About ten minutes after Yui made it to Il Teatro, she realized something. A taunt she forgot to leave for Shinju, perhaps, or something to hint that she would be somewhere where nothing of value would be lost in combat.

Yui: {Dunno where you are, or where you got to, but if you’re lookin’ for me, you’re probably goin’ the wrong way.}

Shinju: (She waits a few moments before answering) {Yeah, thanks, great. I figured you wouldn’t want to do this at the gym. What’d you do, go out into the ruined old factory district?}

Yui: {…Remember where y’all fought me before, like half a year ago? Il Teatro, the old Opera House that burned down four years ago. Y’know, where you watched me an’ Cecilia go at it. That’s where I am.}

Shinju: {Oh, yeah?} (She speaks with great irritation, like she’s about to question how Yui knows about that, but she doesn’t) {I remember it. I’ll be there quicker than you think.}

Yui: {Good. No sense dragging this out any longer than we have to.} 

Yui sat perched on the top of the stone steps leading up to the ruined building, barely any rubble left by now. The passage of time, as well as the magnetic draw it had on Yui and those surrounding her to battle here left Il Teatro in such a state that it could no longer be called a building at all. All that remained was just over half of a wooden stage, tattered curtains, and the structure of an auditorium surrounding it, along with a scattered mess of bricks that once held the theater together. Yui’s gaze was fixed downward, toward the stone courtyard-like square, an ostentatious memorial to its former owner, and the only way in or out for most people.

The sound of a splash of water. Shinju arrives not far from the gate, coming up through a buckled storm drain. There might be pipes yet leading into Il Teatro, but Shinju takes the normal way in. She strides into the courtyard, coming to a stop in the middle of the square facing Yui. 

Yui: (She doesn’t flinch, looking down at Shinju. Yui is already transformed, yet the once vibrant pink in the stripes on her outfit have faded, as if seen from far underwater) Anyone else here’d say “I didn’t think you’d show up!” But I knew once I laid all that shit onto Niko that this was always gonna be the outcome. You can have fun figuring out after all this if I did it on purpose or not. 

Shinju: (She strikes the tip of her umbrella on the pavement) No, you didn’t. And I don’t care! It doesn’t matter what the reason is, there are things you just don’t do! 

Yui: Like what, then? Name my unforgivable crimes, the stuff that drove you off your ass to come down here and confront me. …My point being, if there’s something to be done about it… (She jumps down, her faded Puella outfit more prominently displayed as she lands on a knee, fist firm into the stone) …Then step the fuck up and do something about it. (She stands, a golden staff forming seamlessly into her hand) 

Shinju: (She turns on her umbrella’s water cutter, deeply scoring the pavement at her feet. She makes a show of “turning it down” to where it won’t be as lethal, like she’s adjusting an imaginary dial on the umbrella’s handle) Fine. I’ve been in scrapes for stupider stuff than this. (She rushes forward to just outside staff’s reach, turning on the water jet and swinging her umbrella horizontally at chest level) 

Yui: (As if reading Shinju’s mind, her body ducks down under the jet with unnatural speed, and from this position, Yui rushes forward, swinging her staff upwards towards Shinju’s chin)

Shinju: (Her arms still partially in the way from her swing, the staff hits her under her arms and she steps back. A great amount of water spirals up into the air, conjured with Shinju’s magic, gushing towards Yui) 

Yui: (Several staves form around Yui, as if a makeshift golden wall, diverting most of the initial flow. She hops atop, then vaults over Shinju’s position, calling a bolt of violet lightning towards the wall, sparking the oncoming flow of water as well)

Shinju: (She flinches, but the lightning all conducts through the water around her straight into the ground. As soon as the electricity is gone, she fires her umbrella upward at Yui) 

Yui: …Goddamn lying ass video game bullshit— (Yui is knocked back this time, catching herself on another wall of staves. The gash on her chest seals quickly enough as she launches forward, fist aimed at Shinju’s temple)

Shinju: (She catches Yui’s fist in her hand, seemingly accepting the invitation to a fistfight. It quickly becomes clear, though, that Yui’s boxing experience makes her superior in this field, Shinju taking several blows. She swamps the two of them in water, seeking to reclaim the advantage) 

Yui: (Despite her obvious disadvantage, however, Yui’s punches are still aimed with expert precision, with more force than expected. Still, being submerged, it is much easier to block, dodge and counter Yui in this state.)

Shinju: (After landing a decent blow near the base of Yui’s neck, Shinju suddenly dissolves into the water around them. A quick current flows clockwise around Yui’s legs, and Shinju re-emerges behind her, umbrella in hand, firing a jet of water at her) 

Yui: (Yui flies out of the water bubble, landing face-first against the stone steps. A bit more blood than expected splattered onto the concrete, yet Yui rose to her feet, turning around and showing no sign any injury even took place. Two staves appeared in her hands, and twirling them, she ran forward once more)

Shinju: (Apparently not wanting to wait for Yui’s move, she runs forward as well, umbrella at the ready) 

Yui: (Yui’s swing is just that much faster, that much more precise. In the first movement, she deflects Shinju’s umbrella, and the second, she catches the younger Puella just under the ribs in full force)

Shinju: (She staggers back, with enough sense to cover her retreat by spraying her water cutter in front of her feet. With a little distance, she starts gathering a large amount of water into a sphere behind her) 

Yui: (She begins circling around Shinju, leaving staves in her wake, and building to a familiar looking structure. As she completes her first loop, more staves pile on the first, slowly forming an ornate, golden cage)

Shinju: (A slight smile crosses Shinju’s face. She acts quickly, having apparently come up with a specific plan for this attack. She quickly fills one wall up to the top with water, in a cone shape pressing against it. She spreads her fins wide in the narrow end of the cone, thrusting suddenly towards one side. Like a hydraulic press, the force blows out the wall of the cage) 

Yui: (But Yui anticipates this, jumping through the gap in the opposite wall, a barrage of staff blows and kicks to Shinju’s back. Wrapping her arms around Shinju’s waist, she throws herself back, tossing her against the now active, still standing wall of the former cage)

Shinju: (Though it seems she dissolved into water to avoid the impact, when she reforms she wipes some blood from her face, apparently not having dissolved in time. Before she can do anything else, a long, low rumble echoes from below, their bones and teeth vibrating) 

I wasn’t gonna put him in harm’s way for something stupid like this, but… it seems he won’t sit by any more. 

(A light from below. Though they’re still standing on solid ground under some waist high water, the pavement below seems to drop away and become a deep, dark abyss. The surface of the water roils and tosses like a stormy sea. Far below in the depths, a blue light flickers in the darkness) 

Yui: (Yui instinctively jumps back onto the stairs. As she does, her eyes shimmer with iridescence, twirling her staff in her right hand) Good. Was gettin’ tired of the opening act, anyway. Let’s do this shit, full power!

Shinju: (The water flooding the courtyard surges upward, like something huge is coming up from the depths. Right beneath them, Sango appears out of the darkness, glowing blue and violet, casting patterns of watery light against the walls of the courtyard. He lets out a long note of whalesong, shooting water upwards out of his blowhole. Salt water falls like rain on the two Puellae) Trust me, it would have been a lot better for you if you hadn’t gotten him involved. 

Yui: I guess we’ll find out, huh? (A line of golden staves flow down from the sky towards Yui’s hand, only to shift and turn parallel to the ground. Yui hops atop the staff in the front, balancing on it as the serpentine collection begins to carry her around, at level with Sango) 

Shinju: (She jumps up into Sango, coating herself in a crystallized water suit similar to her sister’s armor. Sango turns around rapidly, swinging his back fluke at Yui) 

Yui: (Yui’s makeshift “dragon” dives just under the swing, though only narrowly misses the top of her head. In its wake, the collective of staves begins to leave a trail, aerial cage beginning to form)

Shinju: (She emerges atop Sango’s back. As he circles back around, she fires her umbrella backwards in Yui’s wake, cutting through or knocking away the staves she’s leaving behind)

As Yui rides her “dragon” in a circle, trying to set up her attack as Sango and Shinju knock it down, it becomes a sort of desperate race to see who is successful first. Yui’s speed eventually allows her to gather all of her staves necessary, not wasting a second as she raises her hand to call down a bolt of lightning.

Yui: Soul Cage Proxima—

Shinju leaps from Sango’s back, umbrella at the ready. Before she reaches her target, she dissolves and disappears, falling down to the ground. A feint.

Sango looms huge behind her. In his chest, a bright light glows. When Shinju drops out of sight, his mouth opens, and from it issues a mighty blast of shining water, aimed with Yui at its center.

Yui: (By the time Yui noticed the attack and feint, it was too late to dodge. Blocking wouldn’t help, either. In fact, it would only put the Soul Gem on her wrist in jeopardy. The safest option was to take the attack head on. She doesn’t even look to see the scale of damage caused)

Ahahaha! Damn, bitch, you got outplayed!

Maybe. But it’s a good thing that every Witch I’ve ever known since becoming a Puella Magi has one fatal flaw that they all share.

Huh? What flaw? What is it we all— gghk!

You all have horrible memory. ‘Cause if you didn’t, you would’ve known what I was going for from the very beginning.

Y-You… you fucking bitch!

You forgot that I did this exact same thing when I first went Malefica. Y’know, let myself get injured and transfer the damage to you. 

I… heh. You remember… ugh… what happened last time you did this, though. Heheh… good luck, next time someone like the Balancers—

Oh, I’m not killing you this time. I’m taking some of this damage. I earned it, doing all this shit that I did. But you need to work on those blind spots, else you’ll never get to sit in the driver’s seat someday. But… you are getting knocked down a peg or two. Let it be a lesson in using my grief against us.

…You’re just stalling y’know. Someday, Forte… someday, I’ll be in control. And there isn’t a goddamn fucking thing you can do about it.

Oh, I know. But so long as I know how the soul works, I can hold you off for a long, long time, even with our ‘unique’ circumstances. Now, sit back, let me finish this fight, and you focus on healing that hole in your chest. Just this once, I’ll take the heat. But let this be burned into your existence… the lengths I’ll go to when I need to. You’re my other half, you oughta know by now. Only rules I follow are my own.

Yui: (The hole in Yui’s chest closes as she lies on her back, staring up at the sky. Violet flashes of lightning mix with the sea-salt rain, washing away the pooling blood from the vibrant pink streaks in her black, leather Puella attire)

Shinju: (Shinju arrives, standing over her. There’s a brief moment of relief that Yui isn’t dead from the attack, then her face hardens again. She strikes the tip of her umbrella against the wet pavement by Yui’s side) Is that good enough for you now? 

Yui: …If I could move right, I’d say no. Not every day I get to square off against Magia, y’know? (Her voice has notably lost its edge) …Don’t think I reclaimed it, but… Sabby’s back in the corner. Mission accomplished, I guess.

Shinju: Don’t blame it all on that Witch thing now. After this, you gotta go and say sorry to Niko for what you said. 

Yui: Yeah, I will. …And everyone else. Including you. …I’m sorry.

Shinju: (Sango looms huge over her shoulder, taking up most of the sky Yui can see. Shinju moves her mouth like she’s saying something, but it’s drowned out in low, rumbling whalesong. Realizing she can’t talk over him, Shinju just points at Sango)

Yui: Heh… (She closes her eyes with a little smile) Fine, fine… Even though I didn’t land a hit on him at any point… Sorry, Sango.

Shinju: Well, he’s probably upset because you did land some hits on me. Is Aoi gonna be there to take care of your damage? 

Yui: (Dropping her transformation, she shakily pulls out both her Soul Gem and a Grief Seed) …I’m good. Aoi’s healing is top notch, but I’m tryin’ not to overload her too much while she’s running the clinic. …I got a spare if you need one.

Shinju: No, I’d rather n—… you know what, sure. 

Yui: (Fumbling in her pocket for several seconds, she holds out an extra Grief Seed in her palm) I tend to hunt out of town when I can. Rural spots that don’t have any spare Puellae. Leave some Witches for the locals here, y’know?

Shinju: (After a pause, she sighs and puts away her umbrella) That’d be mostly me and Sis, and Seia a couple times. 

Yui: And Hanako. Plus, gotta keep Aoi stocked up. Never did figure out if Niko is actually a Puella again or not… Oh, and Yuzu, can’t forget Yuzu. God knows how many others in Mitakihara, kind of a big city…

Shinju: … Among all this, have you seen Kyubey lately? 

Yui: The clinic’d be lined with its bodies if I had. No… but I do think it’s making contracts around Mitakihara again.

Shinju: Then it’s about the end of time we can mess around like this. I think Sis would say the same thing. 

Yui: I’m done messin’ around now… if y’all can trust me when I say that, I mean. If and when things get serious… my head’s on straight now. Damn near knocked it clean off, though… I’m pretty sure I could’ve healed that, but even I’m not a hundred percent sure about that. Not in a hurry to try, either…

Shinju: (She puts her hands on her hips) You didn’t heal that? What did you do to make it go away so fast?

Yui: A hole in my chest is easy! Besides, I shifted like… half of the damage to Sabrina. I just don’t feel confident trying to heal myself if my head comes off.

Shinju: … It’s supposed to be fine if your Soul Gem is fine. I think Ueno could tell you that. 

Yui: Right. And in theory, someone could just like, grow a body from a Soul Gem. But I’d need like… a small nation’s worth of Grief Seeds to pull that off. No thanks… whew. (She finally sits up, with some notable effort)

Shinju: … There’ve gotta be better ways to do this than getting blasted by a whale, man. 

Yui: …Stay on the Magia path, Shinju. Don’t ever go Malefica, if you can avoid it. It’s… hard to convey properly. The Witch, she’s… we’re on the same team, but a Witch is still a Witch. Two halves of the same coin, but my job’s to keep that coin from landing wrong.

Shinju: Well, don’t worry about that. I’ve got Niko and Sis and Kinu and Sango supporting me. I’m not gonna go down too easy. 

Yui: …Good. (She lies back down, closing her eyes) …World doesn’t need more “Angels” anyway. Heh… maybe that’s why I can’t find the Path anymore. Ah well… (A little smile lights her face) 

…

…If you’re worried about me, by the way, find Seia or Hanako, they’ll get me home safe. I just need a minute. Or two. …Or five.