Chapter Fifty: Out of Control (Second Bonus Chapter for Silver Alliance)

September 5, 2012. The Rio de Janeiro "Holy Flame" Incident.
Without warning, the sky was covered by golden clouds, followed by the appearance of thousands of sacred and solemn gates.
Countless winged fireballs plummeted from these opened gates, chanting sacred yet eerie dirges. Avoiding trees, bricks, and stones, they randomly tracked and incinerated all living targets.
The magical girl hovering upside down above the head of the famous giant statue was struck down, and only then did all the gates in the sky vanish.
In the end, the disaster left behind the ashes of 451 people and 792 individuals suffering from varying degrees of irreversible injury.

October 11, 2012. The Florida "Blood Storm" Incident.
A magical girl, having lost her sanity, drifted in the air wailing, moving in an unconscious straight line from her residence toward the school at the other end of the town. Nearly all residents along the path were affected by her telekinesis.
When personnel from the Magic Affairs Bureau arrived at the scene, a mile-long fissure, dozens of meters deep, gaped across the town road. The buildings on both sides had collapsed and were re-compressed into uniform dodecahedral fragments.
The entire site of the school had been reduced to a huge crater.
The blood extracted from the victims and unformed limbs all converged here, mixing with the architectural ruins and swirling around the girl like a scene from hell.
Ranged weapons could not get close; their trajectories were warped by telekinesis, and spells cast upon the target had no effect. Ultimately, five high-ranking mages paid with their lives, relaying relic weapons into effective range to vaporize her on the spot.
In the end, the disaster resulted in 1,467 people unable to be properly buried, leaving tens of thousands of witnesses with severe psychological trauma.

November 24, 2012. The Yokohama "Infinite Train" Incident.
An unknown, distorted piece of music resounded through the station during the morning rush hour. Some people, affected by the melody, suddenly smiled happily and jumped straight onto the incoming trains.
The affected targets were only a minority, but according to post-incident statistics, as many as 23 victims exhibited this behavior during this phase. Panicked crowds attempted to flee the station, only to be crushed by trains bursting through the walls.
Countless trains appeared out of thin air in several widely separated stations and vanished just as suddenly. Sometimes they were physical entities, while other times they passed straight through the crowd without causing any collision.
At one point, they intertwined like a mass of worms, proliferating like wildly growing branches.
These long dragons of steel acted like crazed creatures, crushing surrounding buildings and sweeping across unpredictable paths.
The only luck was that the range of influence for all trains was confined within one kilometer of the station.
The difficulty lay in locating the culprit. The local Magic Affairs Bureau spent nearly an hour discovering the out-of-control magical girl in an apartment. Fortunately, for unknown reasons, the target offered no resistance and was swiftly executed.
In the end, the disaster claimed the lives of 642 people, injured over 3,000, caused massive damage to the station and surrounding buildings, and resulted in direct economic losses amounting to tens of billions of dollars.

Three loss-of-control incidents, each more destructive than the last. The bloody casualty figures shocked the world.
At the time, a highly influential rumor circulated: the prophesied apocalypse of 2012 would be jointly triggered by magical girls across the globe.
Magic Affairs bureaus worldwide reacted swiftly, attempting to place magical girls under surveillance.
In fact, long before the 2012 Somalia incident, many countries had already established beast-countermeasure departments and affiliated institutions to handle events related to magical beasts and magical girls.
With the public activities of magical girls, the Magic Affairs Bureau was formally established. How to effectively manage these vigilante girls had always been a high-profile topic—a long-term process requiring arduous adjustment for both sides.
Regrettably, the psychological problems of the magical girls had not received sufficient attention prior to this.
Many failed to realize that thrusting them into cruel battles facing death head-on, at an age when they should still be in middle school, would inevitably inflict profound and lasting impacts on these already unstable adolescent girls.
Starting from the Rio "Holy Flame" Incident, the Magic Affairs Bureau had actually been urgently seeking a way out, but unfortunately failed to keep pace with the drastic escalation of events.
With no other choice, the authorities could only resort to coercive measures to bring magical girls under surveillance. For personnel showing exposed tendencies of losing control, arrest and detention were enforced; for unsuppressable ongoing hazards, magic police were authorized to execute out-of-control individuals on the spot to prevent the scope of destruction from expanding.
Although no out-of-control incidents of the magnitude of the "Big Three" disasters ever occurred again, people could no longer view the collective group of magical girls with their former attitude.

Many people harbored a single question in their hearts: If the damage caused by a runaway magical girl surpassed that of a boss-tier or even overlord-tier magical beast attacking a city, should the responsibility of protecting humanity continue to be entrusted to them, or should a more reliable magical defense force belonging to humanity itself be established?
Some also argued that a more reasonable choice would be for the Magic Affairs Bureau to handle logistical support wholeheartedly, fully back the magical girls in combat, and closely monitor their psychological states both post-battle and in daily life.
However, such voices were quickly drowned out by public fear of magical girls.
Controversy persisted, conflicts never ceased, yet time waited for no one. The entire world stumbled its way to the present day, becoming far too complex to be summed up by any simple question.

Li Xiaohan pulled back her increasingly wandering thoughts and refocused on Hao Ye's inquiry.
The individuals involved in all three accidents were under sixteen years of age. Yet, straddlers did not all undergo transformation after twenty-four either; age could not serve as a definitive criterion.
On the other hand, as classic cases studied for over a decade, information mining on the three magical girls had reached an exhaustive level. There was not the slightest indication of characteristics overlapping with those subsequently confirmed as straddlers.
"If they were all just ordinary magical girls, what does that signify?" Xiaohan could not help asking.
Hao Ye replied, "It means we can assume that the true straddler loss-of-control incident has yet to occur. If we take the Big Three accidents as the upper limit of the danger posed by a runaway magical girl, the destructiveness of straddlers is very likely to far exceed that limit."
Xiaohan silently agreed; this was a natural deduction.
"Statistically speaking, however, the casualties caused by most out-of-control incidents range between zero and twenty, with an area of impact within a hundred meters.
"Only a tiny fraction exceed this range.
"Moreover, the destructiveness of an accident has no direct correlation with the strength of the magical girl," Hao Ye analyzed with a nearly ruthless rationality. "That is to say, the danger posed by most runaway magical girls is comparable to a major industrial accident.
"Our hazard estimates for straddlers likely stem more from fear derived through simple logic.
"Considering the number of magical girls and the actual proportion of runaway personnel—whether back in the hot-war era or now—the security forces we deploy to apprehend magical girls are entirely redundant."

Xiaohan was extremely surprised. She had never expected such earth-shattering, and perhaps somewhat cold-blooded, remarks to come from Hao Ye.
She could not help asking, "Could it be that you believe we should reduce the degree of control over them?"
Hao Ye shook her head. "No, Xiaohan, you still haven't seen through the essence of the Magic Affairs Bureau's work.
"Our true mission is neither to capture magical girls nor to exterminate magical beasts, but to isolate magic from the lives of ordinary people and maintain the stability of human society.
"Because humanity is not yet ready to accept the existence of magic."

Only then did a flash of comprehension dawn upon Xiaohan.
Indeed, the regulation of magical girls, the regulation of magical items, and the routine patrols against magical beasts—all of these were merely means to achieve that end.
Humanity was not yet prepared to fully accept magic.
Even if certain regularities existed, it still leaned more toward an idealistic, irrational, and completely new system. It was not until seventeen years ago, marked by the Somalia incident, that humanity truly made widespread contact with this power.
Seventeen years was still far too short for mankind.
Whether magic was stable, whether it was suitable for daily life and production, whether it could integrate into humanity's existing modern system, and whether it could combine with technology... all of this required time to verify.
Not only in military aspects, but in any field, the participation of magic remained strictly prohibited.
Without the Magic Affairs Bureau acting as a firewall and buffer zone, magic would inflict an unimaginable shock upon every facet of human society.
In truth, even regarding the magical girls themselves, numerous unknowns still lingered within this power.
Loss-of-control incidents were not simply the result of psychological collapse. Otherwise, it would not have become such a thorny dilemma shaping the current landscape.

"Yet, since that's the case..." Xiaohan puzzled, "Director Long's hardline stance toward the straddlers—doesn't that violate this principle? What if the other party originally harbored no intention of resorting to violence, only to be driven to extremes by her?"

Hao Ye shook her head. "This is actually a manifestation of that same principle; it just depends on which perspective you view it from.
"The actions Shushu took against the straddlers stemmed partly from personal reasons, but more importantly, they conveyed the stance of the Magic Ministry.
"If I were sitting in that position, I fear I would only be able to make the same decision. Although I proposed hypotheses regarding straddler loss-of-control, I cannot gamble with the lives of the public.
"We are human after all; we cannot handle practical problems with pure rationality.
"We cannot afford to endure another tragedy on the scale of the Big Three accidents. Furthermore, after so many years of development, the Magic Affairs Bureau is no longer a simple anti-magic organization; it has also contracted the ailments that afflict any large organization.
"The authorities need to give the populace an account and uphold their own legitimacy."

Xiaohan nodded thoughtfully.
Whether straddlers would trigger larger out-of-control incidents remained inconclusive. Yet, standing from the perspective of the Magic Affairs Bureau, there was neither the ability nor the necessity to verify this point.
What mattered was the attitude of eliminating all hidden hazards.
Although time smoothed away scars, bystanders who had never experienced the accidents personally often tended toward making more neutral judgments. Yet, facing uncertain threats, many hoped to see the authorities display an attitude capable of convincing the public.
People needed the sense of security brought by this toughness and needed to believe that the Magic Affairs Bureau possessed the capability to handle all situations; this was the cornerstone used by the bureau to maintain stability.
And the magical girls...
In truth, magic police officers who had lived through those years of combat understood deep down that the reason they had held the upper hand back then was because most magical girls could not bear to witness the destruction brought by war and ultimately chose compromise.
Had they not possessed this kindness and this desire to protect, they could never have awakened the power of magical girls in the first place.
No matter how disappointing the subsequent treatment they suffered might be, as long as a shred of reason remained, and as long as they had not completely lost control, magical girls willingly bore everything with this kindness.
As for the straddlers, based on what Xiaohan had witnessed personally, they still strictly adhered to this principle.
Clearly all wishing to do the right thing, yet entangled by various factors and coerced by various forces, they had arrived at a juncture where they had no choice but to cross swords...
Where, then, was the way out?

The Director's words helped Xiaohan make sense of many things, yet they also brought forth even greater bewilderment.
She fell into deep contemplation, remaining silent for a long time.
"Now, and in the future, you will encounter many moments of confusion in your work. You will hear dark rumors and doubt your own stance.
"Yet you must always bear in mind that the original intention of the Magic Affairs Bureau is to maintain social stability. Only by remembering this will you avoid being blinded by erroneous voices when you are forced to make a choice." Hao Ye looked into Li Xiaohan's eyes and said solemnly.
Xiaohan nodded with equal solemnity.

"Old Su once told me that you were good at everything, except that you were sometimes overly merciful and lacked firmness. But I don't think so." Hao Ye smiled gently. "The institution we belong to has grown and expanded, yet it has also become increasingly bloated.
"There are those here who do practical work and care deeply for the masses; there are also those who idle away their days and are intoxicated by power.
"Yet all these people are driven solely by inertia, and almost no one is willing to stop and think carefully.
"Fortunately, I see this precious quality in you. My teacher once handed me a phrase, and now I pass it on to you.
"You must believe that no matter when, it is never too late to stop and think a little more."