"I...I never thought about that. If something like that is possible..."

"Please, don't concern yourself over it. As I said, the chances of it happening is near zero. I realize that this is something that's...not in your field of expertise, but I felt it'd be best if I made you aware of this while I still had the chance."

"I understand. If what you're saying is true, then we need to make sure it never happens! If you really need my help, then I promise, as soon as my friends join me, we'll all think of something together!"

"Thank you. It was a pleasure to discuss this with you, Miss Kaname."

"Where…"

Sayaka slowly opened her eyes, being greeted with an unfamiliar ceiling. Realizing that she was lying down, she attempted to sit up, causing a wave of pain to shoot through her. Using the little movement she had in her head, she turned it to look at her surroundings. She was sitting in a large bed, in an ordinary looking bedroom. A small desk was to her right, while to her left laid curtains hiding the morning's light. An alarm clock was also to her left, displaying the early hours of the day.

"What...happened?" She asked, before the memories came flooding back. She remembered Homura talking with that woman. She remembered being hurtled throughout an endless void. She remembered falling on something before seeing someone walk towards her...and that was it. Feeling some of her strength returning due to her enhanced healing factor, she managed to slowly sit up in the bed. Before she could get out, she saw the door in front of her opening, revealing a tall, blonde woman standing behind it, who gasped in surprise upon seeing her.

"Hayate! She's awake!" She called out as she walked into the room. She was carrying a tray of food and set it down on the bedside desk beside Sayaka. "Are you all right young lady?"

"I'm...fine." Sayaka replied, still confused about the whole situation. "Where am I?"

"You're in Master Hayate's room. She found you injured and unconscious in the middle of an alleyway last night." The woman spoke with a kind tone. It had a gentleness to it that reminded Sayaka of Mami's hospitality. While she kept herself on guard, she felt relieved that whoever brought her here didn't seem to be an enemy, at least. When she mentioned injuries, she looked down at her body and found herself partially covered in bandages. She was about to ask this woman more questions when another girl walked into the room. This one was much shorter than the blonde woman, with short brown hair. "She seems to be all right, Hayate." The blonde woman stated, confusing Sayaka.

"This girl's the master?" Sayaka thought with bewilderment. This girl had to be even younger than she was!

"Thank you so much, Shamal." Hayate replied before looking at Sayaka. "I'm sorry for surprising you like this. I hope you don't mind, but...well...this might sound strange, but I saw you falling out of the sky last night before landing in that alley. You were hurt really badly, are you sure you're all right?" She asked with concern.

"Y-yeah...thanks?" Sayaka replied, while grateful that this girl helped her out, she didn't understand why she couldn't just call an ambulance or something for her. Wait...she mentioned that she saw her fall out of the sky. Had she still been in her magical girl uniform when she was knocked out? She was about to ask whether or not that was the case before she clutched her head in pain, feeling bandages across her head as well. "Ow…"

"Be careful!" Shamal stated. "You really must have hit your head hard. The wound on your head was just horrible! It's a miracle that you were still alive when Hayate brought you here."

"If...that's true…" Sayaka began to ask, still reeling from the pain. "Why didn't you just take me to a hospital? No offense but, why go to all this trouble just for me?" Hayate and Shamal looked at each other for a moment before nodding.

"Well, that's because-" Hayate began before a third voice entered the room.

"Hayate…" A small red-haired girl, who was even shorter than Hayate came inside. Her hair was messy, and she was carrying a small stuffed animal. "When's breakfast…" She yawned.

"Vita, don't disturb her while she and Shamal are tending to the guest's injuries." Another woman entered the room. She was about as tall as Shamal, with long pink hair wrapped in a ponytail. Her voice was firm, yet also soothing.

"But Signum...I'm hungry…" Vita whined. Sayaka couldn't help but smile at the scene in front of her. There was a certain tenderness to the atmosphere in the room that she hadn't felt in a long time. It almost made her forget about the fact that she wasn't supposed to be there.

"I'll be downstairs soon Vita. Signum, go get her some milk." The tall woman nodded before guiding Vita downstairs. Hayate giggled at the two of them before turning back to Sayaka. "To answer your question, well, you're a mage too aren't you miss...oh!" Hayate paused, realizing she had forgotten something very important. "Forgive me, I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Hayate Yagami, and this is Shamal. You already met Signum and Vita. We're mages of the TSAB. What's your name?"

"I'm Saya-" Sayaka's began to introduce herself, but paused as her confusion only continued to rise. These people couldn't all be magical girls, could they? Just who were they? What was this TSAB they were talking about? Something was wrong here. Something was very very wrong here, Sayaka thought. It wasn't that she couldn't trust these people, they seemed really nice. But just what happened to her? She remembered everything so clearly, so Homura hadn't erased her memories. So wherever she was, she probably wasn't anywhere close to Madoka. Her eyes suddenly widened as she realized something. "Uh wait, where exactly am I? The city, I mean." She asked.

"Oh, you're in Uminari City." Hayate replied. "You're from another world right?"

"Why did she ask that like it was a completely normal question?!" Sayaka yelled to herself internally. But it confirmed her suspicions regardless. If her memories were still intact, that meant Homura wasn't around. If Homura wasn't around, as crazy as it seemed, she really must have been in another world...or maybe that void she traveled through sent her through time, or maybe she hit her head too hard and she was dead and-

"Um...are you all right?" Hayate asked, the only thing she could see on Sayaka's face being worry.

"I...don't know!" Sayaka replied, closing her eyes. "I don't know what's going on, I don't know where I am, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't know who I am…"

"You...don't know who you are?." Hayate asked, confused.

"I...I…" Sayaka began to choke up. The more she thought about it, the more she couldn't contain the stress that had been built up inside her for so long. All that time she was locked away by that demon, she had largely kept a mask over her emotions, both figuratively and literally. She couldn't show weakness to her, if she did then it would basically be admitting defeat.

But now she was free. Free to let all her emotions loose as the tears began to leak from her eyes. Yet, at the same time she was trapped. Trapped in the sense that she had no idea how she would get back to Madoka and free her from Homura's clutches. It all built up to a cluster of troubling emotions that her frail heart could no longer hold inside, and it all came bursting out of her.

"I-I'm so sorry!" Hayate quickly apologized, wondering if she came off too strong on this clearly troubled soul. "I had no idea you were suffering from amnesia! Silly me, I should have known that would be possible from your head injury."

"W-what? No that's-" Sayaka began to retort, before Hayate grabbed her right hand.

"It's all right." Hayate replied in a soothing voice. "Me and my friends can help you get your memory back!" She smiled sweetly in a way that reminded Sayaka of her best friend that she had left behind. "Don't worry, the TSAB will help you, and I happen to be in pretty good standing with them! So until we figure things out and get you back on your feet, you can stay with us!" Sayaka could only stare at her in shock as she heard those words. This girl didn't know who she was. She only just met her right now, and yet here she was offering her hospitality to help with a condition she didn't even have.

A far more heroic deed than anything she could have ever admitted to have done in her entire career as a magical girl. And if Sayaka knew anything about heroic deeds, it was that they never went unpunished. It was at that moment she made a decision. She couldn't tell these people the truth about who she was and what she had to do. This had to be a burden for her to bear on her own. This girl...This family...didn't deserve to get involved in her fight. So yes, as far as these people were concerned, she did have amnesia.

"Thanks…" Sayaka uttered with a smile.

"I see. We'll have her undergo a full examination on the Arthra once the upgrades are complete."

Chrono sat at his desk, talking to Hayate via video chat about the events that happened the previous night.

"Thanks Chrono. I'll look after her in the meantime." Hayate responded.

"Just remember to keep your guard up. This is a delicate situation, and well..." He paused, not finishing his sentence. "Never mind. Now, are you sure that she's a mage?"

"Yeah. I saw her wearing some kind of barrier jacket that got dispelled after she hit the ground, it's the only explanation for how she could have survived a fall like that."

"Once she fully recovers, we'll have her try and demonstrate her magic. If she still can't remember anything after that, we'll hopefully at least have a list of possible locations narrowed down."

"Well...about that…" Hayate said, her face gaining a concerned expression. "She says she doesn't know anything about magic or the TSAB at all. She might not even know how to use it." Chrono furrowed his eyebrows at that. Despite cases like this not being entirely uncommon throughout the universe, something about this situation made an unsettling feeling begin to grow in his stomach. While he wasn't one to jump to conclusions, he couldn't afford to leave out any possibilities either. Regardless, Hayate was an exceptionally strong mage and had the Wolkenritter on her side, so whatever her case was, she could probably handle it, he reassured himself.

"I see. I'll talk this over with the Admiral once she and Fate return." Chrono replied.

"Once they return?" Hayate asked, a spark of realization popping in her head. "Oh right, I forgot they were still at Mid-Childa. Yesterday was the anniversary of…" Hayate trailed off, a look of sadness with a mixture of guilt appearing on her face. Chrono smiled softly in return.

"Don't worry about it. I went there with them earlier and paid my respects. It's just been a really hectic week for us over here." Chrono said, referring to his position as Branch Manager for the Bureau's temporary branch office on Earth. "Anyway, just keep an eye on her and let me know if anything happens." Hayate nodded.

"Right. See you later!" She said as the video chat closed. Chrono sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. He opened them again once he heard the unsatisfied puff of his co-worker Amy, who was holding a tray of sandwiches while looking at him, confused.

"Why didn't you tell her about the report?" She asked, setting the tray down at his desk.

"Because there's too much we don't know and we haven't been assigned anything other than to hold our positions. There's no point in worrying her about it." Chrono replied. He opened up a holographic map of their known universe, along with several articles and papers that talked about the current phenomenon. "The only thing we know is that somehow, every known planet, dimension, and even galaxy in the universe has been slowly moving for the past year. But not moving like they're in orbit. It's like they've...shifted."

"So...how is this not a huge crisis? Couldn't something like this potentially cause multiple dimensional quakes if it keeps up?"

"It's possible, but like I said, the problem is that there's too many unknowns. Nobody can tell if this is a natural phenomenon or if someone's causing it. Though I can't imagine how anyone could cause something like this on a universal scale." Chrono added as he took a bite out of one of the sandwiches. "That and nobody seems to know what to do about it, other than making sure things continue to run smoothly and strengthen our safety measures on every administrated world there is." He then stood up. "But the possibility of dimensional quakes isn't even the most concerning part. That would have to be the fact that this phenomenon isn't just affecting our universe."

"What do you mean?" Amy's eyes widened, she hadn't heard about that part of the discovery. The holographic map of their universe then began to shrink. Or rather, Chrono had begun to zoom it out. The millions of stars and planets shrunk to the size of insects the more it did, until the view of their entire known universe was only represented by a tiny white light.

"As vast as the reach of the TSAB is, we're not gods." Chrono continued, a melancholy tone emitting from his voice. There's still a lot about our universe-no, our reality that we don't understand." He managed to zoom out the map even further, and Amy was greeted with a surprising image. The white light was joined by four other white lights. All together they formed to what would look like the 'five' symbol one would find on a die. Five dots, four of them making the shape of a square, with one bigger dot in the center of them. "As advanced as we are, these...ex-universes as they're called still remain out of our reach. While we don't have the means to go to these universes, we can still study them from afar, albeit to a lesser extent here."

"It's sort of like how Earth is aware of the planets outside their solar system despite their current level of technology." Amy noted, to which Chrono nodded.

"Right, and if the recent data we have is correct, then that same phenomenon is most likely happening in these other universes as well, and they all seem to be moving towards that one in the center.." Chrono pointed, before shutting off the holographic map.

"Scary…" Amy said under her breath. "What would happen if they all met in the middle like that?" Chrono responded with silence, which basically told Amy everything she needed to know. She shuddered. Throughout her entire service in the TSAB, she didn't think there'd be a problem that could be too much for them to handle. Despite how big their organization was, the universe still found a way to make them feel small. An air of dread had filled the room on the sunshine-filled day in Uminari city. "You're not thinking that that girl is somehow involved, do you?"

"Of course not. Her situation is almost akin to Nanoha's first meeting with ferret-boy." Chrono joked, attempting to alleviate the tension in the air somewhat. No, what really concerned him about the girl was that she claimed to have amnesia despite having a barrier jacket on. While something like that was certainly possible, from the way Hayate described her injuries it seemed like the brunt of them came from after she had fallen.

Barrier jackets were meant to be extremely durable. If she wasn't involved in some kind of intense fight before she came here, a mere fall wouldn't be enough to give someone amnesia, unless she had amnesia before she came here.

"Anyway." He said as he sat down. "I'll prepare a list of questions to ask her once I inform the Admiral about this." He sat down at his desk and smiled. "Right now, helping her out should be our priority, so don't worry about that other issue now. Besides, from what the data shows, it seems to be a very slow process. At the rate they're currently moving, it could be several generations before any real dangerous effects are felt. Something would be figured out in the meantime."

"Let's hope so." Amy replied, an uncomfortable feeling in the back of her head starting to bother her.

"...Beautiful."

Cinder Fall commented on the view of the city before her. She gazed down at the metropolitan area from the rooftop with a smile, watching the citizens going about the daily lives in the middle of the day. Beside her stood her two teammates, Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai, who could not help but feel the same sentiment.

"No Grimm, no White Fang, no danger whatsoever." Emerald remarked. She still had trouble taking everything she had recently learned in. It all felt too detached from the dangerous reality she was used to. "It's almost like a dream."

"Yeah well, it's soon gonna become a nightmare." Mercury smirked as he put his hands behind his head, letting the cool breeze run through his grey hair. "We better enjoy this place while we can." He turned towards Cinder. "How much time did she give us?"

"Two weeks at most." Cinder replied, her expression hardening. "Scout out the area. Make sure you find places that will...allow things to play out nicely." She took out her scroll, and quickly looked over the information she was given, and sent it two her teammates.

"Oh, what do you know, it actually works!" Mercury said as he took out his scroll. On the world of Remnant, the main source of energy was Dust, which was known to not function outside of Remnant's atmosphere. That is, until she came along. "I had my doubts, but it looks like this girl knows what she's doing."

"Of course she does. Salem wouldn't have spoken so highly of her otherwise." Cinder noted as she stared at the information on the scroll regarding her target. "She knows we only have one chance at this, and that's why she's going to assist us when we're ready." She turned towards Emerald, who nodded towards her with a look of determination on her face. Cinder's expression hardened.

"Remember, we're not going to be dealing with Huntsmen or Huntresses here." Cinder informed them. "We're going to be going up against people with the kind of power that Atlas...no...everyone in Remnant can only dream about having." Cinder couldn't help but feel a twinge of excitement as she said those words. "But lucky for us, we have one advantage." Her expression darkened as her teammates nodded, knowing exactly what she was talking about.

When the plan Salem had given them changed after that demon showed up, Cinder at first didn't know how to feel. But after learning about the possibilities, her possible enemies, and the power that awaited her should they succeed, the more eager she was to carry it out. If there was one absolute truth in her world, it was that people in positions of power always shared one common trait. One common weakness that they all had.

Arrogance.

150 YEARS, 5 MONTHS, 2 WEEKS, 3 DAYS, 18 HOURS, 5 MINUTES UNTIL THE CONVERGENCE.

NEXT CHAPTER: NEVERMORE