Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For the day's news, just the one word ‘sorry';

Sorry for the lies, for the long failure

-R. S. Thomas

There was… nothing. Not an empty feeling, but no feeling at all - this beautiful lack of sound, but not silence. A beautiful lack of sight, but not blindness. Her mind bobbed up and down through it, like a piece of driftwood. Here, there was nothing to hold her down - no people, no magic, no hope.

No hope… that didn’t sound right. There was always something like hope, right? She couldn’t tell why, but some part inside of her knew that was the case. It had to be, or…

Well, if there was hope, it had to be the only thing here - it felt like she was floating on nothingness for the rest of it - she thought her body was doing something, but she couldn’t actually feel her body. It was more like her consciousness was just directing itself around a space that wasn’t a space. How utterly… calm.

Couldn’t she stay here for a while longer? She didn’t know what was out there, but this… all other places would be worse. It was quiet here, nice and lonely, and she felt good. Like she didn’t need anything else. 

She didn’t need anything else.

So she stayed. Time passes - she knew time, at some point. She refused it now, so it didn’t exist - it didn’t pass. Infinity and nothingness, without in between.

Nothingness was pleasant - there was hope in it, but there wasn’t any despair. No failures she had to live through, just… sweet nothings. She would keep drifting, experiencing nothing, being nothing - there was nothing to remember, and nothing to expect. Oh, how sweet this life was! To not be that type of being anymore, to be free of misery! To just think about nothing but thoughts, until she lost grip and finally faded! She could think around and think of-

She blinked.

That had been a mistake - blinking meant awareness. It meant that she existed beyond her thoughts, even if only for a moment. And a moment was all it took for a floodgate to open.

She couldn’t tell what came out, though - it was an ambiguous feeling, this awareness. She could hear things - Breath, voices, an ambience. She wanted it gone - why couldn’t they just let her rest?! She wasn’t part of that world anymore! She didn’t know what was out there, either! So why would she want to be there?!

Then, suddenly, there was the realization that she had a body. She couldn’t even articulate her revulsion as, for a tick, she was aware of the skin stretched thinly across atrophied muscle and underfed organs. Of acid and bile within her, and feverish sweat outside of her. She had to stop, she had to-

She held her head for a moment - Oh, God, she had a head, a head! Of all things to have, oh how tragic! Even as she fought the sensation, she knew that she would again think fully - of what she didn’t know - but it couldn’t possibly be good. Why else would she have left it behind before? Her spine knew, it was shaking in sympathy.

The sensations filling her, from the smell to the sound, all of it only reinforced what she knew in her heart - she must have done this to herself, and she must have been right to do so. All of this, all of this, it was too much. And, as mundane as it looked, she knew it was just too sad…

She wasn’t ready to return - she wouldn’t be, not ever. She wasn’t ready to see, to care, to feel, to make mistakes - to love her .

…love who?

No, no, no, Mado-

It slipped her mind already, as loose as any other memory she could hold on to. The world was coming back to her, the bright lights of the… the… the hospital. That was it. She saw the white ceiling, she felt the uncomfortable blanket on her - too light for her tastes. All these small surface thoughts, instinctive but unconnected to her - like someone else was using her brain to think.

And thus, with a head stinging like it was full of bullets, The Girl with the Black Hair woke up.

Chapter Text

The Girl with the Black Hair sighed as she got out of bed. Things were blurry, even as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes. Why couldn’t she see? Was something wrong with her?

Oh, perhaps she needed glasses. That had to be the case.

She reached around, towards a nightstand, and found something that looked like glasses - putting them on, she found the world much clearer, less mysterious. She wasn’t sure if she liked it. But, now that she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound.

She stood up, looking around her room - it wasn’t decorated, looking excruciatingly like a hospital room. All kinds of advanced technologies and medications and necessities - it was all necessities, really. They had nothing to do with meaning - and since she was placed in a room with only necessities, that probably meant she didn’t mean anything either.

Fed up with the room and its agonizing existences, which had only exacerbated her headache, The Girl with the Black Hair moved towards something else - a mirror. As if that was a good idea.

Luckily, she hesitated before she got close enough to see herself. Seeing what she looked like… that felt wrong. Why would she put a face to the awful sensations and give herself someone to blame?

But, she thought: It wasn’t her face. If it was her face, she would remember it! If the previous person who lived in this body could be blamed, she would do so. She needed to.

Thus, she set a few more steps forward and looked into the mirror, where her face would be.

And it certainly was a face - she didn’t feel anything for it, but she could tell it was affected by negativity. She looked to be quite young, with some of the features of teenage awkwardness having set in. The first thing that stood out to her was her long, black hair - a bit tangled up, but it looked beautiful. That would mean she needed to brush it. It was odd how new that thought felt, even though she presumed one would do that every day.

She shook it off, and looked further - her eyes were a shade of purple. Not like gemstone, or anything out of nature she could remember, but she liked it well enough. It felt… cool. Like she was slowly getting out of that negative funk she woke up in.

A part of her shivered at that, but she ignored it.

After observing herself for a while longer - and poking her face for an embarrassing amount of time - the girl picked up a nearby brush. It was the only brush there, and it had some black hair stuck in it, so it was probably hers. Whatever would happen today, she would need to look kempt.

Brushing her hair was easy. She hadn’t known how to do it, but when one has a hammer and a nail, the technique is implicit. Soon enough she had two long black tresses flowing down past her waist, with a bit of breakage down the middle. It felt complete, so she decided to get up, dress herself and head out.

Well, this was a hospital, so she probably wouldn’t be able to. But if she did something wrong, someone would correct her - tell her what she * did * have to do. That would be the easiest way to figure out what was going on. So, she walked outside.

She glanced around the sterile halls, then towards her own door, where she saw a nameplate. It read a familiar name: ‘ Akemi Homura ’.

That was her name, then? Akemi Homura, Homura Akemi… ‘Homura’ meant ‘Flame’, right? That sounded pretty cool. She’d been left something .

“Ah, miss Akemi!”

She turned around as she was approached by a nurse - a woman in her early thirties with dark blue hair and eyes. Her little name card read ‘Fukuma Yuka’, though Homura wasn’t sure if she would remember that.

Hmm… ‘Homura’ didn’t sound right yet. She’d have to practice that name for a bit, first. Not now.

“What is it?” The Girl with the Black Hair asked quietly. Her voice sounded soft by nature, collected - slightly nervous. This was the first time she’d heard it, too - so she pretended not to be surprised by herself.

“I thought I’d told you to wait for us to come get you.” Ms. Fukuma said, then shook her head. “But, I guess you couldn’t sit still after all the excitement of surgery.”

The woman’s voice was fond - but Homura took quicker notice of the word ‘surgery’. She’d had surgery? But, what ki-

[It had been a long time since she last felt her heart beating like this - hammering, desperately trying to keep her body alive. A body it wasn’t strong enough to support, a body it would never be strong enough to support. Something that even her parents would eventually resign to. But she wouldn’t - even in the darkest pits of sorrow, she would think herself stronger.]

[A purple glow filtered through her flesh as she held her closed fist over it, finally dispelling that age-old wound.]

Heart surgery. The thoughts, the not-quite-memories entered her brain like a bullet, swift and without resistance. Telling her things that had never happened, and did.

She shivered, trying to go back to listening to the nurse. She’d caught a bit of it, something about being released from the hospital and going to her own home. It all sounded quite worrying, but she would be able to orient herself. Find out… things. She wasn’t sure what things. She couldn’t exactly figure things out about herself with a computer, after all. Either way, it would work wonders.

She went through the motions as best she could - trying to hide that she had absolutely no idea what was going on. She politely greeted everyone she could, fighting down a sense of anxiety in order to stay on topic. She said what sounded right, and was led to the desk. A chaperone of some kind, related to some sort of family she apparently had, would lead her outside, to a car - to the city itself.

And the city was massive.

The Girl with the Black Hair hadn’t looked out the window. But, if she had, she was sure that there’d only be windows staring back at her. She was looking at a marvel of architecture - monuments made normal and glass as strong as steel, towering over the world without ever imposing. The spring sun was bright, save for the occasional cloud, and it made the hypermodern phenomenon feel warm, despite itself. Further down, she was sure that she’d find something more mundane - buildings of stone, brick and such, growing more homely and calm as they headed away from the city center, but even here it felt nice. She saw a gaggle of college-aged girls with a rainbow of hair colors crossing the street, talking amongst themselves and living their lives. She saw a middle-aged man in a business suit pump his fist at something on his phone - not too far from him, a boy around her age stifled a laugh and showed his phone screen to his friend - who laughed as well. All glimpses of people, which she could barely catch as the crowd moved around them.

The attendant coughed, and she remembered to stay on track, entering the car that would bring her to her new house.

“The city is beautiful, ain’t it?” The attendant spoke, her voice a noticeably different accent from her own. “I’ve not seen anything like it before, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Me neither…” The Girl with the Black Hair nodded, looking out the window. “I didn’t get to see a whole lot during my stay.”

“Heh, good thing you’ll have plenty of time for it now!” The Attendant - that would be her name, now - said with an audible grin, running her hand through her long, black hair. “I’ll have to head back to New Orleans in a few days - nothin’ wrong with it, but I wish I could stay longer, you know?“

Her mind had thankfully supplied her with basic knowledge of existence so far, glasses and surgery among them, but had stopped short of helping her guess what ‘New Orleans’ might be. But, given how differently it was pronounced from every other word, she guessed it was some place far away.

“What’s New Orleans like?” She asked, attempting a little small-talk as she kept looking - seeing a school, with many kids in uniforms and backpacks heading in. Along the road, she saw a trio of girls - pink, blue and green - playing together and cracking jokes she couldn’t hear.

“One of the best places in the whole wide world, kid.” The Attendant said with such confidence that The Girl with the Black Hair immediately believed her. “It’s one of the architectural capitals in the world, along with Mitakihara here and Copenhagen in Europe. The home of Jazz, of Creole cuisine, and of the first Non-Euclidean building ever!” She said excitedly, then pointed at herself. “My ma actually helped design that one, you know - she helped develop the tech.”

“Non-Euclidean?” She asked curiously - it didn’t sound familiar, but it sounded cool. “What does that mean?”

“It’s mostly a corporate buzzword these days - but it’s usually talking about how it breaks the rules of Geometry this old dude called Euclid made. He said stuff like ‘parallel lines can never meet’ and ‘you can always draw a line from any point to any other point’. Non-Euclidean stuff is just when it breaks those rules, but a lot of real-world stuff is already that. When it’s architecture, though, you gotta imagine elevators going up, but ending up down. Geometry that just doesn’t make sense - but that gets too complicated to advertise, so we just say Non-Euclidean instead of all the hyper-specific terms.”

The Girl with the Black Hair listened intently, even as her mind had some trouble grasping it - but, theoretically, she thought that was super interesting! Hopefully Mitakihara had something like that, too.

“Wow, that’s super cool.” She added verbally, feeling the interest in her own voice by the way it pitched up and intensified. “I hope there’s stuff like that in Mitakihara. Do you also do that sort of thing?”

“Haha… not yet. I’m currently interning at your Uncle’s company, picking up some cash and some experience while I study. But, you bet that I will!” She laughed. “Until then, I’m the errand gal - which, you know, weird thing for a PHD student in architecture to be, but I’ll take it. Not often you meet a teenager interested in this sorta thing, you know?”

The Girl hummed in agreement, trying to figure out a reason why Homura would be interested in this. But, she decided it was easier to not justify anything. “It’s fun! Making a city beautiful is an art, if you ask me. I think you have to, when people are spending their whole lives there.”

“Right, you get it!” The Attendant said - The Girl could see her smiling through the car mirrors.

The discussion kept on for a while - with The Attendant ever-animated and The Girl with the Black Hair smiling and listening intently. But, soon enough, they would reach their destination. A house addressed to Homura Akemi, made of brick and beauty. It looked much older than the city center’s buildings, but only in terms of style - it didn’t take a lot of effort to see that the bricks themselves were new.

“Aand, here we are!” The Attendant said, helping her out of the car and towards the house, where she handed over the key. “Can’t believe you’re living by yourself, though - you sure that’s okay?”

The Girl paused, looking up at the house. Having someone else there would be helpful, but… some part of her resisted the thought. “I… think I’ll manage. Otherwise they’d have assigned me someone, I think.”

“...fair enough.” The attendant said, not sounding convinced. “But, if you’ve got a problem, you should call me, okay? I’ll check up on ya.”

With the speed of someone trying to keep up with a lecture, the attendant took out a small notebook, wrote down a phone number and handed the page over to The Girl - in the space of about five seconds. She gratefully accepted it, happy to have at least one connection now - and one that her memory loss wouldn’t cause problems with.

After some small goodbyes, The Girl went inside, into the dusty new house. She sighed, took a deep breath, and around. It was meager, but already furnished - comfy-looking couches and chairs, a small TV and even a computer. It looked like whoever her benefactor was had prepared for her. She took out her phone, adding The Attendant to her contacts, and-

[It is the middle of winter. A middle-aged woman, hair thin after years of taking terrible care of it, sits at the table with her head in her hands. The gas prices had doubled recently - it wouldn’t be a problem normally, but she couldn’t deal with it right now. Not after-]

[She didn’t finish her train of thought. She didn’t need to, to know that she was going to sell the house. Her eyes involuntarily wandered to a framed picture on the wall. A young girl with bright purple hair. A young girl that was no longer there.]

[She had to leave this house.]

-The Girl with the Black Hair shuddered. Homura shuddered. That feeling again… this time, not a memory. Not her memory, at least. It felt scary, but natural. Like she was looking through a window on a cold night.

She looked at herself in the reflection of the television screen - her hair, her plain t-shirt and jeans, and the ornate ring around her finger. She couldn’t leave this house. But, she didn’t need to - she’d make the most of it, even now.

Chapter Text

The nameplate at the door of her house also read Akemi Homura. She really needed to get used to the name, or she’d embarrass herself. But, for now, she had something more important to deal with.

Her ring had a purple gemstone on it. In that first strange memory she experienced this morning, she held something glowing purple in her hand, and used it to… heal her heart? It felt like she was grasping at something impossible there, but it felt too real to ignore.

She gingerly removed the ring from her hand and laid it in her palm. It was ornate, but in a generic way - all the swirls carved into it felt like they were made with a template in mind. But, it was special. It * felt * like something. So, with her one memory in mind, she focused on it, asking it to answer.

After a few moments, the purple gem on it began glowing brightly. Then, it folded, melted almost, and formed into a larger gem, surrounded by a golden filigree. It reminded her of an egg - which was strange, because she’d never seen an egg before. She had to say the reverse whenever she’d first see an egg, then.

She curled her fingers around the gem and then held it to her heart. If she had apparently healed it once, then…

The gem glowed, and she felt her heart rate increase, then steady. She felt it pump the blood through her veins with more strength. Her breaths felt stronger, and she felt more energetic as well.

All that with a thought. That was scary, thinking about it. She looked at the gem, noticing it had grown slightly dimmer. That didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t tell why. Perhaps it was like a power source, and needed something to recharge, like a magic, battery-powered lamp.

That made sense. She made sense. This was totally okay.

She let the gem transform back into a ring, slipping it back onto her finger as she felt this newfound energy course through her, setting her off course. Energy she couldn’t use for anything - she could examine that other memory, but that didn’t give her any clues unless this house was haunted somehow.

The Girl with the Black Ha- no, Homura started pacing around the room, and picked up her earlier train of thought: Practicing her name, and practicing herself. She would have to go to school in due time, she found out from some emails sent by the Attendant. The paperwork had been handled, but the social part, the part about herself, that was on her. She was gonna have to introduce herself to the class soon, too - best be prepared.

Thus, she began trying, walking in front of the couch, bowing and saying:

“Hello. My name is Homura Akemi. It’s nice to meet you!” She tried, using a small smile. “ I can’t wait to spend my time with you.”

No, no. That sounded weird. She was pretty sure words didn’t go like that. She got the name right, though - but the smile? Was that the smile of Homura Akemi? Let’s try that again.

She walked back, hesitated, then *strutted in front of the couch. She bowed, flashed a grin, and said: “Hey there, the name’s Homura Akemi. It’s great to meet you all.” She said, before hitting the non-existent audience with finger-guns.

Even without anyone else here, she could feel herself cringe. That wasn’t Homura * or * her, definitely. Not the right kind of * cool *. Not like she knew what the right kind was, though. That was a matter of opinion. But, she didn’t have anything better to do today, so…

“Hello, gang-”

“Great morning, y’all-”

“Good morning, everyone-

“I’m Homura Akemi,” She said with a short bow and a friendly wave. “It’s lovely to meet you all!” She smiled, then sighed. She liked the energy there, but she wasn’t gonna keep that up all day.

“The name’s Homura Akemi.” She said with a mock salute. “It’s nice to meet you, but it’s even nicer to meet me-” Was all she could say before stifling a chuckle and discarding that immediately. That was * way * too cool for her.

“I am Homura Akemi.” She said, bowing politely. “It is nice to meet all of you. It’s been a while since I’ve been to school, so I hope that you all can help me get into the rhythm again.”

That seemed… close enough. It was polite, she struck a simple posture, and she sounded interested in her classmates. With something like that, she could make it pretty far. From there, she would have time and room to figure things out about herself.

Feeling satisfied with her practice, Homura decided to sit down and relax for a moment - she had a lot of time, it felt like, to do whatever she wanted.

Whatever she wanted…

Well, heck, what was that gonna be? She didn’t exactly have a to-do list. She’d been told almost all school stuff had been managed already, and she was fine otherwise. So…

She sighed and dropped down on the couch, flipping through the TV channels. Part of her wanted to justify it as people-watching and understanding them, but she just needed to pass some time.

Wait, why did she need to justify it? She was just watching TV! No need to busy herself all the time.

Still, Homura did start with a news channel - one report of a missing girl, and other than that it was politics, and a natural disaster in another country. Nothing too interesting. So, she changed channels over and over - seeing talk shows, soap operas, anime, anything, really. None of it could really hold her attention, though. She felt jittery just sitting there and doing nothing, so she forced herself to sit still.

Whoever Homura Akemi had been, she didn’t really appreciate that. What kind of girl must she have been to be so focused on doing stuff when there wasn’t anything to do? Hadn’t she been in the hospital for a while?

She closed her eyes again, trying to conjure up something - a memory, maybe. But, it felt about as empty as could be - like there was absolutely nothing there… or, nothing that she could see normally.

Her eyes wandered down to her hand once more - the purple ring, the thing that had seemingly healed her heart. She had almost immediately forgotten about it afterwards, but it was clearly potent in some way. If she could restore her heart with it, what about her brain?

Worth a try, she supposed. She pushed the gem against her forehead and focused. The magic entered her in small increments, almost like a clock ticking by, and she felt it coursing through her brain, uncovering…

uncovering…

nothing.

Of course, the brain was deeply complex - but so was the heart, or the rest of the body, so it felt worth a try. But it didn’t feel like she was failing, per se. Because she did feel something in there, in the deepest crevasses of this mind. It was simple - like she had fared upon a locked box. She picked up the box and shook it, but couldn’t hear anything inside. There might not even be anything in there anymore, its contents having rotten away.

She sighed and put down the gem again - it had been worth a try, but of course it wouldn’t come that easily. She’d probably not have the time to research stuff like this once school began, but on the other hand… if this weird skittishness was a sign of what Homura used to be, maybe she didn’t want to be that yet. Maybe she’d be better off being her current self instead. She didn’t know who that was either, but she liked her. They’d prepare for the Homura at the end of the tunnel, should that be necessary.

Having unpacked her stuff, she knew there wasn’t much for that Homura either - two school uniforms was all she had besides her current outfit, and in terms of personal belongings she had nothing but her ring and a smartphone. She was already a clean slate, so she might as well start filling it in. The Attendant had mentioned a massive mall before they arrived here - that would be worth checking out.

As she headed out, towards the mall, she hadn’t even thought of pulling up a map - her feet would lead her where she needed to be. Her gait was confident, her thoughts focused. It was deeply mundane, but she couldn’t help the anxiety and excitement creeping in on her. Like something about what she was doing was wrong.

A chill ran up her spines for a moment - not following any memories this time. She hoped that she would keep that part under control.

Chapter Text

The rest of the week seemed to pass in a similar fashion. Her mind didn’t like it when she did nothing, so she tried to ‘do’ things. She went to the park, she went shopping for necessities, and she went to the library. Of course, if she was going to school next week, she would need to check if she remembered how to do basic math. She was glad to have remembered how to write and read, but she wasn’t sure about the rest. Looking through the library’s textbooks had at least shown her she wouldn’t be out of her depth.

Certainty still eluded her, though. Especially at any point she stopped to think - going to the mall had been easy, thoughtless, but when she started to try and remember how to get home, she found herself unable to. Like her hind-brain had been the only thing retaining actual memories. It felt weird, like she was handing over control to someone else, someone who was sleeping.

She was glad she had remembered her address, and had started doing her best to rely on maps instead of this nebulous mind of hers. It made her a bit slower, but she felt better about it.

School came closer with every passing day - and she prepared for it as best she could. She had borrowed some books from the library to keep an eye on her curriculum, she’d planned out the route she’d walk to school, and by now she felt like she had nailed her introduction. It probably wasn’t the most normal behavior, but after losing her memory she was happy to cut herself some slack. Anything she could do in order to avoid messing up.

Eventually, it was time. Nervousness was clawing at her despite herself, or because of it. She packed her bag and headed out, carefully following the route she had set. She would arrive a bit earlier than the class to speak with Ms. Saotome, her homeroom teacher, and would be waiting until the rest of the class had assembled in order to introduce herself.

This had left her standing outside of the classroom, hearing the murmuring and messing-about of her future classmates. She couldn’t catch any distinct words, until Ms. Saotome spoke up. She was the only voice for at least a minute, ranting about something or other. For some reason, eggs seemed to annoy her quite a lot.

When Homura was finally called in, she took a deep breath, put a smile on her face, and stepped inside. The class appeared fairly normal, though her eyes instinctively wandered to a girl sitting closer to the front of the class - a girl with pink hair in pigtails. She couldn’t tell why, and didn’t have time to. There was an introduction to make.

With a steady hand, the girl formerly known as The Girl With The Black Hair wrote a name on the board, before turning around and giving a bow to the classroom.

“Good morning, everyone. My name is Homura Akemi. It’s great to meet all of you.” She said, glancing around the classroom. “I hope we can become friends.”

Her eyes once more settled on the pink-haired girl, and she felt the tug of some kind of facial expression - one she quickly fought down as she moved to take her seat.

The smile she’d put on her face felt a bit more genuine in that moment.

The school day seemed to pass normally at first. She wasn’t exactly great at the assignments, but she wasn’t embarrassing herself either. The nervousness that crawled into her system hadn’t abated, but it hadn’t gotten worse. Only when the other girls converged on her did she get a bit worried. They were curious about her, of course, but it was hard to answer questions about a past she didn’t remember.

She dodged the question about her previous school, instead talking about following courses from the hospital, and then went on to talk about somewhat familiar stuff. She didn’t have a pet, nor siblings, mostly kept to herself until now. Some of it felt a bit more true to herself, but before the girls could prod more at her, they were interrupted.

“U-um, girls?” A timid voice popped in. “Sorry for interrupting, but I have to bring Akemi-san to the nurse’s office. She has to take her meds soon.”

Homura - Akemi-san? - turned to the source of the voice and saw the girl she was expecting: Pink hair, shy-looking, and somehow familiar.

Her hind-brain was ticking, but she couldn’t care about that right now. The girl was right, she needed to take her meds soon, so she nodded and stood up.

“That’s true, I’d almost forgotten.” She said in an appreciative tone, turning to the other girls. “We’ll be back in a moment.”

As the two left the classroom, the noise of the others fell into quiet, then to nothing. Homura felt a bit relieved as she walked after the nurse’s aide - it was like a weight was lifted off her back. Maybe her nervousness was starting to catch up to her. She still felt some of it as the quiet fell to silence, awkwardness building up in her head, but it wasn’t as bad. She could deal with this.

“Thank you for helping me - I was worried I might get lost again.” She decided to start with.

“It’s no problem at all, I’m happy to help!” The pink-haired girl said, a bit less timid than before. “I wouldn’t be a good health representative otherwise.”

“Touche.” Homura chuckled. “By the way, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“Oh, I forgot! I-I’m Madoka Kaname, but you can just call me Madoka.” Madoka introduced herself sheepishly, falling right back into her previous attitude.

“Nice to meet you, Madoka-san. You can call me Homura, if you’d like.”

Madoka nodded at that. “I’ll do my best - I might forget sometimes,” she admitted, “but with such a nice name, I’ll manage. It means ‘flame’, right?”

“I think it does? I’m not sure.” Homura nodded. “I was usually just called ‘Akemi-chan’ at the hospital, so I haven’t heard it in a while.”

That was a half-lie - she was only called by her name a few times since she’d woken up, and ms. Saotome was the only one who’d used her first name at all. She would guess that they called her Akemi-chan all the time back at the hospital, it was that sort of formal.

“Really? I guess I’ll just have to make up for that, then.”

The two giggled softly as they passed through a hallway - a glass one, bridging two buildings. The sun looked down on them, and as Homura looked out-

[Once, twice, a hundred times. Two girls stand in this hallway, facing each other. Turned away from each other. Their expressions are hidden - every emotion under the sun is forced to show itself on only one face, to the point where they cannot be contained. Rather, these two heads have become indeterminate masses of feelings you cannot remember.]

[The words spoken are vague, but each of them feels like a stab to the chest. A promise to live up to one’s name. A promise to never change. A promise to keep living, a promise to die. It’s a cacophony of meaningless words. If any of them had been true, you wouldn’t be here, would you?]

[This hallway is a monument to failure. Every second spent here betrays her patheticness. She understands this without knowing.]

Homura’s reflections, hundreds of reflections only she could see, did not look back at her as she lurched forward. Nausea overtook her body and she had to stop herself from vomiting at the sudden emotional upwelling her mind brought forth - despair, frustration, embarrassment, hope, and love. Feelings she couldn’t even begin to find the origins of. She couldn’t, not now - she had to control herself.

Madoka jumped as she heard Homura’s sudden retching, turning around and grabbing the girl.

“Homura?! Are you alright?!”

The Girl With The Black Hair retched again, unable to form words. She reached up to her eyes, wiped the tears that had suddenly burst out, and shook her head.

“C’mon, let’s get you to the office before anything worse happens. Okay?”

Another nod. She stumbled forward, using Madoka’s shoulder to support herself. She stayed silent for a while, trying to figure out what had just happened.

It was the same sensation as the other times - the time she found out about the gem, and the time she received a vision from long ago. It had made her feel like a spectator, outside of her body, looking where she shouldn't.

Why was it so intense this time? What had she seen, who had she seen, that her mind and body reacted so violently?

The worry hadn’t left her body by the time they reached the Nurse’s office, but the nausea seemed to have lessened. Madoka wouldn’t let her off the hook, though - she was fussing over her now, even as the- even as Homura assured both her and the nurse that everything was fine. Either she was lying or those two were stubborn, because she was told to stay here for a few minutes, just to make sure things were in order.

It would have annoyed her more had Madoka not chosen to stay with her - the girl’s presence was rather comforting.

“I’m glad it doesn’t seem to be anything too bad,” The pink-haired girl said, “Does that happen to you often?”

“No, not really. I’m not sure where it came from, either. My medication can have those side-effects, but I would have experienced them before,” Homura said, “I should probably message my doctor about that.”

“Hmh, you should. You had me really scared for a second there.”

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault, don’t worry about it.” Madoka shook her head. “I’m just glad you’re okay now.”

“Thanks. You’re a very good nurse’s aide, you know?”

Madoka blushed a bit at that, but was receptive to the compliment: “Thanks, I try my best. I’m not needed most of the time, honestly, so I’m kind of happy you came along…” She paused, then stammered out: “N-not that I’m happy you’re sick! I just mean I’m glad to help people for once, and, uh…” She paused, but continued before Homura could get another word in, eyes glancing down. “T-that’s a nice ring you have there, by the way!”

Homura paused, then held up her ring. “T-thanks? It’s a family heirloom. Here, you can look closer, if you want.”

She took the ring off her fingers and handed it to Madoka. As both of them looked it over, Homura noticed something different.

“It’s so pretty…” Madoka said softly. “But… wasn’t it more purple before? It looks a bit darker now.”

“It… it does.” Homura agreed, confused. “That’s strange. Hold on for a moment…”

She took the ring back into her hand and, before thinking about it, transformed it into its egg shape. She noticed the same phenomenon there: Starting at the filigree, an eerie sort of darkness was crawling through the glass, going up.

“This is…” Homura murmured, not knowing what to even think of this.

“Uh, Homura?” Madoka started hesitantly. “How did you… do that?”

Homura paused, then looked from her gem to Madoka, then back.

Oops. That was going to take some explaining. Explaining something she knew nothing about, even. She should have thought that through.