Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Oh, it was a tea party, all right. There was cake, and there was tea—the strong kind, bitter, green the color of mint leaf—and forks and knives and plates and cups and spoons, all Western, all porcelain, all glass and steel, painted and molded in delicate shapes and colors as if to offset the presence of sharp objects on the table. She half-expected a rifle to be lying on the table among all the other weapons; it was so dangerous. Kyouko twirled her spoon around a dollop of fresh whipped cream, noting in back of her head that it would make it harder to clean her plate later. She always cleaned her plate. That was one of the—admittedly very few—things Mami appreciated about her. She didn’t pick it at like a bird; she made no effort to be delicate; she ate it, she enjoyed it, she voiced her thanks, and then she left. Life really was that simple, and it bothered her when people couldn’t get that through their heads.

Homura, for instance, was on her left and feeding mechanically. Everything about her was like a machine: prepared, rehearsed, done in advance and foreseen, as if she had expected to eat this exact piece of cake in this exact manner at this exact time two weeks ago and were only doing it now as a courtesy to people who were not previously aware of it. Nothing ever came as a surprise to her, even things that probably should have. It was honestly kind of creepy. The only time anyone could ever throw her off was when someone mentioned the name “Madoka,” and then all the pretense would fall apart and she could see a bit of what was left behind it.

It was cruel, though. If Kyouko recognized nothing else about her, she recognized that distant look of shock.

She ate voraciously, irritated by the silence. It was hard enough now that Sayaka was dead. Mortality was hanging over their heads like a great guillotine blade: taboo to speak of, but palpable in the air. She imagined the blade going down—snap!—slicing through her apathy and letting her compassion for others bleed all over the place. She hated feeling anything for anyone. They always died before she did.

“Sakura-san.”

She hunched over an empty plate, exhausted. It wasn’t fun to care. It wasn’t fun to not care. She didn’t want to talk about it, either. They’d probably get into another stupid argument again.

“Sakura-san, are you OK?”

She heard the clicking of porcelain against porcelain, teacup against plate, breakable as the composure of this room. Mami wasn’t looking at her.

“’M fine.”

She bared her teeth in an attempted smile, but instead it became a feral gesture, something animals did when they wanted to look threatening. How long had it been since they’d talked to each other like this? Homura had convinced them to reconcile—forced them, really—and in such a way that neither could argue against her: it was only practical, it was only sane, and if they wanted to live longer than Sayaka did then they had better get over their petty arguments and hurt feelings or be miserable, lose faith and die. It had been harsh. It wasn’t even about them, at that point.

Morbidly curious, she glanced over at Homura, who was going through the motions of sipping tea. Homura deigned to give her a sideways glance. She tried to see contempt in it and failed. Pity? No. Compassion? As if. It was a look, and nothing more than that. It was an acknowledgment of her existence, as if she’d forgotten for a minute that Kyouko was there and needed to check. Maybe she really had.

Still, she really hadn’t wanted to make up. She only agreed to talk with Mami after Sayaka died, aware, in a numb way, of the need for closure—for allies. Their relationship was only barely better than it had been, but even a month ago Mami wouldn’t have let her take so much as a step through the doorway. It was better than nothing, she supposed. If she wasn't wanted here, then at least she was tolerated. It would work out. It had to.

Suddenly, she heard a screech and a crash. The bland silence had ended, and in its place, she saw little white shards of china all over the floor. Kyouko’s eyes searched Mami’s hands and clothes for bleeding. Nothing.

“This is miserable,” Mami finally said, and Kyouko burst out into laughter.

The three of them cleaned up afterward, in a not wholly uncomfortable silence. They charted miasma patterns, ran logistics—boring things—and tried to estimate where the next big outbreak would be, and when. Homura was good at it, but then again she seemed to have an uncanny knack for everything. Kyouko lounged around the apartment as the sun went down, on the couch, and thought about tomorrow, but never past it. Mami tried to hold a conversation with her. It lasted a few minutes. Homura disappeared in the way she was wont to but eventually returned. She always did.

Kyouko wondered what kept her coming back. She never seemed to be enjoying herself—never even tried to, really. She acted like a traumatized war veteran, concerned with survival and nothing else. Ghosts seemed to haunt her every step; she was obviously disturbed, and her fixation on this Madoka person made it all even creepier. Homura was willing to do anything to survive, and Kyouko knew that their alliance was simply a means to her own end. To her credit, she had expressed her condolences at Sayaka’s death, but even that had to be plotted out in advance. If she didn’t express sympathy, then Kyouko would find her callous. If Kyouko found her callous, then they wouldn’t be able to cooperate, and she would have one less person to watch her back in a fight. Homura was easy to read, that way. Predictable as anything else, at least. Still, she didn’t necessarily have to stay around after she had finished with her business. It wasn’t like she ever talked to anyone.

And then there was Mami: friendless and excessively polite. It rankled when Kyouko talked to her. They didn’t like each other now any more than they did before; they were only tolerating each other’s presence because Sayaka had kicked it, and they needed the support now more than ever. She had the weird feeling, like a dream, that there maybe should have been someone else patrolling with them in Mitakihara, but she chalked it up to whimsy and sentiment. She really wanted someone else, though, someone less crazy than Homura and less defensive than Mami. Someone who was actually nice.

She stretched out on the couch and sighed. Yeah, right. At some point tonight Homura would leave without a word, and Mami would kick her out onto the street, sick of the pretense, and she’d take her stuff and find somewhere else to sleep. Like quarreling lovers. She’d spent a few awkward nights at Homura’s place; her apartment was sterile and lifeless, like the rest of her. On the other hand, she’d been expecting to find some sign of her craziness, some vestige of insanity, lurking somewhere in the shadows, and found none. She had either taken steps to hide it, or had nothing to hide in the first place. The weirdest part about it all was that there was no sign of this Madoka person: no pictures, no keepsakes, no nothing. She did have a photo of a family that was ostensibly not her own. Whatever that was about, Kyouko figured that her secrets could stay secret. She just needed a reliable place to crash.

“Sakura-san.” Homura materialized above her, like a wraith.

Kyouko started. “Y-yeah? What?”

“Are you planning to stay here tonight?”

She couldn’t be serious.

“No way. Mami always kicks me out after you leave. You’re the only reason I’m even allowed in here in the first place.”

She frowned. Then again, she was always frowning. “That means you still aren’t getting along.”

Well, duh.

“Look, I know you think we’ve made up and all, but it’s not gonna be that easy. This kind of thing takes time.”

“How long will it take?”

“I don’t know, but asking isn’t gonna make it happen any faster.” She sighed. “You can’t just—expect people to suddenly get along like that. It doesn’t work that way.”

Her frown softened, only barely. “I see.”

“You really mean that, or are you just saying that to agree with me?”

“Why?”

“Why...?” Kyouko scrunched her brow. “Why what?”

“Why can’t you get along? What’s stopping you?”

“We disagree,” she mumbled, “on a lot of things. She’s too idealistic. She thinks she can make friends with everyone, and when she can’t she throws a fit. She tries so hard to put on this front when she’s just as broken as the rest of us on the inside. She’s so... phony.” She spat the word out, and felt a little better afterward.

“Phony?” Homura looked back at the bedroom, where Mami would be doing homework, or whatever she did in her spare time. “And that bothers you because...?”

Kyouko grimaced. Was this girl even human anymore? “Because it’s annoying! She pushes you away when you try to help her or tell her what the world is really like, and it’s like she doesn’t even want to hear it anymore. It’s hopeless. She could die for all I—”

Homura slapped her. It stung.

“Don’t say that,” she hissed.

Kyouko pushed herself up so she was slouched against one arm of the couch, and cricked her neck. She knew a fight coming when she saw it.

“I don’t want a fight,” Homura said. She held her hand out, and her Soul Gem materialized, nearly black in color. “I want you to make sure that yours don’t become like this.”

“Whoa, hey!” Kyouko sat up. “You should do something about that!”

Homura glared at her. The Soul Gem disappeared.

“I’m serious. Want me to get Kyubey? I’ll even go with you; I got nothin’ else to do anyway.”

She turned away. “It doesn’t matter. It’s always like that.”

“How? What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why—”

“I said it’s nothing.” Homura turned and walked off, just as quietly as she had come over. The door closed behind her with a soft click.

Kyouko collapsed back onto the couch and groaned. Soon Mami would be coming to kick her out once more, and Kyouko would grudgingly drag her stuff out of the apartment and onto the elevator, and into the night: try fighting solo, or find some abandoned building to sleep in; steal some food from one place, and store it somewhere else; dig through trash, or just wander aimlessly, thinking about nothing in particular. She fell asleep, dreading the moment she’d be woken up.

Kyouko woke up feeling stiff. Then she realized she hadn’t left the spot where she had been yesterday.

“Oh, crap.”

She looked around. This was still Mami’s apartment. No good. Had she forgotten? She obviously hadn’t come out to wake her up. Maybe she’d fallen asleep in her room, too. She gathered up her things and prepared to leave.

Then she realized the door wasn’t opening. She wrestled with the knob. What kind of apartment used keys nowadays, anyway! Shouldn’t they all have been replaced with cards or chips or something electronic by now? What kind of psycho would—

“Dammit, Akemi!” Kyouko kicked the door, and then swore. If Mami wasn’t awake already, then she was definitely awake now. How did she even figure out how to do this? Did she leave something heavy in front of the door? Did she screw with the lock? Did she just use magic? How desperate was she to have them fix their relationship, anyway? If she was going to die soon anyhow, then it shouldn’t have mattered to her what happened to them.

Panicked, she ran over to the glass sliding doors that led outside to the balcony. If she transformed, she could jump without causing too much damage, but she hesitated to break the doors if those were locked as well.

They were.

Kyouko fell to her knees, sliding her hand down the glass. “That idiot...”

“Sakura-san.”

“What.”

“Why are you still here?”

“You didn’t wake me up,” she said, lamely.

“Even so. You should have left on your own.”

“Akemi locked the doors.”

Mami paused. “What?”

“I said, she locked the doors.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t open them!” Kyouko snarled, turning around. “At least not unless I break them down.”

“Akemi-san is an odd one...”

“No, shit.” Kyouko stood up. “Whatever, it’s fine.” She transformed, and held her spear aloft. “I’ll just break it.”

“Wait, don’t!” Mami grabbed her wrist.

“Wh... What’s your problem?” She struggled against her, and failed miserably. Why did magical girls have to be so strong?

“Do you know how long it’d take me to pay for those doors? Wait here until she comes back; I can’t let you break them.”

“You trust her to come here anytime soon? We’ll starve before she comes back; she’s completely lost it!”

“Kyouko, stop.”

“Don’t call me that.” She shoved Mami away. Her spear disappeared. “She showed me her Soul Gem yesterday. It’s almost black.”

“Is that so?” Mami looked at her, with some measure of concern on her face. Not for her, of course. “Though to be honest, I can’t say I’m surprised...”

“She’s completely unpredictable,” Kyouko muttered. “I always figured some day she’d snap.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Ah, shuddup.” Kyouko looked out the window. “I dunno whether this was supposed to be a cry for help or what. She just had to do this now of all times, too...”

“We should look for her before it’s too late.”

Kyouko glanced at Mami, and then turned back to the window. “Maybe that was her plan all along. By the way...”

“What?”

“Which door am I breaking?”

Mami sighed. “The front.” She looked at the door, and then at Kyouko. “Just try not to use too much force. I really liked that door.”

Kyouko grinned. Her spear reappeared, doubled in size. She pointed it at the door. “You and your obsession with old things...”

Mami, ever the paradigm of propriety, opted to attend school, so Kyouko was by herself until she got out. Homura was ferociously calculating, but she was a goner all the same. The only question was when she’d totally break, go past the point of no return, disappear. Some days it seemed like she embraced the idea, though—as if death were something warm and pleasant, and life were cold and miserable. Kyouko couldn’t tell whether this was some elaborate ploy to force them to cooperate or just a way to keep them from looking for her. Whatever the case, it was working: Homura was one person in a city of thousands, and they’d have to spend a long time looking for her. Unless she was out fighting demons, finding her would be a bitch, and even then, it might already be too late.

“Ah, who cares if she dies!” she groaned aloud, walking down the sidewalk. “That’s what she wants anyway.”

“Are you perhaps referring to Akemi Homura?”

Kyubey sat high up on a brick fence, staring down at her with its beady red eyes. It creeped her out only marginally less than it had the first time she saw it.

“Yeah. What’s it to you?”

Kyubey followed her. “It would be a problem if she were to pass away now. I would like to ask you to ensure that her death does not happen for a little while longer. Please try to help her. We cannot afford to lose her at this time.”

Kyouko bared her teeth. “You, too, huh.”

“It would be beneficial to you as well, if you attempted to help her. You cannot stop fighting demons if you wish to survive, and she is unnaturally skilled. You would be losing a valuable ally.”

“I know that,” she growled. “God, what are you, a salesman?”

“I am only trying to determine the best course of action for you, with the provided information.”

Kyouko stopped and looked at it. “Why don’t you help me, then?”

“I can only point you towards demons. If you assume that she is fighting them, then you may be able to find her. Otherwise I am unable to tell you where she is at the moment.”

She kept walking. “I don’t know what she’s doing right now.”

“Then I cannot help you. However, I am certain that she is still alive. You should look for her before she dies.”

She flapped her hand at it. “Yeah, yeah, whatever...”

“If you fail, then we will be taking additional measures to find her. We ask that you continue to cooperate, as it will make matters more convenient for us.”

“I am, I am, jeez; I get it already.” Kyouko slowed to a stop. “So where’re these demons, huh?”

“I understand,” said Kyubey. “Follow me.”

What was she trying to do, play matchmaker?

Demons materialized in dark alleyways and abandoned buildings, tall, dark, distorted things that either staggered like zombies or moved like wraiths, stealing in and out of dark patches even in broad daylight. Kyouko cut them down—one, two—twirling her spear like a baton. The blade sliced through bodies left and right, leaving behind black, crystalline cubes. She grabbed them as they appeared and shoved them in her pockets. Her Soul Gem was bright as day: a little tarnished, maybe, but she expected it to be. Someone else needed them more right now. She moved on instinct, and before she knew it, the fight was over.

The first wave was always the easiest, though. She took a moment to count the number of cubes she had swiped: three. The second wave would bring a few more, four or five tops, at the cost of several more demons. If she was unlucky, there would be a third. Afternoons tended to be slow, though. She didn’t expect any more after this.

The fight had given her adrenaline, though, and now she was pissed at Homura. Sayaka had disappeared and Homura expected her to bounce back from that and partner up with someone she hated? True, they’d been friends before, but that was in the past. And Homura had lost it, anyway. She'd been kind of weird when they met her, and she had only worsened since. There was no way she was coming back from that, not without a lot of time and a lot of effort. Her chest tightened. She was losing people—friends, allies, whatever you wanted to call them, whatever they meant to her—left and right. All the other people in the world could disappear, and she was sure that the only one left standing would be Mami. No. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

Mami had been her mentor, once upon a time, when she had just been starting out and didn’t know anything, before she had developed a taste for elaborate baked goods and expensive confections. She was cloyingly sweet, rather like the desserts themselves, and Kyouko greeted her affection with as much relish as she did the food itself. She’d felt bad for her, before she lost her own family, and now instead of pitying her she felt angry: angry at herself for abandoning her, angry at Mami for being so ingenuous, angry at them both for letting the feelings fester until things got awkward.

She saw the demons emerge, and grunted. She wished there were a little variety to these things every now and then. Maybe a bit more color, too.

She counted how many of the cubes she had collected. Seven. It would have to be enough.

Kyubey showed up out of nowhere, as usual, to greet her. “You’re not going to use them, Sakura-san?”

“’M saving them,” she said. “For a rainy day.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“I know you don’t.”

She started heading back to a more habitable part of the city. Mami wouldn’t be out of school for a few more hours. She wasn’t sure whether to be disturbed or not that Mami picked school over searching for Homura—did she just not care enough, or did she figure that Homura would be easier to find at night when more demons were out, or what? Maybe she just didn’t want to be around Kyouko as much. Yeah. That would explain it. She couldn’t blame her, either. They pretended to act as a unit, but they were terrible at it. Whenever they fought together, everyone would always go off on their own. They couldn’t coordinate; someone was always getting in another person’s way. They totally sucked.

Kyubey disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and Kyouko was left wandering the city on her own again. She looked for Homura for as long she bothered to, and killed the rest of her time at the arcade until Mami called her over to the school entrance. She was stuffing her face with a melon bun when Mami arrived through the gates.

“I’m assuming you didn’t find her.”

“Nope.”

Mami glared at her. “You didn’t try at all, did you?”

“How am I supposed to know where she is?” Kyouko snapped. “I’m not her keeper!”

“Well, why not start with the most obvious places?”

“What, you mean like her apartment?”

“For instance.”

“I checked. She wasn’t in. I mean, all she does is really... fight demons,” said Kyouko. “But after I fought a couple waves, my Soul Gem didn’t react to anything else. If she’d been fighting them, then I would’ve seen her there. She’s gotta be somewhere else.”

“How about that family she’s always with?”

Kyouko scrunched her face up. “The... The Kanames? I didn’t bother with them, but I assumed they were out.”

“Well, why don’t we start with them first?”

She grimaced. “I don’t get why we have to do this.”

“I’m sure she would do the same for you.”

Kyouko looked at her. “You think so?”

Mami smiled. “She’s not that heartless.”

Kaname Junko, the mother, and the only person capable of speech in the house at that particular moment, said that she hadn’t seen Homura all week. Typical. She had a tendency to vanish for days at a time, and then reappear without a word. She slipped in and out of school the same way, but her grades were always at the top of the class. People didn’t ask after Homura. It felt rude, almost. Intrusive.

She invited them in anyway, delighted to see that Homura’s friends were looking after her. Kyouko wanted to accept the invitation, but Mami politely declined, and so they left the house none the wiser for it. She felt frustrated—they weren’t getting anywhere—and that was when her Soul Gem winked.

They ended up at the same abandoned row of warehouses, in a different one this time, but a familiar sight all the same. In the center of the mess stood Homura, surrounded by a wall of arrows. Her expression was stoic. If Kyouko didn’t know any better she’d have thought Homura had been there all day.

“Akemi!” Kyouko and Mami ran over to her, plowing through demons as they did. “We were looking all over the place for you. What happened?”

She didn’t respond. She notched an arrow into the bow, and then released, sending all the other arrows flying with it. A dozen more of the things fell, and Kyouko swiped at a few more as they came at her. This was a huge crowd, one that must have spawned from the most horrifically negative emotion. A thought crossed her mind: was it Homura?
Something exploded behind her back.

“Watch yourself, Sakura-san.” A demon collapsed in front of her.

“Just call me Kyouko,” she groaned. “Might as well.”

They finished the rest off, and split them evenly among the three of them. Kyubey came to collect their empty shells and then left, apparently satisfied that they had managed to find Homura. Kyouko held out the cubes she had saved from before.

“What are these,” Homura asked, though it didn’t sound much like a question.

“They’re for you,” she said, shoving them at her. “We went on this wild goose chase ‘cause we thought you had snapped and all this time you were running around fighting...” She sighed. “That was a pretty stupid thing to do, y’ know.”

“What thing?”

“Never mind.”

“Akemi-san,” said Mami, approaching her, “why don’t you spend more time with us? You ought to try to conserve your magic.”

She looked dully at her Soul Gem, and pressed the other cubes to it. If it changed, then Kyouko couldn’t see it.

She whistled. “That’s not good, y’ know?”

Homura shook her head. “I appreciate the effort. This will keep me going for a little longer.”

“Anyway, what was that about?” Kyouko snapped. “Locking all the doors and then running away? Are you nuts?”

“Did it work?”

They looked at each other.

“We were worried about you,” said Mami.

“Yeah, you scared us for a while, there.”

“I see.” Homura looked at her Soul Gem curiously. “But it hasn’t changed anything, has it.”

“Not really,” Kyouko said. “Especially if you’re not gonna run around acting like that.”

“You should come back with us,” Mami said, extending a hand. “We can discuss this somewhere safer.”

She kept staring at her Soul Gem. “I wonder why it’s not getting any brighter.”

“H-hey, Akemi-san...” Kyouko muttered, “it’s all right; we can always get some more later.”

Her fingers closed around the gem, almost caressing it, and Kyouko realized with alarm that she had enough strength to crush it with her bare hands. Mami unfurled one of her ribbons and yanked Homura’s arm to one side; the gem flew out of her hand and Kyouko rushed to catch it, barely saving it from falling to the concrete floor. She heard a sob. Homura was on her knees, covering her face with her free hand.

“I don’t understand why I keep doing this... There’s no point if she isn’t here!”

Kyouko looked at Mami. She undid the ribbon, and Homura’s other hand fell to her side, lifeless.

“You mean Madoka?” Mami asked, quietly.

Homura exhaled, shuddering, and said nothing.

Kyouko shook her head. “Forget it.”

“Kyouko-san!”

“She obviously doesn’t want to be bothered. I mean, look at her! She’s a mess.” Kyouko gestured to her. “She can barely take care of herself anymore. I’m not gonna waste my time with her until she learns how to deal with her own issues. I’m sick of her acting like this!”

“Not everyone is as strong as you are. Besides,” she said, “you have no idea what she’s gone though. It seems like she’s been through much worse than either of us.”

“So what. She’s an asset one day and a liability the next. She isn’t reliable anymore.”

“And she won’t be unless we help her,” Mami said firmly. “Don’t you remember? What your dream was?”

She clenched her teeth. “I don’t believe in that stuff anymore. My family’s dead; Sayaka’s dead; your parents are dead; what are you even fighting for? It’s pointless!”

“Then why are you still here?”

Kyouko looked down at Homura, and then at Mami, who was staring at her directly.

“Well? If you don’t want to help, then leave.”

She didn’t budge. “You wouldn’t understand how to help her anyway.” She motioned to Mami. “C’mon, let’s go. She’ll get up eventually.”

Mami hesitated, and then followed her. They walked for a little bit, and then turned around. Homura was still on the ground.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She strode back over to Homura’s side, and bent down. “C’mon, we get it. You’re depressed. Let’s go already.”

Still nothing. Kyouko still held her Soul Gem in hand, reluctant to give it back to her if she was still considering crushing it.

Mami walked over to her, and knelt to her left. “You know, Akemi-san, we can’t help you if you don’t say anything.”

“No, shit, she can’t,” Kyouko snarled. “She hasn’t been able to for ages! She’s got all this pent-up stuff inside; what makes you think she’d be able to say anything now?”

“We’re not leaving her here.”

“Then what? We’re just going to stay here until she decides to stand up by herself? Who knows how long that’s going to take?” The conversation suddenly started to sound familiar. If only it were that easy...

“I don’t think she’s going to do it.”

“Do wh...” Kyouko looked at her Soul Gem. She narrowed her eyes. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You absolutely sure?”

“Yes, I am. There are easier ways to do away with herself, if she wanted to.”

She had a point. Even if Homura looked like she had given up, her Soul Gem said otherwise. She held it in front of Homura’s face, and it vanished, reappearing on the back of her hand. “Now what?”

“Now we wait.”

“You’re nuts.” Kyouko walked off, and then froze abruptly. She stomped back over to Homura and turned around.

“Kyouko-san?”

“Dammit, I’ll just bring her with us.” She bent down, pulled Homura’s arms over her shoulders, and slid her elbows under her knees. Homura was silently compliant, shifting weakly in response to her movements. Kyouko stood up. “We can take her to your place.”

They laid her down on the couch in Mami’s apartment. She was decidedly limp. It bothered Kyouko to see her like this, so... absent. So gone. She seemed more lifeless than anything; the tears had long dried up. She kept her face buried in the cushions, too ashamed or depressed to even look at them. Did people really just break like this?

“It’s fine if she stays like this,” Mami said. “It’ll be easier to keep an eye on her.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t know how much longer she’s going to last.”

“I don’t think she’s feeling much of anything right now, honestly. I doubt she’ll get any worse.”

“This’s gonna drive me nuts,” said Kyouko. “I mean, how come she’s still alive and Sayaka ain’t? What’s the difference between them; how could someone so pathetic live for so damn long?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and then paused. “For some people, I guess... That’s all they know how to do.”

Kyouko instantly felt guilty. “Not you, too.”

“We should inform Kaname-san of this.”

“You sure she can do anything?”

“She isn’t a magical girl,” said Mami. “It might help if Akemi-san can get away from the stresses of being one for a while. Besides... They seem like good people.”

“So she gets a surrogate family, and we don’t?”

“I don’t understand what your problem is.”

“Everything,” she said. “Everything, and I’m just going to wind up being a failure again... Sometimes I wonder why the hell I don’t just give up too.”

“We’re saving people,” Mami said sternly. “You’ve seen what those demons are capable of. They’re going to hurt people if they go unchecked.”

“But it’s never the people I want to save.”

“You’ve saved my life plenty of times.”

“Yeah. I guess...” she muttered.

“It seems a lot less significant while they’re still alive, doesn’t it?”

Kyouko’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “You have a point.”

“I have an extra futon,” Mami said. “You can sleep on it, just for tonight.”

Chapter Text

They came, the three of them—there had been one more before, gone missing several weeks ago, and it disturbed her to think of it. There was something very wrong here.

“You found her,” Junko said, uncertainly, as they walked in through the front door. Rain came down in a monotonous gray drizzle. It would be like this the whole day.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s the real her that we found, or a fake,” said Kyouko. She had a furrow in her brow nowadays. It had been there since the other girl—a Miki Sayaka—went missing, and with the way Homura was looking, it was probably there to stay. She felt bad for all of them.

How did they all meet each other, anyways?

What did they even do?

They sat her down on the sofa. Homura said and did nothing. Junko tried not to stare. She prepared tea in the kitchen, partially out of habit, and partially to give herself some time to think. They were probably going to ask to let Homura stay here. She had a guest room available, incidentally, but how long were they planning to keep her here? A day? A week?

She brought the tea into the living room. Homura sat on the far side of the sofa; Kyouko and Mami sat on the other side, beside each other.

“Thank you,” Mami said graciously, and picked up one of the cups.

Kyouko didn’t touch it. She looked distracted, far-off.

Junko sat adjacent to them, in an armchair on the other side of the table. “So what happened?”

It was a safe enough question, she assumed.

They looked at one another as if they hadn’t been expecting it.

“Um...”

“We were...”

“At the mall,” Kyouko started.

“And we just happened to see Homura there...”

“Arguing with an employee,” she added.

“And she was having a very difficult time with him, so we politely asked if he would leave.”

“She was really upset,” said Kyouko, “because...”

“Something had reminded her of Madoka, and so she wanted to buy it...”

“But they were out of stock, and they had an argument over it.”

“All right, never mind,” said Junko, waving her hand. “You obviously don’t want to talk about it. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“You have a guest room, correct?” asked Mami. “We’d like to know if you could let her stay here, for a little while. A few days, at the most.”

That didn’t sound too bad.

“Is there anything I need to know?”

“She’s depressed,” Kyouko offered.

“I can see that.”

“She probably hasn’t been taking very good care of herself, either,” said Mami. “She’s been straining herself, lately. It’d be good if you could give her some time and space to relax.”

“What about school?”

Kyouko half-laughed. “She’s beyond caught up, probably. I think she could afford a few days off.”

Mami nodded, if a bit reluctantly. “If she shows signs of recovering, then you can call me, and I can pick her up before I go to school. Kyouko-san...”

“I live too far away,” she explained.

“And she’s... What is she going to do while she’s here?”

“Sleep, probably,” said Kyouko.

“I doubt she’ll be much of a bother to you, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“Though she might leave.”

They looked at each other.

“Nah,” said Kyouko, “she’ll come back. That’s one of the better things about her. If she’s leaving for real, she’ll say so.”

“Even when she’s like this?”

“Totally.”

“I believe all she needs is a few days’ rest,” said Mami. “Is that all right with you, Kaname-san? If there’s anything I can do to make up for it...”

“No, don’t worry about it.” Junko looked at her, and then at Kyouko. “You two seem like you have a lot on your hands already.”

“Not that big of a deal, really.”

“We’ll be back to check up on her tomorrow. Is four o’ clock fine with you?”

“Four...?” Junko had to think. She usually didn’t get home until five thirty. She left at eight, though. That was nine and a half hours, and Junko wasn’t sure if Homura would even get out of bed to feed herself. “I’m not going to be there, but I suppose I could lend you one of my house keys, if you need it.”

“Give it to her,” said Kyouko. “I’d probably lose it.”

“Alright.” Junko stood up. “Let me get it.”

All the while, Homura sat on the sofa, as still and unmoving as any other object in the room.

Homura didn’t talk to anyone for the first few days. She ate, when Junko left food outside of her door. Occasionally in the evenings Junko would hear her walk to the bathroom and flush the toilet, but that was the extent of her physical activity. Junko assumed she spent most of the day lying in bed, being depressed. She could relate and she couldn’t relate. Homura was fourteen. What on earth had happened to her?

She’d explained the situation to Tomohisa as best as she could, and he seemed fine with it as long as she was. Tatsuya occasionally slipped her drawings under the door. It disturbed them, but not so much that they couldn’t function. Junko was glad she hadn’t thought to throw any parties for the next few weeks—Homura’s presence would have certainly made things a little awkward.

Eventually Homura started leaving her room for longer spells, reading books in the living room or in the kitchen. Sometimes she would merely sit and stare out the window, looking at nothing in particular. After a while, she started playing with Tatsuya. She couldn’t find anything about this “Madoka” character on the Internet or on TV, but as long as he was happy and she was occupied, she didn’t care.

One day, she made the mistake of asking Homura who Madoka actually was.

“You knew her too.”

Factually, Junko knew she was wrong. Instinctively, she had the weird feeling, like a memory of a dream, that there was some truth to what Homura was saying.

“Who was she?” Junko tried to ask, but Homura shook her head.

“Is,” she corrected. And then, “I shouldn’t have said anything. You don’t remember her.”

“Tatsuya knows her, though,” she said. “How come you do, and he does, but I don’t?”

“Magic,” she answered briefly, almost sardonically, and then walked away.

Junko made a face.

Seriously?

Another day, on a Sunday, Homura walked to the kitchen right before breakfast and held the ribbons out to Junko as she was cooking.

“Here,” she said. “You hold onto them. I don’t think I can wear these right now.”

“What?”

“You like them, don’t you?”

She was right. She recalled expressing interest in them once before. “But they seem important to you. I can’t just take them from you.”

“I trust you with them. Don’t lose them.”

She took them as soon as her hands were free, and pocketed them. She was growing accustomed to Homura’s various quirks. She was quiet and kept to herself, which was good, but a little unnerving at the same time. Junko couldn’t shake the feeling that this kid was disturbed. She and Kyouko and Mami were all hiding something big from her. They knew how Sayaka had gone missing, and rhey weren’t about to tell anyone.

Homura gave her the ribbons, but Junko wasn’t sure what to do with them. She liked them a lot, and wanted to keep them. They were a loan, though. Pawned off to let her stay here. Whatever the case, it had been a smart move on her part, because now she couldn’t let go of them. She knew, rationally, that she could always buy some if she wanted them for herself. But something about these seemed different, somehow. They were unique. She kept them in her purse, took them to work, and though she never took them out, she felt better for having them in there.

Maybe this “magic” stuff Homura kept talking about wasn’t too far off the mark.

Maybe Homura was just driving her crazy.

A week after Homura handed her the ribbons, she approached Junko with something important to say. She had been improving somewhat, and she had been talking a little more and eating a little more, and occasionally she went outside to take a walk, or whatever it was she did. She liked Tatsuya a lot. Tatsuya liked her a lot. Junko never took her as the type to be good with kids, but she was patient and could smile on demand, surprisingly enough. Whatever the case, it seemed like Homura was finally ready to tell her what the problem was. Maybe Junko could even help.

Homura stopped her after dinner that evening, rain beating against the windows, and turned to her with hard, focused eyes. She looked older than she should have. Kids didn’t make those kinds of expressions, not unless they had suffered a lot.

“Was there something you wanted to say, Akemi-san?”

“She was—” Homura looked at the ground and shook her head. “No, nothing.”

“Akemi-san,” she said again. “If there’s something bothering you...”

“She was your daughter,” Homura said, finally. “Tatsuya remembers her... I don’t know why, but...” She looked away.

“I don’t have a daughter.”

She didn’t say anything to that.

“Homura?”

“That’s what’s been disturbing me,” she said, quietly. “Madoka...” her voice was barely a whisper, “Madoka was your daughter.”

Junko frowned. Madoka looked like an anime character. This wasn’t making any sense. She wanted to call Homura crazy, but she couldn’t find anything about Tatsuya’s Madoka anywhere.

“How do you know?”

“Magic,” she said again, and this time seriously. “I’m sorry, but there is no logical explanation. Nothing I can say to you will make any sense, but it is true. One time you had a daughter named Madoka Kaname.”

“Akemi-san...”

“She was a very nice girl. You would have been proud of her.”

“I’m sure I would have, but...”

“I know,” Homura said.

“Then why bother telling me all of this?”

“To be selfish. Hold onto the ribbons,” she said. “I don’t think I can take them yet.”

Junko’s head started to ache. She took the ribbons out of her pockets—she carried them with her everywhere nowadays. She didn’t even know why. “These are hers, aren’t they?”

Her eyes lit up for the briefest of moments. “Yes...”

She looked at the ribbons. They gave her some kind of feeling—not nostalgia, but the feeling of something that wasn’t supposed to be there forcing its way in. Not something missing, but something extra. Not a memory, but...

“Who are you, Akemi-san?”

“I’m her friend.” She smiled sadly. “I think. I hope.”

Not a memory, but a premonition.

“Huh,” said Junko. “Well, then, someday I hope you can introduce her to me, too.”

Homura left the house sometime that night, and didn’t return at all the next morning.

Chapter Text

Only when you were immortal could you commit suicide with such practiced ease. Self-injury—as rarely as she did it, as often as she told herself it was irresponsible, irrational, counterintuitive, objectively bad—had become a way to cope over the years. There was something liberating about blasting yourself in the head and being able to look at your own brain matter afterward. A body was just a tool. The mind was all that mattered. Her mind wasn’t going anywhere.

She didn’t count. She never did. Precious few things became impossible, and there were only about two she could recall: breaking her Soul Gem, and harming Madoka. Physically, anyway. Emotionally she had hurt her about a thousand times before, and not always through her own fault. She’d killed the other three at some point over her lifetime, over the loops, for one reason or another. Sometimes they had been trying to kill her. Other times she felt she had no other choice if she wanted to protect Madoka. Most of the time, though, they perished through their own fault. She couldn’t blame them. She would have, too, if it hadn’t been for her magic.

Since she couldn’t ever break her Soul Gem, instead she imagined the many ways which she would, if she could. Sometimes it was Mami’s favored technique: by shooting them. She thought about letting it sit on a highway and letting a car run over it. Tossing it in a river and letting it float out into the ocean. Dropping it from the roof of a building. Smashing it with a hammer. Crushing it underfoot. The more times she thought about it, the more elaborate the rituals became. She would expose it to high heat, and see if it cracked like glass. She would scratch the sides with a knife, just to see if she felt anything. She would chip a piece off, and if she didn’t survive, then that was OK.

Especially nowadays. Everything was OK, now that Madoka was safe. She wasn’t a middle school girl in fear for her life; she was a god who spent her time helping others, a Law of the Universe, something fulfilled, important, necessary for the function of the world. She was more than an ordinary human could ever become—beyond comprehension. Those golden eyes would be forever etched into her brain, mysterious and foreign and impossible to relate to, something she didn’t recognize at all. She wondered if she was being selfish.

She could never answer the question, though. If it had been by her own hand that the Law of Cycles had managed to come into being, then she felt like she deserved something more than a pair of plain red ribbons. Silken, soft to the touch, and loaded with sentiment as they may be, she expected more than a distant promise and a couple of pieces of cloth. It was no wonder her Soul Gem was so dark. The only thing keeping her from breaking it was her morbid fascination with the fact that she still hadn’t somehow committed magical-girl suicide already. It was barely purple.

She wondered if it was Madoka keeping it there, right below the breaking point. It had to be. She couldn’t find any part of herself that wasn’t already tainted black.

She certainly wasn’t proud of some of the things she had done. One time she actually kidnapped and locked Madoka in a closet before Walpurgisnacht, for an entire day. It ended so badly that she never tried it again, and she couldn’t recall most of what had happened in that timeline; she had repressed it. Homura guessed that Kyubey had gotten to her and she transformed into a Witch. She blamed herself for that. She had been getting desperate.

She would later discover that intimidating Madoka was the easiest way to keep her from contracting, at least for a while. She couldn’t help herself about the stalking; she needed to know so she could determine whether she needed to start over, or whether she still had a chance. There were rules she had established for herself at some point in time, when she started to feel like giving up: no rape. No torture. No killing the other girls preemptively. She had come close on a number of occasions, and she considered any of those options more often than she would admit to herself. She had to hold herself to some standard, though. Otherwise there’d be no reason to keep going. If she fell that far, not even Madoka would be able to forgive her.

It didn’t stop her from considering them, though. And her imagination could go anywhere, as long as it stayed in her head. She could be as morbid as she wanted to be, as long as she didn’t tell anyone or act on her thoughts. It was her sole reprieve from decency, civility, humanity. The one place she could go completely insane and no one would notice, or care. If she had urges, she’d replay it over and over again, in her head, until the urges finally went away. No rape. No torture. No murder. But in her head, she could do whatever she wanted. Even killing Madoka. She’d been so sick of feeling the same emotions over and over again, in different combinations every single time, she wondered what kind of stimulus it would provide.

She never did kill Madoka, no matter how badly the timeline went. Besides, there were worse things you could do with her than killing her. She thought of those on occasion, too. She never acted on them, of course. She’d still had her pride, no matter how desperate the situation. She became numb to nearly everything, over time. After a while, there was nothing but her, Madoka, and the looming date of Walpurgisnacht.

In the end, the girls destroyed themselves more often than she had to intervene. She was tired of seeing them that way; she was tired of seeing Madoka, too. She began to resent Madoka, for being herself. She liked Madoka, of course, but it was easy to get frustrated with her; she just needed to listen and stay safe and let her do all the heavy lifting. She always wondered why she felt the need to go out and do something. Homura had promised to protect her, after all. What more could she possibly want?

When Madoka made her final wish and went off to become an idea, Homura hadn’t understood her train of thought. She still didn’t. She had no idea what she was still doing here, in a world where no one even remembered her. She felt as if she were being punished for no reason. She felt as if Madoka were just doing this to spite her, because over the course of those time loops she had killed one too many people or threw away one too many morals or restarted one too many times.

Or even worse: she should have never tried to rescue her at all. Maybe Madoka had never needed her help in the first place. Maybe Homura was just getting her in her way, all those times she had been trying to help. Maybe she had been wrong about everything; she had just been the tagalong, the burden, after all. They had been doing just fine without her. She’d ruined everything for them, breaking them up, and not letting Madoka take charge like she always had. Madoka was right. Madoka was always right. She’d built her life on the assumption that Madoka could do no wrong, that she was simply naive and misguided and needed some direction, but Homura underestimated just how right she’d been. It had all been futile. She hadn’t succeeded; she couldn’t understand anything but how miserable she was. Maybe it was pointless to think about it.

Maybe it had all been for nothing.

She hated the clicking of the door whenever it shut. Oftentimes she realized she was half-imagining it; the clicking shouldn’t have been that loud. It sounded like the clicks of machinery, the clicks of modern weapons. Things that triggered and pulled and shifted, things that clicked against one another. She developed a fondness for schematics. It became soothing to take a weapon apart and fix it and clean it. Hypnotic, almost. Probabilities and logistics. Equations and mathematics. She had brainwashed herself into thinking there was nothing else in the world except for cold, hard fact. She calculated each and every step before she took it. If she failed, it was not as a result of her own failure, but a calculation error, some fault in her logic. The world was a machine. If something was wrong, it could be fixed. Now they were nothing more than a collection of sounds in her head, the guns and the bombs and the missiles. She dreamed of clicks.

She recalled a time when she thought she had gone crazy. Crazier, she supposed, since she had been trying to kill herself, and it hadn’t been working. She had pulled and pulled and pulled on the trigger, and all she could hear was click, click, click, and she couldn’t even recognize the sound; she couldn’t even remember the model of gun she was holding.

Click, click, click.

Click, click, click.

Click, click, click.

Then she realized that she hadn’t turned off the safety, and she laughed. What had been keeping her from committing suicide? A device meant to stop people from hurting themselves on accident. She had forgotten all about it. Or what had she forgotten? Maybe she had left it on because she knew she would use it on herself beforehand. Maybe she had forgotten it had had a safety at all. She was losing it, and she was tired. And that stupid little thing wouldn’t let her die.

She kept it on, anyway. She used the gun a lot afterward. She would have used anything else if she could bring herself to, but she couldn’t stop. It became her favorite weapon. She hated it.

She never tried to hurt herself again after that, and when the next cycle came along, she missed it in a weird, twisted sort of way. It had saved her life, and now she couldn’t stop thinking about it, about the empty clicks. How desperate had she been that she needed something to keep holding her back? She had pulled that trigger no less than ten times. She should have realized long ago that the gun wasn’t working for a reason. Even though she would be dead without it, she still hated it. She had wanted to die so badly.

Click, click, click. It was a telltale heart, a metronome, proof that she had tried to do something ugly and failed. The noise was everywhere. It reminded her of everything. It was the sound of purpose, of action. The sound of futility.

Sometimes she would place her Soul Gem on the nightstand next to her bed, and just stare at it: the Soul Gem, on top of the nightstand, in a room that had once belonged to someone else.

She had been in Madoka’s room at least a few times before, could hear the pounding of her heart as she crossed the threshold. It made her nervous every single time, and for more than one reason. Madoka didn’t notice—she never did—and spoke as if Homura weren’t red in the face and stiff as a board, overwhelmed by a feeling she didn’t even recognize. She’d been confused. They’d both been confused, but they giggled it off as though it were nothing. Madoka was nice to everyone. She was nice to strangers. Her treatment of her wasn’t particularly special. Not that Madoka would invite just anyone into her home, she hoped.

The memories were years old and fading, replaced by months and months of hardly ever speaking to her at all. She was surprised she hadn’t forgotten them entirely, although as the body count piled up, she realized it was the violence and the failure that all blended together in her head, not the memories she had been fond of. Those had been unique. The others had been repeated dozens of times over.

A long time ago, she had made a wish for another person’s sake. But she couldn’t remember why. Out of everything she had remembered and forgotten, that was what bothered her the most. She’d wanted Madoka to be safe and happy. She’d wanted Madoka to like her. Madoka had been kind to her, when they still talked, but at some point they stopped talking because Madoka kept dying, and it was hard to even look at her anymore. Madoka was a nice person, but there was more to her than that, and somewhere in that part of her that she’d forgotten about lay the purpose to her entire life. What the hell did she find worth protecting in this person? What had she been trying to protect? It couldn’t have been just anything.

The clicks in her head rose to a deafening roar. If there was any time she needed to remember, it was now. No matter how hard she tried—and she’d tried more than once—nothing was coming to mind. She felt robbed of something precious to her.

Click, click, click. Click, click, click.

It had been her favorite weapon, and she’d lost it.

Chapter Text

They stared at each other over the kitchen table. It seemed odd to say anything now. Kaname agreed to put Homura in the guest room for however long she needed it. For the time being, she wasn’t their problem. There were only so many other things they could discuss, though. Kyouko picked at her dinner, distracted by something. That was a bad sign.

“So it’ll be just us for now, huh.” Kyouko didn’t look at her. “Like old times.”

“Are you upset?”

It was the only thing she could think to say. Kaname had been reluctant to take her, but their persistence had won out in the end. She worried that they had been perhaps a bit too forward with their request—or maybe it was because they had been so insistent that Kaname agreed to help them. She was an adult, after all. She had better things to do than look after kids that weren’t her own. She was almost too kind, taking in Homura on the basis of their flimsy excuse. It reminded her of someone she used to know, though she couldn't quite recall whom.

“I don’t know,” she said. “On the one hand, Akemi’s outta the way for now. On the other...”

“That means you no longer have an excuse to stay here.”

Kyouko looked outside. “Yeah. So you gonna kick me out, or what?”

She thought about it. Kyouko was an elusive one. She had a way of slipping out of her grasp, making excuses and exploiting her fears so Mami would never be able to box her in. Homura had forced them together. Now she was free to do as she pleased.

“No. I’m not.” Kyouko had nowhere else to go. With Sayaka dead and Homura unable to fight, this arrangement only made sense.

She looked surprised. Mami couldn’t figure out why. “Seriously?”

“Of course not. I’m not letting you fight all those demons on your own.”

“Guess you have a point,” she said, pushing food around on her plate.

“Are you feeling ill? You’ve hardly eaten.”

“’M not hungry.”

“That doesn’t matter. You always accept food, even when you’re full. At least put it away for later. It looks...” Wrong. The word died in her throat.

It wasn’t wrong. In fact, it was actually sort of right. Kyouko had only started hoarding food after her family died; she had always been a glutton, but never to this extent. When had she decided that this kind of behavior was normal?

She tried again. “What’s wrong, Kyouko-san?”

She laughed. It sounded more like a bark. “What’s wrong? What isn’t wrong? Akemi’s... She isn’t gone, but she sure as hell ain’t comin’ back anytime soon. Things are only gonna get harder from here on out, and Sayaka died three fucking weeks ago and you can’t fucking expect me to get over everything as quickly as you do.” Her last words devolved into a hiss.

“Then what do you want me to do?”

Kyouko set her hands on the edge of the table, and stood up. “Don’t you feel anything?”

“It doesn’t do any good to get upset,” she said. “There’s little we can do for Akemi-san, other than ensure that she cleanses her Soul Gem.”

“What if she disappears, like Sayaka did? Then it’ll be too late.”

“She won’t.”

“You know,” Kyouko said, eying her, “you sound so sure of that.”

“I am,” she said. “I understand how she feels. It’s difficult, being a magical girl. You’re in constant danger of being killed; you can die by sincerely wishing for it; your allies are continually being replaced by new ones; there’s no end to the work; and it doesn’t feel rewarding at all. It’s our responsibility, but no one forced it upon us. It’s our job, but we received our payment in advance.” Her eyes strayed across the table: to her teacup, to her plate, to Kyouko’s hands. “But if you give into despair, you forfeit your life. You are giving up the absolute last thing you have.”

“So what keeps you going?”

Mami sipped her tea. She put it down on its saucer carefully. “You know what it is,” she said, without looking at her.

“I mean, I know it was your wish. But can you really call this living?”

“It’s better than death.”

Kyouko didn’t have a response to that. She sat back down. “I feel like it doesn’t have to be this way, though.”

“How do you mean?” Mami looked at her.

“I mean, we don’t have to be suicidal basket cases if we don’t want to be,” she said. “It’s the ‘doing’ part that seems to get most people. It’s like no one in this goddamn town knows how to have fun anymore.”

She had to admit, she doubted Homura even recognized the concept of fun anymore. Then again, most people were nothing like Homura.

“It’s a little difficult to think about having fun when you’re out risking your life everyday,” she said, but it felt like she was arguing for the sake of it. Kyouko had a point.

“So?”

“It’s easy for us to lose sight of those things.”

“Maybe I’m guilty of that, too, then.”

“Then stay.” She took another sip of tea. “It’ll lighten your load, a little bit. To be honest, I don’t like the idea of you wandering around late at night.”

“Then why’d you kick me out all those other times?” she asked, unconvinced.

“I don’t like the idea of you here, either.”

“Well, excuse me.”

“It hurts,” she said. She cradled the cup in her hands, looking down at the liquid.

“Why?”

“Because I’m afraid you’ll leave again.” She looked up at Kyouko, searching her face for an answer.

“I won’t.” Her tone was firm, but her expression was anxious. “I’d have to be crazy to leave now; there’s nobody else left.”

“You could make other friends, though.”

“So could you.”

“That’s true.” She was quiet. “It’s just more convenient this way.”

“Yeah,” Kyouko said, and stood up. “Real goddamn convenient.” She picked up her plate, and headed for the kitchen. “Not like I put up with all of Akemi’s bullshit ‘cause I cared, or anything.”

Mami heard the fridge door close. By the time she realized what Kyouko had meant, she was gone.

It was harder than it should’ve been without Homura. She had charts, diagrams, algorithms, even, all loaded onto a computer and mapped to GPS coordinates so specific they didn’t even need their Soul Gems to know when and where the demons would be. With her, they were set for an entire week, barring any abnormalities in manifestation patterns. Without her, they often fumbled: not only did they lack an extra fighter, they lacked their most consistent and reliable source of information. Mami and Kyouko both questioned why Homura even bothered to keep them around. She was arrogant, hypercompetent, and unstable, but she nevertheless possessed a strange benevolence, a sort of fierce attachment to them. She never let anyone die if she could help it.

Kyubey kept reminding them to check up on her.

“You saw her yesterday, right?” Kyouko asked her, after school. “So how was she?”

“The same,” she answered tersely.

The day after they left her at Junko’s, Mami went to check up on her. Kyouko had declined, muttering something about it not being worth the trip. Homura barely said anything the entire time, and while Kaname tried her best to be accomodating, she had felt uncomfortable to be there. Homura was hanging by a thread. It looked as if it would snap at any time.

She groaned. “That thing won’t be happy to hear that.”

“Do you want to see her?”

They headed for the grocery store, to buy ingredients. Tonight she would be making dinner for two.

“No way.” She shook her head, hair swaying. “If we were alone we’d probably get into a fight or somethin’. It’s hard, though,” she said. “She’s brilliant. If she weren’t crazy she’d be perfect.”

“I think she needs more time.”

“Sure.” Kyouko shrugged. “I think I need some time away from her, too.”

“Why do you dislike her so much, anyway?”

“’Cause she’s a bitch.”

She frowned. “That’s not an answer.”

“Because... I dunno.” She gestured dismissively. “She’s difficult, she’s crazy, she’s impossible to deal with, and she won’t tell us jack shit.” She stopped walking. “I wish I could just solve it by... punching her. Knockin’ her out.” She punched the air. “Starting a fight. Somethin’.” She looked at Mami.

“What?”

She glanced down at the ground as if it were something interesting. “You and me and Akemi...” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “We’re a goddamn mess, aren’t we?”

Mami said nothing.

She was right.

“If I could, I’d try to beat it outta her, whatever she’s feeling. I don’t think she can do anything the way she is now, though... That’s what I planned to do with Sayaka. Was sick of her shufflin’ around lookin’ all depressed. It was too late by the time I had thought of it, though.”

“You think you can solve everything with violence, don’t you?”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not smart, like you two are.” She scuffed the ground with her boot. “I don’t really get what she’s going through, so I figure if I fight her, then maybe she’ll tell me. It’s hard to deal with someone who doesn’t even wanna look at you.”

“Or you could just ask her.”

“Please,” she scoffed. “She’s thinks she’s better than us. She’d never give it up just like that.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Fine, then you do it.” She started walking ahead.

Mami had to jog to catch up to her. “You’re too hard on her, Kyouko-san.”

“You’re bein’ too nice. She’ll never get better with you coddling her.”

“That’s the only way she’ll get better.”

“Then be my guest.”

“Why don’t you want to help her?”

Kyouko stopped and did a half-turn. “It’s not that I don’t wanna help her. I just hate having to deal with her. I always knew there was something wrong with her, but I wasn’t expecting her to actually break. The same with my dad. Same with Sayaka.”

She was quiet. “You should come with me next time,” she said, finally. “You don’t have to talk to her or acknowledge her at all, even, but you should at least come with me. I’d feel better having you there.”

Her face twisted into a grimace. It was working. “You are such a pain, you know that?”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

The demon appeared late, at eleven at night. Kyouko arrived before her, in an old abandoned factory, but this crop of demons seemed unusually strong. There were bruises on her skin, a scratch on her face. Mami shot down a few to clear the way, and then joined her.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry.”

Kyouko stabbed something behind her. She riddled one body with bullets, then another, and then starting binding a few together so they would be easier to shoot down all at once.

“How many’re we giving to Akemi?”

“It looks like there will be a lot, so... Five, I suppose.”

Kyouko kicked a stray demon out of her way, and she fired at it. It dissipated, leaving behind a cube in its wake. Something fast moved in front of Kyouko. Mami panicked and shoved her out of the way.

She fell to the ground. “Hey! What the hell was that for?”

There were more. She kept firing. One, two, three. They fell like cardboard targets, but they kept coming. Soon enough she realized that there was an entire horde of them. There was something unusual going on here, something they’d missed.

Homura would’ve known. She probably did.

“How many cubes we got?”

“Six.”

“Six? What the hell! There’s gotta be like, another thirty coming!”

They began to fuse, piling into one another. Mami took a few steps back, trying to take in the whole thing. It must have stood five stories tall, and the space around it warped so that the whole thing somehow fit inside the factory. It was enormous.

“Shit.” Her spear doubled in size. “You got any bigger guns?”

She formed ribbons, several of them, and had them loop around the massive thing, attempting to hold it in place. She summoned two guns and fused them together, into a bigger one.

She fired. There was a hole, and then the hole closed up. The giant demon shuddered, wrapped like a mummy in its ribbon cage.

“How the hell are we supposed to fight that thing!”

“I’m thinking.”

Kyouko glanced around. It was like demons were being drawn to it. “Then think faster!”

She emptied a few more rounds into the beast. It seemed to be damaging it, but it was like shooting into a five-story building. It was pointless. It didn’t bleed.

“It probably has a weak spot.”

“Oh, great.”

“Try to find anything that sticks out.”

“Yeah, y—shit.”

Mami fired at something that flew at her. “You take care of the big one. I’ll protect you.”

“Whatever you say.” Kyouko moved toward the demon.

One, two, three, four. When one gun ran out of ammo, she dropped it and picked up another one. It was natural—automatic. When a demon came up behind her, she shot behind her back. Cubes scattered around her: seven, eight, nine. If they survived until tomorrow, they would have a surplus. That didn’t mean they could stop, though.

She felt something wrap around her leg. Then it cut into her flesh.

Her blood ran cold.

She was flung high into the air, and she dropped her gun. She swung, loosely, and she tossed a few more ribbons out into the air, trying to find somewhere in the distorted factory to latch onto. She couldn’t tell where Kyouko was. She thought she saw something red flash past her vision. She felt blood running down her leg. She shot blindly at the thing that was holding her, and fell several feet. She ached. Her leg had a huge gash in it, all around, an inch deep into flesh. It would take several minutes to heal, and the demons came in droves.

Something behind her exploded in darkness.

“I got it!”

The other demons vanished as if they’d never been there. Eleven. She counted eleven cubes.

Kyouko landed on her feet behind her. She was missing an arm, cut off at the elbow.

“Oh, God.”

It was already healing, though. There was skin over the stump, even though it had ostensibly been cut clean through.

“What’s wrong, Mami-san? You look kinda... out of it.”

The flesh around her leg knit together. “I’m fine. I’m more worried about you.”

“Oh yeah.” Kyouko stared at it, and prodded it a bit. It made her stomach churn. “Fuck. This is gonna take a while to heal.” She looked at her. “You OK, though?”

“I’m not any different than how I usually am.” That was a lie. She felt strange. The usual adrenaline had all but gone; she felt relaxed.

She hadn’t convinced her. Kyouko dismissed her spear, and took a few steps toward her. Mami could feel herself stepping back.

“No,” she said. Her brow was furrowed. “There’s definitely something wrong with you.” She reached out and touched her face.

Her cheeks flushed.

“You were distracted. Real distracted. Hell, you never ask me to do anything.”

“I’m always distracted.”

“Really?” asked Kyouko.

She took her hand off her face. “Maybe I was a little more distracted today.”

“Because Akemi’s not here?”

“How did you kill it?”

“In the middle, after the ribbons came off. There was this gross, black, pulsing thing. I stabbed it a few times.”

“A heart.”

“What?”

“You got it in the heart.”

“Oh,” she said.

Mami began picking up the cubes. She handed four to Kyouko, and used two on herself. They tossed the six empty ones to Kyubey, and kept the rest for Homura. Her Soul Gem was oddly bright. She couldn’t figure out why.

“You know,” Kyouko said, making a difficult expression, “you look kinda... happy, for some reason.”

Was she smiling? She couldn’t tell.

“I’m not,” she said, but she couldn’t even convince herself.

“Just relieved, huh?”

“I suppose.”

How long had it been? Over a year already, she guessed. Kyouko had improved, fighting alone. Her reflexes were better honed, and she was faster, stronger, more dexterous. She fought like she enjoyed it. She probably did.

Kyouko motioned with her stump. “C’mon, let’s... Oh. Sorry.” She covered it awkwardly with her remaining hand. “That’s kinda gross.”

Mami stifled a morbid giggle, and as she did, she suddenly understood why she had felt so comfortable.

“I’ll bring them to her,” Mami said, as they walked out of the factory. “You’re not going to recover from that overnight.”

“I’m not going to be able to fight, either, dammit. You gonna be OK by yourself?”

“I’ll manage. You should get some rest.”

“Ya can’t do everything by yourself, y’ know.” Kyouko, thrown off balance by her new injury, struggled to keep up with her.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“So what? I’ll do it anyway. It’s not like it’s something I can help.”

She stopped, and let Kyouko catch up to her. “If you have that kind of time, then,” she said, “help me figure out a way to help Akemi-san.”

She sighed. “Again with Akemi. Ain’t there anything you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean something that doesn’t have to do with her. Or survival. Like,” she blinked and turned away, “gourmet food or jewelry or some shit like that. Something material.”

“You aren’t offering, are you, Kyouko-san?” she asked, coyly.

“Nah. I can’t afford any of that, not unless I steal it.”

“Please try to avoid stealing.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” She shifted back to her normal clothes, and started to walk ahead. “Sorry about the door.”

“It’s fine.” Mami matched her pace, and changed her clothes as well. “I had it replaced.”

“Why’re you so determined to help her, anyway? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

“Well, why not? She’s only tried to help us ever since she transferred. She has strange ways of doing it, granted, but she really only seems to have our best interests at heart.”

“You don’t get tired of it? Trying to keep people alive?”

“I do,” she admitted. “But I’m not like you. I hate being alone.”

“But you’re not.”

“Are you telling me I shouldn’t be helping her?”

“No. I’m just saying you’re not. This is a city. You’re surrounded by people.”

“They wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe not.” Kyouko rubbed her shoulder. “You don’t have to tell them, though. You could just make up lies. You do it all the time, anyway.”

“What kind of lies have I told you?” Mami asked. She stopped and turned to look at her.

“About wanting to help Akemi. It’s hard to lie to me, y’ know. I’m pretty good at seeing through these kinds of things.” She tapped her head.

“Then what’s the truth?”

“The truth is...” She had to think. “I dunno. It’s complicated. But you ain’t helpin’ her for all the right reasons.”

“As in?”

“As in wanting to help her ‘cause you think she deserves it,” she said, “You don’t care either way, do you?”

“Does it matter, if still I try?”

“’Course it does. ‘Cause that means you don’t give a shit. Not really. You’re doin’ it because...” Kyouko paused, “’cause you think that’s what I want.”

“How can you tell?”

“’Cause I’m not stupid. What do you want? Really,” said Kyouko, looking at her.

“I want what you want.”

“That means you just want me.”

“Is that a problem?”

“It’s an issue.” She shoved her hand in her pocket, and started walking ahead. “Tell me how she is next time. It’s probably gonna be a while before I talk to her.”

She arrived at the Kaname household right after school, to hand over the grief cubes. Kaname herself wouldn’t be there until later, and she decided that she would leave as soon as Homura’s Soul Gem was cleansed. She unlocked the door, and headed for the guest bedroom.

Homura was sitting up in bed. She looked at her as if she’d never seen her before. Mami sat down at her bedside, and pulled out the cubes from her bag. “Here,” she said. “They’re all yours.”

She produced her Soul Gem wordlessly, and allowed Mami to clean it. It hardly made a difference. Kyubey showed up as always to take the husks away, though she’d always found it disturbing that it was constantly entering the house. This was a warm, loving household, and Kyubey was less than warm and loving. It was heartless and calculating and a little weird—sort of like the person she was looking at.

“How is she?” Homura was looking away.

“Hm?”

“Sakura-san.”

“She lost an arm.”

“Did she.” Homura looked at her. “It’ll grow back.”

“I know. It just makes things a little harder for me.”

“Then don’t fight.”

“Will you be all right?”

She didn’t answer that.

“What have you been doing, Akemi-san?”

“Tatsuya-kun,” she said. “He remembers her.”

“Who?”

“Madoka.”

“Who is she,” Mami wanted to say, but refrained. She doubted she would get an answer at this point.

“Akemi-san,” she said instead, “do you know when you’ll be ready to come back?”

There was no response.

“You can live about a week without cleansing your Soul Gem,” said Homura. “Use the time wisely.”

“A week... Do you know how long it’ll take for Kyouko’s arm to regrow?”

“A week,” she said again, “if it’s from the elbow. Two, from the shoulder. You should see the wrist on the fifth day. Fingers will grow back by the evening of the seventh. I’ve seen it happen before.”

“Why don’t you come with us?”

She was silent for a long time. Mami was about to leave by the time she replied, or perhaps she only answered the question once she noticed she was moving.

“Here, in this house,” she said. “I might be able to find what I was looking for.”

They had ramen for dinner that night, at a local shop. It was cramped—cozy, she supposed—and three-quarters full of regulars and families and couples who shared big bowls between them. The din was pleasantly noisy, not so loud that they couldn’t hear each other, but not so quiet as to make them worry.

“So it’s about Madoka, is it? Figures.” Kyouko struggled with her dinner. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much we can do on that end.”

“Tatsuya-kun knows her.”

She nearly dropped her chopsticks. “Well,” she said. “Who woulda thought.”

“Also, she said that it’ll take about a week for your arm to heal, and about a week before we need to cleanse our Soul Gems again. That’ll give us some time to breathe.”

“Sounds boring,” she muttered.

“You have no choice.”

“Does she know something we don’t?”

“She knows plenty. Elaborate, please.”

“I mean, about the demons. Did you tell her about the huge one we fought?”

Mami shook her head. “No. I didn’t think to ask...”

“Could we at least use those programs she rigged up, see what we’re missin’? I feel like somethin’ bad’s gonna happen if we just sit around and wait,” she said, between slurps.

“We’ve fought them before, though. This isn’t anything new.”

“That was when we had Akemi and Sayaka backin’ us up. If we expect to take ‘em down—just the two of us—we’ll have to get a lot better at fighting.” Kyouko looked up at her, eyes narrowed. “Means I can’t afford to lose an arm again, for one.”

“Do you think leaving them alone for a week will cause that much damage?”

“That, or you convince Akemi to get her head outta her ass and help us. Doesn’t seem all that motivated, though, from what I hear.”

“It’ll be fine,” Mami said, though she was hardly convinced herself.

She slammed her fist on the table. “An’ how the hell do you know? You should at least try to clean up some of the smaller hordes, just to make sure they don’t cluster up like that one big one did. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.” She slapped her shoulder, meaningfully. “And you gotta stop bein’ distracted.”

“I won’t be if I’m alone.”

“That so?”

She looked away, then, so Kyouko wouldn’t see her.

“I don’t like this. Shit just keeps gettin’ worse and worse.”

“You should go. Stop by when I’m at school; Kaname-san will be at work.” She held out Kaname’s spare keys. “Talk to her. See what she says.”

“I dunno about that,” she said.

“She’s the same as she always is, just a little quieter. She doesn’t seem to want to leave, at any rate.”

Kyouko played with her spoon. “So?”

“Work your magic, Kyouko-san.” She smiled, rather disingenuously. “I believe in you.”

“Why don’t you come with?”

“You mean, skip school?”

She rolled her eyes. “Skippin’ a day won’t kill you.”

“I don’t—”

“Aw, c’mon! You wanna get your limbs chopped off that badly?”

“All right,” she said. “We’ll go together.” She looked at Kyouko, creasing her brow.

“What?”

“You have something on your face.”

“Where?”

Mami picked up her napkin, reached over, and wiped the broth off of her face. “Goodness. Were you always this slovenly?”

Kyouko blushed and scrubbed at her face with her sleeve. “Shuddup.”

They stood in front of the door of the guest room at the Kanames’ house. It was one in the afternoon, and perfectly sunny outside. The door was closed.

“So,” said Kyouko. “Do we knock?”

“I’ll let you do it, this time.”

She took a step and rapped her knuckles against the door. No response.

“Maybe she’s asleep,” said Mami.

“At one in the afternoon?”

“It’s possible.” She fixed her with a look. “Don’t try to break it down.”

“I wasn’t gonna. Still, this was a waste of time.” She tried opening the door. It didn’t budge. “Guess she wasn’t expecting any company. Is the door always open when you’re here?”

“It has been, although I’ve only seen her a few times so far.”

“Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m here, then.”

“I doubt it.”

Kyouko knocked on the door, harder. “Hey, Akemi! You in there? We need to talk.”

They waited a few more minutes.

“All right, I’m outta here.” She turned around.

“Kyouko-san, wait.”

“Why? She’s not answering the door. She might not even be here.”

“Five more minutes,” she said. “We’ll wait five more minutes, and then we’ll leave.”

“Fine. I’ll be in the living room.” She walked off, one sleeve trailing loosely behind her.

She waited, and thought about nothing while she did. It occurred to her how much of her life after death had consisted of waiting for something that would never come: a new family, perhaps, or good friends that could understand her. She wondered if it was simply because she had never tried to open up to anyone. She wondered if there was anything left to say.

What was she even doing, really.

The door creaked open. “What is it?”

“Kyouko-san and I came here to visit. Can we come in?”

Homura opened the door. “Fine.”

“You want to know why I’m not leaving,” Homura said, coolly. She sat on her bed. Mami stood, and Kyouko leaned against the wall.

“Yeah, we kinda need some help.” Kyouko removed her jacket and showed her her missing arm. “Mami-san already told you about this, right? We’d really appreciate it if you could... try fightin’ sometime. A week is a long time to leave those demons alone, and while she’s capable of handlin’ herself, there’re bigger ones out there, y’ know?”

Her eyes narrowed, minutely. “Bigger ones?”

“Yeah, y’ know, the huge demons, made by a bunch of ‘em fusing together. They’re a bitch to fight, and the demons don’t stop coming until you kill ‘em. We had a hard enough time with just the two of us.”

“I see.”

“So?” asked Kyouko. “You gonna pitch in or not?”

The silence was long and drawn out. Mami could feel a headache coming on.

“Hey, answer me.”

“There is something I need to do here,” she finally said.

“No, shit. You don’t have to push yourself or anythin’, y’ know? But if you’re able-bodied, then you should fight. You’re gonna die if you don’t anyway. Fuck, you could just lie. Just stop being so—”

“Kyouko-san,” said Mami.

“Whatever,” she groaned, and looked away.

“I have very little magic left,” said Homura. “I doubt I would be of much use in the first place.”

“So, like what?” said Kyouko. “You’re dyin’?”

“Yes.”

“You seemed to be handlin’ yourself pretty well the last time we saw you fight.”

“I was straining myself.”

“So are we.”

“You shouldn’t concern yourself with me.”

“You’re tellin’ us we should let you die?”

“I’ve been a magical girl for years. It was only a matter of time.”

“Shut up!” Kyouko grabbed her by the collar. “You’re the same age as I am; how long have you been doin’ this?”

Homura stared at her with dead eyes. “Long enough to forget when I started.”

“Fuck you.” She shoved her back onto the bed. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit.” Kyouko left the room, brushing roughly past Mami on the way out, and slammed the door shut.

“So there’s nothing we can do for you?” she asked. “Not even if we try to cleanse your Soul Gem?”

“I’m exhausted,” she said flatly. “Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to summon the will to fight earnestly.”

“Why? Kyouko-san is right; you’re only about as old as she is... or are you?”

“I don’t know how old I am,” she said. “I might be twenty.”

“Twenty?” It was all she could think to say. Why hadn’t she aged?

“Older, perhaps.” She shrugged, listless. “There’s something I want to know before I die, though, and I might be able to learn it while I’m here.”

“What, exactly?”

Homura looked out the window. “I used to know someone named Kaname Madoka. She was Tatsuya’s older sister. She doesn’t exist anymore, as a person. Her parents don’t remember her.”

“Why not?”

She was quiet for a while.

“I don’t know.”

Kyouko was in the living room, sitting on the sofa. Mami nearly started once she noticed; she had expected her to leave.

“You’re still here?”

“What’s it to you.” Her eyes looked a little bloodshot. “Holy shit,” she said. “Holy shit.”

She said next to her, gingerly. “Kyouko-san.”

“Fuck. Just fuck this, seriously.” She clenched her teeth. “She’s dying? Seriously? What, she’s got some kinda... terminal illness? If she’s... Hell, if she thinks she is, then she’s gotta be; she’s... Fuck.” Her voice cracked. “This is why I said I wouldn’t get involved with you guys anymore.” She buried her face in her hand. “This is why I said I was only gonna use my power for myself. Fuck.”

“Kyouko-san,” Mami said, and put a hand on her shoulder, “listen to me for a minute.”

She didn’t look up. “What. What?”

“I think we need to take a break. I think we need to do...” Something that wasn’t fighting, she thought frantically, something fun, like baking. She loved baking. You couldn’t lose an arm while baking. You couldn’t die while baking. “Why don’t we make a cake?”

“You’re fuckin’ kiddin’ me.”

“It’s been weeks since I last made one. I haven’t made one since—”

“Sayaka died. I know.”

“You’re going to help me.”

Kyouko’s response was muffled.

“What?”

“I said, fine.”

They stared at each other. Kyouko’s expression was intense, unrecognizable. She looked like she wanted to kill her.

They didn’t attempt to bake the cake until the next day. They hardly saw each other, until then. Mami bought all the ingredients on her own. Kyouko was almost always out, even though she doubted she was doing anything other than wandering around. She felt trapped in her apartment. She didn’t have the heart to go out and fight. She hated fighting alone. It was lonely, and more than anything else, she didn’t want to admit that she enjoyed it.

She wondered if it had been her fault that Kyouko had gotten hurt. Maybe she needed practice, after all.

That afternoon, after school, Mami set out all the ingredients onto the counter: butter, eggs, milk, sugar. Flour, vanilla extract, baking powder, salt. The frosting ingredients had been set aside for later, since it was easier to make. Kyouko came back in time to see her take everything out. She sat slouched on the couch, indifferent. One sleeve lay limp beside her as usual, but it was slowly being filled. It was incredible. They were like lizards.

“Kyouko-san.”

“Mmm.”

“Come here, please.”

She stood up and walked over to the counter, silent. She looked tired, but Mami could still read a little of her usual irritation in her eyes. She considered for a moment allowing Kyouko to make the frosting. She reconsidered it.

Kyouko had been awful at everything when they’d met. She probably hadn’t improved at handling kitchen tools.

“Sift the flour, please. And then add it in with the salt and baking powder in that bowl over there.” She needed to separate the egg whites from the yolks, and then mix the butter and the sugar, beat the yolks, add the vanilla, mix in the milk and the dry ingredients...

Kyouko sighed. “Whatever you say, Mom.”

She cracked one of the eggs over a small bowl and then let the yolk slide from one half of the eggshell to the other. It was neat, pleasantly precise. She emptied the yolk into a separate bowl and picked up the next egg. Seven more to go.

“Why the hell are we doing this, anyway?”

“You don’t enjoy it?” she asked.

“Seems pretty fuckin’ pointless, if you ask me.”

Her eyes were focused on the egg yolk. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“That’s a lot of egg yolks.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Six more.

“Is there anything else I can do?”

With one arm? “I think I forgot to preheat the oven.”

“All right.” She walked over to the oven. “Done.”

There was a long silence. Mami continued to separate the egg yolks. She beat them all into the bowl and then added the vanilla. Then she mixed the butter and sugar.

“Kyouko-san.”

“Right.”

“I need you to get the milk.”

They mixed everything together into the bowl, the wet and the dry ingredients. Once everything had been incorporated, the batter was done. It had hardly taken any time at all.

“Hey,” said Kyouko.

“What is it?”

“Did you need to put anything into those pans over there?”

“Butter,” she said, “and flour. Let me do that...”

She poured the batter into the baking pans and slipped them into the oven. “Done,” she said, and allowed herself a smile. “Now all we need to do is make the frosting.”

“Do I need to do anything?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Sheesh,” she said. “First you ask for my help, and then you turn me down.”

“I can’t help it. This is something I enjoy. You can eat all you want once it’s done; I’m sure you would prefer that anyway.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

She frowned a little. “I thought you liked my cakes.”

“I do.”

“You don’t seem very interested in eating this one.”

“It’s pretty damn hard to get excited over a cake at this point—not that I don’t appreciate it, I just...” She leaned against the counter. “I hate this.”

“What do you hate, exactly?”

“Everything. Not your cake,” she clarified. “Not food. Not eating. Just everything else.”

“So,” Mami said, “you like my cake more than you like me?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?”

“’Cause cake is food. You’re not food. Simple as that.”

“You wouldn’t have the cake if I didn’t make it, though.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

“I wish you would be a little more sophisticated, Kyouko-san,” she said, resigned. “There is more to the world than the food chain.”

She frowned and looked at her. “Sure I’m sophisticated. I’ve thought a lot... about, you know, your parents. My family. Sayaka. Ain’t much to consider about ‘em, though, since they’re already dead.”

“This again?”

“What?” she said. “You think cake is gonna solve all our problems? You think ignoring it is gonna solve the problem? ‘Cause that’s all I’ve seen you do.”

“I’m not ignoring the problem,” she argued. “I’m trying to help.”

“And it’s not working. You’ve watched people die before. More’n I have, I bet. I’m sure you’re numb. I’m sure you’re real numb, now; I bet you don’t think about anything anymore. I bet you’re gonna go on like that, not thinkin’ about anything, figurin’, ‘Hey, it’s fine as long as I’m alive, right? Everyone else might be dead but least I got my fuckin’ cakes!’” She slammed her fist on the counter. “Tell me that’s not what you’re thinkin’ right now. Go on, tell me!”

She took a step back. “Kyouko...”

“This is why I gave up on people. This is why I stopped fightin’ with you. You just get so fucking sick of it! Watchin’ people go nuts and destroy themselves until you can’t feel nothin’ for anyone anymore—”

Mami pointed a gun at her head. She had done it unconsciously, but it was here in her hand and it was as solid as anything.

“What.” She cracked a grin. “So this is what it’s come down to, huh? Fightin’ in your own goddamn kitchen. The cake’s gonna burn,” she said, and for a moment Mami believed her until she felt the blade at her throat.

“You’re at a disadvantage,” she said, plainly, and dug the muzzle into Kyouko’s chest. Neither of them had transformed, so their Soul Gems were out of sight, but even so, the situation certainly looked dangerous.

“I could kill you with my hands tied behind my back. You’re too soft,” she hissed, “you’ll let anyone have their w—mmph!”

She transformed, and wove a ribbon around Kyouko’s mouth, allowing another to wrap around her spear. When the ribbons tightened, she vanished. Kyouko reappeared at the back of the room, against the glass doors, transformed. She held her spear between her teeth, and her hand felt along the doorframe for the lock. She leered at her.

When Mami charged at her, she slid open the door and ran out.

“I was serious about the cake.” She stood on the railing, with her spear in her hand.

“Kyouko-san,” she said, “you’ve made me very upset.”

“Good. Been a while since I’ve seen you this angry.”

“When did your illusions come back?”

“Just now.” She extended her spear and Mami dodged it, and it dug into the ground.

Mami fired at her.

It felt good.

Kyouko fell backwards. She jumped off the ledge after her, loosing another length of ribbon to grab a hold of her. The illusion vanished, and Kyouko reappeared on a ledge below her own. She took a few more shots as she fell, and then anchored herself on a lower ledge with a ribbon. Kyouko jumped from the ledge above to stab her. She deflected it with her gun and then pulled out another one to fire at her, and let go of the ribbon in her hand. As they fell, Kyouko straightened her spear and extended until it slashed her sleeve. Mami fired at her until they reached the ground. When it looked as if she had hit her, the illusion disappeared.

Kyouko vanished from her sight. Mami didn’t bother to chase after her. Instead, she returned to her apartment and removed the cake from the oven. It wasn’t even burnt.

“How do you like it?”

“Lemon frosting,” Homura said, gazing at her plate. “It’s light.”

Afternoon sunlight filtered into the Kanames’ kitchen. It was neat, tidy: the product of a happy home.

“We had a fight yesterday,” Mami admitted. “She hasn’t come back since.”

“Sakura-san?”

“Yes.”

“It’s normal for her to fight with other people. It’d be stranger if she didn’t.” She didn’t seem bothered by the fact at all, but by now Mami had become accustomed to how uncanny she was.

They sat at the Kanames’ dining table, in front of small plates and steaming cups of tea. Mami stopped at the apartment after school to pick up the cake and then came to visit Homura. The other half of the cake was still in her refrigerator, waiting to be eaten by someone else.

“You seem to know a lot about us,” she said softly. “Does it have something to do with your wish?”

“Everything does.” She didn’t look up.

“Would you like some more cake?”

“I’m fine; thank you.”

“About this friend of yours, Kaname Madoka...” Homura flinched. Mami stopped. “I-is it all right if I ask you about her?”

“You may as well.”

“Was she a magical girl?”

“Yes.”

“And you say she was a member of this family. How do you know?”

“I’ve been here before,” she said. “The guest room I’m staying in was her room. She went to Mitakihara Middle School. I was in her class, as was Miki Sayaka. In fact, Miki-san was best friends with her. You were also friends with her.”

“I see.” Mami didn’t remember her, but if her own mother didn’t, she was scarcely surprised.

“Do you believe me?”

“I’m a magical girl,” she said, half-smiling. “I can believe a lot of things.”

“What happened to her?”

She took her time in choosing her words. “She made a wish... and the wish took her away.”

“What did she wish for?”

Homura looked to the side, weary. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Could you?”

“She did something very important, at the cost of her life. It was admirable.” She, on the other hand, didn’t look to be in awe of this Kaname Madoka. She looked sad, mostly, maybe a little frustrated.

“Your words don’t match your face.”

“I didn’t want her to do it.”

“Why not?”

She was quiet.

“Ah,” Mami said, “we don’t have to discuss this anymore, if it’s troubling you.”

“My wish was to stop her.”

“Akemi-san... Why?”

“I loved her. I’d seen her die many times before that, and all for nothing. I couldn’t stop her then, though.” Her eyes were faraway. “I don’t know whether I still feel the same way about her as I once did. I hate her more than anything else, some days.”

Mami had several questions for her, but she tried to pick the most pressing one. “Did she want to do it?”

Homura smiled at her. “Of course she did.” She looked down. “I only wish that I’d gone with her.”

“You’ve come this far, though.”

“I suppose I have.” She took a sip of her tea. “It might be my punishment.”

“Your punishment for what?”

“For being selfish. I’m a bad person,” she said. “I’ve done many bad things.”

“I don’t think you’re that bad.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I don’t,” she agreed, “but I have faith in you.”

“You sound just like her.” She took a long draft of her tea, and set it down on the table. “Maybe that’s why you got along so well.”

“When did I know her, exactly?”

“In another universe.”

“Ah.” That would explain things. “I’m assuming you’re originally from that universe?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“It sounds complicated.”

“It is.”

“What about Kyouko?” Mami said. “What was she like?”

“She’s always the same. No,” Homura corrected herself, “sometimes...” She shook her head. “Forgive me. I must be confusing you.”

“There wasn’t any change?”

“She’s much more honest with herself now,” she said. “Everything is a little easier now... Even you seem different.” Homura looked at her earnestly. She tilted her head a bit.

“Do I?”

“You do.” She looked to the side, clutching her teacup. “It makes sense, though, that I’d be the only one getting left behind.”

It didn’t make any sense to her. “You need to stop speaking in riddles, Akemi-san.”

“I’m dying,” she said pointedly. “I’ll do what I want.”

It’d only been in the last few weeks that Kyouko and Sayaka had started to cooperate, now that she thought about it. Homura had refused to do anything with them, outside of keeping them from killing one another, and the fact that she had hardly reacted to Sayaka’s death meant that she had likely predicted it ahead of time. There was an unusual grace about her in the days before her death, something quiet and ethereal and accepting. In the days afterward, Mami had experienced some kind of horrible déjà vu. It gave her headaches. She wondered if she was supposed to be dead too, or if Sayaka was supposed to die then or before that or later. In her delirium she thought she had seen Sayaka die many times over, always from stress or from failure, and always from the same broken heart.

There was something very odd about this world. From what Homura had suggested, this was not the first time they had experienced this set of circumstances, but she found it hard to believe there existed a universe worse than their current one. Sayaka was dead and Homura was also dying, and now Kyouko had disappeared. Her Soul Gem was growing dimmer. She cleaned it with some of the cubes she had collected from a fight earlier in the week—on her own, of course—but the days were all blurring together. She couldn’t even recall what day of the week it was today, or what day it was on the calendar. It was May, though. Sometime in May, she was certain. It was still the season of spring.

Her Soul Gem glowed on Sunday evening. She had a test the next day, but she wasn’t thinking about the test. She was thinking about magic and Kyouko and the rest of the world. She hadn’t seen Kyouko in days. They had been doing so well—or perhaps that wasn’t true, and she had only deluded herself into thinking so. Ever since Homura had had her breakdown, the days had felt dreamlike. Maybe it was all a dream: her own, or that of someone else.

She transformed and headed to the site of the attack. Rain poured in droves. It soaked her clothes and stung her skin, cold and relentless. The demons were as they always were—multitudinous, mindless, savage. She tore through them like tissue paper as they surged toward her. This was normal. It was too normal. She fired off a few more rounds before realizing that someone else must have been fighting around here, drawing some of the demons to herself.

Of course.

“Kyouko?” She looked around. The demons were clearing up, giving her time and space to pause. She saw an image of her in the rain, all red, but it vanished as soon as she glimpsed it. They surged upon her, like a wave, and she fell back.

No. Kyouko was definitely here. She bundled her rifles together to make a Gatling gun and let it tear into the crowd. The wind howled and lightning tore through the clouds; water pelted her skin like needles. They surged, fell back, regrouped and fell back again. She began pulling at groups with her ribbons, dragging them in front of her gun. The sound of the gunfire and the smell of the smoke, everything was drowned out by the rain. She thought she saw red in the corner of her eye, as if Kyouko were a floater, or a trick of the light.

She dismissed the Gatling gun and surrounded herself with her rifles, letting them fire into the huge crowd of demons. They scattered, and she looked for Kyouko. This rain was unnatural. It wouldn’t stop until the demon was defeated.

She caught a glimpse of steel flashing against the light. “Kyouko!”

Kyouko glanced back at her, and then disappeared again.

Damn her, Mami thought. Why couldn’t she stand still? She wandered a little further out into the crowd, where the bodies grew thick and crushed against her.

Something covered her mouth. “Mmph!”

She was dragged into an alleyway and up against a wall by something strong and lean, sharp ribs pressing into her back. But couldn’t you use magic to bring yourself up to a healthy weight? Kyouko had shortened her spear and used it like a knife, holding it to her throat. It was the most physical contact Mami had had in ages.

“If I die here, you’re goin’ down with me.”

Mami dragged her hand off her mouth. “Kyouko! What’s wrong? Did your Soul Gem go black?”

“It’s half and half. Yours is too, probably, innit? There’s way too many demons here, though. There’s more than we can handle. It’s the fuckin’ apocalypse,” she whispered.

“Then pick up the cubes!” she hissed. “They’ll help, even if only a little. You’re too young to die.”

Kyouko squeezed. She struggled feebly before giving up. Kyouko was far stronger than she remembered. She even felt a little proud.

Relief, rather than anger, flooded her body, although she was certain the latter was Kyouko's intention. “Let’s just work together. Please!”

She pressed the blade against her skin, drawing blood. Mami wriggled an arm free and produced a revolver, and pressed it to her chin.

“Put it down, Kyouko.”

“Fuck you. I’m just tryin’ to save you another ten years’ worth of misery.”

“I wasn’t miserable until you started that fight. Besides! You’re a survivor. You survived. Why end it now?”

“Because you’re dead!” Kyouko shook her spear. “Look at you. You’re dead! You don’t give a shit about anything. You’re just a husk.”

“I’m not a husk.”

“You’re so far gone you can’t even tell the difference anymore.”

Mami’s hand shook. Her magic reserves were probably all used up, by now. The initial rush had taken all the strength out of her. Kyouko held her tight, like a vise.

“Doing that won’t kill me,” she said, and took the Soul Gem off her hat and eased it into her hand. Kyouko’s grip loosened. They looked at each other.

There was something wrong about the way Kyouko held it, thumbing the thing over as if she’d never seen it before. Mami watched it carefully in the rain. Water beaded on top of the glass, sliding down the side as the rain continued to fall.

"You really want me to?"

Something punched through her back, bursting through her chest. Rain washed away the blood before she could even see it. Kyouko shoved the gem back into her hand as she was hauled back into the massive crowd of demons, all of a sudden one giant one, a behemoth that towered over the tallest building. Blood filled her lungs and seeped into her mouth. She choked on it, and clenched feebly on the claw that was holding her hostage.

No.

She wound ribbons around her waist, and looked around for something to hold onto. Anything would do, anything that would get her off of this living stake and onto solid ground. She’d fall a hundred meters if she needed to, but if she lost this much blood at this rate even she’d pass out.

There. An antenna. She let out as much ribbon as her last few drops of magic would allow: the last few centimeters wrapped around the antenna, and she yanked. She fell, reeled in by the ribbons and dropping through kinetic force, and landed on the roof of a building. She bounced onto the cement, bones smacking and crunching sickly. Her skull fractured. The cement cracked.

Kyouko was there before she even landed.

“Fuck,” she muttered. She produced a pile of small black cubes, and started pressing them to the bloody Soul Gem in Mami’s hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...”

She was numb.

One, two, three...

“Yours too,” she whispered, staring at the gem in Kyouko’s chest. “It’s going black.”

“Fuck you, I know! But yours—your body’s healing faster than I can clean it!”

“Your hand...” Kyouko’s hand had healed over entirely. At least there was that.

Four, five, six...

“You have to fight.”

“Holy shit, Mami, I’m only one fucking person. The only reason that demon ain’t attacking us is ‘cause I’m using my illusions. You can’t be this reckless, you shit.” Her voice cracked. “You ain’t Sayaka. You never made a wish for healing.”

Seven, eight, nine...

“It was for survival,” she said.

“I don’t care what the fuck it was, it won’t make you invincible.”

Ten, eleven, twelve.

“I gotta find some more.”

“Why did you do that?”

“What? I don’t—’cause I wanted to get you angry or—shut up, you cunt! Don’t die on me, OK?”

She jumped from the roof of the building. Her skirt tails flapped behind her.

Mami lay. Rain pounded her body, but it felt less severe, less painful. Her clothes changed back, a sign of her total exhaustion. She was in her casual wear: a frilled skirt and a nice blouse. They were getting wet.

It wouldn’t be so bad to die now, she thought.

As her vision began to fade, a brilliant beam of purple arced across the sky. She turned her head in the direction of the source, and saw a tiny figure fall off of another building’s roof.

She laughed.

Not again.

It was daytime when Mami woke up on the sofa of her apartment. The glass panes of her balcony doors had shattered, and shards littered the ground. Kyouko was nowhere to be seen. Homura lay on the floor, still as a statue. How thoughtless.

“Hey, Mami.”

She sat up, sore, and looked around for Kyouko.

She was standing near the bathroom, and her hands were dripping wet. Her expression betrayed nothing. “Finally awake, huh? So much for your perfect attendance. You were out for three days.” Her voice was flat.

Mami looked at Homura again. “Kyouko,” she said softly. “What’s wrong?”

She frowned. “What are you trying to say?”

“Akemi’s dead, isn’t she?” she half-laughed, half-sobbed. “But her body hasn’t disappeared.”

Chapter Text

She knew this day was coming.

She had dreamed of it for months—years, even. Anything to be rid of the nightmare that was this meaningless existence. Anything to fulfill the promise she had made all those lifetimes ago. Anything to keep the long, crooked shadows at bay, tucked carefully in the depths of her heart where they belonged. Madoka’s victory over Walpurgisnacht had been a fluke, in her mind: a temporary issue, just another problem to work around in her quest to save Madoka once and for all. She knew this day would come, was coming, was here—or whatever it was, really, a day or a week or a month, a second or an eternity, it was all the same to her now—but she hadn’t expected her own reaction to it.

“Um…”

Homura shot upright. Her skin was clammy and her heart was pounding, a stark contrast to the gentle pastels and cutesy patterns and stuffed animals of Madoka’s room. She had been, as far as she could tell, lying on the floor underneath the kotatsu—did it have a kotatsu, or was this just another dream? There were tea cups on the table and some stuffed animals on the bed. No Kyubey. Her eyes barely even registered Madoka sitting in front of her as she scanned the rest of the room. It looked… accurate. True to her memories. Memories were faulty things, but this room felt nostalgic. Appropriate. It wasn’t real, but it felt real enough. Homura looked up.

“Hello.” Madoka took her hands off the table and put them in her lap. She didn’t look as she did when they’d last met: as a god, or a buddha or something. Some elevated lifeform created by alien technology, or “magic.” It didn’t matter. Madoka attempted a smile. “Um… How are you feeling?”

Homura touched her face. She was half-expecting glasses there, but she found none. Her hair was loose at her back. Madoka was in her school uniform for some reason. Homura looked down to see that she was in her uniform too. Her mind buzzed, swarming with a hundred different emotions and the cruelest sort of envy, and a hot, ravenous hunger that started in her chest and blazed up to her throat and down to her groin, wound up her limbs so tight that if she moved, she thought, Madoka would throw her back into her own body and force her back to Earth. She kept still, for now. She didn’t touch the tea. Where they were they didn’t need to drink, anyway. This was just Madoka’s attempt at being hospitable.

“You don’t know,” said Homura, gazing at her earnestly. “I thought you would.”

“Know how you’re feeling?” Madoka smiled wryly. “I can guess… but I can’t read minds.”

“I’m dead,” said Homura. She paused. “Right? That’s why I can see you.”

“You are,” said Madoka, brow furrowed.

Homura looked around. “You really can’t guess?” she said, a little disappointed. She looked away. “I’d thought…”

“Even gods have their limits,” she replied apologetically. “It’s…” She looked away. “Well, I can’t say it was… exactly what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting much at all.” She laughed.

“What happens now?” Homura asked.

“I’m supposed to take you, um, away, err, into my Soul Gem,” Madoka explained. “As part of my wish, um, to end the existence of Witches… I take your despair and just sort of put it there… I don’t really get it.” She laughed again. Her gaze turned toward the floor, forlorn. “I think… I have enough compassion in the universe for everyone. But, mm, that’s a kind of hubris, isn’t it? Telling yourself, ‘Oh, I can manage this,’ when really so many people are depending on you and I just… I get it.” Madoka looked at her, smiling. “I do. I understand, Homura. Really.”

Homura was quiet.

Madoka nodded to the table. “Look at the distance between us, Homura.”

Homura stared at it. It was a table’s worth. She could cross it easily, or at least she thought she could, but this was Madoka’s Soul Gem. Maybe the table wasn’t a table at all. Maybe none of this was really here. Maybe the distance between them was further than she thought. She stayed put.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” Madoka said. “Lifetimes. Eternities. You might not think you succeeded, but you did. I know it might not feel that way, and it might not for a while. You survived, but you don’t feel like you accomplished anything. The difference that you made… Homura, even if I told you how happy I am, and how grateful I am, and how I wish—even though I can’t, not even with the power that I have, not even knowing everything I do now—how I wish I could take away your pain, and how I wish I could undo the trauma and everything that happened to you, I can’t.” She shook her head so roughly that her pigtails whipped around her face. “You were always going to be the hardest.”

Homura stood up at that. “What?”

“I remember everything,” she said, looking away. “Of course I do. That’s my power. That was my wish. To see, and to know, and to understand. But that understanding won’t change what happened to you. And… it won’t change you. And it won’t change who you are. And I realize that now. That no matter what I do, everything that I wish I could take away will always be a part of you.”

Homura swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“I love you. Uh…” Madoka flushed, looking down. “Um… So that’s why… I mean… I want… Um… I-I don’t think I’m ready to accept you as you are now.” From this angle, Homura could see her clutch her at her skirt. “But I will.” She stared determinedly at the floor. “I will. I will. One day, I will. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” She laughed again. “I want to share in that, u-um… that, that horror and despair. And that burning love and determination. I always tell myself I understand what you went through, but I really don’t. And, m-maybe it’s enough for some other people to just say, ‘Well, I accept you no matter what,’ b-but for me it isn’t!” Madoka looked up at her with what Homura assumed was meant to be a glare, though she couldn’t quite pull it off. “A-and I want to have that conversation, and I want to hear it, from you, and, and I want you, Homura, I really do, so much, and I…” She petered off. “I don’t want to be afraid of you anymore. But I’m a coward, really, still, so…”

Madoka stood up. In her hand was Homura’s blackened Soul Gem. “I’m just going to polish this a bit…” She took it and rubbed it with her uniform shirt, and miraculously, it began to glow again. When she was finished, it was as clear as the day she’d gotten it. “I want to be brave. No, you were the one who gave me courage.” She smiled. “I, um, I really looked up to you, and I still do.” She put out her free hand, gesturing toward her. “This is yours.”

Homura extended her hand.

Madoka took one step, and then two, holding out the Soul Gem between her fingers. There was less than a meter between them now. “‘Homura,’ huh?” Tears dripped from her eyes. Homura felt cold metal touch her palm. “That’s a really cool name.”