BEFORE YOU READ THIS

Normally, I do not put content warnings on my work. However, his chapter of You Can't Escape is different.

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS A VIVID DEPICTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND MURDER. Reader discretion is highly advised.

...

July 25, 2024

"I still can't fucking believe that worked," Homura told Kyouko as they walked together around on patrol around the junior high school early in the morning around 6 AM. As they did, JGSDF personnel worked at rebuilding it in the background. "Who would have guessed that you only needed literally dirt to refill the hourglass in my shield?! Who?!" Homura was still perplexed by the bet that had paid off for Kyouko.

"You owe me three thousand yen, fucker," Kyouko chuckled as she lightly pushed Homura on the shoulder. The two then laughed together, having grown close in the days since Walpurgisnacht had come. "Believe me, Akemi-san, I didn't expect it to work, either."

Then, they both got interrupted when they got a report over the radio. "Patrol 7 to Akemi and Sakura, report to our location for possible witch activity. We're sending you the coordinates right now on Akemi's mobile data pad, over."

As Homura looked up the location on her cellphone, Kyouko replied back to the soldier, "Roger, we'll be heading over." She then turned to Homura and asked her as she prepared to transform. "Where's the witch?"

"Near the train station," Homura replied. "What are we gonna do about Chitose-san?"

"Yuma-chan will be fine," Kyouko assured her. "She's being watched by the soldiers at the school."

...

Yuma Chitose was an 8-year-old girl with green hair and blue eyes. She was of short stature, and was not exactly the first person one thought of when they heard the words "magical girl," and yet she was one. The story was that some unknown girl had convinced her to become one shortly before Walpurgisnacht came soon after her own parents were killed by a witch. Her parents were abusive, given Yuma's harrowing accounts of how they hurt her, and what disturbed JSDF psychiatrists and psychologists the most was that she seemed to not even care that her parents had been killed. She had been placed under Kyouko and Nagisa's tutelage and care, and was to be released to perform limited missions with the MDI in several years before being released for full duty later on.

She had fought a witch before, and had been successful, prior to her being found, but had not engaged in any combat since. It was believed her powers had something to do with healing, but since she had not fought since she was located, it was not known for sure. The girl that had convinced her to make a contract was described as a girl around Kyouko's age with blue-green eyes and ash blonde hair. She had not given Yuma a name, but MDI personnel were looking to find it. At the same time, a series of seven mysterious deaths in the Five Cities area (Mitakihara-Kazamino-Asunaro-Kamihama-Takarazaki) involving teenage girls who were believed to be magical girls was also being investigated. The killings had begun about two months prior to Walpurgisnacht's arrival, and after a period after her arrival of no killings, a seventh body had been found on the 24th of July. The only thing the MDI had going for the case was that a woman with dark grey hair was seen near two of the sites where bodies were found.

Azuma, of course, knew exactly who they were talking about, but feared that he would be accused of being complicit in the killings if he told them without giving them a reason for how he knew.

...

Azuma awoke in his tent around 6:30 AM. He slowly opened his eyes to find Mami in his arms, peacefully sleeping. Neither of them wore tops, having taken them off due to the heat. He smiled as he gently brushed her blonde hair aside to see her face. He thought to himself as he gazed at her, "It's been hell living in this world, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. She makes it all worth it." He then gave her a small peck on her cheek to wake her up, and as she stirred awake, she opened her eyes to see her boyfriend looking right back at her.

"Oh, hey," she groggily told him. "Good morning, love." As she slowly arose from the bed, she stretched her arms and arched her back. "What time is it, darling?"

"About 6:30 in the morning," Azuma replied to her as he also began to get up. "Why is that?"

"We don't have to be up for another hour and a half," Mami reminded him, looking at the clock in their tent. "Remember? We don't have anything assigned for today until 9:30?"

Azuma then remembered what she was talking about. "Oh yeah! I forgot about that. Our classes aren't until then." The JGSDF had started up an impromptu school for the children and teenagers in the camp, and all the MDI personnel attended it between 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM on weekdays. "I guess I was still used to waking up around now for school before Walpurgisnacht came."

Mami sighed as she laid back down in bed and pulled the covers over her half-naked body. "Yeah... I'm gonna miss those days, you know."

"I do, too," Azuma replied, giving Mami a kiss on her cheek and hugging her. "Sure, we get some advantages with the MDI now, but a lot of things were simpler back then. I do wonder, though... Would we have gotten together by now?"

Mami wondered the same thing sometimes, considering to herself that maybe the reason their relationship had moved so fast was because of the near-constant threat of death. "I think we would have, but... Maybe not to this level, yet. Whatever, though. What matters is what's happening now and in the future, and I want that future to include you." She then reached her head over and locked lips with Azuma, the two embracing and sharing a loving kiss for a quarter of a minute. As they split, she smiled and asked him, "We have an hour and a half. We could sleep, or we could have some fun."

"I'm up for the latter," Azuma replied, thinking the same thing. "Hell, if we get it done soon enough, we can still get some sleep before 8."

"You know," she remarked to him as she rolled on top of his body underneath the covers of the bed. "You seem to always be up for sex. Are you obsessed with it?"

"I can say the same for you," he remarked with a chuckle. "You're the one who suggested this, after all. Besides, with a body like your's, how could I not be constantly thinking about making love to you?"

Mami gave him a smile, complimented by his words. "Awww, that's so sweet. I guess you're right about me, too. People always think girls aren't active participants or something, but I can give proof they're wrong." She then kissed Azuma again, the couple locking lips for even longer than before.

...

In a section of Kazamino City that had largely been untouched by the storm Walpurgisnacht had brought with her, a girl with dark grey hair and yellow eyes was talking on the phone with someone as she walked out of an alleyway. As she did, she looked at her other hand and noticed blood on it, quickly wiping it on a wall nearby to get it off. "Yeah, sorry about that. I had some blood on my hand," she told the person she was talking with. "Anyway, we need to stay away from that Magic Defense Initiative thing, I agree, Oriko-chan. If we agree to it, we'll get caught for sure."

"Exactly," the girl she was talking to over the phone replied. "Kirika-chan, we cannot let others know about our status yet. We need to keep laying low and avoid detection by the Self-Defense Forces relief mission. Word on the street from other magical girls says that they already have a young girl in their ranks in the Magic Defense Initiative, and I think it's that girl I convinced to make a contract before Walpurgisnacht came." Her tone of voice became noticeably sad upon mentioning the mega-witch's name. "Our previous mercy killings failed to stop her arrival, Kirika-chan. All we can do is keep going on this path."

"Don't worry," Kirika assured her. "Oriko-chan, my love, trust me. We will continue our path. Besides, taking a life isn't all bad. It gives me a sort of thrill, and I know you get a thrill, too." She was sure that nobody else could hear her talk about their killings. "We need to keep working. I'll see you soon."

"I'm the only person you call "my love," and I enjoy that," Oriko replied. "I shall see you soon as well."

"You know me well," Kirika told her as she smiled. "I take love very seriously, just as I take us seriously. Anyway, goodbye." She then hung up and sighed, thinking about her girlfriend. "We need to do another joint killing. Those are the best." As she walked away, what she left behind was a horrid sight.

Kirika Kure had committed yet another murder, this time of a 17-year-old magical girl with 4 years on the job. This was their six victim, and this was their most brutal yet. Kirika had knocked her out with a blow to the head with a shovel first an hour prior as she walked to a relative's house, and then dragged her body into an abandoned building...

...

25 Minutes Prior

An older high school girl with dark red hair and green eyes woke up inside a derelict apartment as a girl about 15 years old stood over her. As she woke up, she could clearly tell that this other girl was a magical girl, based on her outfit, which was a grey and white dress. The apartment was run down, and the smell was horrid from the hot summer heat. "Huh... Where am I?" As she adjusted her eyes, she could see that she had been stripped down to her underwear, which was badly torn up. "Huh... What?!"

"You woke up," Kirika told her as she noticed she was awake, smiling and taking a puff of a cigar as she did. "We has some fun while you were asleep. I figured that I'd give your body something to remember before I kill you." Her tone of voice was incredibly unsettling, and her victim quickly tried to get up and run. "Oh no, you don't!" Kirika quickly ran up to her and tripped her, causing her to scream in pain as she smacked her face on the hardwood floor of the apartment.

As Kirika violently jerked her head up and began to use her other hand to slowly move down her body from the top of her head, the victim asked of her, "Why... Why me?! What is the point of this?!"

Kirika's other hand had just began to grope her chest when she gleefully told her, "Because you're going to die either way. My, oh my, you must be popular with the boys at your school with breasts like these..." As she continued, the victim began to cry in both pain and sadness. "Don't you know, though? Don't you know that we shouldn't even think of being with them?"

"I...," the victim stammered out in between her tears. "I never believed that... Ever... I'm not a virgin, and I'm glad I'm not... My twin brother is in love with my best friend, and she'a a magical girl, too. We never believed in your stupid taboo, and we made love to our boyfriends! No matter what you do, you can't claim my first time!"

Kirika's smile turned into a scowl as her victim finished her sentence. She was disgusted by what she said, and wanted to make her disgust known. "Oh, really? Is that how you're gonna be? How disappointing..." She retracted her right hand from her victim's body and used it to grab a hammer as her victim tried to break free of her grasp. "Oh no, I don't want you escaping." She then smacked the hammer onto her legs, inflicting indescribable pain on her and causing her to scream, which Kirika muffled with her left hand. Kirika then pushed her victim onto the floor and sat on top of her, noticing that blood was trickling from her nose from her hitting the floor hard. "Oh, did you hurt your nose?" As her victim sniffled and continued to cry, Kirika looked over her face and told her, "My lover and I would have had a lot of fun with you if she was here with me. You really are a very pretty girl." She then took her cigar from an ash tray nearby on a table and slammed the lit end onto her cheek, burning her and causing her to scream loudly in pain as Kirika rubbed the cigar in. Once she was done, she took another puff of the cigar as her victim took several deep breaths.

"My name is Yamaguchi Maki," she stammered out in defiance. "I'm not some objec-"

Kirika shut Maki up with a punch to the side of her face. "You're nothing to me now but another tally in our body count. Now, suffer!" She then wrapped her hands around her neck and began to tighten her grip, causing Maki to gasp for air in vain as she struggled to free herself. For a full minute and a half, Maki's face began to turn purple as Kirka continued her strangling of her. After that minute and a half passed, Mami's resistance began to fade, and after another few seconds, she stopped resisting altogether. Once she had ceased resistance, Kirika drew a knife and stood up. "Looks like I won't need my claws this time." She then grabbed Maki's body from her hair and held it up before holding the knife to her neck. "Goodbye, Yamaguchi Maki, victim number six!" With a quick slicing action, she sliced her neck open, causing blood to spill everywhere in front of her as Kirka threw her body down and grabbed her soul gem, which was on the same table as the ash tray, and placed it on the floor next to her. Then, she stomped on it, smashing it into pieces and finally killing her soul.

Another successful killing by the duo of Oriko Mikuni and Kirika Kure, and the most gruesome one yet. She could have just smashed her soul gem, but Kirika had begun to take pleasure in her act, refining it to deliver as much pain to her victims as she could. Occasionally, Oriko would join her, and the two would kill their target together.

This was a new evil that the Magic Defense Initative would have to face.

...

At a table in a cafeteria at the school in the morning, Azuma, Sayaka, Kyousuke, and Madoka all sat together, drinking coffee and eating breakfast before school started. Homura and Kyouko would have to miss the breakfast get-together that morning before school due to their mission together, and Mami was elsewhere getting food. At least, until she suddenly came back and interrupted the conversation at the table with a comically stern, "Okay, where the fuck is my coffee mug?!"

The four of them, completely taken off guard by the remark, all looked at Mami, slightly frightened. Azuma spoke first, thinking that being her boyfriend/fiancé would help, and told her, "Uh, honey, I don't know where it is..."

"I've checked everywhere," Mami replied to him. "Our tent this morning, this mess hall, the lost and found, and yet nothing! I spent good money on that thing, and I can't lose it." She then looked at Azuma right in his eyes. "Did you do anything to it?"

"Absolutely not," he assured her. "I would never."

Then, a male voice from behind Mami approached and asked her, "I think I may have taken it."

Mami, not knowing who the voice belonged to, angrily replied back with, "And what the hell gives you the right to take my shi-?!" As the person came into her view, she stopped herself and paused, her anger turning into fright as she realized she had talked down to a JGSDF commissioned officer, and a Lieutenant Colonel at that. "Oh... Uh..." Mami quickly bowed as she awkwardly told him, "My apologies, sir! I thank you for returning the mug!"

The Lieutenant Colonel was taken aback by her raw anger at first. "Oh, right. Here you go. I happen to have a similar mug, so I took it by accident and didn't realize it until I saw your name written on the bottom of the cup." As Mami took the mug from him, he assured her, "Listen, it's fine. I'd be pissed off too if that happened to me. You should see me when I go a whole day without it, or a whole week. It's not pretty."

Mami, blushing from embarrassment, saluted him and then thanked him with another bow and, "Thank you, sir." She then sat down at the table as the Lieutenant Colonel walked away. "Well, then, uh... Sorry for yelling at you guys like that." She sighed as she looked over her mug, which had a white exterior with a red and yellow line running horizontally in the middle, as well as a red handle.

Then, the Lieutenant Colonel remembered something he had forgotten and ran back over to their table. "Oh yeah, wait a minute!" As he reached them, he told all five of them, "I forgot to tell you all. After school, go to the briefing room for the MDI. We have something for you guys to see."