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"There's a Puella Magi nearby."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Kyōko said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes.

We had just emerged from a witch barrier just outside Tokyo. Well, just outside Tokyo would be stretching it. I guess regular humans would not consider it so, but for us it was a short distance. The moment we exited the barrier, a pulse of magic came from the west. Approximately a kilometre away, a distance we could easily close in about a minute. Kyōko looked at me pleadingly. I sighed.

"No, we are not going to pick a fight with her unless she attacks us first."

"But Sayakaaaaa…" she pouted. "I wanna fight."

"No. What do you mean you want to fight? We just fought a witch!"

"Yea, but that's not the same. I wanna beat someone up."

Her fangs showed as she said this, and I wondered why she even listened to me. The redhead is like a savage sometimes. Does her sadism have no bounds?

"No. Absolutely not."

She made a face at me, then rested her spear on her shoulder.

"Fine. Let's go back to the city then. I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

It was true. I'll never understand how Kyōko is always eating something. Sometimes I don't even understand where she got the stuff she's eating. Yesterday, I looked in her backpack. It was filled with nothing but grief seeds and boxes of Pocky. Not even a bottle of water. Well, she did add a photo frame to her bag. It was the picture we had found in that office. She wanted to bring it back to Homura if we ever ran into her again. For whatever reason, Kyōko seemed to understand the mysterious black-haired girl more than I did.

It had been a little over a day since we reached Tokyo. We decided to stick around, since there were so many witches around. There was also the matter of that one dark barrier that unnerved me and Kyōko. If only Homura was with us, then we might've gone ahead. Much as I hated to admit it, that stoic Magi knew way more than either of us.

Surprisingly, there were still pockets of people around the city, though none of them were very open. Kyōko and I were holed up in an abandoned building, though not the office we had went into before. Immediately after we entered that building where we left our bags, Kyōko had a package of Pocky in her hand. She grinned as I looked at her in disbelief.

"Really?"

"Want one?" she asked, extending the box towards me. I took one.

"Really?" I asked again.

"Yep. Hey, can't I enjoy something at least? You didn't even let me go after that other Puella Magi earlier."

I decided it wasn't even worth the effort to respond to that. Biting the stick of Pocky, I walked over to my own backpack. It was propped up beside a wooden door. As I bent over to take out some water, I noticed that the corner was glimmering. There wasn't enough light to see what it was, so I stepped closer.

Next thing I knew, something round under my foot rolled as I stepped on it, sending my crashing to the ground. Red light filled the room. Kyōko had her spear out instantly, ready to attack.

"Jeez, calm down, Kyōko. I just tripped."

She looked down at me, sprawled out on the floor, then snickered. Another flash of red light.

"Ahahahahaha you're such a klutz!"

"Oh shut it."

Standing back up, I noticed the object I had tripped on. It was a small black sphere with a metal casing and two needle-like protrusions on either side. A grief seed. A used one. Another Puella Magi has been here.

"Oi, Kyōko. There's a used grief seed here."

"Great. Leave it. I wanna kill it again."

I sighed. Where was Kyuubei when I actually want him around? A pressure on my shoulder caught my attention. Speak of the devil. He stared at the grief seed.

"Do you want that?" the little white devil asked.

I didn't answer him, instead just tossing the seed to him. He seemed to always be around when there were used grief seeds, but that was it. I remembered what that thing did to us, with the Soul Gems and all. He caught the seed with an open pouch on his back, then tilted his head.

"Hmmm… interesting."

"What?" I said, more hostile than I had intended.

"The seed has Akemi Homura's magical signature on it. She was the last one to use it. It feels more or less a day old."

"Wha-"

He was gone. A loud ruckus brought my attention back to Kyōko, who was in the process of slinging her bag over her shoulder. She made for the door.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"Didn't you hear him? Homura's nearby. We should go find her. It might've been the one we sensed outside Tokyo earlier."

I didn't move.

"Settle down. She's probably long gone by now. You know how she is."

I was answered with the slamming of a door. What a hothead. Picking up my bag, I followed her out the door.

"Hey! You're not going to find her by rushing off!"

I would probably make more progress talking to an acorn. Kyōko had rushed off back in the direction where we had sensed the Puella Magi hours before. It didn't help that Kyōko was both faster and stronger than me, meaning that if she didn't stop or slow down soon, I won't be able to catch up. What a pain. We ran and ran and ran. On and on, further from the city. We ran for hours. The sky began to light up, and even though we couldn't see it through the thick layers of clouds, the sun shone through somehow.

Then, we picked up a magical signature in the distance. Then two. Then three. One of them was flickering, like it was a candle flame and someone was blowing on it lightly. There was a fight going on. My breath was hitching at this point, but Kyōko showed no signs of slowing down so I forced myself to continue. Someone was losing that fight, as one of the presences flickered faster and faster. A flash of red light forced me to look away for a moment. I followed suit with a flash of blue light, not missing a beat as a sword appeared in my hand.

The sounds of a conflict were clear in the air now. Mostly, it was the sound of metal meeting flesh. Strangely, there was no gunfire, meaning that it likely wasn't Homura. Still, we were this close, so we may as well check it out. I doubt I can hold Kyōko back from a fight this late now anyway. Four figures could be seen in the distance, just on the horizon. I estimated three minutes before we reached the battle.

"Kyōko! Slow down. Save some strength. We might need it if we have to enter the fight."

She complied, slowing down and falling into line beside me. We continued at a slight jog towards the magical presences. Up ahead, three figures could be seen fighting. Or more accurately, two figures could be seen relentlessly attacking a third. A fourth one stood several metres away from the fighting. We closed the distance as inconspicuously as possible. When we were about a hundred metres away, we stopped. I didn't really know why, but we did. Then, Kyōko tapped my shoulder.

"Sayaka, isn't that pinkie over there? The short one?"

She was right. The fourth figure, standing far from the battle, was Madoka. That meant that Homura was currently fighting. So why was there no gunfire? I don't recall the stoic Magi ever using anything other than guns that she pulled out from her shield. The redhead beside me answered that question, swearing out loud all of a sudden.

"Shit! Sayaka! Homura's getting her ass handed to her!"

Before I could even process the words, Kyōko had charged. On pure instinct, I charged after her. By the time I reached the fight, Kyōko had already engaged both of the other Puella Magi and was pushing them back viciously. The two she was fighting looked identical; twins maybe? Both of them wielded swords, but Kyōko appeared to be more than a match for both of them. She was fighting to kill. The hothead could handle herself. Right now, I needed to check on Madoka and Homura.

The purple-clad Magi stood in the middle of the field, as if slowly waking up from a trance to realise she was not being attacked anymore. Blood flowed freely from dozens of wounds all over her body. She collapsed, and despite my reservations about trusting her, I rushed over to her side. Madoka beat me to it, catching the taller girl before she hit the ground and slowly lowering her. I knelt by Homura's prone form. She was still conscious, but the amethyst on her hand showed no signs of its usual violet colour. Madoka was shaking her, trying to get a response.

"Madoka, stop. You're hurting her, and she needs a grief seed."

Pink eyes looked up into my own blue ones. She appeared to not recognise me, or at least not process that it was me. Perhaps she thought me dead?

Taking out a grief seed from my pocket, I went to press it against the Soul Gem, but a cold hand grabbed my own and stopped me.

"No…" the girl lying on the ground whispered weakly at me.

"What do you mean, no? Do you even seen yourself right now? What you look like?"

"Don't waste it on me… I'm weak… Useless…"

She turned to face me as she spoke. If the situation wasn't so serious, I might've been able to spare the thought to be shocked. The purple-clad Magi that always seemed invincible had tears running down her face. I pinched my cheek to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Homura was crying? She had never even shown any emotion as far as I was concerned, and now she was crying?

"Akemi-san? This isn't like you… Whatever, just shut up and let me cleanse your Soul Gem, then we can talk. This isn't the time for pride. Oi!"

She refused to let go of my hand, refused to let me save her. I threw up my free hand in surrender and met Madoka's eyes again.

"Madoka, you do it. She's delirious or something, but she'll probably let you do it."

"O-okay…Th-there are grief seeds in her bag."

By this point, Kyōko had returned, having chased off the attackers. She knelt down beside me, face scrunched in concern. Was she friends with Homura? Honestly, I never bothered to ask her that. Madoka had went to get a grief seed from her own bag, since Homura refused to let go of my hand. Stubborn.

Homura finally dispelled her Magi attire. Or maybe she just didn't have the strength to keep it up. The egg-shaped Soul Gem dropped to the grass beside her, and she relaxed everything, looking up at the sky. Her eyes held something I couldn't figure out. Madoka returned with another grief seed.

Just as she went to press it against the purple gem, the sound of shattering glass filled the air.

A/N:

If I'm completely honest, I found it harder to write in the perspective of Madoka in the previous chapter and Sayaka in this chapter. Regardless, I'm going to try and alternate in a Homura-Kyōko-Madoka-Sayaka pattern in terms of POV for each chapter so next chapter is back to Homura. Hope you guys enjoyed reading; please leave reviews :D

EDIT (28/02/2017): Chapter 5 taken down. It'll come back later in the story as a later chapter, but there'll be something else to take its place instead.