Kyoko felt a little dizzy as she woke up. Huh?
Something was off but she couldn't quite place what it was.
A look at the room she was in revealed it was the same place that she had been staying in for weeks.
Wait... that wasn't right. She had traveled to Mitakihara city.
The Walpurgisnacht! Mami had died, she had felt terrible and... and she had been brought back into the past by the wish of some black-haired girl?
That definitely happened yet another part of her said none of it did and yesterday had just been an average day.
Was she losing her mind or were these the after-effects of time travel?
That really wasn't just a vivid dream or nightmare, was it?
Time travel, was it possible even with a wish?
She didn't know, but she couldn't discount it either.
She felt sure it happened too but at the same time, it contradicted the other half of what she could remember.
Was this what it was like to be going crazy? She certainly hoped it wasn't.
She was almost tempted to check if a Witch was messing with her.
After thinking about it for a while she decided it would best to just go out and confirm whether it was real or not.
So once again or perhaps for the first time since she left Mami, she was going to pay Mitakihara city a visit.
Kyoko had no clue where this was going to lead her but she wasn't going to let a little bit of risk stop her.
If anything a bit of shake-up was welcome and might prove itself interesting.
Besides, assuming she wasn't losing her mind, she did make that black-haired girl a hefty promise.
Homura. As she recalled her name Kyoko briefly felt a faint sense of familiarity with it, but it was gone as swiftly as it came.
After slowly going through her morning routine, Kyoko started getting ready to leave.
She had first made sure to not leave any food behind...
Like she had done the day before? In one of the two pasts she remembered.
The double memories were annoying, to say the least.
Soon though Kyoko was on her way to Mitakihara.
This time there was no storm, no destruction, no witch, and no chaos.
This time Mami was going to still be alive.
She felt herself smiling a little.
This time she was going to set things right.
How she wasn't quite sure yet.
Playing it cautiously seemed best for she met Mami now, she didn't know what she would exactly do or how would the blonde would react.
Would they reconcile, would they argue, would they fight, all of those?
It was better to first figure out the situation.
As for Mami, she would cross that bridge later.
After a while, she arrived near the school that Mami went to.
If she was correct she would be able to find all of them there.
If she could find Pink and Homura there then that would confirm things.
Not wanting Mami or anyone really to spot her, Kyoko kept a low profile.
She had perched herself upon the roof of a nearby building and kept her eye out for any of them.
As she did she spotted countless middle-schoolers walk by, all seemingly caught up in their own steady lives.
She couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed.
Those runts didn't even know how lucky they were.
Heck, most of them were probably clueless of all the things they had to be grateful for and none of them had a clue of the dangers Mami was protecting them from.
Both are blessed and doomed to live their lives normally without a clue about the existence of witches.
Frankly, she felt somewhat glad to have given up on them.
They didn't owe her any help or thanks and she didn't owe them any, it balanced out.
The magic she had gotten and the fact she didn't need to fear witches were about the only real benefits she had gotten out of the whole magical girl deal anyway.
It was something hers and hers alone. Mami thought would surely insist on using it to do 'good'.
She was going to have to give her a pass on that one.
Sure, she had found back a little bit of hope within herself, but the her from back then was long gone.
Kyoko had sat in thought until lunchtime started, then when the students started leaving their classes, she perked herself up.
Amongst the crowds of students, she kept her eyes out for three different signatures.
One was Mami's, which was going to be the easiest one.
The other two, Pink and Braids, she had only seen once.
Still, she felt fairly certain she would be able to recognize them.
As time passed she eventually did manage to spot Mami and as well as the pink-haired girl on the school grounds.
So pink hair was confirmed to exist, then... all of those memories, the time travel, all of it was true.
Interestingly enough Mami and Pink didn't even approach each other at all.
Weren't they supposed to be getting along great? Was that was only outside of school?
Kyoko tried to think back to when she had first heard about the girl.
It was about two weeks before the Walpurgisnacht showed up from what she could recall.
Then again, Kyubey was late in telling her about the girl, so they must have had met a little before that.
She was going to have to observe them some more to figure out the truth.
As she looked on it really seemed like neither Pink nor Mami was even going to come near each other.
Were they really intentionally staying away from each other while at school or did they actually not know each other yet?
If Homura was there, she would ask her but she remained nowhere to be seen.
They did all go to the same school, right?
She was quite confident each of them had worn a similar uniform.
Also if Pink hadn't met with Mami yet that gave her a chance to meet with her before Mami would.
Mami was bound to notice the other magical girl quite soon though.
This girl was only a novice at this point, so she wouldn't even know how to hide her signature.
It was then that something struck Kyoko.
Was there perhaps a chance even that the girl wasn't a magical girl yet?
After all, if she was right that it wouldn't take long for Mami to notice the other magical girl and if they really didn't know each other yet.
Then... then it was likely she either only became one real recently or she wasn't one yet.
That was definitely worth investigating.
Kyoko felt a little happy at that, she did mean to repay her debt to the black-haired girl, and if she could talk some much-needed sense into this girl,
that would be hitting be two birds with one stone.
That was only if the girl wasn't a magical girl yet though.
When Kyoko checked on Mami again, she noticed the blonde was having a conversation with some other girls of her school.
Right, Mami did have some friends at school.
She had almost forgotten since Mami wasn't particularly close with any of them.
None of those girls knew Mami's secret or even knew her past the surface.
No one but her did...
Until that pink-haired replacement unit came along, that was.
Mami, you idiot.
Perhaps she couldn't blame her though.
She had been the one to leave Mami behind.
It annoyed her though that Mami was likely feeding this girl all the same bullshit about magical girls and what they should be like.
She was going to have to do something about that.
In any case, she had a lot of time to think about what to do.
As she got back to the spot she was sitting at before, Kyoko grabbed something to snack and a small notebook out of her bag.
She swiftly popped open a wrapper of sour candies that she had with her and popped one into her mouth.
Something about snacking and eating made her feel a little calmer.
She then stared at the notebook for a little while.
After opening it up and flipping through, she stopped at a certain page.
On it, there were scrawled some comments and thoughts on Mami, finished with a drawing of a stupid-looking Mami.
After looking it over, Kyoko decided to rip it out and crumble it up.
She then put away the crumpled paper in her pocket and flipped ahead till she hit a new and unwritten page on which she jotted down some new thoughts and plans.
Once she had finished doing so she put her things away again and walked to the edge of the roof and look downwards.
With her magic, it wasn't a problem to jump down from the great height.
However still not wanting Mami to notice her presence, she turned around and took a slower, more stealthy route back down.
Kyoko had plenty of time to pass before the girls would be out of classes again, so she decided to tour the city a bit.
Many of it she had seen before, though here and there she found small changes like a new shop or construction site.
Compared to that it felt like her life had changed a whole lot more during what had felt like the longest year of her life.
Then there were the places she and Mami had hung out at, the spots they had trained at, and of course the various place that they had hunted witches and their familiars.
What a different time it was back then, however, there was no going back to it. Damn it. The thought of her family went through her mind.
She had let herself get a little hopeful and now she had let her guard down. She had to be happy Mami was even alive.
Why did she want more?
Greedy thoughts like that were usually only good for more misery in the end.
She was never going to see her family again, they were gone, she had accepted that.
She thought she had dealt with that, and yet a tear streaked down her face.
She quickly whisked it away.
There was no sense in crying about it.
The regret and guilt, she had to push them away again and keep going.
After all, she had no room to take steps back.
After a few hours, Kyoko returned to observe the school grounds once more and, after an hour of waiting there, she spotted the pink-haired girl leaving the school grounds together with two other girls.
Now she looked at her some more, it struck her that Pinky was actually short.
Both girls with her were easily half a head taller than her.
One of them, a blue-haired chick was talking to the other two animatedly.
They seemed like quite the happy bunch of friends, chatting away happily with smiles on their faces.
Friends huh?
Before she had convinced herself that she had no need of those or anyone for that matter, but perhaps she had been wrong.
Though she had kept it at bay, the loneliness, losing Mami, having no one that cared and no one else to care for, had gotten to her.
It's how she ended up here.
Ever since she had lost her family and fell out with Mami she had been a lone wolf.
She had thought herself strong and that wasn't wrong but... what was it? A pack of wolves was much stronger together, something like that.
Looking back at the group of three, they all looked comfortable around each other.
A small part of her envied them.
Maybe she could do it. Make a friend, perhaps even with that girl, and Mami? The black-haired girl? All of them? She might as well try.
Not that she could see Mami and her going back to the way they were, it would surely be different but maybe still possible.
It was probably better to focus on Black and Pink first though.
Speaking of which, Pink was still walking with both of her friends.
She had hoped that they would split up soon but nope it seemed they were staying together for quite a bit, they even stopped at a little bakery together.
Which reminded her, she still had some food on her, gotten at a different bakery.
She quickly unraveled the bag it was in and took out a breadstick, then broke a part of it and started eating.
Mhhm, it was good for what it was.
Kyoko had always enjoyed quiet moments where she could simply eat and think.
And some thinking she had to do.
Things would be fine if the trio split off after this or soon after but what if they walked Pink all the way home?
She didn't know if they lived near each other or if they would bother with such things, in fact, she didn't know much about them at all.
She just had to hope she would get a chance for one on one conversation with Pink.
Luckily this chance did come to her, a half-hour after the trio had left the bakery.
Green left the trio long before Blue, but after they finally split Kyoko had her chance.
As for her approach, Kyoko had been thinking about it for a while and figured she would see how the girl reacts upon seeing her soul gem.
The girl hadn't looked malicious at all, so it was probably a safe play to make.
She would remain on her guard though as it was
something she couldn't afford to lose.
Stealthily Kyoko made her way down to street level and then started walking towards where she predicted the girl would be.
Luckily the girl had kept walking the way she had been going and Kyoko soon caught up to her.
"Hey you, " She called out to her, "Ma... girl with the pink hair."
The girl seemed hesitant to stop at first, taking a few more steps forward first, before stopping and turning around.
"You are from Mitakihara middle school right?" Kyoko asked her. It was now time to see if her lie would work.
"I am soon going to transfer over there and wondered how things are there?"
Seeing the girl looking at her with some doubt she continued. "Ah, sorry for asking you suddenly."
The girl looked her over as if to determine if she was suspicious or not and then finally nodded at her and answered with a small voice.
"I, ah that is okay. Ah, uhm... what would you like to know about it? "The girl asked her back.
"Just your impression, you know? Like how are the classes?"
"Ah well, I think they are fine." The girl looked at her and seemed unsure of what else to add.
"Anyway, I should be getting home. Maybe I will see you at school sometime then."
With that, the girl turned around and started walking off. "Hey wait, don't go yet."
This was the moment where she would find out if the girl was really a magical girl yet.
"What is it?" The girl asked back as she turned to her once again.
"Well, take a look at this. No touching though, it's valuable. " Kyoko said as she took her soul gem in her hand and then stretched her arm forward.
She then slowly opened her hand and unveiled the soul gem and as she did, she carefully studied the girl for her reaction.
The girl looked a mixture of being both puzzled and amazed as she looked at the gem.
Kyoko felt just a bit of relief at that.
Good, she wasn't a magical girl yet, probably.
Now she just had to throw off the real reason she showed her the gem.
"It's a rare item. Have you ever seen one like it before?"
At that, the girl looked back to her and answered with an innocent face. "No, I don't think so. It is pretty tough."
She carried a friendly smile and seemed genuine in her response.
Kyoko again felt a little better about protecting this girl.
"It is, ain't it?" Kyoko asked her, bragging a little. "See, I like collecting trinkets like this one," Kyoko finished with a laugh.
"Would you actually know of any shop nearby where they would sell the like?"
"Uhm, I don't think so, sorry," The pink-haired girl answered her back. The girl seemed a little more relaxed now.
Kyoko hadn't prepared much more than this so she started closing off the conversation.
"I see, well, thanks anyway. See ya then."
This time, Madoka had given her a small smile before turning around and walking off.
So far her plan seemed a success.
If she could befriend the girl and keep an eye on her then she might just be able to prevent her from becoming a magical girl.
Later on in the evening of that same day, after the rush of success had left her, Kyoko started thinking, and as she thought she started wondering.
Was this really what she should be doing? Helping this girl all for the promise made to some black-haired chick.
Well, she didn't want to back out of the promise she had made but she had also promised herself to never use her magic for others again.
There was a reason she had been going at things alone after everything that had happened.
She was going to live her life for herself and no one else, wasn't that what she had decided?
Then should she really be helping them? Well, perhaps it wasn't entirely without self-interest to help them.
After all, she did want someone to talk to, to hang out with, she had missed that.
When faced with Mami's death, she had felt empty, alone, angry, and sad, but perhaps even before that, she had been slowly losing herself.
It couldn't be helped, she supposed. But still, was this the right way to go about it?
That pink-haired girl, nice as she seemed to be, was still the one that Mami had replaced her with.
Then again, if she could prevent her from becoming a magical girl that wouldn't happen either.
Prevent her from becoming a magical girl, how exactly was she going to do that anyway?
Her plan so far was to gain her trust so that she could hopefully talk her out of it if it came to it.
But who even knew when Kyubey was going to make its move.
Was she going to have to stalk the girl until that happened?
Ah, and what about that Homura girl? Where was she even?
She didn't show up to the school despite her friend, who she had made her wish for, being there.
What sort of thing could delay her?
She better not have tried something stupid like taking on a witch on her own already.
Here she was trying her best for this girl and she doesn't even show up.
What was up with that?