Episode 2: Defining a Magical Girl
M-particles had changed the world.
Luminous particles, capable of connecting with human thought and transmitting signals at will in response to it. They reacted only to people with the proper aptitude, but that was more than enough to change the world.
Missiles that locked on to enemies with a mere thought.
Powered suits that deployed with a mere thought.
Communicators that transmitted messages with a mere thought.
Guns that pulled their own triggers with a mere thought.
Drones that stirred into motion with a mere thought.
Motorbikes that sped away with a mere thought.
Devices whose signals were managed by M-particles, allowing them to be controlled at will.
People called it magic.
That was how far magic transcended the limits of human understanding.
Suppose, for instance, that the leader of a nation possessed the aptitude for M-particles.
What if, with a mere thought, they could send a nuclear warhead hurtling straight into the heart of an enemy nation’s leadership?
The world had once collapsed under the power of M-particles.
The Third World War. The Fourth World War. The Battle of Hakodate.
An age when those accursed words danced across the pages of school textbooks.
The use of M-particles was strictly prohibited.
And yet.
Terrorists used magic.
The governments tasked with stopping them had no choice but to use magic themselves.
And so the magical girl was born.
Children without family registers, trained and conditioned to make their minds easy prey for government mind control, their thoughts moulded and manipulated at will. The Children.
Girls kept drugged, forbidden even the freedom to dream as they pleased unless they first released their thought locks through an incantation.
The existence of these girls…
The government had never officially acknowledged it.