Terrified, the trio had been pushed along by their assailant for a good thirty minutes, until Tomohisa shakily asked, fear prevalent in his voice, "W-Where are you taking us?"

"Remain quiet." The voice—noticeably far younger than his own—ordered sternly as she shoved the weapons' barrels more forcefully into their spines, "Attracting the Undead would be very foolish."

Tatsuya stared at the captor quizzically, "Daddy? What Black Hair doing?"

"Shhh," his father hushed, holding tightly to his son, "Not now, buddy. Let's play the quiet game, okay?"

"Otay…"

Sayaka, with gears turning in her brain, commented, "That voice… Black hair…" She tightened her grip on her bat and started spinning around to confront their capturer, "YOU'RE THAT-"

"Do not face me!" the girl commanded. Sayaka flinched and complied. "Just keep walking. We should be nearly there."

Without another word, the girl led the trio to a portion of town Tomohisa that was very much unfamiliar with. As the sun set on the horizon, the suburban portion of Mitakihara slowly merged with the high rooftops of urban alleyways until disappearing completely. Soon after arriving in the urban district, they paused momentarily at crossroad divided down the middle by an apartment building.

"U-Um…" Tomohisa stuttered, "R-Right or left?"

"Straight," the girl plainly stated.

Tomohisa gulped as they stepped up the small stairway leading to the apartment. He noticed a small nameplate next to the door: Akemi Homura.

Sayaka growled, "I knew it…"

"Open the door," the voice sternly instructed.

"Y-Yes ma'am," Tomohisa complied as he grasped the doorknob. He trembled as he slowly turned the handle and creaked open the door.

He gasped as his jaw dropped in shock of the impossible interior. The only things present in the pure white room were two sets of semicircle couches surrounding a circular table, various posters and papers floating above them, and what seemed to be a giant, unteathered axe somehow swinging from the ceiling like a grandfather clock's pendulum.

"Go," the voice commanded as she shoved them into the apartment with her weapons.

Tomohisa relaxed slightly when she relieved her weapons from their spines, but his jaw still hung ajar, gawking at the interior.

Their captor—a young girl with long, flowing black hair—swiftly threw her guns to one of the couches and dragged the other one to brace it against the door.

Sayaka turned to her and glared, "Hey! What's your damage?" The girl said nothing as she finished bracing the door, "Hey! Transfer Student! I'm talking to you!"

The girl—wearing what seemed to be a white blazer complemented with various blacks and greys, a purple bow, short grey skirt, long black boots, and a strange buckler shield on her forearm—stood up, brushed the dust off of her hands, and turned to her captives. "You should watch your mouth around the person who saved your life, Miki."

Sayaka growled, "What the heck are you talking about? We were heading to the Evac Center just fine on our own!"

"Which was a death wish," the mysterious girl extrapolated. "From where I found you, there were at least a hundred Undead crammed into every street leading to the Evacuation Site. You would have never made it." She shifted her gaze to Tomohisa, "Especially considering Mr. Kaname was weaponless and carrying a child."

Tomohisa snapped out of gawking at the interior and shot her a confused look, "H-How do you know me? Who are you? Are you a friend of Madoka's?"

"My name is Homura Akemi," the girl acknowledged, "and you could say that."

"Liar!" Sayaka placed her hands on her hips and sneered, "You just transferred to our class today! There's no way you could know Madoka, let alone be friends with her! She'd never be friends with someone like you!"

"It is foolish to speak of things you know nothing about, Miki." With a hint of anger in her stoic features, Homura ran her hand through her long, black hair and flipped it, "Foolish gets you killed."

Sayaka seethed as she clenched her fists tight and her face burned cherry red, "Why I oughtta-"

Tomohisa set Tatsuya down on the floor and nervously waved his hands to stop the quarrel, "Ladies, please! This is hardly the time to be fighting each other…"

Tatsuya toddled over to Sayaka and tugged on her skirt, "Auntie Saya, no fight. No fight RaRa."

Sayaka glanced down at the child and her anger quickly faded away. She knelt down, patted the boy's head and giggled, "Alrighty, Tatsuya. Just for you, I promise not to fight—" she paused, shifted her deep, blue eyes to Homura and frowned, "—RaRa."

Tatsuya then slowly walked over to Homura and tugged on her skirt as well, staring up at her with child-like innocence, "RaRa, no fight. No fight Auntie Saya."

Homura knelt down and let a small grin crack on her otherwise emotionless face. She rubbed his head gently and softly assured, "I promise not to fight—" she returned Sayaka's glare with a stone-cold, apathetic stare of her own, "—Auntie Sayaka."

A huge smile broke onto Tatsuya face as he returned to his father, cheering, "Yay! No fight! No fight! No fight!"

"The little human is right you know," a small voice spoke. Tomohisa lurched backwards as small white creature resembling a cat mixed with a bunny appeared on Homura's shoulder, "You can't afford to be fighting at a time like this."

Mr. Kaname cautiously stepped backwards and fearfully asked, "W-W-What is that thing?! And why can it talk?"

"…What?" Homura's purple eyes shot open in shock, "You can see him? That… That shouldn't be possible!"

Sayaka, whose jaw now hung ajar, stared at the cat-like creature, "I thought you said Magical Girls and potential Magical Girls were the only ones that could see you."

"By my calculations, this 'apocalypse' has greatly depleted the amount of time humanity has left on this earth. Even now, the number of humans dying every minute is increasing exponentially." the cat stated calmly, "I simply decided it pointless to waste energy by keeping myself hidden any longer."

Homura gasped slightly, and glared at the creature on her shoulder "What do you mean, 'apocalypse'?

The bunny-cat answered, "Just that. We Incubators keep a telepathic link at all times to check on our progress in creating Magical Girls. With this link, I've asked other Incubators about this puzzling… 'epidemic', as your news reporters like to put it. It's happening all across the planet."

The three of the four humans' faces that weren't Tatsuya drowned in horror. The Incubator continued, "From Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, to Cairo, Egypt, to London, United Kingdom, and even Beijing, China, the dead are rising and consuming the living."

He paused for a moment to let the information sink into the humans' brains. Tomohisa gasped as leaped for the couch and door in panic, "My family! We have to save them! They're still out there!"

As he started attempting to remove the couch barrier, he was forcefully yanked backwards. Reaching for the door that the force was pulling him away from, he cried out, "B-But! Junko! Madoka! We have to save them!"

Homura glared down at him, "If they're still alive by now, that means they're intelligent. If they're intelligent, they'll survive until morning. It's dark now. If those old campfire stories are true—which they've been proven to be accurate thus far—, the Undead are more active at night. If we went out now, we would most certainly be dead."

He tried to protest, "B-But…"

Then, Sayaka knelt down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, "I don't like it either Mr. K… My folks are out there too…" she momentarily fell silent, "But we'll find 'em tomorrow for sure! Every one of them, I just know it!"

"At any rate," the creepy, white creature turned its head to Tomohisa, who cringed at its piercing, crimson gaze, "My name is Kyubey! I make contracts to turn human girls into Magical Girls; girls who fight Witches!"

Tomohisa couldn't respond. His shocked brain simply reeled from all the terrible news. Kyubey added, "I would suggest not thinking about it too much at the moment, though. Instead, you should focus on the problem at hand. Which reminds me…" it turned back to Sayaka, "My offer from before still stands if you're interested. With this outbreak of the undead, I would suggest you seriously consider it."

Sayaka rubbed her forehead, thinking, "I dunno… That whole wish thing still seems super sketchy… What if it comes back to bite me in the butt?"

Kyubey tilted his head, "I'm not sure I understand that statement. Unless, of course, you wish for something like a shark, which would make sense, as sharks are quite carnivorous to my knowledge, and would have no qualms about feasting on your rear."

Sayaka facepalmed, "It's figure of speech. What I mean is, what if my wish turns south and only hurts me later?"

"Pause." Tomohisa raised his hands in request, "Can we back this up a little? I think I'm lost."

Homura crossed her arms and explained, "Kyubey is a creature called an Incubator. He makes contracts with young girls to give them powers to fight embodiments of sorrow, called Witches."

Kyubey added, "Since Witches are embodiments of sorrow, they have existed since the dawn of humanity. As such, our job of creating Magical Girls to fight said Witches has also existed. Do not be fooled, this is a dangerous line of work. It is quite likely that a Magical Girl could lose her life to a Witch, which is why we offer to grant one free miracle as compensation."

"And he says I've got potential to become one," Sayaka shrugged and shook her head, "I'm just not sure I really trust this whole wish thing."

"But Kyubey," Tomohisa, thinking over the information he had just been given, rubbed his chin, "what do you have to gain personally from this? I've been around the block a few times. People don't generally do things just out of the goodness of their hearts."

The Incubator reiterated, "Like I said, I create Magical Girls to slay Witches."

Sayaka squinted, "Wait a minute, Mr. K's onto something. The witches would be our problem to deal with. They're our own sorrows after all. They wouldn't be any of your business. So, why are you equipping us to fight them with no benefit to yourself?"

Kyubey paused, "…I'm impressed, Mr. Kaname. No one ever asks that question up front. I applaud you."

"Thanks?" Tomohisa scratched his head and chuckled, "With age comes wisdom, I guess."

The bunny-cat continued, "Let me start by saying that there is a limited amount of energy in the universe. All energy is subjected to entropy."

"Entropy?" Sayaka asked.

"I think I remember that from my high school chemistry class, actually," Tomohisa stated, "It's the scientific law that states that all matter becomes disorganized over time, right?"

"Correct." Kyubey nodded, "Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only change forms. For example—"

"Cut to the chase," Homura commanded coldly, staring out of the peephole in her door, "we need to hurry up finish so I can shut out the lights. If those old campfire stories are true, the Undead will be attracted to even the slightest light, and I know for a fact that this couch will not hold up against a large horde."

"Well, in that case," Kyubey cleared his throat, "Long story short, when we create Magical Girls, we can harness the power of their emotions and convert it into extremely potent energy. With that energy, we want to halt the inevitable heat death of the universe at the hands of entropy. Is that an adequate enough answer?"

Tomohisa's jaw dropped for a third time, "I… I don't think I understand…"

"Yet, you understand the prospect of the living dead?" Kyubey cocked his head, "I clearly explained what I do, but the undead still have no explanation. Why then do you have confusion?"

"I'm still having trouble with that too, honestly…" Mr. Kaname swallowed a lump in his throat trying not to think of his missing family. He looked to Sayaka, "Anyway, Sayaka, this deal goes way over my head. Do you understand it at all?"

The girl rubbed her chin, "…Yeah, I think I got the gist of it. Having some extra firepower against the Walkers would be nice…" She glanced at her blood-stained, steel bat still resting on her shoulder, "This bat's a good brain-buster, but if we get overrun…"

"I'd say that's as good a reason as any to make a contract with me," Kyubey offered.

"Eh…" Sayaka squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard about her decision, "Hey, Transfer Student. You seemed pretty serious about Madoka and me not making contracts back at the school. Why aren't you saying anything now?"

Still keeping watch through the peephole, Homura muttered, "What you do doesn't concern me. Make your wish, or don't. I couldn't care less. Madoka's fate is the only one I care about. Whatever your decision, just make it quickly. I think I see Undead."

Sayaka sighed in defeat, "Well, Mr. K?"

"Hmm?" Tomohisa stood up as removed his gaze from his son who had fallen asleep on the other couch.

"You're my best friend's dad, the only person here that I actually trust to any extent. What do you think I should do?"

"Well," Tomohisa answered, "if I understand this correctly, you'll be equipped to fight Witches. That'll also prepare you to fight… Walkers, you called them?"

"Yeah," Sayaka nodded. "And that's what I was thinking as well…"

He continued, "And you also get to help in stopping the eventual death of the universe," he chuckled, "Not that any of us will live that long to see it. And, on top of that, you even get to have a free miracle granted."

Sayaka sighed and rested her hands on her hips, "Yeah, I got that and all, but…"

"…But you're worried that your wish will have negative consequences," He finished.

She nodded, "Yeah."

He placed her hand on her shoulder, "If I this were just an ordinary situation, I would be as lost as you. But if I were you in our current situation, I'd use every means at my disposal to see my loved ones safe, even if it means dealing with negative consequences later."

"So basically," Sayaka tilted her head, "Take the benefits and cross the bad bridge when I get to it?"

Tomohisa smiled as he ruffled her hair, "You got it. And you won't be crossing it alone. We're all in this boat together now, y'know?"

She smiled and nodded, "Gotcha." She closed her eyes to take in a deep a breath and slapped her cheeks twice. Her eyes then shot open full of resolve and she exclaimed, "Alright, Kyubey. I think I'm ready to make a contract. I want to be a Magical Girl."

The Incubator nodded, "Okay, Sayaka Miki. What is your wish?"

She paused, "Um…" After thinking it over, she snapped her fingers and gasped, "I got it! Heck, we'll be able to get off the boat before it ever even gets to set sail! I wish the Undead Virus never existed!"

After nothing changed for a long while, she stared at Kyubey and frowned, "Hey! What gives?! You said you could grant any wish!"

Kyubey replied, "Well, yes. It IS possible for me to grant that wish. But, while you have the potential to become a Magical Girl, it is not nearly big enough to yield enough energy to make a net gain to outset the energy used to grant it. Since we're trying to save energy to stop entropy, that would simply be wasteful."

Sayaka's heart sank into her stomach, "YOU'RE KIDDING."

The Incubator denied, "My kind does not know how to 'kid', as you put it."

"Fine then…" she sighed, "Then… I wish that our group will survive the Walkers."

Again, nothing happened.

She raised her hands in question, "Hey! What the heck's wrong with that one?"

"You see," Kyubey explained, "this one's pretty tricky. There are many variables I have to take into account with that one. If your group were to grow larger than you four, I would have to use energy to protect them as well. Also, I'd have to make everyone in your potential group immune.

"If the group remained just you four, it would be fairly simple, plenty enough for your Magical Girl potential to cover. However, you even said you wanted to find your families. The idea of increasing energy exponentially for each new member is simply something I'm not willing to risk. To top it all off, the chances of us finding more potential Magical Girls to create contracts with has decreased greatly with this outbreak of the Undead."

She glared, "So, wait a minute, you're just going to let people die solely to conserve energy?!"

"What happens to humanity is of no concern to me. Even then, what are a few human lives to the scope of the entire-"

"QUIET!" Homura commanded, "We don't have time for your spiel, Kyubey!" She scowled at Sayaka, "Miki, make your wish or deny it, I don't care. Just hurry up so we don't attract any unwanted attention."

"How could you say that?!" Sayaka exclaimed, "These are human-"

"Not anymore," Homura cut her off and glared, "If Kyubey is right, Humanity is dying." She returned to keeping watch through the peephole, "We will be too if you don't make a decision quickly."

The blue-haired girl seethed and growled momentarily before relaxing her muscles and sighing, "Fine. Then, I… I wish at least to be able to meet up with Madoka and my family safely…"

Kyubey nodded, "Very well, Sayaka Miki. Your Wish has overcome entropy!"

After the Incubator spoke those words, a blindingly bright light shined around Sayaka's torso. A tingling pain worked its way from her back to her chest, growing more intense as it seemed to be attempting to break out. A small, circular, sapphire glow burned on her chest as she clutched it, screaming in agony.

"Sayaka!" Tomohisa gasped and reached out, "Are you okay?"

"STOP!" Kyubey ordered, "You mustn't interfere!"

Trying to fight back tears of pain, Sayaka gave a pained smile as she stuttered broken words, "I-It's fine, M-M-Mr. K. I'll b-b-b-be ok-k-k-kaAAAAAAYYYY-"

Homura shot over and muffled her impending scream as the light ripped its way out of Sayaka's chest. Catching the light, it solidified in her hands. She opened them to see a small, sapphire gemstone encased in an ornate, golden casing.

Spitting Homura's hand off of her mouth, she widened her eyes and stared at the sapphire, "WOAH…"

"Did…" Tomohisa asked hesitantly, "Did it work?"

"I think so…" Sayaka answered. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Energy emanated from her body as her school uniform disappeared, replaced by a blue and white corset. Her plaid skirt metamorphosised into an equally blue and white one as the corset, as long white and azure boots stretched up her legs. A long, blue-hilted katana materialized itself in her now-white, leather gloves, complemented with comfy, blue arm warmers. A snow white cape flowed down her back, completing the ensemble.

Once the transformation finished, Sayaka gave herself a good examination. Sporting a smirk, she practiced swinging her katana and asked, "Well, Mr. K? How do I look?"

Tomohisa returned a smile, "You look great. The cape really works for you."

Just then, the lights went out as Homura stated, "That's enough. We cannot risk any more time with the lights on." Her voice instructed as it moved across the dark room to where the table would be, "I recommend we sleep in close proximity of each other, in case something goes wrong. Find a place on the floor and keep quiet."

"I brought sleeping bags if you ladies like," Tomohisa offered, removing the pack from his shoulders. "This floor looks very uncomfortable."

"Thanks, Mr. K!" Sayaka whispered, untying the Mr. Kaname's sleeping bags from her own back.

Rolling out his sleeping bag, Tomohisa asked, "And what about you, Ms. Akemi? I'd feel much better if you were comfortable in your own home."

Homura paused, "…I appreciate the offer, Mr. Kaname, but I don't want to impose."

Rolling out the second bag, he assured, "No, please! I insist!"

"Y'know, Transfer Student, I've slept on hard floors before," Sayaka, already laying in her sleeping bag beside Tomohisa, shuffled into a sitting position and added, "and they usually leave nasty back aches. What if that gets in the way of killing Walkers?"

"Pain has never stopped me from completing my task before," the girl stated. "…But I supposed it can't hurt to take as many precautions as necessary." She slowly walked over and lied down in the sleeping back Tomohisa prepared for her, "Thank you, Mr. Kaname."

Tomohisa sighed as he lied down in his own bag, "It's my pleasure."

Homura rolled to her side and commented, "Get some sleep. We'll make preparations to leave at dawn."