Chapter 1

Madoka was under my careful scrutiny.

I examined everything about her behavior, from slight changes in her mood to her general speech patterns. I patiently waited for any indication that she was tumbling headlong into madness with me.

To my dismay, she wasn't.

Instead, she was growing more heartbroken and demoralized every day as she was reminded how hopeless her mission was, and e rarely, if ever criticized me.

That wasn't good at all. That was natural.

It was incredibly frustrating to see her suffering like that; if she was still determined to 'help' the Potential Witches in spite of everything, then she hadn't changed at all.

She should have given up by now.

I'd been monitoring myself as well; I logged the time, date, and details of every deranged thought process I encountered, as well as how often I contemplated suicide and planned mass-murders per day.

It didn't make sense.

I'd noticed that the recycled grief seeds had been altering my mental state very soon after I first tried using them.

It'd been years since Madoka started using them, but somehow she wasn't anything like me. At least, not yet.

My mind continued to deteriorate over time, and the frequency of my psychotic episodes and black-outs increased.

It was extremely irritating.

She used them too, so shouldn't she have been experiencing similar symptoms?

Perhaps I miscalculated something.

Maybe it would just take longer for psychosis to set in for her.

One day, a frightening possibility struck me: What if the Puella Magi incubation system wasn't really infallible, as I assumed it must be?

If they hadn't thought of everything, hadn't planned for this, and hadn't programmed any safeguard into the grief seeds...

Perhaps I was going insane all on my own.

Homura and I were heading for the former first world countries in the Western Hemisphere.

After a series of massive world wars left much of North America and Western Europe in ruins, the Incubators that remained on Earth began concentrating their efforts on recruiting girls from the broken nations.

The US was under martial law. Most of its military had been decimated overseas, and as a result there was no longer any legitimate form of law enforcement.

Without proper protection for the general population against crime, despair and grief increased exponentially, making the young girls living in defeated countries very attractive targets for the Incubators.

According to Homura, most girls contracted these days had very limited potential. The less potential a girl had, the less impact her wish made on reality; the energy generated from that wish was only proportional to her potential, and would therefore be the same no matter what its effect on reality was.

I'm not sure when it happened, but before long I stopped questioning how she knew these things for certain and started treating everything that she said as matters of fact. Homura had been wrong when it counted before, but even so I didn't hold it against her.

"We can beat Walpurgisnacht. If we work together, we can all survive."

Perhaps I could stand to be a bit more skeptical when it comes to her and her intentions.

She also explained that girls who wished their "loved ones were still alive" essentially ended up with a brain-dead person suffocating to death again in a coffin somewhere, just as those who wished that someone was "still here" ended up with a lifeless corpse in their bedroom.

Since none of these girls had any potential, it didn't matter if they wished for the best cake ever, or money to help their family survive, or dashing good looks... These days, Incubators simply granted wishes as stated and moved on to the next unsuspecting victim. Once a contract was made, they only told the girls that they expected to keep their identity secret and collect grief seeds, and then they were on their own.

That's why we had to track down the Incubators. To try our best to provide the new generation of magical girls with the knowledge and guidance they desperately needed. As things were, the vast majority of Puella Magi would simply become witches within a very short span of time, and before long they would plunge the world even further into chaos.

Although Homura made her feelings about my mission abundantly clear, I appreciated her presence at my side more than she could ever know.

Admittedly, I still had doubts about our relationship. She never looked me in the eyes. Never smiled. Never kissed me back, or held me.

What hurt the most was that she never helped when I tried to help the magical girls we found. She also never backed me up when they lashed out at me, which happened more often than not, and usually left me with various defensive injuries. Fighting back would defeat the purpose of trying to deal with them peacefully, so all I could do was try not to get injured too badly and hoped someone took my words to heart for a change.

Even so, I couldn't complain. At the very least, she was always by my side.

And she'd been with me this long; I knew she'd never leave.

We had just left Venezuela after spending over half of that year in South America.

Now, we planned to go island-hopping in the Caribbean before jumping over to Central America and moving north from there.

For the moment, we found ourselves in a locally-popular Puerto Rican diner.

I placed a map of San Juan on the dingy table, and pointed to an abandoned bus station I'd seen on the way.

"We could set up a base here for the time being, and patrol the nearby districts starting tonight. I suppose we could save a lot of time looking for the magical girls in this town by waiting for a witch to show up. I mean, there's bound to be a lot of competition for territory and Grief Seeds in such a small country. I'll bet a bunch of them show up each time a witch does, and-"

"Lower your voice. We're being watched."

I hadn't realized I'd been speaking Spanish until she replied in Japanese while sipping a glass of water.

I wondered what was up with the ventriloquist act, but then I saw the girl in my peripheral vision.

Sitting in a booth a few yards away was a girl who looked a few years younger than we were when we first contracted.

The way she blatantly stared at us was actually a bit unsettling.

Her dead-straight, dark brown hair was cut just above her shoulders, and hung limply in her face, her expression something between shock and awe.

"So what should we do?" I asked, following her lead and using Japanese, just to be safe.

Even if she was trying to eavesdrop I didn't really see a problem. But if Homura did, I'd play along.

"Nothing," she replied, finishing her water. "You were saying?"

Now, I was seriously confused, and it probably showed on my face.

Why make a big deal about being watched if she doesn't even care?

"Well, we could also try to-" I pretended to continue mapping out my projected plan of action during our stay in this town, but my eyes kept wandering back to that girl.

Why would Homura switch back to Spanish if she's concerned about being overheard?

For the first time in years, Homura was actively engaged in a conversation with me. Honestly, when I drew these plans and presented them for her approval, it was just to keep up appearances.

She usually never had anything to say about them, positive or negative.

Now, she was giving suggestions, writing notes and drawing little diagrams on the map. I couldn't figure out what changed.

I stared into her eyes and realized that nothing had. She still didn't care about my plan, but she must've had a reason for doing this.

I tore my gaze away from Homura and stole another glance at the strange girl.

She noticed me this time. Her eyes widened in terror, and in a matter of seconds she'd collected her belongings and dashed for the exit.

Not before I'd noticed the small silver ring swaying on the chain around her neck, however.

"Looks like we found one." I watched the door slam closed behind her, and glanced back at Homura. Standing, she placed some money on the table and began collecting our things.

"But why did she seem so afraid of us? Does she know who we are?"

"We shall see."

I noticed the Potential Witch the moment we entered the diner.

The flash of recognition in her eyes and absolute terror in her expression were unmistakable. I only spared her a glance as we passed so as not to arouse even more suspicion.

I could feel her eyes shift from me, to Madoka's oblivious face, and finally land on the map on our table.

So, she knows who we are what I've come here to do. Or is she just afraid simply because we're Puella Magi?

Madoka started speaking, but I was too busy making plans of my own to pay her much attention.

She must have heard stories about us from someone else. Meaning, she knows other Potentials and can lead us to them.

Very faintly, I heard buttons clicking rapidly... She must have been sending a message to an ally, perhaps even arranging a rendezvous for when she left.

I alerted Madoka to her presence, but pretended to shrug the whole thing off as unimportant so that she'd act naturally and continue feeding the girl information.

Once we left the diner, I stopped time and caught up to her.

She had been running frantically, cell phone in hand, and was dressed in her Puella Magi outfit. The extremely distressed look on her face spoke volumes.

She recognized me. There was no doubt about it now.

I returned to Madoka's side, telling her that we were going to head west and run on rooftops parallel to the street she was taking. That way, we would make it to her destination around the same time she did.

"Shouldn't we try to be stealthy if we're only going to watch them?"

"That won't be necessary."

She didn't question me further, so I didn't elaborate.

"And you still came here? ¿Estás loca?" The tallest of the group, obviously the leader, pinched the bridge of her nose as she contemplated how to effectively remedy the situation.

Ria

"Were you followed? Ay dios mio..." The level-headed one. She walked over to the leader to discuss a solution to their problem.

Gabriella

"Are you kidding? What the fuck is wrong with you?" The hot-headed one. She grabbed the poor girl by the collar and lifted her off the ground.

Daniela

"No! They were still there when I left, I swear! I just figured that-" The naive one. She was much too trusting, assuming we wouldn't follow her and her friends would understand.

Camila

"We need to leave, like yesterday." The actions-speak-louder type. She was already getting ready to go.

Alex

Sometimes I wondered why our names were engraved on our rings in runic symbols... It certainly made my life easier, since I preferred to keep the grief seeds I collected organized inside of my shield.

It would definitely have been a hassle if I had to politely ask each girl I killed for her name.

A/N

Look for this in the M-rated section for future chapters.

This was only so short because the last was so long... Its mostly just to foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow! I intend to have the rest in the 4000 - 5000 word range, for manageability.

At first, when it was suggested that I extend this fic past its one-shot status, I shrugged it off as something I was way too busy (lazy) to ever do. Now, ideas are hitting me out of nowhere, demanding to be written out.

Although I'm probably (definitely) not going to take it as far out as the suggestion suggested, I will have this story chronicle Homura and Madoka's struggle to save Humanity in their own ways. As you know, both girls have irreconcilable ideas on how to accomplish this. Don't start hating my Homura just yet! She's meant to be the antagonist, not the "bad guy."

Hopefully, you'll find it within you to forgive her for the things she does in the next chapter. I did say that Madoka saw piles of dead Magical Girls in her shield... ;D

I'll warn you now: As dark as the preface was? You probably shouldn't hold your breath for a happy ending.

That would take some serious Deus ex Machina-ing... *shrug*

Stay tuned!