You can instantly kill things now?" Sayaka asked, then exclaimed, "Good! Go kill Kyubey and get my soul back!"

Mami, Homura, Madoka, and Sayaka were currently in Homura's apartment trying to brainstorm what they could possibly do to save Sayaka. How could they defeat a possibly extraterrestrial creature that ate souls?

"I doubt it's that easy," Homura said, eyeing Sayaka. "Kyubey can't be that easy to defeat."

"Sure it can! We haven't even tried it!" Sayaka elbowed Mami. "You're my new best friend, once you kill Kyubey."

"Sayaka!" Madoka cried with a little bit of hurt.

"I-I mean, I can have two best friends, can't I?" Sayaka backtracked hard.

"No. You can't," Homura replied.

"Uuuuuugh." Sayaka grabbed her head and rested it in her lap. "Party pooper."

"Let's get back on topic." Mami tried to ignore the ribbons flying around her, especially the red ones. "Kyubey. What do we know about it?"

"It's a monster that eats souls of the unsuspecting," Homura said, standing from her seat. At the same time, one of the screens on her wall lit up, displaying the little creature lazing about across the street on a roof. "It claims to be saving the universe. At the cost of the very souls of all super girls it 'contracts' with."

"I-"

Bzzzzzzt !

Sayaka growled as she looked at her phone for at least the dozenth time since they started their meeting. "Kyousuke keeps texting me! He can't stop thinking of me. I think he's getting obsessed or something."

"Unsurprising considering Kyubey's influence. It will likely get worse," Homura noted.

"I can't see how," Sayaka grumbled back.

"You know better than to tempt fate like that!" Madoka waved a finger at Sayaka.

"Fate…" Mami looked at the ribbons around her. Could she...manipulate them? Maybe?

She looked more closely at Sayaka. Closer, and closer.

"Uh? Are you alright, Mami?" Sayaka asked, recoiling backwards from Mami's gaze.

Mami shushed her as she focused hard. Looking, feeling, deep into Sayaka's soul.

... There ! An anomaly. Something that didn't belong there.

It was the creature. An almost caricature was tracing itself along a bright white ribbon inside Sayaka. It seemed to be slowly chewing the strands, as if savoring a favorite dish.

Could she pull it off? Mami decided to try. She reached in with her ribbons, aiming to wrap up-

Suddenly it bit down on Mami's ribbon closest to its mouth.

Mami was gone .

Out, somewhere far away she existed in the nothing. An empty black space. She turned about this way and that, trying to figure out what-

Fear shot through her as she realized it was right in front of her . A mass, invisible but still very real, seemed to be observing her. Ribbons, numerous, unending, invisible from everything but her soul, flowed from it across the vast universe. Its maw opened, ready to snap her up whole...