Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Anti-Magical Peril [Reader Insert]

Chapter 1

a/n: this is a rewrite of my first fanfic so it's different from what it originally was, so if you're an old fan of this fic, please reread ! the wish the reader made was changed, and many details were added to lengthen the fic and provide plot. i will also be providing trigger warnings in the beginnings of chapters (not counting the general nature of pmmm) even though i believe they're going to be very vague, but if that changes i will let you know ! also i've made a playlist some people may wanna listen to when they read the fic, it's kind of like unsettling experimental/electronic/ambient music, like what it sounds like to enter a witch's labyrinth :} if that's not your vibe tho feel free to listen to anything that's dark and in your scene, i feel it'll go well w/ the content ! anyways, enjoy the fic xx

tw: implied abuse, implied panic attack

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Stepping into the labyrinth, I feel time stop, and yet the air still whizzes around me. In the distance, a broken record plays looped with muttered phrases sung over it like a song long forgotten. The pitch black darkness morphs into a bloody red glow shining on my skin. Reminiscent of an abandoned orchard, the stench of rotting apples chokes me. It feels as if I'm walking on them, a soft crunch under my feet and oozing underneath with each step. Larvae swims within the mush, butchering the phrases heard in the distance, like a toddler butchers the lyrics to a song on the radio. Misshapen doves with wings not-quite-right flap past me, cawing like a crow from the dead instead of singing like an angel in the light.

"¡●̶︎̴□̸︎̸❖̶︎̸♏︎ ̸❍̶︎̴♏︎ ̵●̸︎̵□̷︎̵❖̵︎̸♏︎ ̷❍̸︎̸♏︎ ̶●̶︎̷□̷︎̷❖̸︎̵♏︎ ̶❍̷︎̵♏︎!"

I glare at the witch that lies ahead of me. Her head reads as a ribcage with no heart or lungs to breathe. She bares the thorax and body of a moth, without the freedom of wings. With doll-ish arms, her heart is branded onto her sleeve. She's a sad sight to bear, but I cannot spare sympathy towards a witch.

Feeling the weight of my blades between my fingers, four held in each hand, I spin them out, striking her in the abdomen. She shrieks out in pain but doesn't falter, and her minions scream along with her as if they feel the same pain she does.

"¡⬥︎♒︎⍓︎ ♋︎❒︎♏︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♎︎□︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎!"

I summon a halo of daggers that circle around her neck, throttling towards it. The labyrinth stops spinning around me as her head totters off her body, a sickening thud echoes as it slams into the ground below. I wait for her body to fall behind it and leave a Grief Seed in its wake, but nothing happens. Without warning, the doves are all sat in a circle around me, staring at me with wide eyes, no longer cawing. With one step forward, they follow me without breaking formation. One step back, the same. I'm almost too preoccupied with the doves around me to notice the witch raise her arm without a single sound, and bring it back down to her thorax. The doves' eyes follow her arm's movement, and if doves could smile, I swore they did before focusing back on me. A beat of silence followed before the doves mimicked the movement of my daggers a few moments before, closing in on my body. I sail upwards and send a barrage of knives down towards them. Detached wings flutter to the ground and the doves are left wriggling on the floor.

They shouldn't decompose so quickly but it reeks of rotten flesh already. I feel like the witch is trying to manipulate the environment to restrain me in any way possible and I'm not going to lie, the smell is getting to me.

"If the head won't work, maybe the heart will."

I don't pay any attention to the new swarm of doves I see barreling towards me from the corner of my eye. A yari takes shape above me as I raise my hands, and I funnel it towards the witch's exposed heart. This time, the doves and larvae immediately disintegrate, and the stench ebbs away.