's face. Moved about a centimeter. Not far. But far enough to be visible effort.

Lumina turned and walked toward Uriel instead.

Uriel's hand tightened around the pencil. The notebook was still open across his knees, pages stirring faintly in the wind.

He slid it behind his back without thinking, thumb wedging between the cover and the first page.

His expression had gotten complicated.

Three years ago, the three of them had abruptly announced they were heading out to 'live by the Brigade's creed.'

His first reaction, at the time, had been suspicion — that they'd somehow seen through every piece of overblown nonsense he'd improvised as a kid. The Witch Brigade. The Dark Covenant. The Unyielding Expedition. Material that, in hindsight, qualified as career-ending levels of embarrassing. He'd assumed, out of kindness, they just hadn't said anything to his face, and had found some graceful excuse to leave instead.

Because that whole storyline, honestly, wasn't something he could even think about too hard these days.

But.

This outfit. This exact moment of arrival. The way Lumina said 'scribe' a second ago.

It had carried the tone of someone who'd already confirmed something and was now showing the appropriate respect for it.

…Don't tell me they're actually serious about this.

This isn't them coming back to call out my old material, is it.

He tucked the notebook back another inch.

Lumina stopped about three steps in front of him.

Her gaze moved over him — face, hands, the edge of the notebook, the eraser shavings scattered across his knees. Then it shifted briefly to the other three.

She didn't say anything right away. She was thinking.

Then she lowered her head, just slightly.

"Scribe…"

The tone was respectful. Almost nervously so. But underneath that respect sat something settled and certain — the calm of someone who'd already confirmed the facts.

She paused. One full breath.

"We haven't interrupted your operation with the Holy Sword Witch, have we?"

Uriel nearly lost control of his own face.

She's still calling me Scribe.

So that means… they actually still believe the whole script. This isn't a public execution. Probably.

What now.

He glanced at Lumina.

Then at Tian, currently flanked on both sides by Fenria and Kira like a mother whose children had all come home for the holidays at once — though her eyes were still fixed on Uriel, wearing the complete and total expression of someone with absolutely no idea what was going on.

Uriel cleared his throat. Pulled his shoulders back, straightened his spine, and did his best to keep his voice completely level.

"…No."

"Let's just say this was part of the plan."