Title: Who Can Kill A Child?

Author: Moi Fah

Genre: Angst/Tragedy/General

Crossover: Sailor Moon/ Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Universe: Anime (AU)/Anime (AU)

Timeline: Post-Series/Post-Series

Pairings/ Characters: Hotaru Tomoe, Homura Akemi, Walpurgisnacht

Word Count: 1385

Feedback: If you feel so moved...

Rating: T

Writing Prompt: Who can kill a child? ; Homura Akemi stares down the 9-year-old Messiah of Silence knowing she has to kill her or face Walpurgisnacht resurrecting.

Pistol loaded, cocked, aimed, and ready to fire...hesitant fingers curl the trigger but do not pull it. The hand begins to quiver until her entire arm is shaking in trepidation...how could she do this? How could she kill a child?

...could she kill a child?

She had to.

'Madoka, are you watching? Please forgive me.' the dark-haired girl clad in the dress of a magi prayed, silently contacting the new God of her world. She had to do this...she couldn't have Walpurgisnacht reappear.

Madoka's final wish had to purge all witches...and Homura Akemi was glad to carry out that wish no matter what it took.

Strange vibes and disruptions around her told her something wasn't right...especially when they began to grow familiar. No, Walpurgisnacht was still alive and had to be killed once and all. Surely the goddess Madoka would have no problem in defeating it...if the monster hadn't fled from their plane of existence into an entirely alternate universe. On this plane of existence, magical girls were not magi, but sailor senshi and had powers that corresponded to the planets in the heavens. They also were not required to make a wish to be able to obtain their powers, but this did not mean they were without sacrifices...they fought numerous enemies of their own and had to keep their identities secret for they could never live a normal life either. It was hard to say who exactly had the worse end of the deal. In the end, they were all mortal as anyone else.

Having discovered she'd kept her magi powers, but no longer required grief seeds as her soul had returned to her, Homura had sought to use her powers for Madoka's sake. She wouldn't allow any witches to surface anywhere...even if that meant it involved killing a child.

She'd tracked Walpurgisnacht to this universe and found its influence hiding inside of a small girl. Homura wasn't so uncouth as to snipe a child then turn her back and leave, although she often wished she was that cold and callous. It would have made things easier. But...she was also an information garner, she had to understand what she was dealing with...who she was dealing with, the magi corrected herself.

This child was called Hotaru Tomoe. She was currently 9 years old, and led a somewhat happy life. Her mother had perished in a fire, but her father took care of her whenever his work allowed him to do so. Other times, she was left in the care of his red-haired assistant who had a sour attitude to match her poisonous green and purple eyes. It wasn't too long when tragedy struck and the laboratory Hotaru and her father were in at the time exploded, killing everyone but them. Supposedly, the girl must have died too and that's when Walpurgisnacht must have reared his ugly head. It must have appeared and caused her to make some kind of wish, possibly offering her life as a bargain.

'Mami...' the girl growled through gritted teeth, the situation was just too similar. Their last names even matched up. Could this girl be the alternate version of Mami Tomoe? It was unlikely but things really did match up too well.

Right now, the girl would be playing in her backyard as she preferred to get away from the red-haired assistant. She'd calculated this and headed towards a nearby roof, standing with a perfect vision root to her target albeit completed out of sight of the young girl. And...from the looks of things...she appeared to be home alone. Now was the best time to do this. Walpurgisnacht had to be defeated once and for all. No one should ever know suffering like that again. And Madoka...

She hopped down from her perch, from roof tiling to a wall that separated houses. She ran a short distance before hopping down onto an even lower wall, and finally the grass that marked the small backyard of the Tomoe household. Hotaru Tomoe had her back turned, too involved with some game of one person make-believe.

Homura pulled her gun back up and walked forward. "Hotaru Tomoe?"

The girl jumped a little bit, a trepid head turn at the sound of the sudden, unknown voice, "Who are you? And how do you know my name? Are you friends with my dad?"

"..." Homura was silent, gun still poised in a ready to shoot stance. Her right and left arm were drawn up close to her chest, the left hand wrapped around her right wrist, gun parallel with her chin. "Homura. That's my name." she replied simply, taking a deep breath and pulling her arm downward so that her left arm rest by her side while the right was fully outstretched, gun aimed straight at the girl's head.

It was so simple. Just pull the trigger, and the nightmare would be over. There would never be anyone else who sought to destroy the world.

"Homura-chan? What is that? Do you want to play with me?" the girl asked innocently, pushing off of the ground in a too childish way and standing up to her full but short height. She barely even came up to Homura's hips.

"I haven't come to play," Homura whispered lowly, constantly trying to pep talk herself into pulling the trigger. It was painful to stay like this, awkward and tragic. "I know you don't understand what's happening right now and I understand if you come to hate me, but I...I know it wasn't your fault. Please bare me no ill will...I have to defeat Walpurgisnacht once and for all..." Homura wasn't even sure if she was talking or whispering or mumbling or some kind of combination of the three. Her mind was racing, her vision was growing blurry...she felt sick. What was happening to her? She'd steeled herself to death after having witnessed Madoka, the one she cared about most in the world, die right in front of her multiple times.

"Walpurgisnacht...?" the girl repeated clumsily, practically tripping over the word as she tried to say it. "What's that, Homura-chan?"

"You are..." Homura forced out, her arm in a full tremble. She had to do this, dammit, why the hell couldn't she pull the trigger?

"Don't!"

The sudden scream frightened her, but Homura quickly corrected her aim and pulled the gun upward, the bullet luckily flying harmlessly off into the distance.

Dammit...she'd given away her position. The crack of a gun, even with its silencer, would undoubtedly draw attention, that she was aware of, but she couldn't leave like she'd originally planned...her objective hadn't been completed. She'd have to withdraw for now. This was only going to make things more difficult in the future.

Quickly halting time, Homura managed to rapidly regain her vantage point on the roof where she'd begun. Abruptly, her ability to slow time reached its point and time resumed as normal. The girl stood almost completely still in the back yard; the way it would seem was that Hotaru had blinked and Homura had suddenly disappeared. That's how the magi wanted it though.

But...she was confused. Just who had yelled "don't"? It didn't appear to be anyone in physical presence, she would have seen them or sensed. That voice seemed almost disembodied, ethereal. Had it...had it been Madoka? It didn't sound like her but Homura hadn't quite been expecting for someone to suddenly yell out like that.

With a glance back over her shoulder, Homura saw the dark-girl look over as she greeted a friend...a young girl with pink hair in fluffy, pink pig-tails. Homura's eyes widened although her expression remained the same. The two happily hugged each other and laughed as they talked about silly little nothings. The sight caused something to tug at Homura's heart...sadness...she could not kill Hotaru Tomoe.

This universe would fall into ruin much like her own had many times over. But, it wasn't her place to worry about that.

The magi would not interfere with the senshi. And likewise. They would go on, ignorant of the others existence.

Opening a portal through the use of her time shield, still equipped onto her arm, Homura took one last look before heading through it.

After all...who could kill a child?

(putline)

Don't ask where this came from because I honestly don't know. I happened to find this prompt in my way too long list and thought, yeah, I'm finally gonna write this. I'm a magical girl freak and have been wanting more crossovers of PMMM anyhow so it works. Also, I'm sure plenty of people have noted the similarities between Homura and Madoka and Hotaru and ChibiUsa; not necessarily pairing wise or anything but their colors, being friends, wanting to protect the other (Chibi-Usa's heart crystal was taken by Hotaru to turn her into a monster, while Madoka sacrificed herself to keep Homura from becoming a monster, etc.)

I highly doubt this will ever turn into a full length fic. If I did, Homura would come back and find Hotaru again and take her with her to go and kill the remaining 'witches', or people who have the power to destroy the world. So basically, it would be a huge multi-cross and they'd meet people who basically have the same ability as Hotaru (destroying the world), etc.

Also, I apologize for the huge amount of AU here, what with Homura keeping her magi powers and Chibi-Usa still being present in the 21st century after Stars. If you're curious, the voice that called out to Homura is meant to be Setsuna; killing Hotaru would definitely disrupt the time line. Who Can Kill A Child is the name of a 1976 Spanish horror film in which a couple goes on vacation to an island only to discover that all the adults have been killed by the children there who now run the town.