Fanfic / Keys to the Contract

Crystal Clarity by Telthora

Keys to the Contract is a crossover fanfiction between Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kingdom Hearts written by Dragonexx.

Some two years after the events of Rebellion Madoka has been living in something resembling normalcy, though with the constant feeling that something is off. Her peaceful life is shattered by the occurrence of a strange dream, followed by the appearance of strange shadowy creatures and the even stranger appearance of a giant key in her hands. It doesn't take long after that for her entire world to begin crumbling around her.

In addition to exploring the characters from both franchises, the fanfic also does worldbuilding work to make the two franchises fit together, as well as adding newer elements to serve as a sort of binding tissue between the two, including Espers.

The fic can be found in its most up-to-date form on Spacebattles, with other sites like Fanfic.net and AO3 at differing levels of completeness.

Not to be confused with another fellow Kingdom Hearts fanfiction with a similar name: Keys to the Kingdom (Kingdom Hearts).

This fanfic provides examples of:

• Adaptational Wimp: While fleeing the destruction of Mitakihara by car, Madoka and friends are chased by Hot Rods. Their numbers are endless, but they die in one shot to Mami's muskets and Nagisa's Bubble Gun.
• Art Attacker: In Olympus, Homura, Hercules, and Sora's crew face an original Heartless that resembles a giant Greek vase covered with images of Heracles's Twelve Labors. It animates the images, causing the whichever monster is currently depicted to kill the image of Heracles and any other human subjects in the picture and sends the resulting Living Drawings to attack Sora and company before repeating the process with a new picture. It gets through five of them before the Heartless's main body, a cat-like creature inside the vase, is destroyed.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The Magus Sisters, Mindy especially, tend to make non-sequitur jokes and references.
• Composite Character: Chaos has his appearance and titles from Final Fantasy XII, complete with his bestiary entry being quoted verbatim in the author's notes. Despite this, he also has a connection to the Four Fiends, whom he lends to Homura, possibly due to seeing a kindred spirit in her.
• Death Seeker: Kyoko starts to develop into a death seeker as a result of all her losses, jealousy, and trauma, throwing herself into fights recklessly.
• Doomed Hometown: Mitakihara City is destroyed in the Heartless attack, along with the rest of their world.
• Determinator: Homura zig-zags between this and a Despair Event Horizon as a result of having become increasingly unstable due to the events of Rebellion and having had nothing to do but stew on her own guilt and self-loathing since then.
• Elemental Magic: The basics of magic involves the manipulation of the elements through spells like "Fire" or "Aero".
• Empathic Weapon: Keyblades, as per canon, link to their masters' Hearts and respond to their wills.
• Exposition Fairy: Ramuh fills this role much of the time, often explaining the situations the girls find themselves into and giving them advice or guidance.
• Hope Spot: After crashing her car thanks to a Heartless jumpscare, Junko manages to crawl out and hears tires squealing to a stop nearby. At first she thinks it's a good samaritan who saw the crash, only for the new car to rear up on two wheels...
• I Know Mortal Kombat:
  • A Running Gag with Kyoko, who claims to have learned to drive from GTA:
    Mami: Grand Theft Auto? Are you serious?!
    Kyoko: Well if you didn't like that, then ya' ain't going to like how I found us this car. Although it is thematically appropriate...
    Mami: WHAT?!
    Kyoko: Hey, in my defense, the guy was definitely already a Heartless! He wasn’t gonna be using it!
  • It comes again when she suggests that she fly the Gummi Ship because she's played Ace Combat.
    Mami: More video games?!
    Kyoko: Well have you ever even played Asteroids?!
    Sayaka: Are we seriously having this conversation again?!
• Innocently Insensitive: Madoka and Sayaka both lose their families in the Heartless invasion of Mitakihara, but are relieved to learn from Ramuh that they have a chance of bringing them back. Their relief blinds them to the fact that the other girls all lost their parents under different circumstances and have no such chance of seeing them again, with Kyoko in particular taking this badly. Madoka is quick to apologise when she realises what Kyoko is going through.
• It's All My Fault: Kyoko blames herself for getting Frigga killed.
• Jerkass Realization: Kyoko's bitterness about Madoka having a chance of bringing her family back spills over when Junko Kaname does show up as a Nobody and Kyoko feels vindicated. She admits to Nagisa how messed up she is, giving a What the Hell, Hero? to herself.
• Painting the Medium: The Esper's dialogue tends to be colored to indicate their otherworldly voices.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Mami doesn't understand any of Kyoko's Harry Potter references, much to her shock.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The fiery spear-wielding Wraith-like Heartless that claims Tatsuya's heart is named Tapana, after a Buddhist hell where the condemned are impaled on flaming spears. Similarly, an Art Attacker Heartless that uses pictures of the Twelve Labors of Heracles to conjure minions is named Eurystheus after the king who imposed said Labors in the first place.
• Servile Snarker: Homura's Clara Dolls who mock her self-loathing and guilt and as per the extended materials of Rebellion, refer to her as "Mistress Good-For-Nothing".
• Shout-Out: To, of all things, Kingdom Hearts in a Nutshell:
  Homura: But then, what will you do with Kingdom Hearts? What makes you different from this Maleficent?
  Xehanort: I seek to restore Kingdom Hearts to its rightful place in a balanced universe. Ever since its departure, the universe has been in a slow decline, rotting and decaying. And so I ask your help, Homura. It is not an easy burden to bear, there is much that is wrong with the World, but someone has to step up, and prevent the weak from polluting the World with their endless darkness.
  Homura paused, taking in all of his words. It… all made sense. Everything that she had experienced now made sense! It was as if a piece had been added to a puzzle that she wasn't even aware was incomplete, and now she could see the whole picture! Madoka was one of the few islands of kindness in a vast ocean of wretchedness. And now she was thrown into that sea, completely at its mercy. Homura had been right all along. She needed to be protected. The universe depended on it. She turned towards Xehanort.
  Homura: Okay, I believe you.
• Summon Magic: Given much more focus in the story, courtesy of the Espers, especially considering Madoka and Homura's status as fledgling Espers. Ramuh explains that the ones the characters summon are fragments granted to summoners by their original selves who dwell in the Feymarch. As a result, the original Esper may not have memories of any given summoning.
• Villain Has a Point: Regardless of Gorr's attempted genocide he ultimately reveals truths about Asgard and its history that cause the quintet to question their own beliefs.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: At the end of Chapter 50, Madoka's mother Junko shows up in Radiant Garden, but it quickly becomes apparent that she's a Nobody and in no condition to provide emotional support.

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