UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
That's effective way to prevent wishing! Madoka should do it more often!!
Puella Magi Madoka Magica - Part █: The Revelation Story
- Thread starter Stelaria
- Start date
Yeah, it's weird nobody ever tried it in the show, right?
O.10 // something just happened to the moon
<Kaname Madoka, it's not good to interrupt people when they've made up their mi->
"This isn't the time, I'm afraid, Kyubey," says Mami, rising to follow Kirika. "Kaname-san, I'm going after Kure-san. If she's left your house, she could easily get lost in the neighbourhood," she adds with a slight air of disapproval.
Kyouko's snatched up the Grief Cube again, and you just about catch a glimpse of Kyubey slinking into the shadows. Your attention, though, is mostly on Sayaka, as you slowly raise your hand to your lips.
Just… what had you been thinking?
"I don't… know," you mumble, blushing, confused, frightened. "I don't understand… these last two days, I've been so weird. I've been having weird dreams, remembering things that aren't my own memories, getting visions, and now… and now this. I… don't even know if I have feelings for Kirika-chan, I'm just… so confused. It's like… it's like I'm not myself…"
"Oi, oi…" Kyouko looks up from the Grief Cube. "Madoka, let me take a look at you." She shuffles over, leaning in close to your neck, and, after a few moments, whispers, "Blink twice if you want me to say you had a witch's kiss on you. Something weird's up."
You shake your head quietly. You can certainly appreciate the offer, but you don't think a lie from Kyouko is what you need right now.
"Okay. There's no witch's kiss on you," she says, more loudly. "That just makes this weirder… wait, are you just drunk?"
"Eh? Why would I be drunk? I don't get it…" you reply slowly, checking yourself. "That witch's barrier was full of paint fumes, though, can't those…"
"Nah. Witch-stuff doesn't work the way ordinary chemicals do, and you weren't exactly in there long…" Kyouko tries to reassure you, her voice itself wavering as she looks down at the Grief Cube in her hand.
Sayaka is watching quietly, seeming to have a lot on her mind. You follow Kyouko's gaze to the Grief Cube, a dull cube of what looks like frosted glass, lying on her palm. It's different to the ones you'd seen before - the others had all been completely black, some almost glowing with a silent malevolence.
"Drugs'd be less weird than this, though." She takes out a regular Grief Cube and sets it next to the glassy one. Nothing happens, but you fix your eyes on the regular cube. You feel… fascinated by it, or, you think that's how you'd describe it. You reach out, longingly, only for Kyouko to snatch it away before you can touch it.
"Oi… what the hell're you doing?"
"I don't… know. I just wanted to touch it," you murmur, shaking as you pull back your hand. "Am… am I possessed, or something? Is there… something taking over my body?"
"I dunno- look, Madoka, I wanna try something, right now. Hold out your hand, and tell me if something weird happens," the redhead requests, her brashness unable to cover for her uncertainty.
"Kyouko, what are you doing?" Sayaka butts in, moving close to you protectively. "I'm not gonna let you unless you explain yourself."
"I wanna know if it was the Grief Cube, that's all," she replies. "If something weird happens, I'll take it away again. And, Madoka, you're gonna tell me exactly what's happening."
"O-okay. I… I want to know, too… I can't bear not knowing what's happening to me." Sayaka pulls up behind you, holding you protectively - a little jealously, you think - as you hold out your hand and receive the Grief Cube.
Once again, your hand, your arm begin to burn coldly, as-
And immediately, Kyouko snatches away the Grief Cube with shaking hands. "It's… it's real. But… that shouldn't be possible. You're not a magical girl, and you're definitely not a witch, and… those eyes…"
"H-huh…?" you ask, trying to pull yourself to your senses. For some reason, even touching Grief items is a little… mesmerising for you. You'd wondered if it was normal for them to feel like that at first, but… the mystery Soul Gem had felt like that too, now you think about it.
"Madoka," Sayaka says, holding you tight and looking into your eyes. "When you touched that Grief Cube, your eye - your right eye turned this really intense blue. That's not normal…"
You squirm out of her grasp and shoot to your feet, heading over to your mirror. "Kyouko, give me the Grief Cube again."
"Huh? You sure?"
"Mm," you affirm, catching the cube once Kyouko throws it and looking straight back at your reflection.
Sayaka was right. Your left eye, fading to a dull grey; the right shining with a brilliant blue, swirling, turning. Swirls of white like clouds, drifting across it, almost like the Earth seen from space - yet, wrong. Every motion made with a twitchy, zoetrope-like flicker. The same movement, in fact, that you've come to associate with… Witch.
"I don't… get it. I'm not a witch… am I? Am I a witch?" The words pour out uncontrollably, as the Grief Cube tumbles from your hand. "I-I don't… get it. Are there even… witches who can talk like people? I don't think I've ever cursed the world like that, so how… why…"
"Madoka, you…" Sayaka begins, rushing to your side.
"You're not a damned witch. I don't know what's up here, but there's no way - just no way…" Kyouko sits down on your bed, left fist clenched. "You… you said you'd tell me how it feels, right?" she asks, grasping at possibilities…
"Yeah. It's like… this burning-numb feeling where I'm touching the Cube," you try to explain, the effort of putting it to words at least a momentary distraction. "And then it, um, flows inward, and I start feeling floaty, and when it reaches my heart, my emotions start going crazy, and I want more, and…"
"But you don't start hating everyone, and cursing the world?"
You shake your head firmly. You could never do that, ever. You love everyone too much…
"Then whatever you are, you're not a witch. Witches are born out of stuff like that, that's what Kyubey always says."
It's not very reassuring, unfortunately. That eye - your eye - had definitely looked witchy. It hadn't… felt weird, but maybe it'd just been overpowered by everything else?
"…hey." Kyouko murmurs after a few moments' silence, two dull, glassy cubes transferred from her hand to her pocket. "Can I try one more thing?"
"Mmm." you nod solemnly, reaching out for Sayaka's hand; finding it, and squeezing it tight. "What is it, Kyouko?"
"I'm…" she hesitates, raising her left hand and opening it to reveal her Soul Gem ring, the jewel blinking sharply with the crimson of danger, just a slight darkness clouding it over. "I'm going… to let you touch my Soul Gem now."
Tenderly, fearfully, Kyouko guides your fingertip against her gem, hunger and trepidation building in your heart in equal measure. Your finger shifts from rough, calloused skin to cool metal, and touches-
Hardship.
Regret.
Callousness, born of necessity.
Hunger; gluttony, even, to bury her problems beneath.
Fear, doubt, uncertainty.
Loss, buried in smouldering embers.
A cold anger at the heavens.
Longing for a happiness she can't believe in.
Guilt, a little, over using others.
A small yet intense desire, still learning its form, carefully kept in check, yet hot and hungry.
A weak, yet everpresent temptation, denied and stamped upon, to lie, to delude…
All this and more flows into you, and you take it in, holding it close, jealously, in your heart.
How could you not?
No matter how stained some of these feelings might be, you want to cherish them. You need to cherish them.
Because they're what make up 'Sakura Kyouko'.
You pull away from her lips, your left eye closed, and slowly, passionately breathe, tasting the air. You don't feel… refreshed. That's not it. Nor do you exactly feel… sated, like after a good meal. Fulfilled, perhaps? Like you've done something you're meant to do, or even (comforting yet terrifying)… made for?
"That… that was… no way, I…" Kyouko steps back from you, soot on her lips, Soul Gem on her finger burning with a flawless light.
"What just… happened?" Sayaka asks, squeezing your hand protectively, leaning in to look into your eye. "…yeah, it really is. It's still blue. Fading, slowly." The contrast is even more stark with Sayaka in the mirror beside you. Your blue eye… you call it blue, but next to the azure of Sayaka's, the unworldly wrongness of the colour is even more obvious: a shade that should only be seen inside a witch's barrier.
<Sakura-san. Could you come outside? You need to see this.> Kirika's telepathy reaches you, just when you thought things couldn't get stranger.
<I'm. Uh, kind of busy?>
<This is more important. Something just happened to the moon.>
Kyouko turns from you, hurls the door open and rushes out, down toward your front door. You and Sayaka follow, ignoring a now very confused Papa; catching up with her, alongside Mami and Kirika, at your front gate. The three of them are staring skyward, open-mouthed.
You look up…
And lose all words.
Two days ago, you're fairly sure the moon had been a thin crescent.
What you see in the sky right now, though, isn't a phase that would appear on any astronomers' chart, except, perhaps, for the truly insane. The full moon that hangs, huge and ominous, in the western sky (shouldn't it be in the east at this time if it's full?) is cracked down the middle, a stain of inky black blood dividing it into halves.
The left half is mostly dark, or that's what you think at first until your mind finally comes to grips with what you're seeing - a pitch-black salamander, coiled around the moon, fourteen gemstones shining on its back. A diamond-shaped sigil is carved, in grand scale, into the surface beneath it - vast, cyclopean, dwarfing anything real that humans could ever have built.
Even the cosmic scale of the beast curled around the left half can't compare to the right.
The right half of the impossible moon is the left side of a vast, grimacing face, whorls of pitch-black raw grief boiling off of its gargantuan surface. In its mouth, a black hole churns and flickers with the already-too-familiar quality of a witch, and its eye… the brilliantly vivid, planet-blue eye…
It's a perfect reflection of your own.
"This isn't the time, I'm afraid, Kyubey," says Mami, rising to follow Kirika. "Kaname-san, I'm going after Kure-san. If she's left your house, she could easily get lost in the neighbourhood," she adds with a slight air of disapproval.
Kyouko's snatched up the Grief Cube again, and you just about catch a glimpse of Kyubey slinking into the shadows. Your attention, though, is mostly on Sayaka, as you slowly raise your hand to your lips.
Just… what had you been thinking?
"I don't… know," you mumble, blushing, confused, frightened. "I don't understand… these last two days, I've been so weird. I've been having weird dreams, remembering things that aren't my own memories, getting visions, and now… and now this. I… don't even know if I have feelings for Kirika-chan, I'm just… so confused. It's like… it's like I'm not myself…"
"Oi, oi…" Kyouko looks up from the Grief Cube. "Madoka, let me take a look at you." She shuffles over, leaning in close to your neck, and, after a few moments, whispers, "Blink twice if you want me to say you had a witch's kiss on you. Something weird's up."
You shake your head quietly. You can certainly appreciate the offer, but you don't think a lie from Kyouko is what you need right now.
"Okay. There's no witch's kiss on you," she says, more loudly. "That just makes this weirder… wait, are you just drunk?"
"Eh? Why would I be drunk? I don't get it…" you reply slowly, checking yourself. "That witch's barrier was full of paint fumes, though, can't those…"
"Nah. Witch-stuff doesn't work the way ordinary chemicals do, and you weren't exactly in there long…" Kyouko tries to reassure you, her voice itself wavering as she looks down at the Grief Cube in her hand.
Sayaka is watching quietly, seeming to have a lot on her mind. You follow Kyouko's gaze to the Grief Cube, a dull cube of what looks like frosted glass, lying on her palm. It's different to the ones you'd seen before - the others had all been completely black, some almost glowing with a silent malevolence.
"Drugs'd be less weird than this, though." She takes out a regular Grief Cube and sets it next to the glassy one. Nothing happens, but you fix your eyes on the regular cube. You feel… fascinated by it, or, you think that's how you'd describe it. You reach out, longingly, only for Kyouko to snatch it away before you can touch it.
"Oi… what the hell're you doing?"
"I don't… know. I just wanted to touch it," you murmur, shaking as you pull back your hand. "Am… am I possessed, or something? Is there… something taking over my body?"
"I dunno- look, Madoka, I wanna try something, right now. Hold out your hand, and tell me if something weird happens," the redhead requests, her brashness unable to cover for her uncertainty.
"Kyouko, what are you doing?" Sayaka butts in, moving close to you protectively. "I'm not gonna let you unless you explain yourself."
"I wanna know if it was the Grief Cube, that's all," she replies. "If something weird happens, I'll take it away again. And, Madoka, you're gonna tell me exactly what's happening."
"O-okay. I… I want to know, too… I can't bear not knowing what's happening to me." Sayaka pulls up behind you, holding you protectively - a little jealously, you think - as you hold out your hand and receive the Grief Cube.
Once again, your hand, your arm begin to burn coldly, as-
And immediately, Kyouko snatches away the Grief Cube with shaking hands. "It's… it's real. But… that shouldn't be possible. You're not a magical girl, and you're definitely not a witch, and… those eyes…"
"H-huh…?" you ask, trying to pull yourself to your senses. For some reason, even touching Grief items is a little… mesmerising for you. You'd wondered if it was normal for them to feel like that at first, but… the mystery Soul Gem had felt like that too, now you think about it.
"Madoka," Sayaka says, holding you tight and looking into your eyes. "When you touched that Grief Cube, your eye - your right eye turned this really intense blue. That's not normal…"
You squirm out of her grasp and shoot to your feet, heading over to your mirror. "Kyouko, give me the Grief Cube again."
"Huh? You sure?"
"Mm," you affirm, catching the cube once Kyouko throws it and looking straight back at your reflection.
Sayaka was right. Your left eye, fading to a dull grey; the right shining with a brilliant blue, swirling, turning. Swirls of white like clouds, drifting across it, almost like the Earth seen from space - yet, wrong. Every motion made with a twitchy, zoetrope-like flicker. The same movement, in fact, that you've come to associate with… Witch.
"I don't… get it. I'm not a witch… am I? Am I a witch?" The words pour out uncontrollably, as the Grief Cube tumbles from your hand. "I-I don't… get it. Are there even… witches who can talk like people? I don't think I've ever cursed the world like that, so how… why…"
"Madoka, you…" Sayaka begins, rushing to your side.
"You're not a damned witch. I don't know what's up here, but there's no way - just no way…" Kyouko sits down on your bed, left fist clenched. "You… you said you'd tell me how it feels, right?" she asks, grasping at possibilities…
"Yeah. It's like… this burning-numb feeling where I'm touching the Cube," you try to explain, the effort of putting it to words at least a momentary distraction. "And then it, um, flows inward, and I start feeling floaty, and when it reaches my heart, my emotions start going crazy, and I want more, and…"
"But you don't start hating everyone, and cursing the world?"
You shake your head firmly. You could never do that, ever. You love everyone too much…
"Then whatever you are, you're not a witch. Witches are born out of stuff like that, that's what Kyubey always says."
It's not very reassuring, unfortunately. That eye - your eye - had definitely looked witchy. It hadn't… felt weird, but maybe it'd just been overpowered by everything else?
"…hey." Kyouko murmurs after a few moments' silence, two dull, glassy cubes transferred from her hand to her pocket. "Can I try one more thing?"
"Mmm." you nod solemnly, reaching out for Sayaka's hand; finding it, and squeezing it tight. "What is it, Kyouko?"
"I'm…" she hesitates, raising her left hand and opening it to reveal her Soul Gem ring, the jewel blinking sharply with the crimson of danger, just a slight darkness clouding it over. "I'm going… to let you touch my Soul Gem now."
Tenderly, fearfully, Kyouko guides your fingertip against her gem, hunger and trepidation building in your heart in equal measure. Your finger shifts from rough, calloused skin to cool metal, and touches-
Hardship.
Regret.
Callousness, born of necessity.
Hunger; gluttony, even, to bury her problems beneath.
Fear, doubt, uncertainty.
Loss, buried in smouldering embers.
A cold anger at the heavens.
Longing for a happiness she can't believe in.
Guilt, a little, over using others.
A small yet intense desire, still learning its form, carefully kept in check, yet hot and hungry.
A weak, yet everpresent temptation, denied and stamped upon, to lie, to delude…
All this and more flows into you, and you take it in, holding it close, jealously, in your heart.
How could you not?
No matter how stained some of these feelings might be, you want to cherish them. You need to cherish them.
Because they're what make up 'Sakura Kyouko'.
You pull away from her lips, your left eye closed, and slowly, passionately breathe, tasting the air. You don't feel… refreshed. That's not it. Nor do you exactly feel… sated, like after a good meal. Fulfilled, perhaps? Like you've done something you're meant to do, or even (comforting yet terrifying)… made for?
"That… that was… no way, I…" Kyouko steps back from you, soot on her lips, Soul Gem on her finger burning with a flawless light.
"What just… happened?" Sayaka asks, squeezing your hand protectively, leaning in to look into your eye. "…yeah, it really is. It's still blue. Fading, slowly." The contrast is even more stark with Sayaka in the mirror beside you. Your blue eye… you call it blue, but next to the azure of Sayaka's, the unworldly wrongness of the colour is even more obvious: a shade that should only be seen inside a witch's barrier.
<Sakura-san. Could you come outside? You need to see this.> Kirika's telepathy reaches you, just when you thought things couldn't get stranger.
<I'm. Uh, kind of busy?>
<This is more important. Something just happened to the moon.>
Kyouko turns from you, hurls the door open and rushes out, down toward your front door. You and Sayaka follow, ignoring a now very confused Papa; catching up with her, alongside Mami and Kirika, at your front gate. The three of them are staring skyward, open-mouthed.
You look up…
And lose all words.
Two days ago, you're fairly sure the moon had been a thin crescent.
What you see in the sky right now, though, isn't a phase that would appear on any astronomers' chart, except, perhaps, for the truly insane. The full moon that hangs, huge and ominous, in the western sky (shouldn't it be in the east at this time if it's full?) is cracked down the middle, a stain of inky black blood dividing it into halves.
The left half is mostly dark, or that's what you think at first until your mind finally comes to grips with what you're seeing - a pitch-black salamander, coiled around the moon, fourteen gemstones shining on its back. A diamond-shaped sigil is carved, in grand scale, into the surface beneath it - vast, cyclopean, dwarfing anything real that humans could ever have built.
Even the cosmic scale of the beast curled around the left half can't compare to the right.
The right half of the impossible moon is the left side of a vast, grimacing face, whorls of pitch-black raw grief boiling off of its gargantuan surface. In its mouth, a black hole churns and flickers with the already-too-familiar quality of a witch, and its eye… the brilliantly vivid, planet-blue eye…
It's a perfect reflection of your own.
- Location
- Sweden
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's...
Not Normal
Not for a moon, and not for a girl.
Even a gay one (would be cool to have a glowing eye I would have to hide with an eyepatch tho)
Not Normal
Not for a moon, and not for a girl.
Even a gay one (would be cool to have a glowing eye I would have to hide with an eyepatch tho)
Last edited:
It's simple.
We blow up the moon.
We blow up the moon.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Oh so that's where Gretchen is!
DeclanDSI
Touhou 「 」 Youkai of 「Akasha」
- Location
- the Boundaries betwixt Fact and Fiction
- Pronouns
- ???
I think that'll just blow up Homura and Madoka.
'Tis but a flesh wound.
character profiles (end of Ouvertüre)
Since there's going to be a lot more characters introduced soon, I thought I might post character profiles every so often, so people can keep up with who's who and what's what.
In subsequent posts, I'll try to update previously introduced characters if there are any notable changes, but leave the previous posts unedited, so as to avoid spoilers for people reading the thread sequentially, etc. etc.
I was intending to post a story update today, but setting up the templates for the profile images took way longer than expected, so I'm afraid there'll be no update today. Thus...
The protagonist of this story. A cute, determined heroine with pink twintails who loves food. She has the potential to become a very powerful magical girl. Weird things, even by the standards of the world of magical girls, seem to happen around her. Her touch seems to be able to cleanse Soul Gems and Grief Cubes, and erase Grief Seeds.
Kaname Madoka's mother and a cool, capable businesswoman. She made it through a rowdy, delinquent school life without any contact with magic or Kyubey, and became respectable in college, graduating with a degree in economics. She seems to have hit the glass ceiling at work, but she still brings in enough that her husband doesn't have to work.
Kaname Madoka's stay-at-home father, who cares for her infant brother, Tatsuya. A top-notch cook, who works hard every day to fill Madoka's life with deliciousness. He actually has a quite wealthy family, and a degree in literature. He used to be a big fan of horror in his college days, but his tastes have mellowed a little since.
Madoka's childhood friend, with a boyish demeanor and a love of music, especially the violin. She's fiercely protective and has a strong sense of justice, that often leads her to make rash decisions. Her signature weapon is a fire extinguisher. She attends all Kamijou Kyousuke's concerts, but doesn't seem as close to him as she was in elementary school. She has an uncertain, hard-to-measure potential as a magical girl.
She recently tried to wish to know certain hidden truths of the world, but Madoka stopped her.
Madoka's classmate and good friend, a wealthy heiress who does ballet and tea ceremonies. The chance of her exhibiting the potential to become a magical girl is 0.0000000004%. She harbours a secret crush on Kamijou Kyousuke. She thinks love between girls is forbidden. Her signature weapon is her bare fists, and her special power is tummy punches.
Madoka and Sayaka's classmate, and also, apparently, a tough, self-sufficient veteran magical girl with a sweet tooth and a hidden romantic side. She talks big, but often can't bring herself to match it with her actions. She's been sleeping on the couch at Sayaka's place, and there's a lot she'll do for free food. Her signature weapon is a spear, and her special power is illusions.
Madoka's homeroom teacher, and an English teacher at Mitakihara Middle School. She's quite picky about her boyfriends, and doesn't have good luck with men in general. She brings the subject up a lot in her lessons, but is a fairly capable teacher other than that. You shouldn't mention her counterpart at Asunaro City Southern Junior High.
A shy, standoffish girl who recently transferred into Madoka's class. She seems to be struggling a bit with the tough curriculum at Mitakihara Middle School, so Madoka's helping her out with study sessions. She has the potential to become a fairly average magical girl.
She recently tried to wish to 'be the best Kirika she can possibly be', but Madoka stopped her.
A white-furred cabbit-like creature with beady red eyes that communicates exclusively through telepathy. He offers girls a mysterious contract, where they'll receive any wish they want, but in exchange, have to fight monsters that prey on people's psyches. There's a teardrop-shaped receptacle on his back that can receive used Grief Seeds and Grief Cubes.
The rose garden witch, with a distrustful nature. She holds roses dearer than anything else. She expends all of her power for the sake of beautiful roses. Despite stealing the life-force of humans who wander into her barrier to give to her roses, she loathes the thought of them trampling the inside of her barrier.
Madoka encountered this witch beneath Mitakihara Family Mall; she was defeated by Sakura Kyouko, and subsequently, seemingly, erased from existence by Madoka.
She adorns her minions with exceptionally fine moustaches, for some reason.
This world's version of an elegant veteran magical girl who loves tea and baking. She was once partners with Kyouko, but their relationship broke up around a year ago. She seems overjoyed to have made so many new friends at once. She's strong enough to hold down a territory as large as Mitakihara all by herself. Her signature weapon is ribbons, which she crafts into percussion-lock firearms, and her special power is ribbons.
The artist witch, whose nature is vanity. Without the slightest doubt, she believes her existence is blessed. Wanting someone to see her work, she often interferes with the human world. However, within her barrier only exist works that you have probably seen somewhere before. It's doubtful that she'd appreciate someone pointing out her plagiarism.
A mysterious magical girl who saved Madoka from the artist witch. She wears red-framed glasses, and can defeat her opponents in the blink of an eye with guns and explosives. She broke into Madoka's house on the night of March 25th and stole a Soul Gem ring she was looking after, but was chased away by a doll.
A number of unsettling dolls, dressed in funeral clothes. They fight with giant knitting needles, and seem to sometimes come with an honour guard of tin soldiers. Madoka, seemingly in a trance, erased one, turning it into a strange earring with a slight resemblance to Soul Gem rings. They hate Kyubey, and have also been known to erratically hunt witches or wraiths.
The unknown, bipartite witch that magical girls see in the moon. Her form appears to be the eschaton, and her nature is as yet unknown. She awoke from a comparatively placid sleep soon after Madoka began to cleanse Grief Cubes. It's unknown why such an enormous witch is in the moon, and also as yet unknown when she appeared.
In subsequent posts, I'll try to update previously introduced characters if there are any notable changes, but leave the previous posts unedited, so as to avoid spoilers for people reading the thread sequentially, etc. etc.
I was intending to post a story update today, but setting up the templates for the profile images took way longer than expected, so I'm afraid there'll be no update today. Thus...
Kaname Madoka
The protagonist of this story. A cute, determined heroine with pink twintails who loves food. She has the potential to become a very powerful magical girl. Weird things, even by the standards of the world of magical girls, seem to happen around her. Her touch seems to be able to cleanse Soul Gems and Grief Cubes, and erase Grief Seeds.
Kaname Junko
Kaname Madoka's mother and a cool, capable businesswoman. She made it through a rowdy, delinquent school life without any contact with magic or Kyubey, and became respectable in college, graduating with a degree in economics. She seems to have hit the glass ceiling at work, but she still brings in enough that her husband doesn't have to work.
Kaname Tomohisa
Kaname Madoka's stay-at-home father, who cares for her infant brother, Tatsuya. A top-notch cook, who works hard every day to fill Madoka's life with deliciousness. He actually has a quite wealthy family, and a degree in literature. He used to be a big fan of horror in his college days, but his tastes have mellowed a little since.
Miki Sayaka
Madoka's childhood friend, with a boyish demeanor and a love of music, especially the violin. She's fiercely protective and has a strong sense of justice, that often leads her to make rash decisions. Her signature weapon is a fire extinguisher. She attends all Kamijou Kyousuke's concerts, but doesn't seem as close to him as she was in elementary school. She has an uncertain, hard-to-measure potential as a magical girl.
She recently tried to wish to know certain hidden truths of the world, but Madoka stopped her.
Shizuki Hitomi
Madoka's classmate and good friend, a wealthy heiress who does ballet and tea ceremonies. The chance of her exhibiting the potential to become a magical girl is 0.0000000004%. She harbours a secret crush on Kamijou Kyousuke. She thinks love between girls is forbidden. Her signature weapon is her bare fists, and her special power is tummy punches.
Sakura Kyouko
Madoka and Sayaka's classmate, and also, apparently, a tough, self-sufficient veteran magical girl with a sweet tooth and a hidden romantic side. She talks big, but often can't bring herself to match it with her actions. She's been sleeping on the couch at Sayaka's place, and there's a lot she'll do for free food. Her signature weapon is a spear, and her special power is illusions.
Saotome Kazuko
Madoka's homeroom teacher, and an English teacher at Mitakihara Middle School. She's quite picky about her boyfriends, and doesn't have good luck with men in general. She brings the subject up a lot in her lessons, but is a fairly capable teacher other than that. You shouldn't mention her counterpart at Asunaro City Southern Junior High.
Kure Kirika
A shy, standoffish girl who recently transferred into Madoka's class. She seems to be struggling a bit with the tough curriculum at Mitakihara Middle School, so Madoka's helping her out with study sessions. She has the potential to become a fairly average magical girl.
She recently tried to wish to 'be the best Kirika she can possibly be', but Madoka stopped her.
Kyubey
A white-furred cabbit-like creature with beady red eyes that communicates exclusively through telepathy. He offers girls a mysterious contract, where they'll receive any wish they want, but in exchange, have to fight monsters that prey on people's psyches. There's a teardrop-shaped receptacle on his back that can receive used Grief Seeds and Grief Cubes.
Gertrud
The rose garden witch, with a distrustful nature. She holds roses dearer than anything else. She expends all of her power for the sake of beautiful roses. Despite stealing the life-force of humans who wander into her barrier to give to her roses, she loathes the thought of them trampling the inside of her barrier.
Madoka encountered this witch beneath Mitakihara Family Mall; she was defeated by Sakura Kyouko, and subsequently, seemingly, erased from existence by Madoka.
She adorns her minions with exceptionally fine moustaches, for some reason.
Tomoe Mami
This world's version of an elegant veteran magical girl who loves tea and baking. She was once partners with Kyouko, but their relationship broke up around a year ago. She seems overjoyed to have made so many new friends at once. She's strong enough to hold down a territory as large as Mitakihara all by herself. Her signature weapon is ribbons, which she crafts into percussion-lock firearms, and her special power is ribbons.
Izabel
The artist witch, whose nature is vanity. Without the slightest doubt, she believes her existence is blessed. Wanting someone to see her work, she often interferes with the human world. However, within her barrier only exist works that you have probably seen somewhere before. It's doubtful that she'd appreciate someone pointing out her plagiarism.
?????
A mysterious magical girl who saved Madoka from the artist witch. She wears red-framed glasses, and can defeat her opponents in the blink of an eye with guns and explosives. She broke into Madoka's house on the night of March 25th and stole a Soul Gem ring she was looking after, but was chased away by a doll.
Clara Dolls
A number of unsettling dolls, dressed in funeral clothes. They fight with giant knitting needles, and seem to sometimes come with an honour guard of tin soldiers. Madoka, seemingly in a trance, erased one, turning it into a strange earring with a slight resemblance to Soul Gem rings. They hate Kyubey, and have also been known to erratically hunt witches or wraiths.
Tod und Verklärung
The unknown, bipartite witch that magical girls see in the moon. Her form appears to be the eschaton, and her nature is as yet unknown. She awoke from a comparatively placid sleep soon after Madoka began to cleanse Grief Cubes. It's unknown why such an enormous witch is in the moon, and also as yet unknown when she appeared.
Ⅰ.1 // the moon is beautiful, isn't it?
The city is all but silent tonight. The night air is cool and still, the trees around you lit a little by streetlamps and, you think, very barely by a moon that ought to be almost new. All is calm in the ordinary street outside your home, where you, Kaname Madoka, and your four friends are staring up in blank horror at the western sky.
No, it's not calm at all.
An ordinary person could easily make that mistake, their eyes not attuned to the secrets of this world.
But there is no calm here.
"The moon is beautiful, isn't it," you whisper, spellbound by cosmic awe, your bright eye locked on its like in the sky above.
"It is, isn't it," Kirika replies - also whispering, held back as if standing in a sacred place, beneath the eye of God.
"…oi," Kyouko whispers, knowing well that feeling too - struggling against it, you believe. "D-don't joke around, Madoka, this is…"
"I don't… understand. I… we have to be dreaming now, right? Right? Someone… someone tell me we're dreaming," pleads Sayaka, wrenching her gaze away from the moon and looking back to you, into the light of your eye… "Please…"
Mami, meanwhile, is utterly silent. Slowly, so slowly, tilting her head back to look at you over her shoulder. To catch a glimpse of the uncanny azure brilliance in your eye, tears beginning to stream down her face.
"It's… it's you, isn't it, Kaname-san? You did this…"
She transforms, soot black and pastel blue stains twisting in the Soul Gem on her beret. Ribbons wrap around Kyouko, catching her before she can make a single move, and more twist around in her hand, a pistol soon pointed right at your head.
"We're all doomed… the world is going to end, but maybe… maybe if you die here, we can still be saved…"
"Mami, what the hell, you-" Kyouko exclaims, struggling against her binds as Kirika throws herself between you and the maddened Mami.
Neither of them are fast enough to save you.
Someone else, however, is.
No, you can only call it something else.
Another porcelain doll - white-haired, dressed in a black tailcoat, its eyes ringed like a target marker with bloody red. It whirls through the air, tackling Mami from an unexpected direction, knocking her to the floor as her shot goes wide.
A dozen muskets materialize in the air, all pointed inward at the doll; ribbons flash out and try to repel it. More gunshots resound, sharp cracks, one of them followed by the sound of shattering glass.
But it swiftly, coldheartedly brings down its weapon - not a pin, some detached part of you realizes, but a knitting needle - against Mami's chest, stabbing brutally again and again, her rifles tumbling to the floor one after another, a pool of blood beginning to spread…
You step forward, pushing the frightened Kirika aside, ignoring Sayaka, weeping on her knees, and grab the doll by the wrist. You have no time for words for this one.
Its self-sabotaging single-mindedness isn't the emotion you need here. Even if you can offer the doll gratitude, acceptance, mercy, even love… you can't validate that choice. She, ██████… she ought to understand, to know the sort of conclusion choices like this lead to…
The doll writhes in your grip, its strikes ceasing, and its body gradually flakes away and dissolves into inky-black grief. You try to bat away the images, but there's so many, boiling up from the doll's inner darkness; soon, you're overwhelmed, dragged away from reality by the tide.
You can only watch, through the doll's eyes, as the events of the last few moments replay.
A flying leap from the darkness;
cold equations of, or so it must've felt to the doll, absolute necessity;
tackling Mami and stabbing her over and over with pitiless, bottomless determination.
From behind comes the fourth one, Coldheartedness.
Bloodstains fill your vision, splattered red against smooth, grey stone;
an airship dips low as it drifts across a cloud-blotched night sky;
flame spreads through witch-flickering streets, and a vast, severed head tumbles down, crushing an entire apartment building.
She stumbled over Good-for-Nothing's head and pouted a little. "Why don't we just cut Mistress Good-for-Nothing into pieces, so she's easier to carry?"
And then the visions change and, why, why does this doll have a memory of you, Kaname Madoka, as a magical girl, in one of the outfits you'd drawn in school this morning, destroying Tomoe Mami's Soul Gem with a bow and arrow?
You hardly have time to process it before the next hits you. Golden skies, black rain, the city in ruins, and Kaname Madoka, lying bloodied on a flooded street, curled in agony.
Wavering hands, gripping a black pistol, a tainted pink Soul Gem in the sights. The muzzle flashes, the Gem shatters, and tears fall, ripples spreading in the floodwaters.
But the doll feels no sorrow. That emotion is…
The memory begins to crack; to shatter, like ice, like a broken Soul Gem, like yesterday's dream. Like the pain, spreading through your mind, dragging you back down toward reality…
These dolls will obediently fall in line only for the Devil's words.
When you at last return to the street bathed in cruel moonlight, your mind throbbing with horrible, nightmarish truths, you can feel another earring in your hand, its ice-blue stone cold and lifeless.
Only seconds have passed, in the real world. The next moment, Kyouko's broken free of her restraints, and dived toward Mami, transforming and focusing magic into her bloodied body. She wrests her blackened Soul Gem free with desperate haste and forces it into your hands, making the earring tumble to the ground with a dull clink.
Pain and fear rush in, driving you to your knees, hardly caring about your own discomfort when Mami's is so much stronger.
It's nothing like when you touched Kyouko's Gem, the pain so much more raw and fresh and overpowering.
You cling to it, taking in Mami's crazed fears, afraid that after all those visions, it might be more than you can bear.
The icy chill, the torment, the numbness of imminent death, nothing but overwhelming agony where your heart should be, strong enough that it could be your own body battered and bleeding rather than Mami's.
Fear, terror of the moon with a person's face, the girl with the moon's face, fraying, lying memories, a world that doesn't make sense…
A strong, overpowering desire, a need to cling to every transient human attachment, to connect to life…
The strain of lying, of bottling away fear and pain and pretending to be a calm, dependable senior.
All this and more you take in from Mami as you hold her Soul Gem to your heart - the same Soul Gem you'd seen yourself destroy in that vision just now.
Your eyes drift back up to the moon, where flecks of black, yellow-gold and blue burst into life, blur, stretch out, and vanish into the black hole's event horizon, glittering like fleeting, doomed stars.
It's hard to think, the pain is so overpowering, but you feel as if you're on the cusp of some terrible understanding…
Kirika catches you in her arms and supports you as you're about to tumble onto the concrete, silent but for her faint breathing. Words couldn't reach you right now. You - no, Mami-senpai wants to live. At this moment, that's all that matters.
Slowly - as fast as you can manage, doubled over in agony, but painstakingly slowly, you shuffle toward Mami and Kyouko, Kirika supporting you all the way. You don't want to see any more of Mami's wounds than you have, but that hardly matters. You have to return her Soul Gem to her, and you have to keep touching it, keep taking in her pain, or else…
You don't know. But what you saw in those visions… it was cruel, and cold-hearted, and there should've been a better choice, but both times, it was the right thing to do, it was worth doing - at least, the owner of the doll's emotions believed so, and… you don't understand why.
It's as bad as you expected, the stench of blood filling your nose, tears already running down your face before Mami's wounds even draw into view. Several deep puncture wounds are torn through her chest, her blouse stained scarlet with spilled blood, that only doesn't continue to pour out thanks to Kyouko's magic. Her eyes seem dull and empty. You don't think that any ordinary first aid would be enough…
"You sure about this?" Kyouko asks, shocked to see what you're doing. "You should get inside. I can keep her alive, but… she tried to kill you, you know. She was serious." You're not sure how Kyouko's able to be as calm as she is in this situation, but you're grateful for it right now.
In answer, you lean down, pressing the Soul Gem back into its socket, keeping your fingertips against it. Black lines run up your fingers, the tide of impurities pouring out so thick as to be visible beneath your skin. Pressing against it, you close your eyes, and murmur, Mami's strong desire in your heart.
"I… I don't want… to run away," you reply slowly, every word an effort against the feeling - not your own - that you can't breathe. "I want to save her. I want… I want her to stay connected to life…"
"Eh!? How'd you… screw it, I don't care. Oi, Mami, is this all that wish of yours means to you? Don't you dare die on us now!"
Beneath your hand, the Soul Gem begins to glow - brighter, brighter, the power of magic flowing from it, yet, for some reason, the flow of darkness lessening.
It only takes you a moment to see why.
From her hands, scarlet and golden ribbons erupt, blooming, wrapping around Mami's body, coiling back in and twisting into ephemeral flowers and bows, some curling tight and sinking into her wounds, others twining around her to shape into bandages. You see her move, her fingers twitch, her eyelids flutter…
And then your attention is drawn in a different direction.
To the rhythmic tap of high heels on concrete, faint, but getting louder.
You'd know that sound anywhere.
The five of you had got into a life-or-death, cosmic situation right outside your home…
And now Mama's back from work.
No, it's not calm at all.
An ordinary person could easily make that mistake, their eyes not attuned to the secrets of this world.
But there is no calm here.
"The moon is beautiful, isn't it," you whisper, spellbound by cosmic awe, your bright eye locked on its like in the sky above.
"It is, isn't it," Kirika replies - also whispering, held back as if standing in a sacred place, beneath the eye of God.
"…oi," Kyouko whispers, knowing well that feeling too - struggling against it, you believe. "D-don't joke around, Madoka, this is…"
"I don't… understand. I… we have to be dreaming now, right? Right? Someone… someone tell me we're dreaming," pleads Sayaka, wrenching her gaze away from the moon and looking back to you, into the light of your eye… "Please…"
Mami, meanwhile, is utterly silent. Slowly, so slowly, tilting her head back to look at you over her shoulder. To catch a glimpse of the uncanny azure brilliance in your eye, tears beginning to stream down her face.
"It's… it's you, isn't it, Kaname-san? You did this…"
She transforms, soot black and pastel blue stains twisting in the Soul Gem on her beret. Ribbons wrap around Kyouko, catching her before she can make a single move, and more twist around in her hand, a pistol soon pointed right at your head.
"We're all doomed… the world is going to end, but maybe… maybe if you die here, we can still be saved…"
"Mami, what the hell, you-" Kyouko exclaims, struggling against her binds as Kirika throws herself between you and the maddened Mami.
Neither of them are fast enough to save you.
Someone else, however, is.
No, you can only call it something else.
Another porcelain doll - white-haired, dressed in a black tailcoat, its eyes ringed like a target marker with bloody red. It whirls through the air, tackling Mami from an unexpected direction, knocking her to the floor as her shot goes wide.
A dozen muskets materialize in the air, all pointed inward at the doll; ribbons flash out and try to repel it. More gunshots resound, sharp cracks, one of them followed by the sound of shattering glass.
But it swiftly, coldheartedly brings down its weapon - not a pin, some detached part of you realizes, but a knitting needle - against Mami's chest, stabbing brutally again and again, her rifles tumbling to the floor one after another, a pool of blood beginning to spread…
You step forward, pushing the frightened Kirika aside, ignoring Sayaka, weeping on her knees, and grab the doll by the wrist. You have no time for words for this one.
Its self-sabotaging single-mindedness isn't the emotion you need here. Even if you can offer the doll gratitude, acceptance, mercy, even love… you can't validate that choice. She, ██████… she ought to understand, to know the sort of conclusion choices like this lead to…
The doll writhes in your grip, its strikes ceasing, and its body gradually flakes away and dissolves into inky-black grief. You try to bat away the images, but there's so many, boiling up from the doll's inner darkness; soon, you're overwhelmed, dragged away from reality by the tide.
You can only watch, through the doll's eyes, as the events of the last few moments replay.
A flying leap from the darkness;
cold equations of, or so it must've felt to the doll, absolute necessity;
tackling Mami and stabbing her over and over with pitiless, bottomless determination.
From behind comes the fourth one, Coldheartedness.
Bloodstains fill your vision, splattered red against smooth, grey stone;
an airship dips low as it drifts across a cloud-blotched night sky;
flame spreads through witch-flickering streets, and a vast, severed head tumbles down, crushing an entire apartment building.
She stumbled over Good-for-Nothing's head and pouted a little. "Why don't we just cut Mistress Good-for-Nothing into pieces, so she's easier to carry?"
And then the visions change and, why, why does this doll have a memory of you, Kaname Madoka, as a magical girl, in one of the outfits you'd drawn in school this morning, destroying Tomoe Mami's Soul Gem with a bow and arrow?
You hardly have time to process it before the next hits you. Golden skies, black rain, the city in ruins, and Kaname Madoka, lying bloodied on a flooded street, curled in agony.
Wavering hands, gripping a black pistol, a tainted pink Soul Gem in the sights. The muzzle flashes, the Gem shatters, and tears fall, ripples spreading in the floodwaters.
But the doll feels no sorrow. That emotion is…
The memory begins to crack; to shatter, like ice, like a broken Soul Gem, like yesterday's dream. Like the pain, spreading through your mind, dragging you back down toward reality…
These dolls will obediently fall in line only for the Devil's words.
When you at last return to the street bathed in cruel moonlight, your mind throbbing with horrible, nightmarish truths, you can feel another earring in your hand, its ice-blue stone cold and lifeless.
Only seconds have passed, in the real world. The next moment, Kyouko's broken free of her restraints, and dived toward Mami, transforming and focusing magic into her bloodied body. She wrests her blackened Soul Gem free with desperate haste and forces it into your hands, making the earring tumble to the ground with a dull clink.
Pain and fear rush in, driving you to your knees, hardly caring about your own discomfort when Mami's is so much stronger.
It's nothing like when you touched Kyouko's Gem, the pain so much more raw and fresh and overpowering.
You cling to it, taking in Mami's crazed fears, afraid that after all those visions, it might be more than you can bear.
The icy chill, the torment, the numbness of imminent death, nothing but overwhelming agony where your heart should be, strong enough that it could be your own body battered and bleeding rather than Mami's.
Fear, terror of the moon with a person's face, the girl with the moon's face, fraying, lying memories, a world that doesn't make sense…
A strong, overpowering desire, a need to cling to every transient human attachment, to connect to life…
The strain of lying, of bottling away fear and pain and pretending to be a calm, dependable senior.
All this and more you take in from Mami as you hold her Soul Gem to your heart - the same Soul Gem you'd seen yourself destroy in that vision just now.
Your eyes drift back up to the moon, where flecks of black, yellow-gold and blue burst into life, blur, stretch out, and vanish into the black hole's event horizon, glittering like fleeting, doomed stars.
It's hard to think, the pain is so overpowering, but you feel as if you're on the cusp of some terrible understanding…
Kirika catches you in her arms and supports you as you're about to tumble onto the concrete, silent but for her faint breathing. Words couldn't reach you right now. You - no, Mami-senpai wants to live. At this moment, that's all that matters.
Slowly - as fast as you can manage, doubled over in agony, but painstakingly slowly, you shuffle toward Mami and Kyouko, Kirika supporting you all the way. You don't want to see any more of Mami's wounds than you have, but that hardly matters. You have to return her Soul Gem to her, and you have to keep touching it, keep taking in her pain, or else…
You don't know. But what you saw in those visions… it was cruel, and cold-hearted, and there should've been a better choice, but both times, it was the right thing to do, it was worth doing - at least, the owner of the doll's emotions believed so, and… you don't understand why.
It's as bad as you expected, the stench of blood filling your nose, tears already running down your face before Mami's wounds even draw into view. Several deep puncture wounds are torn through her chest, her blouse stained scarlet with spilled blood, that only doesn't continue to pour out thanks to Kyouko's magic. Her eyes seem dull and empty. You don't think that any ordinary first aid would be enough…
"You sure about this?" Kyouko asks, shocked to see what you're doing. "You should get inside. I can keep her alive, but… she tried to kill you, you know. She was serious." You're not sure how Kyouko's able to be as calm as she is in this situation, but you're grateful for it right now.
In answer, you lean down, pressing the Soul Gem back into its socket, keeping your fingertips against it. Black lines run up your fingers, the tide of impurities pouring out so thick as to be visible beneath your skin. Pressing against it, you close your eyes, and murmur, Mami's strong desire in your heart.
"I… I don't want… to run away," you reply slowly, every word an effort against the feeling - not your own - that you can't breathe. "I want to save her. I want… I want her to stay connected to life…"
"Eh!? How'd you… screw it, I don't care. Oi, Mami, is this all that wish of yours means to you? Don't you dare die on us now!"
Beneath your hand, the Soul Gem begins to glow - brighter, brighter, the power of magic flowing from it, yet, for some reason, the flow of darkness lessening.
It only takes you a moment to see why.
From her hands, scarlet and golden ribbons erupt, blooming, wrapping around Mami's body, coiling back in and twisting into ephemeral flowers and bows, some curling tight and sinking into her wounds, others twining around her to shape into bandages. You see her move, her fingers twitch, her eyelids flutter…
And then your attention is drawn in a different direction.
To the rhythmic tap of high heels on concrete, faint, but getting louder.
You'd know that sound anywhere.
The five of you had got into a life-or-death, cosmic situation right outside your home…
And now Mama's back from work.
Last edited:
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Oh no parental supervision is here!!!
Ⅰ.2 // a gem that's a soul
You feel weak, emotionally exhausted, still taking in impurities from Mami's soul gem so she can keep healing herself, keep reaching out toward life. You can't exactly go and stop Mama like this.
For a moment, you hear her footsteps falter - then speed up, with the thump of a dropped purse, and she comes into view at a surprisingly brisk run, considering her footwear.
"Girls, what's happening? I smelled… blood, and heard… Sayaka crying…" she trails off as her eyes land on Mami, still in her magical girl outfit, on the pool of blood beneath her, on Kyouko, similarly outlandishly dressed…
And on the scattered rifles lying around Mami's body. She's already taking out her phone - you kind of need to do something now.
"Please don't…" you beg, "call the police or the ambulance right now. This… this isn't something they can deal with…"
"Madoka…?" You watch as she stops dialing and lowers her phone - she trusts you enough to hesitate, just for a few moments.
"I can… try to explain, I promise, but…" you force out, turning back to Kyouko. "Can… can I let go?"
"Y-yeah. I think so. I'll use the cubes if I gotta."
You pull your hand away, watching Mami's gem closely. Eventually, you're satisfied it won't suddenly darken and turn away. A weight falls from you, a tension you hadn't realized had built up inside you releasing as the secondhand pain fades away. You slip from Kirika's grip, run toward Mama, cling to her and begin to sob, letting everything out as you cry into her arms.
You're glad Mama's here. Despite not really knowing what's going on, she manages to take charge of the whole, messy situation, and get Mami inside on an improvised stretcher with Kyouko's help.
It's about half an hour later by the time you and Sayaka have calmed down a little, curled up together on the sofa in your living room. You feel relieved, really, crying that much. You'd been acting so strangely today that it's a strong reminder that, despite everything, you're still an ordinary girl.
Really, the one acting the most strangely is Kirika, though. You're not sure if it's since you kissed her (you really did that!) or since she saw the moon (you don't want to think about it more than you have to), but she's been oddly willing to do more or less anything you say. Mostly, you've had her helping Mama out, feeling too exhausted to make decisions yourself - bringing Mami's spare rifles inside, cleaning up the blood on the road, hiding the evidence without complaint.
She'd brought you the salamander earring, too - and it really is slightly different than the first one you saw. Instead of the eighth setting being filled, it's the fourth, of course, this one with a sharp-edged, ice-blue stone. You note, before you firmly set it somewhere out of sight, that the earring has an uncanny resemblance to the giant witch on the moon.
"Madoka…" Sayaka eventually mumbles, "how… how are you feeling?"
"I… think I'm okay. I think I'm going to be okay," you answer, exhausted, but full of the calm clarity born of catharsis. "How about you?"
"I'm scared. I don't want this… I want to forget, but… it'd be wrong to forget. Even if I asked Kyubey to make me forget, I'd still be part of this world…"
"Mm. Don't wish for something like that, Sayaka. If you're going to make a wish, you need it to be something you can say, afterwards, that you don't regret." You take her hand and hold it tight, offering her your shoulder to rest her head against.
"But… I just feel so useless. Even Kirika's better than me…"
You shake your head, squeezing her hand a little. "No. Kirika's Kirika, and you're you. Only you can be yourself. So don't try to be Kirika, figure out what Miki Sayaka can do."
"But… Mami-san almost died there. You almost died, Madoka, and I… Kirika jumped right in, when I just stood there and stared. I… I'm powerless, Madoka. I can't protect anyone…"
"I don't think that's right, Sayaka. Your life is precious, too. It's good to want to protect people, but the person closest to you, the one you can protect the most, is Miki Sayaka, right?"
"But…"
"You don't think Mami and Kyouko would be here right now if they didn't protect themselves first, do you?" you gently chide, putting on a faint, nervous smile.
"Mmn…" She begins to cry quietly again, nestling into your shoulder, and you hold her close, wiping away her tears.
Eventually, the six of you are sitting together around the dining table. Kyouko's still transformed, a yellow ribbon running from her wrist through the doorway to Mami in the spare room. It's something of a tight fit, getting six around the table, but you just about manage, with Sayaka and Kirika either side of you, Mama and Papa opposite, and Kyouko at the end. You're not sure how much of an appetite you can muster after all that, though.
"How's Mami-senpai," you ask cautiously, eyes following the ribbon as Papa serves up his homemade curry.
"She's asleep right now, with the curtains closed," Kyouko replies. "She's gonna make it, but… yeah, she took a lot of damage. Right now, she's using her magic to substitute for the damaged parts of her body, so she won't be able to untransform for a few days."
"Magic? Transforming? Is this some kind of code…?" Papa asks, setting down plates in front of you and Sayaka. He'd been feeding Tatsuya and putting him to bed while everything else played out, so he'd missed a lot.
"I wish I could say yes," replies Mama solemnly. "Unfortunately, I've seen it for myself. It's the real thing, Tomohisa, and… some of the girls are in deep."
"So all of you are… magical girls?" he asks next, a plate offered to Kirika. "Go ahead, dig in. You all look like you need it."
"Thanks for the food," the four of you chorus, you and Sayaka trying to put some enthusiasm into it, while Kyouko doesn't need to fake it. "And… nah, it's just me and Mami right now - active in Mitakihara, anyway."
"So when did this start?" Plates land in front of Kyouko and Kyouko - you'd object, but this is Kyouko.
"I dunno," replies Kyouko, holding off from digging in just long enough to give a full reply. "'parently Joan of Arc was a magical girl, so a while. I've been in the business two years now; same for Mami." She leaves it to you three to answer for yourselves after that, and starts shoveling curry into her mouth.
"Mmn. Sayaka and I wandered into something dangerous yesterday after school, and Kirika-chan got caught up in it just this afternoon - it's… so much…" Something comes to mind - Kyubey'd mentioned that ordinary people couldn't see magic, and you definitely remember people not being able to see him, so- "…um, Mama, can I go and get my notebook? It might be easier to explain with that."
"Of course, Madoka, but don't take too long and let your food get cold."
You slip out of the room and fetch the notebook in which you'd drawn all those outfits from your bag, along with a pen and the earring - then collect the second earring from the living room. You tiptoe as you pass the guest room, where the yellow ribbon runs under the door - you don't want to wake Mami, even if you did check your eyes are back to their usual pink.
Papa's finished serving up when you get back, and Sayaka's slowly eating too. The table is more or less silent, the mood awkward. You sit down and start eating too - your dinner seems slightly overcooked, but it's still Papa's homemade cooking, and considering the circumstances, he'd done an exceptional job.
With the notebook on your lap, you think about how much you should tell them.
It's tough. There's a lot of things you don't want to tell Mama. Really, you don't want her to be involved in this at all, but at the same time… she already is. From her perspective, she was willing to help you hide an incident involving guns, so you owe it to her, really.
It's still embarrassing, though. You don't know, really, if you'd even be able to explain what just happened without including the really frightening parts. Or the scandalous parts you're not sure you're ready to tell your parents. Right now, you feel comfortably human, and you don't really want to spoil it.
You start simple, pacing yourself with food, covering, with Kyouko's help, the basics of magical girls - wraiths and witches, Soul Gems and Grief items, replenishing magic, the fact that you get a single wish in exchange for the contract. You hadn't drawn any pictures of witches - you don't think you could really do the horror justice - but you've got useful illustrations for the rest.
By the time you're done, Mama's already frowning, deep in thought.
"I don't like it. Having to keep hunting to replenish your magic… it doesn't really fit the image of a 'magical girl', does it? In the adult world, we're always having to watch out for that sort of thing. When someone offers you a deal that seems too good to be true, that's usually because it is."
"Yeah, that's about the way of it," Kyouko replies.
"You say the wishes are real, though?"
"Yeah," Kyouko confirms; "Kyubey even said he doesn't mess with the results," Sayaka adds right after.
"Hmm… it's true that a magical wish is something amazingly valuable. This world's crooks probably wish they could offer something that good," Mama ponders. "But he might be lying, and even if he's not, this stinks of fraud. There's good reasons the law doesn't recognize most contracts signed by minors- aaagh! Dear, I think this is going to be a whiskey night after all."
"Is that… bad?"
"It's fine, it's a Sunday tomorrow," Mama replies with a wink. "You girls are having a tough time of it right now, so someone's got to look out for you- oh, Madoka, I already texted Kazuko about Tomoe-chan, so you don't need to worry, okay?"
"Kazuko?" Kirika asks, surprised and unable to place the name.
"That's Saotome-sensei to you~" Mama teases back. "I always stay out late with her after a breakup." You can tell she's trying hard to keep everyone upbeat after what happened… "So. This Kyubey, does he only make contracts with middle school girls?"
"Mostly. Some girls are younger than that, some are older, but I've never heard of him contracting an adult or a boy. He's kind of like an idol recruiter, huh…"
Papa sighs, shaking his head. "I remember talking about those. If I'd known to mention strange mascot creatures too…"
"Mm. He's the kind of creature who hands out wishes to girls who've got something they want to wish for right now, like healing someone's illness or getting a boy to go out with them, rather than ones who might think it through and wish for, I don't know, world peace or something?"
"Yeah, he's like that. He'll let you wish away your worries, but it never lasts - oh, seconds!" Kyouko's already finished both plates, and is still hungry for a third.
"Oh? Does being a magical girl come with a bottomless stomach, too? Here you go."
"Yeah, basically. Thanks!" You leave the redhead to her insatiable gluttony and move on to the next topic, your own plate still half-full.
"The truth is, though, that even if it's a trick, or a lie, there's still monsters that need to be fought. This world is a scary place, and it's all hiding just out of sight of ordinary people…" you murmur. "Even the moon is different on this side…"
"What was that thing, anyway, Kyouko? Some kind of super-gigantic witch?"
"…yh, smm-" She finishes her bite of food. "Somethin' like that."
"Yeah." You turn to Mama, suddenly nervous. This is one of the parts you'd been most afraid of. "There's something weird - even weirder than 'normal magical girl stuff' happening right now. The giant witch in the moon, I… I think it woke up earlier tonight. And we've been being… attacked, I guess, by… I think they might be its familiars or something. That's how Mami-san got hurt so badly…" You draw a brief sketch of the eldritch moon in your notebook - you can't, mercifully, reproduce the true horror of that face - and show it around the table.
"'The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth's gods…'," Papa utters, eyes closed in memory. "HP Lovecraft. I used to be quite a fan of horror back in college. I, ah, certainly didn't expect to one day learn that we're living in a world like that."
You hadn't expected that. You're not sure how much genre knowledge will help here, but you're prepared to go with it.
"The dolls, um… familiars dropped these earrings. I think they're probably enough proof they're connected to the moon." You hold up the two earrings, comparing them to the sketch, then touch them together - to your… well, you could say surprise, but you'd half-expected something like this would happen - the two earrings reconfigure, twisting and splitting like some unearthly Rubik's cube, merging together like some kind of eye-watering reverse Banach-Tarski paradox until there's only one, with both gems set in its rim.
"…Y-Yes, that's about how I imagined eldritch artifacts would look. You haven't tried wearing them, right?"
You shake your head. Well, you doubt it'd be worse than what you'd already seen in creating them, but you're not really enthusiastic about trying. You let Kirika hold the earring, at least, turning it over and over in her hands…
"That's good. Normally, I'd say knowledge can only help you, but with things like this, it can sometimes be better to stay in the dark until you're ready."
You look back down at your food and pick at it. Kirika's finished hers, but Sayaka doesn't seem to be doing much better than you. You don't think you'd even have had this much of an appetite if your parents weren't taking things so well.
After all, you think you understand what you saw in the doll's memories.
You don't want it to be true, but if it is… then you're the only one who can save a lot of people, right now. Starting with Sayaka and Kirika. They'd almost contracted without knowing this…
"I… um, I don't know if that's a good idea, Papa. When we sealed away the doll just now, I saw… something like a vision. A memory, maybe. I feel like… it's something everyone needs to know about."
"Write it down, and I'll read it first. I can't become a magical girl, so I should be okay," he replies. You're starting to feel angry at Kyubey, thinking about how he might've pressured other girls into making contracts, without anyone to turn to for advice.
It takes a little while, but you decide to be honest in your notes rather than write something like 'a bow-wielding magical girl I don't recognize.' If it's a possible future, you can still avert it.
After that, you can't do anything but watch as your father reads over the notes and implications, several times, brow furrowed.
"Hey, Madoka…" Sayaka addresses you, eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you should be trusting weird visions from creepy dolls?"
"Not completely, but… I think I trust them more than Kyubey right now," you reply. "Tomorrow, let's get some answers out of him, okay?"
"Mmm."
"That's right… in cosmic horror stories, there are a lot of frightening gods that don't care about humanity, but it's the ones that do and know how to disguise themselves, like Nyarlathotep, or their human followers, that are always the most dangerous," Papa eventually says, seeming to come to an understanding.
At last, he looks up, closing the notebook and handing it back to you. "I don't like this, but… you need to know what it is you're being offered. I'm not sure how much to believe what my daughter says she saw, but Madoka's never even once lied to us. Madoka, it's okay for you to tell them, this, I think."
"…okay. Thanks, Papa… I'm sorry for putting you through this," you say, almost becoming teary-eyed again as you smile at him.
"So what's Kyubey hiding from us?" Kyouko asks, finishing her third plateful with a toothy grin you're really not feeling good about being about to ruin. "You wanna spill the beans, Madoka?"
"I'd like to know, too. I almost let him trick me." "Yeah, so did I."
"Even I was thinking about making a wish before this," you admit, no giggle, no blush on your face, just nerves. "But… well, the truth is… I saw us. Well, me, and Kyouko, and Mami. There was another girl, too. We were at the station platform, and we were all transformed… even me, I was a magical girl in the vision, and… Mami kind of… snapped, like she did just now. Only, um… well, she destroyed Kyouko's Soul Gem, and then I… well, the me in the vision… destroyed hers."
"Oi, oi… we were fighting among ourselves? I mean… after that, I can believe it, but… wait, you mean… why just the…" Kyouko flounders, gears turning in her mind as she thinks through the implications.
"Mmm. You'd think that destroying a magical girl's Soul Gem would just make her stop being magical, right? But… that's not how it works. That's not how Kyubey made it. Because a Soul Gem is…"
"A gem that's a soul," Kirika finishes for you, a flat wryness to her words as the truth dawns on her. "It's that simple."
For a moment, you hear her footsteps falter - then speed up, with the thump of a dropped purse, and she comes into view at a surprisingly brisk run, considering her footwear.
"Girls, what's happening? I smelled… blood, and heard… Sayaka crying…" she trails off as her eyes land on Mami, still in her magical girl outfit, on the pool of blood beneath her, on Kyouko, similarly outlandishly dressed…
And on the scattered rifles lying around Mami's body. She's already taking out her phone - you kind of need to do something now.
"Please don't…" you beg, "call the police or the ambulance right now. This… this isn't something they can deal with…"
"Madoka…?" You watch as she stops dialing and lowers her phone - she trusts you enough to hesitate, just for a few moments.
"I can… try to explain, I promise, but…" you force out, turning back to Kyouko. "Can… can I let go?"
"Y-yeah. I think so. I'll use the cubes if I gotta."
You pull your hand away, watching Mami's gem closely. Eventually, you're satisfied it won't suddenly darken and turn away. A weight falls from you, a tension you hadn't realized had built up inside you releasing as the secondhand pain fades away. You slip from Kirika's grip, run toward Mama, cling to her and begin to sob, letting everything out as you cry into her arms.
You're glad Mama's here. Despite not really knowing what's going on, she manages to take charge of the whole, messy situation, and get Mami inside on an improvised stretcher with Kyouko's help.
It's about half an hour later by the time you and Sayaka have calmed down a little, curled up together on the sofa in your living room. You feel relieved, really, crying that much. You'd been acting so strangely today that it's a strong reminder that, despite everything, you're still an ordinary girl.
Really, the one acting the most strangely is Kirika, though. You're not sure if it's since you kissed her (you really did that!) or since she saw the moon (you don't want to think about it more than you have to), but she's been oddly willing to do more or less anything you say. Mostly, you've had her helping Mama out, feeling too exhausted to make decisions yourself - bringing Mami's spare rifles inside, cleaning up the blood on the road, hiding the evidence without complaint.
She'd brought you the salamander earring, too - and it really is slightly different than the first one you saw. Instead of the eighth setting being filled, it's the fourth, of course, this one with a sharp-edged, ice-blue stone. You note, before you firmly set it somewhere out of sight, that the earring has an uncanny resemblance to the giant witch on the moon.
"Madoka…" Sayaka eventually mumbles, "how… how are you feeling?"
"I… think I'm okay. I think I'm going to be okay," you answer, exhausted, but full of the calm clarity born of catharsis. "How about you?"
"I'm scared. I don't want this… I want to forget, but… it'd be wrong to forget. Even if I asked Kyubey to make me forget, I'd still be part of this world…"
"Mm. Don't wish for something like that, Sayaka. If you're going to make a wish, you need it to be something you can say, afterwards, that you don't regret." You take her hand and hold it tight, offering her your shoulder to rest her head against.
"But… I just feel so useless. Even Kirika's better than me…"
You shake your head, squeezing her hand a little. "No. Kirika's Kirika, and you're you. Only you can be yourself. So don't try to be Kirika, figure out what Miki Sayaka can do."
"But… Mami-san almost died there. You almost died, Madoka, and I… Kirika jumped right in, when I just stood there and stared. I… I'm powerless, Madoka. I can't protect anyone…"
"I don't think that's right, Sayaka. Your life is precious, too. It's good to want to protect people, but the person closest to you, the one you can protect the most, is Miki Sayaka, right?"
"But…"
"You don't think Mami and Kyouko would be here right now if they didn't protect themselves first, do you?" you gently chide, putting on a faint, nervous smile.
"Mmn…" She begins to cry quietly again, nestling into your shoulder, and you hold her close, wiping away her tears.
Eventually, the six of you are sitting together around the dining table. Kyouko's still transformed, a yellow ribbon running from her wrist through the doorway to Mami in the spare room. It's something of a tight fit, getting six around the table, but you just about manage, with Sayaka and Kirika either side of you, Mama and Papa opposite, and Kyouko at the end. You're not sure how much of an appetite you can muster after all that, though.
"How's Mami-senpai," you ask cautiously, eyes following the ribbon as Papa serves up his homemade curry.
"She's asleep right now, with the curtains closed," Kyouko replies. "She's gonna make it, but… yeah, she took a lot of damage. Right now, she's using her magic to substitute for the damaged parts of her body, so she won't be able to untransform for a few days."
"Magic? Transforming? Is this some kind of code…?" Papa asks, setting down plates in front of you and Sayaka. He'd been feeding Tatsuya and putting him to bed while everything else played out, so he'd missed a lot.
"I wish I could say yes," replies Mama solemnly. "Unfortunately, I've seen it for myself. It's the real thing, Tomohisa, and… some of the girls are in deep."
"So all of you are… magical girls?" he asks next, a plate offered to Kirika. "Go ahead, dig in. You all look like you need it."
"Thanks for the food," the four of you chorus, you and Sayaka trying to put some enthusiasm into it, while Kyouko doesn't need to fake it. "And… nah, it's just me and Mami right now - active in Mitakihara, anyway."
"So when did this start?" Plates land in front of Kyouko and Kyouko - you'd object, but this is Kyouko.
"I dunno," replies Kyouko, holding off from digging in just long enough to give a full reply. "'parently Joan of Arc was a magical girl, so a while. I've been in the business two years now; same for Mami." She leaves it to you three to answer for yourselves after that, and starts shoveling curry into her mouth.
"Mmn. Sayaka and I wandered into something dangerous yesterday after school, and Kirika-chan got caught up in it just this afternoon - it's… so much…" Something comes to mind - Kyubey'd mentioned that ordinary people couldn't see magic, and you definitely remember people not being able to see him, so- "…um, Mama, can I go and get my notebook? It might be easier to explain with that."
"Of course, Madoka, but don't take too long and let your food get cold."
You slip out of the room and fetch the notebook in which you'd drawn all those outfits from your bag, along with a pen and the earring - then collect the second earring from the living room. You tiptoe as you pass the guest room, where the yellow ribbon runs under the door - you don't want to wake Mami, even if you did check your eyes are back to their usual pink.
Papa's finished serving up when you get back, and Sayaka's slowly eating too. The table is more or less silent, the mood awkward. You sit down and start eating too - your dinner seems slightly overcooked, but it's still Papa's homemade cooking, and considering the circumstances, he'd done an exceptional job.
With the notebook on your lap, you think about how much you should tell them.
It's tough. There's a lot of things you don't want to tell Mama. Really, you don't want her to be involved in this at all, but at the same time… she already is. From her perspective, she was willing to help you hide an incident involving guns, so you owe it to her, really.
It's still embarrassing, though. You don't know, really, if you'd even be able to explain what just happened without including the really frightening parts. Or the scandalous parts you're not sure you're ready to tell your parents. Right now, you feel comfortably human, and you don't really want to spoil it.
You start simple, pacing yourself with food, covering, with Kyouko's help, the basics of magical girls - wraiths and witches, Soul Gems and Grief items, replenishing magic, the fact that you get a single wish in exchange for the contract. You hadn't drawn any pictures of witches - you don't think you could really do the horror justice - but you've got useful illustrations for the rest.
By the time you're done, Mama's already frowning, deep in thought.
"I don't like it. Having to keep hunting to replenish your magic… it doesn't really fit the image of a 'magical girl', does it? In the adult world, we're always having to watch out for that sort of thing. When someone offers you a deal that seems too good to be true, that's usually because it is."
"Yeah, that's about the way of it," Kyouko replies.
"You say the wishes are real, though?"
"Yeah," Kyouko confirms; "Kyubey even said he doesn't mess with the results," Sayaka adds right after.
"Hmm… it's true that a magical wish is something amazingly valuable. This world's crooks probably wish they could offer something that good," Mama ponders. "But he might be lying, and even if he's not, this stinks of fraud. There's good reasons the law doesn't recognize most contracts signed by minors- aaagh! Dear, I think this is going to be a whiskey night after all."
"Is that… bad?"
"It's fine, it's a Sunday tomorrow," Mama replies with a wink. "You girls are having a tough time of it right now, so someone's got to look out for you- oh, Madoka, I already texted Kazuko about Tomoe-chan, so you don't need to worry, okay?"
"Kazuko?" Kirika asks, surprised and unable to place the name.
"That's Saotome-sensei to you~" Mama teases back. "I always stay out late with her after a breakup." You can tell she's trying hard to keep everyone upbeat after what happened… "So. This Kyubey, does he only make contracts with middle school girls?"
"Mostly. Some girls are younger than that, some are older, but I've never heard of him contracting an adult or a boy. He's kind of like an idol recruiter, huh…"
Papa sighs, shaking his head. "I remember talking about those. If I'd known to mention strange mascot creatures too…"
"Mm. He's the kind of creature who hands out wishes to girls who've got something they want to wish for right now, like healing someone's illness or getting a boy to go out with them, rather than ones who might think it through and wish for, I don't know, world peace or something?"
"Yeah, he's like that. He'll let you wish away your worries, but it never lasts - oh, seconds!" Kyouko's already finished both plates, and is still hungry for a third.
"Oh? Does being a magical girl come with a bottomless stomach, too? Here you go."
"Yeah, basically. Thanks!" You leave the redhead to her insatiable gluttony and move on to the next topic, your own plate still half-full.
"The truth is, though, that even if it's a trick, or a lie, there's still monsters that need to be fought. This world is a scary place, and it's all hiding just out of sight of ordinary people…" you murmur. "Even the moon is different on this side…"
"What was that thing, anyway, Kyouko? Some kind of super-gigantic witch?"
"…yh, smm-" She finishes her bite of food. "Somethin' like that."
"Yeah." You turn to Mama, suddenly nervous. This is one of the parts you'd been most afraid of. "There's something weird - even weirder than 'normal magical girl stuff' happening right now. The giant witch in the moon, I… I think it woke up earlier tonight. And we've been being… attacked, I guess, by… I think they might be its familiars or something. That's how Mami-san got hurt so badly…" You draw a brief sketch of the eldritch moon in your notebook - you can't, mercifully, reproduce the true horror of that face - and show it around the table.
"'The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night; there is terror in the sky, for upon the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no books of men or of earth's gods…'," Papa utters, eyes closed in memory. "HP Lovecraft. I used to be quite a fan of horror back in college. I, ah, certainly didn't expect to one day learn that we're living in a world like that."
You hadn't expected that. You're not sure how much genre knowledge will help here, but you're prepared to go with it.
"The dolls, um… familiars dropped these earrings. I think they're probably enough proof they're connected to the moon." You hold up the two earrings, comparing them to the sketch, then touch them together - to your… well, you could say surprise, but you'd half-expected something like this would happen - the two earrings reconfigure, twisting and splitting like some unearthly Rubik's cube, merging together like some kind of eye-watering reverse Banach-Tarski paradox until there's only one, with both gems set in its rim.
"…Y-Yes, that's about how I imagined eldritch artifacts would look. You haven't tried wearing them, right?"
You shake your head. Well, you doubt it'd be worse than what you'd already seen in creating them, but you're not really enthusiastic about trying. You let Kirika hold the earring, at least, turning it over and over in her hands…
"That's good. Normally, I'd say knowledge can only help you, but with things like this, it can sometimes be better to stay in the dark until you're ready."
You look back down at your food and pick at it. Kirika's finished hers, but Sayaka doesn't seem to be doing much better than you. You don't think you'd even have had this much of an appetite if your parents weren't taking things so well.
After all, you think you understand what you saw in the doll's memories.
You don't want it to be true, but if it is… then you're the only one who can save a lot of people, right now. Starting with Sayaka and Kirika. They'd almost contracted without knowing this…
"I… um, I don't know if that's a good idea, Papa. When we sealed away the doll just now, I saw… something like a vision. A memory, maybe. I feel like… it's something everyone needs to know about."
"Write it down, and I'll read it first. I can't become a magical girl, so I should be okay," he replies. You're starting to feel angry at Kyubey, thinking about how he might've pressured other girls into making contracts, without anyone to turn to for advice.
It takes a little while, but you decide to be honest in your notes rather than write something like 'a bow-wielding magical girl I don't recognize.' If it's a possible future, you can still avert it.
After that, you can't do anything but watch as your father reads over the notes and implications, several times, brow furrowed.
"Hey, Madoka…" Sayaka addresses you, eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you should be trusting weird visions from creepy dolls?"
"Not completely, but… I think I trust them more than Kyubey right now," you reply. "Tomorrow, let's get some answers out of him, okay?"
"Mmm."
"That's right… in cosmic horror stories, there are a lot of frightening gods that don't care about humanity, but it's the ones that do and know how to disguise themselves, like Nyarlathotep, or their human followers, that are always the most dangerous," Papa eventually says, seeming to come to an understanding.
At last, he looks up, closing the notebook and handing it back to you. "I don't like this, but… you need to know what it is you're being offered. I'm not sure how much to believe what my daughter says she saw, but Madoka's never even once lied to us. Madoka, it's okay for you to tell them, this, I think."
"…okay. Thanks, Papa… I'm sorry for putting you through this," you say, almost becoming teary-eyed again as you smile at him.
"So what's Kyubey hiding from us?" Kyouko asks, finishing her third plateful with a toothy grin you're really not feeling good about being about to ruin. "You wanna spill the beans, Madoka?"
"I'd like to know, too. I almost let him trick me." "Yeah, so did I."
"Even I was thinking about making a wish before this," you admit, no giggle, no blush on your face, just nerves. "But… well, the truth is… I saw us. Well, me, and Kyouko, and Mami. There was another girl, too. We were at the station platform, and we were all transformed… even me, I was a magical girl in the vision, and… Mami kind of… snapped, like she did just now. Only, um… well, she destroyed Kyouko's Soul Gem, and then I… well, the me in the vision… destroyed hers."
"Oi, oi… we were fighting among ourselves? I mean… after that, I can believe it, but… wait, you mean… why just the…" Kyouko flounders, gears turning in her mind as she thinks through the implications.
"Mmm. You'd think that destroying a magical girl's Soul Gem would just make her stop being magical, right? But… that's not how it works. That's not how Kyubey made it. Because a Soul Gem is…"
"A gem that's a soul," Kirika finishes for you, a flat wryness to her words as the truth dawns on her. "It's that simple."
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UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
The shocking revelation!!
Well, not that shocking by now, but still. Something that reliably make girls sad.
Well, not that shocking by now, but still. Something that reliably make girls sad.
Ⅰ.3 // you're just as human as anyone else
"What… the hell? But doesn't that mean we're like… we're like zombies?! We're not even human any more?!" Kyouko yells, hammering her fist down on the table hard enough to make the room shake. She'd… forgotten she was transformed, or was just too angry to care…
Mama shakes her head, staring into Kyouko's eyes with an intensity you've rarely seen from her. "Don't you dare say things about that yourself, idiot! You're just as human as anyone else here!"
"It's true," Papa continues, more gentle yet no less determined. "Even if the soul exists outside of the body, I don't think that changes the definition of what you are. Socially and emotionally, you're the same as any other human. You can attend school and spend time with friends just like an ordinary girl. And I'm sure there are magical girls who've even grown up and had children. According to every definition we have, you'd be a human being."
"Tch - how would you know how it feels…?" Kyouko mumbles. "You'd never understand what Kyubey did to us…"
"Maybe not. Maybe I don't know anything about fighting against witches. Maybe I don't know what it's like to need to hunt monsters to survive. But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna help out Madoka's friends any way I can, even if I've gotta make some noise about this. Dear, could you clear the table and get me a whiskey?" She pushes back her chair and rises decisively to her feet. "I have a plan."
A few minutes later, Mama's back from upstairs with a stack of musty, heavily annotated textbooks that must be from her college days, with equally musty titles like 'Macroeconomics and Sociology', 'Ethics in Modern Business', and 'An Introduction to Statistical Ecology'. She's abandoned her suit jacket, loosened her blouse, and her hair is tied back with a headband - you think she's getting fired up in a way she hadn't done since she was a student.
"Wow, this takes me back. I'm glad I took that elective in ecology now," she says, opening up the first of the textbooks and flipping to a page. "Right! Sakura-chan, I need you to tell me everything you can about day-to-day magical girl business - witches, wraiths, how much a Grief Cube cleans your Soul Gem… it doesn't matter how little. Anything could be useful…" She takes a sip of her whiskey, looking over the rest of you.
"Miki-chan, I need you to go through articles about historically powerful or influential young women and note down anything about them that matches what you know about magical girls. If there's an obvious event that could be the result of a wish that you can match to them, so much the better. Kure-chan, I need you to go through public police reports in Mitakihara and Kazamino. Murders, suicides, disappearances, unsolved cases - anything you can match to a witch Kyouko might've fought. Madoka…"
"Um. Actually, there's something I need to explain before we start this. It's really weird, though, and it's about me, so…" This was the other thing you'd been dreading. It's not just special knowledge that you have, but…
"About you? Madoka, I thought you said you weren't a magical girl." Mama looks over her book, her expression unreadable.
"I'm not, it's just… well, when I touch Soul Gems or Grief Cubes, it kind of… aches, and they… they get purified, really fast. And if it's a Soul Gem, I can sort of feel how the magical girl is hurting…"
"Huh? That's what happened with Mami?!" Sayaka exclaims, turning back to you. "No wonder you collapsed like that! Are… are you okay? Are you sure you're okay?"
"I… think so, now. It was tough, but Kirika-chan helped out." Kirika smiles, pure and beaming at you at that. You still don't get how she made it through that ordeal so well, unless… no, you don't want to worry about that right now.
"So you're not a magical girl, but you have an ability you don't understand…" Mama's expression returns to a weak smile, still concerned. "It sounds like something that could completely break the system of magical girls, but it hurts to use, and there's just one of you, so that might not be a good idea…"
"Oh, Madoka… yeah, a power like that is just like you," says Sayaka, her phone out and turned to an encyclopedia page on Cleopatra.
"Um… I don't mind using it if it's to save people, but I don't know if something weird will come of me using it too much…"
"Yeah. In the end, hope and despair always balance out to zero. Something like this is too good to be true," Kyouko objects fatalistically. "Use it if you have to, but don't go thinking you can save the world. Someone probably wished for you to have it, so it's just another part of Kyubey's tricks, really."
"But if it's a wish, then whose wish is it?" Kirika asks, letting the question hang unanswered…
"Never mind that for now," Mama announces, sweeping away the foreboding atmosphere in an instant. "Tomohisa, once you've got everything handled in the kitchen, could you look through your old folklore books?" He smiles back sheepishly from amid soapy dishes and pans. "Knowing about famous historical figures will help, but if we can find modern Japanese stories, we might be able to figure out how the secret was kept. Kyouko-chan, how many magical girls would you say there are in Japan?"
"Kyubey said… I dunno, 1500 normally, but about 2200 right now because something weird's going on in Kamihama."
"Hold that thought. Madoka, I'm gonna send you Kazuko's yearbook from teacher training. Go stalk people from it online until you find some who are working in Kamihama, and check if they're talking about there being a weird number of transfer students."
"Eh? You want me to stalk Saotome-sensei's friends?" You're pretty surprised about this one. Mama could be cunning and resourceful, but bringing in your teacher…?
"It's an emergency, right? And it's precisely because she's your teacher that she's already involved in this. Kyouko-chan doesn't have family, so if she didn't come back from a witch hunt one day, it'd be Kazuko's problem. That's how the adult world works sometimes… wait a second," her eyes widen, "Just how common is it for magical girls to have no legal guardian?"
"Too common. Kyubey goes after girls with family trouble all the time. There's probably a few who even wished for their parents to die or disappear. Him going after someone like Madoka is actually the weird part."
"That's horrible…" Sayaka sympathizes, looking over at Kirika…
"I've thought about that some days. Erasing people I don't like. And if I'd met Kyubey before coming to Mitakihara, I'd've done it." the black-haired girl admits darkly. "It's easy to say stuff without thinking about the consequences when Kyubey's offering to make your dreams come true."
You don't think you'd rush a decision like that, but maybe that makes you the weird one?
Anyway, you start chasing up Saotome-sensei's friends on social media while Mama discusses details with Kyouko. "So magical girls are about one in 85,000, aside from the Kamihama thing… let's take that as normal. When'd this Kamihama thing start?"
"Going by what Kyubey said, again, it's been ramping up for the last, I dunno, six months?"
"I can work with that. So let's assume the magical girl population in Japan has increased by more than 700 in the last six months. That's about four contracts a day." She starts jotting down numbers on the back of an envelope, frowning deeper with every line. "The obvious conclusion's that there's something in Kamihama that's lowering magical girl attrition a lot.
A bunch of unaccompanied foreign girls immigrating to Kamihama would've made the news. Kyubey's probably not doing anything different because of this Kamihama thing, and if he is he'd be recruiting more in the areas that magical girls are moving away from, so that implies an upper bound on mean magical girl life expectancy of… around a year?! And that's just if nobody's died since this Kamihama thing started… Kyouko-chan, tell me I messed up my math somewhere…"
"Nah, if anything that's too high."
"I didn't really want to contemplate this, but…" you see Mama wince, starting a different line of reasoning. "Let's say that Kyubey targets girls who have no other options who are more likely to pick weak wishes, and he's thorough. Even if we include natural disasters, a total attrition rate of girls between 10 and 20 of more than 1% would be noticeable, but if Kyubey's involved with more or less every tragic incident that happens to teenage girls in the country - maybe the world - it's possible."
Her description is cold and actuarial, not a side of her you're used to. Just another one of those things about the adult world, maybe, but you can tell she's trying her best to be a leader and take action, so as not to let everyone get mired in the emotional implications.
"Tch. I wouldn't put it past him. He'd just say something like, 'isn't your life a reasonable price for a miracle,' rat bastard that he is." Kyouko, on the other hand, is just someone who's lived this on the streets. You can hardly imagine what she might've been through before she moved in with Sayaka…
"Someone still needs to fight the witches, though?" Sayaka asks, looking up from her research. "Wraiths only actually kill magical girls, right? But leaving witches unchecked would be even worse…"
"Yeah, that's true. But he doesn't stop recruiting even in areas with plenty of magical girls, almost like he likes it when we fight each other over resources. There's no way Kyubey really cares about us," Kyouko objects.
"If his goal was just to eradicate the witches, he'd set up an organization and have groups of veteran magical girls train newbies, and never recruit unless he has to. It's the obvious way to do things. So why doesn't he? Why aren't there adult magical girls running the show everywhere?" Mama asks, spinning a very adult-like image that you're pretty sure has nothing in common with reality.
"Mmm. So you think he's got some other goal he's not telling us about? It seems like he, um, 'eats' used Grief Cubes, so maybe that's something to do with it?" you speculate awkwardly, pondering yourself again. Wraiths, witches and Kyubey all seem to eat people's emotions, but from what you've heard, none of them are quite like what you're doing. So what does that make you?
"You could ask him about it. The worst he can do is lie," Kirika suggests. "If you're worried about him duping you, I'll go with you."
"Nn…" you reply, shaking your head. "Not tonight, Kirika-chan. If we see him tomorrow, let's ask him all the questions we can think of."
Hours pass. Papers and books pile up on the table. Mama's bottle of whiskey slowly drains. Every so often, Kyouko takes a trip upstairs to check on Mami. You've switched from phones to laptops somewhere along the way to make things easier, and spread out into the living room for more space.
Now and then, one of you finds something promising - sometimes they're not what they appeared to be at first, but other times:
"Come to think of it, I could call Chiemi on the Sapporo police and ask her to run the police report data for all of Hokkaido," Mama might realise;
or, "Empress-consort Jingu, the one who's called Himiko in Chinese history. There's no way she wasn't a magical girl. She probably wished to end a civil war, and Kyubey gave her mind control powers." Sayaka might figure out, following it up by recording any magical feats attributed to her;
or else, "…there actually was a news story about unaccompanied immigrant girls in Kamihama, about two weeks ago. Local news, though," you say, happening on the story while searching through associated social media accounts;
or even "Here. A book on magical girls from the modern day by Professor Satomi Tasuke. Limited private publication in Yukuni and Kamihama City, only three hundred copies were printed. It's a bit pricey, but I've ordered a copy - it should be here by Wednesday," Papa says, astonishing all of you.
Really, the thing that surprises you the most is how easy it is once you're in the know. Surely the secret couldn't be this flimsy, could it?
Once it hits midnight, Mama closes her book with a sharp snap. "Right, that's enough, girls. I'll call around some college friends tomorrow. I'll also ask Kazuko to chase up the Kamihama transfer student thing - thanks for looking through that, Madoka. As for the rest of your research… Kure-chan, there's something odd I noticed about your data - I'll get back to you once I hear back from Chiemi. Miki-chan, can you send your findings to everyone, so if anyone runs into Kyubey, they can have him check your work?
The two of them smile, tired but satisfied, Sayaka sending off her list of historical figures to all of your phones.
"Sakura-chan, I'm not quite satisfied with my model yet. I'm going to check it with Hifumi - she's an ecologist working out of Asunaro. Right now, the part with wraiths is working fine, having them be a static natural resource proportional to population density, adjusted for a few quality of life factors… but we just don't know enough about where witches come from."
"Urgh, more questions for Kyubey," Sayaka groans. "Think about the people who have to get straight answers out of him!"
"Unfortunately. Hmm… how about this? When you talk to him, never talk to him alone, have someone on the phone who can't hear what he's saying, and take regular breaks. It's adapted from hostage negotiation techniques, and we use something similar in business deals sometimes. In his case, you could even have an adult who can't see or hear him present…" You're imagining Kyubey up against the cutthroat adult business world now - it's a fun image, certainly, but…
"He'd just scurry off and bide his time. No way we're catching him that easily," Kyouko complains. "We're gonna have to work for it if we want answers out of him," she continues, smacking her fist into her palm.
"Oh, one last thing before you go to bed. I'm going to ask Kazuko to try to get Faust put on the school curriculum. Middle school girls these days should have no problem with Goethe in translation, right?~"
Eventually, you make it up to the bedroom. With a grumble and a yawn, Kyouko'd disappeared to the guest room to stay close to Mami, complaining about how even though she has a real futon, she has to sleep transformed. Meanwhile, you've laid out sleeping bags for Kirika and Sayaka.
"Madoka, is it true that you kissed Kyouko?" Sayaka asks once the lights are out. You're too exhausted to really focus at first, so it takes you a moment to process.
"I… you could say I did, and you could say I didn't. It's like… it happened, but I don't feel like I was really… myself when I did it. But it's not like there's anyone… else I could've been?"
"So. Me, too?" Kirika's voice is a little sharper than you hoped, now there's finally time to talk about this.
"Ah. That was… um, well, I don't feel like I regret it, but… I'm sorry, so much has happened today that I don't know if I can give you a good answer yet, Kirika-chan. I need some time to think things over, and… I don't want to be someone who makes people feel like I'm playing with their hearts…"
"Madoka…" Sayaka murmurs sleepily. You wonder if she's going to say more, but she leaves it at that.
"I'm going to sleep now. Today's been so much…" You feel a little cruel, but you're just… too tired.
"Good night…" "Good night."
Mama shakes her head, staring into Kyouko's eyes with an intensity you've rarely seen from her. "Don't you dare say things about that yourself, idiot! You're just as human as anyone else here!"
"It's true," Papa continues, more gentle yet no less determined. "Even if the soul exists outside of the body, I don't think that changes the definition of what you are. Socially and emotionally, you're the same as any other human. You can attend school and spend time with friends just like an ordinary girl. And I'm sure there are magical girls who've even grown up and had children. According to every definition we have, you'd be a human being."
"Tch - how would you know how it feels…?" Kyouko mumbles. "You'd never understand what Kyubey did to us…"
"Maybe not. Maybe I don't know anything about fighting against witches. Maybe I don't know what it's like to need to hunt monsters to survive. But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna help out Madoka's friends any way I can, even if I've gotta make some noise about this. Dear, could you clear the table and get me a whiskey?" She pushes back her chair and rises decisively to her feet. "I have a plan."
A few minutes later, Mama's back from upstairs with a stack of musty, heavily annotated textbooks that must be from her college days, with equally musty titles like 'Macroeconomics and Sociology', 'Ethics in Modern Business', and 'An Introduction to Statistical Ecology'. She's abandoned her suit jacket, loosened her blouse, and her hair is tied back with a headband - you think she's getting fired up in a way she hadn't done since she was a student.
"Wow, this takes me back. I'm glad I took that elective in ecology now," she says, opening up the first of the textbooks and flipping to a page. "Right! Sakura-chan, I need you to tell me everything you can about day-to-day magical girl business - witches, wraiths, how much a Grief Cube cleans your Soul Gem… it doesn't matter how little. Anything could be useful…" She takes a sip of her whiskey, looking over the rest of you.
"Miki-chan, I need you to go through articles about historically powerful or influential young women and note down anything about them that matches what you know about magical girls. If there's an obvious event that could be the result of a wish that you can match to them, so much the better. Kure-chan, I need you to go through public police reports in Mitakihara and Kazamino. Murders, suicides, disappearances, unsolved cases - anything you can match to a witch Kyouko might've fought. Madoka…"
"Um. Actually, there's something I need to explain before we start this. It's really weird, though, and it's about me, so…" This was the other thing you'd been dreading. It's not just special knowledge that you have, but…
"About you? Madoka, I thought you said you weren't a magical girl." Mama looks over her book, her expression unreadable.
"I'm not, it's just… well, when I touch Soul Gems or Grief Cubes, it kind of… aches, and they… they get purified, really fast. And if it's a Soul Gem, I can sort of feel how the magical girl is hurting…"
"Huh? That's what happened with Mami?!" Sayaka exclaims, turning back to you. "No wonder you collapsed like that! Are… are you okay? Are you sure you're okay?"
"I… think so, now. It was tough, but Kirika-chan helped out." Kirika smiles, pure and beaming at you at that. You still don't get how she made it through that ordeal so well, unless… no, you don't want to worry about that right now.
"So you're not a magical girl, but you have an ability you don't understand…" Mama's expression returns to a weak smile, still concerned. "It sounds like something that could completely break the system of magical girls, but it hurts to use, and there's just one of you, so that might not be a good idea…"
"Oh, Madoka… yeah, a power like that is just like you," says Sayaka, her phone out and turned to an encyclopedia page on Cleopatra.
"Um… I don't mind using it if it's to save people, but I don't know if something weird will come of me using it too much…"
"Yeah. In the end, hope and despair always balance out to zero. Something like this is too good to be true," Kyouko objects fatalistically. "Use it if you have to, but don't go thinking you can save the world. Someone probably wished for you to have it, so it's just another part of Kyubey's tricks, really."
"But if it's a wish, then whose wish is it?" Kirika asks, letting the question hang unanswered…
"Never mind that for now," Mama announces, sweeping away the foreboding atmosphere in an instant. "Tomohisa, once you've got everything handled in the kitchen, could you look through your old folklore books?" He smiles back sheepishly from amid soapy dishes and pans. "Knowing about famous historical figures will help, but if we can find modern Japanese stories, we might be able to figure out how the secret was kept. Kyouko-chan, how many magical girls would you say there are in Japan?"
"Kyubey said… I dunno, 1500 normally, but about 2200 right now because something weird's going on in Kamihama."
"Hold that thought. Madoka, I'm gonna send you Kazuko's yearbook from teacher training. Go stalk people from it online until you find some who are working in Kamihama, and check if they're talking about there being a weird number of transfer students."
"Eh? You want me to stalk Saotome-sensei's friends?" You're pretty surprised about this one. Mama could be cunning and resourceful, but bringing in your teacher…?
"It's an emergency, right? And it's precisely because she's your teacher that she's already involved in this. Kyouko-chan doesn't have family, so if she didn't come back from a witch hunt one day, it'd be Kazuko's problem. That's how the adult world works sometimes… wait a second," her eyes widen, "Just how common is it for magical girls to have no legal guardian?"
"Too common. Kyubey goes after girls with family trouble all the time. There's probably a few who even wished for their parents to die or disappear. Him going after someone like Madoka is actually the weird part."
"That's horrible…" Sayaka sympathizes, looking over at Kirika…
"I've thought about that some days. Erasing people I don't like. And if I'd met Kyubey before coming to Mitakihara, I'd've done it." the black-haired girl admits darkly. "It's easy to say stuff without thinking about the consequences when Kyubey's offering to make your dreams come true."
You don't think you'd rush a decision like that, but maybe that makes you the weird one?
Anyway, you start chasing up Saotome-sensei's friends on social media while Mama discusses details with Kyouko. "So magical girls are about one in 85,000, aside from the Kamihama thing… let's take that as normal. When'd this Kamihama thing start?"
"Going by what Kyubey said, again, it's been ramping up for the last, I dunno, six months?"
"I can work with that. So let's assume the magical girl population in Japan has increased by more than 700 in the last six months. That's about four contracts a day." She starts jotting down numbers on the back of an envelope, frowning deeper with every line. "The obvious conclusion's that there's something in Kamihama that's lowering magical girl attrition a lot.
A bunch of unaccompanied foreign girls immigrating to Kamihama would've made the news. Kyubey's probably not doing anything different because of this Kamihama thing, and if he is he'd be recruiting more in the areas that magical girls are moving away from, so that implies an upper bound on mean magical girl life expectancy of… around a year?! And that's just if nobody's died since this Kamihama thing started… Kyouko-chan, tell me I messed up my math somewhere…"
"Nah, if anything that's too high."
"I didn't really want to contemplate this, but…" you see Mama wince, starting a different line of reasoning. "Let's say that Kyubey targets girls who have no other options who are more likely to pick weak wishes, and he's thorough. Even if we include natural disasters, a total attrition rate of girls between 10 and 20 of more than 1% would be noticeable, but if Kyubey's involved with more or less every tragic incident that happens to teenage girls in the country - maybe the world - it's possible."
Her description is cold and actuarial, not a side of her you're used to. Just another one of those things about the adult world, maybe, but you can tell she's trying her best to be a leader and take action, so as not to let everyone get mired in the emotional implications.
"Tch. I wouldn't put it past him. He'd just say something like, 'isn't your life a reasonable price for a miracle,' rat bastard that he is." Kyouko, on the other hand, is just someone who's lived this on the streets. You can hardly imagine what she might've been through before she moved in with Sayaka…
"Someone still needs to fight the witches, though?" Sayaka asks, looking up from her research. "Wraiths only actually kill magical girls, right? But leaving witches unchecked would be even worse…"
"Yeah, that's true. But he doesn't stop recruiting even in areas with plenty of magical girls, almost like he likes it when we fight each other over resources. There's no way Kyubey really cares about us," Kyouko objects.
"If his goal was just to eradicate the witches, he'd set up an organization and have groups of veteran magical girls train newbies, and never recruit unless he has to. It's the obvious way to do things. So why doesn't he? Why aren't there adult magical girls running the show everywhere?" Mama asks, spinning a very adult-like image that you're pretty sure has nothing in common with reality.
"Mmm. So you think he's got some other goal he's not telling us about? It seems like he, um, 'eats' used Grief Cubes, so maybe that's something to do with it?" you speculate awkwardly, pondering yourself again. Wraiths, witches and Kyubey all seem to eat people's emotions, but from what you've heard, none of them are quite like what you're doing. So what does that make you?
"You could ask him about it. The worst he can do is lie," Kirika suggests. "If you're worried about him duping you, I'll go with you."
"Nn…" you reply, shaking your head. "Not tonight, Kirika-chan. If we see him tomorrow, let's ask him all the questions we can think of."
Hours pass. Papers and books pile up on the table. Mama's bottle of whiskey slowly drains. Every so often, Kyouko takes a trip upstairs to check on Mami. You've switched from phones to laptops somewhere along the way to make things easier, and spread out into the living room for more space.
Now and then, one of you finds something promising - sometimes they're not what they appeared to be at first, but other times:
"Come to think of it, I could call Chiemi on the Sapporo police and ask her to run the police report data for all of Hokkaido," Mama might realise;
or, "Empress-consort Jingu, the one who's called Himiko in Chinese history. There's no way she wasn't a magical girl. She probably wished to end a civil war, and Kyubey gave her mind control powers." Sayaka might figure out, following it up by recording any magical feats attributed to her;
or else, "…there actually was a news story about unaccompanied immigrant girls in Kamihama, about two weeks ago. Local news, though," you say, happening on the story while searching through associated social media accounts;
or even "Here. A book on magical girls from the modern day by Professor Satomi Tasuke. Limited private publication in Yukuni and Kamihama City, only three hundred copies were printed. It's a bit pricey, but I've ordered a copy - it should be here by Wednesday," Papa says, astonishing all of you.
Really, the thing that surprises you the most is how easy it is once you're in the know. Surely the secret couldn't be this flimsy, could it?
Once it hits midnight, Mama closes her book with a sharp snap. "Right, that's enough, girls. I'll call around some college friends tomorrow. I'll also ask Kazuko to chase up the Kamihama transfer student thing - thanks for looking through that, Madoka. As for the rest of your research… Kure-chan, there's something odd I noticed about your data - I'll get back to you once I hear back from Chiemi. Miki-chan, can you send your findings to everyone, so if anyone runs into Kyubey, they can have him check your work?
The two of them smile, tired but satisfied, Sayaka sending off her list of historical figures to all of your phones.
"Sakura-chan, I'm not quite satisfied with my model yet. I'm going to check it with Hifumi - she's an ecologist working out of Asunaro. Right now, the part with wraiths is working fine, having them be a static natural resource proportional to population density, adjusted for a few quality of life factors… but we just don't know enough about where witches come from."
"Urgh, more questions for Kyubey," Sayaka groans. "Think about the people who have to get straight answers out of him!"
"Unfortunately. Hmm… how about this? When you talk to him, never talk to him alone, have someone on the phone who can't hear what he's saying, and take regular breaks. It's adapted from hostage negotiation techniques, and we use something similar in business deals sometimes. In his case, you could even have an adult who can't see or hear him present…" You're imagining Kyubey up against the cutthroat adult business world now - it's a fun image, certainly, but…
"He'd just scurry off and bide his time. No way we're catching him that easily," Kyouko complains. "We're gonna have to work for it if we want answers out of him," she continues, smacking her fist into her palm.
"Oh, one last thing before you go to bed. I'm going to ask Kazuko to try to get Faust put on the school curriculum. Middle school girls these days should have no problem with Goethe in translation, right?~"
Eventually, you make it up to the bedroom. With a grumble and a yawn, Kyouko'd disappeared to the guest room to stay close to Mami, complaining about how even though she has a real futon, she has to sleep transformed. Meanwhile, you've laid out sleeping bags for Kirika and Sayaka.
"Madoka, is it true that you kissed Kyouko?" Sayaka asks once the lights are out. You're too exhausted to really focus at first, so it takes you a moment to process.
"I… you could say I did, and you could say I didn't. It's like… it happened, but I don't feel like I was really… myself when I did it. But it's not like there's anyone… else I could've been?"
"So. Me, too?" Kirika's voice is a little sharper than you hoped, now there's finally time to talk about this.
"Ah. That was… um, well, I don't feel like I regret it, but… I'm sorry, so much has happened today that I don't know if I can give you a good answer yet, Kirika-chan. I need some time to think things over, and… I don't want to be someone who makes people feel like I'm playing with their hearts…"
"Madoka…" Sayaka murmurs sleepily. You wonder if she's going to say more, but she leaves it at that.
"I'm going to sleep now. Today's been so much…" You feel a little cruel, but you're just… too tired.
"Good night…" "Good night."
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Ⅰ.4 // adoration reserved for God alone
Gently, clinging to one of your plushies, you drift into the haze of your dreams.
You're sitting amid a long colonnade of neo-Gothic arches, fenced off with brassy bars. Ancient-looking stone is beneath your feet, and around the outside, clouds swirl and gather, threatening to draw in like fog.
The place has the feeling of some kind of boss arena, you feel at first…
It's the roof of Mitakihara Middle School, though.
The moment you realize that, the clouds calm, and you notice there are two black-haired girls sitting either side of you. Magical girls. They're not dressed in school uniforms, so they must be… is that how that works?
Kirika's dressed up in an outfit that makes you think of a wedding tuxedo, but at the same time an assassin, with the eyepatch, the long, ruffled sleeves that could so easily hide deadly weapons, the swept-back black tailed jacket…
And at this precise moment, she's trying to feed you some absolutely exquisite sushi from a handmade lunch.
Only for the other girl to draw your attention back her way with a slice of omelette - simple, but you can tell it's been perfectly prepared.
This one's a really cute girl with long braids and glasses who seems really familiar. You think you've seen tin soldiers dressed just like her before, and you've got a strong image of her with an assault rifle. She's got a buckler on her left arm, which she's trying to keep out of the way as she holds food toward you. You can't feel any less effort or affection from her boxed lunch, simpler though it is…
"P-please, Madoka, try mine first!"
"Madoka-sama, won't you eat mine instead?"
"S-she put all her effort into appearances! M-mine tastes better!"
"You just can't compare, ██████."
"I-I researched Madoka's preferences, though!"
"You mean you stalked her. Besides, Madoka-sama's favourite food is-"
"U-um," you interrupt, "a-actually it's cream stew, but I don't think you could really bring that to school…" but neither of them are listening.
"Th-that wish magic you have is just cheating!"
"And your time stop and storage magic aren't? I don't get a week to work on Madoka's lunch every day!"
"I-I don't need that much time! I'm a much better cook than you!"
"How about we settle this, then!" Kirika sets down her tiered lunchbox and leaps to her feet. "There's clearly only room for one of us here!" Pitch-black claws curl from her sleeves as she drops to a lower, wider stance, ready to go on the attack.
"I-I-I won't let you p-play with Madoka's feelings like this!" She vanishes from beside you, her lunchbox gone too, bullets beginning to scatter and ricochet across the broad rooftop, resounding as they strike the fence railings.
"I don't want you to fight over me," you mumble, but it's too late…
It only takes Kirika a moment to figure out where she'd gone, deflecting a barrage of bullets and closing in to striking range, only for ██████ to vanish and reappear elsewhere. The pattern repeats and repeats, neither seeming to be landing any decisive blows.
"Wh-what are you even doing here? Madoka isn't even the one you're meant to protect…"
"You just decided that for yourself! Madoka-sama is my destiny!"
Then the bombs start going off, punching huge holes in the rooftop, chunks of stone tumbling into the fog-filled abyss below. Even then, Kirika doesn't even hesitate, the bullets around her slowing as she keeps trying to close in for the kill, but you can tell she's pushing herself, tearing through her magic ever faster. She's at a disadvantage, now…
"You say that l-like you didn't k-kill her!"
"So did you, hypocrite!"
But somehow, it doesn't seem to come, her movements just becoming more fluid, reaching out unnaturally far and forcing ██████ to flicker away earlier. The wrecked rooftop flickers, turning into a starkly monochrome checkerboard, bizarre amorphous creatures lunge from the air to try to bite at ██████, and Kirika's motions become more and more wrong, until even ██████ can't predict them.
All you can do is watch, helplessly, as the battle degrades more and more, until all you can make out is a flickering blur of twisted creatures, a thing like a tangled mass of hourglasses and thread clashing against what looks like a stack of shop mannequins, any semblance of humanity gone aside from their unerringly fashionable hats.
<It's hopeless. Neither of them intend to back down.> Kyubey's on your lap, watching the fight with unblinking red eyes and a smile.
"Please, Kyubey! Make them stop! This shouldn't be happening!" you beg, transfixed as you watch what's become a fight between witches, rather than magical girls.
<I can't do anything. But if you want to stop them by force, it's not as if there aren't any options on the table. Only another magical girl can interfere in their battle. But you have the capacity to do that, if that's what you really->
Kyubey flies away, slammed away with the impact of, not a cannonball, but a flying crystal ball wrapped in silver. You see your own reflection in it at first, but then, another girl's, next to you. Someone you've seen before, but haven't seen before, sitting next to you.
"Let's not have that troublemaker here, shall we?" She's a weird girl, all in white with what looks like a bucket on her head, but somehow feels dignified anyway. "We've ended up in quite a predicament together…"
"Wha-" you begin, only for her to put a finger to her lips and shake her head.
"This isn't something that should be able to happen. But just because we've reached this fate doesn't mean we don't have options. It's just, they aren't the ones he's offering you." She smiles, sad yet enigmatic. "Do you know where we are?"
"Um… Mitakihara Middle School? Or… maybe it's a witch's labyrinth…?" you reply, uncertain.
She shakes her head. "In a way, perhaps. But isn't this world just too ridiculous to be real?"
"Then…" Something clicks, and you feel like you've opened your eyes wide… "Oh! Inside my dream!"
"That's right. And, one more thing… remember that the love you want in return from people you love isn't always the same as the love they want to give you. Do your best, Kaname Madoka - you're the best hope any of us can have." The mysterious white magical girl waves elegantly, before you can respond any more, and leaps off the edge of the wrecked rooftop into the clouds.
Well, that was weird. That's twice the image of the bucket magical girl has shown up in your mind out of nowhere. You don't think you've managed something like lucid dreaming before, though, so maybe you should just play around?
████lilly and Latria - just thinking those names makes you shiver, where did they even come from? - are still fighting, pockets of warped time flickering in and out of existence before you. Yeah, you really couldn't mess with that without being a magical girl.
So you'll just make yourself a magical girl! You can skip the part with the Soul Gems and the cleansing impurities and all of that, and just transform into that pink, fluffy, ballerina-style outfit you keep thinking about, and, hmm, why did you, for just a moment there, feel like someone familiar was embracing you?
Well, time to knock some sense into those two lovestruck idiots. You catch something ejected from the fight - some sort of misshapen blob with gnashing teeth and a jaunty top hat, that frowns sulkily when you wrap your arms around it in a hug. Then you leap into the fray, with a spin, a twirl, a magnificent pirouette, snatching out Grief Seeds from the two of them before landing perfectly from your… well, you're not sure what it is, but something somewhere between a grand-jeté and a double lariat.
Dreams are really amazing, huh.
You're just about to purify both of them back into magical girls when, with an unexpected thump, you find your eyes opening for real this time.
You'd been spinning so much in the dream you accidentally rolled out of bed in real life. Embarrassing!
Slowly, you pull yourself to your feet and brush yourself off. The clock beside your bed reads 3:09. Your plushies are scattered everywhere - you're surprised one of them didn't land on Sayaka and wake her up. One did land on Kirika's-
Where's Kirika?
Her sleeping bag is empty, and the door is ajar.
Of course you wander out in your pajamas and follow her. It's not even a choice.
And soon enough, you find her, on the balcony, gazing up at the moon.
"Madoka."
"Ehehe, I sorta… fell out of bed," you reply, somehow relieved not to see another doll in the garden, or a strange magical girl here, or Kyubey…
"You're okay, right?"
"Mmm," you affirm, keeping your eyes on the garden. You don't want to go weird again.
A couple of minutes pass. You listen to the sound of gently rustling leaves, to the whoosh of cars on the distant highway. The night's still quiet and calm. Sunrise won't be for another couple of hours.
"Madoka?" Kirika repeats, after a while.
"Mmm?"
"When you said, 'the moon is beautiful,' earlier… how serious were you?"
Your eyes inexorably drift skyward. You can't help but look at it now, fix your gaze on it, let yourself be drawn in by it and slip away into that sense of cosmic majesty.
You open your mouth, and… "Do you truly want to know, Latria?" someone asks, in your voice.
Kirika's eyes fall to you, an eerie, catlike yellow in the dark night. Reflecting the unnatural blue of your own. She looks shocked and afraid - betrayed, almost. "What… what was that?"
She clamps her hands on your shoulders and stares into your eyes.
"Who… are you?"
"Kriemhild Gretchen. The witch of salvation, whose nature is mercy," that will replies, with a tilt of your head and a slightly spiteful smile… "No, that's not right. This time, it's…"
Images flash before your eyes, none comprehensible to you. Just clustered stars and galaxies, some uncanny darkness staining them yet not diminishing their light. Something strikes your soul, making it shiver like a gong, but you endure.
And that vast, terrible will speaks again - cold, monotone now, every syllable carrying the leaden weight of resignation. "'The witch of despair, whose nature is total communion. The mouthpiece for the unfulfilled hopes of every spent magical girl, and the ultimate destination of all grief and curses.'"
You watch, helpless, as Kirika's eyes widen, and seem to lose their light, listening without a single reaction. "'Even if a hope that exceeds even the boundaries of the universe blooms,'" 'you' continue, "'its roots remain in the mud of despair. This witch gorges herself on a sensual banquet of the sorrows of magical girls, and continuously swells, her hunger growing to match her illimitable size. At the end of infinite growth, the only way to defeat her is to drown her in a still greater infinity.'"
Only silence follows. Even the distant sounds of the city seem to have muted, momentarily. A dry, dusty wind blows past you, carrying the scent of ash. Kirika's hands fall from your shoulders and hang limply at her sides.
"So? What do you think?" You feel yourself smirk, but sense no joy in it, the voice simply yours again. "You regret asking, don't you?"
Kirika doesn't respond.
"Do you know what 'Latria' means?" 'Gretchen' asks. "It means 'adoration'. Of a sort reserved for God, and God alone. How tragic for you, for that name to be written on your fate."
The answer remains nothing but silence.
"Too bad for you. God can't be found in this world. There's just me. Someone just had to pull the linchpin out of the cosmos, you see. So sad."
Kirika twitches, narrowing her eyes, giving you the sense that she's trying to tense, trying to speak, struggling against an overwhelming mental pressure.
"Who will you pledge yourself to this time, I wonder? That wish you were about to make earlier - it really didn't suit you."
"…what if I said, 'you'?" she manages to reply - perhaps pushing back against the pressure, perhaps simply being allowed to. You can't read her intent - defiance? enraptured submission? Or just curiosity?
"Amusing. Do hurry up and become a magical girl, then. I can't reach your soul, all curled away in there."
You stagger, the presence suddenly leaving you to tumble against the balcony railing. You try to speak, disconnected noises coming out as you work to reclaim ownership of your body…
"So I'm… connected to a witch?" you mumble, having found it uncomfortably plausible even before this. "The one in the moon, I guess…"
"Madoka…" Yellow eyes fix on you, pupils dilated.
"But what did she mean about…"
"Madoka. Please, let's just sleep," Kirika insists. Pleading, those eyes so hard to refuse…
Yeah, you don't need to be told twice.
You're sitting amid a long colonnade of neo-Gothic arches, fenced off with brassy bars. Ancient-looking stone is beneath your feet, and around the outside, clouds swirl and gather, threatening to draw in like fog.
The place has the feeling of some kind of boss arena, you feel at first…
It's the roof of Mitakihara Middle School, though.
The moment you realize that, the clouds calm, and you notice there are two black-haired girls sitting either side of you. Magical girls. They're not dressed in school uniforms, so they must be… is that how that works?
Kirika's dressed up in an outfit that makes you think of a wedding tuxedo, but at the same time an assassin, with the eyepatch, the long, ruffled sleeves that could so easily hide deadly weapons, the swept-back black tailed jacket…
And at this precise moment, she's trying to feed you some absolutely exquisite sushi from a handmade lunch.
Only for the other girl to draw your attention back her way with a slice of omelette - simple, but you can tell it's been perfectly prepared.
This one's a really cute girl with long braids and glasses who seems really familiar. You think you've seen tin soldiers dressed just like her before, and you've got a strong image of her with an assault rifle. She's got a buckler on her left arm, which she's trying to keep out of the way as she holds food toward you. You can't feel any less effort or affection from her boxed lunch, simpler though it is…
"P-please, Madoka, try mine first!"
"Madoka-sama, won't you eat mine instead?"
"S-she put all her effort into appearances! M-mine tastes better!"
"You just can't compare, ██████."
"I-I researched Madoka's preferences, though!"
"You mean you stalked her. Besides, Madoka-sama's favourite food is-"
"U-um," you interrupt, "a-actually it's cream stew, but I don't think you could really bring that to school…" but neither of them are listening.
"Th-that wish magic you have is just cheating!"
"And your time stop and storage magic aren't? I don't get a week to work on Madoka's lunch every day!"
"I-I don't need that much time! I'm a much better cook than you!"
"How about we settle this, then!" Kirika sets down her tiered lunchbox and leaps to her feet. "There's clearly only room for one of us here!" Pitch-black claws curl from her sleeves as she drops to a lower, wider stance, ready to go on the attack.
"I-I-I won't let you p-play with Madoka's feelings like this!" She vanishes from beside you, her lunchbox gone too, bullets beginning to scatter and ricochet across the broad rooftop, resounding as they strike the fence railings.
"I don't want you to fight over me," you mumble, but it's too late…
It only takes Kirika a moment to figure out where she'd gone, deflecting a barrage of bullets and closing in to striking range, only for ██████ to vanish and reappear elsewhere. The pattern repeats and repeats, neither seeming to be landing any decisive blows.
"Wh-what are you even doing here? Madoka isn't even the one you're meant to protect…"
"You just decided that for yourself! Madoka-sama is my destiny!"
Then the bombs start going off, punching huge holes in the rooftop, chunks of stone tumbling into the fog-filled abyss below. Even then, Kirika doesn't even hesitate, the bullets around her slowing as she keeps trying to close in for the kill, but you can tell she's pushing herself, tearing through her magic ever faster. She's at a disadvantage, now…
"You say that l-like you didn't k-kill her!"
"So did you, hypocrite!"
But somehow, it doesn't seem to come, her movements just becoming more fluid, reaching out unnaturally far and forcing ██████ to flicker away earlier. The wrecked rooftop flickers, turning into a starkly monochrome checkerboard, bizarre amorphous creatures lunge from the air to try to bite at ██████, and Kirika's motions become more and more wrong, until even ██████ can't predict them.
All you can do is watch, helplessly, as the battle degrades more and more, until all you can make out is a flickering blur of twisted creatures, a thing like a tangled mass of hourglasses and thread clashing against what looks like a stack of shop mannequins, any semblance of humanity gone aside from their unerringly fashionable hats.
<It's hopeless. Neither of them intend to back down.> Kyubey's on your lap, watching the fight with unblinking red eyes and a smile.
"Please, Kyubey! Make them stop! This shouldn't be happening!" you beg, transfixed as you watch what's become a fight between witches, rather than magical girls.
<I can't do anything. But if you want to stop them by force, it's not as if there aren't any options on the table. Only another magical girl can interfere in their battle. But you have the capacity to do that, if that's what you really->
Kyubey flies away, slammed away with the impact of, not a cannonball, but a flying crystal ball wrapped in silver. You see your own reflection in it at first, but then, another girl's, next to you. Someone you've seen before, but haven't seen before, sitting next to you.
"Let's not have that troublemaker here, shall we?" She's a weird girl, all in white with what looks like a bucket on her head, but somehow feels dignified anyway. "We've ended up in quite a predicament together…"
"Wha-" you begin, only for her to put a finger to her lips and shake her head.
"This isn't something that should be able to happen. But just because we've reached this fate doesn't mean we don't have options. It's just, they aren't the ones he's offering you." She smiles, sad yet enigmatic. "Do you know where we are?"
"Um… Mitakihara Middle School? Or… maybe it's a witch's labyrinth…?" you reply, uncertain.
She shakes her head. "In a way, perhaps. But isn't this world just too ridiculous to be real?"
"Then…" Something clicks, and you feel like you've opened your eyes wide… "Oh! Inside my dream!"
"That's right. And, one more thing… remember that the love you want in return from people you love isn't always the same as the love they want to give you. Do your best, Kaname Madoka - you're the best hope any of us can have." The mysterious white magical girl waves elegantly, before you can respond any more, and leaps off the edge of the wrecked rooftop into the clouds.
Well, that was weird. That's twice the image of the bucket magical girl has shown up in your mind out of nowhere. You don't think you've managed something like lucid dreaming before, though, so maybe you should just play around?
████lilly and Latria - just thinking those names makes you shiver, where did they even come from? - are still fighting, pockets of warped time flickering in and out of existence before you. Yeah, you really couldn't mess with that without being a magical girl.
So you'll just make yourself a magical girl! You can skip the part with the Soul Gems and the cleansing impurities and all of that, and just transform into that pink, fluffy, ballerina-style outfit you keep thinking about, and, hmm, why did you, for just a moment there, feel like someone familiar was embracing you?
Well, time to knock some sense into those two lovestruck idiots. You catch something ejected from the fight - some sort of misshapen blob with gnashing teeth and a jaunty top hat, that frowns sulkily when you wrap your arms around it in a hug. Then you leap into the fray, with a spin, a twirl, a magnificent pirouette, snatching out Grief Seeds from the two of them before landing perfectly from your… well, you're not sure what it is, but something somewhere between a grand-jeté and a double lariat.
Dreams are really amazing, huh.
You're just about to purify both of them back into magical girls when, with an unexpected thump, you find your eyes opening for real this time.
You'd been spinning so much in the dream you accidentally rolled out of bed in real life. Embarrassing!
Slowly, you pull yourself to your feet and brush yourself off. The clock beside your bed reads 3:09. Your plushies are scattered everywhere - you're surprised one of them didn't land on Sayaka and wake her up. One did land on Kirika's-
Where's Kirika?
Her sleeping bag is empty, and the door is ajar.
Of course you wander out in your pajamas and follow her. It's not even a choice.
And soon enough, you find her, on the balcony, gazing up at the moon.
"Madoka."
"Ehehe, I sorta… fell out of bed," you reply, somehow relieved not to see another doll in the garden, or a strange magical girl here, or Kyubey…
"You're okay, right?"
"Mmm," you affirm, keeping your eyes on the garden. You don't want to go weird again.
A couple of minutes pass. You listen to the sound of gently rustling leaves, to the whoosh of cars on the distant highway. The night's still quiet and calm. Sunrise won't be for another couple of hours.
"Madoka?" Kirika repeats, after a while.
"Mmm?"
"When you said, 'the moon is beautiful,' earlier… how serious were you?"
Your eyes inexorably drift skyward. You can't help but look at it now, fix your gaze on it, let yourself be drawn in by it and slip away into that sense of cosmic majesty.
You open your mouth, and… "Do you truly want to know, Latria?" someone asks, in your voice.
Kirika's eyes fall to you, an eerie, catlike yellow in the dark night. Reflecting the unnatural blue of your own. She looks shocked and afraid - betrayed, almost. "What… what was that?"
She clamps her hands on your shoulders and stares into your eyes.
"Who… are you?"
"Kriemhild Gretchen. The witch of salvation, whose nature is mercy," that will replies, with a tilt of your head and a slightly spiteful smile… "No, that's not right. This time, it's…"
Images flash before your eyes, none comprehensible to you. Just clustered stars and galaxies, some uncanny darkness staining them yet not diminishing their light. Something strikes your soul, making it shiver like a gong, but you endure.
And that vast, terrible will speaks again - cold, monotone now, every syllable carrying the leaden weight of resignation. "'The witch of despair, whose nature is total communion. The mouthpiece for the unfulfilled hopes of every spent magical girl, and the ultimate destination of all grief and curses.'"
You watch, helpless, as Kirika's eyes widen, and seem to lose their light, listening without a single reaction. "'Even if a hope that exceeds even the boundaries of the universe blooms,'" 'you' continue, "'its roots remain in the mud of despair. This witch gorges herself on a sensual banquet of the sorrows of magical girls, and continuously swells, her hunger growing to match her illimitable size. At the end of infinite growth, the only way to defeat her is to drown her in a still greater infinity.'"
Only silence follows. Even the distant sounds of the city seem to have muted, momentarily. A dry, dusty wind blows past you, carrying the scent of ash. Kirika's hands fall from your shoulders and hang limply at her sides.
"So? What do you think?" You feel yourself smirk, but sense no joy in it, the voice simply yours again. "You regret asking, don't you?"
Kirika doesn't respond.
"Do you know what 'Latria' means?" 'Gretchen' asks. "It means 'adoration'. Of a sort reserved for God, and God alone. How tragic for you, for that name to be written on your fate."
The answer remains nothing but silence.
"Too bad for you. God can't be found in this world. There's just me. Someone just had to pull the linchpin out of the cosmos, you see. So sad."
Kirika twitches, narrowing her eyes, giving you the sense that she's trying to tense, trying to speak, struggling against an overwhelming mental pressure.
"Who will you pledge yourself to this time, I wonder? That wish you were about to make earlier - it really didn't suit you."
"…what if I said, 'you'?" she manages to reply - perhaps pushing back against the pressure, perhaps simply being allowed to. You can't read her intent - defiance? enraptured submission? Or just curiosity?
"Amusing. Do hurry up and become a magical girl, then. I can't reach your soul, all curled away in there."
You stagger, the presence suddenly leaving you to tumble against the balcony railing. You try to speak, disconnected noises coming out as you work to reclaim ownership of your body…
"So I'm… connected to a witch?" you mumble, having found it uncomfortably plausible even before this. "The one in the moon, I guess…"
"Madoka…" Yellow eyes fix on you, pupils dilated.
"But what did she mean about…"
"Madoka. Please, let's just sleep," Kirika insists. Pleading, those eyes so hard to refuse…
Yeah, you don't need to be told twice.
It's not as if it wouldn't work on a sizeable proportion of adults. MLM does. Though I'm not sure the 'cute mascot' approach would work so well...
KadinaruDess
Allergic to cobwebs, loves spiders and dusty books
- Location
- The Great Library Room
So not only does Kirika already know about magical girls, she clearly knows a lot more on things, from her "futures" to her witch to Madoka's nature.
And despite that Kirika still plans to wish for servitude to Madoka, even when she knows what becomes of her mentally. I suppose it was right that not even She can read Kirika's love, even when dream Oriko clearly mentioned it to her beforehand.
Think about it, it's really very ironic that obsessive devotion is the weakness of a selfless god.
And despite that Kirika still plans to wish for servitude to Madoka, even when she knows what becomes of her mentally. I suppose it was right that not even She can read Kirika's love, even when dream Oriko clearly mentioned it to her beforehand.
Think about it, it's really very ironic that obsessive devotion is the weakness of a selfless god.
It's not just that, but I included in the profiles the wishes that were interrupted by Madoka. The one Kirika was about to make was actually not that, and could've worked out very well for her, in a way, though I think she's always someone who'll wish to change herself at least somewhat. But Madoka... well, she doesn't realize it, but now that her life is complicated, she keeps finding herself longing for the comforting security of omniscience. And she doesn't recognize that's what the feeling is.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
That Homura and Kirika fighting over Madoka continue to amuse me.
Ⅰ.5 // is this power even meant to exist?
You don't wake up until past 9:00, with no recollection of the rest of your dreams. Sayaka's already up, and Kirika's at least awake, sitting up on her sleeping bag. No sooner do you poke your head out of your covers than she tosses a plushie at your face. "Morning, sleepyhead."
"Ow… good morning, Kirika-chan…" You're definitely not alert enough to catch it in time, and one of its button eyes catches you in the forehead. "How long have you been awake?"
"'bout twenty minutes. Sayaka's in the bathroom right now."
"How's Mami-senpai?" you ask next, setting the plushie behind you in the bed.
"Alive. Very apologetic. Kind of frazzled, Kyouko said. She's probably safe, but don't go in there on your own."
"Ah… I guess she's feeling really guilty."
"Yeah. You should probably get up. Your dad wanted to go to the library, so he's waiting on everyone to finish breakfast," Kirika drops with an awkward smile. "Oh. Not a word about last night."
Your face falls as you briefly recall it. "Mmm." You're not sure you can commit to that as you hurriedly climb out of bed. Everyone's waiting.
It'd turned out everyone else had already had breakfast separately by the time you're ready. Not exactly usual in your household, but Papa didn't want to risk creating bad habits by delaying Tatsuya's, and Kyouko'd taken her own back to the guest room with Mami's, so he'd just given up on everyone eating together for today. You barely get to say good morning to Mama, so busy is she working down an enormous list of old school friends and contacts, ear glued to her phone.
Papa leaves soon after that with Tatsuya, heading out to the library to look for more of Professor Satomi's books, or anything related to Empress-Consort Jingu. You'd been hoping, deep inside, that you'd wake up and all the weird magical girl stuff would turn out to have been a dream.
Still, with both Mama and Papa doing their best to research the magical girl world for your sake, you can't slack off now!
Since it's warm today, and you'd been starting to feel like swiping some of Mama's foundation and dressing all in black if you wore those black ribbons any longer, you'd picked out a simple white dress that makes you look just a little angelic, and the white ribbons to go with it.
Although, you shouldn't lie - the real reason is that you want to do anything you can to be less like some sort of possessed girl from a horror movie. You're going to try your best to be cute, and innocent, and not creepy!
Even so, you're still not exactly a magical heroine of justice. You certainly don't feel ready to take on the universe. Unfortunately, you're not sure you get a choice in the matter - there are still people who need saving, and you have a power that can save them. It's that simple. All you can do is hope that succeeding won't end up somehow worse than failing.
Well, first things first, you ought to talk to Mami.
Which means before even that, you need to talk to Kyouko.
You find the redhead out in the sunlit garden, eyeing up Papa's cherry tomatoes, and immediately interpose yourself between her and the vines, crossing your arms. "Good morning, Kyouko-chan. Did you not get enough breakfast?"
"Oi! I wasn't actually gonna eat them!" she exclaims, not quite meeting your gaze. You're okay with being a little bit mean if it's to protect Papa's cooking.
"Whatever you say, Kyouko-chan. Rather than that, is it okay if I talk to Mami-senpai now?"
"Hmmmmm…" Kyouko leans back against a tree, thoughtful. A few blossoms gently dislodge themselves as she puts her weight against the trunk, and drift down onto the sunlit grass. "She wants to see you, but she's kinda delicate right now, so we're gonna have to wing it a bit."
"Has she ever been like this before?"
"Never. At least, she never let me see it if she did. Got any insight, soul-reader girl?" You're not too enthusiastic about Kyouko quipping about that, but on the other hand, you did kiss her. Even if it wasn't quite you you.
"Mmmn…" You think back to that agonizing, frightening experience under the eldritch moonlight. "It's kinda like… I think she just bottles everything up and tries to be dependable, but she's actually really brittle underneath… maybe?"
"Tch. Yeah, this is gonna be difficult. I need you to purify more Grief Cubes for her, but if you go in there with your eye all crazy again I dunno what she'll do…" Kyouko tosses a stick of pocky into her mouth, and a Grief Cube to you - which you catch before thinking…
"Umm. Kyouko-chan, I… I don't mind, but I'm not… quite sure it's safe to do things like this, or rather… purifying a few Grief Cubes might be fine, but don't just bring me a truckload one day or something, and don't just surprise me with them!" You can feel Gretchen's - you don't like that name, for some reason - gaze on you, her influence beginning to creep through your veins. At least it's weaker now, without the moon staring down at you. You think. You don't want to hurt Kyouko by calling her some strange name, too.
"…yeah." The redhead shuffles awkwardly. "How many do you think you can do?"
"Six… maybe?" You're really not sure. You might be overthinking it - you don't know if even a thousand would be enough to make that gigantic witch any more dangerous. But you've also got your own wellbeing to consider, so you'll settle for six.
By the time you're done, that dull heartache, and the sense of rightness after finishing, are already starting to feel familiar.
Sayaka wanders out as you're sitting out in the garden, waiting for your eyes to turn back normal. "Morning, Madoka."
"Good morning, Sayaka! Did you sleep well?"
"Urgh, I wish. I had a bunch of nightmares about- yes, that, that right there," she says, catching a glimpse of your blue eye.
"Sorry. Kyouko asked me to help with some Grief Cubes for Mami-senpai."
"About that. Are we going to be short on people for patrols now, Kyouko?" Sayaka asks, getting straight to the point.
"Yeah, I was gonna ask Mami about that. Hikari's powers are horrible for witch hunting, so she's no help. I could handle it on my own, but… tch, that elementary school kid. I'd feel bad about leaving her to fight for scraps in Kazamino," Kyouko gripes, taking another glance at Papa's tomatoes.
"Could we just… let them hunt in Mitakihara?" Sayaka asks innocently.
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Problem is they wouldn't wanna give it back, and if all the witches are moving to Kamihama, that just kicks the problem down the road. So if we do that, we're relying on Madoka completely."
"I'm… okay with helping out like that, but… I just don't know if… is this power even meant to exist? We can't just rely on it forever… so, mmm, if we're going to do that, it means we need to go to Kamihama, and solve things there, except…" You hesitate, thinking back to what Kyubey had told you about the enormous witch population. "I… don't think we should let anyone who isn't a magical girl go to Kamihama. And even magical girls should go in groups of five or more, if there's that many witches."
Kyouko sharply inhales, thinking over the concept. "That's a lot of magical girls if we want independent groups. We can grab Hikari if we need to, yeah, she's better with a big group… that makes three. Plus the five from Kazamino, maybe two or three more from the other Kazamino group if we can get them… after that, I dunno. Takarazaki? Asunaro? I don't know about just wandering into other groups' territories and trying to recruit them, even if it's to solve the shortage."
"How many people do we need, anyway? Fifteen or twenty at least, it sounds like," you ask, starting to get second thoughts about the idea.
"More. We'd want two or three squads, plus a home team, so that's twenty already - heck, if there's that many witches, we could be seeing composite types springing up, that would mean…"
"Composite types?"
"They're... kinda like combined witches. Sometimes witches feed on each other, or find each other's Grief Seeds and fuse together; the barriers can get really dangerous, and I heard they can even turn magical girls who die fighting them into familiars. Sometimes wraiths mob them and break them down, but we aren't always so lucky. And if the whole country's witches are piling into Kamihama, there's got to be stuff like that forming, so we might need extra squads…"
"Kyouko-chan, that's scary… We really might have to fight that?" You wonder if Gretchen's something like that as you do the math - three or four forward teams, then rapid response teams for dangerous situations; logistics, a home team, maybe dedicated scouts… "Nnn, the numbers are already adding up. It's sounding like we might need fifty at least. I don't know if I can support that many…"
"If it's that many, for all I know, Takarazaki and Asunaro might not even be enough, too. We might have to go to Yukuni, Futatsugi… could we go all the way up to Takamatsu or Matsumiya?"
"Are you trying to build up to heading all the way to Kobe, Kyouko?" interjects Sayaka, giving her a sly look. "Because I'm onto you. We are not going to recruit Kansai magical girls just so you can stuff yourself with Kobe beef."
"…I kind of want to go to Kobe too now," you mumble, a blush on your cheeks. "But, um… I think we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves…"
"Sorry, my bad, ehehe…" says Sayaka. "Still, if we need that many, should I…"
"Don't you dare," Kyouko snaps, cutting her off with a scowl. "This is magical girl business. We gotta protect our own hunting grounds."
"What if I think of a wish I want to make on my own?" Sayaka's question is nervous. "Not that I have, or anything…" You're really not sure if she's lying or just still coming to terms with the truth.
"I guess that's your choice, if there's something you think's worth becoming a damned zombie for-" She glances at you, hoping to change the subject. "'k, Madoka, your eye's good. Let's go check in on Mami, then grab Kirika and move out."
"Ow… good morning, Kirika-chan…" You're definitely not alert enough to catch it in time, and one of its button eyes catches you in the forehead. "How long have you been awake?"
"'bout twenty minutes. Sayaka's in the bathroom right now."
"How's Mami-senpai?" you ask next, setting the plushie behind you in the bed.
"Alive. Very apologetic. Kind of frazzled, Kyouko said. She's probably safe, but don't go in there on your own."
"Ah… I guess she's feeling really guilty."
"Yeah. You should probably get up. Your dad wanted to go to the library, so he's waiting on everyone to finish breakfast," Kirika drops with an awkward smile. "Oh. Not a word about last night."
Your face falls as you briefly recall it. "Mmm." You're not sure you can commit to that as you hurriedly climb out of bed. Everyone's waiting.
It'd turned out everyone else had already had breakfast separately by the time you're ready. Not exactly usual in your household, but Papa didn't want to risk creating bad habits by delaying Tatsuya's, and Kyouko'd taken her own back to the guest room with Mami's, so he'd just given up on everyone eating together for today. You barely get to say good morning to Mama, so busy is she working down an enormous list of old school friends and contacts, ear glued to her phone.
Papa leaves soon after that with Tatsuya, heading out to the library to look for more of Professor Satomi's books, or anything related to Empress-Consort Jingu. You'd been hoping, deep inside, that you'd wake up and all the weird magical girl stuff would turn out to have been a dream.
Still, with both Mama and Papa doing their best to research the magical girl world for your sake, you can't slack off now!
Since it's warm today, and you'd been starting to feel like swiping some of Mama's foundation and dressing all in black if you wore those black ribbons any longer, you'd picked out a simple white dress that makes you look just a little angelic, and the white ribbons to go with it.
Although, you shouldn't lie - the real reason is that you want to do anything you can to be less like some sort of possessed girl from a horror movie. You're going to try your best to be cute, and innocent, and not creepy!
Even so, you're still not exactly a magical heroine of justice. You certainly don't feel ready to take on the universe. Unfortunately, you're not sure you get a choice in the matter - there are still people who need saving, and you have a power that can save them. It's that simple. All you can do is hope that succeeding won't end up somehow worse than failing.
Well, first things first, you ought to talk to Mami.
Which means before even that, you need to talk to Kyouko.
You find the redhead out in the sunlit garden, eyeing up Papa's cherry tomatoes, and immediately interpose yourself between her and the vines, crossing your arms. "Good morning, Kyouko-chan. Did you not get enough breakfast?"
"Oi! I wasn't actually gonna eat them!" she exclaims, not quite meeting your gaze. You're okay with being a little bit mean if it's to protect Papa's cooking.
"Whatever you say, Kyouko-chan. Rather than that, is it okay if I talk to Mami-senpai now?"
"Hmmmmm…" Kyouko leans back against a tree, thoughtful. A few blossoms gently dislodge themselves as she puts her weight against the trunk, and drift down onto the sunlit grass. "She wants to see you, but she's kinda delicate right now, so we're gonna have to wing it a bit."
"Has she ever been like this before?"
"Never. At least, she never let me see it if she did. Got any insight, soul-reader girl?" You're not too enthusiastic about Kyouko quipping about that, but on the other hand, you did kiss her. Even if it wasn't quite you you.
"Mmmn…" You think back to that agonizing, frightening experience under the eldritch moonlight. "It's kinda like… I think she just bottles everything up and tries to be dependable, but she's actually really brittle underneath… maybe?"
"Tch. Yeah, this is gonna be difficult. I need you to purify more Grief Cubes for her, but if you go in there with your eye all crazy again I dunno what she'll do…" Kyouko tosses a stick of pocky into her mouth, and a Grief Cube to you - which you catch before thinking…
"Umm. Kyouko-chan, I… I don't mind, but I'm not… quite sure it's safe to do things like this, or rather… purifying a few Grief Cubes might be fine, but don't just bring me a truckload one day or something, and don't just surprise me with them!" You can feel Gretchen's - you don't like that name, for some reason - gaze on you, her influence beginning to creep through your veins. At least it's weaker now, without the moon staring down at you. You think. You don't want to hurt Kyouko by calling her some strange name, too.
"…yeah." The redhead shuffles awkwardly. "How many do you think you can do?"
"Six… maybe?" You're really not sure. You might be overthinking it - you don't know if even a thousand would be enough to make that gigantic witch any more dangerous. But you've also got your own wellbeing to consider, so you'll settle for six.
By the time you're done, that dull heartache, and the sense of rightness after finishing, are already starting to feel familiar.
Sayaka wanders out as you're sitting out in the garden, waiting for your eyes to turn back normal. "Morning, Madoka."
"Good morning, Sayaka! Did you sleep well?"
"Urgh, I wish. I had a bunch of nightmares about- yes, that, that right there," she says, catching a glimpse of your blue eye.
"Sorry. Kyouko asked me to help with some Grief Cubes for Mami-senpai."
"About that. Are we going to be short on people for patrols now, Kyouko?" Sayaka asks, getting straight to the point.
"Yeah, I was gonna ask Mami about that. Hikari's powers are horrible for witch hunting, so she's no help. I could handle it on my own, but… tch, that elementary school kid. I'd feel bad about leaving her to fight for scraps in Kazamino," Kyouko gripes, taking another glance at Papa's tomatoes.
"Could we just… let them hunt in Mitakihara?" Sayaka asks innocently.
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Problem is they wouldn't wanna give it back, and if all the witches are moving to Kamihama, that just kicks the problem down the road. So if we do that, we're relying on Madoka completely."
"I'm… okay with helping out like that, but… I just don't know if… is this power even meant to exist? We can't just rely on it forever… so, mmm, if we're going to do that, it means we need to go to Kamihama, and solve things there, except…" You hesitate, thinking back to what Kyubey had told you about the enormous witch population. "I… don't think we should let anyone who isn't a magical girl go to Kamihama. And even magical girls should go in groups of five or more, if there's that many witches."
Kyouko sharply inhales, thinking over the concept. "That's a lot of magical girls if we want independent groups. We can grab Hikari if we need to, yeah, she's better with a big group… that makes three. Plus the five from Kazamino, maybe two or three more from the other Kazamino group if we can get them… after that, I dunno. Takarazaki? Asunaro? I don't know about just wandering into other groups' territories and trying to recruit them, even if it's to solve the shortage."
"How many people do we need, anyway? Fifteen or twenty at least, it sounds like," you ask, starting to get second thoughts about the idea.
"More. We'd want two or three squads, plus a home team, so that's twenty already - heck, if there's that many witches, we could be seeing composite types springing up, that would mean…"
"Composite types?"
"They're... kinda like combined witches. Sometimes witches feed on each other, or find each other's Grief Seeds and fuse together; the barriers can get really dangerous, and I heard they can even turn magical girls who die fighting them into familiars. Sometimes wraiths mob them and break them down, but we aren't always so lucky. And if the whole country's witches are piling into Kamihama, there's got to be stuff like that forming, so we might need extra squads…"
"Kyouko-chan, that's scary… We really might have to fight that?" You wonder if Gretchen's something like that as you do the math - three or four forward teams, then rapid response teams for dangerous situations; logistics, a home team, maybe dedicated scouts… "Nnn, the numbers are already adding up. It's sounding like we might need fifty at least. I don't know if I can support that many…"
"If it's that many, for all I know, Takarazaki and Asunaro might not even be enough, too. We might have to go to Yukuni, Futatsugi… could we go all the way up to Takamatsu or Matsumiya?"
"Are you trying to build up to heading all the way to Kobe, Kyouko?" interjects Sayaka, giving her a sly look. "Because I'm onto you. We are not going to recruit Kansai magical girls just so you can stuff yourself with Kobe beef."
"…I kind of want to go to Kobe too now," you mumble, a blush on your cheeks. "But, um… I think we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves…"
"Sorry, my bad, ehehe…" says Sayaka. "Still, if we need that many, should I…"
"Don't you dare," Kyouko snaps, cutting her off with a scowl. "This is magical girl business. We gotta protect our own hunting grounds."
"What if I think of a wish I want to make on my own?" Sayaka's question is nervous. "Not that I have, or anything…" You're really not sure if she's lying or just still coming to terms with the truth.
"I guess that's your choice, if there's something you think's worth becoming a damned zombie for-" She glances at you, hoping to change the subject. "'k, Madoka, your eye's good. Let's go check in on Mami, then grab Kirika and move out."
where in the world is mitakihara city?
As for the actual geographical location of Mitakihara - it's a somewhat complicated question. It's certainly somewhere in Japan, but it's very unclear where in canon. Kamihama, though, seems to be close enough that people from Mitakihara can get there and back fairly quickly; however, Kamihama seems to be possibly some sort of combination of Kobe and Yokohama, which doesn't really put it anywhere in particular because those cities aren't actually particularly close together.
In this story, I'm going with them being located on the south coast of Shikoku, in a large metropolitan area roughly corresponding to Kochi prefecture in the real world. Mitakihara itself is a 'new city' built up heavily during the 70s and 80s, so it simply didn't exist during WWII, and the region was originally the Jingi domain, from the first kanji in Kamihama and the first kanji in Takarazaki. The reason I choose Shikoku is because... well, I don't think it makes sense for the area to be too close to Tokyo or Kyoto, because it'd be odd for it to be such a new city in that case. But I also don't think it makes sense for it to be in the western Kansai region on the Seto Inland Sea, because it'd imply that Walpurgisnacht's landfall would have to have come after it crossing over Shikoku. I think Mitakihara needs to be somewhere on the southern coast of Japan facing the Pacific, and it needs to be fairly far south, so that the cherry blossoms open early. Thus, Kochi.
As for why there's a huge metropolitan area there that doesn't exist in real life... well, that part's a secret~
In this story, I'm going with them being located on the south coast of Shikoku, in a large metropolitan area roughly corresponding to Kochi prefecture in the real world. Mitakihara itself is a 'new city' built up heavily during the 70s and 80s, so it simply didn't exist during WWII, and the region was originally the Jingi domain, from the first kanji in Kamihama and the first kanji in Takarazaki. The reason I choose Shikoku is because... well, I don't think it makes sense for the area to be too close to Tokyo or Kyoto, because it'd be odd for it to be such a new city in that case. But I also don't think it makes sense for it to be in the western Kansai region on the Seto Inland Sea, because it'd imply that Walpurgisnacht's landfall would have to have come after it crossing over Shikoku. I think Mitakihara needs to be somewhere on the southern coast of Japan facing the Pacific, and it needs to be fairly far south, so that the cherry blossoms open early. Thus, Kochi.
As for why there's a huge metropolitan area there that doesn't exist in real life... well, that part's a secret~