To other Magical Girls, Kyubey might be a friend, a contractor, or a partner. But to Mami, beyond the layer of friendship lay another—a debt of life-saving gratitude.
The wish of "save me" she'd made in her dying moments. If not for Kyubey, she wouldn't be here to pursue her wish of baking cakes. Even though Kyubey's response to Kyoko had felt slightly off, in this moment she was still willing to trust it one more time.
"I'm sorry, Kyoko!"
Bullets shattered the floor-to-ceiling window. Kyoko's already-deployed multi-section staff segments fanned open one by one to block. Kyubey seized the opening to flee, and the violent impact obliterated the delicate cake sitting between them into fragments. Kyoko, unwilling to waste food, even bit into a piece of cake mid-air.
Though the burst of attacks had been instantaneous, Mami had maintained careful control and avoided aiming for vitals.
Kyoko watched Kyubey scurry into the distance. "Are you insane? I never thought you were this unreasonable before. No matter how you look at that answer, you should've known something was up!"
Already transformed, Mami stood atop a streetlamp, striking a Gilgamesh-like pose.
"You, and that black-haired girl too—why does everyone have to be so hostile toward Kyubey? There has to be some kind of misunderstanding, right?"
"Misunderstanding my ass. If other Magical Girls besides me are also going after Kyubey, that already says everything! Just grab it and question it face to face, then we'd know, wouldn't we?"
Mami shook her head. "I won't let you lay a hand on this child."
At her feet, two rifles materialized and fired in rapid succession. Kyoko leaped clear of her position, extending her spear segments like slithering serpents, only for Mami's ribbons to clamp them down tight. Another shot grazed past Kyoko's shoulder as a warning, shattering the streetlamp behind her and plunging the area into darkness.
Kyoko glanced at the scrape on her shoulder. "Now I'm actually getting angry."
Honestly speaking, she'd come because she was worried about Mami—the idiot had become practically inseparable from Kyubey.
And this was the treatment she got for it. Karma really did come full circle. Back when Mami had tried to show concern for her, Kyoko had coldly told her that if she kept wasting magic on Familiars, they should just go their separate ways.
Kyoko poured magic into shattering Mami's ribbons, but against someone she'd once fought alongside, Mami's more technical fighting style meant every move was anticipated.
She'd clearly been powered up at the fundamental level, yet—maybe it was Kyoko's imagination—Mami seemed to fight way harder against her than against any Witch.
"Why aren't you using your illusion magic like before?"
"I don't need that anymore. Also—you trust Kyubey so much, you probably don't even know it already tricked us once, do you?"
Loath as she was to admit it, even though she no longer had to worry about magic consumption, Kyoko actually found herself being pushed back against this version of Mami.
"Then I've got no choice—"
Under Mami's bewildered gaze, Kyoko dropped all pretense of restraint. A spear-shaped serpent as long as an entire city block erupted from the ground beneath her, glowing with terrifying red light, locking onto Mami's throat. Before she could process her shock and hurt, it punched clean through below her neck.
She probably hadn't expected Kyoko to strike that viciously, which was exactly why she failed to react in time.
Kyoko seized the chance to snatch the pale yellow Soul Gem that had been knocked loose from Mami's body. Seeing it again still made her backside ache with phantom pain.
"What are you standing around for? Heal yourself already." She looked at Mami's fatally wounded body.
She didn't need the reminder. The survival instinct had already kicked in, and Mami was frantically channeling healing magic the instant she was hit.
"Stop looking at me like that. You think you're dead?"
Kyoko met Mami's disappointed gaze, then fastened the Soul Gem to her spear. "How about now?"
She hurled the spear, pinning it firmly to a wall a hundred meters away.
Mami, not understanding what Kyoko was doing, didn't react—and her eyes went vacant for an instant, just like Kyoko before her. She collapsed, consciousness gone.
Kyoko retrieved the spear, tossed the Soul Gem back onto Mami, and watched her regain consciousness.
"Has that ever happened to you before?"
Impossible. Very few Magical Girls ever discovered this truth. The Soul Gem was to a Magical Girl what glasses were to someone nearly blind—a situation like forgetting your Soul Gem at home before school, like in some cartoon, basically never happened.
"What... was that..."
"This might be hard to hear, but you're just an empty shell. How would an empty shell have vital points?" Kyoko looked down at her. "It's not just you. My body used to be the same, and so is every other Magical Girl who contracted with Kyubey. That gem is the real you."
"The gem... Kyubey?" Mami cupped the Soul Gem in both hands, not comprehending.
"Hiding this makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Even though it's the optimal form for combat, every Magical Girl who learns the truth reacts exactly this way. So based on experience, I chose to keep it hidden."
Kyubey hopped onto the curb. That perpetually cutesy face and cheerful tone now radiated an unmistakable chill of indifference.
"Got a lot of nerve showing your face so openly. You think I won't get mad just because you're being upfront?" Kyoko grabbed it by the ear and hoisted it up, her nails nearly piercing through.
"Time to continue where we left off. If the Soul Gem is fully corrupted—what does a Magical Girl become?"
Kyubey's gaze, however, turned toward Mami. Perfectly cooperative. "Put simply, a Magical Girl's endpoint is to become a Witch."
"Witch?"
Mami took a long moment to process. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth—perhaps from the wound Kyoko had inflicted not fully healing, or perhaps from a wave of nausea upon grasping what it meant.
"That can't be real..."
Mami sat on the ground in a W-sit, unable to stand for what felt like an eternity.
Same as last time—no attempt to justify itself. It actually irritated Kyoko. "So it really is true? Awfully forthcoming of you to admit it."
"Strange. Did Sayaka tip you off? About how Magical Girls inevitably become Witches."
"No matter how many times I explain the reasoning, humans never understand." Kyubey wagged its tail while still dangling from Kyoko's grip. "However, among the Witches you've all killed, some may well have been other Magical Girls. But rest assured—once a Witch hatches from your Soul Gem, I'll have other Magical Girls deal with it promptly. It shouldn't cause too much damage."
"That can't be... Kyubey, why would you do this?"
Mami's hand dropped to her side.
"Aren't we... friends?"
"I suppose we are friends, Mami. Though humans have a rather vague definition of 'friend,' that is what you've called me." That perpetually chipper voice, even while being held aloft, now struck Mami as something deeply terrifying.
"Hey, it's about time you faced reality. Calm down and listen to me—"
Before Kyoko could finish, Mami suddenly drew her musket and fired without hesitation at Kyoko's Soul Gem.
"You—?"
"That can't be, that can't be, that can't be..."
Kyoko frantically checked her Soul Gem. Thankfully, no cracks.
Mami's eyes had gone hollow, and despair began radiating from her entire being. "Rather than sit around waiting to become a Witch, better to just... before that happens..."
Homura had said it—Mami was the most fragile Magical Girl she'd ever known. The reason was this exact scene, which had played out more than once across the time loops. Learning the truth, being the first to break, then turning on the companions she'd been laughing with moments ago.
In her shock, Kyoko glanced at Mami's Soul Gem. She hadn't noticed earlier, but a layer of corruption was now visible to the naked eye.
"Hey, what's going on with that?"
She'd already realized that despair accelerated gem corruption, but it shouldn't have been this fast!
"The 'incubation' is already complete." Kyubey explained.
That was why it had stepped out so casually to deliver the explanation.
"Even if Mami is the type who wastes magic saving others, she wouldn't waste it while just traveling. Her luck hasn't been great either—you newer-generation Magical Girls have been snatching up all the Witches."
As Kyoko's grip slackened, Kyubey broke free.
It licked its paw and continued. "That's just the kind of person Mami is. A few days ago she happened upon a Familiar you'd let escape. She's gone days without purifying her gem, burning magic with nothing to show for it."
"Because of me... Quick, use the Grief Seed I gave you!" Kyoko desperately urged Mami to use the Grief Seed, but by now she couldn't hear anything at all.
What materialized before Kyoko's eyes was the Dessert Witch.