Disclaimer: I do not own Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica and their characters.

This fanfic is the eleventh volume of Year Zero series, you can find it on my profile.

This is an "engrish" translation. I am doing my best, but feel free to tell me if it is unreadable.

A sky painted in dark blue, an eternal night without stars. In spite of the absence of light, the tall grass, which took over the prairie as far as it could be seen, had a homogeneous green color. Strangely, it was as if each leaf had the same shape. Flocks of books were flapping their hard covers and flying through the inhospitable environment.

In that world there was a small island of open space. Most of the books circulated around there, leaving and landing from a cluster of them in the center, with the form of a large tree trunk with thick branches.

At the base of the trunk was a girl leaning against it. Her eyes were lime green and her brown hair had a braid that rested on her chest. The braid was tied with a large green bow, sealed by a bright green gem with a shape of a Greek cross. Her cream colored dress was the only piece she wore, it had short sleeves and it was also a shorts that covered the upper thighs while wearing brown boots at shin height. There was no zipper or buttons, but there were pockets in the shorts and the chest, and a brown belt that was useful only to carry the weapon. It was a machete that suspended without a scabbard, shaped like a scalpel. She was ready for an adventure.

However, her adventures were in her hands, one of the many books. The pages were large and filled with colored runes, of which the girl read without difficulty, it was as if the information were fixed directly into her mind. It was one of the long stories, maybe another endless one, when she reached its half, she discovered it was only a quarter. She tried to open the last page a few times, but there was always a next one.

Each book had a different plot. Characters, places, interactions, worlds... There was always something unheard of on the next page. However, there was a protagonist, witnessing the events or being described by a narrator. All the attention was focused on this character.

The girl closed the book.

When was the last time she was the protagonist? When she wished to die, yes, not literally and not certain that she would achieve it, but the intention counts. She was nothing more than an extra of her own life before that, how ironic.

The grass began to sway frantically, without direction as there was no wind.

No, not even then. She did not seek this, that creature appeared with the offer, a contract actually. She learned from the girls that he was a being of business. To him, she was a calculation.

She stared up at the empty sky of her twisted world.

Perhaps there was a god watching her, transcribing her soul between formalities and boredom. This lazy hope brought her a smile, for iniquity turn her more normal than anything.

The sky was interfered by long, thin metal legs coming from the top of the tree.

"Huh? Did you feel something?"

The tip of the legs took the form of scalpels and the blades reflected different points of the prairie. In one of them the tall grass was being opened, forming a trail.

"A visit..." She looked at the mess of books scattered on the ground around her. "Please go somewhere else."

The books opened their covers and flew away. So did the book in her hands, which she threw up as she walked away from the tree. She adjusted her clothes, her eyebrows and her hair, giving a good sniff at her braid, just to be sure.

Time passed and there was no sign of the visitor, the girl did not know which direction it would come from, but she was almost certain that the person would not be lost, since others came and were able to locate easily by feeling her source of magic. Anxiety brought doubts about her posture, it would be better to feign surprise or impress with her sharp perception? Maybe put hands on waist and open legs more to show how confident she are or cross her arms and pass an air of maturity?

Came the sound of foliage and the grass opened to a girl with loose pink hair, somewhat long. She was carrying a book in her arms and was wearing yellow pajamas with cute prints of clouds and bunnies. Her smile did not attract as much attention as the golden gleam in her eyes.

"Hello visitor, I'm happy to see you. How are you? "Said the hostess, feeling that it had not sounded so natural. I should have rehearsed this.

The girl in pajamas replied, "I'm glad to see you too, Itsuko-chan."

All the preparation had gone downhill. "A-A-Are you calling me by name?"

"Ehhh... You're Itsuko Fujita, right?" The visitor asked, being thoughtful. "There are so many names to remember... Sorry if I mixed them up."

"No, that's not it! I... meant..." Then Itsuko narrowed her eyes. "Did we know each other?"

"Ah..." The visitor smiled. "Wehihi, I think your witch remembers."

Again perplexed, Itsuko turned, having time to see the metal legs retreating into the tree. "Oh no! I forgot to tell her to hide, I-" She turned back to the visitor in an instant.

The girl raised her eyebrows, sure that it was all settled.

"MADOKA?!" Itsuko's jaw dropped. "Wh-What-What is this?! Your looks! And... And... why didn't you come flying?"

"I like to explore the barriers, to have adventures from time to time, you never know when you can find a hidden treasure." Madoka pulled the fabric of her pajamas. "It's like a lucid dream, so I came dressed in character. Wasn't it during these hours that you liked to live your stories?"

"Yes..." Itsuko replied, getting more serious, but then smiled. "So that's it, you wouldn't come here for nothing." She turned and started walking toward the tree. "I am fine."

Madoka followed, asking in a cheerful voice, "Have other girls been visiting you lately?"

Itsuko looked back, "You should know."

In response, Madoka shrugged.

Itsuko looked at her for a moment more and started walking again. "Some girls came here, the ones who had the guts at least. They ask why I didn't get rid of this grass, as if I hadn't tried." She touched the tree and the ground began to tremble.

Madoka saw books unearthing, together they formed one of the roots of the tree and it stood between the two girls. "Maybe if you open a trail every time you leave your barrier, it works."

"Maybe..." Itsuko ran her hand over the cover of the books at the root to remove the excess dirt. "Lets sit?"

They sat down on the root. Madoka was silent, looking at the other girl.

"And... Yeah." Itsuko shook her head, smiling. "They come, they are amazed at all these books. They ask my name, where I am from, from what era, I do the same. Some ask about my wish, but I'd rather not reveal, they all understand." Then she pulled her braid. "They read some books. One even asked me to borrow, but it's not possible, my familiars like to live here. We said goodbye and some of them came back to visit me. See? I'm super fine."

Madoka agreed, "It's good to see you stronger."

"I sealed my fate, right? It was my decision." Itsuko looked at the inexpressive sky. "I wasn't expecting this end, but I'm accepting it."

"End?" Madoka frowned slightly. "Are you still waiting for one?"

The green eyes blinked and the girl opened her mouth, turning into a mocking giggle. "You don't have to come here and be my psychologist, you're wasting your time."

"I'm not a psychologist," Madoka said gently, "no, because I came for something very special."

Itsuko returned to look at the divine visitor, curiosity leading to the book she was holding.

Madoka showed it. "Have you read this one?"

"If you ask that question, I'll always answer no..." Itsuko touched the cover. It was colorful, but rude, just paper stained with gouache paint, made so hastily that the 'artist' had left fingerprints. It took her time to notice that the spots were in the form of runes and a little more to decipher the title.

To the stars

Even with this title, she did not expect to find anything epic within that book.

"I found it on the edge of your barrier, well hidden in the grass," Madoka said, gesturing with the object, inviting the other to hold it too.

"There must be countless in the same situation..." Itsuko accepted the offer, for politeness, however. "What's so special about this?" She turned the cover to see the first page.

There was no preface, no introduction, no first chapter. In fact there was nothing written there, just an old photo of a couple holding a baby.

Itsuko's heart clenched.

"Ah, this is the first picture of your parents holding you outside of the maternity ward." Madoka looked closer. "You were dressed like a princess. Wehihi."

"Is that a joke?" Itsuko asked, annoyed.

Madoka looked at her. "It looks like this book is telling a story and you're part of it."

I've never been part of anything.

The grass shook. Itsuko did not have the courage to utter these thoughts before that supernatural gaze, perhaps it was already too late.

With the moment of silence, Madoka smiled and turned the next page. "I think I'll take the initiative."

Itsuko realized that it was really an album. Every page that came was a new picture of her.

"They took lots of pictures of you when you were little," Madoka commented, "no wonder, with such cute smile."

The other girl answered, nonchalantly, "Yeah... I was their happiness."

A few more pages and then came the photo of little Itsuko holding the cradle of another baby.

"And there he is..."

"Your brother." Madoka nodded, convinced. "You were very happy with his arrival."

"Anxious," Itsuko emphasized, "as my mother's belly grew, everyone said I would soon have someone to play with." She raised her eyebrows. "No one told me that when he was old enough for that, I'd be struggling at school."

Madoka turned a few more pages and paused in a photo where the two were posing side by side. "What a big, toothless smile from your brother."

"While I was the 'quiet one'," Itsuko added, rolling her eyes, "he kept clinging at the legs of my parents and saying he loved them, a true toady."

"Wehihi, they can get pretty loud sometimes, right?"

Itsuko looked at the goddess, somewhat confused.

"Ahm... hmmm..." Madoka turned the page. "Let's continue, this book is very long."

Seeing the brother's new photos, she said, "He's smart. He learned to talk and walk much faster than I did, everyone was impressed. In the studies it was no different, while I was is cram schools to get a chance, he passed the entrance examinations among the first places without effort."

Then a picture with the family appeared.

Madoka commented on that, "You went to Disneyland in Tokyo. It was your idea, wasn't it? You like fairy tales."

"And the princesses too, I guess I don't hide it." Itsuko smiled and then turned serious again, pointing. "But see that my brother is already wearing a cap."

"Oh yes, the disease."

"He's a bit thin, too." Itsuko nodded. "My parents always wanted to give their best for the time he had. They stopped to care if I was going to school or not..."

The next pictures were with them in the hospital, in the hallway or in the bed, connected to serum bags and machines, the boy smiled despite his emaciated appearance.

"He was accepting," Madoka said, "no one told him, but he felt. Just the opposite of your parents. People put their insistence as something positive, but you heard the conversations behind the walls."

Itsuko was quiet, not so bothered with the content of those statements as with the serenity of the voice. She was at peace with the wish she had made, she really was, but having her state of mind being expressed by someone else was, at the very least, invasive.

Then one page was missing a photo and the next, and so Madoka continued leafing through blank pages.

Itsuko sighed and smiled.

Madoka leafed through more pages with nothing.

"And here this story ends..." Itsuko concluded, relaxing her shoulders and folding her arms. "I hope you're satisfied with this psychological test. I did well, didn't I? I told yo-"

"This is not a test." Madoka turned another page and there was a photo.

The other girl made a face. She did not recognize those people, a man with an old lady...

The grass rattled and flocks of books flew, taking the monochromatic sky with the sound of the beating of its covers.

Terror took control of Itsuko, who held her hands to her mouth, as if her body was obeying the part of her that did not want to ask that question, "How much... How much time has passed?"

"Time has no part in it." Firmly, Madoka waited for the sound of the books to subside. "This is the picture of your brother's graduation ceremony, graduation in physics."

Something else disturbed her. "Where is my father? Did he take the picture?"

Madoka shook her head. "He was at this event, but he doesn't know about this photo because he swore that the next family photo would have his daughter in it."

Itsuko clasped her hands together and pressed her lips to them as she held her breath.

"Sorry, there are no more photos." Madoka turned the page, revealing a clipped news item from a magazine.

In one picture, Itsuko recognized his brother, older, along with other men, all wearing a pair of strange gadget on their ears, resembling a device for deafness. There was also an illustration of a space telescope.

"Your brother majored in astrophysics. Mankind still had Earth as their only home."

Hearing this, Itsuko looked at Madoka and barely noticed that the page had been turned. In the news headline, something more surprising.

"Itsuko Project," Madoka stated with satisfaction, "the work of your brother's life was a theory. Only four percent of the universe was visible, the rest could only be perceived through its gravitational influence on this small visible part. They were called dark matter and dark energy." She pointed upward.

Itsuko followed, seeing the void sky of her barrier.

"Many theories had already been created and that of your brother was considered ingenuous, but with every failed experiment, a larger portion of the scientific community began to defend its merit. He argued that it wasn't a matter of larger, sophisticated sensors, but of point of view. Until that moment, all observations of distant points in the universe were made from Earth only." Madoka touched the other girl, drawing attention to an infographic. "The problem is that most of the information came from light and other electromagnetic waves, which could be distorted by gravity, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Your brother raised the hypothesis that dark matter was actually matter being concealed by it, for the light emitted by them was being so diverted that it would never reach Earth."

Itsuko raised her eyebrows with such knowledge of the goddess.

"That's what I read here, hehe."

"Ah..."

Madoka switched pages, showing news of a rocket launch. "The idea could even be simple, but to prove it required a great investment. Two exactly equal space telescopes were built. They were not as powerful as what was orbiting the Earth, but they were much more reliable because one of them would be sent to Neptune. When they were ready, the two satellites would map the same point of the deep space at the same time."

"To find if they would see the same thing?" Itsuko asked.

"That's right. If there was a big enough difference, your brother's theory would have been proven..."

Itsuko saw the next page, actually, it was now a digital screen. There was an old man receiving an award.

"It was more than the astronomers expected, even for your brother. The telescope orbiting Neptune detected galaxies and stars that could not be seen by the telescope orbiting Earth, but, mostly important, Neptune's telescope could not see galaxies and stars that had already been cataloged and were well known in that mapped region. It was as if the Neptune's telescope was seeing a new universe, a new sky hidden from all astronomers, since ancient times."

Itsuko did not pay much attention to that explanation, because her concern was another. "How long did it take them to make this discovery?"

"It took them fifteen years to design and construct the two telescopes, twelve for one of them to reach Neptune and four for the two satellites to be in a synchronized position long enough for the experiment," Madoka stated, "your brother is eighty four years in that image."

"Eighty... four..." Itsuko did not know what to say or what to feel, it was too unusual, something that only in this world of dreams and nightmares could happen.

"He lived to know that the project would be expanded, knowing that he wouldn't be when it was completed. They built and sent telescopes to orbit Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. In addition to the mission of seeing the space from different points of view, together with the other two already existing, they could simulate a lens with the size of the solar system. With that, they were able to start getting detailed images of planets orbiting nearby stars. In some of them, they found structures that could only be artificial."

Itsuko, still flabbergasted, spoke, "So... we're not alone..."

Madoka smiled. "Kyuubey is an alien."

Itsuko gaped, nodding. "Ahhh... That explains a lot!"

"After this discovery, Kyuubey revealed himself as a representative to those who now belonged to the stars, but that's another story..." Madoka closed the book. "Do you know why the project was called Itsuko?"

"Well..."

"The official version says it was more than just a homage to you. 'Itsu' can mean liberation and 'ko' is child. Therefore, the telescopes of the experiment devised by your brother are the children who freed humanity from the dark cave that they were in the universe." The girl in pajamas lifted her finger. "But I like another version, one that your brother would have shared with few people. When he had been cured, but was still recovering in the hospital, he would ask for his sister. No one had told him that she had disappeared, because they were still counting on finding her before that. However, he insisted until finally a nurse told him a story. That his sister wished to a star for him and it had taken her to a long and distant journey. This project, as silly as it could sound, was also his hope to find her somewhere in the cosmos."

Itsuko sighed, with a shaky smile. "I was right, everyone was, my brother is someone very special. He could not die."

"But you were wrong, too, about your parents..."

She stared at Madoka with a firmer, teary smile. "Deep down I always knew, always. It's the worst kind of mistake you can make and I'd do it again."

The goddess nodded.

While Itsuko turned her face. "It doesn't matter anymore. I'm the same as nothing now, even as a witch I wouldn't be a big threat to you guys. You didn't have to come here and show me what happened, I think there are a lot of girls who would be more interested in this 'special stuff'."

"But that's not the special part of that visit."

The statement made Itsuko slowly look back, surprised if not frightened.

Madoka kept a casual tone. "Do you want to go back?"

"Back...?" The girl shook her head, confused.

She continued, "Some time has passed, your brother will have left the hospital. You can tell your parents that you had run away because you couldn't deal with the situation, but you can tell your brother about the story of the star. He may begin to believe that magic exists, hihi."

Now, understanding, she opened her mouth. "I-Is that POSSIBLE?!" And she covered it.

Madoka nodded. "In a certain circumstance, yes."

"What do you mean? Am I not going to be a magical girl?"

"You'll be, your brother's life was saved." She joined her hands close to her chest. "And your wish will be respected."

"Ah..." Considering another meaning for that 'circumstance', Itsuko pointed to a tree made of books behind her, more specifically to what was inside it. "Would she come with me?"

"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"

Breathing through her mouth, unable to contain her anxiety, Itsuko lowered her head and covered her face with her hands. "No, no, no... that's too dangerous!"

"What's wrong? Didn't you say you're okay?" Madoka came closer.

Itsuko knew this, for she saw the golden light shining brighter between her fingers. "That's completely different! You want to change the story!"

"I want to secure the future," the goddess affirmed, "why do you think I told you the legacy of your desire? You may not understand, but what will happen to me may not happen this time."

"But if it was my absence that allowed this future, wouldn't that be the best way to guarantee it? Couldn't my presence bring a much worse result?" Itsuko shuddered. "We aren't talking about my brother's destiny, but about humanity's. Why would you risk it?"

Madoka said nothing.

"No, this is wrong, even if it would bring happiness to my family. When I made my wish, I put this burden on my brother. I counted on him, now I know, my parents would be proud. I can't, I can't..." Itsuko noticed the light between her fingers fading and the silence. She uncovered her face and saw the other standing in front of her with her serene smile.

"I asked you a question and you answered." Madoka offered the book. "Take it, it's yours."

She accepted it.

Madoka bowed. "Thank you for receiving me and for your time. If you have any problems, remember, you're not alone." She then headed toward the grass.

Itsuko did not say goodbye, she did not really know if she wanted to. That sudden end, was there something wrong or not? She held out her hand, but no idea how to proceed.

"Ah yes!" Madoka quickly turned around. "I wanted to make you an invitation."

As fast as Itsuko brought her hand to play with her braid. "Ahh... haha. An invitation?"

"It's for an event I'm organizing with other girls."

"A pajamas party?"

Madoka looked at her own clothes. "Weehihi, no... It would be something more like a fair. There's going to be an art exposition, music, a talent show, and what else the girls are doing with their time here."

Itsuko looked down. "Well, in my case..."

"You don't need anything! It'll be fun! We just need to figure out where it's going to be, meanwhile tell to anyone you can."

"I'll do it." Itsuko looked back and smiled.

Madoka winked and stepped into the grass.

Itsuko continued to smile until she realized that she had not said goodbye. She got up and walked a little, she even remembered telepathy, but the moment was lost and did not seem to be appropriate anymore.

Standing in the middle of her world, she reflected on her visitor and the special offer.

I think my answer didn't matter to her.

She looked at the cover of the book in her hands and felt the dry marks of fingers on it.

Who is the protagonist of this story?

She looked up at the sky or, more correct, it attracted her because there were lights. An ocean of constellations that mesmerized and made her forget the ground at her feet.

She hugged the book.

You did well.

No book was harmed during the creation of this fic.

Thank you for reading, this work is the result of an idea not so mature as those of my previous texts and I needed to spend more time to bring a result on par with them. I hope you enjoyed it.

Now I also want to let you know that a big event is coming up. Everyone is invited to Mami's birthday in 'Reunion', do not miss it!