[ REFERENCE - Madoka's Timeline Notebook - offline ]

[stillneedawish]

READ THIS FIRST.

Dear future-me Madoka,

This is going to seem like a really confusing message at first, but please read it right through to the very end! The things in this notebook are really important, and you're going to need to know them all during the next month. It's going to be a bit strange reading through all of this... it might make you cry, and you might not believe all of it. But I promise that it's all true.

If the plan worked and Issei-san or whoever has the book for safekeeping now gave you this to read, it should be something like the 16th of March or so, right? The next month is probably going to be very strange for you. The reason I can tell you this is because, well, I'm you, from the future. Or well, sort of. It's complicated to explain, but I've written it all down on the next few pages in this book. If you read it all, you should understand it a little better, and then you'll know everything that I know right now.

There are only four rules to this book, and it's very important that you follow them!

1] Read everything that's written in the book, no matter how scary or upsetting it is. I know it's hard, but... it could help save a lot of people, including you.
2] Don't show the book to anyone else on your world. Showing Homura-chan is okay (I'll tell you more about her later on!) but it might cause a lot of trouble if anyone else sees it or reads what's inside.
3] If you learn anything new that might be useful in case this doesn't work the first time, write it down in the book! Make sure you leave the date (in community time and in your world's time) behind as well! There's plenty of space left, and it might help you even more later on.
4] Make sure you give the book back to Issei-san, or another community friend who lives off-world, before April 28th. This is the most important instruction!

It's up to you now. I know it seems like a lot of pressure, but don't worry. You have a lot of friends who want to help you. Just do your best!

Best of luck from the future,

Madoka (`^ω^´)

Timelines

Remember how I figured out that there was something strange happening to time on my world? Thanks to a virus where I was in Scratch-san's body, I found out what it is. Everyone on this world is being made to repeat the same month over and over again, from about the 16th of March through to the 30th of April. The reason is because of a girl called Akemi Homura. Next time I read this book, I probably won't remember who she is... but she's a very good friend of mine. She's a magical girl who can time travel and do other things with time, and she's trying to stop something horrible from happening to me. I can't remember what that horrible thing is, though... the memories to do with that have become blurry since the virus wore off. But she's just kept trying and trying over and over again, which is why I only ever remember it being March or April. It's also why I keep forgetting things that happen in my world, including Homura-chan.

The things in this book are written down so that I can remind myself about them when the timeline is restarted. And hopefully... well, it might help me help Homura-chan to stop repeating things, too, if I can stop whatever keeps happening.

Magical Girls and Witches

Magical girls are real. That's probably the first thing you need to know. Only it's really not anything like how it is in manga or anime, or even on other worlds like Nagisa-chan's. Real-life magical girls in my world become magical by making a contract with an animal called Kyuubey. You can wish for anything you like, and in exchange you have to become a magical girl and fight against witches.

Witches are sort of like scary monsters. They live inside places called barriers, which are... very strange, scary places. They look a lot like places out of a horror film. Witches are dangerous because they attack humans and feed on people's sadness and despair. But that's not the most horrible thing about them.

(You'll probably want to be sitting down when you read the next bit... it'll come as a huge shock.)

The thing is... when a girl makes a contract with Kyuubey, she gets a huge jewel called a Soul Gem that helps her make magic. It's very important that a magical girl keeps her Soul Gem clean by using Grief Seeds that she can collect from defeating witches, but Kyuubey won't tell anyone why. The real reason is because if a magical girl's gem gets too dark... it turns into a Grief Seed, and the magical girl becomes a witch. All the witches that magical girls have ever fought used to be magical girls themselves. It's horrible, but... somehow, that's the way things are. I still don't know if there's really any way to turn a witch back into a magical girl, or to solve things so that they don't have to happen this way. Diarmuid-san said that it has something to do with Kyuubey wanting to use the energy he gets from making contracts to stop the universe from dying, but... I don't understand it at all. Even if that's the reason, all of this is way too cruel for that. It's not worth it.

But the only sure way I know to make sure that I don't get caught up in this and force Homura-chan to start another timeline is this... I mustn't make a contract with Kyuubey. Not unless I really don't have another choice.

Important People

This is for people from my world that I might meet and forget about if another timeline happens. I guess it'll probably be useful, so I should write this down too.

Akemi Homura: I've already said that Homura-chan is really one of the best friends I have... She always transfers into my class around the 25th of March. She's a magical girl who can control time, and she knows a lot about the real way the magical girl system is, and about fighting and defeating witches. She's a real veteran! She seems a little cold and frightening at first... but I think that's just because she's been going through so many timelines for so long, so she's actually really lonely. She's really not a bad girl. You can trust her.

Tomoe Mami: Mami-san is my upperclassman, and another veteran magical girl. She's really cool, and elegant, and smart, and she knows a lot about defeating witches, too. She doesn't know anything about the real way the system works, though... and I don't think it would be a good idea to tell her. The memories are a bit hazy, but I think... I think that in one timeline, she found out, and she really didn't react well. She's a good person, though! If you meet her, you should be her friend.

Sakura Kyouko: Kyouko-chan's another veteran... actually, I think she might be on the community too, but my memories are a little fuzzy about that. Anyway... she might show up and cause a little trouble, but I don't think she's really a bad person. She's a very different magical girl to Mami-san though, and she'll probably get Sayaka-chan all wound up, so that might cause some problems.
⤷ Mami-san said that Kyouko-san had a history with her? They seem really tense with each other when they talk on the community...

Kyuubey: Kyuubey is the one who makes the contracts. He's a little difficult to describe, but... he looks a little bit like a really cute white cat, with red eyes and really long ears and a big bushy tail. He'll probably keep trying to get you to make a contract with him. You really have to ignore him! He tricks all the magical girls to make them contract, and he'll probably try to trick you too. Be really careful.

List of dos and don'ts!

This is just a list so that it's easier to see what you should and shouldn't do! I thought it'd make things easier to understand this way.

- Don't make a contract with Kyuubey at all if you can help it. This is the most important one.
- Trust Homura-chan. She knows what's really going on, and she wants to help you. Help her as much as you can without actually fighting.
- Make sure that Sayaka-chan doesn't contract either. All the times she did in the other timelines... none of them ever ended well. I don't want anything bad to happen to her either.
- If you meet Mami-san, make sure that she keeps her Soul Gem as clean as possible, and don't ever tell her the truth about magical girls.
- Make sure you get everyone's phone numbers! I keep forgetting to do that, and then it turns out that I really need them... (Actually, I guess I should probably write them down in this book when I get them, huh...)
- If you get scared or need to talk to someone about things, it's okay to talk to your friends on the community about it. Most of them already know about the magical girl system and the other timelines, and I asked them to help remind me about things, too. So that's okay.

17/07/2012 community time // 05/04/2011 my time
I thought it might be useful to keep track of how many timelines I've been through on this page, just so that I know how urgent this is... hopefully it'll work, as long as I remember to mark this page every time I read this book for the first time.

||||/ |

12/10/2012 community time // 31/03/2011 my time
I asked on the community and got some people to teach me some magic that doesn't have anything to do with the magical girl system here, so... just in case I forget that too, I'm going to write down what I learned.
⤷ Eater-san gave me two of her Tactics Cards. They can't be used too many times in a row, but they get stronger the more they're used.
The first one is Sanctuary, which is a healing spell, and to cast it you say: "Maiden of the sacred sanctuary, grant weary soldiers a moment of peace."
The second one is Shield Barrier, which... does what it sounds like, ha ha. The charm is: "Sage wielding the holy scepter of war, let thy light shield the weak."
⤷ Ven-kun started teaching me his kind of magic, too! So far I'm only learning to cast what he calls a Fire spell, but hopefully if I practice enough I can get better at that.

01/01/2013 community time // 20/03/2011 my time
Kure Kirika: She only just joined the community the other day, but apparently she's an upperclassman in the same school as me! She's also become a magical girl too by the sounds of it, or at least she knows that they exist. But I wonder why I've never seemed to meet her before now? Did I just forget to write it down...?

25/01/2013 community time // 13/04/2011 my time
I met a girl called Mikuni Oriko today. She's a Puella Magi with the power of precognition. And. And she told me that if I contracted with an Incubator, I'll become a Witch powerful enough to end the world. And no one would be able to stop me. I don't think she's lying, but this is horrible. What am I supposed to do now?

Does Homura-chan even know about this?

26/01/2013 community time // 14/04/2011 my time
I made an agreement of some sort with Oriko-san. I said that if I ever did contract, it would be okay if she... did what she had to do. As long as I was able to do what I had to do first. I don't ever want to become a witch. Not if I'm that dangerous.

I'm going to try moving off world for the rest of this timeline, too, now that everyone's found out. If I'm lucky... hopefully this'll really do it, and Homura-chan can stop after this. I might not ever be able to move back home, but if I can make sure my family and friends are safe too, and maybe even bring them with me - that'd be fine, right? Karen-san said that maybe if it doesn't, though, I should probably start writing down whatever it was made me contract every time, if I can. I'm not really sure if that'd be possible, but I guess it's worth a try... well, hopefully I won't have to.

[ the following is a large, desperate, almost illegible scrawl of katakana: ]

11/02/2013 // 30/04/2011 WALPURGISNIGHT