Chapter Text
"Rika!" called out Satoko as their train was about to depart.
"Rika!" Hanyu followed suit, calling out to their friend.
The blue haired girl in question rushed through the door of the station towards them. "Mii. Sorry I was late, I was speaking with Keiichi-kun and Rena and we lost the track of time."
Satoko sighed out loud. "Honestly, Rika..."
They had gone back to Hinamizawa for the club reunion, and while Satoko was happy to be back, Rika was even more ecstatic.
Nonetheless, Satoko was glad that Rika was happy.
"Rika, have you done your school work yet?" asked Hanyu anxiously as they took a seat I'm the train.
"Why are you asking? Don't tell me that you haven't done it?"
"Auau..." cried out a weakly Hanyu.
This was still weird sight to see for Satoko. After their final battle against Takano, Rika changed somewhat. Not in a drastic way, but change she did.
She started to get a bit more snarky, and sarcastic with Shion, Keiichi, Hanyu and Rena. Surprisingly that behavior didn't extend to Mion and herself most of the time.
That being said, she still helped people with their problems or answered questions even when she was in her snippy mood.
Last year, Satoko asked her why she changed after that battle, and Rika said that she wanted her friends to know her true self and not just a mask.
And when she asked why she and Mion weren't the target of her recent change, Rika replied that she doesn't like how Satoko reacts to them and that Mion never did anything to deserve them.
Satoko was not sure what the others did to deserve them, but she was glad that she had to endure them only in games.
The train soon lurched and they started to travel back to Mitakihara, where they went to school.
"Rika...after we get back, you wouldn't...mind spending some time...with me?" asked Satoko.
Rika raised her eyebrows. "Don't we already do that, weren't we in that game store just last week?"
"I mean without Hanyu."
The horned girl let out a small auau at that as she looked between the two of them with a sly smirk.
Rika looked a bit confused but she accepted the invitation.
This had been a fairly recent development. At first she didn't really understand what had changed, but she started to view Rika differently.
She didn't fully understand it, but she wanted to be closer to Rika, both physically and in her relationship. That was till Hanyu explained that she got a crush on Rika.
At first she started to drop subtle hints, which all seemed to flow over Rika's head. Hanyu explained that she should be more forward if she wanted Rika to notice her feelings, but even those flew over her head.
So, she resigned herself to this; she will confess her love to Rika. This was going either make or break their relationship.
Hanyu had reasured her that even if Rika were to reject her, she wouldn't stop being friends with her, but Satoko wasn't sure if she fully believed her.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" asked Rika as she leaves against the wall just a few meters away form the employee only area of the mall they liked to go to.
Satoko gathered all her courage to finally say this, "R-rika...I-i am in—"
Before she could finish her confession there was loud rustling and crashing of steel chains in the employee only part of the mall.
Satoko peered in, but was unable to see anything. "Rika, would you like to check that out?"
She was just wasting time. She already resolved herself to ask Rika out today, but the further she pushed it back the better it felt.
Rika looked to considering it before she said, "Nipah! Let's."
And so they did, the further they ventured I the darker it got. They then heard feet's running towards their direction, just as Satoko was about to call out, she collided with a person running.
They both fell to the ground. "Sayaka-chan!" cried out the friend of the girl Satoko ran into.
Rika quickly helped her get onto her feet. Meanwhile, the girl, Sayaka, glared at them. "Who are you two, are you with the transfer student?"
Rika replied before Satoko could even process what the girl said, "Mii. Transfer student? We were just nearby and heard something like chains falling to the ground, so we decided to investigate."
During Rika's reply Satoko tried to make out how the two girls looked in the dark. Both appeared to have short hair, one was light blue or cyan colored and the other was pink. But beyond that she couldn't make much out.
The blue haired girl—not Rika—Sayaka glared at the two of them with suspicion. Buy then she seemed to realize something as she grabbed the pink haired girl's hand. "C'mon Madoka, we should leave,"—then her gaze turned to them—"you two should also hurry out if you're no affiliated with transfer student."
Satoko at that point decided to listen to them, so she grabbed Rika's hand—and that action alone caused several butterflies to appear in her stomach—and rushed along with her to the exit, closely following behind Sayaka and her friend, Madoka.
"By the way, what's exactly going on with this transfer student?" Satoko asked as they neared the exist.
"I don't know! She for some reason decided to attack that weird creature in Madoka's arm, while cosplaying!" shouted out Sayaka.
Satoko did a double take at that. She saw no creature in the pink haired girl's arm before, but then she looked and sure enough there was a bundle of white fur there.
I must have missed it in the rush and due to the dark.
It kind of looked like a cat. However, Satoko didn't have enough time to dwell on it as she saw the exit and she speed up.
But before they could reach it the world around them shifted.
"What?" muttered Satoko as the exit disappeared.
The two girls, Sayaka and Madoka hugged each other as they were starting to get surrounded by cotton balls? with mustaches? and chains around them?
They started to advance towards them, and their faces turned more and more sinister as they came closer and closer.
Then one impaled the short blue haired girl's leg with it chains.
"Sayaka-chan!" shouted her friend as the girl dropped to ground and screamed from pain.
Satoko didn't have enough time to process anything as soon she also felt the pain in her shoulder.
She fell to the ground trying to hold back the scream that threatened to come out.
Soon a body hit the ground; it was the body of the pink haired girl, a chain had impaled her brain.
"Madoka!" screamed a new voice.
Satoko barely had enough time to turn to see a a long black haired girl as the chains impaled in the head her as well.
Satoko gasped as everything around her settled down. She was...she was back in the train station in Okinomiya.
What is going on?
"Rika!" called out Hanyu.
Satoko slowly turned her head to Hanyu with wide eyes.
Hanyu noticed this and was obviously concerned. "Satoko, is something wrong?"
Before she could even say anything, Rika rushed through the door.
She looked...panicked.
"Hanyu! What's the date? What's happening currently?!"
"Auau. Rika why do you ask that?" the horned girl asked.
Rika gritted her teeth while she walked up to Hanyu and gripped her shoulder. "Hanyu! I am in a different Fragment, I don't understand how I got here, but I am in a different one, so tell me what happened thus far!"
"I-I don't..." Hanyu cried out.
"Just what is going on?" she suddenly cried out.
They both stopped and looked at her.
"One moment me and Rika were in that weird space, and then...and then Rika was...was...dead!"
Rika stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes wide filled confusion, worry, and even compassion?
"Satoko," she called out in a calm voice—a disturbingly calm voice, "you remember?"
"I...yes?" said Satoko with a hesitant voice.
Rika went to ask another question; however, at that point the station announcement rang out saying that their train was going to leave.
Hanyu quickly grabbed both of their hands. "We should talk about on the way back to Mitakihara."
Neither of them objected and they sat down on the same spot they did earlier? before?
In any case, Satoko didn't understand what was going, or what happened with those weird cotton balls things with the chains.
"So," Rika began with a cold calm tone, "Satoko you seem to remember everything, even my death, can you explain what happened?"
And so, Satoko explained everything that happened, including the weird shifting terrain, the two girls, the weird cotton balls with mustaches and chains and how Rika died.
During the explanation Rika and Hanyu shared a deep look. "Drugs?" asked Hanyu.
"Most likely," replied Rika.
Satoko faltered as she felt some tears gather in her eyes. "No! I really experienced it!"
Even they don't believe me...
Rika laid her hand on her shoulder. "We believe that you experienced something like that, but we believe that it was due to drugs."
"Oh..." murmured Satoko.
Yeah, that definitely makes more sense than weird cotton balls with chains coming to life...
"Anyway, that didn't really help us clear things up," muttered Rika. "By the way, you said that before that all happened you wanted to tell me something important, what was that thing?"
Satoko blushed and she stuttered out. "I-it's...not im-important!"
Rika shot a curious look at her, but didn't comment.
Hanyu, in contrast, had both a knowning and a dissapointed look on her face.
Rika sighed aloud. "In any event, Hanyu should come with us of we decide to investigate the area again. You said something about two girls being there along with a third girl who appeared after the pink haired girl died?"
"Eh...yes, I think she was the transfer student the short blue haired girl was talking about...but, Rika, there's still a lot of things I don't understand, what happened to us, why are we back here?"
Rika hummed as she shared a look with Hanyu. "I suppose the easiest explanation would be that we have traveled to a different timeline or Fragment as I call them."
Satoko's eyes widened. "Time travel?" then the cogs in her brain began to twist. "Wait is that why we were able to defeat Takano, is that why you knew so much about that plot against your life?"
There was a depe silence, which was only being filled by the sound of the train, and then Rika replied, "Yes, however, unlike you I don't remember the things that lead up to my death. That being usually 1–2 hours."
Satoko stared at her for a minute straight, not being sure what to say to that. That was till Hanyu interrupted, "Auau, Satoko being able to remember leaves me somewhat uneasy. Who could have given Satoko this power, and why?"
There was a prolonged silence after she asked that question which followed until they arrived in Mitakihara.
"Rika, can I talk to you?" asked Satoko from the other side of the door leading to Rika's room.
Their apartment used to belong to one of Mion's uncles, and so it was quite large, easily able to house the three of them. The uncle was planning to move out, and Mion managed to get them this apartment when she heard that they wanted to go to High School in Mitakihara.
They didn't even need to pay rent, something which Satoko was grateful for when they were looking to move out for High School.
"Yes," came the reply from the room.
The door soon opened and Satoko stepped inside.
The room was fairly minimalist, save for a few things given to Rika by the others in the club.
Rika was sitting on her bed drinking some dark purple tinged liquid from a glass while she stared out the window.
"What are you drinking?" she asked.
The blue haired girl looked down on her drink before she looked at her. "Wine heavily diluted with water. Want some?"
It took a bit for her brain to catch just what Rika said, but when it did, she let out indignant shout, "Rika! We're both underage, we shouldn't drink alcohol!"
Rika only chuckled a bit in response. "It's an old habit of mine...though you're right, I should try to break it. I thought I did it around 2 years ago, but I guess this recent incident caused me to fall back."
There was a prolonged silence after that, and during that time Satoko sat down next to Rika.
It felt nice to sit next to her at home. The problem with this apartment was that at some times Satoko felt it was too large. Back in Hinamizawa they, most of the time, had to share almost everything due to how small their house was, they can had to be in each other's presence all the time.
But here they can retreat into their room, and while sometimes Satoko liked that feeling it was also distancing them at other times.
"Rika, just how many times did you loop?" she asked breaking the silence which enveloped them.
Rika glanced at her, but didn't say anything.
"I mean...it's okay if you don't—"
"For 100 years," Rika said cutting her off.
Satoko stared at her blue haired friend with wide eyes, not quite sure how she should handle, or even react to that information.
"Rika..." she muttered after a some time, "are you...alright?"
"Mii. Of course I am, Satoko," she said with the childish voice that Satoko was used to.
"Rika, how could...how could you endure that?"
Rika was far stronger than she ever could be, just one death was enough to cause Satoko distress, yet Rika went through hundreds of them.
"I could...because I had a future I wanted to achieve," Rika replied as she gazed out through the window.
They stayed like that for a couple minutes, during which time Rika sipped some of her drink much to Satoko's displeasure.
And it seemed someone else was concerned as Satoko soon heard someone running to their room.
Satoko got tense as the door opened, but she soon relaxed when she realized that it was Hanyu.
"Rika!" she yelled at the girl with a fierce glare. "I thought you said that you would stop drinking that! And you're with Satoko-chan, don't tell me you're trying to get her to drink it as well?!"
Rika laughed a little as Hanyu continued to lecture her. Soon, it was time for them to go to sleep, they still needed to see what could have happened in that mall tomorrow.
They were back in the mall, this time though, Hanyu was with them.
Satoko lead them to the where it all started for her.
"Right, it's in the employee only area..." she muttered.
Rika and Hanyu both nodded and headed into it.
"Nothing's here..." muttered Rika as she looked around as they ventured further and further in.
Hanyu sighed. "Looks like whatever happened here in the previous Fragment is not going to happen in this one."
"Is that...normal?" asked Satoko.
Rika nodded. "It's pretty normal. Some Fragments are different than other are. However, if you traveled through enough of them then you will discover that they are only a few ways that the events could happen."
Satoko raised her eyebrows, not fully understanding what Rika was trying to say.
"Ah," muttered Rika as she saw Satoko's confused face, "what I was trying to say is that there certain trends in Fragments as a whole, these trends can sometimes overlap as well.
"In any case, at the moment we have no data other than the Fragment you remember, so we can't draw much from this all."
However, just as they were about to exist the area, it began to change again, just like how it changed the previous time.
The exit disappeared and they were now in the same world.
Hanyu frowned as she looked around. Something about that look in her eyes unnerved Satoko.
"This world...it's..." muttered Hanyu, "this is horrible!"
Then they started to get surrounded by the same cotton balls as well.
Hanyu motioned for them to go behind her, but before they could even take a step towards her, loud shots rang out.
Satoko turned around to see a fellow blonde haired girl wearing a Magical Girl costume.
"Now, I jus need to find the Witch. You three should stay with me," said the blonde haired girl.
"What exactly is going on?" shouted Satoko as she looked around the decimated area.
"My name is Tomoe Mami, and I am a Magical Girl," answered the fellow blonde haired girl Satoko's question.
After her introduction, the girl, Mami dealt with the weird flowers thing in the center of it, and then the weird area disappeared.
They then, made their way to Mami's apartment where she served them some delicious cake. She was being really friendly towards them for some reason.
"Mii, and how does this whole 'Magical Girl' thing work, if you don't mind me asking?" Rika asked, breaking the ice.
She had the fake cheerful tone, but Satoko could tell that she was wary of their rescuer.
The blonde haired girl smiled in response, seeming to not mind the suspicion directed towards her.
"I suppose I should start with what you encountered in that labyrinth, that was a Witch, the being that us, Magical Girls, hunt, we use this." She motioned down to he ring and said, "This is our Soul Gem, the materialization of our wish, with it we can fight Witches."
Rika frowned and Hanyu's eyes turned serious when she saw the Soul Gem. Satoko wasn't sure what got her so serious about, but it didn't look good for these Magical Girls considering how rarely Hanyu has shown that emotion.
"Wish?" Satoko asked after she was done with the cake slice.
Mami blinked up at her and flushed. "Ah, I forgot to explain, to become a Magical Girl you must make a Wish with Kyubey, he's the person who turns you into a Magical Girl, and he'll grant your wish."
"And what do you get out of this?" Hanyu asked. "What exactly do you achieve from fighting these 'Witches'?" she quickly clarified.
She quickly pulled something out from her pocket. "These," she allowed them to see some sort of black jewelry. "They are called Grief Seeds, and with them you can replenish the magic you lost in a fight."
Hanyu looked at both the Soul Gem and the Grief Seed with clenched hands, her expression was even more serious than before.
"Oh?" Rika sounded it out. "And how do these 'Witches' come to be?"
Mami tilted her head to look at her. "They come from the malevolent feelings of humans."
Rika looked less than pleased with that answer. Hanyu, too, didn't seem to like it.
"I think Rika was more asking how Witches come to be," said Hanyu, Satoko winced, Hanyu's tone was far blunter than Satoko ever heard before.
Mami looked a bit embarrassed at the misunderstanding. "In that case, they are born from Familiars that separate from Witches."
That doesn't explain where they originally came from though... thought Satoko to herself.
It seemed like Rika and Hanyu were thinking the same thing. Rika then shared a look with her in the eyes.
"Nipah! I think that it is time for us to leave, right, Hanyu, Satoko?" asked Rika as she inched towards the door, she seemed like she wanted to talk with them without Mami.
The blonde haired girl opposite of them looked a bit pained at that statement, so Hanyu quickly added, "Don't take it the wrong way, Mami-san, we are just tired from this whole ordeal and we would like to go home. Could we perchance come back here tomorrow?"
Mami smiled back at Hanyu. "Of course you can, Furude-san, I can also accompany you home if you want me to."
Hanyu shook her head. "That will not be necessary."
They then said their goodbyes to Mami and left the apartment.
"Hanyu, what did you learn?" asked Rika after they were far away from the apartment building.
The girl in question shook her head. "I'll explain once we get home, but for now, I want neither of you to agree to a contract with this Kyubey. Furthermore, I don't want you to interact with that thing ever."
Isn't that a bit of an overkill, I understand that it most likely benefits in someway from it, but you get your wish, no matter how big it is, according to Mami, and—
"I agree," said a voice behind them.
Satoko swiftly turned around to see the black haired girl from before she died. "You're..." she trailed off, not being sure if she should finish that sentence.
The girl looked at her for a second. "That's right, I am a Magical Girl, and I would advise you to take your friend's words on this to heart. If you don't, then you will not have a future."
Rika stared curiously at her, and then put on very un-Rika like smirk on her face. "Why should we? We get a miracle from it, those things don't come cheap."
The black haired Magical Girl glared at her. And honestly, Satoko wasn't sure why Rik was saying things like that, she was sure that she agreed with Hanyu.
"If you are satisfied with throwing everything you hold dear and your future, then go ahead."
"Magical Girl, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard the tragedy of the great witch Frederica Bernkastel?" Rika asked, totally ignoring what the other girl said.
Who?
It seemed like the black haired girl also didn't know what Rika was talking as she raised her eyebrows. "I can't seem to recall a Witch with that name."
The same smug smirk appeared on Rika's face again. "I thought not, it's an old legend. Frederica Bernkastel was once just an innocent young girl, but then Fate transpired against her. She was trapped in a well from which she couldn't escape, she kept repeating everything over and over again, trying to find a future for herself and her friends, this went on for over a hundred years until she achieved a Miracle against Fate."
Before Satoko could even blink the Magical Girl shoved Rika against a wall. "Who do you're talking about?!"
"Rika!" shouted Satoko as she went to intervene, but Hanyu held her back.
Rika grunted from the pain, but she kept talking, "I am referring to myself. I was the frog in the well, who couldn't climb out until a miracle happened."
The Magical Girls eyes widened, then she let go of Rika who fell to the ground with a grunt.
She picked herself up and dusted off the dirt that was on her clothes. "We'll talk later, I have things to do, here's where I live." She handed them her a paper with her adress written on it. "Come to there tomorrow."
Rika smirked at her. "Of course, we will."