The Association's Investigation

Seven o'clock the next morning, in the old industrial district on the west side of the city.

Yellow police tape sealed off the entire abandoned factory. Outside it, a few early risers craned their necks to peer in, only to be politely turned away by field operatives.

Inside the cordon, everything was deathly still.

Old Wei of the Magical Girl Association's Local City Branch Field Operations Department stood before the factory gates. He had forgotten to light the cigarette between his lips. It had been there for a full ten minutes.

Behind him, the rookie Lin Guo dropped the clipboard she was holding with a clatter.

Neither of them picked it up.

Because right in front of them—

Half the factory building had collapsed.

Not the way a building collapsed from years of neglect.

The sheet-metal roof, rusted for over a decade, the concrete pillars, the load-bearing walls—all looked as though an invisible giant hand had plowed straight through them. The breaks were eerily clean, and rubble lay scattered in a radial pattern.

The open ground outside the building was even more astonishing.

A deep trench began at the broken edge of the building and fanned outward, cutting through the weed-choked concrete for seventy or eighty meters. At its deepest point, it could have swallowed half a person.

It was as though something had swung here, and the earth had split open.

"W-Wei..." Lin Guo's voice wavered. "Did a Fallen Beast do this?"

"No."

Old Wei finally took the unlit cigarette from his mouth.

"Can't you smell it?"

"Smell... what?"

"Light."

Old Wei crouched and pinched up a bit of soil from the edge of the trench.

A faint, almost invisible glow lingered on the exposed earth, tinged pinkish-white in the morning light.

"Fallen Beasts leave behind a rotten, bloody stink. The kind that makes your skin crawl. This is different. What's left here is as clean as snow."

He stood and brushed the dirt from his hands.

"It's residual magic. A Magical Girl killed a Fallen Beast here."

"Oh..." Lin Guo breathed a sigh of relief and picked up her clipboard. "Isn't that good news? We can have the publicity department issue a commendation..."

"Good news?"

Old Wei gave her a look, as if she were a child who hadn't been weaned yet.

"Lin, do you know what rank Knight, the Magical Girl stationed in our city, is?"

"Sure. Firefly Rank." Lin Guo nodded. "Knight went to the neighboring province on an exchange last week. Everyone in the department's been talking about it."

"Right, Firefly Rank." Old Wei pointed at the half-collapsed factory building. "Do you think Knight could do that with a full-power strike?"

Lin Guo thought about it seriously.

"She could... knock down a wall?"

"She could do more than one wall. Given enough time and effort, she could demolish the building," Old Wei said. "But this—"

He gestured toward the trench stretching seventy or eighty meters.

"Judging by the residual magic at the scene, the aftershock of that single strike carved out this trench. The aftershock, understand? The real force of the blow went straight into the Fallen Beast. This was just what spilled over—and it plowed up the ground on the way."

Lin Guo swallowed.

"Then... what rank would that Magical Girl have to be?"

"What's the rush?" Old Wei clasped his hands behind his back and walked slowly along the trench. "This is a good chance to teach you something. Do you know how Magical Girl ranks are classified?"

"Uh, I heard they're based on images of light..."

"Right. Six ranks, all tied to light." Old Wei raised one finger. "The lowest is Glow Rank. For a newly awakened Magical Girl, the light in her heart has only just sparked. She can barely sense Fallen Beasts, and fighting even a Tier 1 Fallen Beast puts her life on the line. Most newcomers the Association registers each year are at this rank, and more than half retire before a year is up."

He raised a second finger.

"Next is Firefly Rank. Their light and power output have stabilized, and they can handle things on their own. Most Magical Girls stationed in cities are at this rank—including Knight. It's only the second rank, but it's more than enough to keep a city safe."

A third finger.

"Above that is Lamp-Lighting Rank. This is the big hurdle. At this rank, a Magical Girl gains a unique ability of her own, and she and her light truly begin to become one. There are fewer than a hundred registered Lamp-Lighting Rank Magical Girls nationwide. Every one of them is treasured by her provincial branch."

Old Wei paused.

Then he raised a fourth finger.

"After that comes Dawn Rank."

His tone changed.

"The first three ranks are still 'lights in the night.' But Dawn is daybreak. It's a transformation. A Magical Girl at this rank is an army unto herself. She can take on a large Fallen Beast head-on without flinching. You could count the registered Dawn Rank Magical Girls in the country on one hand. Headquarters displays every one of their names on its walls."

Lin Guo almost stopped breathing.

"Wei, are you saying..."

"I'm only saying it's possible. Possible." Old Wei waved a hand, but his expression was gravely serious. "To leave a scene like this, she'd have to be a monster even among Lamp-Lighting Rank Magical Girls, at the very least. And if the figures we've calculated are right—"

He stared at the trench and said, one word at a time:

"She's Dawn Rank."

"A Dawn Rank Magical Girl appeared without a sound in our little city, where even Knight has enough free time to visit a neighboring province. No registration, no prior notice. The Association knows nothing about her."

Lin Guo stood frozen for a long moment before something occurred to her.

"What... what about the two ranks above that? Sunlit and Eternal Day?"

"There hasn't been a new Sunlit Rank in five years. Every one of them is a national treasure who'll go down in history—the kind stationed in the capital." Old Wei put the cigarette back between his lips, still without lighting it. "As for Eternal Day Rank, that's legend. Myth. Just pretend it doesn't exist."

He pulled out his radio and pressed the transmit button.

"Old Wei here. I've got a preliminary assessment of the scene on the west side."

"Confirmed Magical Girl involvement. Unregistered individual. Estimated rank: Lamp-Lighting at minimum, possibly Dawn. Also, there were two surviving witnesses last night, a middle-aged couple. I've already found their address."

The other end of the radio went silent for several seconds. Then came the sound of a chair toppling over.

"Say that again? Possibly what?!"

"Dawn." Old Wei looked over the rubble and spoke softly. "Requesting immediate authorization to investigate and make contact with this Magical Girl. We need to move fast, be polite, and approach her with humility."

"The fact that someone of her caliber was willing to save people is a blessing for our city."

"If another branch makes contact first... the Branch Director will swallow our entire Field Operations Department alive."

"There's one more thing we need to watch out for."

As he spoke, Old Wei's expression turned deadly serious.

"If this Dawn Rank Magical Girl has only just awakened... we must report it immediately!"

Lin Guo looked even more confused.

Old Wei knew what she wanted to ask just from her expression.

"Not every Magical Girl awakens at the first rank. If her wish is strong enough, it's possible to awaken directly at a higher rank. An unknown Dawn Rank Magical Girl no one has ever heard of could very well be newly awakened."

"Awakening at Glow or Firefly Rank is normal enough... but at Lamp-Lighting or Dawn..."

"All I can say is, at that point, what drives her is less a wish than an obsession. After all, a Magical Girl's strength is generally tied to the strength of her convictions. And to have convictions that strong from the moment she awakens..."

Old Wei did not finish.

At the same time, on the other side of the city.

A teenage boy with dark circles under both eyes was trudging to school, yawning nonstop.

"Achoo—!"

Yang Chen rubbed his nose and muttered,

"Who's talking about me this early in the morning..."