*Evening, Tuesday, 12th of April 2011; Resistental Districts; Mitakihara, Japan.*

Sayaka felt tired, exhausted even, and even though her fatigue was entirely mental and not even remotely close to physical, she still couldn’t make herself do anything anymore and just shambled back home. Like the zombie she was, she thought. No one tried to stop her. No one cared what she felt and what she did, she repeated that to herself many times. Kyousuke didn’t know what she had to sacrifice for him, she told herself. He doesn’t care either, her treacherous mind offered. Sayaka wanted to talk to someone and ended up talking to no one.

She arrived burdened with thoughts darker than clouds on now seemingly permanently overcast skies, and went straight to her room and laid down in her bed. Sayaka stared blankly into the ceiling, ruminating about her fate.

Her parents weren’t there to complain about her skipping school, they were always busy, away, tired from the long work hours. But they would worry about the bad academic performance, she considered. No, a traitorous idea nesting inside her head opposed, they don’t care either.

She reflected on how terrible her life suddenly became the moment she took that contract, about the wish twisted and turned against her, about the seemingly benevolent act brought up by suffering.

Sayaka raised her hand, holding her Soul Gem against the light coming through the window, energies inside swirled, fading darker and darker from once-bright colors. A mere glimpse of this cursed object made her furious, she jumped on her feet and was about to throw this cursed piece of jewelry away, shattering this damned thing to a million pieces - she stopped herself at the last moment realizing what separation between the jewel and the body does to her. She uttered a stream of swear words. And her sadness overtook her, and she burst into tears instead. Soul Gem fell from her hands to the floor.

Then her mind drifted to something else. With her eyes wet, she looked up. To the dagger given to her by the strange girl in white - weapon laid abandoned on the desk where Sayaka tossed it when she got home. Atop of it, almost like a guardian, not-raven sat. Neither a lizard nor a bird, a small but twisted creature. It felt like someone looked at laws of nature and laughed, and laughed. And still, somehow, paradoxically it felt more sympathetic than the alien mind behind Kyubey - something Sayaka, nor any other magical girl, paid attention to. Small monstrosity watched the depressed Magical Girl with its ruby eyes, it croaked in acknowledgment.

Sayaka wanted to say something but paused mid-word realizing that she would never get any answer. Instead hesitantly reached for the weapon. Not-raven moved aside.

It was a long, curved dagger, surprisingly light despite both it and its scabbard being made of metal, and heavily decorated with engravings depicting a swirling mass of horrible monsters. The handle was fashioned in the style of the snake, or similar creature, with its maw opened. It radiated malevolence.

She unsheathed it. A blade from another world reflected no light. Runes smoothly carved into it were in the script Sayaka couldn’t recognize, it certainly wasn’t Japanese, but she was somehow certain it promised pain and death to everyone who crossed her path. Treacherous whispers of her depressed mind changed as she gazed into the alien letters shifting before her eyes, no longer speaking of her worthlessness, now promising her revenge, power, the world cast down in flames.

Sayaka sheathed the blade once more, and depressing thoughts crept back in almost like they were no longer scared by the curved edge.

The Magical Girl curled on the bed and closed her eyes. Soon, she fell asleep, a weapon still clutched in her arm. A not-raven watched over her as she dreamed about the terrible storm of ages sweeping away petty white critters.

***​

Sayaka woke up to the sound of the doorbell. It was the evening already, her room was drowning in darkness, with only dim light from the streetlights illuminating the place. She drowsily picked herself up from the bed and was about to find out who or what disturbed her unsatisfying rest, only to realize that one unwelcome visitor already let himself into the apartment.

A white, plush-like being stared at her with unfeeling red eyes.

“May I come in? I need to speak with you.”Kyubey's emotionless voice reverberated inside Sayaka’s mind as the creature already positioned himself on Sayaka’s writing table, regardless of the permission he asked about a mere moments ago, not breaking eye contact with her with round ruby eyes unblinking, unfeeling. Magical Girl tensed.

“We detected a disturbance today. An anomaly you might...”, the small furry alien continued, but Sayaka immediately cut him off with her own question.

“Am I about to transform into the Witch? Are all Magical Girls doomed to transform into Witches?” Sayaka asked, already annoyed by her visitor and her voice shaking. She never thought about it this way, she realized, it was something the strange girl in white mentioned and now this accursed liar stared into her, it just came out.

“That is technically true that I can’t deny it.”, Kyubey answered calmly, the tone of the voice echoing in Sayaka’s brain unchanging, without emotion, without care. It bobbed its head in a meaningless gesture and continued: “Don’t misunderstand our intentions. Don’t think we do what we do because we harbor an ill will towards the human race…”

“Take it back.” Magical Girl interrupted her, her annoyance growing with each heartbeat she wasn’t sure she still had and continued immediately in a raised voice. “I don’t want it anymore. This isn’t what I wished for.”

“It should be clear to anyone that wishes would end in a disaster, wishes are something that doesn’t exist in current reality and distortion…”, was the answer, a disinterested and uncaring tone of the alien’s voice invading her brain. Sayaka couldn’t bear to be finished, as she was at her breaking point, her heart raced.

“Take it back now!” Sayaka screamed, mad and hysterical, clutching her fist in the anger she wasn’t able to contain and realized she was still holding the dagger in her hand. A not-raven materialized itself atop of the bookshelf and cawed menacingly, which attracted Kyubey’s full attention and perhaps even surprised him, assuming he was capable of experiencing something as wonder or shock in the first place as his expression remained cold and unchanging.

“An unknown entity. Unexpected. Where did you find it?”, an alien question reverberated through Magical Girl’s tired mind, but Sayaka was unable or unwilling to hold any conversation, furious at the development. She whipped out the dagger and stabbed.

Kyubey didn’t try to dodge. Perhaps he didn’t expect the attack, or maybe in his arrogance, or he had no fear. But whatever his reason was, it soon evaporated as the wicked dark blade pierced his body. Sayaka’s mind was hit by the pure sensation of agony, not merely a sound, a silent expression of pain, a horrible wail transmitted into one’s consciousness. Outside, a girlish voice cried out.

Sayaka didn’t care. For her, there was something more to that shriek, a small satisfaction, and then, an impulse of power emanating from the dagger she held flooding her with energy. She stabbed and slashed again, and again, and again. She laughed, giddy with energy blades filling her with as she ripped her patron’s avatar to small reddish pieces. A non-raven croaked, almost in approval.

The Magical Girl shook again when the grip of momentary madness left her and looked at what remained of her deceiver. She felt nothing as she sheathed the hexed weapon. Not-raven perched on her shoulder, then true to its half-snake nature coiled around the back of her neck in something of the embrace, it felt warm, uneasy, but warm.

“Go tell your master I will accept his offer if they end this.”, she breathed out when she opened the window. Small monstrosity took off.

Sayaka collected her Soul Gem still on the floor, not noticing that a new color slowly seeped in, where darkness threatened the navy blue a new taint of white and red appeared, almost like a firestorm was brewing in the bottle.

She left her apartment, slamming the door behind her almost like she never intended to return. Deep down, she did want to return, it was all that she wanted - she wished to go back to her old life, without Magical Girls, without Witches, she wanted to live her romantic fantasy with the boy she fancied, but it seemed too distant.

With each step down the staircase, something inside her broke a little bit more. She had nothing. Only her soul, trapped inside a jewel she didn’t want, and whispering dagger promising revenge on those who wronged her.

Downstairs, next to the entrance to the apartment block, Madoka waited - shaking and scared.

“Sayaka? What happened?”, she whimpered when she noticed her friend coming out, and continued stuttering: “I wanted to … and then … the scream … the pain.”

Something inside Sayaka boiled again, from sadness and calm to fire and rage, an inner turmoil of emotion, and was about to scream on the girl, but then realized that girl was her friend. She refrained from having an outburst and as almost it was a struggle to say it, she let out only a few words: “I wanted it to stop.”

“Stop, what?”, Madoka asked, confused, her senses almost hazy.

“I don’t want to be a Magical Girl anymore. I don't want anyone to be a Magical Girl ever,” Sayaka said coldly, but firmly as it was the only thing she was certain about.

“But …”, Pinkette argued, “But you wanted to be a hero, to protect the innocent.”

“It’s all a lie. Everything is a lie.”, Sayaka growled and gave her friend an angry stare. She showed her Soul Gem to her friend, a sinister glow creeped out, illuminating her face. She raised her voice to make her point: “We are all prisoners to this. All zombies, doomed to fight Witches until we become Witches ourselves. We doom ourselves, and we doom everyone around us.”

In the end, she was almost yelling. Madoka, shy and shaking, confused and worried, tried to make a reply.

“I want to help you, I want you to be happy. Just tell me how…”, she cried - honest, well-meant girl, confused and scared.

Sayaka had no answer, as she had no real solution to her own misery, either. Madoka hugged her, but she pushed her away.

“I wanted him to undo this. He won’t do it.”, Magical Girl said grimly, and despite “I will undo everything of his, even if it kills me.”

It wasn’t what she really wanted, Sayaka realized, but gloomy ideas once again started nesting inside her mind like ravens. She had to put a stop to it.

“But you wanted to be a hero…”, Madoka argued, helpless.

The Magical Girl recalled the words about protecting the innocent from wicked Witches and started shaking. Then, she gripped the dagger in one hand, and her accursed Soul Gem in the other, and as her transformation overtook her, flooding her body with magical energies, she cried to the skies: “You promised to help me! Hunters! Sikari!”

A pink-haired schoolgirl was about to stutter a question, but when furious barking and growls answered the Magical Girl’s call, Madoka soon realized that some questions are probably better to not be answered. Large, dark shapes jumped from the roof of the surrounding building, landed all around them.

Someone at the end of the street wailed in shock, and Madoka collapsed on the ground upon seeing the winged monstrous foxes closing in on her, growling, with fangs bare, and eyes glowing with eldritch energies. One cackled, a mote of azure fire gathering in its mouth.

“No” Sayaka stopped the monstrosity, much to Madoka’s shock and even greater puzzlement, “I still want to … protect the innocent.”

“Ka-ka-ka?”, the hellish fox - Sikari, Magical Girl reminded herself - barked in confusion, and others growled, their gleaming eyes reflecting the desire to rip and tear, to burn and kill. Madoka looked like an acceptable target to them, no doubt, perhaps that is how they were instructed to protect.

“You help me to hunt the Witch.”, Sayaka ordered as she jumped between her scared friend and the most aggressively looking monstrosity. It stopped, like almost trying to understand what was just said, but then blue eyes showed a gleeful expression at the vision of hunting. Then, a pack of Sikari scrambled with their characteristic “Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka” barking sounds, ran down the street, and took up to the sky with the mighty blows of their large wings.

Sayaka followed them.

Madoka was left alone, sitting in the middle of the street, still shaking from the experience.

***​

Sayaka had a little experience in finding and fighting Witches, her Magical Girl career was a short one and the best she did so far is fighting their runaway Familiars. Somewhere deep inside there was something that allowed Magical Girls to pursue their victims, the Witches, and Sayaka would have used it, but it appeared that the monstrous foxes, the Sikari, had their own way to track down the prey.

She stood on the top of one of the industrial constructions and looked down at the empty yard below where a bubble of mildly shimmering space lurked, an unassuming trace of Witch’s Labyrinth, unseen to most, but noticeable for all Magical Girls. Sayaka had to think of the tragic irony, as that thing down there was once a girl just like Sayaka, with her wishes and dreams twisted just the same.

Sayaka felt the grip of the not-raven positioned herself on her shoulder, startled her a little, but far less than it should. She hesitantly touched the side of the growling Sikari next to her, unsure how it would react. It looked at her with blue eyes flashing with energy but didn’t do anything else.

“Perhaps we can still have her? Turn her back?”, she said, even if she was unsure if there was anything capable of replying to her.

“I don’t think we could. They are not sentient any more.”, not-raven answered in a rasping voice. This made Sayaka even more nervous and uneasy, but she followed on.

“You can speak?” The Magical Girl asked, surprised, and added silently: “Why didn't you speak before?”

“Oculi can’t speak. “I can speak through one if I know which one I should focus on.”, answered the raspy voice echoing through the mind and throat of the non-raven. ”If you want, kill it and bring us the Grief Seed it drops. If there is any soul left, it is in there. My friends will open the portal for you, and our Lord will be waiting for you.”

Sayaka had to wonder a little who was speaking through the creature on her shoulder, but soon her mind returned to bigger worries and she forgot the question, as her inner turmoil once again resurfaced and she desired to finish with all of this as soon as possible. Even monsters were impatient, growling in anticipation, and waiting for the signal to attack.

“Let’s kill it, then.”, Magical Girl capitulated. In response, her monstrous companions sprung to action, blazing blue motes start to gather in their jaws as they cackled, and in a split second after, they released a stream of sickly azure fire down on the edge of Witch’s Labyrinth. Sayaka shook in the realization that Madoka could’ve been burned alive if she didn’t stop them.

Down below an inferno raged, an uncontrollable outburst of energies combined with an explosion of unnatural blue flames created a small storm that illuminated the entire area and filled the air with a stench of sulfur. Witch’s Labyrinth pulsed and convulsed, almost like it was gripped with a throbbing agony, like the poor soul hiding inside, and hellish foxes kept stirring that pain with their fire breaths.

Then Sikari stopped toying with their prey or testing the resistance of the barrier, and with a barking that resembled more of sadistic laughter than anything else, teeth bare and wings spread, they dived right in. Sayaka followed them.

The Witch's Labyrinth was turned into a massive conflagration of unnatural cerulean flames dancing on the shapes scorched black, mercilessly scorching whatever unreal pop-up imaginary it held originally, unnatural fire took it over. The sky was like rancid flesh, distorted, and cracking like shells. Burning objects falling down crying. A Witch - a twisted apparition of tree and hand was shrieking in agony as eldritch flames licked her over. Wines shot from the ground, trying to strangle the rampaging Sikari, torching the dimension in an arsonist rage, barking madly. Wines broke some, but beasts bit, and ripped, and tore, and burned.

Sayaka stood in shock and watched, but only for a short while. A hexed dagger in her hand was shaking, begging to be unsheathed to spill blood. Magical Girl forgot she once had the sword given to her by her form and with one powerful leap, accelerated with her powers, she landed on the Witch’s like a meteor, driving the freshly drawn dagger into the abomination body. It gave her a jolt of energy, fueling something dark within her, she felt the power. She continued stabbing, giggling madly until the Labyrinth around her explode.

And then she stood, among the desolation left by the explosion, surrounded by hellish monsters that helped her. She reached for the scabbard for her dagger, left on the floor, and smiled as she returned her weapon to its resting place. Everything around her burned, but she didn’t care.

Then Kyouko suddenly descended from the skies in front of her.

“Don’t do it.”, the redhead said

“Don’t do what?” Sayaka replied, confused as the euphoric state slowly left her and she returned to her relatively normal self.

“I know what you want to do.”, Kyouko insisted, “I spoke with the Dragon too. Don’t take his offer! You can’t trust him.”

“Dragon?”, Junior Magical Girl asked instead. She was annoyed by this. She wanted to end this.

“I don’t care. I don’t want to be a zombie.”, she said, “I will fix this.”

“Dragon. Or one of his servants. A floating girl with tentacles. A centaur-lizard. A little girl in white with snake eyes and horns.”, Kyouko now yelled, more desperately, and came screaming: “ I don’t know. These damned hellspawns are his too.”

The redhead gestured to Sikari surrounding her. They growled strongly, their annoyance visibly grew, if not from the shouting girl making the scene, then from something else beyond they desperately wanted to hunt down.

But Sayaka didn’t want to hear about any of it. Behind her, a shining tear in space and time, a portal of whirling eldritch energies opened, beckoning her to come in and seal her destiny.

“You don’t know what it is like!”, she shouted back, without thinking that they are both Magical Girls, both under a similar kind of restriction, both under a similar curse. She didn’t think of Kyouko's past even if she had been told what her senior had been through a day before. Sayaka grabbed the Grief Seed, left it abandoned on the cracked pavement, and threw it into the senior Magical Girl’s face. She no longer wanted anything else than to end this.

The pack of monstrosities around them was scrambling to tear a new prey but neither Kyoyko nor Sayaka paid them any attention, too focused on their argument.

“This is what you wanted, so take it.”, Sayaka yelled, and ended it with a quip: “Hope it was fed well enough.”

Then with a quick turn, she darted out and threw herself into the rift between worlds.

“Idiot,” said Kyouko and jumped in after her.

The portal closed as hellish foxes took to the skies to burn a new victim. Time froze over, but for the two Magical Girls hurled through space and time was already too late.