Chapter Text
Another Record, Kaname Residence Mitakihara, Seven Years Ago
Tatsuya’s sister hummed as she contemplated what to shade on her sketch of her ideal Magical Girl form.
“Nee-chan?” Tatsuya called.
Madoka hummed more as she coloured a part of her Magical Girl drawing with a pencil.
“Nee-chan!?” Tatsuya tried more loudly, glomping Madoka’s leg.
“Tatsuya? Geez, don’t tackle me randomly like that! You shocked me.”
“Nee-chan! Whatcha drawin’?” Tatsuya blinked in curiosity.
Madoka cringed in embarassment. “Ahh! Don’t look, Tatsuya!”
Yet Tatsuya did look. “Wahh! Cute! A majishun!” Tatsuya lisped.
“You think so? You can tell… it’s a magician?”
“Yup! Cute! Majishun!”
“Wehihihi! Thanks, Tatsuya.”
“This you, nee-chan?
“Ah, yeah… what do you think? Do I look good?
“Good! You look perfect!”
“Really? That’s a really big confidence boost coming from you Tatsuya. Wehihi!”
---
“You’re pretty good at this.” Dad congratulated Tatsuya.
“Ehihihi! Supaaaaa heeeeeeero!”
“I’m home!” Madoka announced herself. “What have you two been up to?”
“Tatsuya’s been practising his art. He’s been working hard at drawing his favourite super hero.” Tomohisa related.
“Nee-chan! Look, heero!”
Madoka looked at the sketch. It was a boy dressed in a white tuxedo from that TV show. Those wings and funnels, neither were from the show. Derivative, yet original.
“You’re sure a boy, huh.” Madoka saw that he was growing up.
“Yup! A boy!” Tatsuya beamed with pride.
---
Another Record, Mitakihara, Present
“Your sister has been kidnapped by Magius! Yuma is down! Hurry and make a contract with me to become a Superhero!” The Incubator perched from the motel’s windowsill.
“Well then…” There was no way else to move forward. If Tatsuya ran, he would gain one and survive. If he went forth, on top of that he would save Sister.
“What is the one wish that will make your Soul Gem shine?”
“Let me get rid of anyone who gets in the way of my sister and I!” Tatsuya cried to the Incubator and the heavens.
---
The sketch’s form was almost a photograph in his mind. There was a boy in a white suit, wings protruding from his back. His great top hat was like a helmet. Autonomous fin funnels flew by his side, firing at his will.
Mitakihara’s sunlight shone. Perhaps his eyes were fooling him – Oriko’s soul appeared to extend from the heavens, reaching for the similarly dressed boy’s hands.
“May you protect my world in my stead.”
That, and he would go beyond and protect his sister.
---
Kamihama
“Tatsuya!” Yuma was disturbed by the sight of the Soul Gem brooch on Tatsuya’s white suit. Now all efforts to protect him were in vain – if Tatsuya made a contract, Kaname Madoka’s mind would break even further and if Madoka was lost, then Sayaka whose Soul Gem shined only for Madoka, would as well become lost.
Yuma’s concerns became irrelevant. A paper page flew from Nemu’s hand, manoeuvring around Yuma’s neck, where it reduced Yuma’s Soul Gem into shards.
“Yuma!” The winged Superhero cried out his protector’s name. “You Magius scum! Funnels!” He sent a tidal wave of his funnels across the battlefield. A volley of muskets fired to intercept them – yet there were more funnels than muskets.
“You’ll never know anything about Magical Girls, newbie!” Mami cried out. Her Soul Gem was pitch black. “Do you know what it is like to always live in fear of becoming a Witch?!” Mami’s form changed as an overworldly bonnet grew over her head. Her hair gained a life of its own. It shot, extending across the battlefield.
Thankfully, Tatsuya’s wings were not merely for show. He ascended, his funnels dancing to keep the Doppel’s hair tendrils at bay.
‘Sayaka!’ He telepathed to his sister’s protector.
Sayaka advanced straight to Mami.
“Miki-san! You became a Magical Girl despite knowing about Witches beforehand! I just want to make your sacrifice not be in vain!”
“Madoka and I don’t need your pity!” The Mami that fought Oriko, Sayaka reckoned, was not the Mami she was fighting now.
---
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Dr Satomi Touka smugly called Kaname Madoka awake. “Kyubey told us that there was a Magical Girl candidate with infinite potential who was killed years ago. Today, you will give your potential to Eve and give us power over the Law of Cycles.”
Madoka, bound by chains, opened her eyes. What appeared to be a gigantic moth towered before her. For the first time in seven years, the world seemed to make sense again. That was a Witch under the control of the Magius. Madoka had survived – or rather been made to rise after Mikuni Oriko’s assassination of her. Now the Magius planned to sacrifice her to it.
A long time ago, a Magical Girl called Akemi Homura fought to protect her in a Witch barrier that had engulfed Mitakihara Middle School. Madoka could only helplessly hope Sayaka and the superhero in white – Oriko? - would make it in time for her.
---
Halberd clanged against iron fan. They were conjured and thrown rather than held as the main weaponry of their wielders. Yachiyo’s halberd clashed against Tsuruno’s iron fan. The Survivor stood against the Strongest Magical Girl. The slightest traces of Yuma’s soul made Yachiyo’s resolve iron.
“The strong don’t involve civilians.” Yachiyo wondered if she really was engaged in discourse, or if her lips merely moved on their own. Her breathing was ragged – Fendthope was dark and it was as if the Magius had gone out of their way to suck the life out of the lungs of anybody who stepped into it.
“Those who use Magical Girls aren’t civilians.” Tsuruno put her back into a swipe of her iron fan. “And Magical Girls must be liberated.”
Sparks flew as halberd ground against fan. Yachiyo listened to her halberd. Tsuruno’s opening saw her flung to the wall.
---
Doctor Touka Satomi was flung to the far edges of Hotel Fendthope. Audible, wet sounding cracks announced her impact into the building walls. Whatever smug satisfaction she had in her heart was shut up by the rubble that thudded onto her.
The superhero Tatsuya blinked. He was certain Touka had dragged onee-chan here, he saw it through the corridors. He rushed to the giant Half-Witch before the Magius totem. It groggily hummed, seemingly content and satiated.
The sight of it struck Tatsuya. Madoka’s pink hair ribbon, smeared with globby blood. The Half-Witch’s proboscis lengthened and retracted. The Half-Witch collapsed, as if poisoned by what it had consumed – Kaname Madoka.
Sayaka was dumbstruck. Her Soul Gem grew increasingly dark.
“Miki Sayaka’s self-cleansing gem was contingent on the continued life of Kaname Madoka. Without Madoka, Miki Sayaka is just another Magical Girl.” The Incubator seemed to relish its potential energy crop, perching on the windowsill of Fendthope. “Morever, Tatsuya – isn’t Sayaka in the way of your sister and you?”
---
Madoka’s arms grabbed him and just like that, she carried her baby brother Tatsuya up. Tatsuya cried in joy, knowing the thrill of gravity for the first time. Just as confidently as she had carried he, she gently lowered her baby brother back down to the ground.
He clenched his fists. Those were merely memories. The Superhero doubted if he were even Tatsuya – Tatsuya would not have been so slow, Tatsuya would’ve saved Madoka in time. The bloodied pink ribbon damned him!
Some Superhero he turned out to be!
Cracks grew on his Soul Gem – and dark with the distance to Onee-chan, it had to shatter. Its pieces fell onto the ground. The white-clad superhero’s body crumpled to the ground with its phylactery.
A circle of pink light on the ground opened its eyes for the superhero Tatsuya and like tears flowing in reverse, the shards of his Soul Gem melted into the ground. His gem-tears met eyes that shed their own tears of compassion.
Sayaka’s eyes beheld that circle shooting forth a wave of light devouring Fendthope and the sky. Then Sayaka and the world was no more.
---
Present Record, Kamihama
Kyouko yawned. She groggily opened her eyes, the sound of the young Tatsuya’s whistling breaths tickling her back.
What a sad nightmare. A world without Kyouko – tragic! The boy behind her a fighter? Nonsense.