“Well then, let’s get started. Talk.”

Madoka tried to clear her eyes from crying for a really long time. “Man…” she said to the other Madoka in the black hood, Shinigamidoka apparently. “I thought I was going to be crying for a week, but then it turned into a month. I thought certain people were better at keeping consistent schedules than that.”

“What?” Kiiko Kawakami, the teenager who could bend reality at the cost of her grip on reality, asked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and it wants to make me destroy this universe out of sheer frustration.” The emotion in her voice was almost nonexistent.

“Okay, uh…” Madoka began waving her arms. “I was just muttering something. It’s pointless. Don’t worry. I’m going to tell you everything you need to know, so don’t worry.”

“Alright. Then tell me.”

“Okay, so, I’m not from this universe,” Madoka said. “I don’t even like in Mitakihara City anymore; I live in Mexico.” She pointed to her sombrero to prove herself.

“I… see.”

“It’s a great universe. We’re pretty peaceful besides the supervillains that occasionally plague the land. That’s why we’ve been training magical girls for like, a while.”

Shinigamidoka looked to Madoka. “Then why are you here, exactly? You didn’t tell us that part, either.”

“We were going to bring Homura back to our universe because our died. Or, more precisely, never existed at all and was just a fake lifeform created to coerce everyone into betraying each other?”

“Hey! She’s from our universe! You can’t just steal her!” Great. Now Shinigamidoka was the one who was angry.

“Uhh… Well, the rest of you were all gonna be welcome to come, too.” She had not considered that in the slightest until this moment.

Aaya was still collapsed on the invisible floor that she and Kiiko stood on.

“Tell me more about your universe,” Kiiko commanded.

“It’s very nice. Nobody is building any walls around any borders and not a single person has ever said anything particularly demeaning about any TV journalists and skipped debates like a baby,” said Madoka, whose reference was very clear in 2015/2016 but will likely be confusing to readers years from now.

“That sounds very uninteresting. How much violence is there? How powerful are your universe’s denizens?”

“Super powerful,” Madoka said. “Way too much for you. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Hmm.”

“So I think it would be very nice if you were cool and decided to let us--”

“I’VE GOT YOU, MADOKA!”

Eh? Madoka turned around and saw a small, red-holographic jet speeding by, firing bullets and missiles all over the place. The jet started firing at Kiiko directly, and apparently it worked because it broke her concentration.

The Madokas were free! Shinigamidoka instantly charged at Kiiko and began attacking her. The battle had resumed in a very awesome way!

Except... Madoka couldn’t fly!

Crap.

Madoka began falling towards the sky at an incredible rate of acceleration (thanks to her partially-charred cool power suit magical girl armor). Surely there was a way to prevent this from ending in her death… Maybe her sombrero had a parachute installed in it? She took it off her head and examined it for any switches or levers to get the parachute to come out. No, there wasn’t anything. That was probably too obvious for her to have even bothered checking.

Well then. Madoka braced herself for the impact that would occur sometime in the next five or so minutes…

And then the jet from earlier zoomed downwards and began hovering right below Madoka. She fell onto one of the empty seats in the back, because it was also apparently a convertible. And translucent. The person piloting the ship was none other than Neoakemi herself!

“That was… Thanks, Homura.”

She said nothing… but it was a really cool save. Madoka almost missed all the times Homura used to save her and dote over her like a very concerned mother (or a very controlling girlfriend but it was mostly because she was an obsessive time traveller, except she was actually Kyubey so she was actually just controlling). It almost felt kind of… nostalgic.

It took a moment for Madoka to realize that they were flying away from Kiiko, rather than back towards her. “Wait, where are we going?” she asked.

“To meet up with the others. We’re going to escape this universe.”

“But what about Shinigamidoka?”

“She’s dead. She charged at Kiiko. Kiiko killed her.” Neoakemi was silent the rest of the trip back, and so was Madoka.

Madoka tried to hold in the tears as best as she could, but she failed miserably.