Chapter Text
"Alright, why am I here exactly?" I asked the two girls in Madoka's room. We just returned home, and I kind of wanted to rest, we were just one day away from Walpurgisnacht after all.
The weather stations have started reporting violent storms approaching Mitakihara, no doubt something that was caused by Walpurgisnacht, so tomorrow people will be forced to move to evacuation centers, something I, in particular, was grateful for, because it meant that we wouldn't have to worry about civilians unless Walpurgisnacht is close to the center.
"I...I wanted to talk to Madoka about my Shadow..." muttered Homura, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I nodded. "Of course, still I am sure that I am not needed for that. Yet if you want me to remain, then I will do that."
Homura nodded in return. "Thank you."
Madoka meanwhile, looked between us with a curious look at us.
Homura then took a deep breath and started to explain what happened with her Shadow. While she was doing that I looked at Madoka's reaction.
There was not a lot of that there, surprisingly. But she got really concerned once Homura started to cry a bit as she explained what her Shadow said about Madoka.
"I...understand that if you don't want to talk to me again...after what I was thinking about you, you can tell me to leave, and I'll..."
Madoka wrapped her arms around Homura, cutting her off and pulling her into a tight hug. "Shh...it's okay Homura-chan. You're in the right, in fact, I hate the me that made you make that promise."
"Madoka—"
"First, she made you make that promise to go back to make a happy end, and then she made you destroy her Soul Gem, she was a really selfish girl who didn't think about what she made you promise and do at all."
"Madoka! I will not allow you to talk about yourself that—"
"I saw the memories of that me. I understood why she did what she did, but I am surry Homura-chan, I still can't forgive her for what she made you go through for that promise."
"I did...I made that promise because I cared about you Madoka, and—"
"You're completely justified in your views of me, Homura-chan, all I can hope for is that you forgive me—"
"I don't want to hate you!" Homura shouted cutting Madoka off. My cousin looked taken a bit at Homura shouting, so taken aback that she turned silent and allowed Homura to talk.
"I...just, I just wanted to keep you safe because you were my best friend. I don't want you to hate yourself for my sake. Everything I did was by my own account, it wasn't because of you that I choose to loop, I decided that I wanted to keep you safe, you didn't force my hand in any way, so don't hate yourself because of me!"
Madoka stood there in silence for a couple of seconds as she stared at Homura, then she gathered her breath to respond, but before she could say anything Homura kissed in the lips.
Her eyes widened as she relaxed for a second Madoka then separated from Homura much to the girl's dissapontment.
Madoka quickly noticed the look in Homura's eyes and said, "I am not mad Homura-chan, you are right, I was too harsh on myself. I just want to say something to you as well."
Homura's eyes lit up, and she nodded.
"Homura-chan, all I ask of you is to not hate yourself that way then as well. I know how you view yourself, and I don't want you to hate yourself because of my actions then. How about this: we forgive each other for the other's mistakes, would that be fine with you Homura-chan?"
Homura nodded with tears in her eyes, she then rejoined Madoka in the hug.
They then started to make out, at which point I promptly left the room, and closed the door behind them.
I really didn't need to be there at all...still I am glad that it all worked out. Today is our last day before Walpurgisnacht arrives, so it's a good that they have this behind them.
The next day arrived quickly, Uncle Tomohisa had managed to get the Shadow Operatives to take Tatsuya out of town, so we wouldn't have to worry about him either, thankfully.
We then sneaked out from the Shelter, which was quite easy. It's almost like people don't expect others to walk out of a shelter during an emergency, I thought sarcastically.
And I soon started to sense Walpurgisnacht, it was far more powerful than all other Witches I have sensed prior.
There in the sky, it was, flying upside-down. With some sort of clock on its back. The familiars started to surround us.
They looked they were from some sort of weird circus.
"It's currently weak to electric," I reported to the others.
It was certainly far larger than any other Witch which we had faced before, but thankfully it didn't appear to be larger than Yaldabaoth or Izanami.
"Alright everyone! Get ready!" ordered Ken as he pulled out his evoker. "Kala-Nemi!"
He blasted the familiars around us with Light magic casting most of them to die.
The Witch in the sky merely laughed as it descended towards us. Madoka, Homura and Alice stepped up, summoned Personas with Lightning skills.
And we started to engage with battle with its familiars. The battle didn’t exactly pan out as we anticipated as the Witch appeared to have a few tricks up its sleeve...
"What the...?" I muttered as I gazed at it, "Everyone, it can change its affinities, currently it's weak to Nuclear."
So, Alice went on the offensive by summoning a Persona with nuclear skills.
However, before Alice could even get an attack in, Walpurgisnacht cast some sort of timed spell around itself.
I immediately scanned what it cast, and yelled at the others, "Everyone, take a step back and be on defense! This spell is dangerous!"
They all did as I was told, and soon enough there was an explosion around the area she was in.
I flew backwards from the explosion, right into where a bunch of familiars were. Thankfully, I wasn't that injured by the explosion, and also no one else was injured by it.
"Mami, it's currently weak to Gun!" I yelled as I summoned my Persona to destroy the familiars that were around me.
"Oktavia!" shouted Sayaka as she summoned her Persona to heal the others and to buff them. Kyosuke followed suit along with her.
Once I dealt with the familiars I quickly joined at their side. As I started to scan it again. "It's currently weak to Ice."
Homura nodded. "King Frost!" she said while summoned that Persona. "Bufudyne."
Madoka summoned the same Persona and the started to fire Ice spells at it constantly. This seemed to annoy the Witch, it then flew away evading some of the attacks, but continued to laugh the whole time.
"Kyoko, you're up," I told the girl who was taking a bit of break to get back some energy. "Switch with Homura."
The girl nodded and soon Homura walked up to me with a frown. "Walpurgisnacht...is stronger than before..."
"What do you mean that it's stronger?!" I shouted at Homura.
Homura stared me in the eyes. "Precisely what I said, for some reason it is stronger than all previous timelines."
"Oh, great." I murmured sarcastically.
I turned to scan it again. "It's weak to nuclear again!"
Alice and Madoka swiftly switched to Personas with nuclear skills and Homura, who stepped back up, also did that.
Just how tanky is it? I glanced at Ken who was also frowning. This situation is pretty dire. Emergency plan time...
"Homura, Madoka summon a Pryo Jack and a Jack Frost!"
Yeah, my emergency plan was the Jack Bro comedy special. Though I feel like there was another emergency plan I forgot about...eh if I forgot about it probably wasn't important.
The two girls stared at me with puzzled, but they did as I asked of them.
And soon the comedy special happened leaving Walpurgisnacht incapacitated for a bit.
"That worked?" asked Alice loudly with a confused expression on her face.
I nodded. "It only works for a bit, so everyone go on an all out attack."
They all did, but just 40 seconds later it got back up.
"Can nothing stick?" whined Alice as she blew away a few more familiars.
"Quite a powerful Demon you have got there." remarked a cold voice behind us, a familiar that I recognized having previously met the man whom the voice belonged to.
My eyes widened along with Takashi's and Alice's, most likely for different reasons. Well I guess I don't need to activate that plan now...
"Dad!", Uncle Reiji!" shouted Takashi and Alice with wide eyes.
"Dad, it's not safe here!"
"I would be a pretty shirty father, if I abandoned you to fight that Demon, all by yourselves. Come Persona!"
Takashi and Alice stared with slack jaws at Reiji as he summoned a Persona.
The Persona quickly blasted away Walpurgisnacht who was still laughing maniacally.
"You!" he pointed at Ken. "Are you the leader of this group? You have by far the strongest Persona of everyone here, well you and that dog..."
Ken frowned at that question. "I suppose I am the field leader of them."
"Well then you get to leading!"
"It's currently weak to fire! Kyoko, Koro-chan!" I shouted at them.
The dog barked and the redhead grinned as they summoned their Personas. Reiji looked serious as he summoned a different Persona, and started to blast Walpurgisnacht with fire spells as well.
We continued to do this song and dance with Walpurgisnacht constantly changing its weaknesses and affinities, and it started to wear us down.
The only ones who were faring better were Ken, Koromaru and Reiji, even Homura and Madoka started to get exhausted from this.
I soon stepped in and let Takashi do the navigation, however, even with all of us working so that the exhausted can take a break, this Witch was starting to wear down on us.
Just what is it made out of? Pure defense?
I gasped for breath as I blasted another familiar. I was too exhausted to even notice that a familiar snuck behind me and struck me through the shoulder with a sharp metal object.
I gritt my teeth as I held back a scream, and eliminated the Familiar with a Megido—which was an overreaction on my part, not invalid one, but it was still an overreaction on my part from the pain.
Kyosuke quickly rushed up to me and removed the object and healed me, but at that point I also didn't have energy to do anything against Walpurgisnacht.
Now, only Ken, Mami, Madoka, Kyoko, and Reiji were still fighting against it. And even they were getting pretty exhausted.
I glanced behind me to see how the others were doing, and my eye widened when I saw a familiar black butterfly fly by Sayaka.
The blue haired girl clenched her fists as she summoned her Persona
"Everything for everything!" she shouted as she and her Persona started to glow.
What the fuck attack is that!?
Tears appeared in her eyes as she looked at us. "...I am...sorry for being such a...useless...person...I hope...this makes up for it..."
I could feel her life force draining from preparing the attack, and I shouted, "Sayaka, don't!"
But it was too late for me to intervene. The spell had fully charged by the time I shouted at her, and it hit Walpurgisnacht, which fell down to the ground.
Sayaka soon followed it with a thud.
"Sayaka-chan!" shouted Madoka as she broke up from the formation to run where the girl had fallen down.
I tried to scan to see if Sayaka was still alive, but I couldn't get a definite read due to being distracted by Walpurgisnacht.
Speaking of the witch, it was still on the ground after Sayaka's spell landed and it began to glow, and hundreds of angry looking familiars popped out soon after.
Oh great! Just what we needed!
I rushed over to where Madoka held Sayaka's body. "Madoka, help the others!" I shouted at my cousin.
Her eyes were puffy and red with tears. "But, Sayaka-chan—"
"If she is dead, then we shouldn't let her sacrifice be in vain, and if she isn't, then it's all the more important that you make sure that Walpurgisnacht and its familiars aren't able to harm her. Kyosuke, Takashi, and I will defend her.
Madoka looked uncertain, stealing worries glances down at Sayaka before she acquiesced and went to help the other against the downed Walpurgisnacht.
The aggressive Familiars started to surround us. Kyosuke destroy some of them with an electric attack. While I used ice spells most of them. Takashi eliminated the remaining ones with a nuclear spell.
I was gasping for breathe as more and more familiars surrounded us. It even looked like Homura was starting to run out of ammo.
Then, a shower of bullets rained down on the familiars killing all of them near us.
"Targets eliminated," came a familiar voice from behind us. I was quite excited to see Aigis there.
Alright this noticeably increased our chances. Wait, if she's here then the barrier isn't functioning anymore, so...
And then. "Messiah!" came a voice from behind us followed by the sound of glass breaking; Ken immediately perked up as he saw a familiar person, to him, behind us, "Morning Star!"
The almighty spell struck Walpurgisnacht head on, and all her minions died in an instant. With the Witch taking heavy damages.
Walpurgisnacht looked it was regretting all of her? their? its? (Yeah I'll go with it) life choices that led up to this point.
"Amon-Ra." "Michael." yelled two other voices also from behind us, and Alice whirled around to see her parents.
I was able to fully withdraw from the fight as Minako, Aigis and Naoya and Elly stepped up and started to utterly decimate Walpurgisnacht.
It let out one final maniacal laugh as Minako struck it down with a Megidolaon from Messiah.
I took a deep breath once I was sure that Walpurgisnacht was dealt with, and then I rushed to Sayaka's side.
"Naoki! Is she...is she fine?" Maodka asked as she cried over the body of her best friend.
I couldn't sense anything in her. I tried to scan even deeper, but there was nothing that I could sense. "I...can't feel anything..."
Madoka started to brawl and Homura went to comfort her.
Kyoko looked like was also on the verge of crying and Kyosuke looked he couldn't believe what was happening.
"Move aside," ordered Minako us as she looked at the girl in the ground. "Messiah! Recarm!"
Nothing seemed to have happened. Minako got noticeably agitated from that. "Samarecarm!"
Still nothing. "Recarmdra!"
This time she started to glow bright and the area around followed suit.
We waited patiently for the glow to die down, and when it did, there was a loud gasp from Sayaka.
"Sayaka-chan!", "Sayaka!" "Blueberry!" shouted Madoka, Kyosuke, and Kyoko as they embraced the girl on the ground in a hug.
"Sayaka-chan, don't ever do that again!" shouted Madoka with tears as she hugged the blue haired girl.
The girl in question, nodded with a dazed look as she looked around herself. "I...I am sorry for making you guys worry..."
"You better be!" said Kyosuke with a loud and firm tone. Then he kissed her, at first Sayaka was suprised by it, but it didn't take her long to return the kiss.
Kyoko let out a squeak at that as she looked between Sayaka and Kyosuke, and then she looked to the ground.
Then Sayaka stood up and walked over to Kyoko slowly and kissed her on the lips much to the red head's shock.
Meanwhile on the side, Kyosuke watched them...excitedly?
okay
"Heh, now that's dealt with. Ken-kun," Minako called out, she looked really disoriented as she made her way over to the my senpai, and possibly half-brother.
The boy in question stiffened as Minako hugged him tightly. I could've sworn that I heard something crack...
"Minako-san, if you don't mind me asking. Can you please us how you were able to overcome that barrier?" asked Ken while he tried to get out of the hug
There was a giggle from the side. "Oh...it wasn't Minako-san who destroyed the barrier but I. It was quite a powerful one mind you, but it couldn't stand up to 148 Megidolaon."
I recognize that voice... I thought with dread as I slowly turned to look at where the voice came from, and sure enough there stood a familiar attendant in all blue. Welp, hi Liz...
I wasn't the only only one who was suprised by Elizabeth as Naoya, Elly, and Reiji all looked at her with wide eyes once she said how many Megidolaons she cast.
Takashi was also openly gaffing at her. He had the most experience with Almighty skills in our group, so it must be quite something to hear Elizabeth casually just say that she cast over 100 Megidolaon.
We didn't have much time to stare at Elizabeth as we heard footsteps approach us.
I glanced to the direction where they came from and saw two adults run up to us.
Uncle Tomohisa and Aunt Junko rushed up to Madoka and I and embraced us in a tight hug. While Minako did the same with Ken and Takashi's dad and Alice's parents did the same with them.
"Alice! We were so worried about you, after we heard from Reiji about that massive demon he sensed, and that you were not at the shelter! We came here straightaway, but there was that barrier up. Next time you get involved in Persona business, you will tell us, young lady!" said an obviously worried Elly slipping into English as she embraced Alice in a hug.
I, then started to laugh a little at everything. We really did it! We beat Nyarlathotep! We beat Walpurgisnacht! We won!
Madoka pulled us into a group hug, which was a bit awkward due to how large are group was, and the fact that Sayaka could barely stand, and with some members (Kyoko) trying to get out, but we made it somehow work.
Homura started to cry into Madoka's shoulder, the girl smiled as she lent a shoulder to Homura.
Meanwhile on the side I saw that Uncle Tomohisa and Aunt Junko started to talk to Minako, Reiji, and to Naoya and Elly.
I then looked at where Elizabeth once stood, but she was long gone. I looked at Minako curiously who just shrugged as if to say 'What can you do?'
Minako then perked up. "Are we all finished here? I think we should have a little talk between the adults here."
I held up my hand. "There is still something more that we should do, I think it's time we had a talk with Igor."
Reiji looked at me with some confusion. "Why? Do you want to say goodbye to him?"
"Kinda, but also I want to talk to the real Philemon."
His confusion grew. "Real Philemon?"
I scratched my head. "Yeah, it turned out that Philemon we thought was real...was actually Nyarlathotep, and Nyarlathotep heavily implied that Philemon was actually pretending to be Igor."
Reiji was bit dumbfounded by that. Naoya and Elly also started to listen in and they were suprised by this too. Minako also looked taken aback by this.
So, we made our way to "Igor's" door to the "Velvet Room". And we entered.
Philemon was standing on a familiar platform to me, except everything was blue.
"What do you need, my guests?"
"Alright, drop the act Philemon, I don't know why you're trying to act like you're Igor, but it's really obvious that you are not him, what with the tower we are standing on, and there being no music." Reiji said with angry voice.
"Igor" let out a small humn as he started to transform into small golden butterflies; those butterflies soon merged together, and out stepped Philemon, now wearing his Persona 2 look.
"I suppose then, that you already know that the Crawling Chaos took my appearance in order to deceive them?" he questioned Reiji
"The kid here"—he motioned to me—"already told me that. He also explained quite a bit about this Magical Girl system.
"Now the question is..." Reiji trailed off, "Why did you drag my son and Alice into this whole thing?! I thought you promised that you wouldn't do things like this to us! Also, why did you not help them?!"
"The Magical Girl system needed to be wiped out, the Crawling Chaos, and I both agreed on that, we just had a different idea on how to accomplish this goal, as for helping them; I have done everything that I could to help them—"
I cut Philemon off, "You mean the fact that Nyarlathotep would've wanted to kill all of Humanity in order to wipe out the Magical Girl system.
"Not to mention that the only person you actually helped was Homura, while you let us be deceived by Nyarlathotep who YOU let take your appearance."
God...he's really irritating to listen to, even Nyarlathotep was not this irritating when he was pretending to be him. Tatsuya should have punched him MUCH harder.
Philemon continued as if he didn't hear me, "Before the events of Sumaru, we have erased the memories of the Magical Girls, Persona users and even some memories of the Incubators.
"However, after the events of Sumaru we decided to take on a less active role in the game. Therefore, we no longer managed this system, and the Magical Girls, Persona users, Shadows and even cognitive gods were able to meet.
"This caused quite a few problems for both of us, with the Magical Girls disrupting the Game, thus, we have decided the intervene, and only intervene in this case."
I stared at with cold eyes. "And why us specifically, is it because of Homura?"
"That girl was part of the equation, however, she was not the only part. The main reason why we decided on Mitakihara was because Walpurgisnacht was scheduled to make landfall hete, we thought that it would be fitting end to see whether Human potential was able to overcome it, if not then the entirety of Mitakihara would have been wiped out, but the Magical Girl system would have been destroyed as well. We agreed on that."
I gritted my teeth; Homura clenched her fists at that remark, and Minako was looking furious at Philemon.
Naoya seeing our reaction, decided to ask the next question, "Philemon, we understand your side—"
"We don't!" interrupted Reiji. Naoya shot him a look and continued on, "—but why did you only help Akemi-chan? And why did you let the Crawling Chaos manipulate the others?"
"It was part of the rules we agreed to."
"Philemon..."
I was taken aback a by as Elly spoke up in fake overly sweet voice.
"...did you just say that the entirety of Mitakihara would have been wiped out, including my daughter, Takashi-kun, and their friends?"
It took me a few seconds to understand that she was not speaking in Japanese but English. Nonetheless, even with my English being somewhat rusty, I could tell that she was was not happy.
He stared at her without saying anything. We stood there in silence for around a minute straight.
Finally, Elly started to shout up quite a lot of colorful insults, which I chosen to omit.
After a solid 2 minutes of shouting at him, Elly calmed down somewhat; Philemon acted like he hadn't heard anything and continued on where he left of on, "As I have explained previously—"
"That just it! You haven't explained anything to us!" shouted Reiji angrily intterupting him, "State why you allowed that thing to manipulate my son and his friends!"
"The Crawling Chaos and I, eventually, came to an agreement. If they could defeat him in his weak form and go on to defeat the Queen of Witches, than he'd work with me to remove the Incubator, and to restore all Magical Girls' souls to their bodies, as well as remove all their memories of being a Magical Girl, from the most of them.
"Nyarlathotep wanted very few experienced Persona users to help you in this quest, therefore, he made it so that the barrier around Mitakihara would not let any Persona users in, notably this didn't apply to leaving Mitakihara, thus, Personas users leaving and not being able to return to Mitakihara was one of the rules we agreed upon for this game."
After he finished speaking I noticed that Minako was gritting and clenching her fists, whilst she advanced towards him.
Aigis glanced at her with what I persumed to be nervousness, and she hesitated on what to do.
Minako with forced calm expression walked up to him and before he could even question anything threw a punch at him. Reiji looked like he wanted to join to beat the crap out of Philemon.
She instinctively took a step back as Philemon's mask fell to the ground and I saw my own face most people also took a step back, thus I presumed that everyone present saw their own face.
He knelt down to pick up his mask. "I am you and you are me."
Minako pulled herself together and looked she wanted to have another go at him, however, Aigis at point decided to intervene and hold her baback.
"Suou definitively didn't punch you hard enough, if you are still pulling things like this, Philemon." said an unfamiliar voice. I slowly turned around to see Kei Nanjo along with Mitsuru. "This whole situation could have been handled a many different ways, most of which would have been better."
Philemon barely even reacted to them, instead he turned towards me and said, "As I was saying, I had all the trust in you to defeat the Crawling Chaos and Walpurgisnacht."
"Your trust is great and all, but why didn't you intervene more, you pretty much had free reign to do with how much the Crawling Chaos was intervening. The only real intervention you did was lead Ken towards us, purged Homura's soul gem of the grief, and told us about the cave behind the shrine," I said. "And also, why did you agree with allowing Nyarlathotep to get Grief Seeds, thankfully, we didn't use his services, but that could have gone real horrible if we did use it!"
"All souls are born from him, and someday return into him, it wasn't my duty to try and stop him from taking what came from him in the first place, and, in any event, we agreed that the two of us each would take care of Grief Seeds. Now is there something you would wish to discuss?"
I huffed as I existed Philemon's tower, the others there talked some more about things which I barely paid any attention to.
"I take it that that meeting didn't go well?" asked Aunt Junko.
Reiji scowled. "Biggest understatement in history."
Nanjo observed us all with an indifferent look. "Now, that we all got all that out of our system, we should have a discussion around these events. Starting with the barrier and the person who dealt with."
Minako looked to her left. "I don't think Liz is coming here anytime soon, she only agreed after I bribed her with some of Minato's stuff."
He sighed as he glanced at Mitsuru. "We'll talk about the barrier later then. Now I want to talk about something more private; I think we all should talk about things at more comfortable space."
I wasn't sure how much Nanjo knew, or was involved with the Shadow Operatives, but he sure knew something, and Mitsuru knew something about him as well.
Ken glanced at Minako who nodded and stepped forward "I think we can discuss things at our apartment, right Mitsuru?"
The woman nodded, and with nobody objecting, we made our way there.
"Shinjiro is not at home, right?" asked Ken as Minako went to unlock the door
She froze. "No...but that reminds me that I failed to tell the others that the barrier is gone... haha...oops..."
"Don't worry, Minako, I have reported it to everyone else, along with telling them to keep out for the time being," stated Aigis from Minako's side.
"Thanks Aigis," she replied as we made our
Nanjo shared a look with Reiji. And then wasted no time to start talking to us, "To begin, all of you are in Middle Schpll, correct?"
We all nodded.
"And there are three in this group are orphans—"
"I am also one," I said cutting Nanjo off. Well as far as I knew, I was one...and I for certain don't consider Shido my dad, and also there's still no way to prove that Nyarlathotep was actually correct, so...
"Yes, yes," he said brushing us off, "the point I was getting at, was that I don't really want to have Middle School Persona users who don't have any guardian to look after them, let's just say I don't like the precedent."
He looked at Reiji who glared at him. Naoya also looked a bit annoyed at what Nanjo was saying, and Elly's smile started to strain.
"I am sure that you only mean the best by it, Kei, correct?" asked Elly.
"I do. Anyway, I would like to propose to Kirijo-san, that they be provided with a qualified guardian, in fact, I would be willing to fund their entire schooling and their university education, even if it's an elite university, along with funding the guardian directly for looking after them."
The adults in the room sat down and shared a look of suprise, though the suprise was far less prominent with Mitsuru.
"Do we have to tell our parents?" asked Sayaka with a frown, " 'Cause I don't really want to do that."
Kyosuke, frowned, too. "Yeah, I don't really want to disclose this all to my parents."
Nanjo frowned before he glanced at Mitsuru. "While I am in favor of the idea of telling their parents, I would not be opposed if you set up some sort of system which makes sure they don't missuse their Personas, after all you're the leader of the Shadow Operatives here, Kirijo-san."
Wait a second, I just thought of something. How does he know that we they orphans?
Mitsuru frowned, oblivious of my internal thoughts. "I could make sure that an agent of mine keeps track of their Persona usage..."
Minako started jumping up and down. "Oh, oh, I could do that."
Mitsuru glance at her before before she nodded. "Very well, then Ari—Minako, I mean, here will make sure you don't abuse your Personas."
Nanjo had a more critical look at Minako, but didn't say anything.
Mitsuru then cleared her thoat.
"First, Sakura-san, your situation is far more...dire and concerning than others', with you being homeless. I could make sure that an agent lf our becomes your guardian, but for that you would have to leave Mitakihara, and I am not sure you would want that," stated Misturu as she looked at Kyoko.
"Yeah, I kinda don't wanna leave..." replied Kyoko.
Mitsuru frowned. "In that case, I will look into who would be willing to be stationed here for the duration of your schooling..." she trailed off while looked down on her tablet.
Ken threw a look at Minako. "Minako, why don't you and Shinjiro take guardianship of Sakura-san? That way no other agent would need to be reasigned here."
Minako froze, and Mitsuru also looked up at that. Finally, after a few seconds Minako responded, "I...am not opposed, and I doubt Shinji would be that either, butt..."
Mitsuru turned to look Minako. "Minako, I would be more than willing help you with this if you have any issues."
"Yeah, nah, Shinji would not like that. I'll talk with him about this tomorrow, in the meantime I would like to talk to Kyoko-chan."
The girl in question straightened up. "Yeah, okay. So, I'll be staying with you and pretty boy?"
"Plus my husband. Depending on of course if he agrees, but I doubt he will not," said Minako.
"Mama, can Homura stay with us?" asked Madoka innocently.
Aunt Junko shared a look with Uncle Tomohisa. She had an uncertain look in her eyes while my uncle looked more agreeable.
Madoka threw a puppy dog look at her mom, who instantly folded. "Fine, Homura-chan can stay with us, but she'll no longer be sleeping in your room, we do have a spare bedroom after all. Also, since you will be staying with us, Homura-chan, you will also be grounded."
Homura looked uncertainly between Madoka and Aunt Junk before she nodded. "I understand, thank you for allowing me to stay."
Madoka threw her fists up with small gleeful squeak while Sayak chuckled. "Wow, Madoka, when did you become so manipulative? Where did the innocent little girl go?"
"She went away as soon as she laid eyes on Homura-chan!" stated Madoka with a sly smirk.
Homura face looked like it was on fire as Madoka hugged her. "Ma—Ma—Madoka!"
"What's wrong, Homura-chan, do you not want this?" asked Madoka as she hugged her tighter to herself.
Homura started to stammer out some things, which nobody was able to understand, as her face got even redder.
I chuckled at that and nudged her. "Alright, Madoka, can you please cut it a bit with the flirting."
She pouted in response, but did as I asked.
The only one left was Mami who looked a bit hurt. Alice noticed this and sent her Father puppy dog eyes.
Naoya shared a look with Elly before he sighed aloud, then he looked at Mami. "Tomoe-chan, I know that we don't really know each other, but Alice told us quite a bit about you."
"All good things, I hope," she joked. And he chuckled a bit at that.
"Yes, anyway, I am not sure how you feel about all this, but Eriko and I are willing to become your guardian."
Alice let out as suprised squeak.
Naoya turned to look at her. "You wouldn't be opposed to it, Alice?"
"No. No. It was just surprising...Mami is a great friend, so I don't have a problem with it."
Naoya attention then turned back to the girl in question.
Mami frowned. "I wouldn't want to be a be a burden..."
"Of course, you wouldn't be, Kei said that he'd compensate us for looking after you, so you shouldn't feel like one," replied Elly as she looked at Nanjo. "Isn't that right, Kei?"
The man looked at her in the eyes. "Yes, as long you are the guardian. I will also sweeten this deal a bit more," he then turned to the three girls. "When you are finished with your university education there will be a bank account with 5 Million Yen set up for you in trust to help you on your way to wherever you want to go."
Kyoko's eyes widened a bit. 5 Million Yen was not as much as it would have been in Dollars or Euros, but it was still quite a bit of money.
Mami, however, looked even more apprehensive before she let out a sigh. "Very well, then...I agree with this arrangement."
Alice's face lit up as she hugged the blonde girl, and she hugged Alice back. "This is great, we can do so many amazing things, how about we got tomorrow to—"
"I think you're forgetting something, Alice," said Elly, cutting her off, "you will be grounded for for as long as your friend is, that is only fair, wouldn't you say?"
Alice groaned at that in despair as she looked at her Father to intervene; however, Naoya shook his head at her.
I laughed a little at them and then I got a feeling that things were looking up for us.