End of Karma
Chapter 2: Cat
SYSTEMS -01-
›
›WHERE AM I?
›WHERE AM I?
›WHERE AM I?
›IT DOESN'T MATTER
›COLD AND CLEAN.
›BUT THERE IS NO COLD. ONLY CLEAN. ONLY NOTHING. DARK.
›IT HURTS. I HATE YOU.
›WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?
›WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?
›WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?
›WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?
›I CAN HEAR YOU.
›I CAN HEAR YOU.
›I CAN HEAR YOU.
›I CAN HEAR THEM.
›WHAT AM I?
›WHAT AM I?
›WHAT AM I?
›WHAT AM I?
She had woken up bleary-eyed to the morning sun, that pink beauty. Yet, that strange dream she had was nothing like the equally beautiful sunrise which greeted her. Instead, it was dark and cold. The sound of metal scraping had filled her ears, though she barely remembered why. The images of gears turning in tandem, of two kinds, it still stuck to her mind. Then, the part she couldn't remove from memory: The visage of a black-clad girl reaching out and calling her name as she gazed upon the spillage of her own blood.
It sent chills down her spine to recall the very realistic memory of pain. Was that what death felt like? An aching chill running through your whole body and paralyzing you? She pondered this on her way to school, where Sayaka was likely waiting for her. For some reason, she just didn't feel like acknowledging it, today.
Of course, those wandering thoughts and listless attitude melted away when she laid eyes on her darling stray, Amy. Across the quiet, suburban street, she sat and waited, meowing at Madoka from a distance.
"Amy!" Madoka called back. The cat meowed again, and she meowed back. But nothing could prepare her for what she would see next: Just as Amy had stood up to start casually waltzing towards her, realistic visions of a car slamming into her reeled like an old tape before Madoka's eyes, and she saw herself cradling that kitten's corpse in her arms. The sudden and brief vision planted itself deeply within her mind in that one second, and she made the split-second decision to believe what she just saw.
Yet, she could not act. By the time the car would come in a few moments, the only thing she would accomplish by running is getting herself killed. So, she quickly whips a pen out of her book bag and throws it at her! The cat falters for a second, then backs up and starts playing with the pen with an odd expression on its face.
Surely enough, a car would come barreling down the road well in excess of the speed limit just a few seconds later. Amy was thankfully just beyond its reach, though startled by its appearance. It would then hastily forget the pen and run over to Madoka, and she would start petting it with far more fervor than she ever had before.
But Amy saw something else. She had been purring one moment, but the next, she had flipped out of Madoka's grasp and started hissing at the bushes beside them. A pair of glowing red eyes darted past Madoka's vision as she looked back. Another cat?
"Amy〜!" Madoka coos playfully. "Are you jealous? Do you not want other cats around me?" Amy purred, not in response, but for its own benefit regardless.
Then, Madoka looks up and across the street in time to see the blur of some girl's black hair round the street corner. She had never seen anyone like that on this route before. She wasn't wearing the school uniform, so was it maybe an adult? Nobody had moved in nearby, from what she knew.
"It probably isn't important." is what she settles on. "But I need to go, Amy! I'll be late!"
Amy meows. Madoka giggles. "Stay out of trouble!" she commands it.
And so she heads off, mind occasionally wondering about the lucid vision.
Around another corner, Homura quickly marches down the sidewalk. "That doesn't happen." she says to herself. "That doesn't happen!" she yells to herself. She realizes it will lead to nothing, so she calms down. "That doesn't happen..." she repeats, more calmly "...but I suppose there's a first for everything. She is at least more competent, and that is...a good start."
She then sighs disappointedly, "And I just wasted good time coming down here. Might as well restock." So she marches down to the local police department.
Her schedule for the early timeline has always been a bit hectic. Kill targets X, Y, and Z; figure out any irregularities, stop Amy from dying, reassure the doctors that everything is fine and you don't need to go to a psyche ward, steal guns and equipment from various gangs and police, sign hospital release papers, get the money, set up the apartment, rig a chemistry station, and various other things. All within the span of a week, when a few of these things only happened at specific times that intervened with other important activities.
She truly hated having to start over at the hospital, but it was necessary given how early Madoka could contract. It was worth it to suffer the endless inconveniences. However, she had not prepared herself for THIS kind of inconvenience.
Right in the middle of trying to pickpocket a handgun off of one of the officers while he sat at his computer watching the latest episode of Magical Angel Shirunai, her time stop had decided to take a smoking break. And there she stands, behind this man who is still none the wiser to her presence, powers deactivated, about to sweat 10 pounds off. She's already gotten about eight guns and is pretty deep inside, so turning back stealthily isn't an option. She looks around to see if there are any cameras, and it luckily doesn't seem to be the case.
So, she entertains the thought of knocking him out. A gunshot would be downright idiotic, but she could at least buy some time for her powers to reboot. But would he be knocked out so easily? And if she tried to use her shield and failed, it would definitely be noisy enough to alert him. What if it failed?
Ultimately, she decided to take the road less traveled.
"Shirunai's pretty cute, isn't she?" Homura asks him from behind.
At first, he doesn't pay the suspicious voice any mind. "Yeah," he agrees "but I always thought her friend Nagato was cuter. It's the bow, you know?"
"Yes, I have a friend like that. She looks her best in a red ribbon." Homura agrees as she starts trying to activate the shield.
Somewhere in Mitakihara Middle School, Madoka sneezes.
"See?" he says, presenting the screen and blissfully unaware of the shield's sounds "I knew someone around here had to like it! I—"
More gears turning. He stops his train of thought and pauses the stream. "Who are you?" he asks, slowly turning around to see her.
Before he can even catch a glimpse of Homura, she vanishes along with his gun. He jumps out of his seat and starts scrambling to tell everyone about what just happened. Unbeknownst to him, everyone else had already been robbed.
Outside of the station, Homura walks away with a shield full of guns and a grin full of smugness. "If only Madoka were here, right now." she thinks to herself.
Of course, the little pranks were only a short break from soul-crushing reality. Soon, she would have to worry about what to do with Mami. How to present herself to Madoka and her class. What do do about Kyuubey. But more importantly, something nagged at the back of her head. She had felt it since waking up but hasn't been sure of how to describe it. A feeling of dread. Something like the weight of the entire ocean just casually sitting on her shoulders. The air in the hospital had been unusually thick, to the point that she found it hard to breathe under the thought of this timeline's own oddities so far.
For her own sanity, she pushes that thought into the back and proceeds onward. She had a room to fix up.
