Chapter 199: Chapter 5: Want to Become a Magical Girl? (Bonus Chapter for 100 Power Stones)
Dear Mother in another world, your kitten is having a very bad time. This hardworking cat tried to improve her cooking skills so she could come home, only to be thwarted again and again by a mean Magical Girl.
"Meow!"
With the little cat’s plaintive cry, the semi-automated garbage truck hauled away Homura’s trash bin—and with it, another of Yimi’s hard-won kills, wasted for nothing.
Like the mascot companions in most Magical Girl shows, Kyubey was a creature invisible to anyone who hadn’t been chosen. But Yimi had faith that the incinerator would treat it the same as everything else.
Homura shouldered her bag and headed toward school.
"Bad person!" Yimi’s stubby legs pumped to keep up at her heels, cursing the whole way.
"Why am I being scolded by someone—some cat—who ruined a whole set of my kitchenware?" Homura was unmoved.
She fully supported the cat’s Kyubey-hunting efforts. That didn’t mean she could cheerfully accept Kyubey being dumped into her cookpot.
"When I make delicious Kyubey, you don’t get any." The childish voice laid down the gauntlet.
"You couldn’t pay me to eat it." Homura stepped onto the bus to school.
Yimi tried to follow, but the driver stopped her. "Miss, pets aren’t allowed on this vehicle."
"I see." Homura glanced back at Yimi.
The cat had already stormed off in a huff.
"..."
Homura had actually intended to bring the cat to school. She’d instinctively assumed it was invisible to ordinary people, same as Kyubey.
She paused to think.
If it wasn’t an alien species that could counter Kyubey, there wasn’t much reason to invest this much attention. But after this many loops without ever changing the outcome, an unprecedented anomaly was worth investigating.
She froze time. Having already boarded, Homura caught up to the sulking Yimi and grabbed her.
"You’re not a good person." The little cat flailed all four limbs in midair, refusing to cooperate.
"I knew it."
The cat hadn’t come anywhere near the Time Shield she used to control time, yet it had shrugged off her ability like it was nothing. That was something even Kyubey itself couldn’t do.
After a moment’s thought, Homura decided against stuffing Yimi into her bag.
She gently rubbed the kitty’s head to soothe her. "Go home on your own. I’ll make you something good when I get back."
The cat had to eat something—otherwise why would it cook?
If only Yimi were invisible to normal people like Kyubey, Homura would’ve snatched her up without a second thought. Since she wasn’t, it was too much trouble. This cat didn’t seem like the type to sit quietly inside a bag and hide, either.
According to Homura’s calculations, today was the day Madoka was most likely to first encounter Kyubey.
So for now—try building rapport. After all, she’d lost count of how many loops she’d been through.
Yimi turned her head away. "Apologize to me."
"I’m sorry."
"Hmph." Yimi trotted back, displeased.
Homura watched until she was inside. The automatic door, apparently having registered the cat’s identity, opened on its own.
Simpler than Kyubey on the surface—like a child. But she couldn’t jump to conclusions. The cat’s motive for trying to feed her Kyubey was still unknown.
...
Mitakihara Middle School. Its architecture looked like a noble academy plucked from a movie set; certain sections even had palace-like ornamentation.
In fact, you could see this kind of fantastical architecture everywhere in the city. Even Madoka Kaname—Homura’s primary rescue target—had a mother who was a career powerhouse, a father who was a full-time homemaker, and a family that lived in a villa with its own garden.
People who lived here probably didn’t notice the difference, but someone from another world would immediately marvel at the level of development. All thanks to the changes Kyubey had wrought since ancient times.
"All right, let me introduce a transfer student..."
That transfer student was, of course, Homura.
She wrote her name on the board, took a brief look at Madoka, and sat down. Simple as that.
One drawback of this school: every classroom used transparent, soundproofed partitions. Turn your head and you could see the students in the next room. The desks were basic single-post designs with two boards—one for the seat, one for the writing surface—so anyone’s fidgeting was visible at a glance.
Which meant that during break, while classmates crowded around to talk to her, Homura spotted a certain little kitty who had somehow followed her here, peering curiously around the hallway.
"...Excuse me, one moment."
Homura squeezed through the crowd, half-puzzled, half-annoyed. But in the split second her line of sight was blocked, the cat vanished again.
Looking back, she realized Madoka—who should have come over to introduce herself first—had also disappeared from her usual spot.
In the very first timeline and nearly every one since, it had always been either Homura approaching Madoka or Madoka approaching her as the class health representative, checking on the girl with the heart condition. She’d never experienced what happened if she walked away before Madoka could say hello.
No—given Madoka’s personality, even if Homura stepped out, Madoka would’ve followed to point out the nurse’s office. So she should be in the hallway right now. And sure enough, there she was, just around the corner.
A cat on a mission was never idle. Cooking skills aside, she also needed to track down more Kyubey for ingredients.
One thing she’d give Kyubey credit for: even though Yimi had memorized its scent, she couldn’t seem to track it by smell alone.
No matter—Homura liked killing Kyubey too. Stick with her and the supply would come.
The little cat who’d snuck onto campus with that plan in mind had sensed something unusual.
She couldn’t name the feeling. It was like a wet towel wrung into a ball—the water that should have been squeezed out was instead pooling of its own accord into one spot, refusing to drain, packing itself so tightly it was on the verge of compressing into something else entirely.
Curious, Yimi slipped between the legs of students heading to the restroom and ran toward the source.
"Aaah! What is that?!"
"It’s a cat! How’d a cat get into the school?"
Dramatic humans. Freaking out when a cat became a person, freaking out when a cat talked, and now freaking out just because a cat walked by.
Yimi ignored them and jumped right in front of the unusual girl.
Pink twin-tails. A round, sweet face. The girl looked startled at Yimi’s arrival and crouched down.
"Did you wander in by accident?"
This was Madoka Kaname—the one Homura had been searching for.
Yimi peered up at her.
Hesitating, she looked around. Plenty of students were watching, but not many dared come close.
A stray cat popping up at school was unusual enough, but at this age quite a few kids were still wary of getting scratched.
She set aside the cat rules and whispered: "Are you a Magical Girl?"
"Huh?" Madoka’s expression froze.
The cat just talked.
"I’m... not? I think?" She actually answered.
Yimi was deeply disappointed. She’d felt something so special about this girl—how could she not be a Magical Girl?
The little cat pressed on in a whisper: "Then—do you want to become a Magical Girl?"
Homura, arriving just in time, heard those exact words.
Her fists clenched.
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