"Ah, I almost forgot!" Kazuko-Sensei giggled sheepishly like a school girl, instead of the teacher she was. "We have two new students today!"
"She left the most important part for the end?!" Sayaka exclaimed to herself. There were going to be two transferred students to Mitakihara School, and the teacher had already wasted half an hour of the class to rant about her former boyfriend and teach how to properly cook an egg.
Madoka just sweatdropped awkwardly and shyly, but then, her gaze changed from shame to curiosity when she saw the two girls entering the class.
The first one was a tall, extremely pale girl, with long, silky black hair. Her purple eyes were cold, as if caring no longer about everything around her, as if they had lost all the shine and hope there could have been inside them.
The second one, scarcely shorter, had red, messy hair, long as well but tied in a ponytail with a black ribbon. Her skin was slightly tanned, and her red eyes didn't care as well, but showed more energy. Clearely a rebel girl, eating a pocky in class, showing no respect with her behaviour.
That was odd... Last night, the pinkette just dreamed about that stoic ebony she had never seen before, and now, she was transferring to her school, and concretely, to her class.
"So..." The teacher recovered her composture, but still talked with an annoying, high-pitched voice. "...feel free to introduce yourselves!"
The two teenagers looked at each other. No words were needed, they just made a small nod, and the raven-haired looked at the class with her darkened, intense stare. "My name is Homura Akemi." Her voice was sweet, beautiful, but so emotionless it just gave an accent to her freezing and shady behaviour. "A pleasure to meet you all." Half the class could bet she did not mean that last sentence. At least, she was polite.
"Kyoko Sakura." The red head blurted out, carelessly. "Nice to meet cha." Another hypocrite, perhaps? Though, she sounded rather amused, as if it was the first time she ever attended a school.
Madoka's heart then started beating faster. She could not tell why, until she realised the ebony was staring deeply into her eyes. She quickly looked away, a blush starting to stain her cheeks.
The teacher wrote the newbies' names in the white board, obviously showing she had not payed attention to the introduction. From one to three mistakes were spotted in her handwritten words. Kyoko started to chuckle, miraculously keeping the pocky between her teeth, as Homura sternly took the pen from the teacher's hand and corrected the names. The class was astonished.
"Uh... Well... You may sit in those two free tables." The teacher said, trying not to show her wounded pride. Silently, the girls obeyed after what seemed a scoff from Kyoko.
.
Classes passed swiftly, even though they were as boring as usual. The routine of always. Nothing new at all.
The two new girls were in the roof, sitting. Homura was politely eating a bento, and Kyoko was gubbling up some junk food she stole.
"Do you keep stealing food from who-knows-where?" Homura asked, not too loudly. Noone would see them in the roof, but they didn't want to be heard. From there, they could see the whole school, including everything around the building like the terrace, the playground, the P.E. circuits, etc.
"I've gotten used tho." Kyoko said after swallowing a hamburger, not even chewing. "I didn't know it ain't ok."
"You knew." Homura replied. "I have told you countless times."
"I didn't know before ya told meh." She kept eating.
"Just... Stop doing it." Wind almost blinded them with their own hairs. When they managed to uncover their view, they saw Madoka and Sayaka, sitting in the terrace, talking as they ate their bentos.
"Those be da gurls ya told me 'bout. Wanna listen to 'em?"
"...I wouldn't like to invade their privacy. Besides, the Incubator hasn't stepped in their paths... yet."
"Ah, ya mean QB." Kyoko grinned. "Ya haven't told meh what ya did tho 'im." She said. Of course, she waited for an answer, and Homura gave it to her, after a short silence.
"I locked him in an iron box."
"And?" Kyoko wanted to know more.
"And I buried it below the ocean." She looked at the sky, keeping the now empty box where her food had been. "He'll starve to death... Between one and two weeks."
"Ha! We now have time to kill witches before he comes tho annoy us!" She took another bite of another random peace of junk food, and swallowed it in a millisecond. "But... Ya did it... Fo' her, right?" She pointed at Madoka, who was now innocently giggling at something Sayaka said.
Homura sighed, looking downwards. Since Kyoko was like a sister to her, she had made the decision to tell her the truth about her wish, about time lines, and had done so some days ago. Kyoko was tough, rude, apparently simple, but deep inside her heart she was able to understand things. Just like Homura, she had been a sensitive girl in a past, now situated far away. Homura knew and understood Kyoko as well. In all those time lines, she had grown to appreciate that stubborn and impulsive red head. They had small fights and arguments, nothing unexpected due to their personalities, but they were like a team.
"Just dun't get yarself killed for humans, sistah." Kyoko said, with an apparently mocking voice. "I know ya can do anything for da gurl with da pink hairdo... Madoka, ain't she called dat? Well, do whatever ya want, but dun't get into trouble. I ain't here to save ya purple ass every time."
Homura glared at Kyoko, with narrowed eyes. She felt emotional, sad, touched and annoyed at the same time. Her feelings were always very intense when Madoka was the topic of the conversation, but whatever she felt, she never showed it. "As far as I know... I am the one who has to put you out of trouble most of the times."
Kyoko almost chocked. She violently coughed, but once she spat the chewed food that had blocked her breathing pipe, she started to chuckle. "'Kay, 'kay!" And then, she looked into the raven-haired's eyes, being the only one able to hold her gaze, unblinking. "But ya're the, oh, so sensitive gurl who luvs that weakling." She made a toothy smile.
Homura looked down again. "She is physically weak, but emotionally uncorruptible and caring. Too kind for her own good. There is no major strenght than that." Homura sounded rather bitter when she said that, but truly meant it, and she knew her tone would not emotionally affect her 'sister'. She then sighed one more time, and then, as if someone were going to listen to them, she showed her shyness, changing to a language only Kyoko would understand, a language from the other side of the earth. "L'estimo... I ella ni tant sols em coneix." After whispering those words in Catalan, she became the stoic girl she always was. It was impossible to recognize that the one who had said that was the same ebony she always showed she was. The red-haired's smile became softer, still mocking, but showing some kind of understanding. "Life be sad, but we be strong females." She then chuckled again, and went back to her important business of eating as much as she could, before the bell rang and they had to go back to class.
.
How had Madoka gotten there inside? She didn't know. All she knew was that she had been having tea with Sayaka and Hitomi, then followed the bluonette as she bought some CDs for Kamijou, who was in the hospital after an accident, and then, she said goodbye and started walking towards her home, the moon already ruling the darkened sky of night, stars all over it. But why was everything now so surreal? It was some kind of a labyrinth, as if it were built by a dream. No... A nightmare. The 'Gernika', the fancy picture of Picasso was now the design that covered all the ground, and the walls seemed like made of one of Vincent van Gogh's pictures. There was a giant building, with a strange writing in some runes she had never seen before. Hand-drawn antropomorphic beings started walking and stumbling towards her. The pinkette understood nothing. She hadn't had the time to process it all. All she knew was that she was deadly afraid, and as one of those figures tightly grabbed her wrist, she thought she was gong to be killed, wincing in pain. "L-let me go..." She begged, her usually high-pitched, not annoying like the teacher's, but sweet and innocent voice stuck in her throat. She shot her eyes closed, and was surprised when she was thrown back to the ground. She yelped in pain and opened her eyes, only to see that the creature who had grabbed her was now fading in the ground. Someone had killed it. More walked to her, and the sound of a gun echoed in such horrid silence, killing them too. Then, in front of her, was someone else.
Blowing the smoke from her gun and then throwing it away, there was a mysterious teenager, probably her age yet taller. She was so familiar... Of course, that was one of the transferred students, the ice-queen Homura Akemi, who had amazed them all with her skills at every single subject, and yet scared them all with her threatening being. But now, she was dressed in an odd way, like the magical girls from the Animes. What was going on in there?
Madoka pinched the skin in the back of her right hand, and it hurt. It was not a dream after all nor a nightmare, but she had never been in that situation before, and neither the people she knew.
Homura barely looked back at her before shooting a misile against that giant building. Suddenly, that space that had seemingly come from a hallucination faded, and they were back in reality, though the ebony still had that enormous weapon in her hands, also still oddly dressed, and now, there was a strange object falling to the ground, slowly and lightly, like a feather would. The raven-haired picked it up, and Madoka could hear some whisper coming from her mouth, like "Izabel's grief seed...", but she didn't know if she had heard properly. She was dizzy, still unable to process it all, and yet, traumatized, for she had been about to be murdered by some being she didn't know. She felt small tears forming in her magenta eyes.
Homura turned to face her, slightly frowning, her gaze colder than ever. "How... And why did you put yourself there inside? What were you thinking about?" She never screamed, but was stern and harsh. The ebony's lecture was more than enough to make the pinkette's tears fall down her face.
"I... I d-didn't know... I... Don't know what... Happened.. I... I'm sorry..." She covered her eyes with her hands, shaking in fear.
Homura's stare softened. After all, Madoka had her reasons to be scared, and she shouldn't make things worse. Perhaps building a wall between them would save Madoka from her fate, but perhaps it would just approach her to the people who would make things worse, just like Mami Tomoe. That poor ignorant... She had been tricked by Kyubey, and her loneliness would make her show herself like a cool senior, accidentally tricking others too. Besides, distance didn't mean hate. After all, Madoka was everything to the ebony, and she would allow herself to show some kindness... Just a little bit maybe.
Her steps echoed on the floor as she approached the pinkette. She looked frail and defenseless, and that image almost broke the black-haired's heart. She searched in her pocket to find a tissue, and handed it to her. "Here." She said coldly as she offered it to Madoka, looking deeply into her watery eyes. She accepted it with a trembling hand, barely muttering a "Thank you" full of stutters before attempting to dry her tears, that did not stop shedding. Homura said nothing, just waited until the pinkette calmed down. How many minutes did it take? She didn't know, nor she cared. At the end, Madoka's sobbing progressively diminished, leaving only her shaky body, and those soft hiccups people always make after crying hard.
The ebony broke the silence. "Are you injured?" She asked, finding nothing better to say at that very first moment, or else, nothing to start talking about. The pinkette shook her head, slowly. How typical of Madoka, but Homura already knew her, and she took the arm where she had been grabbed, causing Madoka to slightly squeal at this in surprise. The smaller girl's wrist had a red mark, that would probably remain for some days. The taller girl never said a word. She took the purple diamond-shaped gem from the back of her left hand, and approached it to Madoka's arm. It shone, and the mark was gone, it being replaced by some faint darkness floating inside the jewel. Homura let go, and put the gem back into its place. The pinkette looked at her wrist, wordlessly, her eyes widened.
"Stand up." Homura said. "I'll bring you home."
The pinkette obeyed, hesitating a little, and still shaking a bit. The ebony said nothing, and started to walk towards Madoka's home, her clothes magically changing back to her school uniform. She seemed to already know the address. Madoka didn't dare ask a thing, she just silently and submissively followed, still holding her now uninjured wrist.
Once in front of the door of the building that was Madoka's home, Homura looked at her. "You are okay now." She said.
"B-b-but... What j-just happened...?" The shorter girl finally dared to ask.
"I'll tell you tomorrow. Go and rest." Madoka slowly opened the door when the ebony added. "If you want answers, search for me in the music classroom tomorrow, at break time." When the pinkette looked backwards to give an answer, the other girl was gone.
.
When Madoka came back home, her parents were already in bed, asleep. They trusted her enough to let her come late, if she didn't do it too often. In a note on the table, they said she had food in the fridge to be warmed if she wanted to have dinner before going to sleep. Madoka forced herself to eat, preparing herself for what would be an uneasy night, full of doubt, questions and fear.