One day I might write something more in-depth than small sequences between everyone's favourite sufferring megucas, but not today because it was too fun (and a little heartbreaking) to write a scene exploring the doomed camaraderie between Homura and Mami. Enjoy.
CAESURA
Take me by the hand, take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are but I'm with you
The single Grief Seed cleared both Soul Gems pressed to it of tarnish and soon both were glowing brightly once again. Pure gold and amethyst.
"Good as new," Mami said with her usual contentedness. She tossed the Seed behind her and Kyubey hopped up to swallow it. She heard his satisfied gulp and sigh.
"That makes the third one this week," he remarked, padding over to Mami's side. "The two of you alone could very well eradicate every witch and familiar that wanders into the city."
"But of course." She smiled and softly scratched the top of the creature's head. "We'd be terrible fighters for justice if we didn't try our best, right?"
Homura said nothing. Now that Mami thought about it, she hadn't said more than a few sentences the entire day. Currently, they sat on the edge of one of Mitakihara's endless expanse of rooftops, Mami with her legs daintily resting over the several storey drop that posed little threat to her and Homura standing at the very precipice. The city's sea of lights glittered in the reflection of her glasses, beautiful but blocking whatever her thoughts may be. Down among the streets lived thousands of individual lives but from this vantage point they all pooled together, and it may as well have been that Mami and her two companions were the only lives in the entire world right now. Moments like this, the night fresh and the wind crisp, made her feel most awake and gratefully alive.
Kyubey's tail twitched against her arm. "You should really be more careful. If you continue like this, you might run out of sources for Grief Seeds and exhaust your magic."
Without turning, Homura asked, "Do you really care?"
Oh dear, Mami thought.
Kyubey, as expected, had little reaction, just a small "Hm?" to her question. Homura continued to stare wordlessly over the horizon, so Mami took it upon herself to salvage the moment.
"Kyubey? Could you do me a favor and check on the other girls?"
Sayaka and Madoka had been kindly forbidden from witch-hunting tonight, because education was still important and it wouldn't do in Mami's mind for girls with the power of miracles at their disposal to fail upcoming tests and projects. The girls had given in to Mami's insistence, with some good-hearted whining from Sayaka about missing all the fun, except for Homura who had insisted even harder that she would be going. Now that Mami focused on it, that was the most she'd spoken all day.
For a second, Mami assumed Kyubey was ignoring her. He'd become distant this past month, for what reason she couldn't understand. Often it didn't bother her, because what Kyubey did on his own was no concern of hers, but sometimes she had to admit in the dark empty hours of night... Sometimes it hurt. Presently, he rose and walked away from his two protégé to the darkness of the opposite roof's edge.
"Don't forget," he told them before he left, "there are only so many Seeds to be found in this city. You can't continue to share them forever." Then with a delicate jump over the side he was gone. The girls were now alone.
"So," Mami started, "what's wrong?"
"What?" Homura twisted her gaze away from the city and, just like that, she was the regular Homura that Mami had grown so close to these last few weeks, the socially awkward girl with hesitancy always appearing in her eyes. "I- nuh- nothing. Nothing's wrong at all."
"Lying is most definitely not one of your powers." She scooted a bit closer to her companion and then clapped her hands together. "So what is it? Classes? Romance troubles? You know you can tell me anything."
"...Um..." Homura avoided Mami's mirthful interrogation as her fingers picked at the edge of her skirt. "I've... been thinking lately... Thoughts I don't think I should have..."
Ah, yes. Those kinds of thoughts. Out loud, Mami asked, "Starting to have regrets?"
A look of horror crossed the other girl's face. "It's not like that," she said, and then Homura's eyes focused again on the far horizon, glowing with a conviction Mami had never seen in her before. "I would never regret my decisions." She turned her eyes to Mami. "Now, let me ask you: If you had the chance, would you go back and change your wish?"
Mami balked, not so much at the question but at the forthrightness behind it. She stuttered, "I, mm... I..."
While there wasn't any explicit taboo against asking other magical girls about their wishes, there was... Well, in Mami's personal experience, they all felt an unspoken rule should be kept. It wasn't your life-changing decision so there was no need to know about it, right? That's how the conversation usually ended.
But Homura continued to stare at her. Waiting.
"I wasn't given much of a choice," said Mami.
Homura said, "I used to think the same."
Something then sparked within Mami, the same thing she could usually hide from everyone including herself. Frustration rose like a wave, and while it crested at Homura's comment it had been building from this entire situation, from the day Mami had sat in the backseat during a simple errand run. Before she could stop and think otherwise, she told her junior, "You have no right to question what I did."
"...I know."
That sad little reply helped tamper down Mami's anger. A deep, deep breath of cold night air helped quell it even further. "I didn't really mean that," she apologized.
"I know that too," Homura said, a slight uplift in her lips. A smile was lurking somewhere but it was sympathy Mami saw most in her, perhaps some pity as well. She turned into the gentle breeze travelling over the rooftop and stared along the city skyline. "We shouldn't question each other's wishes. But... Isn't there ever a time where you ask yourself 'What if I could try it again?'"
Yes, said Mami's core, but her mouth said, "Possibly."
Mami recalled the only instance of Homura saying what formed her contract, just a hint that "I needed to protect someone important", and then she'd never spoken of it again. Mami had found this a commendable wish, and had even told Homura so, but now the quiet girl was implying she held second thoughts over what she'd initially hoped for? While within her thoughts, her eyes had drifted downwards and Mami quickly glanced up. Homura stood outlined against the dark grey sky and glow of light pollution, her profile angled towards the distance but Mami could feel that her focus was set to the side, analyzing every piece of the answers she received. She would go through moods like this, changing from open and honest to closed-off and silent, and tonight seemed like one of those days where Homura would keep her inner self as sequestered as possible.
Mami asked, testing, "But do you really think that everything would be made better if... if we could have some sort of do-over?"
Homura's head tipped ever so slightly to one side while in thought but her answer was a simple, dispassionate, "You tell me."
What did Mami want to say? Far too much. But what would Mami want to hear?
The right words came to her slowly but with an honesty she hoped Homura felt. "I think," she replied, "that what we said back then shouldn't define who we are now. The me of even a year ago doesn't really feel like the person I am tonight, and I'm sure in a few years' time the me right now will feel just as unrecognizable. But I don't forget what I said or did in the past, either, it's just... Listen, you must have made countless decisions you've doubted later on, am I right? I know I have." Homura still watched her carefully. "Are there times I think of another wording to what I said back then? Yes, of course. But there are also plenty of times I wish I'd studied a little more for an exam, or gone to the store before it closed, or pursued a friendship for longer, made something different for supper, cleaned last week instead of today, gone to bed an earlier...
"How it seems to me," said Mami, "is that everybody makes a choice at some point that they later tell themselves 'Oh, no, I obviously should have chosen something else.' Why should we be any different? After all, even if we are magical girls"– and here she reaffirmed eye contact with Homura, and gave her a warm and soft smile –"we're still human."
To her relief, Homura relaxed. That relief soon turned to astonishment when Mami received an unexpected compliment. Homura told her, "I hope I can be as strong as you someday."
Mami fumbled for anything to say. She knew far too well she wasn't a strong person but didn't want to outright say 'You're wrong.' She eventually settled for a humbled response of, "I was taught to always do my best, no matter the circumstance. That's all it is."
Yes, Mami always worked to become the best version of herself possible, be it her culinary skills or slaying witches or be it creating the illusion of a happy life, accident or no accident. No one would stop her from reaching that goal, not even her own self.
Homura said, "Still..." She didn't say anything after that one word but they both felt she didn't need to.
For a moment or so, the two stayed in a comfortable silence, the kind that comes from within a mutual understanding.
Homura briefly exhaled and then breathed in deep. Whether Mami's words dissuaded all her fears had yet to be seen but for now she appeared somewhat tranquil, which was far more than she'd had earlier. She looked off into the expanse of the city once again. "I guess I should go home now."
"Oh, no no no," Mami said with a playful wag of her finger. "I can't let you get away that easily."
"Huh?" Homura squeaked, with the same look as a child caught next to a broken glass.
"I can't let you go away in such a sad state, what kind of a friend would I be? Now, let's see, what should we do to cheer you up?" Mami hummed to herself for a short time, enjoying how she could draw this happy diversion out for as long as possible. "Ah! I know! We'll have a race, and the winner is treated to whatever food they want tomorrow courtesy of the runner-up."
Homura's face scrunched up into a distasteful but, to Mami at least, adorable frown. "We're not children."
"Doesn't matter, a race is still a race regardless of age. So, whoever reaches your apartment first is declared the winner. On my count, alright? One... two... thr–"
Homura vanished from sight.
"Wha... Hey! No fair!"
From the next roof over, she heard, "You never said magic wasn't allowed!" A laugh echoed afterwards.
Mami was used to smiling. It was how she faced the world. But it had been so long since she'd felt a true smile like this, one that overtook her expression, one that filled up every part of her until there was no room left for anything other than the moment she was currently living in.
"Well then," she whispered, feeling her freshly cleaned powers flow. "If that's how we're going to play..." And then she too was off.
The challenge of keeping up with someone that could travel in frozen time exhilarated Mami and she threw every trick she had into the chase. They ran across dark buildings where no one could see them, bounded off fire escapes, twirled about satellite antennae and dashed over an expansive obstacle course of vents, water towers and air exchanges. Occasionally they called out taunts and jeers to one another to help spike up the drama of competition, but it was all only in good fun, just as Mami had wanted.
As she raced, Mami didn't think about who would win; it would probably be Homura, anyway, considering her obvious advantage. She didn't think about tomorrow, or the day after. She didn't need to think about any of the things that usually plagued her in the dark. All she thought about was this night, with the crowded streets below and empty space above, with the wind whistling through her ears, and how grateful she was to be alive.
This fight wasn't going well.
Finding the witch had been easy enough. It encased itself inside a realm of eternal night and hedge mazes that turned in on themselves impossibly so that one exit led to yet another labyrinth. The whole thing seemed to be a sphere, twisted ever so slightly to cause that extra layer of confusion. But Mami had faced enough witches in her lifetime, most of them far more clever, and this one had made the mistake of placing a clear endpoint in the maze: a large castle stood in the center, glowing white and shimmering silver under a waning moon. It was almost a scene right out of a fairy tale...
But no storybook from her childhood had ever featured the creatures that chased her now. The familiars she felled were the ugly cousins in the flora family, every inch covered with serrated leaves, thorns, grotesque coloured petals, and leaking putrid scents. Against her rifle shots they burst into black rot and even in death, or erasure or whatever happened to the creatures within witches' mazes, tried to impede her as she slipped on oily viscera. Still she ran on, down shining hallways that reflected like glass, underneath vaulted ceilings, until she reached the vast doorways of a ballroom that had tried to stay locked but soon shattered under her gunfire.
The witch itself reminded her of illustrations she'd seen of a chimera, body a mixture of scales and furred hide, paws and talons for feet, beasts' tails like whips, but instead of an animal head it's neck held aloft a huge rosebud closed tightly. Whether it could see, hear, or even smell her seemed irrelevant because its attacks came swift and with a vendetta against her intrusion. Mami leapt over a vine that fractured the tiled floor she'd been standing on seconds ago. Like everything else in the maze, the ballroom was filled with exquisite detail and dazzling surfaces but the witch didn't seem to care for any of it, destroying pieces of its realm in desperation to rid itself of her. Even the chandelier above, bigger than her own apartment, had been utilized and Mami had spent several minutes having to dodge crystals that weighed more than her trying to crush or spear her in their fall.
She used the momentum from another dodge to jump atop one of these fallen crystals and, quickly crafting a rifle, destroyed another familiar. When a second tried to attack her from behind she swung the spent rifle like a baseball bat and knocked it away. But when a third and fourth familiar careened into her, locking onto her like burrs, there was little she could do to fight against them. She struggled and managed to get another shot into one of them but more familiars rushed in to attach to her. They tangled themselves in her arms, thorns scraping her skin and inhibiting the main outlet for her powers. Regardless, she kicked out as the evil flowers lifted her high into the air and came to hover above the witch. Her kicking stopped, both because she'd realized how fruitless it was and because her attention was now focused on what was happening below her.
The witch had come to a standstill at her capture and now, as it seemed lean back to look at her, the rose head began to open. The maroon petals blossomed to reveal not a mouth or a set of eyes but a long tunnel-like throat lined with rows upon rows of barbs that could mince her apart better than any shark could.
Somewhere far, far away in Mami's thoughts came the realization that she should be afraid. She was about to die where no one would ever find her and there was nothing she could do to change that. But that was just it: she couldn't fight, she couldn't do anything... so she didn't. A strange serenity overtook her and blocked out conscious decisions.
Only one thought came to her in that moment... the wonder about what happened afterwards. What happened to any of the girls who wished for a miracle and died in the making? If she could make a mirror wish on the other side, if that ever could be true, she questioned to herself, then please just let them forgive me when I finally tell them I'm sorry for not bringing them back too.
A loud pop like a firecracker startled her back to awareness and the ensuing explosion fully awoke her. The witch's maw, seconds ago a vision of darkness and teeth, was encompassed with flames and black-blue smoke, and it reared back with shrieks that made its castle tremble. Its thrashing diverted the attention of its familiars, most of which abandoned her and flew off to tend to their master. A few dogged ones still clung to her but after another series of pops– firearms, Mami's mind supplied, real firearms, not her created ones– they disintegrated. And then she was falling.
As she dropped backwards through cinders and smoke, Mami glimpsed an odd sight at the very edge of her vision: long, dark flowing hair... another girl was in here? But she couldn't think about that right now. Because as she fell, Mami melded once again to her life as a Puella Magi, with her nerves tingling and heart thumping. This battle was not yet over.
She grasped the ribbon around her neck and, with a quick yank and arc of her arm, sent it flying. It whipped around the grand chandelier tightly and from there gravity took over. Mami swung down and around the witch, missing it by a few metres, its petalled face singed and peeling, taking up her whole view for a second. At the apex of her swing, she let go and threw another ribbon below her. With a deft twist of her fingers she'd crafted it into a giant cannon that embedded into the floor with a clank, to which Mami landed on as gracefully as a ballerina landed a jeté entrelacé, when the witch recovered from the previous surprise attack.
And as it spun around to eye-lessly face her, perhaps able to see or sense the cannon warming below her feet, Mami stood tall and proud and she smiled.
The labyrinth soon faded back to the daycare yard she'd originally entered from, and after a quick snap of her fingers she was also back in her normal street clothes and all her powers had once again condensed into a practical ring on her hand. Another victory secured, she told herself. But this time she hadn't done it alone. The other girl, still clad in her magical uniform, had gone to collect the Grief Seed from where it had landed in a sand box. She straightened up as Mami approached.
"I suppose this belongs to you," her mysterious saviour said. She spoke in a matter-of-fact way, neither judging nor offering.
Mami responded, "It's not mine, it's ours," making sure to insert amiability along with her emphasis. "We both worked hard for that so we should share it between ourselves."
Any emotions in the girl's stare were as indecipherable as those in her voice. She really did have beautiful hair, though, Mami admired. "Most of the others prefer to keep their rewards to themselves," she said.
Mami's hands went to her hips in mock outrage and she raised her chin to complete the look. "But I'm not them, I'm me. While I'm still alive I'm going to live my life exactly how I want to which means being so kind and helpful it'll make you sick. And right now I'm alive because of you, so you get to be the one I'm so annoyingly nice to. That's just the person I am. Call me selfish for it, if you like."
She didn't expect such goofy indignance to actually have any effect... the girl didn't look like someone who would be placated by something silly like that... and yet her whole posture seemed to change, her demeanour now much more pleasant. She didn't exactly smile, and Mami couldn't imagine she would, but she still felt her newfound acquaintance become much more at peace. "Alright then," the girl said, and for whatever reason now offered the Seed up between them, a visual invitation to come closer, and Mami could not tell what had worked to change her mind so quickly.
(She had no way of knowing that the other girl thought, Never change, Mami Tomoe.)
Once they were within the same space, readying both Soul Gems to be purified, Mami said, "I don't know that I've ever seen you before. What's your name?"
Thank you very much for reading! This took way too darn long to write! Any feedback, good or bad, I'd be gracious to hear, as I was supposed to finish this over a month ago and have long since passed the point of being able to see any mistakes.
(And, yes, I quoted an old Avril Lavigne song to encompass the mood of this little piece. It's to show how cool and hip I am with the kids. Obviously.)