black ribbons

by aikotters

Homura's wish does not go in the way she expected, or in a way anyone expected. Sometimes wishes are always curses and sometimes people are never what they seemed. AT Request fic for Tomoe Mami.

5. V

V.

It takes a lot of searching.

Timeline after timeline Homura fails to find her. She finds a gravestone, a smattering of missing person poster. She finds Tatsuya a little older sometimes, not at all in others, nothing, no one, never anything. Just gone, gone gone.

Sometimes Sayaka is the same. Sometimes she's more bitter. Sometimes she's a witch before Homura even arrives.

Things are not worth remembering. Walpurghis Nacht is not worth fighting.

Then one day, the shield won't move.

She clicks it to be sure. Nothing. The sand doesn't move. The air doesn't change.

"What is this?" Homura whispers.

A familiar numbness spreads across her fingers, her toes, her limbs. It's like being put under for surgery. it's like being unable to breathe again and again and again.

Why can't she go back? Why can't she go back?