Resonance Days

by TakerFoxx

Falling their mutual demise at each other's hands, Kyoko and Sayaka wake up in a strange world. Now, with Kyoko's soul gem missing and Sayaka's humanity and personality only partially restored, they must band together to survive.

42. Restless, Part 6

Restless, Part 6

The creature that would one day recognize his name as being "Jerky" was really having a most marvelous day.

He had woken bright and early, while Mother and her pack were still asleep, and had a grand old time exploring the woods in which they were camping out, and had stumbled across a duck nest. The eggs were crunchy, gooey, and sweet. Soon after that he had found the ducks themselves, which were also crunchy and sweet, though he hadn't cared for the feathers.

After that, the weather had become nice and wet, and Jerky had fun stalking Mother's pack as they struggled their way through the windy field. It was a game he played often, and though he didn't really understand why, he knew the rules: stay close but out of sight. Don't let Mother's packmates see you. It had been a little easier than he would have liked though, as the rain had been a greater deterrent for them than it was for him. At least it was fun to push against the wind.

After that, they had all gone into a cave. Preferring to stay out where it was nice and wet, Jerky had nosed around until he came across a squirrel cowering in the rocks. It unfortunately hadn't put up much of a fight, though its squeak of surprise was funny. And it tasted all right.

And then Mother had come out to play with him! She had even given him some of that strange meat, the kind that was weirdly dry but also very tasty.

When she went back inside, he had gone back to exploring. While climbing up the wet, grassy side of the hill, his foot had slipped and he slid all the way back to the bottom. It had been a little frightening at first, but after assessing that he was unhurt, he decided that sliding down the slick hillside had been great fun, and thus spent the next few minutes clambering to the top, flopping onto his armored back, and sliding down again.

After doing this a few times the novelty wore off, and Jerky went back to exploring. He found another cave, this one smaller and smellier than the one Mother's pack had gone into. Inside he had found a bobcat that was hiding from the rain. The bobcat was much larger than he was, much older as well, and not at all happy about the strange three-eyed lizard that had invaded its home. It had snarled at Jerky, which had been a very interesting noise, and he decided to see if he could force it to make that sound again.

After a bit, he concluded that while bobcat screams sounded quite a lot like bobcat snarls, it really wasn't the same. The meat was pretty good though. He liked the toughness of it, as it took more effort to rip from the bones than that of the squirrels, rabbits, possums, and birds he had mainly been feasting on. After that he set to work cracking the bones to get at the marrow.

Once he was done he settled down in the bobcat's den, which he supposed now belonged to him. He had eaten well and played hard, and since he felt that Mother's pack wasn't going to be moving on anytime soon, he had time for a nice nap.

With the sound of the rain beating a soothing tattoo outside, he curled up into a ball and slept.

…

Now…

They convened together in the Nautilus Platform, which strangely had not vanished.

Standing in the middle of the room was the one once known as the ragged renegade Kyoko Sakura, now the blazing warrior Ophelia, clad in reds, greens, and golds; her spear held in one hand; her hair burning bright, its light reflected in the jewel of her necklace. The weary desperation and grim stubbornness was gone, and now her eyes shone with resolute determination.

Seated on an easy chair was the one who had been the scrappy mermaid known as Oktavia von Seckendorff, now once again Sayaka Miki, who still hadn't really pieced together where she was, what was going on, or why she was dressed like a princess. She had torn away her gown at the knees to allow for easier movement, and was fiddling with the jewels around her neck. Her sword lay naked across her knees.

On the couch was the one who had been the broken leader turned broken wanderer who had been born Mami Tomoe, now known as Candeloro. She wasn't even looking at the others, but instead down at the golden ribbons that were her arms, anxiously twisting them together in knots as she sorted her way through dark thoughts and unpleasant truths.

And next to her with one hand on her wife's shoulder was the duel being of Charlotte Tomoe and Nozomi Momoe, whose eyes flickered at intervals between blue and pink, whose Puella Magi uniform faded in and out in opposite time to her tail, which would exist only when her uniform did not. Her staff leaned up against the couch next to her, fading in and out along with her uniform. She was silently watching Ophelia, waiting for her to explain.

Ophelia looked around at her companions, all gathered from their own personal nightmares, now together again. "So," she said. "I've already told some of you what I think is going on, but just so we're all on the same page, I think we can all agree that something is fucking with us."

"You sure?" Charlotte said, her tail twitching. "Maybe I'm just coming down with something. Maybe this is all one big crazy fever dream, and you all aren't really here."

"No," Sayaka said. "Look, I still haven't bought this 'shared dream' thing, but if only one of us is dreaming, then it's me, not you."

Nozomi wrinkled her nose. "And why do you say that?"

"Because I'm the only one who's still human."

For a moment Charlotte's eyes stopped shifting, holding onto a steady, and angry, blue. "Excuse me?"

Sayaka met her glare and refused to look away.

Ophelia leaned casually against the wall. "You normally go around dressed like a Disney princess?"

"You normally go around with your head on fire?"

"Nope. Which, again, is why I'm calling this a dream! A magical dream that we've all been trapped in! And no, Sayaka and Charlotte, or whatever you're calling yourself now, you're not the only ones dreaming. Stop being so self-centered."

Sayaka's scowl only deepened. "Okay, well, dream or not. That doesn't explain…everything else!"

"What everything else?" Nozomi demanded, her eyes finally starting to shift again.

"I'm sorry? 'What everything else'?" Sayaka snorted. "Oh, okay. If I have to spell it out for yah, let's start with her!" She thrust a finger at the couch, pointing directly at Candeloro.

Startled, Candeloro looked up at her. "Me?" she said in confusion. "Wh-What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? What do I mean?! You know exactly what I mean! Mami, you died! I watched you die! You got killed right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do! Why are you alive again? What happened to your arms, or your name, or-"

Sayaka's voice choked out, and she hastily turned away, covering her face with her hands.

Ophelia winced in sympathy while Candeloro just winced. Nozomi, however, wasn't feeling so empathetic.

"Hey, you wanna back off?" she snapped. "She's been through enough without you yelling at her!"

"And you!" Sayaka shouted back, angry tears still coming down her face. "Who even are you? Suddenly Mami's alive again, and she's dating a girl? A girl I've never heard of? When did that happen? And why do you keep flickering like that? Why do you have two names? What the hell is going on?"

Outside lightning flashed, lighting up the dim room. The boom of thunder swiftly followed and then passed, leaving just the sound of rain. Sayaka blinked and then fell into a sulky silence.

Ophelia cleared her throat. "Maybe it would help if we all compared notes. See what happened to us and put the pieces together."

"All right," Charlotte said. "You start."

Ophelia took a deep breath. As surreal and often contradictory as the last few hours had been, they still burned bright in her memory.

She explained things the best she could, telling them of her quest to find Sayaka through the rainy city, of trying to follow her father until the floods had carried her off, of her conversation with Kyubey and how the city had been set ablaze, of wandering through the nightclub and those that she encountered there, and, with some discomfort, of seeing Mami take the stage and, well, "entertain" the audience.

"But I wasn't there," Candeloro said. "I am…I mean I was Mami, but I wasn't there! And I certainly never did any…striptease!"

"I know," Ophelia said. "It's like that version of you that you shot on the roof. There are other versions of us running around, dream copies designed to fuck with us."

"That's true enough," Nozomi said. "I chased another version of Mami over and over again. I even ran into myself at one point."

"You did? Which one? Charlotte or, uh, Nozomi, was it?"

"The Charlotte part. And…yeah. Nozomi." Charlotte's shoulders slumped. "Well, I guess I can cross that mystery off the list. Nozomi Momoe. Jesus Christ."

Candeloro wrapped the end of her ribbon around Nozomi's hand and gave it a squeeze.

Then Charlotte frowned. "Though hey, wait a minute. Why were you dreaming about my wife performing a striptease?"

"Why?" Ophelia said. "Jealous?"

Then, seeing the look on Charlotte's face, Ophelia immediately regretted her flippancy. "Uh, forget it! I'm sorry! Never mind." She winced, and quickly changed the subject. "But you do remember being Charlotte, right? Like, you have a full set of memories?"

Charlotte frowned. "It's…weird. I mostly do, but parts fade in and out." She looked down at her shifting appearance. "Same with the rest of me."

"And you," Ophelia said, looking to Candeloro. "Do you remember being Mami Tomoe?"

Candeloro swallowed. "I…I remember…parts."

"Parts?" Ophelia frowned. "Like, what parts?"

"I remember all of you. I remember the adventures we had together. I remember my life in Freehaven. I remember the Nautilus Platform, my home. I remember my friends, my job, my…everything there." She then looked to Nozomi. "But most of all, I remember you." One ribbon still holding Charlotte's hand, she touched the other to her wife's cheek. "How could I ever forget you?"

Nozomi laid her hand on top of the ribbon on her cheek. She swallowed back a lump and smiled.

"But before that?" Ophelia pressed. "Before you died?"

Candeloro sighed. "No. Nothing before Freehaven. I mean, I remember…remembering being Mami Tomoe. I remember talking about being Mami Tomoe. I remember talking about how relationship together, and everything that had happened between all of us, but when I try to actually recall any of it, there's just like a big blank space."

"What are you talking about?" Sayaka said hoarsely. "You're Mami Tomoe! You saved Madoka and me! We were going to become magical girls together! Then you were killed right in front of us, so I became a magical girl to…to take your place and avenge you! To protect Mitakihara in your stead! You inspired me like no one else ever had. You showed me that I could be a real hero like I had always wanted!"

Candeloro looked shaken. "I…"

"But I failed! I tried to be you, but I couldn't! I was too weak, too worthless! I tried, I swear I tried, I tried so hard, but I just couldn't do it!" Sayaka was openly sobbing now. "No matter how hard I fought, things just got worse and worse and I felt like I was sinking into dark water, that my heart was made of lead and it was getting heavier and heavier and heavier…"

Ophelia breathed out. Yeah, she remembered that part all too well.

"But now? Now we're stuck in Wonderland apparently, and you're back?! Okay, I can accept Kyoko setting her hair on fire, I can accept all of us being trapped in living nightmares, but now you're alive again, except you have a new name and you don't remember being…you, and your arms are ribbons for some reason, and…What is Freehaven?! What other life? And who is this other person? Kyoko only said that she was your girlfriend, but no one will tell me where she came from!"

Suddenly Charlotte/Nozomi shifted hard, with one's spectral image superimposed over the other. "Charlotte," said one, while the other said, "Nozomi" at the same time, their voices overlapping. Then she mostly solidified as Charlotte and frowned.

Sayaka stared at her. "Um, okay? That was both weird and told me nothing! Who are you? How did you meet Mami? And why is she alive?"

Charlotte said nothing. Neither did Nozomi when she became her a moment later.

"Hey," Ophelia snapped. "Lancelot. I already told you what's up. Charlotte here wished her back."

"No!" Sayaka shouted back. "That's not true! You know it isn't, I know it isn't, something else happened, and you won't tell me what!"

Ophelia fell silent. She had run out of lies.

"So? Nothing?" Sayaka folded her arms and slouched into her chair. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Ophelia shot a glance over Candeloro and Charlotte, silently begging them for help.

Sighing, Nozomi cleared her throat and said, "Sayaka, I know you're upset, angry, and don't feel like you have any reason to trust us. And there's a lot we haven't told you, and that we can't tell you because it wouldn't make any sense, and you probably wouldn't believe us because it's so weird. But we are your friends. I promise you we are on your side."

"Okay, but what's so weird that you can't tell me?" Sayaka said.

"Well." Charlotte winced. "Okay, let's wind things back a bit. If you woke up one day and it turned out you had forgotten all about the contract, and the magical girls, and the witches, and everything, but you still had your powers and responsibilities, and…and M-Mami and, uh, and Kyoko were both there, telling you that you were a magical girl warrior that needed to fight with them to protect your city, how would you react?"

"I…" Sayaka shrugged. "I don't know. It's a big question."

"Well, the truth is just as weird. And if Kyoko…er, Ophelia or whatever fudged around with the truth, it's because she's trying to explain things in a way you would understand and accept. Finding out that your friend had just forgotten a huge chunk of your shared history in the middle of a situation like this isn't easy to deal with."

Sayaka gritted her teeth. "I'm a big girl. I can deal with it."

"I hope you're right. And I suppose we'll find out soon enough, once we've destroyed the dream." Nozomi turned toward Ophelia. "Go on with your story."

Mentally thanking Charlotte/Nozomi and promising her all sorts of favors, Ophelia thought back to her own journey. Okay, she had stopped right after meeting Elsa Maria and that rude punk girl in the train station and being sent on her way. After that had been the tunnel, and after that…

…

Then…

The long, dark railway tunnel opened up, and Ophelia found herself riding through a dark and twisted wood, where grey trunks sprung up all around like grave markers, entwining their gnarled, leafless branches overhead. A full moon shone down over their grasping fingers.

Ophelia looked up and scowled. Though she really had no idea what awaited her ahead, starting things off in a spooky old wood was not an encouraging omen.

Not like that was going to stop her. Her mission had not changed, but now she had direction. Her path had been laid out in front of her, and she was going to follow it to the end.

She tightened her grasp on the reins and nudged her patchwork horse with her heels. Ready or not, here she came!

Fortunately nothing sprung up to challenge her, and the road she was traveling was free of obstacle, so she journeyed on, burning eyes focused on the horizon, the razor-sharp point of her spear gleaming in her hand.

In time the woods began to open up, and she saw the dark silhouettes of some kind of cluster of structures up ahead. Ophelia tensed up, but not from fear. A vicious grin slashed its ways across her face. This was it.

She burst into a clearing and found herself looking at the dilapidated ruins of some kind of carnival. The gaudily painted wooden wall was now dull, chipped, and broken by gaping holes in places. The spires of the tents were weatherworn, marred by holes, and sagging in places. The strings of lights were all off, with several missing bulbs. The skeletal framework of a rollercoaster rose up, once a source of noise, energy, and excitement, now little more than a decaying, wooden carcass.

But it was still all there. It was like the carnival had simply been abandoned overnight, with no one bothering to dismantle it or preserve it for future seasons.

Ophelia slowed her horse as she entered the overgrown parking lot. Rusting lot markers marked by moldy flags rose up overhead. The parking lots were empty of everything but discarded bits of trash and weeds.

Slowing her horse to a trot, Ophelia moved forward toward the entrance of the carnival, eyes warily searching for any sign of danger, but other than herself the parking lot seemed abandoned.

Then she heard the buzzing of flies.

Ophelia paused and looked. Hunched over in one parking space was the decomposing remains of a horse, its once-white coat now a shriveled grey, its proud mane now reduced to stringy bits of hair. Its skeleton was poking through what remained of its flesh, and maggots were crawling through the empty eye sockets. Tarnished armor and a rotting saddle were laid upon its bony back, and the molding reins were still tied to a rusted pole.

Ophelia paused. She titled her head to one sign and frowned. Well now, that was an ugly sight. But why only the one horse?

She dismounted her own horse and cautiously approached the corpse. The sound of flies and the stench of rot grew stronger. She reached out with her spear and prodded the saddle.

It slipped a bit, revealing the tarnished emblem of a musical note carved into the plate armor.

Sayaka. This had been Sayaka's horse. She had been here, but never had the chance to return. Ophelia was on the right track.

Ophelia turned to return to her mount, but then froze.

The forest she had just left was no longer dark and gloomy. In fact it was quite the opposite, owing to it now being completely on fire. An orange inferno was hungrily devouring the trees, consuming them like a funeral pyre, the smoke choking out even the light of the moon.

Despite the urgency of her mission, Ophelia couldn't help but stand and gawk. How the hell had-

Oh.

Wait.

Her hand went up to touch the flame that had replaced her hair.

Oh, right. Riding through a forest of deadwood with an open flame on top of her head was probably not a great idea. Whoops.

Well, it wasn't like she needed to go back. And she was going to burn a lot more than trees before this was over.

Ophelia remounted her horse and kicked it into motion. A metal fence with two tarnished turnstiles stretched across the entrance, presenting no barrier to her, but she wasn't willing to give up her own horse just yet. She sped it up into a gallop, rushed past the empty ticket booth with its filthy and broken glass window, and her horse leapt up, sailing over the gate to land within the carnival itself.

Within she found the withered husk of once had been a land of fun and indulgence. The game booths and the food stands were all falling to pieces, their prizes still hanging on display, but now overcome with rot. Garbage littered the ground, and vermin of all kinds fled before Ophelia's approach.

As she slowed her horse to a trot, Ophelia couldn't help but reflect the cruel irony of the place's state. Carnivals were inherently cynical places that put on a façade of childhood joy, but were really about decadence and hedonism in the name of making as money as possible through unscrupulous means, whether it be rigged games or falsified attractions. Freaks were put on display to be gawked at, but were really just poor, unfortunate souls with no other way to support themselves. Outrageously extravagant treats were available to all, but would only provide toothache and upset stomachs in the long run. And beneath the shallow front of bright colors and loud music was a sort of emptiness. Now it actually looked it.

Ophelia glanced down and saw the molding remains of a cotton-candy cone. It was an appropriate representation for carnivals as a whole: colorful and sweet, but ultimately just a bunch of fluff with no real substance at all.

Still, Ophelia reflected as she passed an empty dunking tank, there is something to be said for that kind of indulgence. And I wouldn't mind going with Sayaka to one after I find her. Go on bigger and bigger rides until someone chickens out. See how many hotdogs I can force down before I get sick. See if I can beat the rigged games and win her something. See if her lips taste as sweet as the cotton-candy-

Then she froze, bringing her horse to a sudden stop. Wait, where the hell had that thought come from? Okay, so Sayaka was really cute, and they got along well, and it bothered Kyoko when she wasn't there, and she had been spending a lot of time chasing after her, and she had technically died for her, and local legends said that if two people died together than they were fated to fall in love, and the two had been jokingly flirting a lot, and just being with Sayaka made Kyoko feel pretty good about herself, and-

Oh.

Huh.

Well, it was something to think about at least. Honestly, Ophelia wasn't even sure if she wanted to go down that route with anyone. But if she absolutely had to, then she could do a hell of a lot worse than Sayaka.

But did she have to? And even if she didn't, did she even want to?

I choseto love Charlotte, or to allow myself to fall in love with her, Mami's voice spoke in her memory. Me. I chose. I could have fought it. I could have chosen to stay the way I was. Some people do. And there is nothing wrong with that. You can too, if you wish. No one will think less of you.

But that was the problem: Ophelia wasn't sure what she wanted. She always figured that even after they had succeeded on their quest then they would stick together, that they would remain best friends and partners.

But what was a lover other than a best friend you wanted to make out with? And they were pretty much literally soul mates.

Well, how about that? Guess I should have figured this would happen. I wonder if she feels the same about me.

Hopefully she would get the chance to ask her.

…

Now…

"Uh, are you all right?" Nozomi asked.

Ophelia started. "Huh?"

"You were telling us about going through the abandoned carnival, and then you just sort of zoned out."

Ophelia glanced first at Charlotte, and then at Sayaka, who was sitting and watching quietly and intensely, her achingly familiar light blue gaze drilling into her in an uncomfortably familiar way.

Since they had come to the afterlife together, Sayaka had been exasperated with her. She had been annoyed with her. She had been frustrated with her. She had even been angry with her. But this look of open distrust and barely restrained hostility was something Ophelia hadn't seen since before they had died, back when Ophelia had been actively harassing and provoking her.

To tell the truth, she kind of welcomed it. Because it meant that Sayaka Miki was really back.

When she had been Oktavia von Seckendorff, Ophelia had never any issue getting along with her. Oktavia liked being around her. Oktavia liked being friends with her. Oktavia liked her.

But that had never been the case with Sayaka. Granted, their relationship had started with Ophelia actively trying to kill her, and all the mocking of Sayaka's worldview probably hadn't helped either. But even after hostilities had cooled there had still been a wall there, and Sayaka just kept on resisting her, even to her own detriment.

It was the sort of self-assured stubbornness that had defined Ophelia a lot before her family's death. It was something she respected while still finding utterly infuriating. Somehow, the paradox intrigued her.

Sayaka Miki was back, and she once again did not trust Ophelia. She did not like Ophelia. She was increasingly hostile toward Ophelia.

It was annoying, it was infuriating, it was frustrating, and Ophelia kind of loved it. Which really spoke to the numerous issues she probably had.

"Sorry," Ophelia said. "Zone out for a second. What happened next is…"

…

Then…

With a sigh, Ophelia spurred her horse forward. The situation with Sayaka was one she really needed to work out, but she would have to find her first, and that wasn't going to be accomplished by sitting around in a dead carnival puzzling about their relationship status.

Almost as a sign that she really needed to put her focus elsewhere, the sound of heavy steps, of labored wheezing, and of something heavy being dragged along the ground brought her mind back to where it needed to be.

Someone was emerging from one of the decaying tents to wander onto the main path. That someone was tall, heavily muscled, dressed in leathers, steel, and military camo. She had a tall, thin purple mohawk and tattoos all up and down her bare arms.

Also, she was clearly not well. Her face was a mess of pustules, spittle ran down her swollen lips, her eyes was dazed and unfocused, and her skin was a sickly shade of green. She was stumbling forward in an aimless sort of way, one hand onto the handle of a long warhammer, dragging its spiked head through the dirt.

Ophelia's eyes narrowed. Ah, yes. Her.

She considered just running Brooklyn down, but no. Brooklyn might look like she was completely out of commission, but she still wasn't to be underestimated, and with that warhammer she had considerable reach. She could smash the knees out from under Kyoko's horse with one swing.

So she dismounted and strode forward, spear held loosely in her right hand.

"Hey! Brooklyn!" she called. "I got a bone to pick with you."

At the sound of her voice, Brooklyn slowly turned in her direction. Seeing the blazing warrior approach her, some small bit of life returned to her rheumy yellow eyes. She grunted and straightened up.

"Where is Sayaka?" Ophelia demanded. "Tell me, and I'll leave you to your miserable waste of an existence."

Brooklyn swung her warhammer up and took the handle in both hands. Almost as if on cue, a small breeze kicked up an empty soda cup and sent it rolling across the path between them.

Ophelia sighed. All right then.

The two combatants charged at one another, Brooklyn letting out a squealing roar while Ophelia made no noise whatsoever. She zeroed in on Brooklyn's bulging neck and readied herself to leap.

But Brooklyn leapt first. She swung her warhammer around to smash Ophelia's head like a melon, chrome teeth bared and covered with mucus. Ophelia slammed her foot hard in the ground to arrest her momentum and brought the pole of her spear up to deflect the blow.

The two metal poles struck each other, and Ophelia braced herself for what was surely a jarring impact.

Except…it wasn't. The warhammer was stopped cold, and Ophelia barely felt anything at all.

What?

Ophelia looked up at the crossed weapons. Brooklyn was pushing down with both hands, her muscles bulging with the effort, spittle flying as she growled and slavered.

And yet Ophelia felt no pressure at all. It was like holding off a very small child.

Huh.

Ophelia lifted her leg and slammed it into Brooklyn's stomach. The big girl made a gasping squeal of surprise and stumbled backward. Before she could recover, Ophelia spun around, the pole of her spear coming apart, allowing her to whip it around and strike at Brooklyn with both blade and weight, driving her to the ground.

Ophelia then leapt up, the segments of her spear retracting into a single unit. She then came down like a diving hawk, the tip of her blade point straight at Brooklyn's chest as the bigger girl tried to rise.

Moments later, what was left of Brooklyn fell to the ground in pieces.

Ophelia stood to her feet to better examine her handiwork. For some reason, the chunks of Brooklyn meat were oozing green instead of red. Gross. She then glanced at the head and scowled. It was smeared with more of the gross green slime. Bringing it close, she took in a deep breath, held it, and exhaled as hard as she could. Flames spewed out of her mouth to wash over the blade, scouring it clean.

And then the carnival came back to life.

It remained as broken and abandoned as before, but all the lights that weren't completely broken suddenly switched on, the signs that had enough of themselves left to light up did light up, and strangled-sounded music started playing over the loudspeakers.

Ophelia sighed. That "fight," such as it was, had woken her up a bit more, enough for her to finally start putting some of the pieces together. This place, and all the places she had just left, were all wrong, like a witch's labyrinth was wrong, only even moreso. Everything was so strange and dreamlike, and it was odd that she hadn't really noticed until now.

Then she glanced over to the nearest booth. The rotting stuffed prizes still hung from hooks, but they now all had multicolored dreadlocks hanging from their heads. So did the prizes and toys at the other booths, as well as all the colorful mascot characters painted into walls, advertisements, and signs.

Ophelia added a few more additions to her to-do list, ones that also involved finding people, though in this case the end result was less of rescuing them and more of smashing their smug, pierced face in. First and foremost: find Sayaka. Second, find…

She frowned.

There were other people, other people she had been with. Now, who was it?

Then she shrugged. Oh well, it was sure to come to her. But she really needed to get back to work.

Remounting her horse, Ophelia set off again, leaving Brooklyn's steaming remains behind.

…

Now…

"Brooklyn?" Sayaka said in puzzlement. "Who's Brooklyn?"

Ophelia wondered how to answer that question without dropping unfortunate information. "Some drug-addicted asshole I've had a few bad experiences with," she said. "Short temper, hates crippled people for some reason."

Sayaka frowned. "Why?"

"I just said that I don't know! But that's beside the point. I don't care if I've gotten a strength upgrade; Brooklyn should have knocked me on my ass. What does that tell you?"

"Uh…"

"That she was nothing! Literally nothing! It was just like those copies of ourselves that we offed! They were a dream, she was a dream, this is all a dream!"

"I don't know," Sayaka said in uncertainty. "I still think this is just a really strong witch."

Candeloro and Charlotte exchanged looks of discomfort.

"It might be," Ophelia conceded. "But if it's a witch, then it's some kind of nightmare witch, because if they were just familiars then they'd put up more of a fight. I'd at least feel it when she hit me."

"But…wait," Candeloro said. "I fought several times during my trip to the basement. Annabelle Lee kept attacking me over and over. I beat her, but she still made me work for it."

"Yeah, but you didn't know that you were in a dream then. We're all more awake now."

Nozomi looked down at her shifting appearance, then her eyes traveled down the long, golden length of Candeloro's ribbons, then over to the royally attired Sayaka, and then up to the flames on top of Ophelia's said. "You sure about that?" she said dryly.

"Well, more than we were," Ophelia amended.

Sayaka snorted.

"Just get on with the story," Charlotte said. "We can sort our individual identity issues after."

…

Then…

Ophelia burst through the entrance to the Big Top, the center tent, where all the carnival's merrygoers would gather to see the clowns, acrobats, and trained animals perform. It made sense that Sayaka's path would have taken her through here.

The tent was as abandoned as the rest of the place. Though the bleacher seats still stood, they were filthy and covered with discarded refuse. One of the highwire poles had fallen, and was now lying across the bleachers. More trash was scattered across the circus rings, and in the center was what looked like shards of glass and a smashed makeup mirror.

And lying with her back to the remaining highwire pole was a figure dressed in black.

Ophelia turned her horse toward the figure. As she drew closer, she saw that the other person was dressed in the filthy and frayed remains of a ringmaster outfit. Her top hat lay crushed on its side. The ringmaster's green hair was greasy and unkempt, and her face was smeared with flaking clown makeup.

Ophelia brought her horse to a stop and looked down at her. The ringmaster did not look well. Her breathing was labored, her limbs twitching, and she seemed to have trouble just lifting her head.

"Well, well, well," Ophelia said. "If it ain't Lily the Liar. After Brooklyn, I should've figured that I'd run into you here."

Lily let out a wheezing laugh. Then she grimaced as if just that hurt.

"You'll…run into much more…before the end," she muttered. Ophelia winced. Lily's once-melodic voice was now harsh and grating, and it sounded like it was overlaid with itself.

"What's going on?" Ophelia said. "Where am I? This place obviously isn't normal. Someone's fucking with me. What's this all been about?"

"You've…figured out some," Lily said. "Figure…the rest out…yourself."

Ophelia scowled. "You know, I can take your head off right now. One swipe and it's gone."

Lily shrugged.

"Fine. Where's Sayaka then? I know she went through here."

At this, Lily managed to lift her head just enough to meet Ophelia's eyes. The blisters on his painted lips burst as she smiled, and the veins in her kaleidoscope eyes leaked yellow fluid.

"She went that-a-way," Lily whispered as she lifted a trembling finger and pointed to the back of the tent.

Ophelia looked. An open flap could be seen at the far end. And beyond it, daylight.

Which was really weird, seeing how it was the dead of night on the other side.

As for Lily, she started laughing again, a harsh, rattling sound that seemed to come from deep within her chest and had to force its way out through a thick crust of rust to get through. She then started coughing, her whole body wracking with the effort, but she couldn't seem to stop. She just kept laughing and coughing as the convulsions grew stronger and stronger.

And then they finally stopped. Lily let out a strained, grating sigh and let her hand drop. The light went out of her eyes and she lay still.

Ophelia looked down at the dream apparition of a notorious enslaver and drug dealer. It was a fate that was quite frankly too good for the actual Lily. Maybe with some luck, something even more horrible would happen to her down the line.

As for her, she was done here. She nudged her horse and started moving toward the exit. As she approached, she could hear the sound waves on the shore and smell the scent of salt, a vast improvement to the stench and rot of the carnival.

She reached out with her spear to hold the flap open, but then she paused. She looked back at the abandoned Big Top.

The carnival was nothing more than a rotting, festering graveyard, full of filth and corruption. Though it would cost her nothing to just leave it, it did gall her that she had to ride through such a gross place and do nothing.

So she did something.

Ophelia breathed deeply from the mixture of fresh shoreside air and the stink of the carnival. She held it, bowed her head, and covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

And then she pushed the air out.

Flames gushed up from the top of her head, a burning spear that lanced up and up and up, sailing high to strike again the ruined tent canopy. From there, the fire took root and spread itself quickly, hungrily devouring the rotting fabric and using it to grow bigger and expand out further.

Moments later, the whole of the tent was ablaze.

Nodding in satisfaction, Ophelia turned back around and nudged her horse out through the flap, out of the carnival, and into the sunlight.

…

Now…

"And that's when I found you!" Ophelia said to Sayaka. "Right there in the water, dressed like you were about to break into song with cute critter chorus, holding onto my necklace." She tapped her necklace's scarlet stone. "Thanks for that, by the way. It really brings the whole outfit together."

Sayaka blinked. "So…the necklace isn't part of the dream…screwiness?"

"Oh no, I've had this bad girl for a while. You gave it to me, actually."

"I…what?"

"It's true," Charlotte chimed in. "I helped you picked it out."

"What?"

"Well, she was going through a tough time, so you wanted to do something nice for her."

"I…" Then Sayaka's face twisted up with revulsion. "All right. All right! I want the truth! Kyoko, are we…dating?"

At that moment, Ophelia was hit with two equally powerful but completely opposite kneejerk reactions.

The first was to burst out into laughter. Under most circumstance she would have done just that, followed up by mocking Sayaka while making kissing noises and doing pretty much anything she could to make her as uncomfortable as possible.

But on the other hand, Sayaka just sounded so disgusted by the possibility that Ophelia couldn't help but feel a little hurt.

In the end, the two impulses cancelled one another out, leaving Ophelia just standing there and not reacting at all. She glanced over to Candeloro and Nozomi…no, wait, it was Charlotte…no, it was Charlotte again…and they weren't saying anything either, though Charlotte was looking meaningfully at Ophelia, eyebrow askew as she waited for her answer.

Ophelia swallowed to clear away the tightness in her throat and said, "No. We're not."

Sayaka looked less than convinced. "Okay. But Mami's dating a girl out of nowhere, and you keep going on and on about how you and I have been friends for months, and apparently I'm buying you jewelry now, so…"

"Oh, please," Ophelia said, injecting a lot more scorn into her tone than she actually felt. "Like you've never bought gifts for Pinkie."

"What? What are you…" Then Sayaka got it, and it pissed her off. "Okay, that is officially the last time you get to talk about Madoka."

If there was one thing that remained true about Sayaka, it was that her sore spots were numerous and hard to miss. "Well, have you?" Ophelia pressed.

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes. But never jewelry though!"

"Well, that sounds like a you problem."

"Stop talking," Sayaka said. "Right now."

Ophelia shrugged. She hoped it looked nonchalant.

For a time the only sound was the rain and the thunder. Then Sayaka looked over to Nozomi and Candeloro. "Did I buy necklaces or something for you two also?"

"Well, considering it was my money you were using, no," Charlotte said wryly. "You did get something for yourself though."

"I did?"

"Uh-huh. A harmonica."

Now Sayaka looked more confused than upset. "A harmonica? Why'd I get a harmonica?"

"Because you wanted it," Nozomi said, as if that explained everything.

"You're pretty good at it too," Ophelia chimed in. "I liked a lot of the tunes you came up with." She hummed one particularly catchy one that Sayaka had been fond of playing around the campfire.

"Um…" Sayaka raked her hand through her hair in agitation. Her fingers hit her tiara, which seemed to surprise her. She took it off, stared blankly at it like she couldn't understand why it was there, and slumped, letting it fall to the floor. "I…never made any music before."

"Well, everyone starts somewhere, I suppose," Charlotte said.

"I mean, I've listened to a lot of music, and I've read up on a lot of music," Sayaka continued. "And…I've bought a lot of music. But that was mostly for Kyousuke."

"Who?" Candeloro said. Ophelia shot her a look. Catching the hint, the blonde winced and didn't press further.

Huh. So Sayaka did associate gift-giving with romantic interest. Interesting.

Keeping the smile she felt forming away, Ophelia continued her story.

…

Now…

"…and that's why I figure that all this is some kind of crazy illusion," Ophelia called over her shoulder to Sayaka as they galloped onward across the shore. "Like a dream. Some new way of really fucking with us."

Seated behind her, Sayaka was holding tightly to her waist and was leaning in against her back with her face pressed into Ophelia's shoulder. Though Ophelia hadn't thought that Sayaka would be afraid of a little fast-paced horse action, especially how often they had to make frantic getaways, she really wasn't objecting to the close contact.

"So, like a witch then?" Sayaka said.

"Uh, maybe? I don't know, after Etherdale I'm just going to accept any weird shit that we come across."

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said, "What's Etherdale?"

Ophelia's face screwed up in confusion. "Uh, freaky forest full of crazy girls and bad guy human traffickers? Persephone Protectorate, Lily the Siren, any of that ringing any bells?"

"Uh, no. I…none of that makes any sense! When were we fighting human traffickers in a forest?"

"I don't know! A few months ago?"

"What? Kyoko, I've only known you for a couple weeks!"

Ophelia blinked.

Then she yanked hard on her horse's reins. Its hooves skidded across the sand, kicking up grit as it tried to stop. It finally reared up, almost dumping Sayaka right off. Ophelia was certain that had it been capable of vocalization, it would be neighing loudly at her in indignation.

Fortunately, Sayaka was more than capable of picking up the slack.

"What the heck!" she sputtered after the horse came back down. "You almost threw me right off, you crazy-"

Ophelia slapped a hand over Sayaka's mouth. Taking the hint, the blue-haired princess/knight/whatever shut up.

"Get off," Ophelia said. "Right now."

Her voice still obstructed by Ophelia's palm, Sayaka's eyes went wide.

"Do it."

Reluctantly Sayaka climbed down from the horse. She dropped down and glowered up at Ophelia, hand on her sword's hilt, ready to draw it at the first sign of violence.

Ophelia then dropped down at well, right in front of her. That seemed to take Sayaka by surprise a little, like she was expecting Ophelia to just gallop off without her after having kicked her off the saddle.

"What are you doing?" Sayaka demanded. "Why did you-"

"What," Ophelia said, "is the last thing you remember?"

"Get away from me!"

Sayaka tried to run, but Ophelia held her hand out, and several chains made of scarlet, diamond-shaped platers crisscrossed in front of her, forming a wall. Sayaka stopped, and then glared back at her.

"Answer the question," Ophelia said. "What is. The last thing. You remember?"

"I already told you that!" Sayaka snapped. "You! Me! At the train station!"

Come to think of it, she had mentioned something about that, but Ophelia had been so overjoyed about finding her that it had barely registered.

"So," Ophelia said. "You're telling me that you don't remember anything after that? Nothing?"

"No! We were sitting together talking, and then…" Sayaka shivered. "Then it got d-dark. And cold. And…and sad. And then, nothing."

Ophelia's jaw dropped. Oh God. It had happened. It had finally happened. Sayaka Miki was back.

Or to be even more specific, only Sayaka Miki was back.

Ophelia took a step forward, ready to throw her arms around Sayaka again. Seeing this, Sayaka stepped back, her body tensing up, the fingers on her sword tightening.

That made Ophelia hesitate. Right, her relationship with Sayaka had always been strained at best. It had been Oktavia that she had been friends with, and Oktavia was gone. If she tried to embrace her, then there probably would be fighting.

Ophelia stepped back as well. No point in pressing the matter, at least not yet.

But what was she supposed to say? How was she going to explain thing? If she told Sayaka that the reason everything went dark was because she had become a witch, well, that would in turn require explaining the true nature of witches, as well as the truth behind Incubators and their contracts. And given the exceptional fragility of Sayaka's emotional state at the time, learning that much would probably break her.

And assuming that it didn't, that she could still go on after learning that her time as Mitakihara's defender had all been one big con, that the witches she had destroyed had been girls just like her, what then? How did one explain the two of them going down together, that Sayaka was now officially dead? How did one explain the afterlife? The aliens? The human witches? And…

Oh boy.

How the hell was Ophelia going to explain Mami and Charlotte? No, forget that, how was she going to explain just Mami? Seeing her dead mentor again was probably going to mess her up in all sorts of ways. And what about Charlotte? Sayaka had seen her in her witch form, after all. She had seen her devour Mami. Would she be able to accept Charlotte as a friend and ally after that, much less as the wife of the woman she had murdered?

This…was not an ideal situation.

Well, whatever it was that Ophelia needed to do, she had to do it quick. Sayaka needed some kind of explanation, and just standing there staring at her was only going to make her more suspicious.

But damn it, what the hell could she say? What lie could she tell that Sayaka would accept?

And then, as the two stood there staring at one another, the answer came to her in a flash of intuition.

Tell the truth. Just not…all the truth.

Ophelia composed herself the best she could and said, "It was…a witch. We were attacked by a witch. A big one."

"A witch?" Sayaka said suspiciously. "Hey, I've dealt with witches before, and they've never hit me like that."

"Well, this one was stronger. It hit us with a major emotional whammy to get us off our game."

"Oh yeah? And then what happened?"

Ophelia shrugged. "Well, we still won. Of course we won! But, um…" Okay, okay. Fill in the rest. Just enough of the truth to make sense, not enough to clue her in to the weird shit. "Sayaka, that was…months ago."

Sayaka blinked. "What?"

"I guess whatever we're trapped in made you forget for some reason." The mixture of half-truths and lies were coming out slowly, but they were coming out. It felt a lot like trying to lay out a track right in front of a speeding train. One small slip up and she would end up as paste and the train as a spectacular wreck. "But yeah, that was a long time ago."

"Months?" Sayaka blinked. "Um, really? Months?"

"Yeah. Months."

"Oh." Sayaka looked down at the sand, then back up at her. "Oh. Uh. Well. W-What's happened since? What happened to…to my friends?"

Think, Ophelia! Think! She remembered Madoka Kaname she remembered well enough, but what of the others? Okay, okay, there had been violin boy. And okay, he had started dating Sayaka's rich friend, which had been part of the reason she had a few of her screws loosened. Now, what could Ophelia say about them that Sayaka would accept?

"They're fine," Ophelia said. "Things were kind of tense between you and Madoka for a while, but you guys got over it." She made a show of rolling her eyes. "Good thing too. All that bitching and moaning was pissing me off."

"You mean, Madoka's not mad at me?"

"Hey, you were having a lousy time. Said some shit you didn't mean. It happens. You apologized and made up." Something else occurred to her. "And no, she hasn't made a contract. You were pretty clear on not wanting that to happen."

Some of the tension left Sayaka's body. Her shoulders relaxed a little, and Ophelia could see the relief in her eyes. Good. She was buying it. "A-And what about…well, us?"

"Us? You mean like, you and me?"

Sayaka nodded.

Ophelia felt a sudden surge of energy when she realized the great gift she had just been given. Sayaka was buying her story. Sayaka was believing her. Which meant…

Which meant that Ophelia could shape their relationship any way that she wanted, and Sayaka would believe her.

"Kyoko?"

Well, okay, maybe not any way she wanted. But she could definitely get things started off on a positive note.

"Well, believe it or not, you and I actually have been fighting together the whole time!" Ophelia said.

Sayaka's brow furrowed.

"By that I mean fighting against witches together," Ophelia hastily clarified. "Not fighting each other. Like we were before."

"We were partners?"

An old internet video that Ophelia had found amusing back when she had been in school suddenly flashed in her memory, and it was all she could do not to say, "Oh my God, they were partners."

"Yup!"

The furrow deepened. "Why would you partner up with someone like me?"

Ophelia opened her mouth to object, realized then how Sayaka had phrased the question, and then frowned. Wait, what? "Like you? Don't you mean, why would you partner up with me? I thought you were the one who found me all objectionable."

Sayaka lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "At least you're honest about what you are. I just kept hurting people while telling myself that I was the hero."

Ophelia sighed. Okay, this. She did not miss this. "Look, whiner. That's in the past. You were going through a rough time, and it got to you. It happens. You think I was in a good place after my family died?"

Sayaka's lips thinned out. She said nothing.

"No, I was not. Hell, you saw part of that, remember?"

"You mean," Sayaka said, her voice hollow, "when you tried to kill me."

Oh. Right. That had happened. "Look, you don't remember this, but I already-"

Wait. Had she?

"Sayaka, I'm sorry I tried to kill you, okay?" God, that sounded so damned weird. "And I'm sorry I was such an asshole for so long. Bad shit happened to me, and I was also in a bad place. You were in a bad place too. But that was months ago. We worked past that. We're friends now. I promise."

"Friends," Sayaka mused. "Huh. I…don't know if I can believe you."

Ophelia shrugged. "Well, believe me or not, we still have work to. Help me find whatever set my head on fire and stole your memories, and then we can try to work out our history of doing terrible shit, okay?"

Sayaka's eyes hardened, and for a moment Ophelia was worried that her pigheaded stubbornness was going to come back. But then her face softened ever so slightly.

"Okay," Sayaka said, taking her hand off her sword. "I'll go with you. For now."

Ophelia sighed. "Great! See? Teamwork makes the dream work. Or, kills the dream. If we're lucky."

They headed back to her red felt horse, which had been patiently waiting for his riders to hurry up and resolve their argument. "So, what's the plan then?" Sayaka said. "You found me. So we work together and kill whatever witch is causing this?"

"No, not yet," Ophelia said. "We still have some rescuing to do, starting with-"

Then she froze.

Oh no.

Sayaka had lost all her memories from after her transformation to a witch. She didn't know about being Oktavia von Seckendorff. That was fine; she didn't need to know. She didn't know about the afterlife, or the Void Walkers, or Annabelle Lee and her cronies, or anything else. That was also fine.

But that also meant that she didn't know about Charlotte.

Or Mami.

And that…was sort of pertinent information.

"Hey, why'd you stop?" Sayaka said.

Grimacing, Ophelia turned back around.

"I just remembered something," she said as her mind once again raced in front of that speeding train, desperately throwing down tracks. "And, uh, you're gonna want to sit down."

"On what?"

Good point. There was nothing but water in one direction and sand in the other. There wasn't even any rocks. "Well, brace yourself then." Ophelia took a deep breath. "See, it wasn't just you and me fighting alone."

"Huh? You mean, we were on a team?"

"Yup. A team. The loners stopped working alone."

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said, "Why?"

Think, think, think! What had they been doing right before Sayaka had turned? What excuse could she use to-

Oh. Right. That.

"So hey," Ophelia said. "You ever hear about something called a Walpurgisnacht?"

…

Now…

As soon as Ophelia said the word "Walpurgisnacht," Charlotte sucked air in sharply through her teeth.

Ophelia winced. Oh boy, here it came.

"I heard that," Sayaka said, shooting Nozomi a glare. "So, was this 'Walpurgisnacht' a lie too?"

"No," Ophelia sighed. "That was real. Homura Akemi and I were actually working out a plan to take it down when everything went to hell."

Sayaka frowned. "So, wait, are we in the Walpurgisnacht? Is that the witch that has us?"

"No," Ophelia said again. "This is something…different."

"Then what then?"

"I'm getting to that, I promise."

…

Then…

"So, let me get this straight," Sayaka said dubiously. "You're telling me that a huge, super-witch was set to hit Mitakihara, potentially killing hundreds."

"Yup."

"A witch so big that all nearby magical girls need to put aside their differences and work together to take it down."

"Basically."

"And Homura Akemi recruited you to help."

"And I recruited you. After you got over all your obnoxious mooning and whinging."

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said, "Didn't she try to kill me too that one time?"

"Oh, please," Ophelia snorted. "Who hasn't tried to kill each other at one point or another? But this was bigger than any one of us."

"Right," Sayaka said flatly. "So let me guess: you and I need to work together to save our best buddy and fellow teammate, Homura Akemi."

"Nah, she skipped town after we took Walpurgisnacht down," Ophelia said with a dismissive wave. "Turns out that was what she was hanging around for in the first place. No point in sticking around after."

"Yeah, bullcrap."

"Huh?"

"I said bullcrap," Sayaka repeated. "That crazy chick was stalking Madoka for weeks. No way would she just up and quit."

Was she? Come to think of it, Homura did have sort of a weird fixation on Pinkie, though Ophelia hadn't really given it much thought at the time.

"All right, she didn't do it willingly," Ophelia amended. "Some…stuff went down, and it got a little ugly."

Hot anger flashed through Sayaka's sapphire eyes. "I swear, if she laid one hand on-"

"No! No, no, no, nothing like that! It was magical girl stuff, nothing to do with Madoka."

"What kind of stuff then?"

Ophelia considered what sort of lie she could tell that would be satisfactory, but then realized that she was just wasting time. "Look, we're short on time, and I'll explain it all to you later. Or we can get your memories back so I won't have to. But the point I'm working toward is that to help us with Walpurgisnacht, we got some…other help."

Sayaka stared blankly at her.

Fortunately, a workable story was already coming together in Ophelia's mind. "All right, so there's someone new. Someone that this you hasn't met yet. Her name is Charlotte."

"Charlotte," Sayaka repeated. She shook her head. "Who's that?"

"Well, turns out that she was a friend of Mami Tomoe."

Sayaka inhaled sharply. "Mami?" she whispered. "It was one of Mami's old friends?"

"Yeah, but not from the business, at least not from before. She and Mami had been friends before Mami had made her wish, and they sort of drifted apart after." Ophelia took a deep breath. "And, uh, turns out Kyubey had his eye on her too. And he made contact with her."

Sayaka still looked lost. "Okay. So someone Mami used to know made a contract. So what? All of us knew Mami at some time. Why do I need to brace myself for that?"

Ophelia sighed. "Because Kyubey told her all of our history beforehand. Which informed the wish she made."

"I don't get it."

In answer, Ophelia silently looked at her. That was it. Just a long, patient look.

Sayaka stared back, still awash in confusion.

And then her brow rose. And she blinked.

Before Ophelia's eyes, the confusion gave way before crushing realization, the kind that strips away all sense of reality, all belief of how things ought to be, that devours reason and intellect and control, leaving nothing but raw emotion in its wake.

"No," Sayaka whispered, her voice thick with that emotion.

"Mami's back, Sayaka."

Sayaka opened her mouth, but only choking sounds came out.

"Charlotte wished her back. She's alive."

"Mami?" Sayaka managed to get out after some effort.

Ophelia nodded.

Tears were filling Sayaka's eyes, and her limbs were trembling as her strength was sapped away. So many powerful feelings were surging through her, and Ophelia bet she could name them all: grief, joy, disbelief, anger, suspicion, guilt, and hope. She was essentially experiencing all five stages of death at once. Amplified. In technicolor. And surround sound.

"I…"

And then the last of her strength left her, and she fell.

Fortunately, Ophelia was there to catch her. She seized Sayaka by the bicep, preventing her from falling all the way.

Sayaka looked up at Ophelia, and Ophelia looked back down at her. Two pairs of eyes, one red and burning bright and the other blue and as wet as the sea, gazed into one another.

And in that moment, an understanding passed between them.

Ophelia slowly lowered Sayaka down so she was at least sitting instead of landing sprawled out. And then she sat down next to her.

For a time the two of them said nothing. They just sat together, looking out at the sea, listening to the sound of the surf.

Then Sayaka said, "She's really alive?"

Ophelia nodded. "Yeah. She is."

"Truly?"

Ophelia turned her head to smile at her. "It's been the four of us for a while. You. Me. Charlotte." She reached over to give Sayaka's shoulder a friendly squeeze. "And Mami."

Tears drew paths down Sayaka's cheeks. She said nothing.

"I know it's scary and confusing. But our friends need us. You have new friend and an old one waiting for us. And we need to help them."

Sayaka swallowed. "What good can I do?"

"Hey, stop it with that self-pity crap. You're practically the tank of this team."

"I am?"

"Sure! I mean, I'm the mid-range crowd control girl, Mami's the long-range support, and Charlotte's our eyes. You're the one that's often in the thick of things when it gets hairy, which is a lot." Ophelia chucked her lightly in the chin. "So cheer up! In our gang, it's all for one and one for all!"

…

Now…

"And how much of that was a lie?" Sayaka demanded.

Ophelia didn't answer. Ophelia was getting tired. Ophelia wanted a nap.

"Actually, not much," Nozomi broke in. "Again, she's messed around with the details a little, but she is right about the four of us fighting side-by-side, watching each other's backs. And there's been plenty of times where you saved all of our bacon."

Sayaka's face scrunched up, but not in total disbelief.

"It's true," Candeloro said. "I…may not remember most things, but I do remember that. There was one big battle against Annabelle Lee and her gang that took us across kilometers of road, and we would probably would never have gotten out of there in one piece if it weren't for you."

"Right," Charlotte said. "Or when you and Kyoko had gotten kidnapped by Brooklyn, and me and Candeloro had to break into their hideout to rescue you? Well, that went bad, and you ended up rescuing all of us!"

The praise seemed to be doing Sayaka some good, and she almost started smiling. But then she remembered that she was supposed to be suspicious, and her frown returned. "Okay, but you still won't tell me who Annabelle Lee and Brooklyn even are! Or why we were fighting them!"

"Please, just be patient," Nozomi said. "We'll work towards that. Like I said, it's a lot. Ophelia, you were saying?"

…

Then…

"That's…my school?" Sayaka said, the first time she had spoken since falling silent.

It was. The whole of Mitakihara Middle School was right there before them, a gleaming modern building of concrete, steel, and glass, sitting all by itself on the otherwise empty shore.

Ophelia brought her horse to a stop and looked up. The glare of the sunlight reflected off the windows was bright, so she shielded her eyes with her hand and squinted.

"Kyoko? Or…Ophelia, whatever. Why is my school here?"

Once again the painful bell sounded in Ophelia's head. She brushed it off. "It's not your school," she said. "Just another illusion."

"Okay, but why is it here? To mess with us some more?"

"Close, but I don't think it's here for us."

"Then who? Is Madoka caught up in all this too? Hitomi?" She hesitated, and then said in a more quiet voice, "Kyousuke?"

Who the hell was…Oh, right. Violin boy. "Nah. Bet you anything that's where we'll find Mami."

Sayaka inhaled sharply through her nose.

Ophelia glanced over her shoulder. "You going to be okay with this?"

"No," Sayaka said without delay. "I'm not. Nothing about this is okay."

"Well, hey. Look at it this way. At least you'll be able to see Mami again. That's a plus, right?"

"Is it? I mean, I only let her die. I could've made a contract earlier. I could've been fighting by her side, but I didn't! And when I did finally find the courage to step up and try to take her place, I failed so badly that…"

Sayaka's voice choked up, and she looked away, her eyes gleaming with angry tears.

Ophelia breathed out. "Okay, sorting through that hot mess is way about my pay grade, but just a reminder, you and Mami already worked through all of that and have been part of the same team for months. So, I don't think it's going to be an issue."

"No, the other Sayaka worked through that!" Sayaka snapped. "Not me! I don't remember any of that!"

"Well, she does, so don't stress it. And hey! Once we get the gang back together and take out whoever or whatever's causing this, you'll get your memories back!"

"Right," Sayaka sighed. Then she smiled and lifted a fist of determination. "Okay, let's do this then!"

To Ophelia's eyes, Sayaka's smile looked way too forced, and there was a slight but still distinct tremble to her fist. Still, wasn't that the definition of courage?

"Now you've got it!" Ophelia said, bumping Sayaka's fist with her own. "Now come on, let's go save our sempai!"

She moved her horse forward, up the steps to the double-door entrance. It was closed.

"I wonder if it's locked," Sayaka said. "If it is, then we can still sneak in. There's a-"

Ophelia spun her spear around and jabbed the counter-weight at both doors, smashing in their glass panes. A few follow-up swipes with her blade cleared away the metal frame.

"-or you could do that. That also works."

Ophelia trotted her horse into the front lobby. "You really know a way to sneak in and out of the school?"

"Um, yeah? Why?"

"Heh." Ophelia's thoughts went back to the Sayaka Miki of old, standing there with her sword grasped in both hands, scowling as she proclaimed her intention to stand up to wicked-doers like Ophelia. "Never took you for the rule-breaking type."

"Who, me? Oh, come on! I'm a total rebel!"

"No, I'm a rebel," Ophelia corrected. "You're either a wannabe knight or a literal goddamned princess." She looked around. "Though honestly, if this is what your school was like, I don't blame you for wanting to sneak out."

The place was a wreck, looking as abandoned as the carnival had been. The glass of the classrooms was all covered with spots of mold and cracked in places, there was a thin film of stinky water on the floor, and discarded pieces of paper and broken writing utensils were scattered everywhere. Somewhere nearby water was dripping from the ceiling, the splashes echoing throughout the halls.

"What happened to this place?" Sayaka said.

"No way to tell for sure," Ophelia said. "But seeing how much of a wreck the place I went through to find you was, I'm willing to bet this is what happens to dreams when the person they're intended for up and leaves."

"You mean, Mami was here?"

"Probably, yeah. Let's go find her." Ophelia touched her heels into her horse's flanks, and it began trotting forward, her flame lighting the way.

…

Now…

"So now that we got you here," Ophelia said to Candeloro, "I'm guessing that part of your dream involved wandering through the school, right?"

Candeloro shivered. "Y-Yes," she said. "But only the last part. Before that was…well, there were a lot of stairs."

"Stairs, huh?"

"Yes. Stairs. And a restaurant."

"Oh. Uh, was it a nice restaurant?"

"It was. It was pretty nice. You all were there, actually. Trying to get me to stay."

"Stay…in the restaurant?"

"Yes," Candeloro sighed. "And not keep heading down the stairs."

"Ah. Well, I guess things worked out."

Sayaka frowned. "Hold on, why do you two get to remember yours dreams but I don't?"

"Tell you what," Nozomi said dryly. "How about when we find whoever's doing this to us, we ask them? Right before we take their fucking head off."

Sayaka frowned at her. "Is she normally this…aggressive?"

Charlotte sighed.

"I mean, I'm right there with you. Whoever did this needs to pay."

"Then what's the problem?"

Sayaka looked at her, and then at Candeloro, and then back at her. "Nothing," she said. "There's no problem at all."

"Oh, and there was something else," Candeloro said suddenly. "And Annabelle Lee kept attacking me over and over."

"Oh, yeah," Ophelia sighed. "Her."

"You saw her?"

"Yeah, she was a really good indicator of why you should always clean up after yourself."

…

Then…

"Wait," Sayaka said. "Do you hear that?"

Ophelia did, and she slowed her horse to a stop.

Somewhere out of the light of her fire she heard the sound of labored breathing, of slavering, of something sharp being scraped across the wall. It reminded her of her encounter with Brooklyn, and if the trend held, they were likely to run into yet another familiar, if somewhat decayed, face.

"Stay sharp," Ophelia said. "Someone's coming."

That someone rounded the far corner. Sayaka tensed up her grip on Ophelia's waist. "What is that?" she whispered.

It was a hovering apparition, one that was floating slowly along, its head bowed, its wild hair matted with blood. Blades were strapped to both of its wrists, and it had one arm extended out, dragging its blades over the wall as it wandered aimlessly.

Sayaka, of course, did not recognize who it was, hence her nervousness. Ophelia, however, recognized it immediately, and her jaw tightened.

"Annabelle Lee," she growled.

"Who?"

"She's…uh, you actually know her. But she's been a real pain in my ass since day one, always showing up at the worst possible moment, always doing everything she can to make my life miserable. No matter how many times I kick her ass, she always pops up again to start the whole thing over again."

"Oh," Sayaka said. "So she's your rival."

"No, she's not my-" Then Ophelia reconsidered. Actually, the term did fit. "Okay, fine. She's my rival."

"I thought I was your rival though," Sayaka said, sounding just a little hurt.

Ophelia grinned. "No, you were my rival, but we worked our way past that so we're friends now. So, you know, Annabelle Lee."

"Oh. Uh, do I have a new rival?"

"No, not really. There's this crazy little blonde girl with knives and a really weird speech impediment that could count, I guess."

"Excuse me?"

Before Ophelia had the chance to explain (or at least attempt to explain) the inexplicable existence of Ticky Nikki, the shambling silhouette of Annabelle Lee paused.

And then she turned toward the pair.

"Hold on," Ophelia muttered over her shoulder. She slipped off the horse.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Ophelia said as she strode forward. "Hold onto the reins and keep him from running off."

"But I can help!"

"Don't need it," Ophelia responded. She came to a stop and assumed her battle stance, spear held at the ready. At the other end of the hallway, Annabelle Lee was already readying herself to face her. "This won't take long."

"But-"

With an unearthly shriek, Annabelle Lee shot forward, but not in her usual method of both sets of blades pointed straight forward. Instead, she was clawing madly at the air, as if she wanted to rip Ophelia apart with her fingers.

In answer, Ophelia merely stood drew back with her spear and threw.

It sailed straight and true, striking Annabelle Lee's chest at a slanting angle and yanking her back the other way. The spear slammed into the ground and stuck, Annabelle Lee still skewered on the pole like a particularly unlucky shrimp served up in a cocktail.

"Holy crap!" Sayaka blurted out.

Well, that had gone pretty much as expected. If only dealing with Annabelle Lee was usually that easy. Ophelia strode forward, confident of her victory but still eyeing her surrounding for any surprises lying in way. As she drew near, she saw that Annabelle Lee was in the same shape Brooklyn and Lily had been, with her clothes torn and filthy, her once lustrous amethyst mane now greying and brittle, and her skin sickly grey and covered with open sores. There were two gaping wounds on both of her temples, with blackish blood crusted to her cheeks.

Still, though she was clearly some variation of dead and terrible shape with a spear stuck through her chest, she was still shaking and letting out the same rattling laugh Lily had.

"Well, well, well," Ophelia remarked. She seized her spear near the counter-weight. "Annabelle Lee. Really expected to have seen a lot more of you by now. Though I gotta say, you're not looking too good. I'm guessing the waitressing gig didn't pan out?"

Annabelle Lee spat a greenish-grey gob at her. Ophelia tilted her head, letting it sail past her ear.

"Fuck…you," Annabelle Lee croaked. "We're all dead. All of us…worm chow. At least…I look it."

"Yeah, yeah." Ophelia planted a foot against Annabelle Lee's stomach and kicked her down while yanking the spear up. A few shakes and she came off. Then she puffed out a few breaths of fire to clean the sick off the blade and pole. "Still, I expected the bad skin, but it looks like someone got to you before I did. Mami headshot you again?"

Annabelle Lee grinned, exposing two rows of crumbling yellow teeth that were now in as bad shape as her psychotic sister's.

"Thought so. Where is she?"

"Down," Annabelle Lee singsonged. "Down, down, down. All the way to the bottom."

"Be more specific."

"Or…what? What are you going to do, huh? Can't…threaten me with anything…now, can you?"

"Kyoko!" Sayaka shouted.

But Ophelia had already seen it. While they were talking, Annabelle Lee's left arm had started to rise. And as Sayaka shouted her warning, she struck, stabbing her blades at Ophelia's stomach.

In answer, Ophelia's hand snapped forward, seizing Annabelle Lee's wrist and stopping her cold.

"I guess I can't," Ophelia said. She gave the trapped arm a twist, and it snapped off at the elbow. Behind her, Sayaka gasped in shock.

"So talking to you really is a waste of time." Tossing the arm aside, Ophelia straightened up and stuck her toes under Annabelle Lee's torso. A kick, and the undead memory of lost girl was tossed into the air. Kyoko's spear slashed through the air, and Annabelle Lee's body and head came down separately.

If only the genuine article were that easy to dispose of.

Sayaka stared in shock as Ophelia returned, casually puffing small gouts of flame to clear away the slime.

"You killed her," Sayaka said in a small voice.

Ophelia shot her a look. "No, I killed a bad dream of her. The real one's still out there, just waiting for her next chance to ruin my day." She grabbed onto the horse's reins and swung herself back into the saddle. "Hell, if it turns out she was behind all this, I wouldn't even blink."

"Okay, but still. You did it so…cold."

"Really?" Ophelia spurred her horse back into motion, trotting over Annabelle Lee's dissolving remains. "I thought the way I did it was pretty hot."

"I…" Sayaka sighed. "Okay. Speaking of which, since when can you breathe fire?!"

"Since a few minutes ago. Burned an ugly carnival down right before I found you."

"Uh…why?"

"Because it was ugly and gross and not real. Hell, I have half a mind to torch this school once we find Mami."

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said, "Um, could you not burn down my school? Please?"

Ophelia brought her horse to a sudden stop. She then half-turned in her seat to shoot Sayaka a suspicious glare.

Wrinkling her nose, Sayaka leaned back away from her. "What?"

Shaking her head, Ophelia turned back around and got the horse moving again. "Really, Sayaka?" she complained out loud. "What kind of girl doesn't want to burn down her school? You know, out of all the freaky shit I've seen today, that one bothers me the most!"

Sayaka groaned in exasperation.

Though her companion couldn't see it, Ophelia smiled. Though she wasn't going to admit it out loud, it felt really good to be able to call her by her real name again without getting yelled at.

…

Now…

Jerky abruptly woke up.

And that puzzled him. He had not been even remotely close to finishing his nap, but something had startled him awake anyway.

He lay still, listening, smelling, and looking. Outside he heard nothing but rain and wind. He smelled wet earth and bruised grass. And though his three eye clusters gave him a breadth of vision that other creatures could only dream of, he still saw nothing out of the ordinary.

And yet, something was wrong. He didn't know what it was, but he was, in his own limited way, very troubled.

He stood to his feet, his nap forgotten. His dreams had been dark and disturbing anyway, all about him trying to find Mother in a dark, wet cavern filled with bones. Now that he was awake, he might as well seek out the actual article.

Jerky scampered into the rain, off to go find the only being with whom he had any kind of meaningful connection.

…

Then…

"Hey, Kyoko?" Sayaka said. "Is it just me, or is this place looking…different?"

"Ophelia," Ophelia corrected automatically. "And yeah, it does."

The rows of wrecked classrooms and school supplies had stopped, and now they were moving through the sterile cream corridors of a modern hospital. Patient recovery rooms were open on either side, all of their beds empty. They passed by a nurse station at a junction, also empty.

"Huh," Ophelia said as she looked around. "I think we've moved onto a new part of the dream. And we're getting close."

"Really? How do you figure?"

Ophelia waved a hand. "This place isn't all abandoned and falling apart. Everything looks clean and in use. That means Mami hasn't left yet."

"Are you sure?"

"Nope! I'm guessing as I go along. But I think I'm right."

"Oh. Okay, so long as someone does. What if it isn't Mami though?"

"Huh?"

"What if this isn't Mami's dream? What if it's Charlotte's?"

Ophelia shrugged. "No difference. We need to save both of them anyway. So whoever it is, we'll save her and then go after the other."

"Okay. Um, hey. Seeing how I can't remember anything, what's Charlotte like anyway?"

Ophelia chuckled. "Well, to tell the truth she's kind of cranky, a big of a hardass, and blunt as hell."

"Oh. So like you then."

That made Ophelia laugh harder. "Actually, I was gonna say she's kind of like you!"

"Me! Oh, come on! I'm not that…"

Her voice trailed off, and Ophelia smirked.

"Well, let's just say she splits the difference between our stubborn sides," Ophelia said.

"Great," Oktavia said dryly. "Can't wait to meet her."

"But she's a good person. A loyal friend, too. Definitely someone you want on your side."

"And is she? On my side, I mean?"

"Are you kidding me? You two get along great! It's me she had an issue with. We only got on the same page a few weeks ago."

That actually got a small snicker out of Sayaka. "Okay. Now that I can believe."

They trotted forward a bit further. Then Ophelia sighed. Oh damn it, she had to tell her.

"Though, uh, just to give you a head's up," she said. "There's something you need to know. So you're not floored again when you find out."

Sayaka was silent for a bit, and then she said in a guarded tone, "What is it?"

"Mami and Charlotte. They're, uh, how do you say…a bit closer than just friends."

There was another pause. And then Sayaka said, "Wait. What?" She let out a disbelieving laugh. "Mami? She's got…"

"A girlfriend, yeah." Ophelia glanced over her shoulder. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"A problem? Um, no? I don't think so? It's just…" Sayaka laughed again, harder this time. "Well! Really? Mami's got a girlfriend! Wow. Um…good for her!"

"So you're okay with this?"

"Well, uh, it's not my life, so…no? It's just, wow! You are throwing a lot at me today!"

"Yeah, it's a weird day. The first time around you had literal weeks to get used to the idea."

"I envy the other me then," Sayaka said through another fit of giggles. "Oh! Oh, please tell me Hitomi found out! I need to know that Little Ms. Girls Can't Love Girls knows about this!"

Hitomi? She was…oh, right. The one who stole Sayaka's man. "No, I don't think she ever knew."

"Makes sense," Sayaka said. "Mami's probably still reported as a missing person, so we probably have to keep her under wraps. Still. What a wasted opportunity!" She started laughing again.

Rolling her eyes, Ophelia shook her head and went back to focusing on the search.

Then they rounded a corner, and they saw it. Or, to be accurate, they saw them!

An operating room was dead ahead, a wide, hexagonal chamber, one with its center enclosed by glass walls. Within those three surgeons in white masks and white smocks were huddling around an operating table, surrounded by fancy medical equipment.

And on the table was Mami.

"That's her!" Ophelia said.

"Are you sure?" Sayaka said. "Maybe it's another dream."

Then the surgeons tilted the table so that Mami was almost horizontal. They placed a mirror in front of her.

Despite the distance and glass between them, Ophelia had no trouble whatsoever hearing her gasp of horror.

"Never mind, that's her," Sayaka said, more wonder than alarm in her voice. Ophelia, who remembered all too well what it felt like to be confronted with the face of her dead mentor, knew how she felt.

"Let's go save her then," Ophelia said. "You up for some violence?"

Sayaka pursed her lips. "So, if this is all a dream, then you, me, and Mami are the only real people here, right?"

"Well, us and Charlotte. We still need to find her. But yeah."

Sayaka nodded. Then she drew her sword from her sheathe. "All right. Let's go get her."

…

Now…

"And we did!" Ophelia said. "Granted, it ended up being a whole lot messier than I expected."

"How so?" Nozomi said.

"A whole lot of blood."

"Blood? From where?"

"Uh, their veins?" Sayaka said.

"Yeah, but…"

Ophelia shot Charlotte a warning look.

Catching it, Nozomi sighed and changed her tune. "Well, seeing how they're not real, why would their anatomy match up?"

"Maybe they were real," Sayaka said. "Maybe you had me murder real people."

"I don't think so," Candeloro said. "After everything I saw…I agree with Ophelia. I think this is some kind of dream, or illusion, or mass hallucination."

"Or a witch's labyrinth."

"That's possible," Charlotte said. "But it would be a different kind of witch then what we're used to, one that's way stronger."

Ophelia wondered if Charlotte had just been playing along there, or if she was being serious. After all, it had been mentioned that sometimes girls did go full witch, even in the afterlife. And seeing how some places were completely warped by the negative energy they had absorbed, it stood to reason that the witches would also be changed.

"Though, hey, speaking of which," she said. "Candeloro. Sayaka here can't remember her own trip through dreamland, at least up until I found her. But you had your own little adventure, right? Apparently with a lot of stairs and restaurants?"

Candeloro shivered. "I do. And I wish to God I had forgotten that along with everything else."

She told the group of her dream of working for a cannibalistic bakery, of descending deeper and deeper into the earth, searching for an elusive "basement," of being frequently attacked by Annabelle Lee only to drive her off each time, of encountering evidence of her many sins only to never realize what they meant, of being thrown into the incinerator, and of waking up on the surgeon's table to being told that she was a monster and moments away from being vivisected.

It was a pretty gruesome tale, one that was a lot gorier than what Ophelia had gone through. And with the advantage of hindsight, she could guess at what the various bits were meant to represent. However, given that Candeloro was missing huge chunks of her memory, she judged that it wasn't her place to fill in the gaps.

Unfortunately, Sayaka had no such reservations. "You see!" she said, practically jumping up and down in her chair. "You dreamed about me! And Madoka! And Kyoko! We were there, see?"

"I know, I know!" Candeloro said. "I understand that! And I'm sure I recognized them then, I just…don't now." Charlotte glanced at her, and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

Sayaka's face was full of disappointment.

"One thing at a time," Ophelia said. "But it does further prove my point. About the dream."

"Hey, I for one am with you there," Nozomi said. "In fact, fill in a few more blanks for me, and I'll go ahead and tell you all about my crazy adventure."

"Sounds good," Ophelia said. "Well, what happened next was…"

…

Then…

"Wake the fuck up, sempai. We have a dream to burn."

Mami gawked silently up at Ophelia, her mouth opening and closing without saying anything. Ophelia jiggled her outstretched hand, beckoning her one-time mentor to take it.

After a beat Mami reached up with one of the two ribbons that had been affixed to her shoulders in place of her arms and touched it to Ophelia's palm. She then hesitated, unsure of how to proceed.

In answer, Ophelia closed her hands around the ribbon and gently pulled Mami to her feet.

"There you go," Ophelia said as she straightened out Mami's shirt. "You're all right. Don't worry about the arm thing; you get used to it, and I'm pretty sure it's temporary."

Mami blinked. "Ky-Kyoko?"

At this, Ophelia frowned. Again with the Kyoko thing. "Ophelia, actually," she said.

Mami stared blankly at her. "Ah, what?"

"Ophelia, Mami. It's my name."

Mami's expression didn't change. "What's an Opheliamami?"

Ophelia sighed. "No. Just Ophelia." She laid a hand on her chest, right over her necklace's gem. "Ophelia." Then she touched Mami's shoulder. "Mami. Get it?"

It didn't seem like it. If anything, Mami only looked even more bewildered. "N-No. My name's Candeloro."

"Cande-what?"

"Candeloro! It's my name. You should know this."

Behind her, Ophelia heard Sayaka make a strangled-sounding gasp. Okay, this reunion wasn't going how either of them had hoped. "Uh, okay then, Candeloro. Say, does the name Charlotte mean anything to you?"

"Char…" Candeloro sat back down on the operating table and buried her face in her…well, her ribbons. "Of course! She's my wife!"

"Wait, she's your what?" Sayaka yelped. "I thought she was just your girlfriend!"

Mami…or rather, Candeloro looked past Ophelia at Sayaka. "Oktavia?" she said in confusion. "What…where'd you get those legs from?"

"I…" Sayaka opened her mouth like she was going to start yelling, but then all the anger seemed to go out of her, as if that question had confused her so much that it bludgeoned all other feelings into submission. "I'm gonna sit down."

She walked out of the glass enclosure over to the white walls of the room and did just, with her back against the glass wall, eyes closed as she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

Wincing, Ophelia took Candeloro by the shoulder and led her to the far end of the glass enclosure. "Okay," she said in a low voice. "Here's the sitch. We're all trapped in some kind of crazy magical dream, one that's fucking with us in a big way. That's why my head is on fire. That's why you've got ribbons for arms. And that's why she is, well, like that."

"You mean, not a mermaid?"

"Yes. And there's more. That's Sayaka Miki. Not, uh, not the fish. You know, the original. She remembers everything up to when she became a witch, but nothing after. So this is even weirder for her than it is for us."

Candeloro's face twisted up. "Who's Sayaka Miki?"

"Uh…" Wow, okay. Now all three of them had been confused into almost total shutdown. "Sayaka Miki? You were training her to become a Puella Magi? Then you got killed by a witch? And then she turned into a witch named…" Ophelia swallowed. "Well, she got turned into a mermaid witch, and then we both died, and ended up on your floating ocean platform thingy? Any of this ringing any bells?"

"I…" Candeloro pressed a ribbon to her forehead. "I remember you and Oktavia showing up at the Nautilus Platform. I remember being confronted by Reibey. I remember being attacked by Annabelle Lee and her friends in Cloudbreak."

Ophelia swallowed. "And Etherdale? Lily? Marsters? Cattie's Grove? The Velocity Terminal? The dockengaut planet? All of that?"

"Of course."

"But you don't remember anything from before?"

"No. No, I…"

And then Candeloro smiled.

It was the smile of someone seeing sunshine for the first time after weeks of rain. It was the smile of someone emerging from a dark cave after being lost for days. It was the smile of a released prisoner finally taking her first step as a free woman.

And it quite frankly scared the shit out of Ophelia.

"I don't remember. I…I know I hated remembering. I know I hated myself for what I remembered. But now I don't remember. It's gone, Ophelia! It's gone!"

Ophelia didn't know what to say. Candeloro looked so happy having forgotten Mami Tomoe, like a tremendous weight had been lifted off of her. Charlotte had mentioned here and there that Mami struggled with depression, and it didn't take much critical thinking to figure out why. There was no doubt that Mami had often wished she could forget her life from before, and everything she had done while acting as the Puella Magi poster girl.

And now she had, and it made her happy.

And Ophelia was going to have to ruin it for her.

Because the dream was going to have to end. It had done nothing but fuck with and torture them, so they had to kill it. Mami was the only one it had done any kindness toward, and they were going to have to take that away from her.

Ophelia breathed out. "Okay, but again, we both remember Charlotte, right?"

"Of course I do!"

"Good. Well, she's trapped in a nightmare of her own, so we need to go rescue her. You, uh, down for that?"

"Absolutely! Let's go!"

"Great," Ophelia said without much enthusiasm. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. "Let's go."

…

Now…

"What?" Sayaka said, her voice distraught. "Mami, why…why are you glad that you forgot me? Or Kyoko? Or M-Madoka? Why?"

"I'm not!" Candeloro insisted. "But think about it! If it weren't for me you would have never gotten caught up in this mess!"

"I would be dead! That flower witch would have killed me and Madoka! I would be dead now if it weren't for you!"

Ophelia grimaced. Oh, ouch.

Sayaka looked around at the room. "Why are you looking at each other like that?" she said. "What aren't you telling me."

"Um…" Ophelia looked over to Charlotte. "Hey, you're better at this than I am. Could you…?"

Nozomi made a face. "Well, they say that the reward for a job well done is more work. Okay. Sayaka, there's a lot of details that won't make sense, but the long and short of it is this: it's all a con. A scam. The Puella Magi, the witches, the wishes, everything. It's a trick."

As Charlotte was speaking, Ophelia was staring intently at Sayaka's face, searching for any sign of a bad reaction. Oktavia von Seckendorff might have been able to handle the truth without lashing out, but they weren't dealing with Oktavia von Seckendorff. And Sayaka Miki had set something of a precedent for handling bad news poorly.

Fortunately, she didn't look angry, not yet. Confused as hell, yes, but that wasn't really anything new. "I don't understand," she said.

"It's a scam," Nozomi said again. "Kyubey is…was…is a scam artist. Sayaka, he's not some kind of benevolent protector creating heroes to fight the witches. He made the witches! They're his creation! He made them so girls would make contracts with him."

"Excuse me? He wha-Kyubey." Sayaka again ran a shaking hand through her hair. "I'm. Well. Really?"

"Yup," Ophelia said.

"It's true," Candeloro whispered.

"But…Okay, but why?"

"Because it's his job," Charlotte told her. "He was sent to Earth to create as many magical girls as possible. The witches are his way of doing that. He creates the witches and uses them to lever girls into making contracts. He gets some kind of power from it."

"But. I don't. He didn't. Mami? Is this real?"

"Yes," Candeloro said, her voice raw. "Sayaka, I-I spent years working for him. Recruiting other girls like you, and mentoring dozens of more girls like Kyoko. I did everything I could to help him. Why would I want to remember that?"

"Did. Did you know?"

"None of us did," Ophelia said. "It's like that whole business about our soul gems. We didn't find out until it was too late."

Sayaka blinked. "But. The wishes! Kyousuke got his hand back! He could play again!"

"Yeah, the wishes are real," Ophelia said. "The power is real, and the witches are real. But did you notice that he came to me when I was homeless and desperate and to Mami when she was moments away from dying? And you when you were really emotionally vulnerable? That's how he works. He finds young girls in a bad position and offers them a way out. And sure, they get it, but by accepting they end up trapped. Like we all did."

"Oh my God," Sayaka whispered. She slouched forward in her seat like she was about to start throwing up. Instead, she seized her head with both hands, her fingers digging into her scalp. "Oh my God!"

Ophelia winced. Then she walked over to Sayaka and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Don't beat yourself up. We-"

"Don't touch me!" Sayaka cried, wrenching her shoulder away.

Ophelia jerked back. "Jesus! Sorry!"

"I…I'm sorry, I just…Please. Don't touch me right now."

"I won't." Ophelia backed away, both palms up. "We're cool. Sorry."

Sayaka turned away from her without saying anything. She wrapped her arms around herself and started rocking back and forth, eyes fixated on nothing.

Ophelia slowly moved away, careful not to make any sudden moves.

After a bit, Sayaka glanced up. She was still shaking, but she was looking at them. "Ok," she said hoarsely. "What else? What else are you not telling me?"

Nozomi frowned. "Tell you what: what say you guys finish going over what happened until you got to me, I'll tell my story, and then we'll cover the rest. It'll help if you had some more context."

For a moment Sayaka looked like she was going to refuse, like she was going to demand that they finish telling her right then and there, but she seemed to think better of it. Instead, she just slowly nodded.

"Okay," she said. "But afterward I want to know everything."

…

Then…

All told, they made for a really weird looking trio.

Ophelia was still astride her horse, spear in one hand while the other held the reins. Fortunately the halls were wide and tall enough for her to ride without having to duck her head. She just hoped that the fire retardant system didn't work, as her head was sure to set it off.

Which brought up an interesting point. If her fire were snuffed out, what would happen to her? Would she die? Could one die in a dream? Technically she was dead already, but as this was a dream, she supposed anything could happen.

Sayaka was walking to her left, sword in hand. She was supposed to be scanning the open patient rooms on that side, but she was paying more attention to her companions, shooting suspicious glances every few seconds. She had been weirdly quiet ever since they had rescued Candeloro, which was concerning, considering how much she had been looking forward to reuniting with Mami. And yet she hadn't said a word to her.

As for Candeloro, she was busy looking in every direction except Sayaka's. She was scanning the rooms on the right like she was supposed to, but Ophelia was getting the feeling that she wasn't actually noticing much. More of she was doing what she could not to attract the younger girl's attention.

Which made sense. Sayaka had been expecting one person to whom she had a deep and traumatic emotional connection, and instead she had gotten someone close enough to be painful but different in all the wrong ways. She had found the mind and soul of Mami Tomoe, but not the part that she had shared time with. Candeloro knew nothing of Sayaka Miki's time with Mami Tomoe, and Sayaka Miki knew nothing of Mami's relationship with Oktavia von Seckendorff. They were both individuals that the other would want to be with, but they had each gotten the wrong halves.

Ophelia could relate.

Of course, killing the dream would fix that. Candeloro would go back to being Mami Tomoe, Sayaka Miki would go back to being Oktavia von Seckendorff, and their relationship would pick up where it left off. No weird awkwardness, no uncomfortable questions. Just the two of them going back to being friends.

Going back to her never knowing what Ophelia had done for her.

Of course, Mami would also get her traumatic memories back, along with her ever-deepening depression. She would remember the death of her parents, the face of every girl she had convinced to doom themselves with a contract, and her own death at the jaws of the woman she had married.

Ophelia was still determined to follow through with this. All benefits aside, letting the dream live on would probably end them. But the fallout was going to be nasty.

And then they heard a crash, followed by a roar.

A second later there was the sound of a gunshot.

Everything froze. That had been Mami's gun.

Except Candeloro, who was for all intents the real Mami, was still with them, and she certainly had not fired.

They all stared at one another, three different minds racing, three different perspectives processing, each coming to three different viewpoints on the same conclusion.

Then Sayaka took off running, legs pounding the linoleum faster than any Olympic sprinter, both hands gripping the hilt of her sword to one side, ready to slice apart the first thing she saw.

"Sayaka, wait!" Ophelia shouted after her. She dug her heels into her horse's side, sending it off at a gallop. Even so, Sayaka was still keeping ahead.

"Did you hear that?" Sayaka called back over her shoulder. "That's Mami's gun! And that roar! I know that roar!"

"Stop! It's not real!"

"Screw you! If anything's not real then it's you two! For all I know you're just a bunch of witches that look like my friends!"

A sharp turn was coming up. Sayaka bounded to the wall and landed on it with both feet. A glowing circle surrounded her point of impact, and she leapt off, shooting into the perpendicular hallway like a rocket.

Unfortunately, while Ophelia's horse had acceleration to spare, it didn't do well with ninety-degree turns.

She tried to make the turn without losing speed, but even a horse made of felt could only do so much against the power of physics. Why, she didn't know. It was really unfair. One would think that in a dream, physics wouldn't hold much sway.

Alas, it did here, and the horse's hooves slipped out from under it and it went down hard, taking Ophelia with it.

Ophelia hurled through the air and hit the wall, smacking the back of her head hard. She slumped to the ground, wincing and holding onto her head.

It hurt, but not as much as it should have, and it certainly didn't knock her out like it ought to have done. Ophelia was able to shake it off quickly and roll to her feet.

What she saw still gave her pause though.

At the far end of the hall, she saw a monster, a huge, monstrous worm-thing with a thick black body studded with polka-dots. It had a round, cartoonish face with a big mouth filled with triangular teeth, a long nose topped with a flower, and grossly exaggerated eyes. Depending on the context it could either be adorable or grotesque, and the current context made it very grotesque.

And that context was that it was doing everything it could to devour Mami Tomoe.

She was also at the far end of the hallway, both arms intact, clad in her gold, brown, and white Puella Magi uniform, the one Ophelia knew so well and yet hadn't seen for years. And she was fighting the Worm in the way Ophelia remembered, by leaping gracefully all around the battlefield, pulling an endless array of muskets out of nowhere and firing them off.

Ophelia had seen that Worm only a couple of times before, once on a picture sitting on a dresser when she had first woken up, and again more recently, descending from the ceiling to devour another version of Mami who had been performing quite the unorthodox striptease.

However, she was certain that Sayaka knew it far better than she did.

"No!" Sayaka screamed. She had come to a complete stop in the middle of the hallway and was staring in horrified disbelief. "Not again!"

"Sayaka, wait!" Ophelia cried.

"No! It got her once, and I'm not going to let it happen again!" And with that, Sayaka charged into battle.

Candeloro caught up to Ophelia then. She took one look at the scene and stopped cold.

"Who?" she squeaked. "Is that me?"

Before Ophelia could answer, Sayaka let out a bloodthirsty shriek and leapt at the Worm, sword raised over her head.

But before her blade could find its mark, the world simply changed.

The whole of the hospital shivered, and then simply crumbled away, the debris blown away like autumn leaves in the wind. Ophelia blinked and waved it away from her face, though it seemed to be too insubstantial to soil her, and moments later it had melted away entirely.

In its place, Ophelia and Candeloro now stood on top of a high skyscraper in the middle of a damned hurricane! Rain was pouring down as thick as a waterfall, making it difficult to see. Lightning flashed periodically overhead, followed by swift booms of thunder.

The two looked at each out, both visibly miserable and confused. Candeloro's golden hair was now plastered to her head in soaked rivulets, and her ribbons were hanging as shriveled, sad things. Ophelia probably looked just as bad. To be quite frank, she had preferred the freaky hospital. Plus, she had been looking forward to burning it down.

Then she had a horrible realization, and her hands went to her head. Fortunately, despite soaked with enough water to snuff out a forest fire, her flame was still burning bright and true, albeit in a sort of sputtering sort of way.

"Well," Candeloro said as she weakly lifted her ribbons in a helpless shrug. "This is terrible."

"Yeah. No kidding."

Then she heard a rather miserable sounding whinny.

Her horse still hadn't risen from where it had fallen, and now it was getting soaked up like a sponge. It was a strong, fast, and noble beast, but it was still made of felt, and now it was full of so much water that it was unable to get back up again.

Also, when the hospital had faded away, it was no longer lying on a flat floor. Now it was on the corner of a roof, with its rear end hanging over the edge.

A rear end that was now getting much, much heavier.

With another whinny it slipped over the edge and disappeared.

"SHIT!" Ophelia bolted to the edge just in time to see the horse fall out of sight.

Ophelia stared bleakly down. Sure, the horse hadn't been real. Sure, she had only had it for less than an hour. Sure, it had mostly acted as her ride. But it still had been her horse, one that had served her faithfully, and now it was gone.

Damn.

"NO!"

The two turned to see Sayaka perched on the side of an even taller building that rose up nearby, her sword stabbing into its side. Hanging onto it with one hand, she angrily pounding the wall with her other fist.

"I HAD it!" she cried. "I was this close! I could have saved her!"

Sighing, Ophelia approached her. "Sayaka…"

"But I didn't! I was too slow! Again! That's twice I failed her! Twice!"

Ophelia officially did not have time for this. "Sayaka!"

"What?!" Sayaka yanked her sword out of the wall and pushed off with her legs, flipping around and twisting in the air to land facing Ophelia. "What, Kyoko? What?"

Though Ophelia knew that this was probably a tense emotional issue that required a fine touch, she had just watched her horse fall off a building, and though it really had just been a dream apparition that she had only possessed for about thirty minutes, it had still been her horse, damn it! So she felt entitled to being a little cranky.

"That was not the real Mami!" Ophelia snapped. "That was just a dream, okay?" She thrust a finger over at Candeloro. "The real Mami's over there! We found her!"

"Did we? Then why doesn't she even know who Mami Tomoe is? Why doesn't she remember me, huh?" Sayaka stomped over to Ophelia and jabbed a finger into her breastbone. "And why! Do! You! Keep! Calling! Yourself! Ophelia?!"

Ophelia wrinkled her nose. "Because it's my name, ain't it?"

Sayaka's face was beet-red with rage. The rainstorm had untangled the delicate royal hairdo Sayaka had been sporting, and with her hair now looking like a soaked mop and her dress plastered against her, she looked like the most deranged princess in the world. She inhaled deeply, held it in, and practically screamed, "NO! It's NOT!" As she did, lightning cracked across the sky behind her, turning her into manic silhouette.

"Uh…" Ophelia frowned. "It's…" She looked over to Candeloro. "Hey. Back me up here. My name's always been Ophelia, right?"

Candeloro, who looked like she would rather be anywhere else, winced and said, "Uh, no. I've always known you as Kyoko. Kyoko Sakura."

Again. Again with the Kyoko Sakura nonsense. And again with that damned bell going off in her head. Ophelia shook her head and said, "N-No. I'm…I'm Ophelia. Right?"

"No," Sayaka seethed. "Your name is Kyoko Sakura. And hers is Mami Tomoe."

Candeloro gulped. "No. No, it's not."

"It is! Mami Tomoe! Kyoko Sakura!"

"Stop it," Candeloro whispered. "Please."

"No!" Sayaka sounded like she was sobbing, but with the rain and the dark it was hard to tell. "Who are you? Are you my friends or not?"

"I…" Ophelia pressed a hand against her forehead. She felt so strange. "I don't…"

Then they heard the sound of yelling.

Ophelia shook herself out of her daze. Not now. She couldn't afford to lose it now.

"Come on," she said hoarsely.

"No!" Sayaka shouted. "We're not going anywhere until you tell me-"

"Later!" Ophelia hissed. "I promise, I'll tell you everything! But right now, we have to deal with that!"

Lightning cracked behind Sayaka once again.

"You better," she said in a dangerously low voice. "You damn well better. Or I'm coming after you."

Honestly, Ophelia doubted Sayaka's ability to take her in a one-to-one fight, but now was not the time to point that out. "Fair enough," she said. "Just a little longer. Let's get the whole gang together, then we'll powwow."

She then turned to Candeloro, who looked quite miserable, and not because she was soaked through.

"Hey," Ophelia said. "You okay?"

Candeloro lifted an eyebrow and shook her head.

"All right. Well, wanna go find your girl?"

A pause. And then a nod.

"Good. Then let's go."

The three of them ascended a nearby building, one that looked like it would give them a good vantage point. As they did, Ophelia was keenly aware that Sayaka was at her back, holding onto a sharp, pointy weapon. Oh yeah, it was not a good feeling.

Fortunately, Sayaka did not further complicate the situation by stabbing Ophelia in the back, and the three of them made it to the top. It wasn't easy, given how steep and slick the walls were, but they made it.

Once up there they looked down to survey the scene.

It wasn't what any of them expected.

"What the heck?" Sayaka whispered. "Is that…me?"

"Huh, you're seeing it too?" Ophelia said.

"Yes! We're all there! You, me, Mami. Only we're…"

"Decked out in our old uniforms. I see it."

"And…holy crap, is that Homura Akemi?"

"Looks like," Ophelia murmured. "It's been a long time since I've seen her."

"And…okay. Who's that?"

The girl that Sayaka was pointing at was standing with the other Sayaka Miki, facing Homura Akemi, while the other Ophelia and Candeloro…the other Kyoko Sakura and Mami Tomoe…stood off to the side.

Ophelia recognized her immediately. "That's her," she said grimly. "That's Charlotte." She tilted her head. "Though…the outfit's new. So's the stick." She glanced over to Candeloro. "So, what do you think? She's changed too?"

Candeloro didn't say anything. She just kept staring at her wife with wide, unblinking eyes.

"Candeloro?"

Still no answer.

Ophelia snapped her fingers in front of Candeloro's nose. "Yo!"

Candeloro started. "What? What?"

Ophelia sighed. "Oh, never mind. Okay girls, our missing member is down there, and we got a bunch of doppelgangers in the way. So if either of you got any self-loathing issues still unresolved, now would be the time to focus on them."

"Wait, what?" Sayaka said when she understood. "You want us to kill ourselves? I mean, the other…ourselves?"

"That's about right, yeah."

"No! I can't do that! Are you insane?"

Ophelia sighed. "Sayaka, we've been over this. The four of us: you, me, Candeloro here, and Charlotte down there, we're the only ones who are real here! Everything else is just another dream person! Fakes!"

"How do you know?" Sayaka demanded. "Or actually, how do I know that you're not the fakes, and that those aren't my real friends down there! At least they look right!"

"Because you're down there too," Ophelia said. "Are you a dream person? Is that the real Sayaka Miki?"

"No!"

"Well, there you go! Candeloro, are you okay taking the other you out?"

"Taking out…You mean you want me to shoot her?"

"Yes! Come on, we've all run into copies of ourselves. This is no different!"

Candeloro shivered. "Ophelia, I don't know if I can."

"Fine, I'll do it all myself. You two hang back and-"

"No," Sayaka said. "I'll do it."

"Oh, that was fast. You sure?"

Sayaka lifted her sword. "I still don't know what's going on or if I trust you or not, but one thing I do know: that person down there is not me. There is only one Sayaka Miki in town, and there's not enough room for another!"

"That's the spirit!" Ophelia crowed, giving her a friendly slap on the back. "Now, come on! Let's go commit some second-degree suicide!"

…

Now…

Ophelia had reached the end of her story, as there was no need to go back over the murder of their doppelgangers, and Charlotte took over, explaining to the group how her own adventure had gone down, about the seemingly endless cycle of watching her wife be carried away by a monstrous worm over and over, of starting off as a small doll only to regain her true form by sheer force of will only to fail to save Mami and be reborn as a doll all over again, of coming closer and closer every time, of finally confronting the Worm and destroying it, and ending with her bizarre confrontation of the dream version of Homura Akemi, someone she had never even met.

In time that story came to an end as well, and Nozomi fell silent. Ophelia felt exhausted, and not from all the searching and fighting. They had all reunited once again, but it had done them little good. The Sayaka she had found was the one she had been hoping she would find for weeks, but now that she had, it turned out to be the absolute worst time. How did she even begin to explain everything that had happened to her?

The Mami she had found turned out to be in the same position Sayaka had been in until very recently. A witch, with no memory of her past life, her past name, or their previous shared connections. She didn't remember the accident that had claimed her parents. She didn't remember mentoring Ophelia or the resulting falling out. She didn't remember her short friendship with Sayaka Miki. She didn't remember her death. All of that had been taken from her.

Charlotte was the weirdest one, someone who kept phasing between the witch Ophelia had known and the girl she had been previously, unable to settle on one or the other. Honestly, it was a miracle she hadn't gone insane by now.

And then there was Ophelia herself. The rare witch that remembered her past life, that remembered everything. All except her name. Kyo…no. Every time she tried to focus on it, it stung her, triggered a brief flash of cold pain in her head.

They were a right collection of complete messes, four basket cases just waiting to happen.

Then Charlotte spoke, breaking the silence. "You know, there's a couple of common threads in all our dreams, something no one's commented on yet."

Everyone raised their heads and looked to her.

"The first is that wi…that girl with the dark hair and pale skin with the big overcoat. The one that keeps showing up to point us to where we need to go, or to warn us off.

"Elsa Maria," Ophelia said. "That was Elsa Maria."

"She's the girl from the lighthouse, right? The one that saved you from Annabelle Lee?"

"Yeah," Ophelia said, shivering at the memory. That ambush had come so suddenly. "She's probably still a prisoner because of that. God knows how we'll ever get her out."

"Okay," Nozomi said. "But I seriously doubt that she had anything to do with this. The other one though, the one that I don't think any of us knows in real life…"

"The punk girl," Candeloro said. "The rude one that kept playing with her phone."

"That's her. Any of you ever meet her before today?"

"No."

"Nope."

Sayaka just shook her head.

"Ah. Well." Charlotte's eyes narrowed. "Call me crazy, but I would bet that she has something to do with all this."

"I'd take that bet as well," Ophelia said. "The only question is: what the hell is she?"

"A witch."

Everyone turned to Sayaka, who had resumed her dour glare. "She's a witch, right? I mean, she has to be."

"Not…necessarily," Nozomi ventured. "I mean, there's any number of-"

"Enough!"

Sayaka had leapt to her feet. Now, one hand on her sword's hilt, she started pacing back and forth across the room, glowering at each one of them in turn.

"We had our storytime, okay? We all got caught up with one another. Now it's time for you guys to keep your promise. Tell me what you're hiding from me. I want to know everything."

Wincing, Ophelia stepped forward. "Look, it's not so-"

There was a singing of steel, and Ophelia found her path blocked by the point of a silver cutlass, pressed against her chin.

At the sword's other end was a mightily pissed off Sayaka Miki. "No," she said through clenched teeth. "No more stalling. No more excuses. You promised. Now tell me!"

Not taking her eyes off her, Ophelia lifted a pair of fingers and gently pressed them against the flat of the blade, moving it away from her face. "Okay, Princess Galahad, I will," she said. "But I need you to promise that you'll be the big girl that you say you are. No matter how weird, how freaky, or how scary, you're not going to freak out and attack us or run away. Clear?"

Though Sayaka's face remained resolute, there was a brief flash of fear in her eyes. "All right," she said, sheathing her blade. "But you better tell the whole truth."

"And nothing but. Where do you want me to start?"

Sayaka marched back to her chair, slouched down deep with her knees spread wide, folded her arms across her chest, and said, "Witches. There's something about witches. What is it?"

Well, here went everything. Might as well be blunt about it. "Witches are people," Ophelia said.

Sayaka's furrowed brow rose up a bit. "What?"

"Witches. They're not just mindless monsters. They're people."

"You mean…like they think and have feelings and…"

"No!" Then Ophelia shot a glance at Charlotte and Candeloro and amended, "Well, yeah, but I mean they're made out of people. Kyubey makes witches out of people."

Sayaka sat up straighter.

"Specifically, magical girls. Every witch used to be a Puella Magi."

A blink. Followed by a sharp intake of breath.

"That's what happens when your soul gem goes completely black," Ophelia continued. "That's what you become. That's what grief seeds were. Corrupted soul gems."

"You mean…those monsters. That we killed. They were girls? Like us?"

"Just like us. Yeah."

"But. Why?"

"It's all part of Kyubey's scheme," Ophelia said. "Somehow, every time a girl makes a wish and a contract, she releases some kind of energy he can feed upon. And when she turns into a witch, she releases even more energy. And when that witch is destroyed, she releases even more energy."

"That's…That's disgusting! That's…"

"There's more."

Sayaka went stiff.

"You remember that big scare we had? When we found out how our souls are literally in our soul gems?"

"Yes," Sayaka whispered.

"Well, as it turns out that if you make a contract, it does more to your soul then that. By that I mean…" Okay, here came the really weird part, as strange as it was to label it like that. "When someone's who's made a contract, Puella Magi or witch, dies, then she doesn't get to go to Heaven or Hell or Purgatory or anything like that. Instead, her soul goes…someplace else.

Working together, the three of them told Sayaka everything. Candeloro explained her history, from waking up in Dead Drop City and meeting Charlotte to settling down in Freehaven, and how the tension between them had eased into a wonderful friendship, and from there into romantic love.

For most of it Sayaka sat stone-faced, not reacting much at all. But after hearing about Mami and Charlotte's first meeting, her head snapped toward them. "Wait!" she cried. "Charlotte! You mean to tell me that you're, uh…"

Her voice trailed off, but she didn't need to finish that thought. Charlotte understood.

"Yeah, I guess I am," she said. "Um, I'm sorry about…traumatizing you, but I wasn't myself. At all."

Candeloro laid a ribbon on her wife's hand. "I know this must seem scary to you, but Charlotte is the most amazing person I've met. What happened back then wasn't her fault."

"Uh…" Sayaka looked wholly stupefied. "Okay?"

They pressed on, explaining to her all about how the afterlife worked and about its many strange inhabitants. They told her about Oblivion, Reibey, and the Void Walkers, and how they most likely had Ophelia's little sister, which had kicked off their adventure. And they told her all about that, from the attack by Annabelle Lee and her companions at Cloudbreak, to Etherdale, to Marsters, to the dockengaut territory, and to everything in between.

And all the while, Sayaka just sat there and listened. She didn't even react to the part about the spiders, or Lily the Siren, or even the super-raptors. She just absorbed everything they told her.

"So you see," Ophelia said. "That's how we ended up where we are now. So-"

Suddenly Sayaka's eyes widened as something occurred to her, and she finally broke her silence.

"WAIT!"

In the dim, flickering light cast by Ophelia's flames, Sayaka's face had gone ashen. "Kyoko. Tell me the truth. Back then, at the train station. I didn't just die, did I?"

Ophelia breathed out. "No. You didn't."

"Did I become a witch?"

"Yeah. You did."

Sayaka let out a pained moan. Ophelia tensed up.

Then Sayaka darted out of her chair, fleeing toward the window. Fortunately, all three of the others had been expecting this, and they all reacted at the same time.

Chains of red shields crossed in front of her, stopping her cold. As that happened, Sayaka found herself entwined by both of Candeloro's ribbons, which she had snapped out all the way from the couch. Moments later several golden wires tied her up as well, courtesy of Nozomi's staff.

"No!" Sayaka screamed. "Let me go! Don't touch me!"

A glowing circle appeared on the ground around her feet. She was preparing to leap off, to try to escape up through the roof.

"Sayaka, no!" Ophelia did the only thing she could think of to do. She leapt forward and threw her arms around Sayaka.

The circle died, but Sayaka didn't stop struggling. "Let me go!" she cried again.

"Hell no! I went through all this trouble just to find you, and I am not losing you again!"

Sayaka managed to wriggle enough away so that they were face-to-face. "Why?" she demanded, the tears in her eyes reflecting Ophelia's flame. "I'm worthless!"

"What? No, you're-"

"I am!" Sayaka sobbed. "Just a stupid, worthless girl! I wanted so badly to be a hero, to mean something, to be someone worth loving! But I couldn't save Mami, and when I tried to take her place, what good did it do? I cured Kyousuke, but he didn't even think of me after! I saved Hitomi, but she used the opportunity to take him away! Madoka tried to be there for me, and all I did was call her names and make her cry! And yes, I saved people, but they wouldn't even be in danger if it weren't for Kyubey, and I was helping him! And now you're telling me that all those monsters I killed were just other girls? And in the end, I just became a monster myself, spreading even more misery and pain!" She shook her head. "I should've just let Charlotte kill me, just kill me before I hurt anyone else!"

"No!" Ophelia gave Sayaka a rough shake. "Damn it, snap out of it! You are not worthless! You're my best goddamned friend, you've saved all of our asses multiple times, and I am not going to let you keep beating yourself up like that!"

"But I am! I'm such a fool, such a worthless fool."

"Well, then I am too! And so's Mami, and Charlotte!"

Charlotte cleared her throat. "Uh, actually, I happen to feel that I'm worth quite a-"

"Shut up, Char."

"Shutting up."

Ophelia continued. "My point is, we've all fucked up. We've all made mistakes. We've all hurt each other. But we're still a team! We-" She frowned, and then glanced over to Candeloro and Charlotte and slashed a hand across her throat.

Taking the hint, they retracted the ribbons and wires, letting Sayaka free. Still, she didn't move.

"We're friends," Ophelia said. "Companions. Saving each other's asses over and over again. And I don't care how bad you feel: you are not useless. You mean something to me."

Tears continued to drip from Sayaka's cheeks. "But that was the other Sayaka," she whispered. "That wasn't me."

"The fuck it wasn't! You may not remember being that other Sayaka, but she was still you, and she did all the same things you would. So take it from the baddest bitch you have ever known: you are kind of a bad bitch yourself." She chucked Sayaka in the chin. "So stop whining already, you're bringing the place down."

"But…But I'll be gone! If we kill the dream, then I'll be gone, and it'll just be the witch version of me left!"

Ophelia shrugged. "So we try to fix that. Combine your two parts into one person."

"Is that even possible?"

"Sure! I mean, look at all of us! Just you being here proves that you were in that other Sayaka the whole time. So if you can make a guest appearance for this freak show, I see no reason why you can't become part of the regular cast." Then Ophelia frowned. "But I don't need this Sayaka when we go fight, not the mopey loser that just kept hurting herself and those around her. I need the Sayaka Miki that I fought in the alley the day we met, the Sayaka Miki that refused to go down no matter how many times she was beaten. Can you be that Sayaka for me?"

Despite still looking miserable, Sayaka actually smiled. "You know, I think I can."

Ophelia grinned. "So you're with me?"

Sayaka took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I'm with you."

Ophelia held up a hand, elbow bent, and Sayaka clasped it with her own.

…

The rain was still coming down hard when Jerky returned to the entrance of the cave.

Something was different. There was a bad feeling about it, a sort of energy that made him uncomfortable. It wasn't anything he could really see, feel, or smell, but it was there, radiating out of the cave's mouth.

He wanted to run away. He wanted to run away and find a small hole far, far away from here, some place he could curl up in and hide.

Except he couldn't. Mother was still in there, as was her pack. And though Jerky still didn't know why he wasn't supposed to let them see him, that made them his pack too. And one didn't just run out on their pack.

He scratched the ground with his claws and whined. He was scared, really scared for the first thing in his short, exciting life. He didn't want to do this.

But he had to.

His head kept down slow, Jerky walked slowly into the cave mouth.

…

So. Hey. Funny story.

My original plan was go straight from Charlotte's dream to the final fight, but then I figured I should put in a traditional chapter, a way to recap things and get everyone caught up.

And then I started to get…ideas.

It happens.

Until next time, everyone!