The willows waved lazily in the midsummer wind, almost making them look like giant green jellyfish. Mami ran across the field towards the trees at the water's edge. Reaching them, she jumped up and started climbing up through the branches to the top. Poking her head out from the leaves at the top, she looked down and across the grass to where her family was setting up their picnic. She waved down to them and called out.
"Mom! Hey Mom! Look how high up I am!"
Her parents looked up and shook their heads. She couldn't tell, but they looked like they were laughing. Her mom cupped her hands around her mouth and called back up to her. "Don't fall out and die! I'm not cleaning it up!"
Smirking like the carefree kid she was, Mami clamored back down the tree and ran over to the water's edge. She waved across the water to the woman who was sitting on the opposite bank. "Good morning, Mrs Kamijou! Thanks for the cake yesterday!"
The woman smiled, waving back. "I hope you didn't waste any."
"Nope! We're gonna eat the rest today!"
"You enjoy it, then."
Mami turned and ran back to the picnic being prepared. She dropped to her knees and slid to a halt, bunching the blanket up underneath her. Her mother sighed, but didn't deem it necessary to scold her. Mami was still a child, and so she would do everything she did with a certain level of enthusiasm. There was no use trying to dissuade her demeanor.
Mami quickly brushed her light hair out of her face and reached into the nearest picnic basket. "I have to eat the cake. I made a promise." They weren't going to stop her. They knew better than to demand what a child eat when on a picnic.
After all having a full meal, Mami was sitting in the back of the family car and humming her favorite tune on the way home. Her mother looked over her shoulder and started singing the song to the tune. Mami joined her and the two were singing together. Her father joined in, filling the car with their voices.
Once the song was finished, her father looked at her in the rear view mirror. "What do you say we go for ice cream?" Mami cheered and clapped, brimming with her childhood joy. He looked at her mother. "What do you say?"
She clasped her hands in front of her. "Ice cream sounds like a wonde-"
Before Mami's eyes, her mother vanished into thin air. Her father lost control of the car, shocked and horrified by what he'd just seen. A moment later, the front of the car crumpled into the front of an eighteen-wheeler.
Mami opened her eyes, feeling the sensation of blood dripping down her face and leg. She looked around her, seeing the inside of the totaled car. It was on its side, and she was on the ground where a window should have been between her and the concrete. Everything around her was twisted metal and shattered glass. She couldn't see her father in the front seat. There was no front seat, as it had been swallowed up by the truck they'd hit. There were sirens outside, people were coming to rescue her. But what was there for her if her parents were gone.
That's when he appeared. Standing on the side of the car, staring down at her with his tiny red eyes. It was Kyubey. She reached out to him, though it hurt to move her arms. He leaped down and landed beside her, his puffy white tail flicking in the air behind him.
"Mami Tomoe, you are in quite the predicament."
She looked over the creature, even as blood ran down over one of her eyes. She wiped the blood away as best she could, then looked back to the creature. "You… you can talk?"
"I can do much more than that. I can grant you one wish. It looks like I arrived at the right time to do so, too."
Her first instinct was to ask for her parents back, but that wasn't quite right. She wanted this horrible turn of events to have never happened. Her father had only lost control because her mother vanished so suddenly. "What… happened to my mother?"
Kyubey cocked his head to the side curiously. "I am not quite certain, though from looking at the evidence, I would venture a guess that someone killed her in the past. That is the most likely scenario that would cause someone to spontaneously disappear like that."
She had to stop that. She had to prevent it from happening. "If you can… I wish you would send me back in time so that I can protect my mother from dying."
"I knew you would say that."
Mami Tomoe watched as her young new apprentice Magical Girl fought to prove herself against a Witch. Madoka was a natural. As the Witch died and its wards collapsed, she ran back to her mentor.
"That was awesome! We did it! We're super hero girls!"
Mami nodded. "You're getting better every day."
Madoka would never know the real reason Mami had taken her under her wing. She would fight as hard as she could to keep Madoka alive. This cute, ambitious girl would need to be there in ten years to become a mother, and Mami would protect her future mother for as long as it took to make sure that day had the happy ending they all deserved.