i.

For the first time in three years, she hears her sister's voice.

A message left on her phone, breathy and panicked, calling for her, Sister, please help me! I'm scared! Why won't you come and help me?, breaking into plaintive sobbing before cutting off. The voice drives through her heart like a thousand needles, and Kyouko has to clench her jaw to keep the tears away. What a cruel, dirty trick. Momo's dead. But when Kyouko remembers that even the dead can walk here, the thought of it brings not happiness, but fear— fear that cuts away at all that bitterness festering within her.

Are you really here, Momo?

When they first set foot on that fog-draped world, the very presence of the place raises the hair on her neck. After everything she's seen in her weeks here, mystery and fog come hand in hand with blood and terror, and though it doesn't frighten the Puella Magi, it snaps her right into survival mode and all thoughts of her sister are pressed into the back of her mind.

By the end of the first day, they've discovered the church as a safe house. They, being Madoka and Kyouko. Even though the redhead has yet to understand why she continues to stick with the rookie. They take to the streets upon hearing rumors whispered about finding things from home. Grief Seed is the first thing that comes to Kyouko's mind, while Madoka's probably thinking about finding a friend, or maybe some stupid stuffed animal from home, just like the baby she is. But all they find is a picture, and Kyouko thinks it's stupid, even if it's Sayaka's.

What a waste of time.

The broken stained glass window above the pew shatters the moon's light like a kaleidoscope, projecting cut and colored shadows onto the sleeping faces of Kyouko and Madoka. It's difficult to tell when the night falls, with the fog as thick as it is, but these girls are weary. For Madoka, it's the first true rest she's had since dying, for Kyouko, sleep is hard to come by. They've barely settled in when the trembling words cut through her mind—Help me, sister!—a sound so clear that it could've been whispered against her ear. Her breath lodges in her throat, eyes snapping open in a second's passing. To believe COMPASS' tricks, one would have to be a moron, but there's still doubt, and for Kyouko Sakura, impulse always rules over rationality.

What if her sister really is here?

Rusted carousel ponies creak in the wind, the pealed chips of lurid yellow and sea green lacquer trembling. Overhanging string lights, woven thick with spider webs, wind their way through the park. She knows this is a place Momo would have loved, if it wasn't a scene from a child's nightmare. It reminded her of Witches' barriers, where normal, comforting objects are made wrong— subverted figments in a monster's dream.

Kyouko's steps slow until she stops all together. This was a waste of time: a ruse. "You idiot," she whispers through her teeth. Her gut had led her here, but other than that, she had no reason to look here. But then, through the heavy fog, Kyouko sees it before her: a stuffed rabbit, so white that it seems fluorescent. Drawn to it, she picks it up with gentle hands, and her heart locks in place as she turns over the rabbit's paw, to reveal a grapejuice stain. The same juice stain that Momo's plush bunny had worn, on a bunny identical to this.

Kyouko pulls it against her chest and holds it.

"Momo! Momo! Can you hear me? Where are you? Momo!

There's no reply except silence, and then, the eerie chorus of childish laughter, too distorted to be her voice. She breaks into a run, shouting into the darkness as she goes, an effort that's still met with ghostly laughter. It's a fool's chase, until her soul gem starts to shine, and the air and fog around her seems to waver and ripple, struggling against a greater force that rends a tear in the reality's fabric: a secret entrance known only to girls like her.

"Kyouko-chan!"

Somewhere in her mind, Kyouko knows it's a trick, but this place has robbed her of clear thought, like a poison targeting that last desperate remnant to protect her family at all cost.

Transforming in a flash, she leaps in one bound into the barrier's entrance.

ii.

All barriers are different, but they all share something in common— disorder. A place where colors and shapes are given free range, and the laws of physics are only a suggestion, like the museum of someone's subconscious, or madness. But this realm of bridges of fog is different because it all feels too real. Arching bridges stretch and wind into the inkblack horizon like a maze, her boots tapping a frantic pace against the stone pavement. Thick fog cloud whatever is under the bridges, whether murky water or something more sinister; and it's colder here than on the outside, every breath chilling her lungs.

Nevertheless, Kyouko doesn't stop running, speeding at a pace that drags the air screaming against her momentum. She still hears her sister's voice in her head, that same plea echoed again and again. And as the Witch's Familiars appear, soldiers garbed in vibrant colors, Kyouko slices through them without pause. Swiftly, nimbly, she dodges their attacks and summoned flames, fueled by a burning sense of urgency. She hasn't fought this lightly since that night in her father's church.

But Kyouko's patience is a thin and brittle thing, and the winding path only seems to get longer with every step. Furious, she strays from the path, leaping from bridge to bridge, driving her spear viciously into any unfortunate Familiar that comes her way. Momo had to be here somewhere and the Witch too. Minutes, hours seem to pass, and it seems like she's been running forever.

iii.

The tall oak doors stand out against the darkness

It seems like she had been chasing nothing forever, and without any hesitation or slowing her pace, Kyouko kicks the door open with a loud bang. Bright light suddenly streams into her vision. She blinks blearily. Her vision taking a minute to adjusts, before she observes a sight that knocks the breath from her lungs. Her fingers tremble and her spear clatters to the floor.

"What took you so long, Kyouko-chan? "

There are three figures standing by the vibrant window, studies in gold against the morning sun. Golden light pools across the pews and the apse of the church. She recognizes the voice of the man, how could she forget? Two of the figures emerge from the glare. Her mother, smiling faintly, with Momo intertwined in her arms. Shoes click against the wooden apse, as the last figure steps forward.

Kyouko sees her father's face and feels sick.

"I missed you, sister. Don't leave again, o-kay?"

"Kyouko-chan, is something wrong? I don't like seeing that look on your face," her mother chimes in.

There's distress written on the red-head's features because Kyouko knows, she knows that this is all gilt and gilding. COMPASS may make the dead walk, but her real father would never forgive her; her sister and mother would never forgive her for destroying their family. As much as it hurts, she wants to laugh. Did they really think they could trick her? She was the Puella Magi of illusions, of deception and trickery.

"You're not real, none of you."

"What are talking about? You're being silly, dear."

And the girl turns away from the sunlight, from their gentle smiles and kind words that pull at her heart. She's not that stupid little girl who believed in fantasy and impotent idealism anymore. They aren't real. Swallowing her tears, Kyouko stalks slowly back into the darkness, not wanting to leave, not wanting to give up their kind faces---

Suddenly, a scream rips through the air, the sound of a candelabra falling and cracking wood.

Kyouko whips around, summoning her spear as she sees her family cornered by that elusive Witch. A woman-like figure on a demon horse,  garbed in a robe of elaborate colors, who would almost seem human if it weren't for her missing head replaced by a red flame. It's as tall as the stained glass wall behind it; a true monster.  She launches herself into air on impulse, ready to defend the family she knows is a trick.  Instincts never die, as long as the illusions wore their faces, she had to protect them.

Soaring through the air, Kyouko descends upon the witch with a deft blow that whistles through the air. Her spear sends a colorful piece of the monster's robe flying, but the Witch is left untouched. It retaliates by sending its own lance slicing toward her the girl. Lifting legs up and twisting her back, she dodges it like a high jumper, and once out of its range, she breaks her staff into segments and lassos herself to the votive chandelier and pulls herself onto it.

In a moment. she summons a red barrier between her family and the creature.

With them protected, now she could destroy the Witch any way she wanted.

Kyouko feints an attack on the Witch, leaping downward from the chandelier and aiming an attack toward its chest.  Yet before it can take a swing at her, she lashes out the segmented chain of her spear, wrapping it around the alter below so that she's swung sharply toward the ground. At that angle, Kyouko manages a sweeping slice that severs two of the horse's legs; a gush of red spraying across the ground.

There's blood on her face and between her teeth, and it makes her happy. She stretches her neck and tilts her head backward, leering at the creature with a bloodied  face that's positively demonic. Days upon days, weeks upon weeks, she's waited for this— and it's finally come, the chance to sink her spear into flesh and destroy something that's meant to be destroyed. It's not only the attack against her family that fuels her bloodlust, but the accumulation of anger, of being assaulted by COMPASS, of being stuck here--paranoia, anxiety, pain-- it's all been a gathering flood.

Kyouko tears into the Witch in a reckless melee attack, her blows inhumanely fast and inefficient. Some of her blows don't hit, blood splashes through the air, she's knocked around, but Kyouko doesn't care. The girl has become rage manifest. She just wants to cut and gouge into the creature, wound by wound, each blow returning to her a sense of control, the feeling of power that COMPASS has stripped away from her. She tastes the Witch's blood and it thrills her--- but this isn't fighting, it's madness. And her recklessness manner presents an opening for the Witch to take a swing.

Thrown back into the left wall of the church, Kyouko's impact shatters the plaster and wood.  She hears bones snap; feels the blood running down her face, and all she can do is laugh-- laugh as tears fill her eyes and she cries, blood mixing with water.

"Don't you see? Don't you see now, Dad? I hunt witches--"

Peals of laughter, the demon horse's cry and the Witch's wail, it's bedlam echoing through the cavernous hall of the church. But it's the sound of her sister's cry and her mother's scream that rouses Kyouko, snaps her back into clarity as she sees the Witch breaking through the barrier.

With a running start, Kyouko extends her spear and vaults herself up high. It gives her the momentum to come down at the Witch like an arrow, energy crackling at the tip of her spear when she gets close enough to deliver a final blow to its heart.

The Witch shatters into a thousand pieces as the Puella Magi lands on her feet, only to fall to her knees. She props herself up with her spear, eyes closed and breathing heavily, fingers wringing the metal.

 I'm not a monster, Dad. Don't you see?

iv.

A terrible sobbing that fills the air.

Blearily, Kyouko opens her eyes, and looks immediately toward the corner where her sister must be crying. As she realizes that Momo isn't there, a small hand grabs her wrist, and she whips her head around for what must be the crying girl.

There aren't really words to express the horror of killing your own sister.

Kyouko can only scream— the same pain stricken scream when she had found her family's bodies, those years ago. Somehow, she had driven her spear into the Witch, but what appeared at the end of her blade was her sister.

Somewhere in her mind, Kyouko knows it's an illusion, but knowing that it's a lie doesn't change the reality of seeing her sister, dead. Her mother and father beside her, suffering from the same wounds. She'd killed them all hadn't she? She was the daughter who broke her family, and the blood on her hands is the same invisible mark that's stained her hands ever since.

She presses her cheek against her sister's, sobbing and apologizing, rocking herself against the dying illusion.

"Ne, sister-- dad was right? You are a witch."

Cheek against cheek, magical girl hears her sister's voice as a whisper. They cut into her, sharper than any blade, and her mask crumbles into pieces. Once again, she's that wounded little girl who watched her father call her a monster, who matched their home burn. I only wanted to make Dad happy again; I didn't want you to hungry, or for our family to fall apart. I just wanted to fix everything. Cradling Momo, Kyouko closes her eyes. Anything, not to look at that body again, or any of the ones around her. But cold hands force her awake, pushing her head away and forcing to her to look--

"You said you'd protect everyone's happiness."

It's her own voice, and her own face, a twelve year old with betrayed eyes.

"You promised that you'd save the world--" her younger self cries out, voice cracking, "-- but you've only destroyed." 

Hollowed out, that's how Kyouko feels as she kneels there. And so detached from her senses, Kyouko doesn't notice the great mass moving behind her. Or the large spear that's thrust at her back until it gores her right through the stomach.

Blood splatters across the floor of the church. She doesn't scream or cry, but chokes. Anyone else would be dead by now, but it'll take her awhile yet. The curse of being a magical girl. Her magic healing her body, until the magic runs and she meets a fate worth than death.

Her knees are soaked in her own blood.

"I really... am the worst, aren't I?"