Illness is a slow burn. Despair creeps in - fear, anger, frustration, hopelessness, grief, and loss - mingled with and tacking onto the usual darkness that lurks just beyond the sight of ordinary humans. Little flares of hope come along, too, when someone or other gets better, keeping one more wraith at bay. But it's not enough. This virus is taking children away, and everyone sees them go. They aren't nameless, countless girls turned to forgotten police reports. They are children, and they are dying.
Homura prefers working alone. She has grown accustomed to only relying on herself. For a few days, she keeps fighting alone, leaving Mami and Kyoko to their own devices. Only, that isn't the reality this world remembers. They notice her absence and expect explanation when she stops by out of necessity, more and more frequently.
The month that follows wears on, and there's something inevitable about them ending up at the hospital together. The storm worsens before it ends, bitter jealousy adding itself to the tumult of feelings for the wraiths to draw their strength from. Some get better and some don't. Some people's lives will never be free from grief again. There hasn't been a strain of the virus so vicious in recent Japanese history.
On the way back to Mami's apartment, Homura considers the fact that these things have a way of balancing themselves out. She walks a few paces behind, and the three girls make a staggered line until they reach the steps. They fall in, one after another, and make their way into the darkened room that smells faintly of cake.
"Excellent work, girls," Kyubey says once over the threshold. "I've never seen so many wraiths in a single night. And to think, you nearly dispatched all of them!"
Homura doubts that the little creature has any idea that the reason it's never seen so many is because until five weeks ago, they didn't exist. She's explained and it's listened, but its retention (or truthfulness) is hardly guaranteed. It lies, but only in degrees - carefully limited to things like omission and hyperbole. She feels it circle, slinking against her stockinged calf, tail curling along behind. She watches its white form trot further into the cozy, still dark.
"I'm going to bed," Kyoko announces. By 'go' she seems to mean walk a few more begrudging steps. By 'bed' she means taking a crumpled blanket from the sofa into a bunch in her arms and collapsing herself down flat on her stomach. She lies parallel with the sofa but a little beyond it on the floor, facing further into Mami's apartment as she clutches the bunched blanket like a pillow. After a moment, she burrows her face into the crook of an arm.
Kyubey begins to flit around the room like a cocktail waiter, expectant and excitable. Homura takes the first turn at fulfilling its expectations, dropping a small number of the wraith's impurities into the waiting port on its back.
Mami crouches to pet softly behind each of Kyubey's ears before dropping hers inside. Homura watches as the steady red gaze stares right through Mami's golden eyes and her eyelashes when she flutters them closed.
"Oh, it was so terrible," Mami says in a soft, wrenching tone. Kyubey makes its way over toward Kyoko. She hardly glances up when it approaches, handful and then another and a third smaller one going right down into its back. One after the other they pour inside with a soft, pattering sound that terminates as soon as the things vanish into the little void. All the while, Kyoko is tucked as tightly as she can be with her nose in the crook of her elbow.
"But you saved them!" Kyubey insists, turning back to look at Mami. There is a tight, adamant flap of its tail.
"Hey," Kyoko complains when it apparently makes some kind of contact with her.
"I'll see you tomorrow!" Kyubey says. It seems in a hurry to leave, and in a moment it is gone.
"Yeah, good riddance." Red hair shakes out a little as Kyoko reaches back to set some of it free.
"Oh," Mami says with sudden alarm, back on her feet and dusting off her skirt. "Let me get you another blanket. I'll be right back."
She heads toward the back of the apartment, toward where a bedroom must be.
Kyoko waits until she's halfway there to give a response.
"'Night, Mami," she calls, still muffled but loud enough to be heard.
"But-"
"'Night, Mami," Kyoko insists, mouth only a little less filled with cotton.
"Oh. Well, goodnight, then - Miss Akemi," Mami replies. Her hands come together and fidget in front of her as her focus shifts. "Feel free to stay as long as you'd like. Make yourself at home."
A very small bow follows, and then Mami is gone to her room.