Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to their respective owners.

13.
Dreams of the Shore Near Another World II

Usagi awoke to the sound of whispers: high, cavernous, whispers filtering in one ear and out through the other. Her head buzzed with the constant rise and fall of volume. She lay there and listened to them, but she could not understand. There were no words, only incoherent babble left behind and forgotten.

A red film coalesced behind her eyes, indicating light. She did not open them; they were leaden and full of cotton. Usagi fought to control them, and with great reluctance—be it on her part or her body's or another influence that was beyond her—she cracked her lids up halfway.

Where am I? This wasn't the same area she'd been in before, the wasteland that harbored no life but ruined desolate earth from horizon to horizon. No, this place was dark as the midnight hour, and there were stars. An infinite canvas of star clusters, constellations, satellites, drifting asteroid belts, winking comets, eerie nebulae, and softly luminous planets wheeled high above her.

Clueless as she was, Usagi released a content sigh. It was like being in an observatory, tilted so far back in the chair her head was submersed in a pool of her own flaxen locks, staring up at the domed ceiling while the narrator's sonorous voice explained about the Solar System and how the universe suddenly erupted to life in the form of the Big Bang. It made her ill at ease to be in such a position, but here…wherever 'here' was…balance was absolute. There was no fear of being overwhelmed by objects—and concepts—too large for the human mind to grasp. Everything was alright.

But then she noticed something shimmering at the bottom of her vision, and when she looked down the world, the universe, folded on itself and shrank into a fine, delicate point that almost felt ritualistic.

Even from this far away, Usagi recognized the pink-haired girl immediately. She was standing with two other females, one with a fiery mane pinned up in a ponytail, the other with short blue tresses touching the smooth range of her shoulders. Their faces were young and their cheeks round, but their eyes weary and strained, webbed at the corners as though they had witnessed horrors so unfathomable they had aged them well beyond their years. It couldn't have been those monsters, Usagi mused. It's something else. Except she didn't know what that was; a gut feeling was all she had to rely on, and that in itself wasn't much. Still, Usagi wished she had the answers to what 'it' entailed.

They were gathered around an orb of light, a myriad of rainbows banishing shadows into eternal oblivion. Red, orange, green, blue, purple, yellow, brown, grey, pink, shifting intermittently as a kaleidoscope changes lens and distorts the present image into a mosaic reminiscent of stained glass windows. Usagi squinted, and through the glare managed to discern the shapes within.

It was a hologram of the Solar System. Static flickered and rippled as though one were adjusting a pair antennae affixed to the top of an analog television set. The Sun punctured the dark like the cone from a flashlight. The girls gazed upon it with ageless, statuesque visages.

They began speaking. Usagi strained her ears and listened as best as she could despite the hushed quiet in their voices.

"They're gettin' antsy," said the Red Girl. "They've no idea what they're gonna do. I don't blame 'em."

"That's not all: She's replenished. There's been an increase in fog activity," the Blue Girl supplied. "It's hanging all over Chiba and half of Saitama."

The Pink Girl looked worryingly at the Blue Girl. "Is Homura still…?"

"No," she answered grimly. "She just crossed into Chiba not too long ago. I'm sorry, Madoka."

The Red Girl scuffed at the ground, which was as equally black and eternal as their surroundings. "I fucking hate this."

"Things will get better, Kyouko," the Pink Girl, Madoka, assured her. "There's plenty of time left until—"

"Until what? We fuck up AGAIN?" Her hair flew wildly as she shook her head. "I don't wanna do this anymore."

"None of us do," the Blue Girl said. "As long as the Incubators continue to exist…."

"One time is bad enough. Thirteen times is where I cross the line."

"You should've thought of that before you signed the contract."

"No one told you to fucking bring your boytoy from the brink!"

"You take that back!" Both girls approached the other and knocked their foreheads together, glaring into each other's eyes. The hologram snapped and cracked in a burst of white noise.

"Kyouko, Sayaka, please!" Madoka pleaded. "You shouldn't be fighting!"

"Tell that to her," Sayaka growled. "Always looking to cause trouble wherever she goes. Girl doesn't know when to quit."

Kyouko sneered. "Heh, at least my pissing and moaning didn't turn me into a Witch. If I hadn't pulled you back, you'd have been breaking more than a buncha lonely hearts."

"You drove me to change…."

"But it's the truth. Not my fault Kamijou put his head on Hitomi's knockers instead o' yours—"

Like liquid lightning, Sayaka unsheathed her sword and lashed out. The blade stopped mere millimeters from cutting into the girl's neck. "Shut up," she hissed. "Fucking shut it BEFORE I GODDAMN CARVE YOU—"

"Please stop," said Usagi, voice hoarse with disuse.

The girls jumped as if they had been struck by an electric shock. Their eyes tore from the other and locked onto the prone Sailor Senshi. Madoka, whose mouth had opened in apparent protest, stared in reverent awe. Usagi squirmed and fidgeted; they looked so…entranced. It reminded her of the day when she met Luna for the first time and heard the Mau-cat speak—speak in the human tongue—and told her she was the Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, destined to fight youma and find the legendary Moon Princess, who would rise and terminate the darkness of the Negaverse once and for all. This, however, simply made her uncomfortable.

She didn't let it linger too long. "I don't understand what's going on, but" she pushed herself up into a sitting position, limbs weighed down by iron "if you keep fighting…you'll only be hurting yourselves and make Madoka feel sad." Placing her entire weight on her body, and with great effort, Usagi slowly and staggeringly rose to her feet. When she caught her breath, she lifted her head and smiled at them. "Friends have to stick together through the good and the bad, the thick and the thin. If you don't work to a reach the conclusion, it'll be much more difficult to solve your problems than it is when you're working alone. Isn't that right, Madoka?"

Madoka nodded numbly. "Yes," she said. "You're right. I…I don't want us to be torn apart…not when things are like this." She stared at her hands, which were cradling the image of a blue-green Earth suspended in nothingness. "There's so much at stake right now. We can't afford to slip up this time."

"Do you see?" Usagi inquired Kyouko and Sayaka. "Whatever happened between you two in the past…you need to put that behind you or you won't get anywhere. Do you understand me?" She glanced at the latter and gestured at her blade, cool and assertive. "Lay down your weapon."

Sayaka glared at Usagi. Usagi waited, undeterred, like a desperado challenging the town sheriff's dread gaze in a Mexican standoff.

"'m sorry," Kyouko mumbled. She grabbed Sayaka by the wrist and gently lowered the sword away from her. "I spoke out o' line. It won't happen again." She turned her head aside, shy and humbled. "I mean it."

Sayaka scoffed. "Whatever." She sheathed her weapon and whirled around, cape rolling in like combers on an approaching tide. "Your plan had better work, Madoka. If we fail, there won't be a next time…or a future for you." She leveled a sidelong glance at Usagi. "After all, I hear thirteen's a pretty unlucky number."

"I'm not sure I follow," Usagi shrugged.

"It should've stayed that way…but no," she sighed, "things don't work out that way. Not in our favor. It never does."

"I can help. Madoka said I was needed—"

"To be free and to set free," the person in subjection recited. "Your—our—objective has not altered. However, the matter of how and when we're to execute it remains to be seen."

Usagi's shoulders slumped. "What do I do then? There must be something."

"That's the problem. There is nothing you can do." Kyouko sighed. "Not now, not yet. The only thing you can do is to wait."

"Wait? Wait for wait?"

"To wake up," said Madoka. She took one step forward, and when Usagi blinked the girl was standing right in front of her; yet it wasn't her, for the girl had become a woman. Her hair was longer and flowed behind her like gossamer strands, her face sharp and angular. A pair of irises the color of citrine glowed fields of wheat bathed in liquid sunshine, so rich and sublime Usagi could almost drown in them.

Light particles formed from wings composed of pure energy fluttered and dissipated like snowflakes on an overcast day. Madoka, or the person who was wearing Madoka's face, brought two fingers to Usagi's face. "This is going to hurt." She pressed them against her forehead, pushed the tips into the greasy sheen between her brows.

And there was blue-white fire, there was erratic electricity, there was intense light spilling down from the center of a massive magnifying glass, there was magma boiling at the core of an unstable volcano, there was acid chewing through toughened adamantine and titanium alloy, there were parasites tearing the cords and sinews of her brain, and there was PAIN SO MUCH PAIN!

Usagi opened her mouth and screamed, but not a sound escaped her.

She awoke gasping; gulping hungrily for air an innate part within her knew she had been deprived of. So she laid there, the ground at her back cold, wet, and rough as notched knives, rain cascading all around her as though the heavens were in mourning. Far away, over an alien horizon, lightning danced and thunder grumbled.

How? How did she do that? Why? Usagi got up and wiped soaking amber fronds from her face. What she saw chilled her blood. "Wh-What?" The world was black and grey. Slabs of concrete, debris and the skeletal remains of wind turbines and skyscrapers marked the land in every direction, a masterpiece of bleak, apocalyptic despair. "What happened here? This…This isn't…." Azabu-Juuban, was it? Horror clutched at her core. "No…No…it can't be."

This isn't real.

THIS ISN'T REAL.

"MADOKA!"

Usagi returned to her senses. That didn't belong to any of the other girls she had met. Who could that be? A cherry corona suffused among the low-lying mist like a summer sunrise. Curiosity piqued, she broke into a run. She splashed into puddles, climbed hillocks of twisted scaffolding, and cleared mounds of plastered concrete obstructing her path.

The light had dimmed considerably when she arrived, and it was to a scene that rooted her in place. Two girls were gathered next to a girder, its underside smattered in a coat of blood. One of them was the adult Madoka, kneeling beside the support beam with eyes closed and hands in prayer. And the other...she stood behind the winged Madoka, beaming with a smug triumph that is achieved when sensitive matters are resolved in a manner deemed immoral and underhanded.

Something was writhing on the latter's back. It blended seamlessly in the gloom, but Usagi discerned it…them…coiling and thrashing in the air as though they were the heads of a hydra. One of these…tentacles…was straight and rigid, extending past the person and…no…

It protruded through Madoka's neck, blood dribbling from its pointed tip.

The girl behind her smiled (AND IT WAS RED), a slice of (CRESCENT WHITE TEETH DIPPED IN THICK, DROOLING AMBER).

Tears blurred Usagi's vision. Her head swam in a sulfuric inferno.

(She finds purchase against the back of a dying tree and pushes off the cement like a marionette. A crimson rivulet leaks beneath the fractured circlet on her brow and splits into a delta at the ridge of her nose.

(The girl who had called for her aid—who at one point looked so fragile and scared and utterly tormented—stalks forward with the gait of a predator. The world collapses around them, peeling like the last sheaf of leaves on a tree hibernating for the winter. Gone are the swing sets, ladders, monkey bars; in its place is a raging, tumultuous sea giving birth to untamed eddies and eldritch whirlpools, the sky a hellish expanse of funnel clouds, sanguine rain, and the wailing of mankind as their souls ascended to an unknown frontier. There is not a stretch of land in sight; none save for the patch they stand on.

(She tosses the revolver into the ocean, which lands with a splash that is lost to the crack of booming thunder. Eight sleek, slippery tentacles emerge from her back, feelers tasting, salivating, snapping at the air for flesh and bone and muscle.

(A low, maniac giggle burbles up the column of her throat past her lips. One of the tentacles wraps around her hand and morphs into a green, wickedly curved cleaver, its teeth clean and deadly. "At last, a morsel I can take the time to divulge on! Them smoothskins are barely satiable…ah, but you...you!" She exhales a lusty, shuddering breath. "Just the thought makes me mouth water! So much hope, so much love! I will make you despair!")

"Why," she whispered thickly. "Why are you doing this?"

Madoka's eyes opened and tilted them up at the monster. She smiled. "Hello again, old friend. I've missed you."

"Your friend ain't here no more. She belongs to me." Smirking. "She is me."

"I don't believe that. I know you're still in there…somewhere. You always have...just like the rest of us."

"Really? You ain't no saint; I recall ye joinin' the feast that one time. You were such a ravenous little bitch, yes indeed."

"Homura didn't have the heart to shoot me. I don't blame her. There's nothing more painful than watching your loved ones die."

"It's even more painful when one o' yore own does the killin'."

"You didn't kill them. Not this time. Your body—"

"Is my body. My heart is my heart. My mind…is my mind."

"We're all imperfect. We make mistakes and we learn from them. I have many regrets, regrets I wish I could take back and rectify. I, too, am not innocent, for the crimes I've committed, the pain I've caused…I am no worse than the demon inhabiting your body."

She snorted laughter. "Me? A demon? Little goddess, I am more than a demon. I am a Witch! I am the Devil that roams the earth, the Devourer of Worlds! I am perfection. I am impervious." A pink tongue poked between her lips and ran the length of her teeth. "You fools don't stand a chance. Not now. Not ever." She gave the sword the ghost of a twist.

"No, stop!" Usagi cried. She tried to run, but instead lurched forward and rocked back like a recoiled spring. She looked down and saw her legs were wrapped in thick bands of kudzu. A frustrated whine tickled her vocal chords as she pulled and pulled to no avail. "Don't hurt her!"

More blood gushed from her neck, dribbled over cracked lips as if from a leaking pipe. She cracked open her eyes in slits and unfolded her hands. Floating in between them was a tiny ball of light. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it is impossible. Doing it over and over again without success...I just want to go to sleep. That's all I ask."

"Then allow me to grant you your wish," the Witch whispered silkily. A tentacle slithered up Madoka's arm and caressed her cheek. "Let me be your angel, Madoka. Let me set you free."

"I'm sorry. I can't accept that." She tilted her head back and held slit, crimson irises framed by loose, disheveled hair. "If I can't share a future with my family and friends…with you…then the world isn't worth fighting for." Her fingers cradled protectively around the orb. "It wouldn't be the same, and you know it. That's why…I'm willing to try again. One last shot. And if that doesn't work…I'll still forgive you. It's not your fault…and neither is it the person who became Walpurgisnacht." She clasped her hands, and in a brilliant flash there was light.

The girl—Witch? Walpurgisnacht?—stumbled away, blinded, howling. "STUPID GIRL! Ye can't defy fate! Your demise is inevitable!"

"Then let's die together," Madoka said sleepily. "Surely—one of these timelines—we'll find the exit to the hell we've brought upon ourselves." She fell forward and amidst a monsoon of luminous, whirling feathers and energy particles from disintegrating wings did not rise again.

Usagi cried as the light engulfed her, her world filled with shrieks of shrill, inhuman rage and earth-shattering thunder.

But some rational part in the gloom of her mind made the connection that maybe it wasn't Walpurgisnacht screaming. That no, it couldn't be her, because why would they ring so loudly in her ears? Why would her head rattle and pound so hard, so fiercely her innards wanted to burst?

She witnessed herself from both within and outside her body, suffering a bout of paroxysm in the middle of a void as deep and stygian as the dark behind one's eyelids just before sleep is come. Kyouko was sitting on her stomach and pinning her wrists to the black above her with one hand in flaxen fronds, mouth working in a litany she couldn't decipher. Sayaka stood in front of them, sword drawn and glaring at a sea of red faces frozen in jawless terror, swimming, weeping, undulating.

A woman laughed: rich, sonorous, teasing.

Something slinked between the bloodied shadows. A bony finger prodded her very being, chill and dreadful.

"Hahahahaha…."

There it was again, the outline of a diamond…with the silhouette of arms open in an embrace.

What was that?

"U-SA-GI…."

It emerged like a breaching whale, descending like a star foretelling the doom of humanity; a smile as crimson as a pomegranate penetrated the inky gloom, and it shone upon the trio as a cone of light at the end of a radioactive tunnel.

"F-e-e-d m-e...

"F-e-e-d m-e…."

Sound returned. The first words out of Kyouko's mouth were, "…shit, shit, shit, shit, oh shit! C'mon, breathe! Breathe!"

"Hurry up!" Sayaka yelled, tension teetering at the edge of her voice. "She's almost here!"

"Ah fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Kyouko glanced over her shoulder and whined. She turned back, pressed the heel of her palm harder into Usagi's forehead. "Okay, okay, how'd it go again? Fuck, fuck, fuck...!"

"DO SOMETHING!" With a wave of her weapon, blades materialized around Sayaka and spun a frantic orbit. An arcane circle appeared below her feet.

"I'm working on it!"

"M-o-r-e…."

"Okay! Okay...here we go…here we go." Her grip flexed and clenched, tugged at the roots. A murmuring susurrus stirred beneath her breath, hurried, panicked:

"Crux sancta sit mihi lux
Non draco sit mihi dux.
Vade retro satana
Numquam suade mihi vana.
Sunt mala quae libas.
Ipse venena bibas—"

"She's here!" The swords ceased their spinning and pointed their frostbite tips at the silhouette. The pattern intensified, blasting off a wave of heat, ozone, and copper. "Get ready!"

"Dammit, no! I need more time!"

"M-o-r-e…."

Kyouko slammed a fist against the nonexistent floor, shaking with raw emotion. "It's not fair…she's adapting too fast! It's not right!"

"Kyouko, I need you here NOW!"

She swallowed and for an eternity sat on Usagi breathing. Her hand released its hold on her hair and snatched a spear that, she assumed, had been placed at her side. Then she lifted her head, sniffed, and uttered grimly in that ancient, peculiar tongue. "Si deus est, potest ille miserere nobis." If there is a god, may He have mercy on our souls.

With ashen, doom-laden eyes, Kyouko got off her and charged straight into the darkness of hell.

Usagi had calmed. The Holy powers imbibed in the incantation allowed her body to relax, her life signature settling and stabilizing to a normal state. The fire in her brow dimmed to a numb, pleasant warmth.

What were these girls? Kyouko and Sayaka and Madoka? They were definitely not Sailor Senshi; their status would have been denoted by their tiara and planet sigil. Were they off-worlders then, like Ail and An? Maybe they were like Mamoru, because no one on this planet except the clergy and post-rebirth Earthlings was capable of exercising 'time-lost' artes like white/black magicks, even those as old as Paladin Holy magic.

Or perhaps it was none of the above. Maybe they were something else, something akin to Sailor Senshi. That jewel on Kyouko's chest couldn't have been a Star Seed; she'd been dead in an instant. So what did this mean?

And where was Madoka?

"G-I-V-E…

"M-E…

"M-O-R-E…."

Usagi wasn't able to ponder it. She looked up into the contorted faces, up into a darkness she had thought impenetrable as the thing bloomed like an ill-gotten flower in the dregs of the coldest, loneliest mountain in the middle of nowhere. There was a flash of creaking, trundling gears and a face sculpted of flawless marble. It did not have eyes, but it had a smile. A wide red smile.

It opened its mouth, and

"Why aren't you here with us?"

"Huh?" Back in her body, awake and not at all disoriented by the abrupt shift in reality, Usagi was staring up into a milky, curdled sky blocked partially by a new, familiar face. "Minako? What's the matter? You look so—"

"You know I can't do this on my own," she complained. "I'm just a soldier who follows orders. Giving orders is your job, your destiny. You're supposed to keep us together." Keep the Sailor Senshi in order and prevent chaos from disenfranchising them.

"What? But I do take care of you. I take care of all my friends."

"Then why are you helping us?" Ami's curly head appeared over the edge and glared down at her. "We need you. The city needs you. Why do you ignore us?"

"Ignore you? I haven't—"

"Of course you are!" Rei snarled, joining her friends. Her brow was scrunched in a furious, vertical line. "You're sleeping the day away while people are driven from the streets with their tails between their legs. There are things crawling in the dark and the police can't do shit about it!"

"Yeah, so why don't you wake up and get your act together?" Makoto, too, was just as livid. "Azabu-Juuban needs its hero. Without you, there is no Sailor Senshi!"

"Don't bother. You should know how the little kitten is. All play and no work makes for a very lazy, irresponsible leader." Haruka stood among them, an arm wrapped round Michiru and another on Hotaru. "She does nothing all day but stare at the wall and dream dreams that will never be. Who would want to believe in someone like that?"

"Who does she think she is, leaving the safety of her home in the middle of a stormy night?" Luna hissed down at her, ears folded to the back of her head. "And for what, because some disembodied voice said so? I should never have christened you Sailor Moon!"

"Weak! Yellow!" snarled Artemis, bearing his tiny teeth. "Look at the mess you've made! We're all going to die!"

"He is correct," said Setsuna as she stopped at the head of the assembled group. "Because of your reckless actions, the time-stream has been altered. Crystal Tokyo will never be established. Chibi-Usa will never be born. The world will never be at peace so long as the Queen and her Nests roam the streets. You have doomed us, Usagi, and there is nothing you can do to change that fate. Our fate."

"No," Usagi breathed disbelievingly. "No! That can't be true! It…I…she needed me, someone! I couldn't ignore her! I had to help! I wanted to! If I hadn't—"

"You should've just let her die," echoed a stronger masculine voice, and from the edge Mamoru lingered like a coroner observing a fresh corpse. Cool, detached…uncaring. "You know in your heart it's what she wanted…but no, you didn't give her that did you? You wanted her to suffer, to relive the nightmare over and over again until there's nothing left of the person to save." He sighed. "Poor, innocent Usako. Why must you be so kind?"

"I don't understand. What hasn't gotten into everyone?" Usagi glanced at each face. "I did the right thing…didn't I? I wasn't aware she'd try to hurt me…but I had to fight, too. Not just for myself, but also for that girl. Killing her…the state she was in…how would that free her? How would it make her whole again? Killing her would mean one less person in the world and a lot of people sad and unhappy. I…I can't. I can't do that." Not to her, not to anyone. Even if her friends pleaded with her, she wouldn't. Could not under any circumstances.

Mamoru gave her a look that was both commiserative and disappointed. With an arm he ushered the girls and two cats back. "As I thought; you cannot be swayed; however, that doesn't mean you should change. If you can't adapt and do what must be done— can't avert the future looming over us with each passing day— then all hope is lost. You will be held accountable for our extinction." His hands dipped behind the edge. A rusty creak cracked in the dead silence. "I had hoped you had it in you. Guess I was wrong."

"Mamo-chan!" As Usagi was sitting up something plowed into her stomach and knocked her flat. From where she lay she looked at what had caused it. It was a mound of dirt. "What the…?"

"Hey Rei, you can fill 'er up after I close this thing, you dig?" Mamoru said on the off-hand, darting a glimpse over his shoulder.

"Well hurry up! I want to be initiated ASAP!"

"Oi, I thought I was the leader," said Minako.

"Not anymore you aren't! The Inner Senshi unit is mine!"

"As if!"

Mamoru rolled his eyes. "So impatient," he mumbled to himself. "Okay girls," louder this time, "get your shovels ready. It's time to put those babies to use."

Dirt? Thing? Shovels?

Usagi studied the location she was in, and horror dropped into her gut like a lump of lead.

She was in a grave. Mamoru was holding the lid of a casket and the girls—her Senshi, her friends, her family—were going to bury her alive.

The shadow loomed closer and larger as jaws closing to swallow a bit of morsel. "No! Stop! Mamo-chan! Everyone! Sto—"

Click.

Usagi…

Usagi…

Help me…

I'm so scared…

Please…

It hurts…so much….

I

N e e d

Y o u….

Her plea

Was absorbed

By the darkness.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

beep…

Beep…

BEEP….

"Usagi. Usagi. You can wake up now." Something soft and silky caressed the curve of her cheek.

She turned her head away. "No," she mumbled. "No more. Go away."

"It's okay, Usagi. You're safe now." The sensation lifted for a moment, then settled in the split of her hair. "Open your eyes."

A pause. "Madoka?" She stirred, her vision unfocused and blurry, but as it cleared she was flooded with relief to see it was indeed not the woman but the girl. Her gloved fingers were threaded in blonde, wispy locks.

Madoka smiled. "Thank goodness. I thought we were going to lose you."

Groggily, as if made dumb by a powerful drug, "What just happened?"

"I showed you a fragment of the past, what we've been dealing with for several timelines. What you experienced was the end result of a future we failed to protect. In exchange for preserving my existence—and that of Kyouko's and Sayaka's existence—I would sacrifice that particular universe and begin anew in another. Except…whenever we did, so too did Walpurgisnacht. The events that happen in the universe we occupied could have been different, but the outcome was always the same: She turned, transformed into a Witch cultivated of hate and despair, and in her corruption destroyed everything we cherished."

Madoka exhaled. "I had pulled you out and was preparing to transfer you somewhere safe, but Walpurgisnacht…your stress from the memory was overpowering. She was hungry and she seized the opportunity." She removed her hand and placed it amongst the other in her lap, which was clenched firmly in her fist. "I had to take the risk. You had to know. You have to, or you will never free them. My best friend…and Walpurgisnacht."

"But…isn't Walpurgisnacht the enemy?" She shifted into a sitting position, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms round them. The—dream? Vision?—of her Senshi and future husband filling her grave was still as fresh and cloying a damp towel draped on a shelf to dry.

"She is…and she isn't." Staring at her hands, rotating them like a crank to open a window, "It's a long and complicated story, one you will not enjoy, but to get to that point I would—I must—start from the very beginning."

"From the first time around."

"Yes. From the first time…when we had thought we'd finally found the exit to an imperfect paradise."

"What do you mean, imperfect paradise?"

A pregnant silence hung in the air, and for awhile Madoka did not speak. Then, as Usagi was about to repeat herself: "Come with me." She rose and offered a hand. Usagi took it and was helped to her feet.

She got her first glimpse at the area she was in. It was not the nightmarish void of floating faces or the rain-swept apocalypse of the ruined city, but quite the opposite. They were standing on a hill with grass as lush and viridian as uncut emerald, interspersed with fall maple and pine trees. Below them the world was open, a strand of white sand beach expanding past the horizon shrouded in mist. The ocean stretched beyond oblivion like the hand of a reposed titan.

Usagi thought it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever beheld, and wondered if Kyouko and Sayaka knew about it.

They were walking along the shore when Madoka spoke. "Before I begin, I want you to understand that what you are seeing now—

what you are going through—is both a dream and a reality. The places you have and will awaken to are outside the scope of human perception, manifesting into physical matter from vague concepts we imagine but can never grasp. Their symbolism can range from abstract to surreal, subtle to explicit, implied and explicated. Some of these…realms…will be formed as much as reason and physics can permit, but I can't guarantee the rules our universe—the universe we live in—will uphold. Its structure depends solely on the individual.

"I tell you this because, while you're aware of what followed encountering Walpurgisnacht, you don't know where you are." Madoka stopped and met her eye to eye. "You're in a hospital, Usagi, the Crossroads Medical and Emergency Center. You've been in a coma for eleven days, and tonight you almost died."

"What?" Usagi was stunned. "How? Was it my injuries? I recall taking some damage—"

"Your wounds had nothing to do with it. As I said before, it was Walpurgisnacht who took advantage while you were vulnerable. Your heart stopped beating for several minutes. We" her, Kyouko, and Sayaka "were afraid we wouldn't force her to retreat in time. If it wasn't for us and your doctor's quick thinking…." She didn't finish. The implications were very clear.

Usagi's mouth suddenly felt dry and she wished she could find a way to distill the water and drink it. What would have happened if she had passed on? What would become of the Sailor Senshi?

"It's not just them," said Madoka, who may as well have been reading her mind. "If you die, so does this universe. You would never marry Mamoru, sire him Chibi-Usa, or continue your mother's legacy with the building of Crystal Tokyo. There will be no peace, no safety, no happiness."

"Then…they" the apparitions "were telling the truth?" Madoka nodded once. Usagi gazed upon the sea, helpless and afraid. "What am I—" no, not her, there was nothing she could do "What are they going to do? If Walpurgisnacht is as powerful as you say…."

"Right now my friends are trying to find a way to wake you without alerting her. The spell Kyouko cast upon you has shielded you from Walpurgisnacht's reach, but it is a minor arte and eventually it will wear off. Kyouko will need time to cool and store sufficient mana before she can cast again. Regardless of how things play out, we'll be keeping strict watch—both on you and Walpurgisnacht. We haven't seen the last of her.

"As for what the Senshi can do, they will be able to fight her forces…but I won't lie, even if they're not Puella Magi it's going to be very tough. One Witch alone will be a challenge, a Nest a gauntlet. They're going to need all the help they can get."

Usagi bowed her chin acquiescingly. The motion felt dumb, mechanic. One thing, however, made the gears churning her mental factory work ceaselessly: "How do you know all this? How do you know about me, my friends—everything—if we've never met?"

At this Madoka smiled, a smile that conveyed a myriad of emotions like a concoction brewing in a cauldron. Sadness, nostalgia, regret, suffering. Usagi had never seen a girl look so tired and so strong (if only from the inside).

She turned toward the eternal wavering blue. From the horizon a massive cloud of mist rolled in like chargers covering the breadth of a battlefield. Usagi shivered and rubbed her arms as goosebumps prickled her flesh; she glanced at Madoka, who appeared not the slightest bit fazed by the sudden drop in temperature. "Because we do," she answered, "but we'll get to that. First and foremost, I want to fill you in on who—what—we are and how we got to this point. Time is plenty but time is precious; the more time we have the more information I can relay to you and the better our chances of waking you and putting an end to Walpurgisnacht's terror."

"To be free and to set free," said Usagi. The nirvana of land and sea was gone, devoured swiftly and suddenly by the hunger of the mist.

"Indeed."The world underwent a metamorphosis before their eyes. Earth spread from the soles of their feet and grass poked their bladed heads through the soil. Saplings grew and blossomed into flowers. Trees rose into a clearing sky of bluest azure. Concrete streets and gleaming metal skyscrapers formed the shell of skeletal frames like moss on rock. A burble of automobiles, soaring planes, and incoherent conversation bubbled to a crescendo from an unseen distance.

Usagi listened, breathed in the moment, at a loss for words.

Madoka swept an arm, conveying the vastness, the immensity of the realm. "My name is Kaname Madoka, and on this day, in the city of Mitakihara, my life was changed forever. On this day I met a beautiful girl who had just transferred to our school. Her name was Akemi Homura…."