"They have destroyed so many worlds, that's what you told me, right?"
"Y...Yeah...! So you can't deal with those guys with only passion! Please, just take that little girl and run away immediately!"
"...Give it to me."
"Eh?"
"If I use that, I'll get the power to defeat that monster? So give it to me!"
"No...! How could I let a child like you go to fight! Isn't your voice trembling already? You are scared too, aren't you? I can't..."
"That's why I want to... I have to fight! I am afraid of pain, afraid of getting hurt, and definitely don't want to die. But I am more afraid of my family and friends getting hurt. Please, Shianna, give me the power to protect everything I care! Anyway you can't find anyone else now!"
"There will be no chance to regret."
"...I know."
The girl take the dazzling foundation box from the strange blue-green creature and forced a smile.
A wry smile appeared on my face, and my fingers stopped. The cursor on the phone screen is flashing, but I can't think of what to enter next.
After all, magical girls are a real thing nowadays.
This is not my imagination. On Namisaki Island, the largest artificial island in the world, there really are magical girls fighting monsters that suddenly appear for no reason.
So now that things have come to this, how can I write about a fantasy magical girl?
"...Kuroi? Hana Kuroi?"
"Oh...oh...It's me, what's going on?"
I am frightened by the sudden sound and almost drop the phone in my hand.
After I calm down a little, I realize that the person who talked to me is a classmate who sit near me.
"Well... I just want to ask you if you have bought tickets for Alancia's concert."
"Alancia? You mean, Maria Alancia, the popular idol?"
"Yeah, besides, I don't think there will be another Alancia going to a concert on this island soon."
"By the way, why did she want to hold a concert here? I mean, looking around the world, isn't here the place that suffers the most 'monster disaster'?"
"It seems that this is the reason, a kind of support for the disaster-stricken areas?"
"Huh..."
It's just a hype anyway...
When such thoughts come into my mind, my self-loathing is exacerbated. Why do I always have such negative thoughts in the first place?
"So you didn't buy a ticket?"
She keep asking me so steadily that I don't know how to respond to her. My body went limp and fell on the table like a deflated balloon.
"Sorry..."
"No! No! Never mind! You don't neet to apologize. I just want to ask if we should all make an appointment to meet up together. If you don't want to go, that's okay too."
She seemed to say a lot more after that, but my attention had become completely distracted and I didn't hear anything.
When I come to my senses, I am the only one left in the classroom. Maybe I had been in a daze for too long.
"...I'd better go home."
Like always, I unlock my phone without thinking. And, like always, that tiny red dot on the corner of the mail icon make my stomach twist a little.
At the very top of my inbox sits an email—from an address I've never seen before.
It starts with "Dear Magical Girl," which makes no sense. No one's supposed to know about that.
But even though I'm scared, even though today is just another ordinary morning... there's no one I can talk to about this.
——
So... I came anyway.
I-I mean… what else could I do? If it were any other day, I'd probably roll my eyes and delete an email like that.
A random sender, a suspicious e-ticket attachment? Totally fake, right? That's what I should think.
But… it called me Magical Girl.
And no one's supposed to know about that.
I want to believe it's just some kind of dumb joke.
But I can't. Not this time.
It's spring, 2054.
I'm standing in a crowd outside the island's biggest stadium, and honestly...
I already kind of want to go home.
I'll just say it straight—the e-ticket that came with the email… it's real.
I mean, how else do you explain the fact that not only did no one stop me, but someone actually guided me to a premium seat near the front?
I don't belong here.
The air around me feels different—too expensive, too clean, too confident. I shrink into my plush seat like a misplaced Daruma doll, stiff and totally out of place.
The lights go out.
Only then do I finally feel my body again, like some part of me was frozen and just now remembered how to move.
There's some motion on the stage, just barely visible—
—and then, a wave of cheers erupts behind me.
It's deafening. Even with my hands pressed over my ears, I can still feel the sound, like it's turned into a real thing crashing into me.
The spotlight comes on—
—and there she is.
A beautifully dressed girl, radiant in every sense of the word. Her voice rings out at the exact same moment—clear, powerful, and impossibly bright.
Even in a stadium this loud, she silences everything.
For a second, this whole place doesn't feel like a concert anymore. It's her domain now.
So that's it… I've heard people say she's an insanely popular idol.
But seeing her in person, I get it.
She's not just popular. She's something else entirely—something almost inhuman. Something… demonic, maybe?
Before I know it, even I start getting swept up in the atmosphere.
The fear, the tension, the reason I'm here—it all starts to fade away.
But then—
—right at the peak of Maria's performance—
—her voice cuts out.
Just like that.
A second later, all the lights on stage vanish.
And the entire stadium falls into a deep, heavy darkness.
The crowd around me breaks into chaos.
Then—
The lighting rig above the stage flares to life, flooding the arena with terrifying beams of red light.
They shine on a spot high above Maria, at the very back of the stage.
And there she is.
A girl in deep crimson men's clothing, her face hidden behind a smooth, featureless mask.
"Ahh... how dazzling you are, Maria Alancia," she says, voice echoing through the darkness. "But such brilliance—whether for the Empire or for you humans—is unnecessary! Spread fear, Sinnic!"
One of the backup dancers near the edge of the stage screams.
Blood-red vines lash out from nowhere, wrapping around her in a blink.
And then—something slips out from her forehead.
A tiny glass vial, like something meant to hold perfume or makeup, floats upward… glowing with a sickly, evil light.
The masked girl catches it.
And with a casual flick of her wrist, she hurls it into one of the massive speakers on stage.
The metal groans.
Then warps.
The square, familiar machine twists into something horrible—a monster, radiating malice like heat.
"Amvy..."
I whisper her name under my breath.
I know that masked girl.
She's a key member of the evil organization—Axis Legion—that suddenly appeared on this island three months ago.
They've been creating monsters and causing tragedies everywhere.
Hidden in the darkness, I quickly pull out my Changepact, ready to change.
I don't know who exactly called me here, or why.
But no matter what, I can't let her hurt the ordinary people here.
"This ends here!"
Before I can even react, three girls appear—dressed in super cute dresses, in pink, blue, and yellow.
"You're quick, I'll give you that, magical girls."
"You just don't give up, Amvy," the girl in pink says.
"Getting beaten by us once a week? Let's put an end to that today! We're kicking you out of our world—for good!"
"Exactly! We've been reborn stronger than ever. Even if you all swarm us, you won't win!" says the girl in yellow.
"Agreed," the girl in blue adds.
"Alright, everyone, please follow the glow-stick markers and head calmly to the nearby shelters. Let's avoid getting caught in the battle about to start."
"Oh? You still say the same thing after seeing this?"
An object very similar to the Changepact I own flies out from behind Amvy and hovers in front of her.
"A Changepact? How did it end up in your hands?"
"The power granted to me by His Majesty to defeat you—let me show you what it can do!"
On the forehead of the masked girl, a small vial slowly materializes—just like the one Amvy took from the backup dancer earlier, the same kind of device used to create those monsters.
The vial floats into the Changepact.
"Sin-Change."
Amvy's Changepact unfolds in her hands, releasing what seems like endless black smoke that quickly wraps around her entire body.
Within the ominous fog, faint red lightning flickers and dances like restless shadows.
She swings her arm, and the smoke clears.
When she reappears, her appearance has changed dramatically.
Her original dress has transformed into a battle suit that combines delicate fabric with sharp Western armor.
Her mask now looks eerie and fierce.
But the most eye-catching thing...
Is the ornate rapier hanging at her waist.
Is that… also a magical girl?