Prologue

Magical Girls. Hidden from the eyes of humanity, never more than an urban legend, a staple of children’s television. Magical girls embody kindness, self-sacrifice, beauty through moral purity, and magic that empowers them to let their true selves shine.

“Oh my god, you still watch Magical Girl stuff? Isn’t that kinda childish?”

…They can’t be real.

This world doesn’t allow for kindness, there’s no space for beauty, and there’s no place for magic. That’s what we learn as we grow up. From a young age, we learn it’s all make-believe. Fairytales. Childish nonsense. The harsh truth of reality is cold and unfeeling, we’re lost in an endless void, stuck in dark cycles of revenge and retribution.

“Logically, there’s no way ‘magic’ could even exist. It’s unscientific.”
“If magic were real, science class would be way more interesting.”

A being of that purity, an existence that runs counter to logic and knowledge of the amassed thoughts of humanity. Such a thing can’t be real. It’s foolish to acknowledge these ideals as anything more than trickery.

But even so, in corners of the net, urban legends mix with reality in unexpected and startling ways. Websites catalogue images, videos, photos- blurred but present. News aggregators present tied together stories of each of these mysterious figures- the modern day bigfoot- people make up their own stories, backstories, headcanons of reality.

“Did you see what @xk_magiholic wrote? Most legit story yet!”
“I heard a livestreamer caught one in public-”
“Isn’t @starfinder the one who also said they saw a tsuchinoko?”
“Do you people really believe in this, or is it just, like, ironic?”

This addictive hope spreads like disease in the mind, reminders of human weakness. In a world that denies the very possibility of such an existence, where kindness is looked upon as cynicism, there is no-one foolish enough when confronted with reality to choose to be a part of that magical realm. No-one is that desperate. That honest. That loving. That pathetic.

…Are you?