"That was some speech by Mami tonight," Madoka said walking next to her shy companion. "Yes," Homura agreed. "What did you think of it?" Madoka pressed her. "It's not like Mami to be this hard on Sayaka, on anyone!"
Homura shrugged. "Yes," Homura said, "but I fully understand her position. It's the proper thing to do."
"It just got me thinking what if either of us got kidnapped and tortured…," Madoka said. "I would want to be strong, of course, and not give you guys up, but what if I'm not strong enough? And even if I was strong enough, could you guys afford to take the risk?"
Madoka reflected on it for a long time. Homura glanced at her from the side. Her eyes did not betray her feelings. Madoka continued to think. "Just the thought of it. Would...would you kill me, Homura, if I was going to talk? If I was going to sell you guys out because of torture?"
Madoka looked at her. Once again, her friend's face remained loyal to her sentiments. Homura didn't even stop on place, and she didn't even turn to face her. They just kept walking as Madoka awaited her response.
"I'm sorry," Madoka said after a while. "I don't know why I asked th-"."
"No." Homura answered. She interrupted her as if she had been saying nothing at all.
Madoka wasn't dumbfounded, even though she felt she should've been. She was still rather surprised; however."No?" Madoka said, "Not even to save the group, yourself?"
Homura was silent again as they continued to walk, their feet breaking virgin snow as they tread. Homura closed her eyes, and admitted, "You … you're more important to me than the group, Madoka. You're my only y reason for being in the group."
"Oh, well," Madoka said, still not quite comprehending what she meant. "I was the reason you joined."
"No," Homura shook her head. "It's more than that." She continued, "The truth is I could never bring myself to kill you….," she whispered under her breath, 'again.'
"You could sell everyone out and myself out, Madoka. You could stab me in the back a million times, you could even delight in it and rub salt on my wounds, and laugh straight in my face, and even then…." They didn't stop, but Homura finally turned to Madoka and faced her. "...I could never kill you or hate you."
"Oh, why Homura….," Madoka said. She found herself a loss for words, "I don't quite know what to say."
"It's nothing," Homura lied, as her eyes returned to the direction they were walking.
"But Mami wouldn't feel the same way, I'd imagine," her friend continued. "Kyouko … and maybe even Sayaka might …."
Homura didn't even let her have the time to chew on these thoughts. Immediately, she declared, "If any of them ever wanted to kill you, they'd have to kill me first."
"But that's completely illogical, Homura!" she said, again with less bewilderment than she felt the statement deserved. "What about the group?" she asked.
Homura replied, without even thinking, "You're more important to me than the group."
Homura gave her a glance out of the side of her eyes and saw a look of disbelief and confusion. She stopped, and Madoka stopped with her. She felt she had to elaborate, and let Madoka know … know how she really felt. Blushing, but keeping herself stoic and her eyes forward. "You could do whatever you wanted to me, Madoka. You could betray me, and you could raise your hand to kill me. And I wouldn't fight you. And if the others tried to stop you, I'd fight them!"
She looked over to her, and said, "But I could never kill you, Madoka! And I would never even try!"
This time Madoka was quite dumbstruck. Normally, her enigmatic friend was quite private. Beyond private, actually; more along the lines of esoteric. To hear her talk not only about her feelings, but such strong feelings that she never knew that she felt about her was quite shocking. Her mouth was slightly agape as she proceeded to ask, "Bu-but why, Homura? That's… that's so illogical!"
Homura looked away and blushed again. "I don't know why … maybe because… you're the most important person to me…" She flinched as she felt the sap frothing out of her own mouth. "Maybe because you're my best friend..."
Madoka shushed her with a hug, her befuddled look replaced with a smile. Homura's blush intensified. "What? What are you doing?"
"I know what you're trying to say!" Madoka said as she hugged her. "You're such a coward, Homura!" Madoka said, laughingly, with no malevolence in her voice.
"I never said that I was brave," Homura replied, understanding what she meant.
"Well then," Madoka replied. "I guess I'll just have to be the brave one for the both of us!" Madoka smiled as she clutched her other, the warmth of her fighting away the frosty night around them.
Homura smiled, and rested her head on top of her other's, "You were always the brave one for the both of us!"
Madoka reached for her hand, and she accepted it. They walked forward together. Madoka sighed, "I wonder what became of that guy Sayaka attacked. I do hope he'll pull through."
"Hmmm," Homura nodded with her, still warm and content from her friend's embrace. "Mmmmm," Homura nodded passively. "I guess we'll never know…" Madoka nodded in agreement, "I guess we never will."
Somewhere across the world; however, the man was getting better, but not in the way that either of them may have thought or hoped. Where he was was not known, even to himself. Maybe he was somewhere in Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, Long Island, or even Nevada. One thing was certain - he wasn't in Japan. Sites like this definitely didn't exist in Japan; did they? To be fair, he originally believed that places like this only existed in movies or in minds hidden behind tinfoil hats; yet now he was here, walking through the dimly lit corridors of such a place. With a man in a military uniform by his side whom he presumed was a guard of some variety escorted him to the very end of the hall. And behind that door was an … office? It was unlike any office he had ever seen.
"Come in," said a voice from the dark room. The until recently one-armed thug obeyed, twitching his new robotic hand as he did so, partially out of nerves and partially to acquaint himself with the feeling of these new electronic nerves. His escort shut the door behind him as he entered. There was a long table in front of him. He could make out a dozen or so figures in the shadowy room through the screen of thick cigar smoke, but none of the faces are recognizable.
"I trust you weren't too uncomfortable during the operation," the man at the very end, at the head of the table said, who was presumably the leader from the look of things. "I didn't feel a thing while I was under the gas, but my arm was stinging like hell the next day," he replied.
"Good," the shadowy leader replied; coldly, emotionlessly. It was clear that the question was only meant to be rhetorical. "And you're aware of why we gave you this operation?"
"Yea," the thug replied.
"Do you still accept the terms?" he asked. Again, it was obvious that the question was rhetorical.
"Of course! I want some payback on that little monster who took my arm!" the thug replied. "I'm not taking that without a fight!"
"Good! Good! We're glad to hear that, sir! Congratulations. You are now an agent of our organization."
"Yeah," the thug said. "About that. What sort of organization is this? Do you work with the Japanese government?" There was a brief pause. The shadowy man at the head of the table took his cigar up to his mouth and dragged on it. A plume of thick smoke blew out of his mouth.
"We work for a government, yes," he said, in a need-to-know-basis tone. "Honestly, you needn't concern yourself about the more ... administrative side of our operation. Just know that on this front we share the same goal. We want you to get the justice you deserve. We want to keep the streets of Japanese cities, and the world's cities for safe from these creatures."
"Yeah, that's right!" the man said. "I'm an agent of justice! A hero!" He punched his organic hand with his cybernetic one in a moment of excitement; however, he didn't anticipate how much it would hurt him to do so. He flinched in pain, but tried to hide it in the faces of all these esteemed dignitaries. If the chief noticed his flinching, he didn't embarrass him by drawing attention to it. Instead, he just continued on. "Indeed. As are we, sir! As are we!" he said. "We've equipped you with a combat adamantium arm, the strongest metal known on this planet."
'No kidding,' the thug thought to himself.
"And tomorrow you'll begin your training in our martial arts program," the chief continued. "Your goal will be too capture the creature that did this to you, and return her to us. We'll take care of it from there. And you'll be more than handsomely paid, of course!"
"So, new kick ass arm. Kick ass cool government job with benefits and advance pay. And the opportunity to get some justice! This deal just keeps getting better and better!"
"Excellent. We knew you'd agree, sir. Of course, now that you're an official agent for us, we can't just keep calling you, 'sir.' It's excessively formal."
"Oh, well, I have a name. If you want you can call me by that. It's-."
"There's no need. We're going to assign you a new name. An agent name that we'll henceforth address you."
"Ah, okay. Awesome!"
"Let me see. Hmmm…," his new boss pondered. "You're strong. You have an arm made of metal."
"Mmmmhmmm," the thug nodded.
"And you were busted for trying to rape a girl in an alleyway, right?" he pointed. "We can build an angle around that!"
"Mmmhmm...wait!" the thug stopped his nodding. " Wh-whut?"
The boss was ignorant of the look of confusion across his new employee's face. "Your name from now on will be…," the shadowy man pointed directly at him, "...the Full Metal Rapist!"
The thug went purple. To say the least he had some issues with the name and that it didn't particularly call attention to his more noble qualities. "Ummmm," he mumbled for a little bit, "Can I just maybe exercise a little creative control ony name?"
"Yes! That name is perfect for you!" he said, having apparently ignored his feedback. The thug heard mumbles of approval from the rest of the shadowy figures as they nodded in agreement with their boss.
"Dammit!" the thug exclaimed. "Don't agree with him! That's a horrible name!"
"Congratulations, Full Metal Rapist, on your new status!" the leader continued, completely ignoring his disgruntled subordinate. "We will notify you later on the details of your first training session." The boss waved towards the door from the shadows. "You are dismissed!"
The thug just stood there, dumbstruck. In a minute he had gone from feeling on top-of-the-world to bottom-of-the-gutter. The terror that was his new moniker just immediately stripped away any and all excitement he could possibly have for this new job. He tried once more to just get maybe get a small word in on the matter, but his escort had materialized out of the shadows, as if from space, and pushed him out of the door and back into the fluorescent light of the corridor.
"But!" he said back into the room. They replied with a door to the face. "Bu-but," he muttered at the closed door, on the off chance that they'll hear him through the wall, come out to the corridor and finally hear him out on the matter. "It's kinda hard to feel like an agent of justice with a codename like that…." he remarked, oddly calmly as if he was some big name Hollywood producer reviewing a script at an initial creative meeting. As if the group inside actually were out in the hallway with him and they were finally open to his suggestions. But the matter was quite over and the plain, blue door didn't have any comments to make on the subject.
'I might've made a big mistake,' was all he thought. 'A very BIG mistake.'
But he couldn't exactly pinpoint where and when he made this mistake or what exactly it actually was. All he knew was that a mistake happened at somewhere and at sometime, and only now were the consequences of his offense beginning to haunt him.
"DAMMIT!" the thug muttered to himself. "This isn't cool."
