One Thing Left to Save
Chapter 3: Understanding Part 1
Homura comes to understand Kyubey's goals...

While writing the first two chapters, I kept asking myself if I wanted Kyubey to show up. He did, and I'm glad he did because once I started writing notes for what the three of them had to talk about, I went on and on and liked everything I came up with.

"Kyubey," both girls said to their visitor, Madoka nervously and Homura accusingly.

Staring at them from its perch on Madoka's bedside windowsill and blithely ignoring the wind and rain, the little thing asked, "May I come in?"

Madoka muttered, "We, uh..." before looking at Homura.

Scowling at Kyubey, she said, "You're not welcome around us anymore, Kyubey. Just leave."

It remained seated, unmoving save for its ears and tail getting blown around. "Now that you're together, I'd like to talk to both of you. If Madoka can't explain what I told her last night, I can start with that for you."

Thinking about Madoka being left alone with Kyubey in the state she was in made Homura take a breath to stay calm. "So, it's still your fault Miss Kaname's like this," she said tersely.

"I wanted to explain something. Madoka never asked me to stop or to leave her room, so if she didn't like what I was telling her, she could have said so," it replied.

Only a few sentences and Homura was already thinking of asking Madoka if she could chase it away. Madoka could listen to anyone, as she had just demonstrated, so of course she would have listened to whatever it was talking about. "We don't want to know what you have to say. Now she knows what you're really up to, like I did, and I'm not letting you get to her."

"But you don't understand my actions, and I have more things I want to explain. Things you both want to know, about-"

"I said-"

"Walpurgisnacht."

Homura went quiet at that, and Madoka gave a soft gasp when that name was said.

"I only want you to understand what's happening, that's all." Even with its unchanging face and tone of voice, Homura could swear it was looking at them like a hunter leaving out bait.

She leaned towards Madoka, asking, "Do you want me to handle it?"

Madoka looked at her, then back at Kyubey, and then back at her with a shake of her head. "I think we should listen, especially if he wants to tell us about Walpurgisnacht."

"Mmm...you really want to trust it?"

"No!" Madoka insisted, surprising Homura a little with the sudden resurgence of confidence. "I'm never trusting him again. But Walpurgisnacht is what matters now. We can sort out what we want to believe when he's done talking...but for now, we have to make the most of what we can get."

Homura gave a hesitant nod. "If you ever want it gone...tell me," she asked. After getting a nod and a smile back, Homura returned the smile briefly, and then stood up to walk to the window and open it.

Kyubey hopped in, bounding off Madoka's bed and leaving a small damp spot on her sheets before landing on the floor and shaking itself off. Now seated between Madoka and Homura, it looked between them before curling its tail in front of it. "Where would you like me to begin?" it asked, not at all concerned by Homura standing over it as it started to groom its damp fur.

"You can start with...telling me what you told Miss Kaname last night," Homura said.

"Certainly," it replied, not looking back up. "Homura, have you ever heard of entropy?"

She looked away in thought, the word ringing a faint bell in her memory. "Heard of it...yes...but, um..." she muttered.

Madoka blinked. "Really? It's not something we learned in my schools."

"I, uh, had a lot of time alone in the hospital," she said as she looked back at Madoka. "They had a few books they would let me read. One had science-type stuff. I saw that word a few times but I don't really understand it. I just remember that it's kind of...what makes everything fall apart sooner or later."

"That's an oversimplification, but it's not inaccurate," Kyubey said, getting their attention back. "Here's another simple example. It takes water, soil, and sunlight to grow a tree. In other words, it takes energy. If the tree is cut down and used to make a fire, that fire gives off energy."

Homura nodded. "Yes?"

"But the energy given off by the fire is not equal to the energy it took to grow the tree. When the tree is burned, some of the energy is lost." Finishing with its tail and moving on to clean its ears, Kyubey continued, "This is happening on the scale of the entire universe, and 'entropy' is the term humans have given this process. Stars take a long time to form, and burn for far longer, but eventually they go out. Over the course of time, the universe is using up its energy. If nothing is done to counteract entropy, stars will stop forming and then stop shining altogether, and even the materials that they, planets, and life itself are made of will be gone."

More confused than worried, Homura asked, "What does that have to do with us?"

As it licked its ears, Kyubey looked up at her as if glad she asked. "My race searched the universe for a new source of energy, one that wasn't limited by this process. We found your planet and studied your species."

"There's more of you...and you're...an alien?" Not that she had seen any Kyubeys until a few months ago, but to learn there was an entire race of Kyubeys and they weren't even from this planet...

Ignoring the combined question and statement, Kyubey went on, "We recognized your potential once we learned of what you call emotion."

"Now Kyubey talks about emotion like it's something it just learned about?" She frowned in thought, looking at Madoka. "This is what it told you?"

Madoka nodded. "You...might want to sit down for this..." she said quietly, looking uncomfortable.

Homura moved to stand by her side, smiling at her. "I'll be fine," she replied before looking back at Kyubey. "I'll show you there's nothing to be scared of."

Satisfied with its grooming and shaking itself off again, Kyubey hopped onto Madoka's bed and sat down, its face and voice as unchanging as ever as it explained, "We developed technology that could turn emotions into energy and measured how much energy humans created during their lives. It was an even greater success than we expected," its tail swished behind it, "especially once we observed what happens when a human experiences intense despair."

Homura managed to keep a steady gaze on its unblinking eyes as the alien told her this. This was reminding her of when she had first met Madoka and Mami and learned what witches were: Creatures that brought despair to the world. "That's...when they become witches, isn't it?" she asked, casting a quick glance at the worried-looking Madoka.

"The more potent the emotion, the more energy that's given off, and despair has always been the trigger for a magical girl's transformation. Whether by overuse of magic or becoming as wicked as the creatures they fight, they flare out like miniature suns, are transformed into witches, and create far more energy than they take in during their lives." Still as a statue as Homura's eyes narrowed and Madoka let out a quiet whimper, it continued, "The humans who reliably experience the most intense despair are females early in the process of becoming adults. As an Incubator, my task is to seek out the ones who have the greatest potential, offer contracts, and collect the energy given off by their transformations."

Homura grit her jaw at its statements. "Is that why you were here? To push Miss Kaname over the edge?" she accused.

"Not at all. I expected Madoka to accept this as a mutually beneficial arrangement. I don't understand why she rejected the logic behind our actions," it said nonchalantly.

"What...'beneficial'...'logical'...wh-what?!" She tried to stay calm and show Madoka she was in control, but it was starting to slip.

"This arrangement doesn't come without significant benefits to humanity, of course. Before you became magical girls, I offered you wishes, didn't I? Anything you wanted in exchange for your service. I may not know the circumstances behind your contract, Homura Akemi, but if either of you think that what you got wasn't worth it, you should've thought harder before making your decisions."

The more Kyubey spoke, the more she remembered the rare times when she wasn't in her room hiding from everyone when she lived with her father. He would say things like that, too, about payment and threats and the fine print in deals to people he worked with, some of whom were more like prisoners than partners.

It looked at Homura, cocking its head. "You seem to be more familiar with Madoka Kaname than she is with you. Do you have a theory of why she reacted so negatively to my explanation?" it asked.

"Yes! It's because she doesn't help people just because she wants something back from them, like turning them into things that're better off dead!" Homura said angrily.

"While the concept of altruism doesn't make sense, it has proven to be very useful to us. It's why I expected her to understand why this is a good thing we're doing. You see, in the short term, this directly benefits the girl who makes the contract, while in the long term, it prevents the death of the universe." Kyubey shifted its head to look at Madoka. "Isn't helping as many people as possible exactly what you want to do, no matter the cost to yourself?"

"How can you even call that the same thing?!" Madoka demanded. "Turning us into witches isn't helping! You know that we'd never accept your offer if we knew the truth, and that's why you won't tell us, isn't it?!"

"It's true that girls usually don't accept the truth, but we don't withhold this information with ill intentions. On the contrary, it's because you rarely understand the mutual benefits that we let you believe what you want when making a contract," it said.

"You think it's on a need-to-know basis," Homura summarized.

It straightened up, letting out a quiet sigh. "I'm just trying to find a reason for how someone like Madoka, who puts the needs of others before her own, can go back and forth from rational to irrational so unpredictably. Just two nights ago, after Sayaka Miki became a witch, you refused to kill it, and yet you killed Mami Tomoe without hesitation when the time came for it."

Homura was about to shut it up when Madoka was suddenly on her feet and shouting, "I wanted to save her! She didn't know what you were up...to..." Her reprimand came to a sudden end as she looked at Kyubey nervously. "How do you know about that?"

"The same way you do, of course," it replied. "I was there when it happened."

That was enough for Homura to look at Madoka again and remind her, "If you want it gone..."

Ignoring her again, Kyubey licked one of its paws and rubbed behind its ears as it explained, "Once I was aware of the curse Sayaka was bringing on herself, I stayed near her to be ready to collect the energy when she transformed. When you two, Mami, and Kyoko Sakura fought her witch, I watched the battle, but then Mami suffered a mental collapse when she learned the truth."

"You just sat there, and didn't even care?!" Madoka asked as if, even after all she had heard, she still couldn't believe Kyubey could be so detached.

"While I may not have cared in the sense you're likely defining it, I was planning to intervene. As I told you yesterday, you have the potential to give off much more energy with your transformation than Sayaka did, or than Homura does."

Homura was getting close to throwing it out whether or not Madoka wanted her to.

"If Mami killed all of you before that happened, that would have been so wasteful. I was ready to snatch her soul gem just after she killed Homura and would be most vulnerable, but then you raised your bow." It closed its eyes as if giving her a cute smile. "You exceeded my expectations, Madoka."

Madoka shook her head sadly and sat back down. "I guess you really don't understand," she sighed.

Seeing this wasn't going to help anymore, Homura spoke up, "That's enough of that. Now tell us what you know about Walpurgisnacht."

"Very well." After a quick scratch of its chin, the Incubator said, "I wanted to convince you of the futility of battling Walpurgisnacht."

"...How is that 'something we want to know?'" Homura asked.

"It's a simple, straightforward warning."

"I don't need your warning. I'm not leaving," Madoka said firmly. "I didn't make a wish just to look out for myself."

Homura nodded at her, mirroring her confidence when she said to Kyubey, "And if she fights, I fight. Now, why are you warning us? Isn't this what you want?"

"If it weren't what I wanted, I would never warn you about it in the first place." With a swish of its tail, it added, "No magical girl has ever been able to prevent the destruction brought about by this witch. You have nothing to gain from this battle, so I recommend you escape while you can."

"We might surprise you, Kyubey. We have before," Homura replied, though she felt conflicted about that. She'd seen Walpurgisnacht defeated twice, but Mitakihara was in ruins nonetheless, to say nothing of Madoka's fate. She tried to distract herself from her doubt by continuing, "Now, really tell us why you're warning us. Is it because you're worried we'll die in battle instead of turn into witches? Or because we haven't ripened enough before we're harvested?"

It paused, staring at them for a few seconds before it answered, "You humans really can be so capricious. You may not have agreed with my explanation for how we overcome entropy, but you didn't question that I was telling the truth. Now you don't believe me when I say the best course of action is to save yourselves. With most girls, it's the opposite."

"If you're not going to help us, will you please leave?" Madoka asked.

"If words won't convince you to agree with me..."

That was enough to get Homura to take a step towards it, but before she could take another, its eyes lit up with red light. Madoka's room dissolved into darkness, leaving Kyubey, Homura and Madoka floating in a black void.

"I want to see if a demonstration will work."

A/N Continued

This story's copyright policy: "Sharing is caring." Do what you like with this story, not like I can do anything to stop you, in fact I'd be flattered you'd want to share it or save it so you can read it whenever you want. All I ask is that you link back to the original source. A version that can be copied is on my DA page.

Madoka Magica (c) its owners and writers.
The quote this series takes its name from is from a YouTube comment on The Walking Dead's soundtrack by YouTube user Oreally.
This story uses the timeline presented by the MM wiki, so thanks to the wiki for that too.
I'm not much of a physicist, and most of Kyubey's explanation for entropy is based on what I read in Wikipedia's "Heat Death of the Universe" article.