The sounds of customers coming and going filled the café with lively chatter.
Amid the bustling atmosphere, selfless kindness seemed as warm and comforting as the afternoon sun.
Fair skin, an elegant figure, blonde curls framing both sides of her face, and graceful, composed manners.
Everything about the girl sitting before Makoto gave her an extraordinary air of maturity, despite her relatively young age.
An upperclassman helping an underclassman without expecting anything in return.
Perhaps such an innocent relationship could only exist in the hearts of girls at this age.
No matter how carefully Makoto observed her, he kept reaching the same conclusion.
Mami-senpai genuinely wanted to help him.
Purely and simply.
Without expecting anything in return.
While Makoto ate the cake, Mami elegantly sipped her black tea.
Her relaxed demeanor seemed to indicate that she had plenty of time and was perfectly willing to wait for him to settle his thoughts.
The atmosphere between them gradually grew quiet.
However, perhaps because Homura’s earlier information had already shaped his expectations, Makoto found himself becoming increasingly wary of Mami the longer they talked.
The more he noticed her kindness, the more cautious he became.
After all, according to Homura’s description, Mami was someone who would suffer a complete mental breakdown upon discovering the truth that magical girls eventually became witches.
She would then suddenly attack and kill two companions with whom she had previously shared a close relationship.
There was absolutely no way someone capable of such a reaction could be considered psychologically healthy.
Of course, Makoto hadn’t based his judgment entirely on the information Homura had provided.
He had naturally made use of his own network of acquaintances to investigate Mami Tomoe’s background.
According to the information he had gathered—
Mami Tomoe was sixteen years old and a third-year student at Mitakihara Private Middle School.
Three years earlier, her parents had died in a traffic accident.
Mami herself had been the sole survivor.
From that moment onward, she had no remaining immediate family.
After her parents’ accident, through some arrangement Makoto hadn’t managed to uncover, the thirteen-year-old girl had begun living independently.
His investigation also revealed that during this period, Mami’s interactions with her friends had decreased noticeably.
Between her first and third years of middle school, practically all the friends she had once been close to had gradually drifted away from her.
Knowing certain details about magical girls, Makoto naturally understood that Mami must have become one around that time.
Because she needed to spend considerable amounts of time each day fighting witches to obtain Grief Seeds, purify her Soul Gem, and sustain her continued existence, she had practically no time left to spend with friends after school.
That was where the information obtained through his investigation ended.
Yet even without anything further, the situation was already concerning enough.
A girl who had lost both parents at thirteen.
Someone who had spent the following years living alone, gradually losing contact with her friends and spending most of her time in solitude.
And during that period, she had also been forced to engage in frequent, dangerous battles against creatures called witches simply to sustain herself.
The pressure involved would be enormous, even for an experienced adult who had already endured countless hardships.
Someone like that would probably spend their days sighing with exhaustion, their face visibly marked by weariness.
When he thought about it carefully, wasn’t that practically the life of an overworked employee struggling alone in an unfamiliar city?
Except Mami’s daily responsibilities went far beyond those of an ordinary overworked employee.
She was genuinely risking her life again and again in battles against witches.
And yet, despite such extraordinary pressure, Mami Tomoe, who was sitting before Makoto right now, continued to display an elegant and gentle demeanor.
Wasn’t there a common saying that even an apparently well-adjusted adult could reach their breaking point in an instant?
Makoto had every reason to believe that this seemingly normal, kindhearted upperclassman might one day suddenly find herself overwhelmed.
And when a magical girl broke down, the consequences were nothing like those experienced by an ordinary person.
When magical girls fell into despair, their Soul Gems would rapidly accumulate corruption.
Eventually, they would undergo an irreversible transformation into their final form.
The very creatures they had spent their lives hunting.
Mindless beings that preyed upon humans.
Witches.
This was also why Homura had said that becoming a magical girl was essentially equivalent to dying as a human being.
It was a completely irreversible process.
After all, as long as someone was human, there would inevitably come a moment when they experienced despair.
But unlike ordinary people, magical girls didn’t have the opportunity to recover from despair and continue living their lives.
Mami Tomoe: “Hmm? Is something wrong?”
Apparently finding it strange that Makoto had been staring at her in silence, Mami asked him a question.
Makoto Tsukimi: “It’s nothing. I just suddenly realized that the unknown really is quite frightening.”
In Makoto’s mind, Mami Tomoe was like a bomb that could explode at an unpredictable moment.
Perhaps dealing with her would be even more difficult than dealing with Homura Akemi.
After uttering a statement that left the upperclassman somewhat confused, Makoto decided to bring the conversation directly back to its intended subject.
Although Mami had never asked him for any compensation, Makoto wasn’t accustomed to owing other people favors.
Makoto Tsukimi: “I’d like to borrow your magical girl ability, Mami-senpai, to see whether it’s possible to connect my senses with someone else’s.”
“As for compensation, is there any particular kind of experience you’d like to have?”
“If there isn’t, then I’ll probably have to find some other way to repay you.”
Mami Tomoe: “That really isn’t necessary. Helping a younger student who’s having difficulties is something a magical girl should naturally do.”
Makoto Tsukimi: “I’m afraid I can’t agree to that. If I don’t compensate you, I’ll be the one who feels uncomfortable.”
“Besides, according to the information I’ve received, using magical powers comes at a cost, doesn’t it?”
Every time a magical girl used her powers, her Soul Gem would become slightly more corrupted.
The same thing happened when a magical girl experienced despair.
Visually, this corruption manifested as a dark substance appearing within the otherwise transparent gemstone.
Most magical girls believed that once their Soul Gem became completely engulfed in darkness, they would reach the moment of their death.
To remove this corruption, they needed to hunt witches and use the Grief Seeds left behind by their defeated enemies to transfer the impurities out of their Soul Gems.
Consequently, every use of magical power was effectively another step pushing magical girls toward further battles.
Their supernatural abilities were sustained by an endless cycle of fighting witches.
Makoto Tsukimi: “If I made you risk your life fighting dangerous battles just so I could benefit for free, Mami-senpai, I’d probably deserve to be struck down by divine punishment.”
He looked at Mami with a faint smile.
Hearing Makoto’s explanation, Mami swallowed the words she had originally intended to say.
She had been about to explain that protecting ordinary people was simply the duty of magical girls.
But if Makoto already understood the circumstances surrounding magical girls so thoroughly, such an explanation would sound rather hollow.
After all, the use of magical power depended on hunting witches and obtaining the Grief Seeds they dropped after being defeated.
For that reason, every active magical girl generally maintained a territory of her own.
The relationships between magical girls were nowhere near as warm and friendly as they might appear on the surface.
There were territorial disputes.
Conflicts of ideology.
And sometimes, even worse things.
For instance, Mami knew that witches’ familiars didn’t drop Grief Seeds.
Because of this, many magical girls in the surrounding regions deliberately allowed those familiars to escape after defeating a witch.
They would leave the familiars alone, allowing them to prey upon ordinary humans and eventually grow into new witches.
Once those familiars matured into full-fledged witches, the same magical girls would quickly hunt them down.
And in return, those newly formed witches would provide them with the precious Grief Seeds they needed.
Under the cruel realities of the magical girl system, the kindness Mami spoke of naturally became something of a joke.
Although she herself continued to uphold her principles of kindness, eliminating both witches and their familiars without exception to protect ordinary people, this very behavior made her fundamentally incompatible with other, more typical magical girls.
When necessary, they might even turn their weapons against one another.
After all, from the perspective of certain magical girls, a witch’s familiar was essentially a young seedling.
Familiars needed to consume humans to grow into mature witches, at which point they would finally drop valuable Grief Seeds.
Killing them prematurely would yield absolutely nothing.
Therefore, Mami’s practice of protecting ordinary people by eliminating familiars alongside witches was, in their eyes, nothing more than a tremendous waste.
Who would uproot seedlings before they had the chance to mature and bear fruit?
Yet Mami continued to act according to her principles regardless.
Her battles had never been fought primarily for the purpose of obtaining Grief Seeds.
Rather, she fought to protect the lives of others.
Just as she genuinely wanted to help Makoto Tsukimi now.
Mami Tomoe: “You seem to know quite a lot about magical girls, Tsukimi. But I’m not nearly as fragile as you seem to think. Obtaining Grief Seeds isn’t particularly difficult for me.”
With a peaceful smile, Mami continued speaking to Makoto, doing her best to maintain the grace and dignity expected of a magical girl.
Makoto Tsukimi: “But that’s no reason not to pay you, is it?”
Makoto reached into his pocket and withdrew something Homura Akemi had given him before leaving that morning.
He held it out toward Mami.
It was a small, intricately crafted object, roughly the size of a pendant.
Its main structure consisted of a black sphere engraved with a spider pattern, with a handle-like projection extending from one side and a sharp point from the other.
— A Grief Seed.
This was precisely the object they had mentioned countless times during their conversation.
It was something left behind when a witch was defeated, and it was also essential for magical girls to remove the corruption accumulating within their Soul Gems.
In the world of magical girls, it was probably the closest thing to universally accepted hard currency.
Mami Tomoe: “…”
Her elegant smile seemed to freeze for a brief moment.
However, she ultimately reached out to accept the Grief Seed Makoto offered.
Even as she took it, the upperclassman with the gentle, mature demeanor continued doing her best to maintain her warm smile.
Mami Tomoe: “I don’t know which magical girl is supporting you, Tsukimi, but you really don’t need to compensate me just for asking for help.”
She made a point of emphasizing this as she accepted the Grief Seed.
However, looking at her expression, Makoto could clearly detect the faint trace of reluctance hidden within her smile.