CHAPTER 4: Cause & Effect
"Stupid stupid waitress! Stupid, stupid stupid mall cops! Stupid, stupid, stupid stupid bathroom hog! Gah!" Sayaka Miki furiously mashed buttons on her game controller, venting all her pent-up anger and frustration in a virtual street fight. Not wanting to involve her friend Madoka in what should have been a clear cut case of mistaken identity, Sayaka had told her to go home while Sayaka tried to handle the situation herself. Unfortunately, all the security tapes of the mall that morning had been mysteriously erased, effectively making it an argument between herself and the restaurant's waitress. And the waitress somehow had an old couple and the cook her side.
"K.O! You Win!" The game blared with Sayaka delivering her favorite character's trademark knockout combo. "Auggggh! Stupid, stupid tapes! Stupid, stupid dishes! Stupid, stupid stupid restaurant!" Sayaka had already spent most of her allowance money buying her bathing suit. When she couldn't cover the cost of the meal and somebody's coffee, she had to wash their dishes for a whole afternoon shift. But she wound up accidentally tripping and breaking some of their dishes. She was going to have to pay for those, too. What was supposed to have been a wonderful day off from school and homework with her friends had turned into a pretty rotten day of actual work without any time for fun and friends.
Sayaka checked the time on the wall clock. It was nearly the top of the hour, her favorite anime was about to air. Feeling her pent-up frustrations had been vented enough, Sayaka shut the game off and flipped the television channel. She leapt off her futon, and hustled over to the refrigerator.
'Stir-fry vegetable leftovers inside. Save some for your mother!' Read a note taped to the refrigerator. Her father was a police officer who worked overnight shifts, her mother an office lady who was away from home for much of the day. They very rarely ate or spent time together as a family, usually only on special nights out. Typically one parent would come home, cook a meal, Sayaka would arrive home from being at school or out with her friends and find the leftovers still somewhat edible. She'd reheat and prepare it as necessary, go on with her business. The other parent would come home, cook a meal, Sayaka would do it again, rinse, and repeat. She had grown pretty used to their cycle by now.
"In the name of justice and with the power of love… I will punish you and end your evil schemes!" It was one of those 'magical girl' shows. The anime's plot was corny as heck and made to sell toys to kids half Sayaka's age, but she didn't care about that. She was into the magical transformations, the character and costume designs, the meticulously animated battles, and the music. Most of all, she was drawn to the ideals of these shows, that a person her age could gain the power to fight for justice, make miracles, protect the innocent, and leave the world a little bit better place than when they came into it. If only such miracles and magic were real. Whenever she was in a really good mood, she'd sometimes tie a blanket around her neck.
"What's tha-?" Something stuck out in the corner of Sayaka's eyes. She jumped to her feet and peered out her window and looked around outside. "Who's there? Where are you?" Somebody sitting on a tree limb, watching her right through the window, she swore. She suspiciously scanned up and down the tree, visually searched the trees next to it, then checked who was in the streets below. But the trees were clean. The streets are quiet, as far she could tell. "Weeeird." Sayaka closed her window, shut the drapes, hit the light switch and went back to watching her show.
Homura Akemi could not doubt her eyes: The girl she was spying on through the window was Sayaka Miki. She was living in the same apartment, playing the same games and watching the same contrived programs as the Sayaka Miki that Homura had known for nearly as long as she'd been a magical girl. Then who could that Sayaka Miki at the hospital have been? It was unmistakably the same signature of magic, and once all the camouflage came off, and her face matched the short-haired tomboy to a tee.
But how could that person be Sayaka? Was it possible that the mysterious woman was another magical girl, one with the ability to hide her own aura and make copies from someone's memories? It'd be much more plausible than her story about being an alien. Homura had had to deal with anomalous interlopers in numerous timelines before, such as the ever so bothersome Oriko Mikuni and Kirika Kure, but no one seemingly as out of left field as this woman. But yes, Homura concluded, she had to be another anomalous magical girl. Both needed to be neutralized. And quickly. Before Kyubey could manipulate the situation to his own ends.
Homura checked the time. She needed to move. A witch was going to appear somewhere near the docks in forty minutes. Mami Tomoe was going to hunt a familiar near Mitakihara's Shinto Shrine in seventy minutes. And Homura's "warning" shot earlier was not going to deter Kyubey away from monitoring Madoka for very long. He was going to snoop on Madoka at her home in another two hours. She calculated these events as having a seventy, an eighty-five, and a ninety-five percent chance of occurring in this timeflow, respectively. Afterwards, she needed to stock up on weapons and ammunition by infiltrating the nearby JSDF base. Homura peeked around the tree trunk, saw that Sayaka had closed her curtains, spun her buckler and sprinted to the docks.
"Dear Hitomi:
I have known you in class ever since elementary school, and I would very much like to get to know you more. Should I ever gain my strength, I plan to confess my love to you in person someday soon. Until I do, I ask that you please wait for me.
- From Your Secret Admirer"
Hitomi Shizuki took the note from its envelope, reread the message, and held it close to her chest. This love letter was not discreetly stuffed in her locker as per the usual love notes she always tossed, but rather passed along her homeroom class, from person to person, from boy to girl to boy to girl, before ending up in her hands so that she couldn't guess who wrote it. Still, she had a few clues and suspicions. And with those clues and suspicions, came the worry.
Since it was passed along the homeroom class, it stood to reason that it was probably one of the boys from that particular class. There were thirteen boys in that group, two of which already had girlfriends that Hitomi was aware of. Of the other eight, five had been in her class since elementary school. The handwriting on the note was pretty crude, even for a boy, as if whomever wrote had just learned how to write with their opposite hand. This could possibly indicate whomever made the letter had just lost the use of their normal hand. And then there was, that choice of words: "Gain my strength"... Hitomi guessed that he might have meant his physical, rather than emotional strength. Just one of the boys in that group had been through an incident that required that they "gain strength" and write with their other hand: Kyosuke Kamijo. It was his note, she was sure of that.
Or it was possible Hitomi was jumping to conclusions. Could it have been that the note writer was deliberately using their wrong hand, so she couldn't figure it out by the handwriting alone? Was it possible one of the boys with girlfriends was only seeing another girl so that Hitomi wouldn't suspect them? Perhaps Hitomi just desperately wanted it to be Kyosuke, as she had been crushing on him for quite a while now. Upon finally admitting to herself that she had become smitten, it made her feel more anxious.
Hitomi's friend Sayaka Miki had also been a long time admirer of Kyosuke's. Though Sayaka stubbornly would only admit to being just "friends," Hitomi could plainly sense that Sayaka's feelings were blossoming into something greater, too. It was Sayaka who attended every single recital, back when Kyosuke could still play his instrument. It was Sayaka who waited outside the hospital, for any news on his surgery after his terrible accident. It was Sayaka who visited him during his recovery the most, often using her own money to bring him cards, gifts, and even CDs. It somehow felt wrong for Hitomi to put her own nascent feelings above her friend's increasingly-apparent ones. She felt guilty every single time she went to see him without Sayaka knowing, so guilty that she absolutely had to confess to someone about it. That unfortunate ear being her cousin Ryoko.
But right now, Kyosuke showed no signs of any reciprocating interest in Sayaka. It may just have been because he was still trying to cope with the trauma of his injury. It would be hard for anyone to cope with the complete loss of function of their hand, let alone someone who was once a musical prodigy. And it didn't help that some of Sayaka's CD gifts included songs he used to play. During her visit early this afternoon Kyosuke confided to Hitomi that he'd been growing increasingly displeased with the CDs Sayaka would bring to him. How could he move on with his life, he told her, if Sayaka kept insisting he listen to the very music that he couldn't play anymore?
Why would Kyosuke trust Hitomi with a secret so personal and painful? This singular intimate confession led further credence to Hitomi's notion that he really was the note writer, and that getting a girlfriend was his way of taking that first big step into moving on with his life. But that was merely a hunch. Or maybe more of a hopeful wish. She was going to visit him again soon, she just had to make the time in her always-busy schedule for it. But how was she to do it, without tipping off Sayaka?
"A Walpurgisnacht? Coming to Mitakihara? Are you absolutely sure, Kyubey?" Mami Tomoe was in the middle of eating her dinner, when Kyubey trotted into her apartment. He had some bad news to deliver.
"That is the current projection, yes." Kyubey replied.
"When is it going to arrive?"
"In about forty to forty-five days from today, I believe."
"That's… Not that much time."
"Quite true." Kyubey scratched behind his ear.
When Mami was first starting out as a magical girl, after making a contract with Kyubey, which caused her to survive a nasty car accident that claimed the lives of both her parents, she once broached her benefactor on the issue of the most powerful witches. He stated that Walpurgisnacht was the most powerful witch on record, that its attacks come decades, even centuries apart, that it does not hide in barriers so its attacks become recorded in history as natural disasters, and that no magical girl has ever defeated one alone. Mami had to consider all of her options if she was to save Mitakihara City from such a catastrophe.
"I could try to patch things up with Kyoko… She should still be in Kazamino City." Her falling out with her former magical girl protégé had been a source of sleepless nights for months now. "She probably doesn't want to have anything to do with me anymore, though."
"Forty days would be enough time to recruit and train new magical girls." Kyubey suggested.
"Barely enough."
"I have candidates in mind."
"You do?" Kyubey had always been a trustworthy and honest little messenger of magic for her, but sometimes she'd lie awake and wonder just how he knows all the things he knows. How he goes to the places he goes.
"They also attend your school."
This little nugget sent Mami's heart into a flutter. She'd pined for a new student to fill that void left by Kyoko, that she might soon get two new students, nay, two new friends, to talk to was an opportunity she absolutely wanted to jump at. Still, training them, only to know they'd soon have to face down a terrifying Walpurgisnacht was cause to reconsider.
"I'd prefer not to pit newcomers against a Walpurgisnacht. I don't think I could forgive myself if I had to watch them..." She shuddered as she tried to finish that sentence. "Die."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Kyubey succinctly countered. "Mami, there is something else I think I should warn you about."
"Oh? What's that?"
"While I was scouting the two potentials, I was attacked by another magical girl."
"Oh no! Did you see who she was?"
"No. She attacked with a magically-coated human projectile round that originated from outside my perceptual range."
"Oh?"
"While it is premature to assume that this girl was attempting to prevent me from making contact with new magical girls, such an act would fit with the methods utilized by other aggressively territorial magical girls. So it would also be logical to assume that this girl may soon try to challenge you for this territory."
"Hidden rivals, former students gone rogue, and a Walpurgisnacht looming large. This life isn't anything like those stories I loved as a child." Mami set aside the rest of her dinner. Just like that, her appetite was gone.
From the ring on her finger, a large golden yellow egg formed. She tossed it into the air, danced a pre rehearsed jig, and caught her egg as a big burst of energy sprouted forth from it.
Her school shoes morphed into a majestic pair of yellow and brown boots, her school uniform into a bust-emphasizing top and tight-fitting brown corset to match. Her grey plaid skirt changed into a short yellow edition with brown trim, and a prim brown cap which her Soul Gem latched itself to. Her blonde, ringlet-curled hair shined a queenly gold upon her finished transformation.
"I do still quite enjoy that part, though." She smiled with a self-assured confidence as she headed out the door. "Time to go witch-hunting again. Thanks for all your words, Kyubey."
"No gratitude is necessary. I am simply doing my duty." Kyubey replied as he leapt onto her shoulder.
"No… Stop… P-please, have mercy!" Kyoko Sakura had the rookie magical girl chained up with her weapon, and hanging upside down from a rooftop almost six floors up.
"Mercy?" Kyoko nibled the last of the Pocky stick in her mouth while she laughed tauntingly at her victim. "You think this is some kind of game? What sort of world do you think you're living in? One of those fairytale stories where those with power exist to protect and serve the weak and helpless? Ick! Don't make me puke!"
"But it's going to kill somebody!" The rookie pleaded in vain. The unfortunate girl had chased this familiar all the way to Kazamino City, unwittingly encroaching into Kyoko's hunting grounds. She had the creature nearly cornered, but Kyoko intervened at the last moment and the creature escaped. The situation escalated to an exchange of blows, but the veteran Kyoko quickly overwhelmed the rookie.
"I'll only explain this once, kid: Think of the food chain. Familiars eat lowly humans, and they eat and grow and grow until they're ripe new witches! That's when they'll carry a grief seed! Then we magical girls come in and kill the witches and use the grief seeds and increase our magic! You don't kill a chicken before it's laid an egg! Let the familiar go, and kill it when it's all grown up!"
"But what if it goes after someone you know? Don't you have a fam-" Kyoko released her before she could finish the appeal. Down she dropped, screaming pathetically, as she tumbled right into a filthy garbage dumpster.
"And if you meet any other magical girls, tell them this town belongs to Kyoko Sakura!" Kyoko shouted down to her vanquished foe.
That was pretty harsh of you, Kyoko." Kyubey was watching the fight while perched on a rooftop ledge.
"Eh, I let her off easy." Kyoko said dismissively as she turned the other way and leapt higher onto the building where Kyubey was perched. "I really hate running into rookies who think it's their duty to be savin' the whole world or somethin'. So naïve." Kyoko dusted off her collar as she checked her reflection in a window.
"What of the familiar?" Kyubey asked.
"What of it?" Kyoko shrugged. "It got away. Once it becomes a witch, if it stays in my town, I'll bring it down." Kyoko leapt from the next building onto a hotel rooftop. "Even if it doesn't stay, I think I'll chase it to whatever place it goes. The pickings have been getting a little slim 'round here lately."
"That observation does seem to be accurate." Kyubey concurred. "Kazamino City would appear to have experienced a recent downturn in witch activity."
"Heh! Maybe I'm just that stinkin' good." Kyoko boasted as she slid down the hotel building's stairway rails. "The prey knows to stay away!"
"You would be even more powerful if you tried to regain your enchantment magic." Kyubey reminded her as he dutifully kept pace. "I still deem you to be at a severe disadvantage so long as you continue to rely only on your weapon and your physical strength alone in battle."
"Don't need it. Ain't me anymore." Kyoko brushed him aside the moment he caught up. She once possessed the power to create elaborate illusions with her magic, but lost that ability shortly after she had her family, lost everything she had held dear in her life. It was because of that illusion of happiness she had lost them, so she rejected that power, and with it, she rejected her own wish.
"I completely cleaned out the witches and rivals in this town without it." Kyoko opened the fourth floor stairwell window and jumped through to an open hotel room window across the way. She transformed out of her red-clad magical girl outfit and back into her normal clothes. The room she had entered was a room she had previously squatted in. Without a place to call her home, she had gotten into the practice of sneaking into unused hotel rooms and bathhouses. The luxurious places she'd been squatting were worlds better than even the home she had when she'd had a family, only further reinforcing her opportunistic worldview.
"That aforementioned downturn is not likely due to you or your own perceived talent." Kyubey remained perched atop the window ledge on the floor above. Kyoko turned back and saw his glowing, beady eyes looking down at her.
"Huh? What the hell do you know?" Kyoko disrespectfully spat. Kyubey's emotionally detached style of passively watching and clinically advising was really starting to grate on her.
"The downturn in witch activity in this city is consistent with a downturn in a number of adjacent cities. Their collective pattern of movement suggests that they are migrating."
"So where the hell are they all going?"
"To the only city with a correlating increase in the number of witch attacks." Kyubey cocked his head as he wagged his tail back and forth. "To Mitakihara City."
"Reeeeaaaaallllly?" Kyoko's heart jumped a beat when he namedropped that town. The last time she was in Mitakihara City, she'd had a falling out with its resident magical girl protector, Mami Tomoe. The two magical girls had become fast friends in the heat of battle. Mami was the elder who had taught Kyoko nearly everything she knew about this magical life, but with Kyoko's change in fortune and subsequent shift in philosophy, to her more self-serving attitude, was a change that Mami Tomoe just couldn't abide. The last time they'd spoken they even came to violent blows. Kyoko wasn't thrilled with the prospect of seeing her former friend again. Nor, Kyoko imagined, would Mami Tomoe be too happy either.
"If that's where they're headed, then that's where I'm going." Kyoko closed the window and pulled the curtain down. She reached for a wrapped hamburger from a small stockpile of food on the table, and bit into it with an animal's ferocity. "I'll turn Mitakihara into my town, too! Bet she don't have the guts to stop me!"
Kyubey stepped out of the bushes and looked up toward the lavish home in front him. 'This is definitely the place. The girl with the inordinate magical energy potential lives here.' He telepathically reported. Kyubey climbed up a tree in front and made his way onto a small ledge. He looked through the first window. The room was empty. It moved on to the second. An older human male. Most likely the family patriarch. Not of interest. It jumped to a higher ledge, and peered into another window. A younger male was sleeping in a crib, presumably a sibling. Not of interest either. Kyubey jumped to a higher ledge. This window was only partially open, but open just enough he could conceivably paw the rest of it open.
There she was: Madoka Kaname, quietly typing away on her computer. 'This is indeed the same girl that was previously scouted.' There she sat, completely ignorant of the karmic energy she was emanating, an energy so strong Kyubey felt it from kilometers away. Any witches around would sense her, too, it expected. Kyubey surveyed the room. A properly made-up bed, stuffed animal toys, and pictures of friends and family on the desk. She looked to be a completely normal Japanese teenager. She was no royalty, not the figurehead or source of any religious movement, there was no apparent clue at all as to the cause of this girl's sudden blossoming of magical potential.
Kyubey stepped closer, right up to the window's opening. The logical course was to continue observing, discover whatever it was this girl desired most in life, before revealing himself. He stuck his paw in the window frame. He could also wait for a witch to attack first, then he could present himself during her moment of crisis, perhaps bring an elder magical girl in to make the rescue, let her see firsthand the destiny which awaits her. Mami Tomoe was already being primed to play such a role. He nudged the window open, slowly. But it was possible that this girl did not have any need for a miracle, no desire for power. The window was open enough for him to wriggle inside now. It was also possible that any witch attack could kill this girl before he or Tomoe could act. Kyubey stepped inside. He was going to do it. It was not the first time he had taken the initiative in this manner, and this girl was far too valuable to allow even the slightest chance of a mishap.
Kyubey felt something grab his tail. Less than a split second later, a human hand was covering his eyes. A second later, it felt its entire head being twisted and slammed repeatedly against a hard surface. If he were a creature that could feel pain, this would be a very painful demise. Seconds after he was airborne, the last sensations that body registered were the air rushing around and the Kaname household fading beneath his view.
"Such a waste." The new Kyubey form said to himself as he hastily gnawed on the corpse Kyubey's remains moments after its abrupt landing. The attacker was most definitely a magical girl. For the scant moments that body was still alive to experience the attack, he sensed her distinct magical presence. What he did not know was the identity of the attacker, for her magical signature was not that of someone he'd recalled making a contract with. So who was she? Was he her only target, or was the girl about to become a victim? Kyubey finished eating his remains. For minutes he circled around the bushes. The aura of Madoka Kaname remained unperturbed. He heard a rustling in the trees behind. This magical girl was definitely trying to chase him away. Kyubey had no choice but to retreat and not make another attempt to contact Madoka Kaname for now. The creature had many bodies in reserve, but there was nothing to be gained by needlessly wasting them in this situation. The most logical thing to do was to think of a way to get Madoka Kaname to come to it.
Her planned day out with friends Sayaka and Hitomi derailed, the former tangled up in a mistaken identity case with the mall's security, while the latter could not manage the free time to come along, Madoka decided that, with her family out of the house, it was instead going to be an afternoon to just go home and rest. She had dozed off on her bed at around four in the afternoon and awakened just before dusk, to the unexpected sensation of wetness under her eyes and down her cheeks. She realized she had been crying in her sleep. And the terribly unsettling dream still fresh in her mind was the apparent cause.
MADOKA: 'Sayaka? Are You There? I really need to talk to you right now.'
Sayaka often kept her phone off while she's at home, and Madoka's phone was usually confiscated by her Papa at night. Instant messaging on their personal computers was their go-to method of chatting without them. It was a bit antiquated, but both of their parents' permitted it. They saw it was preferable to having their children's eyes glued to phones, like most of their peers.
SAYAKA: 'What's up?'
MADOKA: 'What happened at the mall?'
SAYAKA: 'I had to wash that restaurant's dishes all afternoon. :( '
MADOKA: 'That's terrible! You're not the girl they were after! You were with me the whole time! I knew I should've stayed there with you! I could've told them that.'
SAYAKA: 'They would have accused you of lying for me. They probably would have called your parents. Then we'd both be in trouble. Not letting that happen to you. Nope.'
MADOKA: 'Doesn't the restaurant have cameras? Didn't they check the tapes?'
SAYAKA: 'The tapes were erased. The mall security guards said there was some sort of glitch. So it was my word against the waitress's. My word against the customers'. Kid vs. adults. Kids always lose. Even if you were there for me, no chance.'
MADOKA: 'That's not fair!'
SAYAKA: 'It's fine. They called my parents and told their side. But I told him my side, and now my dad's going to be on the lookout for that foreigner the people there claimed I was with.'
MADOKA: 'So your dad believes you? :) '
SAYAKA: 'Dad yes. Mom's not convinced. Typical. But he thinks there's something really odd about the lack of tapes. Mom thinks I'm acting out. I just want to move on with the whole mess.
MADOKA: 'Sorry.'
SAYAKA: 'Don't worry about it. It's fine. I'll be fine.'
Trying to bring up the quickly-fading details of a bad dream seemed rather trivial compared to her best friend's real-world problems, but Madoka still felt the need to tell her best friend what she remembered. The dream was just too upsetting to not to talk about it. It felt too real to just sit on.
MADOKA: 'I woke up crying a little bit ago. I think I was crying because of you.'
SAYAKA: 'Because of me? Why? Upset about today? I told you it's not your fault.'
MADOKA: 'No it's not about that! I had this really scary dream where you were yelling at me and I think we were fighting about something!'
SAYAKA: 'Yelling? Fighting? About what?
MADOKA: I don't know. I just remember that it was raining and we were arguing about fighting and I was wondering what would make you happy and...'
Madoka spent the next minute or so trying to recall the exact details.
MADOKA: 'I remember you telling me that I should fight instead. That I had more talent, or something? That I wouldn't suffer for it…'
SAYAKA: 'You have a talent? For fighting? You've never picked a fight your whole life LOL!'
MADOKA: 'That I should walk in your shoes…'
SAYAKA: 'You don't fit in my shoes.'
MADOKA: 'That I couldn't give up something important out of pity? I'm trying to remember. But instead you accused me of doing nothing while you're the one getting hurt.'
There was one detail still clearly imprinted in mind, however.
MADOKA: 'I remember being so scared by the look on your face. You'd never looked so mad at me before! And then when I tried to follow you, you ran away. And it honestly felt like to me like I was never ever going to see you again!'
SAYAKA: 'I could never feel that way towards you, Madoka. Not ever ever ever. Wouldn't dream of it. ;) '
MADOKA: 'And I also remember a glowing jewel of some sort? I think you called it a rock? You said you were that rock.'
SAYAKA: 'A glowing rock? That was me? Okay what anime have you been watching?'
MADOKA: 'You think I'm weird. ;_; '
SAYAKA: 'I think you're just feeling guilty for not being here with me today, and your guilt morphed into a bad dream. But you don't need to worry. It was just someone's lunch and a coffee and a stupid misunderstanding. I'm over it. Won't even matter in a few days. Not worth the stress. Definitely not worth you crying over.'
MADOKA: 'You promise you won't say anything to anyone about my dream?'
SAYAKA: 'Who would I even tell? Hitomi? She'd probably agree with me.'
MADOKA: 'You're probably right.'
SAYAKA: 'Now that you mention it, don't tell Hitomi about what happened today. She doesn't need to know about the restaurant. Two secrets between two besties. Deal?'
MADOKA: 'Deal! :) '
Madoka suddenly heard a sound just outside her window. She turned around and looked outside. The only thing making noise was a small stray cat rustling around the garbage bin.
"Amy!" Madoka identified it as a stray cat she'd been nurturing for the last few weeks. "You wait right there while I get you some food, okay?" Madoka signed off her computer and took off downstairs.
"My room!" Sayaka burst back into the TARDIS control room.
"What about it?" The Time Lady replied.
"It's huge!" Sayaka had just seen the bedroom in her quarters. "It's bigger than my whole flippin' apartment!"
"Is it too big? Bit drafty in there?" The Time Lady pecked away on a keyboard at her control console. "I know, the climate settings are all over the place. I've been trying to save power in every little spot I can…"
"No, it's just-" Sayaka stumbled to find the words. "I'm just not used to having so much space. I guess."
"Feels... Alien, yeah? Like you don't belong there?" The Time Lady gave an understanding smile.
"Yeah."
"I get it. It's supposed to be the Commanding Officer's quarters, if I remember correctly." The Time Lady hit a button as a paper printout slowly rolled out of a slot on the console. "Basically it's my room. But I don't care to sleep with so many books. Reminds me of my school days."
"So why do you have so many books in there?" Sayaka wondered. "It's like a whole library in there!"
"Well… you see, a lot of them are one-of-a-kind prints. They literally don't exist anywhere else. And then I've got some old Gallifreyan epics and poems, plenty of nonfiction like physics books, history books, and biographies. And then there's the collective knowledge of a few long-extinct societies. Others are the token payments I've received from some of the people I've helped." She widened her eyes and scratched the tip of her lip. "Hey, do you by any chance read Agatha Christie?"
Sayaka shook her head.
"Oh." The Time Lady was not surprised, only slightly disappointed. "If you'd rather sleep on my futon out here, I could-"
"No. It's fine. I'll sleep fine." Sayaka didn't want to inconvenience her host any more than she already had.
"I'll bring you extra blankets if you get a bit chilly in there. It probably will. Power issues and such." She skimmed a read of her console's paper printout.
"Do you have any pajamas? That I could borrow?"
"Pajamas?" The Time Lady paused for a moment. "Ah, yes, those things that some humans wear to..." She skipped from readout to readout. "Think I've got a pair of bunny pajamas. Belonged to a girl I once counseled. Let me find them first."
"Thanks." Sayaka turned around to head back into her room. It was barely dusk outside, but she was already exhausted.
"There's something else I want, but I don't really know any un-awkward way to ask," The Time Lady took a seat back at her work desk. "So I'll just out and out ask you for it: I'd like to take a look at you Soul Gem."
"M-My Soul Gem? No!"
"I won't do anything weird with it. I promise." The Time Lady looked up at Sayaka, raised her hand and gestured with her pinkie finger. "I just want to run some tests. Take a small sample of that egg-shaped container part."
"This thing is my soul ! It's me ! You'd be doing tests on me ! Sampling me !"
"I'm aware of that. That's why I'm asking you for permission."
"Do you have any idea what it's like to have someone mess with your identity? With your very sense of self?"
The Time Lady thought for a moment. "I do, in fact."
Sayaka was caught a bit off guard with that answer. She studied the ring on her finger, examining more closely its decorative etchings and its strange writing. After a silent few minutes Sayaka held out her hand, waved over it with her other hand, as the ring transformed into her Soul Gem in the palm of her hand. "You promise… You won't take it anyplace either?"
"What do you mean?"
"If my Soul Gem and my body are separated by more than a hundred meters or so, my body," Sayaka uncomfortably swallowed before continuing "Uh... I die."
"Did Kyubey tell you that?"
"It happened to me once." Sayaka thought back to that unsettling night, atop the bridge, foolishly trying to battle Kyoko. "I was being an idiot. Trying to pick a fight that I wasn't going to win." The memory already felt like it happened in another lifetime. "Madoka knew that and so she swiped my Soul Gem away and tossed it onto a truck." She remembered Madoka telling her later that it was Homura who took off and retrieved it. Why would Homura do such a thing for a person she didn't even like, for a person Homura was even about to fight? Sayaka hadn't even considered that question until this moment. "The next thing I knew, everybody had gathered around me looking real worried. Madoka looked like she had just gone to my funeral."
The Time Lady took the Soul Gem from Sayaka's hand and set it on her work desk. "It'll stay right here. Promise, promise. Promise!"
Sayaka turned around and was about to return to her quarters, when The Time Lady put in one last question. "How's my name coming along? Thought of one yet?"
"I'll sleep on it." The door slid closed behind her.
Sayaka fell face first onto her bed as she let out a long, grunting, frustrated sigh into her pillow. She was beat, but her mind was jumping from unanswered question to unanswered question, she simply could not relax. What happened to everybody she'd left behind, what became of the Madoka and the Kyoko that she knew? Or was this the same world at an earlier point? Then why would there be two Sayakas now? What was Hitomi doing at the hospital? Why was she lying about it? How long before this had Kyubey been scouting the two of them, and why was he so fixated on Madoka? Is defeating witches even the real reason he's here? How could that Homura at the hospital already know her? Above all, who was this mystery woman that had saved Sayaka's life? Was she really just here to help? She seems to know a lot, but Sayaka could still sense that she was still thinking of other things while they talked. Her eyes… They were almost a dead ringer for Homura's.
Just about the only thing Sayaka could readily accept at the moment was where she was. She was definitely aboard a spaceship. She was aboard a huge spaceship that was also a time machine. She was aboard a huge spaceship that was also a time machine that was also disguised as a small vending machine at the mall. And she had been conscripted into becoming a member of its 'crew'. She is its 'Co-Pilot'.
She had to admit, the idea of flying around through space and through time, fighting bad guys, meeting aliens and making the Universe better, sounded really cool. Even cooler than the idea of being a magical girl. But there were probably a lot of unknowable downsides too. Maybe that's why the Time Lady's eyes looked that way.
Ugh, the downsides. If only she'd known what becoming a magical girl really entailed. If she'd never have to don that silly blue top and white cape again, it would be too soon. And now that Other Sayaka was on track to make that same mistake. Or was she? No, Sayaka knew she needed to stop her other self from going down this path. Why else would she be here? Why else would there be two of her? She just had to find a way.
Tossing and turning, her brain bouncing from thought to thought and still tired yet sleepless, Sayaka rolled off the bed. There was a large screen on the far wall between two large bookshelves. It activated and lit as Sayaka approached.
'PLAY MUSIC?' it read. It's as if the ship were reading her mind. "Play this." Sayaka held out her music CD in front of the screen with both her hands. Debussey's signature song blared throughout the room. "Lower the volume a little." Sayaka searched up and down the bookshelf. "Perfect." Sayaka used to catch her mother dozing off while reading a book. Plus, reading was for her the quickest way to make it through class, as well. She just needed something to distract from the swirl of questions. Soothing music and boring reading was her impromptu solution.
'On Non-Linear Nonsubjective Causality: The Wibbly-Wobbly of Temporal Mechanics' one title read. The words 'Wibbly-Wobbly,' instantly stuck out at her. She pulled the book from the shelf, threw herself back into bed, took off her shirt, pulled a blanket over herself and cracked it open.
'Under temporally exceptional conditions, what would linearly be observed as an effect preceding a cause, would in fact be, an effect following a cause in a parallel reality, as a multitude of timeflows will overlap in a multiversal nexus.' Sayaka's eyes glazed over, her head drifted onto her pillow, she was finally at rest.
Sayaka couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong. She was following the instructions the teacher had given perfectly, so she thought, but her attempts were all turning out the same.
"You're cutting it all wrong!" Her classmate Nakazawa whispered to her. "That looks like a mustache!"
Valentine's Day was tomorrow, and the kids in Sayaka's first grade class were all busy making paper heart cutouts, and they were going to glue them to cards and make Valentine's exchanges with one another. Sayaka planned to cut a great, big heart, decorate it with glitter and ribbons, and give it to Kyosuke Kamijo, but first she had to figure out how to do it right. She was now at failure attempt number seven. Failures number one through six all looked like mustaches, too.
"Shuuuush it!" Sayaka blurted at him out of frustration. Sayaka grabbed another red sheet of paper. She folded it in half and cut in. Start at the bottom, cut in towards the other end, and then outward again. Eighth attempt: Same as the other seven. Sayaka could hear Nakazawa trying not to laugh next to her. And failing. His outburst attracted the attention of the rest of the kids at the arts and crafts table, including Kyosuke, who was sitting on Nakazawa's opposite side.
"Hey! Sayaka's hearts all look like mustaches!" One of the girl classmates at the table took notice and grabbed a mustache. "Sayaka's making mustaches!" The word was out now. Sayaka could not create a paper heart. Was she going to cry? Was she going to admit failure and ask for help? Was she just going to run away and hide in the girls' bathroom? Just as she was seriously considering the third option, she got a spark of an idea that might turn this embarrassment into a better way of getting Kyosuke's attention.
"Papa, how did you get Mama to notice you?" Sayaka asked her father one morning.
"I put a bug in her hair."
"That's mean!"
"But it sure got her attention! And then I started sitting behind her in class, poking her in the back. Then I would hide her gym shoes. And steal the ribbon in her hair. That went on through all of Seventh Grade." He recounted all his pranks as he sipped his coffee.
"Did she hate you for it?"
"Oh, yeah." Her father rolled his eyes. "And then she started firing back. Tied my shoes together, swapped my lunches, cut a… Particular hole in my gym shorts. That's when I knew she was the girl for me. Last day of Seventh Grade, I made a confession letter, folded it into a paper airplane and tossed it… Right into her face!"
"That's right! Step right up! Master Mustache Maker Sayaka's here to make you all mustaches! Bwahahaha!" She held her latest failure up to her mouth as she hastily applied glue to the one in front of her on the table.
One of the boys at the table grabbed a piece of tape and taped her mustache to his lip. "Look at me! I'm a big grown up!" It worked. The other kids were laughing with her, and not at her. Big relief. Kyosuke was laughing too as he tentatively reached for a mustache.
"But I know you weren't trying to make th… Mmmmf!" Sayaka pushed Nakazawa out of the way and slapped the mustache full of glue over Kyosuke's mouth. Everybody else at the table burst into laughter. Unfortunately for Sayaka, their teacher was standing behind them. And she was not as amused.
Sayaka had to sit in the corner facing the wall and finish her arts and crafts project while the rest of the class was in recess.
Sayaka grabbed a red sheet of paper, folded it and tried again. "Just one heart. Please?" Sayaka sobbed as she cut. No joy. Another mustache. She crumpled it as her grief grew into more audible despair from the corner. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
"Here you go!" Sayaka heard a voice approach her from behind. "You can have mine." It was Madoka. She had somehow snuck past the teacher and gotten back into the classroom.
Madoka pulled a folded paper heart from her pocket. She grabbed a sheet of red paper, folded it, and placed her folded heart on top of it. She took Sayaka's hand and gave her the papers, and with Madoka's heart serving as her outline, Sayaka cut out her first heart.
"Thanks!" Sayaka smiled. Madoka smiled, and they hugged.
"Main power… Still down. Secondary systems… Mostly functional, for the time being. Time travel is… A definite 'No'. Can't even budge from our current parking spot." The Time Lady was reading down the printed TARDIS status report. "Automated repairs continuing… Non-Vital System all set to 'Low Power' Mode. No ETA on repair completion yet." She let out a deep sigh as she pushed her glasses up.
She glanced at Sayaka's Soul Gem sitting on her work desk. Of course, the reason she gave to Sayaka for handing it over was a fabrication. The egg was a human soul coalesced and encased inside a container of unpurified Gallifreynium. That fact was self-evident. "A zero point zero zero zero one four seven percent rate of active-to-depleted ectomatter conversion rate increase since previous scan." The Time Lady removed her glasses. "So just the act of controlling one's own body requires the use of one's 'magic'. Making certain you can't 'quit' the job once you've agreed to do it. I'm sure that bunnycat conveniently didn't tell you that part, either."
The Time Lady looked over at the console display. It was showing her new Co-Pilot's heart and blood pressure as dropping to levels that would suggest she was finally asleep. Brain activity corroborated that conclusion too. The Time Lady pulled out her pocket watch. She placed Sayaka's Soul Gem on top of it, and clasped them in her hands. A small amount of blackness rushed out of the egg and into the watch, swirling around it before finally traveling up The Time Lady's arm and through her body.
"In smaller spurts it's not nearly as rough." She twitched her fingers rapidly while she took deep, controlled breaths. "Still, this can only work so long. Have to get to work on an ectomatter purification system. And find a suitable receptacle for the bad stuff. Before she starts questioning how her soul's staying 'lit'." She set Sayaka's Gem back on the work desk and plopped the watch into her pocket.
"Sayaka Miki. Homura Akemi. Her friend Madoka. And she also spoke of a 'Mami' and a 'Kyoko'." The Time Lady was pecking instructions on the control console as she spoke to herself. "Five girls. One destiny. Were they all fated to die at the hands of that monstrous witch we saw? Was that the 'destiny'?"
"Yes I know we're in 'Low Power Mode'. Pour me some damn tea anyway. You can spare it." The Time Lady tapped at the screen display on the console. She trudged over to an indentation on the wall. It opened and served her up a cup.
"Much as I would like to believe that's the answer, there's gotta be more to it. Sayaka was fading too fast to last that long." She stared at Sayaka Gem with each sip. "No. It's something else. It's a fate that the bunnycat knows."
The light at the tip of The Time Lady's multitool started blinking rapidly on her work desk. The Time Lady took a big tea sip, strode over, sat down and glared at her device's rhythmic pulsing. "And so does she."
"This… Is not a very efficient use of one's time or energy." The Time Lady complained while she followed Sayaka around Mitakihara City.
"It's the way Mami taught me. It's the only way I know how to find witches." Sayaka walked along with her Soul Gem glowing in hand.
It had been a few days now since their partnership in this predicament. In the interim, The Time Lady made more makeshift refinements to Sayaka's 'disguise'. No more goofy glasses, just the wig, a little makeup and a spray-on perception alterer. Helps her "blend in". The Time Lady insisted this sort of thing used to be her specialty.
"This is still a time in your society where it still utilizes currency, yeah? I don't carry any, so I'm going to need to come into some money so I can purchase some local tech for repairs." Sayaka's role was to take some of the identifiably Earthly objects and valuables from the TARDIS and bring them to antique stores around town. There, they would sell them for cash. Then she would go to the electronics stores, and buy whatever gadget The Time Lady requested she find. Then The Time Lady would promptly disassemble that device and cannibalize its parts for her own ends. The Control Room was practically Akihabara, with the number of electronics strewn about, but at least Sayaka's uniquely unlikely skill of finding super rare items was being put to good use.
Sayaka took a few chances in that time to sneak off and spy on her other self. The Time Lady figured out what she was doing very quickly. "You can look, but do not touch. Blinovitch Effect, remember?" She reminded Sayaka. "And if you see Kyubey around… Bolt!" There were a few seemingly close calls, particularly whenever walking near her apartment complex, the other Sayaka would turn around and stare, as if she was vaguely aware there was a presence watching. Fortunately, Sayaka never risked removing her disguises.
It was still oh so very surreal, to watch her other self going about her old life from an outsider's perspective. To see her eat out with her friends. Play at the arcade. Ride the indoor carnival rides. To watch Sayaka Miki just being Sayaka Miki. So blissfully ignorant of the darkness surrounding her. Of all the perils lurking so near.
The Time Lady still desired to gain possession of a Grief Seed for study. But she wasn't too thrilled with the idea of letting Sayaka do the dirty work. Sayaka wasn't too enthralled with it, either. But while she was watching her other self, seeing her and Madoka go about their happy lives, made her all the more certain that the reason she was rescued by this stranger was so that those girls wouldn't need to know the darkness, never ever experience that fateful night that she had with her own Madoka. And to prevent that, she was determined to do whatever it took.
"Are we there yet?" The Time Lady flippantly commented.
They were near the community park, not that far from Madoka's house. The typical witch hideouts, the back alleys, hospital lots and construction sites, were turning up nothing. So they expanded their search, to places near retirement communities, parks and elementary schools, where other vulnerable humans would typically gather.
"Hold on a sec. I think I've found something." The blue-ish glow in Sayaka's Soul Gem was fluttering, a sign that her Soul Gem was reacting to something magical drawing close.
The two ladies followed the signal down an overgrown alleyway. A bright, day-glo flash consumed their forms. The two instantly found themselves amongst a childish collage of stars, shapes, colors and animal figures.
"Holy Cow!" The Time Lady scoped her surroundings. "It's as if reality decided to let a toddler redecorate it!"
"I've seen this one! I know this one!" Sayaka looked around. "I tried to take it down once before. It's a familiar, not a witch."
"What's the difference?"
"This one's not gonna have a Grief Seed."
"Well if it's not going to have a Grief Seed, then there's no point to risking our necks in-"
"I have to kill it." Sayaka's tone made it clear she was hearing no argument to the contrary. She had decided to be the kind of Magical Girl who would hunt both witches and familiars, to protect people even when there was no reward. Just like her hero, Mami. Besides, Sayaka thought to herself, this was the one she was trying to eliminate when she met Kyoko. Without this familiar to serve as a catalyst to their heated first encounter, then that particular spat would not occur a second first time.
"Fine. Do what you want." The Time Lady adjusted some dials on her multitool. "At the very least, I suppose I could settle for getting a few energy readings on the nature of their," She poked at a crude drawing on the ground. "Reality-shaping powers. But do be careful."
Sayaka's Soul Gem erupted in a flash of blue light, her gem's energy dispersing and encasing Sayaka's entire body. Another flash and she was completely enveloped in a radiant blue glow. Then radiance subsided, as a familiar-faced, blue-haired magical girl emerged, donning her blue, shoulderless top, a diagonal-cut skirt, white gloves and stockings, blue boots and a long, flowing cape. Within fractions of a second from the Time Lady's perspective, Sayaka and her clothing had completely transformed, her carefully crafted disguise replaced by her real face and wearing entirely different clothes.
"Seems your disguise goes away when you transform. Probably something to do with the way the transformation alters the local matter. Don't know what to do about that." The TIme Lady momentarily inspected the young lady's appearance. "A bit revealing up top. I admit I am a fan of the cape, though!"
"It's up there!" Sayaka pointed at the small creature darting around above their heads. Sayaka reached to the side of her hip as a fully-sheathed cutlass flared into existence.
"Watch your back!" The Time Lady cautiously shouted as Sayaka stood steady.
The creature was sputtering around and giggling like an insane young child, it even appeared to look like a crudely-drawn picture of a kid in a boat. The boat morphed into a just-as-crudely-drawn car, and then an airplane.
Sayaka darted into the air and gave it chase at an incredible speed, leaving the Time Lady to study their colorful surroundings. "Fascinating! It seems to exist in its very own, secluded subdimension." She pointed her multitool at its boundary, which seemed to cause the day-glo colors and silly shapes to briefly give way to the normal decaying brick wall the barrier had subsumed. "Albeit, in this case, a rather weak, ill-defined one."
The Time Lady looked back towards her young companion. Sayaka was frantically racing up and down the wall, swinging and slashing at her target. Her fighting technique was incredibly reckless, in The Time Lady's observation. The inexperienced magical girl seemed to give no consideration to her surroundings, or even for her own safety. Somebody needed to teach this girl the basics of swordsmanship, she judged. Luckily for Sayaka, The Time Lady was an old pro.
The immature familiar darted around frantically, screaming and shouting as Sayaka gave chase. "This is it, for yooouuuuuuu!" Sayaka had finally cornered it, steadied her blade, took aim and charged forth. But as Sayaka's blade closed in for the kill, a bright flash erupted directly in her face. Completely blindsided, she tumbled straight to the ground as the familiar gleefully giggled and scurried away. The familiar's weak dimensional barrier faded back to normal reality. Sayaka had failed to kill it all over again.
The Time Lady's multitool pulsated rapidly. She reflexively tucked it back in her pocket. "I knew you'd eventually be making an appearance. Now come out and show yourself, Homura Akemi!"
"Sh- She's he-" Sayaka staggered to get back up. Homura appeared behind her and smacked her with her buckler on the back of the head. Sayaka had been knocked out cold. Her magical girl form dissipated in a flash as she collapsed to the ground.
"You do appear to fight just as Sayaka Miki fights. Which is to say, ineptly." Homura disparagingly told her vanquished target.
"I must warn you… I am one of the only experts at Venusian Aikido." The Time Lady assumed a defensive posture. "Two-armed experts, to be specific."
"Hmph." Homura nonchalantly flipped her hair and vanished before The Time Lady's eyes.
"Your 'magic'... Actually a form of time manipulation, yes?"
"Who's to say?" Homura's voice taunted from the shadows.
"Not much of a braggart, are you?" There was no time to banter, less than no time to strategize, and her foe providing no opportunity to either retreat or deescelate, The Time Lady closed her eyes and focused herself. In a nanosecond she instantaneously whipped her torso around, reached out and caught Homura's arm, at the exact moment Homura reappeared.
"Gotcha!" The Time Lady exclaimed.
"Incorrect." Homura flatly countered. Another flash burst off, Homura had planted a stun grenade perfectly in her opponent's periphery. Homura freed her arm with a hard karate chop on her wrist, slide-kicked her legs, punched the woman hard in the ribs, then knocked her on the back of her head. The Time Lady collapsed to the ground.
Homura looked over her unconscious targets. The magical girl definitely had the look and overall presence of Sayaka Miki. Not much else to learn there. So Homura opted to first examine the mysterious woman instead. She was indeed from elsewhere, dressed in a long leather coat and wearing some uniquely unfeminine clothing underneath. Homura searched the woman's pockets. One pocket contained a pocket watch, a yoyo, a wallet with a blank paper card, and a strange wand with a lit tip that was blinking rapidly. Homura tucked the wand behind her buckler and up her sleeve.
The other pocket contained some shoestring, an electronic pad, a hairclip, some ribbon, a pair of glasses, and a paperback book. "' Appointment With Death '," She muttered its title aloud. Homura put on the woman's glasses. They were not her own missing pair, though they were the same color, it was the wrong lens type. She folded them up and put them back.
Without a barrier to mask them from snooping outsiders and Kyubeys, Homura had little time to decide which person to take with her and interrogate. And the magic expended by the clash of magical girls was certain to attract Kyubey soon. As much as her curiosity insisted she take this strange woman, past experience already taught her which individual needed to be dealt with first, before she turned into a threat to Madoka. Homura spun her buckler and vanished with the thing that resembled Sayaka Miki.
