Chapter Text
—000— Real Mitakihara - July 8th - Midnight —000—
“So, what’re we trying to do again? Do I have to chant some kind of hocus pocus spell or whatever?”
Madoka frowned. “I know it sounds silly, really I do… Even I would have a hard time believing it if someone else was telling me. I don’t even know for sure that it will work–”
“Madoka,” Mami-san’s stern voice cut in. “Have faith in yourself. If this is going to work, it will only work if you believe in it.”
Kyoko huffed and put her arms behind her head. “Duh. I was being serious too y’know. What if there was some magic spell and I got it wrong, huh?
Madoka smiled at her friends. She gently reached out to take both of their hands in her own.
“Okay,” she said. “Then let’s try it. Let’s do our best.”
So, standing before the Miki residence with its extinguished lights and haunted inhabitants, the three girls made their wish. Everybody wished the same thing at the same time, three hearts humming out one continuous tone.
Please, let me be a magical girl again.
Please, because there are still people I want to save.
Please, because one of them is me.
Something sang in the back of Madoka’s mind, an old innate feeling of being connected to everything. She could sense Sayaka and Homura’s presence just beyond the walls of the Miki household– and just beyond the other wall that stood invisible between them. If she could just push through, if she could get inside of it the same way she’d once gotten inside the barriers of Witches…
She opened her eyes. She didn’t think she was wearing her regular clothes anymore. She turned to Kyoko to see a blaze of red– the sharp flowing shapes of a magical girl. Looking the other way revealed Mami, now in the elegant yellows and browns of her own armour.
This must be how my magic remembered you, Madoka realised.
“Let’s go.” She said, and they stepped over the boundary line towards the front door.
—XXX— Fake Mitakihara, July 8th, Midnight —XXX—
Madoka’s instinct at Sayaka’s bedroom door was still to hesitate. Luckily, Kyoko did not share that trepidation.
She kicked the door down in one smooth movement, spear at the ready, and Madoka saw it fall from her hands and demanifest the instant she caught sight of who was on the other side.
Kyoko barrelled into Sayaka with even more force than the fake-Kyoko had an hour or two before. Sayaka’s body went stiff, and Kyoko’s grip was all that prevented her from falling over.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Kyoko barked immediately, her grip on Sayaka’s shoulders bruising. “The hell are you sitting around in your pyjamas for? The Sayaka I know would be busting out of this place already!”
Sayaka’s mouth felt numb. She gripped Kyoko’s shoulders right back, as if to gauge whether she was real this time– whether she even dared to believe it. Kyoko saw the distant look in her eye and eased up.
“I did everything I could think of,” Sayaka said. “It’s a rigged game. Kyoko… That’s you, isn’t it? I… I thought I could tell before. I’m so sorry.”
Sayaka touched her face. Kyoko somehow understood what Sayaka wanted to say.
“Don’t worry about it. Like hell I’m letting myself get replaced again. If it’s a rigged game, I’ll cheat,” she said. “I don’t care what rules I break. You’re never getting away like that again either, not ever.”
Sayaka smiled a teary smile. “Thanks,” she said. “I missed you so much.”
Kyoko took Sayaka into her arms. In the corner of the room, the devil tried to slink away. There were more important things to think about– maybe she could still get away with being forgotten.
“I don’t think so,” Mami hummed. She stood near the corner of the room, watching Sayaka and Kyoko embrace, watching Madoka clutch her hands to her chest in tentative faith. Mami’s powers settled back around her like an old, heavy weight. She couldn’t say she was all that glad to have them back, not when they brought with them the strange, foggy feeling of melancholy that they did. But, if it was for the sake of her friends… It was always for the sake of others, wasn’t it?
She was the only one looking for the devil at that moment– looking for someone else that needed her attention. She caught Homura’s attempt at an exit and quickly summoned up her ribbons– they wrapped themselves over the shadowy far wall, blocking her escape.
Homura glared at her.
“You are far better off in this world, Tomoe Mami,” she said, as if she knew the memories of isolation dripping into Mami’s mind. Mami didn’t yield.
“Maybe,” she said. “But there’s a certain rule in baking you might like to consider. A recipe isn’t a success until you can make it right at least twice. If you’re so proud of this world, what’s wrong with a second attempt?”
Of course I want to be happy, Mami thought. But I can’t let my friends suffer for it. Whoever’s in charge of what happens next… Even if it’s greedy, can’t we ask for a bit of everything?
Good food tastes better when it’s shared, after all.
Homura scowled, but was forced to stay put. Kyoko and Sayaka finally drew apart, and that was when the attention turned to her.
“You. You did this, didn’t you? Putting Sayaka through God knows what– you’re dead.”
The spear reappeared in Kyoko’s hand as she surged darkly forwards, but all Madoka had to do was reach out and the weapon was gone as quickly as it had come.
“Wait! Kyoko, please, let’s just talk first,” she said. Kyoko glared at her.
“Why the hell should we do that? She kidnapped our friend!”
Madoka angled a sympathetic look at Homura. “I know… But I don’t even think you can beat her, even if you wanted to. Besides, trying to get rid of each other is what got us into this mess in the first place. Don’t you think we should at least try and talk?”
“No,” it was Homura who spoke then, to her own detriment. “I have said everything I could say to you more than a hundred times. It never makes any difference. It seems forcing you is the only way. Madoka, if the only means by which to prevent you from making a decision that hurts you is to bind you hand and foot, then that’s what I’ll do. The same is true for Miki Sayaka’s sake. I don’t care if that makes me condemnable to you all, it isn’t anything I can’t take.”
“So what? You think you get to make the final choice on everything? You think anyone who makes a bad choice should bend under your thumb?” Kyoko fired back. Homura looked directly at her.
“Yes. If the alternative is a world where Sayaka always dies for a boy who doesn’t love her, or Madoka signs herself up for a fate of self-sacrifice, why shouldn’t I have the final say?”
Kyoko didn’t seem to have a retort for that. Chances were her own memories of such things were now invading her head, making it pretty hard to argue.
“It would help if everyone wasn’t so damn stupid,” she grumbled. “Seriously, why can’t people get it through their head to think about themselves for a change? I can’t be the only one who gets that!”
Sayaka hung her head. Madoka shrunk in on herself.
“But… If I only think about myself, there will be too many people I can’t help,” Madoka muttered sadly. “For a long time, I didn’t really… Like anything about myself. So I wanted to be strong, and brave, and I wanted to help people. If I did that, maybe my life would be worth something, you know?”
“Sayaka… Don’t tell me that’s seriously how you felt too,” Kyoko said.
“Not exactly,” Sayaka protested. “But… It wasn’t all that different either.”
“Your life is already worth much more than you think,” Homura broke in. “That is why I had to reject your choice. That is why I ripped Sayaka out of the world. I’d hoped it would make her think clearly about the world she was trying to tear apart. But it seems nobody is happy with it. It seems I really did fail. Even after all this time, Madoka… I can never get you to smile like you mean it.”
Homura balled her hands into fists. Madoka crossed the room to stand before her, and when she reached out to touch her pale hand, it was cold as ice.
“I’m sorry, Homura… This isn’t what I wanted at all,” she mumbled.
“If you want to help people, Madoka, maybe you should start with the five people in this room,” Sayaka said, her voice almost sardonic. “When you think about everything we’ve gone through, I can see how trying to save the whole world might’ve been like jumping in at the deep end.”
“But trying to save no one at all is not in your nature,” Homura said, pulling her hand away. “Not even when I try to create a world where nobody needs saving.”
Kyoko tipped her head, giving a pointed look at Homura. “Maybe you gotta start small, y’know? And say to hell with the rest of the world.”
“I don’t know…” Madoka said. “If I could help everyone and I don’t… What does that say about me?”
“That you’re normal,” Sayaka said. “Trust me, Madoka, you don’t know how much that’s worth. You don’t know… How meaningful it is to save just one person.”
Homura’s eyes glinted. It seems even pig-headed dogs might learn, if you teach them well.
Not that my methods are the most practical. Moreover, they surely disqualify me from being worthy of any modicum of salvation.
It’s fine. Somebody must bear the sin brought about in the wake of miracles, even small ones.
“Kaname-san,” Mami said, her voice sounding uncertain. “Could you do that? Could you wish for us to all be normal? For the world to be normal? I… I want that too. I want to believe that’s not wrong of me.”
“It’s not!” Madoka said. “But… But wouldn’t that mean that Witches come back?”
Sayaka shrugged. “Who knows?”
Kyoko put her hands on her hips. “And who cares? Would that even be our problem?” Madoka’s frown suggested it would at the very least be her problem. “I feel like I’ve done enough fighting to retire ten times over, you’re telling me the same doesn’t go for all of us?”
“In total, Miki Sayaka has spent almost ten months reliving a single week,” Homura broke in. “For me, the cumulative time spent in battle eclipses a decade. Tomoe Mami became a magical girl when she was eleven years old, and Madoka has spent an immeasurable amount of time fighting all the world’s curses as a figment of hope itself.”
Which is to say, an eternity of servitude could very easily continue forever. Someone must decide where it ends, Homura thought. She met Sayaka’s eye. She recalled her words, her instructions to be honest.
If even pig-headed dogs can learn, I suppose I can too.
“Madoka, if you are to fight to save this world, can you not first save yourself? Is it possible… That for the time being, you all can at least graduate high school?”
“Y’know, I think I’d like that,” Sayaka said. “There was a moment when I was trapped living that week over and over again that I thought– maybe things can just stay like this forever. Maybe I don’t want to see what comes next. But you know what I think now?”
“What?” Madoka asked.
“I think I’m ready to grow the hell up,” she laughed.
Madoak turned back to Homura. Slightly taller than her, but not all that tall, pale-faced and thin-limbed Homura. A girl you might see in your eighth grade classroom. A girl who you’d be worried about if you saw her out alone on the street after dark. A girl who had been fourteen almost as long as it took her to become fourteen in the first place.
Even if Madoka had wanted to punish her like Kyoko did– this wasn’t a good punishment. Of course no one was going to figure anything out or learn anything if they were stuck this way forever. Maybe it was time to have faith that even if Madoka wasn’t good enough now, she might grow up to be. Maybe for now, she didn’t have to be good, she just had to be a regular girl, like Sayaka said. Maybe that’s what Homura needed too.
Madoka’s power thrummed inside her. I have more than enough to get everyone back, and to make everyone normal again… I can probably keep us safe, too, at least from the really bad stuff.
She looked around at Sayaka’s bedroom and suddenly could picture clearly what it might look like once her wish was made. Just a standard room, homework on the table, mugs of cocoa on the hardwood floor, maybe they’d have a sleepover. Maybe it wouldn’t save the world, but maybe the world inside this room would be enough to protect them, just for now.
She missed having sleepovers with Sayaka. She missed talking about what they’d do on summer break. She missed talking and thinking about the future. All of a sudden, she wanted to get there.
“Okay,” Madoka said. “I’ll take us back. I’ll make it so that none of us have to fight as magical girls, and that none of us have to forget anything that happened.”
She turned to Homura.
“And you’re coming too.”
“What?” Kyoko barked, but Madoka turned to her with a stern expression.
“Sorry, Kyoko, you told me to be selfish, so that’s what I’ll do. If I’m going back to the normal world, Homura-chan is coming with me. Right, Sayaka?”
She turned sheepishly towards Sayaka, as if asking for permission. Sayaka sighed put-uponly.
“I guess,” she said. “She’s way too emo, hanging out in the ether like this. We’ve got no choice. Besides, that’s what you want too, isn’t it Homura?”
Homura froze, wide-eyed. Tell her, Sayaka’s words badgered her mind. Have the balls to say the whole truth.
Perhaps the whole truth of what she felt would be too much, but perhaps she could summarise it.
“Madoka, if you really want me back... I am willing to return. It’s clear I can’t protect you like this, at any rate. Even if I have less luck in a human body, I must accept that my current methods can’t continue.”
Besides, there was nowhere left to go. Mami’s ribbons still ensnared her, and Madoka’s magic was reaching out like a blanket to cover the whole world. Homura knew she couldn’t fight that kind of power– perhaps at the start, when her feelings were new and fervent, but not now. Homura’s power ached to leave her, like a too-small pair of indoor school shoes. She tried to cling on, but she knew she was holding on to a useless, inefficient tool. She was already more human than she’d been for a long time, and once you gave Madokami an inch of hope, she’d take a country mile.
And so the devil herself lingered like a shadow in the corner of the world. Her footholds were getting smaller and smaller. The fruit of the devil’s body sprouted from one anemic, hungry seed, and now that seed was being harvested out again. It was covered in the pulpy flesh to the point it was nearly recognisable, but it was there. The devil cursed how pesky bugs could ruin crops like that, even when their bite was supposed to be non toxic.
The devil fell off the edge of the world, and nobody missed her.
—OOO— True Mitakihara, July 9th, Dawn —OOO—
Homura woke up in Sayaka’s room. Her chest panged and she felt dizzy. Her senses felt snubbed and her personhood felt tiny and flat and juvenile again and–
And the ground was solid. The day’s first light was sneaking in through the curtains. And on her back there were no black wings anymore.
She was so human she almost couldn’t stand it.
Sayaka woke up in her room too. She looked to her left and saw Kyoko sitting up against the bed, holding her forehead.
“Ugh, I feel like shit,” she groaned. To be expected when a couple lifetime’s worth of memories are flooding back into your head. She was back in normal clothes, Sayaka realised, her magical girl outfit gone. Then she realised that Sayaka was staring at her.
“What? Do I look as crappy as I feel?”
“Nah,” Sayaka said. “I’m just happy to see you, that’s all.”
Kyoko scrunched her face up like she always did when she was embarrassed. She flicked her head. “That’s gay.”
Sayaka’s heart sank. Kyoko might remember everything I’ve ever told her now, but I didn’t actually tell her that stuff about liking her, did I?
Well, there’s a chance Homura got one thing right about her… Isn’t there?
“Kyoko?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s something I gotta tell you.”
Madoka stood up and helped Mami-san to her feet.
“Thanks for believing in me,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I hope you don’t mind, but I did change one little thing about this world for you…”
Mami’s eyebrows raised. “For me?”
Madoka flushed. “Everyone else just wanted to be normal again. Kyoko still had her parents even before this, and Homura’s more complicated, since she was nearly as strong as me once. But Mami-san… You’ve been alone for a really long time, haven’t you? Not only that, but you’ve always looked after us. You made us tea and cake and encouraged us when we were scared, and you were the first person who showed me how great magic could be, even if it can’t do everything.”
“Madoka… What’re you saying?” Mami asked.
“I couldn’t fix it all, but I was thinking about what I’d miss most if something happened to my family. Of course I can’t pick just one thing, but if I didn’t have my Mama to turn to for advice… I don’t know how I’d cope. I should’ve talked to her more when Sayaka went missing, but I was a coward.”
“My mother died in a car accident when I was younger,” Mami said, like if she repeated the truths of the world they would stay true. But there’s no rule that it has to be that way, right? “My whole family did.”
Madoka shook her head, grinning knowingly. “Did they?”
Hands shaking in disbelief, Mami pulled her phone out of her purse– she was wearing a purse again, not the skirts and corset of her magical girl form. She flicked through her contacts, and though it was still a little sparse, there was a name at the top of the list, just above Madoka, Kyoko, and Sayaka.
Mother.
Madoka patted Mami’s hair as she cried into her shoulder.
“You should go and see her,” she whispered. “You should let her bake you something for a change. You know Mami-san, even if the rest of us want to grow up… I think it’s okay for you to wait for us a little bit longer. Then we’ll go together. It’s less scary that way.”
After a rushed explanation and a teary goodbye, Mami left. Madoka watched her go happily.
“Homura-chan?”
Homura looked up, looking fearful and confused behind the rims of her glasses.
“I hope you’re not mad I didn’t fix your eyesight,” she said. “I didn’t want to let myself get carried away. And besides, they’re cute.”
“I can’t believe I’m here,” Homura said, clutching anxiously at the dark clothes that were a little too big for her. Madoka had hardly seen Homura in casual wear, even when she put all her memories together, so she had to take some liberties. She hoped she’d see more of it from now on, because Homura looked sort of sweet in a long skirt and a long-sleeve tee, if she did say so herself.
“It won’t be easy,” Madoka said. “I bet it will be scary, having to go to school again, but I can help you, just like I did the first time. I’ll be right here, okay? I won’t go anywhere.”
Homura looked at the floor. You’ll learn how to cry again, too, Madoka thought. It just takes time.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting you to say that,” she mumbled.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Everyone went alert. An irritated voice came from the other side of the door.
“Sayaka?”
Sayaka’s face paled. “Mom…”
The four of them looked around, suddenly guilty and bashful in the way kids only got when a parent threatened to tell them off.
“What’s all this noise? Who’ve you got over? A girl just walked past us downstairs– is she one of your classmates? Did you meet at the school festival? When did you get home last night– you better not have broken curfew.”
Sayaka smiled sheepishly at the others before crossing the room to open the door. She spoke to her mother hastily in a low voice through the gap– she was clearly struggling to come up with an excuse for how everyone ended up where they were. In the end, it seemed like she conceded to just take the proverbial beating.
“Hey,” Kyoko sidled up beside Homura, taking her in. She sure did lose a lot of that menacing aura once she was standing sock-footed in Sayaka’s bedroom wearing a kuromi-print graphic tee.
“Just so you know, I don’t forgive you,” she said anyway. “If you ever lay another finger on Sayaka, you’re dead.”
“I won’t,” Homura said. “I can’t.”
“Good,” Kyoko said huffed. “After all, I can’t let anybody mess with my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” Madoka exclaimed, so loudly that (much to Sayaka’s dismay) even Mrs. Miki heard. Sayaka turned around for another round of explaining herself, Kyoko grinned cockily as Madoka gushed and begged for the details– the whens, the hows, the two girls can do that sort of thing?s – as Homura stood and watched it all. Then the cellphone she hadn’t known was in her pocket suddenly buzzed.
If you have any questions about the school bursary, I’ll be happy to answer them. I assume you’ll be able to find an apartment within that price range, just as I did.
I’m sure you will have lots of questions about the process, so I’ll be seeing you often, I should think.
Oh, and
My mother
It’s funny, but she just asked me if anyone I know likes persimmons.
Kyoko does.
So,
Do you?
Homura blinked down at the screen.
This is Tomoe Mami, by the way.
Homura bit her thumb nail, trying to remember something as simple as if she’d ever liked persimmons. She couldn’t remember eating them for what felt like decades. She must’ve spent too long trying to answer that simple question, because Kyoko finished her tall tale and got distracted by the texts on Homura’s screen.
“What? Mami’s mom’s got persimmons? What are we still hanging around here for?”
“Do you like persimmons, Homura-chan?” Madoka asked.
“I can’t remember.”
“Jeez, what kind of an answer is that?” Kyoko snarked. “Just try them again and then you’ll know.”
Like that, Homura was corralled out of the room, past Sayaka and her mom, who was still trying to ask questions whilst Sayaka kept trying to answer them, even as everyone slipped away downstairs and towards the front door.
“I wonder if Mrs. Tomoe grows the persimmons herself,” Madoka wondered aloud as they set off down the street. The sun was still only just coming up, but it was already making out to be a pleasantly warm day. “That’s what Papa does.”
“Does that mean she has a garden? Jealous,” Sayaka chimed in.
How ironic, Homura thought. It begins and ends the same way– in a garden. Still, I suppose there are worse outcomes to all this.
She didn’t know exactly how to feel about it all yet. She didn’t know whether she would even enjoy persimmons after all. But it became clear quite quickly that she wouldn’t be tasting them right away regardless– they all had to walk all the way there first, and Mami’s house was not exactly close by.
But the tarmac was warm. The air smelt clean. It wasn’t the perfect world, but as Homura walked on her slow human legs, in step with the others, at Madoka’s side, she thought it was perhaps something just as good. Maybe not perfect, but normal. Maybe the world did not belong to her anymore, but she belonged to the world. That was worth a lot.
Sayaka thought the same. Perhaps she could not guarantee Kyoko’s safety forever, perhaps nobody knew what the future would hold, and sure, Sayaka didn’t even like persimmons, but right now she didn’t care. In fact, just for today, she might find that they tasted surprisingly amazing.