"Akemi-san?!"

The sound of a fired gun echoed throughout the city streets, muffled only as the bullet whistled through Homura's head. Blood trailed from the shiny metal and took flight, obscuring Homura's vision. Yet she had heard the sound of the scream, the snapping of the ribbon, the all-encompassing silence, and she knew that she hadn't missed her mark.

Homura took a moment to glance around at the thousands of bullets suspended in time. They were a washed-out grey, along with the rest of the city. Of course, there was a perfectly logical explanation for this. Color was transmitted in waves, and when time stopped, so did the waves. But Homura liked her answer better: The stolen seconds, preserved like flowers pressed in the pages of books, were hers. And her world was a land where the sun forgot to shine.

She looked up at Mami's face, frozen in screaming terror. Kaname Madoka… my only friend… please… please forgive me.

Then Homura pointed the gun at Mami's head.

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

Kill her.

"I could, you know," Homura said to the silhouette behind the lamppost. "I could kill you. I could kill you quite easily."

She had seen her die in timeline after timeline; one could say it was her destiny to be killed.

"Why?" Mami asked, her golden eyes hard in the gentle silver moonlight. "What have I done to offend you, Akemi Homura?"

Thirty-six times. That was how long she had repeated the cycle. Tomoe Mami had also died thirty-six times. Not many options remained after thirty-six times.

For a while, all that could be heard in that place was the pitter-patter of water falling into the fountain. When Homura remained silent, Mami's eyes narrowed into a glower. "We're mahou shoujo," she said. "We should be fighting the witches, not other mahou shoujo."

But in the end, there remained only one option: to fight, and to die. Thus goes the fate of a mahou shoujo: to be eternally bound by a cruel, cruel cycle of hope and despair.

"If it's Grief Seeds you need, I'm sure there can be a compromise."

Homura had had enough of the pain and the grief never-ending.

Her eyes were like the stars swirling on the outskirts of spiral galaxies. Bright in their own respect, but so indiscernible and distant that there may as well have been no light at all. "I will remain in this city for one month. During that time, I suggest that you not interfere with me. I wish only to give you a fair warning."

Break the unfair cycle. The answer lay in that. A shining star in a world robed in darkness. The only remaining way to deliverance.

But only for one.

The wind carried her words over the treetops, above the city lights, and into an empty universe of rattling stars. "Farewell, Tomoe Mami."

Mami blinked, and the nighttime had already swallowed her whole.

First, the rest must be broken.

"Um, excuse me, are you alright?"

Sunlight was everywhere. It filtered through the canopy of leaves, glittered off the skipping river water, turned the glass-clad Mitakihara City into diamonds. So commonplace, yet so necessary and precious. Perhaps even beautiful. Homura couldn't remember the last time she had appreciated something beautiful.

Homura could hardly believe how much of it was reflected in the two shimmering blue eyes in front of her. How intensely blue, like two rival skies. "Yes?" she asked.

The corners of Sayaka's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Thank goodness!" she exclaimed with a laugh. "I was getting worried I'd have to call Saotome-sensei here, and God only knows how that would go over. You looked really sick and pale; are you feeling okay?"

Homura gave a single curt nod. Then nothing.

All of a sudden, Sayaka was acutely aware of how quiet it was with the rest of the students so far ahead on the path. "Err, sorry, didn't mean to bother you or anything," she said, taking a step back. "It's just that you stopped walking for a while, so I thought…"

"It's fine," Homura answered smoothly. "Thank you for being concerned for me. However, you'll have to excuse me; I would prefer not to be late to class."

Homura's left eye twitched ever so slightly when Sayaka fell into step next to her. "Ha, you're right. I heard Saotome-sensei was dumped yesterday; I definitely don't want to tick her off today. Hey, are you a second year? I don't think I've seen you around before."

"My name is Akemi Homura." She only spared Sayaka a glance out of the corner of her eye; any more, and the sunlight would have blinded her. "I'm a new transfer student."

"Oh, so that's why you looked all pale! Hey, you don't need to nervous, Akemi-san. Trust me, everyone here is really welcoming; I'm sure you'll find your place…"

Homura let the rest of Sayaka's words flow over her head like the babbling brook winding alongside the paved walkway. The straight and narrow stone, paired with the winding and twisting water.

A smile tugged at Homura's lips. Perhaps not so much with beauty, but she could still appreciate bitter irony.

Killing Tomoe Mami would be the straightforward solution. If Mami were dead, then Homura would be the one to save Madoka and Sayaka from the witch Gertrude. She would gain their trust, and thus be in a better position to ensure they didn't contract.

The question would be when and where. There was about an hour-long window of time after school ended and before the witch manifested in the shopping complex. She could lure Mami away, could she not, with the intent to ask for her help in fighting a powerful witch? Assuming she wasn't accompanied – knowing Mami, Homura safely ruled out the possibility – a missing person would go entirely unnoticed. Gertrude seemed to always appear in the basement of the shopping complex. There, in the darkness, she would not be able to see Homura raise the gun, nor would Homura be able to see her pretty eyes widen as a gasp and something darker fell from her mouth.

Yes, it was good of her to die.

"Yeah, she should just die!"

Homura couldn't hear the babbling brook anymore. It would be better if she… better she should die…

"She should die, she should die!"

Hmm… Homura's drooping eyelids fell closed. Just die…

"Yeah, you should all just DIE!"

Then Homura opened her eyes and found herself in the heart of a witch labyrinth.

It was easily recognizable: the black and white patterned tile road leading up to a sculpted archway, the bloody painted sky, the misshapen humans made of crumpled paper. She knew it the way others would know their own homes. This was the home of Izabel, the vain artist witch.

Homura remembered all the witches she had encountered in Mitakihara. However, this one was special. After all, you never forget your first witch. That's when your fate is sealed.

By the time the amethyst light of her Soul Gem faded, the mahou shoujo had already scattered tiny bombs all across the labyrinth. "You thought I was weak," she whispered. "You thought I would die right here because of my despair. And I'll admit, you were very nearly right. But this time is different. Let me show you how strong I've become. I'll never fall to you again."

Then the labyrinth burst into flame.

Homura tumbled through the fire as she fired round after round at the witch. Every shot on point was rewarded with a flurry of shredded paper floating just above the greedy flames. To Homura, they looked like snowflakes. Peace within the madness.

Homura loved this particular witch. She didn't die with a scream. Just the quiet sound of a wooden easel hitting the ground.

Only this time, there was another sound. A strange spluttering of coughs, followed by a tiny whisper. "You…"

Terror kindled in her heart as Homura spun on her heel, smoking gun still in hand. Her hair twirled in the wind, the same wind that brushed leaves from the trees surrounding Mitakihara High School, peeping out from behind the walls of the witch labyrinth melting away. A peaceful scene, a quiet scene, a scene that had grown ever so dull after thirty-six times. Which was why, for some time after, Homura could only insist, over and over, you do not belong.

Sky blue eyes reflecting Homura's gun, Miki Sayaka was kneeling in the singed and shredded paper of Izabel's labyrinth.

Akemi Homura's forty-eighth first day at Mitakihara High School went off without a hitch, thanks to the impeccable data that could only be the product of old-fashioned experience – as well as dabbling in good old time-travelling magic. Newly single teachers needed to be treated with the caution and tact of a ticking bomb. Timid girls with red ribbons merely needed to be pushed in the right direction. And strange blue-haired girls were like dinosaurs, Homura told herself while sitting – not hiding, sitting – in an old, gnarled tree in the courtyard. Dinosaurs saw by movement. So as long as Homura remained perfectly still, this smooth-running day would gain half an hour of uninhibited peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, Miki Sayaka seemed to have forgotten that principle.

"Oi!" shouted a voice from below. Homura just closed her eyes and slowed her breathing in faux sleep. "Hey, oi!"

Homura continued concentrating on keeping her breathing steady. It doesn't matter, she calmly told herself. Miki Sayaka doesn't matter… just give her an excuse, any at all, or better yet, let her pretend she imagined the entire thing—

Homura cried out as an apple smacked her right in the back of the head.

Snarling, the black-haired girl jolted upright and glared down at Sayaka. The two blue eyes that glared back looked about ready to start shooting lasers to cut down the tree. "Hey, you can't ignore me forever! I want to talk to you!" When Homura stayed silent, she continued. "You don't want to talk about it, so I'm guessing that means you want to keep it quiet. Well, what if I went and told the whole school about it, huh? I could, you know!"

By this point, a small crowd had gathered at the edge of the courtyard. Sayaka didn't look away, but phrases such as "how rude!" and "is she bullying the transfer student?" were refrains amidst the chittering.

"Look, I don't want to cause trouble," Sayaka continued, dropping her voice. "I just want to thank you, you know? You saved me today! Or is it some kind of hero's code not to be thanked?"

Homura's eyes were slits of glinting violet. "Don't call me a hero. Don't you dare call me that."

When Sayaka's gaze finally fell to the cobblestone, so too did Homura fall out of the tree to land lightly on her feet. Cherry blossom petals clung to her silky hair.

Sayaka gasped and stumbled backwards. "H-How'd you do that? I thought you just got out of a hospital!"

Homura's eyes narrowed. "With everything you saw today at the river," she said haughtily, "this should be the least of surprises." Then she pivoted on her heel and began walking to one of the archways at the edge of the courtyard.

"Wait, then you mean—?"

"There's no point in lying to you, Miki Sayaka; you're too intelligent and persistent. And don't go thinking those are good qualities, either." Homura lingered in the shadow of the archway, letting her fingertips brush across the glass. Sayaka could hear her sigh. "I suppose I'll have to tell you, then. About what you saw at the river. What you saw me do, and why I did it."

"Why do I get the feeling this is going to take a while?" Sayaka cast her eyes around before settling on a tree, younger and greener than the other, but still broad at the trunk. Its spindly branches were all but pressed against the second story windows, forming a web of shadow. But more importantly, it was far, far removed from the crowd of whispers and disapproving frowns. "Hey, um, if you don't want to be overheard…"

Her movements were neither quick-walking nor running, yet she had still melted into the shadow of the tree in an instant too fast for Sayaka to register. When Sayaka was too encompassed in the shade, it took less than that instant for her to regret her choice in hiding place. With Homura's back pressed against the trunk and her head tilted towards the canopy, the shade seemed to drape around her shoulders like a cloak and hood. It swallowed up her entire head. Sayaka felt goosebumps trail down her arms as the sun disappeared behind the clouds.

Sayaka was all too conscious of how close she was to Homura when she plopped down in the dirt beside her. Try as she might, she couldn't hear Homura breathe. "Tell me, Miki Sayaka," Homura began, "do you believe that magic and miracles exist?"

"Well… Mom always tells me that God can do miracles," Sayaka answered, hugging her knees close to her chest and staring at the scattered leaves on the ground. "And magic… I mean, there's no evidence for it, but there's a lot of true things that we can't prove or explain. So yes, I think I'd believe."

"What if you possessed definite proof of both? And what if you could ask for one magic wish, one miracle? You could wish for anything you wanted, so long as you possessed enough karmic energy for its fulfillment. Would you do it?"

Sayaka's eyes narrowed. "There has to be a catch."

It was funny, the way a laugh could sound so much like crying. "There is," Homura said. "The catch is that you doom yourself. You have to fight for the rest of your life, up until the day you die drowning in your sorrow, and after that, there'd be no living soul to cry over your body. No matter what kind of life you led, that would be your fate. Would you do it then?"

For the longest while, all that could be heard was the sound of talking and laughter from classmates ten thousand light years away. Sayaka opened and closed her mouth several times, the way a child tries to imitate adults around it. Only the rest of the world seemed to be churning out jargon, with the strange transfer student being the only one to make sense.

Finally, amidst the blades of grass crushed in her worrying fingers, Sayaka found her voice. "You did."

"Indeed I did," said Homura, absentmindedly twisting the rune ring around her finger. "And in doing so, I became a mahou shoujo, tasked with the responsibility to destroy witches."

"Witches?"

"The creature you saw me kill. She was a witch, an evil entity that leeches off the despair of human beings."

"Wait, so there are more of those things? How do people not know about this? Where do the witches come from?"

It was a morbid thought, but the only thought that flashed through Sayaka's mind was that it was good thing she had thrown her apple at Homura instead of eating it. When Homura turned her sick glowing eyes on Sayaka, Sayaka had no doubts she'd have puked applesauce otherwise. "They come from people like me."

Sayaka felt a strange, irrational sense of vertigo when Homura abruptly stood up, breaking the spell of silence that made it hard to breathe. "I hope that sated your curiosity, Miki Sayaka." Sayaka didn't know if it was magic or something deeper that gave Homura's voice the power to make the air cold like frost.

"H-Hey, no it didn't!" Sayaka didn't trust her legs to stand, so she grabbed onto Homura's sleeve instead. "You can't just leave me like this! Don't I at least get to ask some freaking questions about what you just told me?"

Homura sighed. "One," she said. "You have a million other questions that are either stupid or irrelevant. Choose the one question that matters."

"No fair!" Sayaka insisted. "You're magical, aren't you, and magical beings in fairytales always get asked three questions. It's practically a rule!"

Homura's lower face spasmed. Sayaka imagined it was the closest she could come to a smile. "Two, and no more. Now ask."

Sayaka chewed the inside of her lip in careful thought. "Well, in order for me to ask, I need you to turn into… er, whatever it is you—Woah!"

It took Sayaka's eyes twice as long as the actual transformation to adjust from the flash of amethyst light. "Hey, warn me about that next time!"

"How presumptuous," said Homura, this time speaking with a trace of amusement. "You assume there's going to be a next time." Homura's eyes faltered and searched the lush green grass. "You can't always be certain of that," she added in a low voice.

"I can see why you don't make friends," Sayaka said. "Honestly, you're not that good at it."

Sayaka couldn't help but notice the heel of Homura's mahou shoujo uniform grind the packed dirt. "And you're not good at stalling for time, Miki Sayaka. Classes will resume soon."

"Yeah, I know, I know, just…" Taking a deep breath, Sayaka looked up at the pale underbellies of the leaves and wished she could see the rich blue sky. "You fought a witch today."

"Yes, that's true."

"I… I couldn't quite see well from where I was, but I did see, or maybe not—"

"Get to the point."

Sayaka couldn't have moved a joint in her body from how taunt her muscles were. "You had a gun."

Homura paused, then reached into her shield and pulled it out. For what could have been seconds or days, Sayaka watched it lying innocently in Homura's pale hands. It glimmered in the sunlight that bounced off its shiny surface exactly the same way it would with a gentle river or a promise ring or a loving smile. Like it wasn't aware of the deadly power it possessed. Her fingernails dug crescent moons into her palms.

"This is yours," said Sayaka.

"In a manner of speaking."

"And you use it, every day, to fight those witches from earlier."

Homura nodded, her silken hair blending into the shadows of the tree.

"But it's just an ordinary gun. And you're using it to fight those monsters."

The mahou shoujo winced at the word, but said nothing. "Did you expect someone to provide us magic heart wands or pretty light shows? To fight, we have to find our own ways of defending ourselves."

"But you can use it for other things, not just witches."

"You're enjoying your non-question questions, Miki Sayaka."

"Enjoyment's a kind word." Her eyes were like glass, hard and unyielding but so easy to break. "Fine. Question Number One: Have you ever shot anyone who wasn't a witch?"

"Please, Sayaka-chan, this isn't you!"

Homura ran through the witch labyrinth, dodging spinning train wheels from laughing familiars, to follow that terrified cry. The heels of her shoes made indents in the wood floor when she stopped in front of the cowering figure on the ground. She paused to catch her breath, the gunpowder swirling in the air making her legs shake and her blood burn hot. Looking up at the metal wheels with sparks just inches from her face, she knew she only had a moment before they collided with her.

Fortunately a moment was all she needed. Bang, bang, bang, went her gun, echoing like some stupid instrument in the mock concert hall. The bullets hung in midair in front of the spinning wheels as they patiently waited for the sands of time to fall again. The tiny fires trailing behind the bullets provided the little extra light she had been dreading. Because after all, why would so many people choose to stab in the back? The answer was simple: It always hurts too much to see the face.

Surely, it must have been her foggy glasses that blurred the vision of Oktavia von Seckendorff. Frozen in time, the witch's shadow left Homura in darkness, with nothing but the figure of a monster reaching out with clawed hands itching to kill. Yet the memory of the witch's scream lingered on in her mind. Its resonance was like a wounded animal.

Was it raining in the labyrinth? It must have. Homura could feel water running down her face, forming a perfect curve to her trembling lips. She tasted salt. But that didn't make any sense. Sayaka always put sweets in the lunches she shared with Madoka, rainy days made her happy because there wouldn't be too many visitors at the hospital, and her eyes were a clear bright blue without a cloud in the sky.

Perhaps there was something of Sayaka in the shimmering mermaid tail, armored torso, and three metal eye sockets, but if such a thing existed, Homura couldn't see it. Everything was dark and sick and shadowy, a storm obscuring the sky. But even on rainy days, wasn't the blue sky still there?

Homura felt the detonator weigh impossibly heavy in her hand. It was connected to a web of explosives arranged around the witch. Bombs. Sayaka always hated them.

"I'm sorry… Miki-san."

Just as in the labyrinth that day, Homura couldn't remember how to breathe. Why had she thought of that? That didn't count, did it? "I…"

Those little drops of rain were gunshots tearing through her school uniform, pushing the air out of her lungs as she lay half-drowned in the wreckage of Mitakihara City. "I need you to do something," Madoka whispered as she drew the taint out of her friend's Soul Gem, "something only you can do. Homura-chan, you can go back in time, can't you? You can go back and stop this from happening, r-right?"

Homura watched Madoka's two tears fall to mingle with the rising rainwater. Just two faceless drops drowning in a sea of despair filled with ten thousand more. Maybe that was all their souls counted for in the end. "Will you save me from my stupidity," Madoka begged, "before I'm fooled by Kyubey?"

Homura grabbed hold of Madoka's hand and felt the sharp point of the Grief Seed slash through her palm. "Of course I will! I'll save you for sure! No matter how many times I have to go back, I'll find a way to save you!"

Madoka's eyes crinkled into a smile, the brief wrinkles making her seem ages older than before. "I'm glad… thank you… A-Ah!"

Homura had never known cold poison could be so scalding before she gripped Madoka's tainted Soul Gem and felt it eat away the tender palm of her other hand. "Can… Can I ask you one more thing?"

Homura's heart dropped somewhere around her knees. The look on Madoka's face was one that she had seen before. In the hospital, on the sickbeds of those who died alone.

One hand bleeding, one hand burned. Yet somehow, both managed to hold steady the gun, almost empty but not quite.

"I don't want to be a witch."

"Yes," whispered Homura. Her eyelids fluttered in order to adjust themselves to the shadow. "I have." A scowl crossed her pale face. "Of all the questions you could have asked me about magic, and you chose to ask me that."

"I called you a hero earlier," Sayaka replied. "I had to make sure I was telling the truth."

"And? Were you?"

"There's… there's this guy I know," she mumbled, keeping her eyes on the interwoven pattern of branches over their heads. "Kamijo Kyosuke, a violin player. We've been friends for a while. He used to help tutor me in math when…." She took a deep breath and donned a shaky smile that flickered out soon after. "It's the classic filler story to bridge the gap between weather and sports on the six o'clock news. He was in the wrong place, I guess, at the wrong time." Her voice was the color of a chocolate gumball at the bottom of a bag. It stuck in her throat. "There was a drive-by shooter. Sent a bullet into his arm. He'll never be able to play the violin again."

Homura raised an eyebrow. "Do you think I have the resources to waste bullets on civilian violinists?"

It was quieter now, as students began leaving the courtyard in anticipation of the first bell. Sayaka only shrugged.

"Well, were you right?"

"I don't know," mumbled Sayaka. "I don't know why you would ever choose to have a gun."

Homura sighed and leaned her side against the sturdy tree. Curious girl, she thought. Thirty-six times, thirty-six yous, and you're still unfathomable. "I could kill with anything. A curtain rod, a sledgehammer, a stick of butter, a marble statue, my own two hands. If I'm going to kill, however, I'll do it unabashedly and as quickly as possible. I have more important things to do."

"Something more important than fighting witches?" Sayaka asked.

Homura nodded. "I have to save a friend."

"Why are you smiling?" Homura demanded, narrowing her eyes. In the shade of the tree, Homura didn't know where the light came from, but it was there all the same, twinkling in Sayaka's eyes.

"I knew it," she said, still grinning when she stood up to face the mahou shoujo. "You are a hero."

"Heroes bring hope," Homura said. "Hope sickens me."

"Then what pushes you forward?"

"Desperation."

The rational part of Sayaka's mind told her that there was still a world beyond this tree and this strange new girl, but for the life of her, Sayaka couldn't hear or see it. "I don't fight out of selflessness, but obligation. I made a contract, Miki Sayaka. I'm simply paying what is due."

Sayaka absentmindedly kicked at the dirt, and a plume of dust rose into the wind blowing through the mostly deserted courtyard. "I don't think you were obligated to save me today. I don't think you were forced to save your friend, either."

"Saving you was convenience; an investigation into your death would cause unnecessary hassle for the school, which would impact me as well. And saving her…"

"You can say it, you know."

"What?"

"Love. It's okay to say you did it out of love."

A silence settled over them like gently falling snow. Homura's expression remained neutral; meanwhile, Sayaka held out her hand, let a leaf fall into her palm, and twirled it between her fingers. "I say you're a hero," she whispered. "By my definition, heroes are good people who save others. Maybe you're under a contract, but you still do save people. And maybe you're creepy as all hell, but you don't look like a killer to me."

Homura let her eyes drift to the side, where she could see students milling about in the hallways during passing period. So many nameless, faceless people, yet somewhere in that crowd was Tomoe Mami. Homura knew her name and face, but few else did. If she died, how long would it take for people to notice?

The mahou shoujo reflexively crossed her arms over her chest as a particularly biting wind whistled through, turning aimlessly in the air. It carried the aroma of jasmine tea.

"And if I were to?" she asked while keeping her voice apathetic. "What would you think of me then?"

Homura wondered if Sayaka realized she was rubbing the inside of her left arm, right in the place where Kyosuke was shot. "It would depend on the reason."

"Say that I did it for my friend."

"I don't think a good friend would want you to go around killing people for her sake," Sayaka said.

"You don't understand anything," Homura snapped. "You think it's as simple as that?"

Sayaka's eyes widened, but she didn't speak for a time. "There's always another way," she finally said.

Homura shook her head. "I've tried everything," she said. Her voice came oh so close to cracking. "She doesn't deserve to die. Neither of them do."

It was dark in the courtyard. The sun, brightly shining, had shifted its position in the sky so that there was a well-defined line dividing sunlight and shade from the tree. Homura shifted her feet closer together, as if the light would burn through her shoes. Yet it looked washed out and sickly when it fell on the grass crushed into the shape of her footprints. She spread her fingers so that the tips were pressed against the shimmering glass. They didn't glow the way the glass did; the skin looked sick and sallow. Like rain running off her hand. Running. Afraid. Yes, Homura decided, the courtyard was very dark that day.

A million miles away, the second bell rang. Sayaka made no sign of leaving. Instead, her eyes followed Homura's hand, and for a moment, Homura had the bizarre, impossible notion that Sayaka could read her thoughts. "I suppose it comes down to the thing every manga hero asks the villain," said Sayaka. "Question Number Two: Do the ends justify the means?"

"The answer's always no."

"In a manga, yes. But…" Sayaka rubbed the sole of her shoe in the dirt, in the line separating sunlight from shadow. "The man who shot Kyosuke was arrested, and sentenced to ten years in prison. I remember sitting in my room, hearing the verdict from his mom, and being so angry… so full of rage, like I was another person… that I threw the phone against the wall and screamed. Ten years wasn't enough for me. That man's ruined Kyosuke's life; why shouldn't his life be ruined in exchange? I honestly wanted him to die, so that no one would have to suffer because of that man. Kyosuke did too. Whenever I came to visit him in the hospital, he'd tell me how much he hated the bastard. His parents made appeals to the court, but of course, nothing changed. It got to the point that one day, his father told me that a nurse found Kyosuke cutting the wrist of his right hand with a CD. He would have to be medicated from then on in order to keep him calm. The thoughts of killing had made him sick. That's when I realized that the ends don't justify the means. Kyosuke didn't deserve that end. There just can't be a happy ending by those means."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Homura asked.

"Because you're a hero. Because I know what it's like to want to sacrifice yourself for someone else. Because there's not a lot of justice in this world. Because I'm terrified of guns. Because if you ever meet Michiru Saionji - prisoner, age forty-one, 180 centimeters, brown hair, eyes I never want to see - I want you to take that gun you chose and shoot him until his arms fall off."

In the distance, Homura heard a strange thing, an impossible thing: a third bell calling them to class.

Sayaka turned away from Homura so that the edges of her skin were soft and fuzzy in the light. A piece of tree bark snagged onto her sleeve and tore open a tiny sliver of milky white skin. Blood in the sunlight. It looked so out of place, an ugly poison, yet it resided in everyone, just beneath the surface. Homura's bones shuddered inside her skin.

Sayaka tilted back her head, revealing two shining blue eyes staring directly into Homura's. "Question Number Three—"

"I only promised you two."

"I know. This doesn't really count as a question, since I already know the answer. Question Number Three: Is she worth it?"

No more than two minutes could have passed while she watched Sayaka walk away, blue hair swishing like waves, into her classroom to melt like foam into the sea of faceless strangers. But those blue eyes lingered on much longer. They changed the color of the sky over Homura's head.

As Homura turned to follow her into the school, she passed by the apple Sayaka had chucked at the back of her head. There were tiny holes where ants or worms had burrowed their way inside, but the skin was still a gleaming red. Red like poison, red like roses, red like blood. "Beautiful," she whispered, and she tossed it high over the tree and into the blue sky.

When it came down, it was shriveled and crushed under her heel.

"Akemi-san? What's the meaning of this?"

Two Soul Gems, purple and gold, were the only illumination in the basement of the shopping complex. "Discrepancy. Surely you didn't expect me to discuss a witch in broad daylight."

Mami's eyes narrowed. "There's a witch here?"

The steady click-clack of their heels echoed off the walls lined with metal pipes. "Yes. It got away from me earlier today. It's a tricky one, too dangerous for me to take on alone."

"And you expect me to help you then, correct? You're being terribly presumptuous, Akemi-san. Allies in battle don't take too kindly to death threats."

"Unfortunately, allies is what we'll have to settle with if Mitakihara City is to be spared the wrath of Walpurgisnacht," Homura said. "I had requested a mahou shoujo from Kazamino City to come here, but she declined. As of right now, we're the only ones who can stand between Mitakihara and utter decimation." In the amethyst light, Homura's face looked strangely waxen as she cast her eyes down to the side. "Despite whatever you may think of me, can you possibly believe the death of thousands is not to my benefit?"

Mami brushed aside one of her outrageous curls. "We'll have to see about that," she replied coldly.

"Make no mistake, Tomoe-san, I don't have any delusions about any potential partnership between us involving friendship. And do not think my attitude towards you or your philosophy of being a mahou shoujo has changed. But desperation makes all of us perform deeds that are not to our liking."

"Fine," Mami said. "I'll agree to a tentative alliance with you, Akemi-san. Even if the only reason is that I'll be able to keep an eye on you."

Homura smiled. "'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' How wise, Tomoe-san. Perhaps there may still be hope for you. All the same, it's better to fight and die together than alone."

Just then, the two girls came to a three-way fork. "Which way?" Mami asked.

Mami jumped when Homura's shield banged against a pipe. Homura raised an eyebrow but gave no comment as she eased herself around Mami to stand before the three paths. Raising her Soul Gem high above her head, she slowly passed by all three. The amethyst light flickered at the middle path.

Not to be left out, Mami took her own Soul Gem and pointed it like a flashlight down the middle corridor, if its low ceiling and collapsing walls could even be called a corridor. "It'll be a tight fit."

Homura shrugged. "It's probably for the maintenance."

Golden light spilled over a grate hanging by one rusting hinge on the ceiling. "If it is, it hasn't been well-maintained. Goodness, it looks like the top is going to collapse."

Amethyst mingled with gold to form a sickly grey, and Homura tsked in impatience. "It's probably going to be renovated along with the rest of this floor, but that's beside the point. We don't have time to find an alternate route to the witch."

"Then let me use my ribbons—"

Homura cupped her hand over Mami's Soul Gem, effectively snuffing out the light. "Don't waste your magic," she said tersely. "Save it for the witch. Only if things do start collapsing can you use magic." When Mami stayed quiet, she added, "You go first through the corridor. That way, if the walls do fall apart under our weight, you can run and save yourself far easier than I can."

Mami gave a sharp, mirthless laugh. "You just want me to go first so that if the witch strikes, I'll be hit first."

"Like I said before, this isn't a friendship."

"Very well," Mami said, and thus began their steady, careful trek through the middle corridor. It was straight, fortunately, but very narrow, so narrow that the girls were forced to walk sideways. The walls practically sandwiched them, and several times one would have to pause and unhook a piece of clothing that had caught on a loose screw. Occasionally, Mami would call out warnings like "missing floor tile," but other than that, the only consistent sound was Homura's shield, clanging against metal at the tempo of their hearts.

Mami's eyes were bright like spotlights in the darkness; Homura had to blink several times when they turned on her. "Since I'm going through all this trouble for you, Akemi-san, may I ask you one question?"

Homura's wry smile from earlier widened. "Yes. You can even ask two," she said, "only because you just asked me a question."

Mami wasn't amused. "Why do you hate me so much?"

"Because you're evil," Homura said, meeting Mami's eyes unfalteringly. "Because you remind me of myself when I first became a mahou shoujo. Because you're good, too good. Because I should have no reason to hate you, but you're so terribly, frightening wrong, and you don't know it. You're ignorant, you don't know you're ignorant, and thus you can't change it. And that's perhaps the worst evil of all." No, perhaps the second worst. The pinnacle evil is knowledge of evil, along with all its repercussions, and doing it anyway.

Finally, after what felt like ages of holding their breaths, Mami and Homura stumbled out of the corridor and into a spacious, shadowy antechamber. So that's the straight and narrow, Homura thought to herself while mercilessly beating the dust off her skirt. What a bitch.

"Ignorance," Mami whispered. "That's my crime against you. Then let me ask you a second question, Akemi-san, since you offered: What makes you think you're any less in the dark?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I can't view anything I do as good or evil, not anymore. Just what I have to do."

"What about compassion, or at least some moral code?" asked Mami, crossing her arms so that her Soul Gem dangled loosely in her limp hand. A display of confidence, but only skin deep. "What about humanity, Akemi-san?"

The hollow metal walls sent Homura's bark of a laugh reverberating across the room and into the shadows. "I'm a mahou shoujo first, and a human second. That was the price I paid for my wish. All that's left for me to do is fight. As do you."

Homura's eyes darted to her Soul Gem, glowing with such an intensity that it made a red imprint in her palm. "The witch is approaching. She can't be more than half a mile away. You know what to do."

Homura turned her head just in time to catch the last vestiges of golden light melting off Mami's mahou shoujo uniform. Holding out her own Soul Gem, Homura let amethyst radiance wash over her, consume her, drown her, That was always how it felt whenever she surrendered her body to the trance-like state of her transformation. It felt like dying.

She pulled a gun out of her shield.

There, in the dark, with a wide empty chamber and the witch closing in, Mami realized just how close she was to the other mahou shoujo. Her very presence was like a vacuum. Mami didn't have space to breathe.

"You didn't bring Kyubey." Homura's voice was a whisper, but Mami could hear her loud and clear. Perhaps if there hadn't been a persistent ringing in her ears, Mami would have also heard the ominous creak of a maintenance door being eased open above their heads.

"It's no secret how much you despise him." Her voice was trembling. Why… why is my voice trembling?

"I'm grateful for your courtesy. It will make what I have to do today that much easier."

Somehow, despite the impending sense of claustrophobia, Mami still found Homura to be closer than she had expected: she turned her head, and those two amethyst eyes were all that she could see. Yet little known to her, Homura could see one more pair within pools of gold: two sky blue eyes misting over.

"A-Akemi-san?"

"There's one more reason why I hate you." Her whisper was the only thing breaking the silence, quieter than the grave.

"And what's that?"

"You're the reason why I have to do this."

Thirty-six times.

Thirty-six failures.

Thirty-six deaths.

Maybe the ends don't justify the means, thought Homura, but at least this way there will be an end.

"H-Homura-chan?"

No… It couldn't be…

We all have defining moments in our lives. This was Homura's. The moment she looked up, cradling Mami's dead body in her arms, and met eyes with Kaname Madoka.

In that instant, many things happened at once. The air in her lungs rebelled, reaching a boil that left her shivering and light-headed. Sparks exploded when she tried to breathe, a scream was pounding in her ears, and a legion of tiny gnawing mouths were chewing away at her stomach. Nerves were needles pricking the underside of her skin, but never able to break through the cold and clammy surface. Her skin was itchy; she wanted to scratch, scratch, scratch and tear into the flesh of the sickening thing residing inside her. She felt naked, exposed, yet doused from head to toe in something sinister. Through it all was her blood, keeping the slow and steady tempo of life. Peace within the madness.

"Ah, so 'you'll never fall to me again'? Is that so? Then stay on your knees, mahou shoujo. There's nowhere to fall when you're already on the ground."

And all of that came before Homura had even moved a muscle.

Could she move? Had she ever been able to move? The trembling pink eyes told her otherwise. But somehow, she found her hand resting on her shield, fingers bent at awkward angles into claws that dug into the metal.

"Homura-chan… why…?"

On March 16th, Akemi Homura woke up in her hospital bed screaming.

Timeline Thirty-seven.

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

A thousand bullets were frozen in time around her, but only one mattered. She knew it was there, rattling around inside as it awaited the order to fire, and it made her hold the gun so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Otherwise, she would have let it fall to the ground in harmless silence. And that would never do.

Her heart was beating somewhere around her ears. For the first time in a long, long while, she was scared of the gun in her hands.

Already, the flesh around the gun wound in her head had regrown, thanks to the perks that came with unintentionally tearing out one's soul. Now, the only evidence that she had shot herself in the head was smears of blood around her left eye. Whether she liked it or not, the blood wasn't going away. So commonplace that some didn't mind letting it flood the streets. So necessary and precious that others would do anything to keep it inside themselves. Human instinct. Human justice. Homura wondered if there would come a day when someone could find it beautiful enough to die for.

But two already had.

Blood in the shadow, where no one could see. But Sayaka – the real Sayaka, dwelling in whatever realm existed after the Law of the Cycles – could see it. And Kaname Madoka – the real Madoka, dwelling in Homura's heart – could see it.

Help me, she wanted to say. Ninety-six chances I had the hero you wanted me to be, and I blew them all. I... I thought I could bear any sin for you, but not in your presence. Turns out there's a third kind of evil, the kind that does evil and thinks it's good. The worst evil of all. Please, forgive me. Please, just give me one more chance.

It's true that you never forget the first time you murder. The times afterwards are all too easy. Most of the time, they're not worth remembering. But sometimes, on miraculous days when the sun shines and children believe in goodness, it's the pain those times bring that isn't worth remembering.

Homura placed her finger on the trigger of the gun, almost empty but not quite, and simply remembered.

It's fitting, Homura thought to herself, that my power should be stopping time. In the end, my only weakness is myself and my memories. One comes, then a thousand, and I'm blinded by myself. I need to shield myself from them. God, I wonder if there's much more to me than memories. But then again, joys fade faster than mistakes.

Homura stared into Mami's eyes, frozen in terror, and narrowed her own. But that's only true because mistakes can be learned from.

"Question Number One," the voice of Izabel hissed. "Is she worth it?"

"Yes," Homura answered. "And so am I."

Akemi Homura fired the gun at Mami's knee, and Time remembered how to breathe another day.