Oriko stood up and stretched, shaking off the bed sheet that had previously been on her. The pain had been somewhat jarring, but now that it was done, she felt better than before. "Is that all, Kyubey? Am I now a magical girl?"

The little white creature moved its head slightly, observing the gem that the magical girl process had produced. "Yes, you are. You see the Soul Gem within your hands? That is both the proof and source of your magic. With it, you have gained the power to fight witches, and to defend the city."

She peered at the gem. It was beautiful, bathing the room with a soft white glow. The gem itself was encased within a golden setting, with some symbols engraved on it, like an… eight-pointed star? A compass star was engraved on either side of the gem's setting, slightly raised from the rest of the setting.

"I would highly recommend that you go out to hunt witches now. Magical girls who start training as early as possible perform much better than those who don't."

Oriko rubbed her eyes. They were still a bit wet, but her transformation into a magical girl seemed to have taken most of the sting off. It didn't remove the mental sting, though. "I see." She said." But no thank you, Kyubey, I would rather head to bed now. Would it be possible to discuss my duties as a magical girl tomorrow?"

Kyubey was about to respond, but suddenly, Oriko's eyes went unfocused, as if they were looking at something entirely different.

"Oriko?" It asked, tilting its head after waiting a few seconds for a response. "How curious."

—

A girl with short black hair walked down a street lined with tall buildings. Curiously enough, she was wearing the Mitakihara Middle School uniform, but it was the middle of the night, and the streets were deserted. The girl seemed rather upset- her hair was unkempt, and her face seemed to be locked in a perpetual scowl.

However, as she continued down the street, the surrounding area changed. The buildings melted away, and in its place was pure black shadow. The girl wasn't paying attention, but suddenly, a low, mournful wail sounded across the barrier, and she jumped up, a look of surprise replacing the scowl. Her eyes widened as she observed her surroundings. "W-where did the street go?" She asked herself, glancing from side to side.

Unnoticed by her, a large, spider-like creature was sneaking up behind her. A second later, the girl whirled around as she heard the sound of its legs skittering, but it was too late. It snapped her up in its jaws, causing her to scream in fear as she was flipped over, and skittered back into the shadows. Where it was planning on taking her, who knew?

—

"Ah!" Oriko shuddered as the vision suddenly ended and her eyes refocused. She wasn't sure why she received a vision, but whatever the reason was, it was quite disturbing. She was sure that she recognized that girl. "I think I met her one time in a… convenience store, perhaps?" She mused to herself. Oriko quickly shook her head. It didn't matter where they had met. What did matter was that some monster was about to swallow up whoever happened to wander down that street.

"Are you back with us, Oriko?" Kyubey asked in its sickly-sweet voice. It was in the same spot as before, staring at Oriko with the same pasted-on smile it always wore. "I noticed that your soul gem seems to have darkened a bit. Did you use your magic just now, perhaps?"

"That is not important at the moment." Oriko said. She supposed she couldn't blame the little creature for being so calm, since it wasn't like he had seen the same vision. "Do you have any idea of how to parse what I just saw?" She quickly explained what she had seen to Kyubey.

"Oh dear." Kyubey said. "It sounds like you're describing a Witch's barrier. And that sounds like one of our prospects for contracting, too… what a shame that is." It shook its head mournfully. "Do you want to hunt for this Witch and save this girl, or do you want to go to bed like you said you would before?"

"No, I think I'll change my plans." Oriko said, slightly shocked at the sheer callousness of the question. "I'm not going to leave someone to die if I could help it."

"Just the answer I expected! Do you happen to know where the location of the vision might be located?"

"Yes, I'm fairly sure I know where it is, or at least where the general area is. I don't think that it is too far." Oriko said, scooping up Kyubey as she walked towards the stairs.

"You should ask before you do that, you know."

"Yes, yes, I know. But we're in a rush, that vision of mine seemed to be set fairly soon." Oriko said as she ran down the stairs quickly, trying to maintain her grace even as she took the steps two at a time. When she reached the exit to her house, she opened the door, stepped outside, then immediately started running in the direction of the Witch.

"Oriko, hold on." Kyubey said, waving a paw in front of her face to get her attention. "Your physical abilities should be boosted once you transform into your magical girl form. You should try that if you want to get there as fast as possible."

Oriko was already running as quickly as her legs could carry her, so she just nodded, and transformed. She didn't quite know how she knew how to do it, but her body seemed to have the instincts to do it anyways, and she quickly found herself in a frilly white dress, with a large hat on her head. She sighed. "This costume seems a bit overdone… but no matter, I suppose. Is there anything else I should know about my magical girl form before we arrive at the Witch?"

Kyubey tilted its head. "Well, you should probably try manifesting your weapons. Your wish magic doesn't seem to be directly oriented for combat use, so you will probably have to use your weapons. Just think of summoning it instinctively, it should be as easy as transforming."

She closed her eyes and focused again, and sure enough, she felt something coming into being. When she opened her eyes, she saw three crystal balls floating in the air, each engraved with the same compass star she recognized on her soul gem. She recognized that they might be useful to possibly bludgeon a Witch with them, but when she thought about it a bit more… she concentrated, and rays of light blazed out of all three crystal balls, flying down the street they were walking on. Oriko gave a small nod. "Yes, this should work."

—

Kirika walked quickly, head down and hands in her pocket. She liked going on late-night walks, normally. It distracted her from everything, so she didn't have to think about the utter disaster that was her life. But lately, the intrusive thoughts had been crowding her brain no matter what she tried to do to ward them off. She shook her head. Did anyone actually care about her? Everyone at school thought she was a total creep, and she was pretty sure that they were right. She was still caught up on that one girl from the convenience store who helped her, and she probably didn't even remember her existence after a week! What was the point?

As Kirika continued walking down the road, embroiled within her own dark thoughts, she didn't notice the sidewalk around her turning to dark black, nor the surrounding buildings disappearing. Suddenly, a wail sounded out, causing the girl to nearly jump out of her own skin. Kirika tripped, stumbling until she was able to stop herself with a hand on the ground. "W-where did the street go?" She muttered to herself, too confused to pay much attention to what was going on around her. She looked around for a second, but she couldn't see anything in the pitch black darkness.

Too late, she heard a quiet skittering noise behind her. Kirika whirled around, only to barely make out a massive spider racing towards her. Her eyes were as large as saucers as she took in the sight. What the hell was this place?

As she braced herself for the spider to hit her, she suddenly felt herself getting scooped up. "Whaaa!?" She let out an involuntary cry of shock, and looked up to see a girl dressed entirely in white. It was like someone had suddenly turned on a flashlight. A frilly white dress was accompanied by a white hat on ash blonde hair, with a white gem illuminating her face, which was… Kirika turned a brilliant shade of red, involuntarily glancing away. "Giant spiders suddenly rushing out of the shadow realm is cool and all, but why the hell is the girl from the convenience store here?!"

"I, uh… you…" Kirika could barely get a word out as she tried to say something to the girl in white. She held Kirika in a bridal carry as they dashed away from the spider, which scree'd in rage at the sight of its prey being snatched away from it. Simultaneously, a strange set of crystal balls appeared out of nowhere, and just barely out of Kirika's field of vision, she saw a bright blast of light, and then heard an even louder skree from the spider. She reached a hand up to rub her eyes. Her dreams weren't normally this strange, but considering what had happened so far…

As the pair got farther away, the spider only barely perceivable by the faint sound of skittering, the girl in white began to slow down slightly, and looked at Kirika, an apologetic smile on her face. "I really must apologize for manhandling you like this." She began. "I'll try to explain the situation to you after we're done, but if you'll just give me a moment…" At that, her eyes lost focus for a second, as if she was looking somewhere else. When her eyes refocused, they widened slightly, and she picked up speed again, racing away from the region of shadows that they were in. The light from the gem on her collar got slightly darker, as if something was blocking it, and immediately afterwards, a mass of shadowy limbs burst out of the ground where they had just been standing.

Kirika gaped at the limbs as they slowly melted back into the ground, letting out a low sound like a tuba as they did. It was almost enough to make her forget that she was being carried by some superhuman girl who she had literally been thinking about just as they encountered each other. She shook her head. "I guess I'll have to hold the girl to it when she said she would explain later." She thought to herself. "It's not like there's anything I can do about it now…"

After running for a couple of more minutes with the girl's eyes occasionally going out of focus a few more times (which Kirika didn't exactly think was very safe, but then again, nothing about this whole situation was safe), they arrived at a pitch-black set of doors, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the area, except for a slight change in shape. How the girl found it, she had no idea.

"I'm just going to put you down here for a second, alright?" The girl told Kirika, and she nodded. Upon placing her on the ground, the girl looked at the plushie on her shoulder-

"Wait, hold on a second, what is that?!" Kirika shouted out, pointing at the plushie. The other girl let out a soft giggle, and Kirika clasped a hand to her mouth as she realized what she had said, face reddening. "Way to go, Kirika. Even the people who are willing to help you get to see how much of an idiot you are. Maybe learn how to shut your mouth for five seconds."

Fortunately, the girl didn't seem too put off by Kirika forgetting her brain-mouth filter. "Ah, he's Kyubey, the one who gave me my powers. As for what he is… Well, truth be told, I would appreciate knowing the answer to that myself. In any case, I think I should be able to do this…" She muttered to herself, and gently tapped the white gem. The gem's glow shined slightly brighter for a moment, and a white circle appeared around Kirika. "As I understand it, that circle will keep you safe from the familiars as long as you stay inside it." She placed the plushie- Kyubey, apparently- in the circle with Kirika. "Just stay with him for a bit, alright? I'll just go to deal with the one who set this barrier, and then I should be able to explain everything to you." And with that, she walked through the double doors.

—

Oriko let out a shudder as she got a bit further away from the black-haired girl. The discussion she had with Kyubey on the way to the barrier was slightly troubling. The more she learnt about all the things magical girls had to take care of, the more trouble she had keeping her composure. The fact that magical girls had to extract Grief Seeds in order to fuel their magic was somewhat surprising, but made sense in retrospect. But apparently, all Witch's barriers were as creepy and dangerous as this one, with most of them far outstripping it in strange theming. And even more troubling than that were the visions she kept receiving. She was having a bit of success in maintaining her situational awareness as she experienced visions, but they were still quite distracting. She had seen the deaths of both herself and the girl she was helping occur twice, and an injury occurring three times. The fact that she could barely control when they began didn't help her with distraction, but at least the visions were fairly useful. She wondered how magical girls without such powers would be able to make their way through barriers.

She sighed. "Well, at least I was able to help someone." She thought to herself. "Hopefully Kyubey will be able to tell her if anything-"

—

The black-haired girl sat in a corner, tears rolling from her eyes. In her hands, she held a Soul Gem. However, unlike Oriko's, this one was roiling with blackness, waves of corruption moving through the gem. "I wished for her," She sobbed. "I wished for her, and look how it turned out. I couldn't protect her from anything. Nothing at all."

The waves of corruption grew, enveloping the entirety of the gem. "Why was I such a fool? I should've known. Everything Kirika Kure does turns out wrong." She said as the tears continued to flow. "To think that such a loser weirdo like me could've protected someone like Oriko? Impossible."

Another wave of corruption ran through her Soul Gem, but this time, it was too much. Her Soul Gem burst, massive amounts of corruption flowing out, and the girl disappeared. In her place was a stack of human torsos, five bizarrely perfect bodies stacked one on another, with an old style lady's hat at the top, and two long, sharp needles for arms. The creature screeched, and stabbed the ground with her arms.

—

As the vision ended, Oriko retched, bile coming up from her stomach. Any chance of being able to keep her cool was gone- just what was that? The girl had clearly turned into a magical girl, but she had turned into a creature worthy of being one of the Witches described by Kyubey. Did that mean- could that mean- where did Witches come from!?

One thing was clear, however- Kyubey had quite a few things to answer for. And even more clear was that she didn't want Kyubey contracting that girl until she had a chance to get an explanation out of it. Oriko nodded firmly to herself. At least that problem had a simple enough solution. Decision made, she dashed back out the double doors, and grabbed Kyubey, ignoring the startled yelp of the black-haired girl a foot away.

"Is something the matter, Oriko?" Kyubey asked. "I was about to start explaining magical girls to that girl before you so rudely picked me up. You really shouldn't make a habit of that, you know."

"You have a few things to explain, Kyubey." She said, ignoring it. "But hold on for now, I want to figure out how to take care of this Witch." She focused on her Soul Gem, beginning to walk back towards the Witch.

—

Oriko walked into the Witch's inner sanctum, and for the first time, she beheld a Witch with her own eyes. It wasn't quite as creepy as the Witch which had resulted from the black-haired girl, but it was disturbing enough. Barely visible in the shadows was a woman's malformed upper body, oversized hands covering her small face. Water leaked in a stream from her face throughout the sanctum, and as Oriko leaped to line up a shot at the Witch, a hot jet of water shot from her face, which Oriko barely dodged, the heat burning against her dress as the jet of water passed her by, and one of the Witch's hands whooshed over her as she landed on the ground.

—

"Well, that one wasn't so bad, I suppose." She thought to herself. "At least I didn't get hurt this time."

Kyubey looked up at her from within her arms. "Did something new come up, Oriko? I'm quite interested in seeing how you deal with this Witch. The vast majority of magical girls who encounter her aren't able to get through her labyrinth to find her in the first place."

"No, nothing very unexpected." Oriko said, walking towards the Witch's sanctum. "It seems that she attacks with her tears. I would assume I simply have to blast the Witch until she's defeated?"

"Yes, that is generally the case." Kyubey said. "There are Witches who follow different rules, but that does not seem to be the case here."

"In that case…" Oriko stepped through into the Witch's sanctum. It was just like in the vision, the Witch sobbing in the corner. This time, she was careful to avoid the jets of water coming from the Witch, as well as the chop of the hand that she performed afterwards by simply diving past it. All the while, the Witch was blasted with shot after shot from the crystal balls surrounding her, visibly making burns in whatever strange material made up her body. The Witch groaned loudly, but the Witch didn't seem inclined to move from her spot aside from swiping her hands.

"Well done. It seems that this witch is more inclined to rely on her labyrinth for her protection than she is her own capabilities." The little creature observed clinically. "I wasn't sure, but I expected as much."

Sure enough, the Witch was soon totally burnt from the rays of light, totally melted into slag. The black shadows surrounding the barrier slowly faded, giving way to the soft glow of street lights. She scooped up the small stone that fell from the barrier and looked down the street, trying to find the black-haired girl… and there she was, looking around at the street. She noticed Oriko observing her after a moment, and blushed, looking away. Oriko gave a tiny wave, and walked over to her.

"S-so, you said that you would be able to tell me what's going on here?" The girl said as she reached her, her cheeks still a faint red. "That was really weird, y'know"

"It's nearly as weird to me as it is to you." Oriko said, a small smile pasted on her face. It wouldn't do to show her trouble, after all. "So, the situation is like this…"