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Her arrow punches Homura in the chest, her body flying to the fake moon in the sky as Madoka follows after her, a grimace on her face at what she had to do, hurting Homura wasn’t something she wanted to do, wasn’t something she’d ever be happy about, the fact that she couldn’t effectively hold back with her control so loose, unable to fully remember everything she could do after finally fusing together the missing parts
Landing on the field of flowers, Madoka paused, staring at them for the briefest of moments before she turned to Homura laying in the midst of them, the field pristine, unchanged from the collision of her best friend with it, as if the speed she moved at didn’t matter, as if it will forever remain unchanged
“Homura...y-you don’t have to do this, we can fix it, I won’t fault you, it’s...i’m sure you weren’t thinking right and—”
“Pff”
Cutting her off, Homura forced a smirk on her face, dead eyes staring right back at her as she forced them to crease into a mocking expression, magic lashing out as black goo rose from the ground, standing up with a buckle of her legs, Homura grabbed onto it as support, looking up at her with venom in her eyes that wasn’t faked
“Weren’t thinking Madoka? Is this your excuse? You saw it, you felt it, I did that knowing what was going to happen, knowing what that’ll make me, you don’t get to push all of that under the rug!”
“How could you know? Nobody ever—your magic isn’t something that could predict this!”
“It isn’t? Or it wasn’t? How could you be so sure?” lifting her hand, Homura turned to the sky, her soul gem running up to her fingers, reaching for the sky “You see it don’t you? There’s nothing of you left inside me, your power...it was a trigger, something to copy, do you think just anyone could do this?”
“That…”
“No no no...Madoka, it’s all me, you got that?”
Taking a step closer, the black goo shot at her, Madoka’s own magic shining, arrow forming mid air and shooting through the goo, exploding far off into the unharmed field
“Homura-chan, you...you shouldn’t force yourself, just please, please stop this and...and come with me, I’ll help you figure it out, we can talk, talk properly and then—”
“Are you deaf?”
A cold voice stops Madoka
“No no, Madoka, do you not hear anything I’ve said? There’s no going back, you can’t be this stupid right? I’ll just do this again, and again, and again until you learn to stay for once”
Biting her fingers, Homura mumbles something, her soul gem swaying on the tail of it’s holder, moving to her ear, it’s mouth soundlessly opening
“R-right...yes, it was always like this wasn’t it…”
“Homura…?”
“She always did it like this, always always always doing the opposite of what needs to happen”
Tension filling her shoulders, Madoka ignored the pit in her stomach and moved, ran forward, Homura’s magic exploding out, slowing Madoka down as the world grew gray
Crooked smile shot at her, she watched Homura walk up to her, grabbing her hand with a tight grip, bringing it to her lips before pausing
Tilting her head, she quietly asks
“Is it that hard, to comprehend that there’s no going back anymore? That a wretch like me can’t be saved, are you really that much of an idiot to not realize it?”
Struggling to move, magic shaking the gray out of the flowers around her, she watched Homura glance down
“Shouldn’t all this effort go to something actually useful? You’re stronger than this Madoka, we both know it, finish your fucking job”
Grabbing her throat, lifting her face up close to her own, Homura grins
“I’m a witch, a devil, so destroy me, make sure I don’t exist, that’s what you wished for didn’t you? There can’t be exceptions, you can’t show weakness, you should know this already”
The grip on her throat grows stronger and Madoka understands something
She’ll choke her out if Madoka doesn’t do as she says, if Madoka doesn’t give it her all, she’ll make it harder to go back to this point
The world explodes in color
Homura smiles a brief, honest smile before she wipes it away, her body flying away after a shockwave of Madoka’s magic breaks her stopped time, forcing yet another smirk in it’s place as she floated down, Homura’s bow appearing in her hands, both of their magic growing in stength
“Right, this is just right, you see it don’t you? There is only two outcomes here! Either I’m gone...or we’re back where we’re supposed to be!”
Madoka gripped her bow harder, biting her lip as she stared at Homura, hesitating
Homura saw it, anger clouding her eyes in the moment as her magic exploded, arrows of deep, almost black purple flew at her. A light of shield stopped them, for a moment before her magic filled the cracks that appeared on impact, Homura’s body flinging at her with the flap of her bone wings, her hand grabbing onto her face before throwing her up into the air, hundreds of arrows following after her
Madoka breaks all of them, reaches a hand out for Homura, grasping where she stood, a slight resistance keeping her from truly catching her so Madoka doesn’t hold back
It takes a few moments before anything Homura tries falls apart, hundreds of different magic uses stacked upon themselves again and again washing away from the simple fact of Madoka’s wish, Madoka barely stopping in the last moment before Homura was destroyed by her magic
Madoka winced as she saw the girl fall on her knees, landing on the field of wilted flowers, hesitantly stepping towards the defeated girl
Their eyes met
“We...we can still do this right Homura-chan, I know what you were trying to do, but I’ll...I’ll never hurt you again, just come with me, please”
“...so this was worthless?”
Looking away at those words, Madoka closed her eyes, a broken laugh in front of her making her flinch
“Right, what did I expect, you wouldn’t have the guts”
“...Homura?”
Eyes widening, Madoka’s face snapped, staring right at Homura, a stiff smile staring right at her
“I say all of that, I hurt you, I get you here, I keep you in this shit hole just to satisfy myself and it’s still not enough for you to hate me!”
Head falling to the ground, a broken laugh intermittent with the sobs comes from the girl
“You...you’re so fucking stupid...you don’t listen, you all never do, I...I always have to do everything myself”
It burst, a layer of gray seizing the world with intensity incomparable to before, Homura’s soul gem floating up in front of her, her eyes landing on Madoka as she lifts her head, softest smile she’s seen in forever reaches Madoka as she struggles
The soul gem floats to her forehead, Homura’s eyes close, it gets harder to move
The air crackles in stopped time
It stills the same moment
It crackles
It stills
It creaks
It stills
Universe looks back at Madoka, overtaking where Homura stood, she feels it nonetheless, Homura’s hand reach deep inside
Madoka hears reality wail at the assault, feels Homura grasp something, feels her roughly yanking it out, essence, the blueprint, connected to so many records
Homura’s soul gem explodes into purple flame
“Just like that...wasn’t that easy?”
______ says
Madoka stumbles, unsure why she was there, a feeling of something missing deep in her chest radiating despite that, she wasn’t supposed to be here, yet she was, things didn’t add up, things didn’t make sense
Madoka stood alone on the moon, gazing down at the earth
______
She tried to remember the name, tried calling it out, there was somebody there, things didn’t make sense otherwise, there should have been, she knew that, just on the tip of her tongue yet so far away
Her memory was tampered with, Madoka groans, covering her ears as she crouched down, trying to remember with all her might
Closed loop, she existed, yet she had no reason to, her origin was gone, but her eternal status was still there, she did that before, yet this felt different, a true reset, true closure of the circle
No beginning
Lost in the events she couldn’t remember
NO
H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, H_____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Ho____, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Hom___, Homu__…
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
Homura
HOMURA
Homura was gone
Her disappearance ran deeper, Madoka knew it, whatever she did, the ripples affecting her…
Her Homura was gone
She had to find her Homura
***
Laying on her bed, Madoka stared at the ceiling, today has been...full of revelations, learning new things, finding out about things that’d make yesterday her think the other person was imagining too much. Magical girls, witches, making wishes to become one...she didn’t quite feel like it was real yet, so she tried to think hypothetical, think about it in a what if sense
She couldn’t think of anything to wish for, her life was...it was good, there was nothing she really wanted to have, she had everything she could wish for, maybe she could wish to be a little more popular, but could she even handle that? Hitomi seemed...tired of it sometimes, so Madoka didn’t even know if she wanted that
Could she even reject somebody? If somebody confessed to her and she didn’t like them, could she say no? Madoka couldn’t be sure, it would feel so awkward...so maybe not becoming more popular
Feeling tired, Madoka sighs, glancing to her shelf, a certain book catching her attention
...she can...reread some scenes, maybe it’ll help her calm her mind, focus a little
Standing up, Madoka grabbed the book before falling down onto the bed again, opening up the middle of the book, her favorite scene, reading a few lines before she skips back to the start
A few hours later, Madoka sighed, laying the book on her chest, closing her eyes
What...did she even need? It would be easier to wish for somebody else but...Mami-san stressed the importance of wishes, of making sure you don’t regret it, she shut down Sayaka so fast…
Opening her eyes and opening the book again, Madoka stared, reread the lines again before sighing
“What...what would Homura wish for…”
***
She kept the world she made, unable to come back again without Homura there, but Madoka just...couldn’t let go of the last thing she left, the only thing that stayed
They forgot her, all of them, no matter how hard Madoka tried, Sayaka, Mami, Kyoko, none of them had any memories of Homura
Homura didn’t exist anymore, anywhere, the records she oversaw, one’s she couldn’t touch, she vanished from all of them, some of those fragile records breaking with her disappearance, some barely persisting, inconsistencies riddled in their history
Homura left her with a lot of work after that, figuring out how to fill that void, when to fill that void and when to let it be to not destabilize those records...it was more complicated than she liked, harder than she wanted to deal with
It was more work than she needed to do before, she was going to finish this at some point, but it will take her...hundreds if not thousands of years, it will pass, she will persist through it
Homura isn’t going to be there
Homura wasn’t anywhere
She didn’t exist, she shattered it there, her existence, everything she was, everything she used to be, everything she could become, it all became nothing
She made Madoka untouchable, took away her one weakness
Madoka didn’t need that, she didn’t need to be forever safe, she didn’t need everything done for her, she wanted Homura, not this...useless measures
Madoka could protect herself
Couldn’t protect Homura
She spent decades looking for her, for anything, a trace, something to prove that Homura wasn’t just...gone, maybe she hid from her, stole a trick from incubator, maybe she was plotting to take over again (she let down her guard, for two years she waited, passive, practically flashing that she wasn’t prepared, nothing came of it)
No
She was gone for good
Madoka felt frustrated in her failed attempts to find Homura, so much time spent, so much effort, they could have been here together, they could have worked well, they could have...Madoka wanted her there, wanted the chance to have something bloom between them
Homura ripped that out of her hands
Ripped the chance of something that both of them wanted happening out of existence
Madoka would slap that girl if she could, would cry the very same moment as she clung to her so that she wouldn’t leave her again
It was impossible, because the way she left was too permanent ever for Madoka to fix
When there is no direction, when there is no source, when her entire family was erased from god knows where, when Madoka knew she wouldn’t be the same Homura…
She saw it there, one of the fragile records, one of the unaffected
A girl, Madoka, making a wish, wishing her into existence
She almost disregarded it all and went right there, almost pushed all thought aside and simply taken her back
A moment of thought later she gave up
It still...they looked similar, but was it really her? Was it really...it couldn’t even be her Homura anyways
But...maybe she should keep an eye here, just in case
Just...to see her face again
***
Seeing a book character come to existence was...an experience she would never replicate in her life, Madoka knew that, at that moment, when she saw the girl form appear in her room, she realized this might have been a mistake, this might have been a wish that she should have thought out more properly, instead she just… made somebody appear there, somebody who had her own problems, bunch of them depending of which point of the book she came from
...Madoka might have been hoping it would be the start, it would be...well her favorite version of her, she liked Homura’s journey, but the cute oblivious version of her was...well, more interesting to her
When red glasses appeared on her face, Madoka let out a sigh of relief
When her eyes appeared, she stared into them, curious about how she really looked, how her descriptions fit real life
When her face was fully formed, Madoka realized she’d have to live somewhere, realized that she really hasn’t planned this out properly, hadn’t thought this through
Where was she supposed to keep her!? Her parents might let her stay over for a day or two, if she calls it a sleepover and calls over Sayaka it might work, but she can’t stall for too long, she will either have to tell them the truth, or...tell another kind of truth
If she does, they might send her to an orphanage or something...then her wish would be practically gone wouldn’t it? Wait no, this will be a real human soon! She can’t think of her just as a...product of a wish
Ughhhhh why did she have to be so impulsive about it…
Mami
She could call Mami...maybe she would have an idea on how to fix this…
Thankfully, the older girl picked up the call quickly
“Kaname-san? Did you...find a witch?”
“Huh? O-oh no it’s...um, my wish I...might have been too impulsive and…”
“What? Did something happen!? Tell me where you are I’ll be there in a mo—”
“W-WAIT! I just need advice! I um...wished for a character from a book to become real and...realized too late what it really means…”
Hearing nothing from the other side, Madoka felt herself tense up, waiting for the scolding that was bound to come from such a reckless wish
“...Kaname-san, this is...really irresponsible”
“I know...I just...I was thinking about it so hard and I just...couldn’t come up with anything to wish for and then I decided to reread my favorite book and then I just didn’t think and...I’m sorry...do you have any ideas on where she could stay?”
A deep sigh comes from the call making Madoka wince
“...I’ll take her in, just...haaaaaa…”
“...sorry”
“It’s...it’s ok, I guess, it will be...nice to have someone here anyways, do I...what book is she from? Maybe I know it, will help me prepare”
“Oh it’s—”
***
Homura’s life turned weird, one moment, she was in the church, ready to fail the exam and the next, she was in a room of a pink haired girl she didn’t know who claimed she...brought her out of a book
She was promptly moved into another home with another girl who explained how any of this was even possible, a talking cat explaining that she apparently, could also become a magical girl if she made a wish
Homura...hesitated for a moment, asking if it was possible to go back, it wasn’t, because apparently even if her world did exist, she was just...recreated, she was a copy of that person, going back would only make things more confusing for both of them
So she lived with Tomoe-san, helped out as much as she could, taking on some burden off her shoulders. Cooking was much easier, cleaning as well, there was just...so much things that she had learned
It was...nice despite all of that, finally having friends, finally having something to reach for, to have a life where she could see some hope in, she could be a magical girl, help people, all she needed was a wish
And since coming back wasn’t an option...she needed to come up with a new one, something that she would truly want
There didn’t really seem to be anything that fit the glove, she had friends now, purpose to reach for (which she had to find a wish to start on), she could maybe wish to...exist before she was wished in, but that didn’t matter to her as much and what if that made it so she wouldn’t meet those three? Kaname-san, Tomoe-san, Miki-san...she didn’t want to give up on them, didn’t want them to forget her, she wanted to keep being friends
Rain fell on top of her hair
That all didn’t matter anymore did it?
‘Like you asked, here she is, Tomoe Mami’s body is a bit further away if you wish to see her as well, Miki Sayaka might last a few more minutes, but unless you join her, it is almost guaranteed she will fail as well’
The girl who was excited just by her existence laid in front of her
The girl who spoke to her so much, the person she grew the closest to, the person who actually suggested sneaking her into school, the one who planned it out, the girl who felt so responsible for her, who smiled at her so much
The girl who was so kind
And what did she do? Take it, take everything they gave her, gave nothing back like a parasite she was
‘Are you displeased? Did you not ask to see them?’
“I-I did...K-Kyubey, my wish...I think...I think I know what it is”
‘I see, that is great, now, what is it Akemi Homura? What do you wish for with all your heart?’
Taking a deep breath, Homura gathered as much confidence as she could
“Kyubey, I wish to—”
***
That Homura was...similar, painfully similar to her own, before it all went to hell, the first time they met, before Homura stuck herself in a time loop because of Madoka’s poorly thought out request, before Homura distanced herself from all of them
Madoka watched this one doom herself to the same fate, watched her make the same wish as her own Homura did
Leaning backwards, Madoka covered her face
She was there, so similar, almost the same, maybe even exactly like her and Madoka...she couldn’t touch her, couldn’t talk to her, could do nothing but sit and wait, wonder if maybe, just maybe...this might give a chance for more of Homura to appear
For her to be brought back
Smiling, Madoka carefully lifted the record, putting it on a display in her room, soft smile on her face, hope filling her chest
Who knew, maybe...maybe this was a start, a point from which Homura’s existence can spread out from
There was a chance, if not for her own, than at least for another version of Homura to spread out, if not everywhere, than at least for a corner of the world to have her back
That...will be good enough