Note: I mean it about the spoilers. Don't read this if you haven't finished Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica and you plan to watch it! There are some spoilers for Kuroko no Basket too, but less world-destroying ones.
Prologue
Upon witnessing the Generation of Miracles generate their miracles, some spectators could not help but whisper the word witchcraft.
How else could an ordinary human explain this feeling of inevitability, of terrible destiny, whenever Midorima let the ball fly so gently from his hands? Was it not magic, that impossibly high arc, the way the ball could hang suspended in the air for a long moment of eternity-only to fall, perfect and true, through the exact centre of the hoop, half a court away, half a world away? How could Midorima never miss, shot after shot after shot? Did this nerdy-looking middle school student perform infernal rituals once a day or something? Did he actually get something out of that hokey morning horoscope show he listened to? Was that where the magic came from? Astrology? Perhaps, perhaps.
Okay, but how could anyone explain the wonder that was Aomine Daiki? The way he seemed to flow like liquid fire beneath the hoop, limbs akimbo yet graceful, impossibly graceful, sweeping the ball from hand to hand to air to hoop, double clutches and hook shots and behind-the-backboard loop shots (really? behind the backboard?)-so easy peasy it made you queasy. Was the kid on drugs? No, Aomine was not on drugs. Aomine skipped practices, got bad grades, spoke rudely to his teachers and otherwise played the part of teenage delinquent very well, but he was not on drugs. So what was he on, then? Black magic?
How silly.
Kise? How about Kise? Wasn't he the weakest, the least of the five? A prancing model, a pretty head full of hot air? At any rate he had only started playing in his second year of middle school—wasn't it disgusting that anyone could be so good after such a short time? How did he copy others so perfectly? Was he secretly a robot or what? Or was it just that such an empty head was easy to fill with other things? Yes, that had to be it. Not witchcraft at all.
Murasakibara Atsushi-Murasakibara could not, according to any definition of logic or common sense, exist as a physical being. No teenager could have arms that long. No basketball player should be able to stand in one place and yet be a devastating, hurricane-like force. No human ought to be able to eat that much junk food and yet live. Surely the world could not have such a person in it. Surely diabetes, high cholesterol, and shortness would one day be cured thanks to careful study of such a person's genetics. Yes, Murasakibara was, in a word, a mutant. Nothing magical about him.
And finally…finally there was Akashi. Akashi of the eyes. Akashi of the future sight. Akashi of the broken ankles. Let us not speak of Akashi, and magic, in the same sentence.
Witchcraft, the whisperers whispered.
But no-there was nothing here of witchcraft.
Not yet.