"I touch the fire and it freezes me
I look into it and it's black
Why can't I feel? My skin should crack and peel
I want the fire back
Now through the smoke she calls to me
To make my way across the flame
To save the day, or maybe melt away
I guess it's all the same
So I will walk through the fire
'Cause where else can I turn?
I will walk through the fire
And let it…"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Walk Through the Fire", from "Once More, With Feeling"
©2001 Mutant Enemy/Rounder Records/20th Century Fox
CHAPTER 28: You Can't Trust Anyone
On the Utsunomiya Line, Saitama
The Next Night
The train to Omiya rocked gently back and forth as it sped along through the foggy night to its destination. If one were to take a look inside the second-to-last of the cars that night, they would see an odd sight: two high-school girls, both apparently deep in thought, sitting side-by-side in an isolated corner. That wasn't the unusual part. What was unusual was the way their hands were clasped so tightly together, and had been so ever since they boarded the train in Takanomiya… as if to give each other strength… as if they were facing the end of the world.
Kagami turned off her phone, clicked it shut, and slipped it into her skirt pocket. That was it, it was done. The messages were delivered. Now, God forbid, if the worst happened, at least-
Once again, Homura seemed to know what she was thinking. Her hand squeezed Kagami's reassuringly.
Kagami feigned a smile and squeezed back.
Early that morning, Kagami had awakened to beams of summer sunlight streaming in through her window, and Homura sleeping angelically in the tangle of bedsheets at her side. Remnants of the tingling heat from last night fluttered faintly in her belly as she leaned down and softly kissed Homura's forehead. With a smile she stretched, faced the morning, and for the first time since Tsukasa was taken, she thought to herself: We'll be okay. We can do this.
That feeling lasted until she came downstairs, dressed and showered… and found the rest of her family sitting silently around the dinner table. It was clear from their red and puffy eyes and exhausted expressions that neither her mother and father nor Inori and Matsuri had gone to sleep last night. Her moment of golden confidence crashed down around her, and before she said anything to them she hugged them all, told them that she loved them… and then she started to lie. Lies spilled out one after another, as if something foreign had seized control of her mouth and was speaking in her stead.
"It's going to be all right," she told them.
And "If we're together, I know Homura and I will win."
And "Don't worry. We'll bring Tsukasa back safe."
And the biggest lie of all, "I'm not scared."
Then, barely holding back tears, she asked to be alone for a while.
When Homura found her some time later, she was huddled by the pond in the back yard, her knees drawn up to her chin, staring at her reflection in the still water. The reflection's eyes were red-rimmed. Without a word, Homura sat down on a rock beside her. The world seemed oddly tranquil for this time of year… the usual drone of the cicadas was absent, and aside from a few lonely birdcalls, there was no sound at all.
"There's a summer festival coming up soon," said Kagami after a long time. "In a couple weeks. It's being held on the shrine grounds… I got a new yukata for it and everything."
Homura said nothing. Her expression was unreadable.
"I was going to try the goldfish scooping game again this year. I've never won it before," said Kagami with a wistful smile. "I think it would be nice, you know, to have a fish living here." Slowly she reached down and touched the surface of the water with her fingertip, watching the ripples blur her image. "There's never enough time…" she whispered. The clockwork watch on her wrist ticked away in the silence that followed.
Calmly Homura reached over to put a hand on her shoulder.
The smile trembled precariously on Kagami's lips. "I-I should be terrified right now, but I just feel… numb. Like I can hardly believe any of this is real, like it's not really happening… God…"
"I understand."
"How do you do it?" asked Kagami, finally looking up from the pond. "How do you go through it all without breaking? Don't you just want it to… to stop?"
"Sometimes." Homura's voice was very low. Her eyes disappeared into shadow beneath her bangs. "I've been fighting for so long that sometimes I can't even remember what it was like before… Sometimes, when I think about what it might be like… if the fight were over, if I could have a life like yours… friends, a family…" Pinkness colored her cheeks. "If I could have more nights like last night-"
The memory of them together, the warmth, the scent, the passion… it all flowed in one great rush through Kagami's mind, and for an instant, she felt the ghost of the swell deep inside her.
"- I think that's when I most want it to stop," said Homura softly. "That's when I think I would give anything in the world to just be normal again. But that's when I remember…" She took Kagami's hand, lifted it up and gently brushed her fingertips against the red ribbon in her hair. "I remember what she fought for. What she promised…"
"Homura…" It was the first time Homura had mentioned her since the night of the battle with the Sixth.
"There's a… you could call it a creed, or a prayer. We all learn it, the moment we make our contracts, and it's something that we never forget," Homura whispered. "Most of us wonder at least once where it comes from, but I know… it's a message that comes from her."
The breeze picked up, and Kagami felt an inexplicable urge to shiver.
"I'd like to teach you that prayer," said Homura as she entwined her fingers with Kagami's. Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling.
"All right." Kagami nodded. An idea occurred to her. "How about if… if we pray together, before we leave. You teach me your prayer first, and then I'll show you ours."
Fog had begun to gather by the time the little party came to the shrine. It curled in tendrils around their ankles as they approached, the five Hiiragis dressed in their sacred red and white garments while Homura followed behind the procession, her head bowed. Inori and Matsuri sprinkled holy water and salt on the path as they passed. Tadao chanted the ancient words of the liturgy, while behind him Miki waved the haraegushi wand gently back and forth. Last was Kagami, walking slowly, clutching the offering box with its single precious gift to the kami: a tiny evergreen branch. With each step she thought her sister's name: Tsukasa. Tsukasa. Tsukasa.
The invocation was a simple one: a call for Heaven to protect and watch over the family, to keep them from illness and harm, to grant them safety in their travels. Homura couldn't understand some of the words, as they were in an archaic form of Japanese that she was unfamiliar with… but the power in those words… There was only one higher power she had ever truly believed in, but as she stood in front of the shrine with the family, she could have sworn that her skin tingled with the presence of the ancient gods that Tadao Hiiragi called upon, and she wondered, if only for a moment, if they weren't already there, watching just as she was… Homura stood back, not wanting to intrude, as Kagami brought the box to the haiden and reverently placed it there. She rang the shrine's bell solemnly, then looked back over her shoulder and nodded. Homura hesitated a moment, then gathered herself, taking her place by Kagami's side and grasping the striped rope that hung from the bell. The sound of the chime was muted and metallic, as if dampened by the gloom.
Once the prayers were finished, the four Hiiragis turned as one to look at Kagami. Silence fell… their moment of unity was over, and now a line stood between Kagami and the rest of her family, a line that they could not cross. Though they stood only inches away, if felt to Kagami as if they were on the opposite side of a vast gorge. The mental image stirred something in her mind, a faint echo of a half-remembered thought… but it was gone the moment she tried to concentrate on it. The fog seeped into her bones, and she began to shiver. Why couldn't she say anything? Why was she just standing there instead of… instead of saying- she could hardly bear to even think the word-
Homura's hand touched hers, and the last line of the Puellae Magi's prayer that they had said together drifted through her mind, the prayer that they had in that quiet moment by the pond. Such a simple phrase, but it gave her strength. Smiling through fresh tears, she mouthed the words to her family that she wasn't able to speak, then turned with Homura and walked into the mist.
Hikawa Shrine, Omiya
That same mist had only grown more oppressive since they left the train. The moment they passed through the first of the shrine's three gates, Kagami felt it start to push down on her shoulders, like some huge hand weighing on her. The sound of her soles padding against the old stone path seemed unnaturally loud to her, each tick of her watch echoed harshly and hollowly… the effect did nothing to calm her nerves, already frayed and on edge.
She hiked her equipment bag further up her shoulder as they advanced through the park that surrounded the shrine. The fog kept them from seeing more than a meter ahead, but she could tell the place was empty… even this late at night with the main shrine closed, there should have been people here, visiting the museum or the zoo that were popular features of the park, but now there was nothing but silence and the dreadful fog. The miasma even distorted the forest of ancient elms that lined the path… instead of standing tall and proud, the trees seemed to bend forward, looming ominously over them, their branches leaning down like bony fingers waiting to snatch them up. Kagami dismissed this as an illusion brought on by her fear, but she couldn't convince herself completely...
"Kagami?"
Homura's voice startled her far more than it should have. Swallowing heavily and trying to calm her racing heartbeat, she edged up to the Puella Magi and peered anxiously over her shoulder. "What is it? Do you see something?"
"Look." Homura stooped to pick something up that was lying abandoned on the path. It was a child's doll, its smiling plastic face ghastly in the distorted moonlight.
"Gah, don't scare me like that!" said Kagami as she let out a breath, her tone a little harsher than she intended. "Put that thing down, it's giving me the creeps…"
Something scraped in the fog bank.
Homura was transformed in an instant, drawing a handgun from her shield before the violet flash of her magic had faded. The doll fell and clattered on the pavement.
Kagami's skin crawled madly as she fumbled with the equipment bag, tore it open and retrieved her bokken. Gripping the hilt tightly, she backed up against Homura, mentally preparing herself for the next horror the Demons would-
It wasn't the Demons. The dozens of shapes emerging from the fog were ordinary people, men and women and children, shambling toward them like the undead in a horror film… Their bloodless faces were twisted in agony. Muffled screams and cries, groans and whimpers escaped their bloated purple lips, held wide open by sheets of ice. As the people drew nearer, closing around them in a rough circle, Kagami saw that their eyes were open as well, open and unblinking and frozen over with tears…
She recoiled in horror, all preparedness gone, feeling a cold sweat break out that threatened her grip on the hilt. "Homura, they're human!"
"They've been Branded," said Homura, barely concealing her disgust. "The Demons are counting on us being unwilling to fight them."
"So what are we gonna do?!"
Two very small shapes stumbled out of the miasma. Kagami's moan of despair caught in her throat; they were barely more than toddlers, a boy and a girl. Both faces were trapped in mid-scream, their eyes were locked on her. Pudgy little white hands pawed at the air, searching blindly for prey, the fingers bent and contorted into inhuman claws…
"There's no choice," said Homura. "We can't fight without hurting them, and we can't let them delay us. We'll have to go through them."
"Go through…? But-"
"Close your eyes as tightly as you can and hold onto me. Be ready to run." Homura withdrew a round, olive green object from her shield and pulled the pin…
Kagami did as she was told, squeezing her eyes shut and groping for Homura's hand in the dark. Seconds later she wondered if her eyes were shut at all… a brilliant white flash seeped in through her eyelids and pierced straight through to her brain, accompanied by a deafening explosion that left her ears ringing and her nostrils filled with acrid smoke.
The flashbang may have been disorienting to Kagami… but for the Branded humans who could not close their eyes, it was torture. Those closest to the grenade collapsed on the spot, trying to scream and clawing uselessly at their frozen faces, while the dozens more behind them staggered drunkenly, all sense of direction lost.
Kagami felt Homura squeeze her hand. Her eyes streaming, she fell into step beside her, glad that the ringing in her ears prevented her from hearing the muted cries of pain. As they fled ever deeper into the fog, dodging frigid grasping hands, past the second of the three gates, she resolved once again to make the Demons pay for everyone they had made suffer. As a litany she repeated their names in her mind: Homura, of course. Ayano and Misao. Miyuki. Konata. Aya. And Tsukasa…
Izumi Household, Satte
The bedroom door clicked softly shut behind Konata, and she let out a relieved sigh. Job hunting was tough enough normally, but when your last place of employment was a café that had had to shut down due to the disappearance of one of its staff… It seemed like everyone in Akihabara knew something strange had happened at the Happy Nyoron. When she mentioned the name of the place or it came up on her resumé, her interviewers tended to make a pained expression and hurriedly change the subject. She was wary of getting her hopes up yet again. Already at least three times now she had been sure she would get the job, only to have her hopes dashed and have to start the whole process over again.
But… and it was a big but… this last interview had gone well. Really, really well. The manager of Cos-Cha had been visibly impressed by her knowledge of all things otaku… not to mention her ability to appeal to "special interests". The Happy Nyoron incident had barely come up at all. And when he learned that Konata could provide some of her own costumes? That had possibly been the clincher.
Grinning like a madwoman, she flopped onto her bed. She was exhausted, but somehow exhilarated at the same time… her body vibrated with nervous energy. Konata didn't think she would be able to sleep or play games or do much of anything until she heard back from the manager, but she couldn't just sit still. Just for something to do, she flicked open her phone and scrolled through her messages…
Konata sat up immediately as Kagami's address scrolled by on the screen. Kagami almost never texted when she could just talk or leave voice mail… texting was Tsukasa's thing. Suppressing a pang of loss at the thought of her missing friend's name, she opened the message. With each line she read, her eyes grew wider…
"Dear Konata,
"Homura and I are going after Tsukasa tonight. By the time you read this, we'll probably already be fighting. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you where we are… it's better this way. You'll be safe at home where they can't hurt you. You're probably really pissed right now, but please, try to understand… I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you because of me. Almost losing you once was hard enough.
"If we don't make it back… I want you to know that you're my best friend and I love you. See you on the other side.
"-Kagami"
The phone slipped out of Konata's hands and made a hollow sound as it struck the floor. All her happiness and energy from moments before was now gone, evaporated into ether. "Kagamin, no. No," she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. "Why… why wouldn't you tell me in person… why wouldn't you-" Sheets rustled as she made a wild scramble to her window and pressed her palms against the glass, staring out into the dark summer night as if by her will alone she could find a beacon, some kind of sign as to where she had gone. "Kagamin…" Terror and helplessness clutched her heart in a vicegrip. She's out there somewhere, she thought wildly. She's out there somewhere and I can't help her… I can't do anything…
Unseen behind her, a small figure materialized on one of her high shelves, swishing its fluffy white tail and fixing Konata with its red-eyed stare…
Hatsudai Rehabilitation Hospital, Shibuya, Tokyo
Miyuki wasn't able to hear her phone when it first went off. At the time, she wasn't able to hear much of anything, in fact. Though it lay on the table right by her bedside, her phone might as well have been a thousand miles away.
The doctors called it "emotional detachment". They had explained in detail to Miyuki and her parents that after suffering a severe psychological trauma, sometimes the mind would periodically disconnect itself from the body, leaving her in an unresponsive state though she appeared to be awake. It was a perfectly natural coping mechanism, they had said gently to her mother and father after the first few times this happened. There was no reason for them to worry. Miyuki tended to concur with that; in fact, being disconnected was rather relaxing, pleasant. To be able to escape from herself, even if only for a few minutes at a time, to be away from this room and the doctors and just stop thinking for a while…
Because it was when she had time to think about it all that Miyuki would reenter the nightmare.
The memories were still vividly clear and sharp as razors. In the random seconds, minutes, or hours that her consciousness emerged from the blackness of her imprisonment, she would feel a rush of unfathomable terror. She would try to scream, to cry, to wiggle her toes, to do anything, but she would always be paralyzed, helpless within the mirror. No feeling of warmth or coldness on her skin, or anything at all. No breath, no heartbeat, just stasis, one long and almost endless now. And each time she would watch, unable to blink or look away, as the thing that had stolen her face went about its work, fooling her friends, her family, her loved ones… Miyuki's consciousness would silently howl in the dark, trying and failing to warn them, until it could take no more and crash mercifully back into dreamless sleep, into oblivion.
They told her that it was over now, that she was safe, that nothing could hurt her anymore. But the thing still haunted her nightmares and her waking moments alike… The only time she could be completely free of it was when she disconnected. So she welcomed the moments of detachment, though it still disturbed her mother and father and her friends… They didn't understand. Miyuki doubted that they ever would.
It was after emerging from one such period that she noticed the blinking light coming from her phone. Still tingling and half-asleep, her thumb flicked automatically over the bed's controls, tilting her mattress upward. Puzzled, she retrieved the phone and flipped it open…
"Dear Miyuki,
"I already told Konata, so it's only right to tell you too. Tonight's the night that Homura and I are going to rescue Tsukasa. We're on the way right now. I can't tell you where we're going, I hope you'll understand. It's safer this way.
"If we make it back… let's all go out for cake when you get better, all five of us. And if we don't… well, just know that we gave it everything we had. We'll make them pay for what they did to you, Miyuki, I swear we will.
"Goodbye.
"- Kagami"
A drop fell and splattered on the phone's screen. Miyuki's hand trembled as she brought it up to her face… she wasn't aware that she had started crying until she felt the wetness on her cheek. Fits of tears had started and stopped so often over the past few weeks that she hardly noticed them anymore. But this was different… The thought that she might never see Kagami or Tsukasa again terrified her more than anything since her imprisonment. A black pit of emptiness opened up in her stomach, her breaths grew short and hard and her throat grew tight, she was suffocating…
Out of the corner of her eye, something flickered in the window. Miyuki's heart gave a great lurch and nearly stopped from shock. The first thought that made it through her panicked mind was, It's back. Somehow it survived and it's come back…
But it wasn't the Demon. Sitting on the sill was a creature she had heard described by Kagami but had never seen before, something like a cat and something like a rabbit, with round red eyes that stared at her quizzically. For a moment there was only silence as it and Miyuki stared at each other…
Hikawa Shrine, Omiya
The third and final gate loomed closely up ahead as the sky shattered and the world tore itself to pieces. All that was constant was the awful fog; even the stone path underneath their feet was changing. The shapes of the Branded victims grew fainter and lest distinct, reminding Kagami of ghosts… the comparison was more apt than ever as one reached for her shoulder and his twisted fingers passed through her harmlessly with nothing more than a deathly chill.
One step through the gate, and reality simply snapped. Kagami's ears popped audibly as the gate and all the other remnants of the real world vanished without a trace. Goosebumps instantly prickled up on her arms and legs, and she hugged herself in the sudden bitter cold. It was far from a summer night in here; the temperature in the Lair was a good forty degrees lower, at least, making her wish she had worn something more substantial than her t-shirt, shorts, and jacket. "H-H-Homura…" she shivered, drawing closer to her, desperate for her warmth. Her breath emerged in small clouds that wreathed around her as she spoke.
The Lair looked as if some enormous hand had come down from the ceiling of thick, steel-colored clouds overhead and gouged a handful out of the earth. It was a well… an immense, roughly circular well, so vast that the opposite wall was lost to view over the horizon. They stood on the edge of a plateau, a rocky cliff that overlooked a dizzying hundred-meter drop. At their side was a great motionless river, tumbling over the cliff's edge in a silent waterfall that cascaded to the surface of a frozen lake far, far below. The well's curving, iron grey walls bore grotesque carvings of humanoid giants, each shackled cruelly to their station with crystalline manacles and chains that entwined their bodies. Kagami paled at the sight of their faces… only vague suggestions, as if the sculptor hadn't bothered to finish them. Their features were indistinct, shapeless… wrong.
"Kagami?" Homura pointed downward. There, in the very center of the lake, a jagged collection of icy spires were gathered, jutting up at random, threatening angles from the frozen surface of the water.
Rubbing her arms, Kagami looked down at the spires and nodded. "Of c-course it's in the middle of the lake. B-but how are we gonna get d-down?"
"Allow me."
"Uh, sure. What are you-" A small eep escaped Kagami's lips as Homura slipped behind her and scooped her into her arms like a prince in a fairy tale. Blushing furiously, she wrapped her arms securely around the Puella Magi's neck. "Wait, don't tell me you're gonna…!"
"Hold tight." Homura crouched down for a moment, then dashed forward to the edge of the cliff and took a flying leap over it, into thin air…
Kagami screamed. She knew Homura must have something in mind, but the sensation of the wind rushing past her and howling in her ears as they began to fall tore the scream from her mouth anyway. Gripping onto her so tight that her knuckles whitened, she squeezed her eyes shut-
There was a soft, sharp sound, a great beating of the air, a jolt of inertia, and their fall slowed abruptly. Daring to crack one eye open, Kagami saw… feathers. White and fluffy feathers… Mystified, she watched as they spread out wide from Homura's back like twin capes, not her ominous dark space wings, but a pair that could have come from a painting of an angel. Awed and somewhat flustered, she gave Homura a shaky smile as they descended. "A little warning next time would be nice, okay? Seriously…"
"I'm sorry," said Homura softly. "I've never done this with a passenger before."
"Angel wings…" muttered Kagami, looking back at them. "You never stop surprising me, you know?" Angel. She frowned as something tickled in the back of her mind. There was something important about that, something she had forgotten…
"Huuuuuuuuuh…"
The noise made the fine hairs stand up on the back of Kagami's neck. It was barely a voice, more of a groan than a word, but it vibrated through her bones like the tremors from an earthquake. She had no idea where it could have come from. "Homura! Did you-"
"I heard," said Homura. "Look!"
At first she couldn't tell what Homura was referring to. All she could see as they descended was the waterfall, the cliff walls, and the chained giant statues. But then she noticed the fine shower of dust and snow falling from the hand of the giant nearest them. Its fingers were flexing, its hand was moving, so slowly as to be almost imperceptible… it was reaching for them. And equally slowly, the giant's head was lifting, raising the shallow, empty pits of its eye sockets to them as if it could actually see them. The detritus of who knew how many years shifted and fell in a glittering rain from its formless brow as its half-finished features moved. Lower on its face, its grey, stone-like flesh began to tear and stretch like taffy. Black blood flowed freely from where its lips and mouth should have been as the tears grew wider… The giant drew in a long, slow, rattling breath, and…
"Huuuuuuuuuuh… help… me…" it groaned, its voice low, thick, and primal, like that of an animal just barely capable of imitating human speech. "Help… me…"
Beads of cold sweat slid down Kagami's forehead, adding to the chill of the already frigid Lair. Her skin was clammy, crawling… "Wh-what do we-"
"We do nothing." Homura's voice was hard as iron. "Killing it would be a waste of energy."
"But Homura…"
"It's just a distraction, I don't think it can harm us. Try to ignore it."
Shivering, Kagami watched the giant's hand sluggishly paw the air. Its manacle kept it well out of reach of them. But that torn-open mouth was still moving, still bleeding…
"Help… me… please…" In the distance, one of the other giants now began to move. As with the first, it ripped its face open to speak as it strained uselessly with the bonds holding it to the cliff. Next to it, another stirred, and then another farther away… Soon the air was rent with their horrid moaning as they all spoke at once, trying to drown each other out. "Help… please… Let me go… It hurts… Help me… Make it stop… Help me…" Their voices rose in a cacophony, louder and louder until the whole Lair rumbled from the echoes and Kagami could hear nothing else, not even her own thoughts. She buried her face in Homura's shoulder, just wanting it to end. "MAKE IT STOP… PLEASE… HELP ME… MAKE IT STOP!" If it went on much longer, she thought she would lose her mind…
Homura's wings faded as her foot touched down on the sheet of ice that covered the lake. It was as if a switch had been flipped: the maddening howls of the giants cut off in mid-word, leaving Kagami's ears ringing. More unnerved than ever, she muttered a quick "Thanks" to Homura and climbed down, hitching her equipment bag over her shoulder. Once the sole of her shoe touched ice, the chill shot straight up through her ankle and played up her spine as if she had stepped onto it with bare feet. A small cry escaped her as she shivered involuntarily, a cry that was swallowed up in the now deafening silence that had fallen over the Lair.
Warily, Homura moved to touch her shoulder. Her lips moved with a question, but the ringing in Kagami's ears blocked it out. "I-I'll be fine," she said, swallowing a few times and rubbing her arms again. "L-let's just go and-"
Her eyes caught something at her feet, and she looked down. Her stomach heaved… in the ice beneath her was a human face staring upward, pale as death and locked in mid-scream. Just a face… the rest of the body was decayed and withered away, little but a skeleton with dead grey flesh stretched thinly over its bones. Crystals glittered in the sockets where the eyes should have been and ran down its cheeks in thin streams.
Retching and clapping a hand to her mouth, Kagami stumbled backward into Homura. The body within the ice was not alone. As far as the eye could see, there were more bodies, countless numbers entombed below them, each with little but a silently screaming face left. Below these were even more corpses in the depths and shadows of the frozen lake, columns of them reaching down and down and down into infinity.
"There's nothing we can do," murmured Homura, holding Kagami's arm to keep her upright. Her voice was oddly strained. "We must keep going. We have to stop this madness and make sure they can't hurt anyone else."
"I can't take this," moaned Kagami, trying not to be sick. Being sick wouldn't help anyone right now, but she could see those horrible faces even with her eyes closed… "God, I can't-"
"Come on, Kagami." Homura's grip stayed firm. "For Tsukasa."
Shakily, Kagami nodded. "R-right. Tsukasa. For Tsukasa." She fixed Tsukasa's image in her mind, demanding herself to stay focused.
Carefully they made their way toward the spires in the lake's center, their footsteps crunching in the thin layer of frost and snow that dusted the glass-smooth sheet of ice. Nothing else moved, nothing else made a sound, and that silence and stillness possibly frightened Kagami more than the bodies, more than the giants, more than the Branded victims outside the Lair… It wants us to come, she thought with terrible clarity. Out loud, she said, "This has got to be a trap…"
"I know," said Homura. "Keep your eyes ahead."
The spires when viewed up close were as thick as tree trunks, each one perfectly straight at its own angle, with gleaming edges that looked sharp as blades. They ranged from half Kagami's height at the base of the formation to one in the center that towered over the rest, well over ten meters high. In front of the structure, standing unnaturally still, there was a lone figure swathed in white robes, its pale skull flickering with squares of eerie light. As Kagami and Homura drew near, it turned around to face them.
"You have come," said the Ninth. Its voice was a multitude of voices speaking all at once, each individual one at a different pitch, from a high, screeching whine to a bone-chilling bass rumble, all blending together in a discordant, jarring effect, as if the pieces of the sound didn't quite fit together.
Kagami rummaged inside her bag and drew out her bokken. Mustering up all her courage, she faced the Demon with as hard an expression as she could give it. "You took my sister," she said, with only a slight quiver in her voice. "I want her back."
Beside her, Homura spread her hand and summoned her bow in a violet flash.
There was no emotion at all in the Demon's response, it was as cold and hard as the ice that filled its Lair. "No."
"I'm the one you want," said Kagami, feeling the first flickerings of rage heat up inside her. "I'm the one who has your Mother inside me, right? Let Tsukasa go. She's got nothing to do with this."
"You are incorrect. The other focal point is critical." The Demon slid to one side. Behind it, suspended in one of the icy spires, was Tsukasa, her body still mercifully intact and apparently unharmed. Her eyes were wide open, her face frozen in the same expression of despair from the night she was taken.
Kagami's heartbeat quickened. Gritting her teeth, she clutched the hilt of her sword and forced herself to stay in place. Losing control and running for her sister would be just what it wanted... Remember what Ibuki-sensei says: burning heart, cool head. Burning heart, cool head… "I'll say it one more time. Let. Tsukasa. Go."
"The other will remain in stasis," said the Ninth. "There is nothing you can do."
"Maybe," said Kagami, "but you can be damned sure we'll try. Homura, can you hit that thing without hurting her?"
"I believe so," said Homura, the picture of calm.
The Ninth raised one thin hand high and touched the other to the surface of the nearest spire. The distorted harmonics of its voice rose to a deafening bellow, and sound waves battered the two girls, threatening to blow them backward. The Demon's body melted like a wax candle, its white flesh running in rivulets. A pool of orange blood spread out beneath its discarded robes, almost instantly frosting over. The Lair rumbled, the lake shook, and the tallest spire in the structure split open. Facets unfolded from the broken spire in patterns of astounding complexity, for all the world resembling a piece of crystalline origami coming to life. Every part of it was ice, perfect and transparent and flawless ice cut with the precision of jewels. Terrifying yet also strangely beautiful, the body gradually took shape: a huge torso fused with the spire, a wasted chest with distended, bulging ribs, four grotesquely long, sinewy arms, grasping hands and multiple-jointed fingers tipped with scythe-like claws. A great pair of bare wings sprouted, the bones of which were shaped of crazed, warping, jagged geometries that didn't make sense, that made Kagami's head hurt just looking at them, trying to comprehend which angles went where and how they connected to the main body. The head was last to form, and it was a hideous, grinning, triple-faced skull, one face in front and one on either side. The eyes… they were six solid black spheres, pitiless and empty, utterly devoid of light or life, eyes that drained what little warmth there was from the air.
The Ninth pumped the freezing air with those impossible wings, flexed its claws, and roared its challenge to them, and the roar was like a thousand voices screaming in agony. The three grinning jaws opened, frigid clouds escaping from its mouths as it breathed.
"Homura…" Kagami whispered dryly over the echoes of the roar as its shadow loomed over them. Her voice was little more than a frightened croak. "Can… can we beat that thing…?"
Homura stared up at it, directly into the dead black eyes. She remembered the Witches. She remembered Walpurgis Night. She remembered Vittoria and the countless Demons spawned from her during the war. She remembered the others of the Nine… and she discovered that only when she thought of Desideria was she truly afraid. The rest she could push down, as she always did. And Desideria? She still haunted her nightmares, but she was gone from the real world. This thing didn't scare her, she realized; she had survived far, far worse. "I'll stop it," she said to Kagami, clenching her hand into a fist. "We'll stop it. I'll strike it from the air, while you try to free Tsukasa. When you're sure she's clear, start attacking the base of the structure."
"R-right!" Kagami nodded. Homura's confidence bolstered her own as well. "Ready when you are…"
"Go!"
Kagami dashed forward and Homura shot upward like a bullet, her space wings unfurling from her back. Before she had even finished her ascent, her hand was inside the pocketspace of her shield. Dispelling her bow for the moment, she drew an M136 rocket launcher from the pocket, primed it, passed it to her free hand… and then drew a second one for good measure. Shifting both to her underarms, she took a position over the Demon, gritted her teeth, and jabbed both firing buttons with her thumbs.
The recoil was like a kick from a horse and sent her tumbling several meters backward, but her aim was true: she heard the scream from below as the payload exploded on the Demon's shoulders. Attempting to right herself, she discarded the spent launchers and twisted around in an aileron roll as the first lancing beams of green light from the Ninth's fingertips cut through the smoke of the explosion and sizzled past her ear… she could feel the heat of the ionized air on her skin. The Ninth's wings tilted upward and flapped heavily… the resulting blast of arctic wind and snow threw her off her vector, and the storm of razor-sharp chips of ice that shortly followed cut deeply into her face, arms and legs. Shaking off the pain, she reached next for a pipe bomb, arming the detonator and sending it hurtling downward toward the root of one of the wings. Without waiting for the next explosion, she dove back into her stored arsenal, her fingers closing around another bomb…
Kagami ducked and weaved as shrapnel and icy shards rained down around her. Homura was going all out… so she had to do her best as well. Dropping suddenly to one knee to dodge a stray cutting beam from one of the Demon's fingers, she quickly righted herself and resumed her charge. The small part of her mind that wasn't focused on saving Tsukasa or avoiding being hit recognized that with the Demon presumably in a fixed spot up there, the base of the spire structure should (should, she hoped desperately) be a relative blind spot… or at least, it would have trouble hitting her without injuring itself in the process. Closer and closer… another beam carved a groove in the surface of the lake, sending up a geyser of steam in front of her, but she waved it away. Hang on, Tsukasa, I'm coming! I'm coming! Another bomb went off somewhere above her, and there was a high-pitched cracking sound from one of the limbs. She swallowed and doubled her speed… if parts of this thing started falling off while she was underneath it, she would be in real trouble…
Finally she skidded to a stop… or attempted to, as the low friction of the ice sent her farther than she had anticipated. Kagami ended up slamming painfully into the spire instead of stopping in front of it. Its bitter coldness added to the shock of her impact, but it quickly served to numb some of the pain. Peeling herself away with some difficulty, she faced the wall of ice that held her sister, took a deep breath, and yelled at the top of her lungs: "Tsukasa, wake up!"
There was no response, not even a twitch.
"Come on, Tsukasa, please! It's me, it's Kagami, I'm here! If you can hear me, you have to wake up!" Kagami pounded on the wall for emphasis with her fist, and accomplished nothing but hurting her hand. Wincing, she fished into her equipment bag for her bokken. "Dammit, I'm gonna get you out of there…" She backed up a bit, gripped the hilt with both hands, and prayed silently: Okay, whatever weird power I had last time, now would be a really great time for it to show up again! "MEN!" she screamed as she brought the blade down in a slash, and then another, and another, and another. "MEN! MEN! MEN!" The weapon nicked the ice on the first blow, made a shallow cut on the second, did nothing at all on the third… but on the fourth, she felt something rise up inside her, dispersing some of the Lair's chill. An invisible force erupted from the bokken's edge to carve an inch-deep furrow in the wall. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
In the air, Homura had switched to her store of guns. They were more accurate, and stood less chance of accidentally hitting Kagami while she worked to free Tsukasa. Trusting her partner to do her part, Homura unloaded a full clip from her Type 89 assault rifle at the Ninth's tripartite skull. She was causing it surface damage, she knew this much from the cracks and pits forming in the outer layers of the thing's body, but nothing she had was slowing it down, much less making it bleed. Perhaps if she could rupture the eyes?
Her eyes wandered downward as she took a dive to avoid another lashing blizzard from the Demon's wings. The small shape standing at the foot of the spire and swinging valiantly away at it was Kagami… the sight gave her satisfaction. But then… there was something behind Kagami, an oddly shaded circular portion of the frozen lake, quickly growing larger and darker. Almost like a-
She realized what it was almost too late. "KAGAMI…! KAGAMI, MOVE!"
"Huh?" Kagami heard the scream faintly from above. She looked up, confused… Homura was in a controlled dive, her wings tucked close to her body, wearing a panicked expression, yelling and pointing frantically downward. A blast from the Ninth's fingertips forced her to veer off suddenly, but she continued pointing down at the same spot…
Kagami quickly looked down at her feet. At first she thought it was her shadow, but it was the wrong shape and much too dark. Sudden terror seized her, and more by instinct than anything else, she took a flying leap to her right.
The black thing that thrust violently upward from beneath the ice missed her by millimeters. A half-second later, and it would have skewered her straight through. Scrambling to regain her footing, her heart beat a staccato against her ribs as she made an ungainly sort of shimmy forward on her hands and knees. Another long, thin spear punched a hole through right behind her, and she redoubled her efforts to get up. What the hell what the hell is it oh God there's something in the lake there's something in the goddamned lake… Finally, once she had half-run, half-slid what she hoped was a safe distance away, she stopped, woefully short of breath, and turned around… just in time to see the ice explode where she had been standing.
The geyser of water from below froze over again almost immediately, and was just as quickly shattered by the motions of the thing that had emerged from the breach. It was now thrashing violently, pulling up wet tendrils from the depths and using them to secure itself in place. At first Kagami thought it was a tree… but trees didn't have what appeared to be branches of bone sticking out of their trunks, and trees certainly didn't have teeth, much less golden curving fangs. With dawning disgust she realized that the creature wasn't a tree at all, but the head, neck, and yawning open mouth of an enormous black snake. Its bone-branches shook, scattering droplets of water, and all of the small round golden things on those branches that she had initially taken for berries swiveled at once… and looked at her.
Repulsed by it, Kagami took a step back to catch her breath and collect herself. Her heart still hammered frantically against her ribs… it had almost caught her off guard, she would have died (or possibly worse) then and there without Homura's warning… she couldn't make that mistake again, Tsukasa depended on her. Kagami faced the thing and brandished her weapon. Whatever it was, Demon or not, it now stood between her and her sister, and if it wanted a fight, she would be happy to oblige it. Howling another kiai, she charged…
The Eighth's trunk-like neck burst forth a flurry of twisting, gnarled roots and vines. They raced to meet Kagami, lashing at her face and arms, trying to catch her ankles and trip her. She laid about with her bokken, severing and slashing at anything that came near. The Demon's blood flowed and spattered everywhere, soaking through her jacket, but no matter how many she cut, more seemed to take their place. Tsukasa. Think of Tsukasa, she thought as she split one root after another in two. It was slowing her advance, but it couldn't stop her. Not when she was this close…
Homura felt a piercing sting of guilt as she recognized the shape of the Eighth down below. She had let it go that night, she had been too weak to finish it off… and now if it hurt Kagami, it would be her fault. Please stay safe, she thought desperately as she threw aside another empty rifle. She had her own problems: her conventional weapons, if anything, were becoming less and less effective against the Ninth. Worse still, her wings were burning far too much power… already two of her Curse Seeds were expended. Somehow she had to damage it, buy Kagami more time…
With that, she summoned her bow again. If bombs and bullets wouldn't break through the Demon's frozen hide, perhaps arrows would. Notching a half-dozen at once, she mentally set the flight path for each: three for the Ninth, and three for the Eighth. That would at least give Kagami an opening, wouldn't it? The peak of her bow erupted into flame as she drew back and let them all fly.
The first volley struck the Ninth's neck and spine, the magical flames bore through the ice in clouds of vermillion steam. Its arms flailed wildly as it roared, its fingers blasting cutting beams in every direction. The second volley fell on the snake Demon, snapping through several of its bone-branches and incinerating dozens of its eyes. Seizing her chance, Homura dived low, in line with one of the Ninth's three faces, pulled back, and sent two arrows streaking into the Demon's empty black eyes. They burst in showers of gore that ran down the left face like tears… dodging a grasping claw, she arced over the head and fired twice more on the other side. This time the Ninth didn't bother to strike back… it clasped one set of hands to its side-faces and screamed and screamed…
I can finish it, Homura thought. Hovering in front of its central face, she summoned another two arrows and let go, piercing the two remaining eyes. Now fully blinded, the Ninth raged impotently, clawing at the air in search of her. It was now or never.
One more shot, one final arrow, right through the skull. Her wings spread out wide. The burning shaft doubled, then tripled in size as she poured her remaining power into it. Homura whispered, "Requiem-"
The Ninth's two lower arms moved like lightning. The giant hands slammed together and closed around her, compressing her like a vise of freezing iron… Homura groaned in pain and dismay as she lost her focus, and her bow and arrow dissolved into particles of light. Her wings beat the air, curled back to caress the Demon's wrists. More steam erupted as their touch eroded its flesh. If she could get free, she might still be able to-
The upper arms moved. Saturated with blood, the second set of hands descended on her wings, grabbed hold of them between its fingers. Its flesh burned and boiled, melting away, but it somehow held on. Homura's mouth fell open in abject shock. That's not possible. It shouldn't even be able to touch them, it can't-
Then there was nothing but pain, searing, unbearable agony, as with a violent pulling motion it ripped off her wings as easily as a child tearing a piece of paper.
Kagami stumbled and fell as she heard the scream. It took her half a second to recognize it as Homura's voice. She looked up… and saw Homura, barely visible in the grasp of the Ninth. Rivers of blood soaked through its clenched fingers, staining them crimson red and raining down a steady patter of bright warm droplets. Its upper set of hands still held the flickering remains of her wings, which were shriveling up and fading away like dreams.
Kagami made a sound then, a horrible sound… it tore itself from her throat like the cry of an animal. As she climbed to her feet, a great scalding hatred rose up inside her, boiling in her veins, tinting her vision red. The shadows of black feathers began to unfurl from her back as she looked up at the Ninth, wanting nothing more than to make it suffer…
She was seized from behind as one of the Eighth's roots wrapped around her like a snake, pinned her arms to her sides and hauled her roughly back down to the ice. It squeezed, so tightly that she saw stars… her bokken dropped from her hand as her grip slackened. "Let me go, dammit! HOMURA! Homura, speak to me! HOMU-"
More roots entwined around her, keeping her legs still as the one around her waist constricted so hard that the breath was driven from her lungs. Small, rough branches ran through her hair and grasped the back of her skull, tilting her head back… so that she couldn't help but watch as the Ninth took Homura in one hand and brought it down like the blow of a hammer, smashing her into the frozen surface of the lake with a sickening crunch, so hard that it left a shallow, blood-spattered crater in the ice.
"NO!" Kagami screamed, thrashing in the grip of the roots, tearing her flesh against the gnarled bark. "NO! No, no, no!"
The Ninth's three mouths grinned as it raised her in its fist again, then slammed her down into the crater a second, then a third time, again and again, and each time there was more far more blood than the last…
Kagami fell silent as the Ninth finally let her drop, a broken, bloody doll that only made a small, quiet thud as she hit the bottom of the crater.
This can't be. Can't be happening. She can't be-
A root pressed against the side of her neck. She gasped as it singed her flesh, and left a scorching circular mark that spread fire through her veins. The Demon's roots let her go all at once. Kagami stumbled roughly to her feet, her eyes locked on the crater, where a limp and red-stained hand dangled over the lip. She caught a flash of violet… Homura's Soul Gem was still intact. Somehow, she was still alive. If Kagami could only-
Her body twitched. She felt a terrible itching, burning sensation on her hands, her neck, her face… and without intending to, she knelt and picked up her bokken, then stood up again and took a shaky step forward.
What's happening? she thought wildly. What am I-
"It's all right," said a deep, rich, honeyed voice behind her. It was the tree Demon, the Eighth. "Go to her. Take your sword and go to her."
Kagami tried to open her mouth to curse at the creature… and found she wasn't able. Her body took another step, and then another. Her hand closed tightly around the hilt. The realization hit her like a punch to the stomach: the root, the fiery mark on her neck. She had been Branded. It was controlling her body. Oh God, no. Not this, no…
"Yes," said the voice of the Eighth. Its words seemed to sink into her flesh, bidding her onward against her will. "You are going to take your weapon to Homura, and use it to shatter her Soul Gem."
Her mind screamed in denial. Her body took another four steps. Kagami fought desperately inside, summoning all her willpower to resist, but inexorably her slow march continued. Stop! Stop, please God! I can't do this, I won't do this!
Above her, the Ninth watched silently.
Stop, please stop…! Her feet moved faster, picking up the pace. If she could only speak, shout some warning to Homura, tell her to move out of the way, but her throat was tight, her jaw clenched shut, her tongue glued to the floor of her mouth.
"You cannot resist," said the Eighth smoothly. "Go forward. Kill her."
No! Raging against herself, Kagami threw everything she had into one frantic command: STOP!
Her foot paused in mid-step. She teetered, swaying back and forth.
Kagami breathed a mental sigh of relief. Okay, that at least did something! All right, now turn back. Turn back, dammit, please…
The mark on her neck flared, and more rivers of fire coursed through her body. "Shatter her Soul Gem," said the Eighth, more insistent than before. "Do it."
I won't! I won't, I won't! God, please! But she was moving again, a little faster. She was almost to the lip of the crater now. She could just about see over it… God, somebody, anybody, I beg you, please help me… Please don't make me kill her!
And something down deep inside her answered: Willing to accept help at last, are you?
Kagami went cold. No, not you. I won't listen to you, not ever!
Are you certain about that? hissed the dark, cold presence. Kagami could almost feel its arms embrace her. Your situation is rather precarious, you know. All it would take is just a little bit of my power… just let me out, just for a moment…
I won't, thought Kagami. No matter what happens, I won't release you! I won't let her fight be for nothing!
You're so stubborn, Kagami. You'll come to no good end… The presence began to laugh. The sound was like bones snapping.
Step by step, she was growing closer to Homura. Her heart thundered in her ears. Desperately she focused on stopping her feet once more. Please, no. I don't want to see…
She peered over the edge. Homura lay in a pool of blackening blood, her limbs at unnatural angles, her clothes dyed almost completely red. Her breath was faint and shallow. As Kagami drew near, her eyelids fluttered, and her lips parted… "Ka…"
Kagami stopped. Bit by bit, her free hand moved to the hilt of her bokken. Slowly she began to raise it up… The backs of her hands were covered in a layer of black shining scales.
Inside, she screamed, she bellowed, she cried, she threw herself against the walls of her mental prison. Nothing worked, the blade kept rising. Finally, abandoning everything else, she called out to the dark presence: All right, all right! Help me, please! Help me…
Her body paused. Silence fell.
You're certain you want my help? The presence sounded faintly amused.
Kagami visualized herself bowing down before something cold and black and unfathomably vast. Ashamed, broken, weeping, she thought: Yes. Help me, Vittoria. Please, I don't want to lose her, I can't… Oh God, Homura, forgive me…
Seconds ticked by. She could hear them on her watch. Tick, tick, tick…
At last, the voice of Vittoria answered: Mmm, I think not.
Kagami's mental voice exploded in terror and confusion. What- but-
You see, said the dark presence, laughing to itself, if you kill your precious Homura, you'll fall into ultimate despair. When that happens, I'll be fully reborn… so why settle for only releasing a bit of my power now, when by waiting just a little longer I'll regain it all? I can be patient if need be.
Black rage consumed Kagami's heart. Why… you… There were no words strong enough to express her hatred.
I'll see you soon, Kagami, said the presence cheerfully. Very, very soon…
And then it left, and Kagami screamed in the dark.
As if in slow motion, she watched the blade start to fall.
And then…
From behind her there was a blaze of heat and light. A deep, honeyed voice let out a burbling scream. Kagami's body spasmed as all the accumulated energy she had expended to fight the Eighth's influence was turned loose at once, and she fell to the ice in a twitching heap, gasping for breath. The black scales fell from her hands and turned to ash, and she could feel others falling from her face and neck. She could move on her own again, but barely… mystified, she tried to lift her head to see what had happened.
The Eighth was on fire. Its bone-branches writhed and blackened as it wailed in its death throes. There was a huge, flaming hole through its neck, a meter wide, and a long streak of vermillion blood on the ice beneath it. As Kagami watched, the Ninth pointed its clawed fingers and fired two more cutting beams that sliced through the snake Demon's body like knives, splitting it into pieces. The ghastly noise of the Eighth's death cry ceased abruptly.
Horrified and fascinated, Kagami did nothing but stare as the Eighth's body collapsed in on itself and burned away to cinders, leaving nothing but a Curse Seed behind.
Slowly and deliberately, the Ninth turned on its spire to face her. Four of its black eyes had regenerated, but two were filmed over and cloudy, still blind. "You…" it rumbled, looming over both girls.
Kagami summoned all her strength, grasped Homura's hand, and held it tight. Swallowing, she looked into the pitiless black eyes. "Why…?" she whispered. "It… it was your brother…"
The Ninth's discordant voice was cold, but in a different way now… not like ice, but like the vacuum of space, as merciless and indifferent as those black eyes. "It does not matter. Simply reviving Mother was never my intention," it said. "That would have been accomplished had the Eighth succeeded."
Kagami shivered. She had come close, so close to killing her… and even more than that, close to giving in to the dark… "I… I don't understand…"
Drawing back one of its hands, the Ninth swept it over the base of the spires. One of its claws brushed against Tsukasa's icy tomb with a scraping sound. "The other focal point. I placed her in stasis at her moment of greatest despair. She was about to birth another Demon… like the original Mother, equal in power, but… different. What I want… what I have always wanted… was to release that Demon…"
"But…" said Kagami, looking to where her sister hung frozen. "That doesn't make sense…"
"Seeing the other focal point become a Demon will plunge you into despair," said the Ninth. "You will birth the new Mother, and both Demons will battle… to the death."
"You're…" Kagami's mouth had gone numb with horror. "Why on earth would you want to-"
Something crept into its voice that was oddly wistful. "Because everyone and everything is alone. Being alone is everything. There is no hope. There is no trust. There are no bonds of blood. I have known this since the moment of my creation, but I am the only one who sees this truth… I am burdened with it. I knew that if they lived, ultimately, the others of the Nine and even Mother would eventually betray me. So I will prove to all that is, was, and ever will be, that the only true thing in all the worlds is to be alone.
"If the reborn Mother and this new Demon, both born from focal points of the multiverse, were to battle, to kill each other… all realities would shatter. Every parallel universe would collapse. And every living thing would be pulled into its own empty fragment of reality, separate from all the others. All alone, all in nothingness. Forever."
An image appeared in Kagami's mind: floating alone, not in darkness but in a void, an absence of everything. Nothing to see, hear, touch, or taste. She imagined being trapped there, with no hope of escape. And not just her, but Homura, Tsukasa, Konata, Miyuki, Inori, Matsuri, her mother and father, her friends, her classmates, the people of Saitama, of Japan, of the whole world… all cut off from each other. Each and every person in their own solitary Hell, for all eternity…
A great shiver passed through her exhausted body. "You're insane," she spat up at the Ninth with all the fury she could muster. "You're so insane that the word doesn't even cover it. I'll never let that happen, do you hear me?" She gripped Homura's hand tight. "We'll never let that happen. We've come too far, struggled too much to let you win! We're gonna…" Wincing with pain, still keeping hold of Homura's hand, she forced herself to sit up. "We're gonna kick your ugly ass, the both of us, and then you'll see-"
She thought she was imagining it at first… she thought she felt a faint pressure on her hand. Then she felt it again, stronger, and knew it was real. Homura was stirring. Weakly, faintly, her hand squeezed Kagami's. Warmth flowed between them, building up inside…
"Kagami," breathed Homura, in barely a whisper.
"Homura…!" Tears sprung to her eyes. "God, I thought-"
"I'll be…" said Homura thickly, "… all right. Just need time… to heal. I'll fight…" Here she squeezed her hand again. "… with you."
Vile green light gathered at the Ninth's fingertips. Its grinning faces loomed closer. "You will fail," it said, "and all will come to ruin. The stars above will fall."
Kagami gathered her bokken and stood up. Clutching the hilt with both hands, she took a stance in front of Homura, shielding her with her body, and narrowed her eyes. "You won't hurt her," she said calmly. "Never again."
The Ninth breathed clouds of freezing vapor. It was so close now that Kagami could see herself reflected in facets of the Demon's crystalline skull… she looked bloodied and half-dead, but she still stood tall…
One of her reflections looked right at her… and winked.
What happened next didn't make any sense at all.
Kagami's reflection crawled out of the facet that it occupied, twisted around, and plunged her hand shoulder-deep into the Ninth's skull. There was a geyser of vermillion blood. The Demon reared back, howling in mortal pain, but the reflection held on, stabbing the wound again and again and again. Finally, with a nauseating tearing sound, it ripped something free… and the Ninth began to collapse, its impossible wings falling apart, its four arms spiderwebbing with cracks, shards of its body falling down like rain. Blue flames spread outward from the hole in its skull, consuming its icy flesh from the inside out. The blood-stained reflection jumped clear, slid down the tallest spire, hopped easily between the glittering peaks of the others, and alighted on the surface of the lake with barely a sound. Behind her, what was left of the Ninth toppled off the structure. It dissolved before its corpse could hit the ice.
The reflection turned around to watch, and grinned. She opened her fist to reveal the Curse Seed she had torn from its body, then clutched it to her breast. Kagami heard what she said, but her brain refused to process it for a moment.
The reflection said, "You were right all along, brother. You can't trust anyone."
With a terrifying, familiar smile, Kagami's reflection turned back to her and said, "Hello, Kagami-chan. It's been a while."
Kagami fell backward, halfway into the crater. Dazedly she shook her head. What she was seeing was simply impossible. Impossible. But there was no mistaking the raw dread billowing in her core. "No," she whispered. "Not you… you're dead. I killed you myself. You're dead, you're dead…"
Homura lifted her head. She saw the other Kagami standing there covered in blood, and her veins filled with ice. Every rational thought fled her mind, replaced by sheer terror. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Desideria smiled with terrible calm. "So you thought. So everyone thought. But what you killed in front of the station that night wasn't me."
Kagami's knees threatened to buckle beneath her from shock. "God, no." She didn't remember much of that part of the night, just the explosion of rage, and how close she had come to loosing Vittoria… but what she remembered clearly was the Curse Seed. She had picked it up, and she and Homura had watched as Kyubey swallowed it. That should have been the end… so how…? "I killed you. I'm sure I did…!"
Desideria turned her back to them and casually walked to the spot where the Eighth's body had faded. "I actually have Homura-chan to thank for giving me the idea," she said as she stooped to retrieve its Curse Seed. "So thank you, Homura-chan. Your memories saved my life."
This isn't real. How Homura wanted to scream, but all she managed was a quiet moan. This can't be real…
"You see," said Desideria, "when I read you, Homura-chan, I gained your memories… all your memories. So I know all about the Witches, the distortions that used to exist in your world. Something about them interested me… their Familiars. Apparently, if you allowed a Familiar to feed for long enough, it would grow into a copy of the Witch that it split off from. Isn't that interesting? I wondered why we Demons never did something like that…" She shrugged. "Probably because most of us are too stupid to try, or because we keep our Spawn too close to ourselves. But I tried… I let one of my Spawn feed to its heart's content. And it worked… it took some waiting, but eventually it grew into a perfect copy. I let it read my memories, taught it everything it needed to know… and when the time was right, I let it replace me. I hid myself away, and waited.
"So that poor creature that you tore apart that night, Kagami-chan?" Her eyes sparkled. "That was my Spawn, my faithful copy… loyal to the end."
Kagami's stomach dropped. It made sense, a horrific sort of sense. "But why-"
"It was your fault." Desideria's voice fell to a low and threatening whisper. "That night when we first met, the night you hurt me and escaped from my Lair… that was when I lost everything. Because I had spent so much time with you, with your sister, with humans, because I hurt so badly, I did it without thinking… My brother, the Ninth, he looked so troubled, so alone, and I… I touched his hand, read his mind. And suddenly, I…" Here she began to tremble. "I knew everything. How he didn't trust us, planned to betray and kill us all. How he only wanted Mother back so that she would die..." Her tone grew bitter and cold as midwinter. "All that we ever had was our mission and each other. All of us were willing to die for it, if it meant we would succeed. And my brother… never cared. Never believed in us, or the mission, or Mother, or anything. Can you imagine, Kagami-chan, learning that the purpose of your life, your entire existence, was a lie…?" Slowly, menacingly, she started back toward the crater, clutching both Curse Seeds tightly, so tightly that their spindles pierced her palms. "You made me hurt, you made me lose everything. So it's only fitting… that I do the same to you."
Kagami gritted her teeth and gripped the hilt of her bokken tightly. "Stay back. I'm warning you… I killed you once before, I'll do it again!"
Homura tried to lift her arm. The bone was still shattered, hadn't had time to regrow yet. "Kagami, run, please, run…"
"Like hell," said Kagami. "I swore that night that I'd never let her hurt you again…"
"You really are stupid, Kagami-chan," hissed Desideria. She opened her hands… the Curse Seeds were now half-embedded in her flesh. As Kagami watched, they sank in completely. "Still protecting that thing even after knowing what she's done? Did you know that she fired the shot that killed Mother…? A year and a half too late, true, but…"
"Shut it," Kagami growled. "Your mind games won't work anymore. I said stay back."
"She's responsible for the deaths of billions." The light in Desideria's eyes flickered madly as she advanced. "Even more if you count the other timelines she destroyed, all for one person… for her. For what she calls 'love'… I'll show you, Kagami-chan. I'll show you how facile her love really is."
"As if you'd know," Kagami spat, raising her weapon. "As if you'd ever understa-"
Crack. Desideria backhanded her across the cheek, and her feet left the ground, she went flying… when she hit the ice a moment later, she felt something sprain badly, heard a loud and painful snap. Her shoulder, maybe, or one of her ribs. It didn't matter. As her body skidded to a stop, she pushed the pain away, scrambled to her feet, grabbed her bokken…
Her bokken. Half its blade was gone, sheared off from the fall.
"Don't worry, Kagami-chan," said Desideria, lowering herself over Homura's helpless form. "I'm not going to make the same mistake as I did last time. This time, she won't come back."
"Don't you dare…!" Screw her broken weapon, she would-
Desideria waved a hand. A wintery blast spread from her fingers and enveloped Kagami's legs. Her skin burned, then went horribly numb… she lost her balance and fell painfully back down, her legs encased from her knees down in thick, heavy sheets of ice. Cursing, she scrabbled madly at the surface of the frozen lake with her fingernails, trying to find purchase. "Homura! Hang on, just hang on, I'm coming!"
Violet flashes and crackles of light streaked from Homura's Soul Gem. All the magic she had left that wasn't being used to heal herself was put behind those bolts of power, puncturing steaming holes in the Demon's body. The old nightmare was rising inside her again… the terror, the violation, the fingers. She couldn't let it happen, not again. Not again.
Desideria grinned. The power bolts were little more than annoyances to her. Though she still burned with loathing for her late brother, she had to grudgingly admire his handiwork. To put the mighty Puella Magi in such a state…
"Homura!" Kagami screamed, dragging herself forward inch by inch. "HOMURA!"
A strangled moan escaped Homura's lips as the Demon gently caressed her cheek. One chance, she had one more chance. Newly healed muscles tore as she forced her arm to move, and fumbled inside her shield for a weapon, any weapon. Her deadened fingers closed on the grip of her faithful old Beretta. Focusing all her power on her arm, she pulled it free, aimed the weapon, and fired, putting a bullet through Desideria's skull.
Blood oozed down the Demon's forehead in thin trails. "Now, really," said Desideria with a malevolent smile. "Did you honestly think that would work?"
"Don't you touch her!" Kagami's throat was raw and red from screaming. She had to do something, had to stop it. In her helplessness, tears sprung to her eyes. Dragging herself another inch across the ice scraped her stomach. "Goddamn you, get away from her, you bitch…!"
Homura's arm gave out. It and the gun dropped harmlessly at her side. Nearly insane with dread for what was coming, she fixed Kagami with her gaze as the Demon turned her left hand over. "Kagami," she said, her voice thick with fear. "Kagami, I want you to know-"
Delicately, as if handling something poisonous, Desideria lifted Homura's Soul Gem out of its setting on the back of her hand. She stood, cradling it, admiring its glow.
Homura's vision blurred with tears. "I love you, Kagami," she said desperately with her final breath. "I'll always love-"
There was an oddly pleasant musical sound as ice crystals grew over the amethyst gem, sealing it inside a glittering prism.
Homura's eyes went dark.
Kagami screamed, long and loud, a scream of ultimate loss.
"And that's that," said Desideria cheerfully. She gave Homura's body a savage kick, then lightly stepped out of the crater with her treasure. "Don't worry, Kagami-chan, I'll keep it safe." With that, she tilted her head back, unhinged her jaw like a snake, and extended a long, wet tongue which wrapped around the prism and slowly pulled it into her mouth. A faint bulge appeared in her throat; she swallowed, and it was gone.
Weeping brokenly, Kagami beat at the ice uselessly with her fists. No, she thought. No, this isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't-
"I love that expression on your face, Kagami-chan…" The Demon shivered with delight. "But please, don't lose your mind yet. You still need to suffer more…"
"You bitch," Kagami repeated hollowly, over and over under her breath. "You bitch, you bitch, you heartless bitch…"
Desideria shifted. Her pigtails shrank and her figure slimmed. Now she was Tsukasa, looking at Kagami with a wounded expression. "Onee-chan, language…!"
Blackness brewed inside Kagami, ugly, roiling blackness. "I'll kill you," she whispered. "I swear, if it's the last thing I ever do, I'll kill you… I'll make you pay…"
"Really, you humans…" said the Demon with a sigh as she changed herself back to Kagami's shape. "It's your own fault, you know, letting yourselves get so close to others when they'll inevitably hurt you, or leave you." Her face split into an obscene grin. "You let her get closer than most, didn't you? I saw it in your memories… How was it? It was your first time, right? She made you come… but did it bother you that she wasn't, ah, pure? That I took her first?"
A shadowy black aura enveloped Kagami's form. Her eyes burned hot and bright. The ice that covered her legs began to crack.
"Ah, ah, ah…" Desideria wagged her finger back and forth, as if chastising a naughty child. "You're not thinking of releasing Mother, are you? Homura-chan wouldn't have liked that. Besides, I don't want Mother to be reborn. Not anymore."
Those words somehow pierced through the darkness clouding Kagami's heart. "You…"
"That's right." Walking past her, the Demon made her way back to the spires where the Ninth had fallen. "If you let Mother out, you'll die, and then you can't suffer anymore. We can't have that. So I'll tell you just what's going to happen to you, so you can start looking forward to it…" Stopping in front of Tsukasa's spire, Desideria spread her arms. "I'm going to absorb you. Make you part of me. It's only natural, right? I was a part of you, so it's only fair… I'll connect you to my every thought, every action. I'll keep you nice and safe and warm inside me, and when your body and mine are one, when you can feel everything that I do and everything that I am… that's when I'll start to kill.
"I'll kill your family first. Slowly. Then Konata-chan, and Miyuki-chan, too. Your friends at school, and your teachers. I'll feed off all of their Hearts until they're nothing but withered husks, and then I'll slaughter them. Everyone you know, everyone you've ever met. I'll drain them dry, Kagami-chan. And I won't stop there…
"I'll keep growing, more and more powerful, feeding off humans and absorbing other Demons. I'll surpass my brothers, and even Mother. I'll become something greater than just a Demon." Her voice rose, trembling with madness and joy. "I'll ascend, higher and higher, and when I'm strong enough?" The worst, most obscene grin yet spread across her face. "I'll kill her."
Kagami's insides froze. The heat of her aura died away completely.
"Oh yes, I know about her, and what she became." Desideria chuckled. "I have Homura-chan's memories, remember? I know she still exists, somewhere on the upper planes... I'll find her. Wherever she is. And when I kill her…?" Her voice dropped suddenly, reverently. "When she dies, all hope dies with her. Everywhere. In every universe, every timeline. I'm going to make sure you stay alive and sane long enough for that, Kagami-chan. I want you to feel it as we kill hope itself, with our own hands. Until that happens… you'll suffer. Oh, you'll suffer…"
Desideria's body bulged, bloated, swelled like a balloon. Finally, it burst, and inside was a writhing mass of tongues and eyes, coiled around crystals of ice and branches of bone. The tongues were not red and vibrant like the last time. Now they were dead, grey, rotting away from the inside. The dead flesh crawled over the spire that held Tsukasa, ingested it, began to slither over the rest of the structure. An immense pillar began to form, a pillar of diseased flesh. Higher and higher it grew, swallowing the structure of spires entirely. A mass of grey, intertwined tendrils began to spread out from the base like a carpet…
Kagami heaved. Her muscles strained, burned with agony as she pulled herself toward the crater. The blocks of ice encasing her legs were too heavy, weighing her down… in frustration she raised one frozen leg, ignoring her body's howling protest at the action, and brought it down hard on the other…
Success. Both blocks shattered. With them gone, she picked herself up. Her knees were wobbly and her balance was poor, but it was enough. Tearing up, she hobbled to the crater where Homura's body lay, and took her in her arms.
Except for her darkened eyes, Homura might have been sleeping. But her flesh was already growing cold. The warmth was leaving her.
"Homura," she whispered, holding her tight, as if she could force her own heat back into her, to bring her back. "I'm so sorry. I love you."
The encroaching tide of dead tongues grew ever nearer.
Kagami turned her back to it and threw herself atop Homura. If nothing else, she could still shield her from this.
The tide seized her, enveloped her legs. She held on to Homura as it crawled up her thighs and over her back… nauseating, slithering, dead tendrils of flesh. She willed herself not to scream.
The Demon spoke, in a voice like a high keening wind. "Oh, why not?" she said. "I'll absorb that corpse as well. Perhaps it'll keep you company while you're inside… until it rots…"
Cold, wet, suffocating. Crushing her on all sides. No light. Like the inside of the Third's stomach, but a thousand times worse. Still Kagami held on to Homura. This was the only thing she could do, the only thing left.
The tendrils came between them. Kagami felt them grasping, pulling.
No.
They were seizing her arms. They were trying to break her grip.
No.
Little by little, Homura slipped from her grasp. Falling away.
No!
Struggling to move her hand, she gave a great heave and ripped it briefly free of the mass. With every ounce of effort she had, she grasped Homura's hand, entwined the cold fingers with her own. Touching her one last time.
Then she was torn away.
All was darkness.
END OF CHAPTER 28
