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Akemi Homura sits on the cold white-tiled floor of her home. She leans against a couch, made of white, lifeless material and stares at nothing with bloodshot eyes. Her eyes tingle and burn from the tears shed minutes before and her head aches, throbbing to a beat she cannot hear, but she would rather this than feel nothing at all, for to her, the pain is proof of Kaname Madoka's existence. This is how many of her days ended.
For a long time now, Madoka has been gone from her reach. Though Homura knows that she does still exist and has simply altered the form of her being, it is of little comfort to her when she cannot feel Madoka's heartbeat against her ribs when she presses her cheek onto them and when she can no longer hear the sound of her voice, her laughter like a fountain of molten gold flowing. What good was it to know that Madoka existed when her entire being was aching, crying out for the slightest touch of her hand or a single sighting of her hair amongst the crowds of Mitakihara city?
Homura could still bring to life in her imagination that bright pink hair and a smile so gentle that it almost felt divine, but her exact features she could no longer recall. They had faded from her memory years ago, owed to both time passing and Madoka's very existence being erased from the records of the universe, leaving only uncertainty in their stead. On her best days Homura would replay the scarce memories she had of Madoka's features and the interactions she had with her in the last timeline, but those memories were delicate. If she allowed herself to sink into her thoughts for too long and let her mind run wild, she would taint the memories with her sorrow and grief and be unable to look back on them for months.
On her worst days, she would pound the cold, uncaring tiles of her floor with her scarred hands balled into tight fists and she would weep and wail and scream out of fear of losing those memories until her throat was raw and her energy spent. It was not unusual for her to think herself to the brink of madness in the quiet of the night when the memories plagued her one after another. Many times she had wondered if she would have turned into a witch, if they still existed.
Of course, there were days when she would throw all of herself into her work, strategizing her next attacks against the Wraiths and attempting to pursue some type of friendship with the girls Madoka had so loved and whom she had worked with timelines over. Days when she would barely think of Madoka at all, tunnel-visioned only on winning the war that day. Those days brought Homura he most pain; if she did not think of Madoka and keep the memories of her tucked between her ribs, close to her heart, then who would? She would truly fade from existence. It was the very same fear that kept her from putting an end to her days - though she was slowly forgetting, she still remembers, for now.
Time is cruel that way, she thinks, for it is supposed to heal. But if healing means leaving behind the only meaning she has ever known, would she be able to bear it?
For years, she has been stuck, standing still in the whirlwind that is the world changing around her, her feet bound by the memories of timelines long passed. Before she even became a magical girl, she had been stuck, bed-bound, her illness getting the best of her and pushing her body past its limits just to survive.
New contracted girls have come and gone, her education has come to an end and Tatsuya is no longer a small child but a round-faced smiling boy on the brink of his adolescence. He reminds her of his older sister, ever kind and forgiving, full of life and so vivid in a world gone greyscale.
Him, too, she has only observed from a distance, unable to come up with a reason to talk to Madoka's family. They did not know her at all in this version of her life's story, though in other versions they had been inseparable, repairing the tear in her left by her own parents' passing. She has never quite known the unconditional love of a parent, only the love granted to her by Madoka in the small hours of the night and on quiet days spent talking about everything and nothing by the waters.
In this version of her story, the only version that would ever exist anymore, she has decided, she is alone. She has lived in a world so very different to others for so long that she could never quite settle comfortably into her life.
But despite everything seeming bleak, she would continue to fight on, dull day by dull day, fulfilling her duty, keeping the memories of Kaname Madoka close and as pure as possible.
Homura slowly gathers her strength, praying that her body not fail her now, and brings her legs under her tired body and supports herself by pushing on the couch and slowly but surely she gets up and flicks the lightswitch of her living room, making for her bedroom. She feels as though she is made of lead, so heavy she feels, but she carries on dragging herself through the house she has decorated bleakly except for the few pops of color in the pictures she had of Madoka, and, for nostalgia's sake, the other girls, until she reaches her bedroom, each step of hers echoing in the dark hallways of her home.
Before, she could bear it, the silence. But now the loneliness had made home in her bones and it seeps out of her, tainting her environment with its poison. The silence feels deafeningly loud and her mind keeps conjuring up visions in the corners of her eyes, pink hair shifting behind a corner, a white-furred creature shifting along the floor or lurking on the furniture, bizarre patterns rising to life on her walls and making her vision blur and waver.
But none of it is ever real. Simply her mind playing tricks on her, that vile thing. She could not hate it, though, though she might curse it, for it held the memories and still ordered her body to move.
She lets herself fall limp on her bedding without even bothering to discard her tear-stained clothing and closes her eyes, exhausted by the day. The darkness welcomes her easily, swallowing her to the land of dreams and lets her sleep.
-
She often imagines it a thousand different ways. All the ways to defeat Walpurgisnacht that she had not thought of in her folly that could've saved Madoka from contracting with Kyubey. She had been naive, she knows now, to think that pure firepower and sheer will would ever have been enough to defeat such a witch. After all, it was not a singular witch, but an amalgamation born of many of her fellow magical girls that despaired, losing their hope and joining the neverending circus tour of Walpurgisnacht.
If her sorrow was anything to go by, their combined despair must've been a living hell for the souls trapped in the witch forms. She pitied the witches. How much despair would one have to endure before their spirit finally breaks?
But there were ways she had not tried to defeat the witches. Small tweaks, a weapon aimed slightly higher, to that intriguing spot, another taking care of a familiar the witch had dragged along with it, all while she recruited new contractees out of the Mitakihara citizens to strengthen herself against Walpurgisnacht.
This is what often filled her dreams. In her wake, she could not rest, and in her unconscious state she was still being tormented. She replays the scenarios in her head until she feels dizzy with the possibilities and nauseous with guilt, tears streaking down her face. Then she wakes gasping, the weight of the world resting on her ribcage. A new dawn arises and a new day starts, no matter what she faces. Today, too, she throws her legs over the side of her bed and stands tall, facing yet another morn.
-
Reminiscing over Madoka and their time spent together is not always painful. She remembers this every now and then. Madoka had been something soft in a world so hardened, something that balanced out her own toughness caused by years of learning how to not be soft. Her own hand had always felt like an iron hand holding Madoka's own velvet glove soft hand. Sometimes remembering this fills Homura with joy so bright it could rival the sun itself if let out, but as all her emotions, she keeps it inside, tightly locked. This joy is hers and hers alone, for others could not understand it even if she attempted to share it. But that was just fine. In those moments she marvels at the courage and the strength of her goddess, changing the world and bending it to her will when it would not bend for others. The world cares not for the whims of mankind, but to a goddess, even it must bow.
Today was one such day. Homura lands on a rooftop and lets her transformation fall for now, out of breath from her recent battle and spots a girl with red ribbons tied in her hair. Instead of a piercing arrow to her heart, it brings the slightest of smiles to her lips as she touches the red ribbon tied in her own hair.
She thinks often that she ought to change the world the same way Madoka had. She ought to have it bend to her will for once, just once, to spend one more moment with her beloved.
And yet she never truly makes anything of that idea. Her days flow by in a haze, new scars appearing and attempting to heal after each battle against the Wraiths. Many a time she arrives home in such a rough condition, thorougly beat and battered, bruises blooming on her thighs and her arms that she finds the idea of attempting to do what Madoka did absolutely foolish. She did not have the strength for it. She had never truly been strong, just driven by insanity of her own making. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result and that was exactly what she had done, was it not?
But no matter now.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a white-furred figure shifting along the rooftops. Homura whips her head around, half-convinced that her mind is playing tricks on her again, but there it is, that blood-eyed creature, watching her silently. She sighs and shuts her eyes in an attempt to recalibrate before she stands up, stretching her weary body and rolls back her shoulders from the slumped position she had been sitting in. Her body is slightly sore from zoning out on the rooftop for so long, but soon enough it would pass. She takes in the modern cityscape of Mitakihara city and breathes in the air, which, while not entirely pure, fills her lungs with new life and she tentatively finds the strength within herself to transform once more while the creature watches her intently.
She cocks her shield and holds her hand just behind it in an angle meant to obscure her movements from Kyubey, ready to pull out one of her weapons at any time so the creature can no longer surprise her.
"Right. Show me the Wraith," she says, her tone cold as ice and the creature simply turns around and runs, hopping from rooftop to rooftop knowing that Homura will follow no matter how difficult it makes the path. Homura wonders if it was a sort of game for the creature, but does not dwell on it for too long as she runs, feeling the hum of the wind in her ears and her eyes. Another battle awaits her, she knows this. But she wishes it wasn't so, that the fates would change.
-
When Homura finally arrives to a dimly lit grassy clearing on the west border of Mitakihara, she comes face to face with the Wraith, which she had expected to be a normal Wraith since the creature had not warned her of it being any different but as she takes in its appearance, she realizes exactly why it hadn't warned her.
A half-completed torso with an inky black triangle-like shape coming out of its neck, where a head should be and a golden hued halo shining softly behind it. Below the Wraith, a prism-like shape, nearly transparent, floating. Warbled, wavering shapes of differing sizes and colors floating all around it, obscuring the lack of its face and bottom half. Large blocks made of
A chill runs down Homura's spine despite the fact that she's used to dealing with the Wraiths.
In front of her floats a Satori Wraith, nearly the strongest kind, second only to the Moksha Wraiths. If she wasn't careful, she could get heavily injured during this battle.
A snow-like static fills her vision as she charges head-first towards the Wraith, her hand already reaching for a grenade and her body working on autopilot after so many years of training. She allows herself a moment of wondering if she should simply let herself fall to the Wraith's lap, let Kyubey have its victory and let the Wraith take care of what she can not. But as soon as her fingers curl around a familiar shape, there is the cold sting of metal on her teeth and the pin has already been pulled. Call it survival instinct, call it cowardice, but she stays living all the same.
-
Homura stares at the ground below her, her knees stinging from being pressed against the ground for so long. Her hands are in tight fists and her head is hung low, her entire body fighting the trembling she can feel is trying to shake her.
She is angry. Angrier than she has ever been, in all her years reliving the same month, in all her years after Madoka's sacrifice.
To take something so sacred to her and use it to taunt her, to mock her, was beneath anything she had ever experienced. The Witches might have been cruel and reached into their minds to project their memories in the labyrinths, but never had she been violated quite like this. Her blood runs hot and her skin feels too tight to house the emotion it's conjuring up and she feels sick, waves of grief masked by anger lashing at her, lapping at her and trying to swallow her whole.
The Wraith, that ugly thing, had caught Homura off her guard. It had seized her and bound her by her wrists and her ankles, a ghastly hand appearing from the darkness to reach for her and she had been so sure this would be it. This would be the end of her. She had taken mild comfort in The Law of The Cycle coming to lead her away at last, but when the hand had reached for her Soul Gem, it hadn't shattered it. It had handled it gently and simply held the small glass vial on its enormous palm like it was something precious.
A sheer violet haze had slowly seeped out of her Soul Gem and enveloped the hand of the Wraith. She had been able to sense that something was deeply wrong with her, her body going lax in the strings that held her like a toymaker's dearest puppet doll. Emptiness had started filling the space in the stead of the steady hum of magical energy she usually felt. Once the violet haze thinned out, the hand dropped her Soul Gem on the grass field and she thanked God it did not shatter.
She watched helplessly the shape of the hand wavering before dispersing into the air. The form of the Wraith began to change, folding in on itself and spouting new limbs and shapes in the size of a human formed from the thick miasma now surrounding the Wraith. The creature halved in size suddenly, as if something was pulling it inside a tunnel in a certain point. It was grotesque, its body bending into unnatural shapes and being sucked into itself.
As it reached the sizing of a small human, something happened. The limbs settled into place and a torso and a face were beginning to form, still unnatural for a human, but closer than its original form had been. Pink hair sprouted from the top of the head shape it had formed and its unfinished body was slowly covered by a white dress. Its arms and legs were not connected by joints yet and its holed torso and bottom half were held together by a string. Soon, three empty eyes opened on the face it was polishing and all of them blinked once before directing their void gazes at Homura.
She wanted to scream. The Wraith had tapped into her memory-manipulation magic and the memories she kept so near and dear to her heart.
It was undeniably forming the shape of Kaname Madoka. It patched itself up and descended to the ground near where Homura was being kept and let her out of her bounds with a snap of its fingers.
For a minute, the figure of the Wraith stood still and Homura was almost afraid to look at it for fear of tainting her precious memories. When she finally braved and lifted her gaze, a smile had bloomed on the Wraith's face and its eyes were shining with all the untold possibilities of the world.
It was Madoka.
Homura stumbled backwards and landed on her bottom, never once lifting her eyes from the creature again. If she didn't know better, even she would easily confuse this recreation as the original, so well it had done its job. It was absolutely vile, wearing her smile and her face. Homura cried out as Madoka- no, the Wraith took its first steps towards her only for her fear to be met with a gentle touch and soothing words from her beloved.
It wasn't right. Homura knew those hands nearly as well as her own, as well as the lilt and cadence of that voice - or at least, she used to know them that well, and still knew them well enough to know that none of it was quite right. An empty promise, a doll molded into something she wanted to see. But the scent was familiar and comforting and the longer the Wraith spoke its sweet words the better it learnt to mimic Madoka's voice and she found herself brimming with rage at how badly she wanted to give in to the illusion, warm and welcoming contrasted with her daily life.
She fell into a daze, letting the Wraith get the best of her. It talked endlessly about how badly it missed Homura and its friends and how it couldn't wait to go back home to its family and how it missed its dad's cooking so. It talked about painful memories from Homura's past and made tempting promises about her future and lulled her into a false sense of security.
She should be ashamed. In fact, she is. The shame runs white-hot in her veins and courses throughout her as she curses her weakness. Never has she let anything like this happen, not once in all her years. It just so happened that there was one thing and one thing only that could render her useless.
The wraith had talked circles around her, feeding her lies after lies. The worst of it had been when it had told Homura that Madoka regretted her sacrifice and was unhappy in her current state. Homura had thought of it day and night since Madoka's disappearance. It was a fate crueler than death, for at least death is mercy at the end of a long road, but Madoka's path was never paved and mercy would never come to her. And if she regretted it, who would know? Who would hear, who would help her? Madoka had wished herself into a trap, a trap where she would forever toe the edge of despair with the burdens of all the contracted girls throughout time and then be lifted to her feet by herself, over and over again, forever. It was worse than what Homura had done to herself. Homura gasped, feeling out of air.
She doesn't know how she did it. All she knows is that she woke up from her daze pointing a gun at Madoka, having shot at her Soul Gem as she had dozens of times before. As the Wraith lay there, unmoving and cold, stuck in Madoka's form, Homura relives those dozen times.
The grief weighing her down is indescribable. But it is nothing compared to the animosity building up inside her.
It is in this state that she finally sees clearly her fate, what she must do. How to bend the world to her will, the same way Madoka had done. She would make true of her ideas, the thousands of times she had thought of it, finally.
The skin on her back begins to burn and itch intolerably, but she pays it no mind.
If the world only bends for a goddess, she would bend the goddess to her will and make the world realize her dream. Ah, how simple.
Her skin feels like it's tearing apart at the seams. It's as though her body had finally had enough and given up on trying to turn all her emotions inwards. Something was desperate to get out, and out it would get.
After all, Homura had always wished to be stronger than Madoka, hadn't she? To save her, to protect her, even if it is from her own folly she must be saved. Homura comes to the conclusion that she has been handling the world with soft velvet gloves despite the world being cruel and uncaring to her. Did she not deserve to rest? Did she not deserve to have one happy dream in her life after all her work? And worst of all, if Madoka truly felt like Homura imagined she did, she would never know. And if she didn't feel it yet, she would come to feel so and Homura must save her before that happens. She would not allow her to fall into the same cycle she once had. She would be the one caring thing in the entire world to Madoka.
Madoka's world it may be, but Homura nor her would not be made mockery of for any longer, and a world without Madoka was no world worth Homura's protection. Madoka's own world was using the very concept of her to mock her, as if to prove that her sacrifice had meant nothing in the end. The world is still cruel, still sowing its seeds of sorrow. Homura clenches her fists tight, her fingernails leaving small crescent moon shaped imprints on her calloused palms.
An iron hand in a velvet glove, hers is, something cold and hardened, barely human beneath her soft shell, and it was time to take that glove off and give the world a taste of what she'd endured.
Something bursts out of her by force, casting a shadow over her and shielding her from the sun. She jolts from pain but stays resolute, determined to see through what she once set in motion.
She calls for Kyubey weakly, and as if by miracle, the creature comes to her, purring its sickly sweet words to her before it truly takes in what it's seeing and a few hairs stand on its back.
Oh, no, Homura thinks.
This time, it was going to be her who would be feeding the evil thing ideas and tempting it to turn the fates in her favour. Starting with explaining to it the very concept of Witches, selling them to it as its own idea.
As the creature listens to Homura, its eyes begin to gleam with hunger.
This would be easy.