180
.
Madoka's personality doesn't budge an inch throughout all of the timelines.
Kyoko's personality varies, depending on how many friends she has. When isolated from the rest of the magical girls, she answers to no one. Reason and reality are two different things. But she never cuts her hair, no matter how unruly it gets. Vanity, Homura supposes, is a thread of fate as red as Kyoko's soul gem.
Sayaka's mulishness fluctuates, but most of the timelines involve her succumbing to despair. She's not as naïve as Madoka, and admitting her losses makes life strenuous as an idealist. Homura brushes aside her indignant retorts because the girl doesn't know any better. It's a wonder to be able to shout at someone and feel unburdened.
Mami's volatile beneath her reassuring smiles and dancing ribbons, a medley of contradictions.
She is the one who grates on Homura's nerves.
The blonde had wished for life, and with it, connection. For all her life-loving, though, Homura doesn't think anyone values life as much as Kyoko does. If Mami had valued life, she would have never approached Madoka. All Homura sees in Mami is a lonely girl in want of company. She detects that in Sayaka too, once the girl ends up with less than what she gave. Sayaka ends up taunting Madoka to suffer alongside her. In spite of mighty promises, they eventually yield to despair. And although Homura can't exactly blame them for not realizing what she's gone through, she'll never forgive them for making it that much harder.
Mami's bottom line is that suffering is bearable as long as you've got an ally at your back.
Homura's bottom line is that the more people you string along, the more responsibility you bear, the more burden. She cannot glance at Sayaka without seeing the witch lurking within her, thrashing and howling to Debussy. She cannot speak to Mami without flinching from the gun aimed at her forehead.
Madoka had saved her with a single arrow.
Why was it so damn difficult to return the favor?
Walpurgisnacht descends upon her and she reverts her sand-timer, not bothering to bid her dead comrades farewell.
She wakes up to the sixteenth of April for the seventy-third time. The bed sheets are slightly different, patterned with yellow checkers instead of blue. The room still reeks of antiseptic. The analog clock still mocks her from the wall. She slides the window open and blows the screen to pieces with a silenced semi-automatic pistol.
She rolls her eyes when the middle-aged teacher at Mitakihara Middle introduces her to the class in the same airy tone. The brunette has remained single throughout every single timeline. Homura mulls over the fact with no dearth of black humor.
Some things never change.
210
.
By timeline thirty-seven, Homura knew it wouldn't be as simple as watching over Madoka.
She has to exert her influence on all of them in subtle ways. She still doesn't know which is more effective—guiding Sayaka's degradation so Madoka's trauma prevents her from ever considering the offer of magic, or delaying Sayaka's degeneration so Madoka will not feel guilty enough to take on more responsibility.
She had tried to turn them against one another in timeline twenty-six so Madoka wouldn't want to speak to any of her friends, thereby avoiding a contract. But her friends had only sprouted Grief Seeds one by one, and Madoka had been dealt the brunt of their blows in a horrific train accident. Her mangled, charred body was the last thing Homura saw before starting over.
She never tried that again.
She's trying to be more friendly to Madoka in this timeline. She pulled the whole I-don't-feel-well routine on the first day again. The sentence tastes insipid and limp on her tongue, like flavorless chewing gum. They walk down the expanse of the long, blue corridor and come to a stop before yellow caution tapes.
"Looks like they're constructing the new wing..." Madoka murmurs. "We can take a different route."
Homura has a bad feeling about the sudden change in procedure. The witches they've been taking out are not capable of premeditated attack. Could it be that with each timeline, she has been building their experience and strength? Or could another magical girl be taking advantage of her ability, building up the witches to tear her down?
"Forget it," Homura snaps, pivoting on her heel. "I'm fine."
"Eh? But..."
She skips school for the rest of the day to think in peace. A vernal wind tousles her hair, and she lingers in it for a moment. Just one moment. That's all it takes.
The more things stay the same, the more fatigued she becomes in trying to change them—but the more things change, the more incapable she is of dealing with them.
235
.
Kyoko is vicious in this timeline, less susceptible to goodwill.
Homura wisely keeps her distance, but observes as the redhead sneaks out of Kamijou's bedroom with a bloody spear and a sneer that could wilt flowers. Whereas Homura grows increasingly distant with earthly pleasures, Kyoko learns to cling to them whenever possible.
She whips out a shotgun and emerges from the shadows. "What did you do?"
Kyoko smirks, twirling her spear like a baton. "It's for Sayaka's own good. That boy was ruining her."
"And you don't think she'll be driven mad by his death?"
A snort. "It's not like she's friendless, you know. He never cared about her anyway."
"Would you have wanted me to kill your father after he turned against you?"
The night is still and Kyoko's muscles tense. "Who are you?"
Homura halts the flow in her sand-timer and walks into the violinist's room to assess the damage. She has perfected her technique to the point that she can revert the sand-timer in increments of less than one month. If she undoes the killing, it is likely that Kyoko will be the first to dismantle. If she doesn't, Sayaka certainly will. She wants to blast Kyubey into the next universe for spinning a web out of their lives. He can harness the colossal energy in her hatred and leave them all the hell alone.
That's what he came for, isn't it?
Even Shakespeare wrote of men and women as puppets on a stage—Kyubey was no different. But what he unleashed upon humanity did not end at death. All that they hold sacred, all that they dream of, ensnares them within the confines of what has since become a nightmare. They are not cattle on a farm as much as they are mice in a maze.
Homura Akemi doesn't know fair from unfair, but she knows enough to shoot when something's in the way.
But she can't turn back time to before she was a magical girl, to before she had made her wish.
She can only rinse and repeat, praying she'll get it right next time.
250
.
Homura calls Kyoko over again, revealing the vast archives of their past.
Kyoko pales. "If Sayaka loses it, then—"
"Every timeline in which Sayaka morphs has ended in disaster," Homura confirmed. "Forget Walpurgisnacht. Sayaka's destruction will only add to its power."
"Maybe if Madoka—"
"Weren't you listening?" Homura growls. "If she agrees to the contract, we're all done for."
"There's gotta be a way out," Kyoko grumbles, biting into an apple. She eyes the other girl through a squint. "Come to think of it, how come you haven't snapped?"
Homura holds her glowing soul gem up, an iridescent lavender. "As long as witches exist, so can I."
"This food chain's messed up." she mutters, throwing the core over her shoulder and rooting around the plastic grocery bag.
"There is another way," Homura broaches hesitantly. "You could convince Sayaka that there's too much at stake for her to snap. Use your powers of coercion."
The grocery bag falls to the ground, and two apples tumble out.
"W-Who told you...?"
"It's your call," Homura shrugs. "Either way, I'll have to start over once Walpurgisnacht arrives."
Kyoko turns away. "If she ever finds out I used magic on her, she'll hate me."
Homura crosses her arms. "Then what are your powers for?"
"Food. Shelter. That sort of thing," Kyoko laughs bitterly. "I take things from people. I can't give them anything."
270
.
The Mami in this timeline doesn't trust Homura one bit. It's not unsurprising. Homura wonders if Mami's distrust will manifest more violently with each passing timeline. The blonde fires three bullets into Homura's thigh (and Homura lets her, just to humor her), warning her to stay away from Madoka, to not "corrupt" her friends. Homura leaves a trail of blood up the marble stairs in the house she inherited from her deceased parents.
Before Mami was disemboweled by Walpurgisnacht in the first timeline, Homura had believed people naturally disappeared at a certain age and joined the constellations. She had adamantly refused to wear her prescribed glasses until her grandmother had whispered conspiratorially that she would need the lenses to see her parents.
Mami's barking up the wrong tree again, but Homura can't be bothered to correct her if it means she'll be gouged by more bullets. Some people just don't listen.
"There is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy," Kyubey remarks, tail waving. "But humans have always been keen on proving others wrong. I never understood that. Is it related to the concept that two negatives make a positive?"
Enough is enough, Homura thinks, and restarts like a broken record.
310
.
She approaches Mami first in the seventy-fourth timeline. She eats cake with her. She walks to school with her. The cake is overwhelmingly saccharine and she hates it. Angel cake, Black Forest, soufflé, lemon bars—she hates how easily they lift Mami's mood. How dare you be happy is not something she wants to be caught thinking. She fears a clouded soul gem not for the sake of her mental health, but for the sake of her mission.
She doesn't recognize herself in this timeline. But she has to try everything.
Homura only fears the day she can no longer distinguish the difference between one timeline and the next.
She guards her anger as she guards her soul gem, white-hot and insatiable.
She reaches for her timer just as a Walpurgisnacht minion creeps up from behind.
Is she saving Madoka, or saving herself?
360
.
"How did you get to be so cold?"
Homura looks at Madoka and Madoka looks at Homura and neither understands the question. Homura no longer felt that her original self was her "true" self—she had lost track of her transformations and the labels the girls circumstantially assigned her from one life to the next: friend, enemy, heartless, compassionate.
The next night, Homura spots Kyubey sitting on a bench with Madoka, carmine eyes gleaming.
"I mean, there's just never been anything special about me, so..."
The statement pierces Homura like a bullet to the gut. She'd thought Madoka would be happy with her ordinary life. She'd thought Madoka would be happy, staying out of trouble. She'd gone out of her way to make sure Madoka didn't sign up for any rigorous clubs, didn't draw attention to herself, didn't make any new friends (three were enough to keep tabs on), didn't go on excursions too far from the city—she'd essentially guaranteed that Madoka would never change.
She had never been so foolish as to believe she was on a holy crusade in the name of justice. She knew she was committing a grave sin by growing numb to the recurring death of her friends. But if there is a cardinal sin, it is this one. Because maybe over all the converging timelines, Homura has inadvertently nurtured Madoka's low self-esteem, evolving her karmic destiny by sculpting her into the ordinary, good-natured girl none of them were able to be.
She has created a fixated Homura, and with it, a permanent Madoka.
She sees red.
The contract is complete. Your wish has overcome entropy.
Pity none of her timelines had.
She blows holes in the extraterrestrial creature, knowing he has amassed sufficient energy to jump into his next body in line. That was what he symbolized, wasn't it? He existed to remind her that she could do everything and it would not amount to anything. He existed to tempt her with Pandora's box, to step back and reap the chaos as it rained down. He gave them soul gems, rendering their bodies biologically inert. He preserved their souls, but could not grasp the human conception of what that meant.
He gave their souls a casing and tore up the inside.
0
.
And Kyubey will never understand the difference between souls and gems.
Because she has one and not the other.