The Magical Girl Contract
The contract of a magical girl. Today, my younger sister died. Or perhaps it was yesterday. As for the cause of death, I honestly have no idea how to describe it.
If death needed a name, then… yeah. I suppose you could call this a magical girl death.
After all…
Her left leg was crushed to a pulp, and most of her right arm had been severed and blown away, nowhere to be found. Seven pieces of what looked like rebar were embedded in her abdomen. Her entire body was twisted with bruises that resembled burns.
For the body of a seventeen-year-old girl in the prime of her beauty, it was an absolute mess. The only ones who could force a family to look at a corpse like this were magical girls.
My sister was a magical girl.
They said she died in her final battle against a monster. Such a brutally simple statement.
“Ha. I can’t even laugh at that… can I?”
You would have laughed for me in a moment like this, but I can’t even imitate your smile.
I force the corners of my mouth upward, trying to copy it anyway. My breath catches in my throat.
“…Forget it.”
The face of my sister lying on that cold bed keeps blurring. Maybe the gap between the girl in my memories and the broken thing in front of me is simply too vast. It feels like the body lying there has nothing to do with me at all.
The doctor delivered his formal pronouncement of death, and the funeral was arranged under the guidance of the Magical Girl Association. The staff approached and explained things, but none of it really sank in.
“Ah, yes…”
Used to reactions like mine, the employee simply looked at me with a sympathetic expression. Formal words of comfort were exchanged. Strangely enough, hearing them did ease my heart a little.
I was the only mourner.
I wore the black funeral suit with a yellow armband on my right sleeve. The portrait displayed was of an ordinary girl, not a magical girl. For two people with no relatives, even this funeral felt excessive.
A few men who called themselves my sister’s fans, some fellow magical girls, and staff from the Association—more people showed up than I expected. Just having them come was an enormous comfort. I was busy simply seeing them off.
Fortunately, they were the last visitors.
For the next two days, the funeral hall remained silent. I simply stared blankly at my sister’s photograph. That made the time pass somehow.
The funeral, which I barely registered, finally ended. My sister was placed entirely inside a small urn. If a soul had physical size, this urn would be far too small for anyone to fit inside.
I set her in the display shelf. Other magical girls rested in the spots beside her. They say columbariums are the norm these days. Looking at this many urns, I suppose that’s true.
“There really are a lot of dead magical girls…”
I quietly left the premises. Someone like me would only disturb the people sobbing over their own losses.
“Figures it would rain on a day like this.”
After the funeral, I headed for the bus stop only for rain to begin falling. The sky had looked ugly since morning, so I suppose it was inevitable. With no umbrella, I simply walked.
The rain soaked my face, blurring my vision again and again. I wiped it with my sleeve, rubbed my eyes with my hands, but it kept happening.
Kept happening.
My eyes kept blurring. It was the rain’s fault. The damn rain simply wouldn’t stop.
Somehow I made it onto the bus, shook the water from my clothes, and headed home. For some reason, I kept thinking my sister would be waiting there with that same expression she always wore.
But I had already left her somewhere else with my own two hands. Expecting her to be home made me feel like a complete idiot.
I arrived in front of the old villa. For some reason, I didn’t want to go inside. Stepping into that empty house felt like admitting she would never return.
I stood before the glass door of the common entrance, about to enter the passcode, when something blocked my path. A creature that looked like a heavily deformed cat flapped black wings as it hovered in the air.
“…What the hell are you?”
From the golden cross star embedded in its belly, it pulled out a long contract scroll and spoke.
“Baek Yuhee, won’t you form a contract with me to become a magical girl?”
“A magical girl…? More importantly, who are you?”
“My name is Ryuk. I am a mascot for magical girls.”
“Mascot…”
Suddenly being offered a magical girl contract, the first thought that rose in my mind was pure doubt.
Why me?
I’m a guy, for starters. Besides, there’s no way I’d ever become a magical girl.
But the next words out of its mouth shattered every single one of those doubts.
“Don’t you want to… take revenge for your sister?”
“What…?”
“Exactly what I said. The incompetent executives of the Magical Girl Association who let your sister die, those pathetic fellow magical girls, the monsters… don’t you want revenge against all of them?”
I quietly clenched my fist. Then I slammed it into the wall hard enough to draw blood.
“Revenge? Of course I want it… I’m barely holding myself together from losing my mind right now!”
The image of my dead sister still wouldn’t leave me. I had been desperately trying to suppress this directionless rage with reason. Of course I wanted revenge. The problem was I had neither the power nor the means.
How could an ordinary human possibly get revenge on them? The chains of helplessness had been forcibly pinning down my fury.
But… if something like this was offering me hope…
“This is a contract. I’ll give you the power to take revenge or do anything else you want. In exchange, eliminate the magical girls.”
“Eliminate the magical girls…”
“I don’t want to watch magical girls suffer anymore… I’m begging you, Baek Yuhee. Save the girls who will die just like your sister… even if you have to steal their magic to do it…”
I knew this contract was unfair. There was no way I could eliminate magical girls with my own strength. The contract was asking me a question.
Would I die as a magical girl in exchange for avenging my sister—or rather, saving others who might end up like her? Would I throw away an ordinary life and walk the path of carnage until the day I died?
But what value could a normal life without you possibly have to me anymore?
“If I sign this contract… will I really be able to…”
“Yes. If you truly want it… you’ll be able to do it.”
I wrote my name on the contract. With my right hand, nails digging in deep enough to draw blood, I pressed each letter firmly into the page.
The moment I finished, the contract emitted a brilliant light and vanished. At the same time, my body began to change.
I, who had been an ordinary man, transformed into a girl wrapped in a mysterious aura.
“This is…”
“A body prepared for becoming a magical girl. You can’t become one unless you’re female.”
“I see… Well, whatever. So? How do I transform?”
Ryuk placed a front paw on my head.
I only just noticed how much shorter I had become. The lowered eye level felt incredibly uncomfortable.
“Wait… I’ll do it even if you don’t rush me. The magical girl contract isn’t fully complete yet.”
“…This whole magical girl thing seems pretty annoying.”
“Ahem…! Anyway, two steps still remain in the magical girl contract.”
“Two steps?”
Ryuk formed a V sign with one small cat paw.
“First, I must grant your wish.”
“My wish…”
“A magical girl contract requires both giving and receiving, right? The larger the wish, the heavier the responsibility—but the greater the power as well.”
“By any chance… reviving my sister isn’t possible, is it?”
“…I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. Curing illness or injury is doable, but bringing back the dead cannot be done with magic. Even if it could, the revived person wouldn’t be… normal.”
“I see… Then I want the power to crush every magical girl. Honestly, saving them or whatever… I don’t know about that yet. But right now, I want to deny every last magical girl with everything I have.”
Ryuk wrote something at the bottom of the contract using a magical quill and continued.
“Mm… understood. Second, I need an object now. Do you have any cherished item?”
“A cherished item, huh…”
Since we were already on the way home and such things were usually kept there, I headed inside with Ryuk.
The house I hadn’t visited in a while was still filthy. I went to my room, opened a drawer, and handed Ryuk a toy BB gun.
“Here.”
“What is this?”
“You asked for something precious. This is my precious item.”
Ryuk looked suspicious.
“Just to be sure… you’re not giving me something random, right? If it isn’t truly precious, the contract might—”
“It is precious. It’s the first toy I bought with my own allowance back in the day.”
“Understood… Then I’ll use this as the medium to connect our powers.”
Ryuk placed the BB gun on the floor. At once, a massive magic circle appeared beneath it, then sequentially under Ryuk and the gun itself.
I endured the nauseating sensation of new organs forming inside my body. Before long, the light of the magic circle gradually faded.
“Is it… done?”
“Yeah… for now.”
By then the BB gun had changed shape completely. The realistic replica of an actual firearm was gone, replaced by something that looked exactly like a child’s toy.
“This is my transformation wand?”
“It usually becomes a wand, but sometimes it keeps the original form of certain tools. We can call it the Magical Revolver, I suppose?”
I spun the Magical Revolver around my finger like a gunslinger in an old western, then pretended to holster it at my waist. A belt suddenly appeared, and the revolver clicked perfectly into place.
“Oh… so this is magic too. Pretty convenient…”
While I stared in fascination at the first spell I had ever cast as a magical girl, Ryuk pulled out the contract once more.
“As I said before, the contract is now complete. The terms should begin to take effect soon.”
“The terms taking effect means…”
“Exactly. You’ll have to fight a magical girl.”
Hearing it stated so plainly made my heart pound. The magical girl battles I had occasionally witnessed were spectacular beyond words—kicking off buildings to run across rooftops, shattering roads, slicing cars apart like tofu.
The thought of fighting opponents like that was slightly terrifying. Still, I was a magical girl now too. If I fought with confidence, I probably wouldn’t die… or so I told myself.
“Anyway, the contract is finished. I’ll be counting on you from now on, partner.”
“Uh… yeah! Ryuk, I’ll be counting on you too.”