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“Il hum…!”
Homura passes through a rift in space and elegantly steps foot onto the Corridor of Cycles, a place that precedes even the creation of the Incubators themselves and where time is both simultaneously passing by and reverting back at the same time. Each step Homura takes, a translucent Homura from the past five seconds takes the same step behind her, following her trail. However, unlike her physical form whose steps send ripples through the ground when touching it like rock skipping on water, this translucent doppelganger only repeats the action but cannot make the ground ripple.
As Homura is walking through the hallway; instead of doors to the timelines she has created, there are mirrors replaying torturous moments 5 seconds before she spun back time to create a new cycle. “Madoka! MADOKA!!” Her younger voice cries out from one of the first mirrors she passes by. Silence answers her. “Please… I’ll do better next cycle, I promise! Just don’t— don’t give up!” Another pitiable voice cries out from another mirror. It takes all of Homura’s will not to give in — not to look at any of them directly.
“I, I have to save Madoka no matter what… I won’t give up, I have to, for her…”
Homura stops in her tracks at the sound. The voice—her own—came close from behind her, and it’s as if she was saying those words right at that moment herself. “The remnants of time has fragmented even in this space…” Homura concludes. It was at this point in the hallway of mirrors that she recalls murmuring those same words that echoed in her ears just now.
The mirror beside her—a painful replay of one of her earliest loops. A darker, translucent Homura steps close to it, holding the frame reverently with a look of desperation as it shows Madoka taking her last breath in her arms. Her past ‘shadow’ weeps with no tears, only the sound of a shrill voice murmuring Madoka’s name over and over.
The black-haired girl grits her teeth and balls her hands into fists. “Even in a space without time, the Incubators find ways to torture me…” The Grief Seed tucked under her sleeve begins to glow and she grabs it with her free hand, holding it in place as she takes deep breaths to steady herself. Even Homura fears the heavy implications of turning into a Witch in a space with the absence of time; implications she cannot fully grasp and that terrifies her the most.
Finally, when she’s calmer, she turns her attention back towards the ‘end’ of the corridor, making it her end goal to reach it before the figures of her past gets a hold on her. Mustering the courage using one more breath, she marches forward decisively.
“This is the fourteenth— no, fifteenth loop, why is nothing WORKING?!?!”
Homura pays no heed to the sound of crying that follows after. Her steps trudge through the astral path laid out for her, attempting to hurry out of this place she had once called her sanctuary.
“I’m still too weak…to save Madoka…”
“What am I missing? Am I too soft? Am I too lenient? Is this…my fault?”
“No… NO. This is Kyubey, that Incubator’s fault, I cannot… I won’t…”
“Pitiful, every single one of you…” Homura averts her gaze, not wanting to see the vision of her past self shattering the mirrors in front of her in a fit of rage. Her ears receive the deafening screams of her echo, but her mind shuts it down. “This kind of emotional votality is what got Madoka killed in every single cycle.”
“WHAT AM I MISSING?!”
Homura’s echo’s scream is loud enough to pierce through whatever boundary is between the past and present in this timeless setting and shatter the rest of the mirrors in the vicinity. When the present Homura finally looks up, only the mirror at the end of the corridor remains intact—glossy and empty, seemingly prepared for the next cycle.
The urge to look back—to observe the damage this past Homura had done—is strong, but Homura has had enough of the tricks her Incubator-given magic is playing on her. So instead of marching forth—she sprints.
Echoes of her past flash behind her, multiple Homuras colliding against each other as mutterings of each timeline coagulates into incoherent babbling—words almost sounding like the speech of the mysterious creatures guarding this place. Still, she perseveres—even as her brain becomes fatigued from the overflow of information being loaded into her brain all at once and the motion of moving in a place without any time to account for speed and the distance feeling like it’s all still the same, she perseveres.
Finally, at the end of the corridor, she collapses onto her knees in front of the tallest mirror in the center. Her reflection in it—panting, sweating, and wide-eyed, that is the present her; the only her that can still change the outcome of what the Incubator has planned for Madoka. Mysterious doll-like creatures peek from behind the mirror, with white felt fabric and Cheshire Cat smiles, all staring at the black-haired magical girl kneeling before them.
“Il hum… Il hum…” They mutter over and over with unmoving mouths.
“It’s only me…” Homura wills herself up, planting her palm on the ground and lifting herself slowly. The animated felt dolls all rush to circle her while she struggles to get up, chanting the same utterings like broken records. “Only I can save her…!”
“Il eleva! Il eleva!”
The doll-like creatures scamper away clumsily, chanting a new phrase as Homura finally stands up on her feet, holding her Soul Gem tightly in her hand as it shines brightly until veins begin to throb in her skin. Her hand holding the Soul Gem shakily reaches out towards the mirror, and when the gem finally touches the surface, she shudders from the cold of deja vu.
With the Soul Gem finally in contact with the mirror, Homura’s eyes narrow and and purple light shines from a spell rune that has appeared beneath her. Locks of her raven hair flies wildly as a wind-like element from her Soul Gem envelops her.
“The Incubator will pay for what they have done,” Homura grits her teeth as tears start to fill the corner of her eyes. With each completed pattern on the rune, her entire body feels like it’s being ripped at the seams and a needle is being stabbed into her skin again to sew the thread that will keep her intact. The grinning dolls from earlier sing joyfully and dance on each side of the mirror, in Homura’s eyes, they look like the Incubators she seeks to destroy and that made her blood boil worse of all.
When the runes are complete and the final needle has been thread in her body, Homura screams out the necessary chant to complete her ritual:
"Cassare oremus horloge to ciclista madora ciclo... EVARENDE ETERNUM!!"
The portal opens like a rift in the mirror’s reflective surface and Homura falls right through with the doll children laughing behind her.
And thus, another cycle begins in Homura’s endless rebellion.