Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to their respective owners.
7.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Homura tipped her head back and breathed as the pills slipped down her throat until all that remained was the nasty, chalky aftertaste. She let her body fall to the ground and spread her arms out. Grass bent at her fingertips, poked gingerly into the nape of her neck.
The sky was a hazy sapphire, painted with strips of fluffy white clouds. The sun bedazzled. An airliner's jets roared, soaring unseen. Traffic buzzed and honked above her on the Joban Expressway.
I'm running low on meds again. How much do I have left? She lifted the bottle and shook it. Three pills jingled and jangled inside. She sighed. I've got enough for tonight. I hope there's a pharmacy nearby. She ran dry passing Tsukuba and had to backtrack before she got ambushed by a Nest that had materialized just as she turned the corner at the street the convenience store was on.
She had almost failed, almost succumbed to the chest pain and Old Friend Guilt. But she had vanquished them, put the barrel to the Queen's face and splashed the upside-down labyrinth with blood and eyeless faces frozen in horrific eternity. Then, after the bodies turned to ash and the maze collapsed, she 'retrieved' her medication and resumed the journey.
That was four days ago. Very little progress, if any at all, had been made. In short, Akemi Homura was nowhere close to reaching her desitination.
You don't know when to quit, do you? Sending them after me in that many droves…the amount of energy expended alone should have killed you on the spot. I wish it did. She studied the spiraled shield on her arm, the shield that had both saved and damned her on multiple occasions. I wish I could do a lot of things to you, for putting us through so much hell. This time around, Madoka isn't here to stop me. Or, she recalled with a sour taste in her mouth, the traitor.
She returned the medicine to its pocket and focused on the Soul Gem. Still dirty, but nowhere near as bad as it had been when she put some distance from Ishioka nine days prior. There were scant traces of clean energy shining gloriously like a lighthouse beacon cutting through the fog of a dark, storm-heavy night.
"How about this?" she had asked Kyubey yesterday, sweeping an arm at a scenic route peppered with Grief Seeds. It had been a long battle that pushed her body to the point it almost damn near shut down. "Does this exceed your expectations?"
The Incubator inclined his head as if in thought. "It was a very large group...but I'd be lying if I told you it's enough. In fact, it's pitiful."
"What?" Homura exclaimed. She marched up to Kyubey and hauled him in the air by his ear. "You lie!"
"It's true! This is barely a trickle! I'm going to need much more than this if I'm going to meet my quota."
"What sorcery is this? I've never heard of Witches amassing."
"That's because they don't. Witches may share the same objectives – such as causing humans to commit murder and suicide through their bites – but they always travel individually."
"Impossible. Witches feed on a Magi's hope and soul. How would they survive if there is only one soul and not enough hope to go around? They would fight until the last Witch is standing!"
"Well, it can't be symbiosis. Witches are a vastly heterogenous subspecies compared to their human counterparts. You're a smart girl, Homura, you of all people should know it can't be achieved."
"Then what is it?" she thundered, and she shook him. "What's the answer to this riddle?"
"Collective consciousness, or a group mind, to put it simply. Witches, like bees, correspond to a hierarchy. They have their drones, their soldiers, and a Queen that helps build their nest to provide shelter for the colony and to produce honey via pollination. But that's where the similarities end. Witches are infertile and aromantic, so there's no point in birthing younglings, not when they can extend their lifespan by devouring Puella Magi and bitten humans. There's no need to pollinate, no need to lay eggs for a time when the Queen dies and is replaced, no need to fend their territory from other bees searching for a hive to keep them warm during the winter.
"All those Witches you've fought and slain were part of a single massive supercolony, and so too was that Nest you just exterminated." There was a short pause. "Do you know what their objective is, Akemi Homura?"
"It's me," she said flatly. "They want to find and destroy me, and when I am destroyed they shall feed on me."
"And why do you suppose that is?"
"Because I am Puella Magi. I have a soul…and I have hope. A hope that dares defy space and time. A hope matched by no other. A hope…that refuses to lie down and die."
"Only a fool would place her entire world at stake for one missing girl. Who's to say she's d—"
"SHE IS ALIVE!" Akemi Homura bellowed, and shook Kyubey even harder. "In my heart of hearts, I know she still breathes!"
The Incubator was unfazed by her roughness (and when was he ever, with those wide eyes and mockingly cheerful smile?). "I'm only stating the possibility—"
"No, you're stating an opinion, a gods-damned heresy! And Madoka is more than just 'one missing girl'; she is strong, she is able, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to cease this cyclical madness we Magi have to endure! If that is the reason why she is not in Mitakihara, then I will go to the ends of the earth and join Madoka in purging you and your sacrilege!"
"I'm merely doing what is asked of me," Kyubey said calmly. "It's my job. How am I to prevent entropy if I don't do it?"
"Simple," Homura huffed. "I take you with me, find Madoka, and have her wipe you off the face of existence."
"Ah, but Madoka is just another Puella Magi. If memory serves me right, she's not the Goddess she was in those…other attempts you two have made. Am I right, Akemi Homura?" He stared coolly, lazily, as a dragon that surveys its surroundings from its perch at the apex of the world. A dragon that could stretch its magnificent wings and take flight at any moment.
Homura retreated from the memory, put the heel of her free hand to her eyes and dashed the moist away before it had the chance to escape. He was right. He was right, and she couldn't deny it, no matter how much she wished right now for him to be wrong. But there was still hope, wasn't there? There was still an opportunity to change the inevitable outcome, even without the aid of the Goddess Madoka.
Nothing was true. Everything was permitted, but damn if they didn't try and make the possibilities impossibilities.
Could it be done? Can the future – this future – avert tragedy and change for the better?
Homura watched as a cotton-white cloud wandered in front of the sun and cast the area in twilight shadows.
("It can be done," the Goddess Madoka had said to her in that soft-spoken timbre, except now it was deeper, smoother, belying the sudden transition from adolescence to adulthood granted by her wish. She placed a gloved hand on Homura's fevered brow and brushed damp black tresses from her eyes. Her smile was sad, but it was beautiful all the same. "We can still fix this, Homura."
"Maybe you can," Homura croaked weakly, "but what use do I have as you see me now? I can't feel my legs nor can I move them, and my Soul Gem" she clutched the egg-shaped jewel "it's already cracking." She tried to meet Madoka's gaze, tried to focus on her and not the illusory images seated behind her. "Forgive me. I…I didn't mean to fail you."
"It's okay. You did the best you could do."
"No, it's not okay, not when we were so close." She coughed, and she tasted the blood spattered on her lips. "Not when we almost got it right…."
"There's still hope." Satin-covered fingers traced along the curve of a cheek smeared in soot.
"How is there still hope? We've tried and tried and tried, and though things are different each time, the end is always the same. Don't you see, Madoka? Look around you. No matter how hard we fight, how we much struggle, our fate remains unchanged. What awaits us is not peace…but darkness."
Quietly, morosely: "Homura..." Her hand removed itself and fell upon Homura's own, the one holding the cracked Soul Gem, in a firm embrace.
All around them, Mitakihara lay in wonderful ruins. Its stunning skyscrapers and towering windmills were now a haphazard sea of blackened debris, shattered glass, and buried bodies. The sky was a churning, roiling cauldron, clouds of grey and bruised purple a wave of foam hovering forebodingly, threatening to spill its contents and drown the city whole.
Lightning flickered on the horizon and there was a faint blast of thunder. The air was electric with ozone and decay. Birds refused to sing in this desolated land.
Footsteps crunched gravel to dust, their stride purposeful, predatory…anticipating.
It was getting harder to breathe, harder to stay awake…but at least Madoka was at her side. Madoka…her friend, her fellow sister, her guardian angel. Madoka, whose hands were clasped together in a facsimile of prayer, whose body and dove-like angel wings were shielding her from the rapidly approaching squall.
Homura sighed. She wished she could find the strength to sit up and press herself against the woman. She felt gooseflesh emerge beneath her clothing, felt her limbs and teeth tremble with cold, and she wanted nothing more than to be in Madoka's arms and savor the warmth radiating from her skin like a stone fireplace while she sang her to sleep.
What was it called again? The one they heard on the battery-powered radio when the power went out and the rain and the wind were their only source of music?
"Sing for me," she mumbled, so low and airy she almost couldn't catch the words. "Sing me a song…'Like Sunday Rain'…Madoka…."
Getting closer, louder, paces quickening—
Madoka bent her head and pressed her lips to bloodied knuckles. "Of course, Homura, I'd love to."
Running, footsteps muffled by the crash of heaven's cymbals—
A warm, tender light inundated from raised wings, feathers molting, feathers buoyed in humid air. It washed over her like a waterfall and pooled at the cusp of her hands, filling the damaged Soul Gem.
Homura's heart pounded its last beats, pulsed like gunshot ricochets in deafening ears. "Madoka…what are you…?"
"I promise I'll sing to you," the Goddess Madoka declared with a pained smile. "I'd do anything for you…for all our friends. So…wait for me, okay? I'll come find you and give you and everyone the best performance you'll ever see."
The light, it was so bright, so warm. "Madoka…no, no don't do this…."
"Don't give up, Homura. There's still hope, I know there is. We'll be free someday. We'll keep doing this over and over again if we have to, but we'll get it right."
Running, footsteps muffled by the crash of heaven's cymbals—
"We can still make our own—"
SHUNK.
Blood splashed hotly over Homura's face. "Ma-Madoka…!"
Dark, ruddy rivulets ran down the pale column of her throat, dripped from the tip of the blade and stained her lovely dress, but the Goddess Madoka never felt it. She smiled even wider, grinning with teeth turning pink, blinking through the rain as if there were dust in her lashes. "I-I'm c-counting on y-y-you, H-Homura. I b-believe i-i-in you."
"No, Madoka!"
"Until…we meet again."
"MADOKA!" )
That was the last thing she remembered, and afterward she relented to eternal slumber. She was never even aware she had been sent back through time and space, never realized she was a Puella Magi tasked to start again from the very beginning until the traitor's deeds had already been committed and the probability this future was going to hell in a hand-basket sooner rather than later really set in.
Can I really do this? Can I really herald the future we've long since waited for?Sunlight wormed its way through the errant cloud and illuminated all it surveyed in irregularly placed slats. One such ray slid like a skateboarder on a rail and right in her face, prompting her to sit up and put a hand over her eyes.
I want to believe you.
I want to believe that we can be free.
But…what if this time turns out the same? What if I'm too late to salvage the pieces?
I'm afraid, Madoka. I don't want to keep doing this. I don't want to run and fight anymore. I want to rest. I want to be free.
She looked down at her hands. They were callused, tough, scarred.
I want to live and be happy…with all of you.
The air reeked of heady ozone, charged with friction and buzzing static charge. Reality rippled in undulating folds and folded in on itself. Animal chatter and inhuman gibberish whispered in dark, unknown corners.
Akemi Homura pushed herself to her feet. She pressed the Soul Gem into the rondel on the back of her hand. A violet light engulfed her and erupted in a shower of sparks, revealing the Magi in full armor.
She reached her hand behind her shield, and from its dimension withdrew a single-barreled, pump-action shotgun. No one believes in the future…but I know better. For you, Madoka, and all our friends, I will believe. I will wage war…
A dull echo signified the barrier's synchronized; the maze completely materialized. A garbled, blathering cackle announced their arrival. Nimble footprints slammed against a tessellated floor writhing with schools of fish and a murder of crows.
AND BREAK FREE THE SHACKLES OF OUR DAMNATION!
The first of many beasts lunged at her from out of the darkness, claws extracted and gleaming deadly silver.
Akemi Homura scoffed. She slowed time, and the beast's movements slowed.
Then she hefted the shotgun in its face and pulled the trigger.
"It's happening again." Setsuna turned from the Space-Time Door. "Luna, read me the coordinates."
The cat touched a paw to the computer screen. Numbers scrolled down a display window and quickly unscrambled the downloaded data. "Latitude 35, 94, 79, 95...and longitude 139, 97, 68, 07."
Setsuna hummed and scratched her chin, eyes transfixed on the dark-haired girl emptying her weapon on a tall, green creature that hissed and spat from a perpetually tragic moue. "That's all the way in Moriya, Ibaraki," she answered after a bout of concentration. "She should have been this way a long time ago."
"It's because of those things," said Luna. "A person walking from Moriya to Minato-ku would take nine hours, but if we analyze the time ribbon I found on August twenty-fifth" she swept her tail in front of her and injected the end of the wisp into the USB port; the computer downloaded the information and extracted it from the compressed folder, which brought up another window below the previous screen "you can see from the map she was at Ishioka. If we calculate the distance between there, Tsukuba, Moriya, and Minato-ku" her paws clacked on the keys "it would normally have taken her a grand total of seventeen hours on foot."
"Where do you think those monsters are coming from?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. Lunadrone-2 hasn't detected any unusual spatial anomalies or energy signatures that can confirm they're youma." The Lunadrone was, in retrospect, a successor to the Luna-P Ball Chibi-Usa, Usagi and Mamoru's future child, had when she arrived in this era from her time. Its outward appearance was left untouched (sporting a caricatured replication of Luna's face, something that still disturbed the cat), but it utilized high-tech software components more so than ancient Lunarian magic that spanned Conjuration and Alteration to Mysticism. Setsuna had constructed Lunadrone-1 five days earlier and sent it out upon completion, where it had stopped and collected data the girl's fight in Tsukuba.
"And the girl?"
If Luna was capable of it, she would have shrugged. "We can safely assume she is most definitely not a youma. However, there is a distinct lack of human presence in this girl. Do you recall the battle in Tsukuba?" Setsuna nodded. "Even when she almost fell I couldn't sense her. I cast an advanced life detection spell on myself, thinking I was unable to feel her out because the raw amount of spiritual energy interfered with Lunadrone-1." She shook her head. "Nothing. There was absolutely nothing in her body. It was as though I was peering inside an empty husk. Except," her ears flattened, "I did feel something, something nigh imperceptible. I had to search more thoroughly before I found the source."
"Where was it?"
"It was on her hand, in the form of a jewel not unlike those seen on the Senshi diadem. Lunadrone-1 managed to capture a couple shots in between each time-stop." She tapped a button on the keyboard, and the printer next to the modem ejected a ribbon from the lower paper slot.
Setsuna snatched it from the air and studied the images. They were grainy and blurry, a result of constantly zooming in and keeping abreast with the girl's quicksilver movements. She saw the object of interest in a cleaner shot, a purple, magmatic hotspot with mottled black spots that reminded her of the center of an active volcano.
It also brought to mind how it bore a startling resemblance to that of a Star Seed.
What could this be? Outside exposure would have turned it completely black, but it still retains most of its shine. So, it can't be a true Star Seed such as the ones we Sailor Senshi carry….
Who is this girl? She can stop and slow time at whim and possesses a crystal that resides outside her body and has not deteriorated, all without sacrificing her life in exchange. If she is not Senshi or youma or even post-rebirth Earthling, then what do we identify her as…?
"What will you do, Setsuna?" asked Luna. "If it's as you predict…."
"It's still too early to say," said Setsuna. She let go of the wisp and regarded the girl with the egg-shaped gem and lightning flash-quick steps with heavy-lidded eyes. "She may not even come this way."
"And if she does?"
Setsuna didn't answer. She watched the battle unfold through the Space-Time Door relayed by Lunadrone-2's optics.
If she does, it's only a matter of time before we meet. And what happened from there, not even she could determine.
