Flawed Replica When I have reached a point at which I know no course to take, a creature has appeared before me "Kyubey?" I recognise this being quickly, but something is subtly off. Not only has Kyubey appeared where and when I would expect him not to, he has on part of his tail the symbol of space "Make a contract with me and become a magical girl!" Familiar, yet Kyubey's words do not banish my incredulousness "Kyubey, can you explain? I didn't know you could be here! Here now in front of me" Kyubey looks at me impassively, and I think about what to wish for. Who knows how long passes before the impulse wells up within me and I plead, "Kyubey! Destroy my body now!" The contract has been made. I am a magical girl who lives variations on the following event in an infinite loop: Kyubey destroys my body. He does not always do so in the same way, though whether through the limits of imagination, the limits of the ways of destroying bodies that exist, the tendencies of the actions he chooses to take -- or perhaps it is that his eternal destruction of my body takes the shape not of his whim or imagination but of mine From this unceasing recurrence of versions of the same essential event, I use what little remains of my ability to communicate with outside spacetimes to describe for you four variations on Kyubey's destruction of my body: In a grand, yet empty hallway, Kyubey approaches me. I am lying on the floor, incapable of significant movement. Kyubey brushes against me. The moment his body touches mine I feel my flesh and muscle tissue liquefy within a second. My skeleton dissolves into dust that disperses into the air, carried on a light breeze through and to who knows where Looking into the sky, I see Kyubey's face filling my whole field of view, but he is distant. Incredibly distant, and surely even more incredibly vast in size. Unimaginably immense. Growing even more so at an incredible rate. Kyubey's mass and volume increase to the point of occupying the entirety of existence, and long before the conclusion of this my body, vastly less than even the merest detectable object to him, has been destroyed without any chance whatsoever of his noticing. Outside the time loop, I must be long dead before it occurs, but I know that Kyubey occupies all of space. All is Kyubey, and Kyubey is all. For eternity after this, he will forever be the only thing there will ever be Standing unworried in a pleasant house, my breath suddenly catches in my throat. My whole body burns with searing pain. No sooner have I screamed aloud than I see a Kyubey no larger than an ant tear its way out of the palm of my hand, followed in an instant by hundreds more from a great many points across my body, my blood pouring from the holes they leave behind them. I have fallen to the ground a practically unrecognisable corpse by the time the hundreds of tiny Kyubeys begin to lap up my blood, each beginning to grow engorged with its meal I lie on cold, hard wooden floor in a dark room. I am calm and know what will follow. From holes in the walls emerge scores of rat-sized Kyubeys, closing the distance between us in seconds. They surround me, around me, upon me. I am entombed by and within their collective mass. Smiling, tears streaming down onto my face and the floor, I finally truly understand what I have been granted. I submit to Kyubey forever. His myriad bodies begin to feed. They make quick work of me, tearing my flesh apart as hungrily as if they have not eaten in untold billions of years. I open my mouth and three Kyubeys enter to bite out my tongue. I am Kyubey's sustenance perpetually