2022, and the fifth year of this event! Now that Gou-Sotsu is finally done, I can give my final opinion of All That, and that opinion is that Gou-Sotsu can die by my blade. Ugh. This AN shouldn't become a rant so I'll leave it at the fact that they emphasized all the parts that they shouldn't and ended in a weak, halfhearted resolution that didn't punish Satoko at all or even acknowledge her guilt for all the horrific things she did to her friends.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica!AU, naturally. What is it with Rika and Homura sharing so many characteristics? If I had a nickel for every time I saw "hime-cut dark-haired purple-eyed schoolgirl whose emotions have been crushed under the increasing burden of time," I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but its weird that it happened twice.
June 1st, 2022
The familiars' laughter grated against her ears, like toy cogs thrown out of rhythm and shrieking against each other as they giggled in tinny, high-pitched voices. Rika pulled a gun out of her shield, aiming it with a click and biting down on all the emotions she felt. Stress and negativity darkened Soul Gems, she knew that much. Satoko's had turned from a bright cherry-pink to an unhealthy blood-crimson, just in these past few days.
It might have taken her just a few days to descend that far, but it had taken Rika months to get to this point. Months of déjà vu in every moment of every day, weeks of sitting curled on the toilet inside the girls' bathroom stalls, her hands bunched into fists before her face and nausea swirling in her stomach with the persistent thought that this isn't right swirling through her head. Days of thought, after a strange foxlike creature with white fur and red markings had jumped up onto her windowsill and spoke to her, staring with empty, jewel-like eyes and an expression that never changed. If she hadn't seen it move, Rika might have thought that it was a stuffed animal.
It had called itself Kyubey.
It had told her to watch and to think, to learn and report.
It had said that something was wrong, something centered around her.
It had said that it could help.
Rika had watched what was going on around her, and thought about what she had seen, had picked up books in the library and thought some more. Satoko didn't like her spending that much time there, always encouraging Rika to come out and have fun with her, but Rika put her off with lies about book reports that Satoko never seemed to quite believe. Sometimes she caught sight of Kyubey at school, and once or twice, she caught it staring at Satoko, perched high on a wall above the windows and peering at the back of her best friend's head. Rika didn't know what to make of it: that gaze could be friendly, cruel, anything. Kyubey's face was always as blank as a mask, and its voice wasn't much better.
Finally, one day when she had been chopping vegetables for her evening meal, Kyubey had hopped up onto her counter. Rika had never understood why or how the creature could insinuate itself into every room, even when she locked her windows, even when she locked her doors, even when she could've sworn that a moment ago there had been nothing there.
I figured out what's wrong. Kyubey had said, sitting down beside her cutting board and curling its fluffy tail around its neatly-clustered paws.
"Really?" Rika had said, blinking in surprise.
You're caught in a time loop.
Rika's latest stroke clacked clumsily down against the wooden board: she stared at the small creature. It daintily raised a paw and licked it, rubbing the small limb across its face in a movement that seemed more like an echo of a real animal's than an actual effort to clean its fur. Never before had it seemed so alien.
This sort of thing is very rare, but it can happen. You see, you remember what I told you when we first met?
"You create magical girls to fight Witches, and they're created by you granting them a wish." Rika said, her voice shaking a little.
Someone must have wished to include you in a time loop. Kyubey reached out and idly batted a carrot slice with one paw. Of course, its disorienting for you, since particles of your being will always remain the same and they're building up to cause that feeling of déjà vu that's bothering you so much. That feeling's an echo of the memories of all the times you've lived past that moment.
"Can I fix it?" Rika asked desperately, dropping her knife with a clatter. After months of that swirling, sickening nausea, that feeling of displacement, she was willing to do anything to make it stop.
Anything, it seemed, except ask the right questions.
Sure! Kyubey's foxlike tail perked up as its expression changed minutely, into something approximating a charming smile. My job is to grant wishes, after all, and you have more than enough potential to become an excellent magical girl. What is your wish?
Rika had opened her mouth.
"I wish-"
Back in the present, an expert barrage of gunfire shattered the dancing toys, letting Rika advance further into the Witch's Labyrinth. I wish I'd asked about the price. She thought, descending down stairs that were eerily reminiscent of the ones at school, except made of candy and textbooks. Her feet almost slipped on a section that seemed printed out of geometry papers soaked in syrup, and Rika scowled, firming her stance as she continued to march downwards. She owed Satoko this much, at least.
Satoko had been horrified at seeing Rika had become a magical girl.
"What have you done?!" she cried, seizing Rika by the shoulders. In that moment, Rika felt a churning sense of nausea, and she realized with a shock that she must have lived this moment before. Why? If she was looping through time, what was the moment when she turned back to the beginning? What was the beginning point? Why did she feel an inexplicable crawling revulsion and urge to get away from her best friend when Satoko grabbed her like this?
Her skin had crawled in the same way when she eavesdropped at a bridge, seeing Satoko holding Kyubey up over the rushing cars by the scruff of its neck.
"Kyubey! How could you do that to Rika?!"
I don't know what you mean, Satoko.
"You absolutely do! You know what happens to magical girls, and…and what about my wish?!"
You seem to be misunderstanding something, Satoko. Am I not allowed to give anyone else a wish, too?
Satoko had gnashed her teeth in a rage, and thrown Kyubey over the edge as Rika covered her mouth and ducked back around the corner. When Satoko came back down and held out her Soul Gem so that they could continue searching for Witches, Rika had seen that it had already started to dull.
They'd started arguing as they never had during those short few days after Rika took on a Soul Gem of her own, and she remembered staring at it in fear and dismay after those arguments, curled up in her bed and wondering if perhaps she had made a horrible mistake. And yet, and yet she hadn't felt that nauseating sense of oppressive déjà vu in a while, so this was fine, right? And arguing with your friend was normal. It was healthy, to air disagreements and come to a conclusion together. So why was Satoko rejecting her attempts to mediate so stubbornly?
It had all come to a head when they'd gotten off the train after a fight, and Rika had shouted at Satoko that she couldn't wait to graduate so that they could go to different parts of the city and finally get some breathing space from each other. Satoko had reeled backwards like she had been struck, and Rika had glanced down just in time to see the Soul Gem clutched in her hand darken from crimson to a muddy black. Then an explosion of violent energies had thrown her back, and Rika had watched in horror as Satoko collapsed to the ground and her Soul Gem rose, twisting and contorting to a familiar shape.
A Grief Seed.
Your species calls sub-adult females "girls," right? Kyubey had asked when she had staggered out of there, her clothing torn and her mind whirling. The white creature was perched atop a street lamp a level below her, so that it was staring across an empty space just a few inches below her face. So it makes sense that you who are destined to become witches are called magical girls, doesn't it?
It knew.
It knew.
"What's going on!?" Rika had hurled those words at it in desperation, clutching her arm where she had been thrown into a bench. "What happened to Satoko!?"
She wished for a time loop to keep you together with her forever. You wished for a way to exit that time loop. Eventually, there was no way that your colliding wishes wouldn't cause destruction to one of you. Kyubey said, and tilted its head with another of those picture-perfect cutesy smiles. You are both quite powerful, so your energies should help us fill our quota nicely. Thank you for your contribution!
It had twitched its tail and leaped down, disappearing behind the verge, and when Rika staggered over to the edge, wanting to see Kyubey so she could strangle it, the road beneath her was empty. In that moment, as her aching hands clutched at the cold concrete verge, she realized that she had sold her soul to the devil, and so had Satoko, and now both of them were paying the price. She wanted to grab her Soul Gem then and there and smash it, hurl it against the concrete below and watch it fragment before her body collapsed, but one last thing stopped her.
She owed Satoko more than that.
So now here she was, pulling out gun after gun and shooting her way to the center of the maze where the Witch that had once been her best friend housed itself. She would destroy the Witch, and then she would turn her gun on herself and destroy her Soul Gem.
It would be one victory, at least, that Kyubey wouldn't take.
9.07 AM, USA Central Time
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