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.

44. Restless, Part 8

Restless, Part 8

Standing up as high as he could, Jerky sniffed the air.

It smelled…odd. Earlier it had been damn and warm, but now the water was gone, as was the heat. Now the air smelled strangely pungent, almost sweet, but with a distinct sour undercurrent.

And the source of the smell was the glowing, transparent being floating in the center of the room.

He crept along the perimeter of the cavern, using every skill he had learned while stalking Mother's pack, stepping lightly and darting from crystal to crystal, making his way to Mother herself, all the while keeping his senses open for any sign of change, any sign that he had been spotted.

There was none. If the glowing creature was aware of his presence, it made no sign. That did nothing to lower his agitation however.

Finally he reached where Mother was levitating. She also did not react to his presence, but remained floating in place, limbs dangling, head bowed, and eyes closed.

Jerky chirped at her, hoping to draw her attention. Mother was a light sleeper; he had learned that early on, and she would wake at even the smallest of sounds. However, she didn't wake now.

Jerky chirped again, louder this time, but got no response. He spared a glance over to the glowing creature. It also didn't seem to have heard him.

Hunkering down, he darted to the safety behind another large crystal and looked up at Mother's face. Though her body was still, he could see the rapid movements of her eyes beneath their closed lids, as if even in sleep she knew that she was in danger and was trying to spot the threat.

…

Though even in her all together brief career as a Puella Magi, Sayaka had taken her fair share of injuries, some of them even crippling if it weren't for her heightened healing abilities.

Even so, she had never had her neck snapped before. So that was a new one.

It was a truly bizarre experience though. When Mephisto had lifted her off her feet, she barely had enough time to register that she was being lifted at all before she was hurled back onto the back of her head. Then her chin snapped forward, there was a terrible jarring impact, and the next thing she knew, she was lying flat on her back, staring upward while chaos reigned around her.

And yet, it didn't seem to matter. She couldn't hear much, just a faint ringing. And she seemed strangely lighter, as if several unnecessary parts had simply fallen off.

Interesting.

Though she was oddly comfortable just lying there, Sayaka still felt that she ought to try to move, but it seemed that she couldn't so much as wiggle her toes. In fact, the more she tried, the more it became apparent that she no longer had any toes. Nor fingers, for that matter. Nor legs, nor arms, nor torso, or pretty much anything below her neck.

Huh.

Everything attached to her face still worked, more-or-less, so she tried to rotated her eyeballs around to get as good a look at herself as she could. It was more difficult than she expected, mainly because everyone kept running around her, and all that sudden movement made her dizzy, but she managed to confirm that, yes, her body and all of its limbs was still attached. She had just lost all contact with that.

Well, that was a bother.

The colorful blurs continued to move around her. She saw what she was pretty sure was Charzomi go after Mephisto, but then thing just got really sketchy, so she was sure that it had gone badly.

She tried again to lift her head neck and was pleased to find some feeling being restored to her shoulders. Another push, and her fingertips started to tingles, followed quickly by her toes.

Sayaka took a deep breath. And then she pushed, forcing herself to sit up, forcing life and feeling back into her lifeless body, forcing neural connections to reopen and muscles to stop slouching and get back to work.

As she did, her mind began to clear, and she realized that her neck hand just been broken, and if it weren't for her magical healing abilities, she probably would have either died or been forced to live the rest of her life as a paraplegic.

That made her snort. A little too late for that.

Though her legs were still weak and wobbly, she kept pushing until she had gotten them under her and reached up to grab onto the ring ropes for support. Then Sayaka looked up.

Apparently she had missed a lot, as everyone was lying crumpled up on the ground with Mephisto standing over them. Their spandex-attired opponent was lifting one hand in the air, fingers pressed together as she talked down to them.

"…a little more familiar with?"

Then she snapped her fingers, and everything changed.

It was…well, it honestly wasn't the weirdest thing she had felt that day, but it was still weird enough to make mention of. She felt the world shift, twist, and change around her. The padding of the ring melted away, the ropes vanishing between her fingers. Sayaka stumbled and fell.

Though her spine had mostly healed by then, even that small impact was jarring enough to bring tears to her eyes. Gritting her teeth, Sayaka again forced her feet beneath her.

And as she stood up, she felt the familiar caress of her cape draping down over her shoulders and back.

Sayaka froze. Wait, her cape?

She looked herself over, running her hands over her outfit. She was clad in blue, white, and gold, all very extravagant and feminine but still clearly designed around the lines of a military dress uniform, down to the flowing white cape. Her uniform was back! Her Puella Magi uniform was back! She was back.

Then she heard groaning. Nearby, everyone else was picking themselves off the ground, and to Sayaka's delight, they were as they were supposed to be. Mami's ribbons were gone, her arms and hands had returned, and she was once again properly attired in gold, brown, black, and white, her hair perfectly done in drill-tails on either side of her head.

And Kyoko's hair was no longer on fire! Instead, her shimmering copper ponytail had returned, has had the pink-and-red of her own uniform. Sayaka never thought she'd be so happy to see that outfit again, especially considering the circumstances of the first time she had been introduced to it.

As for Charzomi, well, she was clearly now just Nozomi, with short pink hair and pink eyes, normal skin, no tail, and her outfit staying static as a double-breasted coat, striped sleeves and stockings, a pink skirt, and ballet slippers. In her hand her polka-dotted staff was now solid.

"Whoa," Kyoko said, looking down at herself. She patted herself down and ran her hands over the sleek lines of her tunic. "Whoa, hey, old friend! It is good to see you again!"

"Figures," Nozomi said as she looked over the peppermint stripes of her sleeves and stockings, as well as the candy-shaped charm on her staff. "You all get these cool outfits, while I'm over here representing the Lollipop Guild."

"Oh, my goodness," Mami said as she tugged at her skirt with one hand and gingerly reached up to touch one of her drill-tails with the other. "This…This is a look I haven't done in such a long time."

Sayaka's heart leapt. "Wait, you remember then?" she said.

Mami looked at her. She swallowed. "Um, yes. It's…back." She ran her fingers up and down her forearm. "I'm back." She then looked up at Sayaka, her eyes glistening. "And so are you. Well, ah, I guess I should say welcome back, and-"

She might have said more, but that was when Sayaka threw herself at her, wrapping her arms around Mami's middle and hugging her tight. Her legs gave way, and she sank down into her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks as she hid her face against Mami's stomach.

She had done it. Mami was back, really back. Mami remembered her. And that meant that she remembered Sayaka's apology.

How many times had she dreamed about chasing after Mami's specter, screaming that she was sorry, begging her for forgiveness? How long had Mami's shadow loomed over her, informing every bad decision that she made? Sure, she had gotten some resolution with her talk with Candeloro, but this was different. This was the real Mami, looking and sounding as she should, the one who knew her, the one that would understand what she was going through.

This was real!

"Sayaka, it's okay," Mami murmured, running her fingers through Sayaka's hair, a gesture that was so simple, and yet felt so achingly good. "You don't have to cry. It's okay."

Refusing to rise, refusing to let go of her, Sayaka just shook her head. If she let go, then Mami might leave her again. Something bad might happen to take her away, and Sayaka would never get her back again.

"Um…" she heard Kyoko say, followed by Nozomi clearing her throat very loudly.

Sayaka grimaced. Oh, damn it, not now, Kyoko! This was not the time! Let her have this!

Then Mami said in a gentle but insistent tone, "Sayaka. Get up, please."

Sighing, Sayaka obeyed. She wiped at her eyes with her gloved wrist and looked up.

They were all standing within some kind sphere, with the ceiling a dome painted with the colors of the sky and the floor a huge, curving depression made of concrete, ringed by a ledge that curved around the whole space, which was where they were standing. Within the depression were several jutting platforms and columns, some with odd things like leafless trees growing out of them, some with upturned furniture, some with stacked cars.

In the center of the room was a…thing, a strange amalgamation of towering oak tree, a scrapyard, and a rock concert. Armor that seemed to be hammered together by salvaged metal plating and rubber tires was literally tied to the thing's trunk, and several massive speakers were welded to the armor at random points. Writhing branches that ended in disturbingly humanlike hands clawed at the air. And at the crown was a concert stage, on which several instruments hovered in place, playing loud punk rock all by themselves, each one a different color.

A fire had been set at the tree-thing's base. And filled nearly every square meter of the depression were tall, rakishly thin scarecrow-like creatures, all of them dressed in British punk fashion, all of them swaying back and forth and waving their limbs, while the ones near the base of the tree-thing just kept throwing chunks of wood into the fire. There had to be literally thousands of the witch's familiars.

"Whoa," Sayaka said. "Is that Mephisto?"

"I'd say there's a pretty good chance," Nozomi said dryly.

"Finally," Kyoko growled as she spun her spear around and snapped it into a fighter's stance. "Something we can fight!"

Mami slowly nodded. "It does seem like we don't have much of a choice."

"Okay, but we do get the part where she's still playing with us," Nozomi said. "Like, killing that won't kill Mephisto."

"Eh, only one way to find out," Sayaka said as she bared her blade.

"I'm serious. This is just another part of her game. We're only giving her what she wants."

At that moment, all of the familiars stopped hurling debris into the fire and, as one, all turned to face the four of them. A shrill, wordless howl went up, all of the familiars crying out as one.

And then they began to advance.

"Mami had it right. We don't have much of a choice," Kyoko muttered.

"But-"

"Look, if we don't fight, then Mephisto gets bored and skips straight to killing us. If we do fight, then at least we can buy time to think of something else."

"We'd better think fast, then," Mami remarked as she surveyed the horde of approaching monstrosities.

"You think fast," Kyoko retorted. "Me? I've got a lot of aggression to burn off."

Then she shot a look over to Sayaka and smirked. "So, whad'd'ya say, Miki? Can you stomach fighting side-by-side with little ol' me?"

Sayaka blinked. And then she smiled, and adopted a fighting stance of her own.

"I guess we're doing this," Mami sighed. She shook her head. "Okay, Kyoko: you've got the best mid-range coverage, so you're on crowd control. Keep the familiars busy and off our backs. Sayaka, what are your abilities?"

"Um…" Sayaka quickly racked her brain. "Sword slashy, boost jump, and fast healing."

Mami nodded. "Short-range then. Stick with Kyoko, help her clear the familiars. Charlotte, what do you have?"

"The wires," Nozomi answered. "And, uh, exploding…" She winced. "Exploding toffees."

"Come again?" Kyoko said.

In answer, Nozomi tilted her staff down at the bowl. The bottom opened, and several small, brown pellets fell out. They rolled down the slope of the depression and exploded as soon as they made contact with anything, whether it be pillar or familiar.

"Exploding toffees," Nozomi said in disgruntlement. "You know, I actually used to be curious about what I looked like as a magical girl and what my powers were. But so far it's all been incredibly disappointing."

"Oh, I don't know," Kyoko said, looking her up and down. "That jacket's pretty cool."

"I look like a freaking clown," Nozomi complained. "That, or a chocolate factory mascot!"

"Babe," Mami said, her tone slightly chiding.

"Fine, fine. Wires, candy bombs, and skates."

"Skates?"

"Yeah." Nozomi's shoes glowed a bit, and suddenly she popped up a few centimeters, now standing on a pair of golden ice-skates. "Skates. Apparently I can make webs with my wires and skate of them to get places quickly."

"How random," Kyoko remarked.

"But useful," Mami said as she thoughtfully rubbed her chin. "Okay. It seems like you and I have the most coverage. You take to the air. Web things up and keep the bombs dropping, make sure that Kyoko and Sayaka don't become overwhelmed."

"Got it. What'll you be doing though?"

Mami then looked up. "Me? I'm going to make it rain."

…

It was exceedingly strange, but for how strange and frightening and downright impossible turning into a magical girl and fighting witches had seemed at first, Sayaka was actually appreciating its return. In light of all the other weird, frightening things that had happened to her recently, it was a bizarre return to normalcy, a brand of scary weirdness that she was at least used to.

And she leapt into it wholeheartedly, a sword in each hand, throwing herself into the fray.

The familiars rushed head-on, and she returned with gusto, charging up a leap and hurling herself into their midst. The sheer force of her momentum alone blew several of them back, but others rushed in to replace them. Sayaka brandished her two blades, her cape billowing behind her, and set to work.

She slashed. She cut. She lunged. Her blades cut down familiar after familiar, slicing through their needle-thin bodies with ease, bisecting and mutilating and destroying.

They were so weak, but what they lacked in strength, they made up for in sheer numbers. For every one that she cut down, seven more leapt in to replace it, and it wasn't long before Sayaka found herself backing up instead of moving forward.

"Uh, Kyoko?" she called. Where was her supposed partner? Wasn't she supposed to have her back?

Screw this. Sayaka charged up a jump and leapt, sailing up out of the horde of familiars. She then summoned up a leap circle in the air at an angle, charged up again, and shot off over the massing familiars, heading for Mephisto's main body.

For a moment she thought that her shortcut was working. And then she felt something grab her leg.

Sayaka looked back to see a couple of familiars clinging to her calf. Crap, they could jump! She tried to kick them off, but another leapt up to seize her waist. Another went after her head, and she managed to slice that one down, but two more were on her.

On their own they didn't weigh much, but there was so many of them, and soon Sayaka's momentum was forcibly turned downward. She hit the ground, slid down the slope through the crowd, before coming to rest on one of the jutting platforms.

And then they were on her, pressing in from all over. Sayaka tried to rise back up, but there was just so many of them, piling in on her and holding her down.

Figures, she thought. First day back after being dead, and I'm already screwing up.

"Hey!"

Through the gaps in the familiar's clustering bodies, Sayaka saw a scarlet meteor, hurtling right for her.

"Get away from her!"

Kyoko slammed in the ground right next to Sayaka with such force that all of the familiars were blown away by the impact. Sayaka winced as the shock wave swept over her, mussing her hair and yanking at her cape.

When she opened them again, she saw Kyoko hovering right over her.

Sayaka's former nemesis had thrown up a half-sphere of her shield plates around them, and was looking down at her in evident concern. "Hey, Blueberry," she said, nudging Sayaka with the counter-weight of her spear. "Are you okay?"

Sayaka stared back. She had seen Kyoko's face so many times, but until very recently the sight always filled her with suspicion, anger, irritation, or resentment.

But now, those sly lines of her face, which always seemed to so easily settle into an arrogant sneer, seemed more fetching than infuriating. Those little protruding fangs of hers now actually looked kind of cute. And how had Sayaka not noticed the brilliant sheen of her scarlet eyes?

Had Kyoko always been this pretty?

"Sayaka?" Kyoko repeated.

Sayaka blinked. "Um, yeah!" she said as she sat up. "Me, I'm fine! Just got a little carried away and they knocked me a little loopy."

Kyoko sighed with relief. "Well, hurry your ass up! Don't get all selfish and make me do all the work."

She held out her hand.

And Sayaka took it.

And then…wow.

There was a spark of something like electricity zipping from Kyoko's fingers to Sayaka's, and Sayaka found herself marveling at just how strong Kyoko's fingers were. Well, of course they were strong, and of course she ought to know that, simply through all the times Kyoko had used them to hit her back during their initial (and thankfully aborted) duel to the death. But as strong as Kyoko's grip was, it was still gentle, protecting rather than attacking, and my her palm was warm!

If Kyoko noticed Sayaka's flustered reaction to the touch, she made no sign. She simply helped the knight rise to her feet. "Come on," she said as she turned away from Sayaka, out toward the battle. "I'm gonna drop the shields in a sec. You ready for this?"

Sayaka shook off the butterflies fluttering in her stomach and turned around, so that she and Kyoko were standing back-to-back. "Yeah, I think so," she said as she looked out through the gaps in the shield-plates at the hordes of rakish familiars swarming in around them. "Might be a problem if one more shows up."

"Heh," Kyoko snickered. "Then that'll be the one I take care of."

Sayaka smiled. She had to admit, actually fighting with Kyoko instead of against her felt pretty darn good. "What, you're fighting too?"

"Ha!" Kyoko then held up her hand. She paused, and then squeezed her fingers into a fist.

The dome of shield-plates exploded outward, sending the swarming familiars flying in all directions.

But even that explosion was nothing compared to the maelstrom of red and blue that shot out afterward, shredding Mephisto's arm in a flurry of flashing blades and furiously happy smiles.

…

Mami had not missed this.

Ever since her death, Mami had only entered a bonafide witch's labyrinth one time. A friend of her and Charlotte's had succumbed to despair and turned full witch, and so the two of them had been part of the group that had rushed in to save the poor girl from herself, to destroy her witch-form and return her to humanity.

They had succeeded, but it still had been a terrible experience, one that had rocked Mami to her core. The two of them had both struggled with nightmares following that day, and Mami's already fragile state had been deeply upset by going back to the one place that she was supposed to be free from forever.

Since then, she had still had to fight several times, to call upon the offensive powers the Incubators had cursed her with. But those had mostly been against other magical girls, as well as the occasional monster. It was an entirely different situation.

But now, as she was once again clad in her old uniform, the almost forgotten but instantly recalled feel of the cap resting on her head or the tightness of the corset around her middle, surrounded by those that she cared about the most, Mami had to admit that there was an aspect to it that she had almost forgotten as well, a detail that she hadn't wanted to remember.

And that was that fighting witches was fun!

Yes, it was a terrible thing to think. Yes, those witches were poor, tortured girls that didn't know what they were doing. Yes, it was just a part of the Incubators' grand scheme. But she couldn't deny that there was something thrilling about swinging around a large, surreal space, summoning up musket after musket to blow away gibbering monsters, while cooperating with her friends and loved ones to take down a hulking abomination.

Maybe that was why she had always sought out new partners and trainees. She wanted someone to share the experience with.

And now she was sharing with Charlotte (or Nozomi, or whatever she was calling herself at the moment). Once again restored fully to the girl she had been and fighting at Mami's side, as it probably always should have been.

And she had to admit, Charlotte's abilities were pretty neat. She had discovered (or re-remembered) a few interesting tidbits about the wires that shot out of the tip of her staff. First, she could actually cut the line, allowing for shorter bursts or to disconnect from something she could tie up. Second, she could also harden any wire that she shot out and it would stay in place once disconnected, even if it was in the air. As such, she could literally create a gleaming golden rail for herself to skate along in the air, laying it down in front of her as she went.

And so the two went, Mami swinging and Charlotte skating. Every now and then Charlotte would paused to dump a load of exploding toffees into a particularly thick cluster of familiars while Mami would pause to set up something special.

"You know what's kind of weird?" Charlotte called to her. "I mean, besides the obvious."

Mami released a line, flipped around in midair, and snagged the domed ceiling with another ribbon. "Go ahead," she said as she swung next to Charlotte.

"I made a contract in the same city you were already defending. If I didn't lose myself and stuck around, maybe you and I would've met!"

"You mean, become partners?"

"Hell, maybe we were fated to end up together. And it would've been a much nicer way to start things off."

She had a point. Still… "I don't think it matters where you start. Just where you end up."

Charlotte cast a dour glance at the madness beneath them. "I can think of a few better places to end up than here."

"You think things would've been different then?"

"Oh, who could tell? Butterfly Effect, you know?"

Mami nodded. She then thought of something, something she had always been curious about. "Um, if you don't mind me asking…"

Charlotte sighed. "A cake."

That answer was so unexpected that Mami almost missed her next swing. Recovering, she said, "What?"

"You wanted to know what I wished for, right? What secret desire was worth selling my soul for?" Still skating along, Charlotte said glanced at her and said, "A cake. That was it. A fucking cake."

"Oh," Mami said. "Why a cake?"

Charlotte's face twisted up with genuine regret. "Because I was stupid enough to not ask questions about how powerful my wish could be, and Kyubey didn't feel like telling me. Because I figured, hey, healing my mom from her cancer was probably too much of an ask. So I thought that since she was dying, why not wish for one last delicious cake like we used to make together?" Her eyes were starting to glisten with bitter tears. "Anyway, she died the day after, and then Kyubey just up and asks me why I didn't wish for her to be healed like the asshole he is."

Up ahead was one of the taller pillars. Charlotte turned her route toward that and hopped off her rail to stand on its top. Mami swung up to join her.

Staring out at the fray, Charlotte said, "So I turned into a witch, the end."

Mami placed a hand on her shoulder. "Babe…"

"Save it, please. I was sixteen and an idiot. It doesn't matter."

"But it does matter," Mami insisted. "Charlotte, every single one of us regrets her wish. We were all young, and-"

Charlotte sighed. "Mami. Look, I went to a lot of the same therapy classes you did, and I told you a lot of the same things that you're telling me now. I'll be fine. I'll cope. I just…need to come to terms with things, okay?"

"I would've liked to be your partner," Mami said after a beat. She reached down to take Charlotte's hand in her own. "But I like being your wife even more."

That got a half-smile out of her lover. "Yeah, I guess some parts did work out." Then she blinked, and frowned. "Well, I mean this sucks, but-"

"Uh-oh," Mami said suddenly.

Charlotte looked where Mami was looking. Down in the pit, it looked like Kyoko and Sayaka had somehow gotten separated. Kyoko was still holding her own, but Sayaka was swiftly losing ground, her strikes becoming more frantic as more and more familiars piled in on her.

"Well, that doesn't look good," Charlotte said with a low whistle. "Didn't Kyoko just save her?"

Mami shook her head. No rest for the wicked." She shot a ribbon up to the ceiling and leapt. "Let's go!"

…

Crowd control, Mami had called it.

Oh, Kyoko could do crowd control. She was very good at crowd control.

The familiars came at her in waves, rushing her like they had Sayaka. But unlike Sayaka, Kyoko had both range and defense, and she was not shy about using both.

Every sweep of her spear sent them flying. Every thrust cut through several. And when too many were impaled on her pole, she discarded it and summoned another. And when she was focused on one spot, quick shield walls held off the attacks from others until she could see to those areas as well.

This was what it was all about. It was like a video game, one that she was exceptionally good at. She could do this all day, and wouldn't mind doing so. So much pent up aggression was being unleashed as she mowed down wave after wave.

In fact, she was having so much fun that she didn't notice that she was fighting alone until she so happened to glance over her shoulder to see that Sayaka was no longer there.

A sudden jolt of fear threw her off her rhythm, and suddenly it wasn't so fun anymore. The familiars pressed their advantage, swarming her like they had Sayaka, pressing in too close for her to use her shields or to properly employ her shield. Kyoko fought back, but it was hard to get back into her groove when all her mind was thinking was, Where's Sayaka? How did I lose her? Is she all right?

"Kyoko!"

Kyoko looked up and very nearly collapsed with relief. Both Mami and Sayaka were swinging toward her, courtesy of a literal swing Mami had created from a couple of ribbons that she literally was hanging upside-down from, her legs wrapped around the connector, her hands gripping Sayaka's wrists. The two of them looked like a circus trapeze act, fitting considering the circus Kyoko had burned down earlier, and would probably look quite ridiculous on a milder day.

Today, they actually looked kind of hot, though she did have to wonder how in the world Mami was keeping her skirt in place.

"Grab on!" Sayaka called, sticking her legs straight out.

Yup, it's official, Kyoko thought as she leapt up to seize Sayaka's calves and let herself be swung out of peril. I've made the switch. I'm batting for the home team now. My soul is fully resonated. I am 100% gay.

Groovy.

"Look sharp!" Mami called, and she gave Sayaka a toss.

Kyoko and Sayaka flipped gracefully through the air, landing back-to-back on top of one of the columns, high above the fray.

Mami lighted onto one of the other columns and elegantly straightened up. Brushing off her skirt, she took a deep breath, raised her hands, and clapped her palms together.

And that was the signal for the rain to start.

All around the concrete ring several silver mortars had been set up, one-shot cannons with a singular purpose: to set everything in the pit on fire.

And they did. Ordinance rained down on the clustering familiars, wiping them out in an explosive inferno. Others had a more specific target, and they hammered in against the witch's body. Its many hands managed to swiped some of the shells out of the air, but a few got through. The playing of the instruments at the crown suddenly got a lot more frantic.

Kyoko and Sayaka watched it happen. There wasn't a lot of space to stand, so the two of them had to press into one another back-to-back to keep their footing. Kyoko wasn't complaining though. She had finally gotten Sayaka back, and now she was fighting side-by-side with her, in very close contact. It was more than she could have ever hoped for.

Well, okay, it would be super great if Sayaka could also remember everything else they had gone through. But those memories were probably sealed up in Mephisto. So all they had to go was go get them.

"It almost feels like a bad dream," Sayaka remarked as the two surveyed the scene.

"Technically it is," Kyoko responded as she watched the familiars all go up in flames. "This part is pretty cool though."

"No, I mean before."

Kyoko paused. "Before?"

"Yeah. Before. You and me? When we were at each other's throats?"

Oh. Right. That. "Well, I was only at your throat for the first couple of days," Kyoko pointed out. "Afterward, that was all you."

"I guess so. Maybe if we had met earlier, it would have been different."

"You mean before Mami bought it?"

Sayaka nodded. "Yeah. That. It could've been…nice. Fighting together. Against witches, I mean. Mami would still be alive. The three of us, watching each other's backs. Hanging out afterward. I mean, doesn't that sound nice?"

"You mean, like we're doing right now?" Kyoko sighed. "Yeah, sure, it does sound nice. But we'd still be screwed."

"Because of the contracts?"

"Yeah. Because of the contracts."

"Well, at least our last few days wouldn't have been so horrible." There was a pause, and then Sayaka sighed. "Hey, Kyoko, before this goes on, I'm, uh, sorry about getting in your face earlier. I guess I'm still kind of an idiot."

Kyoko swallowed. "Forget it," she mumbled. "It's nothing."

"Nothing. Sure. Have you told her?"

"Have I told who what?"

"The other me? How you feel about her?"

Kyoko froze. "Are we…Are we really having this conversation?"

"Well, have you?"

Damn it, they were, and it was oh so very weird. "No," Kyoko admitted. "But, um, I'm pretty sure she knows."

"And does she, uh…"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she feels that same way," Kyoko snapped. "Your other self has a crush on me too. How you feel about that?"

"Huh. No accounting for taste, I guess."

Kyoko kicked her heel into the back of Sayaka's calf.

Laughing, Sayaka kicked her back. "Well, maybe when this is over, you ought to tell her."

Scowling, Kyoko turned just enough to glare at the back of Sayaka's head. "Hey," she said, nudging Sayaka in the back with her elbow. "We're talking about you, you big blue fuckstick."

"Well, I mean, not exactly," Sayaka said, rubbing her chin. "Part of me, I guess. But not really me."

Kyoko sighed. "You do remember the part where we're hoping that beating this bitch gets all your memories back, right? So say that happens, and the two yous are just…you. Should I still get on my knees and confess, give you chocolate and roses and shit?"

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said, "Weeeellllll, I'll tell you what. If I do get all my memories back, then we'll…talk. Over burgers. How's that sound?"

Kyoko blinked. "Wait, did you just ask me out on a date?"

"Like I said, we'll see! I mean, I don't like you like that right now, but if I get the rest of myself back…who knows? I mean, you apparently like me now, and you didn't like me like that before we died, did you?"

Did she? Thinking back, maybe Kyoko had been kind of attracted to her. Certainly she had spent a lot of time and energy trying to save Sayaka from herself when she didn't have to. And she had never been interested in a single boy, but she did recall practically swooning over Mami when they first met, and she did become kind of obsessed with Sayaka at the end, in a lot of weird ways. Maybe girls had always been her thing.

"Uh, Kyoko? Getting awful quiet back there."

"I, uh, I'm not sure," Kyoko admitted.

There was a pause, and then Sayaka said, "Okay! Well, um, that actually…explains a lot, but…"

"HEY!" Nozomi shouted as the two as she skated by through the air, creating a path directly in front of her. "Flirt later! The job's still not done!"

"Urg, hey!" Sayaka shouted in frustration. "Read the room, won't you?"

Kyoko shook her head and smiled. "Come on," she said as she grasped her spear's pole with both hands. "We can talk after we've killed the witch."

"Right," Sayaka nodded. "Later."

Neither of them pointed out how unlikely it was that there would be a later. Neither of them wanted to.

…

While the familiars had mostly been wiped out, the witch had survived. So the Tomoes had adopted a new strategy.

The witch's body seemed to be immobile, but its many limbs were swatting Mami's mortar shells out of the sky. Even her Tiro Finales weren't getting close, and it would only hurl flaming debris at her artillery right after she fired.

As such they decided to go for a different approach: tying the ugly thing up.

They had ribbons. They had wires. And sure, the witch could just swipe at those two, but that only ended up getting its limbs tied up. And as it turned out, it didn't have much defense against that.

So around and around they went, swinging and skating, sending lines of gold through the air, tying the witch's limbs down and wrapping it up. Sure, it might have been strong enough to break free from the first few layers, but they had plenty to spare.

It honestly took less than Nozomi had expected, and was done with greater ease, and soon she and Mami were standing side-by-side on a bridge formed by wire and ribbon, staring up at the results of their joint efforts.

However, Nozomi's attention was elsewhere.

"So," Nozomi said at last. "They're flirting now."

"What?"

"Those two. The kids. They were flirting just now."

Mami shot her a sidelong look.

"Which has got to be one of the fastest orientation turnarounds I've ever seen. Usually it takes newcomers a year or two to start looking at girls if they were, ah, heterosexual to begin with. But Sayaka went from not liking or trusting Kyoko to wondering what she tastes like in, what, an hour? Maybe less?"

"Charlotte," Mami sighed, her exasperation making her forget Nozomi's current name. Nozomi let it slide.

"I mean, considering how she supposedly made her wish for a boy, and turned into a witch because she couldn't have that boy, she's pretty fast on the rebound. Went from genius childhood friend to your scrappy gay rival. Oktavia didn't have any of that baggage, and it still took her a few weeks at least to upgrade Kyoko from 'my best friend' to 'the girl I really want to smooch,' so…"

"That's enough," Mami said, laying a hand on Nozomi's shoulder. "Just please. Let them have this."

Nozomi's eye twitched. "I'm not saying anything to them. But I still have major problems with this."

"That's fine. Just…leave them alone, okay?"

"Fine." Nozomi then looked up at what lay before them. "But if Oktavia is really gone for good and Kyoko just start mooning over Sayaka without caring, then I'm gonna be pissed."

The witch's ensnared body towered over them, wrapped snugly by layer after layer of Mami's ribbons, while Nozomi's wires tied it down and held it in place. She looked like a giant golden cocoon, from which would hatch a monstrous butterfly. If only that were the case.

Mami looked their handiwork over. And then she let out a very unladylike snort.

"Um," Nozomi said, watching Mami out of the corner of her eye as her wife kept trying a failing to hold back laughter. "Are you…okay?"

In answer, Mami pointed up at the cocooned monster and exclaimed, "Charlotte's Web!" And that sent her dissolving into giggles.

"Charlotte's…what?" Nozomi repeated, not understanding the joke. "Mami, what the hell are you-" And then her memory was jogged. "Oh." Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed. "Really? Really, Mami? That's-" And then she snorted as well. "Actually, that is pretty funny," she snickered.

Kyoko and Sayaka both leapt up onto the bridge and ran over to the pair. "Hey, we did it!" Sayaka said.

"Damn right!" Kyoko held up her palm, but Sayaka was focused Mephisto and didn't notice.

Mami glanced back and forth between the two, and then inconspicuously nudged Sayaka's foot with her toe.

"Huh?" Mami titled her head toward Kyoko, who still had her hand raised, but was scowling in disgruntlement.

"Oh! Sorry!" Sayaka clapped Kyoko's palm with her own. "Yay, team!"

Shaking her head, Nozomi turned back to Mami. "Well, we did it. Who wants the honors?"

"Oh, me, me!" Sayaka said, waving her hand about. "Let me, please!"

"Then hurry up and do your job!"

"Got it!" Sayaka held her blade at the ready. A glowing white circle materialized beneath her.

"Another job well done," Mami said. "Who's up for cakes and tea at my place once we're done here?"

"Yes!" Kyoko pumped her fists in a dorky celebratory dance. "Cakes and tea, the perfect witch-killing treat!"

Nozomi rolled her eyes at her younger teammate's antics, but then she pause. Wait, something was wrong, something they were forgetting.

"HYAAAAAH!" Sayaka cried as she shot into the air.

And then realization hit Nozomi. Somehow, during the course of the fight, they had been made to forget.

"Sayaka, wait!" she cried. "That's not an ordinary witch! That's-"

Right before Sayaka's blade pierced the golden cocoon holding the witch in place, a hand shot out between the wires and ribbons, seizing the blade and stopping it cold.

"Oof!" Sayaka's stomach was rammed into the hilt by her own momentum and she dropped.

"Sayaka!" Kyoko flew into the air, using single shield-plates as stepping stones and hurled herself at the falling girl. She caught Sayaka in her arms, hit the cocoon with her feet, and rebounded back, taking the two of them to the safety of their comrades.

Nozomi was barely paying attention. She was staring upward, as the hand holding onto the sword flipped the blade upside-down and then withdrew, drawing the blade halfway down its length until it stopped.

And then the sword started to travel upward.

As the four of them watched, the blade sliced all the way up and over the top of the cocoon, cutting an opening, one that grew and grew and grew, until it extended all the way across the witch's gold-wrapped head.

"We forgot," Kyoko said, Sayaka still in her arms. She sounded frustrated. "How did we forget?"

"She did it," Nozomi said bitterly. "Remember what I said? She's in total control!"

Then the cocoon started writhing, its surface bubbling, surging, like a swarm of locusts were trapped within and struggling to get out. The "head" jerked this way, and black smoke billowed out of the slit.

Kyoko set Sayaka down. "Uh, hey, Sayaka?"

Sayaka swallowed. "Y-Yeah?"

"It was fun. Fighting alongside you. It was fun."

"Wait, what?" Sayaka gawked at her. "Kyoko, are you giving up?"

Kyoko didn't respond.

"Are you serious? You? What happened to you? The Kyoko I know would never-"

Mephisto raised her hand and, just as she had before, snapped her fingers.

Nozomi (no, wait! Her name had changed again!) gasped. She fell to her hands and knees as her stomach twisted up inside her.

And then she saw it.

Her striped sleeves had changed, becoming longer than her arms and now just a solid brown. She hastily pulled them away from her hands.

Her skin was pale white.

Charlotte looked up at her friends, who were also looking around in confusion. Kyoko's hair was once again on fire, and she was clad in the brilliant robe of hers. Mami once again had ribbons in place of arms, and instead of her sleek uniform she was now wearing a frilly turquoise dress, purple-striped stockings, and a yellow bonnet.

They were witches again, all of them. Or at least, the humanoid version.

"Um, guys?"

Everyone turned. To Charlotte's sudden relief, Sayaka Miki was once again Oktavia von Seckendorff, tail and everything. Except now she was clad in full armor, a strange three-eyed helmet on her head.

Oktavia seized the helmet with both hands and yanked it off, revealing her very confused face. "What's going on?" she said. "I thought we were just napping at the cave! And…" She took notice of her friends' new appearance. "Uh, did Halloween happen and nobody told me?"

"You're back," Charlotte breathed.

Ophelia looked stricken.

"Back? Back from what? Kyoko, why is your head on fire? And why am I wearing-"

Mephisto snapped her fingers again.

Small. Vulnerable. Surrounded by other creatures. Other creatures like me, but unlike me.

Large. Armor. Mermaid. Sword. Dangerous. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Large. Robe. Fire. Horse. Spear. Dangerous. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Small. My size. Ribbons. Safe. Friend.

Where is place? No labyrinth. No desserts. No mouse friends. Want go home. This place not safe. Where is sweets? Where is cheese? Want cheese. Want safe.

Grow then. Release Hungry One. Hungry One find cheese, eat danger, find home, find-

Mephisto snapped her fingers again.

Charlotte inhaled sharply. She hastily felt her face and then clothing. She was back to normal! And not just to being Charlotte, she was wearing her own clothes!

Everyone else was how they should be as well! Kyoko was back in her worn green hoodie and shorts. Mami was Mami and wearing the shapeless sweater and jeans she had upon entering the cave. Oktavia was seated in her wheelchair, dressed in a secondhand band shirt that they acquired somewhere down the line.

Everyone was back to normal, or as close to normal as they were ever likely to get.

"Whoa," Kyoko said, stumbling. "Did we all just become witches? Like, actual, real witches?"

Oktavia looked ill. "Please," she begged. "What the hell is going on? What is-"

Mephisto snapped her fingers again.

And they were all human again: Nozomi, Mami, Sayaka, and Kyoko. Except instead of their Puella Magi outfits, they were wearing the pale gold blouses and plaid skirts of the Mitakihara school uniform.

Sayaka stumbled on her new legs. "The hell was that?" she said in alarm. "Did I go somewhere?"

"Who are you?" Kyoko cried. "Sayaka or Ophelia? Which one are you now?"

"Are you dense? I'm Sayaka!"

Mami had enough. "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop messing with us like this! We are not your playthings!"

"Uh, sorry, but you are," Mephisto said. She didn't raise her voice to be heard, and yet they had no trouble hearing her anyway. "I mean, like, duh?"

Then she shrugged. "But if you're sick of that, I guess we can move on."

She raised her hand again, finger and thumb squeezed together.

"Wait!" Kyoko shouted, holding a hand out. "Enough already! Stop!"

And then Mephisto's fingers snapped. For the last time.

…

Come on, Mother! Wake up!

Jerky chirped, growled, whine, and chattered. And yet Mother still did not stir!

The little warm-blooded reptile was growing frantic. This was far beyond his limited experience to deal with. What was he going to do?

…

This time, there was no falling, no tumbling through space. One second Kyoko was standing with her friends in the mock-up witch labyrinth, the second everything simply changed around her, and did so quickly enough to be even more disorienting than if she had fallen into another world again.

Gasping, Kyoko collapsed with her limbs splayed out. She tried to reorient her spinning senses, but her equilibrium had been so scrambled that all she registered was a blur of colors and shapes.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she started breathing in and out, recentering herself. Okay, Kyoko, she thought. Get a grip. It's not the first time you've had your head spun. So pull yourself together and-

Wait.

She was still Kyoko, right?

Her eyes still closed, Kyoko made a quick mental inventory of herself. Yes, she was Kyoko Sakura. Her school uniform was was gone, and her natty green hoodie was back, and she still had hair instead of flame.

Honestly though, she was a little disappointed. The robe and fire had been downright wicked!

Still, Ophelia or Kyoko, she was still a grade-A asskicker, and she had plenty of ass to kick. Readying herself, Kyoko opened her eyes.

What she saw made her wish that they were still closed.

She sat on a long wooden pew within a large chapel, one with a high, curving roof and two rows of stained glass windows on the high walls. The pew she was on was in the front row, and directly in front of her was a raised dais with a pulpit and a large cross.

It was Papa's church, restored to its former glory, but still empty save for herself. Behind her was row after row of pews, and no one to fill them. The dais was likewise empty, the reverend long having abandoned his faith, his family, and his life.

Kyoko closed her eyes again and let out a long, shuddering breath. She ought to have expected this. Mephisto, whatever she was, clearly had gotten into all of their heads and knew exactly how to psychologically attack them.

Then her eyes snapped open again, now gleaming with determination. Well, Kyoko knew a thing or two about attacking as well.

"So, a church girl, huh? Christ, no wonder you're batshit."

Kyoko jerked around. There, reclining across the opposite end of the pew with her booted feet up on the seat was Mephisto, back in her denim outfit. She raised an eyebrow at Kyoko and blew a big bubble.

"You!" Kyoko leapt at her, spear appearing in her hands, and jabbed it right at her face.

The blade pierced into the wooden seat and drove right through.

Huh?

Kyoko turned around to see Mephisto now slouching where Kyoko had been a few seconds earlier, chewing lips twisted into a smirk. "Jesus, Sakura. Chill out. Didn't your Momma teach you any manners? You're in a church, after all."

"What?"

Then she heard a sound like gears being turned, ropes being stretched, and chains being unraveled. She looked up. Something was being lowered from the roof over the pulpit, something black and slouching and-

A small whimper seeped out of her mouth. It was her father, the Good Reverend Sakura, clad in his Sunday robe, being lowered by the same rope that he had used to kill himself, still bound around his neck.

The rope continued to lower Papa's dangling corpse until it came to a stop right behind the pulpit. His body swayed a little, bumping into the wooden stand and rotating around until it was facing the chapel.

Oh, fuck this!

Kyoko leapt up from the pew and fled, running down between the rows of pew toward the large double-door. She hit it with her shoulder, bursting through.

Beyond was the church. Again. She stood at the entrance to the sanctuary, the same place she had just left, only having been turned around.

And at the front, Papa's corpse still dangled behind the pulpit.

"You might as well get it over with," Mephisto said from where she was leaning up against the nearby wall. Kyoko jerked a little with surprise. She hadn't even noticed her there.

"C'mon, church mouse. Time to hear your sermon." Mephisto stood up and closed her fingers around Kyoko's bicep. Kyoko tried to pull away, but found that her legs wouldn't respond, nor would her arms. Not that it would do her much good. Mephisto's fingers were immeasurably strong. Resisting would have been like trying to push a mountain.

Mephisto marched Kyoko back up to the front of the rows of pews like a scolding mother leading an insolent child. As they got closer, Kyoko tried to look away from Papa's rotting face, but Mephisto was now in full control, forcing her to focus on those ashen grey cheeks, on those slack lips, on those glassy, yellowing eyes as they drew nearer and nearer.

Sitting her back down into the pew, Mephisto plopped down on the other end of the pew, leaning against the arm rest with her feet propped up on the velvet seat.

And then the sermon began. Though Papa's corpse didn't move, she heard his voice speak just the same.

"Brothers and sisters," he said. "Today the Lord has put it in my heart to speak to you about the dangers of loss."

Kyoko swallowed. Her trembling hand tightened on the pew's armrest.

"Loss. We all experience it. Having something or someone important to us taken away, either by chance or intent. To have a piece of our soul torn out, leaving a gaping hole that can never be filled, that festers like a wound that we pick at, scratch at, leaving it unable to heal.

"Loss affects us all; it is a natural part of life. And it is how we respond to loss, how we deal with loss that that defines us as people, as children of God. We can learn and grow from the experience, to find the strength to move on and become stronger for it, or we can arrest ourselves, stunt our own development by refusing a painful but necessary aspect of the human experience.

"Worse then is when we ourselves are to blame for our loss, when it's our own decisions, our own actions, that cost us what we hold dear. When that happens, our guilt, our regret, our shame motivates us to refuse to move on, to hold onto that which we have left while fighting against the will of God to regain that which we threw away, no matter how damaging the fight may be.

"Take my own daughter, for instance! She's here with us today. Hello, baby girl. And she serves as an excellent demonstration of what the Lord laid upon me to share today. After all, it was her selfishness that led her to consort with unholy powers, thinking that she was doing it for my sake but truthfully was only serving her own desires, which drove me to madness and cost my daughter the life of her sister, the life of her mother, and my life as well. We could have survived, even after my congregation had abandoned us. All radical changes for good take time and are met with resistance at the beginning, and the Lord rewards those who are diligent in the face of adversity. But instead of waiting upon God's timing, she sought to accelerate the process through unnatural means, stealing the hearts and minds of innocents, bending them to her will. Is it any wonder, then, that I broke, when faced with the depths of her perversion? Is it any wonder that I turned to extreme methods to deliver my family from her grasp?

"But it did not end there. Because it was her inability to cope with the loss, to learn and grow from it, to turn away from her evil deeds that led her down a path of belligerence and misanthropy that also cost Kyoko her only real friendship. She turned on her mentor, her best friend, attacking her out of misplaced anger and driving her away. And here is something to consider: if she had not, like Judas before her, betrayed the one closest to her even after her downfall, perhaps Mami Tomoe would have had someone standing by her side upon confronting the witch Charlotte. Perhaps she would have had someone backing her up, someone who could have saved her. Perhaps Kyoko's selfishness killed her best friend just as much it had her mother, as it did her sister, as it did me.

"But even then it didn't stop there! My daughter allowed the pain of that loss to harden her heart, delve deeper into selfishness, into callousness, into outright sociopathic behavior, to the point where she was willing to let innocent people get preyed upon by witches, just so she could gain, and she looked down on anyone who dared to have compassion for others, to the point that when she heard of the death of Mami Tomoe, her onetime best friend, her only response was to move in on her territory and take it for her own! Can you imagine how corrupt someone would have to be in order to behave like that?

"And what did she find upon arrival? Someone who was doing what she ought to have been doing, someone who was trying to stand up for what was right, to defend the defenseless, to help the helpless, to be a hero! And what did my daughter do? Mock her, demean her, strike her down, to call her weak for having compassion, to berate her for having a conscience, and then to try to kill her, an innocent young girl who had done her no wrong, just for refusing to not be a monster! And she would not stop! She stalked this girl, harassed her, told her to hurt her own loved ones for selfish gain, out of a cruel desire to break this girl mentally and spiritually before murdering her in cold blood.

"But it wasn't all bad. My daughter, my sweet girl, did receive a wake-up call. She was shocked out of her misanthropy, maybe not enough to cause her to regret all the evil she had wrought, but enough for her to stop abusing the poor girl and start reaching out to her instead, to stop seeking to break her down and instead try to save her from herself.

"But it was too late. Too much damage was done, and she had only taught the girl to actively resist and rebuff her, which only pushed her further and further into her own destruction, just another victim of my daughter's selfishness.

"Oh, Kyoko still tried to save her, still tried to bring her back, but when she saw that it was impossible, she once again chose the path of selfishness. Instead of putting the girl out of her misery and opting to live as a better person, to try to do enough good to make up for all the harm she had wrought, she chose the coward's way out, to end her life as well so that she would not have to live with the consequences of her decisions.

"But karma had a funny way of catching up to you, doesn't it, my brothers and sisters? My daughter was unable to escape the fallout of her decisions, not even in death. And now she had been forced to confront what a miserable, toxic person she had become and actually work to better herself. Imagine that. Having to actually work for redemption. And now, she cannot even take the path of the martyr to escape.

"However, despite having confronted what a terrible person she had become, despite supposedly having accepted responsibility for her actions, my daughter still takes the path of selfishness! She has singled in on the massive losses she has suffered as the root cause for her fall and seeks to make up for it by trying to regain those whom she had lost! Her family. Her friends. And the girl she loves.

"But in doing so, she only wreaks more harm. She thought that she had reconciled with her friend and mentor, only to steal her home away from her! She thought that she had reunited with the girl she loves, only to drive her further and further away out of a refusal to accept her as she is. And now she recklessly endangers the lives and well-being of everyone she encounters out of a selfish drive to save her little sister, while knowing full well that she has little chance to succeed! If anything, she ought to be thanking the Incubators for delivering her out of God's hands, because otherwise she would have been bound for damnation, sliding into Hell along a path of her good intentions and perverted desires-"

"ENOUGH!" Kyoko screamed. She finally wrested her body out of the pew and hurled her spear right at Papa's corpse. It struck him through the heart and drove him back, smashing him through the cross and shattering the large stained-glass window.

The rope was carried along with him, but when it swung back inside, its tip was severed, the body gone.

Kyoko stood panting, limbs shaking, arm and shoulder still extended forward from having thrown the spear. Sweat dripped down her face and stung her eyes, and yet she still didn't blink. She couldn't seem able to.

"Wow, anger management much?"

Kyoko whirled around. Mephisto was still there, slouching across the pew. "Is that how you always react when daddy tells you off? Jesus, it's a wonder he even got around to offing himself-"

"SHUT UP!" Kyoko again threw herself at her tormentor, this time abandoning all weapons and pretenses of technique to simply claw at Mephisto's throat with her fingers.

Then the room simply up and turned itself around, rotating like a space shuttle, gravity reversing itself. Kyoko clawed at nothing as the pews moved out of reach, and she found herself falling again, this time heading for the slanted ceiling of the church.

By then, Kyoko had recovered enough of her wits to regain control of her fall, and managed to roll over her shoulders to come back onto her feet at the crux of the ceiling. Yanking another spear out of the air, she looked up at what used to be the ground, now the new ceiling.

Mephisto was still lounging across the pew, now upside-down. "Come on, Sakura. You were the one figuring things out and staying on the game. Now you get faced with one nasty truth bomb and you get all triggered."

Kyoko felt boiling hot rage mixed with poisonous fear swim through her. She wanted nothing more than to rip Mephisto apart with any and every tool available, but also was all too aware just how in over her head she was. Mephisto had been fucking with her since the beginning. Any progress on her part had been because Mephisto had allowed it.

She's only in control so long as you play her game, whispered her rational side. Come on, you're good at adapting. So adapt!

Kyoko breathed out, exhaling all the frantic energy that was causing her to react recklessly. Right. Time to start playing some mind games of her own.

"You know, I gotta say, I am disappointed," she said.

"Oh yeah?" Mephisto sounded amused. "And why's that?"

"Well, a big, powerful being like you, spending so much time and energy to pick on a bunch of lost losers like us. Seems like it's kind of-"

Mephisto sighed and held up a hand. "'Kay, gonna cut you off right there. Look, Sakura. You're not the first group of dumb bitches to wander into my trap. You're not even the hundredth. And they all think that they can go and get one over on me. So whatever big, breaking speech meant to strike at my ego you've got saved up, don't waste your breath. I've heard them all before, over and over again. So why should it help you, when it couldn't help them?"

She inhaled deeply through her nose, and then blew out yet another silver bubble. Except this one didn't pop. It just kept growing and growing and growing, much like the one that had sucked them up earlier.

But unlike that one, this bubble also didn't turned out to be a massive hole in reality. Instead, it was just a really, really big bubble, one that quickly filled the sanctuary. Kyoko back up a few steps, and then stood her ground, ready to pop it once it got too close.

And then she saw them.

The glittering surface of the bubble was moving. No, it was writhing, surging with hundreds of shapes…no, they were faces, screaming faces pressing up against the bubble's surface. Kyoko saw humans, she saw jotts, she saw calliopes, she saw vaskergoros, she saw vekoo, and she saw several other types of beings that she hadn't even learned of yet, all of them trapped within a huge wad of gum, all of them trying desperately to get out.

And then the bubble popped, and the gum sucked back into Mephisto's mouth.

"You see that?" she said. "That's you, in about, oh, I'd say fifteen minutes or so."

Suddenly she struck, leaping from the pew too fast for the eye to track. She slammed into Kyoko, taking her right off her feet and skipping her like a stone across the center of the roof.

Kyoko cried out in pain as her back absorbed most of the impact. She shook her head and found herself lying flat, Mephisto straddling her hips, holding onto Kyoko's throat with one hand.

"Yeah, so, you're kinda fucked," Mephisto said, somehow managing to sound nonchalant and totally bloodthirsty at the same time. "But hey, you've had a rough time, so I'm willing to give you a little-"

Kyoko tightened her grip onto her spear and drove it up, right into Mephisto's side. It went in, piercing clothing, flesh, and…

Stopped.

Kyoko's spear simply stopped dead, the blade partially sunken into Mephisto's body. And her opponent didn't even seem distressed. "Yeah, okay," Mephisto sighed.

Suddenly the spear was yanked out of Kyoko's grasp, being literally sucked into Mephisto's body. It disappeared, vanishing completely while the gash in her shirt closed itself up.

"Okay, so, what part of 'I'm pretty much God here, so you can't do shit' did you not figure out?" Mephisto said as she casually examined the fingernails on the hand not still wrapped around Kyoko's neck. "But anyway, like I was saying, you're pretty much fucked. I'm gonna eat you, like I ate everyone else. But it doesn't have to suck."

Kyoko was more than a little incredulous about that. She already had parts of her eaten, and everything about it had sucked.

Then Mephisto flicked her wrist, and a roll of paper was suddenly in her hand. On it were several lines of text, and at the bottom were two lines. One of them had the name Mephisto signed in jagged lines with rainbow ink, while the other was blank.

Kyoko made a choking sound for reasons unrelated to the hand holding her by the neck. A contract? Mephisto expected her to sign a contract?

"Yeah, that's right," Mephisto grinned. "A contract. Same thing that got you into this mess. Sucks, don't it?"

She then held the contract closer to Kyoko's face. "Except this contract is your only chance of not suffering in agony for the rest of your existence. Sign here, and I send you back into a dream. You'll be back home with your family, all alive and not crazy. Your dad will be happily preaching to his dumbass congregation without your magic fouling things up, your mom and sis will there with you, and nobody'll even know what an Incubator or a Puella Magi even is. Hell, I'll even throw in your other friends, give them happy lives too. So yeah, you can get everyone you lost back, and it won't cost you a thing."

Kyoko gawked at her. Did she understand what she was offering? How could she even begin to expect Kyoko to fall for something like that? "Not real," Kyoko rasped. "It won't…"

"So?" Mephisto said. "You'll still be real, and Sayaka? She'll be real. Same one you know now, put back in her life. So will Mami. Hell, you can even go find Nozomi. And none of you will ever know that it's a dream. You'll grow up, grow old, have a normal life you always wanted, and when you finally kick it, it'll just be when I digest the last drop, and you will never know the difference." She leaned in closer, so that her lips were practically brushing Kyoko's ear. "You'll be with Sayaka, the real one. And I'll even pair that violin fucker off with the green bimbo early so they won't be in the way. Also, FYI? The blueberry's always been bisexual. She just hadn't figured it out yet."

Kyoko inhaled sharply.

Then the fingers holding onto the contract tightened, wrinkling the paper. "Or you can refuse, and get eaten anyway. Only this way, it'll take literal centuries from your perspective, and every second of it will be burning agony. So, you know, welcome to Hell and all that."

Kyoko didn't answer. She couldn't. What could she say, after being told all that?

"So, what's it going to be, church mouse? All I'm really offering you is some painkillers. Yes or no?"

…

When Mephisto snapped her fingers, Sayaka felt the world open up beneath her and she fell, once again swallowed up by nothing, once again tumbling alone through the dark.

Screw that!

Bunching up her legs, Sayaka formed a glowing circle beneath her heels to arrest her fall and give her something to leap off of. She was heading back up one way or another!

Unfortunately the circle only lasted for about half-a-second before fizzing out, dropping her again.

Now panicked, Sayaka tried again and again to create one of her rebound circles, but each time they were snuffed out immediately, and she just ended up making her descent more erratic.

"Help!" she called. "Anyone! Someone, please catch me!"

But nobody came.

The ground rose up so quickly that Sayaka barely had any time to register that there even was a ground before she hit it. Her landing…was a lot less jarring than she would have expected, but it still knocked her senseless, and she lay in a scattered heap as her world kept spinning.

Then someone stepped on her hand.

Sayaka yanked her hand back. "Ow!" Moments later someone stepped onto her ankle. "Hey, watch where you're going!"

Nobody paid her any heed. Looking up, Sayaka saw several bodies moving around her, walking right past her fallen self without so much as acknowledging the girl crumpled up on the floor.

Though her head was still whirling, Sayaka managed to pull herself to her feet. She stumbled, and fell back against the wall.

The glass wall.

Sayaka immediately straightened up. It was a Mitakihara classroom wall. Through it, she could see students wearing Mitakihara uniforms filing in, their desks rising up from the floor.

She looked around. She was standing in the familiar hall between classes. More students walked past her, all wearing Mitakihara uniforms. She knew many of their faces, and even a fair number of their names.

Then Sayaka looked down at herself. She was now dressed in the same uniform that all the girls around her were wearing, from the pale gold blouse to the black plaid skirt to the white stocking to the large red bow tied at the throat, the same uniform that she wore so often herself.

A lump started to form in Sayaka's throat. This was it. This wasn't some cracked-out nightmare reflection of her school; this was the real thing. She was home.

A bell rang, signaling for everyone to hurry up and get to class. And Sayaka, who had responded to that same bell so many times in the past, reflexively turned in the direction of her homeroom class.

"Ah! Good morning!"

Sayaka froze. That voice. It couldn't be…

She turned.

Madoka was there, running toward her, pink pigtails bobbing, arm in the air and waving happily.

Madoka, Sayaka's closest friend since childhood. Madoka, who had stood by her side through every calamity. Madoka, who had been there when they had first been attacked by a witch, when they had witnessed Mami's death, when Sayaka had been first attacked by Kyoko Sakura, when they had all learned the truth about soul gems, and for nearly every witch fight after. Madoka, who had never given up on her, even when Sayaka had broken her heart. Madoka, whose last words from Sayaka, her best friend, had been insults and spite.

Madoka, whom Sayaka did not deserve.

Sayaka cringed back in shame, but stopped herself. No. She was not going to run away from this. Wrong had been done, and now she was responsible for making it right. So instead she braced herself and stepped forward, one hand stretching out.

Grinning happily, Madoka ran toward her…and went right past, paying Sayaka and her reaching hand no heed.

Stunned, Sayaka watched as Madoka continued on before foisting a pouncing embrace upon another girl, one with long dark hair and a reserved, almost regal manner.

Homura. Homura Akemi.

As Sayaka watched, Homura smiled as Madoka squeezed her tight, and then the two girls joined hands and walked together to class.

She didn't even see me. It was like I wasn't even there.

Trembling, Sayaka followed the pair as they entered Ms. Saotome's home room class. Through the glass wall, she watched as they walked toward their assigned seats, heedless of the specter watching them.

Then Sayaka caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and her heart leapt into her throat. They were there, walking hand-in-hand right past her. Hitomi Shizuki and Kyousuke Kamijo, for whom Sayaka had sacrificed both her soul and her life.

"Kyousuke!" Sayaka blurted out, and then immediately regretted it. What would she say to them? What could she say? "I…uh…"

The two walked right past, just as Madoka had.

"Wait!" she cried as she ran after them. "Kyousuke! Hitomi! Please, I just-"

They entered the classroom, and the door closed behind them.

As the devasted Sayaka watched, Madoka run up to the couple and said something. Hitomi said something in return, and they both laughed.

"Why?" Sayaka said as she laid a hand against the glass. "Why don't you see me?"

They took their seats, and that was when Sayaka saw that Homura Akemi wasn't sitting in what was supposed to be her seat. Rather, she was sitting in Sayaka's seat, right next to Madoka.

Then the bell rang, signaling the start of class.

Sayaka's vision blurred. She turned and ran. Nobody stopped her in the hallway, none of the monitors demanding to know what she was doing out of class. It was like they couldn't see her at all.

Sayaka burst through the front doors into the open daylight, but she didn't stop. Instead, she kept right on running down the front stairs, around the school building, and into the back alley behind the school.

Once there, she leaned against the wall and sighed. Come on, Sayaka. Get a grip. This is a dream, remember? Mefisty or whatever is just messing with you. It's not real.

Even so, it hurt just the same. Because if what she had been told was true, if she really was dead, then that exact scene would still be playing out. Once Madoka had gotten over her grief, Homura Akemi would slide right into the best friend spot that Sayaka had vacated. Hitomi and Kyousuke would go on being the perfect couple, blissfully unaware as to why Sayaka had disappeared from their lives. Sure, they'd be sad, but they'd also probably be relieved if she wasn't there to bring everything down and make it awkward.

Wiping her eyes, Sayaka straightened up with a sigh.

Then something in a nearby dumpster caught her eyes.

Frowning, she reached into the pile of trash and pulled it out. It was a framed photograph with a cracked glass. The picture, now dirty and smudged, was of her own face.

Her memorial picture, to be placed on her empty desk once it had been decided that she was dead. A nice little tribute to the dearly departed.

Except the grieving period had come and gone, and everyone had moved on. And now Sayaka was forgotten, her memorial thrown out, no longer needed.

As fresh tears dripped onto the cracked glass, Sayaka heard snickering.

She looked up. The punk girl, Mephisto, was there, leaning against the wall with one foot braced against the bricks and her arms folded over her chest.

"Mefisty?" she said. "Really?"

Sayaka straightened up. "You can read my thoughts?" she said.

"Dead girl, I know everything about you. Everything you've ever thought, everything you've ever known, all right here." She tapped a finger against her temple. "Aw hell, seeing how you don't exist anywhere else anymore, I'm probably the last proof of your existence that there is."

Dropping the picture, Sayaka summoned her sword. As she did so, she noted that her school uniform was gone, replaced by her white-and-blue Puella Magi outfit. The cape billowed behind her as she clutched the hilt with both hands. "That's not true," she said. "My friend know who I am!"

Mephisto blew a bubble, popped it, and smirked. "What friends?"

"Oh, what are you talking about? Kyoko! Mami! Even Charzomi! They know me!"

"Mami barely ever knew you, and she can't look at you without getting all depressed," Mephisto retorted. "Charlotte never knew you, and neither did Nozomi. And as for Kyoko, well, I don't seem to recall you ever becoming friends."

"What? But she said-"

Mephisto straightened up and rapped the wall over her shoulder with her knuckles. A door that hadn't been there a moment ago opened up.

"C'mon," Mephisto said as she pushed the door open and stepped inside. "I wanna show you something."

Sayaka hesitated. It was clearly a trap. If she went through the door, then she'd probably just find herself over a bottomless pit or something.

But then, would staying protect her? Mephisto could just open up a pit right under her feet.

Sayaka reluctantly followed her through the door.

The door took her to another place entirely. It was a small forest, the sort that parents didn't worry about their children getting lost in, the sort that didn't have anything more dangerous living in it than cranky racoons. It was nighttime, with a dark sky filled with clouds and the moonlight seeping through.

Sayaka shivered and wrapped her cape tightly around herself. It was cold, and her uniform didn't provide much coverage.

"Over here," Mephisto said as she continued walking forward, her hands in her denim jacket's pockets.

Sayaka followed. Up ahead there was a light and the sound of voices, as well as the music of what sounded like a harmonica.

Mephisto led Sayaka to the edge of a small clearing. In the middle was a crackling campfire, and four girls were seated around it.

The first was Mami. Still a far cry from the perfectly made up elegant upperclassman Sayaka had known, she was wearing a shapeless sweater, worn jeans, and hiking boots. Her golden hair, once immaculately groomed and done up into a pair of elaborate drill-tails, now didn't seem to have seen shampoo or a comb in some time and hung loosely around her shoulders. Her cheeks were thinner, and her eyes a bit sunken, like she had been traveling a hard and draining road for some time, which she probably had been. Still, she was smiling, and seemed to be happy to be in the company of the others.

Leaning up against her was Charlotte: just Charlotte, with the marble-white skin, blue eyes, and black polka-dotted tail, and no constantly phasing into her human self. She was wearing a worn goose-down jacket, grey sweatpants, and sneakers, and was cuddled up under Mami's arms with a metal thermos of something steaming cupped in her hands.

Sitting across from the pair was Kyoko, the Kyoko, no fire, no robe, not even her Puella Magi uniform. Just Kyoko. She was the most like how Sayaka remembered her, down to the natty green jacket and shorts, despite the cold weather. Despite this, even she looked like she had been through a lot. The material of one of her jacket's sleeves wasn't the same shade of green as the rest, as if the original had been torn off and a new one sewn on, and her hair, once long enough to touch her butt, now only just passed her shoulders, and if anything, her face was even more harried than Mami's was. But even she was smiling. Around her neck was that necklace Sayaka had returned to her, the one with the red stone and black arrowhead.

And sitting next to Kyoko was Sayaka herself.

Except…it wasn't Sayaka. The general shape of the body was the same, even if Sayaka didn't recognize the grey hoodie she was wearing, and the face and hair were the same, albeit as road-worn as the others and in need of a good washing. But other than that, it was definitely her.

From the waist up, anyway.

Sticking out of the bottom of the hoodie was not Sayaka's legs, but a large fish tail with scales in the colors of both the sea and flame, and yet it was stretched out over the ground like it was perfectly normal.

The other Sayaka was the one responsible for the harmonica music. She had one in her hands, and her eyes were closed as she played a jaunty melody that sounded like it was actually improvised, but was still pretty darn catchy. The other three girls were nodding their heads along to the tune, all of them openly appreciating the music.

And Kyoko…

Kyoko and the other Sayaka were both leaning against the same rock, with Kyoko's arm thrown back over it and her upper body turned toward Sayaka's other self. There was something odd about the way Kyoko was looking at the other Sayaka, an appreciation and admiration that Sayaka had never seen from her. Granted, Sayaka and Kyoko's relationship had always been some form of antagonistic or another, but Sayaka couldn't recall even her closest friends looking at her like that, not even Madoka. In fact, it was kind of similar to the way she had always looked at Kyous-

Sayaka stiffened. Oh crap, she had been right. Kyoko was in love with her. Somehow, somewhere down the line, Kyoko had fallen in love with the other Sayaka.

The song ended, and everyone clapped in appreciation, even Kyoko. Then Charlotte said something that got them all laughing. And when they settled back down, both Kyoko and the other Sayaka were leaning in to one another, their hands almost touching.

What was more, Sayaka caught a faint blush on the other Sayaka's cheeks as she glanced at Kyoko out of the corner of her eye.

So it's true, Sayaka thought numbly. I really did fall in love with her, or at least my other self did. Me. In love. With KYOKO SAKURA!

And then a pair of hands gently laid themselves onto her shoulders.

"See?" Mephisto said close to her ear. "They never were friends with you; they were friends with her. You failed. Everything you tried to be, you failed. You tried to be the warrior, the protector, but you failed. You became a monster, and in that you failed. People tried to save you, the damsel in distress, and you failed at that too. You drove off everyone that ever cared about you and you failed, and then you died. And so another version of you took your place, a better one, one that people actually like to be around. But you? You're just a bad memory."

The touch made Sayaka's entire body squirm. "No, I'm not!" she cried, wrenching herself away. "Kyoko was happy to see me, remember? When she realized that it was really me?"

Mephisto shrugged. "Eh, you dying made her feel bad, wonder why. So she figures that with you back, she can make things right or whatever. But make no mistake, it's not you that she fell in love with, it's her, the version of you that reached out to her when all you ever did was push her away." Her eyes smoldered. "Just as that other, better Sayaka fell in love with Kyoko."

Sayaka clutched at her chest. "Is that why I've been having these weird feelings? Is why I'm suddenly so attracted to her?"

"Exactly. Two people, one soul, you have to expect some bleedover. But make no mistake: she's the one doing all the work, fixing your mess."

The punk-rock dream demon pointed a black fingernail at the merry campfire. "I didn't make this, by the way. This is an actual memory, from a couple of days ago. See how happy they are together, even though they have to sleep in a forest and got shit food and a fuckton of enemies? See how happy they are to be with her? Can you think of anyone that actually liked being around you in your last few days? Because I've sifted through both of your memories, and I just see a surly, miserable bitch that turned away everyone!"

And then the scene simply changed. There was no transition, Sayaka didn't fall through anything this time. One second they were in the forest watching a group of friends talk around a campfire, the next they were in Mitakihara, standing beneath the meager protection of a bus stop while rain poured down from above.

Sayaka flinched at the sudden change, but couldn't really react much more than that, because her attention was immediately drawn to the two other girls in the bus stop with them.

The first was Madoka, and the other was herself.

It was really her this time, legs and all, and what was more, it was an incident that she remembered all too well, the last time she had ever seen her best friend Madoka Kaname.

"No," Sayaka said, recoiling. "I don't want to see this."

Mephisto blew another bubble. "Don't recall asking," she said after it popped.

Madoka was sitting on the bench, head bowed in misery, while the other Sayaka anxiously prowled around like a caged animal.

"I just wish I knew how to make you happy again," Madoka said, her voice choked with tears.

The other Sayaka stopped her restless pacing, and looked down at her friend in scorn. "Then fight," she said.

Sayaka winced. There was so much spite in her voice, so much scorn, all direction at the person that deserved it the least.

Sure enough, Madoka reacted like she had been slapped, her head jerking back as she let out a small gasp.

But the other Sayaka wasn't done. "I mean, it's like Kyubey said: you have more natural talent than anyone else. You can take out witches just like that, without having to suffer like I do, right?"

"Shut up, you idiot!" Sayaka yelled at her past self. "You don't know what you're talking about!" But her warning went unheeded.

"That's…I don't…" Madoka stammered.

The other Sayaka turned away. "How can you claim to want to help me if you can't even walk in my shoes? You can try, but you won't. Your pity for me isn't enough to get you to give up your humanity."

"Damn, girl," Mephisto remarked. "And people say I'm harsh."

"It's not pity!" Madoka cried. "It's-"

The other Sayaka didn't let her finish. "You have all that potential, all that power, but you just sit there, letting me go through this all alone. So don't act like you know what I'm going through, if you won't even go through it yourself."

Her shoulders shaking, Sayaka covered her face with both hands. How could she have been so cruel? Madoka had stood by her side through thick and thin, and this was how she had repaid her?

The other Sayaka walked out of the shelter of the bus stop, entering the pouring rain. "Sayaka!" Madoka cried after her.

The other Sayaka paused just long enough to glance over her shoulder and say, "Don't follow me," before running off into the night, leaving her weeping friend all alone.

"No," Sayaka whispered. "No! Madoka, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, I-"

She reached out to touch Madoka's shoulder, but right before her palm made contact the world simply melted away, turning into a muddle of color and ill-defined shapes that vanished into darkness, leaving Sayaka alone.

Alone with Mephisto.

"No one abandoned you," Mephisto said. "People tried to reach out to you. People tried to help you. But you drove them off."

She then held up the dirty, broken frame that contained Sayaka's memorial photograph. "Did you expect them to hold onto your memory when there was better alternatives available? Say what you will about Homura Akemi, but she never stopped pursuing Madoka, never stopped doing everything she could for her, while you only pushed her away. And did you really think that Hitomi and Kyousuke would put their own happiness on hold forever, just because you were too much of a coward to make a move? She even gave you first shot, and you still couldn't do anything, and blamed her for it anyway! And you better believe that Mami and Kyoko were so relieved with the new and improved Sayaka, with Oktavia von Seckendorff, who was friendly and pleasant and loyal, who fought by their sides and didn't wallow in self-pity and loathing, one that didn't-"

"SHUT UP!" Sayaka screamed as she slashed through Mephisto with her sword.

But Mephisto was gone, like she had never been there.

But the picture was still there, and Sayaka's sword cleaved right through it.

The frame burst into shards, while the two slices of the photograph drifted down, coming to rest at Sayaka's feet. She stared down at the two halves of her own face, now irreparably separated.

And then Mephisto was once again there. She knelt down and picture up the two halves to hold them up for Sayaka two see.

"Two Sayaka Mikis," she said. "One healthy, happy, friendly, and beloved, mainly because she forgot ever being the other." A flick of her wrist, and one of the photograph halves was suddenly whole, and not just showing Sayaka's entire face, but her entire self, only it was the Sayaka with the fish tail."

Then Mephisto turned her attention to the other half. "And the other a miserable wreck, one who cloaks herself in bravado and false confidence to hide how much she detests herself, a neurological mess that ends every friendship she ever had with her toxic behavior, that makes herself wholly unlovable and, ultimately, forgotten." She tossed that half into the air, where it promptly burst into flames and reduced to ash.

"Nobody likes you," she continued. "Nobody wants you. They've all found better people to take your place or better versions of you instead. You were better off when you didn't exist."

Tears were streaming down Sayaka's face. Part of her screamed that Mephisto was lying, that she was just saying whatever hateful thing she could to get into Sayaka's head.

But where was the lie? What part of what she was saying was untrue?

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered hoarsely.

"Um, because it's easy?" Mephisto said with a derisive snort. "Because it's true? What, you want me to make fun of your hair and call you fat? Nah, that's dumb. I'd rather just hit you with what you already know to be true."

"But why do this at all?" Sayaka cried. "You said that you want to eat us, right? Why not just do that?"

Mephisto grinned, showing Skittle-teeth. "Ah, now we get to the good part." She flicked the full-length photograph of the mermaid Sayaka, and the picture was suddenly replaced by lines and lines of text, ending with two lines, one of which was taken up with Mephisto's signature, done in rainbow ink.

"Everything sucks, and nobody that remembers you even likes you, right?" she said. "So, why not change all that?"

She offered the contract to Sayaka. "Let's face it: I'm gonna eat you anyway. That's just something that'll happen. So why not make the experience pleasant? I can put you and all your so-called friends into a new dream, a happy dream, one where you'll be back in your old life, no witches, no magical girls, no Kyubey, with whatever alterations you want. I'll change your perception of time, so you'll live a full and complete life, whatever life you want, and you will never know what's really happening. And when I take the last bite is when you pass away at age ninety or whatever, comfortably in your bed surrounded by all your loved ones, and you will never so much as realize that none of it was real."

Sayaka recoiled in horror. "No!" she cried. "I'd never agree to something like that!"

"Heh," Mephisto shook her head. "You sure? Because I'm eating you up regardless. I'm just offering you some painkillers. Say no, and I'll still screw with how you perceive time, making it take as long and be as painful as I want. And trust me: I can be a mean bitch."

Sayaka's jaw dropped.

"So, what'll it be, dead girl? Suffer for your sins, spending every eternal second regretting that you didn't say yes, or have the happy life you always wanted, never knowing that it was just a dream? Because I'll tell you right now: you don't want to be left out. I'm making this exact same offer to all your new buddies, and they've been to Hell and back, and might be inclined to listen."

…

It was a very odd transition, going from having their very identities get shuffled around for Mephisto's amusement to being shuttered off to the next stage of her game. Mami was standing with her friends, looking up at Mephisto in horror, wondering what new terrors she had in store for them. And the next the world simply shifted so quickly that Mami lost her balance.

Mami sat up. She was in a prison cell of some kind, a featureless grey square with a metal cot attached to one wall and a steel sink and a small toilet on the other. One wall was open, but sealed with crisscrossing steel bars, and beyond was a grey hallway with even more cells.

Then she turned her attention to herself. She was wearing a shapeless grey shirt and loose grey pants. Her hair was tied back in a plain ponytail.

That's right, Mami thought. I'm a prisoner. I committed a crime. I deserve to be here.

She gathered herself up from the floor and sat down on the cot. What else could she do with her tie except sit and reflect on her many poor life choices?

Unfortunately, she wasn't left to reflect in peace.

"Get up, prisoner."

Mami looked up. There, standing on the other side of the bars, were four brown-clad marshals, the kind she would see all the time back in Freehaven. They looked in at her with grim faces.

"M-Me?" she stammered.

"You see any other prisoners in there with you? Get up."

Mami obeyed, standing to her feet.

"Face the bed. Lean forward and place your hands up against the wall.

What did they want from her? Where were they taking her? Regardless, Mami did as she was told.

One of the marshals unlocked the cell with a large, iron key, the gears of the lock clacking loudly. The other three entered the cell.

Then one of the marshals roughly grabbed Mami's arms and twisted them around behind her back. She winced at the roughness of it all. Then two cold steel manacles snapped into place around her wrists.

"Okay, come on. No funny business."

With one marshal walking behind her and holding her by the elbow, the marshals escorted Mami out of her cell and into the prison beyond. As they walked, Mami glanced into the other cells that they passed. Some were empty, while others held other inmates, other girls wearing the same uniform as her. Some looked mostly whole, save for the despair in their faces.

Others though, there was something very wrong with them. One girl in particular did not have a face.

"Eyes forward," the marshal behind her snapped. Mami hastily obeyed.

They reached the end of the hall, where there was a large door of black steel. The marshal with the keys unlocked it, and Mami was taken through.

The space beyond was enormous, or at least as far as she could see. A single light shone down on an array of furnishings and people, but beyond them there was nothing: no walls, no ceiling, just an endless field of black. For all she knew the floor just stretched on for eternity.

Within the spotlight was a demented courtroom. Upon a raised dais covered with a golden carpet was an elegant yellow velvet chair. In front of it towered the judge's podium, so enormously huge that it nearly rose up beyond the field of light, its top stopping just short of disappearing. Off to one side were two rows of large, smoking holes in the floor, each one ringed with steel, with a steel pole extending down from above into each one. Curving around the judge's podium were two rounded sets of bleachers, in which sat the jury, all of them clad in white denim robes with white denim hoods, all of them wearing featureless masks, each mask a different color, arranged so that the full color spectrum swept from one end of the bleachers to the other.

Mami swallowed. The time had come for her trial. She was going to be judged for her sins, and she had a feeling that the proceedings weren't going to be very fair.

Whatever. It was no less than she deserved.

Her escorts marched her up the dais and sat her in the chair. One undid the manacles around her wrists and removed them before the whole squad simply left. She held her hands close to her chest as she looked around at all the masked faces staring at her.

Suddenly the whole jury started clapping, applauding, and yet made no vocalization, just the whole group of them clapping their palms together in a slightly disjointed manner that produced an unnerving buzzing sound that came so unexpectedly that Mami couldn't help but wince.

Atop the podium the judge appeared to glower balefully down at her, and to Mami's completely dismay and total lack of surprise it turned out to be Mephisto, clad in a black denim robe, a rainbow Victorian wig on her head. She was holding a gavel in her hands and banged it once, silencing the jury.

"A'ight, so let's get this over with," Mephisto said, sounding utterly bored. "Mami Tomoe, sometimes Candeloro and all that jazz, in this little spiritual refugee camp that we call home, you stand accused of some of like the just the worst shit imaginable: ruining people's lives and getting them stuck here."

"What?" Mami whispered.

Mephisto rolled her eyes. "Dumb bitch. I mean all those girls you recruited for the Incubators! The ones that would've probably had happy, normal lives if you didn't get them all worked up about contracts and wishes. The ones who either got popped off in a year or two or got turned into witches. Your dumb bitch ass is, like, the reason they got caught up in all of this. What's, like, your plea?"

Before Mami could respond, the exact same voice said from next to her chair, "Oh, she totally did that shit."

Shocked, Mami looked down to find a second Mephisto slouching on the dais's steps, this one wearing a suit made from denim with a briefcase covered with band labels and slogans. She didn't seem to be paying much attention to the proceedings.

The judge Mephisto banged her gavel again. "A'ight, so, let's go through the specific cases. Bring up the first plaintiff!"

Steam hissed out of one of the holes in the ground, and its pole started to rise up. Mami felt her chest tighten when she say that strapped to the pole by steel restraints was Sayaka Miki, wearing a Mitakihara school uniform.

Sayaka looked around at the room and said, "My name is Sayaka Miki, and Mami Tomoe saved my life. My friend Madoka and I were attacked by a witch, and she saved us. But she should have left it at that. She should have let us thank her and left us alone. Instead, she kept us around, took us under her wing, let us go with her while she hunted witches, all in hopes of convincing us to make a contract. As a result, my friend and I were horribly traumatized when her own grandstanding got her killed right in front of us. I was compelled to trade away my own soul to take her place, and from that moment I was doomed. First I lost my soul, then I lost my self-worth, then I lost my sanity, then I lost my humanity, and then I lost my life. I became a witch, erasing my own existence and turning what was left into a monster that had to be put down. If she had just left me alone, I would be alive today."

Her speech done, the pole sank back down, lowering Sayaka into the steam-filled hole.

"That's one," said the judge Mephisto. "Does the defendant have anything to say in her defense?"

Mami wanted to object, to point out that she didn't know, that she had never known better, but found her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. At her side, the lawyer Mephisto just said, "Nah."

"Fine. Bring up the next!"

Steam puffed up out of the next hole, and its pole rose up. Mami felt her gorge rise when she saw that it was Madoka Kaname, someone she had not seen in years but had never forgotten.

Madoka took a deep, shuddering breath and said, "My name is Madoka Kaname, and I'm the friend Sayaka told you about. Yes, Mami saved our lives, but what good did it do? She pushed for me to make a contract, because she was sad and lonely and knew that no one would ever look up to her if they knew what she was really like. She wanted me to throw my wish away on something dumb just because of her selfish need for validation, and that's what killed her. She made me watch her death, and then I had to watch my best friend fall to pieces trying to replace her, until she too was killed, and now I'm all alone, so who knows what I'll do next? My life was ruined because of Mami, and I'll never forgive her."

The pole lowered into the steam, taking Madoka away.

"That's two," remarked the judge Mephisto. "Anything to say, defendant?"

"Nope," said the lawyer Mephisto.

"Alrighty then. Next!"

The third pole came up, and this one held Kyoko Sakura, natty green jacket and all. And she was singing.

"Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones," she sang, head swaying back in forth in time to the tune. "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones. "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones! So hear the word of the Lord!"

The judge Mephisto banged her gavel. "This ain't a sing-a-long," she growled. "This is a trial! So get on with it!"

There was a shiny red apple in Kyoko's hands, and, heedless of how she was hanging strapped to a steel pole, she lifted it up and took a bite. "It's all connected, y'know," she said around her mouthful. She swallowed. "Every bit of it. I'm Kyoko Sakura, and sure, Mami Tomoe wasn't the reason I made a contract, she still ruined me anyway. She used to be my mentor, and was the only real friend I ever had, or so I thought. But when I lost my whole family because of my stupid wish, was she there to comfort me? Was she there to hold me and help me out of the darkest time in my life? No! She just kept right on trying to train me, lecturing me about my form and shit, and that pushed me into becoming the asshole I ended up being, and it was that asshole that ended up pushing Sayaka Miki into destroying herself. One kind word, and all of this might not have happened. But she didn't have one for me."

As the pole lowered her back into the steam, Kyoko resumed singing. "Oh, the hip bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the leg bone, the leg bone's connected to the foot bone, so hear the word…"

When Kyoko's singing had faded out, the judge Mephisto said, "Fine, whatever. Does-"

"No," said the lawyer Mephisto.

"Cool. Onto the next one, then!"

This time it was a girl that Mami didn't recognize, one who was around eight years old, with tanned skin; curly brown hair; and a pair of glasses with large, round lenses. She looked solemnly out at the courtroom.

"My name is Janice Goldberg," she said. "And I wasn't a magical girl. Mami Tomoe never met me. But she did meet my sister, Lana, during a trip to Poland. Lana was one of her first apprentices, even before Kyoko. She was the one who suggested to Lana the possibility of making a contract to heal a sport's injury. She trained Lana. She mentored Lana. She took Lana under her wing and taught her everything she needed to know. Except for how some other magical girls are bad, even evil, and might be angry that Lana was hunting in their territory. Which is why she woke up one morning to find my head in a box on her front porch as a warning." She then looked right at Mami. "You were already back in Japan by then. Lana tried to contact you for help, but you didn't know how to deal, so in your guilt you ended up blocking her number and email and tried to forget about it. Which you did."

And she was lowered back down as well, leaving Mami with a sick feeling in her stomach and a vile taste in her mouth."

"That's nice," the judge said. "So-"

"Nada."

"Fine. Next!"

The next girl was another Japanese girl, with hair that was long, dark, and curled at the edges, and bright red eyes. She seemed just a little off, judging by how her head was swaying back and forth as she hummed to herself.

This one Mami recognized.

"Ahem!" The judge coughed loudly.

"Oh, hi!" the girl said pleasantly as she waved to the courtroom. "My name's Michiru Kazusa! And I met Mami, oh gosh, about three years ago? Anyway, she saved my butt from a witch, so that was real nice of her. But it also got me noticed by the Incubators, so after I made a wish she stuck around to show me a thing or two. It was really fun! And after she left, I decided to get some friends together and form an entire Puella Magi team. It was honestly really great! Up until I found out that everything was a lie, turning me into a witch, forcing my friends to kill me, which broke their spirits and drove some of them insane!" She waved again. "Okay, bye now, nice to see you all!"

As Michiru was lowered away, the lawyer Mephisto said, "Don't even ask. She did that one too."

"I figured," said the judge. "Fine. And now we get to the last plaintiff! Come on out!"

Bracing herself for another emotional punch to the gut, Mami stared apprehensively at the fine hole, wondering what horror from her past was going to be pulled up.

None was. Instead, the lawyer Mephisto let out an exaggerated sigh, stood up, and walked down the steps to stand between the dais and the judge's pulpit. She turned then turned to face Mami.

Then she opened her mouth and stuck both hands in, one gripping her top row of teeth and the other the bottom. And she pulled, and she pulled and she pulled, stretching her jaw open wide.

It opened wider and wider, and within the ever-extending black pit of her mouth, a face appeared, sitting in Mephisto's mouth like an apple stuck into the mouth of a roast pig. It was of a young black girl with round cheeks and a smatter of dark freckles around her closed eyes.

Then the eyes blinked open, and they were pale blue.

Mami inhaled sharply. She knew that face.

"My name is Brooke Alexander," the face said. "And my life doesn't really matter. Mami was taking a trip over to America when she came across some witch getting into my head and trying to get me to kill myself. Well, she stopped that from happening, so I guess that's cool. But then she had to go and suggest that I help fight the good fight, that I make a contract and take up arms against the witches. Okay, fair enough, except I was never meant to be a fighter, and got myself killed before she even left America. But fine, it happens, you know? Except that it kind of got me stuck in this crazy afterlife, and I ended up getting caught by Mephisto. And now she's been feeding on my soul for the past eighty-four years."

Then Brooke locked eyes with Mami. "You should've just let me die," she said. "At least I would've been with my Mama! But now I'm dead anyway, getting eaten for the rest of time, and it's all your fault!"

The lawyer closed her mouth, swallowing up Brooke Alexander's visage. The lawyer swallowed, burped politely into her fist, and said, "Yeah, she did that too. No more questions, your honor."

"Good to hear," the judge said with a lethargic shrug. "So, what say the jury?"

All of the mask-wearing jurors lifted their palms and began banging them steadily against their seats, all on cue. "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"

Mami buried her face into her palms. She had no objection. How could she? They were right.

"Guilty then," the judge announced, banging her gavel. "Read to her the conditions then!"

The what? Mami looked up, blinking her teary eyes in confusion.

The courtroom faded away, the jurors and judge all dissolving into the dark, leaving just her and the lawyer.

The lawyer ascended the steps, hands clasped behind her back. "All right, prisoner," she said. "You're fucked. You're totally fucked, and you're not getting out of this. You're getting eaten, you deserve to get eaten, and you know it, don't you?"

A beat passed, and then Mami slowly nodded.

"Good to hear. But there's a way out of it."

What? A way out? Then why go through all the time to declare her guilty if they were just going to let her go?

Then the lawyer retrieved her sticker-covered briefcase and popped it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper and a pen.

Holding up both, the lawyer said, "Oh, you're still going in my belly, but it doesn't have to suck. You can go back to whatever life you want. Back to the Nautilus Platform with Charlotte? Say the word. Back to the world of the living, your parents still alive, with no Kyubey, no witches, but Charlotte and Kyoko and Sayaka still in your life? Go for it. God-Empress of the Universe? You wouldn't be the first to ask for that."

Mami covered her mouth with her hand. "But it wouldn't-"

"Be real, I know," Mephisto said, as if she had heard that objection an endless number of times. "So what? Look, I'm eating you either way. Now I get that you probably feel all guilty and that you ought to get what you deserve, but even the worst of the worst end up regretting turning this opportunity down. Your old buddy Brooke Alexander told me to go fuck myself. You wanna know what she says now? Mostly a lot of, 'Please stop, I'm sorry! I take it back!'" Mephisto let out a low chuckle. "So this is your only chance for a little peace. Oh, and BT-dubs? I'm making this same offer to all of your other friends, and they're really thinking it over. So if you want to join them in their little fantasy world, now is the time. Otherwise, I'll just have to make up a fake Mami to replace you, and they'll going on blissfully living the dream without you, while you suffer and suffer and suffer, every second spent in regret, every second spent hating yourself for saying no."

Mephisto clicked the pen and held it and the contract closer. "Last chance, prisoner. Last chance for a little happiness. Else that fun you had fighting me earlier will be the last bit of joy you'll ever have in your long, miserable existence."

…

The floor opened up beneath Nozomi, and she fell with a scream. She tried to claw her way back up, but there was nothing for her finger to find purchase. She tried to shoot her wires up to grab onto anything, but they wouldn't fire. She tried to summon her staff, but it had disappeared and wasn't coming back.

As she fell, she found herself changing again. Her internal sense of being was shifting, changing, returning to what she was most familiar with, changing her back into Charlotte.

She slapped her hands over her temples and screamed. "STOP IT! STOP CHANGING ME! JUST CHOOSE SOMETHING AND STICK-"

Suddenly she landed, and it was surprisingly soft.

Blinking, Charlotte looked around. She had fallen into what looked to be a pile of toys, most of them fortunately stuffed, some of them not.

What was more, all the toys were of people and things that she knew.

There were dolls of her friends, people that she knew from Freehaven. She saw cute little presentations of Shizuku and Natsuru, of Akane and Mikoto, of Vickie and Dr. Cynthia and Denna and even the mayor.

And lying right in her lap was a great big Mami doll, while nestled against her arm was a stuffed Oktavia.

Her home. Her friends. Her beloved wife. Her life.

Wrapping her arms around Mami, Charlotte lay back and closed her eyes. This was nice, actually. The most comfortable she had been in a long time. After all, she was technically a doll herself. So she felt right at home.

She might have fallen asleep like that, nestled with her fellow dolls, among her loved ones, but then she heard something…whirring.

Charlotte opened her eyes. Hovering high above her was a steel claw, one with three thin, curving fingers. It stiffly moved first to the right, and then to the left, shaking a bit with each movement.

And then it descended.

"What?" Charlotte sat straight up. "Hey! Get away-"

The claw seized onto the big Nautilus Platform playset and lifted it up.

"Wait, that's my home! Don't take my home away from me!"

The claw was deaf to her pleas. It continued to carry the Nautilus Platform along until it dropped it straight down a plastic tube that Charlotte hadn't noticed it before.

"Oh yeah, jackpot!" someone said from nearby.

Charlotte looked up. For the first time she saw that she was in some kind of glass box, its transparent walls rising high around her and the other toys.

And standing on the other side of one of those glass walls looking in was Kyoko Sakura.

"Got it!" Kyoko bragged, holding up the Nautilus Platform.

Charlotte struggled to get her attention. "Kyoko, no! That's my home! You can't take-"

Suddenly Annabelle Lee was there. She shoved Kyoko aside and leaned over, her hands working controls that lay out of Charlotte's sight.

"Come on, give me a shot!" Annabelle Lee said as she worked the claw. "Let's see, I think I'll take…that one!"

Again the claw came down. It closed around Oktavia's head and lifted the mermaid doll straight up.

"Wait, that's my friend!" Charlotte said, reaching after her.

The claw opened, dropping Oktavia down the tube.

"My turn, my turn!" Kyoko elbowed Annabelle Lee out of the way and went back to work. Shizuku was then carried away.

"STOP!" Charlotte screamed, but she was either unheard or ignored.

It was then that she noticed that Kyoko and Annabelle Lee weren't alone. Behind them hovered more figures, silently watching as the two renegade girls took away Charlotte's life piece-by-piece. She saw the silent figure of the Matriarch, Reibey's rodent-like form perched on her shoulder. She saw Lily standing right behind Annabelle Lee, wings spread, eyes glittering. She saw a creature that was similar to Reibey, only with a rounder face. That had to be Kyubey, the Incubator responsible for her contract and that of everyone she was close to.

Now more claws were coming down, snatching up all of Charlotte's friends and carrying them away.

All the while Charlotte cried, Charlotte begged, and Charlotte screamed, but no one paid any attention. They just kept tearing her life to pieces and taking it away, removing one toy after another, until at the end of it all, it was just her in the glass box, just her and Mami.

Weeping, Charlotte held onto Mami with all her strength. She was all that she had left. They couldn't take her away from her.

"My turn."

The voice wasn't Kyoko's, nor was it Annabelle Lee's. In fact, it wasn't anyone Charlotte had seen outside.

It was her own.

The claw again came down. Charlotte tried to pull Mami away, to block the claw with her own body, but it closed around Mami's head anyway and lifted her up.

"No!" Charlotte wrapped her arms around Mami's legs and pulled with all of her strength. "Leave her alone! She's all I have left!"

The claw whined as it struggled to pull Mami away from her. Realizing that it was working, Charlotte tightened her grip and yanked hard. Then she yanked again. The claw began to descend against its will.

As she continued to pull and pull, Charlotte looked up at the glass. And what she saw almost made her lose her grip.

There, operating the controls, was herself. Not Nozomi, not Charzomi, just Charlotte, with her bleached white skin and pale blue eyes dispassionately gazing in. The other her stared unblinking as she operated the controls, instructing the claw to continue to fight, to try to take Mami away from her.

"NO!" Charlotte cried again. "Leave us alone! Leave-"

Then, above her, the claw changed, warped, its fingers growing and melting together, the sterile steel darkening to black, and Charlotte found herself staring up at the Worm, Mami's head in its jaws.

The Worm bit down, and Charlotte found herself holding a headless doll of her wife.

Not again! How many times did Charlotte have to suffer the same horrible events? How many times did she have to build a life that she was happy with, her own little slice of Heaven, only for others to come take it away?

The Worm was carrying Mami's head over to the chute. Its jaws opened, and the head fell.

Charlotte sprinted after it and leapt. Maybe if she caught it she could put it back on. If it was just her and Mami, then that would be enough. Even though they had lost everything else, so long as they were together, they could rebuild, could start over, could-

The head brushed her fingertips and fell into the chute to disappear.

Crying in anguish, Charlotte pulled herself up over the side of the chute, ready to throw herself in after Mami's head. She wasn't going to give up without a fight, she wasn't-

Then a hand snapped up to seize her by the wrist.

Charlotte looked down to see someone already in the chute. It was the girl she didn't know, the one with long raven hair and dead eyes, the one from the rooftop. She was still dressed in that sleek white-and-violet uniform, with the round, metal shield affixed to her wrist.

"Stop," the girl said. "Again."

What? What did-

And suddenly something blasted up out of the chute, knocking Charlotte back. She landed in an untidy heap, her limbs sprawled around her as she stared dumbfounded.

All the dolls and toys that had been taken from her were shooting up out of the chute like a geyser. They fell around Charlotte, filling the box around her.

Gobsmacked, Charlotte stared as her life was returned to her. Her friends, her home, everything was falling back to where they belonged.

And then something fell into her lap. It's was Mami's doll, her head back where it belonged. Her eyes prickling with tears, Charlotte hugged her wife tightly. Her life was back. Happiness had been returned to her.

And then she heard the whir of the claw.

Charlotte froze in fear. No, not again. Not again! She knew what was going to happen. Everyone would start working the controls, and they would take her life away again, take away her home, her job, her friends, and her wife. And then everything would come spewing back out and the whole cycle would start all over.

It wasn't fair! Why couldn't she be left in peace? She just wanted to be left to live her life with her wife, but people kept taking it all away! These troubles had nothing to do with them, so why couldn't people just leave them alone?

And then the claw came down, right over Charlotte.

The three metal fingers closed in around Charlotte's neck, their cold kiss digging into her skin. Charlotte gasped. Wait, her? It was taking her?

Then the claw lifted, pulling the kicking Charlotte out of the pile of toys. Coughing and choking, she grabbed onto the fingers and tried to pry them apart, but she wasn't strong enough. Their grip was too strong.

Then, as she was taken high above the toys, Charlotte saw who was operating the controls now, who had been the one to select her.

Mephisto grinned smugly at her from outside the glass, jaws methodically masticating her gum. "Hey," Mephisto said with a small wave.

And then, with a flash, Charlotte remembered. This was a dream. She didn't live in a claw-machine. Mami wasn't a doll, and the Nautilus Platform wasn't a playset. She was trapped in a magical nightmare with Mami, Oktavia, and Kyoko, all created by Mephisto, the Ideal Witch of Dreams.

Mephisto had altered her mind and memory, submerging her back into the dream state after she had already awakened, forced her to play out her sadistic little drama. And what was worse, she had done it so easily! It was like Charlotte had told everyone earlier: they couldn't beat her. They were trapped in her net, and in here, Mephisto was practically a god.

The claw carried Charlotte over to the chute. When the hole was gaping beneath her and the plastic tunnel within, the claw opened, dumping Charlotte within. She hit the tunnel so hard that it knocked the wind out from her, and she was helpless as she slipped and tumbled her way down.

Then the chute opened up, and Charlotte into an untidy heap.

"Hey," Mephisto said.

Charlotte looked down at herself and then up at Mephisto. Mephisto was no longer a giantess towering over her. They were once again on the same scale, just a pair of weirdos floating together in darkness.

Then Charlotte looked to her side. There, the claw machine sat, now of normal size in comparison to her. Inside were still the various representations of her life.

Not looking away from Charlotte, Mephisto reached over and gave the claw machine a flick. It shot out into the emptiness and disappeared.

Charlotte slowly breathed out. Then she rose to her feet, standing a few centimeters taller than Mephisto. She said nothing.

"So," Mephisto said. "You know what I am."

Charlotte hesitated, and then nodded. "I read a lot," she said.

"I know."

Yeah, she would. She probably knew everything about all of them, even the parts that they didn't know about themselves.

"So I guess that means I can cut right to the chase," Mephisto said. "You're caught. I got you, and I ain't letting you go. I'm gonna eat you, and I'm gonna eat your friends. Understand?"

A hard lump formed in Charlotte's throat. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!

"Yeah, it ain't," Mephisto sneered. "Poor little Charlotte, constantly swept up into other people's problems. Wouldn't everything just be better if Kyoko never showed up? If she never brought her issues to your front door?"

Yes. The answer was yes. Still, Charlotte said, "I could've said no. I could've let her go off on her mission alone, and talked Mami out of going."

"Sure, you could've," Mephisto said with a shrug. "Buuuuuut Annabelle Lee would've attacked you in Cloudbreak anyway, so that choice was taken out of your hands."

Yes. Yes, it was. Charlotte really had done nothing, but she had been forced on this torturous adventure anyway.

"Yeah, you were, and now it ends. Here. In my belly." Mephisto blew a bubble, popped it, and smirked. "So here's the part where you get to make a choice."

"A ch-choice?"

"You want your life back, right? A nice, peaceful life with your wife, with your friends, with none of this Void Walker bullshit. Well, I can give you that."

"Wait, seriously?" Charlotte was gobsmacked. "You honestly think that I'm going to make a deal with an Ideal Witch?"

Mephisto looked amused. "Who said anything about a deal? I'm getting what I want regardless. What I'm offering you is the chance to not, like, suffer and stuff. Say the word, and I put you back in a dream, any one you want. Except your wife will be there, and she'll be real. And you won't ever know that it's a dream."

"Wait, what? No! How could I-"

"Don't say no so fast," Mephisto cut her off. "'Cause if you do, you're still getting eaten, except you'll be awake and aware every second of it. And you will suffer."

Mephisto flicker her wrist, and a sheet of paper appeared in her hands, one with detailing the terms and conditions of a contract, with her glowing signature already in place and a line for Charlotte to sign right over it.

"I give this offer to everyone I gobble down. Some say yes, some say no, but everyone who says no eventually ends up regretting it, usually in about, oh, I'd say five minutes. And I say too bad, so sad." Mephisto held the contract closer to Charlotte. "So, what'll it be? This is your only chance to not spend the rest of your existence screaming in agony, so think it over before you make the last mistake of your life."

…

Mother was still not stirring.

Jerky chirped as loud as he could, but to no avail. He snarled and yelped, hoping to awake her, but nothing was working. Mother couldn't hear him.

He then spared a fearful glance to the strange, glowing creature in the center of the room. It still had not reacted to his presence, but just looking at it made his venomous blood run cold. It was simply wrong in a way he could not understand, a threat completely outside his ability to conceive. It was a predator; that much was evident, but it was a predator unlike anything he had ever smelled. It wasn't eating Mother and her pack, but it was still taking something from them.

Jerky was getting desperate. He leapt up, swiped at Mother's foot, and fell back. His little claws left shallow red gashes in her pink flesh, but though her foot twitched a bit in response, she still didn't awaken.

…

"Ow!" Kyoko's foot jerked.

"Hey," Mephisto said, shoving her contract closer to her face. "Let's not get distracted. Yes or no? Normal life, or eternal pain?"

Though she still had Kyoko's full attention, the redhead still wrinkled her nose in confusion. Where had that sudden spasm of pain come from? It was like she had scraped her foot on a needle!

…

Whining, Jerky hunched down and leapt up, his tiny, powerful leg muscles boosting him almost all the way to Mother's knee. From there he grabbed on.

Mother had always admonished him whenever he accidentally cut her with his claws or teeth. He knew that her hide was much softer than his, and he had to be careful with the pink parts. However, now she was entirely pink, and he couldn't climb her without hurting her.

He didn't have a choice. Jerky clambered up Mother's limp body the best he could, gripping into her soft flesh with the claws on his forearms and feet, leaving a trail of red marks all the way up. At times they punctured too deeply, and trickles of red vapor would issue forth. That worried him even further. Was she supposed to bleed smoke?

…

"Ah!" Kyoko slapped at her leg. Something was pinching her!

"Okay, so, what are you doing?" Mephisto inquired. "'Cause, like, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be your main focus here."

"What am I doing?" Kyoko snapped. "What are you doing? Something's jabbing me here!"

"Huh?"

The feel was now crawling up her waist. "What do you mean, 'huh'? I thought you were the one-Ow!-controlling everything here! So-Ah, dammit!-why do I feel like-Shit!-I'm getting jabbed with needles here?"

…

Finally Jerky reached his goal. He clambered onto Mother's shoulder and perched them. Using his snout, he moved her long, red fur away from her ear and screeched into it as loud as he could.

…

"Okay, seriously," Mephisto said, staring down at Kyoko in bewilderment. "What are you doing?"

Kyoko had slapped both hands over her ears and was flinching hard. It sounded like someone had stuck a megaphone up to a singing tea kettle and blasted it into her ear.

"This is…your nightmare!" Kyoko hissed. "So you…tell me!"

…

That still wasn't working!

Now Jerky was growing truly frantic. He had one trick left, but it was one that he absolutely, positively wasn't supposed to do. Mother had been quite clear on that.

But he was out of options, and she wasn't waking.

Hoping that she would forgive him, Jerky twisted his head around down to the smooth, soft skin where her neck met her shoulder. His maw opened, revealing his rows upon rows of tiny, razor-sharp teeth. Venomous drool dripped out, turning Mother's skin red wherever the gobs landed.

Lowering his head, Jerky bit down.

…

"AH!" Screaming in agony, Kyoko fell back, clutching at her neck.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Mephisto demanded.

Kyoko couldn't answer. It was like a bear trap had closed around her neck and then the wound had been dipped in acid. It burned, searing her skin, a pain unlike any she had felt since…

…since…

Suddenly a joyful realization cut through the agony as she realized what was happening.

"Oh," she whispered, happy tears mixing with the ones of agony. "Good boy."

…

It was working! Mother's body was jerking and jerking hard, her limbs convulsing. Jerky hopped off before he could be thrown off and scrambled around to see if she would wake up.

She didn't, though she did seem to be trying to. Her whole body was twitching as if in great pain, and Jerky could see her body heat going absolutely haywire with his predatory vision. However, though her eyes were clearly darting all over the place beneath her eyelids, they remained closed.

He then looked up. The shimmering tendril that connected Mother to the terrifying glowing being was now writhing, contracting, and expanding, with bright bursts of red exploding up and down its length. It looked to be fighting to hold her in place.

Then Jerky looked to the creature itself. Though it floating stationary in the air, its hands and head were twitching rapidly, no doubt from its struggle to keep Mother asleep. If that was the case, then perhaps knocking it out of its concentration would tip the balance into Mother's favor.

He then turned his attention to its feet, which were dangling not far from the ground. The creature didn't seem to have much substance to it, no real flesh or blood, but there was really only one way to tell.

Though he had no way of knowing this, valk digestive systems were incredibly hardy. There were few poisons or micro-organisms that were in any way worse than the venom already coursing through their bodies, and as such, they had little innate hesitation of taking big bites out of anything that they felt needed to be bitten into.

And as much as the creature unnerved Jerky, he was reasonably certain that if it hadn't responded to his interference by now, it was unlikely to start.

And he really wanted to take a great, big bite out of it.

Three glowing eyes of poisonous green narrowed, and his jaws opened again, hooked teeth glistening with venom. A low, clicking hiss emitted from his throat.

…

"ARGH!" Mephisto suddenly screamed. She fell to the ground, clutching at her foot. "Motherfucker, what the fuck?!"

Kyoko grinned. "Good boy," she said again. "Now do it again!"

Whether or not Jerky could hear her could not be determined, but apparently he did just that, as Mephisto clutched at the other foot and continued to scream.

And it was working! Father's church was fading out from around her, and for the first time, Kyoko felt herself starting to rise instead of fall. It was like she was strapped to a rocket, one that was taking her higher and higher and higher…

…

Kyoko's eyes snapped open. Her real eyes.

What she saw was just as strange as everything else that had happened to her recently. The best she could tell, she was encased in some kind of transparent energy bubble in a cavern full of large crystals filled with writhing colors.

The hotsprings were gone, and was the steam. Furthermore, Kyoko's friends were also floating in bubbles of their own, seemingly asleep.

Also all four of them were naked. So that was a thing.

In the center of the room was a being that seemed to be made out of pure energy. It was filled with the same surging rainbow as the crystals, and seemed to be in immense pain. Its body was twisting and bubbling, and a low-volume but high-pitched scream was emitting from it, one that hurt Kyoko's head instead of her ears.

Also, there were several things that looked like tendrils sticking out of its head.

It was Mephisto, the real Mephisto. It had to be.

Unfortunately, though Mephisto was clearly in pain, she was still fighting to force Kyoko back asleep. What was more, she was winning. Kyoko could feel the heavy blanket of sleep press down on her, drawing her back into the dream. She couldn't fight it for long.

However, she should have enough time and willpower to do something about it. After all, Jerky had just taught her something incredibly valuable: Mephisto might be all-powerful in their dreams, but in the real world, she was completely vulnerable.

Focusing on the pain in her shoulder to stave off the artificial weariness, Kyoko extended one hand and concentrated. Though it felt like she was moving them through a mud wall, she got her fingers to curl around. Once she had accomplished that, she called upon the magic within her.

This was even harder, and the effort nearly knocked her out on its own. Normally her magic was always at her beck and call, responding so quickly that she barely even thought about it. Now it was like drawing up a bucket filled with stones from the depths of a deep, dark well.

Sleep, whispered that persistent voice from the back of her mind. Stop fighting and sleep…

But Kyoko had never been a quitter, and the more she was pressed, the more stubborn she became. She drew power from that stubbornness, and if death itself could not stop her from fighting, then neither would this freak.

She hauled that power up through sheer force of will, and a rod of scarlet light manifested within her grasp. It didn't materialize all at once; rather, it jerked, sparked, and sputtered like a dying florescent light tube.

No, she thought. You will not die. You will appear. Fight, damn you. Fight!

Then the light lengthened and became solid. Her spear was once again in her hands.

A wave of drowsiness swept over her, nearly dragging her down. Come on, come on. She struggled to stay awake, but summoning her spear had taken a lot out of her. She started to sink.

Suddenly the pressure on her mind retreated and her head cleared. She opened her eyes to see Jerky hanging by his mouth from Mephisto's other foot. He growled and hissed as the muscles in his neck twisted, doing as much damage as he could. All the while, Mephisto's inhuman shriek increased.

Good boy, Kyoko thought. With Mephisto's attention now elsewhere, she was at least partially free. Not entirely; she only had a few seconds before she was forced back into the dream, but that was all she needed.

Falling back on instincts and reflexes honed by a hundred battles, Kyoko drew back with her spear. Taking aim at the center of Mephisto's mass, she threw.

Suck it, you third-rate Freddy Krueger wannabe, she thought smugly as the spear left her hand. That finally done, she let herself succumb to the dark.

And then she was back in the dream, back in the inverted recreation of Papa's church.

Mephisto was still hovering over her, but now she was falling back and screaming. Both of her boots were soaked with blood, and she was clutching at her chest. There, a gaping hole had opened, and more blood was spurting out like a geyser.

"You fuckers!" Mephisto screamed. "Goddamn you fuckers! What did you do to me? What did-"

And then her blood caught fire, white flames dancing around her feet and chest. The flames grew, covering her, setting every centimeter of her ablaze.

As Kyoko watched in horrified fascination, Mephisto was swallowed up in white fire, her screams sputtering out as she was consumed. The flames fully enveloped her body and she was gone.

Kyoko lay still, not daring to move, her mind still struggling to comprehend what had just happened. Was that it? Did she win?

And then there was a deep rumbling sound. All around her the church started to shake.

Then cracks split through the inverted stained-glass windows. Seconds later they all shattered, and were sucked out. Beyond was a swirling abyss of light, darkness, and colors, all pulsing with pain and madness.

Kyoko hastily threw up a sphere of shield-plates around herself. All around her the church was being ripped apart, the walls yanked to pieces, the upside-down floor above her pulled away in large chunks, the pews torn from their restraints to either get sucked out of the widening windows or through the floor itself. As she watched, the shattered remains of the large cross were sucked up and flew out through the gaping hole behind it.

As more and more of the church was torn away, Kyoko saw that she was floating in the howling void itself, colors and lights and tendrils of perfect dark swirling around her, tearing at her clothes and hair like a typhoon. And yet she wasn't sucked away with everything else.

"Kyoko!"

It was Mami. She was hovering nearby, looking around wildly.

"What's happening?"

"I think I killed Mephisto!" Kyoko hollered back.

Mami swallowed but said nothing.

"Good job!" It was Charlotte, now with no trace of Nozomi, also hovering in the maelstrom, a satisfied smile on her face.

"Kyoko!" someone else screamed. "Help!"

It was Sayaka, still in her Puella Magi uniform. She was floating further away than the others, but unlike them, the raging storm of energies around her were having an effect. Her outfit looked like it was dissolving, and her legs were starting to blur out. Her sapphire eyes were wide and terrified.

Kyoko suddenly realized what was happening. With Mephisto gone, Sayaka was leaving too. Sayaka was being taken away from her again.

"NO!" Kyoko threw herself at Sayaka, propelling herself through the storm through sheer force of will. Sayaka did the same, reaching out to her.

For a moment Kyoko feared that she wasn't going to make it, that Sayaka would dissolve before they reached one another. But then their hands clasped and they held on, staring at each other while the world fell to pieces around them.

"Sayaka, hold on!" Kyoko called. "Just hold on, okay?"

"I can't!" Sayaka screamed back. "Kyoko, please! It's taking me! I don't want to go! Please don't let me go!"

The swirling madness behind Sayaka suddenly lit up as if illuminated by lightning, and Kyoko found herself staring at a hulking silhouette, hovering behind Sayaka, as if waiting to take her away.

It was Sayaka's witch. Oktavia von Seckendorff, but not the cute, quirky mermaid she had come to know. It was the original, the hulking monstrosity of dark armor, hands in the air, conducting its spectral orchestra, its massive tail curled up beneath it.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Not again.

"Sayaka, look at me," Kyoko said. "Just look at me, okay? I swear I'll find a way to bring you back. No matter what happens, I'm bringing you back, okay?"

Sayaka's uniform was almost all gone, and her legs had turned into formless blobs of light that were starting to merge. "P-Promise?"

"I do! Just wait for me, and I'll-"

Then the shapeless blob that had been Sayaka's legs suddenly took shape, form, and color, turning into a large fish tail with scales of blue, black, gold, and maroon. Sayaka screamed as she was ripped from Kyoko's hands and pulled away from her.

"No!" Kyoko reached out for her, but she was too far away, too far away-

Then the kaleidoscope whirlwind abruptly retracted, squeezing all of the color and insanity into a ball that grew smaller and smaller, leaving Kyoko and the others floating in darkness.

And then Kyoko was falling, falling, falling, tumbling into the dark, tumbling in the void, tumbling into-

-the hard stone floor of the cave, bruising her hip.

Gasping, Kyoko looked up. She was back in the cave. She was sprawled out on the cavern floor, once again completely naked, her shoulder still burning. All around her the huge crystals she had seen earlier were crumbling, falling to dust that was being sucked into the center of the room.

All around her the same had happened to her friends. Mami, Charlotte, and Sayaka, all of them naked as well, had fallen to the ground and were staring up at Mephisto.

And as for Mephisto, she was just a screaming ball of madness, an acid trip in a globe that was shrinking ever smaller even as it absorbed the dust from the crystals.

"Fuck you!" she shrieked, her voice rising quickly in pitched and speed. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! I swear you haven't seen the last of me, Iswearyouhaven-"

There was a pop, and she was gone.

For a long time no one spoke nor moved, and the only sound was their own labored breathing. The cave was now empty save for them and their supplies, still neatly piled in a corner. The crystals were all gone, as were the pools of water and the resulting steam. It was just them in a bare stone cavern.

And then Charlotte doubled over and started heaving. Mami covered her face with her hands and softly wept.

As for Kyoko, all she could do was sit back and stare into space. Her shoulder was still throbbing, but that seemed unimportant.

"Um, guys?"

Kyoko turned. Sayaka was there, propped up on her elbows, looking at all of them in bewilderment. She was once again a mermaid.

"What…What was that?" she said. "I mean, the heck just happened?"

"You don't remember?" Charlotte said hoarsely.

"N-No. We, uh, we took a bath, and then I fell asleep, and…" Her brow wrinkled. "And then I had some really weird dreams, and the next thing I know there's this screaming ball of color and a bunch of crystals that were…Where'd the water go? What's going on?"

"Nothing?" Kyoko rasped. "You don't remember anything?"

"I just told you, no!"

"What's your name?" Charlotte said.

"Huh?"

"Your name! What's your name?"

Sayaka stared at her like she had just grown a dozen additional feet and was asking her for a waltz; which, given the day they were having, might actually happen. "Oktavia? Oktavia von Seckendorff? Why?"

"Oh, thank God," Charlotte breathed.

"What? What's going on already?"

Mami coughed. "We, uh, we were…attacked. In our dreams."

"Uh, okay? By what?"

Then Charlotte stood up. "I'll explain as we pack," she said curtly. "But right now, we need to get dressed and get the hell out of here. Right now."

"I, uh, okay?" Sayaka shrugged.

And then she saw that Kyoko was still staring at her.

"Er, what?" she said, drawing back a bit. Then she looked down and her face turned a little pink. "Okay, look, it's nothing you haven't seen before, okay?" she said as she covered her breasts. "Don't make this weirder than it already…Uh, what are you doing?"

Kyoko had stood up. And now was walking over to Sayaka.

"Kyoko, seriously, you are creeping me out," Sayaka said as she scooted back, one arm still across her chest. "What's with that look on your face, what's-"

Kyoko fell to her knees and threw her arms around the mermaid.

"Urk!" Sayaka went stiff in surprise. Of course she did. She had no memory of what had happened. She did not remember everything that had passed between them.

Again.

In time, though she was clearly very confused, Sayaka returned the hug, albeit stiffly, and awkwardly patted Kyoko's back.

"There…there?" she said. "Uh, hey, what's going on? Did you eat some cave mushrooms or something?"

In answer, Kyoko merely murmured, "I'm keeping my promise, okay? Don't worry."

"Cool," Sayaka squeaked. "I don't know what the heck you're talking about, but cool."

Then Mami softly cleared her throat. "We need to leave," she said.

Sighing, Kyoko parted and walked away to where her clothes were. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her wrist. Again she felt the tears forming, felt the sobs coming, but she held them back. She hadn't cried since the day her family died, and she wasn't going to start now, not even for this.

…

From his hiding place behind a rock, Jerky watched with equal parts relief and confusion as Mother and her pack went about retrieving their strange outer hides and gathering their food stores. He still didn't know what kind of creature it had been that had threatened them, but he at least had been able to rouse Mother and help her vanquish the beast.

The only problem he saw was that Mother still had a prominent red mark on her shoulder where he had bitten her, one that made her wince as she slipped on first the smaller black hide and then the bulkier green one. She had warned him several times to not do that, so he hoped that she wouldn't be cross.

As Mother passed by his hiding place, Jerky poked his nose out and let out a low chirp, one that he hoped that she would hear but wouldn't be picked on by the rest of her pack.

Mother paused, and then glanced over the rock. Jerky lowered his head, indicating that he was sorry that he had hurt her.

Then Mother reached down and gently scratched him beneath his chin. "Good boy," she murmured, low enough that only he could hear.

Jerky chuffed and rotated his head around, giving her easier access. Good, she wasn't angry.

"I'll play with you later," Mother said, whatever that meant. "But thanks. You saved our asses."

With that she got out and went to the others. Jerky waited until they all had their backs turned to him before scampering out of the cave and into the open air.

The rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking out. Jerky looked up, cocking his head. He sniffed the air, found nothing out of place, and then headed up the hill to perch above the cave entrance. Sooner or later Mother and her pack would emerge from the cave, and, as usual, he would follow.

…

Oof. Well, writing this was an experience.

Okay, so, next week will be the epilogue, and a few days I'll be posting something of a Restless analysis on my tumblr. After that it'll be a few weeks of Walpurgis Nights, one last Imperfect Metamorphosis, and that'll conclude the comeback tour.

Until next time, everyone.