The first time they meet, Homura is a shy little girl with her heart still aflutter and absolutely no muscle mass to speak of. When Mami introduces her to Kyouko, a magical girl from the next city over, the spear-user gives Homura a once-over and scoffs. "She's too weak," says Kyouko, pointing a half-gnawed piece of Pocky at Homura. "She won't stand two seconds against Walpurgisnacht."
"That's not-" Homura begins in weak protest, but Mami cuts her off with a gesture and says, "Would you prefer to teach her then, Kyouko?"
The redhead smirks, tossing her hair over one shoulder in a unique gesture that keeps the long red locks flowing through her fingers. "Maybe later," she says, and leaps off into the Mitakihara night. Everyone there knows what she means. Mami places a hand on Homura's shoulder and pats it reassuringly while Homura stares after Kyouko's shadow, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt nervously.
When Walpurgisnacht arrives, Kyouko is nowhere to be seen in Mitakihara- probably having fled from the insurmountable odds. Homura doesn't blame her. When she takes her first glance of the geared beast that is the witch, it's all she can do not to stop time, take Madoka, and flee: but she knows Madoka will never forgive her if she does, and thus she stays on the front lines, shield and pocket dimension at the ready. Walpurgisnacht goes down, Kriemhild Gretchen goes up, and on that day she learns that witches are not just things to be destroyed, but things to be feared.
She's a bit stronger during the next timeline, having mastered the art of stopping and starting time, as well as having stocked up a higher quality of weapons. It does stop Kyouko from telling her off, but it's not enough- nothing will be enough- to stop Mami from breaking and taking shots at everyone present. Kyouko goes down, her eyes like glass, as Homura screams and struggles against Mami's ribbons. It's only Madoka's interference that saves her life, and though she's grateful that her odyssey didn't reach a short and unexpected end, she can't help but mourn the loss of the strongest magical girl she's ever met.
Homura tries and tries again, but she stops taking on friends and partners and works alone. The semi-automatic rifles in her hands are exchanged for grenades and even rocket launchers. The plaits and glasses fade away behind panes of cold, hard facade, and though in each subsequent timeline she begins to approach, then match, then overtake Kyouko's level of power, she never pays any mind to the spear-user. All that matters is summed up in one word- Madoka- and each timeline she continues to struggle to preserve and protect that one, fragile girl.
In a timeline that Homura can't separate from the others, Kyouko approaches her after they've taken out the witch form of Sayaka and does the best version of a confession she can manage. The time traveler hears fragments of her rambling, such as 'the strongest', and 'not afraid of anything'. All that Homura can think of is how Sayaka's death is another move on a temporal chessboard, and what she must do with the remaining pieces in order to protect her king, Madoka. She cannot afford any mistakes, any lost pieces or any careless moves, and right now Kyouko is getting dangerously close to making one. "I'm sorry, Kyouko," she says in her most gentle voice. "This isn't the time to be talking about... that. Maybe later."
She leaves a grief-stricken Kyouko behind in that timeline, and continues to do so for the next twenty. For most of those timelines Kyouko lives long enough powered by Homura, to die at the hands of Walpurgisnacht. In the few that she doesn't, she lets despair consume her and becomes a witch named Ophelia, which is so out of place that Homura honors the fallen Kyouko by stopping time long enough to travel to a nearby library, read Shakespeare's Hamlet, and start making a thousand arbitrary connections. Curiosity is unnecessary, even detrimental, to Homura now that she's wrapped herself in such a tight shell, but even so she dares to let her original, curious self through long enough to try and connect with Kyouko.
The formula is the same as before: Mami dies, Sayaka contracts, Kyouko fights Sayaka, Sayaka becomes a witch, and depending on how Kyouko and Homura interacted in that first meeting in that concrete alleyway, she will latch onto Homura in an attempt to control her raging rebound feelings. After Kyouko confesses, the two of them walk a tearful Madoka home before going to a ramen shop that serves food all 24 hours of the day, no questions asked. While they're there, Homura discovers that her pocket dimension has nothing on Kyouko Sakura's stomach, and by the time they've drowned their sorrows in ramen there's five bowls piled up next to Kyouko- and only one by Homura. Homura foots the bill, one of the few kindnesses she's shown to Kyouko, and they make their way to a grassy, abandoned park to talk.
It's there, away from the prying lights of the city, that Kyouko allows herself to break down and cry. The sight is almost disturbing to Homura; it reminds her of her old, insecure self, and in an attempt to ward away that unpleasant memory she wraps her arms around the other girl and lets her cry it out into the safety of her blue jacket. After that, Kyouko begins to tell a story, a completely arbitrary one about her contracting into a magical girl and the loss of her family. While Homura pays attention to this self-pitying rant, the analytic part of her is still drawing connections. Teenage girl. A crazed, suicidal friend. An ending in which she loses everyone. Suicide- the last factor is not necessarily present in every timeline, but Homura has gotten used to Kyouko's kamikaze tendencies, which surface as soon as someone goes down. These threads latch on to Homura and murmur Ophelia at her, and now she wishes she hadn't read that stupid book.
What Homura does next is, in her eyes, completely irrational, but she wants to drive those thoughts of death away from her, and she does need to shut Kyouko up eventually. She angles herself around Kyouko's shoulders and presses her lips to the other's for a second- more than enough to shock Kyouko into silence and long enough to make Homura want to violently reconsider her decision. Then Kyouko's rolled over on top of her, and her lips are pressing hard into Homura's, and neither girl can get a word in edgewise, as they're both too busy trying to get more of the other while they still can.
It feels like two eternities too long when Homura finally breaks away, her cheeks flushed a red as bright as Kyouko's hair. She gets up to leave, knowing she's gone too far, that this will almost certainly invalidate everything she's done in this timeline-
And Kyouko grabs her hand. Their eyes meet, and Kyouko's gaze holds Homura's steadily. In that one moment Homura knows that if she leaves, she's no better than Kyouko's father, or Mami, or Sayaka, and that her departure will almost certainly send the other girl into despair. Facing down Ophelia is not something she wants to do, especially not now. "Homura?" Kyouko whispers. "Are you... leaving?"
Homura waits a second more, weighing her options, but that's only a formality. She looks down at Kyouko, her eyes gentle, and sits next to the redhead again. "Later," she says.
Later comes all too soon for the girls, and as soon as Homura knows Madoka is hidden safely away in one of the makeshift shelters, she meets Kyouko in the center of Mitakihara. They seat themselves on the side of a skyscraper and wait for the monster to come. Kyouko finishes chomping away on an apple and makes to stand; Homura grabs her wrist and from her pocket dimension pulls out a box of Pocky. "For you," she says.
"Save it for later," Kyouko scoffs. "That dumb witch won't last a second against both of us! As soon as she's dead and we're rolling in grief seeds, then we can have some Pocky!"
"Kyouko Sakura turning down food," Homura muses. "That's a sight I never thought I'd see."
"Akemi Homura holding my hand," Kyouko shoots back. "What about that, huh?" Homura doesn't bother replying: it's actually happened before, in a labyrinth belonging to a fallen girl she would rather not think of. She tosses her hair to the side, letting it trail through her fingers, the gesture betraying a level of confidence she wishes she had.
"Here she comes," Homura whispers, and true to her word a fire-breathing woman, dress made of gears and hanging upside-down from the dark canopy of clouds, winks into existence. She stops time, her hand wrapped tightly around Kyouko's, and draws from her pocket dimension with the other. Together the two magical girls weave a tapestry of bullets and rockets into the sky, then race around to a section of Mitakihara where Homura's got stable rocket launchers positioned. Because of the speed at which they've worked, there's still a bit of sand left in Homura's shield as they take up their positions for the final run.
"We've got this, Homura," Kyouko says, her trademark toothy grin radiating genuine confidence. Homura ignores her and pulls her in, crushing her lips against Kyouko's as the last of the sand runs out. At that instant, both girls push off against each other and begin running down the stretch, shooting rockets at the monstrous witch hovering above them. Homura finishes her run first, as planned, and guides not only a tanker, but a series of railgun shots into Walpurgisnacht. She collapses in the middle of a broad expanse which lights up with red only a split second later, and the ensuing explosion is so great it would make a pyrotechnician proud.
Walpurgisnacht flies out of the smoke and fire soon after. Kyouko stares in shock and horror while Homura forces herself to move, drawing weapons with which to fend off the familiars that the witch keeps spewing. They come in swarms, and though Kyouko throws up barrier after barrier to keep them away, their sheer numbers begin to break the chains of red diamonds. "This can't be happening!" Kyouko snarls, spinning her spear and catching four familiars with it at once. "H-Homura, what do we do now?"
Homura glances helplessly at Kyouko and realizes she can't answer the other girl. How can she explain that, at this point in time, she would have reset the timeline already? The only thing keeping her here is the fact that Madoka is alive and Kyouko needs her, but if they can't stop the massive witch then the former is lost and the latter will be dead already. "Homu...ra?" Kyouko whispers, realizing her partner has stopped fighting. "Homura, what-"
"I'm sorry, Kyouko," Homura replies. "I don't think-"
"What do you mean we can't win!" Kyouko shrieks over the horrible giggles of the familiars. "What have we been doing all this time?"
The last plea strikes closer to home than Homura would rather admit; she draws one of her heavier guns and lays down a spray of cover fire before grabbing Kyouko and dragging her to safety behind a collapsed building. The gun falls from her hands, and before Kyouko can ask what Homura is doing she's reached into her pocket dimension again and grabbed the box of Pocky from before. "It's not like a last smoke," she mutters, her old self once again beginning to break through, "but it's what we've got."
"Promise me something, Homura," Kyouko replies, grabbing and downing Pocky with a vengeance. "Promise me we'll meet in... in heaven or in another life or something like this, 'kay? Just... not with the huge witches and-"
Homura moves in close to Kyouko, their lips almost touching, the taste of chocolate and pretzel blending with that of Kyouko's, and there they stay for a split second. Then there's a shattering of crystal: Homura closes her eyes in pain and turns away, so she doesn't have to see Kyouko slump to the ground, her fingers disturbing a few bits of red rock that used to be her soul gem. Walpurgisnacht rounds the corner and inhales to breathe fire, the telltale giggle giving her away, and there's no time: Homura's fingers grasp the rim of her shield and she forces herself back in time.
The bed again. The white ceiling, again. Kyouko, Walpurgisnacht, the ruined Mitakihara, gone, as if they were all specters of a nightmare that had overstayed its welcome. Homura knows better, though, and for the first time in some fifty timelines, the time-traveler begins to cry. She stops herself within seconds though, and forces herself to get out of bed once again, to dress herself once again, and to begin her quest anew. There is Kyubey to kill, Madoka she must speak to, and Kyouko she must try and preserve for the final battle. There is no time for tears- but maybe later, there will be.