Sayaka has been missing for a month now, and Hitomi is crying herself to sleep again.
She tries not to, but it's just been so hard. She knows it's because of her that Sayaka's gone - she disappeared so soon after Hitomi declared her intentions towards Kyousuke, it couldn't be a coincidence. Did she run away? Was she kidnapped? Had she - and Hitomi doesn't want to even consider this possibility - killed herself?
This brings on another wave of tears and she buries her face into her pillow so that her parents don't hear her. It's too much, she thinks, It's all too much.
"Shizuki Hitomi!"
She looks up.
A white animal sits on on her headboard, looking at her with red eyes. It has a long, puffy tail and antennae coming out of its ears, and it sits there just staring at her, as if waiting for her to say something.
"Shizuki Hitomi," it says again.
"M- me?" she stammers.
The creature hops down onto her bed, next to her head. She sits up and looks down at it.
"What are you?" she says.
"Kyubey," it says. "Would you like to make a contract with me and become a magical girl?"
Hitomi blinks. She was hallucinating, she knew that for sure. Or dreaming. Whatever the case, this was not real. Strange white creatures did not appear in real life and offer to turn ordinary girls into magical girls.
Unconsciously, she reaches out and touches it. It feels warm and solid, like it's really alive. She puts her hand on its head and it presses into her palm, like a cat.
So it isn't a hallucination. Hallucinations can't be felt. But she still could be dreaming; she felt things in her dreams, sometimes vividly. But this doesn't feel like a dream, it feels like real life, and every sense is telling her that yes, there really is something sitting on her bed, looking up at her with unblinking red eyes.
Maybe, Hitomi thinks, she can pretend that this is real. Just for fun. She knows it can't be... but there's no harm in pretending for a little while.
"What do I do?" she asks Kyubey.
"Make a wish," it says. "I can make miracles come true, but in return, you have to become a magical girl and fight witches."
"A wish...?"
Kyubey nods. "Yes!" it says. "Do you have something you would trade your life to protect?"
Hitomi can't help it. She thinks of Sayaka. None of this is real, but Sayaka disappearing is. What if she wished to find her, what if she wished to be the one to bring her home? Would that be possible?
"Miki Sayaka did."
That gets her attention. "Sayaka what?" she says, louder than she intended. She sits up straighter and stares at Kyubey in disbelief. "Sayaka... did she..."
"She made a contract with me," says Kyubey. "She wished for a miracle, and in return, became a magical girl. You didn't know that?"
Sayaka had been so tired lately, and had started staying out late. One day, she didn't come back home at night, and that's when her parents reported her missing. She had been falling asleep in class... Kyousuke's hand.
"I thought I would never be able to use it again," he said. "That's what all the doctors said."
Hitomi nodded. She had heard about that.
"But then..." he looked down at it, curling his fingers in and making a fist. He did that over and over, staring at his hand with a smile on his face. "I woke up and I could move it. It was like the accident had never happened. The doctors still don't know how it happened; they said it was a miracle."
"Sayaka wished for Kyousuke's hand to heal," Hitomi says. Kyubey doesn't reply, but Hitomi knows she's right. "She used her one chance at a miracle for that, and... and I took him away from her!"
Tears start to flow again, but Hitomi hardly notices. Kyubey flicks its tail and walks onto her pillow.
"Shizuki Hitomi," it says. "Do you have a wish you would trade your life for?"
She's had hardly a minute to think, but Hitomi knows what she wants. She wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and says:
"I wish to find Sayaka! I want to be with her, and apologize for the wrongs I've done. I want... I want her to forgive me. I don't need Kyousuke, I just don't want Sayaka to suffer anymore."
Kyubey reaches out towards her chest with its antennae, and Hitomi feels a horrible pain, like the pain she felt when the police gave up on looking for Sayaka made physical. She grits her teeth and closes her eyes, as if that would relieve the pain. There's a light shining, but she can't tell where it's coming from.
"Take it."
She opens her eyes.
A green light shines above her, and Hitomi realizes she's lying on her back. Slowly, she reaches out her hands, and closes them around the light, feeling it condense into something solid.
The moment she does, she sees Kyubey's antennae flare out and suddenly she's somewhere else.
"Sayaka? What happened to Sayaka?"
"She went away... led astray by her denial of change." The words are spoken by a girl with hair done up in two yellow curls, wearing a strange outfit like the ones Hitomi's seen in anime. She stands with two others, a red-haired girl and a black-haired girl – the transfer student from school, she realizes. The first girl looks away, not meeting the other two girls' eyes.
"She used all her energy in that last attack," she says.
The red-haired girl slams her fist into a pole. "What an idiot... what's the point of disappearing for the sake of the guy she loved? That idiot... we finally became friends..."
"That's the fate of magical girls. You should have learned that when you acquired these powers. Our hope will bring misfortune to this world, and we must disappear before that happens."
The girl with long black hair clutches a ribbon to her chest and chokes out a name.
But Hitomi doesn't hear it.
Sayaka is gone.
Her wish was for nothing.
Hitomi screams with the pain of losing Sayaka all over again and clutches the green gem tight. "She's gone," she says aloud. "She's gone!"
"Yes," Kyubey says. "If I had known what your wish would be, I would have told you that. I didn't think you would become a magical girl with the knowledge of how every magical girl ends. Ah, well. What a waste."
Hitomi almost asks it what it means by a waste, but there's a pain in her chest and she looks down. The gem she holds is darkening, being eaten up by blackness, and as she watches she can feel her despair grow.
She wished to be with Sayaka. So now...
"No," she says, "no," and she sobs, her tears running down her face. "I don't want to die!"
The last bit of shining green vanishes, the crystal cracks, and
"It's okay, Hitomi."
She looks up.
There's a flash of pink and a girl with red ribbons in her hair appears, smiling down at her. She must be a magical girl, too, because she wears an elaborate outfit like the ones Hitomi saw the girls in her vision wearing. Kyubey doesn't seem to notice her; he looks straight through her at Hitomi, his red eyes barely visible in the light.
"I'm sorry," the girl says. "I didn't account for this future. I didn't want you to go through this pain. But it's okay, Hitomi! We can be together now – you, me, and Sayaka."
Hitomi sits there, confused, while the girl reaches her hands out to the soul gem in Hitomi's trembling grasps and the darkness is sucked out of it, vanishing into nothingness until there's nothing left.
And then Hitomi remembers.
"Madoka," she said, and reaches out her hand.
Kyubey watches impassively as Hitomi Shizuki says her last word and falls down onto the bed. A moment later, her body fades out. Kyubey has never figured out why that happens to magical girls; their souls are no longer linked to their bodies, so why would their body disappear along with their soul gems?
Kyubey hasn't figured out why their soul gems vanish, either, but now he thinks he may have an idea. It's not as much of a waste as it could have been; Hitomi never had much potential for a magical girl, but through her sacrifice, Kyubey has learned something valuable.
He had never paid Homura's theory much mind. It was a possibility, yes, but an unlikely one; a magical girl with the potential to make that sort of wish would be impossible under ordinary circumstances. But Homura's power isn't ordinary at all, a "game-breaker," almost. If she really did turn back time over and over, all for the sake of this one girl...
Madoka, he thinks.
Perhaps her theory had some bearing after all.