Chapter Text
Kanade Yoisaki apprehensively stands at the front of the classroom. Before her are dozens of other students—her future classmates, she supposes—all staring at her with curious expressions.
“Now, why don’t you introduce yourself?” says her new homeroom teacher, looking at her expectantly.
Kanade takes a deep breath to steady her nerves.
“H-hello…” she says, trying not to wince at her stutter. She takes another deep breath, before continuing her introduction. “My name is Kanade Yoisaki. It’s nice to meet you all.”
She bows. The rest of the class claps politely.
Kanade wishes the floor would open up beneath her and swallow her whole.
“Hello, Kanade.”
Kanade looks up. It’s lunchtime, and as the new student, she’s sitting alone with no one else to talk to—until now, that is.
In front of her stands one of her classmates—a girl with her hair tied in a purple ponytail, with a polite smile on her face. Her purple eyes have blue highlights, giving the impression that her eyes are sparkling.
“Hello… um…” Kanade trails off, unsure of the other girl’s name.
“Mafuyu Asahina,” says the other girl.
“Hello, Mafuyu,” Kanade says, doing her best to smile politely. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I was going to ask you that, actually,” Mafuyu says, looking at Kanade. “You’re new to Miya Girls, right? Are you familiar with the layout of the campus?”
Kanade shakes her head slightly.
“I see…” Mafuyu smiles. “I’m our class’s representative, so I’m familiar with the layout of the school. I was thinking I could offer you a tour.”
“If it’s not too much trouble… I would appreciate that,” Kanade replies. She doesn’t want to be a burden or waste Mafuyu’s time, but she really could use some help with navigating the school that her grandmother had enrolled her into.
“Lovely!” Mafuyu tilts her head towards the door. “Then let’s go on our tour!”
The tour was… awkward.
Kanade spent the entire time trailing awkwardly behind Mafuyu, as she described each classroom the two of them passed by. It was uncomfortable—something about Mafuyu’s perfect smile and tour guide energy felt unnatural, and her insincerity grated at Kanade. She had wanted to get to know Mafuyu, but all she could do was hover a few steps behind her.
It’s fitting, in a way. Mafuyu knew the answer to every question asked in class. She was the class representative, friendly with every teacher that stopped by their classroom. She was effortlessly beautiful, with wavy purple hair and deep purple eyes to match. She was surrounded by friends during lunch before she made her way to Kanade to ask her on that impromptu tour. She was even good at athletics, effortlessly coming first in the mile run during gym class.
What is Kanade, in comparison? She’s bad at school, short and awkward, unathletic, and untalented. The only thing she’s good at is composing… and even that was a skill that only brought pain to others.
Her father, lying unconscious in the hospital. Her mother, lying in a coffin six feet underground.
Maybe you’d be better off dead too, whispers a voice in her ear.
“Yes, maybe…” Kanade whispers to herself, watching as the ground beneath her blurs in her vision, pools of royal blue swirls appearing before her feet, the air bubbling around her—
Wait. What?
Kanade looks up.
She’s surrounded by shades of swirling blue, with tiny bubbles floating around her. Next to her, stray glowing jellyfish float around, crowding around her and nudging her forward. Kanade turns her head, to face some creature floating above the ground—a creature with a fish tail and three heads, all turned towards her, wrapped in a wreath of wispy seaweed. All nine of the creature’s eyes are glowing purple, each one fixed on Kanade.
The creature opens her mouth, and a mournful melody escapes, more beautiful than anything Kanade had ever composed, but filled with despair so deep that she wants to sink to her knees.
She’s terrified. She closes her eyes and crouches down—
Whoosh!
From somewhere behind Kanade, a silvery arrow flies past her, piercing one of the eyes of the creature. She turns around.
“Mafuyu?”
“Sorry we’re late,” says Mafuyu, with an easy smile on her face. Her attire is… strange. She’s wearing a lacy black and purple dress, with black clunky high heels, a black veil headdress, and laced black leather gloves. She’s also holding a large kyudo bow, and aiming for the eyes of the creature.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got this!” chimes in another girl. She has light pink hair and is wearing equally fancy attire—a pastel pink and blue dress, with white Mary Jane shoes and lacy white wrist cuffs with pink bows. She snaps her fingers, and ribbons wrap around the creature. “Mafuyu, do your thing!”
“Of course.” Mafuyu fires another arrow, which splits into dozens of silvery arrows, each sinking into the creature. It lets out one last piercing wail before it poofs into nothing.
“What… was that?” Kanade asks. She’s sitting in a diner booth, a steaming bowl of ramen in front of her. Next to her sits Mafuyu, drinking a cup of tea. In front of her is the pink-haired girl— I’m Mizuki Akiyama, but you can call me Mizuki! she had said—and a mysterious twin-tailed girl, with light gray hair and mismatched eyes.
This is Miku, Mizuki had said by way of explanation. She’s… sort of like a mentor? It’s hard to explain. She can’t fight, but she watches over us and makes sure we don’t screw up.
“The creature you came across was a witch,” says Miku. Her voice is monotone and strangely robotic. “They’re creatures born from despair, that spread negative emotions like doubt, rage, and hatred. Many inexplicable suicides and murders are caused by witches.”
“You got lucky!” Mizuki says. She pops a French fry into her mouth. “Most people usually don’t see a witch and survive to tell the tale.”
“In addition, witches hide in magical labyrinths,” Miku adds.
“Is that why the environment got so… strange?” Kanade asks.
“Yup!” Mizuki pops the “p” at the end of her declaration. “That was a witch’s labyrinth.”
“Luckily,” Mafuyu chimes in, “there are people who fight these witches.”
“We’re magical girls,” Mizuki says, grinning. “We fight the witches, and look super cute doing it! Don’t get it wrong, though,” she adds, her expression growing serious. “Fighting witches is super dangerous.”
“How long have you two been doing this for?” Kanade asks.
“Me?” Mizuki takes on a thoughtful expression. “I’ve been doing this since middle school, so maybe a year or two…? I forget. Mafuyu, here, though,” she says, pointing a finger gun at her, “has only been doing this for a week. She’s my mentee!”
“Even though I’m a year older than you?” Mafuyu says, a slightly teasing expression on her face.
“Hey, someone’s gotta show you the ropes, right?” Mizuki says with a grin. “Besides, we’ve gotta get you trained up for when Walpurgisnacht shows up in a month!”
Kanade kneels in front of Mizuki’s corpse as, around them, chaos reigns. Walpurgisnacht, the largest witch in history, is floating in the sky, loudly cackling as torrential winds blow around it. Around it are its minions—shadowed figures of girls, giggling as they destroy Shibuya.
In front of her stands Mafuyu, an expression of pure determination on her face.
“Well… this is it,” she says. She smiles. It looks pained.
“Don’t go, Mafuyu,” Kanade says. She can’t watch yet another person she cares about disappear before her eyes. “Run away. Save yourself. Please.”
Mafuyu shakes her head. “I’m the only magical girl left. I have to do this.”
She smiles slightly. For the first time, Kanade gets the sense that it’s a real one.
“Besides, after all this time… I’ve finally found something worth fighting for.”
She turns around and jumps into the air, bow at the ready. All Kanade can do is watch helplessly as Mafuyu throws her life away before her eyes.
“Why… why….”
This time, Kanade is kneeling in front of Mafuyu’s lifeless body. The fight is over. Walpurgisnacht is destroyed. But with Mafuyu and Mizuki dead, Kanade can’t find it in her to celebrate.
Mafuyu is dead. The closest thing she had to a friend is dead.
“Why did you have to die…” Kanade wails. “I wish I could have saved you…”
“Do you really mean that?”
Kanade looks up. Before her is…
“Miku?”
Miku tilts her head, her twintails limply hanging from the sides of her head.
“Do you know how one becomes a magical girl, Kanade?”
Kanade shakes her head.
“You make a wish,” she says. “If you want that wish badly enough, the power of that wish is what gives you magic. So if you truly wish to save Mafuyu, if you want to save her badly enough to risk your own life… I can help you with that.”
Kanade stands up. “Really?”
Miku nods.
“Then…” Kanade takes a deep breath. “I wish I could go back and redo things… but this time instead of Mafuyu saving me, I have the talent to save her!”
Silence. The pouring rain beats down around Kanade. It dampens her head, causing her already-heavy hair to weigh even more. The sound of water droplets hitting the ground seems louder after her declaration.
Then…
Warmth, like a burning fire, fills Kanade’s chest. She groans in pain as a shining silver light emerges from her chest, hovering in front of her.
“Your wish has overcome entropy,” Miku says. Her voice, already robotic, is somehow even more monotone than usual. “You are now a magical girl, Kanade.”
She reaches out to the glowing silver light—
“I’m sorry,” Miku says, before Kanade is swept away into the light.
Kanade wakes up to her cell phone ringing.
“Hello…?” she answers groggily.
“Kanade? It’s Grandma, how are you?”
“Good,” Kanade says. “Why are you calling, Grandma?”
“Well, you see, I was thinking… it’s been a while since your dad was in the hospital, right? I was thinking that it might be time for you to reenroll in school.”
Huh?
“What do you mean?”
Hadn’t her grandmother already enrolled her into Miya Girls for the upcoming school year?
“I mean… I know your dad’s illness has been hard, but I’m worried about you, Kanade. You’re always cooped up in your room, composing…”
Kanade rubs her eyes, thinking back to the strange dream she had the night before. Magical girls, Mafuyu, Mizuki, Miku… it was bizarre, but it couldn’t have been real, right?
She’s moving her hand from her face when she sees the silver ring on her middle finger. It has strange runes inscribed on it. In addition, her middle fingernail is glowing silver, even though Kanade was never the sort of girl to wear nail polish.
She holds out her hand and watches as the ring on her finger transforms into a silver egg-shaped gem, large enough to sit comfortably in her hand. Kanade had seen two gems similar to it before—Mafuyu had one, and Mizuki had one. They hadn’t fully explained what they were, but to her understanding, they were the sources of their magical powers.
In other words, Kanade really had gone back in time. Magical girls weren’t just a dream.
“Kanade? Are you listening?”
She nods, before realizing that her grandma can’t see her. “Yes, Grandma.”
“So I don’t want to force you, but…”
Kanade smiles. “It’s okay. I’ll go to school, Grandma.”
After all, how else would Kanade meet Mafuyu?
Kanade stands at the front of the classroom. Before her are dozens of other students—her future classmates, she supposes—all staring at her with curious expressions.
Unlike before, though, she isn’t apprehensive. She spots Mafuyu, two rows from the front, smiling expectantly at her.
She’s alive.
“Now, why don’t you introduce yourself?” says her new homeroom teacher, looking at her expectantly.
Kanade smiles.
“Hello,” she says. “My name is Kanade Yoisaki. It’s nice to meet you all.”
She rushes forward to Mafuyu’s desk. Mafuyu looks up, surprised.
Kanade grasps Mafuyu’s hands, relieved to feel them warm against her own, instead of cold and lifeless like she had seen them just a week before.
“Mafuyu, I became a magical girl too… so let’s do our best to fight together from now on, okay?”
Mafuyu looks around as the rest of the class looks at the two of them in confusion, her face turning scarlet. Kanade can’t find it in herself to feel embarrassed, though. Not when Mafuyu is sitting, alive, right before her eyes.
“So you’re a magical girl, huh…”
School is done for the day. After class, Mafuyu dragged Kanade over to Mizuki and Miku and explained that Kanade was now a magical girl.
“What do you know about being a magical girl?” Miku asks, tilting her head.
“Um…” Kanade thinks for a moment. “I know that I made a wish to obtain the ability to perform magic. I know that my duty is to fight witches… that’s pretty much it, right?”
Mizuki winces. Miku looks at Kanade closely.
“For a magical girl, you know startlingly little.”
Kanade shrinks. “Sorry…”
“Be nice now,” Mafuyu says, a placating expression on her face. “You all had to explain all this to me just a week ago too, remember?”
“True…” Mizuki takes a deep breath. “What you said is right, Kanade, but you’re missing one key thing—grief seeds.”
“Grief seeds?”
“Grief seeds are basically where witches come from. When you defeat a witch, it drops a grief seed. Those help replenish your magic. You basically hold one up to your soul gem—that’s the ring you’re wearing—and it restores your magic. You got that?”
Kanade nods slowly.
“Alright, now, onto fighting witches!” Mizuki says, her voice overly cheerful. “What I want you to do is to transform into your magical girl outfit and summon your weapon.”
“Okay… I can do that…” Even though Kanade had never transformed before, it comes to her as easily as breathing. In a flash of light, her school uniform has changed into her magical girl outfit. Unlike Mafuyu and Mizuki, however, Kanade is almost disappointed with her uniform. She’s wearing a white pleated skirt, black high tops, and a light blue sweatshirt. The only decorative aspect of her outfit is the large white collar around her neck.
Despite her underwhelming transformation, Mafuyu smiles in her direction. “Simple, but effective. I like it.”
Mizuki nods in agreement. “Now, try to summon your weapon.”
Again, Kanade feels like she knows what to do, even though she has never seen her weapon before. With another flash of light, her weapon is summoned—a small silver shield, with mysterious black runes etched around it.
Somehow, it’s even more underwhelming than her magical girl transformation. Her weapon, a shield? One too small to protect against anything?
Even Mafuyu and Mizuki look bewildered. “Is that your weapon?” Mizuki asks.
Kanade nods slowly. “I think so…” She feels herself shrink under their gazes.
“It’s okay,” Mafuyu says, after a beat. “Maybe she has other magical powers…”
Kanade thinks for a second. Without being told what to do, she spins her shield.
Time freezes in front of her eyes. Mizuki and Mafuyu stand next to her, completely frozen. Miku stands from a distance, also frozen, watching over the scene with unseeing eyes.
Her shield can manipulate time?
She turns back her shield. Mizuki and Mafuyu unfreeze, as though nothing had happened.
“I can stop time,” Kanade informs the group, interrupting Mizuki mid-sentence.
Mizuki gapes at her, open-mouthed. “That’s… very powerful magic. All you’d need is a proper weapon, and you could do some serious damage…” She trails off thoughtfully. “Alright! Kanade, your homework is to figure out a weapon you can use!”
Mafuyu and Mizuki run down a dark alleyway, covered in glowing neon graffiti. Kanade follows a few footsteps behind, out of breath and exhausted. Despite her wish, she’s still physically weak compared to the other two magical girls.
The alleyway opens up into a large intersection, filled with floating speakers and neon scribbles. Floating above the ground is the witch—a tall monstrosity with six batlike wings protruding from its back. Red horns sprout from its head, and its four arms all have yellowed claws.
Mafuyu immediately summons her bow and shoots dozens of silvery arrows at the witch. Each one hits its target, causing the witch to let out a shrill shriek of pain.
In its moment of distraction, Mizuki extends her arms out, summoning dozens of ribbons that ensnare the witch and draw her closer to the group of magical girls.
“Now!” Mizuki calls out.
Kanade stops time. Immediately, the world around her stops—Mafuyu, Mizuki, and the witch all freezing in their places.
She takes a deep breath before she sticks her hand in her shield and pulls out a homemade bomb. Kanade’s not an expert by any means—she had to do a few incognito searches, make a few suspicious purchases, and break into a few places—but she now has a few guns and a handful of serviceable bombs inside of her shield, ready to be used.
Kanade runs forward, turning on the timer for the bomb as she does so, before throwing it in the direction of the witch. She unfreezes time and watches as the witch explodes into fiery nothingness before her eyes, letting out one last cry as it does.
As the labyrinth dissipates, Mafuyu walks toward where Kanade is standing, stunned.
“You did it.”
“I… did it?”
A small smile crosses Mafuyu’s face. “Yes, you did well, Kanade.” She walks forward to pick up the fallen grief seed, before handing it to Kanade. “Congratulations,” she says, pressing the grief seed into Kanade’s hand.
Her hand is warm against Kanade’s. The sensation matches the proud warmth inside Kanade’s chest. She defeated a witch.
Maybe, just maybe, that would be enough for her to defeat Walpurgisnacht and save Mafuyu.
They did it. They defeated Walpurgisnacht.
A rush of relief fills Kanade at the sight of Mafuyu, alive. Admittedly, she’s lying on the ground, beaten and bruised and exhausted, but she’s alive, and isn’t that all that matters, in the end?
“Mafuyu, we did it,” Kanade says, a bright smile on her face.
Mafuyu groans, clutching her soul gem in her palm.
“Mafuyu…?”
Kanade watches as Mafuyu throws her head back to let out one last scream, before dark curses start erupting from her soul gem, tainting the rain with blackness.
“Kanade? It’s Grandma, how are you?”
“I’m good,” Kanade lies. “I was thinking about re-enrolling in school again, actually…”
The second thing Kanade does after going back in time (again) is to find Miku.
“You tricked us!” she shouts at Miku, pointing her finger at her.
“Who are you?” Miku asks.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kanade says, her voice cold. “All that matters is that when magical girls run out of magic, when they accumulate enough curses… they become witches!”
Miku sighs. “I… yes, that is true.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kanade curls her hands into fists, glaring at Miku. “Why didn’t you tell us the truth?”
She gets no response, not even when she grabs Miku’s shoulders and starts shaking them, not even when she screams in Miku’s face, not even when she starts to cry, hands still gripping Miku’s shoulders. All she gets is the sensation of Miku’s cold fingers, gently stroking Kanade’s hair as she collapses into Miku’s open arms.
“So what you’re saying is that magical girls become witches?”
Kanade nods. “Yes, exactly! Miku tricked us!”
“Not to question your story, but…” Mizuki raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been fighting with Miku for a long time. Why would she trick us like that?”
“Well… um…” Kanade hesitates, unsure. Miku hadn’t given her any clear answers, after all.
“It’s completely made up, that’s why.” The new magical girl who had joined them during this time loop, Ena Shinonome, rolls her eyes. “She’s lying for attention. We have better things to do, cmon.”
“I don’t think Kanade would lie about something like that…” Mafuyu says, trailing off.
“Maybe,” says Ena. She crosses her arms over her chest, eyeing Kanade suspiciously. “But we have no reason to believe her either, right?”
And just as quickly as she appeared, Ena disappears a few short weeks later.
“Ena! Come back to us, please!” Mizuki calls out.
Before them—Mizuki, Mafuyu, and Kanade—is a smaller tree-like witch, made of dozens of wooden arms. Surrounding her, however, are hundreds of large canvases, filled with brilliant moving paintings. The painted figures on the canvases leer over the group, trapped but still threatening to attack.
Mafuyu readies her bow and fires dozens of arrows at the canvases. As they tear and explode, the figures erupt from inside, all lunging for Mafuyu.
With a spin of her shield, Kanade freezes time before the painted figures can finish their attacks. She takes out a gun from her shield—a new addition she had stolen for her fights—and fires bullets at each figure, each one freezing mere centimeters away.
Once every figure has a bullet aimed straight at it, Kanade takes a deep breath, before taking out a bomb from her shield.
“Sorry, Ena,” Kanade murmurs, before throwing the bomb at the witch that was once Ena Shinonome.
The witch’s—no, Ena’s labyrinth—slowly dissipates before their eyes, leaving nothing except a lone grief seed behind.
“Ena…” Mafuyu murmurs. Her eyes are completely devoid of their usual sparkle.
“So magical girls really do turn into witches, huh?” says Mizuki. For the first time since they met, two time loops ago, Mizuki’s voice is missing its usual lightheartedness.
Kanade nods miserably. “That’s what happened to Ena.”
Mizuki chuckles hollowly. “Then…”
Dozens of ribbons extend from Mizuki, binding Kanade in place and digging into her skin. She cries out, surprised, but she can’t move, no matter how much she struggles.
“... we all have to die, right?”
Mizuki summons a pair of oversized scissors and runs towards Kanade, blades opening to slice Kanade in half. Kanade does her best to free herself from the ribbons, but it’s no use. She’s going to die at the hands of her former friend and mentor—
A silver arrow pierces Mizuki’s heart. She collapses to the ground, mere centimeters from Kanade’s face, oversized scissors uselessly cluttering to the ground before they disappear into thin air, the ribbons binding Kanade vanishing with them.
She turns to look at Mafuyu. Her expression is cold.
“She was going to kill you,” Mafuyu says.
Even now, after Kanade’s wish, Mafuyu was the one saving Kanade, huh?
“I know.”
She’s shaking, but Kanade resists the urge to sink to her knees in front of Mizuki’s corpse. Instead, she walks over to Mafuyu and wraps her in a hug. Mafuyu hugs her back. Together, the two of them stand and mourn.
They did it. They defeated Walpurgisnacht.
This time, though, both Kanade and Mafuyu are lying on the ground in the pouring rain.
“This is it, huh…?” Kanade asks.
A choked laugh escapes Mafuyu. “Yeah, I guess it is…”
Despite everything, Kanade’s thoughts turn to her parents. Her father, lying unconscious in the hospital. Her mother, lying in a coffin six feet underground.
She would join her mother soon. She wishes she had the chance to tell her father goodbye.
“At least we’ll be together, right…?” Kanade turns to Mafuyu. “We can become witches together, destroying the whole damn world side by side.”
Mafuyu smiles. “Maybe.”
She takes out a grief seed. Kanade doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late to stop Mafuyu from touching the grief seed to her soul gem.
“Mafuyu!” she exclaims, sitting up. She feels revitalized, but at what cost? “Why did you do that?”
Why didn’t she save herself?
Mafuyu laughs. “I have nothing to live for. No reason to fight, no reason to keep on going. I became a magical girl for such a stupid reason… I suppose that this is the price I paid for my wish, right?”
“Mafuyu…”
“But you…” Mafuyu turns to Kanade. “You have a wish you’re still fighting for, right?”
Kanade nods. “Yes, I do, but—”
“But?”
“But my wish… it was to save you.”
Mafuyu laughs, quietly and pained. “Of course it was, wasn’t it?” She sighs. “That was a stupid wish, Kanade.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Kanade grasps Mafuyu’s hands in hers. “You’re worth it. I don’t regret wishing to save you, and—” Kanade takes a deep breath. “I’ll save you for real. I’ll go back, and stop you from making your wish and becoming a magical girl. That’s what I need to do to save you, right?”
Mafuyu smiles. Kanade can’t tell if it’s mocking or genuine. “I suppose it is. If you’re willing to go that far for me, I can’t stop you, can I?”
She then lets out a gasp of pain as her soul gem begins to darken impossibly more than it already has.
“But before you go… I know that it’s so, so selfish of me, but Kanade…”
Mafuyu extends out her soul gem. “Please… I don’t want to become a witch. I just want this pain to end…”
“No!” Kanade chokes out. The tears that were filling her eyes begin to fall, mixing with the rain beating against Mafuyu. “I can’t—”
“Please,” Mafuyu whispers. “It’s what I want.”
Kanade summons her shield and takes out a gun. Slowly, she points the gun at Mafuyu’s soul gem.
Gunshots. The wails of a teenage girl.
Mafuyu smiles one last time.