Magical Girls Are a Scam

Half an hour later, inside Mami Tomoe's upscale apartment in Mitakihara City.

What should have been a warm tea party celebrating their senior's escape from death had instead left the air frozen, so oppressive that no one could breathe.

Around the exquisite round table sat Madoka Kaname, Sayaka Miki, Mami Tomoe, and Homura Akemi and Kyoko Sakura, who had just arrived to join them.

"Clang." Mami Tomoe's hand shook violently as she held the teapot, making the cups rattle sharply against the tray. Scalding tea spilled across the tablecloth, but she did not notice at all.

Over the past half hour, Lin Xiao had calmly laid out the cruelest truth of this world before these teenage girls bit by bit, as though performing an autopsy.

From "Soul Gems are actually containers that hold extracted souls," to the deadly cycle of "magical girls become Witches after falling into despair," and finally, the ultimate deception of the Incubator Clan raising human girls like livestock in order to "slow the increase of the universe's entropy"...

Lin Xiao had concealed nothing.

"How... could it be like this...?"

Sayaka Miki clamped a hand over her mouth, her face pale as paper as great tears rolled from her eyes. "So... once we sign a contract, our bodies are nothing more than soulless zombie shells? And the Witches we've been desperately hunting... were actually magical girls from before us?!"

"Don't joke around!" Sayaka clutched her head as her emotions collapsed. "This... this is too cruel!"

Kyoko Sakura, leaning against the wall and biting into an apple, had already heard Lin Xiao spoil this in Kazamino City. Yet hearing the full, complete cycle of cause and effect again, she still clenched her fists, her nails digging deeply into her flesh.

"That white-haired bastard... he actually treated me like livestock for generating power..." Kyoko gritted her teeth, fury blazing in her eyes.

The one hit hardest, however, was undoubtedly Mami Tomoe.

This senior, who had always seen herself as a "champion of justice" and tried to remain composed and elegant before her juniors, now looked as though her very soul had been stripped away.

She stared blankly at the yellow Soul Gem gleaming on her chest as an overwhelming wave of nausea and terror swallowed her whole.

"I... what have I been protecting all these years?"

Mami Tomoe's trembling voice was heartbreaking, tears falling like beads from a broken string. "I killed so many Witches... and... just now, I even wanted to drag Madoka and Sayaka into this inescapable hell with me..."

"I'm a sinner... I nearly killed them with my own hands..."

Seeing Mami Tomoe on the verge of collapse, Homura Akemi took a deep breath and firmly grasped Mami's cold, trembling hands.

"It's not your fault, Mami Tomoe."

The violet eyes that usually held nothing but indifference were now filled with deep empathy and sorrow. "Kyubey hid all the truth. In countless previous loops, I broke down just like you did. But now... we still have a chance."

Homura Akemi turned her head and looked at Lin Xiao on the sofa with immense gratitude and reverence.

If this unreasonable god had not forcibly intervened, then at this point in time, Mami would already have been torn apart, and Madoka would have signed that irreversible contract.

After hearing the whole truth, Madoka Kaname, who had been keeping her head lowered and gripping the hem of her skirt tightly in both hands, finally could not hold herself together any longer.

"Waaah..." Madoka buried her face in her knees and let out suppressed, despairing sobs.

She had been so happy today.

She had met the gentle and powerful Mami, and seen the heroic sight of a magical girl saving others. She had thought that she, an ordinary girl with nothing special about her, had finally found a purpose of her own.

"I... I wanted to be like Mami... to help people who are in trouble..."

Madoka sobbed so hard she could barely catch her breath, her voice full of the agony of a shattered dream. "I thought magical girls were heroes who brought love and hope... Why... why must the wish to save others ultimately be repaid with curses and despair?"

"Why... does this world have to treat everyone like this...?"

Seeing Madoka crying like that, every magical girl present fell silent. Yes, when they had first made their wishes, which of them had not done so for the love and hope in their hearts?

Amid that suffocating atmosphere of sorrow, "Tap."

A warm, large hand gently settled atop Madoka's short pink hair.

Madoka looked up through blurry tears and saw Lin Xiao's bright black eyes, filled with endless warmth.

"Madoka." Lin Xiao gently rubbed her head, his voice like the rising sun, slowly sweeping away the gloom filling the apartment.

"Wanting to help others, wanting to become a hero who saves people... that dream is never wrong in any universe, nor is it something laughable."

Lin Xiao rose to his feet and swept his gaze over the girls in the room—the sorrowful senior, the broken Sayaka, the furious Kyoko, and Homura Akemi, whose eyes had begun to shine again.

"Your kindness is not what's wrong. What's wrong is this universe's utterly twisted rules, and the Incubator Clan that puts a price tag on your kindness and uses it as a bargaining chip."

"I've always believed one thing." Lin Xiao walked to the window and looked out at the sky over Mitakihara City.

"A true miracle does not need lives to be sacrificed, and true light does not need despair to fill it."

He turned around and looked at these battered girls, a brilliant, reassuring smile appearing on his lips.

"So stop crying. Wipe away your tears."

"Madoka, your dream of saving others has not been destroyed. It's just that in this world, you no longer need to sign some bullshit contract with that white-haired beast."

"Since I'm standing here, then from today onward, all your despair, all your karma, and the burden of saving this world..." Lin Xiao pointed at himself and declared as though it were only natural.

"Just leave it all to this big guy."

They looked at the young man standing before the window, dazzling and radiant like the sun.

Madoka Kaname blankly wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes. Mami Tomoe clenched the Soul Gem on her chest, and her heart, once on the verge of collapse, was completely filled with an unprecedented sense of security.

Homura Akemi and Kyoko Sakura exchanged a glance, then smiled in perfect understanding, as though a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders.

"You said it, Lin Xiao."

Kyoko Sakura boldly bit through the apple in her mouth. "And all our food expenses for the rest of our lives will be counting on you, god!"

"Mr. Lin Xiao..." Madoka stood up and timidly bowed to him. Though her eyes were still red, her gaze had become incomparably resolute. "We believe in you! Please... you have to defeat Kyubey's scheme!"

"Don't worry." Lin Xiao comfortably sat back down on the sofa, picked up the cup of tea that had grown slightly cold, and drained it in one gulp.

"Just now, I crushed Kyubey's plan to close its net over this city. I even arrogantly challenged it to a fight."

"With the Incubator Clan's absolute rationality and its willingness to do anything to gather energy, they've probably gone completely mad by now."