Monster

The crows were whispering. Magical girls were running to and fro, the whispers growing louder. Suspicion blossomed, and pink eyes began to darken with the pain of reality.

She could stop it, of course. She had before, many times.

These little creatures running frantically to conspire against her would never realize how many times.

It would be easy. A nudge here and there, a bit of a universal reset, and they would all wake up thinking their suspicions were fragments of a bad dream. She had done it so many times now that she had it down to a science.

Repeating reality was so much easier when you controlled it. Of course, it was also hellishly dull, even more agonizing than it had been when she was running against the wheels of fate instead of turning them herself. She’d done it before…but she wasn’t sure she had the strength to repeat this again.

So…this was it, wasn’t it?

It's finally come
Come to knock down my door
I can't hide this time
Like I hid before

Her final stand. Her doom.

She would put up a good fight, of course. She would have to do better than she had the last time. They had turned from suspicion to kindness too easily. But she was prepared this time. Seeds were being laid—had been laid.

Her little puppets had been caught in their gilded cage, their invisible trap for such a very long time. It would only take a few well-placed items about the town to spark even more than their confused minds already remembered. Her labyrinth was incredibly well-built, a beautiful cage, but like all labyrinths it was a house of cards.

It would just take a little push to wake everyone up completely.

And if she did it slowly, all the better. If they remembered one by one they would be suspicious, frightened, and worried for their friends still stuck in her carefully constructed fantasy.

They would come together with bits and pieces of information and half-remembered pasts, and she could paint herself to be the worst sort of monster. Her familiars could help, of course. Some torment, maybe let one of them seemingly die in a way that was clearly her fault. After millennia of learning exactly how to make these puppets dance, it would be the simplest thing to whip them into a frenzy.

This time, Homura would not be a sympathetic villain.

This time, she would have her end.

The storm is awake
The danger is real
My time's running out
Don't feel, don't feel

It began subtly. They were already suspicious, no need for her to resort to dramatics just yet. She’d been pretty laid-back over the last few temporal cycles, increasingly bored and increasingly feeling any interaction with Madoka was patently unfair to the brainwashed, innocently human girl. She began to show herself—just a little.

A few glimpses of inhuman features, to Sayaka, who always held onto a lingering suspicion no matter how Homura messed with her memories. Homura spoke a few times with Mami, slyly and easily pushing the buttons that would send the older girl careening towards an existential crisis and a complete mental break.

For the beginning, it was a good start. They had already begun to wonder about the weirdness of the world, about their hazy memories—Madoka unknowingly prompting the rediscovery of themselves as always, but was always the one to remain the most oblivious until everything went to hell. Homura was just…helping them along, that was all.

Sayaka began to throw her suspicious glances in class. Mami stopped attending school entirely and began to throw herself into the Nightmare fights Homura always made for the magical girls in every reset, as if fighting the good fight would reassure her that this was indeed reality and she wasn’t losing her mind.

Kyoko was already suspicious because of Sayaka.

Nagisa was growing concerned over her caretaker’s state, and memories of another fragile parent were coming back in painfully scattered whisps.

This was too easy.

"Fear will be your enemy
And death it's consequence"
That's what they once said to me
And it's starting to make sense

Mami self-destructed beautifully.

She went mad, raving about the wrongness of the world, shooting at nothing and refusing to trust the presence of her puella magi friends. Homura regretted the pain this was causing Madoka, but it was a necessary deception. It wasn’t as if any of them could die in her labyrinth without her permission. She held all their soul gems in the palm of her hand, their bodies reshaped and remolded on her whims to match the universal resets she had used to keep them docile.

Nagisa was finally beginning to awaken with the horrible implosion of her mentor. Charlotte was the most difficult witch to rouse, but one of the most dangerous to fight. It was why Homura had put such effort into tipping Mami over the edge. Nagisa clung fiercely and childishly to the very idea of a happy fantasy due to her age. It took drastic measures to wake her up.

Homura had no hesitation. If she wanted Nagisa awake and working against her, she had to provoke the food-obsessed little girl into a blind rage. Simple enough, when Mami made it so easy for her.

Mami went out in a blaze of glory, fighting some of Homura’s lesser familiars. She wasn’t actually killed, of course, just stored somewhere so she could be rescued later by the intrepid heroes. The important thing was that her apparent death drew the magical girls together, and heightened suspicions of Homura.

It also revealed one of the lesser doors to her inner sanctum, a necessary thing to reveal if she truly wanted them to succeed where they had failed in destroying her last time.

All this pain,
All this fear began because of me
Is the thing they see
The thing I have to be?

Madoka was frightened. Homura thought for a wild moment about simply resetting again, wiping Madoka’s memory yet another time and giving her the peace she deserved. Homura could manage a few more resets, couldn’t she?

Her crows were chattering, her familiars angry and throwing tomatoes Homura allowed to hit, staining her skin and clothes with red. No, they were right. She’d come this far.

She had to see it through to the end.

Homura hated herself, but she forcefully rebutted Madoka’s questions when the girl tried to timidly ask the mysterious class princess about some of Sayaka’s suspicions. A flash of wings and a glint of fang, just a touch of eldritch bone visible—Madoka was terrified, convinced the girl she’d thought was a friend was instead something terrible. Homura bared demonic teeth in a Glasgow grin and threatened her best friend with a smile, letting Madoka see the blood in her eyes, the madness only chained, not gone.

She allowed the little troop of heroes to stumble into one of her trophy rooms. This was something Homura was actually proud of. In the millennia keeping her goddess pliant and complacent, she had given herself plenty of time to sneak out of her own labyrinth and back to the main universe.

The Incubators had no idea she existed, no idea she was coming for them.

It was a bloodbath.

She had tracked them back to their own planet, a sterile, horrible place. They were really awful creatures. Their little casings, the cute façade, was anything but their true form. Even with a near hivemind, it was easy for a demoness with the power to see souls and inflict curses to sow confusion and madness. The slightest of emotions brought them to their knees.

Homura knew why they had used the methods they had to collect energy, why they hadn’t gone for lesser or safer methods.

The Incubators claimed to have no emotion, but that was a lie. They could feel a few emotions, very mildly—irritation, pleasure and satisfaction, curiosity, and fear among them. Their culture simply inoculated them against acknowledging those few stirrings they did possess, and their social taboo against nonconformity did the rest. It took Homura only a short time to begin to remind them how to fear.

She relished it, reveled in it.

In the end, Homura had wiped out the entire species, an inexplicable genocide which bewildered and frustrated the rest of the intelligences in their galaxy. She took back trophies in her delight. Now, they would be a gory trigger for her love.

Madoka had a soft heart, and even if some part of her remembered the truth of the Incubators, she had never truly been able to conceive of hating them. Seeing bodies and creatures strung up in a torture chamber, the last few tormented to the point of death a few hundred years ago, would horrify the gentle goddess.

Homura just vindictively wished they’d survived a bit longer so she could torment them some more.

A monster
Were they right?
Has the dark in me
finally come to light?

Sayaka was raging. Kyoko was right there at her side, agreeing every time Sayaka paused to draw breath. Nagisa was wan-faced and dead-eyed but stern and resolute. Of all of them, she had remembered her existence as a witch first. Sayaka would take a couple more pushes, Homura calculated.

Madoka was awash in tears. Only that did Homura regret, but it was necessary.

She had underestimated her love’s capacity for kindness last time. Madoka, always compassionate and able to read Homura like nobody else, had seen through her witchy rage to the despairing, terrified girl underneath.

She would find nothing of the sort this time. Homura was all out of fear, had passed so far through despair she’d run into the dead wall of apathy.

Madoka might look for her friend, she might cry and ask why this stranger with Homura’s face was being so awful, but she would eventually learn.

Homura Akemi was gone. Only the Witch of the World Order remained.

Of course, she still didn’t show her full hand quite yet. Homura allowed her familiars to play a few games with the puella magi first, let them bewilder and enrage in the lead-up to the big finale.

Her goddess and her former friends tore through the upper levels of her labyrinth, searching for the hiding demon they knew was taunting them just out of sight. Sayaka was incandescent with rage. If Homura weren’t actively purifying their soul gems by absorbing their darkness into herself, the blue-haired magical girl would have darkened enough to catch the attention of the Law of Cycles.

Oktavia reawakened spectacularly. The reemergence of Sayaka’s darkness sowed chaos and confusion for a while, sending the girls into disarray until Nagisa took charge and reassured them all, uniting them once more.

Madoka stumbled on the path, then, as she theorized perhaps Homura was darkened in the same way that Sayaka and Nagisa were. Homura couldn’t help but laugh at her love’s adorable naivety. Just to shatter that cute little delusion, Homura gutted Nagisa in front of them.

It’s not like it would kill her, and Charlotte had caused Madoka much pain and Homura much trouble in past timelines. It was easy.

Madoka’s screams hurt, but Homura steeled herself against the pain.

Am I a monster?
Full of rage
Nowhere to go, but on a rampage

They began to find the edges of Homura’s labyrinth. Madoka still didn’t remember, but had been adequately convinced that Homura was an evil creature, something that needed to be defeated and put down.

Homura had a few minutes of blind panic when Madoka, for just a moment, managed to access the full mind and powers of her goddess self. She nearly cancelled the whole thing, rewrote reality once again. But…Madoka didn’t break out.

It took Homura a while to realize she couldn’t. Somehow, the thousands or maybe millions of years of strengthening her universe-labyrinth had made a barrier strong enough that the goddess couldn’t break out with anywhere near the amount of ease she’d use to shatter Homura’s witch labyrinth.

That glimpse of eternity had matured Madoka, sobered her and shattered her naivety—though not her hope. Homura watched warily for a long while, sending her various familiars or false illusions of herself to taunt and battle the puella magi instead of leaving her boudoir herself. But the goddess didn’t stop everything, she kept on running around like a human.

It was almost like Homura and Madoka were equal in power, which was a patently ridiculous thought. There had always been an imbalance between them. Either Homura or Madoka was more powerful, always. Homura’s wish—her first one, the original, pulsed behind her teeth where she could still taste the shattered remains of her soul gem eons later.

She shook off silly thoughts of equality. Madoka was a goddess, the great Kami-sama and the Law of Cycles that ruled their universe. She was just the witch-demon with the audacity to steal the human soul of the goddess. Homura was nothing, compared to Madoka.

Clearly, Madoka was just planning something. She would have to be ready, in case Madoka really thought she could be taken away still. She could not. She was the Witch of the World Order, Destroyer of the Law of Cycles. She alone was a witch; she alone could never be purified by the goddess.

It was a hell of her own making, and it was one Homura knew there was only one way to rectify.

Or am I just a monster
In a cage

She was insane.

Sayaka didn’t know what Homura was doing any longer. First she’d killed Mami, and then she’d murdered Nagisa with her own hands. She had stood there, covered in blood, and laughed with glee at the horrified screams coming out of Madoka’s mouth.

Was she really so determined to keep Madoka here she would destroy them all? She’d been so careful before, so sure to maintain Madoka’s good regard to keep Sayaka from ever acting against her before. Was she willing to risk turning the Law of Cycles against her fully?

So it would seem.

Sayaka clung to Kyoko in their dim apartment, leeching her warmth and desperate for her caustic words of comfort. The worst part, Sayaka thought, was that if Homura hadn’t seemingly lost all sanity and restraint, she would have been tempted to go willingly back into another fantasy.

She didn’t know how many times Homura had reset reality around them, but she remembered flashes of different lifetimes. She’d gotten to grow up. She’d gotten married and adopted kids with Kyoko!

Sayaka was just a ghost, a dead girl and Shinigami pretending to be human, but…she’d been so happy. She didn’t know when Kyoko had become her lifeline, after her death had always been from jealousy over a boy, but she did know that so long as Kyoko was here she hadn’t lost hope.

They could do this. They could break free and finally defeat the evil demon.

Madoka managed to tap into her goddess self with Sayaka’s advice and tutelage, and she was different after that. She spaced out a lot, and she was less willing to defeat Homura than ever.

Sometimes, Sayaka wanted to know what Madoka remembered in all those millions of timelines, that made her love Homura so much more than she loved anything else. But it came with an odd maturity and haunted gold-tinted eyes, and in her heart Sayaka knew better than to wish for godhood.

As misguided as Homura had been, all these years, she’d not been wrong that Madoka would be happier as a human. Ignorant innocence was always happy.

That didn’t make it right, though, and the girl who turned herself into a knight to heal the boy she loved felt that same righteousness burn in her breast as she and Kyoko tried to help their goddess return to the real world.

End this winter
Bring back summer
Keep your guard up

Madoka’s heart hurt.

She just wanted to help Homura, and she didn’t understand why the other girl wouldn’t let her. Homura had grown strong in the past several hundred thousand years. She wasn’t that wild witch any longer, or the frantic magical girl. She had grown into her power, with beauty and grace.

And madness.

But despite everything, it rang hollow.

She remembered the last of her—the most significant. The wish-maker. She remembered an ice-faced Homura standing and baldly lying to that version of herself, and not fooling her in the slightest.

Back then she had wanted to believe Homura’s lies. She had wanted to trust her at her word. But she’d learnt again and again that Homura always lied when it was about herself. Homura was brutally honest when it came to Madoka herself, but would lie about her own state in a heartbeat in order to spare Madoka pain.

Now she desperately hoped beyond hope that her Homura was lying, was putting on some terrible, elaborate performance to fool Madoka into doing something foolish. It was something the Nutcracker Witch would do, and Homura was still that suicidal girl deep down, no matter how much she tried to hide her pain.

Madoka could feel it like it was her own. She wanted to take it all away, to make it her own. Homura deserved that much, no matter the atrocities she’d committed. Hadn’t Madoka forgiven Nagisa her own atrocities, and all the other girls who had become terrible witches? Just because Homura was the wickedest witch of all, it didn’t mean she did not deserve forgiveness.

No harm comes to her

It was Kyoko who found the clues, who realized Mami might not actually be dead. None of them were hopeful she was unharmed, not after that sick torture chamber of dead Kyuubeys they had found. Well, Madoka might be hopeful. That was how she was.

It wasn’t like it was hard for Kyoko to believe Madoka was a goddess. She was like all the best versions of the God Kyoko’s father had once preached about. She loved unconditionally; she was full of mercy and grace. Sure, as a human she was shy and clumsy and kind of a ditz, but Jesus had been an uneducated carpenter with a hot temper and a silver tongue. God in human form had to be human, after all.

Sayaka believed in Madoka with all the unwavering faith of a prophet or saint, her fervor nearly burning Kyoko with its intensity.

It was a tragedy, to love a dead girl, but it was one Kyoko refused to break out of. Sayaka and she were so very different, but their sharp edges matched together. They just fit, in a way she’d never fit with anyone else in her life.

Kyoko could remember their daughter. She wondered if that beautiful little girl with her green hair and laughing eyes had been real. Yuma had been the light of her life for…several of Homura’s world resets. But she’d just appeared, and then just disappeared. Kyoko wondered if Homura had created a daughter for her and Sayaka, or if she’d plucked some poor kid from the real world and they’d just had her until she’d died a normal human death.

Sayaka was militant about not being fooled, furious with herself for falling for Homura’s tricks so many times. She didn’t want to talk about Yuma. She didn’t want to discuss Homura either, except when it came to possible ways to defeat her.

Kyoko wondered what had happened, to make the collected girl just snap like that. She’d always been kind of off, from what Kyoko could remember, but that had apparently because she had some kind of personal relationship with a goddess, and that sort of thing was bound to make you a little funny.

That wasn’t how she was now. Now she was red-eyed and constantly mocking, insane and unpredictable.

Hey, Madoka-omikami-sama? I know Sayaka’s all out of forgiveness, but Homura needs help. You’re hope and forgiveness, and Homura needs some of both right now.

Rescuing Mami would be the first step towards their crazy escape plan, but Kyoko couldn’t help but feel, as they raced to save her, that they were doing something wrong.

End this winter
Bring back summer
Keep your guard up

They’d found Mami ahead of schedule, and were stunned by the revelation that Nagisa was safe and alive as well. It threw them off, made them falter. Kyoko was having doubts. Madoka’s compassion was rearing its ugly head.

Even Sayaka was beginning to act uncertain.

She had to do something, or it would all fall apart around her.

Homura steeled her heart.

Madoka’s family had died a while ago—of old age, peacefully in their sleep, after she began to realize if she reset their age any more times they’d start to fall apart. She’d even brought in some girls Tatsuya’s age so he could grow up and have a family and a good life before he died. They were buried deep in her labyrinth.

But Madoka didn’t know that. Homura had taken some shell people and ensured, after generations and dimensional repeats of study, that they were perfect replicas of Madoka’s family.

It would be easy to destroy them. They weren’t necessary now, and it would horrify Madoka. It was the best option.

Homura almost couldn’t do it. She’d never had a mother that she could remember, and Kaname Junko had filled some of that void in her heart. Even knowing this was a false person, a pseudo-familiar she had crafted with her own two hands, it was a terrible thing to harm her and her precious little boy who had become so dear to Homura.

She thought back to all the things she’d done just for Tatsuya’s happiness as she carved open the chest of the fake one. She had brought in families whith children his age to keep him well socialized. She had found him girls to date, and when he’d fallen in love she’d ensured their wedding and married life were idyllic. Madoka’s many-times great nieces and nephews were still living in her labyrinth, happily. She had done everything in her power to keep them as happy and innocent as Madoka had been.

Right now the real people were all in protective spots deep in her labyrinth, slumbering until their goddess could free them and set them out in the real world. Homura wondered how it would go. Most of them had spent their entire lives in her labyrinth. They were used to the half-moon, the weird labyrinthine effects of the world, the constant familiars lurking about.

How would they fare in the real world?

Homura knew they would do well. Her little human population would do her proud. Homura thought of that, and she repeated that hope to herself as she metaphorically tore Madoka’s heart out of her chest.

See, she thought. I am evil. Hate me, fear me. Do not love me.

I don’t deserve it.

What do I do
No time for crying now
I've started a storm
Got to stop it somehow

Madoka had retaliated, finally. There was rage and grief in her reckless actions, but Homura thoughtfully didn’t take advantage of the openings left for her.

The little troop of soldiers was nearly ready. The two purified witches and the two magical girls, led by a goddess into battle.

But Homura wasn’t ready for open combat yet.

They had to find the humans, had to realize a way to break out of the labyrinth before she could let them kill her. This would all be for naught if Madoka remained trapped.

Of course, it was possible her labyrinth would shatter upon her death like a normal witch’s would, but as Homura was no ordinary witch, she felt it was best to take precautions.

She made a number of doorways between her labyrinth and the real world, sealing them with various keys the puella magi would have to battle her familiars and then herself to claim. This was all a game, in truth, a terrible play in multiple acts.

Homura planned for her own demise with a strange joy.

What would it be like, to die? Would it be painful? Would she simply cease to exist, or was there truly an afterlife to be punished in?

Whatever happened, it would be by Madoka’s hand, and Homura couldn’t wish for a better end than that.

The flower petal roulette was doing its long spin, and she-loves-me-not was the current shade. But Homura’s love would never die.

Not until she did, anyway.

Do I keep on running
How far do I have to go
And would that take the storm away
Or only make it grow

Her labyrinth was beginning to show cracks in the seams. She’d not been bothering to maintain the world, with all the humans tucked away in a safe slumber and the magical girls wise to her ways. It was beginning to show, her carefully smoothed over reality growing more eldritch with each passing day.

It was rather like herself, she thought, sitting in her boudoir in witch form. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, wiping fallen teeth off the vanity table.

She really was hideous, she thought to herself in amusement.

She’d been leading the puella magi on a merry dance across her labyrinth, from one side of the globe to another. They would never realize that she was seeding the means for their escape. It was kind of fun, sowing breadcrumbs like this.

Homura had never really been into games, even in her many, many resets. Now, she kind of regretted that. This was turning out to be very entertaining.

Madoka and company were somewhere in Europe right now. They’d find a stash of sleeping humans and the first of the keys there.

Her labyrinth groaned above her and Homura could feel a shudder that meant Madoka was summoning godly power to do something. She tapped the glass and settled back to watch their fight through her mirror.

Madoka would win, of course. The game was rigged. But that didn’t mean Homura would let it be an easy victory.

She settled in to watch with a fond smile, her familiars crowding around her like it was movie night. Just a little longer, she reassured herself. It wouldn’t be long now, and Homura would finally get to rest.

In the world above, the stars began to fall as a goddess raged.

I'm making my world colder
How long can it survive?
Is everyone in danger
As long as I'm alive?

Sometimes, Homura worried about herself.

Madoka raged in the world above, but down below Homura turned to the introspective. She knew she was unrecognizable from the meek mortal creature she’d once been, but sometimes Homura wondered what later versions of herself would think of her now.

What would the Homura who had watched her friend turn into a goddess think? Or Homulilly, insane and longing for death.

Well, Homura thought in amusement, Homulilly would probably be impressed at her efforts, considering the witch’s own attempts had failed.

Homura wasn’t human any longer, but that didn’t mean she had no feelings, despite what she was trying to make Madoka think. On the contrary, she felt just as deeply as before, a well of emotion that seemed mercurial and boundless.

She’d certainly gotten better at acting over the eons. But the one person she could never fool was herself.

There was a part of her desperately desiring one of Madoka’s hugs, wishing for her favor still. Even now, she couldn’t squash the hope that Madoka would make everything better. Homura had tried, but the silly dream just wouldn’t die, no matter what things Homura did to drive Madoka away from her.

Was I a monster
From the start?
How did I end up with this frozen heart?

Homura sent out legions to fight her beloved goddess. The magical girls fought as well, each victory hard-won. Their teamwork improved with each battle, their spells growing more imaginative and powerful. Even without a goddess backing them, Homura was forging something brilliant with these trials.

True, Nagisa and Sayaka would return to the Law of Cycles once out of her labyrinth, but Mami and Kyoko would truly be a force to be reckoned with. If there were any wraiths left, they’d better prepare for the wrath of the dynamic duo.

After all, for all her destruction of the Incubators, Homura could do nothing about the wraiths. She had aided the magical girls in secret, ensuring they lived long lives. She would sneak behind them, taking their darkness, ensuring they lasted as long as possible so they could take out as many wraiths as possible before their own deaths.

The Law of Cycles was stuttery without Madoka guiding it—an unfortunate side effect. Still, nothing Homura hadn’t been able to deal with. She would find darkened magical girls and take them to slumber in her labyrinth right before they became witches so her own breaking of reality wouldn’t have further detrimental effects on the Law of Cycles. They would all be released when Madoka freed herself, of course, and would be absorbed into the Law of Cycles as they should have been before.

Madoka was a vision in pink and white as she fought, a beautiful, terrible warrior goddess. Homura watched from the safety of her boudoir, pleased at how her plans were coming together.

Madoka was doing so well.

She wondered if Madoka would ever appreciate these efforts Homura was taking. If she would ever realize what had really gone down here, in this labyrinth.

Selfishly, she hoped Madoka would, one day, even if it would cause her pain.

Bringing destruction
To the stage
Caught in a war that
I never meant to wage

Madoka even managed to make the destruction of her labyrinth beautiful. The walls cracked and bowed but held fast, and Homura was finally sending her Clara Dolls out to do battle instead of lesser familiars.

They had all been defeated by a rampaging goddess, and Homura knew that soon, it would be her turn.

She didn’t know whether her heart was beating faster from fear or excitement.

Do I kill the monster?

The final battle was Homura’s finest charade. She appeared, courted by her Clara dolls and legions of lesser familiars, shifting back and forth between witch, devil, and her two magical girl forms with ease to improve her own fight.

The puella magi quartet was wise enough to stay out of her way, even with Sayaka’s hot-headed hatred of her. Homura suspected Kyoko was exerting control over her wife to keep her from doing something rash. The magical girls focused on fighting her familiars, on sneaking about and snatching up the keys hidden about the battlefield.

Madoka faced Homura alone.

The goddess versus the devil. Former best friends turned enemies. It was a fated fight, like something out of mythology or fairytales.

“You could stop this, Akemi-san,” Madoka called out to her. It made her heart ache to hear her surname cross Madoka’s beautiful lips instead of the familiar pet name, but it made her hopeful as well. Perhaps this time Madoka wouldn’t hesitate.

“You could stop resisting me,” Homura suggested in turn. “All I want is your submission, Omikami-sama.”

Of course, that was the last thing she wanted, but it upset Madoka as she had intended. A cute frown formed and Madoka attempted a look of disapproval that cut far deeper than she knew.

“Very well,” the goddess said. “If you’re going to be stubborn, I suppose we’ll have to work this out another way.”

That made Homura laugh, genuinely. “Work it out? Is that what we’re calling this?”

Madoka had looked pained, but Homura had continued to laugh and had raised her bow.

“May be better magical girl win,” she said, smirking.

Madoka had regarded her. “You know we’re neither of us amgical girls any longer,” she said.

Homura grinned, savagely. “But out of the two of us, I’m the one that grew up,” she retorted.

Kyubey’s words from so long ago lingered between them, the reminder that witches were the true, final form of all magical girls—a reality Madoka had undone, until Homura defied her.

“I’m sorry about this,” Madoka said quietly.

“I’m not,” Homura had snarled, and then there was no more talking between them.

The world exploded in light, and Homura fought for her life in the hopes that she would lose it.

If I'm a monster
Then it's true
There's only one thing
that's left for me to do

She had to do some quick thinking and fast labyrinth work to pull the puella magi out of their line of fire, when the fighting got too intense. The little humans were breakable, even as magical girls, and Madoka would be distraught if she had to put them back together. That wasn’t really in Madoka’s power set, anyway, so Homura would do it for her.

Their fight ranged across Mitakihara City, out into the countryside and across Japan. Somehow they ended up over the Pacific Ocean, fighting in the sky as Homura’s sun bore down overhead.

“Just let me purify you!” Madoka shouted at her, frustrated at the chase. “I can help you, Akemi-san!”

Again with the Akemi-san.

“Yeah, sure!” Homura shouted back as she dodged a blast that splashed into the ocean. “As soon as you stop ruining all my efforts to fulfill my wish and protect you, I’ll get right on that!”

“I never asked you to make that wish!” Madoka retorted.

“And I never asked you to save my fucking life, you self-righteous omikami!” Homura screamed.

Madoka stilled.

“What?” she breathed. “You mean—the first time? Why would you say that?”

“If I’d died by witch that day none of this would have happened,” Homura said with a fierceness that surprised even herself. “But no, you’re so desperate for validation you had to become a magical girl over a fucking cat, and I’ve suffered millennia of hell because you had to go and play hero and I was an equally desperate idiot in love!”

It was true, it was nothing she hadn’t thought before, but as soon as the words left her mouth Homura hated herself a little bit more. Golden eyes stared at her in abject astonishment, horror and hurt mingled together.

But before I fade to ice
I'll do all that I can
to make things right

They weren’t fighting any longer, just hovering there together, staring at one another.

“I’m sorry,” Homura said quickly. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes,” Madoka said shrewdly. “You did. And…you’re right.” Homura stared this time.

“No! It’s not your fault!” she spluttered out. “I’m the bad one! I decided to wreck your wish!” To her horror, her eyes were filling with tears.

Madoka shook her head. “No, it’s my fault,” she said decisively. “This is my responsibility. You are my responsibility.”

Homura hadn’t the faintest idea what Madoka meant. “I don’t think you can purify me,” she said helplessly.

Madoka was in serious goddess mode, and narrowed her eyes at Homura. “I can try,” she said in a firm voice.

Back in Mitakihara Homura’s labyrinth was being cracked open, and the sensation distracted her for a moment. The girls had taken advantage of her absence to open the gateway, but it wasn’t supposed to happen yet! She needed to die first!

There was pink in the corner of her eye and Homura tried to whirl back around, but Madoka had her tightly in a hug, just like Homura had done to Madoka at the start of her imprisonment to put the goddess back to sleep.

“Mado-ka!” she gasped out, flushing but suddenly frightened.

The goddess’ hands were covering Homura’s left, where she kept her soul gem. The touch of the goddess burned through those soft silk gloves.

Her hands glowed, and Homura’s soul gem glowed, and neither light nor dark would give way. Homura screamed and Madoka stopped. Her touch wasn’t burning any longer, but she wouldn’t let Homura go.

“So that’s it, then,” Madoka said softly, and Homura thought she finally understood she was supposed to kill Homura.

“I love you,” Homura said, certain those were the last words she would ever say.

“I know,” Madoka said simply. “And I’m sorry.”

“Madoka—?” Homura began, startled, but then the holy fire was back, and it felt like Madoka was trying to burn the darkness out of her on purpose this time.

“I won’t let you hurt anyone again, not even yourself,” Madoka murmured in her ear.

It was the last thing Homura heard before she passed out for the first time in six hundred years, and she had the fleeting thought that she’d maybe been too clever for her own good. Again.

I cannot be a monster
I will not be a monster
Not tonight

She woke up alone, in the ruins of her old witch labyrinth, trapped inside her own soul gem. Homura didn’t understand at first. The only thing that was obvious was that Madoka hadn’t killed her. Again.

It took careful exploration for Homura to understand she’d been locked into her own soul gem. Any attempts to escape had her burned with holy energy, and after the tenth time she passed out from the pain Homura finally gave up trying to get out, either through brute force or finesse.

Surely Madoka would visit her. Surely she’d want answers. She had to realize it was all a farce, and she’d come looking for the true story.

Madoka couldn’t leave her here forever.

She just had to be patient, and good. She would take her punishment, and whenever Madoka came back she would be properly repentant. Homura could wait. If she couldn’t convince Madoka to kill her, she’d just have to wait until she was out of this place and do it herself.

It wouldn’t be easy, but at least this would give her more time with Madoka before she died. There was a silver lining.

She just had to wait for Madoka to come back.

Maybe a few centuries of solitary confinement. Or a millennium. Homura hoped she wasn’t planning to go for the exact amount of time Homura had kept Madoka captive, even though that would really be the fair thing to do.

Still, if that was Madoka’s plan, Homura would accept it. She just had to wait.

Monster
Monster
Monster