Nobita doesn't remember how he leaves Saigaku Middle School, or much that happens afterwards. For most of the way back home, he simply let his feet take over while his conscious drifts to someplace else. When he comes back to his senses, the glasses wearing 2nd year realize he is standing in front of the crossroad to Saigaku 8th Street instead of his home.
Saigaku 8th Street, this place is somewhere Nobita knows well consider it being the go to place for children to teens: video game arcade, comic bookshop, electronic store, boutique shops, fast food restaurant and cafe of varies type fill up the side walk. Since the sun has not set yet, the street is filled with students who lines up the shop to spend their allowance on the new release of manga, toys, or video games as well as young couples who wants to spend time together before they go back to their respective home. But once when darkness envelop the busy street, it will become the second home to high school students who are confused about their lives.
To all those lost boys and girls, Saigaku 8th Street is better known as The Holy Land. Nobita knows this well, consider himself being one of the lost boys even if he's very young by their standard. Nobita takes a look at some kids who run out a comic book store, each holding a new issue of Shonen Jump in their hand.
How funny I end up here when I let my feet carry me forward... come to think of it, wasn't that long before I was one of those slackers... Man, four years can be a pretty long time can't it, five if I count that year I was hospitalized due to brain illness. My old slacker life practically feels like another life time ago by now.
If Nobita's mother Tamako hasn't implemented a curfew on him, Nobita would really like to spend most of the night wandering The Holy Land trying to gather his thoughts. All the information Miyoko fills his mind is a lot to take in after all. But as it is... he has to get home before sun down or he can kiss half a year of his allowance goodbye. Still, he has couple of hours, so he decides to simply wander around 8th Street a bit before heading home.
Nobita stops his feet as he hears a growling sound. Turning his gaze towards a dark alley way between a McDonald and a toy shop that sells model he notices a girl slumped over in shadow. Her messy long raven colored hair covers most of her face, making her facial expression completely indistinguishable. Although Nobita does notice she is wearing a light yellow colored blouse that look like some uniform from a fancy rich kid school as well as a dark checked short skirt. A rich kid who run away from home perhaps?
Come to think of it... isn't the girl wearing the exact uniform as that shop lifter who bumps into him last night? Her hair is the same color and style (even though it looks much messier) as said shop lifter. Nobita is ninety percent sure this is the exact same person. It's not really his business, but it's obvious the sound a bit earlier comes from the girl's stomach.
Nobita briefly considers the option of just leave the girl to her own device and continue his soul searching before he inevitably need to head home to avoid his mother's wrath. But then he remembers the few times he run away from home himself (even though he only did such rebellious act in his dream adventures) and how much it sucks to be cold and hungry with no home to return to. He lets out a sigh... this is the time he meets his first pet dog Peko all over again.
With some self loathing in mind, Nobita steps into McDonalds and gets a big Mac combo to go before heading into the back alley and place the paper bag in front of the girl. "Eat this, my treat."
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
Before this timeline it never occurred to Homura how much it sucks to be Kyoko. Sure, she has felt pity for the homeless red head from time to time when she's not too busy obsessed about saving (and failing) Madoka or shoving away her self-pity down into the darkest corner of her mind, but those sympathy doesn't go anywhere beyond a conceptual level. Now that she is living like Kyoko, Homura truly understand - and to a point even admires - how strong the spear wielding Magical Girl really is.
After her mental break down number 2 (and subsequently using a spare grief seed to clean her Soul Gem of the corruption due to said break down) Homura decide to head into the busy part of the city to try and gets a better understanding of what kind of a wacky timeline she manages to stuck herself into. Surely the city she is in doesn't look like Mitakihara in the least, but there may be an explanation on why Mitakihara looks drastically different.
When she sees a bunch of billboard with the name 'Saigaku' instead of 'Mitakihara', her break down counter jumps to three. Saigaku is a name that is like that area on your back: just out of the reach of your arm so it's easily forgotten, but immediately springs to your mind when said area begins to itch. It's the name of Mitakihara before it was almost leveled to the ground due to a natural disaster almost 18 years ago.
Homura finds out about that bit of information during one of the earlier timelines when she tries to research possible information about Walpurgisnacht in the library. Apparently, before Mitakihara is build into the modern high tech metal jungle as she knows it, the city used to be named Saigaku and mainly consist of concrete buildings and small houses. It all changed almost 18 years ago when a mysterious natural disaster strikes Saigaku. The information in school library has doesn't goes specific on what happened, with the exception of the Japanese Ground Self Defence Force deployed in large number to help refugee. And couple of old photos that reminds Homura of destruction which rival Hiroshima and Nagasaki after atomic bomb gets dropped.
It definitely look like the work of Walpurgisnacht, or a Witch with equal amount of power at her disposal.
All in all, the fact she's in a city named Saigaku instead of Mitakihara means two things: 1. The disaster that leveled Saigaku to the ground didn't occur in this new timeline, therefore Mitakihara is still Saigaku.
Or it can mean number 2: instead of sending her back to the beginning of her cycle when she turned her shield, it somehow send her 18 years into the past. Which means there's no Madoka around.
Lost in time and no longer knows what she should do, Homura Akemi tries her best to find where her home - and she uses the term loosely consider it's just a place for her to rest as well as planning out her next move - suppose to be in this new timeline. Not surprisingly the apartment she comes to know quite well is not there as a neighborhood of two floor houses reside where it should be. That's when she feels her stomach starts to growl with a furious rumble. Despite all the life threatening drawbacks of being a Magical Girl there are also many benefits to being one, too bad not having to worry about hunger isn't one of them. Kyoko stands a testament to this fact.
Unlike Kyoko , Homura is not really worried about her hunger consider her power can stop time. She has cleaned out arms depot of local Yakuza and Japanese Self Defence Force every single timeline, using it to grab some food is a child's play.
So the raven haired time traveller proceed to ignore the signal of her Soul Gem that indicates there's a Witch nearby. The Magical Girls from this timeline can deal with it as she still has a fairly decent supply of grief seed to last her for a while. After find the nearest 24/7 convenient store Homura starts to raid the racks for something to nourish her hunger needs. It may be all the shocking change of this timeline dulling her senses, or all the jumbled thoughts in her mind all going 100 miles per hour but she realizes the store clerk standing behind her a bit too late.
"Hey, Miss. You need to pay for that sandwich before eating it."
The clerk's voice snaps Homura out of her thoughts. The first thing on her mind is how can a normal human move while she freezes time. Then she notices the world around her is not glowing with the usual tint of time stop effect. Unlike a famous time stopper from a popular long running Shonen manga series, Homura's time stop has no time limit. She can stop time indefinitely as long as she still has enough magic in her Soul Gem, which means one of two things: Either she's running out of magic much faster than she expected, or she's somehow losing control of her own ability.
In a panic, Homura simply throw the food into the face of the clerk before running out of the store. She can hear angry shouting of the clerk, and she's pretty sure she run over some guy who is wandering out late but she doesn't care. All she feels at the moment is a need to keep on running, less about outrun the angry shop clerk than outrun her own fear. After twenty or so minutes of constant running at her top speed, Homura lets herself collapse and fall face down on a river bank.
It may be her imagination, but the grassy hill feels wet and cold. Before this timeline, Homura Akemi used to think constantly repeating the cycle and seeing her best friend Madoka dying or turning into a Witch in front of her own eyes is the worst thing in her life. Now, she'd give anything to simply see Madoka in front of her again. Heck, at this point she'd welcoming the sight of Mami scolding her with her usual patronizing demeanor, or Sayaka's naively antagonize her for her pragmatic ways, or listen to another one of Kyoko's bad jokes...
Anything but the thought of stuck in this new timeline with herself alone in the world.
I can't just give up like this... I have to find out more about this timeline, and more about why my power is failing... After all those cycles I refuse to just give up, lie down and die.
Homura slowly pushes herself up from the river bank and takes out her Soul Gem again and come to a stunning realization. By all means, she should have notice it much sooner if not for the fact she's too shocked from all the unusual occurrences. Instead of being purple like her eyes, her Soul Gem has somehow become completely transparent. Besides the fact she knows very well her Soul Gem shouldn't be transparent, she has never met a Magical Girl with see through Soul Gem before suggesting something is very wrong...
...Wait a minute... she's never met a Magical Girl with transparent Soul Gem? Why does she feel less confident about this statement as she thinks over it. Could it be she's seen this kind of Soul Gem before, but somehow can't recall it? This should be such an absurd thought, consider over the past hundreds of cycles she's gotten into the habit of noting down the more noticeable things: Like in a certain timeline a Magical Girl called Oriko Mikuni tries (and succeed) in killing Madoka. But... why can't she seems to recall the event that happened in the past few timelines.
Homura starts to furiously search through her memory, but try as she might the time travelling Magical Girl can't recall much events from previous few timelines. In fact, she's not even sure how many timeline she has forgotten. Could be one, two, three or more. Is this sudden memory lose and the fact her Soul Gem has turned transparent signs that her soul finally starts to degrade? If that's indeed the case, why doesn't it start with the more recent memories instead of the more distant memories.
Don't concentrate on what you already lost Homura, concentrate on what you still remember from last few timelines... I remember... yes, I had some outside help. That's a good start... who are they? Magical Girls I didn't know before? No, that doesn't feel right... I think they are... boys. Magical Boys? I... don't remember who they are. The boy I knows the best is Kyousuke Kamijo because he's Sayaka's love interest... but the idea of that pompous self-centered musical prodigy is a Magical Boy is absurd, isn't it?
As Homura Akemi thinks about Kyousuke Kamijo she suddenly gains an urge to read novels by Alexander Dumas, particularly 'the Three Musketeers'. Strange thing to be thinking about at the moment, so Homura waves it away and concentrate more on those thoughts of Magical Boys. Then an image flashes in her mind: Underneath a silver full moon, among the high skyscrapers of Mitakihara a boy wearing black undertaker like cloth with a giant scythe at his side stands with his back turned behind Homura. As he sharply turns to gaze at her direction the sky opens up and Walpurgisnacht descend from the sky and smirks at Homura.
Homura's head flies backwards like she's gets a bullet in the head at point blank. She lets herself fall face up on the grassy hill while panting heavily. That is most definitely a Magical Boy, one who apparently made such a heavy impression on her to stay in her memory. But is he a friend or a foe? It's hard to tell if he is preparing to face Walpurgisnacht or somehow siding with her from that one mental image.
In the end, Homura Akemi suppose it doesn't matter. Considering her current predicament, she's going to have a hard time finding Madoka assuming her best friend even exist in this new loop. The easier solution is of course to turn her shield and hope she gets rewind into the correct time and place, but then again Homura is never too sure how her time reversal works. It could be she simply returns to the past, or it could be she creates some 'save point' in a specific time and space and she gets reset into that point. If her ability works in the first way, then it'll make the situation worse if she is indeed stuck in the past, and if her ability works in the second way...
All would be well of course, assuming her power is working correctly. But judging from her time stop power working incorrectly back in the convenient store Homura doesn't wants to risk getting further away from her friend than she already is (assuming this is 18 years ago of course): She's more likely to meet Joan D'Arc or Cleopatra than Madoka if she turns her shield again.
Homura stands up once again and walks underneath a bridge close by and sits in a corner, trying to ignore her rumbling stomach and gets some shut-eye. This plan didn't work too well for her either, as she has trouble sleeping both due to her hunger, and a fear her Soul Gem may corrupt while she is asleep. Eventually she manages to drift off into sleep again but in comes the nightmare. She is fighting against Walpurgisnacht while Madoka watching her on the ground with Kyubey besides her. But this time the familiar dream feels a bit different, out of the corner of Homura's eyes she seems to see a faint, almost transparent apparition near Madoka. It appears to be silently observing her fight, but as the fight draws to a conclusion and she walks to Madoka's body, she hears a faint voice of a boy as the apparition fades away.
"...ka..."
Is the nameless ghost also lamenting over Homura's loss with her? Homura is not sure, she remains sitting on the floor holding onto Madoka's lifeless body as the countless tendrils of Kriemhild Gretchen envelops everything around her.
When Homura wakes up the next day, she realize her Soul Gem has darkened considerably. Probably due to her current unstable mental state. She takes out a grief seed and uses it to clean her Soul Gem again as she starts to wander around Saigaku City, trying to get her bearings and figure out if this is truly 18 years ago, or just a really screwed up timeline.
She eventually arrives at where Mitakihara Middle School should be. To her surprise a different, much older looking school sits at the exact location. Glancing at the sign it reads 'Saigaku Public Middle School'. School seems to be finished as students are exiting the gate either by themselves or among friends. Homura suddenly stops dead on her track as she spots a familiar face amongst the students.
A short girl with a petit figure and short light brown hair and a pair of glasses over her eyes. She looks much younger, and much more timid than in Homura's memory but the time travelling Magical Girl can still tell the one she is looking at is her home room teacher Kazuko Satome... presumably in her pre-teen. Well... it seems over the years Kazuko didn't change much aside from her feisty temper.
Kazuko seems to notice she is being stared at as she takes a short glance at Homura before sliding behind her purple haired friend. Her friend turns back, presumably consulting with Kazuko on what's going on before she snaps back and stumps her way to face Homura. "What do you want buddy? If you have any problem with Kazuko, you talk with me."
Yep... that is definitely her teacher... in her middle school years. Which confirms Homura's suspicion she is in the past. Homura suddenly feel extremely tired, like the weight of all the previous cycles crushing on her body at once so she simply turns away from the girl without saying anything.
"Hi! Buddy! I'm talking with you!" The purple haired girl gets annoyed at Homura ignoring her as she grabs Homura's shoulder. Homura pushes her away as she doesn't wanting to put up with the girl in her depressed state. The girl takes a few steps backwards before falling on her back like an overturned turtle. Homura hears Kazuko and her other friend running towards the purple haired girl as they cry her name.
"Junko/Junko-Chan!"
Wait a minute... did they call her Junko? As in... Junko Kaname (Who is probably still using her maiden name)? Madoka Kaname's mother? Now that Homura thinks about it... her hair and eye color matches Madoka's mother...
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh~" Homura lets out a loud scream as the thought of what she just did hit her - She just hurt the mother of her best friend. She runs away while the students from Saigaku Middle School all look at the raven haired girl with a dumbfounded expression on their face. Once again she keeps on running, till she eventually slumps in the shadow of some back allay street.
Everything is falling apart... she has manage to stuck herself 18 years into the past which means 'Homura Akemi' doesn't exist in government's record. Her power is having some kind of malfunction so she can't simply 'reset' herself back into the correct timeline. And to top it off, her Soul Gem may be degrading as she is sitting in the shadow of this dark allay.
"Eat this, my treat." The sound of a boy makes Homura look up. She realizes the voice belong to someone roughly her age. He has short raven hair, wears a pair of dorky looking round glasses over his eyes (even more so than her old pair of glasses) and a red scarf. He has a dark blue jacket outside the grey colored boy uniform the other students from Saigaku Middle School wears. A McDonald paper bag sits near her feet which she assumes is what the boy bought for her. She hesitate for a moment for she's suspicious about the motive of this total stranger, but the alluring scent of fresh food as well as her overwhelming hunger drivers her to grab the bag and wolfs down its content inside. Oh well... it's not like she has anything valuable on her which the boy wants, and he looks too much of a geek to be a possible sex offender.
The boy stands with his back against the opposite wall as he puts both of his hands inside his pants pockets. "You know... I tried to run away from home. Multiple times in fact. It never ends well and I always end up running back to my family. Well... actually there's that time I got stuck on an isolated island for over 30 years and Doraemon brought me back and turned me back to a child again. But then again... none of those stuff happened. They were all inside my head. Heck, Doraemon doesn't even exist in this world. My point is... I don't know what problem you had with your family but it can't be that bad right? "
The word family makes Homura stop her chewing for a second. It is such a distant word, at least to the time traveling Magical Girl. She can barely recall what her father looks like except he has heart disease much like her. As for her mother... Homura only remembers a frail woman who revolves her life around her husband, and when Homura's father passed away due to a cardiac arrest the woman fall into a deep state of depression and committed suicide not long after, leaving a young and sickly Homura fending herself like Kyoko. Come to think of it... their only major difference is Homura never had a sibling, and her parents left her with a decent amount of heritage so she doesn't need to worry about living on the street.
Thinking back, Homura realizes she should probably treats Kyoko much better than she did. At least she can afford buying the feisty red head lunch once in a while like this boy just did for her.
"Just go back to your home and everything will be fine. Heck... your parents probably worried sick about you as I speak..."
The boy rambles on and on like he is some kind of madman. This confirms Homura's theory he is a complete idiot. Still, he did give her food. While Homura is not a food fanatic like Kyoko she still doesn't like to be indebted to someone. It makes ignoring said people's peril and focus all her effort on saving Madoka much harder.
"Still feeling down huh? I suppose it'll take more than a pep talk from a total stranger to cheer you up, but that's okay... because we are on Saigaku 8th Street! As long as you have enough cash, there's bound to be enough activity to make you blow off steam." The glasses wearing boys says with fake sounding excitement in his voice. He takes Homura's wrist and pulls her up as she finishes her meal and half drags her into a video game arcade not far away. Homura realize she can easily shake free of this persistent idiot, but she is still a little too shaken up due to all the things happened in this new cycle to respond properly.
The glasses wearing idiot stops at the counter and purchases some game tokens before dragging Homura in front of a light gun machine named 'Virtua Cop'. He puts one token in each player slot before handing Homura a light gun. "I'm not sure what girls like to do when they are in arcade... but this is what I do when I want some stress relief. Don't worry, just follow my lead and I doubt you are as bad at light gun as Hideo."
Homura resist the urge to laugh at the boy's face. She has been through hundreds of cycle facing countless life and death battle against Witches and their Familiars, yet this boy wants her to follow his lead in a light gun arcade video game.
She suppose she can humor the boy a little. The boys pulls up his light gun and aiming it at the screen like he is some kind of old western cowboy. "Yipee ki-yay, motherfucker!"
Homura shakes her head in slight disapproval before following the boy's example. "Well... like Kyoko would say: Time to bust balls and eat Pocky, and I'm all out of Pocky."
To Homura's surprise, the boy is actually very good with a hand gun, at least when it's a recoilless arcade light gun. He is very fast at picking up target, and he didn't miss a single shot. While Homura doesn't consider her to be as competitive as Kyoko, the fact this boy is showing great marksmanship does make her wants to also give her all despite this being an old arcade shooter. On the next stage, she starts to get serious and manages to eliminate more target than the glasses wearing buffoon besides her.
The boy gives her a quick glance between the stages. "You are really good. Not the first time playing VR Cop?"
"First time, but I had practices elsewhere." Homura can't help but form a smirk on her face as she gives her long raven hair a swirl. Playing light gun shooter with this boy reminds Homura of a much earlier timeline when she was more naive and used to go to arcade together with Madoka, Sayaka and Mami. There was one time where she and Mami played a similar light gun game together and Mami showed her how to properly hold a gun. In the end the veteran Magical Girl wipes the floor with Homura consider goldilocks' score were almost five times higher, but they did all have a good time.
"You are better than Dekisugi, and don't worry. I mean it as a legitimate compliment this time. That boy is a natural with guns like everything else." The Saigaku Middle School student gives Homura a smile as he change to a more serious face. "I'll need to get serious if I don't want to get wiped by you."
In the next round, the boy steps up his game even more as not only does he manage to hit his target every single time he fires, he scores a perfect round of Justice Shots (where he disable the criminal by shooting their hands). Homura on the other hand retaliate with scoring bullseyes and before both of them realize a normal game of co-op light gun shooter has evolved into a fierce competition to see who can get more scores before they beat the game. A crowd soon gathers around the two of them, and someone in the crowd start to point their fingers at the boy.
"That's Nobita Nobi, the 'sleeping prince' from Saigaku Middle School second year! He holds the highest score in all the light gun games here in Saigaku!"
"But who is the raven haired girl? She is keeping up with Nobita head to head, toe to toe."
In the end, the boy named Nobita manages to beat Homura in their little 'competition' by a few hundred points. Although Homura isn't too particularly upset by it. It's just an arcade game, and he has the advantage of knowing how the game goes before hand. To Homura's surprise she actually had... fun. And to think, she has almost forgotten what a fun time feels like after she loosen her braids and gets rid of her glasses.
"You are really good at this, I only manage to come on top because I been playing this game for a few dozen times now." Nobita puts his light gun back into the slot as he turns to look at Homura. "You feel thirsty or something? I'll go get you a drink, then we'll get you home."
The boy's mention of home makes Homura flinch a little, although she doesn't blame Nobita consider there's no way for him to know about Homura's time displacement. She wonders where she'll spend the night as Nobita squeezes through the crowd to go and get some drink. Before long he comes back with a can of lemonade in each hand and offers one to Homura. "Drink this, and afterwards I'll take you back home. Come to think of it... I didn't even know your name yet. I seen your video game high score signature as HOM so I assume that's part of your name?"
"Homura... I have no family, or home." Homura walks out of the arcade together with Nobita. She opens her lemonade and takes a drink. Her sentence makes Nobita's face twist together like he just got a cannon ball to his stomach.
"I'm... I'm sorry about it."
"Don't be, it's not your fault." Homura lets out a soft sigh as she looks at the pavement. Even though she manages to get herself into a complete mess she has nobody but herself to blame. She can of course blame Kyubey, the abominable fuzz ball from space. But as much as she hates Kyubey, he (assume he is the correct term) didn't really put a gun to Homura's head and force her to repeat the cycles.
"So... your parents passed away, and you got kicked out of your home by an evil uncle or aunt or something?" The boy steals a glance at Homura as he tries to start another conversation. "On the second thought... I probably don't want to know all the gory details..."
"Let's go with that story then." Homura nonchalantly says as she takes another sip of her drink.
"Don't you feel... cold? It's not exactly winter, but the temperature is still pretty low." Homura takes a look at what everyone is wearing before realizing everyone is wearing their winter cloth yet she only has her summer uniform of Mitakihara Middle School.
"I'm fine... achoo!" Homura tries to convince Nobita she is not cold due to her enhanced physical endurance for being a Magical Girl but she lets out a sneeze. Now that Homura thinks about it... sleeping under a bridge near a river while only wearing her Mitakihara Middle School's summer uniform is probably an extremely bad idea. Before she knows it, a red scarf is wrapped around her neck and Nobita puts his jacket over her shoulders.
"Take my scarf and jacket... I'll try to slip back home before my mom realize I'm not wearing those." Nobita's words makes Homura trembles a little. She's not used to anyone besides Madoka showing her uncompromising kindness. Granted, Sayaka, Mami, and to an extend even Kyoko has been her friends in the earlier loops when she still bothers to be friendly with everyone, but they didn't really go out of their way to help her either. She doesn't know why this boy is acting this way, but it makes her scared.
Like if she gets too used to other people's kindness, her resolve to save Madoka would crumble. And she won't be able to hold on to her life and sanity for 18 years to meet Madoka again.
"I'm sorry..." Homura whispers a murmur to herself as she throws both the boy's scarf and jacket on his head before she freezes time. She can only stop time for a few seconds in her current state, but with her enhanced Magical Girl ability she should be able to get far enough away from the boy if she runs and leaps like hell.
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
Nobita doesn't know why, but he feels he simply can't leave this raven haired shop lifter alone. That's why he seems to revert back to his old clueless slacker persona when he rambles on and on in front of Homura. Deep down, he feels like he is obligated to help her like the same when he meets Jaiko again two nights ago. In fact, now that he thinks about it the feeling is almost exactly like when he meets Jaiko. This girl named Homura reminds of him very strongly about someone. But try as he might, Nobita can't seem to recall anyone from his life who Homura resembles.
Shizuka? Of course not. Shizuka is kind but not afraid to say what's on her mind unlike distant and cold Homura. His first friend, a certain next door neighbour girl who wears a pair of red shoes? No, she was more like Shizuka. Someone else he knows, or maybe someone from his imaginary dream adventure? Now that he thinks about it, Homura does resemble Riruru the alien robot girl. But then again... he's never that close to Riruru. Sure, he tries to tell his 'friends' Gian and Suneo that Riruru is his girlfriend. But that's more about he wants to boast to his 'friends' than him actually want to start a relationship with the cold and emotionless robot girl. The one who manages to form a deep bond of friendship with Riruru is Shizuka, who heals Riruru's injuries (maybe damage was the better term) after the robot girl tries to force her way through the mirror world.
Nobita suppose it doesn't matter in the end. All he knows is he has this strong feeling of helping someone after living a complete aloof life for four years. Despite his brain tells him the futility of forming a bond with someone when he lacks the strength to hold such bond, his heart is telling him to reach out for someone.
And the fact he manage to actually have fun for the first time in four years when he plays VR Cop with Homura back in the arcade. Sure, he has played the same game with Dekisugi or Hideo, or even run solo for countless times but it's nice to meet someone who can actually match up to him in a light gun game. The fierce competition he has with Homura gives him the same excitement as the first time he plays the game. No... in fact, it gives him more fun than the first time he plays the game with Hideo.
Nobita wonders if that means he wants to start a relationship with Homura, but he is not very sure about it. After all He barely knows this mysterious raven haired shop lifter except the clothes she wears suggest she enrolls in a rich school. But as she just tells him, she is homeless and have no family to return to. He wonders if there's more ways he can help her as he takes off his own jacket and place it around her shoulder.
It'll be a bit cold running home without his jacket, but he should be fun if he jogs back all the way. Before he can puts that plan into motion, Homura suddenly throws his clothes back on his head and he swears he hears her saying: I'm sorry.
Nobita quickly pulls his jacket down and tries to look for Homura again. But to his surprise, the raven haired mystery girl disappeared from his sight as if she was never there to begin with.
／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
And so we are finally at the point where Nobita, the main character of Doraemon meets Homura, the character who made Puella Magi Madoka Magica possible. I have to say I been wanting to write this chapter for a long time.
To tell the truth, originally I had no plan of putting Homura into this story. It originally is a much shorter story where Nobita and his friends (Doraemon cast) live in (an altered) PMMM universe. But the night when I started writing this story I had a dream: I dreamed I was Nobita, and I meet Homura while wandering the street of fictional Saigaku City one night while doing some soul searching.
The scene is largely changed from my dream of course due to Tamako imposing a come home before sun down curfew on Nobita (and I think in my dream, me and Homura ends up going into a comic book store to buy Rob Liefield's Young Blood rather than playing VR Cop), but I really like the idea of putting Homura into this story. I realize Homura and Nobita have a lots in common consider they are both broken due to the loss of their best friend and they are both excellent marksman as well as they both wear glasses (well... Moemura does). Plus, having Homura in the story and have her meeting the parent of her friends while they are still in middle school creates a much more diverse story. I also planned a lots of interaction she'll have with the Incubators of the Warden. I hope it ends up as an entertaining, if not particularly well written story.