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The same story can be told in a multitude of ways. There was a girl who made a deal with the devil to save a girl beyond salvation. If that girl’s destiny was to die over and over again, the girl would keep trying again and again. She would not give up until the one she loved could live in a world where she could be happy.
But this isn’t the girl you might be thinking of. This one wants to be special. To be useful. To save someone. No matter how impossible, the girl wants to save everyone . If she could not succeed in her own time, she would become someone stronger, better , and she would travel endlessly until she could succeed in even one timeline. She will save everyone, even if she has to trespass into Hell to do it.
Such is the boulder that Kaname Madoka is fated to push forever.
—
Miki Sayaka is dead. Homura is the only one left who can stop Walpurgisnacht, even as Madoka pleads with her not to fight alone. Nobody can fight that thing on their own, she says. You’ll die, too!
But Homura is still a magical girl. She has to protect everyone. She cannot run away even if that’s what Madoka is begging her to do.
Still. Even if this is the end, Homura will always be glad that Madoka is her friend. Even if becoming a magical girl is the same thing as stepping into Hell, she will never regret saving her.
Homura bids Madoka goodbye, knowing that she would be dead soon.
The fight ends. Madoka weeps over Homura’s body. She laments her own uselessness, wishing she could have helped her.
Kyubey asks her if she would trade her soul for that wish. All Madoka would have to do is make a contract with it, and it would grant any wish she wants.
Kyubey beckons her to repeat her wish. Kaname Madoka stands up.
“I want to go back to before,” she says. “Except this time, I want Homura to be able to make friends with someone better than me.”
Her wish prevails over entropy, and the contract is made. Madoka releases her new power, and the curtain falls this time.
—
The curtain rises.
A girl opens a door, looks down, and sees destruction in the city below.
The bespectacled girl sees another girl in pink, fighting an insurmountable force alone. Fighting, and losing.
There is nothing you can do, the cat-like creature beside her says. It’s too much for her to handle alone. She knew this already.
But this is terrible. It shouldn’t be happening.
You have the power to change fate, the creature tells her. This unavoidable destruction and sorrow… You can change it all. You have the power to do just that.
Can she really change this ending?
Of course you can, it says. So make a contract with me and become a magical girl!
Then, the girl awakens.
—
“M-My name is…Akemi Homura.”
She briefly raised her eyes from the floor to look around the room and almost immediately regretted it. The stares from her classmates were as overwhelming as the bright hospital lights.
The teacher explained that Homura had been in the hospital for quite some time dealing with a heart condition, but neither Homura nor the rest of the class focused on that. With perhaps one exception.
A girl with pink pigtails tied by ribbons was staring directly at her. Except she actually looked interested, if her smile was anything to go by.
—
After class, Homura was bombarded by question after question from the other girls.
“I, uh…” she struggled to spit out a response to a single one of them. Too many questions asked too quickly. Homura had never even considered herself to be particularly interesting.
“Akemi-san, you need to go to the nurse’s office, right?” The pink-haired girl—Kaname Madoka—who had smiled at her during class spoke, rescuing Homura from this awkward social situation. “Do you know where it is?”
“Huh? No…”
“I’m the health officer for this class, so I’ll escort you,” the girl replied. “Sorry, everyone, but Akemi Homura is required to visit the nurse's office during recess to take her medicine. Please leave her be.”
—
“Don’t mind them,” Madoka said, as the girls walked down the hallway. “They’re just excited since we don’t get a lot of transfer students.”
“No, it’s okay,” Homura replied. “Thank you very much, Kaname-san.”
“Call me Madoka. And I’ll call you Homura-chan, okay?”
“People don’t call me by my first name very often. It’s a really weird name.”
“Don’t be silly. Your name is so cool!”
Homura could only look down at the floor in shame. “I guess I don’t live up to my own name.”
Madoka stopped in her tracks, turning on her heel to face Homura.
“Homura-chan,” she said, stepping closer to her and clasping her hands, “You don’t have to try so hard. You’re perfect as you are right now, so don’t think you have to change.”
“But you just met me, how would you know that?” was what Homura might have said if her face hadn’t heated up and her heart hadn’t suddenly been kicked into overdrive. At this rate, she would have to go right back to the hospital.
Even upon reaching the nurse’s office and parting ways for the time being, Homura could not get Madoka’s sweet voice and pensive smile out of her mind’s eye.
—
There was another girl Homura ended up befriending that day. Sakura Kyoko was apparently Madoka’s oldest friend. It was strange that those two got along at all, what with how different the two girls seemed to be. Where Madoka was soft-spoken and ruminative, Kyoko was fiery and brash. Still, she seemed like a good person.
—
Homura walked home in silence, the sound of her footsteps ringing in her ears. She wanted to cry. She had been called on that morning to answer a math question and didn’t even understand what the teacher was asking her. Even doing warm-ups during gym class made her light-headed.
Will I always be like this forever?
It’d be better if you just died right now, wouldn’t it?
Homura couldn’t disagree.
“Save me.”
She suddenly heard a voice in her head.
“Save me!”
She followed the voice, running into the mall. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she couldn’t just ignore the voice calling out for her help.
—
A hooded girl stood before her, in a dress so frilly Homura briefly wondered if the girl was a princess in disguise. Except the girl had a small shield on her arm, and—
The other gloved hand, which was holding a bow, trembled.
“Sorry,” the girl muttered. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The girl’s voice was already familiar, but it was her familiar smile that tipped Homura off.
“M-Madoka?!” Homura tightened her grip on the bleeding creature.
“Please,” Madoka’s smile slipped only slightly. “Stay away from that thing.”
“But he’s hurt!”
“I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but you can’t trust it. Whatever it tells you, don’t listen. Please .”
—
Homura wasn’t scared of dying until she had run straight into a fever dream.
Her world became surreal, too removed from reality for her to keep her eyes open, and she was already tired.
In the next second, Homura heard weapons.
When she mustered up the courage to open her eyes again, her attackers were pinned to an arch pillar by a multitude of swords. Standing in front of her were Madoka, and another girl completely cloaked in white.
Madoka shot them again with her bow, triggering a loud, bright explosion.
“They’re magical girls,” the creature said, seemingly sensing Homura’s confusion. “They hunt witches.”
The cloaked girl uncovered herself, revealing a similarly frilly dress—blue this time. “I should’ve known we’d never be able to keep the secret for long.”
“Yeah,” Madoka said, looking back at Homura, “The jig is up already. But don’t tell anyone in class, okay?”
As Homura tried to slow her heart down, she could hear her tomboyish friend close behind, voicing her surprise.
Madoka sighed, letting out a soft chuckle. “At this rate, the entire school is going to find out.”
—
“Kaname-san,” Homura said later, “Do you always fight these things?”
“Always? Well, Sayaka-chan’s the veteran. She made her contract before me. That’s how it usually is. But it definitely feels like I’m always fighting things like that.”
Sayaka scratched her neck awkwardly. “Are you sure I’m the more experienced one at this point? With your performance today, Madoka, it’s like you’ve been doing this forever.”
Madoka giggled.
Kyoko asked, “Aren’t you scared of dying?”
“Of course we get scared,” Madoka said. “But the more witches we defeat, the more people we can save.”
Perhaps Homura was overthinking it, but it sounded more like Madoka was trying to convince herself than anything else. When Sayaka started to explain magical girls and Soul Gems, and what this ‘Walpurgisnacht’ thing was, Homura thought that perhaps she could understand why.
—
“I only have one warning for you two,” Sayaka said. “Be aware of your true intentions if you’re going to make a wish for someone else.”
(She knew she was no saint. It wasn’t until she watched Hitomi start dating Kyousuke that Sayaka realized what she really wanted once she wished for Hitomi to get better.)
—
“Kaname-san, what was your wish?”
“Oh, that? It wasn’t anything grand or special. In fact, it was pretty silly. I’m a little too embarrassed to admit it.”
—
It wasn’t long before Miki Sayaka met her end by a witch’s hands.
It wasn’t much longer before Kyoko made her wish, to Madoka’s horror.
And even sooner after that, Tomoe Mami moved back to Mitakihara City and declared war on Kyoko.
And once again, Madoka warned and pleaded with Homura to stay out of the fight. But something didn’t sit right with her: if Madoka had gotten her wish, then why did she look so sad?
—
Sakura Kyoko quickly learned the reason why Sayaka had warned them about making a wish for someone else.
People listened to her father’s teachings, just as she’d wanted. But once her father learned of her magical girl activities, Kyoko wasn’t able to stop the trainwreck that ensued.
Many glass bottles of resentment later, her mother, sister, and father were all dead, and she was left alone.
It wasn’t surprising that she’d eventually become a witch herself.
When Mami followed Kyoko to the grave, Madoka knew that her failure was a foregone conclusion.
—
How many times had Madoka watched the person she loved most die or disappear right in front of her? At this point, she had lost count.
This timeline, she went on autopilot as usual.
Gears turned, as usual.
Her friends died, as usual.
Madoka reset time and entered a different timeline, as usual.
—
Walpurgisnacht was here.
It had never been and would never be easy to defeat. The civilians had been evacuated. Madoka fought alone in the midst of the storm, as she usually was.
Somehow she hadn’t lost hope, even though she knew how this would end. As long as Madoka had hope, she would continue to fight forever. Even if she was defeated, she could simply turn back time again.
…except now, that would no longer be an option.
Madoka was out of time again. Her Soul Gem was near total corruption.
“What a joke,” she muttered weakly.
Then someone was holding her hand, telling her not to worry.
“It hurts,” Madoka whispered.
Homura squeezed her hand. “I know.”
“I’m tired.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Homura-chan.”
“I love you too. And…I’m sorry, Madoka.”
Homura stood up, staring the Incubator right in the eyes.
“I wish to take on the suffering of every magical girl in the universe,” she said. “Instead of accumulating darkness in their Soul Gems, I want to carry their pain, to ensure that no magical girl ever succumbs to despair.”
Her contract was formed, and then she was gone.
Madoka’s heart sank. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t even scream. But oh, did she wish she could.
Before the curtains closed again, Madoka pulled herself to her feet, fueled only by sheer spite, and rendered Kyubey a red mist with her bare hands. It didn’t make her feel any better.
She wiped her hands on her skirt, spotting Homura’s glasses on the ground. The lenses were scratched, but not broken. It didn’t matter; Madoka’s vision didn’t need to be corrected. She put them on, prepared to fight anew.