Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kure Kirika did not have much going for her in life.

She knew this, and yet, she only now realized there was also nothing she wanted, even if she was unsatisfied with her own existence.

She had the world at her fingertips. Any one wish could be granted to her if she asked it.

She continued to hold off on the offer.

Then she saw the news that morning.

She wasn't the type to watch the news, but by chance she heard the story anyways. And while it wasn't exactly like her to care that some politicians rich daughter seemingly killed herself after her father did the same some time beforehand...

Kirika recognized the face on the screen. That was the girl who'd helped her, so many weeks ago.

If only, she thought, that interaction had lead to more. If they'd had the chance to bond then, and maybe even become friends, maybe she wouldn't have felt the need to end it.

Well, Kirika could make that happen, couldn't she?

"Kyubey"

The little white vaguely mammalian creature popped into her field of vision like a cartoon character suddenly appearing from offscreen.

Yes, Kirika Kure?

"I'm ready to make my wish."

What is the wish that will make your soul shine?

"I wish to re-do my meeting with Mikuni Oriko, but this time, I want to be a different me, one able to fulfill all her needs."

There was pain at first, as Kyubey reached into her, and pulled her essence out of herself, and then...

The timeline lurched as if caught between two opposing forces.

Then whatever was pulling against Kirika's wish was reluctantly tugged out of place and onto the same track, whereupon the flow of causality reversed itself as expected, and the other power followed as naturally as if it hadn't initially protested. Like it was normal.

It needed to be dragged the last few steps though.

Kirika could feel the effort exhausting her magic before she could even reach her destination. The other end of the cord, whatever was attempting to impede her backwards progress, it felt almost alive, reactive in a way that felt intelligently controlled.

It was probably nothing. Kirika hadn't exactly time traveled before in her life, at least not unless you counted traveling to the future in real time, or passing out to skip hours of subjective time intentionally.

It was probably just some timey-wimey universal anchor or something. Something denoting when the present was that she had to forcefully drag backwards to rewind it.

That made sense right?

Whatever, she'd reached her destination, today was the day she would meet Oriko.

And no one would stop Kirika from saving her.

Chapter Text

Homura Akemi did not have much going for her in life.

But that was fine. Her mission was all that mattered.

It was early in her current timeline, so early that she had yet to be transfered into school.

Of course, much had been done by now. Restocking weapons, killing kyubey a few times. Killing Oriko Mikuni before she could contract and setting it up to look like a suicide. That last one was a new addition she had made to her routine after last timeline had ended, with Oriko and Kirika killing several innocents as well as Madoka before dying themselves.

Homura didn't know where Kirika lived, but Oriko Mikuni was the daughter of a disgraced politician, so she was not difficult to track down and kill.

Even from an emotional standpoint, it was unexpectedly easy. Homura had already shot Madoka in an act of mercy. Doing it to someone who had murdered an uncontracted Madoka was much easier than that.

Currently Homura wasn't doing much. Just making more explosives to use until she could "acquire" some grenades from the JSDF.

Without her input, Homura transformed into her magical girl outfit.

"Wh-"

She felt a lurch, not physically but in her magic. Like something pulling on it. A tension between her and something else like a string stretched completely taught.

A second later, it stopped, and her shields mechanism activated on its own the hourglass turning and suddenly she was being pulled backwards through time.

"No- Stop. Why are you-"

She tried blocking the mechanism manually jamming her hand in the gears, uncaring for the damage her fingers might suffer, attempting to force the device to abort the unexpected reset. It was no use.

She reached her usual destination, and then the mechanism ground to a near halt. She could feel it again, that tugging sensation, now more a dragging, like she was a dog on a leash.

Encouraged by the apparent difficulty of whatever was acting on her magic to pull her past the temporal bounds of her wish, Homura again tried forcing her shield to reverse her course. A struggle ensued.

Whatever was on the other end seemed highly reactive, effort waxing and waning. It was very much like what Homura imagined a game of "Tug of War" must have been like, though she had never played herself. Whatever was doing this was intelligent.

Despite her best efforts, even pouring in her magic to try and empower her own shield, she kept losing ground.

Soon enough, they reached wherever they were going.

Homura woke up in her hospital bed. Soul gem in hand.

Things... just got a lot more complicated.

She stopped to think what could've caused this. What had she done differently?

The only changed variable she could think of between the one she just left and the one before that had been Oriko's murder.

Well, if she was right about that, then at least now she knew where to look first for answers.

Homura Akemi began formulating a plan.

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So, I added some stuff to the tags. I already kind of had the idea in my head that this fic will eventually result in Homura/Kirika, but I had an idea reading the comments on someone else's Homura/Oriko fic and I realized that it actually worked perfectly with what little of this fic I already had planned.

It will take some time to get there but, uh yeah. I can make this work without it even being OOC for anyone involved. Don't even need to force it. Swear on my life.

Yeah.