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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Reader mode
I exchanged sleep for fanfiction.

---------

Sayaka was dying.

Granted, it wasn't really dying in the same way that people usually died. It wasn't really possible to die that way as a magical girl, strictly speaking, unless you were trying to, like, regrow your own entire head. And Sayaka was pretty sure she had her head still, as well as her arms, and her legs, and all her important internal organs. Her spleen was a bit questionable at the moment, she had to admit, but the amount of blood spilling out of her really wasn't that much so her liver was probably fine.

Probably.

No at the end of the day the leakage of prodigious amounts of her precious bodily fluids was not what was killing Sayaka. What was killing Sayaka was her current lack of a Grief Seed in combination with her separation from Sabrina.

The Mitakihara Team was currently dealing with some interlopers who had decided that, clearly, it was reasonable to try and commit terrorism to force Sabrina to clean seeds for them for all eternity. This was a terrible plan in literally every respect, in Sayaka's opinion, and seemed very poorly considered. However, the interlopers – somethingsomething from China? – had an alarming amount of firepower and were seriously straining the ability for Sabrina and Mami to end the fight. Sabrina was having difficulty getting close enough for her grief control to matter, and multiple Tiro Finale strikes had gone off without success and left the Mitakihara girls with a serious dearth of options. And Sayaka…

Sayaka was hosed. She had been totally outclassed and barely a threat, up until she'd pulled off something interesting involving a warp hole and then immediately been shot in the gut. This was fine, since Yuma had leant Sayaka some healing powers, but repeated hits had quickly pulled Sayaka away from the team and drained her gem until it was a deeply alarming dark, navy blue, and getting darker with each passing second.

Sayaka coughed up blood, winced, and wiped her eyes. She didn't want to die. This was—she didn't want this. She had just wanted to be helpful. She hadn't ever imagined…

"Little blue, little blue, let me come in," sing-songed Sayaka's assailant. "I'm going to cut the hairs off your chinny-chin-chin…"

Sayaka sucked in a breath and held it as foot-steps clicked past where she was hiding. The tiny janitor's closet and it's single, dim light bulb was terribly obvious in the basement that Sayaka had fallen into, and the Chinese girl had circled past the door three or four times now, sounding increasingly bored. The door was reinforced with a barrier Sayaka had picked up last week, and had cost more magic than she could afford to make. It was only a matter of time before the other girl got bored of teasing Sayaka, broke down the door, and killed her.

"Aiii-yaaa, you're so troublesome, little blue," sighed the Chinese girl, leaning against the door. "Running around like that and making me go out of my way to kill you. You know, it's not like I have to make this painful. It's fun, I admit, but eventually it's just a pain in the ass. If I took your head off first, you wouldn't feel it when I crushed your gem, you know? It'll be much easier. You should just surrender."

"Like hell I will," Sayaka growled, breath hitching as a ripple of pain spread through her abdomen.

"Waaa, so stubborn," said the Chinese girl. "But you know, I can tell your gem is going dark. I can sense it from here. Did you ever learn what happens when your gem goes all the way black?"

"You're just trying to scare me," Sayaka bit back, glancing worriedly at her gem.

"Oh you're plenty scared," said the Chinese girl. "I'm just trying to get you to let me kill you and stop wasting time. So you've never found out then?"

"N-no."

"Mm, good, good, well, you see, it's like this," said the Chinese girl. She tapped her sword against the door thoughtfully. "You see, the thing that nobody tells you is, magical girls don't die, even when their gem goes black. They… change."

"Change?"

"Mm. Our Incubator over in Shanghai called it a 'phase shift'. Basically, your soul is corrupted entirely and you're unable to go back to the person you once were. You turn into a Witch."

Sayaka felt a shiver run down the back of her neck and swallowed. "You're lying."

"Nooo, it's true!" said the Chinese girl indignantly. "Why would I lie at a time like this? It's very important for you to know!"

"It's not true!" Sayaka screamed back, looking down at her gem again as it turned darker and darker. "It's not! I won't—I'm not going to—it's not possible!"

"Nah, you totally are," said the Chinese girl casually. "I mean, don't feel bad. If it helps, I promise to take you down immediately and keep you from eating anyone."

Sayaka crumpled, cradling her gem against her chest as hot tears dripped down her face. This was so much worse than she had ever thought was possible. To turn into the thing that she'd fought so hard against? It couldn't be true. It couldn't. The universe wasn't this cruel!

"Ah, your barrier's fallen," the Chinese girl said thoughtfully. She opened the door cautiously and peered inside. "You ready to die then?"

Sayaka hiccupped, sobs wracking her body as grief began to bubble out of her soul gem.

"Ah, damn, I guess I have to do this fast," the Chinese girl said, drawing her sword. "May you rest in peace."

The girl lept—

-- the world flashed white –

-- Sayaka was dying, but that wasn't really a problem. She worked through the situation as quickly as she could, even as she drew her sword to block the Chinese girl's attack.

First, her body had taken a lot of damage. Her past self was evidently not very good at this whole fighting-other-magical-girls business.

Second, her soul gem was basically critical. That was probably a bad thing, at least for appearances, but she hoped that there'd be time to figure something out.

Third, her opponent was actually quite good. Not as good as Sayaka and the accumulated knowledge of a plurality of lifetimes and infinite time and space to practice, but pretty good. With the current situation, it was probably a very bad idea to try and fight an extended swordfight.

There was a loud clang as Sayaka's sword met the Chinese girl's.

"Not giving up then?" asked the Chinese girl with a roll of her eyes. "It's always troublesome fighting girls like you."

Sayaka clicked her tongue. "Now now, Lang Fu, that's not a very good attitude," she chided with a small smile. "It's your biggest weakness, you know."

Lang Fu blinked and raised an eyebrow. "And what would you know about me and my weaknesses?"

"I mean, we spar all the time," said Sayaka, stepping forward and pressing Fu backwards with sudden, terrible strength. "But I guess you don't remember that."

"What--?"

There was a ripple of magic that spread out from under Sayaka's feet, trailing behind it a fine sheen of water that quickly rose into a torrent, blasting out and knocking Fu back into the wall.

"What the hell?!" Fu shouted over the rush of water. "You're supposed to be dying!"

"Ah, yes, well, there's been a change of plans," said Sayaka. Her shadow stretched out behind her as she approached Lang Fu, a helmet and pauldrons silhouetted where her head and shoulders should have been. "You could say that I'm taking special control over the situation."

Fu grit her teeth and braced against the wall, trying to push off it with what purchase she could get from on the wet floor. "You're insane. I should have been on guard, but I'm still going to kill you."

Sayaka sighed. "No, you're not."

She raised her sword and thrust forward, aiming for the piece of crystal on Fu's chest, skimming over the water under the single light bulb. Her shadow shrank, then slid in front of her, rising up out of the water like a great leviathan seeking its prey. Fu had time to take a single horrified breath as Oktavia's helmet loomed in front of her before the witch's blade pierced Fu's gem.

A single drop of water plinked to the ground. It splashed over dry cement floor, then disappeared.

Sayaka let go of her sword and sighed again, running a hand over her eyes. Of all the times to wake up, it had to be in the middle of a battle. And on top of it, the version of herself that she'd woken up into apparently wasn't very good at this sort of thing. Hopefully, it was just due to inexperience, and not because of some crazy wish she'd made.

With a grimace, Sayaka rummaged through Fu's pockets and pulled out a grief seed. She quickly began to cleanse her gem, sighing as shadows withdrew and her gem began to glow again. It wouldn't be good if Sabrina or Mami saw her like—

A single fist slammed into Sayaka's cheek and sent her to the ground.

"SAYAKA YOU ASSHOLE," Sabrina shouted. "HOW THE HELL COULD YOU NOT TELL ME."

Sayaka staggered upright and wondered how in the world she missed Sabrina sneaking up on her.

"What do you mean?" she asked, rubbing her cheek. "What was I supposed to tell you?"

"Don't play dumb with me, young lady," Sabrina growled, stepping into the closet and closing the door. "I know all about you and your damned job as a bloody secretary!"

Sayaka frowned at Sabrina. "Secretary?"

"Yeah! At least, that's what the translation was on the sub of Rebellion," said Sabrina, frowning as well. "Hm. Actually, that may have been a bad translation."

"Yeah, no, you need to get better rips, Sabrina," said Sayaka, putting her hands on her hips with an annoyed frown. "I'm not a secretary. More like private special agent."

"I guess that's—hey wait fuck you no changing the subject!"

"Look I just got here," said Sayaka, holding her hands up before Sabrina could get started again. "What was I supposed to do, give myself horrifying visions of the future? I'm not Oriko!"

"I—but—you—you weren't going to tell me later either!"

"Well…."

Sabrina punched her again.

"Dammit Sabrina stop that!"

Sabrina punched her again. "No! Asshole!"

Sayaka grabbed Sabrina's hands and put on her best disapproving glare. "Sabrina. No. Bad."

Sabrina sniffled. "Don't you trust me, Sayaka? I wouldn't have told anyone."

"I trust you, Sabrina," Sayaka sighed. "But it's like you and the metaknowledge. I didn't want to assume anything and have things go wrong. The work you're doing is really important, I'm just here to help out. If I told you and things changed, it might have ruined this timeline. And Homura's suffered enough as it is."

Sabrina looked down and pulled her hands away from Sayaka. "…I understand."

"Thanks."

They fell silent for a while, giving Sayaka a chance to heal herself with her copy of Yuma's powers and pull Fu's body off the wall.

"We should find a way to give her a good funeral," said Sayaka quietly. "She deserves that, at least."

"We will," said Sabrina, nodding somberly. "I took the other two down without killing them."

Sayaka flashed Sabrina an apologetic smile. "Guess I ruined your perfect no-kill record. Sorry."

Sabrina shrugged. "You didn't have a choice at the time."

They began to walk out of the building, climbing the stairs to the first floor quietly with Fu's body carried along on a stretcher made of grief.

"How did you know it was me?" Sayaka asked. "You didn't come in until everything was over."

"I could feel the grief," said Sabrina. "You—the other you—had just gone critical. I could feel the witch being born, but then suddenly it stopped, and reversed. You still feel different, at least to me. There's a kind of witchiness hanging around you now. I dunno if Mami will notice, but…"

Sayaka sighed again. "Well. Shit."

"Yeah."

"We'll see then," said Sayaka as she pushed open the door to the first floor. A flash of gold landed outside and began sprinting towards them. "Here she comes."

"Yup," said Sabrina. She chuckled. "Also, I told you so."

"Told me what?"

Sabrina shot Sayaka a grin.

"Told you that you were an angel, Mikiel-chan."
 
Yes, Kazumi, there's only one guest bedroom. On the other hand, there's only one guest bedroom and three girls in your group. It's a good thing you're all hopelessly in lesbians with each other, huh? ...What's that? "It's too narrow"? Hmm, try stacking?

... though now that I think about it, Sabrina could make a catastrophically comfortable Grief-form bed, no? It might even not be too unsettling to sleep well on!
 
Unhacker said:
I've got this stupid fucking grin on my face right now. That was just adorable.
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Click to shrink...
Indeed. I'm especially proud of Homura for coming along and having the courage to say no without losing composure.

I have to wonder what she makes of Sabrina and Mami being a sickeningly sweet couple. You know, on top of Mami knowing about soul gems and Kyubey and still being happier than Homura can ever recall her being.

Not sure if Homura has thought about it that far in depth, but it must be novel for Homura to see romance end up with such a functional pair. In other words, rather than the usual conflict and frequent disaster that the Hitomi/Sayaka/Kyousuke dynamic brings, or the sheer emotional baggage that she has getting in the way of her ever acting on her feelings towards Madoka, or even the unlikelihood of Sayaka and Kyouko both surviving and bonding sufficiently for that relationship to develop, Sabrina and Mami do almost everything together (except for going to school, really) and cover each other quite well (Mami's experience, knowledge, skill, and charisma; Sabrina's stability, empathy, resilience, and power). Sabrina is Mami's living emotional crutch, but strangely enough, Mami is actually stronger for it. She's weathered things that would normally break her, and when things get serious, so long as she's by Sabrina's side, she's damn reliable and steady. Likewise, since Homura is rather...unskilled (to put it charitably) at cheering people up or reassuring them about themselves, Mami's ability to comfort Sabrina and cheer her up in the rare times when she needs it is invaluable.

Sayaka is adorable and continues to be bemused by how sickeningly cute Mami and Sabrina are as a couple. As far as her song choice goes, I actually wouldn't be surprised if it reflects her improving emotional state and outlook. She feels like she has real agency now, tons of potential, and clear goals and a grand purpose to work towards. She's part of an effort to help a lot of people in big ways, and she's already seen a bit of the real effects of that. And her crush has been healed, too. Sure, she's still somewhat insecure, but compared to where she was at in canon by Episode 3, it's a huge difference.

Kazumi noticing the implication that Mami and Sabrina share a room--I'm sure Kaoru and Umika aren't far behind in that realization. She's no doubt enthusiastic about the prospect.

Also, later today, a Witch is about to get no less than seven magical girls bearing down on it, including Sabrina, Mami, and Homura. I kinda feel sorry for it.
 
Crasian01 said:
I exchanged sleep for fanfiction.

---------

Sayaka was dying.

Granted, it wasn't really dying in the same way that people usually died. It wasn't really possible to die that way as a magical girl, strictly speaking, unless you were trying to, like, regrow your own entire head. And Sayaka was pretty sure she had her head still, as well as her arms, and her legs, and all her important internal organs. Her spleen was a bit questionable at the moment, she had to admit, but the amount of blood spilling out of her really wasn't that much so her liver was probably fine.

Probably.

No at the end of the day the leakage of prodigious amounts of her precious bodily fluids was not what was killing Sayaka. What was killing Sayaka was her current lack of a Grief Seed in combination with her separation from Sabrina.

The Mitakihara Team was currently dealing with some interlopers who had decided that, clearly, it was reasonable to try and commit terrorism to force Sabrina to clean seeds for them for all eternity. This was a terrible plan in literally every respect, in Sayaka's opinion, and seemed very poorly considered. However, the interlopers – somethingsomething from China? – had an alarming amount of firepower and were seriously straining the ability for Sabrina and Mami to end the fight. Sabrina was having difficulty getting close enough for her grief control to matter, and multiple Tiro Finale strikes had gone off without success and left the Mitakihara girls with a serious dearth of options. And Sayaka…

Sayaka was hosed. She had been totally outclassed and barely a threat, up until she'd pulled off something interesting involving a warp hole and then immediately been shot in the gut. This was fine, since Yuma had leant Sayaka some healing powers, but repeated hits had quickly pulled Sayaka away from the team and drained her gem until it was a deeply alarming dark, navy blue, and getting darker with each passing second.

Sayaka coughed up blood, winced, and wiped her eyes. She didn't want to die. This was—she didn't want this. She had just wanted to be helpful. She hadn't ever imagined…

"Little blue, little blue, let me come in," sing-songed Sayaka's assailant. "I'm going to cut the hairs off your chinny-chin-chin…"

Sayaka sucked in a breath and held it as foot-steps clicked past where she was hiding. The tiny janitor's closet and it's single, dim light bulb was terribly obvious in the basement that Sayaka had fallen into, and the Chinese girl had circled past the door three or four times now, sounding increasingly bored. The door was reinforced with a barrier Sayaka had picked up last week, and had cost more magic than she could afford to make. It was only a matter of time before the other girl got bored of teasing Sayaka, broke down the door, and killed her.

"Aiii-yaaa, you're so troublesome, little blue," sighed the Chinese girl, leaning against the door. "Running around like that and making me go out of my way to kill you. You know, it's not like I have to make this painful. It's fun, I admit, but eventually it's just a pain in the ass. If I took your head off first, you wouldn't feel it when I crushed your gem, you know? It'll be much easier. You should just surrender."

"Like hell I will," Sayaka growled, breath hitching as a ripple of pain spread through her abdomen.

"Waaa, so stubborn," said the Chinese girl. "But you know, I can tell your gem is going dark. I can sense it from here. Did you ever learn what happens when your gem goes all the way black?"

"You're just trying to scare me," Sayaka bit back, glancing worriedly at her gem.

"Oh you're plenty scared," said the Chinese girl. "I'm just trying to get you to let me kill you and stop wasting time. So you've never found out then?"

"N-no."

"Mm, good, good, well, you see, it's like this," said the Chinese girl. She tapped her sword against the door thoughtfully. "You see, the thing that nobody tells you is, magical girls don't die, even when their gem goes black. They… change."

"Change?"

"Mm. Our Incubator over in Shanghai called it a 'phase shift'. Basically, your soul is corrupted entirely and you're unable to go back to the person you once were. You turn into a Witch."

Sayaka felt a shiver run down the back of her neck and swallowed. "You're lying."

"Nooo, it's true!" said the Chinese girl indignantly. "Why would I lie at a time like this? It's very important for you to know!"

"It's not true!" Sayaka screamed back, looking down at her gem again as it turned darker and darker. "It's not! I won't—I'm not going to—it's not possible!"

"Nah, you totally are," said the Chinese girl casually. "I mean, don't feel bad. If it helps, I promise to take you down immediately and keep you from eating anyone."

Sayaka crumpled, cradling her gem against her chest as hot tears dripped down her face. This was so much worse than she had ever thought was possible. To turn into the thing that she'd fought so hard against? It couldn't be true. It couldn't. The universe wasn't this cruel!

"Ah, your barrier's fallen," the Chinese girl said thoughtfully. She opened the door cautiously and peered inside. "You ready to die then?"

Sayaka hiccupped, sobs wracking her body as grief began to bubble out of her soul gem.

"Ah, damn, I guess I have to do this fast," the Chinese girl said, drawing her sword. "May you rest in peace."

The girl lept—

-- the world flashed white –

-- Sayaka was dying, but that wasn't really a problem. She worked through the situation as quickly as she could, even as she drew her sword to block the Chinese girl's attack.

First, her body had taken a lot of damage. Her past self was evidently not very good at this whole fighting-other-magical-girls business.

Second, her soul gem was basically critical. That was probably a bad thing, at least for appearances, but she hoped that there'd be time to figure something out.

Third, her opponent was actually quite good. Not as good as Sayaka and the accumulated knowledge of a plurality of lifetimes and infinite time and space to practice, but pretty good. With the current situation, it was probably a very bad idea to try and fight an extended swordfight.

There was a loud clang as Sayaka's sword met the Chinese girl's.

"Not giving up then?" asked the Chinese girl with a roll of her eyes. "It's always troublesome fighting girls like you."

Sayaka clicked her tongue. "Now now, Lang Fu, that's not a very good attitude," she chided with a small smile. "It's your biggest weakness, you know."

Lang Fu blinked and raised an eyebrow. "And what would you know about me and my weaknesses?"

"I mean, we spar all the time," said Sayaka, stepping forward and pressing Fu backwards with sudden, terrible strength. "But I guess you don't remember that."

"What--?"

There was a ripple of magic that spread out from under Sayaka's feet, trailing behind it a fine sheen of water that quickly rose into a torrent, blasting out and knocking Fu back into the wall.

"What the hell?!" Fu shouted over the rush of water. "You're supposed to be dying!"

"Ah, yes, well, there's been a change of plans," said Sayaka. Her shadow stretched out behind her as she approached Lang Fu, a helmet and pauldrons silhouetted where her head and shoulders should have been. "You could say that I'm taking special control over the situation."

Fu grit her teeth and braced against the wall, trying to push off it with what purchase she could get from on the wet floor. "You're insane. I should have been on guard, but I'm still going to kill you."

Sayaka sighed. "No, you're not."

She raised her sword and thrust forward, aiming for the piece of crystal on Fu's chest, skimming over the water under the single light bulb. Her shadow shrank, then slid in front of her, rising up out of the water like a great leviathan seeking its prey. Fu had time to take a single horrified breath as Oktavia's helmet loomed in front of her before the witch's blade pierced Fu's gem.

A single drop of water plinked to the ground. It splashed over dry cement floor, then disappeared.

Sayaka let go of her sword and sighed again, running a hand over her eyes. Of all the times to wake up, it had to be in the middle of a battle. And on top of it, the version of herself that she'd woken up into apparently wasn't very good at this sort of thing. Hopefully, it was just due to inexperience, and not because of some crazy wish she'd made.

With a grimace, Sayaka rummaged through Fu's pockets and pulled out a grief seed. She quickly began to cleanse her gem, sighing as shadows withdrew and her gem began to glow again. It wouldn't be good if Sabrina or Mami saw her like—

A single fist slammed into Sayaka's cheek and sent her to the ground.

"SAYAKA YOU ASSHOLE," Sabrina shouted. "HOW THE HELL COULD YOU NOT TELL ME."

Sayaka staggered upright and wondered how in the world she missed Sabrina sneaking up on her.

"What do you mean?" she asked, rubbing her cheek. "What was I supposed to tell you?"

"Don't play dumb with me, young lady," Sabrina growled, stepping into the closet and closing the door. "I know all about you and your damned job as a bloody secretary!"

Sayaka frowned at Sabrina. "Secretary?"

"Yeah! At least, that's what the translation was on the sub of Rebellion," said Sabrina, frowning as well. "Hm. Actually, that may have been a bad translation."

"Yeah, no, you need to get better rips, Sabrina," said Sayaka, putting her hands on her hips with an annoyed frown. "I'm not a secretary. More like private special agent."

"I guess that's—hey wait fuck you no changing the subject!"

"Look I just got here," said Sayaka, holding her hands up before Sabrina could get started again. "What was I supposed to do, give myself horrifying visions of the future? I'm not Oriko!"

"I—but—you—you weren't going to tell me later either!"

"Well…."

Sabrina punched her again.

"Dammit Sabrina stop that!"

Sabrina punched her again. "No! Asshole!"

Sayaka grabbed Sabrina's hands and put on her best disapproving glare. "Sabrina. No. Bad."

Sabrina sniffled. "Don't you trust me, Sayaka? I wouldn't have told anyone."

"I trust you, Sabrina," Sayaka sighed. "But it's like you and the metaknowledge. I didn't want to assume anything and have things go wrong. The work you're doing is really important, I'm just here to help out. If I told you and things changed, it might have ruined this timeline. And Homura's suffered enough as it is."

Sabrina looked down and pulled her hands away from Sayaka. "…I understand."

"Thanks."

They fell silent for a while, giving Sayaka a chance to heal herself with her copy of Yuma's powers and pull Fu's body off the wall.

"We should find a way to give her a good funeral," said Sayaka quietly. "She deserves that, at least."

"We will," said Sabrina, nodding somberly. "I took the other two down without killing them."

Sayaka flashed Sabrina an apologetic smile. "Guess I ruined your perfect no-kill record. Sorry."

Sabrina shrugged. "You didn't have a choice at the time."

They began to walk out of the building, climbing the stairs to the first floor quietly with Fu's body carried along on a stretcher made of grief.

"How did you know it was me?" Sayaka asked. "You didn't come in until everything was over."

"I could feel the grief," said Sabrina. "You—the other you—had just gone critical. I could feel the witch being born, but then suddenly it stopped, and reversed. You still feel different, at least to me. There's a kind of witchiness hanging around you now. I dunno if Mami will notice, but…"

Sayaka sighed again. "Well. Shit."

"Yeah."

"We'll see then," said Sayaka as she pushed open the door to the first floor. A flash of gold landed outside and began sprinting towards them. "Here she comes."

"Yup," said Sabrina. She chuckled. "Also, I told you so."

"Told me what?"

Sabrina shot Sayaka a grin.

"Told you that you were an angel, Mikiel-chan."
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Nice. Though the proper response to a terrorist attack by MGs is Homura's timestop, followed by an instantaneous ass-kicking. Or, failing that, flying mobile oppression fortress and copious soul gem yanking. Short of gravity powers or offensive antimagic, there really aren't any breaks for that train.
 
Damn, this is still painfully cute. It'd be hilarious though if Sabrina's presence, despite her shipping KyoukoXSayaka, is what finally got Sayaka into a stable relationship with Kwijiboo.
 
Here you go.
To be clear, Akane's an OC punchguca from SayakaQuest, and beyond being absurdly buff, is also the Token Straight-guca. Link's one of Moid's epilogues, in which it's revealed that post-Walpurgisnacht, she had a kid with Nakazawa, you know, that guy Ms. Saotome always calls on when ranting about guys.
 
I feel like showing off for dinner. Between the two they could probably do some rather flashy prep. Maybe break out the chibi squad for waitress duty?

As for the witch, I'm inclined to encourage everyone to try out new things while preforming battery/safety net duties. Won't be much fun for everyone if the Brina just Brina's it.
 
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