Magical Girl Outcast

Chapter 2: A Contract is Made

''At what age was I contracted? Well it might not look like it now. But I was arleady twenty five years old when I became a Magical Girl. Now twenty years later and I look like a sixteen years old girl. Amazing what magic can do isn't it? Ahahahahah!''

''...But I was contracted at that age because I am a first generation Magical Girl. Back then the Awakened had not standarized contracts as they do now since they had just made contact with humanity. They just awoke the gift of magic to any girls and women who had potential, regardless of how old they were.''

''But from the second generation onward. Girls with the potential to wield magic and use it for good are detected from the moment they are born. Don't ask me how the Awakened know the potential of a girl that early, they just do. At that point Fourteen years old became the age which almost all Magical Girls are contracted. There are only two reasons why a girl would contract outside of that age.

''The first is that a girl may reject the offer of a contract at first and decide to go throught with it at a later time.''

''However if you see a Magical Girl younger than fourteen it is always for the same reason. An Emergency Contract was formed. Emergency Contracts are formed with girls who have potentials earlier than the standard age. And the reason for that earlier contract is quite simple. It is because the girl would not have survived until her fourteenth birthday if she did not become a Magical Girl.''

''Emergency Contracts can be quite a controversial topic. Many feel that fourteen years old is arleady too young to enroll girls in an endless war and an Emergency Contract force girls to enroll even earlier than that. With the youngest girl on record being only eight years old. But there is no denying that without Emergency Contracts we would have lost many young girls with a lot of potential to the Unfeeling parasites.''

An Interview with the number one ranked Magical Girl, Étoile. On the the subject of the age of contracting. -2045

- - - - -

Rin was floating, he didn't know where he was. But it looked almost like he was in the middle of space. He could see countless stars surrounding him along with nebulas he had only seen in pictures.

Normally he would have found the sight amazing and inspiring. But as he stared at the beauty of the universe he could only feel a deep uncaring apathy. Who cared how beautiful the universe was? Nothing mattered anymore.

He closed his eyes and continued floating aimlessly in the impossibly vast void. Why was he here again? Oh right, he was dying. Was this what death was like? Just floating endlessly in space?...well whatever. A part of him felt like he should be afraid about the fact he might be dead. But currently he couldn't care less. The world never cared about him and he didn't care about it anymore either. His life wasn't worth living, might as well just accept oblivion.

[Is that truly how you feel?] A voice suddenly asked, it seemed to reasonate from all around him.

Rin looked around with a emotionless expression. ''Yes, life is not worth it, the world is not worth it. It should just all disappear.''

[Really? That doesn't seem like the boy that rescued me this morning. You say you don't care about anything and yet you put yourself in harm's way to rescue a single defenseless animal?]

''That was before I realised how pointless it all is. Look at what happened to me. I fell unconscious during an Emergence and no one even bothered to carry me to safety. Nobody ever cared about me, why should I care about them?''

[It's true the world has been terribly unjust to you. And yet you wanted to be a Magical Girl with all your heart didn't you? Surely you felt like there was something worth protecting if you wanted to carry that burden so badly.]