Chapter Text
Madoka was getting used to weird dreams, first that weird dream with the long black haired girl and now this.
She was tied down on a table with red strings holding her down. She struggled against, but they didn't seem to budge.
"Hahah, useless!" rang out a voice.
Madoka could barely turn her head to look at who spoke, and when she managed to; she was shocked at what she saw.
The person that spoke looked exactly like her, except for the fact that she wore some sort of dark magical girl dress.
"W-who are you?" Madoka asked in a somewhat timid voice.
The doppelganger merely laughed at her. "Can't you see? I am you, the real you!"
Madoka looked confused, but then she remembered in what situation she is in, so she asked her lookalike, "I don't get this...can you free me?"
The doppelganger sneered at her. "Typical. You can't do anything by yourself, that's why you have to rely on Homura to save you!"
"I-I-I don't understand..." she trailed off.
"Kaname Madoka, you are a coward, who watches her friends die while doing nothing to help them, you are useless...less than useless! You are sick!
"Should you, yourself not change, everything will be lost, and you will further hurt poor Homura-chan. This is my warning to you!"
Madoka awoke from her sleep with a gasp; she continued to gasp for air till she calmed down.
"Madoka? Are you okay?" asked Naoki with worry.
Her eyes widened at the fact that Naoki was in her room, and she squeaked as she threw a plushy at him...which did nothing.
"W-why are you here?"
Naoki sighed as he anwsered her question with another question, "Madoka, have you seen what hour it is?"
Her eyes went to clock in her room, and they widened at seeing how late it was, she quickly scrambled out of the bed and Naoki left the room to let her dress quickly.
She went to the bathroom and cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair a bit; said good morning to her dad and quickly left the house with Naoki.
"Uhmm...did you help Tatsuya with waking up mom?"
"Minato and Tatsuya have already woken her up just as I woke."
Something about that didn't sound right; it's weird ever since Naoki moved everything around the felt weird, thought Madoka to herself as they quickly walked to school.
While walking there Madoka said to him, "Thank you for waking me up, Naoki."
"No problem, I kinda overslept as well." he muttered the last part in low voice mostly to himself.
Hitomi and Sayaka were not present at their usual meeting place before school, so they most likely were already in class.
She rushed towards her classroom and just barely made it in time when the lesson started.
"...I wonder why you were so late to school today, Madoka?" asked Sayaka with a sly grin as her and Hitomi sat down next on the rooftop, "I heard some rumors that you were accompanied by a boy."
Madoka's face twisted into that of a disgusted look. "No, well yes, I was accompanied by a boy, but that was Naoki."
She had told them about a week ago about Naoki moving in with her family.
"So widdle old Nao-chan will be staying with you from today, huh?" asked Sayaka after Madoka told her and Hitomi about
"Sayaka-chan, you shouldn't talk about him like that," Madoka chided her friend, "besides, do you want him to reveal all our embarrassing stories?"
Hitomi tilted her head. "What embarrassing stories would he have?"
Sayaka let out a small nervous laugh. "Nothing...not a thing..."
Hitomi had curious look on her face but didn't comment anything on that. "In any case, I will unfortunately not be able to meet him today; I have to do my Tea ceremony lesson today."
Madoka waved her goodbye as she and Sayaka waited for Naoki infront of school, where he soon joined with two other people.
Madoka asked Naoki if he already made some friends as stared at the brown haired girl and tall boy for a few.
Madoka and Sayaka then introduced themselves, and Naoki's friends did the same.
They then decided to show Naoki around town, with Sayaka chatting a bit with Naoki, and with Madoka talking with Alice and Takashi.
Alice kind of reminded Madoka of Sayaka, if Sayaka were more occult obsessed and not music obsessed.
While Takashi was a bit harder for Madoka to categorize, he appeared to be somewhat of a straight serious boy, with him being exacerbated by Alice most of the time they were talking.
And soon, they arrived at the mall, where Sayaka wanted to go buy something for Kyosuke.
Madoka frowned at that and turned towards Naoki, who just said that she can go with Sayaka if she wants to.
Madoka felt a bit relived hearing this, and after waving goodbye to him, Alice and Takashi. She joined Sayaka in search for a good song for Kyosuke.
While she was listening one of those songs in the store, a strange voice rang out, "Kaname Madoka, Kaname Madoka, I require your help!"
She put the headphone down and started to follow where the voice came from. "Hello...hello?"
She didn't even notice that she wandered into an abandoned part of the mall till she was in the middle of that part.
Nonetheless, she still followed the voice that continued to ring out. That was until she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Madoka's eyes widened as she finally realized where she was and stumbled back as she gazed at the person who grabbed her.
Who, it turned out, was Sayaka.
"Madoka, are you alright? You were just walking towards here like a zombie," murmured Sayaka.
"I-I am nor sure...I just felt like someone was calling out for me from here, but...now I am not hearing anything..." muttered Madoka weakly as she looked around.
Sayaka frowned. "Anyway, we should not be here...we should just walk away from here..."
As they went to do just that something started to happen. Weird black butterflies started to surround them.
Then everything around them started to change.
"What the...?" muttered Sayaka as weird black butterflies surrounded them and they found weird almost art like world.
Then suddenly the same voice that she from store rang out behind them, "Kaname Madoka."
Madoka and Sayaka turned around to see someone who looked exactly like Madoka. Expect she had yellow eyes.
It's...it's just like in that dream...
They both took a step back as the figure advanced towards them. "I see you have not heeded my advice, in any case, I am very lucky to have this opportunity provided to me by the Crawling Chaos.
"Kaname Madoka! This is the end for you, to the stupid useless girl who fails in everything."
Sayaka, while she was scared, couldn't just let insults like that against her friend slide, so she shouted at the yellow eyed Madoka, "Don't call her useless!"
The figure eyes turned to Sayaka's; it let out a loud laugh, and started started to advance towards Sayaka.
Sayaka tried to punch it, but it grabbed her wrist, and pinned her against the wall with one hand.
"Sayaka-chan, Sayaka-chan..." tsked the doppelganger, "weren't you ever taught that you should not hurt your friends?"
Sayaka struggled against her hold as fear spread on her face. In response, the doppelganger tightened her hold on her.
That was till a gunshot rang out. The yellow eyed Madoka turned to look at where the bullet hit her; her right leg, then she turned around to the person who fired at her, in doing so she dropped Sayaka to the ground who quickly scrambled away from her.
Sayaka ran to the real Madoka who also turned to where the gunshot came from.
It was a blonde haired girl, who looked a little bit older than her, with ringlets as a hairstyle, which somewhat baffled on how she'd be able to make that style work.
"Oh, if it isn't our favorite Veteran Magical Girl, Mami, would you like to be friends with me, Mami-senpai? After all you don't have any, nor will you have any in the future."
The girl, Mami, flinched back a bit before her expression darkened as she raised a musket at the doppelganger.
She soon fired a gun at it, and when the bullet hit its shoulder, Madoka started to cough up some blood.
The pink haired girl stared at the blood in her hands. Sayaka held her upright as she felt wobbly.
"I would advise against that, Mami, if you hurt it more, then Kaname Madoka will also suffer." said a low almost emotionless voice.
"Kyubey?" muttered the girl, Mami as she lowered the musket with wide eyes while she looked at the ground.
Madoka followed her gaze to the ground and saw some sort of weird cat/bunny like creature.
The doppelganger also followed the sound of the voice and she growled when she saw the creature.
"I would now advise you all to run from this Shadow," said the creature as it got closer to them, "Mami can distract it while you two escape."
The doppelganger growled before turning to look at Kyubey. "That won't be necessary. I can see that my objective cannot be met at the current time, so I'll leave for now. But," it shouted as it turned to stare at Madoka, "heed my warnings, should you continue like this there will not be a future for you, nor for your friends and family!"
It then vanished into yellow mist, however, the weird structure remained. Mami looked about herself with a frown at the unchanging world.
Then the girl turned towards. "The best for you two would be to accompany me, while I deal with this."
Sayaka was too exhausted to argue against their savior, so she followed along with Madoka leaning on her for support.
In the center of the weird world was some sort of monster which Mami quickly went to deal with, with her muskets.
Sayaka gasped as she sank to the ground, with the world changing back to normal, while she processed everything that happened. "That...what the hell...was...all...that?"
Mami frowned as she looked down on her small companion before she turned back towards them.
"We can explain this all to you, right Kyubey?"
"Correct."
The blonde haired girl then lead them to her apartment where they reluctantly followed her to.
On the way there, she introduced herself as Tomoe Mami, a Magical Girl.
"A Magical Girl?" muttered Sayaka as they made their way to her front door.
"Yes, a Magical Girl," replied Mami while she unlocked the door.
She then proceeded to lay down some slices of cake infront of them along with three cups of tea.
Madoka ate some of the cake and sipped some of the tea while Mami explained what Magical Girls were, what the fought (Witches), and how Kyubey could grant their wishes.
Sayaka, however, had another question. "In that case, what was that weird Madoka doppelganger? Was it also some sort of Witch?"
Mami frowned at that question. "I am afraid that I, personally, don't know what that thing was, but I an quite sure that it wasn't a Witch.
"Kyubey, do you know what that clone of Kaname-san was?"
Kyubey took a bite from a piece of cake that Sayaka was offering. "It was Kaname Madoka's Shadow."
"Shadow? Are they like Witches?"
"The Shadow represents the evil thoughts and malevolent feelings that exist within a person. In short it was all of Kaname Madoka's negative thoughts. Though, in most cases the Shadow is not able to act like a Witch as they dwell in another dimension which humans under normal circumstances cannot access, ans humans cannot be dragged in there. The fact that Shadow appeared in a labyrinth is concerning."
Madoka shifted uncomfortably when she heard that. Sayaka quickly noticed this and hugged her.
"Hey, I am sure that having those means nothing bad, right?" asked Sayaka as she hugged Madoka closer to herself.
Kyubey nooded to her question. "Having a Shadow is, indeed, normal."
"Kyubey, the Shadow only represent the evil side of a person no matter how small that side may be, correct?" asked Mami as she stared at Kyubey.
"That is it. Shadows are a part of every single person on earth, Kaname Madoka, is no exception. However, it's very unusual for a Shadow to have enough power to drag people into its world let alone appear in a labyrinth. If I were to make an educated prediction, it would be because how much potential she has."
Mami nooded along. "That seems to check out. I have never saw someone with more potential than you Kaname-san.
"Kyubey, is there anything that could be done to help Kaname-san?"
"Forging a contract with me significantly reduces the chance of a Shadow ever appearing. Alternatively, you can try to forge a contract with your Shadow."
"Why would anyone want to do that?" asked Sayaka in a disgusted voice.
"You underestimate Human's lust for power." said Kyubey forebodingly.
Sayaka stayed silent for around before she remembered something that the Shadow said. "Not sure if you know anything, but the Shadow Madoka mentioned something called the Crawling Chaos, do you know anything about it?"
Kyubey tilted his head. "I have heard about it before; this 'Crawling Chaos' is supposedly the originator of all Shadows, however, I have not been able to verify its existence, that being said, the fact that Kaname Madoka's Shadow referenced it is concerning."
Sayaka frowned at that response, but didn't say anything.
Mami, too, appeared to be concerned with this Crawling Chaos, however, she put on a brave in front of her juniors. "Well in that case we'll just have to deal with that as well should it prove to be real."
Kyubey stared at her silently before he turned his gaze towards Sayaka and Madoka.
"Now, do the two of you wish to be Magical Girls and fight against Witches and this 'Crawling Chaos', I'll grant whatever wish you might have."
Sayaka frowned at that wording. "Does that mean that the wish doesn't have to be about me?"
Madoka tilted her head to look at Sayaka. She must be worried about Kyosuke-kun, Madoka remembered that just last week when they went to visit him, he broke down crying about his chances of recovery decreasing.
"It doesn't have to be, however, I would advise against making the wish fully selfless, otherwise you may end up regretting your decision," answered Mami in Kyubey's stead with a serious tone
Sayaka looked to the ground with a defeated expression.
"Sayaka-chan, why don't you make your wish a bit more selfish then?" asked Madoka.
"Huh?"
Madoka leaned in and whispered into Sayaka's ears; Sayaka's eyes lit up at that and she grinned before she turned to Kyubey and announced.
"I wish to have the power to heal anything, no matter how small or large that thing may be."
Kyubey stared at her for a moment before he and Sayaka began to glow, and with his ears he reached out towards Sayaka.
The girl in question let out a scream and feel to the ground; Madoka swiftly rushed to her side as she looked at Mami with a panicked look.
The girl soothed her panic. "It's okay. This happens everytime Kyubey grants a wish, the pain quickly goes away."
"W-why is she in pain in the first place?" asked Madoka with a bit of a stammer.
Mami looked towards Kyubey who went to anwser her question, "It is a part of wish process, when I grant a wish, I take the girl's Karmic potential, and I use that to fulfill the wish. This is a bit painful—but it doesn't leave any permanent damages on the girl who makes the wish."
Sayaka soon, shakily, stood up with her Soul Gem in her hand and a proud look on her face.
They, then decided to go home, with Kyubey accompanying Madoka, and they promised to meet up with Mami tomorrow, so that she can show Sayaka how to be a Magical Girl.
"Madoka what's that thing?" asked Minato as soon as she arrived home.
Naoki stared at Kyubey. "Nice plushy, though, what sort of animal it supposed to be, I can't really tell. It looks like a bunny and cat fused into one, so I guess I could call it a bunnycat."
Madoka began to giggle a bit nervously as she rushed to explain, "Eh, it's...I actually don't know it myself...I just thought that it's cute..."
Minato went close to inspect it further. "Eh, I suppose it looks kinda cute, but something about it screams nefarious."
He smirked at Kyubey as his face got closer to him before pulling away.
Madoka shifted awkwardly. Originally I was going to ask Mama this, but I don't see a reason why I shouldn't ask them...
"Have the two of you ever thought about what you would do if you had a genie, who would grant any wish you'd like?"
Naoki tilted his head in confusion. "Not really, why?"
Similarly, Minato turned to look at her with a confused look. "Nope, that being said, if were to be approached by a genie, then I would turn it down."
"Huh? Why?" wondered Madoka.
"Because there is no such thing as a free lunch. This genie would want something from you, like your soul, so even if the genie were to grant the wish, it would come at a terrible price, and the wish might not even go the way you intended it to, like a monkey's paw."
Madoka let's out a nervous laugh. "A-and...what about you, Naoki, do...do you agree with that?"
Naoki shrugged at that. "Yeah, sure." And he went to play with Tatsuya.
Madoka, meanwhile, quickly went to her room, where Kyubey jumped onto the bed.
"Kyubey, I thought you said that most people would not be able to see you?"
He merely scratched the back of his head while he replied, "True. Normally only a select few people would be able to observe me; it looks like your brother and cousin belong to this small group."
"Does that mean that they would be able to make a contract with you, wait, can you even make contracts with boys?"
Kyubey tilted his head. "While I do not typically contract with boys, there are some exceptions. That being said, something about your brother's Karmic potential also seems to be weird."
"What's weird about it?"
"It's almost seems like something is hiding away his potential, I have never encountered anything like this before."
Madoka slowly nodded along, not really understanding what he was saying; she then went to her bed and sat down.
"Now Kaname Madoka, have you decided on your wish?"
"No, I have a few questions before I decide on a wish." she said nervously.
Kyubey silently gazed at her with his eyes not moving at all away from her and nodded.
"So, was what Minato saying true? Would you take something from us as a payment for the wish?"
Kyubey shook his head. "He is right is some way, but wrong in others. We don't take anything from you, all we ask of you is to fight Witches. We don't take your soul, it stays near you after we grant the wish, and we also don't do monkey's paws, my wishes are decided more by the thoughts and feelings of the person who made the wish, rather than the strict wording of what the person may have said."
She nooded slowly, and then went to sleep as today had really exhausted her.
She awoke with a gasp as she started to hear music and felt cold air hit her. However, instead of being in her bed she was tied up.
She was stuck in some sort of weird blue clock, with herself as the hand of the clock. She was tied down with red strings.
The music was quite calming, so she wasn't freaking out as much as she probably should be.
Then she heard deep laugh. "You are truly a prisoner of fate."
She looked down and at the base of the clock was a desk. It was some sort of weird long limbed man with pointy ears, bloodshot eyes, and a huge Pinocchio like nose.
He was sitting cross legged at a desk—and he also wore and expensive look suit, with white gloves on his hands.
Next to him stood two girl on either side of him. Both of them were dressed in blue warden outfits and they each wore an eyepatch.
"Trickster, welcome. My name is Igor. I am the master here, you should remember it well," the man said in a deep ominous voice.
She looked around frantically. "Where am I? Is this a...labyrinth?"
The man, Igor let out a small chuckle. "This place is my Velvet Room, it exits between dream and reality, mind and matter. It's a room that only those who are bound by a contract can enter."
"Do you lie a lot?" Madoka blurted out without even thinking about what saying. She quickly got mortified at what she said.
Igor stopped dead in his tracks—staring Madoka in the eyes.
She faltered as she tried speak, "I-I mean...you...have a large nose..."
One of the little girls got angry at her and shouted, "How dare you! Know your place!"
Igor stared at her for a couple of more seconds till he continued.
"Now, I have question for you; you are a slave, do you wish for freedom from your chains?" he asked as he extended his hand towards her.
Before she could even say anything a black butterfly flew by her head.
The man, in the chair stopped dead in his tracks; his eyes following the butterfly.
"Master?" asked the girl to his left; the one who didn't shout at her.
Suddenly the single black butterfly exploded into hundreds of thousands of them, which began to form into a person. The person formed by them, grabbed the weird man up by his neck and lifted him up.
The two girls jumped into action, however, they were easily blasted away by a blast of black butterflies.
The man in the air started to choke as the figure tightened its grip on his throat. Madoka cried out as black butterflies surrounded her and for a moment she felt nothing but fear, anger, hatred and then...
"Ugh...ugh!" she gasped labored breaths as she woke up.
She looked around her room noting that it was still dark outside.
"Is something wrong, Kaname Madoka?"
She then looked towards where the voice came from, and saw Kyubey at foot of her bed.
"It's...nothing. Just another weird dream..." muttered Madoka in a tired voice as she returned to sleep.