HALF A MONTH LATER: LOOP 56

"Look, I think this is really, just… entirely unnecessary!"

Rachel held her hands up in a Japanese alleyway, flashing neon signs above her and pedestrians quickly evacuating the area.

Four Magical Girls surrounded her on all sides. All pointing their various weapons at her. There was a spear, a gun, another gun, and a set of shurikens.

"Do you do this every Magical Girl here on vacation?" yelled Rachel. "I'm not here to take your Grief Seeds! Let's just talk about this!"

"Your Japanese sucks." one of them said in English. "We have no interest in letting you stay in our precinct."

"Then I'll leave! I just wanted to ask you all a question! Once I get my answer I'll go, alright?"

"Kill her."

All weapons flew at her at once. She kept track of how each Magical Girls moved, logging in her mind how they attacked, what angles they went for…

Before getting stabbed repeatedly.

The shield on her arm opened.

FIFTEEN SECONDS EARLIER: LOOP 56

"Your Japanese sucks." one of them said in English. "We have no interest in letting you stay in our precinct."

"Alright, you want me dead, why?" asked Rachel.

"Training," said another girl. "Small fry before bigger fights."

They came at her again. Rachel brought up her left arm to block the shurikens, extending the shield to impale the charging girl with a spear after jumping over her blade. Her other arm came up to block a gunshot, and she quickly pulled out on the magical shurikens embedded on her shield and threw it at the face of the final gunner.

She landed, taking a deep breath.

"I'm stronger than all of you and I don't want to fight, I don't want to take your Grief Seeds or kill you! I just want to ask a question!"

The girls all stood up, raising their weapons back at her.

"Are we really gonna do this again?"

One by one they all lowered their weapons, and the leader of the group spoke up.

"What is your question?"

"I'm looking for a black haired Magical Girl-" she reached into her backpack, pulling out a sketch. "Looks like this, has a weird shield thing on her arm, kind like mine-" she brought her shield. "But circle-shaped. Also she has a white dress. Can't really get more specific than that. Have you seen her around?"

The girls all looked at each other. One turned to Rachel. "We've heard rumors of a few newer Magical Girls appearing in a more southern precinct. We can give you directions if you promise to leave ours.

Rachel relaxed, sighing. "Finally… progress. Thank you!"

"Black hair?" a Magical Girl in a frog outfit asked. "I thought I heard of someone like that further south… try here!"

"Shield on her arm…" a Magical Girl with an outfit made from cold fire asked. "I can't really think of any Magical Girls with a shield as a weapon, sounds sorta useless."

Rachel scowled. And the girl brought her arms up in a panicked flurry.

"N-no! Not like that! I'm sure it can be a really cool weapon if you trained with it!"

"Gee, thanks." said Rachel.

"Anyway… there's some rumors of a Magical Girl with a shield further south. Although it's pretty far down there…"

"Hm… white dress, shield, black hair… yeah! I've heard of her!"

The casual-looking girl pointed… even further south.

"I can actually give you the name of the city if you can… incentivise me." she raised an eyebrow.

Rachel sighed.

She handed over her last Grief Seed.

The girl smiled and pocketed the seed. "Mitakihara City. Two new Magical Girls popped up there, and two vets went over. Don't know why, didn't really care to ask."

"Thank you." Rachel got up to leave.

"Wait hold up!" the girl called out. "If you meet someone named Kyoko, tell her I said 'hi!'"

"I don't even know your name!" said Rachel.

"You don't need to, just tell her the name of the city! She really liked one of the ramen restaurants here."

ONE WEEK LATER: LOOP 57

Rachel caught the Grief Seed as it fell to the ground, cupping it in the palm of her hand. She held her Soul Gem to it, and took a deep breath while all the impurities left her gem.

"Hey!" a girl's voice, Japanese- of course it was in Japanese, she was in Japan. Rachel turned to her.

Her eyes widened.

"Oh my god-" she said in English. She quickly switched to Japanese. "You're the blue trail!"

The blue haired Magical Girl holding a sword put a hand on her hip. "What?"

"I mean uh…" she tossed the Grief Seed to the girl. "Look, I don't want any trouble, I just want to ask a question."

The girl let out a breath and caught the seed. "Alright… to be honest, I didn't want to fight you either!" She sheathed her sword. "My name's Sayaka, and you… don't look like you're from around here. But your Japanese is pretty good!"

"I'm looking for a girl." Rachel handed the sketch to Sayaka. "Black hair, white dress, circular shield on her arm."

Sayaka's happy expression soured. "Oh… you're looking for that creep." She turned around, and put both her hands behind her head as she gestured to Rachel to follow. "She's been following us for the past month! Trying to scare us and giving ominous threats. She acts like she has some attachment to Madoka, but the two hadn't met until Homura pointed a gun at Kyubey!"

She looked back at Rachel.

"Homura, that's the black haired girl you're looking for. To be honest, I have no idea where to find her, she just sorta shows up sometimes."

At that moment, Rachel felt something… weird. Like the area around her froze and color drained from the world. It was just for a split second, but it was an extremely clear feeling.

"I show up where I need to."

Sayaka unsheathed her sword and Rachel raised her shields.

Rachel relaxed, however. Her face was of pure surprise, pure relief. The search was finally over, all of her hard work over the past tens of loops was finished, and with great success.

"You're… you're her! You're actually her! I found you!"

"Found me?" said Homura.

"I just, I…" Rachel sighed. "Fuck it, I don't care about restraint anymore, I need to know." She looked up. "Homura…" she asked. "... are you stuck in a time loop?"