"...what the hell was that?"

A low voice groaned as the body of a young girl with orange hair tried to get up from the bed. It took her over a minute to get up though, as it seemed like her arms were a bit weaker and somehow she slipped a few times.

That's strange...

The girl observed to herself as she was finally able to rise up in a sitting position. Unfortunately, her vision was a bit blurry, so she had to squint and rub her eyes for several seconds before she could finally see properly.

"This room is... where the hell am I!?"

The drowsiness from the girl earlier seemed to have disappeared as she realized she was in an unfamiliar room. But the room wasn't just "unfamiliar", it was something radically different compared to any room she had seen in a long while.

For one thing, the colors were unusually "colorful", instead of being black, white or grey that were the standard colors, or the only colors she would find that is. The room itself was orange/peachy on the walls while the door was brown. There were also the belongings and furniture in the room she could only distinctively recognize, one of which were a set of animal shaped cloths that were called stuffed toys a long time ago...

Where is this place... did I somehow get captured?

She couldn't remember being caught, then again she also didn't remember ending up in here so it was very likely she got captured, perhaps while she had been asleep. How they even managed to catch her unaware was worrisome. She glanced down at her body to confirm that she wasn't in her battle gear nor were her weapons available. Noticeably the black dress over her white one was gone, which didn't really make sense why...

I wonder who got me... and why didn't they kill me yet?

There weren't a lot of reasons for someone to spare her, and the reasons that they would spare someone like her were not good either. The reasons for someone to do it would be due to wanting her to do something for them, which could be anything from requiring her willing assistance in hunting some target to her being a guinea pig for an experiment. There were plenty of other reasons she could think of, but only a few of them would apply to people like her, with pretty much all of them leading to death in one way or another.

"...no," the girl shook her head slightly. "It's too soon to be giving up already... I'm not dead yet."

The orange haired girl slowly crawled out of bed, her body still feeling a bit weak. As she did though, she finally noticed that her stature was somehow smaller... and her skin wasn't pale anymore.

Did they already start experimenting on me?!

The thought made her uneasy, as she became painfully aware of how weak her body felt like now, as if it wasn't her own. She glanced around the room again, taking note of the various pictures and paintings on the wall, a half open closet, before her eyes rested on a mirror on the other side of the room. Nervously, she slowly walked towards the mirror before stopping in front of it to confirm her suspicion.

Yellow eyes that seemed familiar yet were not stared back at her. Her eye and hair color looked a bit more colorful than usual, as if they had more life in it than before. Surprisingly, her appearance remained pretty much the same, except for her height and skin tone that is. She had half expected to appear completely different from how she usually looked like. Though learning this didn't really make her feel better.

...does this mean they took my powers? How is that even-

Her thoughts stopped for a moment as a picture just beside the mirror caught her attention. She focused her attention to it, frowning before having a confused look on her face. In it was a picture of a brown haired girl, looking bored towards the camera with a window to her right side.

"Why is there a picture of me there?"

Upon further examination however, she realized that the girl in the picture, while looking like her, wasn't her at all. Actually, the girl looked more closer to the reflection she had right now. Then she took notice of the background, particularly how it looked much more brighter than it should be, and the fact that the sky was blue from the window outside.

The brown haired girl stared at the picture for a few more seconds, before turning around the room again, noticing a small plastic card attached to a string at a desk. She picked up the object, an ID, and saw that the picture in it was exactly the same as the one beside the mirror. It was that moment when everything clicked into place.

"...so that's what happened huh," she muttered to herself as she wandered towards the window.

She was greeted with the sight of several houses, intact and stable, stretched out for several miles. The sun seemed to have just started to set on the horizon, giving a reddish orange color to the sky. Those observations were enough to confirm her thoughts.

"An alternate dimension," the girl said. "One where the world is still stable and fine..."

That certainly explained a lot of things, such as why there were those types of buildings still standing well and why the whole area seemed much more brighter. It also explained why there was the existence of "this" girl, though how she wound in the "this" body was something she didn't know yet. It was evident though, that while they looked similar, the two of them were not the same person.

Indeed, while she didn't remember too well her own past, she was pretty sure she wasn't hospitalized nor was she this depressing back then like this girl seemed to be.

"Kagari Izuriha," she read the name on the ID. The expression on her face looked the same as the picture near the mirror, but there was a slight difference, the Kagari in the ID photo had the corners of her mouth slightly upward, like she was looking forward to it.

It was barely noticeable to the average person, but not to someone like her, where it was important to notice the subtle expressions lest you find yourself stabbed in the back.

"I wonder what kind of life does this girl have?" she wondered out loud.

...Or, since I am in her "her" right now, perhaps I can just take a look?

Not quite sure how it was done, she closed her eyes and tried to "picture" seeing the girl Kagari's history. After nearly a minute, she started seeing flashes and images of scenes that she never experienced herself, yet there was a feeling of familiarity from her mind.

There was a scene of the girl when she was younger, outside playing outside of the house with some other little girl. The scene then changed to the other girl apparently moving to someplace else. Next scene was of Kagari trying to go chase after the girl's car, only to stumble on the road just as another car came crashing towards her. The scenes then were all inside a hospital with the girl being unable to move properly.

After that it just became a repetitive series of scenes where Kagari would do some exercises assigned by the doctors, or where the girl would be keeping to herself with a dejected look as she just went with the motions, so she just decided to fast forward to more significant memories. The next notable scene was where Kagari was sitting at her bed with her family and the doctor talking about her health. The doctor had said that she was well enough to leave and that she could start going back to schooling. Though Kagari could care less, her family was happy with the news, mumbling about how she'd be able to get back with having friends.

The girl didn't actually want to go to school or anything, but hearing that she was finally able to leave stirred something in her, along with hearing the word "friends". Kagari then opened her mouth and finally said something during the whole conversation, causing the others to turn their head towards her, though her parents seemed to pale a bit at what she said. Kagari repeated what she had said, which was the name of her childhood friend. The women then, presumably Kagari's mom, stepped forward to her with a tense smile as she nodded confirmation to the young girl.

It was after that then when she was starting to feel something rise from Kagari, instead of the constant emptiness during her time in the hospital. The next scenes that came after that were ones about a school, in particular about a young girl with green eyes and glasses. There were also two other people there, with the only notable one a twin tailed girl with blue eyes, who seemed to have the attention from Kagari's childhood friend.

"Yomi Takanashi and Mato Kuroi," she named them respectively. "So it's like that huh..."

It was pretty apparent that Kagari was interested in the girl Yomi, and the other girl Mato was someone who was in her way. Her past was also pitiful to say the least, someone who had everything stripped away just so easily with almost nothing left.

"Well, you have nothing to worry about now, Kagari," the girl proclaimed to herself. "For I, Chariot, will get this girl for you."

"..."

"Ah, is there something wrong, Irino-san?"

"Oh I was just thinking of something, Sensei."

Saya Irino reassured her teacher and went back to writing the answer on the board. After finishing, she went back to her seat by the window and glanced outside with a far away look before it broke into a small grin.

Looks like things are gonna get interesting soon.

looks like the chapter came sooner than I expected myself to. I guess I found back some motivation into writing eheh.

as always, read and review guys.

oh and I recommend you guys to read my other fanfic, if you've seen madoka magica already.