Work Text:
This is a transcript from Sayaka Miki-Sakura, interviewed in 2030 by a magi in Mitakihara for archival purposes.
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I remember when I made a wish. I was fourteen at the time, too young to know better. I made a wish to heal a boy I had a crush on and to be honest, I kinda find it funny that I threw away my life for the sake of a teenager who didn’t even know what he was gonna be yet. I healed his hand and the only reason he knew was because I told him.
‘Course, it all feels kinda like a fluke. Like I decided, I just happened to ask Homura what she was doing when Mami died and she just...told me. She wasn’t ready to tell me about the time travel or Walpurgisnacht quite yet, but she told me.
This was long before it all fell apart with her. Never knew things would get that bad between her and Doka. She knows better. She should be better. But...no, no, that’s a digression.
This is about her telling me how Mami got cocky. How Mami didn’t see a girl that was there to protect Madoka in a self-destructive spiral but someone infringing on territory, causing harm to innocents. I think it broke me a little.
I barely even knew Mami for more than a week, but it was just...it was a shock. I still see her in my head sometimes. Her last moments are a visceral memory now.
Shit, wow. I’m in my thirties and I still remember it. I can’t forget it.
[Interviewer excised]
Oh, right, I’m supposed to stay on track. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Just, like, I kinda get stuck on those. It’s just a thing I do. I should stop it. Years and years later and it’s just...it’s a lot. Being a magi is a lot.
If you want an idea of what the magi life is like, then you have to understand that it’s not like a magical girl show. 2011 was not a good year. Not for us, not for the world in general. But I think it was just because of how much April was.
I was...no, I contracted late March, just after Mami died. It’s been so long that it’s all jumbled in my head. But April was when I confessed to Kwijibo [laughs]. Oh, I gave him that nickname. He doesn’t mind it.
It was also when I met my wife.
Well, she wasn’t my wife yet. But she would be. I think it was because of urgent circumstances. Like desperation. We became each others’ rocks. In retrospect it was more just codependence. We were two scared young girls in a world that wanted to grind us down. It was just...we were seconds away from death every time we fought a witch.
Fun fact about witches. Their names are imprinted on your soul when you absorb their seed. You won’t know it until a year later, but you will . I suppose it’s a quirk in a system where the average life expectancy is two years. That’s not a fluke. It’s by design.
It’s not like it is in Cardcaptor Sakura or Sailor Moon. It’s...different. It’s openly hostile. You’re not a superhero. You’re more like a soldier. Fuck me, I need a smoke.
[Pause]
Can you cut that? I don’t want my wife to see that. She quit last year; she doesn’t need to know that I picked it up.
[Interviewer excised]
Damn it. Alright, just make sure she doesn’t read this transcript. I was...yes, I was talking about being a soldier...right, you’re more like a soldier when you’re a magi.
You go into combat. And there’s a chance you don’t come home. Most of the time it’s against witches, sometimes it’s against other magi.
[Pause]
You know about…?
[Interviewer excised]
Right, right. I thought so. You know what witches really are, then. I guess technically it’s always us against each other. The soldier analogy is apt. I was lucky enough to just fight the witches most of the time, but then there was that moment. Incidentally, it was when I met Akane.
[Interviewer excised]
Yes, yes, our local muscle therapist. Did you know her wish was to be strong? She didn’t know that being a magical girl meant that you were already going to be superhuman. So it made her strong enough to turn people to paste. She used to be in Tokyo but she moved pretty soon after...well…
Okay, let’s back up. Every so often magi will gang up together. They’ll join forces. Hunt witches together, right?
Well, Kyubey doesn’t like that a whole lot, unless they also make witches. So it’ll try to make it so that groups have reasons to fight or those groups...well...make witches.
The group that Akane was running from was known as the Tokyo Six. They had grown into a nightmare that kept girls out of their city. Witched them out for resources. And when Akane ran to us, they came for her.
Keep in mind...when magi fight, it’s to the death. Very rarely is there a chance for someone to get out alive.
It was the first time I killed a magical girl. And then I had to do it five more times. I...I still think they wanted me to kill them. That they were seeking out someone to murder them without it looking like weakness.
[Pause]
It...I...I’m...they thought…
[Pause]
I’m sorry. I’m sorry it’s…fuck. Fuck. FUCK. They just...they wouldn’t leave us alone! They came in and they wanted our goddamn witches so bad so it’s...it’s just...they forced my hand but I still just...and it wasn’t even the last time I would have to and fuck me running fuck me fuck ME.
[Interviewer excised]
I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m okay, it just brought out...it brought up emotions. I need to talk about it to my therapist. I’m just in a state. I’m in a state. I just need…
The Tokyo Six were...they were something. They were something terrible and when they came here we...we killed them.
We kept the peace. We kept saving who we could, cooperating with magical girls. I even picked up something of an apprentice.
[Interviewer excised]
Yes, it’s Tomo.
[Interviewer excised]
Oh, please. But it was just...after all of that, building ourselves up, preparing, it was a Walpurgisnacht.
[Interviewer excised]
Yep. That was the thing that ruined Mitakihara. It wasn’t a freak storm. It was a witch. Specifically, it was a Walpurgisnacht. It’s a kind of witch made from other, smaller witches. Usually they’re mish-mashes of different creatures and realities; for example, Skadi was a mash of centipedes, polar bears, and will o’ wisps.
This was made from well over a hundred witches. Less of a monster, more of a natural disaster. And it...it ruined Mitakihara. Utterly.
We saved who we could. We destroyed the witch using all the people we had saved, all the resources we collected, and we saved thousands of lives because we were desperate to.
[Interviewer excised]
Please don’t call me that. I’m not. I just want to make my little corner of the world a better place.
Mitakihara still has witches, despite how hard I try. But I’m still here. My wife is here. My child is here.
I’ve saved well over fifty magi. About twenty of them are adults now.
And as long as I live and breathe, I’m gonna fucking keep it that way.
[The interview stops here]