Chapter Text
It was meant to be a normal day at the library.
A young girl, Koyuki Himekawa, was carefully looking through the shelves and shelves of books. Every once in a while, she liked to do this; looking around to see if there’s any new magical girl stories for her to immerse herself into. There was rarely anything new, but Koyuki was always one to dream. Besides, she could always just reread one of her favorites if she didn’t find anything.
Koyuki glanced over the familiar titles of magical girl stories she’s read at least a dozen times now. Suddenly, she came across a title that caused her to stop. It was very familiar to her, but for a completely different reason from the others.
‘Magical Girl Raising Project?’
Koyuki had recognized that title, but not because she had read it before, or because it was something that was adapted into an anime that she’d seen. She recognized it because it was the exact same as a mobile game she began playing three weeks ago. Even the logos matched up. Koyuki knew that the game had been popular for quite some time now, but she hadn’t expected there to already be a book based on the game.
Upon pulling the book off of the shelf, her eyes widened in surprise, and she suddenly became even more confused.
On the cover of the book was Fav, the mascot of the game, which made sense. But beside him was a magical girl, one that looked just like the magical girl Koyuki drew, and later made into her avatar in the mobile game.
Immediately, Koyuki took out her phone, made sure it was on silent, and opened up the Magical Girl Raising Project mobile game. Her avatar, Snow White, stared at her. The uniform, the flowers, the hair, even smaller details like the bands on her arms or her shoes, everything was a perfect match to the magical girl on the cover.
Koyuki didn’t understand. Why was a magical girl she created be printed onto a book cover? Was it just a coincidence?
After a long moment of thinking, Koyuki decided that at the end of the day, regardless of how weird this all it, it is still a magical girl book she hadn’t read yet. Maybe she’d find an explanation if she read through it.
Walking over to the front desk and checking out the book, the librarian made a small comment that the book wasn’t registered in the library, but still allowed Koyuki to have it for the time being while she figures it out.
Another strange occurrence, but Koyuki brushed it off.
Returning home, Koyuki gave a quick greeting to her parents before immediately rushing over to her room and finally opening up the book.
She flipped through the various inner covers of the novel. The first showed a ninja themed girl in a very skimpy outfit. Frankly, it looked nothing like a magical girl at all, but the character customization of the Magical Girl Raising Project mobile game was quite extensive. More importantly though, the girl looked familiar. There were a few posts online of people that were saved by a girl whose eyewitness descriptions match well enough with the girl Koyuki is looking at. A photo was even snapped at some point, and while blurry, Koyuki would make out some of the defining features of the ninja girl.
Flipping to the next page confirmed Koyuki’s suspicions, as sixteen magical girls, spread across two pages, were before Koyuki’s eyes. With a few select exceptions, all of these girls have been reported to be witnessed at least once. Koyuki looked over her magical girl on the page. Now she was given a name for the character, Snow White. It was the exact same name as her avatar in the game.
It… can’t be a coincidence anymore, can it? But that just leads to more questions.
It was clear that the magical girls in this story were based on magical girls that have been spotted, but there still were some exceptions. Namely, well, herself. There were no eyewitness accounts of a white magical girl saving people, and Koyuki was fairly certain she wasn’t a magical girl. Of course, she wasn’t the only exception. There had been no sightings of the girl holding a pillow, named Nemurin, or the dark clad Alice, aptly named Hardgore Alice, but that inconsistency of some magical girls being spotted but some not was still strange.
Koyuki realzed that there was still one more inner cover left, and turned the page. This one showed the dog themed magical girl, the swimsuit wearing magical girl, and the two angels. There was some text too, that was common among novels, but upon reading a portion of it…
At their feet lay the unmoving form of a former magical girl.
Koyuki paused for a moment. There were a few possibilities that the line implied, and she didn’t like a majority of them.
…What in the world was she about to read? Would she get answers to her questions if she continued? Or would she just be left with more questions?
Koyuki was briefly considering dropping the book right then, but she couldn’t. If she stopped now, there was no doubt that her thoughts regarding the book would continue to plague her. She had to figure out what this was all about.
With a deep breath, she began reading.