"You're a real idiot, you know that?"
Homura Akemi raised an eyebrow warily at the sounds of approaching footsteps. She had been enjoying her lunch alone, as she always did these days, when the last person she wanted to see in the world had burst from the stairwell and made some kind foolish declaration, immediately spoiling the serenity of the moment.
Without looking in the direction of the blue haired girl, Homura knew Sayaka Miki was a few yards behind her. Probably preparing herself for whatever dastardly, devilish thing Homura would do to her in retaliation, Homura was sure. Smiling in an almost cruel sort of way that would have once felt alien, Homura turned around ever so slightly to look at what she would be dealing with.
She expected frustration, anger, indignation, self-righteous fury, and any number of similar pig headed attitudes. It was the kind of thing, even though she begrudgingly knew better, she expected from Sayaka Miki. She expected to see Sayaka standing, poised for battle, with a glare that would kill if looks were able.
To her surprise, Sayaka wasn't even looking at her. She had seated herself a little ways away from Homura and was opening up her own lunch as if nothing strange was happening. As if she hadn't said something so terribly rude to the ruler of this world.
Now, as insulted as she should feel, more than anything, Homura was... curious. She smiled that sickly sweet smile, like an inviting honey trap looking to lure in more prey, and the unnatural creatures that had been gathered around her, if they had ever been there at all, were gone in a flash. Her attention was solely on the blue haired girl she was sharing the roof with now.
"Isn't that your line? 'I'm such a fool'?" Homura responded evenly, assuming Sayaka had been trying to get a rise out of her, as she had many times in the past. Naturally, all of those attempts had failed miserably, and, naturally, it was always far easier to get a rise out of Sayaka Miki in response when she tried to play this game.
"Yeah, maybe I am. Is that why I still remember everything?"
Homura's eyes widened ever so slightly at Sayaka's question, before they quickly narrowed. She had certainly not been expecting such a response. It wasn't exactly a topic she particularly wanted to delve into too deeply.
Was this why she was here?
"What is this about, Sayaka Miki?" Deciding that enough was enough, that she would not be strung along and play whatever game the other girl had in mind, Homura went right to the point. "You would never seek me out without having a reason, and certainly not to highlight that my wiping of your memories has failed. What is it you are trying to accomplish here?"
Homura was waiting patiently for the eruption from Sayaka that she had been expecting from the start of this encounter. It just wasn't normal for their roles to be reversed in such a manner, and quite frankly, devil or no devil, it was unnerving.
"That's the thing..." Sayaka's voice revealed nothing. There was no anger or frustration or anything of the sort. She sounded like a curious schoolgirl discussing something she hadn't understood about the day's lessons. Or more like... She was the one explaining something that someone else didn't understand. "Shouldn't that be my question?"
Homura frowned. She was tempted to simply leave, for it wasn't like someone in her unique position in this world was truly required to attend school, but she thought better of it. If there was one person she would never show any kind of weakness to, it was Sayaka Miki.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Homura replied evenly, running a hand through her hair calmly. What on earth did Sayaka think she understood? It was certain, as usual, that she was wrong, but this was wasting Homura's time all the same. "I'm not trying to accomplish anything. At least not anything involving you."
Homura nearly dropped her lunch when Sayaka responded with a laugh. A laugh of all things! The nerve of that girl!
"Come on, we both know that's not true. I've got my memories all nice and tucked away still, you know?" Offering Homura a smile, an expression that the devil girl found an incredibly out of character thing to see given the current circumstances, Sayaka tapped the top of her head lightly. "Of course you know. There's no other reason for them to be there... Unless..."
Homura wasn't liking where this conversation was headed. She placed her chopsticks down into her lunchbox, lest she snap them in half and give away how this conversation was making her feel. She would never show such a side of herself in front of Sayaka Miki.
"... it's because I was a part of the Law of Cycles for a while?" Sayaka finished thoughtfully, a finger placed innocently on her chin. "That might make sense..."
Homura inwardly let out a sigh of relief.
She shouldn't have been concerned. Sayaka Miki would never be that perceptive.
"Yes, that's very likely the cause." Not missing a beat, Homura picked up her chopsticks to resume her meal. Perhaps Sayaka Miki was just trying to see if Homura wasn't as all powerful as she had led the blue haired girl to believe. Well, since it didn't really matter to Homura what she thought, that was fine. Her only priority was Madoka. "I only separated Madoka from it, after all. The Law of Cycles is likely keeping your memories safe from me, like a guardian angel. You should be thankful I don't care enough to try to break its protection."
Homura let out a dark chuckle at the thought, perhaps because it was honestly amusing or maybe because she simply enjoyed the thought of the effect it might leave on Sayaka. It could have been both.
"... except..."
As if she hadn't heard a word Homura had said, Sayaka, still the picture of girlish innocence, continued from where she had left off.
"I'm the only one who remembers. Nagisa doesn't even know who I am anymore, but she and I more or less had the same role, the same power..." Sayaka trailed off, looking in Homura's direction now. "Now why would the Law of Cycles be so selective about who it 'protects' like that? If you ask me, I think it's because the real culprit here never knew about Nagisa in the first-"
Snap.
There went Homura's chopsticks.
"So you figured it out." Homura was no longer smiling. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her lunch was ruined and, despite everything, Sayaka Miki had gotten the upper hand on her. She had very little to smile about right now. Homura turned back to her lunch, looking mournfully at her chopsticks before creating new ones to replace them. Being all powerful had perks sometimes. "Come to gloat, then? You have to be aware I could erase everything right now if I wanted to."
Surely this would reveal Sayaka Miki's motives. What kind of magnificent fool would come with this information to the very person who would make being aware of it all moot? Even if she did get some kind of satisfaction of this discovery, they both knew full well that, at the very least, Homura could wipe these specific events from Sayaka's mind and she would be none the wiser.
"Come on. What do I have to gloat about, dummy?" Homura shivered involuntarily. Sayaka was much closer now. Shifting slightly, Homura realized the blue haired girl had picked up her things and settled down right next to her. Instinctively, Homura scooted down the seat a little, which earned her a giggle from Sayaka. For a moment, she watched Homura, an unusual smile playing on her lips, before it melted away into something else entirely. "I... don't have anything to gloat about here. Really. I just wanted to talk."
Now it was Homura's turn to laugh, though her laugh was decidedly more along the lines of a mocking sort of snort.
"Talk? You and I?" She ran a hand through her hair before shaking her head dismissively, though whether she was dismissing Sayaka or trying to dismiss something inside of herself was perhaps another matter entirely. "We have nothing to talk about. I simply let you keep your memories so you could suffer the same lonely fate I had to. Having to live in a world with memories that match up with no one else's, those memories dictating your worldview like a cage... Knowing you were once a part of something greater, but never being able to go back... Having fate trap you in a cage of memories like that... Fitting punishment for defying me, wouldn't you say?"
"Hmmmm..." Sayaka stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, it might be." A beat. "If it were true, anyway."
Snap.
There went another pair of chopsticks.
"You are truly trying my patience, Sayaka Miki...!" Homura turned, her jaw set, and, for the first time since her transformation into her new form, for the first time in this new world — her world, her emotions flaring. She simply would not stand for this attitude! "Are you accusing me of lying? What proof do you have?"
Sayaka looked knowingly at her.
"You."
Homura stared. Her?
"Excuse me? I am the devil. I am that which will someday be your greatest-"
"Greatest enemy ever, source of all evil, blah blah blah, I know." Sayaka rolled her eyes as she waved a hand dismissively in Homura's direction, much to the agitation of the self proclaimed devil. "I told you, I still have all of my memories. Do you not have yours? It's barely been two minutes since we had this discussion, transfer student."
Homura grit her teeth. This girl really was here to make a fool of her, wasn't she? After everything she had done, everything she had been through... She wouldn't stand for this...!
Noticing the increasing emotion on Homura's face, Sayaka sighed, though despite that, she was smiling a small smile as well. Shaking her head, she continued.
"You really don't get it?" Sayaka asked, watching Homura for some kind of response. A blank look was all she got, but Sayaka supposed given the circumstances, and given how she was quite literally playing with fire here, that she could live with that. Here's hoping she could put it out. "I'm not going through any of that. I can't as long as you're around."
"What are you..." Eyes slowly widening, Homura trailed off as she began to understand what Sayaka was implying.
Whereas Madoka hadn't been able to stay in her new world and keep Homura company, Homura was here in this one, so unlike the situation she had found herself trapped in, like it or not, she would inevitably be able to give some kind of feeling of camaraderie to anyone she might not have erased the memories of.
It almost seemed like she was the one being punished now, rather than Sayaka Miki.
For a few moments, the pair was silent. Their minds were, for the time, elsewhere. Sayaka wasn't giving any hints as to what she was thinking, while Homura, as always, was thinking of Madoka.
Sayaka was the one who finally broke the silence.
"Even now... You haven't figured it out, have you? Even when you should be able to understand better than anyone else, you still don't..."
Homura looked at Sayaka, but it seemed like Sayaka had been thinking out loud in that instance. She wasn't looking in Homura's direction and, in fact, was gazing down at the ground with a grim, defeated expression on her face.
Homura didn't need to take three guesses to know what Sayaka was thinking about right now.
She was thinking of Madoka as well.
Still... Her words confused Homura. In fact, everything Sayaka had done thus far had confused her. So she had come to the conclusion that Homura had left Sayaka with her memories on purpose. So what? What was she going to do with this information?
"What haven't I figured out?" Homura found herself asking, despite how little she thought she wanted to play along with Sayaka. Was that wrong?
She had to admit, Sayaka had always strange. Despite how easily she had always fallen to despair, she had also always been impossibly perceptive at the strangest times, and this had been made all the more clear during their encounters in Homura's barrier, when Sayaka was able to act freely, with ample knowledge of the world's truths (things she had never been aware of in any of their prior encounters) and without the worry of her soul becoming corrupt before she could process that knowledge or do anything with it. If Sayaka knew something, it wouldn't kill Homura to entertain the blue haired girl for a little. She could just wipe it away later anyway, which she was fully intending to do once this conversation ended as it was. Now that they had covered the issue of Sayaka's memories, there wasn't really anything left for them to talk about that was as big anyway.
There was nothing Sayaka Miki could possibly say to her that would make a difference.
"You have the same powers she had, more or less, right?"
Homura didn't even bother looking at Sayaka now. So she wanted to talk about Madoka? She didn't see where this was going, but very well.
"That's right. I didn't make the Law of Cycles, after all, I just altered it. My powers are about the same, give or take some specifics. Obviously, unlike Madoka, I'm free to interact with the world as I wish in addition to everything else."
Sayaka made a noise as if she had been expecting that answer.
"So it would be fair to say, besides for that part, Madoka could do everything you could do... You know. Before."
Sayaka was clearly trying to keep the emotion out of her voice, but that just confused Homura. What in the world was so important that she was putting aside everything she had constantly gone on about, time and time again, to tell Homura?
"I... suppose."
Homura found herself sounding uncertain now. In the back of her mind, the gears had started to turn, but they hadn't quite gotten the alarm to start ringing yet.
"Right. And you still think 'fate' trapped you in a 'cage' in the world before this one?"
Heart starting to beat uncomfortably fast as the gears picked up speed, denial started to kick in.
"W-What are you..." Homura didn't feel like a goddess or a devil or even a magical girl right at that moment. She almost felt like that poor girl in the hospital, waking up after the horrible first loop all over again. Scared and confused.
Sayaka was looking at her, her expression stern. She was trying to tell Homura with her eyes, but Homura would have none of it. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't accept that-
"Fate had nothing to do with it. You let me keep my memories? You did that to me?"
No no no no no...!
There was pity in Sayaka's eyes. Pity and understanding. Homura knew for sure now what she was going to say next, but she still couldn't stand it.
No no no...!
"Well Madoka did that to you."
Homura stood. Her lunch clattered to the floor. The sky turned black in an instant. Her familiars — creatures that should have been completely unnatural to herself and Sayaka — all across the world began to cackle and curse.
And Homura stood before Sayaka, shaking.
"You lie."
Sayaka didn't rise, though she did place her lunch on the seat next to her to look up at Homura. Her eyes were no longer filled only with pity and understanding, but a terrible sadness as well.
"She told me so herself, Homura. Remembering that, along with talking to Nagisa, is what helped me figure you out in the first place. Funny, huh?"
Sayaka didn't look like she thought it was very funny at all.
Homura certainly didn't.
"Why... Why would she do that...?" No longer in denial, for as much as she wanted it to be so, she would know without a shadow of a doubt if Sayaka was lying to her — to the lord of this world, she fell to her knees. She suddenly felt powerless. She felt like everything she had done and been through... What had Madoka been thinking...?
"Being the 'devil' has really gotten to your head, huh?" Sayaka remarked with a sigh. She seemed to consider something for a moment, before sighing again and gently placing a hand on Homura's shoulder. "It was never a punishment or anything like that. It was supposed to be a gift."
Homura looked up at Sayaka, staring at her as though she'd just declared her undying love for Kyubey and her burning desire to have the creature's children. What she had just said was just ludicrous... but she wanted to know more. She leaned forwards now, any pretense of playing the villain forgotten.
She wanted answers.
"That? A gift? How in the world...?"
"Think about it." Sayaka withdrew her hand, shifting awkwardly as it occurred to her just how close Homura was now. She had been doing well to set aside her personal misgivings for the girl up until this point, but she was only human. As this encounter was making clear, though, they both were. "Madoka... She would never do anything bad to you, right? At least not on purpose. You've gotta know that much."
"Of course not." Homura sounded almost indignant, as if she was trying to convince someone doubting that fact that it was so. The only person questioning anything here, however... was herself. "Madoka would never... But then, why..."
"She wanted to give you a reason to fight... among other things." Sayaka answered simply, looking away as she finished the thought. Homura stared at her. "You became a magical girl for her, right? She couldn't take the fact you became a magical girl away, but everyone's memories had to go — she ceased to be after all... Except for with you. If she took your memories away, even if you wound up getting them back once you met her again, wouldn't that be dropping you in the new world just like you had been before you started all that time traveling stuff?"
Homura's eyes widened, her jaw dropping.
That was right... If she hadn't kept her memories of Madoka, it wouldn't be the same as if Mami Tomoe or Kyouko Sakura had lost their memories of Madoka. Homura's whole world had revolved around Madoka for what had felt like an eternity. She had grown and changed and become the person she was now all because of Madoka.
If she had lost all of that, she probably would have been killed in her very first fight.
It made sense. Homura hated to admit it, but if Madoka had been prioritizing Homura's safety and prolonged happiness in the new world, it made perfect sense. It was just the kind of thing Madoka would do.
"I had never thought about why it might have been done by someone before... I always just assumed..." Homura murmured to herself quietly. She wanted to ask what sort of "other reasons" Madoka might have had for wanting Homura to keep her memories beyond those major ones, but she wasn't sure if they mattered at this point. She knew more than enough now.
It made her love Madoka all the more.
"Yeah, you do kinda suck at thinking about other people's perspectives." Sayaka agreed, completely unaware of what was going on in Homura's head at that moment. Seeing Homura's glare, Sayaka grinned sheepishly. "Hey, gimme a break! I'm not saying I don't suck at it either. Looking back... Yeah, I think you and I were more than stubborn and stupid enough for all of us."
Homura wanted to say she would never be as stubborn and pig headed as Sayaka, but considering Sayaka had... sort of just done her a favor, not to mention she herself was freely admitting her own faults (a miracle Homura had never thought she would live to see), Homura decided to let it go.
"Nothing?" Sayaka grinned openly at Homura's lack of response, which earned her the slightest reddening of the devil's cheeks. "I guess you can take the devil after all! For that, I'll let you in on a secret." A beat. Just long enough to raise dramatic tension, but not long enough for Homura to come up with a proper comeback. "I... I thought it might make you feel worse, but maybe... Maybe you should know." Clearly Sayaka was still deliberating inwardly, for she paused again — but only for just a moment. "About how Madoka felt about letting you keep your memories."
Any comeback Homura might have had regarding Sayaka's jab died right there on her lips.
At some point, the world had returned to normal again. Normal for what it was now, anyway. With the sky bright again, Sayaka deemed it safe enough to tap the seat next to her, as if inviting Homura to sit.
Though still unsure of what the girl was playing at, of where this was all leading, Homura knew... No, they both knew that the bait Sayaka had laid out was something Homura would never be able to resist. No one left in the world knew what Sayaka knew, and it was something Homura had to know. Resigning to having to give in to Sayaka Miki of all people, Homura reluctantly settled down next to her.
She took some satisfaction in the fact that Sayaka clearly hadn't expected Homura to accept the invitation, and more satisfaction still in the fact that she almost looked ill sitting so close to Homura. Served her right, getting so haughty like this.
"Well?" Homura used this as a chance to regain her footing as the one who should be in charge here. She ran a hand through her hair, her expression shifting to one of cool disinterest. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Huh? O-Oh, right..." Sayaka shifted somewhat, as if turning her body that way would make Homura any less close than she was. Homura responded by scooting closer, which earned her a glare... that Sayaka quickly tried to push away. Now why was she doing that? "Well, I mean, you can probably imagine how conflicted Madoka was."
Homura tilted her head to the side in that way she so often did, though her expression was as telling as ever: It didn't give away a thing.
"What did she have to be conflicted about? According to everything you just told me, she made the best decision." Homura replied, and after a moment's consideration, continued. "I think I agree with her. She made the right decision. I wouldn't have wanted to forget anyway."
"Yeah, but that's you. You you you you you." For emphasis, Sayaka began to poke Homura in the forehead defiantly to make her point with each additional "you," much to the surprise of the devil before her. The sheer audacity of this girl! "What did I just get done telling you? You're not thinking about her point of view!"
Homura frowned, fighting back the urge to do something... painful to Sayaka Miki.
"You already told me her-"
"No, I told you why she did it for you. For your point of view." Sayaka sighed, shaking her head. "You sure are thick... Sure, Madoka did that to keep you going and to keep you strong, but how about how she felt in the meantime, huh? Seriously, you..."
Sayaka trailed off, and there was that look again. That profound sadness that Homura just didn't understand. What did Sayaka Miki possibly have to feel sad about?
"She was waiting for you."
Homura froze. If Sayaka's first revelation had been a surprise, well, this was something else entirely.
"You think you had it bad, traveling through time over and over?" Sayaka's expression was unreadable, or rather, it just held too many things for Homura to be able to comprehend them all at once. "At least you got to be with her sometimes during all that. Madoka, though... It's complicated, y'know, cause of the whole 'turning into a concept' thing, but you've got nothing on her. She'd been all across time and every universe out there, and it either took forever or it didn't take any time at all or... Haha, honestly, I still don't totally get it, and I was living it!"
Sayaka laughed weakly, before shaking her head. It seemed like she was reminiscing. She must have been recalling a conversation she had had at one point with Madoka, during their time together within the Law of Cycles. Homura might have responded, might have told her to get to the point, but she was simply to stunned to even consider it at that moment.
"Well, it doesn't matter. All that time, however long it was, she was waiting for you, worried about you, hoping you were happy, hoping you weren't sad, hoping you were safe... She was just waiting for the day you would join us up there... She felt terrible about it too. She wanted to see you so badly, but that'd mean you lost hope and despaired, you know? She wanted to see you so much, but... But she also wanted that day to never come too. For your sake." Sayaka sighed wearily, looking to the sky. Her mind was clearly elsewhere in that moment, in a place Homura could never be. Would never be. Despite the fact that the feelings she was describing were those of another, Homura realized Sayaka was resisting tears. "She was okay with what she'd become though... She was happy. She was doing good and meeting all kinds of amazing girls when she saved them. She didn't want much. She was fine with not having a 'life' in the proper sense. She felt like she wouldn't go back even if she could, knowing what a difference she could make now. All she wanted was to be with-"
"That's enough. You've made your point." Homura's voice was cold, with a thick layer of anger hiding behind its typical coolness. She should have known that, in the end, this would just be leading up to Sayaka Miki going on and on about how Homura had done something so terrible and made a mistake and all the usual. She had heard it before, and quite frankly, she had never cared. It had just made her laugh at Sayaka, laugh at how little the girl understood the "devil" before her.
This time, though...
"Yeah... Yeah, I guess I have." Much to Homura's surprise, Sayaka didn't push the subject or gloat or anything of the sort. She looked even more defeated, if anything. Under normal circumstances, Homura might have triumphantly smiled at Sayaka, taunted her even, but for some reason, she just didn't feel like it would accomplish anything. Even the sparse amount of tears that had managed to escape from the blue haired girl's eyes caused Homura no pleasure as she might have convinced herself they did in the past.
For those were tears being spilled on Madoka's behalf — and in fact, though she might not have believed it prior to this conversation, perhaps they fell even on Homura's own behalf.
"That's not my only point though." Sayaka pursed her lips. Her expression had taken on a different turn, one considerably different from the one that she had been wearing before as she had wiped away her tears.
Given the points she had made thus far, Homura didn't know if she could handle any more of them. She certainly didn't want to know what else Sayaka Miki might be getting at, not with an expression like that on her face.
"It doesn't matter..." Homura closed her eyes, her voice cool. It wasn't as icy as it had been a moment ago, but it was warning all the same. "I assume that's all you have to say. If that's the case, then as my gift to you — your reward for revealing to me what a tremendous mistake I have made — I will erase your memories completely so that you can enjoy this world with everyone else."
To Homura's surprise, she found herself being shoved. It wasn't a hard shove — it was an almost gentle shove, come from the direction of the blue haired girl at her side.
"That's the other point, stupid." Sayaka sounded strange, which was strange considering how strange this conversation had already been compared to all of their previous encounters since Homura had taken over this world. "You aren't going to do that."
Now what did this foolish girl mean by that?
"Oh?" Raising an eyebrow, Homura crossed her arms as she opened her eyes to look once more at the girl who had caused her so much grief over so many lives. "Why wouldn't I? Surely you must realize, now that you have no use to me any longer, there's no reason to-"
"Oh, cut it out, Homura!" Throwing her hands up in the air, Sayaka fell backwards and laid down on the bench, like she was dealing with a particularly frustrating child. Well, she had said Homura was stubborn... "You didn't even know about any of this until I came up here. That's not why I still have my memories. We both know that. We just went over that."
Kicking her feet in the air, Sayaka turned to look up at the "devil" looking down at her. For a moment, she found herself pausing in her words to just admire the girl. She remembered, it felt like so long ago, when she and Madoka were still just ignorant girls and Homura was the pretty new transfer student of endless mysteries. Things had been so different back them.
Homura found this all especially disturbing. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she watched Sayaka look at her in such a way.
"What?"
Kicking her feet as high as they could go, Sayaka brought them back down to hop off of the bench before turning around to face Homura, who was becoming less and less interested in what the girl had to say now that it seemed as though anything and everything of importance had already been said. The reality, of course, was that Sayaka was considering her next action while Homura was still processing all of this.
Unfortunately for Homura, Sayaka's next move gave her a whole new world of things to start processing.
"My other point is..." Sayaka offered Homura the strangest smile the girl had ever offered the "devil," before reaching for her hand and taking it in her own — pulling her up to stand next to her in a swift movement. Homura was absolutely dumbfounded — and their hands were touching! "I've decided that, whether you like it or not — especially if not, actually — I'm going to keep you company from now on."
Once again, Homura found herself staring. Yanking her hand out of Sayaka's and rubbing it with her other, as if she were nursing some sort of grave injury, she narrowed her eyes at the blue haired girl.
"As if I would ever want something like that. Just what are you playing at now, Sayaka Miki?" Homura couldn't help but be suspicious. The girl's mission in life seemed to be...
... What? Considering that, in life, she had never once had the knowledge necessary to have a mission the same way Homura had, all she had ever had a chance to do was react to bad situations and events until she fell. Ironically, in what she had done in this world for Madoka, she could almost even relate to Sayaka trying to keep that childhood friend of hers out of danger — out of her rapidly twisting, doomed to fail magical girl life. Though as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she found herself looking away, angry — perhaps at herself, but probably at Sayaka for making her reevaluate things in such a way.
Regardless, things never did go well when the two of them were together — surely Sayaka knew that as well as she did. So why was she suggesting this?
"For a lot of reasons..." Crossing her hands behind her back, Sayaka turned away to look at the city below. Unable to see her expression, Homura could only guess what was going on through the blue haired magical girl's mind now. A strange sigh escaped Sayaka's lips. "Madoka is one of them."
That did it.
"I am not changing my-"
"That's not what I mean." Shaking her head, Sayaka dropped her hands to her sides. Her voice was no longer reaching that strange, disgusting level of playfulness that it had been climbing towards a few moments ago. Instead, it was returning to that somber state it had been earlier — which probably meant Homura wasn't going to like where this was going... but she knew she wanted to hear it out all the same. "What kind of best friend would I be if I left you alone?"
"You are not my best friend..." Homura didn't even want to consider that idea.
"But I'm Madoka's." Sayaka pointed out.
Homura scowled. She had often seen the way how Sayaka and Madoka would act together, back when they could still be "best friends" in the first place.
They were... They were...
They were happy.
Averting her eyes, Homura wondered why that mattered. They had been ignorant. But isn't ignorance bliss? And wasn't keeping Madoka in the dark now, so she could be happy, the entire point of this new world...?
Homura wondered what pleasure Sayaka could possibly be getting out of this, what she had to gain — besides the obvious, of course.
"I'm not going to change my mind." Homura felt strangely helpless as she spoke, as if she needed to cling to that, like she was making something important clear before she allowed for something to happen. What was she allowing to happen? She wasn't... She wasn't. Her fists clenched, the devil gripped the sides of her skirt. "Madoka deserves to be happy — she deserves to live her life! Surely you must agree...!"
Sayaka was silent. Of course she was silent. Had Homura even been saying that for her benefit at this point, or for her own? Sayaka was the one who wasn't going to change her mind — she had had knowledge of so much that Homura had never even dreamed of. It was Homura that was...
The devil shook her head.
No. She could not give in. No matter what happened to her, Madoka... For Madoka...
"She does. She deserves this."
"Fine, fine." Sayaka seemed to have been waiting for Homura to convince herself more than anything, for with that, she turned to face her raven haired "nemesis" with the most peculiar look on her place. "But do you? After everything I've said... Well..."
"I don't..." Homura trailed off. She didn't what? She was the devil — she was as good as a goddess! Certainly she deserved this! Certainly, she...
"I'll wait."
Sayaka took a quiet step closer to Homura, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. Like she had been struck, Homura pulled her arm away and took a step back, but Sayaka pressed on. It was becoming clear to her — assuming Homura hadn't really acted like a "devil" to her in response to what Sayaka had to say, this had been what Sayaka had been building up to all along.
"If Madoka can't wait for you anymore, then I'll wait for you in her place. If Madoka can't watch over you and worry about you anymore, then I'll do it all in her place."
It didn't need to be said what Sayaka meant by that. She didn't just mean that she would wait for Homura to fix things or change or any of that. Homura was taken aback by this strange turn of events — and for some reason, it upset her significantly less than she thought it should. Had Sayaka simply come out with this, she would have laughed and sent Sayaka away, but now... She understood Sayaka's true meaning — how could she not after everything she had learned today already?
Sayaka wanted to stay with her, to keep her... company — to do so in the way perhaps only she, the only other person in the world who knew the truth could.
To give her the thing she had never had since she had started this, from the very moment she had made her wish.
Seeing that Homura wasn't going to interrupt her, seeing the devil looking so... passive, Sayaka took that as permission to continue.
"You know, it's kind of sad it took us this long to really be able to talk. We both care about the same person so much — if things had been different..."
Homura understood. She knew Sayaka did as well. Sayaka had said as much earlier, in her own way. They had been so wrapped up in their own perspective that they hadn't considered those of others, and they hadn't tried to explain theirs to the others either — to each other in particular. Not well anyway. Homura wondered just how much of the blame was on herself, though. Sayaka hadn't had the chance to repeat things over and over again. She had. She could have tried to make things different between them, but instead...
If they had been different, maybe Madoka would have never had to make a wish.
Maybe she and Sayaka could have even been... friends.
Maybe they still could be. Someday.
"I guess it just goes to show."
Homura blinked, surprised — she had thought Sayaka was done.
"It just goes to show... what?"
Sayaka grinned at her new companion.
"I guess we're both idiots."
And for some reason, rather than retort or resort to her arrogant devilish facade, Homura found that she could only offer a wry smile in return.
Yes... Yes they were.