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When they used to play pretend as children, Sayaka was more likely to want to play knight-and-princess-versus-dragon or super-sentai-team than magical-girls. But they’d played magical girls enough that even through the haze of misery and pain that had fallen over her, she could recognize the arm gestures Madoka was making, from back when she was Rose Peach or Crimson Shiny or Royal Pink. But this time streamers of pink light erupted from whatever she was holding in her hand, wrapping around her torso and casting glitter or something over her head. Her hair was changing too; the ribbons were glowing, her twintails expanding, the color getting brighter in flashes of light.
She was actually transforming. Madoka’s clothes were altering, in flourishes of gold and pink light, into something new; first a white dress, with a frilly skirt and puffy cap sleeves, and then over that, a pink and red coat, its skirt ending in pointed flower petals, long in back, but short enough in the front to show the frilly underskirt. She had epaulets like wings over the cap sleeves, and similar wing accessories on her twintails, which were longer now and a bright pink; all her hair was longer, down to the middle of her back, not all of it captured in the twintails anymore. She wore white knee socks, trimmed with lace, and red mary-janes with ribbons wrapped around her ankles.
"The sunrise that banishes the darkness! Cure Hope!"
Madoka, her best friend, the one she’d always protected when kids were mean to her in school, was a magical girl. Cure Hope. And she wasn’t just waving a magic wand around; she was launching herself at a monster made out of a pitching machine, dodging a hail of softballs to kick it so hard it dented metal. How strong was she now? Not just strong, but fast, able to steer around the pitching machine’s missiles — it seemed to have unlimited ammo now — as it tracked her, and even run along a wall for a little while before kicking off of it to pummel the thing with her fists. Her little Madoka was a superhero, protecting all these people — Sayaka herself, Kyousuke, Hitomi, the whole softball club — and Sayaka hated herself for not even being able to help.
So of course when Madoka started to have trouble, when the hail of softballs got too overwhelming, Sayaka managed to move, to force herself up from her knees, for the first time since the odd little girl in the oversized, hand-me-down clothes had shown up and started yelling about curses and despair. She had to be able to do something, if she was just brave and determined enough. Wasn’t that how these things worked? They were magical girls. And of course, when that odd little ferret-like stuffed animal that Madoka had started carrying around in her book bag started talking, Sayaka wasn’t surprised. Of course when it told her how to transform herself, she did what it said. It clearly knew what was going on here, and the blue, egg-shaped gem it threw at her looked a lot like what Madoka had been holding. This was scary, but Sayaka couldn’t let Madoka get hurt.
“You need to say, ‘Precure Power — I wish!’” the critter called out. What the hell was it? Like a lop-eared bunnyferret with a big bushy fox tail. Definitely not from earth. She took the gem and traced a wide circle in the air with it, willing herself not to feel silly as she shouted, “Precure Power! I wish!” Wish what? Wish to be able to help, to be a hero, to protect all her friends and help Madoka. It didn’t seem to matter what she wished; she was transforming even as she thought about it, turning around as ribbons wrapped and unwrapped around her. It felt euphoric, like winning a game, or listening to Kyousuke play; she was almost laughing as the blue lights faded away around her.
And maybe it was a bad idea, with that monster rampaging, but the first thing she did was look down at herself.
Sayaka’s dress was almost all blue, strapless, with an angled hemline trimmed in white; there was an overskirt at the back that divided up into angular points, a little like Madoka’s, but less flower-like. Over that, for some reason, she was wearing a short white cape, fastened with a collar at the neck, and at her wrists, white and blue cuffs for sleeves she wasn’t wearing. She had on white leggings that came up to her mid-thigh, and short blue ankle boots over them. Her hair had gotten longer, maybe as long as Madoka’s hair normally was, and when she patted the back of her head, she could tell it had put most of itself up in a bun; at a guess, it was probably something like the elegant updo she’d admired on the pianist at Kyousuke’s most recent performance.
"The vast seas, filled with life! Cure Ocean!"
She didn’t even know where that had come from, but it felt like it fit, and she charged forward, fists clenched. Her first punch sent the monster flying backward. It was amazing. She was stronger and faster than she’d ever been before; she could jump and damn near fly, or at least that was how it felt. When she aimed a second punch at the machine, it crumpled like cardboard. She was like a living martial arts movie.
“Cure Ocean!” the ferretbunny called out. “Use your Wish gem to purify the Curse beast!” She wanted to demand to know how, but she was pretty sure she knew; the magic was surging under the surface, waiting for her to put a name to it and unleash it. The wish gem had put itself at the knot of the bow on her chest, and she brought her clasped hands to it, drawing magic out of the gem.
“Ocean Wave!” she shouted, holding out her right hand, palm out, and the force flowed out of her and shot toward the monster. It looked like it was melting away in the water, dissolving, and she could feel the haze of anger and sadness lifting from the people around them.
“Cure Ocean!” Madoka shouted. Sayaka turned, looking for her. Had she been badly hurt? She didn’t look like it, just a little dirty and disheveled, as she ran up and tackle-hugged Sayaka hard enough to stagger her. “You’re a Cure too! This is the best!”
Bemused, Sayaka put her arms around her best friend. “It’s pretty great, yeah, but I don’t have a clue what’s going on right now.”
“We should go. We can talk about it in private. Kyubey? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” the little white critter said, popping up on Madoka’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”
They went, jumping — jumping — to the school roof in a few epic leaps. Once they were up there, they both de-transformed, which was a lot less impressive than doing it the other direction, and Madoka and Kyubey started to explain. Kyubey was a fairy from the Wish Kingdom, which had been invaded by the Curse Kingdom. The little girl in the oversized pink-and-black sweater with the weird, all-black eyes was a witch from the Curse Kingdom, here to gather negative feelings from humans. “We think they’re planning to use them to awaken their queen, Walpurgis,” he explained.
“Okay, I’m with you so far, but how come you don’t talk directly? It’s like I can only hear you in my head.”
“That’s just the way we communicate,” he explained. “I’m not physically able to speak your language. I don’t have the right type of jaw.”
“Okay, that’s... okay.” It seemed kind of weird for reality to suddenly start caring about what was and wasn’t plausible, but she could live with it. “So we just have fight these guys, knock ‘em down fast so they don’t get too much energy, and save both worlds? Piece of cake!”
“Sayaka...” Madoka said, smiling. “I don’t know if it’ll be that simple.”
“There are more Pretty Cure out there,” Kyubey said. “There should be five. We just need to find them all. Once all of the Pretty Cure have gathered, and we’ve collected enough Star Seeds, we can take the fight to the Curse Kingdom!”
The other two Cures they found were both at their school. Tomoe Mami, a popular, serene upperclassman, turned out to be Cure Shining. The two of them had a chance encounter with Mami on the way to school, and were both immediately drawn to her, even before she found Kyubey on the school grounds and struck up a rapport with him.
When a commuter bus, turned into a monster by a new and different witch, went on the rampage, Mami claimed her golden gem from Kyubey and transformed: "The spark of energy that powers the world! Cure Shining!" Lightning powers, a sleek gold-and-chocolate-brown dress with a flaring skirt, a white bodice and white, gathered short sleeves, thigh-high stockings, and extravagant gold curls that never seemed to get in her way; Sayaka would have been lying if she said she didn’t have a little bit of a starstruck girlcrush on her new teammate.
And then there was Sakura Kyouko.
“There’s no way,” Sayaka objected, when Kyubey tried to send her to go talk to Kyouko. “That girl? Nuh-uh.” She was unfriendly and seemed kind of shady or hostile, just all-around bad news, and there were rumors her dad ran some kind of weird cult.
“I’m telling you she’s the next Cure!” Kyubey insisted. “If you won’t do it I’ll go ask Mami to talk to her.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat? I don’t care if Mami talks to her. Mami can handle it. Hell, I can handle it. I’m not scared of her.”
“Then go talk to her.”
“Fine. You furry little jerk.” She was annoyed — at Kyubey, and at herself for not just ignoring him — as she stalked up to Kyouko, who was kicking a soccer ball around against the wall of the school.
“Hey,” Sayaka called out, and immediately cursed herself for not thinking ahead. Hey, are you a Precure? My fairy ferret over here wanted to know.
“Yeah?” Kyouko didn’t even stop juggling the soccer ball off her knee. “You’re that softball player, right?”
“Yeah. Miki Sayaka.” Should they shake hands or something? Apparently not, since Kyoko was still messing around with her soccer ball. She was a little surprised this girl knew of her at all, let alone as a softball player. She was a pretty solid athlete, but not exactly a star.
“You want something?”
This was stupid. It wasn’t like she’d have known what the hell Madoka was talking about if she’d run up and asked Sayaka about being a Precure. “I was wondering,” she said, on impulse. “Your dad’s a preacher, right? I thought priests weren’t allowed to have kids.”
“That’s only Catholics,” Kyouko said. But it got her attention; she caught the ball with one hand and tucked it under her arm. “Are you just screwin’ with me, or do you really want to know what our church teaches?”
“Kyouko!” Mami exclaimed, and two heads turned to look at her. “Sayaka? I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“We didn’t till now,” Sayaka said. “So you guys do?” That was almost as unexpected as turning into a magical girl herself. What could this Sakura Kyouko have in common with Mami?
Being a Precure, it turned out. They were attacked by a marching army of mannequins from a department store, of all things — they weren’t even close to a shopping district, so Sayaka had a horrible feeling they’d gathered a lot of negative energy getting from whatever department store they’d started in to where the girls were — and Mami and Sayaka, both still pretty new to their powers, quickly got overwhelmed. It was Kyouko’s transformation ("The life-giving flame, the fire of faith! Cure Blaze!") that stopped the mannequin mob, and Madoka’s arrival that let them cleanse the Star Seed the witch had used.
“What exactly was talking supposed to accomplish?” Sayaka asked Kyubey, once that fight was over.
“Makin’ me think you were crazy,” Kyouko suggested. She was still wearing her Cure Blaze outfit, a maroon-and-red, high-collared, sleeveless coat over a pleated skirt, all much more streamlined than any of the rest of the Cures. And more thigh-high stockings — they were all on the same wavelength there, at least, though her boots came up nearly to her knees. Her hair was still in a ponytail, but the ponytail had at least tripled in size, seemed to have a braid wrapped around it at the base, and it was all a bright, flaming red, ornamented with a pair of wing-like combs.
“Precure need to be linked by friendship,” Kyubey said. “If I’d known you already knew Mami, that would have explained why I sensed you were a Precure.”
“So that’s why Sayaka’s a Cure! Because I am!” Madoka exclaimed. But Sayaka had something else on her mind.
“You thought I could just walk up to her and we’d be friends?”
Kyouko snorted. “Yeah, no. No offense, Blue. Though you had the right idea, asking about the church.”
“Hmmph. I was curious, but I don’t think I want to know after all.”
“Your loss,” Kyouko retorted.
“I’d like to know,” Madoka said, sweetly, because she was Madoka, and she was too nice for her own good sometimes.
Kyouko told them a little — it was an ordinary church, not a cult — but she didn’t seem to want to talk about the rest, not right away. Despite the fact she obviously had things she was keeping to herself, becoming a Precure, and getting the full force of Madoka’s niceness and Mami’s big-sisterly hospitality, seemed to have transformed her in her civilian form, too. She unbent, grew less hostile, made a point of talking to them all at lunch and after school, and almost overnight, they were friends. They’d go to Mami’s family’s apartment in the evenings — her parents worked long hours, running a successful bakery that had expanded to a small chain, and so Mami normally had the place to herself. They’d study there, and eat Mami’s amazing, professional-looking cakes and pies and cookies, when they didn’t have monsters to fight.
But they had limited time for anything else. They barely saw Hitomi anymore. Sayaka and Madoka both worried about that, and about the undiscovered fifth Cure. For a while, they hoped that they had one solution to both those problems, that Hitomi was the fifth Precure, but Kyubey didn’t sense any power in her.
For Sayaka, that was that. They’d find the fifth Cure when they found her. But as the first Precure, Madoka seemed to feel a responsibility to finish the team, and she was always on the lookout for potential fifth Cures. Maybe it was a boy, she suggested, maybe Kyousuke? (Sayaka nearly had a stroke at that thought: Fighting side-by-side with Kyousuke! Kyousuke in a frilly dress!) Maybe it was that new transfer student, the quiet one with the long braids and glasses. Maybe it was someone else they knew, like Kyouko’s little sister, or Madoka’s mother. She and Kyubey talked it over all the time.
Madoka and Kyubey. Madoka and Mami and Kyubey. Mami and Kyouko. Madoka and Kyouko. Madoka and Sayaka. They always seemed to divide up, but Madoka was the one getting to know the others better. At least, getting to know them first, because Sayaka was getting closer to them too, more gradually. She and Kyouko could always compete, if nothing else, and Mami wanted to study everything and organize what they knew, so observing the witches was a good way to get on Mami’s good side.
There were four witches they had to face: Charlotte, the small girl in the oversized clothes; Roberta, a grown woman who usually wore sexy clothes and a lot of makeup; Kirsten, a pigtailed girl who usually seemed to have something to do with electronics; and Gertrud, who had green hair she always seemed to have over her face like a horror-movie ghost, and who was likelier to attack them with plants than any other kind of monster. They all, to some extent, looked human or human-ish, and they all, except maybe for Gertrud, had all-black eyes.
Some of them had other odd features, too. Roberta had claws, and Kirsten seemed to be able to turn her head in impossible directions and at impossible angles, like an owl. And on one occasion, when Mami and Sayaka were fighting one of Charlotte’s Curse Monsters, Charlotte had gone bonkers after being electrocuted by one of Mami’s blasts and apparently spit out a giant caterpillar or something like it; black with polka-dots and a pointy nose, it had actually eaten the Curse Monster, which seemed to power it up. When Madoka showed up in time to purify it, they’d retrieved two Star Seeds, not just one. Mami had fallen to her knees after the fight was over, gasping in relief. “I’m never using Shining Bolt on Charlotte again,” she said. “I want to know what that was about, but not enough to risk it.”
So Kyouko was still the teammate Sayaka knew the least. Then came the time it was just Sayaka and Kyouko out together — because Sayaka was looking for obscure classical music CDs for Kyousuke’s birthday, and Kyouko, having nothing better to do, had tagged along — and they were attacked at a train station by a walking, yelling pamphlet filled with badly-drawn manga that seemed to be about Jesus. Cure Blaze took the lead with it, since her fire was tailor-made for monsters based on wood or paper, but she seemed distracted and unfocused.
She seemed distracted and unfocused even before the middle-aged man wearing jeans and a black shirt with a clerical collar put himself between the pamphlet and a businessman who seemed to have a hurt ankle that wouldn’t let him run. “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him!” the priest shouted. “You’re not meant to hurt anyone! I only printed you to help people!”
“Oh no,” Cure Blaze whispered, and Cure Ocean created a disc of ice in front of the preacher, saving it from the first blow the monster aimed at him. “Hey! Ugly!” Blaze shouted, lunging at it with her fists apparently on fire — one thing Sayaka did admire about her was all the way she came up with to use her magic — and Ocean focused on her gem, readying a purification attack. There was a strong Star Seed in this one, hidden under the warping of Curse Energy, and she thought it had just gotten stronger when the priest protected the man.
After it was over, Kyouko, still as Cure Blaze, helped the minister gather up his scattered, and in one case charred and torn, pamphlets. “Sorry about this,” she told him. “I know you probably, uh, don’t approve of people running around using magic — suffer a witch to live and all—”
“What would make you think that?” he asked. “You’re helping people, aren’t you, trying to protect everyone? These tracts are supposed to spread the good news, and they can still be twisted and warped into a monster, so I don’t see why you girls can’t use magic to do the Lord’s work.”
“Re... really?” Sayaka wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Kyouko, whether as Cure Blaze or not, look quite this stunned and vulnerable.
“Really.” He smiled warmly. “Bless you, Precure. Take care.”
Sayaka would be the first to admit she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. She suspected something was up, but she didn’t know what, until Kyouko, looking fixedly out the train’s window at buildings and power lines, said, “So you probably figured it out, but that was my dad.”
She told the rest of the story as the train rumbled on. Her father, eager to share the good news about his faith with everyone in sight, had proselytized aggressively enough to make a real nuisance of himself in their neighborhood and surrounding areas. That was how the cult rumors had started to spread at school. And Kyouko, who might think her dad could afford to lay off a little but wasn’t going to take any criticism of him from anyone else, had started getting into fights.
“But you were friends with Mami,” Sayaka asked. “How’d that happen?”
“Same kind of thing,” Kyouko said. “You know how she is. No best friends, but everyone looks up to her. A couple of girls from her class were doing that thing where they look at me and whisper and laugh, and I was getting riled up, and she came over and just... struck up a conversation. Some stupid thing about flowers and the sky, I don’t remember, but it kept me from going over and picking a fight. And we both knew that’s what she was doing, so I was practically ready to bawl, ‘cause... because no one ever helped when stuff like that happened. I had no idea how to thank her. So she invited me over for tea and cookies. Because I really look like the tea and cookies type, right?”
Sayaka suppressed a grin. Kyouko smiled back, looking more like herself, and then she bent over and rummaged in the bag at her feet. When she straightened up, she offered an open box of Pocky; Sayaka took a stick, if only to be polite. “Guess she had the right idea, though,” Kyouko added. “Feeding me, I mean.”
“Maybe cookies were the closest Mami can get to Pocky,” Sayaka suggested, and that was what finally turned Kyouko’s smile into a grin.
Maybe Kyubey had the right idea back when they first met, sending her up to talk to Kyouko. Not that she was going to say that outright. But she could put on a dress and go to the Sakura church the next Sunday without telling Kyouko first. She and Kyouko barely looked at each other all through the service, and they didn’t say a word to each other afterwards, but on Monday at school Kyouko popped up at the shoe lockers — timed so well she had to have been lying in wait — and out of the blue, asked Sayaka if she’d ever played soccer.
“Yeah, a little. I like softball more, though.”
“Figures,” Kyouko said with a grin. “A wimp like you doesn’t have the stamina for a real sport, where you don’t have to take a breather every, what, fifteen or twenty meters?”
“Makes sense that you’d hate softball,” Sayaka retorted, a grin spreading over her own face. All her other friends were so nice. Kyouko was like chasing candy with a pickled plum. “Too cerebral for you. ‘Kick the ball at the net’ is all you can handle.”
“Well, I was gonna invite you to kick the ball around with me a little, but I guess a delicate flower like you can’t handle all that running.”
“Well, gorilla-lady, let’s see if you’re right about that.”
The witches kept coming, of course. A stranger, a new Cure in purple and dark gray and black, started showing up, helping them in fights, sometimes claiming the Star Seeds for her own after it was over. That last part set off alarms in Sayaka’s head. Star Seeds were supposed to restore the energy of the Wish Kingdom, and the witches warped them into monsters to funnel energy towards their curses and their queen instead. What did this new girl want with them? Madoka didn’t care; she just wanted the new girl to be their friend. And Kyubey seemed less worried about the Star Seeds than about the fact that the fifth Cure had been found.
“How’d you miss her?” Kyouko asked him. “Didn’t she need a gem from you? We all did.”
“I wasn’t carrying the gems around in a bag,” he replied. “They come from within you, from the desire to protect wishes. Under the right circumstances, she could form a gem on her own.”
“What circumstances do you mean?” Mami asked, but he just made what amounted to a “hmm” sound and tried to nibble on Kyouko’s cake, which Kyouko was having none of. Good distraction, Sayaka thought, but she could see Mami wasn’t satisfied, either.
One thing regarding the new Cure that Madoka and Sayaka did agree on was that she almost had to be the new transfer student. Despite the glasses — the transfer student, Akemi, wore them and the new Cure didn’t — the resemblance was pretty clear, much more so than the resemblance between Kyouko and Cure Blaze or Sayaka and Cure Ocean. Madoka had been determined to befriend Akemi from the first, and once the mystery Cure made her appearance, she redoubled her efforts.
“It bugs you too, right?” Sayaka asked Mami, the day after that conversation.
“Mmm... I wouldn’t say it troubles me, but I want to know more,” Mami said. “If Kyubey knows what circumstances would let her become a Cure on his own, I wish he’d tell us. Even if they’re bad in some way.”
“Bad? Like how?”
“I’m not really sure. If she’s working against us, or has her own agenda? She could be connected to the witches in some way, as well. They’re a lot like us in some ways, don’t you think? More or less human, with magical powers.”
“Whoa. You think so?”
“I don’t know enough to say for sure.”
Getting to know Mami — without that trace of starstruck girlcrush, just as a friend — was both easier and slower than getting to know Kyouko. Mami kept things to herself, and like Kyouko had said, she didn’t really have any close friends despite her popularity. Any friends other than the three of them, that was. It took her a long time to admit to Sayaka and Kyouko, reluctantly, that she got lonely with her parents so busy, that they were her first close friends.
What with Madoka trying to befriend “Homura-chan” — okay, she might be a little jealous, though she’d never admit it to Kyouko — and Sayaka getting to know Mami and Kyouko, their older friends, like Hitomi and Kyousuke, got left behind. Sayaka tried to keep it from happening, but Kyousuke had to spend so much time practicing violin, and Hitomi had so many classes, and the Curse monsters were so unpredictable, that it was impossible to prevent.
And so was the two of them spending some time together. A lot of time together. When Hitomi told Madoka and Sayaka that she’d be taking a different route to school soon, Sayaka got a sinking feeling in her stomach that lasted until the next morning, when she saw Hitomi and Kyousuke walking to school together. Talking. Laughing.
She’d stopped dead, staring. “Sayaka?” Madoka asked, softly, and Sayaka shook her head and smiled.
“I’m fine, just spacing out!” she said, making herself laugh. It had to sound fake, it couldn’t not, but Madoka examined her face for a moment and nodded.
It was the worst day at school she’d ever had. It felt like there were sirens going off in her ears the whole time, or just a roaring sound, like being on an airplane or near a waterfall. She couldn’t pay attention to anything, or look at Hitomi — at least Kyousuke was in a different homeroom — and she couldn’t cry or yell or scream. She wished she’d gone with her first impulse and just turned and run home, gotten back into bed, hidden under the covers; like putting the whole morning in rewind, then pausing it, so she’d never have seen them.
When the bell rang for lunch, Hitomi touched her arm gently. “Sayaka? I need to speak to you,” she said, and Sayaka barely managed to look at her — so concerned and so pretty, much prettier than her — before she shook off Hitomi’s hand and shoved away from her desk. She heard Madoka say her name, too, and a murmur through the rest of the class, but she didn’t care. She needed to be out, away from them all.
She needed to hit something, throw something, and a soccer ball against a brick wall was better than nothing.
“Hey,” Kyouko’s voice called. “Blue. I can tell you’re upset, but you don’t have to kill my soccer ball.”
“Shut up. What do you know?”
“I know you’re gonna kick a hole in it or something if you’re not careful.”
“It’s just a soccer ball!” She kicked it at Kyouko, angrily, and Kyouko stopped it with a foot. “There, it’s yours. Keep it. Leave me alone.” Sayaka turned, fists clenched, ordering herself not to start crying now of all times. Why Kyouko, of all people? Why couldn’t Madoka come after her? Or even Hitomi, to say it’s not what it looked like, we’re just friends. But it probably was what it looked like.
“What the hell happened?” Kyouko asked. Sayaka swallowed hard. She could hear Kyouko’s footsteps approaching behind her, rustling in the grass. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” she blurted, but not fast enough, and she choked on a sob. She heard the ball drop, and bounce, and then she felt Kyouko’s arms go around her from behind.
She didn’t ever really explain what she was crying about, and it didn’t seem to matter to Kyouko. Once she’d pulled herself together, Kyouko had given her a box of Pretz like it was some kind of emotional band-aid, walked her to the nurse’s office, and vouched that she had a bad stomachache and should go home.
Crying had helped, though on her way home she still walked fast, arms swinging, feet hitting the ground like she was taking some anger out on it, or trying to outpace her thoughts. Her parents were both at work, so she had the place to herself. No need to explain coming home early, or the signs of crying, which they’d recognize on her even if the nurse had overlooked or tactfully ignored it. She could wash her face, and put some water on for tea, in peace.
Thanks to Mami, she’d developed a taste for it. and though she wasn’t as ceremonious about the china and the snacks and the preparations as Mami, the process of preparing it, simple as it was, helped distract and calm her. So did drinking it, which she’d come to associate with talking about or thinking over problems. Then another cup of tea, and she went to her room to put on a CD of violin music. She wasn’t about to let this thing with Hitomi and Kyousuke ruin the violin for her.
Not that her current calm and the catharsis from crying were enough to stop her heart from racing when she got an email on her phone from Hitomi. Right after school would have let out. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. I hope we’re able to talk in person soon - I don’t think what I needed to say to you should be conveyed in an email. Sayaka got up to check her face in the mirror. Did she still look puffy? She vaguely remembered something about putting teabags on your eyes to help with that, but hot, or cold? She couldn’t remember. Might as well go meet Hitomi in person. Rip off the band-aid. She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her school uniform.
At the park, they agreed via text; they both knew the park they meant. She changed into casual clothes, totally not because Kyouko was always teasing her for wearing her uniform everywhere, and headed out. More angry-walking, even though that’d bring her to her destination sooner. Get it over with, she reminded herself. You’ll be okay.
That was her mantra as she walked, in time with her footsteps. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. It saw her all the way to the park, and once there, she saw Hitomi, sitting on the park bench, prim and ladylike, and that finally broke her stride.
You’ll be okay, she told herself, and took another step towards Hitomi, but that was when she heard a terribly familiar “O-ho-ho-ho!” laugh. Roberta, floating above the fountain, looking straight at Sayaka, with one hand still to her mouth. “You seem kind of down,” Roberta said, smirking. “How unusual. I shouldn’t let such a special occasion go to waste.”
“What are you—?” she began, and then she felt it; her heart seized up, it almost felt like it stopped, and then it was racing like it might burst. She clutched at her chest, gasping, and she saw dimly that Hitomi, on the park bench, was doing the same, doubled over. She’d felt this once before, when Madoka was fighting that pitching machine. It was the Curse Energy the witches used, and it hurt. She’d forgotten how much it hurt. Why was this happening? Precure were supposed to be immune!
“I bet you’re wondering why I can get to you,” the witch said, floating down from her place over the fountain. “I’m a little surprised myself, but it seems the additional power I’ve been granted by Queen Walpurgis is enough to work on a weak and doubting Precure.”
Weak, she thought, the word slotting itself into the place in her mind where she’d admired the strength of Kyouko’s fireballs and blasts of flame, and the way Mami could make short work of Kirsten’s electronics monsters. Weak. She wasn’t a good student, or a good cook, she wasn’t as pretty and talented as Hitomi, as sweet and brave as Madoka; she wasn’t organized and together and elegant like Mami, and unlike Kyouko, she couldn’t just say ‘to hell with it’ and be herself anyway. She was weak, and she’d lost, and there was no point to anything anyway. She’d sunk to her knees, arms wrapped around herself, idly wondering how long Roberta was going to drain her misery before killing her, when she heard Kyouko’s voice.
“Kicking someone when she’s down is pretty low even for you. You said you powered up? How ‘bout you try that out against somebody who can fight back?”
“Cure Blaze!” Roberta exclaimed, and Sayaka felt the pressure in her chest lessen, just a little. Just enough that she felt like she could breathe again. She managed to lift her head, and she could see Kyouko attacking Roberta directly — she still hadn’t summoned a monster — in a flurry of punches and kicks. She was pushing hard, pressing her advantage, and Roberta barely seemed to be blocking her. But a moment later, Sayaka could see why; Roberta threw the blackened star shape of a Curse Seed into the fountain, and there was a low rumbling as the magic spread through it.
“Sayaka! Pull yourself together!” Kyouko yelled. “You wanna let this jerk win? Your friend’s in trouble over there!” Taking the time to yell had left an opening, though, and Roberta lifted a stocking-clad leg in a side kick, sending Kyouko flying. Sayaka struggled to breathe normally. Kyouko — Cure Blaze — needed help. Hitomi needed help, needed the fight to end so she’d be freed. The fountain was coming to life before her eyes, uprooting itself from the park’s pavement — it had a mass of pale, bony legs, tangled like roots, under the surface — and it could just kill Hitomi while Blaze and Roberta were fighting. It could kill Sayaka. It could kill Kyouko, too, or keep her busy while Roberta did.
“Wake up!” Kyouko shouted again. “You know I’m no good against water! Cure Ocean!”
There was a moment when everything slowed down, and then a feeling almost like a shell or coating bursting as she stood up, throwing her arms out wide. Her gem materialized in her hand, shining like a tiny blue sun. She was transforming back into herself; people needed her. She had to help. This was what she’d wanted all along, to be able to protect people, and fight for justice. She wanted to save Hitomi, and everyone else, from feeling like she’d just felt. She wanted to help Kyouko. And she wanted to stop the witches for good. “The vast seas, teeming with life!” she shouted. “This fountain is nothing compared to that!”
It would have been nice to be able to really get into a brawl, but there was only so much you could do with punches and kicks against something made out of cement and water; she couldn’t get close enough to physically attack its machinery, so instead, she deflected its attacks, turning jets of water away or back on the monster, freezing up the liquid around its legs, and finally cleansing it in a newfound blizzard of a spell. The Star Seeds — two, again — landed on the ground with a soft clinking.
“Not again,” Roberta wailed, as the monster disintegrated, the fountain slowly reassembling itself back where it belonged. Sayaka flung herself at the witch anyway, in what would have been a body tackle if it had worked, but Roberta had already teleported away. Falling through the space where the witch had been, she landed in Kyouko’s arms instead.
“Dumbass. You know how fast her getaways are.”
“Yeah, but I really really wanted to punch her.”
“You better transform back before your friend wakes up,” Kyouko said, setting Sayaka back on her feet. “Or get away, one of the two.”
Sayaka transformed back, almost in unison with Kyouko. “It’s what I came here for. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Show some gratitude, Blue, I saved your ass! I’ll explain later. Go talk to her.” She turned to walk away, then looked back, grinning. “And come up with a name for that new spell or Mami’s gonna have a fit.”
Sayaka stuck out her tongue and pulled down her lower eyelid like she was all of eight years old, and Kyouko, cackling, walked away. Sayaka turned to check on Hitomi. Still asleep, but stirring. Sayaka ran to her side.
“Sayaka?” Hitomi sat up, blinking at her. “What happened?”
“I guess you fell asleep? Your mom works you too hard with all those lessons.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a Precure incident? I had this dream...”
“Pretty sure. Unless I fell asleep standing up and woke up still standing up.”
“It does seem unlikely,” Hitomi agreed. “Sayaka, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Me? Yeah, I’m... I’m fine.” She was. Her heart hurt when she thought about Kyousuke, in love with Hitomi and not with her, but it wasn’t like it had been before. Was it the same way that being a Precure normally kept her immune from the malaise the witches spread, or just the fact that after being hit by Curse Energy, ordinary heartache wasn’t so bad? Or maybe it was just that she couldn’t be as mad now as she’d been before, after being reminded that she still cared about Hitomi.
“Good... I didn’t want to have a serious discussion when you weren’t feeling well.” Hitomi stood, straightened her skirt, dusted herself off. “Sayaka, I know you and Madoka don’t really have this secret forbidden love. I know you have feelings for Kamijou.”
“I...”
“And so do I, so... I probably should have told you this before I started walking to school with him, shouldn’t I?”
“Yeah, might’ve been a good idea, but hey. Even you can’t be perfect all the time. That’s actually a little reassuring.”
“Excuse me,” Hitomi protested. “I think I’m offended and I need a little time to decide how.”
“And I’m supposed to give you that why? C’mon, let’s go get some tea or coffee or something.”
She was turning to lead the way when Hitomi’s “Sayaka,” serious and commanding, turned her back. “I meant it. I want to confess my feelings to Kamijou. I want to give you the opportunity to do so first.”
“No, I get it. I understand.” She stepped closer to Hitomi; let her see if her eyes were puffy, and see that she meant what she said. “Tell Kyousuke how you feel. I think you two would be a good match.”
“Sayaka... you’re sure?”
“I’m sure. And I want some tea. It’s good for an upset stomach.”
“I’ve never heard that at all,” Hitomi protested, but this time she came along with Sayaka, smiling, and Sayaka didn’t have to force a laugh.
She didn’t see Kyouko until the next morning, at school, and when Sayaka flashed a genuine smile at her, Kyouko gave a satisfied nod and melted into the hallway crowd without a word. But Sayaka owed her an explanation, too, so at lunch she snagged Kyouko away from her homeroom. She was pretty proud of getting through the whole explanation without getting any worse than sniffly. Especially since in her eyes, “starting at the beginning” regarding Kyousuke meant kindergarten. By the time she was done, Kyouko was finished with her meal, though Sayaka was barely halfway through.
“You didn’t lose your appetite ‘cause of a broken heart or anything, did you?”
Sayaka suspected Kyouko just wanted her lunch, but when she looked up from her meal — she hadn’t been looking at Kyouko much for the last part, mostly focused on getting through it and not getting upset — the other girl was looking at her face, not her fried chicken. If anything, she looked concerned. “No,” she said. “I was just talking instead of eating.”
“You sure? I heard that happens.”
“I’m okay. My heart’s not broken. I mean, I’m sad, but I’m not going to die of it or anything. That’s what a broken heart really means.”
“Okay. Long as you’re sure.” The snacks came out again. A bag of chips this time, with a cartoon pepper on the front. “But if you think you’re not gonna eat all that...”
“I’m really hungry,” Sayaka said meaningfully. Kyouko grinned, and popped a chip in her mouth.
It wasn’t like Sayaka was totally fixed. She was sad, and she had a lot of daydreams of a happy relationship with Kyousuke to gradually lay to rest. But she hadn’t been seeing as much of him over the past months as she used to, and that probably made it easier. Maybe it was best that she still not see him very much.
It helped, oddly enough, to know that she wasn’t the only one vulnerable to the Curse Energy, or to doubts and insecurities. Madoka visited the Tomoe family’s bakery, to find Mami, her parents, and a dozen customers huddled before Charlotte; Kyouko and Sayaka arrived too late to help, but afterwards, Mami admitted to them all that she felt like a fraud, presenting herself as perfect, calm and confident, when she wasn’t. “Mama says that’s what confidence is,” Madoka told her gently. “Never letting any doubts show even when you have them. Even to yourself, if you can help it, but... how’s she say it? Fake it till you make it.”
Mami and Sayaka, running a little late to church, found the entire small congregation and the Sakura family under attack from an entire electronics store’s worth of TVs Kirsten had turned into monsters. Mami was a perfect opponent for those, but Elly was tougher than she’d ever been before, able to warp from place to place using any TV screens she had handy, even broken ones. Snapping Kyouko out of her malaise took quite a bit of yelling on Sayaka’s part, and some ugly cuts on her arms from punching an old CRT screen. “You have to protect your family!” finally did the trick.
Madoka, who’d overslept, joined them at Mami’s apartment afterwards, where Kyouko admitted she felt ashamed of her father’s notoriety but proud of his conviction and determination, and she felt like a bad daughter for being ashamed. “That’s stupid,” Sayaka said, getting a small distressed noise from Madoka and a frown from Mami. She wasn’t letting them stop her. “You love your dad. You don’t have to love every single thing he does. My dad’s incredibly embarrassing, and all he does is tell stupid jokes in public, not harass people about religion. I’m not a bad daughter, so you’re not either.”
“That’s different,” Kyouko protested. “He’s trying to help people, save them, by sharing his faith.”
“But he could do it in different ways and he doesn’t. It’s not like you’re rejecting everything he believes in, or even anything he believes in. Just the way he does some things.”
“Huh,” Kyouko said, noncommittally. Madoka had started to smile, and Mami, also with a faint smile, poured more tea for everyone.
Then one afternoon, Sayaka — out for a walk with Hitomi and Mami — found Madoka and her family, along with a swath of the visitors to the park along the river, under attack by Gertrud and a small grove’s worth of Curse-energized trees. Other park-goers, less heavily affected by the Curse Energy, were running for their lives. Sayaka and Mami exchanged a look, and Mami pulled out her cell phone; Kyouko would be a big help here. “Hitomi, Mami, get to safety!” Sayaka shouted, for show. “I have to find Madoka and her family!”
Mami hustled Hitomi away before she could object; Sayaka didn’t envy her the task of covertly calling Kyouko and then managing to lose Hitomi in the crowd, but somebody needed to distract the witch and her monsters before they could do any more damage, and Sayaka had never been able to figure out where her cell phone went when she transformed. “Precure Power,” she called out, “I wish!”
She’d barely even laid a fist on Gertrud when the mysterious Cure entered the fight. She seemed even stronger and faster than Sayaka remembered from their last encounter, so Sayaka left the witch to her and turned to the trees. Slicing them up with ice wasn’t the best way to handle them, but she could use water blasts to steer them away from the civilians until the others could join the fight.
Madoka’s despair turned out to be hard to break, though. Sayaka’s voice barely roused her; Mami and Kyouko called out to her as well, but it wasn’t until the mystery Cure and Sayaka were both calling for Cure Hope, and Sayaka slipped and called for Madoka, that she finally broke free.
Of course, when she did, it was epic; she drew a bow of pure light and pinned Gertrud to a glowing heart made of the same light, and she managed to pull off a good three-quarters of her purification spell before the witch broke free.
That wasn’t even the last of the surprises. The mystery Cure, who’d been hanging back, silently, suddenly ran to Cure Hope as soon as the witch was gone, grabbed her by the shoulders, and cried out, more emotionally than Sayaka had ever heard her, “Madoka, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Madoka said, covering one of the girl’s hands with hers.
“Thank goodness,” she sighed, then abruptly pulled herself together. “Be more careful next time,” she continued, in the chilly tones Sayaka was used to. Sayaka wondered if they were really right about her identity. Yeah, Madoka and Akemi were pretty close — Madoka called her Homura-chan now — which would explain the Cure’s worry about Madoka, but that girl was nothing like this ice queen.
Not that it stopped Madoka. “Wait!” she called, as the Cure turned to go. “What’s your name?”
If that was going to work you should have tried it months ago, Sayaka thought, but maybe she was wrong — it did work, partially. “Cure Midnight,” the girl said, and then she gathered herself up and leaped away.
Sayaka was about ninety percent sure, based on her knowledge of Madoka’s willingness to lie and ability to cover things up without lying, that Madoka had gone on to ask Akemi if she was Cure Midnight.
“So what’d your spreadsheet tell you?” Kyouko scoffed. They were in Mami’s apartment, trying to study together (not that the younger two could do much to help Mami, but they were supposed to be a motivating presence) and mostly ignoring their books to eat cake and talk shop.
“Not my spreadsheet, my instincts. My instincts tell me she asked Akemi and promised not to tell anyone. So that has to mean the answer’s yes, because why would she promise to not tell us Akemi’s not it?”
“If... Akemi didn’t want us to know she wasn’t Cure Midnight?” Kyouko responded, like she was helping very slow child.
“Because obviously Akemi wants to impress us. She won’t even talk to us! She doesn’t want us to think she’s a Cure.”
Mami cleared her throat, heading off further bickering. “What would it really change if we knew? Cure Midnight clearly doesn’t want to work with us, for some reason. She’s not going to change her mind if we know who she is.”
“We could blackmail her,” Kyouko suggested, helping herself to more cake.
“I don’t think that’s going to make her more friendly,” Mami said, diplomatically, which was helpful, because Sayaka had tried to snicker and inhaled some tea.
Sayaka let the subject drop with Madoka, at least, and Madoka, in turn, apparently persuaded Akemi to join her and Kyouko for lunch on a semi-regular basis. In a small group like theirs, Akemi seemed less prone to stammering and bashful silences; she was quiet, but more reserved than shy. When she did speak, she was calm but chilly. Sayaka was even less clear now on why Madoka liked her than she had been when she didn’t know Homura at all.
Weirdly, Kyouko didn’t agree. “I hope you’re right about her,” she said, after school on the first day the four ate lunch together. “That she’s Cure Midnight, I mean.”
“Well, she’s enough of a creepy ice queen.”
Kyouko laughed. “Now tell me how you really feel.”
Sayaka glared, and Kyouko slung an arm around her shoulders. “C’mon, Blue, lighten up. Does it bug you that much that she’s got a crush on your girl?”
“What?”
“You noticed, right?”
Sayaka was mostly noticing Kyouko’s arm around her shoulders, the weight and warmth of it, the solidity, Kyouko’s fingers on the short, lightweight sleeve of her summer uniform. It was hard to walk like this, and Sayaka slowed down. “You think she has a crush on Madoka?”
“Don’t you? I figured that was why you hated her.”
“I don’t hate her.” There were actually a lot of things that Kyouko had said in the last minute or so that she wanted to ask about all at once, like my girl? and this isn’t even the first time you’ve talked about me being jealous over Madoka, you keep bringing it up, what’s up with that?, and why did you put your arm around me? and you really think Akemi has a crush on her? Okay, she’d said that last one. She was used to this kind of stuff from Hitomi, but Kyouko had probably never even talked to Hitomi, so she was coming up with all these ideas on her own.
“Coulda fooled me.”
“I just don’t trust her! It’s different.” Yeah, there’d been a time she’d been a little jealous about Madoka going off and making all these new friends — she’d gotten along better with both Mami and Kyouko at first, and she’d been really close with Akemi for a while — but that was because she wanted to stay close to her best friend. It wasn’t any of her business who Akemi liked, as long as she didn’t do anything suspicious. That left... “Why do you keep bringing up this idea that I have a thing for Madoka? Hitomi used to do that too.”
“Maybe we’re both onto something.” It wasn’t just Kyouko’s arm; standing like this, her own arm kept touching Kyouko’s side, and Kyouko’s face was closer to hers than it normally was. Sayaka had always just laughed off all of Hitomi’s jokes and Kyouko’s possibly-not-jokes. It’s not like that, she’d say, laughing or annoyed or just bored, but this was different. This was like that, and she wasn’t sure she minded.
But she still pulled away, her face probably red, her heart definitely pounding. “Maybe you’re both—” she began, but she couldn’t finish the sentence. Kyouko’s grin had faded to a half-smile, and she had a look in her eyes Sayaka had only seen once before, when they fought one of Kyouko’s dad’s religious tracts in a train station.
But it faded fast, and she was smirking. “Both what?” Kyouko said. “I’m just messin’ with ya, Blue. But seriously, I don’t get what you have against this chick.”
“Ugh, I give up! I try to explain it to you and you just won’t listen! I’m going home. I need to study. You can go to that bakery on your own.”
The next day, before school, Kyouko ambushed her at the shoe lockers with a bakery bag, held out like a peace offering. “You missed out,” she said. “This stuff’s better when it’s fresh.”
“Yeah, well, I needed to study,” Sayaka said, but she took one of the cream-filled rolls anyway. “It’s not like any bakery’s gonna top Mami’s baking anyway.”
“Mami needs to study, too,” Kyouko said, primly, and Sayaka bristled for a moment before remembering — Mami had said almost exactly the same thing, and Kyouko was mimicking that. Probably. Jeez, she was on edge. She took a big bite of the roll.
“Still good,” she said, mouth full, and Kyouko grinned at her.
They had to fight a monster made of textbooks and a laptop during the middle of the morning, that day, and for once Sayaka was able to short out the electronics part of a Curse Monster with water while Cure Shining and Cure Hope were pinned down with outsize textbooks. Cure Midnight was standing over them, deflecting pencil missiles and exploding sheets of paper, until she got overwhelmed and trapped herself.
“We gotta get them out of these!” Cure Blaze shouted, busy trying to pry one of the textbooks off of Shining.
“I have an idea,” Sayaka called. “Get back from there, and burn the books off of them! I’ll put out the fire before they can get hurt.”
“You sure?”
“Do it!” Cure Hope called out. “I trust you guys! You can do it.”
“Okay!” Cure Blaze said, and then she took off, running, at the monster itself; a mid-air bicycle kick at its middle section dislodged a shower of notebooks, and when she landed, on her feet, she braced her legs, put her hands together, and then slowly pulled them apart, a lance of fire forming between them. “Blazing... SPEAR!” she shouted, flinging it at the book holding Hope down. Ocean watched closely for the spine to begin to blacken and crack before she followed suit, forming an orb of water in her hand and then getting into position, on one leg, doing her windup, and throwing it, hard, with a shout of “Ocean... PITCH!” (She’d tried to call it “water volleyball” when she first developed it, but Mami hadn’t approved.) The flames hissed and smoked as the water hit them, and the book split down the spine as Cure Hope pushed on it from underneath, bouncing to her feet with a fist held aloft.
“Get the others!” she called. “I’ll keep the monster busy!”
They repeated the process, ignoring the background shouts and ripping noises as Cure Hope fought. With the other two both free and unharmed, they bumped fists, Blaze whooped triumphantly, and Sayaka felt her heart trip over itself. She turned and blasted books away with a barrage of icicles, trying to expose the Curse Seed core; she wasn’t even surprised when, seconds after it finally showed, pulsing an unhealthy green, Blaze was on it, cracking it with a roundhouse kick, and then shouting, “Burning... FAITH!” as she blasted it with fire up close.
Up too close. It looked like she touched it, and Sayaka took off at a sprint through the rain of paper. She didn’t know that touching a Curse Seed would do anything, but she didn’t know it wouldn’t, either, because none of them had ever tried. “What the hell was that?” she shouted, as she got close enough for Kyouko to hear.
“Pretty badass if you ask me,” Kyouko responded, with that cocky grin of hers. She bent to pick up the Star Seed, but winced and let it drop.
“Let me see your hands,” Sayaka commanded, and when Kyouko held them out, palm-up, she took one of them in hers, carefully, trying not to touch the palms. They looked burned to her, already starting to blister, and she pulled at her reserves to bring up a small chunk of ice that she carefully wrapped Kyouko’s hands around. Could she push healing energy through it? She was pretty sure water was the healing element in some video games she’d played when she was a kid.
“Too cold?”
“Nah, it’s... it’s fine.” Was Kyouko blushing now? It felt a lot better being on the other side of that, not that she wasn’t experiencing some heart-pounding of her own. “It feels a lot better now.”
“It should. I’m trying to heal the burns.”
“Cure Blaze!” Mami called. The others were gathering around them, and Sayaka wondered if she ought to let go, but then what if Kyouko dropped the ice? Obviously they needed to keep holding hands for medical reasons. “Are you all right?”
“She burned her hands,” Sayaka said, raising her voice to drown out Kyouko’s “I’m fine.” “Because she’s the stupid kind of brave.”
“Yep, guilty as charged,” Kyouko said. “Been spending too much time with you, Blue.”
“And when have I ever hurt myself, huh? Gotten hurt in fights, sure, but something like you did?”
“I seem to remember you bleeding all over my family’s church,” Kyouko retorted, and Mami, smiling, told Madoka and Cure Midnight, “They’re fine.”
They were fine, but Sayaka had her idiot heart to deal with, and she wasn’t too happy about that. She’d apparently decided to be an idiot in all kinds of ways; she suggested the two of them eat lunch with Hitomi and Kyousuke, and in the middle of the most awkward lunch in human history she suggested they all go to the aquarium together, which was practically a double date. The only thing that saved them all was that Hitomi was busy that day.
“Man, you’re just a glutton for punishment,” Kyouko said, as they headed back to their classrooms together.
“No, that was good! It proved I can spend time around Kyousuke! We’ve been friends since we were little. I’d hate to lose that.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” Kyouko said. “So that’s been, what, like ten years of sitting around together saying ‘um?’ Or ‘That’s so exciting, Kyousuke-sama!’”
“I do not call him Kyousuke-sama!”
“In your mind you do!”
“I do not!”
Someone behind them cleared her throat delicately and Sayaka jumped, filled with horrible conviction that it was Hitomi. She’d never been so happy in her life to see Mami instead. “Girls,” Mami said, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but Kyubey wants to discuss something about the witches after school today.”
“Sure thing,” Kyouko said. “Your place?”
“Of course,” Mami said. “I baked a red velvet cake yesterday.”
Over red velvet cake and royal milk tea, Kyouko, Sayaka, Mami, and Kyubey waited. Kyouko kept fencing Kyubey away from her cake with a fork, while Mami talked about Italy and Sayaka talked about Italian composers. “You could just start telling us whatever it is,” Kyouko suggested to Kyubey.
“I’d rather wait until Madoka and Cure Midnight arrive.”
“Midnight? Is she going to come in costume? Just a random cosplayer on the train...” Sayaka tried to envision it. If anyone was going to be okay with wandering around in her regular clothes with a fully-transformed Precure, Madoka would be it. Not that she wouldn’t be embarrassed at all, but she probably wouldn’t say so.
“She could transform right outside my door,” Mami suggested.
Right on time, they heard the knock, and Mami jumped to her feet and stepped back into her slippers to go answer the door. Kyubey jumped onto her shoulder to accompany her. Sayaka took a bite of her cake, and looked surreptitiously at Kyouko. If she was getting a crush on her teammate, or more than a crush, what was she supposed to do about that? If two girls were forbidden love in Hitomi’s eyes, that probably went double for a Christian minister’s daughter, right? Damn, she should have asked that back when Kyouko was all over her and talking about Sayaka being jealous over Madoka, because bringing it up now would probably seem weird.
From the entryway, they could hear the door opening, and then an exclamation of surprise from Mami. Kyouko caught her eye, and they both got up at the same time. Standing in the doorway, Kyouko licking frosting off her fingers, they both saw what had drawn an “oh my!” from Mami. “Well this is anticlimactic,” Kyouko said.
Standing next to Madoka, wearing her school uniform and holding her bookbag, was Akemi Homura. She was wearing new glasses Sayaka hadn’t seen her wearing at school before, wire-rimmed, and her hair was still in braids, not flowing free like when she was Cure Midnight. She let go of her bookbag with one hand to give them a small wave of greeting, and she actually smiled a little. Madoka was looking at her and beaming, and Sayaka felt a little pang of recognition. If Kyouko was right about that crush, it might not be one-sided.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Akemi said. “It’s actually a very long story, so I hope you don’t mind hearing me out.”
“Not at all!” Mami exclaimed. “Please, come in. There’s cake, and I’ll make a fresh pot of tea.”
“I don’t mind,” Sayaka said. “I’ve been wanting to know what’s up for months now.”
“Yeah, it’s about time,” Kyouko said. “Come on in, Spooky. Good to meet you again.”
“Spooky?”
Sayaka tried to hide her snicker, and elbowed Kyouko in the side. It wasn’t the nickname itself; it was seeing Akemi actually look surprised.
When they were all settled to Mami’s satisfaction, with tea and cake (and, this time, a small plate for Kyubey,) Homura began her explanation.
“I’m the last Precure from the Kingdom of Wishes,” she explained. “I came here separately from Kyubey. I didn’t realize any of the fairies had escaped, or that there was any hope for reclaiming the kingdom, until I enrolled in school here.”
As she went on, Sayaka realized she was paying as much attention to how Homura — might as well get used to thinking of her that way, now that they were all in it together — talked as to what she was saying. When she wasn’t keeping secrets, she wasn’t nearly as off-putting and untrustworthy as she’d felt the other times she and Sayaka had met. She showed some emotion talking about the fall of the Kingdom of Wishes, and was clearly trying to keep it under control; so maybe not so much a creepy ice queen as somebody who had a lot on her mind. “They aren’t using the same approach here,” Homura said. “In the Kingdom of Wishes, they took out vast crowds at once with Curse Energy, but not as aggressively as they do on Earth. People could still move and speak, but they had no will to fight or resist, and it was easy for the monsters to herd them around and keep them under control.”
“But that’s the reason I called you here today,” Kyubey said. “After Madoka was able to use purification energy on Gertrud, she’s been behaving differently — Mami, Madoka and Homura saw that when they fought her last week.”
“It’s true,” Madoka said. “She was moving more like a human, not a horror movie ghost. And her monster was normal, but she seemed much weaker.”
“I think the Curse Energy might even have been hurting her,” Mami added. “It was very strange.”
“If that’s true...” Homura said, hand on her chin. “Hmm. I’d like to try an experiment, if possible — the next time we face a witch, let’s try to purify her again. Especially if it’s not Gertrud.”
“What do you think it means?” Mami asked.
“I’m not sure. I’d rather not say until I know more.”
Sayaka sighed, and then she felt Kyouko’s hand on her wrist, giving it a comforting squeeze. How the hell was she supposed to act like a normal person with a normal pulse rate if Kyouko was going to keep knowing what she was thinking on the basis of a grouchy sigh, and touching her, and giving her those lopsided grins when their eyes met? At least it distracted her from getting mad at Homura over yet more secrets.
“I’ll explain as soon as I can,” Homura added. “I just don’t want to talk about ideas that might be very far off-base.”
“Okay, that’s fair enough,” Sayaka admitted. “So what’s that have to do with the witches plotting something?”
“I think they may be planning an aggressive strike to obtain more Curse Energy for Gertrud, to reverse the changes caused by the purification. If that’s true, we need to be ready.”
“You got it,” Kyouko said. “We need to start training or something?”
“That’s a really good idea!” Madoka exclaimed. “You and Sayaka should be in charge of that. You’re both so athletic.”
“Training” essentially meant some stretching, jogging, and Kyouko trying to get everyone (especially Homura, for some reason) to do some soccer drills, because she seemed to think that ball control was a valuable skill for Precure. It turned out that Homura was terrible at soccer, to Kyouko’s disappointment. She ducked when asked to do headers, and Sayaka had to get on Kyouko’s case about asking a girl who wore glasses to hit a ball with her head. Her abject failure at soccer was actually kind of endearing, because other than talking to the class without stammering, she seemed to be absurdly good at everything else she tried. And Sayaka wasn't totally convinced the stammer and shyness weren't an act.
“If you just hit it with your forehead your glasses’d be fine,” Kyouko grumbled. She was eating an apple, a surprising nod to healthiness.
“I can’t help it,” Homura protested. “I’m used to trying to protect them!”
“You don’t wear them when you’re transformed,” Madoka said. “I never asked — do you have contacts?”
“The transformation fixes my eyesight,” Homura said. “I don’t know if any of the rest of you have anything like that — injuries or chronic ailments? It tends to repair those.”
Madoka kept smiling, a lot, whenever they talked like this, and Sayaka had a feeling she knew what was up. On one of their morning jogs, she slowed down a bit so as to run alongside Madoka, near the back of the pack. “You planned this, huh?” she asked.
“Of course!” Madoka was a little more out of breath than she was, but not that much. None of them except maybe Mami (who’d had to buy a sports bra after their first jog, poor thing) were all that out of shape to begin with. “You were there when I did, Sayaka!”
“Well, yeah, but that's not what I meant. You wanted us to bond, right?” By “us” she really meant “you wanted us to bond with Homura,” but she was pretty sure Madoka would get it.
“A little,” Madoka admitted. “Is it working?”
Sayaka grinned. “A little.”
“Good! She’s really nice, Sayaka. She’s just—” Madoka had to stop talking for a minute to get her breathing together. “She’s just getting used to this world, and she’s been a Precure longer, so she’s — it’s like she’s a soldier? Or—”
“I think I get what you mean,” she said, to save Madoka from getting out of breath again. She wondered if Homura would talk about her life in the Wish Kingdom, or if she already had, with Madoka; had she had friends her own age? What was life like there, just in general? If she was the last Precure, there must have been others, so what had happened to them? She didn’t know Homura well enough to ask, but the answers to some of those might help explain why she acted the way she did, and tried to keep her identity secret for so long.
They’d barely been training a week when the attack Kyubey had warned them about came to pass. They weren’t in the middle of training, but they were, fortunately, still all together, drinking tea at a little cafe Mami had found, when the case of pastries near the counter suddenly exploded. Sayaka tried to encase it in ice, to keep broken glass from going everywhere, but she wasn’t even transformed. Her glowing Wish Gem popped out of her bag and into her hand, and she was the first one in costume and ready to fight, if not quite in time to protect everyone from that first attack. Was anyone hurt? She dropped a splash of cool, healing water over a woman with a cut on her arm, still huddled protectively over a little boy who was crying; at the sight of Sayaka, his face lit up, and he called out, “Precure!”
She flashed a distracted smile at them. “That’s right,” she said, then to the woman, “Can you get behind the counter? That’s probably safest.”
The woman nodded, already on the move. “The sunrise that banishes the darkness!” she heard Madoka’s voice exclaim behind her, followed by the others:
“The spark of energy that powers the world! Cure Shining!”
“The life-giving flame, the fire of faith! Cure Blaze!”
“The stars that shine in the darkest night! Cure Midnight!”
The monster was made of pastries — cream puffs and cake slices and cupcakes — and Mami said, “Charlotte.”
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
“She may not be the only one, though, if Kyubey’s right,” Cure Hope said. “Ocean, Blaze, Shining, you three go look for the witches. Midnight and I will finish this off.”
Her little Madoka was a battle commander, Sayaka thought. They grow up so fast. “Got it,” was all she said, though, and the three of them took off.
“It’s a shame,” Blaze said, outside the cafe. “The cake was really good.”
“They’ll bake more,” Shining said. “Wait—”
They all pulled up short. There she was in front of them: Charlotte, black-eyed and staring, looking for all the world like a little girl with a polka-dot scarf and a coat way too big for her. “We should have left you in there with the pastry monster,” Ocean muttered to Shining, remembering the caterpillar incident, but then she heard an “Ohohohoho!” that made her hair stand on end. Had she fought Roberta since that awful time at the fountain? Others had, but she hadn’t. She clenched her fists and turned to face her.
“Two out of four,” Blaze said. “Where are your friends?” she asked, raising her voice.
“We could ask you the same thing,” Roberta replied. “Surely it doesn’t take one rookie and one veteran to take down a single-seed Curse Monster?”
Before they could answer, there was a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass, and Hope and Midnight both came flying through the cafe’s front window. “More than that, I guess,” Roberta amended. “Pity. I was hoping we’d at least have a nice challenge.”
“Oh, I think we got plenty of challenge for you,” Blaze snarled, and she charged. Cure Ocean charged her own fists with ice, the way she’d seen Blaze do before, and lunged at Charlotte. “Shining, be ready!” she called. If they could purify one of the witches, like Homura had requested, they might have the answer to some of these secrets and mysteries. And one less witch to fight.
The battle was chaos, even before Kirsten and Gertrud appeared. Charlotte was a handful even when she wasn’t vomiting demon worms; she could pretty much walk on air, maybe literally, and it was all Ocean could do to block her attacks. Going on the offensive was out of the question. Blaze and Roberta were more evenly matched, but Roberta was tall and had more reach. Ocean normally liked to think she could hold her own in fights, but when Midnight blasted Charlotte with a purple arrow of light, all she could do was gasp her gratitude before she punched the girl.
Gertrud was definitely looking different, Ocean realized, even with the limited glimpses she could catch. The thick, green, moss-like hair that covered her face had been pushed back, and looked a lot more like real hair than like some kind of plant or fungus. Her eyes looked sort of wild, or frightened, even, but they weren’t all black — they looked like eyes. And she was standing like a hunched-over old woman, not crawling like a creepy witch Spider-Man; she leaned on Kirsten like she was sick, but she was standing. Should they finish the cleansing on her, or was that cruel? She wondered if the others were thinking the same way.
Charlotte, well, no worries if that was cruel. She snap-kicked the girl into a wall, and shouted, “Shining! Now!”
“Got it,” Shining called, then “Shining strike! Fulmine!”
Electricity danced around the smallest witch’s body, forming a ring against the wall, and slowly rising up it. “Charlotte!” Roberta shouted, and Ocean heard the girl cry out. Did it hurt them?
And then her mouth opened wider, wider than a human mouth ought to be able to; it looked like her jaw unhinged like a snake’s, and the black polka-dotted beast emerged from her again, this time looking angry, and dove at Shining. Ocean threw up an ice shield in front of her, and Shining sprung backwards, up onto the low roof of the cafe and to relative safety. The caterpillar-creature followed, and behind it, the girl, her head looking like a normal, all-in-one-piece human head again, slumped gently to the ground.
One of them should go to her, Ocean thought, but the creature was after Shining, and it was fast. Blaze enveloped it in flame, and it looked for a moment like it might have worked, like it was crisping and burning away, but a copy of it emerged from its mouth, and this time it lunged at Blaze. Another ice shield in front of Blaze; it bit down on the shield, then drew back, seeming surprised. Blaze shot a fire lance through the ice, down its gullet, and followed that up with another of her bicycle kicks to its face. Hope called out, “Dawn — sunrise burst!” and began unspooling power from her gem into the creature, a second cleansing; Sayaka, holding her breath, went to Kyouko’s side.
“Midnight — Shining stars!” Midnight shouted, another blast of magic rolling out from her; purple and pink. “Shining strike — fulmine!” Shining added, and Sayaka squeezed Kyouko’s hand — when had she taken Kyouko’s hand? — and then lifted both her hands to form a circle around her gem. None of the other witches were attacking. They were all just watching. It was safe, for now, so Sayaka shouted, “Cleansing waters — tidal!” and sent a wave of blue spiraling into the circle.
Kyouko drew a deep breath, next to her, and called out, “Purifying flame — believe!” to send fiery orange and gold into the mix. It felt like it went on for ages, but that was how it was when you used magic, time telescoping to fit in what you needed to do; gradually, though, it took effect. They all watched in near-silence except for the crackle of their spells as the magic slowly disintegrated the beast, leaving behind only the cartoonish face — looking curious and almost cute now, not enraged — and then, finally, nothing at all.
Then Madoka fell to her knees, and they all shouted, “Hope!” as they ran to her.
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling, though she looked tired. “Check on Charlotte.”
It was Midnight, surprisingly, who turned away first and went to the small witch’s side, across from Kirsten, who was kneeling next to her. Like they had some sudden, unspoken truce, both witches and Precure gathered around her. She looked the same — overlong sleeves, hair in pink pigtails, polka-dot scarf and striped tights — but she also looked like she was peacefully asleep, which wasn’t what Sayaka expected for a witch.
And then she opened her eyes. They weren’t all-black anymore. They were sky-blue, wide and untroubled, though she blinked repeatedly at the sunshine. “Cure Midnight?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Dammit,” Roberta exclaimed, and the three other witches teleported away, so abruptly Sayaka blinked.
“I knew it,” Homura said, softly, as emotional as Sayaka had ever heard her. She sounded like she might cry. “I knew we could reverse it.”
“You knew...” Kyouko repeated, blankly.
“Homura!” Madoka exclaimed, throwing her arms around Cure Midnight, still costumed. “It worked!”
“I suspected this might...” Mami cleared her throat. “I should have asked long ago,” she said. A memory stirred in Sayaka’s mind: They’re a lot like us in some ways, don’t you think? More or less human, with magical powers.
“Let’s get Charlotte somewhere that she can rest,” Madoka said, standing up and transforming back to normal. “My house is closest, I think.”
Madoka’s house was always impressive, and several of them — Kyouko, Mami, and Charlotte — had never seen it, though Homura apparently had. “Let’s save the tour, though,” Sayaka said. “I want to know what’s going on, and it looks like Charlotte needs ten naps.”
“That’s not really my name,” Charlotte said politely, and then yawned. “But otherwise you’re right.”
“My room,” Madoka said. “Papa and Tatsuya — my little brother — are out for the afternoon, and I think Mama’s at the gym, but she could come home anytime. She kind of hates the gym.”
With Charlotte set up on Madoka’s bed, cuddling a stuffed bunny, they huddled in a corner to talk in low voices. “This is when I finally tell everything,” Homura said. “I’m sorry it took so long, but I wasn’t certain until now. You knew I was the last Precure of the Wish Kingdom. The other four vanished when they were defeated in battle. In fact, the Curse Monster that defeated Cure Teatime looked exactly like the creature we defeated today.”
“So it... oh gross,” Kyouko exclaimed. “It just like moved in and set up shop?”
“That’s horrible!”
Madoka shushed them all, glancing over at Charlotte.
“That seems to be the case,” Homura said levelly. “I agree. I believe we can free the others, as well, but now that they know we can, they’ll be more wary than ever before. They were already on guard thanks to the partial cleansing of Gertrud.”
“Homura,” Mami said. “Before we met you, I used Shining Bolt on Charlotte and that monster made another appearance. Do you think we could have freed her then?”
“I doubt it,” Homura said. “It took five of us, and considerable energy expenditure, to fully dispel the possession. I wish I’d known about it earlier, though.”
“We just took it for another odd witch feature, like Kirsten’s neck,” Mami said.
“Like she had a second form,” Sayaka added.
“I wish I’d thought to mention it as well.” Mami seemed really downcast, and Kyouko rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.
“At least she’s free now,” Madoka said.
“Homura.” Kyouko sounded serious. “You said you weren’t sure. But you knew who they were, right? Madoka mentioned something about reversing it, so you knew the witches were the former Precure. Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
“We weren’t certain,” Kyubey spoke up, emerging from Madoka’s bag climbing onto her lap. “I thought the Curse forces might have just mimicked the defeated Cures to dash people’s hopes. I didn’t know if Cures really could be corrupted that way.”
“I knew who they were, but I didn’t want to mention it to all of you until I was certain it could be reversed,” Homura said. “I thought I might need to kill all my former teammates. I didn’t want the rest of you to know.”
“But Madoka knew?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything!” Madoka blurted out. Sayaka reached out and ruffled her bangs like she was a kid, and then she turned a glare on Homura. Telling Madoka a secret as dark as this and making her keep it? Maybe she’d been right to distrust Homura from the start. Homura’s next words didn’t help.
“You’re not responsible for that, Madoka. It was a promise you made to me.”
“Yeah, so you didn’t want to burden the rest of us with that, but burdening Madoka’s okay?”
“I’d kept the secret for so long,” Homura said, barely above a whisper, and Sayaka’s righteous anger on Madoka’s behalf died away.
“The important thing is that now we all know,” Madoka said, reminding Sayaka, again, that her little Madoka could fend for herself now. “And we know it can be reversed, so all we need to do is save the others, and defeat Queen Walpurgis and her Curse Army.”
“Oh. Is that all,” Kyouko said.
Relieved laughter could be just as effective when stifled, it turned out.
They left the Kaname home that afternoon — Madoka’s dad was a great cook, but he probably wasn’t prepared to feed five additional hungry girls the moment he came home — and dispersed, each heading for their own homes. Mami, Homura, and Charlotte, who hadn't mentioned a civilian name yet, went one direction, Kyoko and Sayaka the other, as the sun gradually warmed up towards sunset. “Cure Teatime,” Kyouko said. “And Midnight. I wonder what the other three are? Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner?”
“Wakeup, Quitting Time, and Bedtime,” Sayaka suggested. Kyouko gave her a lopsided grin, and fished a battered Pocky box out of her pocket.
“So you’re not too bent out of shape over Homura’s secrets?”
“She has her reasons, I guess,” Sayaka admitted. “And she does seem relieved. I don’t think she wanted to kill her teammates.”
“Hell no. Give her some credit, Blue.”
“I am!”
“Well, give her more, then.” Kyouko pulled one of the Pocky sticks out of the box with her teeth, like it was a cigarette in a fancy case and she was in some old movie, then offered the box to Sayaka, with the Pocky still hanging from her mouth.
“Hold up,” Sayaka said, with a hand on Kyouko’s arm, and Kyouko obediently came to a halt. Sayaka took a deep breath, and then she took a bite off the end of the Pocky stick in Kyouko’s mouth.
The rest of it slowly fell from Kyouko’s lips. Even though she was still staring, mouth open, at Sayaka, she managed to catch it before it could hit the ground.
“What?” Sayaka asked, looking away.
“That has to be the worst Pocky kiss in history. Come on, we can do better than that.” When Sayaka looked back at her, Kyouko was grinning again. She popped the abused stick back in her mouth, putting it away with several rapid crunches. “Round two, comin’ up.”
“So this is a matter of honor now, huh?”
“Damned right it is.” Kyouko pulled another stick from the box.
“Kyouko, I have to ask, though — your dad, is he going to—”
Kyouko barked out a laugh. “Remember how I told you we’re flat broke ‘cause we got no support from any of the other churches or the higher-ups in the organization? You wanna know one of the things Dad preaches that pissed off a bunch of the other religious types?”
“No way.”
“Seriously.” She stuck the Pocky stick in her mouth, chocolate-end-first this time. “So come on. Are we gonna do this or what?”