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"I'm not going to tell you again. I was here first, and that grief seed is mine." Homura's voice rings through the echoed corridors of the labyrinth, a weapon of determination. Her foot rests above the grief seed itself, and she pushes the toe of her shoe against the metal when Mami moves closer. Her finger twitches around her gun's trigger. "Kyouko needs this one."
Mami stops her advancement, raising her hand to signal to Sayaka to lower her sword. "What do you mean?"
Homura huffs. "There's no time for idle chat. I'm taking this to Kyouko. Her soul gem is nearly black." Then, with the familiar click of her shield freezing time, Homura snatches the grief seed and hurries back to her apartment. Kyouko hasn't been left alone for more than five to ten minutes, but even that is enough time for worry. Luckily, the redhead isn't prone to despair, even if her life has always knocked her on her ass.
She's strong. Homura can, and will always, respect her for it.
But even accounting for that tenacity, by the time she reaches her apartment, Kyouko is gone. There is no witch's labyrinth though. Kyouko saw to that when she took one of Homura's own guns, made sure the silencer was firmly attached, and shot right through the glass.
Homura can't help but cry. It's only a few tears, but they're enough to fill her with a familiar feeling of self-hatred. It is the first time she has ever seen Kyouko take her own life. She steps through the broken glass on the tile of their -her- kitchen, having taken notice of the bright blue paper on the door of her fridge. On it is a simple crude drawing of a witch with a red cross through it, and Homura takes a second before ripping it in half.
She's no fool though. Homura takes her time when she returns to Kyouko's body, leaving the two strips of paper on her chest. Then, with a nearly silent scream, Homura turns around and puts a bullet through Kyuubey's brain.
Another one of him flickers to her side, but she has already reset before he can get a word in.
Kyouko regards the two of them during the battle, and afterword, when it is just her and Homura, she asks, "Do you have a crush on Madoka or something?"
"No," comes the crisp answer. "I certainly don't like Madoka more than I like you, for example, but I doubt that means much."
"Oh," Kyouko says. "Well I guess that makes sense." The redhead looks up from the uniform pavement stones and stare up at the night sky. "So, do you have a crush on me?" Her tone is joking, but the words are cruel regardless. Even if she doesn't realize why.
"No." Homura glances at Kyouko and resumes talking when she's satisfied the other girl isn't looking. "Crushes are moments of intense and childish affection that can later lead to love. I don't feel for you like that. If I did, it would be easier."
Kyouko laughs. "What would be easier?"
"Dealing with you."
There's a moment of silence before Kyouko lightly pushes Homura on the shoulder. "I'm not that bad to deal with!"
Homura almost doesn't have anything in response to that, but she realizes after a few more steps what she should say. "You're right. You could be Miki Sayaka, for example." Which earns her a snort from the redhead. After this timeline's Sayaka nearly got Kyouko killed by Charlotte a week ago, Kyouko has had an even worse view on her than normal.
"Hey." Kyouko says, her arms behind her head as she walks. "You're my favorite one of all of us too, maybe."
"Mhm."
After school, Madoka seeks Homura out. Her pink hair is slicked with sweat, stuck to her reddened face. "Mami sent me! She thinks Kyouko and Sayaka are fighting, and she wants you there when she breaks it up."
Homura pauses, making sure not to drop any of her groceries. She finds her words carefully. "She thought the time it would take you to find me would be worth it? Kyouko could seriously hurt Miki Sayaka. Mami should have had you stay to help her end the fight herself. She's a strong enough fighter. None of you need me for something like that."
Madoka tilts her head. "She said the time wouldn't matter to you."
A hint of panic crawls through Homura's fingers, a deep heat that was already growing in her chest. "What does that mean?" This has never happened before. Never.
"Well," Madoka takes a moment. "Mami knows you have slight time distortion powers. I'm sorry, did you not want me to know too? I don't think it should be a secret, though. Think of how many bad things you can prevent wi-"
Homura interrupts her with a raised hand, and she lowers her bags to the ground slowly. Truthfully, she doesn't know what to do. "How does Mami know that?"
"Oh, I assumed you told-"
"I most certainly did not."
"Oh."
She bites back her anger. Madoka doesn't deserve it. "Fine. You'll take me to the others. Deal?"
Madoka nods, and Homura slips her hand in hers. "Ready?" she asks, careful to make sure her grip on softer girl isn't too tight. While she knows Madoka is tougher than the others give her credit for, that doesn't mean she wants to put her through any discomfort.
"Are we gonna go back in time now?"
Homura laughs, near hysterical as the heat bubbles in her throat and up her cheeks. "No." And with that, she transforms and freezes time. The two walk in silence as Madoka looks around them in awe. Eventually, they find themselves in the basement of a building still under construction. Even frozen in time, the rage in Kyouko's stance could scream for hours. She lets go of Madoka's hand and flinches as the girl settles into gray-scale.
And so, with one final look around the room, she takes a step forward and latches onto Kyouko's arm. The other girl immediately resumes breathing heavily, but Homura almost feels amused with the confusion on Kyouko's face at the world around them.
"What is this?"
Homura looks over at the other girls. "Well," she says with a drawn out sigh. "I suppose it's an intervention, but I don't know quite for who."
Kyouko tries to tug her arm away, but Homura keeps a firm grip on her upper arm. "What does that mean?"
"Madoka came to find me to break up the fight between you and Miki Sayaka, but I fear that was not the true reason."
"A fight? I'm not fighting Sayaka, but I do think her and Mami are being idiots!" Kyouko raises her free hand, nearly punching the air with every word. "The two of them are trying to say that because you don't trust Kyuubey, they can't trust you. It's pissing me off. I fight alongside you, not Kyuubey. But, I am confused now at the sudden time stopping powers."
"Mhm." Homura stares at the gray that is now the most experienced of them all. "Mami said the stuff about trust?"
"Especially Mami."
Homura lightly squeezes Kyouko's arm. "Hey, thanks."
"For what?" Kyouko asks, somehow even more baffled.
She's not quite sure herself, but she lets go of the other girl anyway. Maybe in another timeline, she'll be able to say everything there is to be thankful for about Sakura Kyouko, but certainly not today.
Her world is fully in gray now. It's a sight that is now more familiar than not. Homura contemplates asking Mami how she figured any of it out. When she realizes that Kyuubey, tiny almost insignificant Kyuubey, is behind the cracked door on Mami's left, the answer doesn't require a question anymore.
The damn incubator ruined everything. She walks towards him and puts her hand on his head with a smile.
He acts confused for a second before she clicks her shield in place, and her last memory of this timeline is Kyuubey saying, "Wait." It most certainly isn't the worst way to end things, and she can't help but feel proud of showing him what he would always wonder about.
Kyouko holds her arm close to her chest, the strands of what remains of her hand limply hanging by its side. She shakes with a quiet horror, and Homura wishes she could say that she has never seen anything like that before in any timeline. The fingers are the worst part, some of them hanging on by mere strands of nerve and ruined muscle. Kyouko looks up at her with terror in her eyes, and it isn't her soul gem that gives in before Walpurgisnacht can take her out.
Homura doesn't scream. She doesn't cry. Instead, she looks back at Madoka on her side, who looks off at Walpurgisnacht with a stoic look on her face. "I'm going to avenge all of them," Madoka says with a sense of finality. "Even if I have to give up everything to do it."
Not if Homura can help it, but the two of them continue on to the battle before she can say something back.
They have to step over Kyouko's body. Some part of Homura breaks that she was certain was already dust.
"Are you going to save Madoka, or am I going to have to die before you realize it?" Kyouko yells as Candeloro wraps a ribbon around her feet. "Get her out of here, or I'm gonna kick your ass!"
Homura turns to find Madoka and drag her out of Mami's hellish landscape, but an arrow whizzes by her head before she can spot the other girl. Candeloro lets off a distorted scream and dies without any grace, her body exploding around the bullet hole. If she wasn't so focused on Madoka contracting, Homura may have had a second to feel pity for the witch.
Kyouko drops the ground with a grunt, and Madoka runs past Homura to give Kyouko a tight hug. "I'm so sorry I didn't help sooner," pours out of her mouth like water from a pipe, but Kyouko grins.
"What are you talking about? That was so perfect Madoka! Do you want to keep the grief seed?" Kyouko's tone of encouragement somewhat distracts Madoka from the reality of the situation, and Homura lets out a sigh. It's better than when Sayaka died, but not by much.
Kyuubey weaves around her legs. "It is a shame. Mami was one of the best."
Homura doesn't disagree, but she does kick him away from her with disgust. Now isn't the time to blast a hole into his skull, and she walks forward towards the two most important people in her life. It isn't worth it to upset Madoka, not now, not when they still have a chance against Walpurgisnacht.
Hopefully.
Kyouko passes Homura an apple. It's a bright red, far brighter than the red she associates with Kyouko, but she accepts it anyway.
"If you were evil with absolute power, what would you do?"
Homura pauses, taking a bite out of the apple and frowning at the overly ripe taste. "I don't know."
"I know what I would do."
"You do?" That's not a surprise, but Homura finds herself curious. "What would you do?"
"I'd become God. Then, I wouldn't have to pray."
"That's not evil," she says, forcing herself to take another bite under Kyouko's watching eye. She knows the other girl hates waste in any form, and she knows that it will just take a few seconds of discomfort to chew through the mushy part.
"It is once you realize I would have to be in control of everyone else. That must be such a burden. How would I even know what to do with people? Especially people I argue with." Kyouko tosses an apple into the air and catches it with one hand. "I figure the most effective way would be to just let people do whatever and step in for the really important things."
"Mhm." Homura brushes a lock of hair out of her face. "I would try and protect everyone I loved."
Kyouko stares at her, an unreadable expression on her face. "Yeah, I can see that." Then, it's the end of one of Kyouko's more philosophical moments, and she's back to talking about making ramen.
"Do you think we go anywhere when we die?" Kyouko says breathlessly, her blood pooling onto Homura's skirt as every beat of her heart rushes more and more out of her neck. Only Kyouko would be philosophical when nearly decapitated. "Like a heaven?"
Homura answers truthfully, "I hope so."
Kyouko doesn't say anything in response, and Homura bends to kiss her hand before her soul gem shatters.
"When we beat Walpurgisnacht, what will you do?" Madoka says quietly. Homura already knows what life would look like on Madoka's side of things. While she would miss the others, especially Sayaka, she would still have a family and other friends to return too.
Homura doesn't quite have that. And with Kyouko having died early in this timeline, she isn't sure how to tell Madoka that she would miss her the most. So, with a lack of options, she says, "I guess I would come to school and see you again."
Madoka's lips curl, but the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes.
They both know that they can't beat Walpurgisnacht, but maybe pretending is the only way to get through all of this without cracking.
There are times when Homura wishes she could let herself die.
Her soul gem is still purple, with a color more and more closely resembling the night sky with every passing hour. But, she still just holds onto the grief seed instead of pressing it against the glass of her being. There is a part of her that would love to die, to be free from all of her worries. To never see a world in gray-scale, ever again.
But then there's Madoka, and Kyouko, and Homura remembers why the pit of her stomach lurches like a wave in a tsunami. If she can't fight for herself, she has to fight for them. It's a promise she's made to herself, one of the only promises she's never broken.
It isn't until she can feel the death in her soul gem that she hastily presses a grief seed against it. The color quiets to a more true purple, but she gets off her bed anyway. The familiars of Charlotte are witches now anyway, she may as well cull the herd.
"Do you think that Kyuubey would ever let us stop being magical girls? When we get older?" Sayaka says. "Or do we stay young forever?"
Homura resists the urge to squirm as Mami says, "I'm sure Kyuubey would let us stop if we truly wanted to, but it feels so good to transform, I don't know if I could ever stop!"
Kyouko lays on the carpet, lazily plopping candies into her mouth. "Hey."
"Hey."
"Homura, if Madoka were to contract, what do you think her ability would be? Mami has her ribbons, and Sayaka has her healing, but I can't imagine what Madoka would have."
"Empathy?" She's never especially put any thought into why Madoka doesn't have a special ability like the others, but she doesn't tell Kyouko that. Instead, she focuses on what she's always known. Kyouko doesn't have any distinct magic anymore. Mami has hinted at it over the course of several timelines, but Homura doesn't directly ask, knowing it is best to let Kyouko tell her when, if, she's ever ready.
Kyouko hums for a second before plopping a grape gummy into her mouth. "You think so?"
"Only a guess."
"That's fair."
She's only seen Kyouko pray in times of panic and decay, when her or another's body has nearly been torn in two.
But this is new. Kyouko kneels beside her body and says a quick prayer above Homura before putting a hand in her pocket. "I'm going to make you better," she says with an assured voice, and she presses their last grief seed on Homura's hand before the other girl can try and pull it away. Homura screams with the realization, but Kyouko simply looks down at her with an open smile. "You have to win this for me. You have to kill them all for me when Walpurgisnacht comes. I believe in you."
And there's a high pitched noise as Kyouko's soul gem explodes. She stops time in the middle of the blast, the sudden change of pressure leaving Homura in a coughing fit before she finally feels strong enough to stand up and walk away.
This timeline isn't forsaken, not yet.
She forces herself to keep looking forward, to not give Kyouko's half disintegrated body one last glance. But her resolve crumbles at the edge of the park, and she looks back to see Kyouko's lifeless eyes seemingly right on her.
And then she runs, runs, runs until she finds Madoka.
And then, in two days, she runs to try and save Madoka from one of Walpurgisnacht's attacks.
And then, with despair deep in her pores, she resets.
Kyouko passes her an apple.
She's finally realized what true power is. She always keeps a watchful eye on Madoka, knowing the other girl is just as powerful of a goddess as she is now. With Madoka, it's such an obsessive love based in the need for self-preservation that she knows that it isn't healthy. But, for years, all there really was had been her desire to protect Madoka. Now, what does she have? Endless power, yes, but the knowledge that down deep in Kaname Madoka sits the woman who could rewrite everything regardless.
Kyouko passes her familiars apples, silently and with a strained smile.
"Kyouko?"
"Mhm?"
"Do you feel like you control your life?"
"Not really." She sits straighter, a moment of painful clarity in her eye. "I think that God does." The sentence carries enormous weight, and Kyouko leaves quickly, a rush in her step as she leaves all the apples by her seat.
Homura's smile drops. For all her claims about being the goddess of love, even she cannot give Kyouko the endless freedom she desires. But, a nagging voice reminds her, at least she can let Kyouko be safe.
Safe.
That's better, isn't it? Kyouko might have moments where she knows something isn't right. At least, in those times where she is just as unknowing as any other, she's safe.
But Kyouko has always thrived on danger. Homura knows this very well, even if she tries to ignore it. Well, maybe she can think of something to give Kyouko, something that would appease her in that way. Something enthralling yet perfectly, lovingly, endlessly safe.
But the sight of the apples are a firm reminder that maybe Kyouko doesn't want anything from her at all.