Deals and Fairytales

A Puella Magi Madoka Magica Outsider's Tale

Disclaimer: I don't not own these characters, they are owned by Studio Shaft/Aniplex and ABC/Disney for Madoka Magica and Once Upon a Time respectively. This story is meant for non-profit enjoyment only.

Chapter 4: The Mermaid's Choice

The first thought that occurred to Sayaka when she woke up was that it had all been a horrible dream. That she had woken from some terrible nightmare. There were no magical girls that were walking corpses, no witches to fight, no soul gems that acted as a kind of prison. She would go to school as usual and everything would be right with the world. Then she saw her soul gem sitting there on her desk and her heart sank. She was little more than a pretty trinket attached to some kind of zombie whose only purpose was to fight the witches that plagued the world. Still it was a testament to her determination that her next thought was simply 'I can't change it so I have to get used to this.'. She was still a champion of justice performing an important duty to protect the innocent people of the city. She couldn't stay down in the dumps forever. Slowly she dragged herself out of bed and prepared for school. Her parents gave her worried looks but she ignored them as she ate her breakfast and walked out.

The weather was at least clear as Sayaka walked to school while trying to put herself in a better mood. It wasn't easy. Every time she so much as thought about her soul gem or magical girls in general she'd start to become depressed again so instead she let her eyes wander and take in the scenery. Mitakihara was quite the beautiful city when one took the time to appreciate it. The air and water were clean and there were a number of breathtaking parks including one Sayaka's route skirted. The smell of flowers and morning dew was in the air and Sayaka inhaled deeply a small smile forming on her face for just a moment. This place was peaceful at least for now and Sayaka intended to keep it that way. Slowly she felt a little bit of her old self coming back and she took another deep breath. She could handle this...

She saw Hitomi walking to school as she normally did. Madoka lived a bit farther away and so often had to rush to catch up to the two of them. Sayaka had no doubt that she would be by shortly but for the moment it was good to have some company that wasn't involved in the insanity that had been playing out to date. Hitomi greeted her and the two walked together a ways exchanging bits of small talk as they normally did. Soon though Hitomi got a concerned look on her face and blurted out. "You seem down Sayaka, what's wrong?"

Sayaka decided to play it off as no big deal. "Ah nothing really. Just some things that have been coming up lately hit me out of nowhere is all. It's all right, I'm managing."

Hitomi didn't seem convinced but thankfully dropped the subject. Being prim and proper, that was just the way of things. Instead she scanned ahead and a quizzical looked appeared on her face. "Is that Kamijou-kun? I didn't know he was back at school today."

Sayaka froze and looked where Hitomi was indicated. Kyosuke was there walking on crutches and talking with his friends. What happiness Sayaka had been cultivating that morning evaporated in an instant as her situation came crashing down on her once again. There was her beloved, the one she had wished to heal and yet as much as she wanted to run up to him a single thought kept replaying itself over and over in her mind: 'I'm not human, how could Kyosuke love me?'.

Hitomi looked at her a moment then prodded her gently. "Aren't you going to go talk to him?"

Sayaka backed behind a sign and looked down. "N-nah. I'm letting him have his own space." It was clear though that Hitomi wasn't buying that excuse. In fact she almost seemed upset about something.

"Sayaka?"

"Y-yeah?" Hitomi looked very serious all of a sudden.

"Would you please meet me at the cafe after school, there's something I need to discuss with you."

"Oh, uh really? Sure, is there something on your mind?"

"We'll talk about it then." Hitomi then turned and started walking toward school again, a little faster than usual. Sayaka was trying to figure out what was wrong with the green haired girl when she saw Madoka running up to her a look of immense relief on her face.

"Sayaka-chan, I'm so glad to see you." Sayaka felt the air escape her lungs in a great "woosh" as her friend drew her into a tight hug. "A-are you doing alright today? I was worried about you all night."

"I-I'm doing a bit better thanks."

Madoka cocked her head to the side and regarded Sayaka for a moment. "Are you sure? You don't look well. What's wrong? Please tell me."

That was always like Madoka, always caring about others. There were times when Sayaka felt she was too soft for her own good but today Sayaka didn't mind as much. If she didn't say anything to anyone she felt as if she would burst, all her pain tearing her apart at once. "It's just that I saw Kyosuke just now and... well how can I do it? How can I confess to him when I'm like this? How could I ask him to hold me, to kiss me when I'm, I'm just a zombie!"

The tears were falling freely now. Though her vision was blurred she could feel Madoka's hand on her shoulder. Gently she placed her hand over Madoka's. Sayaka did her best to dry her tears and stop her sniffles then looked at her best friend. "Thanks Madoka, we'd better get to class now."

"Sayaka-chan..." Madoka's worried look continued but Sayaka turned and headed to class.

Class had been another morass of garbage Sayaka didn't care to learn and she had at best stumbled through one subject after another until school had ended. She had half expected the teacher to say something but apparently she had gone unnoticed. School had never been her thing anyways as she frequently got bad grades even when she did try. The only solace she'd had in this area was that Madoka somehow had a tendency to get even worse grades. Now though she was free to see what Hitomi wanted. It was unusual for her well to do friend to act worried or annoyed unless it had something to do with her parents pushing their daughter to do something else on top of the ridiculous list of expectations they had already nearly buried her with. The rich girl's burden as Sayaka liked to consider it. She didn't know what it was this time but she would help out any way she could. After all Hitomi was one of her dearest friends next to Madoka. It was also the perfect thing to take her mind off all the insanity of the past few days.

Sayaka walked into the cafe and found Hitomi sitting in a booth. She slid into the opposite and stared at her friend a moment. Hitomi was the type to usually put on one of those proper disaffected expressions. It helped when dealing with the rest of high society. But Sayaka had known her long enough to tell that something was seriously bugging her. "What's going on Hitomi? What did you want to talk about?"

Hitomi tried to start and stopped a couple of times before finally taking a deep breath and staring evenly at Sayaka. "Sayaka, there's a secret I've been keeping from you and Madoka."

"A secret, what kind of secret?" Sayaka tried to adopt her usual easy going smile despite the emotional rollercoaster she'd been on, was still on, and felt that she for the most part succeeded.

"For a long time now I've been in love with Kyosuke Kamijou."

Sayaka felt as if she'd been lashed across the face or lightning had shot through her body. Somehow she had managed to pull off an expression of shocked surprise rather than the gloomy depression that was now threatening to bury her yet again today. "Ah... ah really? You like Kyosuke?"

Hitomi's gaze hardened. "You should stop pretending Sayaka. I know you love him too."

Sayaka didn't know quite how to respond. The mask she had been wearing moments before crumbled though and Hitomi had full view of the wretchedness she felt. It didn't seem to phase Hitomi who simply continued. "When I saw Kamijou-kun today I realized I needed to stop fooling myself so I've decided to confess my feelings to him. However you've been pursuing him longer than I have. You're his childhood friend. Out of respect for you I'm giving you until the end of today to confess your feelings before I do the same. I'll leave you now to make your decision."

With that Hitomi got up, bowed to Sayaka and walked out of the cafe. Sayaka meanwhile was reeling from the news. Hitomi loved Kyosuke and she was going to confess. She'd given Sayaka the day to do likewise but... Despite the urgent desire to run to Kyosuke and tell him everything that was pounding in her head and heart Sayaka's mind flew back to the simple fact of what she was now. She couldn't confess to him no matter how much she wanted to. She wasn't even human anymore, how could she ever be worthy of him? She thought again of Hitomi. Her high society friend. Kyosuke was considered high society too come to think of it. They had a number of things in common. And Kyosuke hadn't bothered to call her when he'd gotten out of the hospital. Was it possible those two were meant for each other? Had she always been nothing more than a third wheel, the unwanted, obtrusive outsider? But she was Kyosuke's childhood friend right? That meant he'd be more likely to choose her over Hitomi right? She should confess, but she... couldn't. Sayaka's mind was locking up again trying to deal with a situation it just wasn't prepared for. The more the thoughts looped in her head the worse she felt. She could feel the tears forming again and running down her face.

The next time Sayaka looked up she was at the gates of Kyosuke's mansion. She hadn't even realized she'd left the cafe. The sun was nearly down now, the last rays of twilight beginning to be extinguished. She looked past the gate to the house beyond and she could imagine Kyosuke there playing the violin. It was a fantasy she'd had many times before but this time instead of Sayaka appearing and the two embracing with a passionate kiss, it was Hitomi. The image of Kyosuke and Hitomi in a lover's embrace burned itself into Sayaka's mind. She held onto the gate as the tears came again, hot and free against her cold skin. How could she deal with this? It was just too much. She let go of the gate and headed into the city unsure of everything.

Madoka was now very worried about her friend. It was now the second day after they had discovered the secret of the soul gems and now Sayaka had skipped school. Every time she looked forward she couldn't help but drift her gaze momentarily to Sayaka's empty desk. Something was terribly wrong with Sayaka and try as she might, Madoka had no idea how to comfort her friend. She felt so weak and helpless and the thought ate at her heart. She'd found out the reason for Sayaka's absence or at least what she'd thought was the reason when she'd been running to school. She hadn't seen a sign of Sayaka but had run into Hitomi and Kyosuke walking together. Her friend had pulled her aside and told her that Kyosuke had agreed to become her boyfriend. At first Madoka had actually started to become angry and asked Hitomi how she could ever do this when Sayaka's infatuation with Kyosuke had been so obvious only to be told that Hitomi had given the girl the rest of the day to confess her feelings which she apparently hadn't. This was the last thing Sayaka had needed as being with Kyosuke was probably the only thing that would keep her friend together now and she knew it.

Hitomi's revelation had also torpedoed the one idea that had come to Madoka last night for helping Sayaka. She had intended to push her friend into confessing her feelings to Kyosuke while she stood by as emotional support whatever the outcome had been. Now with Hitomi and Kyosuke being an item that wouldn't go over well at all. Madoka had simply shaken her head at the ludicrous hand fate was dealing her today. Not a couple of weeks ago she had been thinking about how much she wanted to get a love letter, to have someone that loved her the way her father loved her mother. Madoka had wanted that very much as after all, she saw how happy the two of them were and couldn't help but desire the same situation for herself. She had at times tried to imagine what her husband would look like and how many children they would have together. Right now though the only thing that thinking about love brought out was a very rare reaction for her: irritation.

She had no clue how to proceed next. She wasn't a magical girl and after finding out about the soul gems she had very little desire to actually become one. Homura had been quite right to warn her and Sayaka not to take up Kyubey's offer. Madoka stopped herself for a moment. The thought about Homura had actually given Madoka an idea. She sent out a mental signal to the raven haired girl. 'Homura, I need to talk with you at lunch.'

It took a few seconds for the girl to respond. '...Okay.'

Madoka sat back in her chair and did her best to focus on the teacher. Silently she awaited their lunch period and her chance to talk with Homura about her troubles. When it finally came up she and Homura moved toward an empty corner of the class room and pretended to make idle chat. In reality all of the pertinent details were flying between them telepathically.

'What did you need to talk to me about Madoka?' Unlike how she acted towards most other people, Madoka had seemed to be able to get Homura to open up a bit and so her thought came across as genuinely concerned rather than harsh or annoyed as it would if directed to another.

'It's Sayaka-chan, I don't know how to help her. I was wondering if you could help me look after her. I can't go on witch hunts and she's not in a state to be alone. Hitomi-chan... Hitomi-chan took Kamijou-kun from her today and I don't think that's going to go over well. She's already going through too much.'

Homura closed her eyes for several seconds whether as in thought or irritation though Madoka couldn't tell. Finally she opened them and her response didn't sit well with Madoka at all. 'I'm sorry Madoka, there's nothing you can do. And I doubt Sayaka would listen to me.'

'You just have to be friendly with her Homura-chan.'

Homura just shook her head. 'I tried thinking of a way myself but... I'm sorry, it won't work.'

'But...'

'It's partly my fault this is happening.'

'Huh, why?' Madoka stared at Homura quizzically.

'I should have been more diligent in preventing her from making a contract. I knew what the soul gems contained before all this.'

A small flash of anger coursed through Madoka. 'Why didn't you tell us!? I don't think Sayaka-chan would have made the contract if she'd known!'

Again Homura shook her head. 'Would you have believed me back then? I doubt it, especially not with Mami claiming otherwise. And after Sayaka contracted I couldn't tell you then because well, look at how she's reacting now.'

Madoka bowed her head. She knew Homura was right, as usual. 'All Sayaka-chan wanted to do was help people. To save people and bring hope.'

'That's exactly why she should never have made the contract.'

'Why!?'

'Magical girls with those kinds of ideals tend to fall sooner rather than later. That's just how it works, being naive destroys you. I'm sorry Madoka but that girl, it would be best if you gave up on her.'

'I refuse to do that! And I refuse to abandon hope either! I'll help Sayaka-chan, whatever it takes!'

Homura simply gave Madoka a sad stare, broke the mental link, and walked away.

Madoka had rushed to Sayaka's house after school. She had contacted Mami who had agreed to keep an eye out while she was off hunting while Madoka had decided to check with her parents. Sayaka had been ignoring all attempts at mental communication so the only other option was to track her down. She had then become frantic when she found out that Sayaka hadn't been back home that night. She had thanked Sayaka's mother and promised to look for her. Afterwards she had turned to start looking and saw the redhead Sayaka had been planning to fight two days ago, the girl called Kyoko. "So you're looking for the r... Sayaka too huh?"

Madoka's expression actually became hard. "If you're looking to fight with her again she's not here."

"Nah I wasn't looking to fight. I... wanted to talk to her."

Madoka was perplexed for a moment. "Talk to her? Why?"

"That bomb the little freak dropped on us a couple of nights ago really hit her hard. Moping doesn't do any good though so I thought I'd show her what she should be focused on."

"It's because of you trying to force your views on Sayaka-chan that this happened in the first place." Madoka put a fair bit of anger into that message and she didn't care how Kyoko reacted to it. Somehow despite the fact that this girl was a magical girl and Madoka was only human, she refused to back down. It was like she was tapping into some great wellspring of conviction she never knew she had. Fortunately Kyoko didn't seem to take offense to the remark.

"Yeah... look it's just she doesn't have the right attitude for this sort of thing. People like Mami and me, we got into this because we thought we had no choice and we stayed because we definitely didn't have a choice afterwards. With this life you focus on survival first and anything else second or not at all. Someone like Sayaka would get eaten alive unless she wised up. She should never have made a wish and for that matter neither should you."

"You sound a lot like Homura-chan."

"The creepy girl?" Kyoko burst out laughing. "I figure I'm a bit more fun than she is. Anyways, if you're looking for Sayaka I want to help. I promise I won't fight her this time. The name's Kyoko Sakura by the way."

Madoka doubted she could stop Kyoko from coming along anyways so she simply nodded her head in ascent. "Alright... and I'm Madoka Kaname."

Sayaka moved listlessly through the city her mind focused on the events of the last two days. She had killed the few familiars that had popped up though not without much enthusiasm. How could she after seeing what she had? She had spent the entire night trying to figure out what she was going to do. Several times she had felt like forcing her way into Kyosuke's house, drawing him into a kiss, and then telling him she loved him but the same thought kept repeating in her head every time: 'Not human. Not human. Not human.'. She had stumbled toward the school in the morning and had hidden when she saw Kyoksuke and Hitomi walking together. The way they were talking and the look in their eyes when they stared at each other... it tore Sayaka's heart into pieces. It was only then that she'd realized something: The only thing worse than being rejected by the one you loved was never having told them in the first place. It was too late now though. She had run away, crying the whole time and had only stopped to do a bit of hunting when she'd noticed some familiars in the area. While she did so the horrible thought occurred to her that this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't saved Hitomi from that witch. That thought was like a massive black hand around her heart, squeezing the life and happiness out of her. She had spent most of the rest of the day in a fugue not really processing what was going on around her.

She was so weary now. The sun was beginning to go down again, the twilight hour of purples, dull reds, and oranges. She found a black bench to sit down on and collapsed into it. She was covered in grime and stank of body odor from not having bathed. Almost reflexively she pulled out her soul gem, her prison and stared at it intently. It was almost entirely black, just a small bit of light was left and even that seemed like it was dying... Sayaka didn't really care though. If this meant the end of her usefulness as a magical girl and her death then so be it. While she had staggered around she had begun to question so many things. Her life, her friends, her family, even the city itself. She kept coming back to a single question: "What am I fighting for?". It repeated over and over in her brain. She had wanted to be a champion of justice and save the people of the city. Now she wondered if it had been worth it at all. She felt like she was drowning within that muddy soul gem with no hope in sight. In the sparse moments of lucidity during her meanderings she had noticed so many terrible things. People living on the street, drugs, various crimes... It seemed like humanity was doing its best to prove to Sayaka that it didn't deserve to be saved. Throughout the whole jaunt she had been mumbling to herself incoherently as she did now. "I feel like I could curse the entire world..."

"Oh I don't doubt that dearie. Not with what you're becoming anyways."

Sayaka's head snapped up at the intrusion. There was a man staring at her, the most hideous one she'd ever seen. She would have mistaken him for one of the homeless bums she'd seen across the city if not for what he was wearing. He looked like he was wearing some type of leathers out of a European renaissance faire. His skin looked weirdly golden and pocked and at first Sayaka thought it might have been some kind of leprosy. On closer inspection it instead looked scaly. His smile revealed rotten, yellowed teeth. Sayaka was willing to bet his breath smelled horrible, and his eyes were a disturbing gold color that now bored into her with the stare of a hungry predator. Was he some kind of odd familiar? A witch? Sayaka started to spring up ready to transform but the figure held out a cautioning hand.

"No, no dearie, I'm not here to harm you. Quite the opposite in fact. Besides, I doubt you would last very long if you did change."

"H-how do you...?"

"I've been keeping tabs on this city for some time now including the... endeavors of you and your magical girl friends." He gave a disturbing cackle and Sayaka felt a shock of cold run down her spine.

"Who are you?" Sayaka couldn't shake the feeling that this guy was evil. It wasn't just the look, he seemed to exude this foulness from him as if there was no light to be found anywhere within his soul.

He gave her an elaborate bow. "Rumplestiltskin, at your service!"

Sayaka actually burst out laughing. "Yeah... right. Now I know I'm hallucinating. I'm seeing people claiming to be from a fairy tale!"

"Oh I assure you dearie I'm quite real as is the trouble you're in now." He gave her a disturbing smile. "Look at your soul gem, you're all used up dearie! No more time for you."

Sayaka looked down at her soul gem. It appeared as if the last of the blue was guttering out. "Here, let me help you with that..."

With a wave of his hand a blackish green aura appeared around her soul gem. The last bit of blue seemed to stay in that guttering state and didn't die out. Sayaka gasped and looked up at the man calling himself Rumplestiltskin. "What did you...?"

"I've slowed the process temporarily. Tell me, what do you think is going to happen when all of the light dies in your little "home"?

"I'll simply be useless as a magical girl... and I'll probably die."

Rumplestiltkin let out an amused snicker which caused Sayaka to shudder. "No dearie, I'm afraid death would be far preferable compared to what you will face. It seems that the Incubator, that Kyubey didn't tell you everything. Though I suspect you already knew that. That's your soul in that container dearie and and your little gem is filling with corruption. What do you think will happen to your soul when there's no light to protect it from the darkness?"

Sayaka shook her head dully. "I... I don't know."

"The corruption will reach your soul. Poison it. Twist it. You will become a maddened thing intent on lashing out at everyone around you. You will be a curse let loose upon the world. The perfect antithesis of a magical girl. In other words as you girls call it... a witch!" He let loose another cackle at Sayaka's horrified expression.

"You... you're lying!"

"Now why would I do that dearie? There's no point to when the truth is so obvious. You magical girls run on hope and what's the opposite of hope? " Sayaka sat there dumbly. "Despair! Grief! Why do you think they call it a grief seed? It's why those creatures call themselves Incubators dearie, they're the incubators who ensure the hatching of witches."

Sayaka shook her head several times. "No. That can't be true. I can't become a witch!"

"Well you haven't just yet but you're in the process of becoming one. Here, let me show you what you'll become when it's all said and done!"

Rumplestiltskin waved his hand again and a large phantasmal image appeared behind him. It was hideous. It looked something like a giant mermaid only it was wearing armor and a tattered blue cape that looked suspiciously similar to Sayaka's and she recognized it was wearing the same ribbon that all of the girls at Mitakihara Middle School wore. It was carrying curved rapiers in its hands so much like Sayaka's... Its head was covered in a helmet with three large eyeholes and it was wearing some kind of bizarre collar that fanned out behind it in the shape of a heart. Surrounding the creature, the witch, was a labyrinth where the walls contained silhouettes of what looked like Kyosuke playing the violin. A terrifying music was playing and there were various messages plastered over the walls including the phrase "Look at me!" repeated over and over. The witch seemed to be staring at Sayaka and let loose an ear piercing shriek and in it Sayaka could hear her own anguished voice coming from the creature. For that brief moment she was the witch. She was in an eternal hell, endlessly searching for a love that would never come. Maddened by unending grief and constantly tormenting herself. Damned to curse and devour all who encountered her...

Sayaka screamed and put her hands over her head as the image faded. "No... no I... that's what I'm becoming?"

"I am afraid so dearie. You will become a monster, a damned soul, and your parents and your friends will lose you forever." And at that she burst into tears.

"Now, now there's no reason to despair because I can help you." Rumplestiltskin moved closer to her. "Just like in the fairy tale I've come to you in your hour of need. I can reverse what's been done to you. You will be a normal human as before, no becoming a witch! Now don't tell me you don't want that."

Sayaka looked at him, not really seeing him for a moment. "You... you want to make a deal don't you?"

Rumplestiltskin laughed. "Correct! If you pay my price I will save you."

Sayaka's gaze met his. "You want me to make some kind of contract with you!? Why should I? After what Kyubey did why would I ever want to do anything like that ever again?"

An amused chuckle came forth from Rumplestiltskin's twisted little smile. "Good. It seems you've learned your lesson. That creature tricked you into accepting a deal you didn't fully understand and now you're paying the price. You needn't worry about that from me dearie. I will tell you the full price of my deal, you have my word and Rumplestiltskin never breaks his word. Now as to why you would accept well it's not as though you have much of a choice do you? It's either be saved or become that loathesome creature you just saw."

Sayaka looked at her soul gem for moment. She didn't want to deal with this creature. As bad as her situation was some stubborn part of her didn't want to give this evil thing what it wanted. "No, there's a third option. I could smash this and kill myself."

"Oh that you could yes, but then who would be there to help your friend?"

Sayaka glared at him. "What are you talking about!?"

"Kyubey is after your friend Madoka is he not? He'll do the same thing to her that he did to you. He wants to corrupt her, drag her into her own eternal torment similar to the one you just saw. A fate worse than death. In fact he may well be using your situation at this very moment to convince her to form a contract to save you. And know this dearie, if Madoka becomes a witch everyone on this planet will suffer." He gave her a thin, disgusting smile.

"No!"

"You're the only one that knows the truth. The only one who can save her. But if you want to kill yourself I won't stop you." He stood there with his hands crossed over his stomach waiting for her answer.

Sayaka closed her eyes for a moment as a myriad of thoughts ran through her mind in rapid succession. Thoughts of being a witch. Thoughts of being human again. And most painfully of all, thoughts of Madoka becoming a monster that would have to be put down. That's what Mami and the others would need to do wouldn't they? Hunt down Madoka as a witch and eradicate her. She shuddered at that last thought as she imagined Madoka in that unending hell, her only salvation to be torn apart by those who were like she used to be. And if she fell into that trap because of Sayaka herself... "What is your price then, my firstborn child?"

"No, no you can keep any offspring you have dearie. My needs are few and simple and I promise you, you'll be glad to be free of it. What I want is... the darkness in your soul gem."

"My corruption? Why?"

"My business! Besides, what need do you have of it considering it's turning you into a monster as we speak!? Oh and as I said I was going to tell you the full price of my deal did I not? All magic comes with a price and this is no different!" He raised his hands like they were framing a picture. "In order to regain your human form your contract with Kyubey will need to be broken and when it is whatever you wished for will no longer hold true. It will be as if the wish had never... been... made."

Sayaka felt her stomach drop. "Kyosuke..."

"Yes, quite a miraculous recovery. You wished for him to be healed didn't you?"

"How... how could I leave Kyosuke like that again after all he went through? I-I love him."

"Love..." At this Rumplestiltskin's face scrunched up as if he had eaten something sour. "And this boy, does he return your affections?"

Sayaka hung her head down. "I... no, no he doesn't."

"Unrequited love can be the most painful of all. Make no mistake dearie love isn't what many think. Love is a weapon." The nasty way he said it roused Sayaka's anger.

"That's not true! Love is... it's supposed to be... wonderful."

"Is it now? Love blinds us. It makes us do foolish things. It enters our thoughts when it's least convenient. It disturbs our days and haunts our nights. Love has killed more than any war, disease, or famine and it's even been the cause of many of them. You love this boy but he does not love you in return. From the look on your face I'd say he's chosen another. Is that in any way wonderful? Does it really matter if you cancel your gift to him in order to save your own life?"

"He... he doesn't know I did it. And I still love him regardless."

"And the time to tell him has passed." The statement was true as much as Sayaka wished it wasn't. "Your love for him may be true but if it is not returned then it is not proper true love."

"True love..." Sayaka thought hard for a moment. "That's just a fairy tale too I suppose."

"On the contrary dearie. True love is very much real and quite powerful too. It's one of the most powerful forces in all the realms. Romantic true love is very rare, but true love comes in many forms most of which we never even think about. The bond between a parent and child for example or from two very close friends." Rumplestiltskin gave her another thin, nasty smile, his golden eyes boring into her and Sayaka knew what he meant.

"Madoka."

"Exactly. So tell me are you going to let yourself become a monster just to let a boy who never loved you have the use of his hand or are you going to save yourself and the friend you care the most about in this world? Tick-tock dearie, tick-tock. You're almost out of time."

Sayaka looked at her soul gem and knew it was true. The last bit of light in her gem was beginning to dim. She thought about her love for Kyosuke and her friendship with Madoka. She thought about all the dreams she had involving her and Kyosuke and how they'd amounted to nothing. She thought about what Kyosuke would go through if he was once again stripped of the use of his hand. She thought about the monster she would become if she refused and the eternal hell she'd suffer because of it. She thought about how Kyubey planned that fate for Madoka and how much that angered her. When she really thought about it, there didn't seem to be much of a choice at all. And yet she still couldn't help the thought that came last as she made her decision. 'I'm sorry, Kyosuke.'

"Fine, do it."

Rumplestiltskin cackled evilly. "Gladly!"

With a wave of Rumplestiltskin's hand Sayaka's soul gem disappeared from her lap in a puff of black smoke and reappeared floating in front of him. A large vial appeared in his left hand and with his right he reached into the animal hide jacket he wore and began to pull something out. It was a dagger. The handle was black and ornately carved while the blade was wavy and had intricate markings all over it. As he pulled it all the way out she saw that there were black english letters on the blade and despite the fact that she didn't know the english alphabet very well she knew instantly that it spelled out Rumplestiltskin's name. She shuddered as the blade came into full view. She had the feeling that blade had spilled a large amount of blood over many, many years.

Rumplestiltskin waved the dagger over Sayaka's soul gem and she felt a cold seeping into her. It was almost as if ice cold hands... dead hands, were drawing themselves across her soul. She watched as the dark corruption began to ooze out of the soul gem as a viscous liquid which moved through the air and collected in the vial like some foul black rot. This continued for maybe a minute and Sayaka was rather astounded by how much of the black ooze was collected, almost enough to fill the entire vial. Sayaka felt drained afterwords and could barely spend the energy to look up at what was happening. Her eyes were glazed and she swore she could hear something... like a set of faint voices in her mind. Rumplestiltskin put away the dagger and vial and then grasped her soul gem in his right hand. He looked intently at it as if concentrating and Sayaka felt a sharp, suffocating pain in her chest. She gasped and grit her teeth and to her horror her soul gem began to crack. Panic began to well up as she tried to force herself into a standing position to reach out and take the gem back but before she could accomplish anything the gem shattered in front of her. However instead of dying Sayaka beheld a brilliant aquamarine light in Rumplestiltskin's hand. Then a black cloud began to form around it and the pieces of the soul gem still hanging in the air as another wave of pain hit her. She had a sense of transformation going on and sure enough when the black cloud cleared Rumplestiltskin was no longer "holding" a light. Instead it looked like a heart.

The "heart" beat as any heart would. Its rhythm matched her own. It was red for the most part however Sayaka saw that there were strips of black here and there that showed up on occasion. Oddly the heart was surrounded by a blue aura the same color as her soul gem and tendrils of this aura pulled away from the heart and towards her chest. Looking at the blackness in the heart Sayaka began to understand the effect her time as a magical girl had on her. She had begun to let anger and resentment take root inside her and as a result her heart had begun to darken. Even if she wasn't going to become a witch if she had continued on like that who knows what she might have done? She might have lashed out at her friends or family, maybe even killed someone. The thought sickened her. "My soul..."

"Your heart and soul dearie. Kyubey took them both. The soul to corrupt and the heart to be the vessel." He waved a hand at her and despite her fatigue she sat up and walked toward him. "I won't lie to you dearie, this is going to hurt."

He cackled once more and shoved the heart and his hand into her chest. There was a biting pain as he did this, but it was nothing compared to what she felt after he removed his hand. The worst pain Sayaka had ever felt in her life hit her all at once. It was excruciating, worse than when Kyubey had prodded her soul gem. She screamed and crumpled to ground where she started to convulse. Her whole body felt like it had been dipped into liquid fire as if every cell were being ripped apart and reformed. She was barely aware of a black cloud forming around her, the darkness pouring out of her chest. It surrounded her and through the pain she feared it would somehow smother her. The agony continued for what seemed to her to be hours and yet somehow she knew this was not true. Tears spilled from her eyes as she whimpered pitifully. She could feel her bones, her muscles, her eyes, even her womb repairing themselves, undoing the twisted changes Kyubey had inflicted on them. And all throughout there were more waves of pain until she prayed that she would black out. No such deliverance was granted to her however. Eventually the darkness surrounding her began to disperse and the pain began to lessen though there were still pulses of torturous discomfort here and there. When the pain finally lifted Sayaka still lay on the ground, mentally and physically exhausted for the moment. Slowly she opened her eyes and began to get up. "Am I human again?"

"You tell me dearie."

Sayaka started looking at her body. At first everything seemed no different than before with the exception of her soul gem being gone and her feeling weaker than usual. Then she noticed the finger where her magical mark was supposed to be. Instead of sporting the blue crescent the fingernail was unblemished. Tears began to spring up from her eyes again but for the first time in nearly a week they were tears of joy.

"One more thing. A protection spell in case you do something foolish and try to sell your soul again." Rumplestiltskin placed his hand over Sayaka's heart and she flinched as a greenish glow formed around the area and it felt as if a bunch of needles were pricking her heart and lingering for a bit before disappearing entirely.

She looked at Rumplestiltskin, unsure of what to do. "I... thank you."

"Oh don't thank me dearie. Besides you still have someone to save do you not?"

She nodded her head and tired though she was she ran off to find Madoka as Rumplestiltskin disappeared in a plume of black smoke.

Kyubey stood on the side walk out of the way of the human traffic staring straight ahead. It didn't see the pink haired girl, its target up until a moment ago for it was in a state of shock. While the Incubators did not experience emotions, surprise and shock could be experienced on many levels and right now it and the hive mind were racing to find an explanation for what it had just felt. Sayaka Miki's contract was gone. Not completed with her becoming a witch or the end of her life, and not replaced with the establishment of a new contract as Kyubey had intended to do with Madoka. No, the contract had simply been destroyed, as if it had been thrown into some kind of irretrievable oblivion. In all the millions of years the Incubators had been interacting with humanity this had never happened. No one and nothing that they knew of including themselves could break an established contract with the exception of a wish made to do so from an appropriately powerful contractee. Even then they could feel the new contract replacing the old, not the void they now felt in the place of Sayaka's contract. There was only one being that Kyubey knew of that might have been able to do this and even then it was having a hard time believing it: Rumplestiltskin. The system the Incubators had created in order to grant the wishes of the contractees and give them the powers of the magical girls was something they still didn't fully understand. There was a fair bit of science and technology, but there were still some things they had never been able to explain. Rumplestiltskin's abilties also fell into this category and so it was possible though unlikely that he could have accomplished this albeit in a way the Incubators currently had no way of properly understanding. Unlikely as it was it was the most plausible explanation for now and so Kyubey decided to proceed as such.

Kyubey's mind began replaying the events of the last day or so. It had taken a keen interest in following Sayaka's downward spiral into despair convinced that Rumplestiltskin would show up at some point. It had even blocked all telepathic communication with her to ensure the other girls couldn't interfere. It had waited until she was nearly at the point of changing, right before she had sat down on a bench before teleporting off to play on Madoka's feelings in the hope of her making a contract to save her friend. While Kyubey possessed an impressive array of powers itself it was still limited in the fact that it was a single splinter consciousness off of the hive mind and it had believed a back up Incubator to keep watch was not necessary. Even if she had changed it reasoned, Madoka's power would be more than enough to completely revoke Sayaka's new existence as a witch and reinstate her as a human with no memories of her time transformed. It had been a calculated tactic with Kyubey also believing that if Rumplestiltskin showed up he wouldn't have enough time to do anything before Madoka made her contract. Kyubey willed itself transported to where it had last seen Sayaka only to find no one there. Clearly Kyubey had been wrong about Rumplestiltskin's abilities and now it had a massive problem on its hands. Even if it managed to contract Madoka Kaname, Rumplestiltskin could just destroy the contract as he had Sayaka's and once that was done he would certainly see to it that a replacement contract couldn't be made. It would have to contract Madoka and somehow force her almost immediately into despair and as old and intelligent as the hive mind was, it couldn't think of a good way to proceed that didn't somehow directly go against the rules it had set up as inviolate.

The Incubators had underestimated the threat Rumplestiltskin represented to their plans and they still had no idea of how to effectively counter the creature. Any being that could affect reality the way Rumplestiltskin had displayed up to now would be a formidable adversary. Conventional attacks would likely be useless against him and Kyubey wasn't even certain a contingent of magical girls could actually destroy him. He wasn't some maddened witch that they could overpower or outmaneuver. Still, there had to be a way to end the creature's life, some weakness that could be exploited. But try as it might the hive mind could still come up with no idea beyond continued observation. At first it thought to use the information it had gained from observing the remembrance the creature had conducted as a way of suing for peace but the information was sparse and incomplete. It knew Rumplestiltskin had some connection to a "Bae", most likely a child and Kyubey had guessed that this "Bae" was dead and that Rumplestiltskin was trying to resurrect him, but it was only a theory and not one Kyubey was yet willing to put to the test. There was also the overt hatred the creature had displayed toward the Incubators. It was likely that a peace offering would simply be rejected. So for now Kyubey would concentrate on Madoka Kaname and if it happened to find a way to deal with Rumplestiltskin it would strike swiftly and precisely.

Sayaka had called Madoka on her cell phone almost immediately giving the relieved girl a location to meet and after confirming she still hadn't contracted with Kyubey she extracted a promise from Madoka not to do so until after they had talked. She'd used the phone deblierately just in case Kyubey could somehow listen in on their telepathic communications. That Kyubey, that Incubator as Rumplestiltskin had called it was tricking all of them and Sayaka intended to make sure it didn't succeed. She would NOT let Madoka suffer as Kyubey intended her to, not after what Sayaka had just seen and been through. A combination of adrenaline, determination, and even a bit of happiness was pushing her forward despite her fatigue. She reached the agreed upon location, the overpass where she had found out the first truth of the soul gems and waited.

It was maybe an hour before Sayaka saw Madoka and Kyoko running toward her. Her eyes lit up at the sight of her friend and despite the fact that Kyoko was with her Sayaka ran toward the pink haired girl, tears of joy on her face.

"Mado... oof!" Sayaka felt all the air leave her as Madoka threw herself against Sayaka in an almost bone crushing hug.

"Sayaka-chan, I was so worried about you!" Tears of relief were streaming down her friend's cheeks. She tried to wipe them away but the hug was just too tight.

"C-can't breathe..."

"S-Sorry." Madoka released her and began to dry her eyes with a sheepish look on her face. Meanwhile Kyoko seemed to be looking Sayaka over, her confusion apparent on her face.

"Hey r-uh I mean Sayaka..."

Sayaka stared at the redhead trying to gauge what she would do. "Yes?"

"Where's your soul gem? And your mark too for that matter."

"Oh, that." Sayaka did her best not to break into a goofy smile. She settled for the thin, relaxed one she currently wore.

Madoka grabbed her hand. "Sayaka-chan I know it's hard being a magical girl but we'll hel-"

"I'm not."

"Huh?" Madoka just looked at her.

"I'm not a magical girl anymore." The look of shock and confusion on Madoka and Kyoko's faces at that statement almost made her burst out laughing.

"H-How!?" Kyoko kept staring up and down at her and Sayaka got the distinct feeling she was about to be poked and prodded any moment now by the redhead.

"I'll tell you all about it later I promise. There's something more important we need to talk about. It's about Kyubey, he..." Just then her phone rang. She stopped for a moment wondering who could be calling her at this hour, pulled the phone out and looked at the number. It was Hitomi.

Sayaka's gut lurched as she remembered the cost of her salvation. Kyosuke, he wouldn't be able to use his hand again. They were probably at the hospital right now trying to figure out how his miraculous recovery had come undone just as suddenly as it had appeared. "I'm sorry, one moment. I have to take this."

She clicked on the phone and put it to her ear. "Moshi moshi."

Hitomi's frantic voice burst over the speaker. "Sayaka!? I-it's Kyosuke! Something's happened. His... his hand stopped working again and... and..."

Sayaka took a deep breath to calm herself. "Ok, ok Hitomi. It's alright. I'll be over to visit you two in the hospital in a bit, there's something I have to..."

Hitomi's voice cut through her attempt at calming the panicked girl. She was obviously crying and running on almost a kind of autopilot. Sayaka knew the feeling so she just listened. "No! No... you don't understand Sayaka. When his hand stopped working he got all depressed and erratic. I'd never seen him like that before. He kept talking about how he would never play again. I-I only left him alone for a moment and... and... Sayaka, he's... he's..."

The last word didn't register in Sayaka's brain, couldn't register. It had shocked her numb before it could. Everything seemed to fade out of Sayaka's perception in that moment. She was in a complete haze. She didn't realize she had dropped the phone and that it had landed on the pavement of the overpass cracking the screen while Hitomi's voice kept blaring through the speaker calling her name. She didn't feel the pain as she fell to her knees, the pavement scraping them bloody. She didn't feel Madoka putting her hands on Sayaka's shoulders and asking what was wrong nor did she hear Kyoko's shocked questioning. She couldn't think of anything except a single thought, something Rumplestiltskin had said. It kept repeating in her brain over and over demanding to be voiced until she couldn't stand it anymore. "All magic comes with a price..."

"Sayaka-chan? Sayaka-chan! What do you mean!? What's wrong, tell me!" Madoka was trying to shake her gently. The tears began to pour from Sayaka's eyes.

"I was a fool. Such a fool." Sayaka let out a piercing scream. It was a shriek pulled from the very depths of her newly restored soul as she grabbed onto Madoka burying her face in the girl's stomach sobbing into her uniform. If Sayaka had been in any state of mind to actually hear it, she would have realized the scream sounded just like the one she'd heard from her own witch not a couple of hours before.

Author's Notes: So here we are at the end of chapter 4 where things truly start to happen. This is a chapter I've struggled with for a number of reasons. The first is due to having to abbreviate Sayaka's slide into despair due to the conditions of the story forcing it to happen much faster. Part of me really did want to cover more of the details as there are a lot of them in the series and they all contribute little by little to Sayaka's personal destruction. In PMMM her ordeal is a slow, torturous process wherein she's broken down in pieces. Here it's more of a massive plunge into darkness which doesn't give the situation the full respect it deserves yet it made sense for the story. I tried to show the depression and dissociation running through Sayaka as best I could what with her experiencing various fugue states and the like. I hope to give a much more detailed analysis of her fall when I do her own character study story so again this is mostly just practice.

The second had to do with what happens at the end of chapter. Death is something to generally take seriously in stories like this and suicide in particular. It too came naturally from the needs of the story. As I said in the notes for the previous chapter Sayaka is effectively the Little Mermaid with her disastrous attempt at first love and being a magical girl having several analogues to the Hans Christian Andersen tale. There is however one major disconnect between what Sayaka goes through in the series and the tale. In the original tale the mermaid is given a second choice where if she murders the prince with a special dagger and drips his blood on her legs she will become a mermaid once more. She chooses not to do this and her body turns to foam only for her spirit to become a spirit of air. With Sayaka she is never really given a second choice. In fact she doesn't know that not cleansing her soul gem will lead to her becoming a witch and while her actions contribute to her downfall there's also a sense of being a step removed in terms of personal agency when compared to the choice the mermaid faces at the end of her story. So the basis of this chapter is what if Sayaka is given this second choice, a chance to become human again and takes it? The answer is that she gets exactly what is promised but at a price. She has to abandon the thing that put her on the path of the magical girls in the first place: healing Kyosuke to make his life better. To be free of her cursed fate she has to allow him to suffer again. Unfortunately this leads to his death. There is actually a precedent for this in the general PMMM media. In the PSP game there's at least one route where Kyosuke tries to kill himself and not because he was being affected by a Witch's Kiss at the time. While that game does take place in an alternate version of the PMMM universe and the Kyosuke in that game was a fair bit different from the one in the series we see even in the series that Kyosuke is prone to self destructive actions when he's pushed into despair.

I also really liked the idea of Sayaka not only finding out the truth about the magical girls and trying to change her destiny, but actually seeing what she would become and reacting to it. Canonically there's only two characters in the series that have seen their witch forms that being Madoka and Homura. Given how pivotal Sayaka's transformation was to the original story of the series I felt it only made sense for her to get at least one chance to see her own ruination thus the part where Rumplestiltskin shows her Oktavia Von Seckendorff's form and how for a moment she realizes she is Oktavia.

Now some might think that Rumplestiltskin lied to Sayaka in this chapter about the price for regaining her humanity. In reality he did not. The price of the magic was in fact to cancel her wish but afterwards Kyosuke was free to do whatever he wanted and she of course thinks his death was the real price. Before she agreed she thought about what life would be like for him without his hand again but she didn't consider it possible for him to do what he did which plays into the tragedy of her character making mistakes through ignorance or out of a need to do good things such that she doesn't see the consequences of her actions. All that said though Rumplestiltskin is still a major bastard in how he deals with her. There's a scene at the end of the third season of Once where Rumplestiltskin describes himself as having been "Not only unloved and unloving, but an enemy of love.". I wanted to show this aspect of him hence the way he goads Sayaka into accepting his deal. He belittles and tries to tear apart her love for Kyosuke in order to convince her to accept and when that doesn't work on its own he uses her friendship with Madoka and pushes her to choose between the two. As he alludes to Sayaka herself he uses love as a weapon and regardless of him being right about her friendship with Madoka being an example of true love his willingness to use it in such an unsavory manner is what makes him unequivocally a villain. In fact it's a hallmark of what makes him and Kyubey great villains. A good villain will present as a credible threat yes, but most great villains don't just attack their opponents' bodies. They attack their victims' minds as well.

Sadly there isn't much for the Homura character study in this chapter beyond showing how she treats Madoka so markedly different from everyone else.

Now for the music the two big ones were again "Dealing with Rumplestiltskin" and Rumplestiltskin in Love" as this chapter is a direct continuation of the previous (In fact originally I had intended this to be the end of chapter 3 but that one ballooned well beyond what I thought it would). There's also Oktavia's theme "Symposium Magarum" for when she appears which you can find on Youtube.

Now the Once title capture for this chapter is the black bench with Sayaka's soul gem on it glowing blue with the glow slowly fading into blackness.

The next chapter is titled Madoka and the Monster. Hopefully I'll have it finished soon.

Update: I've expanded on a few things particularly Sayaka's musings about her heart and the process of her becoming human again. Also some minor corrections and expansions in the conversation between Madoka and Kyoko.