March 17th. It had been a day since Akemi Homura had been discharged from the hospital. Using the 8 days left she had left for whatever she would plan to do before she would begin her days in Mitakihara Middle-School, Homura was sitting on a bench in a lush park, piles of folders stacked up beside her like a mountain. She had come here thinking it would be the best place to do her work, and easily found it to be as the plentiful lush trees and the sight of families having picnics brought her busy mind to a tranquil state and allowed her to be less frantic in her work.

Flicking her long black hair to the side and wiping the sweat off her forehead, she let out a sigh and turned the pages of the file she was holding, frustratingly thinking, "So many times I have tried, too many to count already. What was I doing wrong? If only... If only I had outside assistance," she pondered on what she was going to do differently this time and what was going to happen. She knew she had to take care of those Puella Magi, Oriko and Kirika, before they harm Madoka, but other than that, she had so many things to do.

Gather more weapons against the dreaded Walpurginacht, a dreaded Witch that was going to come next month to destroy the city. Homura had gone through fighting it so many times, but no matter how hard she tries, nothing seemed to even scratch that Witch. She had to monitor Madoka and Kyubey, too. Make sure that the manipulative creature doesn't try and contract her. Then again, there was the matter of Oriko and Kirika. She needed to find and kill them before they can start expecting her. She had to make sure those two were taken care of first.

Crumbling the edge of her file while she pondered, she gripped it tight until a picture of a young girl with puffy, pink twin-tails slipped out of her folder. Homura ignored the files falling off her lap as she reached for it, grasped of the picture's edge before it fell to the mud in front of her and let out a low sigh of relief - until a plastic football landed on the back of her hand and her prized memoir landed face-first into the mud.

Retracting her hand, Homura wiped the smears of mud off her face and gritted her teeth in anger as she picked up the plastic ball. The grip around it tightened as she heard someone approach her from behind. Turning around, a boy around 14-years old with neck-length brown hair stood in front of Homura, a nervous look on his face as he donned the light-brown uniform of the Mitakihara Middle-School that was stained with mud and dirt that the boy didn't seem to mind. He had a few bandages around his face, too.

Now, Homura had never lost her temper before - she could never, as she held dealt when frustration and anger from previous timelines - but whenever her memoir was harmed or dirtied, holding back suddenly became a bit hard for her to do. Beneath the cold look in her eyes, was anger that flared and grew like a burning fire.

"Excuse me, can I have that back?" the boy sheepishly asked and Homura's grip around the ball tightened, scaring him a bit. He backed away slowly, feeling as if he knew what was going to happen, "H-Hey now, violence isn't the answer... Can we... Ugh..."

"What seems to be the problem here?" another voice came from behind Homura, sounding smug and calm.

Turning around again, another middle-school student with chin-length dark green hair and fringes swept slightly to the right, stood in front of Homura with arms crossed and one eyebrow raised in curiosity. He had a small chisel in his breast pocket and he too wore the same uniform as the brunette behind Homura as he shot a analyzing stare at Homura. He had this air of superiority to him and Homura felt like just gutting the boy for just looking down on her or even looking at her wrong. The smug smile he carried made her feel like doing it even more.

"Mamoru, I-I kind of made this girl angry and she doesn't look like she wants to give back Tomura's ball," the one behind nervously explained, scratching the back of his head and laughing sheepishly.

The one called 'Mamoru' scanned the scene and let out a sigh of annoyance. Homura still stood with the ball threatening to burst in her hand out of silent and invisible anger, "Miss, may I please have that back?" he demanded calmly, opening one hand, "I doubt you would like to waste your time crushing something that doesn't belong to you and I would prefer if we kept things civil," he looked down and noticed Homura's picture in the mud. Assuming it was hers, he crouched down, cleaned it up with a handkerchief,in his pocket and offered it back to Homura as a trade.

In an instant, Homura snatched the picture out of his hands and placed it in her pocket before tossing him the ball.

"You have my gratitude," Mamoru thanked her with a small bow and gave the ball back to his friend. Homura stayed silent as he fixed his collar, a smug grin appearing on his face again,"My apologies for my friend's behavior, stranger," he said with a smirk and then walked away with the brunette without another word, handing his handkerchief to him to help clean up the mud and dirt stains on his uniform. She could hear them talking and laughing as they finally walked out of sight.

Finally, Homura's shoulders relaxed and she picked up her fallen files from the stone pavement. She thought of relocating to another place to plan and hoisted her bag of files over her shoulder once she had placed them back all inside. Looking up at the clear, bright sky above her, her hand reached for it as if to grab it, staring at the clouds as her mind wandered. Without knowing, she whispered a small name, "Madoka..."

The sun in the sky began to set and the blue skies had become a beautiful mixture of red and orange. It was like something one would see on a painting and some paid attention to this while others merely ignored it and continued their business in the small city block they were in. But there a few approaching rain-clouds looming overhead as time went by. It looked like it was going to rain heavily soon and most quickly went back indoors.

On the way back, Homura had decided to eat something before going back to her house and continue her duties. She reminded herself to not exert her body or ignore basic stuff such as eating, knowing it might affect her plans. Picking a simple restaurant, she entered the small diner and took a seat at the corner. The place was simply but cozy, as a radio on the counter played a melody of soft piano keys and an acoustic guitar. Homura ordered a simple meal and fell back into her seat, letting out another tired sigh. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep, rubbing them with a hand. But the conversation between the two middle-school students behind her made it hard.

"You're still not going to confess to her, Hideki?" a rather emotionless voice bluntly asked.

"I already told you, I just can't do it. I'm just not good enough for her anyways," another voice, sounding hesitant, sounded from directly behind her. His tone became more dry and sarcastic, "How am I supposed to confess to her, anyway? 'Hi, I'm Hideki. I've had a crush on you for years, but I was too scared to tell you'. Ugh. Christ. I don't think she'd accept anyway... Miki's already in love with that Kamijou kid for years.

Homura's eyes widened. She knew those names. Sayaka Miki. Kamijou Kyousuke. Taking out a small pocket mirror from her bag, she raised and she tried looking at the boys behind her through its mirror. They also wore the uniform of the Mitakihara Middle-School, both looking around her age. The one directly behind her was a boy with short, messy, dark blue hair, sipping a drink as he leaned his head on his hand for support. He was rubbing a bruise on his face as he indulged in some dry self-depreciation.

"It's not like I can beat that violin prodigy, and the two have been together since childhood. My chances are basically this," the one named 'Hideki' made a pinching motion to demonstrate how he was the size of an insect before continuing to eat his meal, messily biting into it with frustration. He swallowed a chunk and wiped his mouth with a tissue, as his sleeves were rolled up, "Girls love those kind of boys, not like I can do anything about that. I might as well just leave her alone."

The one in front of Hideki was another boy with silvery-white hair reaching the back of his neck and long bangs that covered up the left side of his face. Around his plate, multiple empty plates of food were stacked up into a piles as a laptop bag sat beside him. He wiped his mouth with a used tissue and inquired again in a passive-sounding voice that had a bit of worry to it, "You sure you don't want to do anything? You spent a lot of time watching her."

"I... You know, Tateyama, we should just go back home now," Hideki quickly avoided the question, "Since Miss Narita called in sick today, Takuya and Mamoru should be waiting outside," Hideki said and took up his bag after finishing his food and drink. The look of his face was somewhat melancholic as he took out his wallet to pay for the meal when a waitress came with the bill.

The boy named 'Tateyama' didn't ask any more about his friend's dilemma and got up from his seat, rubbing his only visible eye while yawning. Homura swore he had shot a look at her but chose to ignore her before he turned to his friend and said, "You're paying for me, right?"

"Fine, fine," Hideki grumbled slightly, handing over the cash to the waitress.

The two promptly left the diner and Homura closed her pocket mirror as her food was then placed onto her table. Giving a small 'Thank you' to the waitress, she leaned against her chair, thinking of what use that boy could have been to her with his knowledge of Miki Sayaka. Sayaka was another Magical Girl she knew mainly for her attitude to leap before looking - well, she wasn't a Magical Girl now since that day had arrived yet - but Homura could use someone to watch over her well-being, knowing the sad fate she always fell to.

Homura's stomach grumbling awakened her from her thoughts and she picked up her fork and spoon to dig into her food.

Night finally fell in the city of Mitakihara as the moon hovered above the city in the starry night sky and in full view. Back in her large home, Homura sat in her bedroom with a tired look on her face, hundreds of files surrounding her as she read one-by-one non-stop to help formulate plans for this timeline. Rubbing her tired eyes, she accidentally knocked one of the files to the floor when she moved her feet, but she chose to ignore it and lie down on the soft bed instead. She curled up into a ball, closing her heavy eyes.

"Every single calculation I make - every strategy I try - I still can't perfect my plan," she lamented in frustration, "What was I doing wrong..?" Turning to the bedside, a copy of the picture she had in her folder was kept in a small picture frame and Homura proceeded brush it softly with a finger. Kaname Madoka was the girl's name, the very friend that Akemi Homura had spent countless tries trying to save her, and looking at the bright smile Madoka had in the picture brought a warm feeling to Homura, as if it reignited some hope in her.

Sitting up on her bed, she sighed and brought her legs to her chest. She stared her toes, quietly speaking to herself, "Madoka... No matter how many times I fail, I promise that I will always try again... I'll do anything to save you... To make sure that your smile will never leave your face...To make sure that you will never suffer from Kyubey's plans... Madoka... I..." she looked at the picture again and wrapped her arms around her legs, "I..."

"Do you need any help with that?" a child-like voice echoed through her room.

Out of reflex, Homura took out a pistol from her drawer and aimed the barrel at a silhouette that was sitting on her windowsill behind her. The moonlight shone through the window and illuminated the cat-like shape Homura could barely make out in darkness, "Kyubey?" she asked. As a Magical Girl, she would expect the small, white Familiar to appear now-and-then to pester her before she would blow a hole in its forehead. But this wasn't the contractor of the Magical Girls. No, it's voice was different, and so was the aura that it emitted. There was something off about it.

The cat-like figure jumped on the floor and nearly slipped on a file as it landed. A set of ears flopped up and down, a large red circle was tattooed onto its back, three striped tails flickered in the wind and two familiar, beady red eyes stared at her with a mouth the shape of a curved sigma. There were black stripes that also ran through its body like a pattern as ringed tassels extended from its ears. The thing cleared it's throat and corrected her in a matter-of-fact manner, waving a paw in the air, "The name's not Kyubey; it's Sanbey."

Homura sat on her bed with eyes wide and confused. Her firearm still fixed on the creature, disbelief overwhelmed her as she tried to get off the bed and take a good look at the creature that casually sat in the middle of scattered files and papers. In all her days of travelling through timelines that had multiple unexpected occurrences, this was the first time she had encountered something like this. She had no idea what she was staring at, even if she knew this thing looked similar to Kyubey.

"W-Who...?"

"What?" it cocked its head to the right, still not afraid of the firearm trained on it, "Something on my face?" Sanbey looked up and noticed Homura still staring at it. Despite the darkness, it could still feel her eyes aiming coldly at it like the gun in her hand. Neither bothered the creature as it continued, "OK... So, I'll just get straight to the point since you're so dumbstruck," Sanbey hopped onto the table and spoke out its next line clearly, waving a paw to gain Homura's attention, "You want some help from Magical Boys?"