This is my first traditional fanfiction so let me know if I've messed anything up. Hope y'all enjoy!
"That's it Homerun. I'm at my limit."
Homura looks up from her notes with a raised eyebrow. "Would you care to rephrase that?" she asks.
After discarding yet another empty cup ramen container into the pile at the center of the coffee table between them, Kyoko continues ranting, "I've been watching you check and double check your math homework for the past hour, and while I'm not going to turn down free food-"
"There should be several more cases of cup ramen if you want them," Homura interrupts.
Kyoko narrows her eyes. "Are they all salt-flavored?" she asks.
Homura looks away, pointedly not answering. Her lack of variety of food has not fallen under Kyoko's radar.
"While I'm not going to turn down free food-" Kyoko continues.
"You may find a few shrimp-flavored ones if you search the pantry-" Homura begins.
"WHILE I'M NOT GOING TO TURN DOWN FREE FOOD!" Kyoko bellows.
Homura takes the hint to stop interrupting.
"I really don't get what I'm even doing here," Kyoko concludes.
"You're aiding me in the fight against Walpurgisnacht."
"By sitting here and looking cute while you run through your 'statistics'?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Kyoko Sakura."
Gritting her teeth, Kyoko gets up from her seat on the couch. On the couch across from her, Homura watches her, wondering if their meeting will come to an abrupt end.
"You know, I'm starting to wonder if you even know what you're talking about with this whole Walpurgisnacht business," Kyoko growls.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Homura begins filing away her notes, saying, "If that's the direction this strategy meeting is going to take, I suppose we can leave off here for tonight."
"Meeting? You consider this a meeting?"
"You don't?"
"Of course I don't! I know jack dick about what our plans are," Kyoko shouts. "Heck, I don't even know what you are!"
Homura stares at Kyoko with a blank expression. Her eyes sharpen for a moment, trying to decipher the meaning behind that statement. "Would you clarify?" she finally asks.
"I don't need your whole life story, but I'd at least like to know who I'm getting fed by."
"Homura Akemi. Second year at Mitakihara Middle School. And technically speaking, I'm fourteen years old."
"Wait, so your name isn't actually..." Kyoko doesn't finish her question, but the message is clearly received.
"Did you actually believe that my name was 'Homerun'?" Homura asks with a frown.
Kyoko's lack of response speaks volumes.
"Regardless, is that a satisfactory enough info dump?" Homura asks, clearly wanting to move on from this subject.
Kyoko posits for a moment before responding with a question, "What's your favorite food?"
Homura is briefly taken aback by how mundane the question is. She puts a hand to her chin. After a few moments of deep thought, she finally answers, "I've always been a fan of Strawberry Shortcake."
"Favorite drink?" Kyoko asks, not missing a beat.
"Strawberry milk," Homura answers a bit too quickly.
"Color?" Kyoko asks with a hint of suspicion.
"Pink."
Kyoko grins as she notices the pattern. Homura looks unimpressed."What?" she asks.
"Nothing," Kyoko states, and while not believing her, Homura chooses to drop it. After thinking for a moment, Kyoko finally comes up with another question. "What was your wish?" she asks.
Now Kyoko has crossed the line. "That's not important," Homura answers with a glare.
"Not important? I'd argue that your reason for being a magical girl is pretty flippin' important," Kyoko insists.
Running her hand through her hair, Homura chooses to continue avoiding Kyoko's new line of questioning. "The wish I made is irrelevant to our current goal of defeating Walpurgisnacht, just as yours is," she declares.
"Oh come on. At least if I know your wish then I can know what nifty power you got," Kyoko pleads.
"Not happening."
"I'll tell you mine."
"I know yours."
"You do?" Kyoko exclaims.
Homura curses under her breath. Thinking on her feet, she suggests, "If I show you my power, will you stop prying?"
"Deal," Kyoko replies with a grin.
Having stored away her notes and cleaned up Kyoko's pile of empty containers, Homura transforms into her magical girl outfit, appeasing the very impatient Kyoko.
"Geez, that sure took you long enough," Kyoko whines.
"It would have taken less time had you assisted me," Homura mutters.
Kyoko shrugs in response. It's not like this is her weird, clock-themed apartment.
"Now pay close attention," Homura begins. "I don't want to have to do it again and run the risk of Kyubey stumbling in and seeing my powers."
"You rang?" calls a voice from the shadows, followed immediately by a gunshot. Homura, suddenly brandishing a now-smoking pistol, glares at the newly corpse of Kyubey.
"Did you just-" Kyoko starts.
"Save your questions until after the demonstration," Homura demands before putting a hand on her shield.
Before Kyoko can even think to argue that the murder she just witnessed should probably not be brushed under the rug, Homura disappears.
Kyoko is stunned by how instantaneously Homura disappeared. Of course, Kyoko has seen this before, but it never fails to amaze her.
"Behind you," says a voice.
Kyoko, going straight into fight or flight mode, panics and wields the first thing that comes to mind: a chocolate-flavored pocky stick. Her seeming assailant almost seems amused by her choice.
"I seriously hope your go-to self-defense strategy isn't feeding people to death," Homura teases.
Kyoko puts the pocky stick in her mouth and avoids thinking any further about her folly."So you can teleport, right?" she asks before taking a bite.
Homura frowns. "No, idiot. Watch again."
Homura seemingly disappears again, this time appearing a few meters to the side.
"Do you see now?" she asks.
After taking a moment to finish the pocky stick, all Kyoko can do is scratch her head. "I don't get it," she says. "I thought you were teleporting, but I guess if that were the case, there'd at least be some sort of delay or blur or something. But nope, you just kinda appear right there in like no time at-"
Kyoko stops herself. Homura continues staring, awaiting Kyoko's conclusion.
"Hey Homura, dumb question-"
"That's not unprecedented for you."
"But are you time travelling?".
Whatever Homura was expecting, it wasn't that. "Yes," she lets out.
"Like in a loop?"
Homura is dumbfounded at the accuracy of Kyoko's revelation. "How did you figure that out?" she asks nervously. "All I was doing was moving around the room."
"Wait, I'm right?" Kyoko gasps. A grin appears on her face. "Then that means your wish was to be able to go back to fix mistakes or something like that, right?"
Homura's concern turns to confusion. Because while Kyoko's revelation is technically accurate...
"Because I mean, if you're going back in time to a few seconds ago to make it look like you're teleporting, then that'd have to be your wish."
Floored, Homura puts a palm to her forehead. Of course Kyoko somehow managed to just miss the truth. "Kyoko, I can stop time," Homura sighs.
"Oh. That makes much more sense."
A thoughtful expression appears on Kyoko's face. Homura almost looks exasperated by this point. What could it be this time?
"So did you accidentally break a clock or something and wish to go back and fix it?"
"No," Homura deadpans. "My wish wasn't to be able to fix asinine mistakes."
"Then how are you able to whip guns out of thin air?"
"That is what you're concerned about?" Homura deadpans.
"Mami can turn her ribbons into guns since, y'know, she's Mami, but that always takes her a few seconds. Meanwhile you can just throw around weapons left and right like you're a gun store bargain bin."
To alleviate Kyoko's confusion, Homura puts her hand into her shield and pulls out a box of strawberry-flavored pocky. Kyoko sees the pocky box and immediately leaps for it. Homura, not wanting to be tackled by the insatiable redhead, tosses it aside where it is snatched out of the air.
As Kyoko revels in her newly acquired snack, Homura answers, "My shield can store items."
Kyoko stops for a moment to consider that before a lecherous grin appears on her face. "Do you have any more pocky in there?" she prods.
"I'm not giving away my pocky supply to you."
Kyoko's grin drops as she pockets the box. She takes out the final stick from her own box of chocolate-flavored pocky and pops the end of it into her mouth. "So you can stop time, time travel, and store things," she recalls.
"Yes. Are you satisfied now?"
Kyoko grinds her teeth into the pocky stick, contemplating something. Before long, Homura realizes that Kyoko still hasn't responded.
"You still with me, Kyoko? Your last few brain cells haven't cannibalized each other, have they?"
"Say, Homerun-"
"Not my name."
"That shield of yours is kinda like a storage container, right?"
"Yes. I suppose it could be compared to one."
A thought in mind, Kyoko opens the strawberry pocky box and pulls out a stick to taste, holding the unfinished chocolate stick in her free hand. Homura watches, unknowing of the current ongoing experiment.
After finishing the strawberry pocky stick, Kyoko grins and pops the chocolate one back into her mouth.
"Would you like a napkin for your hand?" Homura asks.
Ignoring her question, Kyoko rushes up to Homura and grabs her by the shoulders. Homura winces, lamenting the inevitable chocolate stains she'll have to clean out of her shirt.
"For the record, I was not offering myself up as a napkin," she complains.
"Say Homerun, have you ever tried putting people in your shield?"
Homura blanks at that. Once again, this conversation has taken a turn she was expecting. "No," she says. "That's not an idea that has crossed my mind."
"Do you want to try putting me in it?" Kyoko asks, with a gleam in her eye.
Homura just stares for a moment before responding, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. I've put large objects into my shield before."
Kyoko's expression flashes dark for a second, analyzing any underlying intent behind Homura's statement. However, before she can come to a conclusion, Homura gestures for her to come closer and she does so.
As Homura presses her shield against Kyoko's hand, it begins to disappear into the material.
"Woah," Kyoko says, "It feels so weird. Like for a second it was cold metal, but now it feels like a cool breeze."
Homura watches her shield as Kyoko's arm goes elbow-deep into it.
"Are you sure about this?" she asks, wondering if consent will make up for anything going awry.
Kyoko ignores her, instead positioning her other arm to also start going in. "I think I'm going to try diving into it," she declares.
"I'm not sure diving is a good idea. After all, I store my guns in here."
"Psh. So long as you aren't storing nukes or whatever, I'll be fine," Kyoko says as she lines her head up with the shield.
Homura's eyes widen as she considers that. "Wait," she starts, but Kyoko's feet leave the ground and she dives into the shield before Homura can get out another word. Kyoko's body does a clean pass into the shield, its magic detecting and accommodating for her size.
In an instant, the room of two becomes a room of one, and Homura becomes unnerved.
"Did you just eat Kyoko Sakura?" a voice asks.
Homura turns to the voice and thinks to retrieve a gun from her shield but stops herself, worried about what will happen to Kyoko should she make an attempt to.
Realizing that the voice is still awaiting an answer, she finally responds, "Does it matter if I did?"
Kyubey, the source of the voice, blinks at Homura with its usual neutral expression. It pauses, calculating a response. It is a particularly long pause. Before long, Homura finds herself bored waiting for Kyubey. Its lengthy response times are usually what keeps Homura from conversing with it in the first place, second only to the whole harvesting teen girls as batteries scam it operates, which in all fairness should probably be more important than response time.
After what feels like an eternity, Kyubey finally says, "I'm not sure Mami Tomoe would appreciate knowing that you ate her former apprentice."
Homura blinks. "Over a minute of thinking and that is what you come up with?" she blurts out.
"In my defense, I've never had to deal with a magical girl eating other magical girls before they become witches."
Homura takes a moment to consider the implications of that, especially in what that means about her. Kyubey meanwhile stares at her shield. "Is she still alive?" it asks.
Homura also stares at her shield. Unsure of the answer herself, she reaches in with a hand. When her hand begins coming out, she realizes that she is pulling out a box of pocky. Confused, she pulls the pocky box out all the way, revealing a familiar hand attached to the box. With a gasp, she lets go of the box, both it and the hand retracting back into the shield.
Before Homura can think any further about her discovery, Kyoko's head pops out of the shield, her face showing a mix of confusion and concern.
"Say Homerun, did you rob an army or something?" Kyoko asks. "Because this place is loaded with weapons."
Kyubey and Homura stare at Kyoko's head with puzzled expressions. Well, Homura has a puzzled expression, anyway. Kyubey just blinks before greeting Kyoko, "Hello Kyoko Sakura."
Kyoko turns to look at Kyubey and returns the greeting, "Hey Kyubey."
It is then that she realizes, "Wait, Kyubey is still alive." Kyoko looks to Homura before asking, "Did we go back in time or something? Because I'm pretty sure I remember you killing him."
A thought occurs to Homura. A revelation that sobers her up to the events of the past few minutes. One that makes up for this entire shield-storage stupor, were it not for the other ongoing revelation.
"You're a time traveller?" Kyubey asks.
Pointedly ignoring him, Homura tells Kyoko, "Wait in there for a few minutes," before firmly shoving Kyoko's head back into the shield.
Kyubey stares at Homura in fascination. If he were able to properly emote, there would likely be a sense of smugness about him. "That explains why you are such an anomaly," he says. "You're not from this time, are you?"
Homura looks at Kyubey with her own smug expression, something she hasn't had the pleasure of giving in who knows how long. "It looks like I've finally won, Incubator," she claims, before turning her shield and-
Several weeks earlier, Homura wakes up with a start in her hospital bed.
After taking a moment to examine her surroundings and confirm that she is in the past, Homura jumps out of her bed and transforms. Putting a hand to her shield, she pulls Kyoko's head out. This time, Kyoko's arms also come out as she grabs the sides of the shield and pulls herself out, flopping painfully onto the tiled floor below. A few newly acquired boxes of pocky echo her fall.
After rubbing her head, Kyoko looks around. They're in a hospital room. Even more strangely, Homura is wearing a hospital gown. "Where are we?" she finally asks.
"The past."
"Huh." Getting onto her feet, Kyoko dusts herself off before picking up the boxes and stashing them in her jacket.
"Did you raid my supply?" Homura asks with a frown.
Ignoring her, Kyoko looks out the window and notices that it is morning, a stark contrast to the nighttime she and Homura just came from.
"I guess you're not yanking my chain then," Kyoko concludes. "We really are in the past."
She opens another pocky box and pulls out a green tea flavored stick, popping it into her mouth. "So now what?" she asks Homura.
"Isn't that obvious?" Homura responds. "I bring Madoka back with me and protect her until the end of time."