This has happened before. I never thought it'd happen again. You probably aren't familiar with Ragnarok- not the war, but the fanfic. Writing myself, and a motley collection of Spacebattlers as we were ripped out of our home reality and dumped into a war zone. Changes were made. So were mistakes. Eventually it ended, unfinished. In time, it was forgotten.
But not, apparently, by everyone.
This has happened before. I threw myself out of bed- frantic, reacting to some dream thing, some unformed threat. I stood- and as I blinked myself awake realized that this time there was something different. For one, I wasn't in my room.
Point of fact, I wasn't sure where I was. The room was spartan, but elegant. It had a sort of minimalist appeal to it, all recessed lines and smooth edges. It was then that I became aware that I was not alone. There was a girl in the room, maybe sixteen. Long black hair, and eyes almost a shade of amethyst. She was Japanese, obviously, and dressed in a beige school uniform of some sort- but I didn't immediately place where I knew it from.
"... the hell?" I began.
"You should not be here," She said, as though it wasn't obvious. "How did you get in here?"
She spoke English well, but there was the barest hint of an accent.
"Hell if I know. This is..." I paused, and really looked around. There was something familiar about this room, but I didn't know what. "Where are we?"
"This is my house. Do you truly not know how you got here?" She seemed... bewildered. Suspicious. I didn't know her, so I could only estimate what she might be feeling. Nonverbal cues were never my strong suit.
Abruptly, she turned and exited the room, glancing back over her shoulder at me. Follow?
I followed her after a few moments- moments I used to try and get a sense for what was going on and found myself in a white room. A clock chimed, and I glanced up. Above me was the workings of a vast clock, clicking and turning away. The girl herself had sat down at one of several benches, arranged in a circular fashion. Behind her drifted several images, depicting ancient texts, diagrams, and oh so familiar pictures.
Abruptly I knew where I was.
"Oh," I muttered under my breath.
Shit.
This has happened before. But it was just a game before, just a story. Now it's real, and I... what the hell am I going to do.
"My name is Kerrus," I began, deciding to get it out into the open. "And I'm from another universe."
It sounded strange. Hell, it sounded ludicrous. But it really was the only answer I could see.
"Homura Akemi," she replied, confirming my fears. She wasn't even phased at my appearance, why should she be phased at my claim?
Of course, surely she would want to know how I had arrived at the conclusion I was from another universe. That sort of thing isn't usually what people think when they wake up in a strange place. But I didn't think like other people.
"Just so you understand, I have no idea how I got here. And what I can see of here scares me shitless. So really, there's just one pertinent question I need to ask before this discussion goes any further."
Homura maintained eye contact, but said nothing else.
"Which loop is this?"
Her eyes narrowed, and I heard the click of a pistol.
Fuck.
Hello, Homura-san. Who is your friend?
I glanced from the now gun wielding girl, then turned and looked behind me. Perched on one of the railings was Kyubey. Or as I knew him, the- don't finish that thought.
His red eyes turned, but I could not discern if they saw me. They looked like glass orbs. For all I knew, they were.
I don't usually make exceptions, but is there anything you want? Anything you would wish for? he said, the voice sounding in my mind.
"Get out," Homura said, pointing the gun at the little white abomination. She'd spoken in Japanese, but already the familiar was acting as a telepathic hub- I'd heard her words echoed in my mind and verbally. The strange thing was that the thought itself was Japanese... but I could still understand it.
Now, now, Homura-san, we both know that won't work. Besides, I'm just the messenger. I'm sure you'll want to know its progress. Walpurgisnacht will be here soon.
Ah. Of course.
"Could you really send me home? Do you have that kind of power?" I asked, not seriously considering it. In all likely hood, Kyuubey's kind didn't exist in my world. That meant no Puella Magick. It meant no witches- what power I gained from such a hypothetical exchange would be wasted. If I was lucky, I would never use it again. But the consequences- including eventual witchdom... eeeyeh.
I don't have any power. As Homura-san knows, I'm just the facilitator. Any means of transcending the entropy exists within you. But perhaps the possibility exists.
It was neither conformation, nor denial. I began to see how a young girl could be taken in by that kind of reasoning.
"Then no thanks. Besides, there aren't any Witches to fight where I come from," I replied after a moment.
Aren't there? Kyuubey asked, tilting its head. A gunshot rang out, in the space between seconds- but Kyubey was gone.
Goddamn, I am so screwed.
"I don't mean to impose," I began, turning back to Homura-san. "But..."
"You may stay," she said, answering. Then she stood and headed for the door- a door I hadn't seen before. I followed, and realized that it was a recessed opening within one of the walls. The white room's walls were so finely made that one could barely see them except up close.
"Thank you. How long until the end of the-?" I had been about to say loop, but I realized that such only applied to her.
"Four weeks, maybe five."
"Not a lot of time to enjoy the end of the world then," I answered. There was no reason to assume she could take me back when she jumped, or that she even would. If Kyubey was right about my 'potential', Homura might not even possess the capability. Maybe.
It's so different theorizing about real things, rather than fictional things masquerading as logic.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
I didn't actually except there would be. She had already been through hell and back- always back. What could I do but offer?
"Dinner will be at 7. There's some money in the drawer," she replied. Then I was alone.
"She wants me to have dinner with her? Huh," I said aloud. Then I set about looking for a computer. If there was one in here, it was probably recessed into the walls, just like everything else in the white room. If I could find it, I might be able to actually do something. Although if it was worth anything, I wouldn't know until later.
Ahah. I was right. A holographic keyboard- like the one from Madoka's room. One of the floating screens took on the appearance of a desktop with... a photo perfect shot of Madoka and... if I had to guess, it was Sayaka. The muted pink hear and ribbons was obvious, but I guess blue didn't translate that well into 'real life' o vision.
Of course, the entire interface, while bordering on familiar, was Japanese.
"Does this thing have an English mode?" I wondered. Huh. The entire thing was abruptly in English. Almost outside of my control, the mouse moved down to the clock on the bottom right of the screen, hovering over it. A small popup, indicating the date appeared. The year was 20XX.
Really?
"Really?" I repeated aloud, incredulous. "20XX?"
I opened up the web browser, typed in the Spacebattles web address, and hit enter.
"What does it matter that you're 'saving the universe' if it kills everyone on the goddamn planet," I muttered.
The universe is worth protecting Kyuubey replied, having appeared just out of eyesight a moment before. I had felt the gaze though. A prickling down my back. Now, who are you really?
"Who do you think I am?" I shot back. He wouldn't answer- his kind didn't volunteer information, unless it had them something to gain.
I think you're an interloper. What has Homura-san been telling you? My work here will save the universe. Surely that's a worthy goal.
No emotions. Not just that, but willfully amoral.
"Not if nobody's around to see it. What good is a universe without life?"
You could see it. Your potential entropy is great enough.
That...
I won't lie to you. That was tempting. Really tempting. Functioning immortality- albeit with a bit of a price? Goddamn, who was I to say no to that sort of offer?
"No." I said.
Perhaps another time, then. In the meantime, don't interfere.
"Or what?"
Kyuubey tilted his head.
You'll die. Surely you don't want that, right?
In the end, what I found on the internet was disappointingly normal. I had my suspicions about the nature of the world, but it seems I'd have to dig deeper to find out the truth. About the only good piece of information I found was the date- and that was only due to supposition. Ten years ago, a Tsunami had hit japan after a magnitude 9 earthquake. Nothing actually listed a real date, which was increasingly odd- just the '20XX' I'd seen before. But by itself, it meant nothing.
Spacebattles existed, unsurprisingly, but the really creepy bit was- so did I. A poster named Kerrus, who posted in a style very similar to mine. I tried logging on to his account, but none of my passwords worked. Guess some things are too different.
With my internet searches done, I decided that my best bet was to go out for a walk. At the very least get a feel for the neighborhood I'd be spending the next month or so in... and then...
I didn't like to think about the impending death of the world, but there really wasn't much I could do. Puella Magi Madoka Magicka hadn't finished back home. It had been delayed due to the Tsunami. Curse my luck, but I had no idea where the series would go from the last point I saw it- or what revelations would be unlocked. While I could just hang around and hope things went 'okay', I doubted I'd be so lucky.
Walking down the street, I realized that this area was fairly abandoned. No stalls in the streets, no people. I wondered how much of it had been here before, and how much Homura had brought back with her after the last loop. Oh, there were a couple people- some teenagers skipping school, and at least one duty cop trying to round them up, but otherwise it was... quiet. I took the time to memorize the street signs, and then caught a bus to the inner city. I didn't know what Madoka's school was called, so I navigated by landmarks. Although, let me tell you that not speaking the language does not make it easy to get around.
Eventually, I made it to the neighborhood where the mainstream area of the series took place. I just hoped that my memories matched the reality as much as reality- so far- matched my memories.
So I picked a bridge and occupied it.
Maybe an hour passed before I spotted something. Two girls, one with pink hair and ribbons.
Man, if I got arrested for being a stalker, I would be so pissed. But I had to know how far into the loop we were, and that meant following them- at least assuming that today was a day as shown in the series. I couldn't assume that each episode compromised only a single day. While some were arranged obviously back to back, others were likely spread out a bit more. Homura had mentioned 'five or six weeks' until Walpurgisnacht arrived, and given the statement of 'two weeks' until its arrival during the course of the show, that gave me... three weeks at best. Most likely less.
I kept my distance from the girls, although I caught Kyuubey glancing in my direction a couple times. I imagine that I was either suspicious as all hell, or 'just another tourist'- hopefully it was the latter. Naturally, I couldn't understand anything they were saying, but maybe they'd pass a landmark I could recog- that's the hospital.
We're in episode 3.
My original plan was to find the Witch's mark and, quite simply, stand in front of it. Madoka and Sayaka wouldn't notice it, and continue on their way. If I was lucky, I could get out without further endangering myself. There would be no need for anyone to die.
Naturally, no plan survives first contact. The first hint of trouble came when I lost Madoka behind a gaggle of doctors rushing to the emergency ward. I didn't have any reason to be in the hospital myself, and the presence of an English speaking foreigner with no ID would... probably not go over well with security. So instead, I headed back out and decided to look for the Witch's mark while Sayaka was visiting her friend.
You might ask why I'm going to such lengths to change things- why I'm trying to save the lives of someone who a mere day ago was just fiction. I'll tell you that it was never fiction to me- it was real. Just a different kind of real. If I can act to prevent an atrocity, I will surely act. It's not like I've got long to wait otherwise. This world is living on borrowed time.
"Where... the hell... are you?" I muttered aloud. I'd passed the bike racks three times now, but there was no mark. If my memories were accurate, I had the right area, but... no witch. Could there be a delay on this sort of thing?
Green hair. A girl, clutching her sides in pain. Well, this was a hospital.
"Excuse me, do you need help?" I asked. It was a long shot that she spoke English, but it was possible. Homura did.
"S-stay away," she shouted at me. Her eyes were... there was something about her eyes that was familiar- but I couldn't quite figure it out.
What little medical training I had told me that she was in serious pain. She needed a doctor. My original mission forgotten- or at least waylaid, I moved to assist her.
"No!" a flash, the smell of something sickly sweet. A green coloured blade pointed at me. "You..."
She grimaced in pain.
"You need to run!"
I could see it now, what she held to her side, as she shook. It looked like a Faberg egg, but simmering with green light. Blackness clutched at it.
"What's your name?" I asked, even unwilling to stand aside in the face of such impending danger. "At least tell me your name."
"Tsu... Tsubame."
This was no story, no game. It was real, and the reality of it demanded a decision.
"Let's get you away from here. There's a cafe just down the block," I said. Then moved to help her up. She muttered something, under her breath. It sounded like 'why won't you run?'. She was crying. I was scared out of my mind.
"It hurts," she said- but not in English. I recognized the Japanese, and I replied in kind.
"It'll be okay," I lied. "It'll be okay."
We made it to the cafe. I bought her a slice of cheesecake. Or rather, I took one as the owner took one look at the fierce light of her Soul Gem and booked it out the back entrance. I'd pay him back later- if there was a later.
Tsubame was a cancer patient of course. Charlotte, the witch she was becoming, was focused on desserts- the desserts that Tsubame could never have. If... maybe the cake would make a difference.
"You... you're kind," she said, tears running down her face. She favored me with a slight smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. She took a bite of the cake. "It's delicious..."
Some of her words were English. Some were Japanese, or so they seemed. But I could tell she was wracked by pain now. I wished I could take that pain away from her. Wished there was something I could do.
But who was I? I was a nobody. Some random stranger thrown into a doomed world by unknown forces. And now I was running head first towards certain doom. Tsubame would die, birthing a new Witch. If that process didn't kill me, I would surly die to the Witch herself, or be trapped forever in her labyrinth. I was no Puella Magicka, and with my change to the time line... I had no hope of rescue.
But still I refused to leave.
"It'll be okay," I repeated. I wrapped my arm around her, and placed a hand on the soul gem. I could feel it pulsing, flickering. A strange sort of ephemeral power. Spiraling towards its natural end. "It'll be over soon."
The gem burst. Tsubame's eyes went dull, and she slumped against me. This was death. Hers and mine. The newly born grief seed pulsed, then cast a cruel, anesthetic light. In the path of that light, the cafe vanished. The chairs, the windows, the walls. The street outside. Replaced with the styling of a hospital. Empty and forlorn. The seed raised, then- a flashing of light and motion, sealed itself within a metal cage. Tsubame's body fell to the ground, inert. Empty. And I...
I raged. How I raged. But I was just a guy. Just a nobody. I scraped my fists against the cage. I yelled myself hoarse. But it did nothing. I had done nothing. Only delayed the inevitable. Who was I to think that I could change things.
"You are such a dumbass," I told myself. "God fucking damn, you are such a dumbass. Why do you care so much!"
I didn't have an answer. I just knew that I did. I wondered if I'd changed things enough. Would Madoka still find the labyrinth? Would Mami still die?
Or would Charlotte partake of delicious spacebattler, om nom nom.
I really hoped I'd never actually know what om nom noms felt like. I eyed the grief seed, then settled down to wait for the inevitable.
Here lies Kerrus Magrus.
He cared too much.
Life isn't easy. It was one of those things that I learned very early on. A sufferer of a socio-behavioural learning disability, my mind did not work like other people's minds did.
I once considered that my greatest weakness- but time and again has proven that not thinking like other people is also my greatest strength. I mean, it's not just not arriving at the same conclusions, or having to build a virtual empathy machine (more on that later) from scratch, but like... just the underlying mechanics of my consciousness operate differently. In some particular cases, this manifested as more... computer like. The brain is a computer, of course, but it doesn't usually BSoD (except in anime), and it doesn't usually hang on a logic error for several minutes before safeties kick in. Very angry safeties.
So when I heard the tapping of shoes in the distance- a solitary figure heading towards me, I didn't react with hope or grief- but anger. God Damnit, if that's Sayaka, I am going to slap a bitch.
It...
Okay, we're in serious deviation land here.
"Kyouko?" I asked, flabbergasted. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same about you, gaijin," she replied. "But I owed Homura a favour, so here I am. Although I do have to ask, who exactly... is that?"
I turned, as she gestured, and pointed at the cage that held Tsubame's grief seed.
Except it wasn't a grief seed.
"Ano... could you help me get out?" asked Tsubame, whole and intact, locked inside the cage. I was, of course, instantly on guard, but also completely bewildered.
Tsubame turned and smiled at me.
"You were right, Kerrus-san, it doesn't hurt anymore," she said, smiling. Her hand held the former soul gem/grief seed, now looking once more like an intricate Faberg egg. Except where once it had shone green, now it was lit by a warm white. "I can't seem to use my powers."
The inner otaku who lives deep within my inner geek was squealing at how cute she was, but the me who was in charge of this operation, the me that runs all the operations, well, I was a bit more reserved.
"Tsubame, meet Kyouko. She's a friend."
"Not your friend, Gaijin. This is just a favour to Homura-chan."
"-chan?" I raised an eyebrow. More lesbian subtext. As though she hadn't had enough before. I smirked.
Kyouko flushed and turned away. Then she gestured with her spear, neatly bisecting the cage that contained Tsubame. Freed, the girl stepped out, smiling, then... latched on to my arm.
"Let's get out of here, Kerrus-san," she said. I could feel the warmness from her- alive, and well.
"Okay, hang on, two things. One. How are you alive?" I turned and asked Tsubame.
"I... before I was hurting and thinking of all the missed opportunities, all my regrets," Tsubame admitted. "It wasn't a good place for me to be. But then you came. And even though I was sure you were going to die, you didn't leave. You cared, Kerrus-san. So I had no regrets."
"No regrets, huh?"
I frowned.
"That still doesn't explain the Labyrinth," I offered. "Kyouko, did you see any familiars on your way in?"
"Keh, it was empty. Not even the typical echoes. Strangest labyrinth I've been in, Gaijin," she replied, taking a bite out of a meat bun. "I don't have all day, so let's go."
We were interrupted by a light. A blinding light, shining, burning through the labyrinth. As though it had cut a... space... into the space, it stood before us, a great cross of light, shining against the warped skies of the labyrinth.
My apologies, but I cannot let you leave, interloper-san. I told you not to interfere. I told you that it would cost you your life. For that which I am, it was remarkably forthright, but it did not benefit me to conceal the truth from you. You knew too much.
Red eyes, and an uncaring smile in the dark. Then light again.
"What the hell is that? Witches don't talk. Just who the hell do you think you are?" Kyouko all but growled, summoning her spear. "God? Devil? I'll fight you just the same!"
I had such hopes for you Kyouko-san. However, now that Kaname Madoka is in the picture... I don't need you at all. Even with this expenditure of energy, I'll still exceed my quota. Goodbye.
I had all of a moment to say "What?" before the ground was torn from under our feet, and we were cast down, plummeting forever in a void outside the world.