Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 6.01

Chapter Blood- Risuka Blood

001 

Mizukura Risuka is a magical girl. I remember writing a similar sentence just recently, specifically just three stories ago, however, this magical girl is different from the short-lived and plainly annoying one from before. She’s an authentic and thoroughbred magical girl by birth. After all, her title is The Red Witch of Time. Indeed, a magical girl through and through—and on top of that, she has fulfilled all the nine necessary principles required to be a magical girl, so there’s nothing to complain about. 

By the way, the nine principles of magical girls are as follows: 

1.    A magical girl must be a girl. However, this does not apply to a boy who looks good in women’s clothing. 

2.    A magical girl must be able to use magic. However, that magic should never be all-powerful. 

3.    A magical girl must exert no power other than magic. Armed force and intelligence, for example, are better left entrusted to her allies. 

4.    A magical girl must use a magical item. However, this does not apply if the magical girl herself is an item. 

5.    A magical girl must fight evil. However, that evil should be a vague concept, not a specific individual. 

6.    A magical girl must be able to transform. The transformation is not limited to one type. 

7.    A magical girl must be colorful. The costume as well as its character should be in line with the same color scheme. 

8.    A magical girl must continue to grow throughout her battles as long as the first rule is not violated. 

9.    A magical girl must be a magical girl. However, this does not apply if she continues to hold on to her courage even after losing her powers. 

The above nine principles are just something I made up on the spot, so I don’t want them to be taken too seriously. That being said, Mizukura Risuka was a subject that I could never even imagine having an encounter with—even for me, someone who’d met a vampire during the hellish spring break, meeting a magical girl who was supposedly a resident of the Kingdom of Magic—it was like a dream within a dream. 

Like a dream within a dream, and one more dream further in. 

So please think of this as a dream story. 

It’s a story about dreams coming true, both for me, as well as for the magical girl who couldn’t escape from the warzone area of Kyushu. 

Although that dream might have actually been a nightmare… even though I don’t mind using that phrasing for Golden Week, it’s too straightforward of a remark to use here (there’s also the fact that the magical girl from Shikoku was a far worse nightmare for me compared to the one from Kyushu), so I’ll refrain from giving it such a title. 

The dream may just have been the result of wicked magic that Risuka’s father, the most powerful magus of the gods, the untraceable Nyarlathotep, Mizukura Shingo, cast on our story.