Fallen Flower
I'm not sure when they begin, these feelings. Is it the discovery of your bravery, your strength under duress, your unrelenting kindness, or your sorrow? You, who are the first to approach me as I stand, afraid, nervous, welcoming me to your fold. You do what no one else does.
During our battle with Walpurgisnacht, you fall. We both do. We simply aren't strong enough. "Do you have any Grief Seeds?" I ask, voice hoarse with exhaustion, iron exploding on my taste buds. You shake your head, defeat etched into your beautiful face. "Hey…" My body slumps to the side, totally spent, my eyes closing as tears pour down my soaked face. "Why don't we become monsters together and lay waste to this cruel, terrible world?" Hiccups start, and my chest shakes, shoulders scraping painfully amongst the rubble of the city. "Don't you think… that would be nice?"
A sudden lightness takes over me. My tears stop, and my eyes snap open to behold you. You, sacrificing yourself for me. You grin weakly at me. "I lied. I had one left."
"Why did you use it on me?!" My heart begins to break, my voice trembling with the utter despair of it all, even as the Grief Seed finishes its work.
"Because you can do something I can't, Homura-chan." Tears are streaming down your face too, and your hands are shaking. "You can go back in time, can't you? You can prevent this whole thing. Can you save me from my stupidity, before I make a contract with Kyuubey?" You are sobbing now, tears distorting your words. Your corrupted soul gem glimmers briefly with hope.
I cover it with my hand. "I will! I promise to you, I will!" You smile in relief, whispering your gladness before pain seizes you. Your body twists around, ugly gasps for air strangling your voice, and I shed more tears, my voice desperate. "Madoka!"
Your eyes meet mine, a tired sort of understanding clouding them. "Homura-chan. You finally… used my first name. I'm… happy." You raise your hand, the sin darkening your soul visible to me, and I know what you want me to do. I transform, my vision blurring with an endless deluge of sorrow.
Pulling back the hammer, I aim at the very soul of you, whom I am so devoted to. With a strangled scream of pain, I pull the trigger.
It is the first of many, many deaths. You die over and over as I, incompetent, am unable to save you. Eventually, I change myself. If I cannot remain close to you to save you, I commit to working from the shadows. I promised you, didn't I? I will save you, no matter how many times it takes. No matter how much pain it causes me, no matter who else suffers, I have to save you from Incubator, that hideous, adorable monster.
I am so close, this time. Walpurgisnacht is faltering. I learn, too late, it is an act. Destroying the buildings, she crushes beneath them. My right foot is trapped beneath a slab of concrete; I cannot pull it free. There is blood running down my face from a wound on my head, and my gun is out of reach. Why… why can't I beat her, no matter how many times I try?! I grasp the dial, preparing to reset, before I realize. If I do this again, I'll only add more karmic destiny to Madoka. I falter. That's right. I'll only make it harder on her, in the end. I… I can't do it! I can't win! I can't save Madoka!
My long-held belief is shattered. I'm not strong enough. I'll never be able to save her, no matter what I do. Each time, Walpurgisnacht is only getting stronger, while I am wearing down, time after time. The realization of the uselessness of it all floods me with despair. My body is shaking with pain and sorrow, tears overflowing from my eyes. A vortex of black fills my soul gem, as inescapable as time, like the sand in an hourglass slowly filling to press against the glass.
That pressure is what sends the first ripple of pain through me, right when a shadow blocks off the light. A gentle hand reaches out to touch my head. "It's okay, Homura. Rest now."
My eyes open, exhaustion filling my soul. "Mado…ka…" With her touch, the inky darkness has ceased its consumption of my soul, but I am still on the cusp of a Witch. Seeing her now, so compassionate, yet so brave and determined, speaking to the Incubator, I cry, silently. I've failed, again. I will never be strong enough, never enough to deserve Madoka, never enough to protect her.
Her Contract takes root, and golden light floods her. A beautiful rose dress appears, white gloves hiding her hands. A bow, interwoven with rose petals, glimmers into existence in her hands, and she pulls back the string, firing one shot. The gold magic creates a wide circle above the witch, firing down to tear her apart. And finally, Walpurgisnacht falls, still laughing.
Madoka, my dearest Madoka, becomes a goddess. I see it all. I am trapped in the stratosphere, thousands of miles above Earth, and I see what she has done. My beautiful, selfless Madoka has taken all of the burden onto herself. With the Incubator's voice echoing, I see the vast purity of her soul, along with the slow corruption inside it. Every Witch she saves is another burden she must suffer. I cry, curling in on myself in this strange space, for my dearest one.
Yet, despite my inadequacies, my incompetence, she still comes to me. She is a Goddess now, the pinnacle of beauty and purity, far beyond my reach, but she holds me close. "I can see everything now," she tells me tenderly, wiping away my tears. "Every past, present, and future, I can see them all. And now I truly know – you are my very best friend, Homura-chan." She gives me her ribbon, red and so familiar it aches, to remember her by.
When I return, I am the only one who knows Kaname Madoka. Her best friend, her classmates, even her mother, all of them do not know her. The only one that knows is her little brother, drawing pictures of her. With that, Madoka is reduced to an imaginary friend. A mere memory.
With her encouragements in mind, I continue her work. With newfound wings and her discarded bow, I fight the Wraiths that have taken the place of Witches, protecting those that no longer remember the one I loved so dearly.
It is, perhaps, this realization that begins my descent into despair.
I do not realize it for a time. I only know that the world is somehow different. Charlotte, the Witch, is here as Bebe, a tiny doll-like creature close to Mami. Sayaka is back, as well. Kyoko is her usual self, a pocky stick in her mouth as she snarks at us. Things are normal, almost, but that is what unnerves me. Everywhere I go, I see traces of the world long past. I confer with Kyoko, but my suspicions are confirmed when she tells me she remembers Madoka. We are in a Witch's Labyrinth, and I have the sinking feeling I know who the Witch is.
At the bus station, I call Kyoko one last time. I thank her, and tell her not to come after me. I can hear her protesting and racing headlong towards my position when I crush the phone beneath my foot. Foolish girl. Yet, she is the one closest to understanding the true depth of my despair.
When I depart from my soul gem, I see everything clearly. The spots of corruption on my hands, the red webs trailing from my eyes, the torment within my own heart. When did it all go so wrong? When did I turn into a Witch? No one can answer that question for me, and the only one who can has forgotten me. It is the last straw. My soul gem breaks, distorting me into a being of destruction.
My heart is fragmented, my memories tucked away, and all that is Madoka is locked inside the furthest reaches of my soul. Ah, I recognize distantly. So this is my despair. I am pulled from the catacombs of my memories, the bones of my wrists gleaming in their shackles, red spiderlillies curling around my skeletal face. Teeth drop like tears, and the sky has opened in red swathes of blood, becoming birds that cry of my impending execution. The soldiers at my feet march on, escorting me, and the children play, laughing, before me. "Madoka!" My soul cries out, magnified from the horn on my back. My sash claws at the ground desperately, trailing destruction behind us. "Thank you for coming all this way. I'm sorry I couldn't even say 'goodbye' to you in the end."
I hear, before I see, the magical girls approaching. Stop, please, I beg you! Leave me to my fate – let me die, as I deserve! My voice does not, cannot reach them, for they continue to fight. I hear Sayaka curse at me, angry with my unwillingness to stop the march to my death. I do not wish to hurt them, but I yearn to be punished for my failures, so I set the familiars after them anyway. I'm sorry, I cry, but they cannot hear me.
We are almost at the guillotine when I gasp, my 'eyes' opening. I felt her for a bare moment, but I dismiss it. Madoka has forgotten about me. That truth cuts deep within my soul. Perhaps… if I could forget about her, erase my memories, my pain would end. One version of myself, cold and unreachable, pushes down another, one of an era past, full of memories and love for Madoka. The cold Self prepares to pull the trigger, when a voice pierces my mind, shattering the offending notion. "Stop it, Homura-chan."
All of my memories, tucked within that small vessel of awareness, flicker awake, and I lift my vessel's head slowly. "Madoka…" I grasp my face, twisting back and forth in misery. Surely, this is just another punishment, right? It is the cruelest one I have subjected myself to thus far, this illusion that she is here for me. I haven't reached the guillotine yet, have I? I'll never reach it, will I?
"What did I tell you about going off by yourself?" I quiver in agony, curled down around myself, as the window high on the wall slowly opens. Her hand, glistening with gentle light and covered in scars, descends slowly towards me, cupping my side tenderly.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I just missed you so much, I couldn't bear it! I'd have committed any number of atrocities just to have you back with me again." With that one touch, she destroys the corruption clinging to me, restoring my corporeal form. She asks if I am afraid. "No," I murmur, "I'm not afraid. I'm ready." Taking her hand, we become the arrow of her justice, raining down golden light upon the barren world of the Incubators, demolishing all but one or two.
I am laid to rest on a stone slab, part of my Labyrinth's city, my black bow clutched in my hands, my darkened soul gem on my chest. She descends, Sayaka and Nagisa heralding her arrival, and I blot out her words, focusing on the sound of her voice. I recall her question, before. Are you ready, Homura-chan? I smile as she reaches for me. "You don't know how long I've waited for this moment."
I grasp her wrists with an iron grip, holding her in place with a smile as the world fractures around us. She struggles, and I draw her closer to me. "Homura-chan! Stop! You'll tear me apart!" Her divine self separates from the girl she used to be, and I pull that girl close.
"Now that I have you again, Madoka, I'll never let go. I'll never let you go." My soul gem, held between my teeth, shatters, and the world changes in accordance with my will. I am ascending, traversing the space that Madoka previously occupied, given wings of my own, black feathers covering me comfortingly.
Kyuubey, the Incubator, finds himself in my Void, and he questions me. "What am I? Well, Madoka was the closest thing you could have to a God, and I couldn't help but pull her from the heavens. I suppose that makes me a demon, don't you think?" I have rewritten the Law of Cycles, perfecting the chain, and the Incubator attempts to run away from me. "You Incubators have become useful to us, now. We'll be spending a very long time together." I tousle his fur with a fingertip, and he asks what has caused my change.
"It is something that you could never hope to understand, Incubator. It is the pinnacle of all human emotion, the thing that each and every one of us strives for – it is love! All of this is for, nay, because of my love for Madoka." It is something that, perhaps, the rest of the world would find impossible to comprehend, but I love this girl beyond life itself. She is no longer bound by her life as a Goddess, no longer subject to suffering for the sake of eradicating Witches from the past, the present, and the future. No, now she can live as a human again, a second chance, and I will be permitted to be near her, close to her side. Perhaps she could love me, I muse. But I know that, even if she does come to love me, by saving her from herself, I am now her adversary.
It does not matter whether I am your enemy today or tomorrow, Madoka. I have you here, and that's enough for now.
A/N - Hello, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this little piece (of my soul). I had a lovely day today with several other people at a writing retreat, so I got to update several things over the 7 hours I was writing. In any case, this is one of multiple one-shots that I will be publishing, each standing alone. I will take requests, should anyone wish me to write an interesting concept. In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this small work, and I will see you next one-shot! XOXOXO AT