[X] About Walpurgisnacht…
--[X] Put it off for later.
[X] Ask Kyoko and Homura if you could invite Sayaka and Madoka.
--[X] Invite Sayaka
--[X] Invite Madoka
[X] How do you approach the subject of making a team?
--[X] All of you need to be friends, and be a close-knit team
--[X] Include crayon diagrams and charts. Those are all kinds of official, right?
[X] Appeal to Kyouko's vanity and very, veeeeery deeply hidden sense of altruism. The Seykuu girl is going to get herself killed without her wise mentorship. And that would be a shame, because you clearly remember Kyouko calling her "cute".
[X] As for Homura, invoke cold-headed pragmatism in your idea: if everyone is invested in helping each other and working together, you would have more of a chance to fight whatever comes your way, like Walugimart or whatever.
-[X] Madoka needs to be here, because she's already involved. Her best friend is a Magical Girl and she has a crush on you and your hair, if you haven't noticed. Cutting her off from the loop would only increase her sense of helplessness and desire to matter, to be helpful. At the very least, she deserves to know more in order to make informed decisions. You speak from experience.
"Walpargus…" you say. "Waluigi… Walgoorgin-"
"Walpurgisnacht," says Homura.
"Yeah, what she said," you say. "Kyoko, we should talk about that later." Alone goes unsaid.
"Alright," says Kyoko. "Later. But right now…"
"Right now, we should be talking about making a team," you say. "I know we've gotten by alright without relying on anyone, but that doesn't mean we have to live like that forever. And it's practical, too! Homura didn't use up any magic in that witch's barrier, but can you imagine how much harder it would have been if we didn't hang from the chains like she suggested, or if we didn't have the gas masks? Homura can help us, Big Sis, and we still don't know what Sayaka can do!"
Kyoko snorts, turning away from you. "Sayaka's an idiot. Hell, maybe I was a tad harsh on her earlier, but she's still going to get herself killed."
You walk closer, putting a hand on Kyoko's arm. "Then help her, Big Sis. She's new to all this, and she doesn't have someone to show her what to do. She needs someone to teach her, to be there for her, and there's nothing stopping you from being that person." You lean in, voice lowering to a whisper. "And besides, it would be a shame if a girl who is so, to quote you, "cute," were to die because she didn't have an amazing mentor."
Kyoko stiffens, and you wonder if you dragged up some old memories, but she soon relaxes.
"Yuma…" she trails off, sighing. "Fuck… Homura's useful, and… Look, if Sayaka's figured out that we're not actually evil, and she wants my help, and everyone wants to work together… I might as well-"
"Yes!" you jump onto Big Sis Kyoko, wrapping your arms around her neck. "Oh Big Sis, I know you won't regret this!"
"Please do not tempt fate," says Homura. "It hates me enough as it is, there is no need to give it extra ammunition."
Kyoko rolls her eyes, pulling you off her and setting you down.
"Well, is that it?" says Kyoko. "So the three of us are a team now?"
Wait, no. Homura never agreed to join!
"Homura!" you say. "Do you have any paper?"
She tilts her head, but transforms and hands you a blank piece of paper.
"And a crayon?"
She sighs, but does as you say.
"Now Homura!" you shout, drawing circles with words in them and linking the circles together to form some sort of diagram. "You need to join too! Because then we can do all sorts of things, and we'll be better at fighting together, and we'll trust each other so isn't that good? Homura, you have to join!"
Homura stares at you, silent. She sighs, rubbing her forehead, and you wonder if you were just a bit enthusiastic with your pitch.
"Yes, I will join your team," says Homura. "Cooperation between the three of us is good, even better if we can convince Sayaka Miki to join us as well."
"Oh, that reminds Yuma of something!" you say. "We should get Sayaka and Madoka to come over as well, so that they can know about all the things and talk about it!"
Kyoko frowns at that, and Homura shakes her head.
"No, absolutely not," she says. "Sayaka Miki, perhaps, but Madoka Kaname cannot become any more involved with us than she already is."
"Why not?" you ask. "Doesn't she deserve to know about Walpurgisnacht, at the very least?"
Homura sighs, as she is want to do, an unpleasant grimace settling on her face.
"If Madoka Kaname becomes more involved with us, she will be more likely to make a wish," says Homura. "If she grows to care about us, she will force a sacrifice upon herself for the sake of our wellbeing, and I shall not allow this to occur."
"But Madoka's already involved!" you say. "Her best friend is a magical girl, and, well, I may just be pulling at straws here, but…"
"But what?" says Homura, voice cold as ice.
"But I'm pretty sure she has a crush on you," you say. "And your hair. Definitely your hair."
Homura cocks an eyebrow, but doesn't look too shocked at the news. Perhaps she was more socially aware than you thought?
"Are you sure?" says Homura.
"Well, not a hundred percent," you say. "But I got the feeling."
"Even so, Madoka should not become more involved with us," says Homura. "She believes herself to be useless, a burden, and being the only regular human in our group will only reinforce that idea."
"And what do you think will happen if you push her away?" you say. "She'll think you want to get rid of her, that she's worse than useless."
"It's for her own safety!" snaps Homura.
"Exactly. If she thinks you're doing this; pushing her away, isolating yourself, because you want to keep her safe? I think she'll want to make a contract, so that you don't have to protect her. If she wants to be useful, then let her help. Because if you don't, she's going to try to help anyway, and that may hurt more than help."
Homura clenches her fist, staring at the ground. "That won't work. If Madoka sees us hurting, sees all the bad things that happen to us, she'll want to help us by becoming a magical girl. She won't see all the awfulness and try to stay as far away as possible, she'll see that we're hurting and wade into the muck to try and help us. It's an amazing quality of hers, but not one that lends itself to survival."
"Madoka will want to help us either way," you say. "When I was first with Big Sis Kyoko, and I wasn't a magical girl, she did the same thing to me. She didn't tell me anything about what was happening, what witches were, how contracts happen, and in the end, it didn't stop me from making a wish. I didn't know anything, so it was so much easier for Kyubey to convince me, to trick me. But if we keep Madoka close, if we're her friends? Then maybe, we can convince her to stay safe, to not sacrifice herself needlessly."
Homura stares at you, unblinking, and you have to force yourself to maintain eye contact.
"Would you help, then?" she says. "Would you try to convince Madoka not to make a contract?"
"Well, yeah, I guess," you say. "And besides, if she doesn't know what wishes not to make, what mistakes to avoid, she'll end up hurting herself much worse than if we had been there for her."
Homura smiles, but not happy, a bitter smile.
"Then contact them," says Homura. "Tell them that they may come over, if they so wish to." She pauses, considering something. "And please, if Sayaka Miki declares you to be evil or selfish at any point in the conversation, do not invite her."
"Okey dokey," you say. "Hey Madoka, Sayaka? This is Yuma."
"Hey Yuma!" says Madoka. "What's up?"
"Oh, uhh, hi Yuma," says Sayaka. "It's kinda late, you know?"
"Yeah, Yuma knows that," you say. "But Yuma, Big Sis, and Homura were having a discussion about working together and being a team, and Yuma thought that you two might want to be here for that."
"R-Really?" says Madoka. "But, well, I'm not a magical girl… At least, not-"
"No, you're not," you say. "But you're our friend, so of course we're going to invite you!"
"Oh…" says Madoka "Are, are you sure? I mean-"
"Yep!" you say. "You should be here for this kind of stuff, magic or not. And Sayaka, how bout you? You, uh, don't think we're evil, right?"
"Well…"
"Yuma does not like the sound of that well…"
Sayaka chuckles awkwardly, and you can imagine her rubbing her head.
"Well, I'm still not sure I can justify letting familiars go loose, but… I was talking with my dad, all hypotheticals of course, and he said something that really stuck with me. He said that people, especially young people, do lots of stupid things and lots of bad things, but what's really important isn't what they do, it's why they do it. He said that if someone's a good person, one or two bad things doesn't make them evil, so you should really know the people you're judging. That's when I realized that I don't know you two that well. All I know is that you let familiars go and you think you need to, and… Well, I guess this is my way of saying that I'll give you two a chance."
"Yay!" you say, bliss only somewhat ruined by your inability to hug over telepathy. "Oh Sayaka, this is great! We're all going to be really good friends, I know!"
You grin, flashing a thumbs-up to Kyoko and repressing the urge to jump up and down.
"We're at Hotel No Hankyu," you say. "Room 313. Actually, it might just be better if you two arrive on the balcony: we're right at the corner, with the blinds open and the lights on."
"That's really close to where I live," says Sayaka. "Madoka was having supper at my place, so we'll be there in a minute or two."
"See you then!"
Kyoko and Homura are sitting down next to each other, the former with narrowed eyes and the latter with a bored expression. All of a sudden, Kyoko snaps her head up, slapping her knee.
"That's it!" she says. "Homura, you never explained how you know about my chain barriers!"
"Big Sis, weren't you making a big deal out of it earlier? How did you forget about it?"
"Well, there were more important things on my mind."
Could she be referring to… Sayaka? Could she be one step closer to acknowledge her feelings?
"Yeah, that whole city-killing witch thing kinda threw me off my train of thought," she finishes. Well, you suppose that could do it too. Hmph.
"As for that, my answer is simple," says Homura. "I merely observed you using them during your confrontation with Sayaka Miki." She flips her hair, smiling at Kyoko. "Now that we can put this behind us-"
"Bullshit," says Kyoko.
"W-What?" Homura seems taken aback, shocked, one of the most open displays of emotion you've ever seen from her.
"Yeah, I call bullshit. I never used my chain barriers on Sayaka. In fact, the last time I used em was back in Kazamino, in a witch's barrier. So unless you're saying you stalked us back then…"
"You didn't use them? I could have sworn…" Homura grimaces, trailing off. Kyoko's leaning in closer now, smiling like a predator who scented fear.
"So in that case, how the fuck did you know about them?" says Kyoko.
"Well, given that Yuma Chitose's power set is based on complimenting yours, then-"
"Oh, quit it with all this crap," says Kyoko. "That's gotta be the biggest leap in logic since your parents thought you were straight, there is no way you figured it out like that. So just tell us, Homura. Or is there something else you're hiding?"
You stay silent, unsure of what to say. You want to trust Homura, but Kyoko's got a point; Homura doesn't seem concerned with telling you the truth.
"Can you please just trust me on this?" says Homura. "How I know is not important."
"Oh, that is somehow even more unbelievably bullshit," says Kyoko. She's leaning in closer and closer, until her nose almost touches Homura's. "What is it with you and your secrets, anyway? We don't know what you want, what your wish was, when you became a magical girl; hell, Kyubey doesn't even know how you became a magical girl! And now you're asking us to trust you?" her words make her sound upset, but her snear contradicts that: she almost seems happy. And wait, is that a smear of pink on her cheeks?
Homura clenches her fists, pushing back, forcing Kyoko to move her face backward to avoid anything awkward. "Yes," she says. "I am asking you to trust me, to trust that there are reasons why I cannot explain things to you. And what are you going to do about it?"
Kyoko's grins, and does something you absolutely did not expect.
She leans forward, pressing her lips against Homura's. Homura's eyes widen, as do Kyoko's for some reason, and she immediately pulls away from Big Sis Kyoko.
"W-What was that!" Homura says, face reddening. "You, you did the lippy-kissy thing! To me! Why!"
"I dunno!" yells Kyoko, face just as red and looking even more confused than Homura. "I-I just, the tension-"
"You mean the about to kill each other tension!" shouts Homura.
"Yes, the about to kill each other tension!" says Kyoko, words spilling out of her mouth, uncontrolled. "It was just, the tension, and the atmosphere, and we were very very close, and my brain just sort of put two and two together and got five and-"
She cuts off, staring at the window.
The sliding door that leads to the balcony, to be precise.
The balcony which contains Madoka and Sayaka, bright-red faces frozen in shock.
"Hey, uh, Yuma?" says Kyoko. "How long have they been there?"
You know she knows that they've seen the... Thing that happened, and is unable to accept that.
Now, all that's left is to run damage control.
What do you do?
[ ] Blue Screen of Death. Big Sis? And Homura? Yuma cannot comprehend!
[ ] Act as if absolutely nothing has happened; invite Sayaka and Madoka in for a nice chat about teams and Walpurgisnacht.
[ ] Very seriously, tell Kyoko that you understand why she likes Homura and her Hair, and that you support her no matter what.
[ ] PANIC!
[ ] Write-In
