Paths to Power: Contracts
The paths to power were split into three for purposes of comprehension, but each overlaps the others in various ways. Where artifacts represent items of power, whose continued existence is required for a magical girl to retain her power, contracts represent something more ephemeral - a deal struck between souls, binding one and transforming it. Contracts can be informally abrupt or come with great circumstance, be forged by gods or puffballs, but they always seek out those worthy, and always do the same thing: Grant them great power, so great things can be done.
Contracts are deeply one-sided affairs. When Emeraude summoned up the Magic Knights, she forged a Contract between them and her, and yet there was no real agreement. A powerful force had simply come upon them, declared them its champions, and made it so. That one-sidedness is often a part of the contracting process. Usually they aren't quite that unilateral, but it can be close; contracts have been closed with simply reciting a poem, tying Nanoha Takamachi to Raising Heart. Of course, perhaps the most famously one-sided contracting is when a fairy, with little prompting and no explanation, calls on a girl to invoke an artifact by shouting only a few words of power - and changes her life and soul forever. Still, Contracts don't actually require such a mighty entity as Emeraude. A fairy, representing a world in dire need, can drag a Pretty Cure into the service of his Fairy World's primal force more or less by showing up and shoving an item in her face.
Contracts are independent of the actual contracting parties, enforced by nothing less than the cosmic machinery itself. Fate is changed, when a Contract is formed; the new magical warrior gains a new destiny. Thus, given force not by any particular agent but by destiny itself, a Contract is for the most part out of the control of either party. Only the execution of the terms can end a Contract. A fairy queen can no more revoke a Pretty Cure's standing than Princess Emeraude can silence the power of the Magic Knights.
Contracts come with a measure of responsibility attached, and though a magical girl who chooses not to fulfill those responsibilities can usually keep her power, destiny always conspires to place her squarely in the path of her task, for good or ill. The end of that contracted purpose may mean the end of a magical girl's powers, but just as often they remain, left on retainer to guard against the next threat. And of course, some cruel or particularly troubled Contractors abuse this ambiguity, creating Contracts which can only be fulfilled in death...
In conclusion, then, if Legacy is an inherited destiny, and Artifacts share their destiny with their users, Contracts are new destinies forged with the help of another party. All the stars in heaven cannot ignite as many bright sparks as now shine upon the world: It is the wonder of the Contract which has done this.
Example Contracts:
- Cure Dream's Contract to save the Palmier Kingdom, as administered by the fairy Coco.
- Mami Tomoe's Contract to fight Witches in exchange for the wish to save her life in a car accident, as administered by Kyubey.
- Sailor V's Contract to fight evil and protect the Moon Princess, as administered by the moon cat Artemis.
- Miraculous Ladybut's Contract to protect the world from the misuse of magiic, as administered by the kwami Tikki.
- Umi Ryuuzaki's Contract to become a Magical Knight and save Cephiro, as administered by Princess Emeraude.
For more information, please see: Paths to Power, Theme
