CHAPTER 25: When I Was Lost
The Eighth's Lair
July 7th, 2007
Volleys of pink and violet fire crisscrossed the ditch as it flickered through various settings like fragments of dreams. The only constants were the ditch's depth, the starless sky overhead, and the enormous black scaled roots that erupted from the below like javelins at irregular intervals. Everything else was prone to shift at a moment's notice; already Homura had seen the Lair change around her from a broken and shattered city block, to a fiery wasteland, to a rocky landscape dotted with pits of foul-smelling filth. The changes were disorienting her, but Madoka… the false Madoka, she reminded herself again… paid them no mind. She… it… attacked relentlessly no matter what the setting, slinging arrows the moment it caught sight of Homura. And when it wasn't in sight, whenever Homura ducked behind one of the roots to catch her breath, the false Madoka would speak to her…
"Why didn't you let me die, Homura-chan?" The Spawn sounded hurt and confused.
Homura's chest grew tight, and another spasm of guilt rocked her exhausted body. She pressed herself up against the root's scaly bark, waiting for the next chance to strike. Around her, the Lair shifted yet again; now it was a stagnant swamp filled with dank pitch that rose up to her ankles.
"You could have avoided all of this." Its voice drew closer… soon Homura would need to either fire back or find a new hiding place.
It's not her, she told herself yet again. It's not her. Don't listen.
"All the suffering, all the sadness. If you had just let me go, it wouldn't have happened."
Don't listen to her. Don't listen…
Homura felt the root shudder as a pink arrow struck it. She leaned to one side, notched three arrows to her bow, and fired, praying… Please…
The false Madoka didn't even blink. It raised its rose branch bow to intercept the arrows, which dissipated into harmless particles of light. Without hesitation it returned fire; Homura fled to the next root as fast as she could, the sticky pitch hampering her movement and threatening to pull her down into its depths. One stray shot pierced her ankle as she wrenched it free of the mire. Cringing, she limped behind the root, then leaned down and yanked the arrow out, her skin blistering and sizzling from the magical flames as she touched it. She braced herself against the trunk and directed a healing spell at her foot, its cooling power mending the burnt and torn flesh. Her hand needed less magic to fix itself, so it could wait…
"You still have a chance, Homura-chan," said the false Madoka with a calm smile. "Please, let me shoot you. Let it end. No more fighting, no more pain. Please come out, come out and die…"
Homura trembled, pushed back tears, and awaited the next attack.
The Second's Lair
Kagami couldn't stop. Once again, she was lost deep within the Lait's maze of mirrors, but this time her role and the Second's were reversed. No longer content with hiding and taunting from inside the glass, this time the Demon was on the hunt.
Gasping from exertion, encumbered by her heavy miko robes, her legs screaming at her to take a rest, she stumbled around the next corner, sweating cold bullets. Moments ago, she made the mistake of leaning against a mirror to catch her breath. That only lasted a second, until her reflection's arms emerged from the glass and grasped her shoulders, trying to drag her inside. She smashed that mirror into dust, but there were so many more, the Lair was nothing but mirrors, and any one of them could be deadly…
The small, rational part of her mind that hadn't shut down from terror or anger knew what the Second was doing: waiting for her to tire herself out before closing in for the kill. With no way of knowing which mirrors if any were safe, her only choice was to keep running, shattering glass whenever she saw a flicker of movement, just to be safe. But each pane shattered was one less place she could stop and rest… if she didn't catch her breath soon, she'd collapse on the floor and be helpless…
Helpless. Just like Homura before. Just like her poor sister and Miyuki were now. Who knew if any of them were still alive? No, she thought desperately, Tsukasa's still okay, she's got to be. Homura said the multiverse would destabilize if she were-
"Come out, come out, wherever you are…" said the Demon's windy voice in sing-song. It was impossible to tell from which direction it was coming from.
Kagami froze.
"Aren't you tired, Kagami-chan? Don't you want to lie down for a while?"
Yes, God yes, she did, but she couldn't stop…
"Come here. Come into my embrace. I'll take on a nice form for you, and you can drift off to sleep in my arms. I can even look like Homura-chan for you if you want. We can have such fun together…" Her words devolved into a sinister laugh.
Kagami's stomach heaved, and her skin felt like it would crawl off her body and hide in a corner somewhere. But she couldn't stop, not now. She prepared herself to run again, when-
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw one of the mirrors ripple. Real, or an illusion? She stayed still, keeping her eyes forward. Perhaps she could fool the Demon into thinking she hadn't noticed. The timing would have to be perfect for her to… do what? Her breaths came quick and hard. If she was going to do something, she would have to do it soon.
The arm came rocketing out of a mirror ten meters away, stretching to an impossible length, its glistening red tongue-fingers sprouting long black claws in its flight. Kagami felt a rush of air, an intense stinging pain in her cheek as it passed her shoulder, mere centimeters from her neck. Even glancing, the blow was stunningly hard, enough to spin her around… but she saw an opening, a possible weak spot…
"KOTE!" Flecks of her blood spattered the mirror that was the Lair's floor as she raised her bokken and let it fall on the arm. The blade hit a brown eye nestled between the tongues, which ruptured in a shower of moisture and orange Demon blood. The Second screamed long and high, a sound at the same ear-splitting pitch as a boiling tea kettle, as her wounded arm snapped backward like a rubber band-
"No you don't!" Summoning all the energy she had left, Kagami followed the arm to the mirror that it had sprouted out of, lifting her blade high. Fractures spiderwebbed across the glass as she hit it once, twice. It collapsed into sand, leaving only an empty frame.
"Dammit, where are you?!" she shouted in frustration. Tired, she was so tired… if only she could do whatever it was she did last time, break all the damn mirrors at once, but the power wasn't in her now. It was all she could do just to keep moving. She couldn't stop, because if she did, if she took the time to think about what had happened…
"Mmm, I can smell your despair," murmured the Second's voice. "You're close, so very close. Just a little more… Mother will awaken, and the stars above will fall..."
Kagami shook her head violently. "I won't let that happen!"
"Why do you fight so hard? Why not just give into it? Tsukasa-chan did… and so did Homura-chan…"
Hatred churned in her stomach, black and poisonous. "For what you've done to them… I'll never forgive you, ever!"
"Yes, yes, that's it! Hate me more… more, so I can feed…"
That awful burning, freezing sensation coursed through her veins, and the ticking of her watch slowed to a crawl. Kagami squeezed her eyes shut and poured her focus into pushing it back down. Not now, please, not now! Stay in control, you have to get through this… But it was so tempting to just let go, to make the Second pay, make her sorry she was ever spawned…
Something inside her gave a hard downward lurch. The voice of the dark, cold presence within was no longer soft and whispering; it thundered in her skull, harsh and refusing to be ignored. Trying to suppress it was like trying to keep a beach ball underwater… the harder she pushed, the more it wanted to come back up… It laughed at her attempts to subdue it, thundered its demand at her: LET ME OUT.
"No!" Kagami dropped her sword and clutched at her temples like her head was going to burst. She stumbled and landed on all fours on the glass, her pale, sweaty face and tired eyes staring back at her as she fought to breathe…
Underneath her, her reflection changed. It giggled.
And before she could register the danger, the Second seized her chance and erupted from below, seizing her arms and legs in a horrible wet grip with its own. The Demon rolled to one side with her, then slammed her down into the floor so hard that the Lair shook and fine cracks spread out from the point of impact. In a daze of pain, Kagami could offer no resistance as the Demon settled atop her, a lioness having pinned her helpless prey.
The Second leaned forward, her many mismatched, misplaced eyes swiveling down to stare at Kagami. Her neck extended grotesquely, bringing them even closer together. One of the tongues that formed her face flicked out and licked blood from the wound on Kagami's cheek. In a voice that quivered with sick glee, she said simply, "Let's play…"
The Eighth's Lair
"Homura-chan?" The false Madoka peered around the edge of a trunk, as if playing a game of hide-and-seek. "It's okay now, you can stop running. Where are you?"
Plastered against a root several meters away, Homura's heart pounded like a drum as she waited. A little closer. Just come a little closer.
"You don't have to be afraid," said the false Madoka, drawing an arrow. "I'll make it quick, and it won't hurt. Just one shot. That's how you want it to end, right? You don't want to die like Mami-san did that one time…"
Blood. Teeth. The gruesome, half-eaten remnants falling from the Witch's worm-like body as it exploded. A death that Homura had been helpless to stop many times over, a death that still haunted her nightmares. Bile rose in her throat; she closed her eyes and tried to push the memories away.
"You remember, don't you? She begged you to stop, and you just kept shooting her, over and over. You made her suffer before you killed her. Why did you do that, Homura-chan?"
Homura's focus slipped. What was the Spawn talking about?
"Sayaka-chan lost her mind when she found out what you did. I had to shoot her to keep her from killing you…"
Her fingers dug into the bark. That didn't make any sense, that never happened in any of the timelines…
"… and then… and then Kyoko-chan turned into a Witch…" The false Madoka faltered. "… and poor Mami-san had to sacrifice herself to save us…"
Homura's skin erupted in goosebumps. The nonsense the Spawn was speaking was somehow more disturbing than anything else she… it… had done. But why?
"It's your fault," There was a noticeable trembling in its voice now. "It's your f-fault that Hitomi-chan made… made a contract with Kyubey to save Saotome-sensei... Your fault. Hi-Hitomi-chan and K-Kamijou-kun became Demons, and it's your fault. S-Sayaka-chan k-killed herself and I sh-shot Kyoko-chan… your fault. I d-died… and it's your fault…"
And then, she understood. The Demon had pieced together the false Madoka out of Homura's own memories… out of each timeline's conflicting versions of her. Whatever semblance of a mind the Spawn had, it couldn't take the contradictions. Too many memories overlapping, too many impossible things remembered… now it was breaking down. An odd, wistful sense of pity mingled with Homura's fear and hatred for this thing wearing her shape… it was that pity that made her stand up then and come out from behind the root. If it would only listen to her, perhaps it would understand…
The reaction from the Spawn was immediate. At the sight of Homura it let out a terrible shriek, "Your fault!" Tears streamed down its cheeks, its face twisted in torment. It notched six new arrows, drew back its arm, and fired.
Homura only felt the first one bury itself in her shoulder, the searing blaze of magical fire scouring her down to the bone. The rest of the arrows peppered her chest and stomach, and blood soaked through her battle costume, but by then she was numb to it. Foolish, she thought to herself as she slowly toppled backwards, the arrows dissolving into pink light. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she caught sight of the false Madoka charging forward through the swamp of pitch, enraged by the sight of its prey, its foot falling into one nondescript little puddle in the mire…
The puddle where Homura had buried the land mines.
The metallic click was lost in the din of the Spawn's battle cry. It never even noticed. Before its next footfall, the first mine detonated. Gouts of flame and shrapnel burst forth from the bog as the first explosion triggered the other mines, consuming the false Madoka in a hellstorm of fire. It was lifted off its feet by the shockwave, its burning body flung forward as its clothes and skin were shredded-
Homura saw her chance and took it. She spread her arms wide as she fell, and caught the Spawn in its flight. The inertia nearly tore her arms from her sockets, the flames licked at her, but she held on, clutching the false Madoka close as the rest of the bog went up in a blaze. Homura attempted to roll them both over, take the brunt of the fire herself, but the false Madoka was still moving, still trying to fight-
Pitch suffocated the flames as the two hit the surface with a splash. The vile black stuff clung to their hair, clothes, and skin, seeped into their wounds and stung painfully. They lay there as drops of flaming resin and pieces of roots rained down from above.
Homura's mind flashed back to another time, another place, lying half-submerged just like this in a pool of stagnant rainwater. Surrounded by ruin, the sky above tinted gray and dull yellow by great billowing clouds of dust… That's right, she thought dimly. It's almost like that time… with her.
The false Madoka's charred black hands closing around her neck dispelled the memory.
"You," it whispered, blood bubbling at its lips. Half of its face was gone, blasted away by the explosions, but the other half still looked like her… Its fingers began to squeeze as it sputtered. "Homu. Ra. Ho. Homura. Ho…"
"No," said Homura. "No." Easily she pried the weak, ruined hands from her throat and held them tight in her own. "That's enough."
"Ra. Ho. Mu. Ra. Mu. Ra. Ho. Ho. Mu…" it said, warping and distorting her name.
"You don't have to fight anymore," said Homura. "Just sleep. Please, just go to sleep."
Did it even hear her? Was its fractured mind even able to comprehend what she was telling it? "Mu… ra. Ho…" Weakly it tried to lift itself out of the pitch, its body shuddering with the effort.
"No," said Homura again, more firmly this time. "Stay down."
A tear from the false Madoka's one remaining eye rolled down its undamaged cheek. "Ho… mu… ra…"
"I know." With the little strength she had left, Homura pulled herself upright. Sitting up sent ripples of pain spreading through her torso even through the numbing effect of her magic, but she didn't care. She needed the pain, if only to stay awake for these few moments. "I know." She flexed her hands, summoning her bow and a single arrow. Homura felt her own tears welling up as she gripped the end of the shaft and pulled back, aiming the point directly between the Spawn's eyes…
For the briefest instant, she swore she saw the false Madoka smile. "… h-ho… muh-mu… ruh… ruh…"
"Goodbye, Madoka," said Homura. "I love you."
She let the arrow fly.
When it was done, when the last spark of life faded from the Spawn's eye, she bent over its body and wept. And when she could cry no more, she stood up, watching the swamp resolve itself back into the dismal gray ditch it had been before, keeping her eyes firmly on the tree-like shape above that was the Demon, and not the pathetic, broken body lying at her feet.
Homura staggered forward, resolving to make this one pay dearly.
The Second's Lair
"Do you know why it's such fun to make you suffer?" asked the Second as many of her tongues encircled Kagami's face. "It's because you're so passionate. No matter what you feel… joy, sorrow, anger, pain… you feel it so strongly that it's irresistible. Your passion makes feeding on your Heart so satisfying… so filling…"
"Ugh…" Kagami shivered with revulsion, keeping her eyes shut tight and trying to turn away from the slimy things caressing her skin. It was no use, they were everywhere…
"You don't like looking at my true form, do you?"said the Demon, gently tilting Kagami's head upward, bringing her a bit closer. "Admit it. Lust is a hideous thing, isn't it? That's my sin: the ugliness that lies underneath all love."
"You're wrong," hissed Kagami. "Love isn't-"
"Oh, it is. It's true and you know it: love doesn't exist without lust. Deny it all you want, but it's always there, lurking, waiting. It's a primal thing, a force that never truly goes away. As pure as you think your feelings are… this is what they all look like deep down."
Kagami cracked one eye open, daring to look into the Demon's writhing mass of a face, if only to prove her wrong. "You've got some really sick ideas about love… n-no wonder you've got to disguise yourself to get a date…"
"So brave," the Second chuckled. "Do you even know what I'm going to do to you?"
Oh God. Stay calm, stay calm! It's passion she wants, so don't feel anything! What she wouldn't give to have Homura's "pain switch" right now…
The Demon's voice was tinged with a lascivious purr. "I'm going to rape you."
Kagami risked one more choice insult. "How original."
"I'm going to take you in every way, over and over, until you're broken but just coherent enough to know what's happening to you." The purr grew deeper, bolder. "And then, I'll trap you in one of my mirrors, so you can watch what I do next. I'll take on your form and go back to Homura-chan…"
"You bitch…" Her muscles strained fruitlessly against the Second's weight pinning her down.
"… and I'll give her what she wants most in the world: a night of ecstacy with you. I'll pleasure her in ways you can't dream of, and right as she comes for the last time, I'll shatter her Soul Gem. She'll die thinking you've betrayed her… and you'll be watching."
"You…!" There were no words vile enough to express Kagami's hatred. All thoughts of staying calm vanished as she struggled madly, wanting nothing less than this creature's agonizing death… Burning coldness filled her veins…
"Yes, that's it!" The Second moaned obscenely. "Those are the kinds of feelings that will release Mother… but please, don't let her out yet. I still haven't had my fun with you…"
It took every ounce of willpower Kagami had, but she somehow managed to press the anger back down. She took several deep, heavy breaths… and then immediately stopped, her skin crawling as the tongues came back, aiming for her open mouth. Biting back a scream, she clenched her jaw and pressed her lips tightly shut.
"Now now," sighed the Second. Her tongues slithered over Kagami's lips, painting them wet with moisture, trying to pry them open. "You know you can't resist. Open your mouth."
A crazy, wild idea struck her. If it didn't work, she was done for, but if it did…! Just slightly, she opened up, gagged as she felt something thick and soft and wet begin to slip inside… and then she bit down as hard as she could. Coppery, metallic blood spilled everywhere. The Second reared backward, clutching her face and letting out that ear-splitting tea kettle scream again…
Seizing the opening, Kagami shoved against the Demon with all her weight. Touching it was disgusting beyond belief, but it worked; the Second was too distracted by her injury to fight back. Scrambling to her feet and retrieving her bokken from where it lay, Kagami angrily spit out the piece of torn, bloody flesh, and wiped her lips on the shoulder of her robes.
Cringing and bleeding freely from part of her face, all of the Second's eyes blazed with anger as the two enemies slowly circled each other. "Enjoy that while you can," she hissed venomously, "You know you can't win against me, against us. We're part of you, Kagami-chan. We're a corruption of everything you are. Even if you kill this body, it won't matter…"
"Fuck that, I don't care," Kagami growled, gripping the hilt tight. "I'm tired. I'm tired of Demons and Mother and magic and my friends and family getting hurt because of you… This fucking ends, right now!"
And blade met claw, the two trading furious blows. There was no technique, no strategy, only the desire for one to kill the other. Kagami felt her blood burn hot with the assault. As she parried and blocked strikes that should have broken her sword in two, she began to feel something else: the sense that she could not only survive, but win this fight. For all the Second's power, for all the damage she could inflict with a successful attack, her actual fighting skills were surprisingly poor. It made a kind of sense; her true strengths were in trickery, mind games, and deception, not in open combat. Slowly, Kagami began to press the Second back, bursting eye after eye, taking a savage joy in inflicting as much pain as possible. The dark, cold presence inside was stirring, her watch had stopped entirely, but she didn't care…
The Second knew she was doomed. This was a side of Kagami she had never seen before: a grim warrior caught in a haze of bloodlust, unaware or uncaring of the dark aura growing around her. She fought back with all her strength, scoring deep cuts to the girl's arms and shoulders, but couldn't even land a disarming blow, much less a fatal one. She heard Kagami laugh coldly as the bokken sliced impossibly through one claw… the wound sizzled white-hot as she screamed. There, there was an opening, right there, small but noticeable. Her remaining claws raked the girl's side. She paid for that attack dearly when the blade's edge cleaved through her arm. Succumbing to panic, she lost her footing, stumbled…
The shockwave that surged from Kagami's bokken did the impossible once again. It didn't simply cut deep into the Second's body, it shattered every mirror in the Lair, killing her Spawn. It forced her back into her first stage, flinging her backward as easily as a scrap of paper in the wind. The Lair melted into fog as she slammed hard into asphalt… they were back in the human world, in the street outside the bus station. The Second turned herself over to face her enemy…
What she saw was not the teenaged human girl in bloodstained miko robes. What she saw was the supreme blackness that surrounded her, an aura that oozed like ink and festered like an open wound… the sight filled her with twisted joy. The plan had worked, and Mother was coming. Just a little more. I did it. I did it, do you see…?
Kagami watched dispassionately as the pale robed figure shrank back into Miyuki's shape. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered except the Second's death. Nothing mattered.
The Second smiled and rested her head against the curb. "Hello, Mother."
"Shut up," snarled Kagami, taking a step forward. Just a little more. Nothing else mattered.
"You know… what must truly anger you, Kagami-chan?" She giggled. "About Tsukasa… I think… I think I loved her more than you ever did."
"I said shut up!" Blind rage seared her insides, like her body was filled with molten rock, a volcano ready to explode. She brought her sword down in an arc…
The blade's fall severed one of the Second's legs, but she ignored the pain. Pain was nothing; she had won, she had done it. "You never knew," she said, grinning and defiant to the last. "You don't even suspe-"
Kagami struck, and the Second's head burst apart in a grisly spray of gore. The lenses of Miyuki's glasses shattered.
She struck again, for Homura.
She struck again, for Tsukasa.
She struck again, for Konata.
She struck again, for Miyuki.
She struck again, for the Puellae Magi.
She struck again, for everyone the Second had ever hurt or deceived.
She struck again, and again, and again, until the street ran wet with blood, until her sword broke through and crashed against the pavement the Demon lay on, until there was nothing left of the body but a bad memory, and again and again she struck…
The Eighth's Lair
She had done it. It took one of her last two Curse Seeds, but she had climbed out of the ditch… and now she stood in front of the Demon.
It wasn't a tree, as it appeared to be from a distance. It was the head and neck of an enormous black snake that rose from the dead soil, its mouth frozen open and baring its glittering golden fangs to the starless sky. Bones sprouted at jarring angles from its neck, and from them like berries from branches hung its eyes, golden like the fangs, pupils black and slitted and pitiless. The eyes turned slowly to stare at her, and with a warm, deep, honeyed voice, it spoke to her.
"Welcome," said the Eighth. Its mouth didn't move. "You impress me to have made it this far, Puella Magi."
Homura didn't answer it. This thing didn't deserve any words after what it had done, what it had forced her to do. Calmly she drew a rocket launcher from the pocketspace in her shield, and loaded the ammo into the barrel.
"You are here to kill me?" The Demon chuckled. "Have you not more pressing concerns?"
Again, Homura didn't answer. She knelt and rested the barrel of the weapon against her shoulder, lining up the Demon's head in her sights.
Then she felt the tremor, far worse than last time. Homura looked back over her shoulder, back the way she had come. "Kagami…"
"That's right," said the Eighth smoothly. "The focal point seems to have defeated my sister, but the poor thing can't hold on much longer… there's not much time."
Homura turned back to her weapon. One shot. One shot could kill this thing… couldn't it? It had to work, it had to. She didn't have enough magic left to kill it with arrows…
Another tremor shook the Lair.
"It appears you have a choice to make," said the Eighth. "Kill me, or save her. Which will it be?"
Homura's fingertip hovered over the launch button.
"Go on, then, if you can. I welcome it. Let me be among my siblings once more. My death will deprive you of that which you desire most in the world."
The launcher stayed steady, but Homura wavered… It would be easy, wouldn't it? At this range, against an immobile target that wasn't even trying to fight back, one rocket would be more than enough for the kill. Just one shot.
And if that one shot didn't work, what then?
Kagami was breaking. Mother was stirring. Homura had to choose…
She turned over her shield, and the world stopped… and almost as an afterthought, she pressed the button. The launcher shook and belched flame as it ejected its payload, which stopped frozen as it reached the limit of her magic field.
Praying she had made the right decision, Homura dropped the launcher and ran. Time resumed its course as she took a flying leap over the edge of the last ditch, running on pure adrenaline… the rocket detonated behind her no more than a second later. She didn't look back, she couldn't look back. Her wings sprouted, catching the draft from the explosion and hurling her forward to the edges of the Lair. As she vanished into the wall of fog that marked the barrier between the Lair and the real world, the Eighth's booming, rich laughter followed her. It was still alive. Of course it was.
Takanomiya
The metallic stench of blood permeated the air more than a block away from the bus station. Forcing her tired body to run faster, Homura turned over her shield again, the grayscale world passing by in a blur…
As she turned a corner, she nearly tripped over a body lying on the sidewalk. For an awful moment she thought it was Kagami… but no, it wasn't her, it appeared to be the real Miyuki Takara. The girl could be sleeping or she could be dead; with time frozen, it was impossible to tell. There was no time to check, no way of helping her without expending more magic. Homura stepped over her and continued running.
The scene of horrific violence that greeted her at the station when she stepped out of the time-stop was sickening to behold. At the center of an explosion of blood sat Kagami, huddled in a ball with her dripping bokken lying abandoned at her side. She was drenched to the skin, surrounded by a cloud of deepest blackness, staring with glowing white eyes at a bloody smear on the asphalt with a Curse Seed in its center… all that was left of the Second.
"Kagami!" Homura rushed forward to embrace her... and the darkness pushed her back. No. Not again. Not again. "Kagami, get up!"
"She's gone," said Kagami listlessly, rocking gently back and forth on her heels. "She's gone, but I don't feel… anything…"
Furiously Homura pounded on the wall of black. It resisted her fists not like a solid thing, but as if it were alive. "It's over, Kagami, you won, she's dead! You've got to get up!"
"But Tsukasa's gone," said Kagami. Her voice was hollow, a sighing whisper like air slowly escaping from a deflating balloon. "I failed her. I failed… nothing matters."
"That's not true!" With all her might, Homura threw herself against the wall, managing to take a single step into it. "She's still alive, Kagami! We can still save her, but only if you get back up!"
There was no answer.
Icy fear flooded Homura's veins. She managed another step, clawing at the black as if swimming through it. "You can't leave me now, not like this! Not after all we've been through!"
Again, no answer.
"KAGAMI!" The darkness thickened around her, threatening to smother her, but she pressed on. "Kagami, can you hear me? If you can hear me, listen! Please, listen!"
Kagami's head bowed, and her body sagged.
"Kagami, you remember, don't you?" cried Homura, reaching out her hand. "You remember when I… when I was…" She shivered as the memory she had buried flooded back to the surface: the fingers. The violation. "When I was lost… you reminded me of something I never should have forgotten… You pulled me back from the brink…" She was so close now… the darkness weighed heavy on her back, on her shoulders, forcing her down to her knees. Straining, she slowly raised her leaden arms and embraced Kagami from behind. "… but don't think…" she gasped, "… don't think I won't throw myself over it to save you! Kagami, please, get up! Come back to me!"
Silence. The world held its breath.
And then… the silence was broken by the slow ticking of an antique watch, as Kagami's bloodstained hand reached up to take Homura's and place it over her heart. "Don't," she whispered through tears. "Don't act like… like you don't have any worth… except for your feelings for me."
"Kagami, I…"
"Shh. Just… hold onto me."
Homura held on. It was a long time before either of them let go.
A pair of round red eyes watched the two girls embrace each other. Sensing the presence of a Curse Seed, Kyubey had appeared, but he deigned to wait for them to finish before speaking. He assumed that one or both of them would turn violent should he interrupt.
Only when Homura helped Kagami shakily to her feet did he speak. Is it time?
Kagami's eyes hardened as she stared at the Seed. "Do it."
Homura only nodded.
Satisfied, Kyubey hopped down from his perch on the fence and padded over to the Second's remains. With a flick of his paw he batted the Curse Seed into the air… it spun as it fell and neatly dropped into the mouth on his back.
Kagami and Homura said nothing. There were no words of triumph, no celebrating this victory… it had cost far too much. They walked slowly down the street with their arms around each other, away from the carnage, with Kyubey following closely behind.
Hiiragi Household
An Hour Later
Matsuri Hiiragi threw open the door the moment she heard the first knock. "Where in the hell have you two-" Then she screamed, long and loud.
It was difficult to determine what exactly made her scream… if questioned, she might not even know herself. The sight of her younger sister and Homura Akemi standing on the doorstep, supporting a pale and unconscious Miyuki Takara between them was shocking enough. Then there was Kagami looking as if she had been through a particularly vicious butcher shop; her miko robes were filthy, torn in dozens of places and caked with dried blood from her many wounds. Her stained bokken was shoved roughly into her belt, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and haunted with loss.
Or perhaps Matsuri was screaming at the perfectly visible cat-like creature she saw riding on Homura's shoulder, that addressed her with a polite telepathic Greetings! as she made eye contact with it.
Kagami cringed. "Matsuri, please, for the love of God, quiet down…"
"Th-that thing…" Matsuri babbled. "It talked… and you… i-is that Miyuki?! What in God's name happened?!"
Kagami lowered her head. She heard the rapid footsteps of her parents and Inori approaching, but she couldn't face them now. "We'll tell you everything, I promise, but right now we need to get Miyuki to a hospital."
"B-But…" Matsuri could do little but protest as Homura gently pushed Miyuki into her arms.
"Kagami!" Miki Hiiragi was near hysteria as she pushed forward to take her daughter in her arms. The embrace only lasted for a moment before she pulled away and grasped Kagami's shoulders. "Where is she?! Where's Tsukasa? Tell me!"
Kagami shuddered and looked away. "She's gone."
END OF CHAPTER 25