Chapter Text
madoka kaname - prevention
and you'd say you love me and look in my eyes / but i know through mine you were / looking in yours - mitski
one.
she really didn't know what she was getting herself into. saving a cat is heroic and all, though that shouldn't have been what she wasted her wish on. the cat still died and her powers were rendered virtually useless on the battlefield. at least amy died knowing she was given another chance, even if it was short-lived. why even bother at all making a wish? that dumb fox-like creature was disappointed. disappointed in her. but madoka couldn't put her finger on it.
madoka went missing five months later. her body was never found. not by government officials at least.
she was thirty-two miles out, face down in a ditch, her skull cracked and head bleeding. dead from blunt force trauma. through the many possible theories she had, homura never figured out how, why, or when madoka died.
two.
she couldn't bear it. she couldn't bear seeing sayaka in so much pain. she had to do it. to save her. even though mami had been so cautious about the life of a magical girl. madoka wouldn't know how she'd live without one of her best friends. sayaka had been with her for years. she doesn't know how to be without her. they're only fourteen. even so, madoka wished for sayaka. though she was not relentless nor wreckless like sayaka is on the battlefield, healing is important to being magical. magical wounds are still hurt just as much, if not more.
being a healer meant being on the sidelines. her fighting was lackluster anyways. she could barely shoot her arrows accurately if it was a distance of more than a few meteres, so she resorted simply grazing the wounded area with the arrow tip instead. had she shot the arrow, it would still hurt, but it'd go away. the pain would only be temporary, at least physically.
despite that, the thought of wanting, no, needing to be more, to be able to help more, consumed her. madoka knew she could be more, because she just dodged attacks and healed, never fought. she never did enough, not in her mind. but she never got the chance to, not in the slightest. she lost the battle in the dumbest way possible; by dying at the mercy of a witch in battle.
she didn't feel anything when her head was cut off. it didn't hurt. one moment there was a blade coming for her throat and the next moment she was staring up at homura. then there was nothing.
it was a horrifying sight; to see madoka's head get cut off was a vision homura never wanted to see again. her head was cleanly chopped, so homura knew she wouldn't have felt much, if anything. but to see the sight of her head rolling toward her, bleeding out as madoka's eyes were still open was gruesome. she watched the blood pool out, getting in her shoes and the light fall from her eyes after seven grueling seconds. she saw her face fall blank and see her body fall to the ground with a soft thud. the dark liquid seeped into the fabric of her costume. homura had to force herself to pry her eyes off of the sight. she couldn't watch the blood come out in spurts as her heart desperately tried to circulate blood and oxygen around. not that her heart was able to keep the act up for long.
despite seeing so much from fighting witches from watching a labyrinth form to witnessing a witch kill herself, the sight made her nauseous. homura didn't eat or sleep for the next four days. it took homura finally collapsing at school for her to sleep.
but even in her sleep-deprived exhausted state, homura could not catch a break. the event replayed over and over again on a loop. the lifeless eyes that stared into her plagued her in her dreams, not ever leaving her. from the original cut all the way down to the spontaneous spouts of blood that her heart desperately to keep moving.
the pink and white in her dress absorbed the red liquid that pooled from madoka's neck, the collar of her dress now heavy instead of light, free of the weight of blood that then resided on her shoulders and neck.
she can't go on like this. she can't she can't she can't she can't.
it broke her.
three.
again she wished for sayaka, after she had landed herself in the hospital after trying to kill herself over kyosuke. she didn't deserve that, but madoka can't bring herself to watch her best friend die. something tells her that this is not the first time she's had to revive her.
she felt nauseous but did not get sick. she was close though. she also nearly fainted.
but madoka couldn't stand there and watch as her best friend of so many years died. she overheard the doctors say that she would need a psychiatric evaluation when she awoke. apparently it was common for people who attempted suicide would need a mental health screening, but because sayaka was indecisive, she was pushed up the list of importance.
some days sayaka fought and fought to wake up, her pulse strong and her vitals steady.
some days sayaka wanted to die. her heartbeat was barely there, as if she was giving up. because she wanted to die.
madoka wished for sayaka to awaken and for her physical injuries to heal, if she could, she would heal her mind too, but not even magic can heal mental injuries. they only heal with time.
four weeks after sayaka's awakening, madoka was killed due to taking on a witch too strong for her power and ability level.
four.
despite the name quite literally being 'soul gem', madoka somehow makes the mistake of separating the gem from sayaka's body. and of course madoka makes the mistake of throwing the soul gem in the dark.
homura yells at madoka. she's not once ever raised her voice despite her misunderstood fury. she orders madoka to hide sayaka's body around the area and then leave.
she complies.
it takes homura over the forty-eight-hour countdown to retrieve sayaka's soul gem.
by the time homura had found the gem, the stone that had originally been the clearest blue had turned to black.
the smell of the corpse is putrid, thinking about it makes a person gag. sayaka's skin is gray and her body is limp. she looks like a ragdoll. the soul gem has no power inside, even it can not heal sayaka's body. you can not bring back life in this case.
madoka wishes for sayaka once more.
she can not bear the brunt of her life without her.
she does not want to explain why sayaka is gone. she can't explain. not one person would understand her.
though sayaka is revived, she is not the same. she knows that she died and the effects are clear. magic is not a perfect science after all.
she is sleepy and tired all the time. her body is weaker and delicate. she bruises easily and takes longer to heal. her skin is paler and gets sicker often. she does not eat much and loses both fat and muscle. she is no longer the boisterous kid she had grown up as. sayaka miki is gone despite all efforts.
sayaka dies by her own hands, her life too pained with the burden of it all. perhaps her heart was too full of jealousy and desire. or perhaps she was never really revived in the first place.
madoka soon follows on the day that homura is supposed to turn the clock back.
all else has failed and homura must try again in the next loop.
death is painless for sayaka. it was not for madoka.
five.
madoka could feel her body being infused with raw power, it was overwhelming. it tingled, it was sharp, it was smooth, it was bumpy, it was rough.
her body grew bigger and her hair grew longer, perhaps to contain the energy that her body had to store. ascension to an entity greater than god-hood was more complicated than it looked after all.
the power in her was pure light, kissing the magical gems of magical girls from far and wide, past, present, and future, the corruption did not taint her in the slightest. she barely felt it enter her at all, the dark aura simply could not consume her.
everything about her disappeared.
now she was merely an enigma.