*Morning, Tuesday, 12th of April 2011; Abandoned Church; Mitakihara, Japan.*

For others, it would be like Kyouko just stepped into the world, but for Magical Girl herself, it was a rollercoaster of sensation she couldn’t even start to describe. There was a space behind the portal, a void, a veil, a world between worlds, where laws of reality no longer applied. She thought at first that Dragon betrayed her for refusing his offer, sending her to some horrible hellish prison - something even worse than his lair - but the portal did indeed work as advertised as she stood, in ruins of her father Church’s back at Mitakihara. He just forgot to mention that stepping through the portal is to have a split second look into the pure chaos in-between, something Kyouko didn’t want to gaze upon again.

She shook her head, almost as she wanted to shake down the experience, and looked around. Her father’s church was in ruins, even more than it was after the years of neglect as now the roof had collapsed and scorched remnants of its walls reaching upwards were like the ribcage of some colossal dead animal. Sun was rising, creating an impression of the fire burning in the heavens on the heavily overcast skies, adding to the strange atmosphere of the place. And it gave the Magical Girl a strange sensation she couldn’t place properly, as if something felt wrong - but she tried to suppress those feelings, for now, considering her experience in the past few hours.

"Ka-ka-ka-ka!", a familiar cry, a greeting perhaps, or perhaps just laughing at the destruction they left in their wake upon their arrival in this world. Kyouko looked at the monster, uneasy in the presence of the vulpine crime against nature. The winged fox that was standing atop a pile of rubble was somehow different than others she had already seen yesterday. In addition to the horrible-looking scars probably caused by their fight, it now spotted horns at top of its head, its wings looked larger and the body more muscular, and it almost looked like it was growing armor underneath the cornified fur.

“Ka-ka-ka-ka!” More creatures answered the call of the first one, from different parts of the destroyed building, somewhere beyond the field of view, but none of them attacked. The Magical Girl could sense movement, somewhere behind the walls, encircling her. But no one else showed up. Kyouko returned her gaze to the only monster within her field of view, one that was watching her with ever-burning eyes - one that seemed like it was patched together and came back stronger than before - but Magical Girl wasn't even sure if it was one of the monsters she fought, due to her limited experience with such matters. It worried her nevertheless, but she decided to not ponder on it anymore as she had other concerns than monsters beyond this world. She had other things to do - she wanted to speak to Sayaka. She didn’t know why exactly, or what she wanted to tell, but she had to before she dies or accepts the deal she can’t escape - before either of them does.

She jumped over the puddles of water yesterday’s storm left on the broken floor and made it outside the building. The monster left her alone.

Outside, on the clearing in front of the church, a lone little girl stood in front of another of those fox-like creatures. She was dressed in a white robe hiding most of her features, not fit for Mitakihara, but not out of place for Magical Girls. She was reaching towards the horse-sized monster almost like she wanted to pet it. Not-fox made a sound, almost like it chuckled at this situation. The girl giggled too, perhaps ignorant to the danger it may pose.

Then the winged fox opened its mouth, perhaps preparing to breathe the blue fire the Magical Girl already had an experience with. Alarmed, Kyouko yelled and, despite her stubborn demeanor and determination to care only for herself, she darted forward to save the foolish little girl. The little girl turned her head slightly at the voice, yellow snake-like eyes flashed from under her hood. Kyouko noticed the tail lashing under the long robe, and froze.

It wasn't a fellow Magical Girl, it was another of the Dragon's. Strange eyes were one of the signs she noticed among all of Zarak's followers, even though she didn't see that many of them. But the strange girl's presence suggested there were at least three of them, and things were getting out of hand.

Kyouko reflexively approached the little girl, or rather a monster hiding in the skin of one, and tried to remove the hood concealing the stranger’s face, but the opponent was faster, catching her hand with speed and strength unfit for the deceivingly small frame. Kyouko soon felt the claws digging into her skin and withdrew her hand, with a glance towards the other monsters prepared to fight.

“How rude.”, quipped the stranger in a soft girly voice, while other monsters started growling, and she added: “If you wanted to see my face, you could just ask.”

Then she said something in an alien language to the huge foxes, probably an order to stand down. Girl removed her hood, immediately confirming Kouko’s suspicion. Only the lower half of her face could pass for the human, rest was monstrous as expected. Her eyes were bright yellow with slit pupils, fit more for the snake than human, skin around her eyes and brow was scaly, she had horns curving backward and pointy, animal-like ears growing from the top of her head instead of normal, human ones. She had white hair, unfitting for a youthful appearance, tied into little braids which could just as well be natural - as natural as something laughing to the face of biology can be.

Kyouko didn't reply back, thinking instead if she would also grow strange body parts should she ever accept Zarak's deal.

“So you are the reason why I needed to fix more than a dozen dead Sikaris.” The girl said and added the introduction too, “I am Blanka. You can call me Handmaiden, as others do.”

“Kyouko,'' the Magical girl answered mechanically, and then immediately added waving the other girl away, “I don’t know what Sikaris is, and I don’t want to be part of this.”

Then she left, walked away, in an attempt to leave all of this behind. The attempt to escape her own involvement failed,in a way, even if she wasn’t immediately followed. With a command spoken from the monster girl, an entire flock of small, bizarre flying creatures passed overhead and into the city in front of them. Kyouko didn’t know where they came from, but it definitely was a bad sign. The Magical Girl growled and stomped down the path to the city, hoping to leave the white one and her entourage behind.

***​

Mitakihara city was waking up into the new day, shops were opening, and people were setting off into their new working day, to work, school, or after other mundane errands. Kyouko found a little respite in this sense of normalcy, away from Magical Girls, monsters, and Dragons, and breathed in relief when she saw the madness of the past hours didn’t reach the city proper. There were damages after the sudden storm that swept the city during the night, leaving puddles of rainwater on the street, slightly overflowing canals, and minor damages here and there, but nothing really out of the ordinary. Kyouko overheard the people complaining about the awful weather, radio broadcast about the unusual meteorological phenomenon that brought overclouded, sunless skies, and even though it was strange enough, it wasn’t outside of the normal range of normality.

However, when the Magical Girl looked at the slightly darkening horizon, she felt like there was something behind and beyond this weather, a gut feeling, a premonition of the impending doom.

No one mentioned the burned church either, but it was very likely they didn’t care, after all the place was left to rot after Kyouko’s father died, and it was likely that their indifference had entirely mundane reasons behind it. Still, the feeling of unease didn’t leave, no matter how Kyouko tried to shake down unpleasant memories, perhaps amplified by the steel firmament above. The Magical Girl quickly looked around, scanning the area for creeping monsters, this strange notion that she is being watched clung to her like a curse, but still, she found nothing. Feeling no time to waste, she rushed towards the school.

Kyouko was hoping to talk with Sayaka before the school starts, even if she didn’t have a definite idea what such conversation would be about as she found herself short on words already, even now when she merely imagined the meeting in her mind.

The alley of standing trees leading towards Mitakihara’s middle school was already crowded with small groups of students, walking towards their daily student duties, chatting with each other. They seemed unconcerned by the damaging storm left on their surroundings, overflowing the canal with dirty water carrying the dirt washed from the streets, broken branches on the path, and scattered leaves. They didn't pay attention to a redhead staring at them.

Kyouko finally spotted Sayaka among the crowd, along with Madoka and another girl from her class.

“Sayaka!”, she called out, forgetting she could speak with Sayaka using telepathy instead of spoken words. Sayaka turned around, and after exchanging a few brief words with her companion, she waited for Kyouko to catch up with her, staring at the approaching redhead with a mix of a blank expression and suppressed hostility.

“Sayaka…I … I wanted to... “, Kyouko said, spitting words none of which she prepared. It was only met with hostility.

“You wanted to give me another lesson?” Sayaka retorted, glaring.

“No. You idiot. There is something you need to know. I ....”, Kyouko only managed to say, her words rushing to her mouth before she could even properly phantom the meanings behind them. And even those were never heard, as her fellow Magical Girl cut her off.

“Go to hell.”, was the reply, strict, short, full of anger, at which Sayaka simply turned and walked away, unwilling to continue this conversation. Kyouko could just watch her leaving, to join her friends. For all her usual brashness, the redhead couldn’t force herself to just grab Sayaka’s shoulder or arm, and make her listen - perhaps because there wasn’t any easy and straightforward message to pass forwards, only those strange, conflicting, barely formed feelings somewhere deep inside.

“I already was there. I don’t want you to go there too.”, Kyouko finally whispered her answer, but there was no one to hear it, and she was once again on her own, and despite more schoolgirls passing by, Magical Girl felt completely alone.

Red eyes watched them from the treeline.