Null Magical Girl Introduction: Year 2X21 C.E

Translation credit to Project Mokyuu on Tumblr

Part 1

The story starts in 2021 after the emergence of SARS-COVID-2, causing a worldwide pandemic. From this perspective, a 24 year old Kosane Kiriha laments about her life. A graduate student (until March) who cant find a job for the life of her. She wonders what would happen if she decided not to pursue a master's degree.

Kosane says, by April, she would become a nobody. Unable to write "student" on official documents yet unable to write anything about employment. She calls herself insignificant and unable to change the situation she finds herself in.

As Kosane gets out of her bed, she moves to the mirror. After rubbing her eyes, she realizes she saw something move in the mirror. She thinks it must have been in her imagination - she is the only one in her room, after all. That is, until she heard a voice.

"Sister..." She hears.

Kosane mumbles a name: "Eruna", as she turns around. Naturally. there is no one behind her. She wonders why she said "Eruna". After all, Eruna is the long dead twin that Kosane never met.

Kosane then tells the reader that Eruna had been Kosane's imaginary friend for a very long period of her life. Kosane said she could hear and touch Eruna despite her only being in her imagination. Kosane says its normal for children to develop imaginary friends, especially if they are lonely. However, in her case, Eruna persisted until her upper grades of middle school in stead of dissipating earlier. Kosane's parents had to send her to many pediatricians before Eruna would leave Kosane's mind at the age of 14.

Ten years, It was only ten years ago. Kosane says that time does sure fly. Ten years is enough time to turn the hopes of a middle schooler into the ashes of unemployment. Ten years ago, Eruna finally left this world. And... what else happened? Kosane cant remember, but knows something important happened ten years ago.

Kosane sighs and says it doesn't matter as she washes her face. When she looks up, she plays her game of "Gokko". "Gokko" is a game Kosane plays by herself where she pretends to commit suicide and imagine its release. She says that, if she had lived in America, she would have died long before 24. However, Kosane is scared to death that she would end her own life. She says there is no evolutionary advantage to suicide, and that it should have been waned out long ago. This leads Kosane to wonder why she thinks about suicide so much. Is it fear and anxiety for the future, or is it something else?

She touches a bump on the back of her neck, a bump that she had since she was young and a bump that keeps on growing. In recent years it has grown quickly to the size of a golf ball, giving her anxiety of what it is and what will happen to her if, and when, it continues to grow. She fears that she will be absorbed by the bump and become nothing.

Her only solution to her situation, Kosane decides, is to ignore the future and instead look back into the past. Deny reality and run from her problems.

Kosane thinks about her teenage years when she still had hope. She thinks on the time where she wanted to become a hero and not the pathetic bump she is today. She wanted to be a Magical Girl.

Kosane begins to laugh to herself. Thinking about Magical Girls at her age? Much more, wanting to be a Magical Girl at 24? Its absurd. Kosane is, after all, the definition of "not a Magical Girl". Kosane is "Null Magical Girl".

Kosane accepts that, at the age of 14, she desperately wanted to be a Magical Girl. That's why she made a contract, after all.

Wait, a contract? Pain surges through her head as memories surge into the limelight. She can almost recall something unusual and terrible. She can almost remember, but the pain causes her top give up. Kosane curses herself as she makes herself a coffee. Impatient, Kosane she pours coffee powder in her mouth followed by the near-boiling water leading her to curse again.

She says the pain was worth it, though. The burns distract her from the pain in her head. And with that distraction, she gets closer to remembering. Kosane comes to the conclusion that she must hurt herself so that she can remember, leading her to slam her head into the mirror repeatedly.

As the mirror cracks, so do the walls Kosane set up in her mind. Ten years ago, Kosane met him. Kosane met Kyubey.

Part 2

The emptiness in Kosane's mind goes on for what seems like forever, but Kosane believes that there is something she can do with the emptiness - something else she can remember.

Kosane believes that she feels incredibly tired and wants to relax, but must pull herself together. She suddenly gets pulled out of her trance by her professor yelling at her to answer the question "What is the 'cognitive revolution'?" Kosane answers with the theory of evolution and how the human mind evolved to obtain drastic cognitive ability . When asked how she evaluates this hypothesis, Kosane says the answer is too convenient given how there are cave murals that predate the human race entirely, drawn by Neanderthals. Kosane suggests that, instead, the cognitive revolution was driven by habitat differences between humans and Neanderthals over a long period of time. When asked about this habitat difference, Kosane cannot find an answer. She berates herself for choosing such a difficult topic for her master's thesis when she cant even answer the most important part.

Disappointed by the lack of an answer, her professor moves on to the next question: "Please describe the relationship between the cognitive revolution and Magical Girls."

This causes Kosane to stumble mentally. What type of question is that? When Kosane fails top answer, the professor asks again. "What’s wrong, big sister? Tell me about the relationship between the cognitive revolution and Magical Girls." As this is said, Kosane's professor turns into Eruna, her dead sister.