An hour after the note's delivery, the battle at the encampment finally began. From their machine gun nest, Azuma and Mami saw the cultists ready their own arms and take aim at the camp. Then, the very first gunshots rang out. Mami yelled out as she loaded up the gun in the nest, "Let's get it!" She then cocked it and began firing at the cultists in short bursts. As Azuma readied a second belt of ammunition, several bullets struck the hardened nest, but did not penetrate its walls. "I got a couple of 'em!"

"They just don't know when to give up," Azuma told her as he fed the gun with the belt. "Their movement is dead!" In the distance, he could see a grenade get thrown in their direction, and come flying towards them. "Fuck, a grenade!" On pure instinct, he immediately grabbed Mami and threw her to the ground before falling on top of her to shield her from what seemed to be the impending blast. "If one of us has to die," he thought to himself. "I'll be damned if it's her!"

Then, after a few seconds, they both heard and felt a deafening blast from outside. Mami quickly stood up as Azuma was seen shouting something, but Mami could not hear over it due to her ears still ringing and being deafened from the enemy grenade that had blown up right outside the nest. "Azuma-kun, what?!" As her hearing slowly came back, Azuma repeated himself.

"I said," he asked of her. "Were you hurt, my love?! The grenade fell short of the nest, thank God!"

"I'm fine," Mami replied, grateful that the grenade had not gotten in. "Thank you for shielding me, by the way." She then gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Let's light them up again." As they continued to fight on, Mami reminisced about some of their earlier moments together before they had begun their relationship.

...

The Day Sayaka Contracted

Mami and Azuma had enjoyed a night on the town together, wanting to get their minds off of Charlotte's appearance and Mami's near-death at its hands. As they walked down a pathway in a city park together, they talked and talked about life, school, friends, and other various things. Mami asked of him as they rounded a corner near a fountain, "Tell me, what's up with your English scores? They're super high from what I've heard."

"My parents had both lived in America in the past," he told her, wanting to then conceal the truth. "They passed onto me the English they learned."

"Pfft, lucky," Mami remarked, slightly jealous. "I'm not the best in it. I've considered asking you for help, you know."

"I'll gladly help you study and do homework for English," Azuma assured her. As he did, he imagined in his head how studying alone with Mami would go. By this point, he had begun to genuinely like Mami as more than just a friend or a favorite character. "I can already picture it," he thought to himself in his daydream. "Me and Mami sitting in her apartment, alone, reading from a book and speaking to each other. They talk about words for love in those books, and I can just picture me telling her how I feel, and her telling me the same. At least, I hope she feels the same if I do ever tell her..."

"You okay? You kinda spaced out there..."

Mami's words snapped him out of his daydream, leading to an awkward blush. "Right," he replied. "Sorry about that. By the way, you don't mind me not calling you Tomoe-san or Mami-senpai or Tomoe-senpai, right? I mean, I am a year behind you."

"We're friends," Mami assured him. "Personally, who cares if I'm a year older than you? I don't. I consider myself and you to be equals. No need for the word senpai at all from how I see it. If you want to call me it, go knock yourself out, but I'm not gonna get my panties in a bunch if you don't." She then shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. Speaking of underwear..." The blonde then reached under her uniform shirt from the top and adjusted her bra straps. "There we go... Ugh, I hate it when they get tangled up or something like that."

"Your bra straps?" Azuma sort of blurted out the question, and somewhat regretted doing so.

"Yeah," Mami surprisingly answered him honestly. "Having big boobs can be fun, but it's also a challenge. It's not all sunshine and rainbows for any person anywhere, but you do get some additional pressures when you're a teenage girl with a body like mine." She sighed as she began to recall some 'choice' moments. "Like when people think you're older than you are. Most of the time, it's accidental and they aren't doing anything out of malice, but then you have the creepy old dudes that give you stares because they think you're legal for someone their age."

"Ew," Azuma simply replied, wanting to listen in more. He was saddened to hear about those issues, and also felt somewhat guilty as a fan.

"Or perhaps when you outgrow three bras in one year," Mami then added. She sarcastically noted to him, "Yeah, that was a fun time... Not. I had to spend way too much to cycle through them. I really don't know what it is, to be honest. Before the car accident that killed my parents, I was a bit larger than most other people at the start of their junior high school experience, but not by too much." She stopped and looked to him, wanting to confirm something before she talked any further. "Inubouzaki-san, before I continue, I need you to promise me to never repeat any of this. Miki-san and Kaname-san have heard some of this, but not everything.

Azuma was startled that she was telling him all of this. "I'm a bit surprised. I mean, those two are at least girls. I'm not. I don't have tits, and no, man tits don't count even if I had those. What makes you think I'd understand more than them?"

The blonde laughed in response, amused by his response. As she calmed herself down from her amusement, she answered his question. "Oh, Inubouzaki-san, you don't have to be a girl to have a good listening ear and a sympathetic heart. I know you aren't just my friend because of how I look, and I know that because you saved my life." As the boy blushed and slightly turned his head away, Mami continued her story/rant. "Anyway, I've had to deal with the occasional creep hitting on me. Thankfully, a majority of them backed off when I told them how old I was. They at least had the common decency to stop making those kind of comments about a minor when they learned, well, they were a minor."

"Let me guess," Azuma had to ask, feeling concerned for her. "You day the word 'majority' because not everyone did that?"

"Unfortunately yes," Mami sighed. "There were a very few select people who did. I say people, because one time, it was a woman. They thought I was lying, or they didn't care." She noticed that Azuma had an expression of deep concern on his face. "Don't worry, nothing got physical."

"I hope not," he told her. "Mami-chan, listen to me. You can tell me if someone's getting on your nerves or bothering you, okay?"

Mami smiled, glad to hear his assurances. "Thanks. I'll be sure to remember that."

...

Present

Elsewhere, Nagisa was running along the sand barriers that surrounded the camp as it was attacked. As she neared a small impromptu guard tower, she saw two JGSDF soldiers perched on top of it, firing at the attacking cultists. She carried with her medical supplies, and had assisted a regular medic with a gunshot victim already. As she looked up, she heard an odd metallic clang sound as both of the soldiers on the tower got up and tried to run.

However, to Nagisa's horror, it was too late. The tower exploded, the clanging sound being a grenade that had landed on the tower. As she ducked and faced away, the blast ripped the tower apart and killed one of the men immediately, his head flying off of his body and landing near the young girl, frightening her with a yelp. The other soldier, however, was still alive after having fallen from the tower's ruins, and Nagisa very quickly regained her composure and ran to his aide. "Hey, soldier, I'm here!"

"You're the little girl," the soldier remarked to her as he looked at her. His legs had practically been blown off by the explosion, and he had several other wounds around his body from the shrapnel. "This shit isn't something you want to be seeing at your age, or any age... Damn it..."

"That doesn't matter now," Nagisa replied to him as she pulled out two tourniquets and quickly wrapped them around his leg stumps to stop the excessive bleeding from them, the crimson substance pooling before them. Though the sand barriers were holding up still, neither of them knew how much longer it would be before bullets started breaking through. "What matters is that it's my job to try to save you!" She then tightened both tourniquets as tight as she could, and as she did, the flow of blood slowed, and then stopped almost completely. As the soldier moaned in pain, she told him, "I know it hurts, but it's better than death, trust me!" She then began to pull out an IV, intending to pump the soldier full of pain medication, and then soon after pulled out more bandages.

As she found a vein and began to insert a needle into his arm, two other soldiers ran over. One of them asked Nagisa, "What the hell happened?!"

"The whole tower blew up," Nagisa explained to them when she finished putting the needle into his arm. "I think it was a grenade. This guy's partner's dead. His head's over there." She then pointed to the other soldier's head with her free hand. "Can you guys do me a favor and start bandaging this guy's wounds up? I gotta give him some pain meds."

"Yeah," replied both soldiers as they began to grab bandages and go to work. As they did, Nagisa pulled a bottle of morphine and a bag of saline. After she hooked up the line, she held up the bag of saline and the dose of morphine she had attached to the line to start flowing the powerful painkiller into his bloodstream. By now, her outfit, which was a regular soldier's outfit but sized down, was heavily stained in blood, as were her hands. Some of it had even gotten into her pale white hair. As the three of them continued their work, the battle continued on around them, bullets impacting the wall behind them and gunfire sporadically coming to and from both sides.

...

Mami and Azuma continued to man their machine gun nest. As Azuma loaded another belt into the gun, he also told her as he looked out into the field, "Looks like the hard work is paying off! Their numbers are thinning!"

"Yeah," Mami replied before firing a short burst. "We'll take these guys out in no time!" As she fired another short burst, Azuma joined in by firing off several rounds from a service pistol in the same direction. "Any updates over the radio?"

"Not really," he replied. "They had some injuries and some deaths on our side, but nothing compared to those cultists!" He then grabbed Mami and ducked both of them down as a few bullets suddenly barely zipped past their heads. Since neither of them were wearing their shirts, and only had a pair of BDU pants and armor on, he landed on top of her, his left arm across her bare chest. "Well, that was..."

"Just like when you saved me when Charlotte came," Mami noted, remembering that very moment. "You accidentally groped me when you pulled me away." The two lovers then shared a laugh as they recalled the event. "You were so cute, blushing like a bright red apple as you just moved your arm."

The two stayed down, but Azuma rolled off of her. "Yeah. Believe me, it was not intentional, at all."

"You know," Mami told him as the gunfire outside seemed to get more and more distant, as if the cultists were trying to retreat. "I think... I think it was that very moment that I knew you were special." Their moment was interrupted by a round that entered their nest and shattered upon impact with the back wall. "Shit! Uh, yeah, let's get back to work!"

"Right on," he replied as they both got up and continued fighting. The battle would go on for about another hour after this moment, and would end with a decisive JSDF/local defenders victory. The cult was nearly wiped out, with only 54 remaining alive by the end, all in police custody. Everyone else among their now estimated to have been 500-strong force was killed. By contrast, only 20 soldiers and 10 police officers were killed in the entire battle. The results were in fact so lopsided that the battle was nicknamed "The Great Mitakihara Turkey Shoot," a reference time the Battle of the Philippine Sea, is the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

...

Madoka, Kyouko, and Homura manned a mortar placement, the only artillery piece at the camp before the attack came. They are supervised by two soldiers, but since Homura had operated a mortar many times, they largely stood back and let her and her girlfriend do their thing. Despite the option of using magic, Homura was reluctant, since she did not want to have to transform and waste any of her magic on the battle. As Madoka loaded another shell into the top of the mortar, she asked Homura, "You gonna stop time at some point?"

"I don't know," Homura replied before both of them ducked and the shell fired out of the mortar into the sky. "If I use it, I just waste my energy and magic. Those are finite resources, after all, and I ran out of sand in my shield's hourglass when Walpurgisnacht came."

"And what does that mean?" Madoka grabbed another shell like clockwork.

"I can't reverse time," Homura explained to her as she aimed the mortar to a different position. "And pausing time takes more energy." They both ducked again as another shell was fired off into the sky. "So I'm kinda stuck."

"Well," Kyouko said, coming into the conversation as she came over with another box of shells. "What if you just refilled your shield with sand?"

Homura and Madoka paused in disbelief at the simple yet seemingly not workable solution. "Refill it? Sakura-san, you realize that the sand came with the sheild, right? I highly doubt it's something you can just refill. Besides, I can't find any openings to refill the hourglass anyway."

"Hey," the redhead replied. "It's worth a shot. I'm sure you could find a way."

Homura sighed, realizing how insistent her suggestion was. "Fine. I'll take it up. If it somehow works, I'll pay you like three thousand yen, okay?" She still had doubts in her mind, and was hoping it would not work, since she would have to pay Kyouko if it did. "And if it fails like I expect it to, you pay me the same amount."

"I like bets," Kyouko remarked to them. "They really can get me amped up. Expect the unexpected, Akemi-san."

"I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work," one of the soldiers overseeing them interjected, adding her own opinion. "Im pretty sure hourglasses don't give a shit what kind of sand is inside them. They just measure time."

"See? He gets it," Kyouko added. "Now, let's keep going at these cultists. Their numbers should be a lot smaller by now, considering how hard we're hittin' 'em."

...

Several hours later

The final battle with the cultists had finally wrapped up. As mentioned before, the battle was a hugely lopsided victory for the JSDF and the MDI, and it ensured that the cultists' story was finally over. As the JSDF and the police kept track of the survivors as they were jailed, Sayaka went to the field hospital for another pregnancy checkup. As the doctor with her in the room went over paperwork, she asked him, "Hey, doc, can I ask you something?"

The military doctor, an older woman in her 50s, turned around and asked her, "Of course, Miki-san. What is it?"

"I want to know something," Sayaka replied to her. "Well, what would you do in my shoes at my age?"

"Hmm," the doctor replied as she thought of an answer of her question. "A pregnancy at your age... I would be scared to no end."

Sayaka chuckled. "Okay yeah, but that's kind of a given. Normal people aren't pregnant at almost 14." She attempted to bring some light into a very stressful and otherwise dark situation. "Normal people also aren't magical girls and pregnant at almost 14."

"You're not entirely wrong," the doctor stated, stating the obvious. "If I was in your shoes... I don't know what I would do. I was worried as Hell when I had my first child at 24. I can't imagine having one ten years earlier. I... I probably would have terminated the pregnancy, knowing what I know now."

"I had seriously considered that," Sayaka replied to her, wrapping her hands around her stomach. "But then... I had this feeling... It's like... It feels like I already love this new person growing inside me, and yet I haven't even met them. I don't even know if they're a boy or a girl. Any other doubts I had were erased because of the father making a commitment to be with me."

"Kamijou-san is a wonderful young man," the doctor noted to her as she put away a folder of medical documents in a cabinet. "He's taking this far better than most boys his age. Most boys would probably bail on their girlfriends if they got pregnant, no offense."

"Oh I know," Sayaka assured her with a nod. "I know most people would try to run away from this. Not just the boys, but the girls, too. Me and him, though? No. We aren't running away." She sighed and took a deep breath. "We made some mistakes, and we could have done some things differently, but we cannot change the past. This child is our's, and it is our responsibility to make sure it has a good life. I know what the risks are for someone as young as me, but by God, I am willing to do whatever it takes to bring this child into the world and meet them." She was adamant in her decision. "I know what my options are, and that is the option I am taking."

The doctor smiled, still concerned about the option she chose, but admiring her determination. "I can only wish I had the maturity and determination you do when I was your age. Some mistakes I made when I was younger could have been avoided."