5Disclaimer: I do not own Doraemon or Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Author's note: This story is an unofficial prequel/spin off of Dragonmaster870's 'The Preventers' story. After reading the story I become fascinated with the universe that story created, and thought I would write a story to complement its universe. While it is an unofficial 'prequel' that only set itself before Dragonmaster870's story but has no real plot connection (at least that's what I expect it at this point), I did get his/her blessing in writing this story.
I suggest anyone who happens to stumble into this story to go read Dragonmaster870's two Preventer stories. The Beginning Arc is one with very interesting idea but a bit... flawed execution, Retry Arc on the other hand is genuinely good although a bit short at this point.
As for my story, it continues form the infamous Doraemon's pessimistic ending where the entire franchise ends up being an imaginary dream in Nobita's head because he's dying from a mental illness (Kind of like The Tick's conspiracy theory). But he ends up having a miraculous recovery and his life goes on into this fanfic. Doraemon fans would probably notice some reference I have in this story, but hopefully those are not necessary to enjoy the story as a whole.
Hope my story can be entertaining to those who read it.
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
"Nobita-Kun, Nobita-Kun…" He hears a voice calling out him from far away. It sounds unfamiliar, yet rings with a feeling of rose tinted nostalgia. It calls back to a time when he is more innocent, where the most important thing in his life is hiding test paper from his mother, or avoids a savage beating from one of his best 'friend'.
The image comes after... A round face, glowing with the same warmth of the voice even if all he sees is fragmented mosaic of blue and white. The one where he can take off the mask he builds for himself over the past 4 years… The one where he feels comfortable to be the scared, hapless little boy again... The he can always run to, and bail his eyes out as much as he wants.
Yet at the same time, he knows this is not real. There's no such thing as a cat robot from 22nd century, coming back to the past to help him getting a better future. A future where he'll share with…
Stop.
Thinking about that always makes him feel vulnerable and insecure.
"Nobita-Kun…" He slowly opens his eyes and stares at the surface of his desk. Nobita brings his head up to look at the student who is shaking him awake. "The day has ended."
"How long was I out again?" Nobita pushes his glasses up. He looks around and realizes the classroom is empty except for the long haired boy in front of him. Hidetoshi Dekisugi… there is once upon the time he proclaims this boy as his eternal rival. But right now… it hardly matters anymore.
"About twenty minutes. I'm always amazed at your special ability to sleep whenever you want, wherever you want. How do you manage to instantly pass out like someone flipped a switch after you hand your test paper to teacher?" The boy let out a chuck as he stands up and takes his bag. "You are coming to the study group with me?"
"Why not, I'm not as smart as you so I need all the help to stay in good grade." Nobita lets out a shrug as he stands up from his own seat and takes his bag.
"Don't sell yourself short Nobita-Kun; you are very smart when you put your mind to it. You did beat me in last test." The long haired boy pats Nobita on the shoulder with a warm smile before walking out of the classroom. Nobita stifles a yawn as he slings his bag over his shoulder and follows his friend out of their class…
Correction, his most friendly acquaintance, not quit 'friend' yet.
"Say, Nobita-Kun… Have you seen anyone from the old days?" The long haired boy stops in front of the study group. Before he opens the door, he looks at Nobita.
"…You know I don't see anyone from the 'old days'." Nobita shoots his 'most friendly acquaintance' a dirty look behind his glasses at the mention.
"Right… sorry, sorry..." The other boy lets out a shrug as he opens the door to the study group. The bunch of students already inside reading over their study material (or manga) all look up and sees the two newcomers.
"Alright, the 'sleeping prince' and the 'lady prince' are both here. We can begin our study session." A male student with light brown hair cheers behind his desk. Nobita notices he is one of the few students who are reading manga instead of study material. Then again, that's not unexpected out of the class clown of 2-B. The reason Hideo Nakazawa is in this study group is probably because he wants to copy homework from someone.
"Please don't call me something ridicules like 'lady prince' just because I have long hair, Nakazawa." Hidetoshi's eyes twitch as he tries to control his voice down. For all his effort, Hidetoshi sounds like he's letting out a low hissing.
Nobita recons being called girly is something Hidetoshi really does mind beneath his gentle nature. Although he does wonder if Hidetoshi hates it so much, why doesn't he just cut his hair shorter?
"The whole school calls you by that nickname. Besides, if you don't like it you should be a bit less bishounen looking. You put a lot of pressure on average Joes like me you know…"
Bingo, Hideo has you in check. Nobita thinks to himself.
"…or cut your hair short." Nakazawa gives Hidetoshi a shrug as he puts both of his feet on the desk with a smug grin and leans his chair backwards.
And now he just check mated you…
"He got you there, Dekisugi." Nobita looks at his 'most friendly acquaintance' with a bored look on his face. Hidetoshi gives Nobita a sheepish smile as he scratches his head. Decide to ignore the troll in the room; they walk towards two empty desks side by side.
Hidetoshi pulls out both chair for himself and Nobita and the two both sit down. Nobita notices the girl to his right steals a glance at him and then hang her head low with a blush on her cheeks. He vaguely remembers the light haired shy girl to be a student one year junior to him. He doesn't know her first name, and only remembers her last name being Saotome because it is the same as the mad doctor who invented Getter Robo in the anime.
"Now, if you open the study material to page ## and take the formula from X to Y…" Hidetoshi starts to take lead in the study group like a professional tutor as usual… Nobita lets out a genuine smile at this. No wonder in his imaginary dream he tries to make Hidetoshi broadcast a study tutor show, the boy is a natural at this…
If only some of the other stuff in that imaginary dream could have come true… but there's no point on thinking what could be. What happened has already happened, and he can do nothing other than accept them.
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
"Take care, Nobita-Kun."
"You too, Dekisugi." Nobita puts on the headphone of his music player, hit the start button and listens to his favourite song from actress/singer Sumire Hoshino. He always likes her song since 4th grade, despite Sumire is better known for her acting career rather than her songs.
Maybe it's because he listened to her tale about waiting for a lost lover to return to her in his imaginary dream… Although he doubt the real Sumire Hoshino's life is as corny as that. It is just the day dream of a sickly 4th grader on what would be his death bed anyway.
Before long, Nobita notices he's turned a corner and arrives at a fairly new house. The architecture evoke a more modern high tech style compare to most of other houses that look like they are still stuck back in the 70s. Yet the reason he stops his step is not the architecture difference. Before this house is build, this empty lot is where he and his friends used to gather to play baseball, or just hang around in a Saturday afternoon. He still remember all the time he lays on top of the three cement pipes, basking under the warmth of grossly incandescent sun and drift to a blissful sleep.
Then he notices something else. On the other corner of the house stands a short girl maybe a year or two younger than him. With twin tails running down her shoulder, she might as well be the splitting image of one of Nobita's childhood friend…
The girl seems to notice Nobita too as she turns her head, and then her body to face him. She tilts her head, as if trying to search through her memory for Nobita's face. Then as if she's hit her Eureka moment, she waves her hand bag at Nobita. "Hey! You are Nobita, aren't you?"
"…Shizuka?" The girl responds to Nobita's question by throwing her hand bag right into his face. Nope, definitely not Shizuka... Since she is one of the gentlest people Nobita has ever known and will not resort to violent… Well, there's that one time she puts on a pair of Doraemon's super strength gloves and wrestled with a gorilla, but considers that's only a dream it never actually happened in real life.
Although Nobita has to admit seeing Shizuka wrestle with an angry gorilla that's three times bigger than her, and won is simply awesome. Even if she had Doraemon's 22nd century gadget to give her some edge...
"You dummy! It's me! Hanako Goda!" The girl runs in front of Nobita and picks up her hand bag.
"Oh, it's you Jaiko… I didn't even recognize you." Nobita is pretty sure his jaw just hit the pavement. Hanako 'Jaiko' Goda is not exactly a stranger to him. In his imaginary dream, the reason that blue robot cat from 22nd century comes into his life is stop his future of marrying her and then ends up in bankruptcy which in turn creates a crappy future for his descendent. Viewing through the magical lenses that are called 'hindsight'… Nobita has to admit he has a pretty weird mind back in 4th grade to imagine he has a future of marrying Jaiko…
But the Jaiko he remembers is a short, chubby girl who has the exact face as his gorilla like elder brother. The one standing in front of him looks about 1/3 of her original size… and hopefully not sounding too shallow: looks pretty cute if she's not giving him an extremely pissed off death glare right now. That is unusually to say the least, but then again… Nobita suppose he shouldn't dismiss the possibility Jaiko manage to lose most of her weights in the last 4 years. Consider Nobita completely changed himself in the span of four short years after all.
Liposuction, pilled on top of a lots and lots of plastic surgeries, maybe?
"What I meant to say is…You look great. I was completely stunned so that's why I didn't recognize you." Nobita scratches his cheek while trying to recover from his previous blunder.
"Obvious flattery will get you no where in life, Mister. But thank you for the compliment." Jaiko puffs out her chest with a satisfied smile on her face. "I haven't seen you in so long, you and my brother used to be such good friends."
As good a friend as a cat and his mouse play toy… Nobita frowns at Jaiko's mention of Takeshi 'Gian' Goda. While it's true Gian is as close as a best friend Nobita has during his childhood, it's also no secret he's constantly bullied by the taller, bigger and much stronger undisputed king of playground. But that's more or less in a page of history book he already closes by this point. They don't even go to the same middle school anymore. "Yeah… we grow apart after we went to different middle school."
"Is it after middle school? I seem to remember you two stopped playing together after Shizuka's disappearance…" Jaiko taps her own face with her right index finger while thinking out loud.
Nobita's frown deepens at the mention of Shizuka's name. The girl he has been fascinated back in 4th grade to the point where most of his imaginary dream centers on changing his future so he'll marry her instead of Jaiko. Once again, viewing through hindsight it's pretty weird, even a little creepy. But looking back, Nobita is not sure if what he feels for Shizuka can be called 'love'. What does a 4th grader know about love anyways?
Still, when she vanishes without a trace three years ago everything changes. Although not everything turns for the worse, consider Shizuka's absence turns out to be the push to have him gain the determination to better himself in both study and athletics to turn from the hapless dweeb who can do nothing right into the 'sleeping prince' of his school.
Even if he can't share his future with Shizuka anymore like his imaginary dream…
"D'oh! Sorry, shouldn't have brought that up!" Jaiko suddenly realizes she brings up a very touché topic and quickly slams both of her palms together in front of her face to apologize. "Say, have you been to a shrine to pray for this year's fortune?"
"It's February… not the day of New Year. Anyways… nice to see you Jaiko, give my regard to your bro…" Nobita lets out a sigh as he stands up from pavement and pats away the dirt on his black middle school uniform. He is about to continue his way home but Jaiko suddenly grabs his wrist and starts to drag him alone.
He tries to shake free of Jaiko's iron grip but finds himself unable to. It seems even after all the effort the frail Nobita Nobi puts in to improve his physical strength, he is still outmatched by Goda family's superior natural prowess. "Fine, I'll come along with you to the shrine… so would you please stop dragging me?"
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
The Shinto Shrine is empty except for Nobita and Jaiko. It is to be expected, since it is way past New Year. Nobita doesn't mind the quiet and loneliness though. He remembers a quote from some anime character that 'man need to learn to appreciate loneliness', or some crap like that…
Both kids slip in some change into the shrine's donation box, and close their hands together in front of their face to prey. Nobita closes his eyes, and wishes for a peaceful, uneventful year like the last three. When he opens his eyes, he realizes Jaiko is no longer besides him. Nobita turns around and sees Jaiko running toward the back of the shrine. "Should you snoop around like that?"
"I'm just checking on Iyo-Chan, wait here for me." Jaiko waves Nobita off as she disappears around the corner.
Nobita lets out a defeated sigh as he turns back towards the shrine. He decides to take out his cell phone and call home to let his mother knows he'll be late for home, and ask his mother to feed his pet dog Peko and Ichi for him. But before he dials his home's number, the 14 years old notices something standing on the donation box of the shrine.
It's a small, white, fluffy creature that looks like some kind of cross breed between cat, rabbit and fox. It is currently sitting on top of the box on its hind legs, with its scarlet beady eyes staring into the void. The only thing that indicates it is alive is its tail constantly waving back and forth.
It's not the strangest creature, consider he has seen giant ball like panda that fly on its own breaking wind, or bees that can turn into human in his imaginary dream adventures. But he's pretty sure something like this doesn't exist in real life. Is this the spirit animal this shrine tribute or something?
What was Dekisugi's advice on that kind of bizarre situation again? Right: Everything can be explained by SCIENCE! Quickly, try to recite Pi, 3.1415926…
"Interesting, it appears you can see me and tap into my telepathy matrix. While it's not unheard of, boys who are so in tone with me are still rare. That being said, are you interested in signing a contract and become a magical boy?"
What the… did I just heard a voice in my head? I guess Pi doesn't cut it anymore; I need to recount undividable prime numbers to keep my fighting spirit high! 1, 3, 5, 7…
"If you want to apply what you humans call 'scientific term' to this situation, just think of me communicating you through telepathy as the wavelength of your soul is very in tone with mine. Kind of like how a radio can receive a broadcast."
Nobita suddenly focuses his gaze on the white fluffy creature. The creature nods his head to indicate it is indeed him who is telepathically communicating with Nobita.
"Who or better yet, what the hecks are you?" Nobita bends over to look at the fluffy creature at eye level. He takes his hand out, and grabs each side of the creature's cheek and start to stretch them apart. The creature's body feels very elastic, like rubber band or something.
"You can call me Kyubey." The creature replies through his thought. Despite the fact his face is now being stretched three times wide, Kyubey doesn't seem to show any clear sign of discomfort or even annoyance. "As for what I am…"
Before Kyubey can continues, Nobita hears the sound of a loud shriek. Realizing it is the sound of Jaiko he throws Kyubey away (who accidentally ends up diving headfirst into a trash can) and bolts for the back of the shrine.
After about half a minute of running around aimlessly around the small Shinto Shrine, Nobita discovers Jaiko standing before the limb form of a girl not much older than her. She has short blue hair, wears a red headband that tie up like a pair of bunny ears on her head and a set of traditional shrine maiden cloth. Nobita quickly goes down to one knee and put his finger in front of the girl, she's not breathing and her body is cold. It's obvious the girl is dead, yet her body doesn't show any visible sign of decay.
"Iyo-Chan… no…" Jaiko's eye is full of tears as she wobbles around her feet and looks at the young girl's body.
"No visible sign of fatal wound… cause of death could be internal organ failures, maybe a heart attack?" Nobita puts his right hand under his chin and ponders how the girl met such an abrupt end in her youthful life. Even if her shrine maiden uniform covers more than 90% of her body, the lack of blood on her cloth and surrounding suggest she died of natural cause rather than a bloody murder. Of course, there's the possibility she has some kind of blunt wound underneath her cloth but Nobita is not about to look like a pervert and take off her cloth for a thorough examination.
"Let's call the cops and get out of here quickly Jaiko, if she's murdered there's a chance the criminal is still around…" Nobita takes out his cell phone out again and dial for police, but to his surprise he suddenly realizes there's no signal on his cell. He looks up again, and… "What the hell is going on?!"
Nobita is no longer in the backyard of a Shinto Shrine any longer. It looks like he's surrounded in the dark void of space with stars all around him like one of his many imaginary dream adventures. Only this time, it is not a dream, and there's no robot cat from 22nd century with his nifty gadget to bail Nobita out in the face of danger.
And to make matters even worse, Nobita and Jaiko are not alone. There are many origami figures dancing, and wobbling around them. The origami figures seems to notice the two kids who intrudes their home, as they suddenly brandishes thin blade made of paper and hobbles at the two kids.
Shit! Those things look like they mean business and it's not illegal dinosaur smuggling either… it's times like this I regret not always carry my baseball bat around… or Japan's weapon control law isn't more lenient like America. I really wish I have a handgun to defend myself right now…
"That can be arranged… is having a handgun your wish to become a magical boy?" The fluffy white cat rabbit fox walks to Nobita from seemingly nowhere with a banana peel sitting on his head like a yellow wig.
What? NO! STOP READING MY MIND FURBALL!
"So be it… although that familiar is getting awfully close to you… just saying." Kyubey tilt his head and shakes away the banana peel as he looks at Nobita.
"Wah…" Nobita turns around and realize one of the Origami figure is so close to him it almost bumps into Nobita's nose. And its paper blade is enlarging in his vision really fast. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH~"
Before Nobita meets his bitter end in the form of a paper cut the size of his head, a spear suddenly thrust into his field of vision and parries the paper blade away with a clear clunk sound. The blade of the spear looks like the tip of a pen, and it has thick bush of decoration mane under the blade like the style of Chinese spear. But unlike the red mane of Chinese style spear, this one's decoration is white.
Nobita quickly throws himself to the ground and rolls away. He gets up on his knees, and realizes the spear belongs to Jaiko, who is currently wearing a light yellow dress with red frilly decoration like something out of a magical girl show and an old style manga artist beret on her head.
"I… won't forgive you for what you did to Iyo-Chan!"