AN: nother short one-shot, this one a Madoka thing. It hasn't been beta'd by anyone who knows too much about Madoka, and I myself am rather rusty, so some of the characterization may be a bit off. And no, I don't really have a concrete idea when in the Madoka timeline it takes place. (I might fix it up later. We shall see.)
Homura-Chan
Under a sky covered in darkness, a girl watched her precious one's life drain away.
"M...madoka..."
"It's okay... Homu-chan... I-it doesn't...hurt..."
Even as her best friend smiled up at her, Homura knew Madoka was lying. The tears on the pink-haired girl's face were proof enough of that. They mixed with the tears that fell from Homura's dark eyes, overflowing and running into the shattered ground.
Around them was a place that could only be called 'hell'. Mitakahara stood in ruins, the once proud city now little but rubble and broken buildings beneath a sky painted gray. Homura could see the structures, the ground that had been picked up and used as weapons... and over it all, spun a towering monstrosity of gears and clockwork, an inverted figure dancing without end. Laughing at the meager attempts that had been made to defeat it.
Walpurgisnacht. Covered in arrows and gashes, it was battered... but certainly not broken.
"You're so s-strong, Homu-chan..."
The weak voice of her friend drew the raven-haired Magical Girl's attention back downwards, towards the suffering thing beneath her. One of Madoka's hands shakily clutched a single ornate jewel, blackened and clouded with only the slightest point of pink light still shining from it. Madoka's Soul Gem. She'd fought that monstrosity, and she'd lost. Hadn't she? The blood seeping from her body was proof enough of what she'd been through.
"Y-you saved me... s-so many times... f-from all sorts of things, right? Even... b-being a Magical Girl..."
So many times Homura Akemi had struggled – and failed – to save Madoka Kaname. Too many times. Too many resets. The time traveler felt useless, felt her resolve cracking. So this time, she tried something different. She tried to be Madoka's friend. To be there for her. To stay at her side even as she protected her from Kyubey. It'd... been difficult.
"Now make a contract with me, and become a-"
BANG!
"H-h-h-h-h-hOMURA?! Y-y-you shot hi-"
"Don't be fooled. He's fine. Kyubey has many bodies. More importantly, you need to know... Being a magical girl isn't at all what you think it is. What he wants you to think it is..."
"B-b-b-ut why..?!"
Lying to her friend's face... it had been hard. Even telling half-truths like the fuzzball did... uncomfortable. Unpleasant. But it was needed. To keep Madoka from wanting to become a Magical Girl, without revealing the whole terrible truth. And to be there for her. Those days with Madoka... Homura had enjoyed them.
"I c-can see you really c-care about me... e-even if I still d-don't...know why..."
"Once you become a magical girl, you can never go back. You'll be forced to fight Witches for the rest of your days. Even other Magical Girls, most likely. Most of them... they aren't nice people. Out for themselves, first and foremost. Willing to hurt others to get what they want. It's why the job has such a high mortality rate."
"W-w-w-wha..."
Madoka was still smiling. Damn it. She was still smiling, even as her life faded away...that smile, Homura knew it too well. It meant Madoka didn't regret... dying... that Homura had failed yet again...
"Y-y-you wanna know w-what I wished for, r-right?"
Transfixed as she was, Homura Akemi could only nod. The pinkette smiled a bit brighter at that. She took a moment, slowly raising her hand, wiping the blood from her mouth. Then she spoke, with all the strength gathered in that moment. A resolve that Homura had never seen Madoka possess before.
"I wished... that I could p-protect you, Homura-chan. No matter what."
Her dark eyes widened, and tears fell anew. This was... her fault. Not only had she failed to save Madoka, but... but...
"The H-homura who wants to be my friend. The Homura w-who has lots of secrets..."
Madoka had sacrificed herself for Homura, and it was all her fault...
"The Homura who can fight anyone or anything and win... T-the Homura who doesn't know how to handle it when I smile, or hug her..."
Why had she let herself be such a fool? She should have known the lengths Madoka would go to for her friends. She did know those lengths. How the hell did she think that befriending Madoka would possibly save her?!
"Homu...ra...chan... who does... everything to protect me... who must... love me very... v-very much.."
Who must love her very much. Shock tore Homura's eyes wide open all over again and forced a scream of woe from her throat. Salty drops eclipsed her sight completely as the Magical Girl fell against her best and only friend, sobbing openly on her heart. To which, the dying pinkette could only smile – that smile, that smile – and shake her head slowly. One of those gentle, wonderful hands came up to the raven-haired girl's face, streaked with tears and the hints of blood... and lifted it up, ever so slightly.
"S-sorry for... leaving you... Hope you can... forgive me..."
Perhaps that genuine apology should have lifted Homura's spirits. It didn't. Certainly not enough. Even as Madoka's gentle hands – from which the life was fading – grasped her chin and slowly, gently, lifted it upwards. To point those blurry eyes away from her... towards... towards the form of Walpurgisnacht, whirling carelessly away amongst its stormy clouds.
"It's p-pretty weak now... F-finish it off for me... okay?"
Madoka Kaname closed her eyes for the last time, her mouth still curled into a teary smile as the last remnants of life spilled out from her. And Homura Akemi screamed. She howled to the heavens. To the uncaring monster twirling in the sky, Walpurgisnacht. The one who had stolen her precious Madoka from her yet again. Was this really... all she would ever do? Watch Madoka suffer and be able to do nothing about it? She was... she was...
Focus, Homura! She shook her head rapidly, reaching up to clear her eyes from their veil of tears. She needed to concentrate. To keep moving forward, before Madoka's corpse spawned her Witch. In this case, to reset time and try again, so that she could sa-
…
What was that?
Homura Akemi had already unconsciously begun moving her hand, to reach into her shield and to use her power to turn back to a month ago, back to another chance to save her beloved Madoka. But something touched her. Not just touched, even. Something... grabbed her arm, and squeezed it tightly.
"ngh...gotta... protect Homura... protect..."
Homura's eyes shot downwards- and met those of Madoka Kaname, opening once more. Not dissolving away as the girl's body was consumed to form the monstrosity known as Kreimhilde Gretchen. Not simply staying shut forever. They opened. They looked at her. Not just with empty eyes, like some sort of zombie. With intelligence. With life. Life that had wrapped a hand around her arm, stopping Homura short of resetting the timeline.
How...?
"Hey."
Madoka smiled again, and spoke to Homura. And for the first time in a while, Homura replied. Not with a scream, but with a stuttering voice, full of awe.
"H-how did you...?"
The pink-haired girl who had lain dying upon the ground, about to turn into a Witch, just a moment ago... shrugged her shoulders. It was too.. clean. Too easy. This wasn't the barely functional Madoka that had been there a moment ago.
"I don't know, but... Well, if I'm dead, I can't protect you, now, can I?"
That... almost made sense, but even so... Still, Homura shook as the revived magical girl gently picked her up and pushed her raven-haired friend to the side. And then... and then she rose, she stood. A little shaky, perhaps not surprising given that her physical body was still in tatters, but she stood all the same.
"And right now, protecting you is what's most important to me, Homura-chan. So let's finish this, okay? Together."
Quiet, demure, kind, gentle Madoka, the Madoka who would never lift a finger to hurt anyone, who wished for nothing but the happiness of others... she found her bow, and she lifted it. The string was broken, but a quick gesture from her fingers, and it reappeared before Homura's eyes in a little flash of pink light. The same shade that shone from Madoka's eyes... eyes that burned with that determination that had somehow brought her back from the dead. A determination to protect Homura Akemi, no matter what. To pay her back for all the things she'd done.
For the first time today, Homura smiled. Her emotions raged inside her. Her mind raced, struggling to make sense of this impossibility before her. Wondering if she ought to reset anyways, now that Madoka was a magical girl. Even if she died without becoming a Witch. Or maybe, maybe there was hope? Maybe it wouldn't end in tragedy like every other time she'd thought she would-
None of that mattered. Not right now. Right now she had Madoka. She could worry about the terrible truth and her regrets and the future later.
Right now, Homura smiled, tears of joy streaming down her face as she, too, staggered to her feet.
"Y-yes!"
AN: What is it with me and short emotional pieces lately? This one actually wasn't intended as such. It started as me brainstorming how to redo the MGLN-PMMM crossover (ie Takamachi-Tomoe Effect et al) in a way that was more interesting, a better premise if you will. Among the ideas I floated around was having Madoka somehow be the one recovered. Which required her either reviving or being recovered as a dead body. In the end, I decided that the idea of a reviving Madoka was a little too... out there? snowflake? for the crossover, but I felt it could stand on its own for a short, so a short I wrote. I might write a sequel piece later, but don't count on it. Even I haven't decided exactly what's going on with Madoka here, after all.
Special thanks to SkywalkerT-65 for unwittingly inspiring this with Salvation or Mercy's Kreimhilde!Madoka. Plus Twist of Fate is pretty good, even if it has such an overused title. Seriously, it's unbelievable how many Twists of Fate there are...