On scale.
It was a cold winter night in Mitakihara. The wind blew as sharply as a knife, slicing through everything that crossed its path. Snow was falling gently to the ground. The citizens slept uneasily in their beds, not aware they were dreaming demons into existence.
Akemi Homura was sitting on top of a parking garage after a particularly exhausting kill. She scooped the last of the remnants into her hand and threw them over her shoulder at Kyubey, who opened his slot and collected them inside his pristine carapace.
Homura cast her eyes upward. The sky was unusually starry tonight; the moon was new. She noticed a constellation which, if she perhaps squinted, might look like…
But no. She'd have to content herself with carrying her in her heart, not looking for her around every corner. It was selfish, not to mention absurd.
Homura, are you ready to leave yet? Kyubey's voice in her mind startled her.
Homura was taken out of her own thoughts and back into the real world. "No," she said bluntly.
You need to be well-rested. It would not do for you to die in battle for lack of a quick wit, Kyubey advised in his meaningless lilt.
"Afraid I'll catch cold?" Homura asked, a bit bitterly.
Kyubey didn't respond.
"I was thinking about… the stars," Homura sighed. "And how there are billions out there. Thousands of billions, even… I think I read ten to the twenty-second power, somewhere." She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm boring you, aren't I? You know all this already."
I do, Kyubey thought. In fact, I believe I understand much better than you. You can recite the facts, but the human mind is not capable of even approaching comprehension.
"Still, it's a reminder of just how small we really are in the end, isn't it?" Homura laid herself out lazily on the pavement, receiving a panoramic view of the twinkling sky. "All of those dots are huge, burning suns many light-years away from us. Our planet is a speck. All of the petty passion plays acted out here on Earth are meaningless to anyone that far away."
Again, Kyubey didn't respond.
"It's just…" Homura said, and she wasn't really talking to Kyubey any more. "For a long time, my universe was a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that. One city for one month. And not even that. More like one person. Granted, for hundreds of years, but that's hardly anything compared to the age of the universe. And now I can see that. You and me, Kyouko, Mami… we might as well just be a single bacterium for all anyone on this Earth cares for our problems. And then you zoom out the telescope even more, and Earth is nothing too. It might as well not even be here…" she trailed off and sat up again. "Sorry, I got a little self-indulgent there."
Kyubey still didn't respond. For a while, Homura just stared out at the city again, her eyes glazed over. Then, just when she was about to say good night to Kyubey and head home, he said something.
What you say is true, Kyubey said. On a cosmological scale your problems are meaningless. And yet out of all the planets in the universe – and there are many of them, more than you could ever imagine – this is the one my species has chosen.
"On a cosmological scale, your problems are also meaningless. So if that was supposed to comfort me, it didn't work." Homura exhaled, painting a cloud onto the chilled air like a child in art class dipping their paintbrush into a cup of water.
I do not understand the concept of comfort, Kyubey said, licking his paw. I was merely stating fact. In any case, while we are nothing to the universe at large, we are very large when measured on certain scales. We may be a bacterium to the world and an atom to the universe, but to atoms and bacteria we are giants of impossible scale. Even in the tiniest moment and in the smallest place, countless even smaller things die and are born. That you and I are in a position to experience this universe as sentient beings at all might by you humans be called astonishing.
Homura was the silent one this time. All that could be heard for a while was the noise of the cars below, gliding quietly from point A to point B. The city did not see the thirteen-year-old girl on top of the roof, nor her tiny familiar. Snow continued to drift down to the bottom of the city.
Finally, she laughed. If Kyouko, Mami, or anyone else she knew had been there, they would not have recognized the sound.
Again, the curious human reaction of levity, Kyubey said, singsong. What is it?
"You're not the one I would have imagined thinking on the microscopic level," Homura said, and she cracked a smile. "Maybe you've been talking to me too much."
The converse is true of you. Perhaps you're talking to me too much. Kyubey stalked off into the night.
Homura cupped her hands out to the snow. She liked snow - there was something pure about it. Finally, after sitting there for a long time (or perhaps, when all was said and done, a very short one), she left.
The ground was covered with snow the next morning.
On her way to school, Akemi Homura saw a child making a snow angel. For the rest of the day, she felt happier than she had been in quite a while. She didn't know why.