a/n: for Light because my previous fic sucked shit. and puella magi is everything that matters in my life right now so
-{summer was never in our blood}-
"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er
wrought heart and bids it break."
-Shakespeare; Macbeth
The first rule of magic she learns is that reality is completely subjective. The world - hell, the universe - as a whole is completely subjective; God's creating has still yet to end, and as such, the fabric of the cosmos, the matter from which stars are formed and planets are drawn into orbit and wormholes burrow through, all of it is malleable and at her disposal. It only take's a magical girl's newfound awareness to perceive the bodies in flux and flow, and she can see it now: the galaxies, the quarks and atoms underneath her fingertips, the collision of electrons and protons and neutrons and bioenergy darting around her fingers. Every last bit, every piece of the universe, down to its tiniest molecules and most resplendent supernovae - it buzzes and thrums before her eyes, stark with its richness and life.
Her initial attempts at wielding it are clumsy at best, disastrous at worst. Her bullets jam. The trigger halts. Rifles and cannons manifest only partially formed, her mind occupied with other more pressing distractions. She hears her own voice screaming inside her head - focus Mami focus you are going to die - as she smears the labyrinths with the bodies of Witch familiars, their sulfurous Witch-magic smell clinging to her clothes long after the entity at the maze's center has been slain and she has discarded her costume for a school uniform. There is a dark magic, she finds, mysterious and shifting, serpentine and elusive and husky against her ear as she defies it, brimming with magic of her own weaving - earth magic, chthonic spells, incantations for purification and deflection. The Witches' magic hums in her ear, languid feminine tones that beckon. Look at us the Greats, they say, swaying and dancing, teetering on euphoric hysteria, so shrill that wineglasses could break from their sound. How beautiful how lovely it is to swim in the Dark join us darling girl precious girl sweet girl, coo the cacophony, and she will say NO and fight them back, loosing gales of silver quarrels, golden thread, batting them back and dispersing their power.
Sweet girl, the Witch presses, old and fathomless and abysmal, she shivers and reloads but the seduction hovers, suspended. Not gone. Preciousdarlingbeautifulgorgeousgirl join us join us join us
LEAVE ME ALONE she screams in the pitch-black of the Barrier, shadows sliding up her thighs, her arms, her body everywhere and all the time. GO AWAY I'M WARNING YOU
Make us proud child sweet girl and they scuttle away into their caverns, clicking, mandibles and arms and appendages crawling on floors and sky. She will lay down, then, and weep softly but audibly, clutching her Soul Gem to her throat, greedily drinking in its thin illumination.
Here is when Mami Tomoe allows herself the none too small luxury of fear.
./\.
It's not that she doesn't like the job - magic is an enticing incentive, and a damn good one at that - but sometimes she finds herself dissatisfied with the absolute fucking boredom of it all. There is nothing especially attractive about the profession of monster-slaying and witch-hunting - it simply is, an irreversible, blase constant comparable to cubicle work. Only the competition keeps her around for more; she supposes she might just have offed herself by now like some of the other girls if it weren't for the infighting and the politics and the lucrative benefits. Like a paycheck or company benefits - the more of those fuckers she drops, the cleaner the streets, the more her reputation builds, and the more Seeds she reaps. And it beats the monotony of high school, so that's another handy little bonus.
She doesn't do it for such a high set of values as that highstanding bitch Mami Tomoe, fuck no. The hunt's a game of its own, and no one gets very far if they stop to deliberate over mundane concepts like good and evil, or the duty to defend the innocent, or the championing of justice and all that feel-good bullshit. Out there in the world of magical girls and Witches, it's a jungle, a bloody food pyramid that stretches from Witches up at the top, them near the bottom. With exceptions for people like herself, of course, people who aren't afraid to delay the corruption with a few stolen Seeds or two. But otherwise, there is one guideline that really counts, that anyone who's an entrepreneur in their field needs to heed: eat or be eaten.
Out there is a hungry, hungry shithole, full of vermin, the unholy taint of the Witch breeds and their familiars, spawning new life forms in a deadly cycle of mitosis. She's learned to eat, sleep, breathe, essentially live on the go; there's no time to stop for her kind of magical girls. By day, she clears the alleyways of the Witch filth; she cleans her spear of the blood and guts at night, when it's quieter and she's all alone so that she can savor the solitude of cleaning fluid and water and the aftertaste of magic strung around her weapon. Vacations are rare; it's costly to waste a spare moment in an arcade or the mall when she could be claiming another Grief Seed, and besides, the cities know her movements too well now. She's got gangs, thugs, bitter mahou shojo on her tail, the pursuit endless. And yet, still she kills, still she burglarizes, still she stands firm, unwavering in the face of omnipresent danger.
Of all the fucks she gives, she could give zero to the hurt bitches who stagger after her, screaming bloody murder - Tough world, hon, I'm not sorry, she'd say before flipping them the bird - or the Okinawa Triads she's indebted to. She could ignore do-gooders like Mami, blatantly disregard the Witch threat, all of it. But she doesn't, because there's a part of her that enjoys the hunt, that sick, twisted adrenaline thrill when she brings down something that's not even remotely human. It's the sadist nature in her, the only legacy she has of her homicidal father, and goddamn it she doesn't give a shit.
Kyoko Sakura has no cares in the world beyond saving her own skin; that's a cold, hard fact of life, tough as it is. The weak will be trampled to make way for the strong, and she doesn't intend to be a doormat.
./\.
From his violin sings the most beautiful sounds, looping notes made living by the manipulation of the bow against the strings. He's on the stage now, a finely tailored tux hugging his body well, and when he finishes Etude, the audience rises and gives him a standing ovation. She can barely hear her own claps over the applause, so loud it makes her eardrums ring, and when she sits down, the floor goes from under her legs and the scenery fades.
All around she can feel, taste the warp and weft of magic. Black magic, Witch magic, spiders and cobwebs draped over her shoulders. She's fighting, but she's forgotten. Kyousuke, or the impression of him, slithers around her, horsehair suit dusted with rosin, eyes a too-wide powder blue, mouth open in a distorted grin. He barks a careless did you miss me and it's terrible, scratchy television static. One of her swords comes up and impales him in the stomach; he laughs, bubbling blood in rivers down the sides of his mouth, and his body implodes into a shower of dead leaves and chalk dust. There's a maze of hallways, Kyousuke's bleak laughter, Hitomi's snarling face plastered on class election posters - Sayaka Miki is a slut reads one of them in perfect Japanese - and rotten Witch-magic all over, choking her and stifling her energy. Get out of my damn head she shrieks at the invasive presence, drawing her cutlass downward and slicing open the doors, wind as dry as sand spilling out, the corridors stretching on and on-
Remember your training snaps the harsher inner voice as the labyrinth continues to unfold, roaring at a crescendo when she finally reaches the last room, the headmaster's office, in which lies a gruesome black hourglass with spider legs jutting from its glass frame, the grains inside swirling and dead hands smearing foul fluids on the insides, marking it up with the mess. Kill it don't stop don't you damn stop the voice bellows as teetering biology-class skeletons with Kyousuke's face stagger towards her from the massive closets at the back of the threshold kill them don't let up you dumbfuck don't stop and Sayaka's a blur of blues and whites, cleaving each horrid clone into bone shards and listless energy - the Witch, Adelaide, gives what might be a cackle and dives from the ceiling, pendulous body tethered by a net of ropes and rulers to the big chandelier, the center of the glass splintering and out comes her own head, beautiful and cruel and more than she will ever be.
UGLY UGLY Adelaide laughs, spewing sizzling phlegm; she is crying when she makes the kill, buried up to the hilt of her weapons in the Witch's sandy blood, the hairy arms moving in distorted twitches, some of them stroking her back, caressing her legs, it makes her shudder. She never lets go until it's dead like all the rest, dispersing into harmless but still cold power that whistles between the crack in her legs and mocks weak as the magical signal fades and she slumps. The floor is greasy tile and she's up to her stockings in the blood of numerous familiars and Witches, she hasn't bathed in weeks and her hair is lank around her face and her eyes are crusty with ichor and dried tears from all the sobbing. Margot's words are jotted down on a notepad and kept, a grim reminder.
Don't ever stop what you're doing. The warning sounds like madness; Sayaka Miki collapses for the umpteenth time, her legs are trembling, but she gets back up against all reason. This is crazy I am crazy she realizes.
She's on the stairwell. Outside is raining and pollution and death. When she opens the door to Kyousuke's room, he's already gone.
./\.
Her power is the most godawful thing she's ever felt; her magic feels warped from the start, sickening tugs pawing at her stomach each time she leaps. She's gotten good at it, of course, but that doesn't mean she likes it.
Every time her throat feels raw when she enters the classroom and sees Madoka. Always Madoka Kaname, the single relevant constant. Sometimes Madoka smiles. Sometimes she looks surprised. She searches her friend's face, searching for recognition; there is never any, of course, because it's only she who's doing the leaping. Everything else, everything that builds within the timelines, they cease to exist when she readjusts her shield and calculates the trajectory. It's gone in the blink of an eye, and there she is again in the hospital bed. She will go to school next, and Madoka will be there, and it will be a smile or an 'o' of shock or nothing at all. She is terrified of the last one the most; it will mean that she has messed up supremely, that she has done irreversible damage to Time. It will mean that Madoka dies and stays dead.
On the fifth or sixth time, she decides that the next time she jumps (if she has to), it will be on her own terms. She'll change, become self-sufficient. There will be nothing between herself and Madoka. She cannot afford to carve out the same friendships over and over, only to have it collapse whenever she travels too far back. Distance, rejection are her only options.
This time around, it's the hardest. She walks into their classroom with her hair down, face smoothed into an impassive facade. She can hear her shoes clicking on the floor, it's so quiet. The class regards her with a quiet, admiring, but fearful apprehension.
"Class, I'd like you to meet our new transfer student. This is Homura Akemi..."
Her eyes scan the rows, and lock onto Madoka's head within seconds. The sight is jarring. Madoka stares at her and into her, blinking, looking slightly dazed and vacant, circles beneath her lashes like she hasn't gotten enough sleep in the past few days. She feels her jaw clench at the contact, her tongue numb and her entire body tremble. She balls her hands into fists and stares back, holding back all of them - Madoka and herself, broken but side-by-side, and the Grief Seed - and willing herself to shut up. Goddammit, I love you. Your my only friend, my very best one, she'd like to say. Please try, can't you, try to remember-
Meaningless, logic whispers. She won't believe. Just do your part and get out of here if things go sour; it's getting late.
Her classmates are waiting. Clearing her throat, Homura announces, "Hello. I'm very pleased to meet you."
./\.
A woman titters, her voice resonating throughout the city, a ghastly echo that drills into the spirit. She is standing knee-deep in floodwater, Homura with her neck broken and blood seeping from a gash on her forehead floating a few feet away. It's Walpurgis Night.
"Madoka Kaname-" Kyubey begins, but she cuts him off with an impatient flick of her hand, anger burning hot in her vision.
"Just do it," she snaps.
The Incubator nods, the merest sign it will give in deference to her position, and crimson leaks from it, enthralling her, binding her in fire and wind as her soul is torn from her chest. It glitters with the possibility of universes untold, creation and destruction residing within a single vessel. A million thoughts flicker through her head: Mami, Sayaka, Kyoko, Homura, her family in the shelter holding each other as the storm rages - and nothing matters as much in the afterwards, in the great absence of rules. She is Magic now, calm and pretty and vain and devastating, and there is only the matter of Walpurgisnacht that bears any importance from this moment until eternity.
"I won't ever forgive you," she breathes, guiding the magic instinctively, furiously. A bow is drawn, an arrow nocked. She tears apart her galaxy with the release.