Magical Girl Crusade chapter 0: Interdimensional Voyage of a Ghostly Passenger Ship
The girl was sitting on the rails of the bridge, chewing a cheese sandwich. Dangling her feet over the chasm while the evening wind gently ruffled her shoulder-length pink hair.
"Hey Kyubey! Why do I have to do this?" She asked the small, white, furry creature sitting next to her.
'Because in your current weakened state you would die without that grief seed,' He answered.
"But why do I have to do this alone? You said that I'm not alone, but you never let me meet other magical girls!"
'I thought you just saw it for yourself: you'd have to share grief seeds, and not many of you like that.'
"But all magical girls can't be like that raven haired one... Maybe I could get along with another one, couldn't I, Kyubey?"
'No, they aren't like her at all.' The creature smiled, wagging his tail. 'But listen: other girls may have wishes too, and I can make them true. If you get along with one of them, you could remain friends after she makes a contract with me.'
The girl brightened. She swallowed the last nibble of her sandwich, and jumped down to the bridge while she crumpled the tinfoil into her pocket. She used to sculpt little animals out of these tinfoil wrappings before her wish released her from the hospital. While she was locked in there, she often played that Pyotr, the mouse ate the cheese that she wasn't allowed to. Now she could do it herself, so she left Pyotr and Charlotte to shine in the sunlight infiltrating the oncology ward.
"Won't you come with me?" She asked the creature.
'You'll have to go by yourself. I have to prepare for an important event!' Kyubey answered with his permanent smile.
It was a normal evening at the shopping mall, and the square was teeming with people: students were gathering here after finishing their school activities, parents packing their cars after shopping for their families, scooter couriers leaving and arriving... life was going on normally.
The sun had already set, though the sky was still full of playful colors, orange, pink and dark blue.
A crowd began to gather rapidly, to watch a businessman on the edge of the roof. He was walking about up there, wildly gesturing and shouting. He opened his briefcase and filled the air with paper sheets. Some of the gathering bystanders (there were at least a hundred of them by now) caught a few of the papers.
It was nothing new, time to time someone got the idea to climb up and make a drama. The building had been closed for at least a year, but these miserable souls always found the way to the top. And they always had their audience. They were usually brought down by the firefighters, but sometimes the spectators got some blood - usually the modest, more skilled candidates ended up down there. The audience was too ashamed to admit that they enjoyed the thrill of seeing real blood and brains splashed on the pavement, but the flock always gathered again when someone prepared to jump. This one seemed to merely seek attention, though. He had been dancing up there for at least five minutes and they could already hear the approaching sirens.
But eventually, the man plummeted. Not of his free will, though. It was a tremor that pushed him over the edge. People fled to the streets suspecting an earthquake. The quake repeated within a minute. Then, while the protagonist was put in a body bag, the surrounding windows exploded, covering everyone with glass shards. It was a student who looked up to the sky then the crowd followed suit. No one could avert their eyes from the sinister, dark grey vortex stretching between the roof and the clouds. It appeared too suddenly for a natural phenomenon, but behaved like a normal tornado. The rising wind dragged the contents of the trashcans towards the funnel.
"You knew that it had only two possible outcomes. This witch is the strongest in the dark and she was weak and inexperienced." A cold voice asserted. "Of course you hoped she'd end up like this. Or, more precisely, almost like this."
The little animal turned around.
"This is interesting. Normal humans shouldn't see it." He answered to the raven haired girl. "You may even know what's behind this physical reaction."
The girl clenched her lips and focused on the vortex. It apparently grew and a continuing tremors accompanied its spinning. Lightning seemed to illuminate it from the inside, with eerie red flashes. Chunks of plaster smashed on the asphalt and the windscreenless cars around the warehouse. Its bared structure appeared to be glowing.
Then the wind turned about in a deafening boom, and the sky opened. On the other side, fleecy clouds were floating in a calm, dark-blue sky. Clouds, and something else. A huge, cigar-shaped object came staggering through the rift, as if escaped from an early 20th century photograph. It was bound with thick cables on the other side, but these ropes snapped, one by one. The zeppelin dashed towards the crowd with blazing speed.
No one could explain how they survived that evening. Some mysterious force seemed to pull everyone out of the wreck's way, and the shower of debris seemed to find unoccupied spots of it's own free will. The rift expanded for a moment like it wanted to swallow everything, then it closed. Every noise died away, with only the quiet buzzing of some bluish sparks crawling on the debris.
The girl with long black hair was standing on the edge of the next roof as she watched the place where the warehouse used to be. A pile of concrete chunks and strange knots of metal bars or wires, this was all that remained of the building. It was impossible to separate the framework of the airship and the shelves anymore. Some of the sparks were still dancing on the metal surfaces, though they looked far tamer now than at night. Here and there everything looked as distorted as if one looked them through glass spheres. The place was occupied by the disaster relief forces. Policemen, soldiers and scientists were running about with various instruments, and walked off to phone - apparently there was no signal amid the ruins.
Two more Skylines with dimmed windows stopped at the cordon. Two Japanese agents got off the first one. A blonde woman, a stubbly younger and an older man left the other. They were apparently foreigners, most probably Americans. Only the woman wore formal clothes. She showed some kind of pass to the officers then engaged them in conversation.
They brought out more instruments, swung them around with great interest while talking to each other. The girl couldn't hear what they were talking about, but she already knew everything - she'd been waiting for them since daybreak, she was looking for them from up there. Last time they were late, but now she'd decided not to take any risk and forged their official invitation with her own hands. By the time the Americans got it every single word of it came true. Her abilities provided her a headstart.
She had already planned to take them into the game, which wasn't ever a game to begin with, and became even more brutal as she repeatedly tried to get through it.
'They say it's a soft spot, a sign of degradation.' The white, furry creature said. 'See, we share interests. It was not friendly of you to do that last morning. You may chose Hanako's destiny too.'
He's always torturing her with the same smile. It would feel so good to wipe that smile off his face... the girl wavered but she got a grip on herself.
"You'd inevitably find a way to make sure she ended up like this." She answered icily, flicking her hair.
'It's disappointing to lose the energy we could extract from her.' Kyubey continued. 'So I'd like to know what happened. This is not normal. It is jeopardizing my mission. I think you're also interested-'
He was taken aback. The girl contently acknowledged his surprise when a bullet from her silenced Beretta hit the ground right next to the foreign man. But the creature's surprise didn't last but a minute. His peace of mind was next to impossible to disturb.
'You need a decent rest after such an evening.' The little animal commented. 'Your aim's usually much better than this.'
The girl quickly crouched down. The man down there rushed to the formal dressed woman, and drew her aside. He pointed to the roof where he suspected the origin of the shot. 'What now comes, must look like a mistake.' she summarised. Kyubey was already suspecting what kind of gift he had given to her. She should at least keep her plan secret. She knew that the woman was the more interesting of the two. That woman had some uncanny ability apparently tuned to spot her. Last time she found her in a crowd like a hawk spots the vole, so the girl could count on her.
The girl warily looked over the edge of the roof. The woman instantly turned towards her and pointed to the roof. Those two split up and began to run towards two corners of the building.
'You don't mind if I stay here for a while, do you?' Kyubey asked the girl but she was already climbing down the fire ladder.