The sign had just gone up. “New Eden”. It shimmered in the morose mid December sky. Tacky, even by Yui’s tastes. But she wasn’t relenting. This had to symbolize a part of the Paradise that Yui had stolen for herself. For some reason, Aoi had decided to stay, even with Yui in no condition to contain her. Alice had decided to stay, despite the lingering aches and pains of Yui healing her shoulder. Yuzuki wasn’t officially employed by New Eden, yet she was frequently there, to check up on everyone who was. Yui was in the process of setting up her screening and training regimen. She would test this on the first Puella Magi to walk through those doors. Or so she told herself.

Kiwako: Yui-chaaaan! I’m hooooome!

The voice was all too familiar. Its simulated saccharine cut Yui deeper than usual today.

Yui: Fuck off.

Blinding rage. She didn’t even turn to look at the source of the voice to see if Kiwako would leave. Yui knew better. Even without looking, she could tell Kiwako was doing that annoying little sway she did when someone yelled at her.

Kiwako: C’mooon~ You wanna test the thingy today, right?

Yui: Not with you, no.

Kiwako: Why not~?

It was still too peppy. Too happy. Why? Why was she so goddamn happy all the time? Yui knew that it was an act. It was all fake. Kiwako had experienced loss and despair fitting someone who had lived as long as she had. So why? Even to the depths of the girl’s soul, there was a mask. Yui couldn’t see or feel past it. It drove her mad to think about it.

Yui: ‘Cause I said so. Now fuck off.

Kiwako: Is it because of Mei-cha—

Snap. In an instant, far faster than Yui should have been able to move without her transformation, she had Kiwako pinned to the wall, several feet off the ground and held by her neck. Her voice came out far louder than she would have liked, but then again, Kiwako was an expert at this by now. Finding holes in the wall to peer through. Yui hated this trait more than the false childishness.

Yui: Keep my fucking friends’ names out of your GODDAMN MOUTH!

Kiwako’s eyes shone with a rare sign of genuine fear. Yui had to remind herself that while Kiwako Kobayashi was crafty, manipulative, conniving and scheming, traits befitting the Oracle’s confidant, she was still much, much weaker than Yui, even as a master of Venefica in Puella. Especially with Kiwako no longer bound to her Witch’s barrier. Yui held the girl for a moment longer than her anger denoted, and she unceremoniously dropped her to the floor. Kiwako took a bit to uncrumple and compose herself after her expected coughing fit.

Kiwako: …I’m not doing this for her, you know.

Her voice was much lower. This was when Yui knew the mask had come off, and Kiwako decided to take things seriously. This was the time to listen to the girl. Yui hated that it always took this long to get Kiwako to play ball.

Kiwako: I don’t like it, okay? …I don’t like how things ended.

Yui: …Tough shit.

Hesitation. Yui took too long. The bravado was much less effective. Especially with visible tears in the corner of her eyes. She would have to work on that, someday. For a mercy, however, Kiwako was one to know when to take the hint and move on, rather than go for the kill.

Kiwako: Okay, okay. …We’ll come back to that. But right now, I wanna help. …You know I’m not lying.

Yui: No one knows when you’re not lying anymore, Kiwa. And like it or not, you’re associated with her because of how we all met you.

Kiwako: …You can’t hate her forever, Yui.

And Kiwako was right. Yui knew she wouldn’t hold a grudge against Cecilia forever. By all definition, Yui got even already. But it never went away. The embers of that grudge remained, as if part of the blueprint of who Yui was as a person. Subconsciously, Yui attributed the blame to the Maestro, but even that felt wrong. 

Yui: Sure I can. ‘Cause of her, I lost someone I couldn’t afford to lose. Someone I wanted to save. We lost so much because she had to sit up on her perch of omniscience and decide to leave us all in the dark. And don’t start with the lecture about how her power works, I know how it works better than goddamn anyone except her. But it’ll never sit well with me that Mei died because of what the Oracle did.

Kiwako: She did it to save us from the Balancers, Yui. That perfect storm, it needed to go that way. If things weren’t so chaotic on all sides, they would’ve had you all dead-to-rights. Her vision wasn’t perfect, but really… if you hadn’t felt that profound loss, you wouldn’t have found your light in time.

Yui: If you tell me that subconsciously, Cecilia envisioned losing Mei, and that it was all part of the plan, I’ll shoot out your eye next.

This time, Yui saw that telltale sway. Kiwako’s gears were in motion. They were never going to get anywhere like this.

Kiwako: …Then I wanna ask you some things about your power, Yui-chan.

Yui didn’t answer. No answer would’ve changed the immutable fact that Kiwako was going to ask it anyway. The crossing of her arms across her chest was the only signal Yui would give for Kiwako to proceed.

Kiwako: You felt it, right? When my Barrier fell?

Unexpected. The question completely disarmed Yui. Her face reflected this before she could catch herself. What was Kiwako going for here? Yui thought to ask directly, but this time, she decided to play along.

Yui: …Yeah. All at once. An entire town, thousands upon thousands of souls, all just… there suddenly, somehow. Not like they appeared, but like they were always there. That there had never been anything to make them not there.

Kiwako: And before that… just one soul, right?

Yui: …Several. Couldn’t make ‘em out, just that there were a few Magical Girls. I always assumed that it was a squad takin’ out an amalgamate Witch.

Kiwako’s eyes widen. It was not the answer she was expecting to hear, but her internal calculations eventually settle on her face, which relaxes. This was acceptable, it seemed.

Kiwako: So you can’t really sense inside a Barrier, then?

Yui: No more than any other Puella. Not that I have a frame of reference, I’ve always had this power. Just, y’know, I didn’t know how to use it for a long time.

Kiwako: ‘Kay. My point is that your soul reading isn’t perfect. But also, you can use it from really really far away. What was it like outside of Kamihama? Like, did other Magical Girls talk about it?

Genuine curiosity. Kiwako’s mask wasn’t there to hide something that she deep down wanted to know. That she needed to know. And Yui was the expert in question when it came to this field of understanding. Not that Yui felt the need to give Kiwako what she wanted, but her own curiosity got the better of her. And it would keep the Oracle out of the conversation, if nothing else.

Yui: …It was a pretty big deal. Like, the kinda thing people’d talk about as a rumor, or fairy tale, or urban legend. “Don’t let your town become like Kamihama” or whatever. I kept telling myself I was gonna check it out, but, well… shit kept happening. Became back burner when Kae made me a fuckin’ Malefica.

Kiwako: …What would you have done? Y’know, if you did come to Kamihama?

Direct. The question’s meaning was obvious. Kiwako wanted to know if Yui would have hunted and killed the Witch responsible for the Barrier around Kamihama. They both knew Yui’s answer, especially when Yui was so easily provoked into blind rage as it was right now.

Yui: …I dunno. You genuinely piss me off on a good day, so I dunno how the story would’ve gone. Especially with all that iterative looping. I would’ve tried to set those other girls free, but… from what I gathered, they were just there to keep you from sinking in completely.

Kiwako: …The Coven. My Coven.

Longing. The girl’s voice lowered to its natural octave and cadence once again. And once again, no mask could hide Kiwako’s feelings towards those other girls.

Kiwako: Yeah… my friends kept me going for a long while. But living in a Witch’s Barrier isn’t healthy. They developed a power as a side effect, just to survive.

Yui: “Doppel” right? There were rumors about it all over Japan. Every city I hunted in once I made my contract had one whisper or another about it. 

Kiwako: Exactly! I think, deep down, my friends wanted to make me not feel alone. I… I knew I was a Witch. But in that space, I was still… well, me. My friends saw me as me, not the big bad wolf I’d become in my despair. And then, they learned how to use the power that our old Coven Mother gave to us. Cece-chan probably made it seem like I invented Venefica in Puella, but we were all taught. And in my barrier, it made it really easy. But in a Witch’s Barrier, or say, a realm with a lot of Witch energy, it can manifest the Witch properly. Let the girl drive the Witch as the Witch drives the girl. It works the same way, more or less.

Yui: …So it’s the same, but in reverse in a Barrier or a place like the Dreamscape. But who taught you? Was it that “High Priestess” person Mei tried to invoke when she was mastering Vox Memoria?

That was a low blow. But so was trying to bring Cecilia into the conversation in the first place. The pure rage lying behind Kiwako’s eyes was obvious, and the twitching of her eye only made it that much more so. But Kiwako started this, using her preferred tactic of irritation to disarm her conversational opponents. Yui simply knew the rules, and how to play in return. It took Kiwako quite a while to answer as she tried to calm herself, and keep from getting into a fight she couldn’t win. When she did speak, her voice was lower in tone than it had ever been, even lower than her natural vocal range.

Kiwako: …Yes.

Yui: But you all couldn’t get the hang of it until you went Witch?

Concession. Yui was willing to back off of the one piece of Kiwako’s history she wasn’t ready to divulge or have out in the open, and in exchange, Kiwako now fully knew to do the same. Kiwako’s voice became natural again, and gradually began to rise in tone.

Kiwako: …Yes. But once we had, it became natural. I was surprised when I got here how difficult it was for the others.

Yui: How hard was it for Hanako?

An olive branch, and a distraction. The rules were established, and at this point, Yui’s own fury had faded. The matters of the soul of a Magical Girl could get Yui talking to just about anyone. And Hanako’s soul was especially interesting.

Kiwako: Pretty easy, actually! 

Kiwako’s facade returned in full.

Kiwako: But Lily-chan has a lot of darkness in her. When I met her, her power was stronger when her Soul Gem was dirtier! But that’s not healthy, you know that. So when I taught her how to work alongside her Witch, she was able to keep that power consistently, even when her Gem is completely clean!

Yui: Even at a clean Soul Gem? I never really got a good chance to talk to her after everything went down.

Kiwako’s face shifted, the swaying intensifying a bit. Her smile widened, and became warm. It made Yui feel ill. Yui knew the next step in this dance, and the true purpose of Kiwako’s visit became plain as day. Yui had suspected as much the moment Kiwako walked in.

Kiwako: Weeeeell~ There’s a great opportunity to do so! You see—

Yui: No.

Kiwako: Why not?

Yui: ‘Cause I ain’t there yet. We ain’t there yet. 

Kiwako: …Why not?

Yui sighed. Defeat. Kiwako played this game better than Yui did, in the end. Decades of being a Witch with a group of friends to anchor her humanity gave her the edge. But even in victory in the game of conversation, Kiwako would be denied her prize.

Yui: …You don’t get it. If you don’t get it, you got no business tryin’ to make things happen just ‘cause it’ll make you happy when you sleep at night. I’m not ready to talk to Cecilia, and I’m not ready to talk to Hanako, who didn’t lose a goddamn thing during the Balancers’ attack. Now… fuck off. Fuck off, and don’t come back… not ‘til you understand.

The game was set. Kiwako’s gambit had ultimately failed, and at this exact second in time, both girls understood that Yui wasn’t going to budge right now. If Kiwako were to try again, she would have to come back another time. The problem, of course, was that after today, Yui would inevitably drown herself in her work, making finding such a time a difficult task. The other option would be at night, but Kiwako wasn’t prepared for that, either. Not yet, at least. But Kiwako always had a backup plan. She knew how to get people to dance to her tune, one way or another.

Kiwako: …Okay, Yui-chan. I’ll play along. For now. But deep down… deep, deeeeeep down? You know I’m right.

Yui didn’t respond, having turned away from the girl and inspecting her gym’s setup. Kiwako merely sighed, shaking herself back into her usual, childlike demeanor before leaving the gym with a twirl. And Yui, for her part, waited until the coast was clear. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she punched a hole through yet another punching bag.