Author's Notes (AU):
This story is based on a fan-theory about Homura's origins that was thought of since episode 1 and proved wrong on episode 10, so it is not considered canon. This particular theory was soon nicknamed "The Archer Theory" (hence the story's name) and those familiar with Fate/stay night will find it very similar to the origins of another archer. Everything except for the fundaments of the theory are my creation.
She is like a flame, a dark flame. Any witch that comes on her way is defeated, no exceptions.
She had the talent. She had the motives. She had innocence.
Yup, she had innocence.
Gertrud was surprisingly fast. But the three Puellae Magi were an invincible team.
"Be careful, you two!" Tomoe Mami shouted, without shifting attention from her shots
The witch's battle strategy was to attack alongside her familiars, an entire army of Anthonies and Adelberts. It worked agaisnt any Puella Magi that appeared to kill her, but this strategy was useless when fighting more than one enemy, let alone three.
"Oh no, you won't!" Miki Sayaka shouted, before slashing an Anthony that tried to cut Mami in half using its scissor.
Sayaka was the fastest of them all, covering their backs from any attacks and slashing any familiar that dared to come close to them. Mami had her muskets, fast and powerful, able to rain bullets on any enemy in a short amount of time. Madoka...
... was better than all of them together. The pink haired girl was smallest of them, but she was the most talented Puella Magi in the entire world. Her bow could only fire one arrow per shot, but it didn't matter. Gertrud might try avoiding it, but the arrow changed ways, twisted in the air, it wouldn't stop until it hit something. A single shot from Madoka's basic attack was half as powerful as Tiro Finale, Mami's most powerful spell.
Madoka's shield could not only defend her, but also stop time. Yeah, she used a bow and had a shield. It was uncommon, since archers only carried their bows and arrows. Shields were only used by knights or spearmen (and Sayaka already tried borrowing the pink haired girl's shield, saying that it suited her more since she used swords).
Those were the best days of her life. They were powerful, and no witch could stand up agaisnt them. Kaname Madoka, Tomoe Mami and Miki Sayaka were invencible.
"We did it!" Kaname Madoka cheerfully shouted once the Grief Seed appeared
And Gertrud learnt it the hard way.
It was peaceful in the start. Saving people was what magical girls did, right? But normal magical girls always won, no matter what. They weren't normal magical girls, they were Puellae Magi.
"Sayaka!" Sakura Kyouko shouted, rushing to the fallen body
Madoka threw up. Even her vomit was black. Elsa Maria's barrier was black and white (and red... like Sayaka's blood had proved) and she was grateful that she couldn't see her friend's -corpse- body. Sayaka rushed to the witch, thinking it would be an easy prey. She was wrong. Sayaka was getting cocky from her improvement on battle. She didn't have any natural talent, so getting stronger by herself really was a reason to be happy.
But she died. When her blade was only a few centimeters from Elsa Maria's body, it happened. The back of the witch exploded (or at least it seemed like it) and heads of many animals, all connected to the main body, attacked Sayaka. It was then that Kyouko screamed.
Both Kyouko and Mami rushed to Sayaka, trying to save her while Madoka couldn't even move. After all, it was the first time Madoka saw how horrible a true battle can be.
"Damn you!"
"Get out of the way!" Mami said in an usunual angry voice, her anger directed to the familiars that appeared in front of them
More familiars got in their way, making it impossible to save Sayaka. While Kyouko slashed any Sebastian in her way and Mami fired an entire barrage of bullets, the number of familars was so much for them to handle alone.
"Rosso Phantasma!"
It surprised Mami hearing that name after so much time. Didn't Kyouko say that she was never going to use that spell anymore? Looking to her side she saw four Kyoukos, each of them defeating a large number of familars with each slash.
It wasn't enough. While Mami and Kyouko tried to made their way across the army of Sebastians, the large number of animal heads -lions, tigers, sharks, bears, leopards- attacked the blue Puella Magi. She couldn't even scream, since one of the bears had broken her neck first. Instant death. They bit off various pieces of her body, leaving only something that could be described as "deformed meatloaf".
A large root-like black sludge exploded from the witch's body, engulfing the deformed meatloaf. They heard a noise, like glass breaking -Sayaka's Soul Gem- and knew that there wasn't any more hope.
At that point, they already had discovered the first truth about the Soul Gems.
Kyouko's vision went red. Redder than her Puella Magi uniform. With a cry of "Rosso Phantasma!" ten more Kyoukos appeared, finally destroying all familiars.
It was almost like bullying. Thirteen Kyoukos slashing, cutting and smashing only one witch. But she didn't care about it, she only wanted that witch destroyed. And Mami knew that Elsa Maria deserved that beating.
So, she focused on trying to calm Kaname Madoka, who couldn't stop crying even since Sayaka was first attacked.
It was then that everything started going downhill. First her friends, then her mentor and finally her family.
Madoka run away from home. She spent the entire day hunting for witches and familiars, non stop. Kyouko had to go to her hometown to get any Gried Seed, while Mami wondered for a while why witches stopped appearing. It took time for her to notice that the culprit of the disappearance of the witches was Madoka.
Madoka's family -Junko, Tomohisa and even the small Tatsuya- were worried for her. They were worried that she disappeared like Miki Sayaka, or worse, that their disappearancs were connected.
But Madoka didn't disappear, she changed, for better and for worse. For better in battle techniques and for worse in everything else.
Kaname Madoka became a witch-killing machine. The ribbons on her hair were gone, letting it flow free. Her new uniform was black, much like her new bow, since frills only got in her way during fights. She only stopped hunting for eating or sleeping.
"It is all my fault"
She could have defeat the witch that had killed Sayaka, but chose to give the credit of that battle to Sayaka and not attacked. It was all her fault.
Kaname Madoka was a cheerful and innocent girl, but Kaname Madoka wasn't suited to being a Puella Magi. She tried to change- she changed into an entire different person.
"We live for the sake of all humans, to protect them from the witches. We were selected by Kyubey because of that" Mami once told her
Someone that fought for the sake of a small group of people wasn't suited to be a hero. A hero fought for the sake of everyone. If it was needed to sacrifice one person to have a hundred, then it would be done. She couldn't care only for her family and friends anymore, no that's wrong... she couldn't care for them at all.
She would become a hero. Someone that fought for the sake of everyone. She could not save, but she could kill.
So, she became a killer to become a hero.
Soon, witches became only part of her responsability.
Any crime would be taken care of. A robber? He would be found with a small hole on his chest, like someone had fired an arrow at him. Kidnappers? The child would appear in the parent's door and an anonymous call would tell them where to find the corpses of the kidnappers.
She was like a blaze, Kyouko noted. Furious, direct, exotic and dangerous.
Oh, how ironic that the press decided to call her "The Black Flame".
The first superhero of Mitakihara Town became famous, and soon the entire country had heard of the dark haired girl.
After using her magic so many times, her hair and eyes changed colors. It was better this way, since anyone from her old life would not recognize her. She already had it hard with Kyouko and Mami reminding her of Sayaka.
Black and purple, the new colors of her hair and eyes suited her, or at least it was what Mami and Kyouko would say every time they meet.
"The Black Flame" wasn't their friend anymore. She was so powerful that fighting witches alongside her made them feel down at their own power level. They only meet by formality, and would only fight together if they coincidentally would meet each other inside of a witch's barrier.
She adopted the name "Homura". It meant "flame", much like her superhero persona.
Really, what kind of hero was called "Kaname Madoka"? She became a different person, so she deserved a different name.
"Why don't ya change yer surname to 'Akemi' too? 'Akemi Homura' sounds cooler than just 'Homura' or 'Kaname Homura'"
Mami scolded Kyouko for the suggestion. Homura didn't speak with them anymore, and the rare times she saw them Kyouko called her Homura, while Mami insisted to call her "Kaname-san".
It was all her fault.
Her hands were soaked with blood- Kyubey's blood.
The little damn cat/rat/whatever had tricked them! All witches she had been fighting were Puellae Magi! Their fate would be to become witches and then be killed by other Puellae Magi.
Just like Tomoe Mami...
Since Homura had been dealing with (almost) all witches, Tomoe Mami did what she didn't for years... had a social life.
Kyouko went to hunt witches on her hometown, but Mami ignored them and her Soul Gem darkened naturally. Eventually, it got completly black.
She killed Tomoe Mami. Kaname Madoka- no, Akemi Homura killed Tomoe Mami. She killed the girl she admired, she looked up. An ideal Puella Magi, the perfect senpai. The girl that had inspired her to become a hero.
Kyouko kept slamming the ground while crying, as if that could bring Mami back.
Homura wasted an arrow on Kyubey, trying to kill it. When another appeared, she killed it with her own hands, soaking them with blood (or whatever Kyubey had inside of him). When the third Incubator appared, she noticed that it didn't matter.
She couldn't kill him.
It was all her fault. Again.
She refused to kill any witches or familiars. She could not kill them, knowing that they were once human. But she still could kill human criminals.
Homura started wondering if she had any logic left on her.
"The Black Flame" wasn't a hero. A hero is someone who saves everyone. She only killed the villains. She wasn't the hero she thought she was.
She only heard about it the day after it had happened.
More than fifty people were found dead with strange marks on their necks -witches' kisses- but not a single scratch on their bodies.
The police did nothing to investigate, leaving their job to "The Black Flame", as usual. But three of those fifty people were...
"Mama, Papa, Tat-kun!"
The Kaname Family. Junko, Tomohisa and Tatsuya. They were dead. And it was all her fault.
The abnormal number of witches that appeared on Mitakihara during only one week of Homura's refusal for killing witches was extermined in less than a hour that day.
She wasn't a hero. She never was, and never would be.
Oh, how she envied those kids that thought they would become heroes when they grow up. Oh, how she envied her own past self.
Those happy times... with only herself, Mami and Sayaka fighting witches. The time when she was happy. The time when fighting witches was fun, when fighting for everyone's sake was fun.
The time when she had her innocence.
After all, in the end, she couldn't save anyone even by killing one person.
Killing one person to save ten, hundred, a thousand.
Too bad that logic didn't apply to Walpurgisnacht.
The theather witch was now only a pillar of fire. It stopped laughing and was now yelling in a warped and beast-like voice, almost as if it was saying "help me".
As if "The Black Flame" was going to help her.
Walpurgisnacht was overpowered even for her to fight alone. She relied on Sakura Kyouko's help, and the red haired girl now was laying on the ground. Her hairpin got destroyed during the fight, letting her hair loose. Her clothes were full os holes and cuts, almost all explosed skin was covered with wounds and burns. And worse of it all, a hole on her chest where her Soul Gem once was.
"It was a mercy kill. She herself asked me to shot her Soul Gem so that she could die as a human instead of a monster"
The buildings were destroyed, the city flooded and the water was red from the blood of the victims.
In the end, she failed as a hero. The ideals she borrowed from Tomoe Mami, she wasn't worth of them. In the entire city, only she lived. Everyone was dead.
Miki Sayaka. Tomoe Mami. Kaname Junko. Kaname Tomohisa. Kaname Tatsuya. Sakura Kyouko...
"Well, I'm going off now. Since Sakura Kyouko didn't become a witch, I'll have to search for another Puella Magi to contract"
She didn't care that it was useless. She fired an arrow at Kyubey, and then another, and another, and another...
Soon, there were more Kyubey corpses than humans on that city.
Why?
Why did she stopped caring from her family and friends for the sake of everyone?
Why did she try to become another person?
In two years, her life was turned upside-down.
Homura looked down on her shield, the black diamond that was able to stop time...
... and to go back in time.
She could fix it. She could fix it.
She was always small, and despite having grown during the years, only now she had the average height of a normal 14 years old girl.
Despite being sixteen, she could easily pass as fourteen, right? Right?
She would make sure... that she didn't stop caring for her family... and that she wouldn't try to become another person.
She would save them all. Save them all from the fate of becoming Kyubey's pawns... and eventually, witches.
And thus, she went back.