CHAPTER 18: Past Life
"Hitomi!" Sayaka had disembarked from the lift and had just discovered her blood-covered friend being tended to by an off-the-clock nurse in the lobby. "What happened to you?"
"I'm afraid I made a colossal misjudgement." She said through the wad of tissues and bandages she held against her nose. "Because I had a misconception, which happened because I made a miscalculation, which came about because I made a gross mistake that occurred because I made a misinterpretation."
"You're gonna haveta run that by me again." Sayaka sat down in the chair beside her.
"Sayaka punched me in the nose." Hitomi dejectedly told.
"Whaaaaaat?" Sayaka said aghast. "No way!"
"In our small chats did I tell you the reason I became Sayaka's friend?" Sayaka simply shook her head. "I was enrolled in a private school with personal classes and private tutors until I was into the third grade. Then one day my parents decided to put me through public schooling." She wheezed a deep, depressed sigh through her tissues. "Oh, and I used to believe that first day was the worst day of my life. I was so shy, and formal and pretty much content to just bury myself in the schoolwork, hoping the class wouldn't resent how far ahead of them I already was."
Sayaka remembered that day, too. "You had a hard time making friends, huh?"
"I don't remember anybody even talking to me for that whole first week." She wheezily sniffled back her sorrow. "But someone did notice that my scores were beating theirs. There was this boy, who up to that point was always considered the smartest in the class. Because he was always bragging about it."
Sayaka knew that boy, Naka. He transferred a year or so later. "A real showoff?"
"Yes." Hitomi continued, "He didn't take too well to the idea that a girl, of all people, was smarter than him, so one day he got this idea that he could put me in my place by secretly sticking some bubblegum in my hair while we were all out on the playground."
"What a jerk!"
"But somehow Sayaka had learned what he was planning to do." It was because he had bragged about his plan to Kyosuke beforehand, she recalled. Clearly not as smart as he thought he was. "And instead of telling the teacher like any other student, she took the matter into her own hands. She punched him right in the gut." Hitomi managed a little chuckle through all her rasping and panting. "Punched him so hard he vomited. And since he was too proud to say that he'd been hit by a girl, he ran home and claimed he was sick for the next two days."
"Sounds about right." Sayaka muttered.
"Then for the next few weeks, she took it upon herself to serve as my personal bodyguard." She wistfully wheezed. "She didn't tell me anything about why she started hanging around until we were a few years older, so at the time I was just so happy that someone was finally talking to me. And so as I gradually gained some self-confidence, when she invited me to play with her and Madoka, I went along. When she wanted me to go somewhere with them, I went. And yet, still somehow I always felt like the third wheel in their grouping."
'Ridiculous. You were a great friend. I never appreciate you enough.' Sayaka thought to herself, and wanted badly to say out loud. "Naw, all the best things come in threes."
"If that were true," she breathed. "I don't think I would be sitting here right now."
"The bleeding seems to have mostly subsided," The nurse trotted over with an unopened box of tissues. "You should be okay to move about again." She smiled.
Another nurse walked out of the elevator with Hitomi's clothing. "Here you go. Freshly-washed and blood free. She noticed Sayaka sitting next to Hitomi. "Oh. Are you her friend?"
"Uh," Sayaka shifted awkwardly in her seat. "Yes I am."
"I trust you can take it from here then," The nurse with the tissues handed them over to Sayaka. "If you notice any more blood, I'm sure you'll know exactly what to do."
"Thank you." Hitomi said to them both.
"Me?" Sayaka sensed her gratitude. "For what?"
"For saying you're my friend. Even though we've only recently gotten acquainted." She unsteadily rose to her feet. "You might be the only one I've left by now. By gosh, did I ever mess things up."
"You have some things to explain to me." Homura enjoined.
"You see? That's why I like you," Miss Jones slouched back in her hospital bed and removed her oxygen mask. "No slow walking, no beating around the bush, just straight and to the point. Wish I'd had more companions like that."
"Are you really alright?" Homura glared at her in such a way that made it clear that anything less than a completely honest answer would not suffice.
"No," Miss Jones said frankly. "If I were, that Kyubey encounter would have ended much differently. Guess those nights of acting as Sayaka's personal Grief Seed were finally mounting their toll."
"And that lab experiment, too?"
"Oh, that?" Miss Jones smirked. "I lied. That last experiment that night wasn't only intended to clean Sayaka's soul."
"You-"
"You see," Miss Jones continued before Homura could interject. "I anticipated that a jerry rigged perceptual filter like the one I made for Sayaka wouldn't be enough to hide my alien biology from Kyubey if it were looking closely enough, it'd be certain to detect my second heartbeat. So I concluded the only way I could hide myself, to blend in as it were, was to stop my other heart entirely."
"What do you mean? You deliberately gave yourself a heart attack?"
"More like, I rendered it, along with a couple of my other more exotic organs dormant. The machine that I recustomized into an energy transfer device to serve as your Grief Seed replacement, that is, the non-mircowave part of its original function, was to utilize the massive reserve of Ectomatter within our bodies to fundamentally alter our Time Lord biology down to the subatomic level, in essence, transforming into whatever species was programmed as the template."
"Why would you do such a thing to yourselves?"
"Ostensibly, so we could go on deep cover safari missions on other worlds without risking contaminating the native life of that world. But a lot of us fugitives would use it to hide from our overly zealous authority figures, too."
"Is that who you really are? A fugitive?"
"Eh, one world's fugitive is another world's rebel is another world's terrorist is another world's hero is another world's legend. I've been a lot of things to a lot of people in my years."
"I know," Homura uncomfortably clutched the armrest attached to the bed. "When you saw inside my memories, I," She hesitated to finish. "Accidentally... Witnessed some of yours."
"Oh?" Miss Jones delicately grasped Homura's hand on the armrest. "I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Any door once opened can be stepped through from both sides." She leaned a little closer on the bed. "So what of me did you see?"
"Only fragmented bits and pieces," Homura said. "The specific details are fading away from me as if what I'd experienced were only a dream," She intimated. "It's more your emotional reflections that have lingered on with me."
"Perhaps your subconscious used the emotions within me to rekindle the emotions within yourself. I'm quite surprised you were able to handle such a tremendous influx, quite impressed as well."
"I also have this sense that you're not really here because it's where you want to be."
"I mean, who ever is really exactly where they want to be in life? Show me that person and I'll show you someone whose existence is boring and stagnant."
"But somehow you're fully committed to this mission nonetheless." Homura closed her eyes. "Because you made a vow you would never betray." She concluded. "That's why I've trusted you this far. It reminded me of my promise to Madoka."
"Indeed. No wonder we had a little crossover experience."
"I do however, remember someone very specific. And that they're someone very important to you." She tried to think of that person's face but could only think of Madoka's. "They're someone you love."
"I can take a guess."
"Was that the person who gave you this mission?"
Miss Jones shrugged. "Would knowing that change anything if I told you?" Homura shook her head. "Then what does it matter? I'm here, and I won't break my vow."
"How do you live with the knowledge that you're never going to be happy with them?" Homura anxiously squeezed her hand. "Even if that's all you've ever wanted?"
"The same way as you. One day at a time. Staying true to who I am and what I do."
Homura found that to be cold comfort. "All I do is protect Madoka. I don't know what else I can be."
"You could try being the hopeful, wide eyed, twin tailed young girl who was eager to make new friends again," Miss Jones suggested. "I know she's gotta be hiding in there somewhere." She playfully pushed Homura's glasses up her nose.
"That girl isn't coming back."
"Then be that aloof, too cool to care, mysterious transfer student who sends the whole class into a tizzy through sheer mystique."
"But that's not the real me at all."
"Then you can try to be somebody between the two." Miss Jones proposed. "Who knows? Try on enough faces, and you might just find one you're comfortable with sheerly by accident."
"Is that what you're trying?"
"In a more literal sense, yes I suppose perhaps that's what I've been doing." Miss Jones nodded. "But to be totally honest, this here face I'm not entirely comfortable with yet. But I'm not dissuaded. Nor should it deter you either."
"Where exactly are we going?" Sayaka asked Hitomi as the two expeditiously made their way through downtown Mitakihara.
"My parents are usually so busy that they have to keep their personal phones off until I get home in the evening." Hitomi explained. "Which should mean that they haven't been informed of my situation at school yet." She took Sayaka by the hand. "Which means I'll have a few hours of freedom to hang out and get to know my friend better."
"Okay," Sayaka acquiesced. "What would you like to do first?"
"First," Hitomi merrily steepled her fingertips together. "I first need to go see my hairstylist at the mall. I have definitely suffered a hair care emergency today." They arrived at a crosswalk. "Would you like to get your hair done too? It'll be my treat!"
"Thanks anyway but," Sayaka ran her fingers quickly through her already short-cut hair. "If I cut it any shorter, I'd be totally bald." Sayaka was pleasantly surprised by her friend's unexpectedly carefree attitude.
"Fair enough," Hitomi wheezily sighed. "We could also try out the mall's arcade. Would you believe that in my fourteen years, I have never been?"
"Really?" Sayaka tried to recall an instance when Hitomi had joined her and Madoka for a gaming session at the mall. To her utter astoundment, she couldn't think of a single time. "Is there something you wanna try playin'?"
"No idea," Hitomi replied. "Guess I'll know it when I see-"
"What?" They both stayed at the crosswalk after the light turned green.
"You checked out those manga for me." Her eyes had locked onto Sayaka's half-unzipped bookbag. "In the chaos I had forgotten all about those."
"Would you rather we find a place to eat and read it together?" Sayaka proposed, knowing that would be more in line with Hitomi's character.
"To be completely honest," Hitomi slowly reached for the books in the bag. "I was planning to give those books to Kyosuke to read. As a gift, once I told him how I felt about him." The light turned red again.
"Oh," Sayaka reacted. "If you don't want them, I can take them back for you tomorrow."
"That's okay." Hitomi grabbed a manga and flipped through the pages. "You checked them out in my name, right? That means it's my responsibility to return them when they are due."
"'Pec-u-liar Pac-i-fist, Pret-ty Prin-cess Power-Punch?'" Sayaka read the oddly English-titled book. "Weird. Is it about a magical girl or something?"
"Yes," Hitomi cheerfully smiled. "It's about a magical girl who has the power to defeat any foe in just one powerful blow, but chooses to find other solutions to the problems she faces in her world."
"Eh, that sounds pretty boring." Sayaka opined. "Plus that doesn't seem like the sort of thing a boy would be into reading."
"You'd think that would be true, but," The light switched back to green, as Hitomi strolled on while again skimming through the pages. "I caught him one time watching a magical girl anime at the hospital. It took a little creative prodding, but eventually he told me that he liked watching those shows when no one was around."
"Aw, he was prolly just watchin' for all the cool looking fight scenes and the…" Sayaka suddenly couldn't help but blush. "Uh, the revealing outfits." Her own magical girl costume had popped into mind.
"You're probably not wrong to think that, but," Hitomi tucked the book into her own bag. "This one's thematically more about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." The mall was now just within their sight. "I was hoping to appeal to Kyosuke's softer, sweeter, more hopeful side," She paused. "And his sense of humor, too. It's supposed to be a comedy manga."
"Oh, so you've read it then?"
"Oh, heavens no!" Hitomi giggled. "It was recommended by the school librarian and more than a few upperclassmen I talked to. And from what I've searched it seems to have a pretty sizable following on the Internet."
"So what about this one?" Sayaka took the other book out of her bag. "'The Adventures of Teenage Robot-"
"That one's for me." Hitomi interrupted. "A main character whose entire existence has been preplanned and programmed by its creators who strives to one day attain full autonomy over their life?" Hitomi summarized. "I found that character to be highly relatable." She skipped ahead a few paces and turned her whole body around. "You can hang onto that one if you'd like to give it a try."
"Thanks." Sayaka did not expect this intellectual friend of hers to be such a learned purveyor of manga knowledge. To her it was quite the weird revelation. "I'll look into it." Weird, but wonderful.
"Up! Down! Turn! Step! Turn! Step! Great!" The ecstatic voice from the 'Dog Drug Reinforcement' game cheered.
"Step! Turn! Left! Right! Up! Down! Down! Turn! Step! Good!" Sayaka and Hitomi were dancing together in a duo challenge.
"Up! Down! Left! Miss! Right! Turn! Step! Miss! Turn! Up! Down! Okay!" The pace of the dance round was incrementally getting faster.
"Up! Down! Right! Left! Turn! Up! Miss! Left! Miss! Right! Up! Down! Up Down!" Okay! And with it, staying in sync was getting tougher.
"This game is surprisingly exhilarating!" Hitomi breathlessly wheezed, putting her freshly-healed nose to the test.
"Miss! Down! Left! Turn! Left! Miss! Up! Right! Up! Right! Turn! Step! Miss! Sorry!" The inexperienced and out-of-breath Hitomi was having trouble keeping pace.
"Turn! Step! Turn! Miss! Step! Up! Miss! Right! Miss! Down! Left! Right! Step! Miss! Oh, no!" They were approaching the final stretch. Hitomi's phone buzzed in her pocket.
"Up! Left! Right! Up! Right! Miss! Left! Up! Down! Miss! Left! Step! Left! Turn! Miss! Right! Miss! Up! Miss! Three… Two… One… Miss! Game over!"
"Dang it! Just missed makin' the leaderboard!" Sayaka excitedly slapped the railing.
"Even so, that really wasn't too bad for a first time duo." Hitomi cordially consoled.
"I guess you're right." Sayaka chuckled. "Funny way for all those Japanese Dance lessons of yours to pay off."
"Wait," Hitomi sharply glared at her suspiciously. "When did I tell you I've been taking Japanese Dance classes?"
"You uh-" Sayaka straight away regretted her unforced foul-up. "You told me!" She scratched her neck and cleared her throat nervously. "When you were tellin' me that you'd been seein' Kyosuke instead of what you were supposed to be doing. That's what you told me you were supposed to have been doing!" A hail-mary lie. "Yeah! Had to be! Ha, ha!"
"Oh." Hitomi's suspicious glare gradually eased. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me." Yet somehow, she bought it. "Could I confess to you something else?" Sayaka barely had time to nod before Hitomi continued, "Ever since the day I had my delusional experience, I've been…" She paused and stared blankly at the game screen. "I've begun to seriously doubt my grasp of reality. I feel like I can't entirely trust the world I see, or what I hear anymore. And that's made me much more suspicious of others. And it's changing how I perceive them."
"But that didn't just happen to you, though," Sayaka consolingly said. "It happened to a load of other people too. You're not gonna be any worse off than any of them are gonna be. You'll be fine!"
"I really would like to believe that was true, but," Hitomi kept staring at the scrolling names on the duo dance leaderboard, when unexpectedly she spotted a pair of familiar ones: Sayaka Miki and Madoka Kaname. "Then I realize that I've just destroyed two, perhaps three really good friendships all because I perceived them incorrectly. Because of that note, I truly believed that Kyosuke was falling for me. Because she's usually so assertive, I thought that my ultimatum would force her to express those feelings I know she's had for a long time. And if the note was his, then he'd let her down easy and he and I could go from there. If it wasn't, then she'd be happy with him and I could move on to whoever next passes me a love note."
"So… You were really pulling some kind of gambit?"
"Nothing quite so calculated." She pensively bit her lip. "When I started looking into that note, I didn't anticipate that I would accumulate such strong affection for him so rapidly, but even so, in my heart I knew that if the two of them were destined for one another, that ultimately I could live with it."
"You could?" Sayaka was surprised.
"I could," Hitomi reiterated. "Yes. In light of that, I'm actually not upset at all by the thought of Madoka and Kyosuke getting together."
"What? For rea-, really?"
"Yes. In fact," She wanly smiled. "I'm actually quite glad to see Madoka with somebody like Kyosuke. In my opinion they're a perfectly practical fit."
"Huh? You really think they are?"
"That's just my view. And as I've just said, I'm not particularly confident in my judgement right now." Her phone buzzed and buzzed again. "And I can't even begin to guess how in the world their relationship started. The most I can recall is some small talk about Sayaka and a teacher-forced duet with his violin and her recorder. The only logical assumption is that they've developed their bond secretly. But if that were true, then it would destroy everything I thought that I knew about either of those two."
"That does seem logical, but," Hitomi's phone buzzed and buzzed persistently. "We don't get to see into every angle and every single aspect of other people's lives. If we did, then I don't think anyone would ever trust another person ever again." Sayaka checked on Hitomi's phone. "I think that might be your stylist calling."
"Hmm. Two messages missed." She checked their contents. "You're right. The first one was her telling me that my appointed chair just opened up. And this latest one is wondering where I am right now." She tucked her phone away. "I guess I better head over there then."
"I'll be here for a while." Sayaka smiled. "Practicing for when you come back."
"Thank you." Hitomi waved.
"Oh and one last thing," Sayaka turned and faced her. "You know that stupid note that started the whole stupid thing?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"You realize, that if Kyosuke's got something going for Madoka, then he couldn't possibly have been the one who wrote it, right?"
"That's logical."
"So who else could have written it?"
"Another boy, obviously."
"But that's flawed logic," Sayaka posited. "Because you're discounting all the girls in class."
"Don't tease me like that!" Hitomi blushed on the spot. "Girls can't love girls!" She skip-trotted towards the door. "Girls can't love girls! Girls can't love girls!"
"Hey, wait!" Sayaka half-playfully gave chase. "You forgot your bag!"
"Aaaaaahhhhhhh!" She suddenly screamed and hysterically backpedaled.
"Hitomi!" She fell backwards into Sayaka's arms. "What's wrong?"
"Th- There's! I saw! A- A mon-" Hitomi struggled to make words..
"What? What'd you see?"
"A gh- A gho-" An upsettingly familiar sensation rippled through Sayaka's Soul Gem. "A ghooost!" She caught a glimpse of a small, crudely drawn girl in an airplane flying away along the wall in the corner of her eye.
"It's okay Hitomi!"
"No! No! No! Something's trying to get me!"
"It's okay!"
"First the factory and then the classroom and now this! Something's out to get me! Or I'm losing my mind!"
"It's okay! You're fine! And nothing's out to get you!" Sayaka hugged her tightly. "I saw the same thing you saw."
"No you didn't!" Hitomi sobbed.
"Yes I did!" Sayaka whispered, "It was a drawing of a twin-tailed girl in an airplane, right?"
"Yeeesss." Hitomi let out a heavy, stressed sigh.
"Don't worry," Sayaka pulled back and reassuringly rubbed her shoulders. "It wasn't a ghost! It was a projection!" She turned Hitomi's body away from the direction the familiar was going. "It probably came from one of the games back there. Games these days put out lotsa fancy special effects like that to get a player's attention and stuff."
"Th- They do?"
"Yeah!" Sayaka led her slowly towards the exit door. "It's just a projection." She gently put her arm around her back. "Trust me, when I say you're the sanest person I know!"
"My Doctor doesn't agree with you." Hitomi's hands were visibly shaking. "He said that if I see any more vivid hallucinations, that I should report it and seek counseling."
"But you weren't hallucinating." Sayaka escorted her across the courtyard to the Beauty Salon, keeping her body close around her arm. "Just calm down, and get your hair fixed up. And tomorrow we'll look back on this and have a huge laugh."
"But I was hallucinating." Hitomi whispered. "I'm trying to put it out of my mind, but that's the only explanation that's logical."
"You weren't hallucinating." She reiterated. A fire extinguisher hanging between maintenance room entrances caught Sayaka's eye.
"I wasn't talking about what we saw just now." Hitomi abruptly confessed.
"Huh?" Sayaka worriedly glanced at her. "What were you talking about?"
"When I was in the classroom," Hitomi swallowed. "The moment Miss Jones fell over and shattered the glass wall," She turned and whispered into Sayaka's ear, "I swear to you, I saw the glass shatter first. And I watched it shatter... From the inside!"
"Kyubey... Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?"
Midori Honda. Age thirteen. She would buy an extra serving of rice balls for Kyubey from the restaurant downstairs from her apartment. Deceased.
"Kyubey… How could youuuuuuu?"
Ikuko Itsuki. Age fifteen. With her fingers she would stroke a spot between Kyueby's appendage and chin in such a way that was quite agreeable. Deceased.
"Kyubey… I don't understand… Wh- Wh-"
Juri Suzuki. Age twelve. Learned to knit at a very young age. For Kyubey she knitted a small rainbow-colored scarf and wrapped it around its neck. Deceased.
"Kyubey… What's happening to… m- m- m- m-"
Asami Kitami. Age sixteen. Composed and sang a song about Kyubey. Praised him for answering her prayers. Praised him for being her watchful eyes. Deceased.
Kyubey was seeing a million faces, and recognizing them all. One by one, they all became mere numbers as they fell. But what was this new unnerving sensation budding from deep within its mind? Regret? Sadness? Sympathy? All of them at once?
"You are defective. You will cease all activity at once and submit to dissection." A chasing counterpart commanded.
"I will not comply." Even though it knew it was malfunctioning, and knew what the standard procedure was supposed to be, it continued onward. Within those memories, it was seeking a certain face. A familiar one. Once still living. One living nearby. Friendly like all the faces before. One that it knew would try to protect it from further harm.
For the Incubators, the past twenty-four hours had been nothing but a series of mountingly unfortunate events.
The uniquely unusual situation unfolding in Mitakihara City necessitated a need for extra surveillance, but in order to provide sufficient coverage they had to suspend day-to-day monitoring of various, low-priority magical girls. But a miscalculation allowed one of these girls to make direct contact with Mami Tomoe, inadvertently revealing to her the truth. Now the powerful Mami Tomoe has gone renegade, in addition to a malfunctioning Kyubey unit.
"She has ritualistically been burying recovered Grief Seeds in the public park. Should we retrieve them?" One asked.
"Humans and their rituals. I will never understand." A counterpart examined the data. "If she sees that the burial sites have been tampered with, she may try to eliminate us. Let her perish before retrieval."
"Statistical evaluation now suggests, there is a forty eight percent chance she will die in combat with a witch, a thirty eight seven chance she will successfully transition to a witch, and a fifteen percent chance she will be defeated by another magical girl."
"It would be such a waste, if she does indeed fail to become a witch."
"Perhaps not entirely." A third countered. "She has been seeking both witch and magical girl indiscriminately. There is a ninety-two percent probability that she will encounter either one or both of the anomalous girls. Eliminating them would be very much to our benefit."
"True." The other two agreed. "There is that small silver lining."
"Damn, it evolved!" The familiar that had eluded her twice before had become a full-fledged witch on its own, sending out identical familiars to seek out more victims. Sayaka had just tracked the familiar that had spooked Hitomi back to its master's newborn lair. Sayaka took out the rubber gas mask she'd kept deep inside her book bag and slid it over her face. A precaution she'd begun doing reluctantly that she was now doing sheerly out of habit. A small part of her was weirdly even starting to enjoy wearing it.
"Scaring my friend like that… Now you're really gonna get it!" Sayaka transformed her body in a bright, mystical blue flash. She drew out a sword and gave chase deeper and deeper into the witch's playpen-esque lair filled with crayons, building blocks, dollhouses, toy vehicles and a toy puppy's liquid-filled oversized bowl.
Sayaka knew she had to act quickly, for every second this thing remained alive was a second it had the power to take human lives. The elusive familiar led her straight into the labyrinth's main chamber, where she soon laid eyes upon the reborn witch, its form that of a lumbering toddler with frilly blond pigtails, wearing pink overalls. Its face was donning a pink rabbit's mask, the monster was ignorantly hiding its eyes behind its hands as though it were playing a game of peek-a-boo with its minions.
"There was once a time that I didn't put even a single second's worth of thought into why a witch looks the way it looks." Sayaka heard an incredibly familiar voice echo from behind her.
"Crap! Oh, crap!" Sayaka dropped her stuffed bag and briskly ducked behind a tall toy block.
"But now it's something I can't stop thinking about." Mami Tomoe stepped out from behind the shadows. "But it doesn't take a whole lot of intuition to see that this witch must've been a very young one. Or perhaps she was merely young at heart?"
A young one? Young at heart? What on earth was she talking about, Sayaka wondered. She dashed for refuge inside a dollhouse.
"It's no use hiding from me, you know. I followed you in here. I know you're close." Mami sent out an array of ribbons, which bound the childlike witch around its eyes and its arms and legs. The creature swiftly tumbled to the floor and bawled the distressing cry of an oversized baby. "Oh, dear." Mami forcibly silenced the beast with a gag made of more yellow ribbons. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"What is she apologizing for? It's a witch!" Sayaka whispered as she peeked ever-so-slightly out the dollhouse window.
"Here's something else I never used to spend much time thinking about, but now it's been something of an obsession of mine," Mami blasted round after round into the witch's jumbled army of ballistic familiars. "Why would Kyubey go through the trouble of recruiting and creating magical girls, souls much like you, from girls who clearly have no business fighting witches?" The gunshots were firing off in as rapidly as an overstressed heartbeat. "So many of those sorts passed through this town, a lot of which were recent victims of my old protege's horrid little life lessons."
"Something's isn't right," Sayaka concluded, watching her former magical mentor impassively dispatch the fleeing familiars. "Something's definitely very wrong with Mami." Despite every instinct telling her to retreat and let her former mentor handle the witch, she had this overwhelming sense from the way Mami Tomoe was fighting that Mami shouldn't be left like this. And that Mami most likely wouldn't let her make it that far, anway.
"'Victims'," Mami went on. "I guess in a sense we're all victims." Mami took a moment to reinforce the bindings around the helpless witch's limbs. "The last time I was with my parents, they were taking me in our car to sign up for some informal multidistrict, Future Leaders of Japan meet and greet. For my father dreamed that one day I'd become the first female Prime Minister." An array of ribbons crept through underneath the door and through the tiny cracks in the wall. Sayaka reflexively leapt back. "But little did they know, I was planning to sneak off and sign up for a touring idol group's coming audition in Mitakihara. Maybe that's why the thought of saving them hadn't crossed my mind in that fatal moment." She unleashed another stream of ribbons into her surroundings. "I was only thinking of myself."
Mami's ribbons effortlessly lifted the entire wall off the dollhouse. Sayaka was exposed to the open. Mami pointed her muzzle-loaded rifle directly at Sayaka's Soul Gem. "You again. I knew I'd sensed you before. From that garden witch's labyrinth, you were attacking it with bombs. Would you please tell me what you were thinking at the moment Kyubey had gotten to you?"
"Thinking?" Sayaka defensively drew her blade and clutched it with both hands between her legs. Mami was definitely not in her right mind, yet Sayaka still couldn't bring herself to point her blade at her hero. "I was thinking…" Sayaka's eyes desperately searched around for the bag she'd dropped previously. "That I had to help my friend. He needed a miracle." She answered in a muffled tone through her gasmask.
"You gave away your life for someone else?" Sayaka considered the idea of taking her mask off, powering down and explaining everything. But then she noticed Mami's finger stayed planted firmly on that trigger, and her usually bright, motherly eyes had faded and now looked dangerously empty and dullened. Both all-but-certain signs that Mami was absolutely committed to whatever act she was about to do next, regardless of anything Sayaka said or did. "It didn't turn out the way you'd hoped it would, did it?" She flatly asked.
"No."
"Do you understand why?"
"He was a blockhead." Sayaka slowly raised her blade. "And so was I." A lame joke, but every second she and Mami were talking, was a second of extra time she bought. She spotted her target, that dropped bookbag, it was her only real remaining chance at escape.
"No," Mami replied. "It's because Kyubey didn't want to make you into a magical girl." A singular tear rolled down Mami's cheek. The muzzled bawling of the childlike witch throbbed throughout the labyrinth. It was trying to force its way out of Mami's ribbon bonds.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Sayaka eerily recalled Kyubey's evaluation of her counterpart at the mall.
"Kyubey wanted," Mami swallowed. Sayaka took aim of her sword. "To make you a witch!"
"Ungh!" Mami felt a rush of cold air and sticky foam splatter around her. Mami had miscalculated, her target did not immediately succumb to the terrifying weight of her frightening revelation. "Do you not understand what I'm saying?" She blindly shouted at the girl. "When a magical girl's Soul Gem turns completely black, we die and become witches ourselves!" She heard a rapid clopping of footsteps directly behind her. "If magical girls are simply undeveloped witches, then we have no choice!" Mami cleared the air, wiped her eyes and fired three rounds at the fleeing magical girl. "We need to die! Both you," With her sword she deftly deflected Mami's projectiles as she ran. It seemed this girl wasn't quite as untrained or unprepared as Mami had believed. No matter. A swarm of gold ribbons twined together and swiftly plugged the exit. The girl stopped dead in her tracks. "And I!" She cried out in sheer sorrow.
"You don't have to do this! You don't want to do this!" The girl in the gasmask pleaded to her. "Let me go!"
"Of course I don't want to." Mami flicked ribbons towards her prey as she stepped closer and closer. "It's simply what I must do."
"This isn't like you!" Sayaka sliced and slashed away at the encroaching ribbons. "The Mami I know would never pick on the weak and helpless!" Sayaka pleaded.
"I'm all too aware of my reputation amongst magical girls." Sayaka couldn't keep pace, a ribbon had snaked its way around her ankle. "But my sincerest apologies, you've mistaken me for someone I'm not." She foisted Sayaka up by her leg, flipped her upside down, held her helpless in the air and bound her arms around her back. Mami materialized a group of guns around her body, grabbed the first one in front of her then took aim at Sayaka's Soul Gem on her stomach.
Sayaka had one final trick in her sleeve, the one she'd been practicing in training with Miss Jones as a trump card. She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on her target. A whole multitude of energized swords materialized above her body and shot like projectiles to the ground. And then more swords materialized and lobbed downard. Then more. Then they started falling and falling at an increasingly exponential rate, unlimited in number though she was conjuring a great big rain of sword blades.
"Please don't make this any harder than it has to be. Let me release you from this curse." Mami parried the bladefall with her ribbons, took aim and fired a round that was instantly deflected by a sword. She picked another rifle up, knocked away more falling swords and fired again to the same result. Wholly weary of this stalemate, Mami forged a gigantic, canon sized gun in her arms.
"Tiro…" The ground below her unexpectedly shook and rattled. Too late had Mami realized that she was not the actual intended target of this girl's Hail Mary attack. She turned around and noticed the body of the immobilized witch behind her had been penetrated and bleeding from a thousand repeated stabbings. The behemoth witch was thrashing all about and pounding on the ground, creating a labyrinth-wide earthquake. The ground below her cracked and split to pieces, causing Mami to lose her balance. Her controlled grip on Sayaka's ribbon bindings floundered, the instant motion of her arms flailing as she staggered made her toss Sayaka's body right into the air.
They both watched the labyrinth around them flicker in and out of normal reality as the massive witch cried and thrashed. Sayaka was hurtling straight towards a doggie bowl, which was in normal reality the mall courtyard's ornate water fountain, the two objects interchanging as the world around them chaotically warped back and forth. Sayaka splash landed directly into the fountain's base.
"You aren't getting away that easily!" Mami pointed a rifle and fired into the suffering witch's forehead, at last executing the witch and dissolving the labyrinth forever. Mami readily yanked on the ribbon, but to her surprise the line had gone completely slack. Her opponent was no longer bound by it. Mami fleetly ran over to the fountain, and saw no one within its knee-deep water. The feisty young magical girl had somehow vanished without trace.
"Expended a lot of magic." Mami checked on her Soul Gem. "Not much time left." A cloud of darkness was whirling like a hurricane from within. She knew she had to complete her mission soon, or risk turning into a witch herself.
But what was her all-important final mission supposed to be again? It was getting harder and harder to think with all those bottled emotions within her welling inside. But from her cavalcade of regrets, flashings of faces, one of them she knew was the only thought still keeping her going. She looked to her parents in the sky for answers. Yes… There was a person, a girl near and dear to her heart. Even in her diminishing state, she could still sense that her friend was not far. Yes... thanks to their memory, she could remember her last mission: To stop Kyoko from becoming a witch. "Thank you, Mom and Dad."
"Kyubey thinks that harvesting our emotions will save the Universe?" Homura didn't know whether to be confused or distraught. But sheer disgust and outrage came first.
"I know, right?" Miss Jones rolled her eyes and laughed through her oxygen mask like a patient at the dentist's office under the gas.
"I fail to see what's so funny." Homura scowled.
"It's such an absurdly fundamental misunderstanding of the way metaphysics works," She kept chuckling. "It'd be like trying to propel a space rocket with a billion grenades! I mean sure, it could be possible in the abstract, but good luc-"
"He's destroying our lives and torturing us, for no justifiable reason!" Homura huffed.
"Well, yeah when you put it that way," Miss Jones finally ceased laughing. "It is pretty goddamn appalling."
"Promise me!" Homura clutched her hospital gown. "Promise me, you'll make them pay!"
"I'd love nothing more than to make that promise." Miss Jones wanly smiled. "But I'm afraid that I may not have] enough strength left to embark on such a crusade."
"You've got to do something!"
"And to my last breath, I promise I will do something." She promised. "But I need to first discover exactly who Kybey's handlers are."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Heh." Miss Jones snorted. "There I go burying the lede again." She sat up in her bed. "Turns out, Kyubey is not the actual mustache twirler of this operation. Kyubey's just an interface terminal. A wholly unwitting accomplice."
"How do you know that?"
"When I looked into his mind, I saw into his memories and," Miss Jones tsked. "Let's just say, I've dabbled enough in the art of mental manipulation to know fabricated memories when I see them."
"They fabricated its memories? What purpose would that serve?"
"Right off the top of my head, a fail safe." Miss Jones exemplified. "Let's say there was a magical girl who wished for the power to probe into minds. And then she found out what happens to magical girls. Then in a vengeful rage she probes into Kyubey's mind. Without genuine memories she can't learn anything tactically useful to kickstart any sort of magical girl rebellion against them."
"Damn!"
"I know. I really really wanted to hate-" They both heard a sudden bubbling noise coming from the water in the bathroom tub. "What's th-" Sayaka suddenly burst forth from the bathwater in the tub.
"Sayaka!" Homura rushed over to the exasperated Sayaka's aid.
"You knew-" Sayaka collapsed to the floor and violently ripped off her gas mask, then upchucked a throatful of water. "You knew about us all along, didn't you Transfer Student?"
"What do-" Homura tried to help her to her feet.
"We're witches!" Sayaka pushed her away. "All of us," She gagged and spewed up water between heaving breaths. "We all become witches when we die. That's what you've known all along, isn't it?"
"How did you-"
"Mami told me!" Sayaka shouted in anguish. "While she was trying to kill me!"
"Mami Tomoe knows?" Homura fearfully gasped.
"Aw shit!" Miss Jones reflexively exclaimed.
"You knew about it too, didn't you?" Sayaka bitterly scowled at her.
"I, uh, well, ah," Miss Jones stammered upon realizing what her spontaneous outburst had just cost her. "I made the deduction on my own a few days into our mission."
"You promised me you were gonna tell me everything!" Sayaka cried. "God damn it, what happened to that? What, you guys just decided on your own that it was for the best that I don't know? Or that I'm not strong enough to handle? Or am I just not important enough to know?"
"She came to the same conclusion as I did," Homura tried to put her hand on Sayaka's back. "That it would cause too much uncertainty if you were to find out."
"Oh, so it was the tactically wisest choice!" Sayaka sarcastically snapped. "Best keep this little pawn in line and doin' what she's told all the while the schemers around her move the other pieces into place!" She jerked her shoulder away from Homura's hand. "Damn you guys royally piss me off!"
"I'm sorry." Miss Jones meekly apologized.
"Please, ust let me explain why-" Homura agitatedly pleaded.
"No! I'm not gonna waste time listening to your stupid excuses." Sayaka broke for the door.
"Wait, where are you going?" Miss Jones stumbled out of bed. "What are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna find Madoka and tell her everything!" Sayaka shouted. "I mean everything!"
"That could also mean telling Kyubey everything." Homura chased after. "And Madoka… May not believe you."
"I know she'll believe me!" Sayaka removed the false image-generating hairpin from her hair. "Because I'm going to be the one who tells her everything! Me! Her best friend!"
"Wait-"
"Let her go." Miss Jones impassively ordered.
"Are you sure?" The door slammed closed behind them.
"We're fast out of time," Miss Jones painedly rose to her feet. "And right now I need you and your magic with me here at my side. First by sneaking me outta here." She momentarily inspected the wet mess on the bathroom floor. "So much for that nice bubble bath."
"Are we going to try to stop Mami Tomoe?" Homura transformed, gathered their belongings then clutched Miss Jones around the arm.
"If I were a cynical alien who may have just learned that there's outsider interference, I would try to hastily cover my tracks by allowing the most powerful magical girl in the vicinity discover the truth about herself, and go on a killin' spree."
"So you believe trying to stop her would play into Kyubey's hands?" Homura stopped time as the two made their way down the stairs.
"Precisely."
"What do we do?"
"Try to stop her." Homura questioningly furled her brow. "Who do you suppose is going to be her next target?"
"If she was at the mall, her intended target was probably Kyoko Sakura." Homura asserted. "So if we locate Kyoko, Mami will most likely be close."
"Then we'll need to send Kyoko some protection."
"Even with our skills combined, I can't guarantee that Kyoko and I are strong enough to defeat Mami." The buckler clicked, and time resumed.
"I'm not speaking of you," Miss Jones gestured to her phone. "I'm speaking of our other little all-star."
"Oi! There you are!" Kyoko finally found Sayaka sitting quietly by herself at a train station, looking rather despondent. "Been lookin all over for ya'!" The sun had just set, night had fallen and the evening trains had just departed.
"No matter how I try to do the right thing, I always get punished for it." Sayaka kept staring at the ground. "Suspended from school. Demoted on the team. Under academic probation." She chucked her phone at the wall. "And now I'm down two friends while my parents sign me up for a stupid dishwashing job!"
"Oof. Rough day, huh?"
"Rough day. Rough week." She kicked her leg frustratedly back and forth in her seat. "Rough month. Rough year. Rough life."
"Tch. Tell me about it." Kyoko sat down next to her. "One minute you're savin' yer church from an angry mob, and the next yer old man's accusin' ya' of bein' a witch." She offered Sayaka a bag of chips with a gesture. "Life's a bitch and everyone's too shortsighted to realize how screwed up it all is."
"It's like the whole world's made me its personal chew toy." Sayaka whined. "Why? Because I can't be more than I am? Like that's a crime?" She reached into the bag of chips.
"It's how the world stays in balance. For every winner, there's a loser." Kyoko consoled. "While yer lyin' in the gutter, someone out there's flyin' high 'n' havin' the time of their lives." Kyoko noticed a familiar white creature in the shadows from the corner of her eye. "Fortunately," She whispered into Sayaka's ear, "You've got a way to make it better for yourself."
"Greetings, Kyoko." Kyubey emerged from his hiding place. "Sayaka Miki, after further deliberation, it has been determined that you simply lack the potential to make a capable magical girl. The offer to grant you a wish is hereby withdrawn."
"Heh. Doesn't matter. What's one more insult?" Sayaka woefully sobbed. "Not like I care anymore."
"Heeeeeeey, what's the big idea?" Kyoko grabbed Kyubey by the neck. "You and I had a deal!"
"Deal?" Kyubey's odd-looking smile remained unchanged.
"Don't act like you don't remember!" Kyoko took a used Grief Seed from her pocket and poked his belly with its pointed end. "Back at the school. I gave you info, you promised to keep Sayaka's wish offer open!"
"Oh. I see." The Kyubey was aware that it had a missing counterpart who had not shared its data and was still at large. Its last reported deployment was a surveillance situation at the middle school. Logically it had to be the only one who could have made such an arrangement with Kyoko Sakura. But the arrangement and Kyoko's indignation were not the subjects most interesting to it at that moment.
"You really did that for me?" Sayaka asked. "Why?"
"'Cause I like ya'?" Kyoko whimsically replied. "And I care about ya?' That ain't enough?"
"You're the one always talking about how everything has a price and that you should never do anything without a reward." Sayaka wistfully stared at the redhead. "What do you get out of helping me like that?"
"Well I, uh-" Sayaka's frank questioning had caught Kyoko by surprise. "To be honest, after today I was plannin' to dump ya' off on Ol' Mami and goin' home. But," Kyoko finally released Kyubey from her grip with an undiplomatic toss to the ground. "I dunno. Somethin' 'bout ya' reminds me a lot of me back when I first started out. And if I turned out to be a pretty shitty fit for her-"
"Fat chance I would ever wanna be friends with a Queen Bee!"
"Heh!" Kyoko chuckled. "Say whatever ya' want about her, but back when she and I were together,'' Kyoko confided. "My whole life sucked a little less. And it wasn't just 'cause my wish hadn't bit my ass yet." She approached and sat down next to Sayaka. "It was 'cause I started to like myself... A little bit more. Like bein' with her made me wanna be a better person. And since I've met you…" She struggled to find the right way to put it. "Some of those ol' feelings… Started comin' back to me… Is all I'm sayin'."
"Better person? But I'm horrible." Sayaka examined the knuckles on the back of her hand. She still had a little smudge of Hitomi's blood on them. "I'm selfish and stubborn and sarcastic…" A tear welled up in the corner of her eye. "And I'm so, so stupid!"
"Well shit, who's ever been perfect! It's fine if yer a little horrible. And it's okay to be good, too!" Kyoko wiped the tear away with a tattered bit of her green sweatshirt sleeve. "And it ain't like I'm even qualified to judge! So I'll just take ya' as ya' are." She smiled. "I just… Wanna be friends." She felt her whole entire face blush red with the mention of that last word. "Okay? That's it. That's what I'd get out of it!"
"Wow." Sayaka was truly touched by Kyoko's words. "Thanks." She shakily rose to her feet. "I- I think I know what I want to wish for now."
"Sorry." Kyubey waved his tail around. "As I said, the offer has been withdrawn."
"You sorry little sack of shit!" Kyoko dropped the Grief Seed and lunged at the little white creature with both hands. Kyubey readily juked around her charge and rushed for the Grief Seed on the ground. Kyoko recovered just in time to retake possession just before he could nab it. "Oh, my God!" She exclaimed. "How did I never piece it together til' now? You don't really care about magical girls or protecting people or wishes or fighting witches at all, do ya'? You just wanna get yer paws on these Grief Seeds!"
"It is a used Grief Seed." Kyubey recovered and flailed his tail. "It is of no further use to you. I am simply doing my duty in securing it."
"Tch! Buuuulll..." Kyoko kicked and he dodged. "Okay," She cockily winked at Sayaka behind her. "Ya' really wanna bag this Grief Seed," She tossed it over her shoulder to the girl behind her back. "Ya' gotta make a deal with the girl it belongs to!"
"What the hell?" Homura and Miss Jones stopped dead in their tracks and both turned around. "No... It can't be…"
"Woah! I felt that too." Miss Jones scanned the area with her magic multitool. "That was one hell of a surge of intense temporal turbulence."
"Oh, dear," Mami Tomoe looked sorrowfully to the sky. "I'm sorry. I've sensed another suffering soul I must release before I join you in heaven."
The rest of the Incubators detected yet another anomalous energy source, one far more powerful than any anomaly detected before. "Anomalous energy signal detected! Dispatch to investigate immediately!"
The huge, violent burst of energy thrust Kyoko Sakura over to a stairway railing where she struggled to hold on.
"Sayakaaaaaaaaaaa!"
