A/N: Whew! I am on a roll this week.
So, my first Puella Magi Madoka Magica story. It's a "what if?" type deal, mainly revolving around Homura's timeline travels. I mean, what if there were other versions of her that never got live that month because of her interfering? The idea wouldn't leave me alone! So this is the result.
I give you warnings now, there are spoilers for the series, as well, as spoilers for the 3rd movie, "Rebellion." Be prepared.
Disclaimer: I don't own Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If I did, many of the characters wouldn't have died, and it wouldn't be appropriate to watch.
1.
As Homura looks at the broken corpse of Madoka on the destroyed ground, having been the last one standing to take out the Walpurgisnacht, all she can do is grit her teeth and sigh. She ignores the panicky, desperate feeling she gets after each and every failed attempt - you failed you failed youfailedyoufailed - and rubs a rough sleeve over her eyes to brush away the sting of tears. She calls her shield to her and activates it, and then she's watching reality slip away from her for one relieving moment.
She never sees the other figure who appears in her place, body thumping to the groud, purple eyes opening for the first time in a month. She never sees the other girl take in the devastation and destruction around her with sleepy, bewildered, slowly horrified eyes. She never sees purple eyes pass almost sightless over a Sakura Kyoko drenched in blood, not even breathing from her position impaled on a power-line, the crumpled pieces of her soul gem fragmented on the ground below her. She never sees purple eyes tear up at the sight of the beheaded corpse of Tomoe Mami, soul gem pieces scatted around her head like one does flowers on a grave. And she never sees purple eyes rest brokenly on one Kaname Madoka, now nothing more than a corpse with little pink fragments ash-like on her chest, a hole blown open where her heart should be.
Akemi Homura never hears the first scream of many that pierces the air as a different version of herself falls to her knees and cries out in despair.
2.
As Akemi Homura surpasses time and entropy again and again and again, she is totally unaware - or maybe numbly ignoring, she no longer knows - of the despair she leaves in her wake. She no longer knows just why her heart hurts more and more, and then becomes numb after a time to stop the different timelines from hurting her in compensation. She is unaware of how many times she breaks her own heart in her ultimate quest to save Madoka. She never knows of the other Homuras who come after her; the ones who reap what she has sowed, the ones who are forced to lye in the funeral bed she has made.
(A Homura who lives to battle Walpurgusnacht alone. A Homura who is hunted to death by Kyoko after she lost Madoka to Sayaka, and then first Homura eradcated Sayaka in revenge. A Homura who never contracted, and who died with the rest of the citizens when the Walpurgisnacht comes through and the others have failed to bring the witch down. A Homura who is hated by everyone who lives for having failed to save anyone.)
Akemi Homura lives through the multiple, different timelines, and never knows of her own fate in each of them.
3.
She's failed again. Madoka has died again, and she just barely manages to hold in her scream. The others have all lived this time around, even Sayaka - after Homura had eliminated half of Kyousuke's hospital in an attempt to do something different this time around, Kyousuke and Hitomi included. But Madoka has died again, and this result is all that matters to Homura. The others have long since stopped mattering to her, when she realized more people to look after enabled Madoka to die faster.
Homura's reaching to activate her shield before she even realizes she's doing so, and is almost surprised when Sayaka turns an enraged face towards her. Almost, except that this outcome has happened before, but with an angry Sakura Kyoko.
"That's it?" She hisses, blues eyes as sharp as the blades she wields, and Homura fights to keep the despairing, lost expression from her face. She simply raises an eyebrow and ignores her itching fingers instead. Sayaka looks like she's going to start frothing at the mouth while Kyoko looks at her lost, and Mami looks around the destroyed ruins of Mitakihara City with a faraway expression.
"All that, and you allowed Madoka to die?!" She rages, and her words bring all their eyes to Madoka's content corpse. Her body has long since stopped twitching, and Homura knows from experience that it'll be cold to the touch. The only thing that doesn't change with Madoka's death is the heartbreaking smile she leaves with. Homura says nothing, keeping the acid and bile from escaping past her lips. Instead, she raises a hand to her shield, and slips away from this timeline to Sayaka's enraged scream.
It's in the breaths between one moment and the next that the other her wakes on the concrete, sleepy purple eyes taking in the smoke-filled sky for the first time in a month. She raises her glasses-covered eyes to the trio standing a few feet from her, and watches in dazed confusion as they seem to speak to themselves, and then one of them – the blue haired one – falls limply to the ground next to a pink clad figure. Akemi Homura sits up to better exam the prone girl, and feels her heart clench painfully in her chest when she sees the dead, content smile on the girls' lips, not understanding why she suddenly feels the urge to scream.
None of the other girls have noticed her, and it's to this she watches as the blue haired girl laughs, her voice sounding on the verge of insane hysteria, and a dark orb falls from her left hand and shatters, the pieces exploding into the air before reforming into a dark, black form, pointy on one end, and round in the middle. She watches in horrified confusion as the other two - red and yellow, who were they? - have the same thing happen to them, and then their bodies all disappear into the air.
There's giggling around her, a mixed sound that raises the hair on the back of her neck and makes her shiver in instinctual terror. Her breathing begins to speed up, and she stands on shaky legs as the area around her disappears in splashes of red and yellow and blue. There's a harmonious clash as she hears a violin play a mournful tune in one ear, the chanting of a church in the other ear, a far off clink of a tea cup and laughter - childish, hysterical, twisted laughter. Homura is sure her heart is going to leap out of her chest with the rising tide of fear she feels.
And then a white creature – Kyuubey, it tells her – appears, and begins to explain to her what has happened to these girls - MamiKyoukoSayakaMadoka - what she – no, not her, another her, another Akemi Homura – has done to them, and she gains the power she feels like she's always had.
Akemi Homura walks in the multi-witches labyrinth with fear in her heart and hesitant steps, and wishes she could send that other her a thought to stop and think.
4.
That girl Kazumi has really done a number in this timeline, and the only thing Homura is sad about is that Madoka still dies.
Kazumi has infected Incubators around the world, and the witches in this timeline are few and far between. This time around, it is a struggle to keep her soul gem clear and her mind on task, because the peace has lasted longer in this one. Mami has lived with some mild intervention on her part, and Kyoko has come into the group of her own free will. Even Sayaka has lived in this one, having a more open mind about Kyousuke and Hitomis' relationship, and all Homura has to do is make sure Madoka doesn't contract, and lives through Walpurigsnacht.
Which turns out to be a false hope. The witch is as strong as ever, and it's made even worse as all their gems are more dark than light and their power down by half. So it's with a scream of despair that she watches Madoka become a magical girl once again, and once again fall, taking Walpurgisnacht with her.
She watches in distant horror as Madoka's body becomes a corpse again, and is only able to sigh. She doesn't wait for anyone else to show up, not even to listen in rage to Kyuubey. She just closes her eyes and slips away, and doesn't even have the strength to hope for a better outcome.
The Homura from that timeline wakes to a crystal blue sky, and a ruined city, and can only surmise it as a dream. She turns her head to her left, and watches distantly as Kyoko comes limping up to where she is resting, Sayaka being helped along. She sits up on her elbows and has to shake her head to get her bangs out of her glasses, and in the moment she has looked away, Mami has appeared, her throat a bloody mess, holding one arm to her shoulder, but still very much alive. None of them look at her as they move passed her, and she follows their paths to the prone form of Madoka. There's no rise and fall to her chest, and Homura instinctively knows she's dead. Again, a thought whispers, but when she tries to follow the trail back to its source, it disappears into the recesses of her very soul.
She watches them gather around Madoka mournfully, and slumps alone back to the ground, confused by the realistic quality of this dream.
5.
Walpurgisnacht has come again. Homura has long since come to the realization that she will never be able to take this particular witch alone, no matter how many times she tries and fails to do so. Mami had died, Sayaka and Kyoko had died, and now she and Madoka rest on a soaked ground, a full circle from the first time. Except this time, Homura isn't that crying, despairing little girl. She's become cold and detached, and when Madoka smiles at her nostalgically and cleanses Homuras' soul gem with the last grief seed they have between them, Homura isn't a bit surprised.
She's in one of her darker moods after this failure, one of the few times where she wishes to be spiteful against the world, and this unfortunately includes Madoka. So instead of shooting Madoka's soul gem before she can turn, she watches in dark, grim satisfaction as Madoka's body twists and turns in agony. As Madoka screams until her throat becomes raw, and then screams some more. Until her soul gem finally cracks from the pressure, and she watches the one witch she hasn't seen in several years appear from the resulting explosion, a tall, long, dark form that continues to reach for the sky and scream, even while black tendrils continue to connect it to the ground.
Homura watches Kriemhild Gretchen until she threatens to engulf her soul gem in despair, and then activates the clock that has become familiar to her. The other Homura doesn't have much time to orient herself before the rain has soaked her, and the witch has locked onto the only thing still living within a few miles radius. Black, claw like fingers wrap around her and squeeze her tight before lifting her so high into the air, it gets hard to breath. Purple eyes have enough time to take in the red, hateful eyes locked onto her before the darkness swallows her whole without a sound.
6.
Akemi Homura has long since stopped paying attention to the amount of times she has relived the same month, for the same girl, and watched the same group of girls die again and again and again. There are some truths Homura has learned through her travels.
If Madoka doesn't contract, Mami dies by Charlotte, especially if she receives no help from Homura. Sayaka - if she remains close-minded about Kyousuke's relationship with Hitomi, or isn't outright rejected by Kyousuke - falls to despair and becomes a witch every time. Kyoko's ability to be distrustful ranges depending on the amount of people she has to tie her to sanity, but she becomes capable of being a witch if she doesn't die with Sayaka. And Madoka, Madoka keeps dying, again and again and again.
This time feels weird though. She has a hard time remembering how she came to this outcome, and all of them are fighting together in a way they've never been allowed to before. Madoka has contracted, and Homura doesn't feel bad about that. Bebe is around Mami all of the time, and she hangs out with Kyoko more often than not, and everything is fine this time around.
Except it isn't. Because with the realization that Madoka became a God out of duty comes the truth, that Homura has trapped them all in a witch's barrier. She wants to die. She wants to eradicate herself, because she failed. She fell to her inner darkness, and she can't stand to face Madoka again. Especially as she realizes the Incubators have used her as a trap for Madoka. Except the other Puella Magi - Mami, Kyouko, Sayaka, even little Nagisa/Bebe - won't let her run or hide or slip away this time, and she is forced to open herself back up to the world.
Madoka is coming to save her soul this time, and some part of Homura is happy, is finally content after several years of agony and solitude and painful hurt. But a larger part of her loves Madoka, and she doesn't want her to be a Puella Magi, she doesn't want to be parted from her again as Madoka goes gallivanting off to save everyone all at once. So in true demonic fashion, she bites the hand that has sustained her for so long. If Madoka can overcome time and entropy, then Homura can too, because she has lived countless lifetimes just as Madoka has. She binds all that makes Madoka a Puella Magi, all that makes her a God, and rewrites history so that they can all live happily this time around.
Epilogue:
Akemi Homura sits in a chair in a glade filled with white flowers that she once had a conversation with Madoka in. She bows her head as it fills with the lifetimes she has and hasn't lived, and feels all that has been holding her together throughout her many lives fall apart. There's no use holding herself together anymore when she will eventually be Madoka's enemy, and she almost feels relief as her despair rises and her eyes are forcefully opened to the truth.
She sees now how her actions throughout the timelines have caused so much suffering. She watches other versions of her grow and change and die, become Puella Magi and live normal lives, die by witch Madoka's hand and live through the apocalypse. She watches how each and every one realizes Madoka has died, how they all don't really understand why they hurt so much from this knowledge but they do, and how each and every one curses this Akemi Homura with all of their being, unconsciously, severely, deep within the dark confines of their dark purple souls.
She stands on shaking legs, a mournful ballet song resounding in her head. She dances without a care for a moment as Kyuubey watches, terrified and petrified, somewhere beyond her viewing. She lets the sorrow she has lived with for several lives fill her, lets her love for Madoka sway her seductively through the glade. Somewhere in this world, her familiars laugh and squeal gleefully, running through the streets on quick feet. She reaches out for her soul gem for a moment and smiles a bitter smile.
Akemi Homura has balanced precariously on the cliff of life since that first lifetime, and finally falls over the edge with a smile and silent apology all at once.
It's okay though. The Incubators will never take another soul again. They can live happily this time. Madoka can live happily this time.
Somewhere within the spaces between times, a window is tied shut with a mixed pink-purple ribbon. And every girl in every timeline - past, present, future - feels relieved. It's finally over.
And there you have it. Thank you for reading. Comments are lovely!