Chapter 57: The Lamb
The exit of the underground tunnel finally spat out the broken team.
The light was grimy and scarce, barely outlining the dilapidated world outside. Conan's small body walked among the group.
He was carrying a person.
Or rather, a corpse. Ran Mouri.
Her once vibrant body was now draped limply over his shoulder. Her hands hung lifelessly, swaying slightly with his steps. For the physique of a seven-year-old child, carrying the weight of a high school girl should have been an exhausting, staggering ordeal.
But it wasn't for Conan.
He carried her like a piece of heavy, fragile luggage. His steps were steady, without a single stumble. The eyes that once shone with intelligence and curiosity were now empty and numb. They didn't reflect the wreckage of the sky, nor the worried faces of his companions.
There was nothing in them.
Hope, sorrow, anger, and despair all seemed to have burned away, leaving only the dead silence of ash.
"R-Ran-neechan, is she…" Ayumi began, timidly stepping forward.
Akemi Miyano gently held her back, shaking her head.
No one else asked what had happened. There was no need to.
The heavy, suffocating silence said it all.
Conan didn't stop, nor did he meet anyone's gaze. He just walked forward, silently and mechanically, into the ruins of Tokyo, toward a future he could no longer see.
The others supported each other and followed wordlessly. Despair spread like a plague through the thin air. They simply trailed behind Conan, out of the tunnel and into this living hell.
…
The catastrophe was not confined to this one place.
Europe, North America, South America, Australia… across the globe, on a smaller scale and with far less intensity than in Tokyo, Witch Labyrinths began to appear in major cities. Space warped, monstrosities were born, and lives were consumed.
Panic began to spread.
And then came the truth—a truth that would ignite the rage of the entire world.
Through some unknown channel—perhaps an internal leak, perhaps the deliberate guidance of a certain organization—video footage from secret U.S. military bases was broadcast to every corner of the globe by broadcast-type Magical Girls.
…
In a sterile, white laboratory, modified by military-affiliated Magical Girls, a transparent isolation chamber held a girl of about sixteen, sitting on the edge of a bed.
"Test Subject 7, precursor to what we are calling the 'Hope Witch.'"
"Background: Orphan, no known relatives. Wish was 'to be loved.'"
The footage cut, showing the moment the girl made a contract with some unseen entity. There was no visible creature, but it was clear she was speaking to something. A pink light flared, and a heart-shaped Soul Gem formed.
"Contract recorded. Proceeding to systematic despair induction phase."
The footage fast-forwarded. The girl was placed in total isolation, with a one-way mirror that made her feel constantly watched. Then, a video was played for her of her "adoptive parents" disgustedly disowning her. The hope on her face vanished, bit by bit, and her pink Soul Gem began to dim.
Researchers then presented the girl with proof that her soul had been separated from her body, proving she could never be truly loved. She broke down sobbing, and her Soul Gem grew murkier. The next day, she was curled in a corner, refusing to speak or eat. A few days later, her Soul Gem was almost completely black. Suddenly, cracks appeared.
"Transformation commencing! Record all data!"
The girl screamed in agony as her Soul Gem shattered completely. Black matter erupted from the fragments, enveloping her body. She began to twist and deform as a Labyrinth formed around her, all of it captured by magically-modified cameras. The lab warped, one half becoming a rundown orphanage, the other a luxurious mansion.
"Form stabilizing! Witch manifestation complete!"
On the screen, the girl was gone, replaced by a grotesque creature with the upper body of a doll and a lower body composed of countless reaching arms. The Witch let out a mournful cry and lunged at the nearby researchers.
"Containment! Now!" the director shouted. But it was too late. The Witch broke its restraints. Its "arms" shot out, grabbing the nearest researcher, pulling him into an embrace, and crushing him to death.
Alarms blared. The camera began to shake.
"Evacuate! All personnel evacuate! She's breached containment!"
The Witch destroyed everything in its path, slaughtering everyone. The last frame captured the laboratory ceiling collapsing before the feed cut out.
An inhuman experiment. A forced induction of Witchification. And the final, cruelest conclusion, was laid bare for all to see:
The final fate of a Magical Girl is to become a world-destroying Witch.
"...This is the Global Emergency Broadcast Channel… We have just confirmed… the truth that Magical Girls become Witches… I repeat…"
"They… are hiding among… us…"
"...Please return home… be with your loved ones… cherish… the time you have left alive…"
"Pray… for each other…"
The signal went dead. The global media network was completely severed.
Power grids began to fail on a massive scale. The internet became weak and unstable. Transportation hubs were gridlocked with abandoned vehicles and fleeing crowds. After a few contradictory statements, official government channels went silent. Sporadic military resistance proved useless against the Witches, with reports of entire units deserting or collapsing.
Authority vanished, leaving a vacuum of chaos.
The world's initial reaction was panicked flight and disorganized gatherings, fueled by rumors.
"What the hell is happening?!"
"Magical Girls? What's that? Something from a cartoon?"
"Those monsters… is what they're saying on TV true?"
"Where's the government? The army? Who's going to protect us?!"
But soon, the loss of water and electricity and the shortage of supplies made running pointless. Huge populations were stranded in crumbling cities. Hunger and thirst spread, followed by disease. What began as small-scale scuffles over a bottle of water or a piece of bread escalated into blatant robbery and armed battles for survival. Unclaimed bodies began to appear in street corners. The fragile veneer of civilization was stripped away by the raw instinct to survive.
"Hmm… the rate of societal collapse is unusually fast," Kyubey tilted its head on the island, processing the global data from the other Incubators. "Much faster than the predictive models. Is the chaotic timeline of the Conan world a factor again?" It then looked over at Karasuma Renya, who wore the confident expression of a man for whom everything was going according to plan.
…
City squares, government buildings, and any place that once symbolized order were still packed with terrified people. But their eyes had changed. Initial confusion and pleas for help were gradually replaced by despair and numbness. The occasional outburst of weeping was now filled with rage.
No one answered their questions, their cries, or their desperate prayers. Only mutated rumors spread like wildfire.
"Those Magical Girls feed on human life force!"
"They're a reserve army for the Witches, they brought this on us to cleanse the world!"
"The government was controlled by them all along! The army's failure is proof!"
Someone spray-painted twisted slogans and effigies on a ruined wall. Small, armed groups began to form, claiming to be "defending humanity" as they searched for suspicious targets.
Days passed. Witch Labyrinths continued to appear sporadically. Food and water became scarcer. Official rescue never came. The panic on the streets curdled into something else entirely.
Under the combined influence of hunger, fear, and extremist ideology, the people desperately needed a visible enemy to blame for all their pain and hatred. The revealed truth became the perfect detonator.
"If it weren't for those 'Magical Girls,' there wouldn't be any Witches!"
"I don't care what they are! The TV said it! It's them! They brought this disaster!"
"They have powers, but they brought ruin!"
"They were supposed to protect us!"
"Look around you! This is all their fault!"
"That's right! It's them! The monsters! Hiding right among us!"
"That experiment on TV! They're not even human! They're bait for devils!"
"Why should they get to have that kind of power? Why are they 'special' while we have to struggle like insects to survive?!"
"My son is dead! My wife went crazy! It must have been them! It must have been one of them turning into a Witch!"
"I lost my job! My house collapsed! It's all their fault!"
"We're all going to die anyway! Let's take these demons to hell with us!!!"
"They're living among us! Pretending to be normal!"
"They're just a bunch of anti-human murderers! We are human, and we will never accept them! We have to kill them!"
"Anyone who sides with them can just wait to be killed!!"
"Find them! Burn them! Kill them!"
It's impossible to know who shouted the first, malicious cry. Perhaps it was some poor soul who had lost their mind. Perhaps it was an opportunist weaponizing the despair. Soon, more and more people joined in. Their eyes burned with an irrational fire, a mix of pain, anger, and a sick fanaticism at having found a target.
Before, they could find any trivial reason to justify their hatred: a haircut they didn't like, an asymmetrical building, a Western dessert shop adding a Japanese-style sweet to the menu, a scene in a movie they disapproved of, a person shopping at a store they boycotted, a subjective belief that an animation studio plagiarized a script they submitted that was rejected in the first round… any reason could become an excuse to kill.
And now… this truth had given them a much better, much more "righteous" reason.
As for whether their target was actually a Magical Girl? What she might have done? That didn't matter.
What mattered was that it gave the suffering people, who had lost their homes and watched their loved ones die, an outlet for all their negative emotions.
A scapegoat to bear all the sins… a lamb.