Just as Madoka Kaname and Mami Tomoe and the others were heading to the magical room, Sayaka Miki was also walking in this despair-filled space. However, in this dark space, being able to remain calm was problematic! She felt like the heroine in a horror game.
"What the hell is this place! It's so dark! So dim! And what is this smell around here? It's so foul... But this feeling, it's like the smell of medicine?"
Sayaka Miki, who often visited Kyosuke Kamijo in the hospital, was quite Familiar with this smell, like the disinfectant smell often found in hospitals. It was just that this smell was really too foul. Sayaka Miki stood still, her heart frantically spewing a series of complaints, while covering her nose with her hand to block the smell entering the air.
"Now I need to be careful. Even without them, I must protect myself. At least until Senior Mami and the others arrive."
Clutching Kyubey tightly to her chest, Sayaka Miki, a girl filled with resentment, maintained a positive attitude regardless of the situation.
Thus, even in such a seemingly desperate predicament, she forced herself to remain optimistic, convincing herself that the path ahead was full of hope.
After cheering herself on, Sayaka Miki began to move forward cautiously. Following Mami Tomoe's instructions, she was careful, careful, and even more careful with every step she took.
However, after walking cautiously for a few steps and discovering that nothing was happening around her, the slightly thick-headed Sayaka Miki began to let her guard down and moved forward at a normal pace.
"It seems like there's nothing here," Sayaka Miki thought, feeling somewhat relieved.
"Except for the fact that it's a bit terrifying around here, the air has become a bit oppressive, and the environment has become a bit strange, there doesn't seem to be anything... strange... about... it... anymore..."
Sayaka Miki thought to herself, but slowly she abandoned this line of thought, because she felt that even she couldn't believe what she was saying.
"It's already this absurd! How could there be nothing strange about it! You idiot, Sayaka! Ah!?" Sayaka Miki, unable to bear it any longer, suddenly shouted, even roasting herself.
"Forget it, what's the point of dwelling on this now? I'll ignore it for now, but the layout here looks a bit strange."
After trying hard to cast aside the strange thoughts in her mind, Sayaka Miki began to observe the surrounding environment as she gradually adapted to her surroundings.
"This place feels just like a corridor," Sayaka Miki analyzed the environment as she walked.
"Looking at these door signs, they seem just like the markings in a hospital, but why aren't there any doors?"
Sayaka Miki looked back at the rooms she had passed along the way. They all had signs indicating hospital bed numbers hanging above them, but there were no doors next to the doorplates, as if these hospital rooms didn't exist at all.
"Wait? Isn't the design of these doorplates exactly the same as the hospital room where Kyousuke is?" Sayaka Miki suddenly exclaimed.
"That's not right? Why has it become like this? Have I returned to the hospital? But wasn't there still some distance to the hospital? Could it be that I've walked this far without realizing it?"
"That shouldn't be right~ Even if I walked for a while, it shouldn't be this far. Maybe it's because of the Witch, but can Witches influence space?" Sayaka Miki thought anxiously.
"Forget it, there's no point in being anxious now. I'd better hurry up and find Senior Mami and the others. I don't have any combat power right now."
Just as Sayaka Miki continued moving forward, in this seemingly endless corridor, she suddenly noticed something hanging on the wall of the corridor ahead.
"This seems to be... an oil painting? It's really abstract." Sayaka Miki, unable to resist stepping forward to take a look, said in an uncertain tone, after all, everything here was presented in an abstract style.
The scene before her eyes was a whole bunch of oil paintings, which seemed to connect to form a story.
"Let me see... This seems to be... a Little Girl who has a sick mother." Gently touching the oil painting in front, Sayaka Miki said softly. "And it continues from here."
She turned her head to look at the other side. Starting from this painting, there were oil paintings all along the wall behind it, and the content of each oil painting was different. It was like the comic strips she had seen before, showing a story one after another.
"Once upon a time, there was a Little Girl..." Sayaka Miki was attracted by the content of the oil paintings. While looking at them, she used her powerful imagination to constantly visualize the meaning the paintings were trying to convey, while simultaneously speaking it out uncontrollably.
"She loved eating cheese; anything related to cheese was her favorite. But her mother was seriously ill and had to stay in the hospital. Because she was still young, she would go to the hospital to visit her sick mother every day. Because her mother was sick, she hadn't eaten cheese for a long time."
"The Little Girl felt very sad watching her mother becoming thinner day by day, but her mother kept comforting her, saying that as soon as she got better, she would take her to eat her favorite cheesecake. The Little Girl was very happy, feeling that her mother was the best mother in the world..."
"But the Little Girl's mother's condition grew worse day by day, but the Little Girl was unaware, because her mother didn't intend to let her worry, so she still felt very happy. Until one day... the Little Girl knew that her mother was about to die. Looking at her mother who was about to pass away, the Little Girl was very sad, but her mother told her that as long as she could eat her favorite cheesecake, she would get better."
"The naive Little Girl believed her mother's lie, and right in this world, she saw... Kyubey!?" Seeing this painting, Sayaka Miki exclaimed.
The painting was exactly what Kyubey looked like, but it was strange? Why would Kyubey appear in these paintings? What was recorded on this? Sayaka Miki felt puzzled.
But there were still paintings left to see, so she continued to look. However, she didn't know that the pair of crimson eyes of the Kyubey in her arms flashed with a red light.
"When the Little Girl first saw this, she didn't know what kind of creature it was, but it told her that as long as she signed a contract with it, she could have any of her wishes granted. The Little Girl happily agreed, and she made a wish for her mother to eat her favorite cheesecake."
"The Little Girl's wish was indeed granted; she obtained the most delicious cheesecake. She happily brought the delicious cheesecake to her mother to taste, hoping that her mother would get better after eating the cake."
"Her mother was very happy and smiled as she ate the cake she brought. Just when the Little Girl came to the hospital the next day, looking forward to seeing her recovered mother, the doctor told her that her mother had passed away because she died of illness last night, and there was no hope left."
"At her mother's funeral, the Little Girl cried very hard. Even though it was raining, she lay on her mother's coffin and wept. When she made the wish, she could have clearly asked for her mother to be restored to health to save her, but she didn't. She felt deep regret in her heart. As time passed, whenever she thought of her mother's death, her heart was filled with regret, and eventually, feelings of despair emerged..."
The story was slowly reaching its climax. Just as Sayaka Miki felt she was about to know the final outcome of the story, a small hand stopped her from moving forward, and at the same time, a familiar voice came from behind.
"I advise you not to look any further, Sayaka. Because the things that the rest of the story is about to express are not something you can accept."
"Yoshino!" Sayaka Miki turned around with some surprise to look behind her, but Yoshino, who should have been behind her, was standing on the other side of the corridor. Strangely, she didn't see anyone else on her hand. Behind her was a large door, which seemed like the end of the corridor. The paintings on the surrounding walls began to become more and more illusory. The closer one got to the door, the more blurred the content in the paintings became, and the closer to the door, the fewer paintings were hung, though the reason was unknown.
"If you continue to look, you might not be able to accept the final ending, Sayaka." Yoshino turned around, with her back to Sayaka Miki, and said slowly.
"Wait! Yoshino! Are these paintings real? Are the stories inside them true? But why would they appear inside the Witch's barrier?" Sayaka Miki asked, pointing to the paintings on the wall behind her.
AI Model: gemini-2.5-flash
"Ah? Are there paintings? Are there paintings here? Sayaka, your words are really strange," Yoshino said softly.
"Paintings? Aren't the paintings right here? They're hanging on the wall, don't tell me Yoshino you can't see... Eh? Where did they go? Where are those paintings? They were just here!"
Sayaka Miki turned her head, looking at the empty wall; there was nothing on either side of the corridor.
'The murals actually disappeared, did she do it? This is clearly a Witch's Barrier, yet she can affect things inside it. What if Yoshino, you're not a simple person? I'm getting more and more curious about how astonishingly powerful you'll be when you become a Magical Girl.'
Kyubey could feel the surrounding power affecting the Witch's Barrier and immediately knew that Yoshino, standing before it, must be the one who did this. But shouldn't she be following Mami Tomoe right now? Why is there another Yoshino here? This is a bit unscientific. (In the world of Magical Girls, you're talking about science to me?)
Yoshino still had her back to Sayaka Miki, facing the large door, even raising her hand to gently caress it. Before Sayaka Miki arrived, she had already seen the complete story on the paintings and knew what the story referred to.
But this was not something Sayaka Miki could know, at least not this cruel reality right now. A Little Girl with wavy, creamy-white hair appeared in her mind, and she felt particularly conflicted.
"Hey... Sayaka. What kind of place do you think this is?"
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