Yuki Kurokawa realized she was different from others during a second-grade arts and crafts class.
The assignment was to use clay to create “your future self.” The girl next to her molded a doctor in a white coat, and the boy across from her sculpted an astronaut wearing a helmet.
Yuki Kurokawa molded a small, black blob huddled in a corner. It had no limbs and no expression—just a rounded sphere with a surface she had smoothed over with her fingers.
The teacher crouched down and asked what it was. She replied that it was something that didn't exist. The teacher laughed and said Yuki had quite the imagination.
She took the black blob home and placed it on her desk, only to find it gone when she returned from school the next day. Her mother said, “I threw that strange thing away. Do something normal for your homework next time.”
She was seven years old that year.
Her mother was the Vice Principal of a university-affiliated hospital, and her father was a high-level executive at a major corporation. Together, they were like a mountain that could never be climbed. Her sister was five years older; she had been selected for the national junior mathematics olympiad training team in middle school, was recommended for a top-tier private high school, and was now a star student in medical school.
At family gatherings, relatives would always praise her sister first, then turn to her and say with a smile, “You have to work hard too, Yuki.”
And she did work hard. Her elementary school report cards were filled with stars, and her middle school exam rankings were consistently in the top three of her grade. She won a silver medal in a city-wide piano competition, and her calligraphy was selected as an outstanding work for an exhibition.
She did everything to the best of her ability and then placed her certificates in the most prominent spot on the dining table. Her mother would come home from work, glance at the certificate, and say, “Aim for the gold next time.” Her father wouldn't even look, too busy arguing over a project bid during a conference call.
She thought that perhaps her best simply wasn't good enough. So, she continued to push herself. She practiced piano until her fingers trembled, wrote calligraphy until her wrists ached, and checked every answer on her exam papers three times.
In her third year of middle school, she took first place in the city-wide mock exams. On the day the results were released, she intentionally placed the ranking sheet on the living room coffee table, pinning a corner down with the remote control.
Her mother saw it as she walked by and paused for a split second. Then, her mother said, “Your sister took first place back then, too. The exact same ranking.” There was no surprise in her voice, only comparison.
In that moment, she suddenly understood something: it wasn't that she wasn't good enough; she was simply late. Her sister had already claimed the definition of the word “excellent.” She was merely repeating an answer that had already been written. It was like an exam where there was only one correct answer; the person who turned it in first got the full marks, and no matter how she wrote it, she was just copying.
When it came time to choose a high school, she staged her first and only rebellion. The school her father designated was her sister’s alma mater, a prestigious private school ranked in the top ten nationally. She quietly filled in Tachibana High School as her choice—a normal public school with no national ranking and no prestige.
Her reasoning, backed by a summer’s worth of research she used to prove her point to her parents, was that Tachibana High’s recent university placement rate was stable, its deviation score was high enough, and being close to home would save a significant amount of commute time that could be used for studying. Her mother remained silent for a long time before looking at her with a scrutinizing expression and saying, “It’s your choice. Don't blame me if you don't get into a good university.”
Her heart raced. It was the first time in her life she had won.
But a win was a win. In the first exam after enrollment, she took first place in her grade.
That day after school, she stood at the school gate as students left in small groups, discussing going to the convenience store for ice cream or heading to karaoke.
She stood alone under the ginkgo tree by the gate, her bag containing the first-place ranking sheet, with no one stopping to wait for her.
She suddenly realized: she had won, but what now?
There was no “what now.” A win was just a win. All she had won was the right to continue being alone. That was all.
From then on, she developed the habit of going to the library by herself.
After school, she would walk straight to the furthest seat in the library, by the window, next to the philosophy section. She didn't have any particular book she wanted to read; she just needed a place to go—a place where she didn't have to talk to anyone.
Most of the books in the philosophy section were rarely borrowed, and the labels on their spines had faded. She randomly pulled out a book on existentialism and flipped to a sentence: “Man is condemned to be free.”
She stared at that sentence for a long time before putting the book back on the shelf. She wasn't sure if she was condemned to be free or condemned to be alone. Perhaps the two were one and the same.
What did she want to become? Not the excellent daughter her parents expected, nor the model student the teachers spoke of.
She wanted to be something more real, something that belonged more to herself. But she couldn't imagine what that was. She had tried writing “What kind of person to become” in her notebook and listed a long string of options below it.
Doctor? No. Lawyer? No. Civil servant? No...
After her mother had taken her imagination from her desk at age seven, it had never grown back.
On the first day of the new semester in her first year of high school, the homeroom teacher announced that a new student, a returnee student from overseas, had transferred into Class A next door. Yuki Kurokawa didn't look up. It didn't matter who transferred in; they wouldn't cross paths anyway.
But the next day, she saw that transfer student standing by a window in the hallway, holding a pineapple bun, with a silver-white creature perched on her shoulder.
It had silver-white fur, a voice that sounded like something between wind chimes and a harp, ears so white they were translucent, and a pink nose that twitched as if attracted by something.
It wasn't a cat, it wasn't a dog—it wasn't any creature belonging to this world.
The girl looked down and asked it something, and it brushed its tail against her cheek. She smiled and broke the pineapple bun into small pieces to feed it.
Yuki Kurokawa stood frozen in place as the noise in the hallway suddenly seemed very far away.
A strange girl, a strange creature, a foreign sound belonging to this world, another reason belonging to the night for not wanting to go home.
She stood in that hallway for perhaps ten seconds, perhaps longer, before she noticed the transfer student’s gaze shifting toward her.
She lowered her head and turned to walk back to her classroom. She didn't look back. But she knew that something had subtly changed in that moment.
A word surfaced in her mind, popping up quite suddenly.
Freedom.
She pressed that word under her tongue. In the library after school, she sat in her usual spot by the window, a philosophy book spread open before her without a page being turned.
She suddenly snapped the book shut, stood up, and walked toward the old bookshelf in the corner that usually went unnoticed. It was filled with damaged books that the library had phased out and was waiting to process.
She crouched down and pulled a dusty old book from the bottom shelf. The cover was gone, the pages were yellowed, and it smelled faintly of mold.
It was an old book about local folklore, published before her parents were even born. She didn't know what she was looking for; her fingers just flipped through the pages one by one.
Then, she turned to an illustration. In the center was a white creature.
The text next to the illustration was titled “God of Falling Stars,” a guide for the lost. Below it was a line of small text: “Legend has it that this being appears during celestial anomalies to guide lost souls to their destination; records also state it can grant mortals power not of this world.”
She stared at those words, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force of her grip.
She flipped to the next page of the old book, took a small pair of scissors from her pocket, and neatly cut that page out along the binding.
She folded it, tucked it into her notebook, and placed it in the inner pocket of her bag. Then she stood up and walked out of the library. Her expression was exactly the same as usual.
Yuki Kurokawa’s life didn't change. She sat in her seat and dazed off, and after school, she watched the transfer student’s back and the silver-white ears that occasionally poked out from the edge of her bag.
She noticed that the creature’s presence was becoming stronger.
In the placement exams, she still took first place in her grade by a wide margin. After receiving the ranking sheet, she bought a can of hot coffee on her way home and sat on a park bench, drinking it slowly. This was the only reward she gave herself.
The change occurred on a night she hadn't anticipated.
That day, she had gone to the city center for an off-campus lecture, and it was already dark by the time it ended. On the way from the station, the small alleys were quieter than usual. The streetlights were on, but their range seemed compressed by something, the edge of the light much sharper than usual.
She heard something rubbing against the brick wall behind her—a sound that was hard and slimy, not belonging to any animal. She didn't look back and quickened her pace. The rubbing sound followed.
At the corner, she finally turned around. A creature she had never seen before was crouched on the wall five meters away. Its flat body was pressed tightly against the bricks, looking like the silhouette of a misshapen lizard that had been torn off and pasted back onto reality.
Its limbs were long and thin, ending not in toes but in sharp bony protrusions. There were no eyes where the head should be, only a horizontal slit that leaked black mist when it opened.
An Erosion Body. She remembered the term that frequently appeared in the news—the enemy of Magical Girls.
Her calf muscles tightened. Her brain calculated the odds, but there were none. No matter how she calculated it, there was only one conclusion.
I’m going to die. Am I going to die here?
Her body didn't tremble, and her breathing didn't falter as her mind began a countdown. She had lived her life up to this point as a correct answer, only to die at the hands of a low-level Erosion Body on a moonless night.
This way of dying was too ordinary, nothing like the exit of a Magical Girl. Not that it mattered; she wasn't a Magical Girl anyway.
The Erosion Body pushed off with its limbs and lunged toward her.
Yuki Kurokawa closed her eyes and waited for death.
Her life flashed before her eyes, and she realized she had never been able to live for herself. Tears fell involuntarily.
I won't accept this! I really won't accept this! I haven't even found freedom yet! To die like this is too pathetic! Anything, someone save me! If the legend is true, God of Falling Stars! Please save me!
One second, two seconds...
The pain didn't come. Yuki Kurokawa slowly opened her eyes.
An arc of silver light sliced into her field of vision. It was a cold-toned silver-white, trailing a faint Star-trail in the darkness.
The silver light cut directly into the path of the Erosion Body, and a beam of light burst from a single point, expanding into a small mist of stardust. The Erosion Body slammed into the edge of the mist as if hitting an invisible wall, letting out a sharp screech.
A silver-white creature stood quietly in front of Yuki Kurokawa. Starlight particles from the tip of its tail were slowly falling, brushing against her knees.
It turned back to look at her, the star charts in its pupils rotating slowly—clearer and more distant than that brief glimpse in the hallway.
“Stay still,” it spoke, its voice clear and ethereal.
Yuki Kurokawa’s pupils contracted sharply. It was communicating with her using language, matching the records in the book perfectly.
The God of Falling Stars, the guide for the lost, who could grant mortals power not of this world.
It was standing right in front of her.
“Are you a Contract Spirit?” she heard her own voice, trembling uncontrollably.
“I am. That Erosion Body is still back there, and my barrier won't hold for long. Do you want to live?”
Star-trail’s tail swept across the ground, the starlight particles scorching a few withered leaves on the asphalt. The star charts in its pupils stared directly at her.
She had made countless decisions in her life, but none had ever been as easy as this one.
“Yes.”
A faint chill spread across the back of her left hand, as if a small piece of the starry sky had been pressed against her skin. A contract mark surfaced beneath the skin.
“The contract is established.”
Silver-white light surged from the back of her hand and through her entire body. Along with the influx of knowledge, mana, and a spectrum that belonged to her, the contractor’s name was—Snowrealm.
The Erosion Body broke through Star-trail’s barrier. Almost at the same moment, Snowrealm raised her left hand, and a fan-shaped silver-white light screen opened in front of her palm.
The Erosion Body slammed into the light screen as if hitting a city wall. Its entire front leg shattered inch by inch, and a layer of silver-white frost condensed at the break.
Everything went silent. All sound was suppressed in this moment. The fact that she was being seen was real, and the light on the back of her hand was real too. For the first time, she had won something for herself—her own life.
The Erosion Body propped up its mangled remains and climbed along the wall, attempting to flank her from the side. It was faster than before, its movements more frantic.
Snowrealm took a step to the side, pulling the battlefield from the alley toward the more open street corner. She gripped the air with her right hand, and a slender straight sword condensed from Star-trail’s particles, a thin Star-trail chain attached to the end of the hilt.
She didn't know why the weapon took this shape, but the moment she gripped it, she felt it was meant to be this way.
The Erosion Body lunged from the wall, and Snowrealm met it head-on. The first strike was a diagonal slash; her wrist strength wasn't enough to cut through the Erosion Body’s shell, leaving only a shallow mark on the surface.
The Erosion Body lunged again, but she sidestepped it. The chain automatically whipped out as she turned, wrapping around one of the creature’s legs. Mana surged through the chain, and a layer of ice rapidly spread from the point of contact. The Erosion Body’s leg was frozen and then shattered. The black mist it sprayed was instantly condensed into tiny ice crystals by the cold, falling to the ground.
The second strike was a thrust. The straight sword pierced through the black mist and into the core of the Erosion Body’s shell. Cracks radiated from the point of impact, and silver-white light shone through the fissures.
The Erosion Body began to freeze entirely, its shell disintegrating into a shower of falling ice dust.
The ice dust settled on the ground and did not melt for a long time. Snowrealm thrust the straight sword into the ground to support herself. The mana surge from the transformation was racing wildly through her body. She gasped for air, the taste of rust in her throat.
She held that position for half a minute before straightening up and looking at the silver-white creature standing beside her.
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