July 30, 2024

Early in the morning, Kyouko had stopped by at the Urawa Estate by herself, having decided to move in with Yuma into Rei's house soon after she had offered. As the two ate breakfast together in the bedroom of Rei, watching a television implanted in the wall of the lavish bedroom, Kyouko could not help but look over Rei once more, especially since she was in loose-fitting pajamas and she could occasionally see down her shirt. Rei noticed with her telepathy what kind of thoughts Kyouko was thinking and smiled, telling her, "You know, all you have to do is ask."

Kyouko blushed at the response Rei had given her. "Ask about what?"

"You need to learn how to not broadcast such dirty thoughts about other people so loudly," Rei remarked humorously as she turned the volume down with a remote. "I could hear you thinking about my body again. If you wanna do something with me, just ask and you'll get an answer."

"Do something?!" Kyouko was now red in the face in embarrassment. "Do... Do what?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Rei then got up off the bed and used the same remote to lock the door to the outside and close the curtains of the large and expansive windows that opened up onto the ravine below the house. "I'm down for whatever you can do with me. Just to let you know, I'm not new to this."

Kyouko then set her breakfast aside on a desk before doing the same with Rei's as she contemplated taking her up on the offer. "You really would?"

"Well, I've been hearing you say pretty loudly in your thoughts that you want to fuck me like an animal." Rei laughed as she finished the sentence, amused by Kyouko's rather blunt thoughts. "How much you like my huge boobs, or my ass, or how my voice could turn on just about anyone who has even the slightest attraction to girls. A bust of 86 centimeters is indeed nothing to sneeze at, I must say."

"I'm the blunt one? You seem way more blunt," Kyouko tried to retort with.

"I'm holding back words on what you thought," Rei smiled and told her. "I'd much rather prefer if you demonstrated those desires on me instead of just thinking about them. I must say, I have desires of my own regarding you." As she walked towards Kyouko slowly, she lifted up her shirt and took it off, leaving only her pants. "That red hair of your's is a turn-on of mine, not to mention those fangs or your nice, slim body. Just let me know what you wanna do, and we can do it. If you want to stop at any point, tell me."

Kyouko then stood up from the bed, ready to give her answer. "I'm not stopping now. Get over here." Rei smiled as she took Kyouko by the hand and then closed her eyes, kissing her as the other hand slowly went down her pants. As they lowered onto the bed, they grew more and more needy of each other's bodies.

"I'm going to show you how to make love to another woman in the morning today," Rei informed her seductively as she used one of her hands to then climb up under the redhead's shirt, increasing Kyouko's arousal. "Now, let's begin."

...

Meanwhile, Nagisa, Azuma, and Mami ate together as a quasi-family of sorts in the common mess hall back at the JGSDF camp. Nagisa was to spend most of the day in a class with the JGSDF medics regarding battlefield trauma, while Mami was to visit the Urawa Estate later and Azuma was to work with Kyousuke in regards to a class on woodworking they were both taking. As Mami read the morning newspaper, she told the other two, "And there goes the government."

Azuma, curious, asked her, "Did the Prime Minister resign?"

"Yep," Mami replied as she set the newspaper down on the table. "The entire cabinet also did due to the mishandling of what's been going on here. The Diet declaring no confidence in them is what did them in finally. Looks like Abe Shinzo ends his long reign as the prime minister on a depressing note, I suppose. They're gonna hold an election on September 1 to choose the new government."

"Too bad we can't vote," Nagisa remarked. "I get it, since we're all too young, but couldn't they make an exception for us in the MDI?"

"I'm not sure if that's necessarily important," Azuma remarked to them. "We may not vote, but we can get our voices out in other ways. I wouldn't mind maybe the voting age going down to 16. A growing number of countries are doing that."

"16? No way," Mami replied in disbelief. "It was as high as 20 here not too long ago, and we had to fight to get it down to 18. I wouldn't mind a voting age of 16, but it's never happening in Japan, sadly. There were even talks among more conservative members of the already conservative LDP to try to get it raised back up to 20, among other things they wanted that would be bad or at least not too good."

"That always surprised me when I came to this reality," Azuma added. "Why was the age of majority 20 here for so long when almost everyone else said it was 18?"

Mami shrugged, unable to give a definitive answer. "Like Hell if I know."

...

"You know," Azuma asked Kyousuke as the two looked over notes from their class work together. Despite being in different grades, the two frequently assisted each other. "Sayaka-chan has been pregnant for a bit longer than you two have started having sex. Did you two do stuff before the night Walpurgisnacht came?"

Kyousuke was perplexed as to why he brought up the matter then and now. "What makes you bring it up now?"

"Well," Azuma replied. "I've been thinking it over since we no longer face literal worldwide death and destruction and can relax a bit, and the dates don't add up when I recall what I learned in my biology classes. There's no shame in admitting you two did stuff before Walpurgisnacht came. Me and Mami-chan did stuff the same night we confessed to each other."

"Right," Kyousuke admitted. "I suppose hiding it won't do anyone good." He then set his pencil down as he explained what happened. "Me and Sayaka... We didn't go all the way, but... A few times, including the night we confessed... We did some things, but it was not all the way..." He began to slightly blush as he explained what had transpired to Azuma. "Okay, look, we touched each other, got each other off with our hands, that kind of stuff. Perhaps what happened was that she... She..."

"She touched herself after she gave you a handjob without cleaning her fingers," Azuma finished his sentence, clear to him that Kyousuke could not bring himself to. "Again, you don't need to censor yourself."

"Yeah," he admitted with a nod. "And we did some grinding, too."

"And here Mami-chan was," Azuma then joked with him. "Standing outside with the rest of us, thinking you two were going all the way because you and Sayaka-chan were taking so long." As he laughed, Kyousuke blushed more, but also gave a brief chuckle. "But anyway, was Walpurgisnacht the first time you two did the whole nine yards?"

"Yeah," he confirmed to him. "It was. Perhaps the desire to do it so badly is what drove us to not seek protection that night, not that it fucking mattered as it turned out." He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You know, if you asked me back in March when the school year started that I'd have my best friend as the love of my life and the mother of my child, or that magical girls are real and said love of my life is one of them, I'd call you a fucking lunatic. You'd be in the hospital, but not because of your hands being fucked up like mine."

"I'd be in the loony house," Azuma replied, agreeing with him. "The funny farm, the mental hospital. Kyousuke-kun, look, I know you're afraid. We all are, but you especially."

"Of course I am," Kyousuke adamantly told him, not even bothering to hide his fear. "I'm fucking terrified, Azuma. A normal person doesn't have a child at our age, but that's not even my biggest concern. My biggest concern is the environment we're having one in, and the chance that child could either get killed before it's born or may have to live without a mother. Even so, despite all the fear... I still want this child."

"It feels like I'm kind of at fault," Azuma confessed to him following a short pause. "I encouraged the others to let their feelings out this way before Walpurgisnacht came, and look where it got you and Sayaka."

"It's not your fault," Kyousuke disagreed. "Don't blame yourself. We were the careless ones, grinding against each other and then having sex without protection. You and Mami-chan are the safe ones. Madoka-chan and Homura-chan of course don't have to worry about that sort of stuff since they're both gay."

"The two of us have never used a condom," Azuma admitted to him. "I didn't tell you that earlier because I didn't want you guys thinking you could, too. Thing is, with Mami, she was already on birth control before we even met due to period cramps. We also knew that we were both virgins going into it, as well as her period cycle. We had precautions, just not the usual ones people take." He chuckled, remarking to his friend, "To be honest, I tried a condom once for a bit out of curiosity with her. We tried doing stuff for about two minutes before she took it off. We haven't tried it since. If either of us weren't virgins before we began our relationship, or if she wasn't taking the pill, we absolutely would be using one every time all the time, as we should be."

Kyousuke looked to the sky, remarking to him, "You're fine. You and her are protecting yourselves from the mistake we made." Wanting to change topics to perhaps a lighter one, he asked him about his old life in the other reality. "So, uh, about your old life, and about our reality... Since you said we're a show where you were from, what was our soundtrack like?"

"You son of a bitch," Azuma remarked. "I didn't even show anyone in the group what the soundtrack for Madoka Magica was. You especially would love it, including some of the music for your girlfriend." As he whipped his phone out, he selected one of several albums he had composed of the soundtrack for the show. "I had to make multiple albums due to the sheer number of songs I downloaded. Anyway, here's a theme associated with Sayaka-chan." As he pressed play, a muffled orchestral theme began, followed after a few bars by the theme suddenly becoming louder, as if someone had opened a door to a room with the song playing inside it.

Kyousuke was impressed. "It sounds like something you'd hear in an action scene or a stage play. Is this like her battle theme?"

Azuma chuckled, amused by his theory. "It's, uh... It does involve a battle, but... This is her theme as a witch."

Kyousuke's smile immediately turned into an expression of concern and fear. "As a witch?! She turned into one at some point?!"

"If I hadn't intervened when I did," Azuma told him. "She would have become one in our reality, too. There are a lot of things that would have gone wrong. Of course, there are things that I could not control that still happened, as well as things that happened because I had changed events." As the song kept playing, he asked him, "I can stop if you're feeling uncomfortable."

"No, no, it's fine," Kyousuke assured his friend as he shook his head. "It's a great song. It's just... It's just that it's weird to know that somewhere, this actually happened. Does everyone in the group have a theme attached to them?"

"Yep," Azuma confirmed to him as he pulled up Credens Justitiam. "This is Mami-chan's theme. She likes to hum it a lot ever since I showed her." As he pressed play, Kyousuke listened intently, blown away by the beauty of the soundtrack. "Not bad for a magical girl anime, huh?"

"This is incredible," Kyousuke agreed. "It's so beautiful."

"It's perfect for her," Azuma remarked to him. "Living in the world this soundtrack was meant for really gives all these songs extra meaning to me, because now I can put living faces to every single song. This song is called Credens Justitiam. It's not in Latin despite how it sounds. It's like some kind of mishmash between Japanese and a few Romance languages."

...

Meanwhile, Mami was working with Homura and Kyouko in the basement of Rei's mansion as they continued their secret work on the bomb Aiko would use to kill Oriko and Kirika at the cost of her own life. The bomb would be incredibly tiny, almost the size of an older iPhone, but it would be powerful enough to destroy much of a single room. Rei had given them supplies and had assisted them earlier, but had to run out to hunt witches and increase her grief seed count. The basement of the Urawa Mansion was expansive and highly advanced, containing numerous machines and computers Rei and her parents had built over the years. One of her proudest achievements was building a liquid-cooled hatch-proof container for storing the grief seeds she collected for use. Recently, the gang had decided to move its own collection to Rei's home for better safekeeping, knowing that their grief seeds would not be able to hatch.

The weather was hot, and even with the air conditioner running, the three of them still sweat profusely as they put the pieces together for their bomb. Kyouko tied her green coat around her waist and wore a black undershirt with jean shorts. Mami wore her old Mitakihara Junior High School uniform's skirt combined with a white t-shirt. Homura also wore the same skirt, but with a grey t-shirt. As Kyouko finished placing a small chip into place, she wiped her forehead of sweat and said to the gang, "Fucking hell, how hot is it again?"

"38 Celsius," Homura informed her, checking a clock on the wall that also showed the temperature. "Or 100.4 Fahrenheit."

"Jesus," Kyouko replied in disbelief. "I can't recall a time it's ever been this damn hot in the city. Can either of you, huh?"

"Nope," Mami shook her head. "As a matter of fact, I think I'm just about done with wearing this... Hang on." She then reached under her shirt and, with a quick motion, undid her bra from underneath and removed it from the top, tossing it to the side. "Ah, there we go. It's officially too hot for me to keep wearing that, even if I actually sort of need it."

"I just didn't wear one," Kyouko replied, showing off her shoulders to prove it. "It's not like my chest is big enough to warrant one all the time. How about you, Homura?"

"I'm wearing one," Homura replied. "But I think Mami's got the right idea. I just never figured out how to do it so easily under the shirt." She then began to lift her shirt up when she noticed Kyouko and Mami staring at her with curiousity. "Uh... Any reason why you two are staring at me like that?"

"Come to think of it," Kyouko wondered. "You're the only one of the group aside from the boys who hasn't been seen getting dressed or undressed by anyone else. Why's that? We won't judge, we're just curious."

"But I've gotten undressed in front of Madoka," she replied, contradicting her.

"That doesn't count," Mami remarked humorously. "You do a lot more than get undressed in front of her. Sure, I get undressed in front of my boyfriend, but that's kinda expected."

"I guess I was just shy," Homura answered their question finally. "Anyway, hang on a sec." As she took her shirt and then bra off, the others looked away, wanting to respect her privacy due to her answer. In a few seconds, Homura put her shirt back on. "Alright, you guys can look now."

"Anyway," Kyouko somewhat awkwardly stated, eager to move on from the topic. "What's the plan for this bomb?"

"We plant it in her room," Homura explained to both of them. "When Mikuni-san and Kure-san inevitably come to kill her somehow, she'll set it off. Until then, it will be a passive device, only turning on when the time comes. We have to be sure that we plant it somewhere where nobody else can see it, and we especially have to be sure that nobody else knows about the bomb. This mission is without the approval of the MDI."

As Kyouko placed the cover of the bomb back on, their work for the day largely done, she felt her cellphone ring in her back pocket. She quickly pulled it out and opened it up, seeing a call from an unknown number. As she answered it, she told them, "Hello, Sakura Kyouko?"

On the other end of the line was a man's voice, and it was one she recognized. "Glad to see you're not dead, unlike your father."

Kyouko immediately turned away from the rest of the group as she scowled, angered by the presence of the voice and its remark about her father. "You again... What the fuck do you want, huh? I'm in the middle of something, and the last thing I need is your ass calling me up like a fucking leech to suck me and my family dry of what little we had."

"Now, now," the man replied to her. "Don't get too worked up, Sakura-san. You know full well that your father owed me money when he decided to be a coward and hang himself, of course not before taking your family out too. Since you're the only living member of your immediate family left, that means all of his debt pass onto you. Look, I don't make the fucking rules here. It's what's natural."

"Natural my ass," Kyouko retorted to him quietly so the others would not hear her. "Look, if you're so insistent, how about you try to pay me a visit one of these times. Come to the Urawa Estate. I'm staying there now."

"The Urawa Estate? How the fuck did a street urchin like you get in there? Is this some kinda setup? You better not be fucking around with me, Sakura-san!"

"Trust me on this one," Kyouko insisted to him. "Okay?"

"If you insist," the man replied. "I'll pay you a visit in a few days." He then hung up.

Kyouko then put her phone back in her pocket and turned around as Mami asked her, "Hey, who was that?"

"No one," Kyouko assured her. "Just some idiot telemarketer. Motherfuckers keep calling me all the time." As they all returned to their work, she thought to herself, "I can't get them involved in my family's mess. This is purely my business, and my business only. It would be a dick of me to throw them into the fire."

...

As the trio were at her home, Rei continued her battle against a witch she had found. The witch took the shape of a young girl with deformed facial features wearing pajamas, and its familiars looked to be toy cars who zipped around on wheels. Rei's outfit as a magical girl consisted of a black ballet outfit with a tutu, as well as a necklace holding her soul gem in place, black fingerless gloves, and a small black and white tie on her hair. Her weapon consisted of two light sources on her palms embedded in her gloves that could fire beams of energy.

As she dispatched two familiars with blasts from her hands, she looked up to the witch, which was standing on a platform above her. Angered at the witch's apparent preference to avoid fighting her, she gave it a challenge and yelled at it, "Hey, how about you come down here and fight me instead of staying up there, you fucking coward?! Come on! Fight me like a real woman or man and don't just stand up there and pretend you can avoid me! Are you too much of a pussy to get down from that fucking platform of your's?! Answer me!"

Her words apparently came through to the witch, because she immediately jumped down from her platform and let out a primal scream, ready to attack her. Then, several grotesque arms popped out of her abdomen and reached for Rei, which she quickly destroyed with her energy hand cannons. Rei charged at her and then struck her with a punch to her body, which blew the witch back several feet. The witch responded by charging at her and kicking her, causing her to cough up blood from the intensity of the hit.

"That's it," she yelled at the witch. "I'm gonna destroy you!" She then balled her hands up into fists as her energy hand cannons charged with energy, emitting sparks and a glow from her hands as her eyes turned a bright white. Once she was charged up, she aimed both of her palms at the witch, declaring, "Wave-Motion Cannon!" The attack consisted of pulses of one giant beam of energy aimed at the witch, which obliterated it with a loud explosion. The blast knocked Rei to the ground as she closed her eyes. "Shit!"

When she opened them back up, the witch's barrier had disappeared, and where the witch once stood now laid a grief seed. The barrier had been on the second floor of a ruined apartment building that had been condemned due to damage from Walpurgisnacht and Typhoon Koinu. The interior was water-logged and musty, with a noticeable aroma of sea water still inside. Rei paid no attention to the smell or the surroundings as she picked the grief seed up and de-transformed, returning to her civilian outfit, which was a white tank top, sunglasses, and shorts due to the warm weather.

"Another one to add to the collection," Rei said to herself. "At least this one listened to my advice to stop avoiding the battle. I despise the ones who try to make their familiars do everything." As she tucked the grief seed into her pocket, she noted to herself, "I should be up to fifty-something seeds in storage now that Kyouko and her friends put all their's into my container. I gotta start looking into making a second one if we keep up with this rate." She smiled as she thought of what she and Kyouko had done together earlier in the morning. "Maybe the two of us can have some more fun later tonight."

Then, she felt a presence in the room with her. She immediately stopped talking and controlled her breathing, trying to figure out where the presence was. It was definitely of another magical girl, which concerned her. Had another girl come to steal what she had just won?

As it turns out, she was only half-right. She managed to dodge a bullet from a gun fired in her direction just barely, the projectile singeing her hair just barely on the side of her head. She screamed in fright, "Fucking shit!" As she re-transformed with a flash of light, she readied her energy hand cannons and looked around as a familiar face walked in. "Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me. What do you want?!"

"You know exactly what I want," Kirika then addressed her. "Your friend is gonna die tomorrow, and you are going to die along with her today!" As she readied her claws, Rei readied her energy hand cannons. As she charged at her, ready to slice her into pieces, Rei fired two blasts at her, blasting her back with two loud blasts. In the dust cloud that was kicked up by the attack, Rei ran from the ruined apartment and down the stairs, hoping to avoid Kirika again. As Kirika stood up from the blasts, she dusted herself off and also ran down the stairs, laughing and telling her prey, "You can run, but you can't fucking hide!"

Rei shouted as she turned her head around, unsure if Kirika could hear her but not caring, "FUCK YOU, KIRIKA!" As she ran down the street, Rei thought to herself, "We got a date for when they plan to kill Aiko-chan. Only problem is... It's tomorrow! Do we have enough time to place the bomb before those two get to her?! What are they planning?!"

Kirika ran out to the street, finding Rei nowhere as she looked all around. In frustration, she stomped on the ground and yelled out, "Shit! I fucking lost her! God fucking damn it, she got away!" She then threw her hands up in the air as she de-transformed and snuck back into the dark alleyways of the largely abandoned neighborhood of the city they had confronted each other in, a sign of the depopulation of the city that had occurred soon after Typhoon Koinu had hit it. Even now, only half of the city's residents who had survived the tragic disaster, which had killed over 25,000 in the Five Cities' Region out of a population of 2.2 million due to it coming with such little warning, had remained or moved back into the city, with others either being unable to or choosing to resettle elsewhere. "Oriko-chan won't be too happy about this shit..." Kirika then pulled her phone out and dialed Oriko on a burner number.

"Kirika-chan," she immediately answered. "What is it, love?"

"That fucker got away from me before I could kill her," Kirika expressed to her in frustration. "And now Urawa-san knows when we're gonna fuckin' kill Saikawa-san, too!"

"Kirika-chan, calm down." Oriko was worried about how she had lost her temper over the phone over Rei getting away. "Remember, I can see into the future. I foretold Rei finding out about this already. It won't matter, because we'll still be able to kill Aiko. I can already foresee her demise."

Kirika's mood changed from frustration to relief, glad to see that Oriko was able to foretell their plan working. "Well, that's good. We'll find a way to kill Rei, too. Trust me, she ain't fuckin' getting away from us this easily!"

"It's always amusing to hear you swear," Oriko then noted to her in amusement. "Anyway, meet me back at our staging point. I have the tools ready. Delete this number after this call. I'll text you the new number."

...

Later that night, Mami and Azuma had just finished another passionate round of lovemaking in their temporary home when they began to rest together in a state of post-sex clarity. Mami had wanted to do so for the whole day to get her mind off of what was about to happen involving Aiko, to which her boyfriend happily complied. Azuma, who had not had much experience interacting with Rei, asked his girlfriend, "So, how is Urawa-san like?"

"She's an interesting girl," Mami told him as they cuddled in each other's arms. "She's intelligent beyond belief. It's said she built her first computer with her dad when she was only ten, and she proved it by showing that computer to me, Sakura-san, and Akemi-san. As for how she is... Well, she can be super motivated, but also super impulsive. Sakura-san told me she's had more than a few partners in bed, and may have been hitting on her since she knows Sakura-san is attracted to her."

"Her body her choice I suppose," Azuma shrugged. "Especially when you're as rich as her."

"She has a compassionate side," Mami noted to him. "She's letting Sakura-san and Chitose-san stay at her home indefinitely without expecting anything in return. She and her company's caretaker also donated something to the tune of 20 billion yen to relief efforts."

"That's insanely high," Azuma replied to her in absolute shock. "That's like a tenth of her own financial worth I think. That's a lot of money."

"Yeah," Mami agreed. "She's donated a lot to cancer research because of Saikawa-san. She truly cherishes her... She's helping her commit suicide since that's what she wants, but I can tell on the inside that she's torn up about it. We all are." She then closed her eyes. "But it's what she wants, and it'll help get those two fuckers who murder innocent people off the streets. It's hard to accept for Urawa-san, but Saikawa-san truly is on her last legs, even if she wasn't going to blow herself up."

"You're sadly right," Azuma replied to her, also closing his eyes. "Goodnight, my love."

"Goodnight," Mami then told him. "My love." The two young lovers drifted asleep in each other's arms, their minds at peace once they were together, if only for the next 6-8 hours of sleep they would enjoy together. Azuma did not write in his journal today, but would tomorrow once the plan with Aiko had occurred. Hopefully, it would go off without a hitch.