Note: I got a certain review for chapter 5 saying that there already is a witch for Mami. Its name is Candeloro and it appears in the PSP game of Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable. I was not aware of that and I'm sorry if it caused confusion for some, although I'm not sure if the information the PSP game provides can actually be called canon. I didn't know of the existence of the game until I received the review, and even now I still don't know much about it. This fiction is written with the anime's background and the manga Puella Magi Kazumi Magica in head. Any break from other sources, like Oriko's manga and anime, the PSP game or anything else I'm unaware of won't be changed even if you ask me to.
Thank you.
Chapter 7: Rise and Fall
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Knock, knock. "Homura-chan, are you there?"
No answer.
"I still have a key to your apartment, so if you don't answer we will come in. Hello?"
From the depth of the apartment, a low broken voice made its way through the door to the two girls standing outside. "Go away."
"I will come in whatever you say, Homura-chan."
There was a pause, or maybe just the words were muffled through the many walls. Akemi and Mitchiko looked at each other, but neither of them had understood the last few words. "What did you say?" asked Akemi, clearly so to be heard from every part of the house.
"Mitchiko doesn't come here."
The little girl answered to the silent question of Akemi. "It's fine, desu! I can take care of myself for a short time."
"Okay, but don't talk at all to Kyubey if he happens to show himself."
"Sure nee-chan!"
Akemi turned the key in the door, leaving behind Mitchiko on the doorsteps to count flowers and cars. She hoped it wouldn't be too long; Kyubey had his eyes on the child for some reason.
She walked up the stairs and entered the single large room of digital walls. The walls did not display their usual array of witch pictures, graphs and information of all kind on a background of pure white; instead, they took the colors and form of wood planks, light coming dimly from some virtual candle on the walls. Homura was sitting on the ground, her back against one of the numerous half-circled couches. She had her usual stoic face.
"What do you want, Akemi-san?" she said in her cold harsh voice.
Akemi sat in front of her other self, in the same position as her as to show she also shared her pain and weakness. "I'm here to see how I'm doing."
"I'm not you."
"You were me, and I know how I would have reacted in the same situation."
"You didn't live through half as much as I did."
"Probably. I think I came back in time five or six times."
"You can still count yours huh?"
Akemi shifted her position a little. Sitting on the floor was not comfortable. The fact that Homura stayed like that for, what she guessed, a long time was proof that she didn't care about it at all. "Homura-chan, are you okay?"
"Yes, I am."
" 'Yes' was not a possible answer to this question."
Homura frowned before putting back her mask of motionless girl. "Is 'no' an acceptable answer then?"
"Only if you make the effort to talk about it."
"Okay, I'll talk about it." She paused, looking in emptiness for some time, maybe collecting her thoughts or just not thinking at all about what she was going to say. "I'm out of this."
Akemi didn't understand what she was talking about at first. "What?"
Homura, for only explanation, transformed into her magical girl suit and showed Akemi her weapon.
She understood then. "Oh, the shield..."
"Yeah, the shield. I'm out."
They stopped talking for a few moments, Akemi figuring more and more the issue at sake. "It never crossed my mind at all since I'm here."
"It didn't crossed mine either until I tried." She transformed back to her normal clothes. After that there was a sudden change in her facial expression. Her eyes widen, looking, piercing directly at Akemi in a very intimidating way. "That's why I ask you to take my place." The way she said it, it was more an order than a request. "Take my role, and protect Madoka. Do it for me."
"You... want me to contract? Like, right now?" She wasn't so sure about this. Up until now, she had kept her wish safely as an emergency option. Now, Homura was asking her to throw it away. "But what will I wish for?"
"I'm sure you're able to think of something on your own, Akemi-san." Her scary look disappeared, as if she was exhausted of holding such a face. "I'm not asking you to do it right now, but soon." She stared at the walls, hypnotised by the fake shadows the candles displayed. "Tomorrow,... or today if I'm feeling strong enough, I'm going to tell everything I can to Madoka."
"About the shield?"
"Yes, but maybe more. I don't know as of yet exactly what I will say; this is the first time I'm forced to give up on her, but I will try to tell her why all this happened in the first place." She was trying to talk in a cryptic way, but it didn't fool Akemi.
"You feel something for her, don't you?" Homura did not answer to that. Akemi stood up and came on the same side of Homura before sitting next to her. "I think I understand how you feel, although I don't feel the same."
"You don't?"
"Well, I do like Madoka, as a friend and all. But it isn't me who came back thousands of times just to save her. I gave in, you did not. You are different, and time made you different. I'm just glad she alive, even though I will try and help my friends as much as I can." She came closer to Homura, trying to break her shell, to show her that she could rely on her as much as on herself. "If you love her, just tell her."
"But what if she rejects me?" Although she cried a lot in the night, her eyes became wet again. The tears just came, one at a time. It wasn't much, and she still kept her cold face, but a few silent tears simply flowed down on the same path so many others did earlier.
"Then she will do so as gently as she can. It's Madoka we are talking about. She'll still be your friend."
Akemi hugged her like a mother would do to her crying child, and Homura did not push her away.
They talked some more after that, each word giving a little bit of life to Homura.
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Jyubey was looking at the town from one of the highest skyscraper, all of glass and twisting in a way that could only be described as unreal. Architecture these days...
From his high point of view, he could observe Mitakihara in its entirety. There were all those magnificent bodies of glass and steel, reaching for the stars from their static stature. It was an exploit, a piece of art and proof of the know-how of humans. He was looking at all that, and at the same time wasn't looking at anything. He was scheming. Against Kyubey.
He had some more bodies on the ground, wandering through every alley. Jyubey's eyes gradually coved more and more streets, his stare creeping and stretching with every step of his agents. Blank spots disappeared one after the other. Soon, he would be settled as one gigantic eye looking at every single events of this town from every possible angle.
And he was searching for something. Not Kyubey; that guy made no effort to hide his presence. Their encounter was brief, clear, and without harm. Why bother? Trying to eradicate one or the other was as futile as trying to purge Earth from humans by attacking solely a single city. They both acknowledged each other's existence, and then parted their ways. Kyubey was not his immediate target; his tools were.
That was what he was searching for: Puella Magis that belonged to Kyubey. The presence over the city gave out their number: three. Three distinct auras of grief, sadness and pain; two much stronger than the average for a magical girl, the other one... wild would be an appropriate term. But their locations still remained unknown, up until he caught a glimpse of magic. One of them had just transformed, letting go without noticing it a small puff of energy that any Incubators could easily locate the origin within miles. Then, right after, it was gone. But the location had been given away.
Jyubey immediately sent an agent to the domicile in question. He had a plan. The Pleiades were helping him reluctantly. Any diplomacy with other Puella Magis was sure to take them away from him, and they were his most reliable tool for now. He needed to avoid diplomacy. He needed aggressively, on both sides. If the girls in this town were aggressive to strangers, then the Pleiades will return the aggressiveness, and hate will emerge, fuelling hate. Before he could ask them to kill an enemy Puella Magi, they would need to hate their enemy.
He had a plan just for that.
At the magical girl's house, a young one was waiting on the porch. She looked pretty bored. Time to get hated.
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Mitchiko had soon been bored of counting cars, and flowers, and passerby, but she didn't want to barge in the house until Akemi told her it was okay. To kill time she started to test her pronunciation with tongue-twisters, an exercise she quite enjoyed in her past life. Before the event with her parents, she had a hobby of collecting strange words and sentences, which her wish simply reinforced thereafter. Let's see...
"Moralité, Maure Ali, t'es mort alité." French, easy. Let's try something harder. "The seething sea ceaseth, and thus the ceessing thea ssssusciffeth uff.." Arg! Almost! She repeated it a few times, carefully rolling the 's' and 'th' and 'f' with her tongue before giving it another try. "The seething sea ceaseth, and thus the seething sea sufficeth us." On to an even harder! German! "Fischers Fritz fichstchzztzsche Ffshctshssizshzte." She gave up on that last one after no less than twenty tries. She then noticed an incoming small white animal.
"Kyubey?" Mitchiko reminded herself of Akemi's warning and shut up, deciding that she didn't need to talk to him at all, thus preventing her from making any unwanted wish. But she just did tongue twisters to warm up and now her tongue was itching to talk.
"No, I'm not Kyubey. I'm Jyubey."
Mitchiko looked at the ring of fur and at the circle on his head. He did look a bit different; could she talk to him then?
Jyubey was operating meticulously. First, he needed to know what Kyubey's relationship with his magical girls was. "Are you a Puella Magi?" he asked innocently.
Mitchiko didn't dare to answer with her voice and shook her head instead. She still wondered if she should call Akemi or Homura to deal with this.
"Oh, so you know what I'm talking about. Good. So you know Kyubey?"
"Yes I know him." She hurried to place her hands on her mouth to prevent herself from talking any more.
"Is he mean to you? Or people you know?"
"Well, He made Madoka cry and..." She stopped abruptly and walked in a kind of hurry to the door. She rang and knocked. "Akemi-nee-san! Please come here, desu." She was kind of panicked, not so much by Jyubey than by her own disobedience to Akemi's words.
In her panic, she caught the attention of some people walking by the streets. She didn't noticed and Jyubey couldn't care less.
Knowledge up to now: That girl is normal; she's panicked by Kyubey and that guy doesn't go easy on them Puella Magis. Current magical girls are Madoka and Akemi out of the three. That was a good start! Jyubey though. If they were attached to Kyubey, he would have taken his time to demolish their pretty beautiful world full of lies. But as thing were, it saved him some work and time. Now on to the next part. "If he is, then you can come with me. You know about this world. I'm sure he won't let you be and will try by any mean to turn you into another Puella Magi. If you come with me I can guarantee that you will never need grief seeds ever again."
"Really, desu-ka? How?"
"I can absorb grief directly into my fur, with the same effect as a grief seed. All you need to do is a contract with me, and then you will be safe from Kyubey."
The door then opened on a girl with two large purple braids and glasses. Another girl, fairly similar, stood in the stairway. As soon as she saw Jyubey, that last one clenched her teeth. "Kyubey!"
"Good grief, how many times will I have to explain..." He did not finish his sentence that already Homura was on him. Her grip was firm and violent. She held him against the wall, already planning on how to beat this little being to a pulp. On the other side of the street, a few persons stopped to watch the strange display in the middle of the two connecting streets. From their point of view, Homura was aggressive against a wall; it was odd, but not enough that they would remember the event until the night.
"Now, I'm sane enough to kill you properly." The threat was much scarier with her flat tone, as if killing him was no more important than killing of a fly.
"I'm not Kyubey."
"So then who are you?"
"I'm Jyubey. And you are Akemi I suppose?"
"You don't have to know anything about me. If you're not Kyubey, what are you doing here?"
Time for the third part of the plan. Hate me all you want. "I'm here to kill his Puella Magis."
Homura, holding him by the neck, wacked his head against the concrete of the wall, managing her strength to not kill him right here and there. "What did you say? I think I misheard."
Blood flowed from Jyubey's wound, but he wasn't hampered at all in his speech. "I said I'm here to kill you, Akemi."
This time Homura squeezed his neck slowly. There was a cracking noise; she didn't feel like restraining herself on this one.
"You think that killing me will save you?" Another Jyubey appeared on the other side of the Y shape road. "Your fate has already been decided. In a few days, three executioners will come for your head and those of the other Puella Magis in this town."
The girl with glasses spoke to Jyubey. "So why do you tell us this? Wouldn't it be easier to just kill us without warning?"
"Becoming witches is also an option. That's why I came. And I also want to recruit those that were still human in your group."
This one received a shot of Beretta 92 right in between his two eyes. Homura acted like she was purging this area of all evil. The crowd that had been forming almost instantly vanish, screaming in fear at the sight of a girl so young holding a gun. At least now the street was empty, and she will have all her leeway to target this bastard without anyone interfering. The police would be a problem latter though... but now that abomination was all that mattered.
"But since I'm not welcome, I'll leave you at the hand of sick Kyubey." Homura turned to the roof, looking where the voice came from. She saw a faint shadow, blurred by the bright sun, and shot half of the magazines blindly. "We will see each other soon."
Then he was gone.
"Executioners..." The sound of it didn't pleased Akemi at all. "This means that Madoka and you are targeted. But you're..."
"Not here!" cut Homura, not wanting her weakness to be given out this early. She wasn't reassured either. If it was three on one, she wouldn't —couldn't— even put much of a fight. And Madoka was Madoka; she couldn't kill anymore, be it Puella Magis or witches. Masami was not a reliable ally either.
"Akemi-san, I guess your time to find a good wish was cut down." She looked at the glass wearing girl, dead serious. "You will need to protect Madoka of, probably, other Puella Magis. Can you do it?"
The look on Homura's face was frightening. When it came to Madoka-san's safety, every other thing in the world lost importance to her. Akemi twitched, but found her own resolve and said, determined: "I can do it!"
"You will kill those girls if they become life threatening? And you will be able to do so against Madoka-san's screams and will? Will you be able to protect her from her own foolhardiness?" While saying this Homura came closer to Akemi until she stood right in front of her, as threatening as she could be; exactly as if she was testing Akemi's resolve and strength. It felt kind of ceremonial in fact.
At those last lines Akemi hesitated, but it didn't last long. "I will! I asked you to do so during Mami's fight; now you are asking me the same thing, so I won't fail no matter what!"
At this, Homura relaxed a bit. "I have faith in you. Be proud; it's the first time I have to depend on someone other than me since... a long time."
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"I see you came messing with the girls." Kyubey was looking at the trio down there: Homura entering in her house again and Akemi and Mitchiko leaving for some other place. The sun was high; Kyubey's white form was lightly reflecting the light of the sun from his high vantage point.
Jyubey was a few feet away, looking at the exact same thing. This one had more black fur than the usual. "Will you not try to prevent me at all?"
"No, that would be meaningless. None of them listen to me anymore, and I don't believe you can actually kill them."
"Don't underestimate my Puella Magis."
"I'm not underestimating yours, I'm underestimating mines. Constantly."
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When Akemi left Homura's residence, with Mitchiko walking in her shadow, she was thinking about possible wishes to make. It was urgent that she found one so she could benefit of some training before the fateful encounter. Madoka was at stakes here, so no messing around!
But which wish to make? Before she left, Homura asked her an oblivious question: "You do know about the rule of equivalent exchange, do you?" Of course she knew! If you wish for happiness, the same amount of grief will be created, and you will suffer such grief instead of the happiness you wished for. That was why Sayaka turned into a witch in each and every timeline she contracts; she wished for Kyousuke's happiness, and she suffered that much sadness as an exchange. That meant that Akemi shouldn't wish for happiness directly. She should focus on the means of achieving such happiness on her own instead. But what did she really want?
She wanted Madoka to be safe, and Homura and Mitchiko and herself and everyone she cared or would care about. She wanted to be useful and to be able to protect Madoka and every other she just mentioned, but such a wish would immediately doom her to despair. Madoka wished to give hope and a second chance to corrupted Puella Magis, and she suffered the drawback.
"Where are we going, desu-ka?"
"I don't know." She just left Homura's residence; there was only Tomohisa at Madoka's house, and the pet shop was quite far away. Where did they belonged, both of them? They were just a burden on others, requiring hospitality from Homura, Junko and Emi because they had no home to speak of. It was then that it hit her.
She was at the bus station, maybe unconsciously going to see Emi-sempai. There weren't much people at this hour. "Kyubey!" she called. "Show yourself!"
A few seconds later the little alien appeared, walking the same path they took to get here. He had been following them around, and Akemi knew that there was no helping it. But thanks to that, she did not need to go look for him through the city.
"You need me?"
"Strangely, yes. I want to contract."
"What is your wish?"
"I want a place that can offer shelter and safety to me and any others I care about!"
"Come here; let's not alarm every human in the area with the process of the transformation."
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