Episode 11 : Finale

"Class, I would like to announce a new transfer student. She comes from some unusual circumstances, so won't everyone please make her feel welcome?" Saotome-sensei gave a short welcoming bow to the girl standing in the doorway, who took that to be a cue to enter.

The first thing which the students of 3-A noticed about their new member was the fact her hair was a silken white. This was enough to cause a stir, even in the classroom playing host to the Magical Girls, that rainbow-hued cabal of students so-named because of their collective supernatural ability to just disappear between classes or skip school entirely and not be punished for it. Whispers immediately started as the gossips of 3-A began asking if they would managed to have the new one for themselves or if she too would get snapped up by the Magical Girls, much like the lamented fate of Kyosuke Kamijō. That still stung the gossips and tender young hearts in the Middle School division, but after all, they all said, how can we compete? Now that the ranks of the Magical Girls had swollen to seven, including a second-year and a high-schooler, Kyosuke could, ahem, have a different girl every day of the week! The fact that Kyosuke had not taken such dishonorable advantage of the situation didn't particularly matter; it was the fact that such enticement was available at all which got the boys envious and the girls riled.

Back to the matter at hand, however, the absence of further squeaks from the board up front meant the new girl must be done writing her name, and Class 3-A leaned in to see what they were getting. Indeed, the girl turned about and the class got their first good look at her. A broad smile and big red eyes lit up her cheerful face, and the girl seemed fairly bursting with energy, which made her hair sway all about her. If left loose the long white tresses would probably fallen to the middle of her back, but the girl had most of it bound up into a fat ponytail, while two thick side-locks were bound up with gold-ring devices so that they fell front, over her shoulders.

"Hello everyone! My name is Nova Florseca, and I look forward to getting to know you all." said the girl as she made an energetic bow.

"Umyaaa! It's so nice today!" said Nova as she stretched out on a bench on the rooftop at lunchtime. As the gossips had feared, the white-haired girl was immediately inducted into the Magical Girls' cabal. However, in their defense, the Puella Magi had known their new inductee before she had become a student at Mitikahara Academy, or even a Puella Magi. Or even a girl at all.

"You know, I didn't think we were going to actually defeat the Walpurgisnacht. And I really wasn't expecting to be saved by you, of all people." Sayaka bent down and flicked Nova's nose for good measure.

"Hey! Oww . . ." The white-haired girl clapped her hands over her nose, but she only played it up for a second, since a peek out of the corner of one eye showed that none of the assembled Puella Magi were buying it. "Well, you know, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!"

"Sure, for suitably broad definitions of 'girl', I suppose." Kyōko rolled a stick of Pocky in her mouth as she razzed the new girl.

"I am not taking that from you Kyōko! You're like the poster child for stupid, incomprehensible, inefficient, risky . . ." The white-haired girl trailed off in a huff, before digging in her backpack and pulling out a card. "Besides, my ID says I'm a girl!"

"Only because there was no checkbox on the form for 'transmuted alien fluffball', and Daichi-san was in a hurry!" The Puella Magi still didn't expect smart comebacks from the innocent mouth of Madoka and so they cracked up for a full minute. There had been some considerable explaining to do when Sayaka's father had stumbled upon eight drenched girls in strange costume wandering about in the torrential downpour that had accompanied the Walpurgisnacht. Still, Sayaka's and Madoka's word had counted for sufficient to get Nova squared away, and Captain Daichi was even glad to accommodate the weirdness the girls had brought to him when he learned that things had already been brought to a happy ending and that they could close one of his more bothersome open cases besides.

"So does that mean it's okay for me to go into the bath with you now, Madoka?" Nova brought up something that was of an in-joke between the two of them, but after the antics of Kyōko and Sayaka, the pink-haired girl barely blushed at the comment.

"Well, I'd have to ask Homura-chan I suppose." Madoka looked to the black-haired girl, who came up with a wicked grin.

"I suppose, as long as everything is done properly. . . Hey, Kyōko, what's the going rate for a floor show at Kageyama?"

"Hey, fuck you, Homerun! Why does everybody keep thinking I work there?"

"Well, now it's because it's fun to set you off," replied Sayaka with a giggle as she came up from behind and wrapped her arms around Kyōko. "(but you certainly look good enough to pull it off,)" the blunette whispered, causing to Kyōko's face to flush to a shade almost matching the color of her hair.

The door to the roof opened and the last two surprises from Walpurgisnacht arrived. It appeared the smaller of the two was still a bit shy, which was perfectly reasonable considering how most of the Puella Magi had met her, but the smallest of the companions would come to learn that compared to crimes which Nova had left behind along with her old existence, most anything else was no sweat anyhow.

"So, it appears you were going to tell the story of how we all ended up standing at the Walpurgisnacht?"

BGM : Team Shanghai Alice - Subterranean Animism - "Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom ~ Nuclear Fusion"

Metal bit into stonework and a dark shape blotted out the sky. Homura went utterly blank with amazement when she saw what- and who- was next to her.

"TIRO FINALE!" Mami Tomoe declared, and the macrocannon on the rooftop spoke. The cannon was the size of a locomotive engine, and the whole world seemed to quake as it spat forth a shell the size of a car. Mami's target, the building which had threatened to crush Madoka, just disappeared in a cataclysmic burst of light and noise when the shot landed.

Homura tried to say something that could sum up what was going through her head at the fact the elegant blond gunner was back. Nothing came to mind, so Homura went for the next best thing. ". . . thank you." Mami gave a polite curtsy by way of reply.

For the moment, however, Walpurgis seemed to be slackening its' attack. The grinding of gears was still echoing throughout the battlefield, and the uber-Witch was too canny to make a blunt assault now that the Puella Magi had been restored to more than their starting strength. At the same time, none of the girls were ready to charge back into the fray either. Using all that she knew of Walpurgis and the damage that had already been done, if Homura were to force her companions back into battle, expend their very lives in the most ruthlessly efficient manner possible to arrange things so as to land as many critical strikes as they had strength remaining in their Soul Gems . . . Mami and Homura would break and become Witches in the care of a Walpurgis that been only 90% destroyed. They needed something else.

And perhaps it had been given to them. As the girls regrouped upon the rooftop where Mami had announced her return, it appeared the author of their surprising reversal was going to join them as well.

"What was that?!" shouted Kyōko as she arrived. Upon seeing who was standing with Homura, however, the redhead ground to a halt and she was so surprised that she actually let her Pocky fall from her mouth. "Mami?! How are you here?" The blonde did not reply directly, but instead her hands were suddenly filled each with a silver musket. Kyōko's eyes went wide as the muzzles of the guns swung up to point directly at her, and the red-haired Puella Magi dived out of the way. Hammers tripped and the guns bellowed out fire and lead- obliterating two of Walpurgis' minions which had been using the distraction to approach and try to disrupt the girls.

"Kyōko-kōhai needs to remember to check her 'six' once in a while." Mami said with a smile, while Kyōko succumbed to an embarrassed blush.

"I'd check it for her, but then I'd get distracted!" Sayaka chimed in when she landed, lance pointed to the sky.

"My my, I noticed Kyōko wasn't carrying her usual weapon. I take it then, you two . . . "

"Yeah!" replied Sayaka with a grin.

"And, oh Madoka, it's beautiful, just like your illustration!" The pink-haired girl smiled and curtseyed at the praise. "And who is this newcomer?"

"This is our friend Hitomi. She was a bit, well, rash in becoming a Puella Magi, but she's doing a good job so far." Hitomi bowed with a big smile on her face at the praise.

"And who is this . . ?" The newcomer was a white-haired girl, carrying a large baton embellished with a blood-red simulacrum of the bound form of a Soul Gem as her weapon.

"Kyubey?! What the fuck?" was Kyōko's reaction, saying out loud what the other Puella Magi were thinking.

"Ah, well, it's something of a long story. Call me Nova for right now." if there was any doubt as to her identity, the white-haired girl managed to make her human features take on the cute-yet-sinister cat smile which their Incubator had always worn. "Now, more important: If you want to stop the Walpurgis for good, I can show you how."

Just then, a small figure approached them. "M-may I help you beat the Walpurgis too?" she asked. It was obvious from the girl's dress and the radiant gemstone over her heart the girl was a Puella Magi, but one none of them recognized. Her costume seemed ill-fitted, as if it was one size too big, or she size two small, and her peach-colored hair was bound up into fat pigtails with a set of mismatched ribbons, one blue and one red.

"And who might be?"

"M-my name is C-charlotte." Realization flashed amongst the Puella Magi, and Charlotte shrank from their collective gaze. The small girl shifted nervously in place, looking ready to run, and for a moment there was silence as the girls all waited to hear from the one person with the greatest cause to refuse the newcomer.

"Certainly. You are quite welcome to join us, Charlotte-san." Mami held out her hand and Charlotte took it, relief and joy evident on her face. "Now, um, Nova, you were telling us how to put an end to that Witch?"

"Yeah, it's pretty simple. Puella Magi start out with hope and fall when they are poisoned with too much despair, right? So all we gotta do is go the other way. Spear her with hope, and she's toast."

"So how do we do that?" Homura interjected, settling a dubious look on the white-haired girl. Puella Magi or not, she had been Kyubey until however many minutes or hours ago she'd managed to game the system and get a contract. The black-haired girl didn't trust Kyubey as far as he could be thrown, a distance which was rather less now that 'he' was a full-sized 'she'.

"Umm, well, that's the tricky part . . . I'm not really sure how to make that happen." This earned the white-haired girl a variety of looks, all of them dirty.

"Sorrieee! I thought one of you might know how to make it happen!"

"Uh, didn't your kind create the magic we're all using?" Sayaka put her fists on her hips and leaned in to glare at the one-time Incubator.

"Well yeah, but that doesn't mean we really understand how it works! That's why it's called magic." Sayaka palmed her face and waited either for that bit of Incubator-logic to make sense, Walpurgis to start attacking again, or the heat death of the universe to come and claim them all.

"Hey, I have a crazy idea." Kyōko held out her Soul Gem. "Wanna try?"

"What are we going to be doing, Kyōko-chan?"

"Well I thought we'd all meld together, like Sayaka and I did, and then we might be able to strike her down together." Kyōko looked around until she'd met the eyes of each of her fellow Puella Magi. "I can't guarantee this will work (and I'll have to be a lot quieter with Sayaka if it does, which will suck), but I can't think of anything else that might do it."

"Count me in." Sayaka thrust out her Soul Gem next to Kyōko's. "Well, technically I'm already 'in' regardless, but still."

"Likewise." Homura gave her hair a flick then drew out her Soul Gem.

"I want in too." Madoka offered up her Soul Gem to the connection. "Especially if it means I'll be connected more to Homura-chan."

"To be connected with you all is everything that I could wish for." Mami said as she offered up her own Soul Gem. "If we win, so much the better."

"If my strength can help you all, I am glad to offer it." Hitomi drew out her Soul Gem, feeling at ease with the precious gemstone for the first time since it was created.

"Me too!" Charlotte's glowing orange-pink gem was added to the pile.

"All I have, I give to you. It is the least I can do." There was a collective intake of breath upon seeing the opalescent white gem covered with ugly carbon streaks in Nova's hand. The amount of corruption made it clear they would not get to do things over again if this failed. Kyōko pressed her brilliant crimson gem into the middle, and for a moment all became one.

Mami-san is so cool!

That awful crunching sound . . .

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

There's nothing to apologize for.

We all make mistakes.

And that's why we have friends to help us out!

Even when we don't admit our mistakes.

And even when we don't want help.

Because . . . in the end . . . we can make each other smile.

"And that is what was missing . . . I see now, Madoka, what you were trying to tell me. Thank you."

Kyōko spiked her swords into the ground and looked up at the Walpurgis, still hovering malevolently over them. The red-haired Puella Magi folded her hands around her Soul Gem, clasping them over her heart. "Let us pray . . ."

"Our Father, who art inscrutable . . ."

TÄU-

"Give us this day our daily donuts . . ."

SCHUNG-

"Lead us not into solitude . . ."

ZU-

"But strengthen our friendships . . ."

ZER-

"So that we may dispense justice . . ."

STR-

"And grant hope to all people . . ."

EU-

"For once and for all!"

EN!

"And let what is done this day never be undone, until the stars fall from the sky!"

A spear of hard white light shot forth, enshrouded in all of the colors that ever existed and struck the Walpurgis. The beam tore through the Witch's armor, it tore through the Witch's heart, and then it burned into the Witch's soul, and there it found a corroded, sickened ball of black iron and filled it with shining light. For just a moment, the beam was refracted from what appeared to be a diamond of many facets, and then the gem shattered . . . and the Walpurgisnacht came to an end.

"So, now that you've won, and Walpurgis is no more, what will you do now?" Mami knelt and laid out a large cloth, making an impromptu picnic out of the gathering. Charlotte goggled slightly when she realized the cloth and dinnerware was all Mami was carrying.

"Oh sure, make me carry the heavy stuff!" the smaller girl huffed. The effect was even cuter than when Madoka got play-angry, and so drew chuckles from the other girls, which only deepened Charlotte's pout. That is, until she saw what exactly Mami had made her carry. "Cheesecake?! Mami-san I love you! I love you forever!"

"Whoa, calm down there-" Sayaka said as she watched the little girl gush over Mami. This advice went unheeded, but then things got worse when the second pastry came out.

"P-peach pie?! Mami-sempai I love you, I love you forever!" Sayaka's palm met her forehead. Mami then went back to the big container Charlotte had been carrying again, and the other girls were wondering if it had been enchanted to have a pocketspace like Homura's old buckler when Mami revealed two more cakes, lemon cream and chocolate.

"(I wanted to make sure those two were distracted first, so enough would survive that you could have some too.)" came the whisper as the tall cool blonde presented the confections.

"But to answer your earlier question, Mami, it's what are 'all of us' going to do now, together." Sayaka replied. Mami looked up at hearing that, tears glimmering in her eyes. "I wouldn't dream of not having you with us. (and I don't know how I could keep up without a second set of hands to feed the Bottomless Pit over there.)" True to form, Kyōko had properly sliced the pie- and then started picking up the slices like pizza and downing them in 3-4 sharp-toothed bites. Charlotte's attention to her cheesecake was no less apocalyptic, and it was only sheer divine providence that the younger girl wasn't wearing any of it . . . yet. "Besides, there'll still be Witches needing smiting, and justice needing dispensed! Say, I wonder if I could convince Dad to start a Puella Magi division in the PPF?" That earned Sayaka her own complete set of dirty and dubious looks. "What?"

"You want to roleplay out your naughty fantasies, do it on your own time, don't get us involved too." Homura smirked at the crestfallen blunette. "Although, that makes me wonder, how all of this is supposed to work now?" The black-haired girl fished out a drained Grief Seed and looked at it for a moment before handing it over to Nova, who twirled it in her hand for a moment, contemplating the device. Then she shrugged, popped the Grief Seed in her mouth, and swallowed it hole, her sidelocks bobbing as she did so.

"So . . . creepy." Sayaka had watched the event with an unhealthy tic in one eye. "Did that even go to the right place, or are you going to learn how the human medical system works after school?"

"Yep, feels like it at least!" Sayaka shook her head. Then the blunette was taken with a pensive look, and she glanced at Mami and Charlotte specifically.

"Okay, not that I'm complaining at all, but I thought you said you couldn't wish the dead back to life? So how then did you get them back?" Nova became quite shifty-eyed at the question, which did little to endear her to her interrogators.

"Well, I uh, kinda cheated. A little bit." This set Sayaka's eye to twitching in a most unhealthy manner, and Homura had one hand covering her Soul Gem in a way that promised imminent violence. "Okay, maybe I cheated a lot, but it's for a good cause, right? Look, I've been here a long time. Like, 'Homuras timeloop was only a warmup act' long time. But it wasn't until Madoka asked me why I did it that I started questioning things. And I couldn't come up with a good answer. Honestly, it felt like she'd kicked my feet out from under me."

"She's good at that," Homura interjected. The white-haired girl nodded in agreement.

"So I decided to make my own wish so that I could learn about humans and understand you . . . us? Well, only Puella Magi can make contracts, so I figured there's a freebie; I wouldn't need to wish to be human when I would end up human in order to be eligible to wish."

"Wow, you are a filthy cheater. Nova, don't try to become a lawyer when you grow up, I think that might cause the world to implode or something."

"O-okay, I didn't realize it could do that . . . wait, I know this! This is sarcasm! Ha-ha." Homura and Sayaka shared a look, to which Nova looked puzzled. "Umm, while I admit to not being an expert on the human form, I don't think that's physically possible, and it would take a long time to grow all that back, even with Puella Magi healing. Should I tell you the rest of my story instead? So what I needed was a wish, a really good one, so that I could come to understand you and maybe make a potent enough wish to be useful. And so, I wished that nothing could hinder me in my quest to learn and understand." Nova grinned as she completed her explanation.

"And so that lets you . . ?" Sayaka nodded in Mami's direction once more.

"Well, her being dead makes it pretty hard for me to understand her, now doesn't it?"

"Wow. Kyubey- Nova- whoever you are, you're one hell of a piece of work, you know?" Sayaka stood up to take stock of the situation.

"So then, we've still got Witches to fight, we've got three customers for Sayaka's Merit Exam Boot Camp of Justice, and one customer for Sayaka's How-Not-To-Creep-Out-Your-Friends-Boot-Camp . . . of Justice!" All the girls who weren't busy with cake or pie at the moment laughed at that, and the slightly crazed heroic-pointing-at-the-sky pose.

"Well, I for one am definitely looking forward to summer vacation." This was a most un-Homura-like pronouncement, and it drew several confused looks. "What? I've had to sit through the same Spring term with no summer break for a thousand years! Hell yes I want some relaxation time!"

"H-homura-chan, why are you picturing-" Madoka let her head tilt down and she was rubbing her fingers together, the perfect picture of nervous embarrassment. "A s-slingshot bikini?" All eyes were on Homura instantly, and she felt several presences probing at the edge of the empathic link.

"Why you! I- That's- You!" an accusing finger was aimed at Kyōko, who was scraping the last of the pie from the pan with a finger. "You filthy delinquent! You've corrupted my precious Madoka-chan and made her into a pervert!"

"You know you love it, Homerun." Kyōko smirked as she replied, and then slowly licked her finger clean. Homura flushed scarlet and her fists began reflexively clenching and unclenching.

"Oooh, you-!" Kyōko put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder just then, and pointed at the steaming black-haired girl.

"Now that is what we call a 'one-hit kill', got it?"

"I-I think so?"

"Good!" Kyōko smiled with a mouthful of fangs.

"Kyōko Sakura! Unhand her! I'll not let you corrupt another innocent young soul!" Homura was now in a frothing, finger-pointing, heaving rage that was only half a joke.

"Come over here and make me! (watch this)." Kyōko added, to her unwitting protege, as Homura stalked over to the redhead. "Got'cha." The pronouncement caused Homura to hesitate for a moment in confusion, which was all the time Kyōko needed to plant a kiss on the lips of the black-haired girl.

"Careful Kyōko, you keep doing that and I'm going to start thinking you want me, and Sayaka's going to get jealous."

"Maybe, or maybe you're just projecting, and besides . . ." Kyōko leaned around Homura for a moment and locked eyes on her next victim. "Hey, Mossy! Remind me, wasn't it Sayaka who was going around saying she wanted to make Madoka her bride?" This netted screams and blushes and a couple of good curses on the blunette's behalf. Kyōko looked back at Homura with her trademark fang-filled grin. "Hey, wanna trade off for a weekend?" Huh, I didn't realize she could go any redder, mused Kyōko.

Actually, I wouldn't mind having all of you. The thought drew gasps and giggles and caused all eyes to turn on Madoka. Maybe not, um, that way, but I couldn't think of anything better than spending all the time in the world with my precious friends.

Author's Note : Well, it looks like the girls have earned their happy ending, for now at least. After all, they took down the Walpurgis with a boom that was loud enough to wake the dead, or maybe even grumpier beings. Look to this space soon, as I doubt the girls will leave me alone for long.

Now, to spare you all the trouble of running it through Google Translate, the name of the spell the girls used is "Täuschung zu zerstreuen" meaning "Dispel Deception"

Over at the Puella Magi Wiki, you can find the reference images I used for Hitomi's Puella Magi outfit and Nova's human form in the Fanart sections for those characters.