Sidestory 18 - Talk It Out
"Evening, everyone!"
Ashley Taylor entered the dining room with as much cheer as she could manage. It rang a bit hollow, but that was just a price she had to pay. Everyone had been under a lot of pressure recently, between Oz relying on them to save humanity and the Alchemist's impending attack. Ashley had tried very hard to keep up her enthusiasm, but that only went so far.
Only one person was present in the dining hall, however, to hear her declaration. Sana Futaba, a quiet but generally nice girl with curly mint-green hair. Ashley liked her, even though they hadn't really talked much. Sana was in charge of the Observation Tower, which was pretty much on the opposite end of the Emerald City from the Defense Office where Ashley worked. And she wasn't really one for conversation, but she still seemed nice! Anyone who was working towards saving all the Magical Girls in the world couldn't be that bad, surely.
…well, except for all those French girls that Oz had resurrected not too long ago. They were really uncomfortable to be around, and something told Ashley that it went further than them just being rude and arrogant. But they were only going along with the plan for their own benefit, so Ashley's original statement held after all.
Futaba looked up from her food, but only made a small noise of greeting before going back to eating. It might've been Ashley's imagination, but the other girl seemed to shrink in on herself a little bit. So she really wasn't in the mood for conversation, then.
Ah well, that was fine with Ashley. She took a quick trip around the dining table to fill up her plate before making her way to her chair and taking a seat. The others would be here soon, so she could just talk with them once they got here. In the meantime, there was food to eat!
Ashley had been really enjoying Japanese cuisine since arriving, but Oz's food was just on a whole different level. Fitting, considering the Wizard was some kind of royalty or something like that from how she'd described it. Still, there was a difference between having the money for fancy food and whatever this was! Ashley couldn't really distinguish what most of it was beyond that the little diced yellow cubes were from some kind of fruit, the custard-looking thing was a mix of cream and some sort of flavoring, and the cuts of meat were from a bird. As far as the pastries, fish, and drinks all laid out on the dining table, she had no clue. They weren't ordinary, though, that was for sure.
Meals were one of the few times all of Oz's assisting Magical Girls got together, so having a nice venue to keep everyone in good spirits was essential. Ashley could tell, though, that it was becoming less and less effective as time went on. You could only distract yourself from the pressure for so long before something gave way.
But being distracted from all the big problems coming up sounded pretty good right about now.
Ashley and Sana ate in silence, just enjoying each other's company, for maybe a minute before they were interrupted. Hanna Sarasa and Mikoto Sena, together as always, walked proudly into the dining hall.
"Good afternoon!"
Ashley's usual bright greeting was reciprocated politely by Sena and playfully by Sarasa as the pair entered. Those two were a lot friendlier than Futaba, even if they were a lot closer to each other than anyone else. That was to be expected though, since they'd known each other since before joining the Wizard's operation here in Kamihama. Ashley had worried that she had made a poor first impression on Sena by freaking out a little bit, but to be fair between the black and white priesty costume, the diamond-like bright blue hair, and the perfectly composed expression, she gave off the most perfect Ojou-sama impression Ashley had ever seen. It was just a little overwhelming. Sena turned out to not fit the archetype very well, but even knowing her it was hard not to imagine the Magical Girl as somebody of higher standing.
Sarasa had pretty much the opposite impression, and she fit her aesthetic much better. The half-black, half-purple outfit along with the dull red scarf and wide-brimmed hat made for a cozy and subdued by slightly mischievous-looking getup, a description which could be used just as easily for the girl in question. She was a bit of an odd person and kinda rude sometimes, but Ashley still liked her. They were all teammates, after all.
"Are we the last ones here? How's that work out, I though we left early." Sarasa complained idly as she filled her plate.
"It's probably just the hallways being weird again." Ashley proposed. Distance got weird in the Emerald City. You could generally expect to get where you want to go if you headed in a straight line towards your destination, but how long it would take to get there and whether you would stay in a straight line the whole time was totally up in the air. It was actually pretty convenient, since it meant Ashley had only had to walk a minute or so to cross the whole city.
"Um, are you the last ones here? We're still missing the French girls." Futaba pointed out, sliding down in her seat immediately afterwards.
"Nah, they never leave their little slice of city. Wouldn't want to slum it with us peasants." Sarasa said dismissively through a mouthful of cake.
"It's kinda disappointing." Sena lamented beside her, taking much slower bites from a far more varied plate of food. It was more than a little noticeable how careful she was not to waste any, but Ashley knew better than to bring that up. "I thought that they'd be more heroic or upstanding. But I suppose we should all know better than to have high expectations by now."
Wait, had Ashley missed something? "Why'd you expect that? Did Oz tell you something extra about them? 'Cuz they kinda gave me a bad impression from the start."
Ashley considered herself an easygoing sort of girl, but the girl with the raven mask asking the woman in the gold dress if she was "expected to work with this?" was a bit too much. She had persisted for a minute or so after, and while the pink-haired girl with the bunny mask seemed alright, the group as a whole was pretty much a lost cause friendship-wise.
Sena nodded. "They were part of a revolution against the Incubators, apparently. The woman in the gold dress, Isabeau, managed to work out the whole system ahead of time and tried to overthrow them. Eventually, it blew up into a whole war between them and their supporters and a bunch of people Kyubey rounded up to take them out."
"It was the Hundred-Years' War. Oz told me about it, too." Futaba added quietly before quickly returning to her meal.
"Eh? Was I the only one who didn't know?" Ashley asked, not quite hurt but still a little disappointed. Being left out of things was never fun.
"Nah, the Wizard didn't tell me either. I heard about it from Mikoto when we were training together." Sarasa casually assured between mouthfuls of food. That was a relief. Her new teammates hadn't made a big deal out of her being a foreigner, or commented on it at all really, but the fact of the matter was Ashley was an outsider. She had come here as basically a tourist, and only ended up wrapped up in the whole "save the world" plan by total accident.
"Speaking of, how's training been going for you? We only have a little more time until we're going to need to put it into action."
Futaba somehow managed to shrink even further into her chair. Any more and she might end up sliding off of it entirely. "I haven't been doing very well. I can't even beat the blue girl now."
"Miki Sayaka? Yeah, she's been getting way stronger all of a sudden. I used to have a pretty good record with her, but now it's more like fifty-fifty and getting worse. At least Mikoto's still good. No losses for her yet." Sarasa complained, flopping her entire upper body onto the table in despair before springing up a second later. "I guess that's just the sorta training you get when you're working for an eldritch abomination. Hey, do you think she has to fight monsters or something for training, or does the Alchemist just drill new skills right into her brain?"
At her end of the table, Futaba shuddered. Ashley mirrored the expression. The idea of having new thoughts stuck into her head, never knowing if what she was thinking was real or fake… it was the kind of disturbing that you never expected to have to think about in real life. Even after learning that magic was real, and knowing that Kyubey messed with people's heads to keep it a secret, she had never been afraid of something like that actually happening. The fact that a thing that could do that, rewrite an person's entire mind so precisely that they never notice anything's different…
There was a reason they had to keep training. Why they all had to get stronger.
"I don't want to think about that right now. And Sena, you're doing well in the training rounds? Got any tips to share?" Ashley redirected.
The training style they'd set up was pretty effective, but it could only do so much. Sena's Doppel, Winchester, had Familiars that could turn into copies of people. So far, Oz had been having them train by regularly fighting the Familiars while they were transformed into the Alchemist's puppets. The girls who the Alchemist had turned into monsters, though, were too screwed up to copy properly, so they'd been limited to just the girl with the sword and the girl with the guns for now.
"I can share some tips for how to fight Miki, though against Tomoe I've always had to rely on Winchester." Sena admitted bashfully. "And Hanna's not entirely correct on my record. Tomoe managed to catch me off-guard before I could even summon Winchester once. The only reason I won that round was because she chose not to finish me off. Had it been a real battle, I would have failed."
Seeing Sena's smile grow more glassy and artificial, Ashley moved to fill the silence. "Hey, that still counts! Those copies are supposed to act just like the real thing, right? So that just means she's not willing to kill us if it comes down to it. Maybe there's still something we can save there."
"Or maybe the Alchemist wants us alive…" Futaba added before slinking even further down in her chair. Being captured alive…
With the mood officially ruined, Ashley went back to eating. At least the food was still good.
—————————
Sayaka could almost have mistaken it for a totally normal sleepover.
Her friends had wandered around her (admittedly small) house, getting acquainted with the area, for a couple minutes until Hitomi had brought up the fact that nobody had brought their toiletries, self-care products, or even sleeping bags with them. This was followed immediately by the sudden appearance of various sleeping bags laid out on the floor as well as Homura standing in a slightly different place than she had been previously. A quick check of the bathroom confirmed that everything that needed to be there was there, which also gave everyone else enough time to realize, think about, and choose to ignore the fact that Homura just went through all of their houses to pick up their things.
That normally would've earned at least some admonishment from Sayaka, but after everything she'd heard tonight she just didn't have it in her. Sayaka would be the first to admit she hadn't really gotten along with Homura, and with the benefit of hindsight she could tell it was at least partly her fault. Even if the transfer student could've communicated better at the time. But the way it seemed, she had tried to communicate. Tried and failed and failed and failed again and again, until trying didn't seem like an option anymore.
…getting to the point, it just felt wrong to call her out when she was helping. Homura had been through a lot even before she got turned into a weird robot doll thing, and she was managing it better than Sayaka probably would've. Maybe not as well as Madoka or X or Mami might've, but as well as she could. And just doing what you can counted for something. It had to count for something.
"Sayaka? Do you play the piano?"
Mami's voice called Sayaka out of her thoughts, drawing her attention to something that was honestly not as far from what she'd been thinking about as Sayaka would've liked.
The piano was shoved into a corner in the hallway between the living room and the bedrooms, covered in a thin layer of dust. It was still in good condition, but mom and dad had never wanted to sell it. Just in case Sayaka ever got back into learning.
"Nah, I haven't played in years. Hitomi's really good, though."
"I'm still only learning, Sayaka. Besides, you were a better player than me back when we were both taking lessons together." Hitomi protested, having been summoned from her nightly self-care routine by mention of her name. She wore a light green onesie with darker green flowers that somehow still managed to look elegant and refined despite being pajamas that Sayaka knew she had owned for years.
"Nah, I really wasn't. Besides, that was years ago. You've been keeping up since then, and I haven't." Sayaka said. Even if she had been as good as Hitomi claimed, and she hadn't, years of not practicing had definitely killed any skills Sayaka might've had.
"Well, it might be nice to pick up the hobby again." Mami suggested. "I know I said that being a Magical Girl would take up too much time for such things, but with so many people it may actually be more effective to work in shifts."
Sayaka just shrugged. "Eh. I quit a while ago. There's other things I'm more invested in now."
The conversation died down to idle chatter afterwards, and soon enough the three returned to the main room and left the piano untouched, still covered in a thin layer of dust.
In the living room, Kyoko had apparently enlisted Madoka and Yuma in dragging Homura into some video games to pass the time. She was currently regretting that decision, as the transfer student's robotic precision and efficiency apparently translated into fighting games just as well as they did everywhere else. Sayaka took a place on the couch next to Madoka while Mami and Hitomi each found themselves seated on their rolled-out sleeping bags. Not long after, Kyoko found yet another defeat at Homura's hands and passed her controller wordlessly to Mami.
"Hey, I don't have this game. Where'd you find it?" Sayaka observed.
"I brought it from my apartment." Homura says, not looking away from the screen where she and Mami are currently locked in combat. The two are a lot more evenly-matched than Homura and Kyoko were, though it might just be Mami having chosen a character with a good matchup against Homura's.
"Didn't this game come out a few weeks ago? When'd you have time to pick it up?" With how laser-focused Homura was, it seemed weird to think that she took time out of her day to buy and then practice with a video game.
"It was four weeks ago. I purchased it before I became a Magical Girl." Homura said, still focused on the match.
"Do you play a lot of video games? You're pretty good." Kyoko half-praises, half-grumbled. Right, her loss had been pretty solid. At least it looked like Mami was about to avenge her.
"I suffered from a heart condition that forced me to remain in a hospital most of the time. I had to entertain myself, and I wanted to pick something I could talk about my new classmates with." Homura recalled flatly, sounding more like she was describing somebody else's life than her own. Hell, maybe that was what it felt like for her. If Sayaka's spent however long it was time-traveling and fighting monsters, everything before that would seem like a lifetime ago. Just thinking back a few weeks ago, to when she didn't know a thing about Magical Girls or other dimensions or monsters or whatever, it felt like it had been ages. So much had happened since then.
Sayaka glanced down at her Soul Gem, currently concealed as a small ring around her finger. It was maybe a third full now. Not high, but knowing what she knew now it was probably a good idea to clean it just in case.
"Well, you have excellent taste. Though I personally prefer first-person shooters, fighting games are a favorite of mine." Mami said, gracefully acknowledging her close loss in the most recent round and then refocusing to prepare for the next.
"When she says she 'prefers first-person shooters' she means she enjoys the target practice." Kyoko commented sarcastically. Mami appeared completely unfazed by the accusation, smiling placidly while engaging with Homura once again.
"I've always been more of a turn-based strategy fan myself, but I do a little bit of everything." Sayaka admitted. She'd never really settled into one genre, but those and RTS games had a little more appeal than others.
"I have a few role-playing games, but I don't play much." Madoka said, neglecting to mention that the main reason for that was that she never felt comfortable moving from one game to the next until she'd cleared every last bit of content there was.
"I don't play very many video games, outside of invitations from Madoka and Sayaka." Hitomi lied shamelessly. To be fair, admitting the existence of her extensive library of horror games and dating sims to people she'd known for a few days was probably more than Sayaka should've expected. Not to mention with how things had been at school recently, she'd been more withdrawn recently.
Conversation from there drifted between topics, from what new games were good and which ones had been overhyped to recent movie releases and then somehow to dream vacation spots. A few attempts were made to drag Leonie into the discussion, but they were abandoned not long after everyone figured out that the compass girl was an even worse conversationalist than Homura. In Sayaka's opinion, she might've gotten the worst deal from her Distortion. At least Homura and Kyoko had legs.
All the while, controllers were passed back and forth from person to person. Mami and Homura, being the most talented, held their spots for the most time, but even Yuma ended up taking a turn. Granted, she lost pretty quickly even with Kyoko very obviously sandbagging, but X's youngest daughter took her loss in stride and went off to interrogate Leonie and Hitomi about vacations again.
It was shortly after that that Yuma swore to stay up all night and then promptly fell asleep less than half an hour later. Sayaka's parents still weren't home, which was kinda disappointing but not a huge surprise. They were working late, so if she was lucky mom would be back near four at the earliest. It was a shame, though. She hadn't forgotten about the whole "tell your parents magic is real" thing, and having everyone there to explain it would've made things easier. On the other hand, another serious discussion tonight would probably be one serious discussion too many. Sayaka wanted to make this easier for everyone, not harder.
With Yuma sleeping, everyone mutually agreed that it was getting late enough to head to bed. This of course meant a lot of lying in sleeping bags and not falling asleep. Talk had died down to basically nothing, leaving everyone lying around in various states of mild unease. Mami was more agitated, though, eyes darting across the room from door to door. Even Sayaka could put two and two together: X wasn't back yet and she was starting to get nervous.
Personally, Sayaka wasn't worried. X was crazy strong, and the idea of something happening to her and nobody even noticing seemed impossible. There were things out there that were stronger than X was, Sayaka knew that, but the older woman would've at least sent a message if something was wrong.
Still, Sayaka knew that worries like that didn't go away easy. So instead of trying to actually get rid of the source of anxiety, she would do the next best thing: distract from it.
"Hey Homura, did Kyousuke and I ever get together?"
"What do you mean by that?" Mami asked calmly, not a trace of the worry she'd shown only a second earlier left in her voice.
"Homura went through a bunch of past tries before we got to this one, right? I just wanna know if Kyousuke ever says yes when I ask him out."
"Your relationship is already determined from before the cycle begins. It always plays out the same way." Homura answered emotionlessly, uncaring of the way everyone flinched at the news. Then, as if to thoroughly kill any hopes Sayaka might have held out, she went on to say "If you revealed yourself as the source of his recovery he might have agreed, but the relationship would be built on a sense of debt rather than genuine affection. It didn't end well."
Silence fell in the living room once again, broken only by Sayaka's nervous laughter.
"G-guess I dodged a bullet there, huh? I almost did that, but…"
"Wishes made trying to act selfless never work." Kyoko said, voice nearly inaudible even in the quiet. "Because they're still our desires. Pretending that it's for the benefit of others is just being dishonest."
In the dark, Madoka frowned. "I don't know if that's right. Even if you're doing it because you want to, it's still an act of kindness to help somebody in need. That's not just selfishness."
Personally, Sayaka was on the fence. Sure, Madoka was pretty much the most moral person she knew. And to a point, she was right. Just because somebody feels good about donating to charity or something doesn't make it not a selfless act. Doing good for others is good, whatever your reason. But Wishes weren't just a small act of kindness. They were magic, and if there was one thing that Sayaka could definitively say she'd learned about magic it was that it never worked quite the way you thought it did. Trying to puzzle out whether you had ulterior motives or not with your Wish was difficult to say the least. When Sayaka had made her Contract, she had known not to expect anything in return. That helping others and doing good wasn't always rewarded, but that it was still worth it. But even still, some part of her had hoped she would get what she had wanted anyways. Had felt that by spending her chance on somebody else, she was losing that chance for herself.
But all these thoughts were besides the point. Sayaka had been trying to distract everyone from the super grim stuff, not drag them further into it!
Time for another distraction.
"So… did you and Madoka ever get together?"
The effect on Madoka was immediate. "W-what? She-"
"You're more protective of her than anyone else. She's definitely somebody special to you." Sayaka continued, still focusing on Homura. She wasn't quite as confident in that assertion as her words might have sounded, but that wasn't saying much. Homura's weird focus on Madoka was originally something she'd just written off as the transfer student being weird. With the new context, it was just a bit more interesting.
And if she was wrong? Well, a little teasing about possible crushes was a time-honored friendship tradition.
"If I remember correctly," Hitomi said, recognizing Sayaka's intended direction, "Madoka told us about a dream she had some time ago. It was only an offhand comment at the time, but looking back on it now… I believe she described somebody who sounded rather similar to you. So perhaps those feelings are not one-sided."
"E-Eh?" Madoka's blush was bright red even in the darkened room. Homura, disappointingly, didn't so much as blink. Sayaka had hoped to shake up that stoic act she had going on, but she guessed that for a Distortion that might not have been possible.
"Yeah, I could see it." Kyoko mused. "Dark, brooding protective girl hooking up with somebody bright and cheerful but lacking confidence? It's a pretty classic romantic dynamic."
"-!" Madoka had at that point escalated beyond noises of surprise and into a high-pitched squealing noise. The sound gradually died down, taking Madoka's embarrassment with it as she took a deep breath. "I-It's not that I don't like Homura, it's just… we've only known each other for a little while. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that yet."
Yet. Sorry Madoka, but the friendship instincts don't lie. Now all Sayaka had to do was get Homura into a position where she could be a decent partner and wait. Easy!
"To answer your initial question, Madoka and I have never entered a serious relationship in previous timelines. In earlier loops I was still uncertain of my feelings, and later I did not have the time to waste on relationships if I wanted to succeed." Homura said.
That was sad far a few different reasons, but Sayaka chose to pick out the piece of information that didn't contribute to that feeling. "So there are feelings?"
"I'm not sure." Homura said, to Sayaka's disappointment. "My feelings were a distraction from completing my objective. They aren't gone, but they are muted. I cannot be certain what it was that I felt. Regardless, I would be an inadequate partner."
"That's not true!" Madoka said, any trace of embarrassment or hesitation completely gone. "You're a great person, Homura! Whoever it is you love, they'll be lucky to have you be there for them!"
Madoka's declaration hung in the air, unchallenged and undeniable. Mami and Hitomi at least had the dignity to keep their smiles polite. Sayaka and Kyoko made no such attempts.
As the mood cooled, that conversation apparently settled, a thought occurred to Sayaka.
"Dang it! I'm gonna be the only one single out of the three of us soon."
"Wait, what about Hitomi?" Kyoko asked.
"She's asking Kyousuke out. Soon I'll be the only one of us left without a partner. Doomed to be alone forever…" Sayaka lamented, flipping down onto her bed.
"Kyoko and I haven't had any luck in the field of romance either, so at least the three of us can be alone together." Mami reassured, her voice a little warmer than usual.
"Doesn't dating a guy who turned your friend down break some kinda code or something?" Kyoko asked.
"I should note that I have not actually asked Kyousuke out yet." Hitomi attempted to correct. "There's been far too much going on recently, and I have hardly been in a presentable state for such a proposition."
"Maybe, but he's totally gonna say yes." Sayaka said. Hitomi wasn't necessarily the most popular girl in school, but she was definitely one of the most well-respected. Maybe the rumors had caused some problems on that front, but there was no way Kyousuke would've bought into any of that. "What guy at school would actually turn you down? And nah, it's fine. Kyousuke and I are better friends anyways, and I wouldn't've had time for a relationship like that with all the Magical Girl stuff I've got now."
It was surprising how easily the words came. Maybe she was just trying to reassure herself, but yeah, she and Kyousuke were still friends. Maybe not as close as she was with Hitomi or Madoka or even Mami and Kyoko, but good friends. They could still be friends, and that was okay.
"Were mom here, she would no doubt remind you to measure your sacrifices. It does you no good to throw away everything in your personal life." Mami chided, having taken a seat on top of her sleeping bag some time ago. Even wearing pajamas and half-asleep, she still managed to look practically regal.
"You mean she'd remind you, miss 'Quit-all-my-extracurriculars-to-do more-Magical-Girl-stuff'? If anybody here deserves to take some time off, it's you." Kyoko said in return.
"That reminds me, couldn't the Composer tell what Homura's feelings were? If you want to know, you could just ask her." Leonie said. The surprise of the Distortion actually speaking without being spoken to first made more than one of the girls jump, Sayaka included. It wasn't even that startling, she was just tired and hadn't been expecting it.
"By the Composer, you mean X, right? That was what Argalia called her." Kyoko clarified. It was? Kinda weird, but Sayaka didn't want to spend any more time ruminating on weird things tonight.
"Could she really?" Hitomi asked.
"Argalia says that all Distortions are born from a person's truest feelings, and that the Composer can see what feelings make a Distortion. If those feelings were the driving force behind your actions, she would be able to see them no matter how muddled they are to you." Leonie reasoned before falling silent and unmoving again.
"I… suppose that could work." Mami accepted. "What do you think, Homura?"
"Even if I learned how I felt, I've given up on such things." Homura said. For a moment Sayaka thought that might have been all there was, but she continued. "But I still think I want to know."
A calm quiet fell over the room, and Sayaka settled into her sleeping bag. That was that, then. Whenever X got back, they'd ask her about Homura's memories. The way things were looking, that probably wouldn't be until tomorrow, though. It was a leeway getting late.
It was just as she was getting ready to actually fall asleep that Sayaka remembered something important.
"Oh! I've gotta ask X about my EGO Gift too! Something weird happened with it."
"Something weird?" Kyoko repeated, confused and starting to sound slightly sleepy.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about? What is an EGO Gift?" Hitomi asked, sounding more than just slightly sleepy. She was always fast at falling asleep.
To everyone's surprise, it was Madoka who answered her. "EGO Gifts are sort of like magic items that Abnormalities make to signify some sort of relationship with a person. X gave one to me, Sayaka, Mami, and Homura. I think Kyoko should have one based on the selection criteria, but I'm not too sure."
"So your… magic item has changed somehow? Is that something you should be worried about?" Hitomi confirmed. Sayaka nodded.
"Yep. Most of the words used to be nonsense, but I can read some of it now. Look!" Sayaka announced, proudly presenting her card to Madoka, who happened to be lying closest to her.
"Qlipha of Support Department?"
"Qlipha?" Kyoko repeated. "The hell's that mean?"
"Oh! The Qlipha is a name for one part of the Qliphoth, or the Tree of Death. There's some religious meaning behind it, and the phrase is used in a few other places, but the important part is that it's the opposite of the Sephira. Since X's old coworkers were called the Sephirot. So in this context, I guess it might be an equivalent rank?" Madoka explained, confidence trailing off as she recognizes the confused stares of those around her even in the low light. "X gave me a notebook about Abnormalities, s-so… I've been doing research! I even added pages for X, Kyoko, and Homura."
An equivalent rank to… a Sephira? Sayaka had barely met any of them aside from Gebura, but if the rest of them were anything like her then she wasn't sure if she really measured up. Still, if that's what X thought…
"You have? You should tell mom. I'm sure she'd be impressed with your initiative." Mami encouraged, hoping to allay some of Madoka's clear insecurity regarding her research. Really, she could get worried about the strangest things sometimes. It was a smart thing to do!
"A-are you sure? It really wasn't much…" Madoka protested, but her resistance was already faltering under the weight of Mami's positivity.
"Hey, it sounds like enough to me. I'm kinda curious though, what'd you write about me?" Kyoko asked. Maybe it was just Sayaka, but the room seemed a little warmer than it had a moment earlier. Not in an uncomfortable way, just a little bit.
"Your page isn't finished yet. I haven't seen enough to write about, sorry." Madoka replied. Her statement was soon punctuated by a yawn, reminding everyone of just how late it was.
"Well, feel free to ask me whatever you want tomorrow. You should probably get some sleep now." Kyoko advised, already burrowing as deep as possible into her sleeping bag.
"O-Of course! Goodnight everyone!"
As the girls said goodnight and returned to waiting for sleep, Sayaka felt a sense of anticipation settle into her chest. There was going to be a lot to do once they woke up.
And the day after that…
She'd finally be able to prove herself.
: More clones...
