Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Madoka stood in the doorway to a mostly-vacant warehouse. Sayaka had called to her through telepathy, insisting Madoka meet her at the mall at a floor under maintenance — for what, and why was it so urgent? why such an odd meeting place?... — but she’d rushed over regardless.

And found Homura instead, exactly where Sayaka had asked to meet.

How strange, Madoka thought.

It was dark, and oddly foggy — weren’t they indoors? — but it was definitely Homura, clothed in her magical girl uniform, for some reason. Madoka could barely see through the fog, and didn’t want to disturb Homura, so she timidly hung back.

“Homura…chan?”

It was seemingly only at this time that Homura noticed Madoka’s presence, and turned casually towards her. The earring bearing her soul gem rustled from the soft movement.

“…oh, Madoka, there you are. I was looking for you.”

Madoka breathed a short “ehh?” of confusion. What does she mean, she was looking for me? She didn’t try to mail or contact me through telepathy… And why is Homura-chan where Sayaka-chan asked me to…

A sputtering, pained cough jolted Madoka from her confused daze.

“gh… Homura, you… damn demon…” A voice that sounded wrought with pain spoke; Madoka instantly worried for whoever it was. It sounded so familiar… Madoka jumped in surprise as she suddenly placed it.

It was Sayaka’s voice.

“Huh? Sayaka-chan?” Madoka called out, her mind spinning again with questions. Where is she? Is she okay?… She doesn’t sound like she’s alright… What did she mean by calling Homura-chan that?…

Squinting hard to see through the fog, Madoka’s gaze trailed downward. The first thing she noticed was the rather large, black pistol in Homura’s hand. Though still a bit scary to Madoka, it wasn’t necessarily out of place — guns and explosives were Homura’s weapon of choice for fighting witches, after all. (Though if she were fighting a witch by herself, Madoka would be worried sick, of course!)

The next thing Madoka noticed was Sayaka, battered and bloodied on the floor beneath Homura’s foot.

[BGM: something, everything is wrong] 

“Sayaka-chan?!”

Sayaka lifted her head to regard Madoka. She struggled, attempting to move and make some kind of “yo, Madoka!” greeting; but moving her body seemed impossible. She was worlds away from her usual boundless energy. Sayaka settled instead for a weak, almost-sheepish smile.

“Haha… Sorry, Madoka. I didn’t want to have to call you over, but I ended up being in a pinch…” Sayaka forced her usual lighthearted tone.

“W-what do you mean? What’s going on?” Madoka glanced at Homura, hoping for any kind of explanation — but she didn’t say a word. She seemed to be ignoring both of them.

Taking the chance with making Homura angry with her, Madoka attempted to run to Sayaka’s side — only to run into a previously-invisible barrier. Madoka yelped in surprise at the impact, and fell backwards, onto her side. The barrier gleamed in a grid of bright purple diamonds; it looked not unlike Kyouko's barriers, Madoka may have realized. But more importantly, it blocked her completely from reaching Sayaka or Homura.

Madoka sat up with some difficulty. Overwhelmed, her eyes welled with tears. Sayaka grimaced at her friend's apparent pain.

“Madoka! Oi, Homura!” Sayaka snarled, turning her head to face Homura with some difficulty. “If you hurt Madoka, I’ll—”

“‘Hurt’ Madoka?" Homura interrupted, her tone cold and clipped. "I would never do anything to hurt her.”

She turned to look toward Madoka, Homura's suddenly-warm smile a sharp contrast to her extreme distress. “That barrier won’t harm a hair on her head. In fact—”

Homura detached her pistol’s magazine, smoothly pulling a replacement from her shield. The loud clatter of the magazine falling to the concrete floor and resounding click of another being loaded sent a chill down Madoka’s spine. Homura kept the pistol low and pointed at the ground.

“—the only thing it will do is keep her from you, Miki Sayaka.”

Sayaka blanched, feeling herself break out in a cold sweat. Her body screamed more than ever for her to run. 

Homura would finish her off, and soon.

“Madoka, listen to me. This is important.” Sayaka turned to Madoka and addressed her urgently, without a hint of her previous forced cheer.

Madoka looked surprised, but wiped her tears on her sleeves and listened intently. Sayaka wanted to smile despite their situation. Poor thing. You’re a good girl, Madoka.

“Mami-san, and …Kyouko… when they died, they… weren’t killed by witches…” Sayaka grit her teeth, feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Bringing up their recent deaths was bad enough, and sent a stab of pain through her to think about. But Madoka needed to know the truth.

“Homura… she was the one who killed them!” The words started spilling out in a frantic, angry rush. “Madoka, she’s… she isn’t who she says she is. She’s a demon! She forced you to be here, in this world…”

Sayaka dropped her head as she struggled to continue. On top of how upset talking about Kyouko and Mami made her, her head started to inexplicably throb. “I can’t… remember what, but you had a power, Madoka… to help magical girls, all of them. But Homura took it, she broke it!—“

The furious, fevered pitch of Sayaka’s voice was interrupted by a gunshot — mercifully, perhaps, only shot into the ceiling. The shot reverberated within the building, with only the sound of the crumbling ceiling between the three girls.

Sayaka breathed shakily, terrified. She didn’t want the scare tactics to work, but damned if she wasn’t already scared for her life before Homura pulled that garbage. Madoka wasn’t faring much better — she looked scared out of her wits, tears streaking down her face and hand clasped over her mouth; most likely to stifle her own crying. Sayaka felt a prickle of rage for the state of her best friend.

“Telling Madoka about all that nonsense… Really, you were always such a bother,” Homura adjusted the sleeve of her magical girl uniform cooly. “Teaming up with Tomoe Mami, trying to get Madoka to contract with you, running around spouting lines about justice without having a clue…”

The three-eyed mask of the mermaid witch sat just behind them, shattered almost beyond recognition. Homura smiled, somewhere between triumph and ridicule. “You were less annoying as a Witch, when you couldn’t speak, weren’t you?"

“H…hah… You’re one to talk, transfer student.” Sayaka managed to grin through the fear and the pain. Blood streaked down from her skull, matting her hair. “You did anything for Madoka… Over and over, no matter who you hurt, as long as it was for her — but you really messed up this time, didn’t you?”

“You’re not making any sense, Miki-san.” Homura said, smiling still, as though she were speaking to a small, clueless child. The honorific was as mocking as the polite speech could be.

Sayaka laughed outright and took in a raspy breath.

“She’s seen this. She’s going to remember everything; soon, if she hasn’t already… And then, transfer student,” Sayaka spared a small laugh as her voice shook with anger and triumph. “Madoka’s going to hate you—“

Sayaka was cut short by Homura’s heeled foot slamming into her back — hard. Madoka’s ears rang with the sickening crack of Sayaka’s ribs breaking, and Sayaka muffling her own screams and gasps of pain.

Homura sighed as though slightly bothered, and flicked her hair. Her smile was gone.

“You talk too much, Miki Sayaka.”

Madoka was stunned beyond words and beyond comprehension. Every fiber of her wanted this to be an awful dream, because this couldn’t — shouldn’t — be happening… Madoka wanted to pass out, (or wake up); whatever it took to thrust the awful scene from her vision. And she’d hug Sayaka tight and not let go for a long time, and Sayaka would tease her for being such a crybaby, and Homura would comfort her and tell her it was all just a nightmare…

But somehow, in the back of her mind… seeing Homura standing over Sayaka like that cemented it as reality. Madoka snapped out of her daze and leapt to her feet, yelling in a sudden panic.

“Sayaka-chan?! Sayaka-chan, are you okay?!” Sayaka’s head was pressed to the ground, though her body bobbed softly with stilted, broken breaths. She was alive, but far from ‘okay’. The image of Sayaka like that made Madoka’s vision swim and blur hot with tears. She thought she heard Sayaka trying to call her name—

Madoka braced herself and grabbed the bars of the gridded barrier. It gleamed with intense magical power and attempted to repel her — it didn’t hurt exactly, as Homura had promised, but it pressed with intense force in an attempt to push Madoka away. And though she was a frail (useless, worthless! her mind yelled at her) schoolgirl — Madoka hung on and did not let go. She turned to Homura, voice cracking as she yelled, panicked and desperate, through the barrier.

“H-Homura-chan! Homura-chan, please stop this!… Whatever’s going on between you two, we can work it out! I won’t h…hate you, so please… don’t hurt Sayaka-chan anymore…”

Madoka nearly crumbled into tears, her soft, hiccuping sobs echoing in the warehouse. Sayaka had all but stopped moving. Homura didn’t spare a glance in her direction or a response to her pleas.

Instead, she leveled her pistol at Sayaka, and before Madoka was able to say another word—

She fired.

Beneath the deafening gunshot, there was the quiet tinkle of breaking glass that wasn't glass, at all. A precious soul's carrier being ripped and broken into pieces. 

And then it was quiet.

Madoka’s stomach had long since dropped to her feet. She couldn’t feel. She couldn’t breathe. Sayaka couldn’t be, she couldn’t—

Homura tossed her pistol, as though she were disposing of trash. She pushed her hair off her back and regarded the body beneath her feet.

“Goodbye, Miki Sayaka. No matter how many times I repeated or what world we were in,” Homura smiled, laughing to herself.

“You were truly a fool.”

[BGM: dream world]

Homura stepped off the corpse of Miki Sayaka, dispelling her uniform and returning to her school uniform as she walked towards Madoka.

Homura’s shoes made an echoing ‘clack’ on the concrete as she approached, but Madoka couldn’t move.

Homura’s soul gem had returned from her hand to the earring, which gleamed a brilliant, beautiful violet — but she couldn’t say a word.

Sayaka had been killed right before her eyes, but she couldn’t do anything.

Madoka could not remember a moment of feeling more worthless, more crushing despair, in her entire life.

Homura spoke suddenly, in a light and casual tone.

“Well, Madoka. You’re probably hungry, aren’t you… Shall we go somewhere? The restaurant you like is here, yes? We can go anywhere you want. I’ll treat you, Madoka.”

Madoka hung her head, saying nothing. Homura stopped just a foot or two before her. It was odd for Madoka to not reply to her, wasn’t it? She reached forward and boldly grabbed Madoka’s hand. (A boldness she'd only gained through having no one to challenge her.)

“Madoka—”

In the next moment, Homura was shoved hard in the shoulders, hard enough to throw her backwards. She caught herself and kept from falling over, but was still surprised — not a single thing in this world had managed that, so far. Blinking, Homura looked up and leveled her vision at the source.

It was Madoka — breathing hard, her arms outstretched and body braced. She was tense, Homura noticed faintly. Her bangs hung over her eyes, obscuring them completely. Homura was baffled. Had Madoka pushed her?… Despite herself, she felt a scrap of that timid, bespectacled weakling of a girl leak into her speech.

“M...Madoka?” Homura stepped closer — not within the clear space that Madoka had claimed, but just outside of it — and balked, hanging back. Madoka dropped her arms slowly, but still said nothing in response.

Homura shifted her gaze around the room, feeling herself getting concerned, nervous. Is Madoka alright?… Homura had put the business with Miki Sayaka behind her, but that inkling of insecurity followed her everywhere. From the very beginning. 

Homura’s relations with people had never been good, and her self-esteem suffered terribly… there was no shaking the feeling in the back of her mind that she was a nuisance to others, that she was unwanted and hated. She learned to not care about most everyone — with Mami and Sayaka (and in some timelines, Kyouko), their relations were repeatedly built on mutual dislike at the bare minimum, and outright hostility and hatred at their best. Being 'friends' with them... was an unfortunate waste of time and energy. But the one person who Homura couldn’t stand that from—

If Madoka were to hate me, I…

Feeling her stomach sink, and a needling anguish that would have previously turned her soul gem black — she reached out toward Madoka a second time. She had to, had to make sure everything was alright.

If it meant using her control of the world to push Madoka’s memories of Sayaka away… that was fine. Maybe it was better to make it as though Sayaka, or the others had never existed at all… Madoka didn’t need those useless, painful memories anymore. Homura hadn’t a single reservation about removing their existence.

They were only in the way.

Just touching her should be enough. She’ll forget, everything…

“Madoka…” Homura forced steel into her voice, but heard it waver, tremble, all the same. Feeling the power to warp time and space and memories well within her; feeling the embodiment of her soul glow a burning-hot, blinding purple as it surged with energy… Homura reached out and gently but firmly held Madoka’s shoulder.

“Let go of me.” Madoka spoke sharply, barely a second after Homura had touched her.

Homura stopped short. Madoka sounded cold, angry. I’ve never heard her speak like that… A part of her wished to heed Madoka’s wishes; but a larger, more dominant part challenged them. Homura held on to Madoka, still. 

“Madoka.” Homura spoke in a firm command. “Forget about Miki Sayaka. Forget about the others. You don’t need those memories any longer.”

That… should be enough. She shouldn’t remember them anymore… The menacing tone was a front; inside, Homura was a bundle of nerves. Her expression softened after a moment, nervous as she was. The dead silence from Madoka was killing her.

“Madoka?…”

Madoka lifted her head. Her eyes were a golden, pupil-less sheen. And tear-stained though they were, she looked truly and fully angry.

“I said to let go of me, Homura-chan.”

The room was suddenly stifled with an overwhelming pressure — worse than a hurricane, volcano or the depths of the ocean — the power of a god. Homura jolted back as though she had been burned, her face growing pale.

Madoka's transformation had already started.

Chapter Text

[BGM: another episode]

And with that touch, all around them, the universe unraveled like a spool of thread.

Homura looked around in alarm as for the second time, the stars and cosmos spilled before her. The warehouse and everything else around them melted away, leaving only a scene of an infinite universe in its stead. Homura’s soul gem was a screaming klaxon in her head, knowing that the world of its creation was being ripped apart at the seams.

“No, no…”

Homura's distress was shifted as she turned from the view of her world being destroyed, replaced — and instead toward Madoka.

The transformation happened in what felt like seconds.

The red ribbons were pulled from Madoka’s hair by an invisible force. The same hair immediately grew to an impossibly long length, past her feet and through the floor. (Which technically didn’t exist any more.)

From nothing, her school uniform was replaced with a spilling dress, through which an infinite expanse of stars gleamed. Two rose-colored wings, hardly there, were suspended from Madoka’s back.

Other details flashed through Homura’s vision, happening so quickly she could hardly keep track — a choker on Madoka’s neck; a pair of boots that skirted the hem of Madoka’s dress; a set of delicate white gloves covering Madoka’s equally-delicate hands; and that Madoka’s eyes were closed, still…

Finally, her hair was pulled again into two pure-white bows; replacing the ones Homura had placed there herself. (Some part of Homura felt a sting of bitterness, anger, rejection…)

Madoka opened her eyes, at last. They were a radiant, luminous amber; without a hint of her mortal pink color. Madoka pulled back, her hair and dress both billowing around her like a gale. With a look of firm, calm defiance and anger — from challenging the Incubator with a wish that would surpass entropy, breaking every rule if it meant saving Homura and her friends and everyone; to shooting down the witch of salvation that threatened to consume their world from her wish — she leveled her gaze at Homura.

She was a tempest. She was a firestorm. She made every natural force and emotion pale in comparison, covetous of the force she mercifully and selflessly wielded. The universe itself bowed and scraped at her feet, the infinite cosmos around them swirling and twisting at her beck and call.

She was everything to Homura. There were no words that could speak the breadth of her emotion or love for her.

In that moment, Madoka once more became a god. 

Unbeknownst to her, she also became Homura’s enemy in that same moment. They couldn’t rule the universe together, being diametrically opposed as it were.

If Madoka is a god, then I…

But Homura noticed; she could always tell, with Madoka. The telltale streaks of barely-dried tears on her cheeks; her puffy red eyes; the forced, rigid expression Madoka made when she was trying her utmost to keep her emotions in check. Part of Homura wanted to smile; Madoka was, after all, such a darling girl. 

Power to move stars and sanction miracles or not… She was also still human.

[BGM: you are here]

Homura’s heart raced, skipping along at a happy tempo. ‘Human’ meant controllable. Malleable. Breakable — if necessary to break a second time. Madoka had always been human, dearly so; but her show of goddess bravado almost had her fooled for a moment…

Homura’s eyes sunk, darkening to a cloudy purple. Her earring gleamed, hot and bright. The poisonous speech of a darkened soul gem, long since past a witch — whispered fervently at her, hissing promises of power and her desires in her ear…

That’s right.

She didn’t need Madoka like this.

“Hah…”

Homura laughed, wry and fiendish. Her flat frown cracked; twisting, becoming a warped and mocking smile. 

Madoka tried to keep her expression even and her emotions steady — that wasn’t the reaction she was hoping for, to say the least. Before she could say a word, a miasmic pressure hit her like a gale, threatening to throw her back. She managed to keep her footing, just barely. Ambient corrupt energy bled out from around Homura, seeping out like a toxic waste. It wasn’t a stolen power; it wasn’t one Madoka recognized at all. It was Homura’s own — the corrupted force of her demonic soul gem.

That very gem rattled angrily from its roost on Homura’s earring, gleaming and flashing violently.

Only as soon as Madoka’s transformation had completed, did Homura’s begin, responding in kind as though in a waltz. A dance for the power to control the moon and stars and worlds upon worlds. For ownership of her pretty dove, rattling the bars of her gilded cage…

Homura laughed softly to herself.

She had always wanted to dance with Madoka, after all. 

A burgundy ribbon wound into Homura’s hair. A dark shoulderless dress manifested around her body, its ripped and jagged edges rustling about the floor. Long, formal gloves of the same darkness were forged around her arms. Her solid black tights were replaced with ones of serrated diamonds. A choker, not unlike Madoka’s; the symbol engraved in her skin aside. A pair of wings, very unlike Madoka’s; jagged and wiry and ravenlike…

The finalé, Homura’s soul gem — warped and corrupted, took its crown-like shape; spinning before her slowly, almost as if with a mind of its own. Glowing with a dark and polluted violet, it flickered once before returning to its usual place on her earring.

Madoka held her breath and fought to keep her expression level. She was scared, but… she couldn’t trust Homura with seeing that, anymore…

Homura smiled, and Madoka couldn’t hide her distress. It was a disgusting bastardization, a jeering and poisonous counterfeit...

The Homura she knew didn’t smile like that.

“Ah, well... Miki Sayaka may have been a fool, but she does keep her promises.” Madoka tensed, her brow creasing in poorly-hidden anger at Sayaka’s name. Homura continued, tracing fingers along her jawline. “She said she’d never forget…”

With a pause, Homura lifted the skirt of her dress, bent her knee and bowed her head. A curtsey. The false, mocking obeisance only served to upset Madoka further, angry tears starting to sting at the corners of her eyes. Homura was making fun of her.

Homura breathed the rest of her speech, watching Madoka through a shroud of dark bangs. “That I was a devil.”

She ran her hair once more through lissome fingers, rustling the ribbon in her hair and the soul gem swaying, gleaming, from her ear.

“I hope you won’t be forgetting either,”

That goddess, that girl — was on the very brink of fury. Homura turned her head and smiled, pleasant as a spring breeze and cruel as a maelstrom.

“Madoka.”

[BGM: pulling my own weight]

The stars swirled around them, a dark patchwork of constellations.

A long silence stretched between them; it could have lasted an epoch, an era. They could have breathed through it all without so much as a blink.

“How could you…”

Madoka’s voice broke the silence. It thrummed with a wild and violent outrage.

“How could you do that to Sayaka-chan?! There couldn’t possibly… have been anything bad enough for… that…” Madoka felt her emotions riling within her, an ugly and uncontrollable storm. She tried very hard not to cry. “What you did to her, she… She never did anything wrong!”

“Ah, is that so?”  Homura smiled still, but sounded deeply bored. She extended her arm, her soul crown dancing freely along her fingertips. She closed her eyes. 

“I’m sure with your memories restored, that you know that isn’t true.”

Madoka felt a jolt — a pulse, as though something alive — rush through her.

…Memories?…

Madoka, as the Law of the Cycle — naturally possessed omnipresence through every universe; every moment, past and present and future; every aborted timeline. It hadn’t happened immediately after she was returned to the Law of the Cycle, to herself as a god; but Homura’s mere mention of it caused a rush of visions to hit her like a freight. All at once. 

Sayaka standing on the train, her soul gem blackened beyond recognition, eyes hollow as she tore two young men to pieces with dozens of summoned blades. She enjoyed it.

[BGM: I cursed myself]

Sayaka-chan...

Madoka suddenly felt very, very sick. Her head spun with timelines she didn’t immediately recognize, as well.

A Sayaka that took Kyouko’s repeated taunts to fight, and won; running her through the gut with a magical cutlass and shattering her soul gem to pieces. Sayaka had triumphed over evil that day.

A Sayaka that choked the life out of Hitomi and laughed, because what stood between her and Kyousuke now?

Dozens of witch-formed Sayaka, maiming and crushing and slaughtering her, Mami, Kyouko… (She hurt Homura, too, but she never died—)

Several Sayaka that — because of Kyousuke; because she was technically no longer ‘human’; or simply to keep her soul gem from cracking on its own — took attempts on her own life. (She tried with pills, and then stabbing, but her soul gem would just revive her, so she could only try again…)

Some memories weren’t implicitly hers, but as Sayaka had become part of the Law of the Cycle too, the visceral details were conveniently filled in.

Madoka wished they hadn’t. The unshakable stench of blood and death; the gut-wrenching despair that Sayaka felt… hurt her more than she thought imaginable.

Sayaka had hurt so much. 

(They all had. Mami, and Kyouko, and every magical girl who bore her very soul to fulfill an impossible wish, they…—)

Madoka’s voice came out a pitiful whimper. It was all she could do to keep tears from rolling freely down her face. 

“Sayaka-chan…”

She had barely a moment to process, to mourn the horrible fate (fates) of her friend, before—

“Perhaps Miki Sayaka wasn’t the good girl you thought she was.” Homura said, almost chiding. “Don’t you think so?”

Sayaka was a ‘good girl’, Madoka insisted hotly to herself. She was fair and righteous and even she wasn’t always right,  her heart was dedicated to saving everyone. (Even Homura, that once.) She gave her very soul to fight for that cause. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t…

Madoka held her head, gripping her temples hard between both hands, as though it would stem the tide of memories assailing her mind. (It wouldn’t. It didn’t.) Her mouth was pulled into a taut grimace as she stifled a sob and choked back her tears. She couldn’t cry in front of Homura.

“I didn’t want this… I never…”

Homura simply looked at her. 

“Why?… Why did you keep repeating it?…” Her words came out a tangled, disorderly whimper. “Mami-san, Kyouko-chan, Sayaka-chan…. They all… suffered so much, over and over… too many times…”

Madoka remembered her wish; its purpose, its result. It had been for the greater good, in the end, that Homura had repeated so many times. The Law of Cycles would not have existed without her; there would be no salvation for the despair of magical girls. Their suffering would have been for nothing, with no deliverance at the end of the line.

But now, it was gone, anyway, so what did it matter. Madoka’s heart writhed with self-hatred, self-pity.

“If only… you’d let me die then… the time with Walpurgisnacht, the first time… If you’d just let me go, Homura-chan… they would have never had to…”

Madoka fell silent, shaking like a pitiful animal. Despite her best efforts, tears slipped past her chin and to the floor.

Homura noticed. She paused — before sighing theatrically. Her histrionics failed to match the total lack of emotion on her face.

“Aah, Madoka… I thought I’d made my feelings clear to you. You really don’t understand?”

Madoka kept her head down, crying still, and didn’t reply. Homura smiled, leering and wicked.

“I love you, Madoka.”

[BGM: I was waiting for this moment]

 Madoka didn’t have time to react to this explicit profession. In barely a second, ribbons (like Mami’s) in a bright burgundy sprung up from nothing and wound themselves tightly around her. 

Caught off-guard, Madoka found herself yelping in alarm as the ribbons looped and constricted — seizing around her arms, wrists, legs, stomach and neck — immediately tight to the point of making it difficult to breathe. The ribbons pulled her upward, off the floor, ankles and wrists pinned together. She struggled, thrashed, attempted to summon some form of magic to dispel them, anything; but they only tightened further, a vise around her neck and torso. Madoka cried in pain, and started to choke.

Despite the growing part of her that just wanted everything to be over, (she hated herself, she was a worthless spineless little coward and everything was her fault) the adrenaline in her veins and her oxygen-deprived lungs screamed for Madoka to do whatever it took not to die.

She held out a spare moment more; even though every second felt like an eternity. Goddess or not, every body has its limitations… And though Madoka didn’t need to breathe before… the person governing the laws of their universe hung just a few feet away from her. Watching. Homura could probably even keep her from passing out, if she wanted, and just keep her in a breathless limbo like this…

H-…Homura-chan…

There was no way she could win.

Unwilling as she was, Madoka stopped struggling. Banished the thoughts of summoning her holy bow and ripping those ribbons to pieces. The ribbons (or their maker) responded immediately, loosening and cutting enough slack around her throat and chest to allow Madoka to breathe. She took in deep gulps of air, coughing and sputtering.

[BGM: this is the truth]

Madoka would have been like that for some time, if she hadn’t been interrupted by Homura’s soft laughter. Despite herself — there was no part of her that wanted to look Homura in the eye — she snapped her head up toward her. She was close, standing barely half a meter away.

“Ahh, Madoka. It doesn’t matter the situation, does it?” Homura smiled, rapturous, her willowy fingers framing her own face. “You’re beautiful, Madoka.”

Madoka’s reaction was somewhere between her eyes going wide with embarrassment and complete anguish.

It was too sincere, too honest, she meant that  — and there were too many timelines and moments where Madoka would have wanted dearly to hear those words but not now, not like this—

Before she could catch herself, Madoka snapped a reply, her throat raw with anger and rasping breath. “Shut up.”

“Don’t be that way,” Homura laughed, her voice lilting and almost pleasant. She reached up — not far; Madoka wasn’t suspended by the ribbons to be much taller than Homura herself — and lightly, gently cupped Madoka’s cheek.

Madoka recoiled, immediately; tried to look away; only to meet more resistance from those god-forsaken ribbons keeping her in place. Her stomach roiled with fury and disgust. 

She settled for refusing to meet Homura’s gaze. It was difficult with Homura’s long fingers ghosting along her jawline. She felt her heart start to hammer in her chest and hated herself for it.

“It’s just the two of us here, Madoka. We’re the only ones in the world. There’s no one else to disturb, or hurt us, anymore…”

You’re lying, you hypocrite… you’re hurting me right now, Homura-chan…

Madoka bit back her bitter accusations and said nothing, but she couldn’t not look Homura in the eye anymore. She wanted to badly for there to be a hint of remorse, of regret or anything redeemable in that deep violet abyss. She had to know.

But there was nothing. Homura’s eyes were as beautiful as they were in every other world and every other time, Madoka noted sadly— but the absence of the velvet behind the steel, the innate caring she felt that made her Homura, it… only existed in broken and twisted fragments.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, it…

Homura turned her hand just so to drag the back of her shaped nails lightly, gently across Madoka’s neck; trailing over her choker and the overlapping red ribbons.

It took all of Madoka’s willpower to stifle a sudden squeal or whimper. She let it out as a long, shaky huff instead. Homura chuckled softly, knowingly. 

Homura got very close. Too close; she could feel her breath grazing her ear. Madoka’s head spun dizzily with memories, of timelines and universes past. Of tentatively holding hands; first kisses (and last, with the storm of Walpurgisnacht crashing around them); and…

Madoka flushed and turned away. Homura only took that opportunity to draw closer, to her dismay.

Her lips nearly grazed Madoka’s left ear; she could feel the curve of Homura’s smile, she thought. She probably knows what I’m thinking. Madoka’s heart drummed deafeningly in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut, mortified by everything.

She wanted to forget. She hated herself. She hated that her friends were dead and she remembered, felt every single time. She hated what Homura had become. (She didn’t want to; she hated that, too.) She hated everything. She felt like if the universe were still beneath her thumb, she may wish it away in an instant.

At least then she wouldn’t have to feel anything anymore.

“Madoka, you know…”

Homura exhaled, slow and heated, in her ear. Her arms had left Madoka’s jaw and snaked up to join their hands, instead. Madoka tensed and squirmed and couldn’t breathe.

Homura spoke to her in a soft, soft whisper.

“I feel like I’ve been wanting to spend time with you like this,” She used a voice that was hers, yet not. Madoka’s eyes widened, realizing it was the voice of Homura from timelines past, the Homura from before all of this—

“—forever and ever.”

[BGM: dream world]

Madoka threw herself backwards — away from Homura, out of her binds. The ribbons broke in an instant, shattering like glass; shining and gleaming and reflecting the universe around them. Whether Madoka was released by Homura herself or her own exertion of power, she was unsure; and she didn’t particularly care for the details. Homura didn’t chase her, allowing her the meager distance between them. Madoka took the chance to breathe.

Madoka hung her head, holding the back of her hand over her lips. Her heart trembled like it threatened to break in two.

“Don’t do that.” She spoke quietly, pleading; almost like she expected Homura to listen. “Don’t use her…— voice like that, don’t…”

Homura just smiled.

“Madoka.” 

Spoke the Homura of the very first timelines. Nervous, unsure, earnest; and Homura called her Kaname-san, back then (except that time she was dying, and she asked, begged not to become a witch—); but it still had the intended effect. Madoka turned away sharply, her voice choked with fresh tears.

“Don’t—”

“Madoka.”

Timelines five through… an indefinite number. Sharp as a knife, but soft only to her. She remembered them all. She loved every one. (Even if while she was there, it was just a crush, a fixation on the cool, mysterious transfer student…)

“Homura, please!” Madoka cried. She forgot the honorific, the back of her mind informed her plainly. It didn’t matter anymore. Madoka’s mind was a haze of memories. 

The Homura of the present stepped forward, bridging the gap between them in an instant. She’d returned to her school uniform, Madoka’s peripheral vision registered.

She took Madoka’s limp and trembling hand in her own, curled her fingers around it possessively; Homura’s spare hand drifted lazily to Madoka’s back. Eyes low, she watched Madoka as she spoke once more.

“Madoka.” 

It was the girl with red ribbons in her hair and a black bow at her side; still as a corpse on the altar, fighting for and dreaming of a happier world for all of them…

“Please stop it.” She wanted to sound strong, but it came out as begging, instead. “Homura-chan…”

Homura led her in a dance, slowly. It wasn't a particular one; though it resembled a waltz, Homura might have known. She never took lessons or preoccupied herself with the concept. (Why bother, if she couldn't learn with her desired partner?)

Madoka followed, in a daze, not knowing entirely why. They turned and turned, an ever-moving and rhythmic cycle of steps. 

Homura was silent, for a moment. Perhaps another small mercy of hers, to not torment her with who she used to be.

Even with Homura desperately close — if Madoka were just a bit taller, eye contact would be inevitable — Madoka wouldn’t face her. She dropped her head, nearly pressing it to the crook of Homura’s neck. The trancelike jumble of memories of Homura may have seized her mind, but she was numb to her emotions. Maybe that’s good, she thought. They only ever made things worse for her.

Madoka focused her glazed and empty eyes — shifting somewhere on the border of gold and pink — on nothing at all. She thought about the Homura from before. 

I could have saved her; saved her forever.  If only she hadn’t— if she hadn’t… ……………

They whirled and glided across an nonexistent floor, a tapestry of black flecked with stars beneath their feet. 

Madoka struggled to think clearly; her memories and her sense of self became a muddy and confusing mess. It almost felt like the longer they danced, the more blurry and indistinct things became within herself. (How silly.)

What did Homura…chan… do again?… I can’t remember…

Homura’s expression was utterly blank. She didn’t look at Madoka; she didn’t need to.

Delicate scarlet flowers rustled under soft footfalls and slowly sweeping turns. The sprawling red mingled with pink, delicate petals; they were beautiful, but crushed and broken in an instant. Homura stared into the distance.

A dance of hypnosis, and possession and control, and dethroning of power…

Around and around… 

Through the haze and unfeeling, Madoka’s mind rang through to her, clear as a bell. 

I could have saved her… if she hadn’t stolen it. Ripped out a piece of me, like it was hers to take.

Madoka loved her. She loved that selfish, cowardly, foolish girl. Looking back, she probably always had… and she did, even now. Everything hurt for Madoka at the moment, but loving Homura hurt her worst of all.

But Madoka was not a thing to be broken apart and used. 

Madoka slowed to a stop, her dress swirling about her ankles from the sudden lack of motion. Homura stopped shortly after, gaze trailing after her carefully.

“Homura….chan…” 

Madoka sounded as she looked — half-asleep, dazed. Her eyes nearly matched her hair, again. Homura allowed a smile to edge onto her features. It suits her better this way.

Yes; it's better for sleeping gods to remain asleep.

“Madoka…!” Homura’s response was bordering on gleeful. She didn’t bother hiding behind the voices or semblances of her past selves; she was confident enough that it worked. She controlled the world itself; even for Madoka, memories could be her plaything if she put a little effort into it… Homura pulled out of the waltz’s position, shifting her hands to close around Madoka’s shoulders, instead.

Now, let’s go. We’ll always be together from now on…

“Stay here forever, Madoka, won’t you?” Homura pressed ardently. It was not particularly a question. (At least, not one that she expected anything less than “of course”, to.) She felt like she was on top of the world. She had won. Madoka was hers, and just so; without the nuisance of others or the threat of her power returning.

Yes, we will…

In her delight and desirous triumph, Homura let her guard down. The blindingly bright arrow that found itself embedded in her shoulder before she could blink — 

— proved that to be a mistake.

[BGM: one for all]

“Wh—”

Homura toppled to the floor from the force of the shot, crying out in shock more than anything. The arrow, a blindingly bright beam of light, tore into her flesh, searing away at bone and muscle. It hurt an amazing amount — but she didn’t particularly care. Homura's expression remained flat as she turned her gaze toward the only possible source for the attack.

A goddess stood tall before her. Her face was a cocktail of sadness, anger and resolve; enough to shoot this time, Homura noted duly. Her celestial bow stretched toward the infinite heavens; it had no physical string, but if it did, it would surely still quiver from the recently-fired shot. Madoka’s shooting hand still hung in position.

Her eyes gleamed gold, as if they'd never changed at all. Homura's spell had been broken, completely.

“Homura-chan…”

Another luminous arrow was pulled from nothing, notched in the bow. Homura raised her eyebrows just a touch. She’s going to shoot again?…

“Don’t tamper with… my precious memories…”

Homura’s eyes widened as Madoka drew the immaterial string of her bow taut. Behind her, the arrow exploded, overflowing with energy. Madoka looked terribly sad; but she didn’t waver or lower her bow. 

“…don’t try to break a part of me...”

Madoka raised her voice, quivering with emotion. Held the arrow, drew it tighter back. She was going to shoot it, any second now—

If Madoka would have such feelings towards me, enough to shoot me, try to kill me……

Homura grinned. Her voice hitched, tittering happily. She was beyond excited, beyond elated. Beyond the last shreds of clear thinking she had. 

…dying that way... there could be no greater pleasure!

Madoka’s voice raised to a fever pitch. She steeled herself. With her arrow's screaming din and ferocious explosion of light—

“—ever again!”

Madoka fired.

Chapter Text

[BGM: touch-and-go] 

She fired.

And Homura was happy.

 Madoka’s arrow screamed as it tore through space. With a magically-powered acceleration and very short distance to hit its mark… It would only be another second before—

The arrow streaked just past her, missing Homura by a hair’s breadth.

Homura glanced over her shoulder, resignedly watching it careen into the abyss; having nowhere to go, it eventually just took out a small star system. They simply evaporated and were gone; millions of years of existence, blown out like the flames of little candles. Collateral damage.

She turned again and surveyed Madoka, who was not at all like the previous time she’d fired. Madoka’s hand had been pulled just a touch to the right, just enough to throw her arrow off its original course. (She wasn’t a bad shot, she wouldn’t miss someone dead still and waiting who she was determined to shoot, but—) Her resolve had wavered, and Homura thought maybe her eyes kept flicking back, guilty, to the arrow still embedded in her shoulder...

Homura tilted her head to the side, her long hair spilling over her shoulders — and looked truly disappointed.

What a waste.

 “You missed, Madoka.” Homura sounded crestfallen. “Weren’t you going to shoot? After all of that.”

Madoka was quiet, and did not move. The rosy, immaterial flame of her celestial bow was the only movement between them. Homura smiled, her tone turning persuasive.

“You did it once already, why hesitate?”

Madoka looked somber, and conflicted as ever. She slowly lowered her bow.

“No… Of course I don’t, Homura-chan…” Madoka turned her head away, shutting her eyes. Homura watched the bow fall at her side, slack and useless.

She’ll deny me even that? How cruel, Madoka… 

Homura traced her fingers lazily to the arrow, seething and purifying with a blinding, painful light; she gripped hard and pulled it out in one stroke. The arrow’s light flickered like a dying streetlamp, fizzling out in her black-gloved hand. Skin and bone and muscle were healed and reknit to perfection in mere moments.

Homura’s smile slowly, slowly twisted into a very small smirk. 

But if you want to play around more, that’s fine—

Homura curled her hand loosely, thoughtfullly around the deadly weapon, and got to her feet. She turned away from Madoka; the girl seemed in a trance of her own inner conflict and morals, still.

“Perhaps your dear friends could convince you?” Homura’s light and sudden tone almost came as an offhand suggestion, as though suggesting something to eat. Madoka perked up, confused. 

“Eh?…” Madoka’s tone came across as very, very tired as she was. “What are you sayi—”

[BGM: Pugna Cum Maga]

Before she could press further, the muzzle of a magical, percussion-locked musket had been jammed nearly into her windpipe. Madoka’s eyes went wide. She didn’t whimper, almost. 

At the end of the gun’s barrel was someone that looked like Mami. Or perhaps, her shadow; it was almost her silhouette, almost a marionette in a shadow play. She smiled, wide and curved and unnatural, and not a single bit of it was the calm, kind mentor she knew.

you said… you would… stay… with me… ka—na—me—san?

It wasn’t exactly speech, and not quite a memory. It sounded like a nostalgic voice clouded by radio static, ringing through her mind. It dragged over the syllables like they were thick with tar, jumped along like they were hard to say.

A familiar, Madoka’s magical girl instincts reminded her clinically. It isn’t her. The detachment didn’t reach the rest of her and it certainly didn’t meet her eyes. They blurred quickly with unshed tears, more so as the voice kept talking, demanding. 

you... promised... if so, then why—

“Mami-san—” She sobbed feebly, because it hurt, hurt to see Mami again and to know she’d fought and suffered and died and she didn’t do a thing— 

w h y — did you  — LEAVE —— ME —— A L O N E?

It might have hurt less than the magical bullet that would have exploded in her jugular, had Madoka not moved with (literal) superhuman ability.

Madoka breathed hard from her vantage point of far away from the familiar, pressing a shaky hand to her throat; to make sure it was really in one piece, perhaps. (The bullet could have grazed her, maybe; or was it just sweat pressing her hair to her neck?) That was too close. She was out of practice, she was never a close-quarters fighter, she—

—didn’t have another moment to worry over it, before the tip of a spear was grazing her thigh. It didn’t cut deep, but certainly enough to sting, enough to have blood mar the pretty pink of her long boots. Madoka yelped in pain and jolted away, her wings keeping her suspended off the ground.

hey — y o u — aren’t you — called — a  G O D?

It was Kyouko, this time, the swaying strand of her ponytail black, not red, all of her black; her white and toothless mouth pulled in a grin she might have used on Sayaka, back when they used to fight. 

Madoka had been friends with Kyouko a number of times, but she had always been silently grateful to be one of the few to avoid explicitly being her enemy. Now she was not so fortunate. She’d almost take on that role if it meant avoiding the bitter accusations ringing in her mind.

w e r e n ’ t  you — supposed to — s a v e  m e?

The immediate barrage of aggressive, forceful lunges and jabs with no letting up were no different from her human counterpart. (Perhaps a little rougher, a little more cruel and bitter, the atheist in the foxhole who had been failed once already—)

Madoka could only dodge and parry, and just barely, her bow materializing between her fingers as soon as she called it. She couldn’t fire at such close range; or, she could, but Kyouko didn’t give her a breath to do so. The only thing she got from her were nipping, painful cuts and lashes from sections of chain at her arms, legs and stomach. Her bow remained pressed flat against her palms, useless for its intended purpose as she managed to counter occasional hits from the flexible, constantly-shifting spearhead.

“Kyouko-chan!—” She hazards between sharp gasps of breath and hard body blows.

The only response she gets is fury and blame in her mind.

y o u ‘ r e —— a —— L I A R

Her wings billowed out around her, arcing and expanding to almost triple in size. With one fierce beat, Madoka was thrown backwards, putting enough distance between her and Kyouko for her to actually breathe. 

Madoka floated for a moment; suspended from any kind of ground, just drifting above an endless pattern of stars and their galaxies. She breathed hard and haggard, her longbow curled against limp hands and a shaking chest. 

She couldn’t do this.

hey  — madoka

So many voices had haunted and tore into Madoka as of late, but she didn’t expect to hear this one; nor want to, in this context. Not with phantoms about. She clutched her bow tighter and wished it wasn’t real.

i thought — you would save me — but you really—

Homura wasn’t anywhere Madoka could see or perceive, but she begged her in the back of her mind not to have done this, please, not her…

Sayaka — her shadow, the familiar, it wasn’t her — pointed a sharp, curved cutlass at Madoka’s spine, right at the knot between her ribs. A twitch to the side and it could go through her heart, her lung. Madoka felt her heart drum at a sad and desperate tempo, and not entirely because of her potential end lingering behind any breath.

just — let — me  —  d i e    ——  D I D N ‘ T — Y O U ?

“I didn’t want th— I…” Madoka whimpers mostly to herself, at this point, and grasps at straws. “Sayaka-chan…”

The sword jabs in just a little tighter, grinds at her skin and the bone beneath it. Madoka can't help crying but can help herself from moving away; a tiny penance, for having just watched and been worthless.

They weren’t real, she knew. They were the familiars of a witch; just a vision of Homura’s. She didn’t have to answer them, or repent to them. They were dead. (Dead because of her, and because of her they’d never reach salvation—)

She knew that.

But Madoka breathes a heartbroken apology to the ghosts of her friends, anyway; through tears and sheepish, too-kind smiles.

Only when impossibly tight ribbons threaten to choke and crush her, swords and spears trace scars in her skin and guns attempt to blow her to pieces —

—does she create a barrier, just large enough for her to draw her bow, and points it at the sky— 

A circular grid, a magical pentagram, bloomed in the sky like an open flower; one arrow became thousands, and rained hellfire on everything beneath them. The familiars were torn to nothingness. Stars and galaxies around them were ripped and torn apart like mere paper. (Collateral damage, collateral…) 

[BGM: Incertus]

Madoka dropped to the ground with a muted tap, her wings granting her an easy and gentle landing. Despite that, she fell to her knees quickly after. Physically, she was in good order; despite the damage sustained from battling three familiars (if you can call it a ‘battle’), she’d been healed up quickly enough through her own magic. Emotionally, she was unwell.

She felt beyond tears; well, beyond crying. Tears slipped past hollow eyes all the same. She didn’t cry or sob out loud. She didn’t make a sound above the small crackle of her breathing.

“Are you ready to reconsider, perhaps?”

Homura stood before her, in the same position as she was before. As if they’d never moved, as if that had never happened. The only difference could have been that fewer stars shined in the sky; that perhaps the universe was a little dimmer, a little darker than before. Like a fire, slowly beginning to wane…

Madoka said nothing, at first.

“Why?” She asked eventually, and felt her fingers twitch, almost curl into a fist. Homura doesn’t respond, so she repeats; “Why did you do that?”

Madoka didn’t see, but the mocking, false smile fell from Homura’s face, for just a moment. 

Why, I wonder.

Homura traced at the curves of her soul gem in her hand, feels along the top of the crownlike structure.

Because I could. Because I rule this place, and you can’t take it back. Because I liked hurting you.

She lets the explanations rattle in her mind, lingers on them all to see if they’d gain purchase (especially the last, because it worries her the most); but none of them truly stick.

“Madoka,” She begins, and keeps her expression merely level. Akemi Homura has an excellent poker face. “Won’t you fight against me? Won’t you hurt me? After all I’ve done to you, it seems only natural.” 

Of course. It always came back to that.

That in the base of her being; the seat of her very soul, held gently in her hand; Homura’s love was for Madoka alone. For no one else, and… never, ever for Homura herself. That hatred ran too deep.

We’re too different, she and I.

To die with Madoka, without being forgiven or saved by her… (—because she didn’t deserve it, would never deserve it—) was the closest thing to peace Homura could hope to achieve.

She smiles as she turns back towards Madoka, but can’t quite force an edge into it and it comes out sincere instead— “Hey, Madoka—”

Kill me, won’t you?

Homura feels her stomach drop at the unexpected expression of selfless and abject worry and concern etched across Madoka’s entire face.

"Homura-chan..." And she nearly sounds like she's taken Homura's considerable sadness onto her own shoulders.

Homura can't take it. She can’t stop herself. Can't help the expression of distress, of thinly-veiled fear. Even if it’s just one step, Homura takes it backwards. Falling back, running away… 

That kindness has always been too much to bear.

Homura turns away sharply, hissing out something she prays comes across as a scoff. Hopes that Madoka will parse it as her not caring what she had to say, when really she couldn't have her see that she was absolutely terrified.

Madoka doesn’t say anything right away; perhaps out of consideration for Homura’s unease, perhaps to gather her thoughts.

“Homura-chan,” She says quietly, almost a whisper, and she is soft and gentle and almost cruelly kind. Homura can feel her heart in her stomach. “I won’t fight with you. I won’t hurt you. I promise."

Homura inhales but she still can't breathe.

“I don’t understand why… you would ask me to do that, or why you would do all these things.” Madoka folded her gloved hands in her lap, held one in the other and stared at them, considering. Weighing the scales of judgement, perhaps. 

“But I’m sure that…" Madoka is compassion and worry and sadness, and it hurts terribly. "if it’s at that point, you must be hurting very badly… Homura-chan…”

Something about that feeling filled Homura with a prickle of terror, worse than before.

That feeling of being accepted and understood and forgiven and cared for and loved, don’t forgive and forget so easily, Madoka—

No, no, no.

She deserved eternal torment, eternal curses. The depths of Hell itself. (She’d say ‘if it exists’, but she was unfortunate enough to know it did; Hell existed within her own mind, her own emotions. Though she no longer inhabited the body of a witch, those feelings haunted her all the same, they never left her, that self-hatred would never leave—)

no, no no no no no no—— 

She couldn’t let Madoka save her.

Her hands shook, like that little weakling in the braids. This was not going how she wanted, how she planned, at all… (Had it ever? Something about best-laid plans…)

Perhaps… it was time to change tactics, after all.

[BGM: she has a heart]

“Madoka…” Homura turned, facing her. She looked deeply worried. She knelt next to Madoka, pulled her hands into her own, and held them. Madoka was a little startled, but she watched her and waited, concerned.

“…Do you love me?” Homura asked, her tone fragile; she flinched quickly after, seemingly at her own words. “Because I… love you, Madoka. I’ll say it as many times as you want to hear it. And it seems like perhaps you… did, but… now, I’m not so sure…”

Homura trailed off, dropped her gaze. Madoka noticed Homura’s long, pale fingers shaking around her own. She was always afraid of any hint of rejection — much less with her heart on her sleeve like this. Past timelines aside, she was never really able to give her a straight answer. Madoka blinked, looked down with a sad sympathy and wished she could give her a simple, uncomplicated 'yes'. 

She hoped someday, they might have it so easy.

Madoka’s mind wandered, drifting away to some advice her mother had given her, around when she’d entered at her new school.

Now, Madoka… You’re at the age where boys — or… well, maybe girls, too; you never know! — will start wanting to date and kiss you and all that. You’re a cute girl, so it’ll happen— No, relax, I’m not giving you ‘the talk’... Sit your butt back over here.

What I want to tell you, is just that… if you do start hanging out with someone you like, going on dates with them or going steady, and they’re trying to make you do something you’re not comfortable with…  it’s okay to put your foot down. I know you have trouble saying no, dear; but if they really like you so much, they should listen when you do.

Second… Don't get too caught up in it. Just... being "in love", you know. Some of your friends might have already been dating, and it's all they talk about, yeah? To the point of ignoring their schoolwork or family or friendships... Honestly, everything can only go downhill from there. It's good to have romance in your life, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

…Oh kiddo, don’t cry. It’s only the first day; soon enough your shoe locker will be so flooded with love letters that you won’t even be able to fit your shoes in there. Chin up, hm? There’s a good girl! 

Madoka felt her voice catch in her throat, her mouth curving into a very tiny smile. For the first time in a very long time, she allowed herself a moment to miss her mother.

Homura was quiet, still, but watched and waited for a response nervously. Madoka sighed, sad and unsure.

“I care about you, very much, Homura-chan.” She looked at their hands, because it was easier than constantly gauging Homura’s reactions and attempting to regulate her own. “I don’t think… anyone else would do what you did for me.” She bit her lip, bit down any self-pity about how she should have been stronger or she didn’t deserve it or anything. She tried to leave only the most pressing, important feeling there. “So… thank you, Homura-chan. I can’t thank you enough for saving me, every time, like you did.”

“I don’t know… what to call how I feel about you…” Friendship? Admiration? Envy? Desire? Her heart wanted to pound out of her throat and her mind spun with questions she couldn’t answer. She pressed her gaze to the ground and felt her face grow hot. It wasn’t so simple as pinning a simple sound or concept to it. But—

I think I do love you, Homura-chan, she didn’t say out loud.

“But…” Madoka pulled in a breath. “…I love my family, too. I love my Mama, and Papa, and Tatsuya. They’re my family, and they’ll always be important to me.”

Madoka found her voice coming out in a shaky and anxious blur, but she didn’t stop. She smiled blearily. “I love each and every magical girl that I saved. Whether the wishes they made were selfish or not… they all suffered too much. It wasn’t right. And I’m happy I could save each of them.”

“And I…” Madoka shook horribly, her body and heart trembling with a storm of emotions she couldn’t weather. Anger, outrage, sadness, regret, despair—

“I love… our friends; Mami, and Kyouko, and Sayaka… They may have not had the chance to show it, but they liked you, too. Sayaka-chan, you know…” A brief flash of a weak smile. “When we found out you were in trouble, and I needed someone to go with me, she offered right away… ‘That Homura needs someone to look after her and understand her, don’t you think?—’ …she said.” Madoka laughed weakly. “I don’t think she even thought about me, right at first — Sayaka-chan. She wanted to help you.” 

Madoka pulled one hand free to rub her wrist to the tears rolling down her cheeks. Homura’s hand remained closed around her other hand, quiet and still. Madoka was far from that, and far from in the presence of mind to notice that Homura’s nervous tremor had entirely stopped.

“I… Homura-chan, what you did to them… that was not okay! That will never be okay with me!” Her voice spilled out angrier than she even meant it to. Madoka pulled her other hand free of Homura’s loose grasp, tugging it to her chest and dropping her head. They died, Homura killed them and she still didn't fully grasp why. It hurt. It felt like it would never stop hurting. She let the tears fall and didn’t try to stop them.

“I don’t know how I feel about you, Homura-chan. But I know… I can’t forgive you for that. I’m sorry…”

Madoka cried for a while, and she wasn’t interrupted. There was no begging (for forgiveness, or forgetfulness), or backlash from Homura; no taunting, no torment, like before. Homura tucked her hands quietly in her lap and didn’t say a word. 

Madoka peered at her, hand fumbling around her mouth nervously. Eventually, she timidly raised her voice in a question. 

“…Homura-chan?”

Homura didn’t reply. She stared flatly at her hands in her lap. Madoka’s eyes flicked around, nervous.

Did I go too far?… She’s probably angry at me…

Madoka reached out to lightly touch Homura’s arm — to get her attention, to ground her; to show Homura she didn’t hate her.

Despite everything… Madoka knew she’d never be able to hate Homura. Beyond her nature that others would describe as being relentlessly kind and forgiving; she did love her, after all.

It went without saying that Madoka did not expect Homura to grab her shoulder, brace hard against it, and drive Madoka’s own arrow through her stomach. 

“…Eh?…”

[BGM: facing the truth #1]

Homura withdrew the arrow just a moment later, but the damage was already done. It was the very same one Madoka had shot at her, but shining a brilliant purple as it flowed with a toxic, corrupted energy, instead. Homura’s expression was flat and uncaring.

Madoka stared at her, eyes wide, her face contorted in a grimace of confusion and hurt.

She didn’t get the chance to speak; it took just a moment for Madoka to sputter, coughing hard and painfully. Her knees buckled from under her, her long boots disappearing beneath a sea of fabric. One arm clamped hard around her abdomen, the other around her jaw in a desperate attempt to stem the intensely painful cough. Eventually, it petered out; when she pulled her hand away, the white of her glove was streaked with just a few specks of blood. Madoka stared in mortification and truly didn’t understand.

“Your arrows…” Homura pressed her fingers to her own shoulder, where Madoka had shot her before. “They’re much stronger than you give yourself credit for. They really aren’t meant to be shot at anything you don’t want destroyed completely.”

“With our power together,” Homura smiled, tilting her head. “…it really won’t leave anything left. It’ll be just a few minutes, most likely. I won’t let you suffer, Madoka.”

The screaming agony of every nerve and synapse in Madoka’s body told a very different story than the one Homura had just invented.

“I don’t… understand…” Madoka whimpered, flinching from the intense pain of the wound in her stomach. Much less anywhere else. “Homura-chan…—”

Homura wandered around her, stopped for a bit and simply looked at her, it seemed; Madoka was unable to raise her head and look her in the eye to confirm it. The intense and overwhelming pain of a traumatic abdominal wound kept her firmly on the ground. 

Before Madoka could react, Homura had swept her up and into an embrace, closing a hand around the small of her back (right below the wound she’d just caused). Madoka’s speech was a string of confused and pained sounds. She didn’t understand a thing Homura was saying or doing. She didn’t get it.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine, soon, Madoka.” Homura shushed. She smoothed Madoka’s hair out in slow, even strokes that may have been calming if not for what she’d just done. “It’ll be back to normal soon. You won’t remember any of these awful things. Alright?” 

“What are you… talking about?” Madoka managed. The pain was so intense she thought she may pass out any second. Homura kept talking, a little unevenly and uncoordinated this time. 

“Once the Law of Cycles is gone… it’ll leave space. For the first Madoka, the human Madoka—” A tiny, tiny spool of pink thread, closed in the cage of Homura’s soul gem. Or it had been; the human part of her had returned to the girl caged only in her arms, now. Homura thought for a moment and amended it.

“…well, you’ll take that part with you when you leave, but… I can recreate it from scratch. I remember, what you’re like, so…”

Homura’s speech had dwindled to tired mumbling, almost. She stared over Madoka’s shoulder with dark and hollow eyes and looked at nothing at all.

Madoka processed what she said, slowly. Once it's gone. Once she leaves. Recreating from scratch...

Her eyes shook with terror as she fully registered what Homura was saying. She wasn't just messing around with her, or tormenting her like she had before. She really meant to kill her.

She jumped, couldn't keep the strangled noise of fear from escaping as Homura spoke again, from over her shoulder.

“Goodbye for now, Madoka… I’ll see you the next time, like always…”

Madoka could only whimper, terrified and pleading. "Homura, please don't—"

Regretfully, her pleas fell on deaf ears. Homura was so quiet that only the soft lull of her breathing confirmed that she was even alive.

[BGM: i'll be with you]

Homura hardly had a grip on her at all, but Madoka still couldn’t get away. She struggled vainly, anyway.

no... no, no, it can't end like this—

It took only a few moments for her to fall tiredly against Homura's chest anyway, too exhausted to move. The very weight of death set upon her bones. She cried miserably and there was no stopping it.

Madoka stared at her shaking, lifeless hands on the floor — and thought that she was useless, to the very end. Some savior. Some goddess. She'd never even managed to be a good magical girl, really. Everything she tried got thrown back in her face, in the end...

Through blurry, fading vision, she noticed the tiny, bright glow of Homura's soul gem, making slow, counter-clockwise circles around them as it hovered in the air. Madoka lifted her head and stared at it.

Reaching her hand out and into it's path, she gently caught it. She half-expected it to try to get away, somehow... but it didn't, so she closed her fingers loosely around the crown and simply looked at it, blinking tiredly. It hummed and gleamed in her palm with an energy all its own.

Almost without thinking about it, almost half-heartedly — Madoka closed her fist tighter around the gem, gripping hard against the glass and metal that weren't really those materials at all. It was the container of Homura's soul itself. If anything happened to it...

She knew that.

Homura seemed to take notice despite her daze, and bristled slightly in Madoka's arms. (Or the other way around. She didn't know who was really holding who, anymore. It didn't really matter.)

"Madoka?" Homura asked. She still sounded sleepy and dazed — surely, working a spell to recreate an entire person would take it out of her — but it was laced with the undercurrent of pain that made Madoka want to stop that very second. "What are you... doing?..."

But she didn't stop.

Madoka forced a very shaky, very weak smile. Just a little while ago, she—

I won’t fight with you. I won’t hurt you. I promise.

"I'm sorry, Homura-chan." She smiled through her tears, regretful and apologetic. A tiny fissure in the smooth surface of the gem as she gripped it even harder. "I have to break my promise. I'm so sorry..."

She felt Homura try to turn and face her. Her voice hitched with obvious pain.

"Mado—"

Before Homura could say anything else, Madoka closed her hand tight around her soul gem, and broke it.

The shards fell from her violently shaking hands and into splintered pieces, where they crumbled and broke and disappeared. Homura's transformation was undone in a heartbeat, returning to her regular magical girl outfit. Madoka was already flinching, but when Homura went rigid as a corpse and fell heavy against her, she screwed her eyes shut and wished she was dead, already.

She felt like screaming, but it only came out as a strangled, agonized wail from behind grit teeth. (Like that time she'd asked Homura, told her that she didn't want to become a witch, so please—)

"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Homura. Oh, god..."

She was the worst. She'd just killed the person she claimed to love so very much. She didn't deserve to touch her. She didn't deserve a teary, sentimental goodbye.

Madoka couldn't look her in the eye, couldn't turn her (body) over and look at her face, so she just held Homura in a hug like that, weakly, and felt miserably wretched and guilty.

Whatever, at this point. If she was still breathing, she supposed she'd spare herself one final bit of disgusting self-indulgence.

"Homura-chan..." She mumbles. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... I didn't want things to turn out this way, ever..."

How did things go so wrong? Madoka wanted to ask, but Homura would never respond to her again. She whimpered and bit back bitter tears. Feels herself start to go weak — but not from her deed, this time; the blood loss was starting to hit her once again. She was nearly grateful for it.

You had to do it, a small voice in her head told her. If you were to let her kill you, what would happen to the Law of the Cycles, anyway? Don't you want to live?

Like she knew. Like it mattered. Now they were both going to die; the universe, the Law of Cycles would likely go with them. 

That voice in her head was rational and cold and reminded her too much of Kyubey. But it used her voice, all the same.

So Madoka hisses a quiet, pained "shut up"; and the voice listens.

"I'm sorry," She says, for the final time. "At... least... we can be together, in the end..."

It doesn't take longer than a moment, before—

"No, I..." 

Madoka truly didn't want to hear voices anymore, at this point. She's grown tired of illusions and nightmares and her mind playing tricks on her. Homura was dead.

Knowing that this should be true, Madoka did not expect Homura's arms to tighten hard around her, the hot tears on her shoulder, or Homura's sincere voice crying out that she's the one who should be sorry.

Chapter Text

Madoka nearly screams. 

“…Homura?!”

[BGM: clementia]

She scrambles, moving her arms from being clasped to Homura’s back to grab her arms, moving the girl a little roughly in front of her. Homura looks a little alarmed, looking at Madoka quizzically as she stares at her like she’s never seen her before.

Because Homura was alive. Impossibly.

“…W-what is it?” Homura stammers out, almost smiling nervously from under Madoka’s stare.

Madoka nearly wants to shake her for just asking ‘what’. Like she even had to ask.

“H-how? How are you alive?” Madoka clasps a hand over her mouth, confused and frenetic. “Your soul gem should have been s—“ She flinches. “…shattered. Completely, I’m sure of it…”

She should know; it did about the same to her heart to do it.

“I…” Homura blinked, slowly, threading her hand through her hair and to her ear, feeling for the familiar outline of her earring. It wasn’t there. She mumbled to herself, almost incoherent, about how strange it was, it was just there… when Madoka noticed.

Her soul gem, in its diamond shape on Homura’s right hand, just sitting there like it had never left.

“Homura-chan…” Madoka intoned, quietly taking Homura’s hand in her own and brushing her thumb over the smooth materials of the gem. (Homura might have jumped at that; she wasn’t sure.)

Looking closely, she could see that it was far from recovered, really. The gem itself was still clouded and dark and cracked, just as it was the day Homura had been closed in the isolation field — and the very day they escaped from it together, as well. (The day Madoka would have saved her, but now she might have another chance—)

It really… shouldn’t have been possible.

Crushing her soul gem should have killed her, obviously. But here it was, seemingly just reset to the point before it was changed, overloaded by Homura’s own will and closed in its crown shape. Like only that part had selectively been destroyed. Madoka mused on how that could even be possible, knowing she certainly didn’t do that.

(Not that there was any kind of precedent for it, and not that Madoka wouldn’t have tried if she knew she could, maybe she was thinking that somewhere deep down and it just happened, because hey, it was all magic to begin with, not even Kyubey knew or understood everything about them, and not that it was healed up completely, but—)

Madoka smiles, brushes her fingers across Homura’s and decides to simply accept it as a miracle of a benevolent god.

[BGM: Puella In Somnio] 

Homura’s hand suddenly twitched, jerking out of Madoka’s grasp quickly. Madoka blinked after her, too surprised to be hurt by the gesture at first. Homura met her gaze for a moment, but averted it sharply, looking upset.

“Homura—” She starts, but is cut off before she can say anything important.

“Don’t… talk to me, please.” Homura looks anywhere but right at her. That little sting of hurt catches up quickly. Madoka drops her gaze, tries to hold onto that disheartened smile for a moment before it slips away.

...Right. Of course there was no way she’d be forgiven.

How can you possibly apologize for killing someone? Especially to them, since they weren’t really supposed to be alive… (Not that she isn’t overjoyed, of course, but she didn’t expect for Homura to not be happy for that miracle, too—)

Oddly enough, even though her expectations didn’t hit on a mutual note, they were on the same page as far as guilt. Madoka looked up through her own tears at the sound of Homura’s barely-stifled, agonized sobs.

“I…” Homura was crying, shaking. She dug her fingernails into her palms and wailed.

“What I did to you, Madoka, you should… n…never talk to me again…” She forced that particular sentence out like it hurt her to even say. “I’m unforgivable. I’m the worst, most horrible person!…” Homura shook her head quickly and screwed her eyes shut. “Please don’t be kind toward me anymore…”

Madoka blinked, sinking downwards slightly.

So that’s it…

Madoka exhaled softly in a tiny sigh, feeling relief through her gut-wrenching sympathy. It hurt her terribly to see Homura like this, but she was reassured that it was something that she could simply forgive. She had been in the same exact boat, after all. Even though Homura was seemingly physically fine now, it wouldn’t stop Madoka from apologizing for what she did, but… for now, Homura needed comforting.

“It’s alright, Homura… I—” Madoka begins softly, but is only interrupted again.

This time, by Homura shoving her backwards and nearly to the ground.

With an inscrutable expression, Homura pins her hand hard against Madoka’s stomach, against the entry wound that she caused.

Madoka squawks in surprise (and embarrassment, honestly), and flinches out of reflex at the touch; but surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt. She doesn’t realize why until she looks down, and sees purple light, radiating out in a rune-covered circle — healing magic. Madoka jolts in panic at the realization. 

She can’t… If she spends any more magic trying to heal me, she’ll—

“Homura-chan!” Her hands were on Homura’s in an instant. Madoka clambers to sit up. “Don’t heal me?! Stop it!”

“Please stay quiet and still…” Homura says, her breathing shaky. Her brow was damp with sweat from the exertion, already. “I don’t have much magic left, and I have to make it count.”

Madoka grimaces, shooting a terrified glance at Homura’s soul gem through her own shaking fingers. The gem roiled with corruption, its surface webbing with cracks — it was nearly finished, nearly about to bow and break until it became a grief seed. For the second time.

Despite this, Homura didn’t stop. She would literally kill herself trying to fix her mistake. Madoka finds a trickle of anger through her dread. 

“You can’t—” She catches Homura’s wrist, wrenches it away from her. “—do that!”

As soon as she removes contact, the healing light goes out, and the pain of her injury returns with it — but somehow Madoka doesn’t quite care. She’s shouting, now, and much angrier than she meant to, perhaps holding Homura’s wrist a little too tightly — she couldn’t tell whether the flinch, the tears in her eyes were from pain, or her own distress. Homura looks not unlike a scolded child and talks in a feeble mumble.

“But, Madoka—”

“No! Listen to me, for once! Look…” Madoka’s voice was shaking. She fought to steady it. “…your soul gem is already at its limit to begin with. I don’t even know how you’re alive, and the next second you’re trying to do that… If you used too much magic like that, you…” She hesitates, holds her breath— “You would die, Homura.”

Homura had been looking away, seemingly guilty; but she snaps to attention at the last part. Staring Madoka down, she gives her a meaningful look. Eventually, she cannot hold Madoka’s gaze anymore, averting her eyes to the ground and looking wretchedly miserable and guilty.

[BGM: she has a heart] 

Madoka can’t seem to breathe.

“You’re not… you don’t actually want to…” She can’t finish that sentence.

Homura won’t look her in the eye.

Oh, no. 

Oh, Homura…

Madoka had known, she’d heard her when she became a witch, screaming ‘I have to die here’, but… Part of her thought (was it blind denial, or wishful thinking?) that was just her corrupted soul gem talking, not her truly hating herself, not her wanting to die like this—

It really hurts to see you suffering so much, and being unable to do anything about it…

Her mind was spinning, clicking things into place, connecting dots she wished didn’t need to be connected—

Is what why?…

It wasn’t an excuse, nothing would never excuse what had happened — Mami and Kyouko and Sayaka were still dead — but an explanation was more than Homura had ever given…

“Please let go of me.” Homura says, out of the blue. Madoka nearly jumps out of her skin. Homura didn’t sound quite as… fragile, as before. Perhaps a little angry, even…

She realized, slowly, that she was still holding Homura’s wrist — though not hard enough to hurt, she thought with a twinge of guilt — her fingers were only looped weakly around it. Homura could almost certainly pull her hand free on her own, if she wanted… But she wouldn’t, and Madoka was unsure why. Madoka bites her lip, tries to gauge how Homura was feeling by the look on her face. She just looked… upset.

But really, ‘upset’ couldn’t begin to cover it, right?

If it’s at this point, I’m sure, you must be hurting very badly, Homura-chan…

If only she’d known, if only she’d had a clue that it didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how unhappy she was— 

But… there wasn’t anything to be done about the past. She could cry and regret all her mistakes… and Homura would still be suffering, right before her.

Madoka was rarely anything you could call “stubborn”. That trait could be found in her other friends, to be sure, but with her it only tended to rear its head if her friends were in serious trouble. Honestly, it reared its head around Homura often. Like when she was fighting a losing, endless battle against Walpurgisnacht, or if she insisted on staying in her own labyrinth forever, or… if she wanted to kill herself, for instance. 

No matter how many timelines there had been, despite the change that would naturally happen when you become a god, despite everything that had transpired between them lately— Madoka was not, and would never be, one to stand idly by while her loved ones suffered.

So she holds firmly, gently onto Homura’s hand and simply tells her ‘no’.

[BGM: flame of despair]

To say Homura was in severe distress would be a small understatement.

“Please let go of me,” She says, and it’s everything she can do to force Homura the weakling out of her voice, and to try to let Homura the cold-blooded monster speak instead. Perhaps if she scared Madoka off, she’d stop being so nice to her, already.

As if she could be touched by Madoka now! After all she’d done! And to just lean on her comfort and kindness like she deserved it, like she was any other magical girl waiting at the end of their fight for the salvation of being with her—

—she’d never be worthy of her ever, she was just a stupid little failure of a child and—

i want to die — i have to — — — i can’t  — do — this

Homura felt herself being dragged, as though by a riptide, by the storm of her own emotions. 

She wanted to just withdraw within herself and never leave. She wanted to run away, she wanted back in that labyrinth she’d created; she wanted to run back into her ‘own time’, as Sayaka had mocked, she would if she still could — she hadn’t been able to stop time since taking Madoka’s power and she didn’t know why—

The haze of self-hatred starts throwing abuse.

i killed her friends and i killed so many others (and her) (over and over and OVER) and she forgave that the first time she remembered everything but

i hurt her again i hurt her so much  

—even without the ability to stop time, Homura felt like it had, for her—

—forget being trapped in a maze of an ever-looping month and a half, at least for that she had statistics and strategies and explosives (even if she never won) (ever); there wasn’t an easy-fix, “just blow it up” solution for a self-hatred that felt like it had always been there and would never, ever leave— 

she wouldn’t kill me for it  — she still didn’t kill me  — why won’t she do it, already?

She remembered the soul gem, in the back of her mind, that Madoka had crushed it in her palm — and that it had hurt for a second, but then it was like falling asleep, for just a minute—

—then she didn’t have it anymore, the earring whispering her familiars’ poison in her ear, telling her “it’s fine if you just make a new one!” “though our mistress is such a failure, she’ll probably mess this one up, too”—

And then she woke up. The Clara Dolls were gone, and her head was quiet.

All Homura was left with then, were her own feelings of guilt and self-hatred. She may as well have stayed in her witch’s labyrinth, to begin with. 

My emotions have come back to haunt me...

again

Maybe if she begged, or bargained, or reasoned with her,

(or intimidated and scared her like she’d scare her out of making a contract for her own good)

—Madoka would let Homura heal her, and then she could become a Witch, and then Madoka could kill her—

[BGM: her wings]

Through this haze, through her thoughts and feelings and self-hatred, Homura nearly thought she heard Madoka’s voice. Almost as though she was responding to her thoughts in that moment, she said—

“No.”

Homura freezes. For once, time does not freeze with her.

“…What?”

She turns, stares at Madoka. Realizes vaguely, as Madoka’s fingers curl around her own, that Madoka is still holding her hand out between them. Homura’s eyes go wide with shock (or fear) — but Madoka looks quite the opposite. She appears calm and resolute as the goddess she really was.

“I won’t let you go, Homura-chan.”

It clicks suddenly in her mind, Madoka was responding to her saying to let her go, which felt like an infinity ago—

In the moments it’s taking Homura to process what she’d just said, Madoka looks at her with an empathy and sadness that stings.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t realize.” Madoka says, softly, and even without the tears dusting her lashes, the expression of withheld regret; Homura would have known that was a true apology.

In a smooth motion, Madoka pushes her hand to her own wrist, slips off her long gloves — stained in blood, hers, and Homura wants to die all over again — and pulls both of Homura’s hands into her own. Homura flinches at the touch, nearly in tears right away. She fights back a gasp and screws her eyes shut. Madoka was too warm, too patient and kind and too much more than she would ever deserve—

Madoka’s voice is soft as a benediction.

“You’ve been unhappy for so long, but I swear — no matter how long it takes, no matter how many times I have to try…”

Homura is shaking, with a strangled whimper in the back of her throat. It’s just like the promise she had made to Madoka, too long ago—

Still holding Homura’s hands, Madoka pulls one free and raises it to gently caress her cheek. Homura’s eyes go wide as Madoka brushes a thumb against her tears, wiping them away.

Homura is barely keeping herself together. It’s all she’s ever wanted but she’s terrified; fighting against an impulse to run away or to scream and cry that she didn’t deserve a single bit of that kindness. It was a war within her between a self-hatred that ravaged her soul, and a love for the girl before her that fueled it. She barely chokes back a sob.

Madoka only smiles through her own scattered tears, loving and serene.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to save you, Homura.” 

That did it.

Homura sobs, hard — the kind of crying you only do when you’ve been holding back for a very, very long time. Madoka holds back as Homura begins to cry in earnest, giving her space while still maintaining her supportive contact. She squeezes Homura’s hand, gentle and encouraging.

“I can’t!” Homura cries, voice shaking through hiccoughing sobs. She tries to steady her breathing, which doesn’t really happen. “I… I can’t let you do that… You can’t save me, Madoka…”

Madoka asks, patiently: “Why not?”

Homura scoffs a little, sort of, but it’s more of a sob than anything, just astonishment that Madoka couldn’t see what was so apparent to her. Why not, she asks.

— is there any good in the devil? —

“I’m not a good person!” Homura nearly shouts, as though raising her voice will somehow get it through Madoka’s head. Madoka looks sad, and sympathetic — but not convinced that Homura should be dragged off to the gallows. 

Time to convince her, then.

Homura begins rattling off her very reasonable argument.

“I’ve killed — so many people that I don’t even remember them all anymore!” A lot of them were you.

—but she knew that already, the first time she got her memories back, and you were already forgiven once, why not again?—

“I hurt you, and killed your friends. Just to manipulate you.” Not our friends, it was a measured distance and aloofness bent on ignoring the fact that sometimes they had been her friends, too. 

—It had seemed like they had wanted to be her friend, the very last time; but maybe it was just the dreamlike state of the isolation field that made them like that. Even if Mami had never before made the face she did when she tried to shoot herself; even if Kyouko had never tried to chase her down because she was worried about her; and even though Sayaka would have never, ever come to save her, in a million years—

—Homura could debate the facts for ages, but it wouldn’t change the one where they were dead and she had been the one to put the bullet in each of them—

Homura notices, Madoka does look a bit faraway at the mention of her friends’ deaths. Maybe she can convince her, after all, so she presses on—

“I ripped out a part of you and trapped you, for my own selfish desires.”

—Even if everyone lived, that way, and Madoka had a chance at a normal life and to see her family again and she deserved it so much, but she still said she didn’t want that; “don’t”, she said, and Homura would never forget it—

—“Instead of being protected by her, I want to protect her”, right?…

How better to protect a god than dethroning them and becoming one yourself?—

“…and, I…” Homura tries very hard not to look at the wound on Madoka’s stomach or the red-stained gloves she’d abandoned; surely for Homura’s benefit more than her own. She doesn’t succeed. Her voice comes out a trailing, pathetic whimper.

“I tried to kill you. I would have. You’re, still…” She’s losing her composure. She cannot say the words ‘you’re dying’.“…because of me…”

Madoka has been silent all this time, and remains so now. Homura drops her head, wishing she had the shackles and guillotine to go with the guilt wracking her entire body.

“I’m selfish, and violent, and coldhearted, and evil…” 'Demon', Sayaka had said, and she was right. She'd embraced that title.

I’m everything you’re not.

—God is dead, and I killed Her.—

“I hate…” She barely chokes it out, out loud. “…myself…”

Homura reaches upward, closes her hand around Madoka’s wrist, still pressed gently to her jawline. She meant to push her away, but ends up only leaning further into her touch; clinging to Madoka’s wrist with trembling fingers and pressing her cheek into the warmth of her hand. Homura weeps.

She was miserable. She didn’t deserve it. But she couldn’t help it, either. She loved Madoka with every fiber of her body. It hurt to not touch her.

“I’m a monster.” Homura is choking back tears that won’t stop. She squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m—”

Madoka moves, suddenly, shifting forward from where they sat — she settles her hand against Homura’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Homura’s eyes aren’t open so she can’t see, but she knows that Madoka is close, suddenly — she feels the faint brush of her long, long hair against the crown of her own, nearly feels Madoka’s forehead brushing against hers. Somehow, that closeness only makes her cry harder.

Madoka strokes her cheek, holds her like she is a delicate treasure that was meant to be protected.

“It’s okay, Homura-chan.” And she says that with such conviction that Homura nearly believes her.

“You’re not a bad person at all.”

She wants to believe that too, but only finds herself lifting her head to stare at Madoka in shock and distress.

“You can't possibly mean that! You can’t just say it’s ‘okay’, and forgive me right off the bat!..."

“I’m not saying it lightly.” Madoka says. She strokes Homura’s cheek with her thumb as she speaks, somewhere between admonishment and reassurance.

“It’s true that the things you’ve done in the past have a weight to them that won’t simply go away. For Kyouko-chan, Mami-san, and Sayaka-chan…” Madoka pauses for a second with mention of her friends, but remains composed. “I cannot speak for them. In all honesty, you would have to hear their thoughts about it, yourself.”

Homura grimaces, looks down out of shame. “They wouldn’t… forgive me. And they can’t come back.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, about either of those.” Madoka says vaguely, a warm smile playing on her features.

“Wh… What are you saying?” Homura blanches. She’s unused to being on the other end of cryptic messages, much less from the straightforward Madoka.

“Homura-chan… Of course, you’d be able to meet them again, where all magical girls go in the end.”

Homura has a vague memory of the Christian concept of ‘Heaven’, the Buddhist nirvana… And her mind immediately starts spinning with thoughts of devils and demons and witches again—

Seeing that Homura was on the verge of another point-by-point debate of why she shouldn’t be allowed entry to heaven, Madoka holds a palm upward to silence her in a firm but benign gesture. Homura stops; halfway out of respect to the gesture, halfway out of shock that the timid Madoka would be so firm. Was she like this as a goddess all the time, she wondered? Not that she disliked it, really…

“I’m not saying that to force you into a decision, Homura.” Madoka speaks softly, moving her hand from Homura’s shoulder to her hair, fondly carding her fingers through its long, black tresses. Homura doesn’t move, out of fear that she’ll stop. “I’m just telling you… so that you’re aware that door is still open.”

“But, I…” Homura mumbles, still clearly wracked with guilt. Madoka looks at her with understanding. 

“You’re not the first to have hurt another magical girl like that. Though it will take time, things like that tend to be forgiven, up there. We all know we were in the same boat, in the end.”

Homura has a very vivid memory of Mami shooting out Kyouko’s soul gem, seconds before she turned on her as well, and if Madoka hadn’t— and Madoka seems to either remember it as well, or know her well enough to follow her line of thought.

Madoka presses a hand to Homura’s back, nearly pulling her into a hug, while still facing her directly. Homura is flustered quickly, her cheeks going pink, quietly stuttering over Madoka’s name — but she diligently hangs on Madoka’s every word all the same, as she continues to speak.

“It’ll be alright. Don’t fret over it for now.” Madoka says calmly, smiling as soft and kind as ever. “If you do decide to go, it’ll be something to deal with at that time. Right?”

Homura is still unsure, despite how very desperately she wants to believe her. Madoka smiles, eager to give her all the assurance she needed.

“Sayaka-chan, Mami-san, and Kyouko-chan, too… they all care about you, and wanted to be your friend. It might take some time, but I’m sure if you met them again… they would forgive you, Homura-chan.”

As unbelievable as it is to her, Homura gazes at her, and knows… there’s no way Madoka would ever mislead her, or lie to her. What Madoka said can only be the truth. Her goddess, her love. She makes a small noise of agreement and averts her eyes before she gets too overwhelmed.

She feels Madoka looking at her, perhaps catches a glance through her heavy bangs, and is nearly sure that she’s smiling.

“Homura-chan.” Madoka says softly, and she is gentleness incarnate when she says it. 

If Homura weren’t sitting down already, hearing Madoka call her like that would have certainly made her go weak in the knees. She looks up timidly.

Madoka pulls Homura’s hands into her own once more, and gives her a look of kindness and warmth that she couldn’t stand to pull away from.

“Our friends aside, the other things you said… I don’t want to ignore them, either.”

Homura feels a tiny needle of dread through the overwhelming happiness of that moment. She’d said (and done) a lot of things. Most of which were terrible. Homura’s hands begin to tremble; Madoka notices, pausing to stroke at Homura’s palms and the pads of her fingers in a soothing gesture. It helps. Madoka continues as she begins to speak again, slow and even. 

“I know that you did… take a part of my powers.” Homura flinches, is grateful for the mercy that she didn’t use the violent, accurate language of ripping her apart. Madoka watches her, continuing steadily in both her speech and the slow, attentive touches at Homura’s fingertips.

“I won’t try to brush any of the things you did under the rug, or ignore them. I know that something like… hating yourself like that, won’t go away easily, either.” Madoka seemed distant, almost as though she were disappointed in herself. Homura watches her with concern before Madoka speaks up once more.

“But at the same time, you need to know…”

Madoka gently leads Homura’s hands to her mouth, and presses a kiss to her pale, long fingers. Homura is too overwhelmed to give a proper reaction.

“I forgive you, Homura.” Madoka beams, but her face creases as she begins to cry, just as overwhelmed as the girl she held. “For everything that happened, I forgive you. I don’t want you to hate or curse yourself anymore. I know I can’t stop it, but…”

Homura cuts her off by tackling her in a hug, her chest heaving hard as she cries. They aren’t tears of agony or self-loathing, this time, but tears of relief. Madoka looks at the girl over her shoulder, proud and adoring, and hugs her back.

“Homura-chan… You don’t have to bear it all by yourself anymore, okay?”

Homura makes a small noise of agreement through her sobs.

“Madoka…”

Chapter Text

They sat like that for a little while; Madoka palming small circles in Homura’s back, Homura just breathing and holding Madoka. She felt like it had been so long for this to happen, and didn’t want to move or change a thing about it.

Homura is struck by a sudden thought, and breaks the comfortable silence.

“Would I…” Homura hesitates, wonders if it’s too selfish to ask. Asks anyway. “…be able to see you? In Heaven?”

Madoka pulls out of their embrace, blinking at her question. She seemed hopeful, almost on the brink of asking if that meant Homura was alright with going— but she decides to simply address the question.

“Well, not in Heaven, exactly, but… where the magical girls’ souls rest…” Madoka trails off and pauses, smiling fondly, but somehow it’s a little strained. “…Of course we’ll be able to see each other there. All the time, you know. I visit with Sayaka-chan and the other magical girls a lot, so…”

There was a gentle, rain-like pitter-patter of Madoka’s somewhat nervous laughter, and Homura couldn’t shake an odd feeling. Something about it, just—

“Madoka…” Homura’s voice is clipped, but not unkind. Madoka jumps, startled by her tone.

“…don’t lie.” Homura presses, her brow furrowed. “You don’t get to see anyone, do you?”

It was just a hunch, and part of Homura felt terrible for having the gall to accuse her of lying in such a way, but… at the same time, she had known and watched Madoka for quite a long time. She knew how she behaved when she was lying — and to that point, how she looked when she was caught in the act. The wide eyes and dismayed expression fit the bill. Homura felt her stomach twist and hoped she was wrong. Somehow.

“Watching over the fates of magical girls, you’re… completely alone… aren’t you?”

Madoka’s expression shifts, changing from distress to resignation. It felt like being kicked in the gut, to Homura — to see that face on the girl who believed in hope more than anyone. Madoka looks away from her and away from anything, and doesn’t say a word.

That all but confirmed it, didn’t it?

Homura finds herself crying, when she thought she had almost run out of tears over how unfair it was that Madoka — poor, sweet Madoka — had to be the one to bear up under such a heavy burden; but seeing her simply, quietly take on such a crushing fate… was too much. It was worse than the fate of a magical girl, Homura thought, because here… she was just all alone.

If she saves the souls of magical girls, who’s supposed to save Madoka?… And Homura cannot stop crying.

Madoka smiled, the thin and brittle smile of attempting to reassure another when you were still unsure  yourself.

“It can’t be helped, Homura-chan.” She says, resigned and placating. Her eyes are soft. “There was no one else for the task. It had to be me. I had to do it.”

“You didn’t, you—!” Homura’s voice hitches in a sob. “You told me — you told me you would never want to be without anyone else!”

“That…” Madoka turns and her eyes are faraway, sad. She remembers. “I didn’t remember, then. I didn’t know that I was… myself.” She makes a vague gesture at the spilling dress, the long hair. Herself as a God.

Homura knew that. When in the isolation field, Madoka was, just… herself, from before she’d made her final contract, regained the memories of every timeline, and become only a concept. And her being like that had been fine, for Homura. She’d abused that fact, using it to hear only what she wanted to. But all the same… 

She stares at Madoka with a piercing look; not to accuse or intimidate, but simply demanding the truth.

“It wasn’t wrong, though, was it?” Homura sucks in a breath. “Even when you were there, you were still you. Even if you were just underestimating that you could do it… You already had done it, but… I know you don’t want to be alone. Those… were still your true feelings, Madoka…”

Madoka is crying, with small, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. 

“What else… am I supposed to do?” Madoka blinks quickly, inhales and gasps shakily. “I… of course it’s…” A reluctant, quiet admittance. “…lonely… Of course I’ll miss my family, and my friends, and you—”

Homura pulled her into a hug, softly; just a gentle offering of a shoulder to cry on. Madoka looked stunned from beneath a shroud of tears and defeated misery.

“It’s alright. Even if it isn’t something that can be changed… It’s okay to say it’s unfair, or too much for you. You can complain about it to me, Madoka; I won’t mind.”

Madoka’s voice comes out in a trembling whimper. Homura being tender and understanding and warm was… too much for her to be on the receiving end of. She fights back tears, more than ever, and thinks to Homura in her space-time room, right after she had erased herself from existence… comforting her, and now she was being comforted over the same thing. Way to get knocked off her goddess’ pedestal, being battered around by mortal things like being lonely.

I said I was fine with it, that “everyone would always be with me”, I told her that…

Homura broke her concentration with a timid, but heartfelt offer. 

“Madoka… if it isn’t to presumptuous of me, I…” She fiddles nervously at one of the strands of Madoka’s amazingly long hair, takes a breath and continues.

“When it gets to be too much to handle, you can come to me, if you like.” Madoka jumps a little in her arms at the implication. Homura dips her head to Madoka’s shoulder. “Yes, I… I’ll go. If that’s what you want, then… that’s what I want, too. I just don’t want you to be lonely like that anymore.” 

“Homura-chan…” Madoka manages, and she’s touched and grateful and happy and a million other things.

She’ll be saved. Thank goodness…

“If you’ll consider coming to see me when you get too lonely, I’ll be okay with… even that.” With her sacrifice, with her martyrdom for the sake of magical girls. Homura hangs her head, and sounds deeply guilty. “I’m sorry I wasn’t alright with it before…” 

“No, you’re…” Madoka sobs, and can’t continue that line of thought. As if she could ever hold it against Homura for not wanting to be the only person on Earth that remembered her. For not wanting to feel crazy, or doubt herself, or hold onto those silly red ribbons, the only thing Madoka could leave her with save her scattered memories — and wonder if she’d even really meet Madoka at the end of her fight, at all…

She will meet me. She will see me. We can be together.

Madoka holds Homura tight, and tries not to cry, still. 

“It’s okay to cry, Madoka…” Homura offers, very softly. Like she underestimated the power of that kindness, or thought it didn’t exist within herself. Madoka can almost see the expression of content and sympathy and adoration on her face. 

When Madoka sobbed and wailed and screamed into her chest, she almost hoped she proved Homura’s doubts wrong a little bit.

They sat like that for a little while, as Madoka had a good cry. She felt like this had been waiting to happen for a long time, and now that it finally had, she didn’t want to move or change a thing about it.

“Thank you, Homura-chan…” Madoka sniffs, her voice still thick and strained from crying. “I think I… needed that. Thank you, really…”

After a long pause, Homura didn’t respond, and she wasn’t sure why.

“Homura-chan?…” She asks, reluctantly pulling out of their embrace. Or, she started to, before the full weight of Homura’s body tipped forward onto her. Madoka would have nearly been knocked over if she didn’t manage to catch them both.

“Wah— Homura-chan?! Hey? What’s the matter?” Homura didn’t respond, still.

Madoka pulls the girl off her shoulder with some difficulty — physical strength was never her strong suit — and finally gets a look at Homura’s face. Her eyes were shut, her entire body slack, she—

—was unconscious, Madoka realized. Though knowing the state of her body already, a tiny part of her mind wonders if she isn’t dead. Even that little thought is enough to make her near-hysteric.

“Homura-chan?! Hey! Hang in there!” Madoka is panicking, her voice shaking and body trembling. She gives Homura a gentle, but firm shake in an attempt to rouse her. It doesn’t work.

she can’t be dead, she can’t be, she can’t—

Madoka feels her eyesight blurring at the thought — but a small, rational part of her thinks to check Homura’s pulse, and the state of her soul gem. She clings to this and goes about it, diligent and determined.

Madoka had learned how to take someone’s pulse as part of being the nurse’s aide, thankfully. First, lying her on the ground — though Homura was far from heavy, she was still to heavy for the small-statured Madoka to continue holding her for long — Madoka attempted to remember what she’d learned, even though it felt amazingly far away at this point.

The carotid artery supplies blood to the head and brain…

Pressing her index and middle finger against Homura’s neck, she did indeed feel a pulse — though a bit weak, it seemed to be fine. Madoka shot glances at the soul gem on Homura’s hand, in between counting her heartbeats; it appeared to be in the same state it was when she woke up — still clouded and on the brink, but not ready yet. She would be fine, for now. 

“Homura-chan…” She murmurs, and the worry is palpable. She frowns, settles back on her knees at Homura’s side, and wrings her hands in her lap.

Homura was alive, just… not awake. And she didn’t know why.

It doesn’t take very long for Madoka’s anxiety in the dead silence to turn to nervous chatter.

“Homura-chan, you know…” She titters nervously, and it sounds off even to her ears. “You’re a hard sleeper, aren’t you?”

Of course, she doesn’t respond. And of course, she isn’t sleeping.

Madoka is met with a stinging memory of Homura asleep on the altar, trapped within the isolation field. Dreaming, dreaming, and wreathed in flowers left by Mami and Kyouko, cold and pale as ice, she very nearly looked dead, didn’t she—

Madoka laughs again — it isn’t funny, it’s a horrible memory, but it’s just to fill the air with noise, with something. 

“Homura-chan… I never, um…” She bites her lip, wringing her hands together. “There’s a lot of things I don’t know about you, actually. Like what your favorite food is, or your favorite color, or if you like cats or dogs, you know…”

Silly, light, meaningless. Don’t think about impending death, for either of them. Madoka’s stomach wrenched with pain, as though on cue. She fights through the pain, focusing on what she had to do, instead. See Homura wake up. Ask what her favorite food is, anyway. Save her eternal soul. 

“Or…” Madoka hesitates, and despite herself, her thoughts drift to the future they didn’t get a chance to have. She tries to force enthusiasm and cheer, but it just comes out sad.

“I wanted to do so much more with you, Homura-chan. You know?… We only… got to live through middle school… I wanted to study for our high school entrance exams together… Go out on dates, like n-normal girls, you know? Haha…”

Madoka finds herself crying, and that she can’t look at Homura’s face anymore without wanting to break down completely. She crumples her head to Homura’s chest, cradling her pale hand in her own. She rambles on, because it’s the only thing keeping her from just crying.

“And… college!… I never never found out what you wanted to study, or do for a career, Homura-chan. I guess I never asked!… Ha… I’m sorry, really, I’m such a…” She sucked in a shuddering breath and tried to laugh, light-hearted and cheerful. It only came out sounding around as miserable as she felt.

“Well, you’re… you’re so smart, Homura-chan, you could do whatever you wanted. Maybe you’d like to do something in the sciences? Statistics? Or medical work… You’re nicer than you… think you… are…”

Madoka was on the edge of a total breakdown. She felt her soundness of mind fraying. Homura was probably never going to wake up again and was just sitting her blabbing like an idiot.

But it was all she could do; and for once, that didn’t make her feel worthless.

Shaking and trying to steady her voice, she held onto Homura’s hand like it was the only thing keeping her alive. It most likely was.

“But you know, Homura-chan. One thing I wanted to do really, really badly…” 

Madoka deflected her gaze; despite everything, it was… still embarrassing to say. Much less the enormous self-indulgence of it, only saying it while Homura was unconscious like this.

Her thoughts drifted back (with more than a little embarrassment) to grade school career surveys… Madoka wanted to be an artist, or maybe a veterinarian, she’d confessed to her friends shyly. Though when Sayaka snatched the paper from her to get a look at her first choice, she didn’t hear the end of it from Sayaka for weeks. Technically she never did; Sayaka’s gentle teasing continued into junior high. (Though knowing about Kyouko and Sayaka, she wondered a little if it was less of a joke than she thought…) 

Madoka covered her mouth with her fingers, as though that would mitigate her embarrassment. Her voice came out a trailing murmur.

“I wanted to… well, get… m-…married… So I had hoped, maybe… you and I, Homura… could… maybe…” 

She trailed off, too mortified by herself to continue. There, she said it. Madoka pushed the heels of her palms into her eyes and groaned to herself. She was so embarrassing. She was being so silly.

She’s not going to… say anything back, I don’t know why I’m even saying this now… I don’t even know if Homura-chan would say yes ! I… ugh…

It’s too late for any of that, anyway… it’s… —

"I'm sorry." Madoka said, and she begins to cry as she does.

Madoka had been keeping her composure rather well, considering it really, really seemed like Homura was simply never going to wake up again. Maybe whatever stroke of luck had made her not die when her soul gem was crushed had just run out. That would be par for the course for them, wouldn't it.

"I'm so sorry, I should have never— What I did to you was so—" Wrong. Horrible. Stupid. If she hadn't broken her soul gem, maybe if she'd tried to talk to Homura more, (and say the right things, that time) none of that would have ever had to happen...

(She knew vaguely in the back of her mind, that Homura had been too far gone at that point. But that would never be an excuse.)

Mercifully, the painful silence was broken, and not by Madoka.

“Well, Madoka… Your dress could almost be a wedding dress, already…”

Homura’s sudden voice was lilting, amused, and Madoka jumps in alarm from her position of ‘draped over Homura’s stomach’.

Madoka lifted her head, timid and hesitant. She nearly prayed that her mind wasn’t just playing tricks on her desires.

It was really Homura. She lay down, still; but her eyes were open. She smiles, warm as could be.

“Don’t you think?”

 “Homura-chan! You’re alright, I—“

Madoka cried in relief, her smile matching Homura’s. That relief gave way fairly quickly as her mind fully registered what Homura had said. Wedding dress— “Eeh… You were— uh, listening the whole time?”

“Mm.” Homura agreed softly. “I liked listening to you, Madoka.”

Homura’s faraway, quietly happy look was one of the few things that kept Madoka from yelling something like “say you’re awake next time I’m rambling on like that, Homura-chan!”

“Oh, but Madoka…”

The dark-haired girl smiled so wide that it bordered on cheeky. Her face flushed, soft and joyous.

“You said you wanted to marry me; right, Madoka?”

Even at the end of the world, at the very end of their lives; there was no way she could avoid being overwhelmed (and embarrassed!) by such a direct and intimate question. From Homura, about her. Madoka nearly claps a hand over her mouth, suppressing a strangled whine of embarrassment.

Jeez, Homura-chan!…

Madoka mumbled a little, shy and uncertain.

“…y-…yeah. I’ve… always liked you, Homura-chan, so I just… wanted to say it… I guess—”

She was cut off as Homura hugged her, as hard as she could.

Madoka giggled, happy as she hugged Homura back. She noticed, though, as she closed her arms around Homura in turn — even ‘as hard as she could’ was only a fraction of Homura’s usual strength. She felt her frailty, the weakness in Homura’s muscles. The slow labor of her breath, the arrhythmic beat of her heart. It’s soon, now, that she’ll…

She clutched Homura’s back and held on. Tears welled uncontrollably in her eyes, a pained whimper escaping her throat. Not now, don’t cry—

Homura looked at Madoka fondly, sympathetic. She stroked Madoka’s hair and her back, trembling hard with repressed sobs. Her voice a gentle string of soothing noises and “it’s okay; it’s okay to cry, Madoka”.  

“It’ll be alright, Madoka. Even if we’re apart…” She didn’t want to reference her own impending death directly, but she felt Madoka’s breath hitch in her gut, all the same. Homura closed her eyes. “I’ll always love you. Madoka.”

Madoka’s crying almost stilled, though tears still rolled down her cheeks and her breathing still came in uneven gasps.

“Me too,” Madoka smiled and couldn’t stop her tears. “I love you too, Homura-chan.”

Though they couldn’t see each other’s faces from their position, the mutual sense of relief and happiness over those words — having finally heard, said them; washed over the pair.

Homura smiled, joyful and content.

“Mm.” She agreed quietly. Homura smiled.

“Madoka.”

After a few moments of sitting like that, Homura withdrew from their embrace. Madoka, suddenly self-conscious, rubbed her tears away best she could. When she looked up again, Homura was dispelling her magical girl outfit, returning to her school uniform. Her soul gem became a small glint of light before returning to its original place on Homura’s ring finger. It felt like forever since Madoka had seen it there.

“Um… Homura-chan?” Madoka was thrown off by the sudden change of pace. “What are you doing?”

Homura smiled, removing her ring in the same stroke. The gem itself, the container of her spirit, flickered almost happily between her thumb and forefinger.

“Well it… wouldn’t be much of a ceremony,” Homura admitted ruefully, a sheepish half-grin playing along her features. “And this is the only ring I have to give you, Madoka…”

Madoka’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t possibly—

“But if you’d like to, I mean… uh, with me…” Homura lost a bit of steam, scratching her face nervously.

“W—wait. I—I’m happy, but…” Madoka presses a hand against her mouth, to suppress what was either an elated or nervous noise. “I meant in the future, like… l-later—”

Homura looked absolutely mortified. Crestfallen, she makes a small noise of acceptance, and starts to slip the ring back on her own finger. Madoka felt like she had kicked a particularly loving and eager puppy. She scrambles to fix it, talking rather loudly.

“Ah, no, um— I mean, you know! Homura-chan…” She grabs Homura’s hands, causing her to jump and nearly yelp.

“Why don’t we… promise to — later on, you know? Like as adults.” Madoka offers.

It’s not a lie, the feeling isn’t a lie — but she dearly hopes Homura will just run with it and glaze over the fact that she has a mortal injury, still. Of course they’ll be adults, later. 

“Adults?” Homura echoes. She frowns and Madoka hopes she hasn't connected the very obvious dot.

Of course.

“Well, we’re only… fourteen.” Madoka points out.

Fourteen-ish. Homura was technically in her early twenties, after a good hundred repeats of April and May. Madoka had technically traveled through enough time and space to the point of linear time being a very vague concept to her, anymore. But she clung to those little things, because it made her feel more like a person and less like a goddess-concept… thing.

So, they were fourteen. And she had a feeling her Mama and Papa might not object to her bringing an especially-devoted, tall, dark and gorgeous girl home — but she knew they’d take issue with Madoka eloping at her age. In space, no less.

Homura blinks, innocent and nervous, and she certainly looks fourteen. There were times when she really didn’t; but thankfully now was not one of them.

“You’re right.” She agrees.

It looks like she’d run with it, after all.

“Mm, I mean… It’s a little silly.” Madoka giggles to herself, sheepish. She pushes her hair behind her ear, using her free hand to turn Homura’s hand over, gently. Homura opens her hand, reflexively, to reveal the ring once again.

“But, I don’t know. It could be like… if we still like each other at whatever age,” Madoka chuckles in embarrassment, making a vague motion with her hand. “…we could do that.”

Homura smiles at her outright evasion, teasing. “‘Do that’?”  

“Urk…” Madoka doesn’t get to avoid embarrassment, it seems. “Get m-…married… yes. That.”

Homura giggles, seeming particularly tickled, or perhaps happy. Madoka can’t help but smile, too; she doesn’t know when she last saw Homura laugh like that, if ever.

“Well then.” Homura said.

And a second later, she’s kneeling at Madoka’s side, all semblance of cheekiness and jest gone as she does indeed, gently take her hand. Madoka is flustered beyond capacity, and speechless save for the small, awkward noises she was making.

“Well, Madoka?” Homura asks, beaming as she giggles joyfully. “Could I interest you in what may be the longest engagement in history?”

“Oh, H-…Homura-chan.” Madoka is crying, already. She grins and wipes her tears away. “Do it properly, won’t you.”

“Of course, Madoka.” Homura tilts her head and smiles, obliging as though she’d meant to from the start.

“Madoka,” And Homura says her name like a prayer in itself. “I love you more than anyone. You’ve already made me the happiest person on Earth by letting me be by your side. If you would let me be with you again, whether as your partner or anything else…” 

“I swear to you that I’ll make you happier than even me, Madoka.”

And Madoka wonders a little how she plans to make good on that promise, because if the overjoyed tears in her eyes or expression of outright adoration and bliss were any indication… there was no fighting Homura for that title.

Madoka catches her breath, not trying to stop the tears of joy rolling down her cheeks. But she knew, even now — she’d give Homura a run for her money, all the same.

“I love you too, Homura.” And Madoka is glad that she can finally, simply, say that.

Homura looks surprised, at that. And that tiny bit of initial surprise may never go away, all wide eyes and eyebrows peaked; no matter how much it breaks Madoka’s heart that the fact that it seemed an astonishment to Homura that she could be loved and cared for… But that surprise was replaced in the next second by the deepest gratitude and contentment and adoration for her, that… there was no way Madoka wouldn’t sit through a thousand heartbreaks just for that smile.

And when she thought about it, maybe they already had. Perhaps this was the equivalent happiness at the end of their curses and sadness. 

Madoka pulls Homura to her feet — she wasn’t going to have her hang around on the floor, anyway. She gazes up at the taller girl, flushed and beaming.

Madoka offers her hand, and Homura takes it.

“Madoka…”

Homura slipped her soul gem’s ring over Madoka’s finger — the figurative and literal embodiment of her heart and soul. Homura slid it into place gently.

The ring fit perfectly. Even though it had been fit for the middle finger, not the ring finger, and Homura’s were longer, anyway — Madoka quieted her busy thoughts, supposing it was magic, more than… some vague destiny. They both gazed at it, the ring resting happily between Madoka’s fingers. 

Homura smiled, warm as the sun, and almost giggled cheerfully to herself. She looked like she’d never been happier in her life; in hundreds of repeated timelines, in every universe.

“Now we’ll always be together.” Homura said, beaming at her.

“Right? Madoka?”

Madoka’s heart swelled; she was too overwhelmed. All this was too much, she…

And right away, Madoka was crying again, nearly knocking Homura over in an embrace. Homura caught her, unsteadily, but managed to hold them both securely. On an emotional high, cradling Homura’s neck and back; Madoka was pressing kisses to her crown, her forehead, her cheeks and nose and—

—taking a moment, meeting Homura’s surprised eyes —

She cupped that girl’s cheek and finally, finally kissed her.

Any cool that Homura may have had was immediately forfeit with that kiss. Her face was as red as the ribbons she used to wear. Madoka is flustered, herself, but not quite as much. She giggles, somewhere between playful and delighted. 

“Homura-chan?” She says teasingly, and Homura looks at her like she’s never seen her before. “Your face is red.”

“…Yes.” Homura answers slowly. She blinks. “Do you think we could… sit down… I think I need to sit down.”

If she passes out from me kissing her— and Homura looked a little bit like she would, so Madoka agrees quickly and pulls them both to the ground. Madoka looks on, concerned.

“Are you okay?…” Madoka asks. She almost wants to give her a cup of hot cocoa and wrap her in a blanket, or something.

“I’m fine. I’m just… very overwhelmed.” Homura answers. She looks it.

Madoka frowns, sinking visibly in embarrassment. “Was it that bad…”

It takes Homura a moment to process that sentence, but when she does she jumps eagerly to Madoka’s defense.

“Bad— No! Not at all, Madoka! That’s not why!” Homura is so adamant and eager that some people would take it as evidence of overcompensating for a lie, but Madoka couldn’t help but think Homura wouldn’t lie about this sort of thing.

“O-okay.” Madoka agrees. “What’s the matter, then?”

“I…” Homura hesitates, looking away in embarrassment. “It had just been… something I’d been hoping for… for a long, long time.”

Madoka takes the point-blank compliment, somehow rationalizing through her embarrassment. “We have kissed before, though. In other timelines.” She reminds Homura, gently.

Homura somehow looks doubly pleased that Madoka remembers, grinning through her blush. “I know.” She folds her hands in her lap, maybe running her fingers over where her soul gem ring used to rest. 

“And even though you remember them now, they were all erased, so… for me, the next time, you would never remember. I had to pretend it didn’t happen, in the next loop. Anything that happened, between us.”

Homura looked sad, to say the least, and Madoka was about to jump to reassure her, before she spoke again.

“But, that…” Homura smiles, giggling nervously. “This time, it was a little bit like — kissing the real you, maybe?”

“Homura-chan,” Madoka hisses, grabbing Homura’s hand and burying her head in her knees. She was red up to her ears. “I’m so embarrassed. You have no idea…”  

Homura chuckles, not unkindly. “Sorry, Madoka.”

Madoka was about to reply to her, but holding Homura’s hand like that, she felt a sudden change. Perhaps it was her blood pressure, or a change in her temperature — or, for Madoka, an innate sense of what was going on with her soul gem. Especially so with it on her. Stomach sinking, she peeks at the soul gem, first, and prays that she’s wrong.

She isn’t so lucky.

The ring on her finger is a raging storm within the stone. It was too far gone; there was no going back. Madoka finds a sob hitting her in the gut, and it’s a horrible, horrible whiplash from the easygoing happiness of the moment they had just seconds before.

“Madoka,” And Homura sounds terribly tired, but seeing her in distress, she pulls Madoka into her arms all the same. Her breathing is slow against Madoka’s chest. Madoka is agonized, and prays to any god in existence that Homura isn’t in a fraction of the pain she felt when Madoka's own soul gem started to break.

“Madoka…” Homura repeats, slowly. She presses her hands into Madoka’s back, leans her head against Madoka’s. She smiles, even though Madoka can’t see. “It’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it, I promise. I’m ready.”

It’s selfish and childish and passive-aggressive, but Madoka can’t help but shout. “I’m not! I’m not ready!” She sinks her head into Homura’s shoulder and cries so hard it wracks her whole body. “Homura…” 

Homura strokes Madoka’s back and smoothes out her long, long hair. She liked it long, too, she thought.

“It’s okay, Madoka. You…” Homura takes in a breath, before sounding terribly proud. “…are the kindest, bravest, strongest person I’ve ever met. You’ll get along just fine without me.”

“I’m not—! …any of those things!” Madoka is wailing, and Homura was inventing things about her on her deathbed. No matter how very, very convinced about it she sounded. “Homura-chan…”

“Don’t be silly,” Homura laughs, almost, but she sounds so, so tired. “I’ve been watching after you, for so long… I know you better than anyone, Madoka. Those things are… only the truth. Right?”

Madoka could only cry in response, clinging to Homura for dear life.

Homura had watched her die so many times. Comforted her in her final moments, granted the wishes of her dying breaths; and got back up to do the same thing over, and over again. Meanwhile, Madoka wasn’t going to get through a single instance without it ripping her heart in two, without having to lean on Homura herself for comfort. 

Please. Homura was the one who was kind, and strong, and brave…

But even if she didn’t believe a word of her praise, however heartfelt — it was only fair that she send Homura off… at least this one, very last time.

Madoka removed one hand from Homura’s back, deeply reluctant. It shook fiercely as she turned it over, returning Homura’s soul gem to its egg-like shape. It’s on the brink, it has barely seconds left before she’ll have to—

“Don’t worry, Madoka,” Homura squeezes her tighter, and Madoka jumps in surprise. “This isn’t the last time we’ll meet. I promise. I’ll see you again.”

Madoka can only make a strangled cry into Homura’s shoulder, and to wish that none of this was happening. She was out of wishes to make.

“So… goodbye for now, Madoka.” That familiar farewell; except this time, Homura was the one who was leaving. Madoka’s body wrenches with pain.

But, the farewell comes with a modification; Homura turns in their embrace, and presses a chaste kiss to Madoka’s cheek, flushed red and stained with tears. Madoka’s eyes go wide over Homura’s shoulder, seeing only a blur of her corrupted, breaking soul gem against a galaxy of pink and purple.

“I love you. I’ll see you again.”

The soul gem cracks, the surface shattering in an instant.

If she let her turn, there would be no coming back, this time. Homura was all out of second chances.

“I…”

Madoka did not get a chance to reply. 

She did what she had done thousands of times already: drew the corruption from Homura’s soul gem, and erased it from existence.

And Homura was gone.

As with all magical girls, Homura’s body disappeared no less than a second later. Faintly, Madoka allows her arms to drop from where they were hugging the empty air. 

Homura had been returned to the Law of Cycles, at long last. Mami and Kyouko and Sayaka, too; they were all alright. They were all saved. She was relieved, at that. 

But… she couldn’t speak to them. She couldn’t see them, or touch them — and Madoka desperately needed a hug, from literally every one of her family and friends… But this wasn’t a special case, like Homura being in the isolation field, it…

…wasn’t as pressing as the wound on her stomach, which send her crumbling to the ground in just a second’s worth of intense pain. Madoka holds back a strangled cry — for whom, she isn’t sure. After all, she’s the only one here.

And perhaps that was why, the pain started hitting her so badly, again. She’d been injured, still, the entire time she was with Homura — but with nothing to distract her or push her forwards, it came back to bite her very quickly, and very hard. Madoka shakes with a violent cough and hacks up blood.

Damn it.

The very world seems to shake around her, next, and Madoka is pretty certain that was not her injury’s doing. She grimaces, managing to look up in alarm.

The stars were going out, falling from the sky faster than any human should ever be able to perceive. They looked like a time lapse photo of the stars she had seen once, swirling in a never-ending concentric circle, and leaving only an infinite blackness in their wake. Madoka was hit by an overwhelming sense of cold, that she wasn’t even sure was attached to her physical senses. It felt more like the universe itself was going cold.

“No… why?…”

Madoka felt a horrid sense of grief and dread, on top of what she had already been dealt.

She didn’t know why. It was the sort of thing Kyubey would be able to explain… if he was even still around, anywhere. She hadn’t seen him in what felt like ages.

He had explained one time, however, that one day the sun of their universe would go out, and the Earth would die with it — and they didn’t want that, did they? Thankfully, wishes had the potential to surpass entropy itself, and she happened to have exceptional potential…

Madoka cast aside her thoughts of that little devil, gritting her teeth as she struggled to stand; breathing hard, with her hands pressed hard against her stomach to steady herself.

Even if she didn’t have a full, scientific comprehension of what was going on, she could still do something to stop it— 

Except, she got only as far as to her knees, before the agonizing pain in her stomach caused her to double over and fall to the floor. Madoka turns over, gradually, and lies on her back.

As Madoka lies there, she begins to laugh; a humorless laugh of terror and defeat.

She isn’t sure if her soul gem is even able to become corrupted, anymore — but through the feeling of what could only be called despair, she feels like it may have grown just a shade darker.

“So not even… just Homura?” Madoka asks no one in particular, laughing between sharp, unavoidable gasps of pain. Tears roll freely down her face and past a weak and bitter smile. “I have to lose everything?”

Not even Kyubey is there to answer her.

Madoka bleeds, and the universe dies alongside her.

Chapter Text

Kyubey is alone, in a quiet and dying universe.

He sits before the entrance of the space-time room that the entity called the Law of Cycles usually inhabits. It didn’t have a physical door, nor an actual place of entry — it was too wrapped up in both metaphysics and metaphor for either.

But all the same, he sat on the surface of the moon and before a small, locked door. (—though, that door looked more like a window, bound up tight in pink ribbon ending in a bow…)

It had been inaccessible to him before, for a myriad of reasons — he didn’t know it existed, as it was merely a concept; and when it did exist, when the Incubators had toiled and experimented to merely gain confirmation of its existence, much less control what lay beyond it — it was torn away before he could get a chance to enter. And though Akemi Homura would happily beat him within an inch of his life before he could so much as mention Madoka,the fact that she hadn’t stopped him from getting this far most likely meant she was… preoccupied. 

No matter how detached from every other magical girl Homura had managed to become, she had still made a contract with Kyubey, which made him privy to details like her soul gem is going to break any second— at any given time, no matter where she happened to be. It was reasonable enough to conclude that she was fighting, somewhere. 

…And yet, even while seemingly fighting to the brink, the door separating him and the Law of Cycles remained tauntingly shut. Kyubey was certain Homura would fight to her last breath to make certain he would never so much as touch Madoka or her powers. She had said as much, even.

She was very troublesome, that way.

Thankfully, Kyubey had not a single emotion to spare for frustration or impatience. He played the long game, just as Homura herself did. He was perfectly content to wait for her to fulfill her long-delayed fate to become a Witch. Not only gaining a chance at controlling Madoka, but the removal of what had turned out to be a very pesky contractee… were more than worth waiting for.

So Kyubey sits in the infinite blackness surrounding it, curls up and closes his eyes; and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long, considering; perhaps a few measly hours. Kyubey has lived long enough for it to all blend together, and doesn’t particularly feel boredom, so it doesn’t matter to him. He feels a soul gem being removed from existence — actually, several had gone — his contracts’ ultimate fate unfulfilled as they return to the power of the Law of Cycles. Kyubey’s ears twitch faintly and his eyes open again.

Despite Homura being gone, the door does not budge.

Though in the moment that followed, the world itself nearly shaking on its very axis informed him that perhaps her being removed from the equation was a bad thing, after all.

Of course, that wasn’t a feeling that physically existed — barring a rather sizable impact, neither the Earth nor Moon would physically shake like that. It was more like it came from inside, like an angry, merciless cold that bit at the soul— 

(Did he even have one?)

Kyubey knew that Homura had rewritten the universe, closed it inside of her soul gem. He knew that Homura’s soul gem was now gone. (At least, the container was gone — he couldn’t muster even curiosity for the state of her soul, itself.) It wasn’t a terrible leap of logic to say that something happening to her soul gem would impact everything inside of it.

Basically, if the person who had trapped the universe was gone, she would drag it down with her.

Entropy was suddenly advancing at a breakneck rate, rushing to its natural conclusion far before it was ever supposed to happen. It wasn’t as though time itself was changing; the Earth below them still ticked along happily, like nothing had changed at all. Just the energy used to keep the lifeforms alive in the universe was taking more and more and more to even happen; and even without the Incubators’ lifelong work, it would have had billions of years before the Earth’s sun went out. 

Billions and billions of years; far beyond even the comprehension of humans and their desperately short lifespans. The Incubator race was not so lucky — or perhaps they were, because without that far-seeing foresight to work against thermodynamics— 

—eventually, it would all just end.

Couldn’t they fear that? Couldn’t they understand? Why couldn’t humanity ever appreciate their efforts? After the Incubators had devised such an intricate and useful system, that was truly beneficial to the good of the entire universe. All of their work, thousands of years and thousands of sacrifices — only to come crashing down because of two of its beneficiaries. There would be no salvaging the lifelong efforts the Incubators had made if the universe just ended.

As Kyubey is considering this, he senses a small motion and turns his red, unblinking eyes again to the door before him. That pink ribbon is still holding it tightly shut, but—

Suddenly the ribbon unravels, falls loose, and the door opens wide with a long and sustained creak.

Kyubey pauses for only a moment more before he accepts the invitation, and enters.

The interior of the space-time room is a faded, ever-changing scenery of purple and pink; stars that don’t exist and loud, almost garish flashes of light. Kyubey beats his long tail once and surveys the room, the floor—

There she was.

Red eyes settle on Kaname Madoka, who was lying on the floor. He pads over, and surveys the very obvious, mortal wound on her stomach; penetrating abdominal trauma, resulting in heavy blood loss and damage to the internal organs, he notes. Judging by that, her pallor and unsteady, slow breathing, she was most likely in her death throes — her probability of survival was low even if she were to get medical attention, somehow.

Wandering over, Kyubey sits next to Madoka and only looks at her, still saying nothing. Madoka turns to look at him, raising her head from where it was pressed to the floor from exhaustion, and similarly doesn’t say a word; perhaps she didn’t have the strength to. She looks unsurprised, almost as though she expected him — but, then again, her expression didn’t betray much about her emotional state.

The same for him, of course.

Kyubey bores his red eyes into Madoka’s, and speaks to her through telepathy.

—You’re dying, Kaname Madoka.—

He states this plainly. Madoka does not seem surprised by this fact. She takes a moment before speaking — even though it wasn’t necessary to speak out loud, and her voice was strained and hoarse.

“What’s going on, Kyubey?” Madoka asks, and her forehead creases in something like worry. Not for herself, of course; the cursory discussion of her injury was over.

—I’m not certain what happened. It seems that Akemi Homura’s soul gem has been erased, and returned to the Law of Cycles.— Madoka doesn’t confirm this theory, but her sad, faraway gaze drifting from him did, a little bit. Kyubey continues. —Unfortunately, she had rewritten the universe to the point where it existed within her soul gem itself. It being erased has likely doomed the universe to an untimely death.—

Madoka nearly flinches at his words, and any surprise that accompanied Kyubey’s explanation quickly turned to regret.

—That is, at least, the most logical conclusion to make at this time.— Kyubey watches Madoka’s reaction carefully for a moment more, before closing his eyes and making what the girl would perceive as a regretful sigh.

Then again, she really did know that he didn’t have emotions.

—Honestly. The two of you meddled with everything far too much. Between you and Homura writing and rewriting the universe like that… I’m sure at this point, it can’t continue without one of you at its stead, anymore.—

But thankfully, Madoka did, and her reaction of guilt was nearly strong enough for both of them. She bites her lip, avoids looking Kyubey in the eye. Kyubey flicks his ears and stares at her. 

—Akemi Homura is dead.— Kyubey speaks as flat and cheerful-sounding as ever, but the words still have their intended effect; there’s a not-insignificant twinge of sadness in Madoka’s eyes, a slight crinkling of her features that often precedes crying in humans. Madoka says nothing. 

—That leaves only you to do anything, Madoka. You may have doomed entropy to advance at an unsustainable rate, but… Don’t you wish to save what’s left of this universe?—

Surprisingly, Madoka’s features twitch into a small smile, emotions Kyubey can’t quite decipher running across her face. Shame or apology or regret, is his educated guess; the Incubator race had studied human facial expressions very carefully. Even so, she was confusing.

Madoka looks away from Kyubey, with some effort moving her hand in front of her vision. She stared at her bloodied and trembling fingers, with a sad and almost sheepish, ashamed smile on her face.

“I’m sorry.” She says, and Kyubey has a feeling that apology is not entirely directed at him. “This is already… the best that I can do.”

Ah.

With what little energy she had left, Madoka was barely keeping the universe going the way it was — which was poorly, but granted, still going. It wasn’t really damage control, at this point; she was taking the wheel on something already off-course and already too far gone. Madoka was in no state to keep the universe afloat when she herself was drowning.

—…I see.— …is all Kyubey can muster to say for the moment, and Madoka offers him a tiny nod. He sighs, and to her ears (or mind), it would sound nearly aggravated.

—What a shame. It seems when you humans call upon gods, it truly is useless.— ‘God’ was such a vague and useless term. Madoka was just an exceptionally-powerful magical girl; even powerful enough to bend the laws of the universe around her. But she was still going to simply die. Kyubey wasn’t even speaking for manipulation, for an end so much as simply to vent his frustrations, now. 

—All of our work and progress to protect this universe from its own physical laws will have been for nothing.—

“Maybe,” Madoka agreed faintly. Finally speaking up to say nothing of value. Kyubey had no capacity for the feeling and yet he truly regretted dealing with the human race, for a second time. He rambles on.

—We never did get a chance to harness your considerable powers, even. Honestly, what a waste. Akemi Homura truly got in the way until the very end.— 

Silence stretched between them for a while; if you can call the absence of telepathy ‘silence’. Kyubey wonders if Madoka’s soul gem is able to become corrupted, and turn into a grief seed from her current state — or if she’d simply die a mortal death, before that. It would be interesting data to collect, to be sure; not that it did any good, at this point. What a truly monumentous waste.

His thoughts are discarded as Madoka speaks again.

“You can have it,” And when she did speak, it was in almost a whisper.

Kyubey pauses, because he has no idea what she’s even talking about. —What?—

“I’ll give it to you.” Madoka’s gaze was distant, but it sharpens suddenly as she turns it on Kyubey. “My power.”

[BGM: Sis Puella Magica!]

Kyubey can only stare at her in response, because it is clear that Madoka has gone insane.

She sits up on her knees, with more than a little difficulty. Madoka’s wound was still clearly giving her trouble — she keeps a hand pressed against it, still — but she is able to compose herself. Sitting tall and calm, with her long dress splayed around her and even longer hair swaying at her back; even the bodily wound that could bring her to her knees couldn’t detract from that godly aura. Madoka levels her gaze down at Kyubey, staring him down with a firm expression. 

“I could let the universe die; and you and your work would die with it.” Madoka’s tone is cold, and although he cannot feel the often-corresponding emotion, Kyubey recognized a threat when he heard it.

…But despite having laid down that threat, Madoka’s face softened quickly, smiling almost sheepishly.

“But… of course, I don’t want that.” Her smile turns more sad, now. “There are too many things— too many people… that I want to protect, so…”

She trails off, and Kyubey only stares at her, bewildered. —I don’t understand. You aren’t making any sense.—

It was not from lack of intelligence. Humans were simply too baffling and illogical to ever grasp their motivations. Some of the girls he had contracted with had been the worst offenders.

“I’m offering my abilities. In exchange for you… taking over for me, so to speak.” Madoka folds her hands in her lap. “It would mean protecting the Earth and everyone on it, as well as the magical girls who have become part of the Law of Cycles.”

Kyubey says nothing. “Protecting” might be a chore, but it was certainly better than living just to see the end of the universe. Aside from that…

He couldn’t have dreamed of a better outcome than Madoka simply offering up her powers like this.

“I can’t do it on my own.” Madoka admits, and she looks faraway and guilty as she presses a hand to her grave wound. “It would be simpler… to just wish to live, so that I could fix things myself, but…” She smiles, sheepish as ever. “I used up mine, already.”

—You did indeed.— Kyubey agrees. And you’re now back to barter with the result of that very wish.

Madoka nods in reply before looking unsure, for a moment.

“If we were to make this deal, Kyubey… would you be able to stop things from ending here?” She asks, and her vaguely hopeful expression is reflected in Kyubey’s eyes.

—I can’t say for certain.— He replies, and that much is the truth. —It’s possible that too much damage has been done, and that there’s no fixing it at this point.— 

Madoka looks distressed at the possibility — but that carefully-worded, deliberate ray of hope shines through.

“But… that means there’s at least a chance, right?” Madoka asks, somewhere between hoping and distrust.

Vagueness; giving misleading or deliberately omitting information; and doling out hope where there was none — all important tools for any Incubator worth their salt. Madoka always claimed that Kyubey had tricked her, but it was hardly his fault if she misunderstood, or hoped too much and read into what he was saying to be positive. She was so trusting, after all.

Yes, that was hardly his fault at all.

Of course, it always helped to back it up with some convincing-sounding lies.

—It would be logical to assume that to be true. If Homura was able to sustain it herself, a similar level of power should be able to, as well. Plus, the precedent for transfer of controlling the universe exists between you and Homura. If it were to go to someone not mortally injured like yourself…— Madoka’s hand twitches around her wound at its pointed mention. —…it’s possible that Entropy could stabilize, and any damage could be repaired. If it’s too late, the universe could even be rewritten entirely using your powers. It would take an enormous amount of energy to do so, but it should be doable.—

Kyubey pauses, his red eyes staring into Madoka’s gold. He goes for the final blow.

—I believe at this point, it’s the best chance for the continuation of the universe.—

Madoka holds Kyubey’s gaze for a long moment — perhaps to ascertain if he was telling the truth or not. Humans did hold the silly misconception that you could tell by looking in someone’s eyes.

Granted, the ones they dealt with were usually not emotionless aliens with nothing to lose.

But Madoka eventually looks away, apparently satisfied; though her face did not read ‘satisfied’ so much as anguished. She looks at her hands in her lap.

“Alright.” Madoka spoke with both firm resolve and deep regret. “I’ll do it.”

And Kyubey was suddenly concerned for the potential of mental illness within himself, because he was nearly certain he felt triumph.

How long he had waited! How hard he had worked, for this day, to have an unlimited power at his feet! Controlling Madoka’s powers would make it trivially easy to reinstate the Witch system; and really, anything else he could wish to experiment with. The person Homura had worked so very hard to protect, had even cursed herself to keep him from touching — was simply going to give her powers away.

And then die.

He thought that if Homura were still alive, she may never stop screaming.

“—But,” Madoka begins, her tone firm. “…it will come with a condition, Kyubey.” 

Kyubey pauses, having been knocked off his triumphant high by Madoka’s sudden words. It was unlike her to make deal with strings attached; she’d been all too eager to ignore them so many times, before. Most of them were.

When Madoka speaks again, she is stern and firm in a way that he had only heard her speak once before. Incidentally, it was the last time a contract had been made between them; before her power was closed off to him forever.

Of course, he would have to stop that from happening, no matter what conditions she came up with.

“You can never contract with another girl again. You may never tamper with the energy or laws of the universe again.”

Kyubey nearly feels his tiny little heart stop.

She can’t be—

It did not seem to be entirely conscious — Madoka was in no state to waste energy — but she did exude a pressure, a godly force that swirled around them like a strong breeze, tousling both Madoka’s long hair and Kyubey’s second pair of ears in the wind.

Madoka glares down at him, and her eyes very nearly glow. If he had the ability for it, Kyubey was almost certain he would have felt fear.

“The magical girl system is to be abolished, entirely, and never started up again.”

Kyubey worked to make a coherent thought to send over telepathy. —That’s…— 

Madoka’s expression softens slightly, shifting from a glare to only an expression of determination. She exhales, presses one hand to her heart.

“This is my offer.”

Kyubey’s mind was spinning, jumping in multiple directions of frantic reasoning. Could he appeal to her emotions, her logic? She couldn’t do that—

Madoka touches at the teardrop of the soul gem at her chest, and pulls from it a tiny, tiny bead of light. It hovered just between her palms, glowing a radiant and irrepressible golden-white; and though it was not too bright to look at, it lit up the universe with the force of a small sun itself. It hummed with a quiet and rippling noise like a small gong, and was gently, kindly warm. Madoka turned her palms upward and offered it to Kyubey.

Madoka’s overwhelming powers sat right before him, quite literally in the palm of her hand.

It was herself, but not ‘Madoka’, not her soul — they were her powers as a Goddess, compartmentalized and removed and held right in front of him; closer than ever before, and perhaps closer than they ever would be. Kyubey stares, and feels the intense ambition and near greed that impacted his entire race flooding his mind.

“Will you?” Madoka asks, softly; and that small, dying human child looks nearly serene with the question. She tilts her head and smiles, soft and sincere.

“—make a contract with me, Kyubey?”

Kyubey’s red eyes just about shake as they stare at Madoka.

(To offer a contract, a bid for the very power she had been given…

Was she cheeky? Desperate? Out of her mind?)

Kyubey was silent. Around him, the stars glimmered dimly as more and more went out. They had become mayflies in the face of the heat death of the universe, and it only served to remind him that everything would end. Himself included, if he didn’t—

Madoka only smiles at him as she holds his life over his head.

Perhaps she wasn’t entirely as foolish as she seemed.

—Honestly…— Kyubey eventually composes himself enough to speak. —I don’t understand you at all.—

He knew he never really would.

—But I don’t have a choice, do I? We may not have emotions, but there’s no creature that breathes, no consciousness that exists— that truly wants to die.—

They had fought their entire long, long lives so that such a thing would never happen.

“I see.” Madoka replies simply, and she considers him for a moment before posing a question. “Are you the last? Of the Incubators?”

Kyubey was silent. She and Homura had shot a fair number down during their escape from the Isolation Field. Of course, the Incubators hadn’t been foolish enough to leave every one of their species on Earth, but after Homura had taken over she informed him she had “cleaned up” the rest. The Incubators were a hivemind, so it wasn’t as though Kyubey lacked memories or information; and he had no emotions for which to mourn them with. So those things considered, it would have almost not been a problem. 

But it certainly was a waste.

Madoka watches him, and makes an approximate reaction of sympathy or pity. He never did grasp the difference.

“…Then, I won’t stop you from being able to communicate through telepathy, as long as it isn’t for a contract.” Madoka says, and he supposes she is being kind. 

—I cannot experience loneliness.— Kyubey said, and that much as the truth. —Your sympathy is misplaced.—

“I know.” She said simply. “All the same.”

He didn’t know what entirely to make of that, so he remains silent. Madoka does as well.

Madoka closes her eyes, slightly inclines her head in what appeared to be concentration. After a moment, she twitches her fingers closed around the small, bright orb in her palm, causing it to disappear and return to her soul gem. Kyubey nearly leaps upward, for fear that she was backing out.

“Don’t worry.” Madoka says preemptively, waving her hand in a soft dismissal. “It had to go back for a moment, just for the transfer to work.” She sits back, settling her hands at her sides. “You’ll have to sit with me, for a little bit. Will you?”

Kyubey blinks at her, hesitating before he climbs tentatively into Madoka’s open lap. She smiles softly at the contact, moving a hand to stroke at the fur of his back and head. Kyubey wonders if that was for the contract or her own comfort; dying humans often turned to domesticated animals to soothe them, he supposes. On the off-chance it was for the contract after all, he remains silent.

After a few moments, a thought strikes him, and Kyubey can’t help but to voice it.

—Without fresh contracts to process, won’t the Law of Cycles become obsolete?—

Madoka’s considerable powers would still exist, even if not to remove the soul gems of magical girls; it was that wish that led to the power to break and rewrite the laws of the world, after all; as far as he was concerned, that was the part that mattered. It wasn’t as though Kyubey wanted her to back out of the deal, either; but the Incubators always had an insatiable curiosity. After all it took to get her to contract in the first place, he wondered about an attachment to the powers, or goals associated with the wish. To just throw it away was strange.

“Probably,” Madoka answers softly, her gaze distant. “It shouldn’t affect… existing contracts, as far as I know.” By that, she could only be referring to the girls she had already saved. “But if it simply means the job itself is obsolete… that’s fine.”

—I see.—

Madoka was quiet for a moment. She stares at the interior of the room — now only reflecting a blackened sky — and runs her hand over Kyubey’s ears, gently.

“You know…” Madoka begins, quiet and almost fragile-sounding. She drops her head a bit, her long hair a shroud around both her and the small creature sitting in her lap. “It was lonely, having a power like this. Isolating. I probably…” She laughs, but it doesn’t seem out of humor. “I should have asked Homura to try and work with me. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that even, until now. Maybe it would have all worked out, that way…” 

Kyubey didn’t know entirely what she was talking about. But honestly, as long as Madoka didn’t undo their contract, he was content just to listen to her ramble on.

Madoka sits up, suddenly; she’s smiling, even as her eyes are misted over with tears.

“Despite that, I really don’t regret it. Becoming a magical girl. This is what I wanted to do.” Madoka closes her eyes and appears proud, and contented— “And now it’s time to take responsibility… for Homura-chan, and for myself…” —and determined, and sad, all at once.

Kyubey stares at her, thinking that Madoka had truly been interesting to observe, from start to finish.

—Well, then… I would say that you’ve become a wonderful magical girl, Madoka.— 

And despite himself, that was not an entirely manipulative statement; even if his idea of a ‘wonderful magical girl’ meant simply one that became a wonderful witch, producing a lot of energy. (Though she could still fulfill that; he would have to wait and see!)

But Madoka looks at him, smiles warmly and makes a soft noise of agreement. “Thank you, Kyubey.”

And barely a moment later, Madoka is pulling the white ribbon loose from her hair, winding it with gentle hands around his neck and tying it in a secure, but not too-tight, bow. Kyubey wondered again if it was necessary or due to her sentiments; if it was the latter, maybe he could manage to get it off, later. He wasn’t a pet, after all.

Madoka settles back with an inscrutable expression.

“It’s finished.” She says, simply. “The contract is complete.”

And with that statement, Kyubey feels his body swell with a power it didn’t have before; while at the same time, a familiar power left it. The power to instate contracts with humans disappeared — and was replaced with the considerable power to bend the laws of the universe at his whim. Kyubey wondered where Madoka’s reason lay to make such an imbalanced and foolish agreement. Did she even truly benefit from it at all? Would she even ask for a favor to live?

(Well, that wasn’t part of their contract.)

But he’d made thousands upon thousands of contracts with the same imbalance, that girls would cry were “wrong” and “unfair”; and had not a single emotion with which to worry over it. He granted wishes, and Madoka wished to lose her powers. 

—Very well.— He said lightly.

Kyubey hops off of Madoka’s lap, and wanders toward the door of the space-time room; no reason to hang around now that the transfer was complete. He did have a rather hefty workload before him, after all…

He almost gets to the door before curiosity strikes him again. Kyubey hesitates on the threshold.

—You’re…— His tail sways once, red eyes blinking back toward Madoka. —…almost certainly a normal girl again now, aren’t you?—

When he turns, Madoka is standing and unclothed; the only color about her body was the reddish-brown of the wound on her stomach. Her hair had reverted to its normal length, falling loose at her shoulders with no ribbons to hold it in place. Madoka’s eyes (pink, again) shut in a sheepish smile, and she laughs weakly to herself.

“Yep. Most likely.” Madoka replies, and nearly every trace of that godly aura — whether the calm serenity or cold determination — was all but gone; she sounds nearly bashful. Kyubey only looks at her.

—I see.—

Kyubey turns to regard the universe. It was very quiet and very dark. He had his work cut out for him, certainly.

—Well, I’m going to see what I can salvage with this. I doubt that we will meet again, with your injury.—

Madoka didn’t reply to that. Kyubey exits the cosmic room and does not turn back.

—Goodbye, Kaname Madoka.—

The door separating Madoka from the rest of existence slams shut for the very last time.

[BGM: I think this world is precious]

Kyubey is gone. Madoka holds one arm with her other to prevent a knee-jerk reaction to wave goodbye.

I got him to make that deal, after all.

She smiles weakly at the thought.

It was a good thing the Incubator was so blindly ambitious. They had been after Madoka and her powers for so long, Kyubey wouldn’t realize the consequences of receiving such a thing until it was too late. And if he tried to cast them away, it would literally lead to his own destruction — something the rational creature would never be able to do. 

Kyubey didn’t understand what it meant to be tricked, but perhaps he would have some first-hand experience, soon. 

Madoka’s smile turns pained, and she can’t avoid being reminded of it anymore.

Then would you… go back and save stupid me before I get tricked by Kyubey?

It doesn’t really matter who did the tricking, or who ended up on the losing end — she made a deal with the Devil that Homura would have never, ever wanted her to make.

The fact that Madoka would never join her in Heaven, that yet another promise was going to go broken, unfulfilled—

I promise I’ll save you! No matter how many times I have to try— I promise I’ll protect you!

What else could she call that but a betrayal? Madoka lowers her head, miserable as she chokes back tears.

“I’m sorry, Homura-chan.” Madoka whispers, voice breaking because Homura couldn’t hear her. She’d given up her powers, right? She’s talking to herself, at this point. “I keep breaking our promises; keep hurting you without meaning to. I’m really a terrible friend, honestly… I’m sorry…”

Madoka falls to her knees, her entire body shaking. The pain from her wound is biting and deadening all at once; every one of her senses is going numb. Or they must be, because the scenery of the room is only an empty, black nothingness, now. Her stomach bleeds and won’t stop. Her head swims dizzily.

So this is dying. Madoka thinks. 

She remembers the past times she died (sort of)— but none of them really felt like this. 

Maybe it was knowing Homura couldn’t bail her out of this one.

“I’m sorry…” She chokes out again. It still falls on no ears but her own.

Madoka falls backwards, and simply keeps falling. The floor has gone; either the pretense of needing one disappeared, or her energy to keep it there had run out. It’s as though Madoka is sinking, in a deep, deep lake. Her hair swirls around her; she can’t tell whether it’s long or short, anymore. It doesn’t matter.

Madoka sinks, deeper and deeper. Her listless, tired eyes stare at emptiness, at nothingness.

“Everyone… I…”

She’s unsure if she’s speaking out loud, or simply thinking — her words sound strange to her either way. And it’s not as though anyone can hear her.

“I leaned on all of you too much, and cried so often, and I was such a weakling…” Madoka’s tone is the same unconfident, nearly-ashamed one with which she so often lamented that she couldn’t do anything.

She can nearly hear Homura and Sayaka and her Mama denouncing that, telling her to have more confidence in herself. Kyouko and Mami and her Papa reassuring her that she wasn’t weak at all. Madoka smiles at the thought, even as tears flow, floating upwards as she continues to fall into nothing.

“I’m sorry…” Madoka almost laughs. “I’ve said that so many times, I don’t even know if it means anything anymore. But really, I am; so sorry, for everything…”

There were too many things she wanted to apologize for, but she'd never get the chance. Madoka’s breath hitches, her voice catching as she starts to cry harder. 

“But more than that, I want to say… thank you… everyone, for being with me…” Her voice is cracking and her tears won’t stop, but Madoka pushes a bleary smile through it all; because she was truly thankful for everyone that had been in her life.

“I love you all.” Madoka nearly cries this out loud, and wished that she had told them all more often.

She keeps sinking, but something in the scenery changes; at the end of what looked like a long, long hallway (or the water’s surface, if she was on the bottom of the ocean) — there was some kind of light. It seemed spherical and blurry and warm — but it was so far away and her vision was fading. She was probably imagining it, at this point… 

But it was calming to look at, as her eyes drift tiredly shut for the very last time. Madoka's voice dwindles to barely a whisper.

“I hope that… I can see you all again…” 

And then she was gone.

Chapter Text

In a bustling city street, a small catlike creature trots along at a brisk pace.

Kyubey had an appointment, of sorts.

Creating a new world had kept him alarmingly busy, without even speaking of the maintenance. It was unfortunate enough that even without magical girls, humanity’s curses roiled on. No matter how hard he tried, it seemed impossible to have humans themselves without the existence of grief, anger and despair. He'd been told to 'protect' them, so he didn't have a choice.

Kyubey flicks his ears, pausing at the crosswalk. The crowd moves around him; since there were no longer any magical girls, he chose to appear to people based only on his whims, rather than their magical potential. An electronic jingle plays tinnily from the traffic light, indicating it was safe to pass.

Well, relatively safe.

A Wraith ten meters high rounds a corner a mere block away. It groans from beyond its glitched, masked face, its robes swaying as it begins rushing towards him; as much as the relatively slow creatures could rush, anyway. The passersby clamored on, unaware of the monster sharing the pavement with them. It was just as well that they couldn’t see it, considering normal humans couldn’t stop them. 

—How troublesome.— Kyubey sighs. —You never let up, do you? You’ve been following me all the way from Kasamino City, even.—

The Wraith groans again, nearly angry-sounding this time as it leans down. Its huge, monochromatic hand casts a long shadow over where Kyubey was sitting calmly on the sidewalk. 

The thing it reached to destroy, as always — was the white ribbon tied in a bow, around his neck. The ‘gift’ from Madoka. For creatures that wanted only to tear the world around them to pieces, that was the shortest route to doing it.

Kyubey remains unmoving as the hand closes around him, tight enough to crush him to pieces.

…Or, it would have been, if Kyubey had not switched places with one of the many copies he had been able to create. The Wraith notices something is amiss, turning to see the genuine article sitting calmly behind it. The creature nearly loses it with anger as Kyubey simply grooms at his ears, totally unperturbed by the attempt on his life.

—At least you’re willing to come to me, instead of having me chase you all over the place. My spares are busy enough as it is dealing with the rest of you!— 

They truly were, and it was taxing on his abilities to have to stretch his powers across the entire world to deal with the Wraiths as they appeared. It didn’t leave a particular excess of energy, as Kyubey had hoped. 

To say it was more convenient for Kyubey having magical girls take care of the issue was a grand understatement. It was more like the deal he had made hardly benefited him at all.

The Wraith moans in fury and lunges for him again. Kyubey’s red eyes glow.

—Unfortunately, I’m busy at the moment. So…— His telepathic voice was light and cheerful as ever. —Goodbye.— 

In a blink, the Incubator’s spare body implodes from where it was still clenched in the Wraith’s hand. It leaves the creature ripped in half from the force of the explosion. But even with only half a body, it rushes and makes a last ditch attempt for Kyubey’s life.

An enormous burst of light and fire, shot from the center of his ribbon, leaves it torn to pieces and removed from existence within seconds. There is no trace of the battle, afterward. The miasma left by the Wraith ripples away.

Kyubey scratches his ear with his hind paw, bored. Incidents like that were more than an everyday occurrence; it was more of a constant bother than danger. With how busy it kept him, it was unusual for him to have “time off” like this, even.

—Well then.— Kyubey shakes his ears, blinking. —Better get going.—

Kyubey runs the rest of the way to his destination — a small park in the center of Mitakihara City. It was in the early evening, and not particularly crowded with people; but even if it was, the person he was looking for would stick out like a sore thumb.

Pink hair tied in short pigtails tended to stand out, like that.

It’s been years since Kyubey has managed more than a cursory visit. The last time he saw her properly was when she was born in the new world. Perhaps then, he was just confirming that her eyes were pink, not gold.

Madoka looked like she was nearly six, now. 

Because he had to confirm, of course, that it had worked. Transferring souls into a newly-reincarnated body was tricky business, and he was in the business of moving souls to begin with.

But there was no doubt that the child before him — smiling, playing and laughing happily with her parents at her side — was none other than Kaname Madoka.

She seemed to be doing well enough; if appearances alone could betray if she had recovered the rather traumatic memories of her past life, anyway.

Though he supposed if she did remember, Madoka may have been particularly grateful to be swinging between her parents’ arms at that moment. After all, when she ascended to become a God, she would have never seen her family again. He knew from her being returned to the Law of Cycles, however temporary before the world was remade — that Madoka would relish a second chance.

Madoka giggles gleefully, calling for her parents to swing her higher. They humor her.

Kyubey hangs back for a little while, stretching out in the dappled sunlight. He’s waited this long to talk with her; another few minutes is no matter. Madoka eventually breaks away from her parents to play by herself. They settle on a bench a little ways away from her, the five-year old still well within sight.

A good opportunity to greet her, he supposes.

Kyubey hops onto a low brick wall that stood nearby where Madoka was playing. He walks easily along it, eyes focused on her — Madoka was stooped over, seemingly drawing with her finger in the dirt. She was so focused on her task that she didn’t notice him approach at all. Kyubey sits down near her, watching a moment more before greeting her.

—Hello.— Kyubey speaks through telepathy. Madoka jumps visibly at the sudden voice in her mind. Her hands move to her ears, apparent confusion spreading on her face.

“What? Who’s there?” Madoka calls. How very familiar.

—I’m up here.— He offers.

Hands still half-cupped around her ears, Madoka does look up.

She gawks at him. He isn’t sure if it was because she connected the dots that he was speaking to her, or just because she didn’t see cats that often; or what looked like cats, anyway. She did like them, he remembers. Kyubey flicks his large tail and Madoka’s eyes follow, as though she was thinking about petting it.

“Was that… you?” Madoka asks. Her eyes are wide.

—That’s right, Madoka.— Kyubey replies.

“How do you know my name?” She nearly shouts this, and Madoka doesn’t seem afraid so much as astonished and impressed. Though Kyubey figures it doesn’t take much to impress children.

Madoka’s parents glance over reflexively at her raised voice; but, unable to see Kyubey, it would only appear Madoka was talking to an imaginary friend. Kyubey was thankful for the period in children’s development when delusions like that were common.

—You probably don’t remember me, but I’m an old friend of yours.— Kyubey says.

“Friend?” Madoka echoes.

—That’s right.— He lies smoothly; better to ignore that they were never really ‘friends’. —My name is Kyubey.—

“Kyu…bey?” Madoka repeats slowly. Her eyebrows furrow just slightly. She looked to be concentrating; or, more likely, attempting to remember.

Madoka stares at him. Kyubey watches her closely for any odd behavior; any spark of recognition in her eyes.

If she were to recover her memories at this point, it would be a problem…

“I don’t remember you, but…” Madoka winds her hand to her mouth in a timid gesture. She looks hopeful. “…Could I pet you?”

Kyubey sighs. It was good that she didn’t remember, at least… but he did wish Madoka would stop bringing him down to the level of a pet. He changes the subject quickly, nodding to the drawing under Madoka’s feet.

—What are you doing there?— Kyubey asks, and a small part of him is genuinely curious.

Madoka startles for a second, but her eyes light up at the question.

“I’m drawing!” She says, somewhere between excited and shy. Kyubey has vague memories of a middle-schooled Madoka making little doodles of herself as a magical girl in her notebook, presenting them with a similar shy enthusiasm.

He did wonder if this drawing would be quite as prophetic as those turned out to be.

—Is that so?— Kyubey tilts his head at it; he may have been able to see it upside-down, if Madoka wasn’t partially blocking it herself. —May I see what you’re drawing, Madoka?—

She hesitates, looking down at it with a shy expression. Despite her enthusiasm, she didn’t seem entirely confident in herself. But she makes a small noise of agreement and pulls herself off the sand. Kyubey hops off the wall, and settles next to where Madoka is standing alongside her artwork.

Despite being a relatively crude rendition — granted, Madoka was only five — Kyubey can still tell what it was supposed to be: a girl, with long, dark hair and sort of sad-looking eyes…

Oh.

Of course, she was drawing Akemi Homura. Kyubey supposes he should have expected that, but it didn’t make the realization any more pleasant.

There was no way Madoka could remember her, right?

—This is…— Kyubey turns toward her quickly. His second pair of ears swing from the motion. —Do you know this person?—

“Huh?” Madoka looks up from where she was stooping to put the finishing touches on her drawing; a happy ribbon in the girl’s hair, a small, u-shaped curve of a smile on her face. Madoka stares at him for a moment, curious.

“No?” She replies, like she wasn’t entirely sure herself. 

—You haven’t met her in a dream, or… anything?— Kyubey presses.

Madoka only shrugs noncommittally, the way children do when they don’t entirely grasp a question, or are simply too shy to answer even if they know. She wiggles her toes in her sandals.

It wasn’t as though she could have met Homura — this Homura — around town or anywhere. Kyubey had confirmed the existence of Homura in this world, but it would be years before she abandoned the glasses and stopped tying her hair in braids. Besides, she was Madoka’s age at this point.

That, and she wasn’t a magical girl. Kyubey’s eyes manage to go wider in alarm as he watches Madoka add a tiny shield to the drawing’s wrist. 

“I don’t know who she is,” Madoka says, unprompted. She squats next to Kyubey, looking at him. “I just drew her.”

Kyubey says nothing.

“She’s a pretty person, isn’t she? But, she looks lonely.” Madoka lays her head on her knees, regarding the drawing with a sadness that didn’t entirely suit her age. “I think I’d like to be her friend.”

Madoka wasn’t aware of how accurate she really was. 

Kyubey only continues to stare at her, before turning to stare at the drawing.

This at least confirmed a theory of his — that memories were not only information stored in the brain, but that they were somehow etched into the soul as well. Knowing Homura had helped shape Madoka in so many timelines, Kyubey was unsurprised that it had left a rather permanent mark, and would be further unsurprised if even unfulfilled shadows of those memories would continue to affect Madoka as she grew older.

But all the same, the potential it caused was… worrying.

He has considered the possibility of Madoka regaining her memories — all of them — way too early, and not even considering the emotional damage it would cause on someone to regain memories of a past life out of nowhere; it would throw a rather large wrench in his plans for the future.

She can’t remember her, not now—

Kyubey’s rather intense concentration is broken when Madoka reaches out and pets him on the head. He blinks at her, as though to confirm that he was really being treated as a pet again. 

“Heehee,” Madoka giggles. She smiles wide, seemingly delighted. “You’re soft, Kyubey!” He really was.

She’s clearly being gentle but her five-year-old coordination doesn’t entirely match that; despite her efforts, she still pats him a little too hard. Kyubey squirms slightly but doesn’t run away; he still had to talk to her, so staying on good terms was important.

“Say, Kyubey?” Madoka asks. Kyubey hums a soft, questioning noise in her mind. “How can you talk?”

—How…— He echoes; he hadn’t prepared an answer for that; the truth was probably too complicated for her age. —Well, that is…—

Before he can come up with a sufficient fib, Madoka has an apparent spark of inspiration.

“Oh!” Madoka claps her hands together. “Can you talk because of magic?” She asks, trailing off happily to herself about how it was ‘like on TV’, or something.

Magic, huh.

He knew, still… Madoka’s karmic destiny, her potential as a magical girl had only grown. Even after giving up her powers as a god, his knowledge of her previous life, and choosing to reincarnate her once again — had only made her potential abilities snowball further. Surely, the energy she could produce now would stave off entropy for a miraculous amount of time. It would put her previous wish to shame.

If she were to make a contract—

Red eyes stare into hers; bright and trusting.

…But unfortunately, he had made an agreement, and was bound forever to its terms. With the very person standing before him, and yet an entirely different person at all. Somehow, he thought that golden-eyed goddess would sooner kill him herself than allow the child to make a contract. Even if she wasn't around.

Really, he couldn’t be the one to ask. He would have to find some other kind of loophole.

Kyubey closes his eyes, wandering a few feet away from her. Madoka perks up, looking surprised.

“Kyubey?…” Madoka asks. He doesn’t turn to face her. "...Are you going away?"

—That's right. I have a lot of work to do.—

Madoka looks disheartened, but she doesn't argue. Perhaps she already understands somewhat, from having her parents work.

Kyubey looks back at her for just a second.

—Perhaps one day… you will want something so strongly, that you will be willing to lose everything to get it.—

Madoka frowns, looking saddened by even the idea of it. If only she knew how many times she had already leapt headfirst into such an agreement.

—When that day comes, Madoka; just call me, and I’ll be there.— 

"Huh?..." She was clearly confused. "What do you mean, Kyubey?..."

Well, he supposed she wouldn’t understand, if he had to say it in such a roundabout way. It was fine that she didn’t, for now. Just planting the idea in her head would be enough. If it was just an idea, they could find a way in the future; even if she didn’t become a “magical girl”; if it was Madoka, she could become something else entirely…

Kyubey still did have something to give her, though. A gift, of sorts. She wouldn't remember what it meant to her, but perhaps she would still appreciate it.

—Madoka, I have a favor to ask of you. It’s very important. Do you think you can do it?—

“Eh? Um…” She seemed surprised to be trusted with someone branded as ‘important’, but thankfully, five-year old Madoka hadn’t gained her penchant for insecurity quite yet. She puts on a determined face, balling her hands into purposeful fists. “I can do it!”

—Very good, then.—

Kyubey turns towards the rest of the park, focusing on a sandbox. Madoka follows his gaze.

—Over there, there’s something buried in the sand. I’d like you to retrieve it.— 

“Huh? …What is it?” Madoka looks at him, curious. Kyubey doesn’t meet her gaze.

—That’s a secret.— He replies cheerfully. Madoka makes a dismayed 'ehhh', clearly finding it unfair that he wouldn't tell. Kyubey found himself surprisingly unperturbed by her complaints. —You’ll know what it is when you find it yourself, Madoka.—

“Aw… ‘Kay…” Madoka agrees. She's still pouting, a little bit.

—Listen closely, Madoka.— Kyubey says, and Madoka does listen.

—That thing is very precious. You can’t let it become lost or damaged; you’ll have to protect it, yourself.—

Madoka looks concerned by the task, and perhaps it was a little heavy for a child her age. Though, it was only an object, now. It wasn’t important in the sense of its original purpose, as the container of someone’s soul. The only value that remained now was human sentiment.

But she would have no way of remembering the events that would give that ring value, so perhaps the sentiment was his, in the end. Kyubey was somewhat relieved that only his copies remained; other Incubators would certainly find his predilection towards mental illness to be unprofessional, to say the least.

—If you hold on to that... even if you forget about me, your wishes will always be within reach. Do you understand?—

Madoka is quiet for a moment, before she scoops Kyubey off the ground in a hug.

“I don’t understand. And I don’t want you to go away…” Madoka sounded sad, and though Kyubey couldn’t see, the same showed on her face. But her expression changes to a look of adorable determination once more. “But I’ll take care of it for you, Kyubey.”

Kyubey says nothing in response, only wondering if Madoka was this attached with everyone she knew for a short while.

Madoka breaks away. She runs toward the sandbox before she pauses, turning to yell with her hands cupped around her mouth.

“Bye bye, Kyubey!” Madoka calls. “I won’t forget about you, okay!”

He knew that she would forget, despite her best efforts; the memory alteration had activated when she hugged him. It would take care of her scattered memories of Homura, as well — Madoka may dream of them that night, but by the next morning it would be too hazy for her to recall.

But Kyubey feels oddly like indulging her, so he responds through telepathy. —Goodbye, Madoka. I’ll see you again, alright?—

She smiles broadly at the reply, before running off to the task he assigned her.

Kyubey doesn't stick around.

9 years later — March 25th

A girl stands outside the classroom, off to the side of a hallway that wasn’t just glass. Her knuckles are almost white as they clutch the handle of the navy, standard-issue Mitakihara Middle School bag.

She had long, dark hair, red glasses and soft violet eyes.

She was about to be introduced to the class; and although she put on an excellent front, Homura was a nervous wreck.

Homura had never gotten along well with people. It wasn’t for lack of wanting to — her long, isolated stay in the hospital, peppered with contact from only doctors and nurses, had left her with a desperate, needling desire for companionship. Especially with people her age; there weren’t many other fourteen year-olds on an extended stay in the hospital.

Her being orphaned had helped that loneliness along, too.

It was with the potential for making friends that Homura had filled out the applications for the local prefecture’s school, by herself — despite the warnings from the nurses, doctors and foster care staff that she shouldn’t jump into school “so quickly” after her release.

As if she could wait another year. Every second she stayed out of school was more distance she put between herself and her classmates, falling behind in academics and friendships and everything else. Waiting was not an option.

Homura didn’t blame the adults in her life for being unattached. It only made sense to distance yourself when the charts clearly said her heart should have worn out long ago. 

(The doctors said her surgery going so well could only be called a miracle; a gift from God. Homura wasn’t sure about that.)

At the same time, having only shallow relationships had lent Homura an exterior that was almost cold. She found it easier to put up a wall of cool, detached indifference; to not constantly put her heart on her sleeve or show how desperate and needy for contact she was. Because then, when people ended up failing her, Homura could at least pretend it didn’t bother her at all.

If she focused on it hard enough, maybe she could really not care, someday.

Wouldn’t that be fine? Homura wonders.

And it feels like she’s wondered that before; half-submerged in water and staring at a wrecked and stormy sky…

“Hey, is that girl new? I haven’t seen her before!”

“Transferring in this late in March? I wonder why…”

Hushed voices jolt Homura out of the storm, back to reality.

She looks up to see two girls passing by, whispering behind their hands.

Homura’s had quite enough of people talking about her right within earshot at the hospital. She gives them a look and the girls giggle nervously, scampering away down the hall. They don’t catch Homura looking away out of her own nerves. Only when they’re long gone does she allow herself a breath.

Homura sighs, settling back against the wall as she wonders if she’ll ever get along with people normally.

Standing there filled Homura with a vague, implacable sense that she’d been there before (deja vu, was it called?) — even though she hadn’t. Maybe she had seen that particular hallway in the school’s brochure, or something… Though it didn’t really feel like that was it, either. 

Homura fiddles with the ends of her hair. She’d pulled the braids out the week before on a whim (too mousy, too blatantly screaming wallflower), and her hair fell loosely at her back. Though it wasn’t really her goal to attract attention, either; just to quietly fit in. Getting rid of the glasses would have helped, too; but unfortunately, she needed them to see. Maybe they would make her look smart before she can get contacts.

…Or maybe disappearing was better, after all. Homura frowns at the long, untrimmed hair and wonders if she should re-braid it.

Not that she had time. In the next moment, Saotome-sensei is calling her into the class. “Come on in, Akemi-san!”

Homura fights back the tremor in her hands, steels herself and walks into the classroom.

The teacher asked her to give an introduction. Homura only gives her name; she didn’t have any hobbies or outstanding characteristics worth telling about. (She remembers grade-school class introductions, wonders still how the more outgoing children made it look so easy.)

It turns out her name was enough, because the teacher hesitates in the middle of writing it. She’s unsurprised; the name was odd. Homura writes it on the digital whiteboard for her, hoping no one can tell her hands are shaking.

When she says nothing else, the class applauds. Out of politeness, she was sure — because Homura is fully aware that was a terrible introduction. She stares blankly at the crowd, catching only vague glimpses of features instead of whole faces; all eyes and teeth and thunderously clapping hands. Homura wants to sink into the floor and disappear.

Somehow in this haze of anxiety, she notices a flash of bright pink towards the back of the classroom, and the face that shock of pink hair is attached to, Homura is able to process — she had soft eyes to match her hair; and a bright, excited, familiar smile…

Homura didn’t know her.

But it felt like she did. It felt like she had known her forever.

The girl seems to notice her looking. They make eye contact for a fleeting moment before Homura looks away.

The first classes go over well enough. Homura has been out for so long that she doesn’t know the math — she just copies down notes even though she’s completely lost. (Oddly, she knows the answer to one of the problems, clear as a bell; it was a good thing she wasn’t called to the board, because she has no idea how she came to that answer.)

On the break, Homura gets swarmed by a group of curious girls.

They really didn’t get too many transfer students, it seemed. Either that or they were genuinely curious about what shampoo she used. That, and a dozen other questions about her previous school, her club activities, something about her parents’ work—

Homura eventually can’t take the questions, and blurts out something about needing to go to the nurse’s office.

Which she realizes a second later was incredibly stupid, because she didn’t know the way — which meant someone would have to take her. If there could be anything more uncomfortable than being under a spotlight, it was a private tour with a total stranger who didn’t want to deal with her.

Homura hangs her head, looks at her hands clenched in her lap as she makes some faint, hopeless wish to be saved from this situation.

Oddly enough, that wish was answered only a moment later.

“Akemi-san?” Someone asks. “You have to go to the nurse’s office, don’t you? Do you know where it is?"

It was a different voice than the throng of girls surrounding her, and was filled with that sense of implacable familiarity, again. 

When Homura peeks upward, the pink-haired girl from before was standing beside her desk. Homura stares at her, as though trying to process as if she were really there. It almost feels like time clicks to a stop.

The girl's hair fell loosely at her shoulders; which was odd, because shouldn't it be tied up in ribbons? (No, no, thinking that about someone she didn't know was the odd thing...) She wore the same uniform as all the girls there, punctuated in white stockings. Her eyes were pink; and of course, they had always been pink. She smiles at Homura, warm and approachable.

She seemed, strangely, so much brighter than the rest of the world.

The girl smiles at her, and Homura stammers, tripping over her words as she realizes she hadn’t answered her question. “Ah!.. I, um…"

It feels like she should know where it was — and not because Saotome-sensei had given Homura vague directions before introducing her to the class.

But Homura just says a soft, nearly-ashamed, “no”, to that, instead; tucks her hair behind her ear, tries to keep her expression perfectly level. (At her desk, anyway.) The sweet, bright girl just takes it in stride and smiles.

“That’s alright.” She giggles, almost sheepishly. “It’s a little hard to believe, but I’m actually the nurse’s aide for this class. I can take you there."

She’s then giving the other girls an explanation about Homura needing to go to the nurse’s office, and she’s able to escape the suffocating classroom. Homura lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in.

They had barely met, and that girl had already saved her.

It didn't feel like the first time she had.

“Sorry about that,” The girl says from the hallway. “They’re just excited; we don’t get many transfer students.”

“It’s alright…” Homura looks up. “Thank you—” She hesitates, as it becomes very apparent she doesn’t know her name.

“Oh! Sorry for not introducing myself sooner. I’m Kaname Madoka.” Madoka turns to look at her, smiling broadly. 

Homura blinks. 

Madoka.

That name sounded… familiar. Homura’s eyes narrow a fraction. 

“Mado…ka?…” Homura repeats the syllables back, slowly.

Madoka nods, though seeming a little shy at having her name repeated like that. “Yep!”

Homura falls silent, peering to the side thoughtfully. The name was nagging at the back of her mind. Thankfully, Madoka doesn’t seem too bothered by carrying most of the conversation.

“Umm… Your name means ‘flame’, right?” Madoka asks.

“…Yes.”

“Ehehe, it’s such a cool name!” Madoka almost squeals. She taps her fingers together. “It really suits you! Would it be alright if I called you by your first name?"

Homura stares at her, almost, and for a moment doesn’t know what to say.

No one had ever made that comment in her life, but… it seemed like the kind of thing Madoka would say.

“Thank you,” Homura says slowly, automatically. (That’s how you’re supposed to respond to compliments, right? It had been a while, not counting the girls in their class a moment ago.) “And, um..." She swallows; it had honestly been ages since anyone had called her by her first name. But Madoka seemed particularly heartfelt.

“…You can.” Homura says, gradually. “…call me by my first name, if you want.”

Madoka smiles, seeming almost giddy.

“Okay, so… Homura-chan, then!” Madoka beams, giggling happily. “And you can call me Madoka, okay?"

And as soon as she says that, Homura finds herself in a daze; visions flashing across her mind of terrifying monsters, who weren’t monsters at all but just girls; and there were girls there too, real ones, but they were just random clips of color and noise, like a videotape being fast-forwarded too fast to understand, and everyone there had their faces blotted out, almost like they were censored. They felt weirdly familiar but she didn’t know who they were, maybe they were her friends and maybe not, who were they?—

—But even with her face obscured, she knew Madoka was there — even if she had a bow and arrow, and she was running off to fight something impossible (Homura doesn’t know what it is or why she’s even going, but she feels in her gut she can’t go); and then she’s beat it, she finally did it but then she was gone—

Homura had been walking, automatically following behind Madoka, but with that she staggers backwards a step and stops dead in her tracks. Madoka notices, turning around in confusion.

“…Homura-chan?” Madoka looks concerned. She takes a step toward her. “What’s the matter?”

Rather than visions, Homura starts having flashes of emotion — out of nowhere, and with no context attached. Loneliness and despair and self-hatred, self-loathing… Spider lilies and guillotines and little tin soldiers in braids and glasses… None of it made any sense. All of it went away, in the end; replaced by a bright light and then, just… nothing.

Homura finds her arms clamped around herself; it feels like she’s shaking all over. She looks up at Madoka, tries to answer her — but all she can see is the hallway around them. It’s all glass; all she can see are their shoes (flashing back and forth, white and black stockings; which one of them was leading to the infirmary, again?); and she’s been there before, she— 

All she can see is red; blood staining white gloves and white dresses, and silk, red hair ribbons, always in that hallway…

“Homura-chan!” Madoka is nearly shouting. “Are you okay?”

All of the sudden, Madoka is quite close, and firmly, gently holding her shoulder. She’s frowning and seems quite concerned.

Homura just stares at her, because for a fleeting second — it looked like her hair was so, so long—

—but then the trance is broken. Homura gasps slightly, bristling against Madoka’s touch. Madoka’s eyebrows go up a touch at her reaction.

“…I’m fine.” Homura answers, slowly. That wasn’t particularly the truth, but she didn’t know what else to tell Madoka; she didn’t remember anything she was just thinking about. It was all a daze.

“Oh. R-really?” Madoka releases Homura’s shoulder and pulls her hands to her chest in a nervous gesture. “I’m sorry I grabbed your shoulder like that. You were… sort of staring into space, or looked like you were going to pass out, or something, so I was a little worried…”

Homura swallows; was she really acting so strange? Had Madoka really been that worried about her? Her eyes roam away from Madoka, guilty and distant.

“…I’m sorry to have worried you. I’m just fine.”

Madoka blinks a moment, before smiling. “Well, you did surprise me, but… if you say you’re fine, I’m sure you’re right. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Homura looks up at that statement, not knowing how to react. She was used to being condescended to and spoken for; not to having people take her words or thoughts as the truth. Much less the last part.

“T…thank you.” Homura is stammering before she can help it, but mercifully, her attention is drawn elsewhere; to a flash of red and silver about Madoka’s neck. It definitely wasn’t the ribbon on the uniform, right?…

Red— but that hazy, strange memory is pushed to the back of Homura’s mind, leaving just a needling curiosity.

“Um…” Homura starts, unsure if she should mention it at all. Madoka looks up, curious. “May I ask what that is?” 

Awkward. Terrible. Madoka doesn’t seem bothered by Homura’s strange phrasing, though. Madoka either follows her gaze or notices something is amiss herself — pressing a hand about her neck where a long, red ribbon had come loose from her collar. She squawks in surprise or embarrassment.

“Ack! Ehh, oh no…” Madoka fumbles with the object; Homura can see now that it’s a necklace, that seemed to have a ring looped through a red ribbon. Madoka notices her looking and shrinks in apparent nervousness.

“Ah… I know we’re not supposed to wear jewelry to school, but… It’s very special to me.” Madoka is making an expression that's nearly pleading. “Will you keep this a secret from the rest of the class, Homura-chan?”

That question made Homura think strangely of fine art and arrows and gunpowder — none of which made any sense at all. Madoka’s sincere, trusting plea was doubly throwing her off.

“O-of course, Kaname-san.” Homura stammers. Madoka is visibly relieved, her posture relaxing and expression shifting back into that warm smile of hers. (Which Homura was already growing rather used to.) 

“Heehee. Well, it’ll be our little secret, then!” Madoka says, looking pleased as could be. Homura makes a small noise of agreement and tries very hard not to read into that too much, (it was just jewelry, after all, and Homura wasn’t going to tell anyone in the first place)— much less to be swayed too much by Madoka’s dazzling smile. She’s just being nice…

Madoka looks around conspiratorially before she pulls the ribbon a little looser, holding it out for Homura to see.

“Wanna look?” Madoka offers, and of course, Homura did.

There isn’t much to look at on the ribbon itself, and what Madoka is holding in her palm is the pendant of the necklace — a small ring. Looking closer, it’s all silver and cryptic runes she can’t understand, and is the seat of a gleaming purple stone that reminds Homura of herself, strangely. It seems dearly, intimately familiar to her and she can’t place why.

How really, very strange.

Homura nearly wants to reach out to touch it, but catches herself from this odd inclination and from staring a little too much — right at her classmate’s chest, no less. (Technically, the ring on the necklace, but—) She flushes with embarrassment and laughs, a little too loudly. Looks away and around the hallway like it’s half as interesting as the other person in it.

“I, uh— I like it.” Homura says, a little softer. She turns her gaze back to Madoka, who was looking after her curiously. “Your ring.”

Madoka smiles, pulling the ring into her fingers from memory alone.

“It’s a funny story, actually! I found it, one time, playing in the sandbox as a kid. I don't know why I was... but I was just digging and digging through the sand — but it was heavy and kept spilling back into the hole, as I dug it... Now, it almost makes me think of an hourglass, if you were to sit at the bottom of it…”

—an hourglass—

—or a shield, even; the sand isn’t deep enough to sink in but the loops trap you all the same—

Homura narrows her eyes, staring from Madoka (talking happily) — to the ring, sitting innocuously between her fingers.

“Anyway, I found it there, at the bottom of all the sand. This ring."

Homura watches as Madoka lifts it; the purple gem in the center gleams happily as it catches the light.

She's struck by a sudden impulse to slip it over Madoka's ring finger. It was a good thing Homura was too out of it to analyze that thought further.

Madoka continues speaking.

"It was all by itself, and it just seemed so lonely like that; I felt bad, almost. …It was just a ring of course, but… Somehow, even as a kid, it seemed like it wasn’t just an ordinary ring, to me…”

Instead of just vague ideas or visions, Homura thought she heard voices, that time. (Which was worrisome, hearing voices; but really they sounded more like a memory than anything.)

—don't be alone; i won't let you be alone, homura...—

"Hmm, but… since it was too big for my fingers as a kid, my Mama helped put it on a ribbon for me so I could wear it as a necklace, instead. I ended up wearing it basically all the time, after that!"

—they look better on you, after all...—

—now, we'll always be together.—

—i'll see you again.—

Homura almost feels a pain hitting her in the chest. It was distinct from any pain her heart caused her. Maybe it was a swell of emotion, or relief...

Homura stares at Madoka, her eyebrows knit in confusion. Those thoughts, those words had no context, and they didn't make any sense. But it seemed like... they could only be applied to Madoka.

"Somehow…" Madoka smiles, letting her hand fall. The ring falls softly at her chest. "…I’m not sure what to say about it, other than that it’s my special treasure.”

Madoka falls quiet for a moment, and she seems happy, if not a bit faraway.

“Ah… sorry!” Madoka jumps, suddenly self-conscious. She waves both hands in front of her dismissively, with a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry for telling you a weird story right off the bat, and just rambling on…” She smiled still, but it was nearly a wince. “I hope you don’t think I’m strange…”

“No, I…”

Homura is suddenly blinking back tears and she doesn’t know why. Madoka notices.

“Homura-chan?! What’s the matter?” She asks, holding her arms to her chest in a worried gesture. It’s all so familiar and yet they’ve never met before. “I didn’t upset you somehow, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.” Homura says firmly, just enough to deflect any additional worry. Somehow, she doesn’t want Madoka getting all riled up for nothing. She pulls off her glasses, brushes a palm against her tears. “I just…”

Homura smiles, and finds it is the most genuine she’s made in years. Madoka looks at her, surprised.

“I liked your story. Very much." She replaces her glasses, looking thoughtful. She didn't know what those visions meant, but... "I’m not sure why, but… it touched me for some reason.”

“Really?” Madoka is somewhere between earnest and surprised, concerned and unsure.

“Yes.”

She meant it.

“O—oh. Hmm.” Madoka keeps her hands near her heart, fumbles with her ring a little nervously, and flits her gaze around the hallway. “That’s… usually, when I tell people that story, they just call me weird. Eheh…”

“Not at all.”

Madoka giggles again at the friendly rebuke, stops shifting her eyes around in embarrassment long enough to catch Homura’s gaze.

She was looking at her, almost like…  someone she knew and loved, for a very long time. Who had been separated from them for a very long time, and finally, finally found them again.

Madoka could have considered it strange, but oddly, considering it was Homura, she found she didn't mind at all. After a short hesitation, she smiles back.

But— looking at Homura, smiling happily, fondly at her like this —she finds herself wanting to ask...

Have we met somewhere before?

Suddenly, the bell rings, loudly indicating the break was over and breaking both of their concentration.

Madoka has to process it for a moment before she jumps, yelping in alarm. Homura jumps too, surprised by her outburst.

“Ohmygosh—” Madoka claps her hands over her mouth. “Oh nooo! It’s time for class already?! I can’t believe I lost track of time…” A pause, considering before she slips her fingers over her face in embarrassment. “…again.”

“Uh…” Homura stares at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. “You can go ahead to class, Kaname-san… I can find my way to the infirmary on my own.”

“What?” Madoka looks dismayed at the suggestion. A determined expression meets her face. “No way, Homura-chan! I said I’d take you, so I will.”

“But…” Homura looks nervous; she didn’t want to inconvenience Madoka like this. “You’ll be late to class…”

“It’s okay!” Madoka announces. “The next class is P.E., anyway; it’s okay if we’re running a little late. Besides,” She smiles, bright and warm. “It’s always easier going to class late with somebody, instead of going alone.”

Homura couldn’t argue with that last sentiment, but she still can’t fully agree to the idea of bothering Madoka. She looks down. “But…”

“No ‘but’s’, Homura-chan!” Madoka says, before she moves to stand behind Homura and starts pushing her gently in the back, trying to force her to move. Homura turns around, looking at Madoka completely baffled.

“K-Kaname-san?” She keeps pushing. “What are you—”

“We’re going to the nurse’s office, Ho-mu-ra-chan! Together, right now!” It seemed like Madoka was attempting to be at least jokingly intimidating— but she breaks out of character quickly, giggling. “Okay?”

Homura finds a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Madoka notices, smiling brighter than before.

“Okay, okay…” Homura concedes, sighing softly. Madoka stops pushing her (since she agreed to go) and walks to her side. Homura peers at her, struck with the sudden desire to ask her something.

"Um... something wrong, Homura-chan?" Madoka asks. She puts her hand to her face, self-consciously; was there something on her face?

Homura looks at her a moment more before speaking up.

“Is it…” Homura pauses, her eyes straying to the side as a blush dusts her cheeks. “…Is it really alright if I call you by your first name?”

Madoka gawks for a second, seemingly surprised she would even ask — before almost leaping forward, enthusiastic. “Yes— of course! I’d love if you did!”

Homura blinks, meeting Madoka’s eyes for a moment before once again leveling her gaze at the floor. She speaks very quietly.

“Madoka…”

It was only the second time she’d said it. But it felt oddly… good, or right to say. She couldn't imagine calling her anything else.

Homura peeks at Madoka shyly. She was smiling broadly, almost grinning.

“W-what?” Homura asks. Madoka just smiles wider.

“Heehee. Nothing, Homura-chan!” She walks a few paces away, giggling and holding her arms behind her back.

"Wh—" With that kind of reaction, it didn't sound like nothing. "What? Madoka?"

"Oh, Homura-chan..." Madoka laughs. "If we don't hurry at this point, we're really going to get accused of just skipping class."

Madoka turns, holding a hand out toward Homura.

"Let's go, okay?" Madoka smiles.

Homura stares at her hand, outstretched between them. She hesitates, finds a nervousness arresting her heart.

Almost like if she touched Madoka, she would just... turn to dust and blow away. It was a strange and buried impulse to just stay away, keep her distance from her, for Madoka's own good—

But seeing Madoka become nervous and insecure, and begin to withdraw her hand, Homura reaches forward and joins theirs; awkwardly, clumsily, but she does it. Damn that impulse.

Madoka doesn't disappear. Her hand is warm in Homura's loose grip. A faint blush settles on Madoka's cheeks. She smiles shyly at the taller girl.

 "Right. Let's go." Homura returns the smile, tilting her head to the side. "Madoka."