“I don’t get it… I watched you die! I watched you and Sayaka die and Homura disappear into thin air! Are you some kinda fucking ghost come back to haunt me?!”
A sad smile. “It was my wish to survive, Sakura-san. In a way, that’s all I’m doing now.”
—
It turned out it wasn’t possible to ignore this ghost, much as Kyouko would’ve liked to. Mami was dead, goddammit. Her turning up like this was like… like a bad dream, where you think you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted just to wake up and realize the world’s just as bad as it always was. You could even compare it to a wish. Kyouko knew what she’d seen, she knew there was no way Mami would’ve made it out of that labyrinth. She’d even checked on her torn and lifeless body just in case there was something, anything she could’ve done, with Homura telepathically screaming to leave her and get out already.
That fucking transfer student.
Obviously Homura had been bad business all along. No surprises there. Kyouko had been willing to play ball mostly out of convenience, comparing the pros and cons and figuring if worst came to worst she’d just bail. A solid enough plan. That’s how she survived all this time, you gotta look out for number one.
Then, of course, everything had spiraled out of control as soon as Mami and those other girls all started working together, and that stupid incubator began messing with their heads. That Sayaka girl dying pointlessly sure didn’t help matters. Since then and because of everything the incubator said, Kyouko hadn’t gone more than a week without having to convince Mami not to blow all their heads off with those muskets of hers, as if that would’ve made anything better.
Mami had always been so reactive.
In a way, Homura trying to convince them to go out in a blaze of glory against the strongest witch they’d ever seen had been a kind of lifeline. Yes, it had been a terrible idea, obviously. But it also gave Mami a bit of purpose, at least, stopping her from getting all in her head about her body being a puppet and all of them being doomed to turn into monsters.
Of course, Kyouko had a sneaking suspicion this had all been part of Homura’s plan somehow. That girl was uncannily calculating. Kyouko might’ve known when to cut her losses and peace out, but convincing people you’ve been around for weeks to conveniently sacrifice themselves for you fighting some witch? That’s cold.
And then there was that other girl, the one with the pink hair. Madoka. The one girl in the entire world Homura cared even a little bit about for some reason, not even trying to hide it. Or maybe she was, in which case, that’s pretty sad. Sucks she probably died too, of course. She must’ve, if Homura had given up.
What was it she had said afterwards? Something about how this ‘timeline’ was lost, and she was going to go try again? Some garbage like that. In reality all she’d done is disappear into thin air, probably to fuck up some other place, and leave her all alone in this hellscape like the coward she w—
<You’re thinking about it again.>
Ugh.
Just don’t respond. Ghosts are real, I guess. Whatever. Don’t let it get to you, just keep moving, find the next safe town, kill some leftover fragments for grief seeds, and never think about what happened with Walpurgisnacht ever ever ever again. Repeat until… who knows. Not the time to worry about that. One day at a time.
<I can hear you, Kyouko. You should know about telepathy by now.>
That’s not how telepathy worked, and she knew it. You couldn’t accidentally beam your thoughts to someone. Which was very annoying because the responses sure indicated that that was exactly what was going on. So that was stupid. And possibly a sign she was losing it, especially if Mami dropped the honorifics.
Walking next to her, Mami just chuckled.
She’d started sounding sadder the more Kyouko refused to respond, though. Good. Probably.
—
What they don’t tell you about the world ending is that the world doesn’t actually end. You don’t wake up one morning and suddenly the world’s gone and you’re floating in a void until you suffocate. At least, not if you’re Kyouko. It’s much more chaotic than that.
It was probably worse if you weren’t a magical girl, too.
Mitakihara had basically been wiped off the map. The worst natural disaster this century, all the TV anchors had said. The newspapers called it an unprecedented event that they hoped would never repeat itself, even if it wasn’t entirely clear what the event was and why it caused so much damage. And of course it was what every random person Kyouko encountered was talking about, how almost the entire city’s population had just been wiped out over the course of a week.
But what none of them understood was that Walpurgisnacht wasn’t gone. How could they? None of them could see it or even knew it existed.
If anything, the witch had only grown from the disaster. What little damage their attacks had done long healed from absorbing the negative emotions of millions of people. And as it grew, it started to… extend. A fog, not quite like a labyrinth, but something like it, now covered most of the country.
Kyouko wasn’t optimistic that it would limit itself to just Japan.
And with that, everything everywhere was falling apart. People were depressed and dying at hugely increased rates, mostly in freak accidents nobody was able to explain except for the fact that they started happening right after the Mitakihara disaster. Trauma from living through that experience could only explain so much, especially when the effects started to be seen further and further from the actual city.
Already, similar events were happening in countries all over the world. Kyouko hadn’t gone and checked—she wasn’t the type to kill herself pointlessly—but she was sure fragments of the witch must’ve broken off and gotten on boats or planes and made it to America and Europa by now.
No magical girl had ever seen anything like it.
Speaking of magical girls, that particular job had become even more dangerous than it always was. Yes, it meant she could sense the witches, and she wasn’t at risk of suddenly getting a strange mark on her skin and dying in an explosion from a mysterious gas leak, so on balance she was better off than the humans. But there was one very important downside.
The witches could sense magical girls too, and always prioritized taking them out first. And those fuckers were everywhere now.
The only option left, one she had taken, was to move from town to town, getting by with the seeds from witches in more sparsely populated areas. Without huge populations to feed on, Walpurgisnacht, or whatever it was now, could only extend so far. This made a small town relatively safe for a magical girl to hide in.
For most magical girls who hadn’t gotten killed in the chaos, the downside of course was that refugees were everywhere, everything was falling apart, and while most people were as nice to random teenagers as they could afford to be, few people had any interest in keeping another mouth to feed around.
This served Kyouko just fine, as she’d always been glad to do her own thing. She didn’t strictly speaking need much food anyway, as long as she had witches to hunt and grief seeds to keep her strength up.
Not eating and relying on grief seeds sucked though. She wished it were still possibly to steal Pocky…
—
“Okay, assuming for a second that I’m not going nuts, why are you even in my head? What does that even mean?”
Kyouko lounged on a stolen fishing chair in front of the little campfire she made. If there’s one thing she could say, it’s that the end of world had done wonders for her survival skills. Whenever she wasn’t at the nearby refugee camp she helped out lately, she spent a lot of her time outdoors hunting encroaching witches by herself like this. In theory she was also fishing and hunting game to help the refugees, since it would look strange for a teenage girl to come and go from the camp so often for no apparent reason, but she’d quickly learned nobody cared what she did as long as she wasn’t causing problems or depleting their food stocks.
An image of Mami appeared in front of her, on the other side of the fire. Unlike her, she chose to sit more formally, something that looked positively bizarre in the middle of all the leaves and dirt.
Kyouko figured it’s not like one of her illusions could feel discomfort.
“Actually, it’s pretty uncomfortable. I don’t suppose you could get a second seat to bring along next time? Bought or traded for of course, not stolen.”
Kyouko sighed. This ‘Mami’ illusion wasn’t helping. How was she even tapping into that? Was she going insane so badly that she was subconsciously creating illusions of Mami to keep her company? Maybe if she could just—
“Also, you know already your illusions can feel. Did you forget how your powers work? Why would I be any different?”
“Okay, okay, I get it! You don’t like sitting on the dirty ground. Not the priority right now, ya know?”
Illusion-Mami smiled, knowing she’d won this time. “Then perhaps you’d like to talk about what’s actually important instead of avoiding the topic for another two weeks?”
“I literally just asked you! You were the one who read my thoughts and started talking about the floor and— ugh, forget it. Okay then. What are you exactly?”
“I’m Tomoe Mami,” she responded. Then, more quietly, “as far as I know, anyway. I could just be a strange copy of her based on your memories. I realize that’s not helping.”
“I mean I figured that out, I’m not as stupid as you all think!” Kyouko retorted, causing illusion-Mami to frown. <I’ve never thought you’re stupid. Not even once.> “—but what does any of this even mean, why are you tapping into my powers to create illusions and appearing like that? Have I snapped and started creating imaginary friends? And now I can hear your thoughts even when you’re not directly talking to me too?! It’s not exactly looking great for my sanity here.”
Kyouko sounded more and more agitated as she talked. It was true, wasn’t it? There was no proof she wasn’t just making this all up, using her illusion powers to live in some kind of fantasy land where Mami was still alive. The fact that it didn’t feel like she had any control over it didn’t prove anything, it just showed how far gone she was.
Mami looked at her sadly. “I know I can’t prove to you I’m real. It’s a bit philosophical, isn’t it? I’ve known you long enough to know you hate that sort of thinking, but…”
“But?” Kyouko hoped she didn’t sound too hopeful. Illusion-Mami was right though, she had always hated that abstract shit.
“But… and I know you’re not going to be happy about this… neither of us can prove any people are real,” she started. <Oh that’s the biggest load of—> “Let me finish. I don’t mean that you can’t see how people act. But who are they really? You have to trust that people are who they say they are, right? That they have one experience in them, that they’re one soul. Who’s to say those people are correct, Sakura-san?”
Kyouko still looked skeptical. That all seemed far too convenient to her. Or rather, it sounded like the sort of bullshit people would make up to very intelligently say “we don’t know shit, so everything goes”. And while she wasn’t the type to give a crap about what anyone thought of her, creating magical illusions of your dead best friend—if that was something the average person could understand was even possible—is definitely the kind of thing where you’d maybe gently encourage them to go see a therapist or something.
“Sakura-san, you hate therapists. You don’t even like it when I am trying to understand what’s going on in your head.”
She laughed bitterly. “It doesn’t matter anyway because most of them are dead, and the ones still around are far too busy with everyone else.”
“Either way you’re ignoring the point. Is it so bad to think of me as an actual person instead of a delusion? Doesn’t that seem more helpful?”
“No, dammit!” Kyouko punched the floor, hard. “I saw you die. You know I don’t give a fuck about anyone else! You think I just want to parade around an imitation of you to make me feel better? You don’t think that’s a little fucked up?!”
Mami crossed her arms and glared at her. “And I already told you I think I’m real! We’ll never know if I’m the original Mami, but that doesn’t mean I’m not real. Look at your soul gem, it even has my color mixed in now! If you let me use a bit more of your power I could just—”
A sudden pop startled both of them enough to immediately forget to argue further. Not because it was loud, but because it was an uncomfortably familiar sound.
<Oh for fuck’s sake.>
<An Incubator? Here?>
<Good evening, Mami. Kyouko.>
—
In the end, Kyouko did end up getting that second chair. Plus some extra food, swapped out her portable mattress for a larger one, and a reasonably clean-looking dress she managed to loot from an abandoned store. Mami hadn’t been happy about that last bit, though.
It was all a bit strange anyway. If she tapped into her illusion powers, couldn’t she just… change the way she dressed more directly? It was like her magical girl outfit, it pops into existence as needed anyway, so what’s the point of getting a new dress.
<Have you ever tried changing what your magical girl outfit looks like? I have. It’s not as easy as you’d think! There’s something fundamental about it, and I’d like a change of clothes sometimes. I’m still a girl you know.>
She wasn’t wrong, but it was kind of funny that this of all things ended up being what she got all worked up about. Clothes. Kyouko was just as much of a girl as Mami and she couldn’t give a crap about any of that stuff, as long as her clothes were reasonably clean and comfortable to move around in. At least Mami had been more understanding about the fact that showers were a little harder to access after the apocalypse, even if she wasn’t happy about that either.
At any rate, they’d finally made it back to camp. Kyouko felt like she needed to crash for a month in a proper bed just to recover from this one. She’d recovered plenty of grief seeds to last her a while, even if her gem had been darkening a little faster than usual dealing with the Mami situation. She even managed to carry back a whole deer. Field dressed and quartered, of course, it’d be a little too suspicious otherwise.
“Oi, Kyouko! Looks like another successful hunt, eh? I’ll never understand how you manage to carry all that back with you, but I ain’t complaining. Food is food!”
That would be the gatekeeper. Some middle-aged balding guy who’d taken it upon himself to manage this camp. He seemed nice enough, even if Kyouko mostly ignored the people here. She wasn’t sure she knew his name, actually. Still, it didn’t hurt to have people like you so they let you use their beds.
“And what’s this…? Extra… clothes? Huh. Didn’t take you for a frilly dresses sort of girl. And an extra chair as well?”
“Alright, alright, that’s enough. I found some stuff, yeah, but I could really use a bath and a bed. I’m exhausted.”
He chuckled knowingly. “Don’t worry kid, no harm in taking some stuff from folks who no longer need it, if you know what I mean. I ain’t judging. Surprised about the extra chair and mattress though, you know we’ve got beds here right? Did ya think we’d need them?”
Kyouko shrugged. “No reason really, it’s just, uh… never know when you need that sorta thing…”
<What was I thinking carrying all this crap back with me. Of course it looks suspicious.>
“Oh, don’t worry about her, sir. Sakura-san has actually been helping me out when we ran into each other recently. We’re long-time friends, which is why she moved to this area in the first place. You could say she’s been looking for me for a while. We got lucky and finally ran into each other two nights ago.”
The old man jumped and turned around. “Blasted—! Scared me half to death! Where did you come from so suddenly?!” He looked even more suspicious now, though probably less because of the mystery of why Kyouko was carrying so much stuff around and more because of a mystery girl suddenly appearing to the side of him. Did Mami not know they had people looking out for strangers?
Kyouko tried her hardest to put on some kind of neutral expression. “Ah, right, yes. What, uh, Tomoe-…san said.”
<Warn me next time you pull that sort of thing.>
<Maybe.>
He looked at them shrewdly. “Ah, well, it’s no matter to me. I ain’t gonna complain about an extra girl when you always bring us so much food anyway.” He looked Mami up and down, as if trying to judge whether she could be trusted. “And you seem well-mannered enough. You two just be safe, ya hear? No hanky-panky in this camp where the kids can hear!”
It took everything Kyouko had not to groan out loud. Mami, for her part, had decided to turn around and look at something in a completely different direction, but Kyouko could feel her amusement.
“Right. Well, we’ll be on our way then. Same tent I always use still available?”
He nodded. “Yeah, no problem. We keep that one free for you ‘cause we know you like your space. Might be a little cramped for the two of you, but… well, you can make it work I’m sure.”
As they walked away, in the distance they could still hear him mumbling. “Far too fancy-lookin’, hope she’s not getting our huntress here in trouble… though maybe she’ll be a good influence and teach the kid not to swear so much…”
<Fuck no.>
<I’ll do my best, mister gatekeeper.>
—
Kyouko threw her spear at the annoying cat-thing immediately. She didn’t expect to achieve anything, some things just become a reflex after you’ve done it a hundred times. It was always satisfying when she managed to skewer one of these bastards, even if she knew it didn’t make any difference. She hadn’t seen any in a long time, strangely enough.
Kyuubey dodged it almost lazily. She had to admit there’d been very little intent behind it. It was far from her best attempt.
<Kyuubey? What are you doing here? Sakura-san thought you’d all left.>
Slowly, seemingly without a care in the world, the incubator patted the ground and moved some twigs around, making a comfortable place for itself to sit. It managed to infuriate Kyouko to no end that even now those things could so casually walk around like they weren’t responsible for the literal end of the world.
It looked directly at her. <You should be happy, Kyouko. Thanks to all your efforts, we have managed to stave off entropy for long enough to be able to expand our operations. As of now, incubators are looking at other planets to see if similar plans can be put into motion there as well. This will allow us to reduce our reliance on humanity as a single source of energy.>
“You’re not making me any happier. What the fuck are you doing here, then? Come to gloat?”
<My species does not gloat. I am simply here as one of the remaining incubators to keep track of remaining developments among the magical girl population. You should realize why I’m here.>
Mami finally spoke up, surprise in her voice. “You’re talking about me, correct? I’m the ‘development’. This proves that—”
Kyouko cut her off. “Hang on just one second, why the fuck do you think either of us would talk to you about any of this? You think you can trick us again to screw things up even more around here? Fuck off.”
<I have no interest in tricking you. Rather, I am hoping to help you. It is in all of our interests to better understand this phenomenon.>
“Help, sure. Like we haven’t heard that one before. Look where that got everyone.”
<Kyouko…>
She sighed. “I don’t want to make Mami feel bad, but just for your information I’m going to skewer you and see if incubator bodies are edible if there’s any hint of you trying anything funny. So say what you gotta say.”
Kyuubey gave no indication of being particularly bothered by her threats. <Of course. Let me explain what you should do…>
It telepathically explained the process, surprising both of them.
In the end, after taking a few minutes to think through all the possibilities, neither Mami nor Kyouko could think of any way the incubator could be using this experiment to cause any more trouble to them or the wider world. That didn’t mean there was no harm in it, obviously. Both were painfully aware that just because you think you’re getting a good deal doesn’t mean you’re not being tricked.
“Alright, no harm in trying this. Probably. Let’s just get through with this.”
<I can assure you we estimate the risk to either of your bodies to be negligible.>
“Either of our… whatever. I created the clones you asked for. There’s me, and four other Kyoukos. And of course there’s Mami, if you count her.”
They all stood in a circle, surrounding Kyuubey, with the incubator looking around impassively. <Counting her is indeed vital to this experiment. Now, remember what I said.>
Mami was looking rather worried. “We don’t have to do this is if you’re too uncomfortable…”
“No,” the clone Mami was looking at replied with Kyouko’s voice, and she knew that clone was her body too, “I gotta know.”
<Indeed.> Kyuubey jumped at one of the Kyouko clones, surprisingly ferocious for such a harmless-looking creature.
Right before Kyuubey could collide into it, it popped out of existence. She remembered now. She was supposed to make them disappear right before the incubator could touch them, focusing all her attention on keeping up the rest of the clones. As it disappeared, its memories flooded into her, though in this case that only meant a memory of looking at Kyuubey from a slightly different angle.
<Remember that you are them. You are in a superposition of illusions until you decide to be any particular one.>
“I already told you I don’t get any of that ‘superposition’ cra—” the next Kyouko clone replied before it too popped out of existence as Kyuubey leaped at it.
<This is your real power. Your ability to use illusions was always far more limited than it needed to be.> Kyuubey leaped at a third Kyouko, who disappeared with a pop as well.
Only two Kyoukos and Mami left in the circle, making only a triangle at this point. Hadn’t they gotten to the original Kyouko by now? Was there an original Kyouko? Did that question even make sense?
It jumped at one more Kyouko, popping out of existence just like all the other illusions. They were illusions, right? It was just her without any clones left, and of course Mami, who was using her illusion powers also. Was that the end of the experiment? Still, she kept focusing. Pop any illusions the incubator jumps at, keep up everything else.
<The other incubators will be deeply interested in the result of this experiment.>
Kyuubey jumped one more time.
Pop.
“That’s surprising,” Mami said out loud.
<What the fuck.>
In this desolate field with no other life to be seen for miles, Mami looked at the stars for possibly the first time, an incubator impassively standing at her side, and a friend sharing her soul.