PROLOGUE: In Spite of A Nail

"Here you go!" The cloaked magical girl handed an octagonal-shaped red jewel to her counterpart. "See? It's exactly the same as mine!" She excitedly affixed it to the backside of her Soul Gem, a red yin-yang dangling around her neck. "Much prettier than the ones the boss wanted to give us! Don't you think so?"

"So are all the rumors surrounding them true? Does this mean we never have to worry about finding Grief Seeds ever again?" She attached it to the backside of her own identical Soul Gem in haste.

"It sure does!" Another girl standing closely beside them inside the halls of the Mikuni Memorial Auditorium. "Look!" She held out a jewel of her own and put on an impromptu demonstration with her own Soul Gem. "See?" A swirling mass of darkness lifted out of her glowing soul, and went circling around the jewel, spinning around it faster and faster until the matter was consumed within the jewel.

"Woooooooow!" A girl standing behind them exclaimed.

"And it's all thanks to The Prophet!"

"The Prophet?" One of the two questioned.

"Why is she called that?" The other followed.

"Because her magic can predict the future," Another cloaked girl beside them replied.

"When I spoke with her, she warned me that my brother was going to get appendicitis." A third girl in front told them. "Two weeks later, he did! Heaven forbid what might've happened if I hadn't been watching him like a hawk the whole time."

"She told me my father's charter plane was going to crash on its way to Sapporo." A fourth girl standing behind them spoke. "And she said my best chance to stop him was to just run and stay away for a few days!" She cleansed her own soul with a jewel that had been passed over to her. "My parents got so worried sick about me that my father cancelled his entire trip. I'm extremely grounded now, but he's still alive!"

"The Prophet told me my boyfriend was going to be lured by a witch into committing suicide." A fifth one candidly recalled. "But I didn't believe her. Then a few days later that awful witch nabbed him and there was nothing I could do for him."

"Oh, noooooo!" One of the two cloaked girls gasped.

"Thus my penance from here forward is to serve her." She pulled her cloak further over her face and dolefully stepped away.

"We're all here because The Prophet was so kind as to provide us comfort and council when we were at our lowest."

"Have you met her yet?" One of the cloaked girls asked.

"What's she like?" The same voice standing next to her pressed.

"She is absolutely the most beautiful sight you will ever lay your eyes upon!"

"Shhhhhh! Don't let her girlfriend hear you say that!"

"What? Girlfriend? What do you mean by that?"

"She's totally the insanely jealous type!" A muffled snickering from someone broke near them.

"Yeah! Emphasis on the 'insane'!"

"Everybody, settle down, pick a spot to stand and be quiet!" A girl at the front of the auditorium directed. "The Prophet will be addressing us all very soon!"

"We're from Kamihama City," The cloaked girl whispered. "Where do you guys come from?"

"It's best that we do not say." The girl in front replied.

"Why not?" Her Kamihaman companion asked.

"For the same reason we must all meet undercover," Another one behind responded. "If we are to willfully serve at The Prophet's whims and protect her from possible harm or persecution, no one can know too much." While it was too dark for them to be able to make out the girl's face, one was able to spot a long ponytail jutting from her left side.

Moments later, the ambient lighting inside the auditorium dropped further, nearing total darkness. Seconds after, a radiant beauty emerged onstage, slowly hovering downward like an angel arriving to rapture her followers up to heaven.

"Everyone is the hero of their own story. In the beginning, everyone sees themselves as a good person." Her dazzling aura took everyone's attention and held it captive. "Except, in reality, such a thing cannot be true. For heroes to exist, logically they need to have villains to vanquish. Everyone might see themselves as a hero, but to have the ambition to raise themselves up, it too often necessitates the bringing of another person down, thus in their great tale you have become their villain."

"Praise to The Prophet!" One cloaked girl shouted. "Her clarity brings us divine truth!"

"It was not a coincidence this location was chosen for our gathering," She continued, overlooking that exalting interruption. "It was named after my grandfather, Shuuichiro Mikuni. As a very young man, his career in public service began as a relatively minor functionary within the prefectural government, far back during a time when our nation at large, was viewed by its continental neighbors and the overseas powers as villains. With the conflict's end came a change in leadership. My grandfather took the initiative and made the jump into electoral politics, winning a seat in the National Diet. He used his natural propensity for politics to spur our land's miraculous recovery, then he took a direct and personal hand in shaping both the establishment and growth of this fair new city, Mitakihara. Clearly then, is he not a hero of this story, and thus a hero to all of Japan?"

"Yes!" One nodding girl shouted. "The Prophet's grandpa was a hero!"

"Except," The Prophet took to the air quicker than the nodding girl's words could. "My grandfather had very little capacity for empathy, very little tolerance for human fallibility, and worst of all, very little respect for the souls who lacked his same level of ambition and technocratic competence. His uncompromising, domineering worldview would one day cause him to sever all ties to his own son, Hisaomi Mikuni, my dear father, the very moment it became apparent that my father did not inherit my grandfather's natural penchant for political gamesmanship and ruthlessness. Because of their forced estrangement, I never even had the chance to meet my grandfather. Because of his stone cold heart, I could not ever, in good conscience, bring myself to regard Shuuichiro Mikuni as any sort of hero."

"What a meanie!" The group was following every word, so eager to hear The Prophet bear her entire soul.

"Though his heart had been wounded by my grandfather's callousness, my father nonetheless pursued his own aspirations, first by establishing his own burgeoning business, then marrying its chief architect, my mother. And from love's blossom sprang a young child," She wistfully smiled. "The hero of her own story."

"Daaaaadyyyyy..." A girl in the audience cooed, romanticizing the man's memory as though he were her own father.

"But if any of you have heard of Hisaomi Mikuni, it was because that name made recent headlines in the news. For he had been caught embezzling millions in the city's funds, in a colossal slip up he lost all he'd worked so long and so hard for, ultimately killing himself before society could impose its wrath." The whole room observed a moment of silence for the dearly departed Hisaomi. "Indeed if history remembers him at all, it will almost assuredly be as a mere footnote. A villainous criminal too shortsighted and inept to cover his tracks." She pensively paused a second time, then continued her story. "But he was no villain. That is the one fact of which I am most certain. He was a kind, caring man who, after my mother's passing, made it his mission to make this world a better place for his singular daughter. First by reforming the government from within, then by bringing peace to the wider world around. He endeavored to leave this world in a better place than when he was born into it. Isn't that what any good person ultimately aspires to do?"

"Yes!" A girl answered. "We all wanna make the world a better place!"

"But my father's fatal flaw was that he was far too trusting to be suited to the two-faced world of politics." She sighed. "Because my grandfather wanted nothing more to do with him, my father instead chose to receive the tutelage of a politician named Yaegashi, whom, as a craven opportunist with no moral compass of which to speak, seized the opportunity to use my naïve father as a tool with with which to wound the rest of my family, setting him up for those crimes and forcing the rest of my clan to disavow him in order to save their own skins." She dolefully held out a crumpled up notebook. "I know this story to be true, for it was all meticulously confessed and chronicled in his journal hours before his demise."

"No! Daaaaaadyyyyyy…" A different girl cried.

"That is ultimately the moment where my story begins. No mother, no father, no audience with a grandparent who, even when lying on his own deathbed, wouldn't acknowledge the offspring of the man he perceived a fool, whose daughter who had become the pariah of her school and class. I was suicidal. I longed for a reason to continue to live," She tucked her hands inside her long sleeves like a praying monk. "That is when the magical fairy known to us all as 'Kyubey' appeared in my windowsill. That wish in my heart, I jumped at the chance to forge my fateful pact, becoming a magical girl. And with it, I gained the unique talent of foresight."

"What did The Prophet see? What does The Prophet know?"

"And with my new gift, I saw…" The stirring timbre of her voice turned suddenly very flat and fatalistic. "The end of the world!" She mentally crafted in her outstretched hand a spinning orb that was textured to simulate the surface of the planet Earth. "I foresaw a witch of such overwhelming might that she would soon subsume the entire globe!" Another orb forming a young girl's face morphed into shape in her other hand. "And I saw the girl who was fated to become that terrifying force of nature."

"Huh?" A girl in front squeaked. "What do you mean by that?"

"When a magical girl's Soul Gem becomes too corrupted," She described in a clinical tone. "She is fated to become the very monster that she fights. In other words, we are witches. All of us."

"No! That can't be true!" A distraught girl cried. "That can't be!"

"It is true." Another countered. "I've witnessed the transformation once with my own eyes."

"Whyyyyy? Why would Kyubey do such a thing?"

"The questions of 'why' and 'to what end' are ultimately not the questions of relevance." She said, regaining with little effort the attention of the distressed crowd. "The fact is, that all our deepest hopes and desires were granted in such a way as to trap us in an unending cycle of needless violence, hatred and despair. Your wishes, like mine, are all destined to betray us in our hour of greatest need." She forlornly explained. "This is indeed what would soon happen to myself. With my vision came my mission, my purpose to be. I saw it as my singular duty to avert that destructive catastrophe. It was a task heroic enough and the math to justify it was quite simple: End one life to save countless others. So I made it my goal to kill that girl, before she could ever be put into such a position to make her tragic contract." She contemplatively paused. "But forces beyond my control conspired to stymie my efforts at every single turn. With too little time to spare, little hope of success, and one friend at my side, that fateful day came and I-."

The crowd gasped in surprise. "Yes. I confess. I could not follow through. I gave up. With blood already on my hands, with the discovery of what really killed my father, and with the knowledge of the awful fate that awaited all magical girls upon our demise, I jumped straight to the final stage of grief. Acceptance. And I managed to convince my ally, my friend, my rock, my anchor and my love that the best way to spend our scant time remaining, was in each other's amorous arms." She gazed with admiration at a picture tucked in a side pocket. "And so that's what we did. With her at my side I tasted the sweet fruit of happiness as the final hour loomed."

The girls all around the room reflexively reached for one another's hands.

"Then that fateful day dawned, we took our front row seats, we prepared to see the disaster which would destroy the entire world unfold uninterrupted." Her head slowly turned back towards the crowd. "But instead of the end, we watched as something incredible, impossible, downright inexplicable and utterly insane happened." Her warm, confident and inspiring smile abruptly faded. "We watched a ragtag team of magical girls avert the disaster at that crucial moment. Somehow, they had saved this city! And with it, the world would spin on!"

"Wow!" One of the Kamihamans exclaimed.

"Yes," She huffed. "Such was the true extent of my wish's betrayal. For upon an anguished reflection of that fateful day, I came to the revelation that my true destiny was never to serve as the hero of my story, but rather… To become the villain... Of theirs!"

"What? Oh, noooooooo!"

"To say that I was bitter about the revelation would be an understatement. And with the world still spinning and my life pointlessly prolonged, my wish twisted that knife again and again, cutting deeper and deeper and ever so deeper into the depths of my troubled young heart. My purpose was shown in vision after vision, future after future… My role was never written as that of the victor… But rather, the role of the vanquished! Never could I play the hero of my story… Always the antagonist of someone else's! Never rising to my own glory… Always falling to infamy." The bitter resentment was evident in her tone. "Me? A Prophet? If Prophets of times past had the power to foresee what sort of odious bloodshed their followers would someday incite in their name. would they in good conscience have ever seen themselves as heroes?"

"Prophet, please don't cry." One follower tearfully pleaded. "Please don't cry."

"My wish is treacherous, my powers revealing my nature, and my existence dragged on without meaning. What reason do I have to go on living?" The assuring, authoritative smile slowly returned as she raised her head back up. "My reasons stem from everything I could not see coming with my power. My unlikely ally, who is now the one I hold to be my dearest, closer than my blood kin. My memories, a pain which now fuels my resolve going forward, and above all," Her orbs morphed into mirrors. "You!"

"Us?" One of the two Kamihamans questioned.

"Yeeeeessss!" She hovered into the air, higher and higher. "You who wished for your parents to acknowledge your accomplishments, instead of doting over your brother!" She pointed at a girl behind them. "But now they ignore him. And you have become the villain of that story." She pointed at another. "You who wished to spur the growth of your parents' corporate empire, but now their company has made headlines as the convenient scapegoat of a foreign power. You have by association become a villain, too!" She pointed at the two girls from Kamihama. "And you two, whose foibles as a pair shall one day compel your leader to sever all ties to you, just as my own grandfather spurned my dear father in heaven."

"No!" On of them exclaimed "Whyyyyyy?"

"That's a lie! Sh- She would never-"

"You see, it was not a coincidence that you have all been drawn to me! All of you possess stories similar to that of my own… You all are the heroes of your own tale, but cruel fate steers you to be the villains of those with karmic destinies even greater! So what's the point? Why do any of you persist? Why?" She looked at the two Kamihamans, and intensely repeated, "Why?"

"U- I Uh- I Uhhhhh…" The quivering girl struggled to answer.

"I will tell you…" She continued. "The answer… Lies in that very ragtag squad that I failed to foresee! And their unlikely success proved to me, most conclusively… That there is no fate but what we make! No future but what we shape with our own hands!" She floated off the stage and hovered above the crowd. "And I'm here to tell you… That starting tonight, we shall all band together, and forge a new path towards the future! We will cut all the puppeteering strings of karma and dance using our own unhampered legs! We will retake control of our lives, and together weave a new tapestry of fate! And all we need… Is the will to take that first step...

"Tooooogeeeeeeetheeeeeerrrrrrr!" The crowd cheered all at once.

"Glory to The Prophet!"

"Praise her!"

"We must all rebel against fate!"

"Seize our own destinies!"

"Control our own futures!"

"Face a brand new tomorrow together!"

The whole room lit up, as the sleeves of her robe extended outward like wings.

"My name is Oriko Mikuni… And it is my solemn vow… To tear up this whole damn script and write my own!"

Author's Note:

Thank you for joining me for my sequel story, debuting not coincidentally alongside the premiere of Magia Record anime adaptation's second season. This adventure is going to be one part character and worldbuilding piece, one part Oriko Magica adaptation, and one part tribute to the game that got me through the existential nightmare that was the year 2020.

For this episode, I'll be putting out a new chapter every month. I only put out the first story as quickly as I did because back in the beginning of the year because I was A) Thankful to be finally done with something that took the better part of three years to make; B) Eager to move on to Parts II & III; and C) Honestly not optimistic that my story would gain any sort of real traction or audience. Ecstatic to be wrong about C. Downright giddy. :)

But with hindsight, dumping it all out there in under a month may not have been the best choice if I want to attract an audience that grows, and on top of that, I'm writing Parts 2 and 3 concurrently with one another, plus someone has approached me and asked me to help spearhead a different creative project for them. So, I want to have a few chapters worth of lead time already saved and in the can in case any more of life's little surprises spring up. Thus are my reasons for staggering my new chapter releases.

I've been very invested in what I've written so far, and I hope you enjoy the ride with me. ;)

February 2022: It's come to my attention that Magia Record also features a character with the Surname "Hibiki" and given name that starts with an "M". Any similarity is unintentional, I wrote that chapter unaware she was in the JP version as I no longer play after the discontinuation of NA. Though the name similarity does amuse me, I think at this point MagiaReco has more magical girls than Pokemon has Pokemon.