Free Sky

by shahanshah

In the cold darkness of interstellar space, beyond every known frontier of mankind, against the most terrible of enemies, the Goddess protects.

7. Intermission Part 2: And in Our Hearts

A week had passed since the demons had attacked, and doubt had burrowed its way into Mami's mind. Death was not just a real possibility, but a likely certainty, and every day was a struggle to justify the continued fight.

The only thing preventing her from taking a step back was the knowledge that there were girls who looked up to her.

Mami was beginning to walk back towards the camp when a magical girl landed softly in front of her. Her costume was torn in places, and stains of dirt and blood streaked across the cloth. The girl, breathless, began to bow, before Mami raised a hand and shook her head to stop her.

"I haven't seen you here before," Mami said, making sure to smile. "What's your name?"

"F-Fujioka Mio," the girl said. "Shinjuku prefecture. I came here with all the refugees I could bring."

"Good work," Mami said, and the girl blushed. Throughout Japan, there were rumors of girls who were good enough at what they did to survive for a long time. After magical girls made it out of the first year alive, they were veterans. After ten, they became minor legends. And now, Kyouko and Mami's unofficial command of the magical girls in the Mitakihara city and surrounding area had expanded to most of Honshu.

Why did they look up to her? What did they expect to see from her? If she were a younger woman, Mami wasn't sure how she would react. But now, she had people to lead, and even if, realistically, there was no way they could hold out indefinitely against the demons, she could still pretend like they could.

"Food and water are both running low," Mio said. "We've had a few girls working around the clock to conjure supplies, but even with pretty much infinite grief cube supplies, the strain on their soul gems is getting to them. They'll have to stop soon. There's no way all these people can survive in these camps if we don't get back to the cities soon."

"We're working on that," Mami said. "Until then, just concentrate on keeping the camps stable and the people alive. Can you do that?"

Mio nodded firmly. "Yes."

"Good. Get all the help you can," Mami said, "and do the magical girl name proud."

"I won't fail you," the girl said. Then she turned and took off.

Something flapped in the wind behind Mami. Smile falling from her face for only a moment, Mami turned to greet the new visitor.

"Yo."

Exhaustion immediately painted itself across Mami's face. "Hello, Kyouko."

"It's funny, isn't it?" Kyouko said. "I always used to think how unfair it was. There I was, in the dirt, starving and bleeding like a fucking dog while everyone around me got to live in their city of glass. I'd always think how nobody in this city would ever, ever understand what it would be like to be poor, and that if they did, they wouldn't last a week. And now here we are."

Mami sighed. "Things seem to be getting worse lately. I had to deal with people on the brink of rioting yesterday. Even with the JSDF helping, we won't be able to hold out much longer. The Incubator told me that the rest of the world is in about the same state. Demon swarms are ubiquitous."

"That thing," Kyouko said, pointing a finger at the column of white mass leaning down from the sky. "Götterdämmerung. If we bring it down…"

"Well, things would certainly get better for us if we brought down the locus of miasma in this area," Mami said. "But nothing would happen for the rest of the world. Whatever Götterdämmerung did to the local miasma, the effect cascaded into a worldwide phenomenon. It's permanent."

Kyouko chewed her lip. "Damn."

The two of them stood on a hill overlooking the camps. Fires poured smoke into the air, and the smell of burning garbage was only marginally more palatable than the miasma itself. Hastily-constructed shacks were packed close to each other as far as they eye could see. It had taken two hellish days of work to construct the shelters, desperately trying to keep the civilians alive while demons hounded them. Above them, the black night sky was clouded over, hiding the light of the stars and moon. In the past, one might have seen planes streak across the sky, but now the demons controlled the air as well as the earth.

"I need to go inside," Mami said, quietly. "Care to join me?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty fucking sick of having to look at this place too," Kyouko said. "Let's go."

Mami's shelter was marginally more comfortable than the average refugee's. She had managed to salvage some trinkets from her apartment before the place was taken by the miasma: a tea set, a photograph, a notebook. The shelter was a strange mix of charming and utterly destitute—they had been raised by magic, so there were ornate flower designs embossed into the walls, but the walls were made of hardened dirt, there wasn't a floor, and an earthen smell permeated the room.

"Do you know where Homura is?" Kyouko asked, leaning against the wall.

Mami nodded. "She went into Mitakihara," she said, "to gather any stragglers."

"It's fucking crazy," Kyouko said. "Isn't she scared of dying?"

"I wouldn't worry about her too much. It is Homura, after all."

"Going into massive demon swarms without backup is always dangerous, dammit." Kyouko sighed and leaned against the wall. "Remember?"

A shadow passed over Mami's face as she fixed her gaze to the floor. "Do you still think about Miki-san?"

"Why the hell wouldn't I?"

"I expected that you would," Mami said. "I still do, too. It's unfair that we left her behind."

Kyouko laughed—a short, harsh, bark. "Of course it is."

"But then, that's why we need to protect this world, isn't it?" Mami said. "So that her sacrifice was not in vain."

"Why the hell would she even have to sacrifice anything in the first place?" Kyouko asked. "Sometimes, I wonder. What kind of God would permit this sort of injustice? A few people who never asked to be any sort of hero, forced into awful lives because of fate. And in the end, all their sacrifices might just be pointless."

"It's awful, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Something strange occurred to Mami, and she raised an eyebrow. "Is something wrong, Kyouko?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You don't have any food on you."

Kyouko shook her head. "You honestly think I'd prance about munching on some goddamn Pocky when there are starving kids out there?"

Mami smiled. "So you do care."

"It's not like that," Kyouko said. "It just wouldn't be—it wouldn't be dignified. You got it?"

Sighing, Kyouko walked forwards and sat down by Mami. "Look, I can't pretend not to care at least one tiny bit about these people," she said. "That's what makes it so goddamn difficult. After—after I left you, for that time, I did some pretty awful shit. And I don't want to go back to that, you know? But at the same time, I'm scared for my fucking life. It would be so easy to run away, but if I did, I'd just be the same stupid fucking child who gave up all those years ago."

"I'd like to think I taught you well."

"Hey," Kyouko said, "you're hardly even my senior anymore. We've both been at this business for a pretty long time."

"All right, all right," Mami said. "I'll grant you that."

Kyouko shifted in place. "You know, this reminds me. Do you ever get the feeling that you ever taught a younger magical girl besides me?"

Mami furrowed her brow. "What? No," she said. "Why would I?"

The invisible hole in both their hearts made itself briefly known before becoming numb again.

Telepathic noise immediately pierced through both of the magical girls' heads. We need help! There's been a demon attack on the perimeter—

Mami drowned out the rest of the message. She already knew where the attack was by her soul gem, and she was too busy trying to figure out how the attack had occurred. In a quick flash of light, she transformed into her costume. Next to her, Kyouko did the same.

"Miasma spawns near large population concentrations," Kyouko said. "We would've gotten advance warning if it had come from the city. They must have spawned nearby. These demons are going to be constantly on our fucking trail, aren't they?"

Mami pressed her lips together. "It seems so. Let's go."

As they darted towards the fight, they could hear the crackle of gunfire and the roar of jets in the distance, remnants of the JSDF lending whatever support they could to the magical girls. Some civilians had even volunteered themselves as militia, taking up arms to fight against the demons. But demon lasers crisscrossed across the sky and earth, slicing apart anything that came close.

Hey, Mami? Kyouko said.

Mami could sense the change in atmosphere as normal space shifted into miasma. Yes?

I've told you how sorry I am that I left you when we were kids, right?

You have, Kyouko.

When Mami looked over at Kyouko, her eyes were fixed straight forwards. There wasn't anybody left for me when my family died, she said. I know you know how that feels. But I pushed you away even when you tried reaching out to me.

The two magical girls alighted on top of a hill overlooking the battle. Dozens of shelters lay broken, and rubble littered the ground. Blackness from the smoke blanketed the area.

You're like a sister to me, Kyouko said. And I'd rather die than see my family hurt again. So even if I have to sacrifice something—

"If you have to sacrifice anything," Mami said, speaking aloud, "we'll do it together."

Mami leveled her muskets downwards while Kyouko raised her spear. They shared a glance, fleeting yet certain, before diving into the demons.

-x-

A week passed, without any contact from the outside world, before the Incubator contacted Tatsuya again.

Tatsuya's skin prickled as the Incubator slid through his ankles. Congratulation on staying alive, it said. You are faring much better than the rest of Mitakihara City, or, indeed, much of the human population. I guess we have Homura's preparation to thank for this, don't we?

Tatsuya's eyes tracked the pendulum swinging back and forth above him. He lay on his back, perfectly still, in the middle of the floor. There was nothing else for him to do but ponder the words Madoka had left for him. Even after contemplating the words for the past week, they remained bereft of meaning.

His destiny was to sit here and rot.

The Incubator clambered on top of his chest. Slowly, deliberately, it squatted and stared down at him.

"You know, Kyubey," Tatsuya said, not bothering to use telepathy, "I never had any real expectations of myself. And that was okay. What kind of person is obsessed with how useful they are when they're only fourteen years old? The world was wide and the future was long, and if I only kept living, then…surely I would find some sort of happiness, right?"

In all honesty, I feel sorry for you humans, Kyubey said. I've seen many girls contract with me because they lack purpose in their life. For an Incubator, our purpose is to prolong survival. We're not very good at understanding what you call death. So we don't have to obsess over a fear of time running out. We just need to prolong the clock.

"That sounds miserable."

To a human, I imagine it does.

Tatsuya lifted his arm up to the Incubator and ran his fingers through its fur. "Why have you come here?"

I came here as a messenger, Kyubey said, because even if I don't understand why humans are obsessed with death, I understand that it is a fact, and something that I cannot avoid.

Tatsuya's arm froze. Slowly, he closed his eyes. "Out of curiosity, how many people have died?"

Worldwide? Approximately one billion, two hundred million. Mitakihara has a far higher survival rate than most of the world. But, regardless of location, people die not only from demon attacks, but from a lack of resources, the collapse of human civilization, the wars that have broken out between newly-unstable states, and the mob rule that now dominates much of this planet.

"Then I shouldn't be surprised when somebody close to me dies, should I?"

Your mother is dead, Tatsuya.

For a second, the room continued to exist and the pendulum continued to swing in dull silence, as if nothing had been said and nothing had happened.

Then, Tatsuya said, through his sobbing, "Goddammit. Of all the people who had to tell me that, it had to be you?"

The Incubator made no reply.

"I—I had to hear it from you," Tatsuya said. "Because I'm not out there. I could've heard it from Dad. Or a magical girl. Any random person who saw her die. Any human being. I could've heard it from my sister, but she's abandoned me. I get to hear it from you, the one being in this entire universe completely incapable of caring about my mother's death."

I'm sorry.

"No, you're not! You're incapable of feeling regret! How could you possibly be sorry?"

I see that you are in considerable emotional distress, Kyubey said, and I can imagine how inconveniencing the experience is.

"I could have stopped this," Tatsuya said. He raised his arm up to his face to cover his eyes. Some idiotic sense of pride made him do it. The Incubator didn't care if it saw Tatsuya cry. "If I had just gone out—stopped running away—"

This confuses me. Have you learned more about your nature as an anomaly?

Tatsuya bit down hard on his lips. Even if I wanted to do something, there's nothing to be done. She said that I had a destiny, but there isn't any point to whatever destiny I might have. How can somebody like me, who never wanted to be important, accept something like that? It's impossible. And this is the price I pay, isn't it? I get to watch as my family dies.

It really is a natural tendency for you humans to want to be heroes, isn't it? Well, this should be obvious to me. It's what I base my business on, after all.

What do they want me to sacrifice? How could I possibly be a hero? If only I can save this world, then it isn't a world worth saving.

Do you want to hear about my experiences with human beings pertaining to this matter? Kyubey asked. I believe that you will find it enlightening. Perhaps helpful. I don't know.

Tatsuya didn't say anything. With lightly padded steps, Kyubey moved off Tatsuya and began to pace across the room.

Most humans, Kyubey began, sit on a spectrum of "cynical" to "optimistic." Or at least, this is the factor that is most salient to me, because I have to work with magical girls. Makes sense, doesn't it?

You are understandably cynical concerning the world of magic, Kyubey said. It has done nothing but inconvenience you, really. But I find that, if you were a girl, you would have made a good magical girl. Ultimately, you exhibit characteristics consistent with the optimistic types. You have spoken to me of your stories, and of the mysterious outside force that makes you an anomaly. Certainly, when you were a child, these two things engendered within you those optimistic tendencies. It's a question of whether or not you believe in things like hope or heroism. Something that cannot be seen. And I, as much as it pains my empiric-seeking tendencies, cannot discount the power of hope. I have done business off it for the past several millennia. It must exist somehow.

Tatsuya took several seconds to open his mouth. "What's your point?"

It would be silly and pointless, Kyubey said, if you were to languish here on account of cynicism, trapped by the stranger you've made yourself into. Even I recognize your potential as an anomaly. Do not waste it. I will return only to bring more news, whether it is good or bad. Do you want to know how your mother died?

A minute of silence passed before Tatsuya answered, "Yes."

Your mother knew that the Akemi Homura leading the forces of magic against the demons was the same Akemi Homura from your childhood, and so she, along with your father, planned on finding Homura and asking her to help them find you.

Tatsuya's eyes watered with tears again. His mother would never find him.

The humans formed a militia to fight against the demons. Kaname Junko didn't dream of joining, of course, and neither did your father. Both had a family to go back to and a son to find. But a demon attack cut deep into the camp, and Kaname Junko was caught in the crossfire.

The Incubator turned to leave. Silently, it stepped into the shadows coating the corners of the apartment.

One last thing, it said, half of its body now cloaked in darkness. The protective magic on Akemi Homura's apartment is not infinitely durable without her maintenance. Miasma is already beginning to leak inside. Soon, demons will be able to enter. I'm not sure when.

Then the Incubator vanished entirely.

Slowly, Tatsuya picked himself off the ground and trudged to the bathroom. A couple days ago, Tatsuya had slipped and fallen into the mirror, cracking it. As he looked at his reflection inside the mirror, he could see the wound on his shoulder, still unhealed, and the lines of fatigue drawn across his face.

His mother hadn't died gloriously. Tatsuya, trapped in the barren cage of Homura's apartment, doubted that his death would be very notable either.

The terrible injustice of it all stung at him. What had the world done that warranted death to sweep over it? There was surely no heaven for humanity to look towards, or else the demons would be angels, and the passage into death would be sweet. Instead, extermination meant disappearance, and the one tiny corner of the universe that humanity had once occupied would be free from humanity. And humanity would be gone.

Tatsuya looked into the mirror and wondered what he was doing to stop it. His knuckles whitened against the sink's marble countertop.

His mother had died so that he might live. At the very least, Tatsuya could try to survive. At the door of the apartment, invisible lines of smoke were creeping into the living room, indicating the miasma that encroached further and further inside.

He had to get out. The question was no longer that of what he had to sacrifice. Now, Tatsuya wanted to know how he could spite the demons' attempts to kill him.

The Akemi Homura of the stories was far better armed than the Akemi Homura of this reality, but Tatsuya found that Homura was still, as always, prepared. To Homura, a small handgun with a couple clips of ammunition along with two grenades must have been a miniscule arsenal in comparison to her conventional weaponry. But, when Tatsuya found the weapons after ransacking, with some fleeting regret, Homura's apartment, they represented an escape, no matter how unlikely.

Finding and learning how to use the firearms took the entire afternoon. Tatsuya stopped when the hunger pangs grew too insistent to ignore. Wincing slightly, he limped into the kitchen and found another package of dehydrated food. He opened it slowly and let his gaze slide across the contents.

The rest of the world is probably starving, Tatsuya thought, before reaching a hand inside and scooping paste into his mouth.

After he was done eating, Tatsuya closed his eyes and tried to pray. God probably didn't exist, and if he had once lived, now he was surely dead, so instead, he tried for his sister.

"Madoka?"

Deafening silence filled Tatsuya's ears.

If Madoka never spoke to him again, maybe he could convince himself that she had never been real in the first place. She was only a memory of a memory, then, an image blurred by the sands of time.

Tatsuya closed his eyes and tried to remember her kind voice. As a child, he hadn't fully understood why his classmates laughed at him and the adults around him spoke of him in whispers and behind raised hands. Madoka's smile shone upon everyone, even the people who couldn't see her, and Tatsuya didn't know what it meant to be rejected.

"Everyone," Madoka had said, "shares a home, and if we only could understand each other, then we would be family."

The Incubator had spoken of riots and the destruction of civilization, but Madoka's voice still echoed in Tatsuya's mind, deeper than what the Incubator told him. At what point would he truly forget Madoka?

For one moment, Tatsuya considered all sorts of ridiculous things he could do to try to get Madoka to answer him—something absurd, like meditation, or a trial of sacrifice.

Then Tatsuya sighed, shook his head, and got up. His eyes passed over the miasma leaking into the room. It was flowing slowly enough that Tatsuya could afford to sleep before attempting to escape.

As he closed his eyes, Tatsuya thought about all those billions of people, the family that Madoka had promised him, who had first rejected him, and now suffered under the darkness blanketing the Earth. When Tatsuya pictured them, he didn't feel compassion, but he didn't feel resentment either. They were ghosts, pale images of people he had never and would never know, inaccurate approximations of something he could only infer to exist.

Tatsuya remembered the sweet smell of his mother's perfume, the wrinkles in her suit that he could feel as he hugged her, the confident lilt to her voice as she spoke to him.

The stories that Madoka had told him were filled with death, but he had never experienced loss firsthand himself. What would it have been like, to be in the place of those who watched others die around them, and to have death be a permanent fixture in his life?

Whenever he stared into the future, his mother had always held his hand. Now, he gazed upon the endless expanse of time, and suddenly, his mother was no longer there.

Tatsuya started gathering all the memories he had of his mother, panicking each time he realized that he couldn't remember some tiny detail. A heavy blanket of shame covered him as he realized that he was crying again, hot tears streaking down his face, sobs shaking his body.

When he escaped, he would give his mother a funeral. Then he would run, and he would find Dad, and they would survive the apocalypse, damn whatever his fate was.

Tatsuya curled up into a ball on Homura's couch. As he fell asleep, exhausted by his own tears, Tatsuya's last thought was a hope that his mother had seen her daughter at least one last time before dying.

-x-

The next day, when Tatsuya was searching Homura's apartment one last time for useful items, he fired up Homura's computer and tried opening "memories" again.

The password screen popped up. Tatsuya's eyes passed over the expectantly blinking prompt, before he turned to leave the room forever.

A high-pitched beep from the computer prompted him to turn right back around.

The login prompt had disappeared. Tatsuya stared at the computer screen in bewilderment for a few seconds. Then, he closed his eyes and whispered, "Thanks."

Tatsuya didn't have very clear memories of Akemi Homura. She was a vague figure of his past, someone that he knew existed, but could not describe at all. The Akemi Homura of the stories was a different matter. She was strong, and firm, sometimes cold and cruel, but always acting with utmost selflessness.

But that was only a figure from his childhood bedtime stories. So, when Tatsuya started reading the document, he knew that he could have no real expectations of what the words might tell him of Akemi Homura.

The top of the document was filled with some abortive attempts at drawing. Tatsuya had noticed the electronic tablet gathering dust in the corner of Homura's room, but he had never given much thought to it. Homura's sketches were surprisingly good, and Tatsuya could believe, if only for a moment, that each one depicted a girl who actually existed. Every single one was of Madoka.

Tatsuya grew more uncomfortable with each sketch he scrolled past. The realism in the drawings was incongruous with the tiny, almost unnoticeable mistakes in them. It was as if they were actual pictures of Madoka, digitally altered so as to disorient anybody who had actually known her. Here her eyes were too far apart, here her face was too thin and graceful, here the shape of her nose was just slightly too round…

The last sketch was only half-finished. Below it, there was nothing but words.

Tatsuya blinked in surprise as he started reading about a black cat that Homura had adopted. Narrowing his eyes in confusion, Tatsuya began scanning the text, until he realized that Homura's writing didn't mention anything other than the cat. Sighing in frustration, Tatsuya scrolled down further. Now, Homura was making a painstaking record of her attempts to bake a cake similar to the kinds made in Mitakihara's desert shops. Tatsuya shook his head and kept scrolling.

He stopped when he saw the name "Miki Sayaka."

By the date that Homura had included, she had written these words eleven years ago. "Another one of Miki Sayaka's funerals were held today," Tatsuya read aloud. "I can't remember the last time I bothered to attend one of them, but I did, this time. It's strange to think about how everything that happens in this world cannot be reset.

"I couldn't bring myself to feel much at Miki Sayaka's funeral. I didn't even try very hard to convince myself that I was feeling anything. Madoka must hate me for that. After all, in the end, Sayaka was her friend, and I only stood coldly on the sidelines.

"Kyouko didn't take her death very well, as usual. She only knew Sayaka for a few weeks. Time will make her forget Sayaka, just like it does for all things, and just like it's done to me.

"I'll still give my condolences to her later."

Tatsuya's face stiffened as he saw the photograph of Sayaka attached to the document. She was smiling and waving at the camera, looking, in spite of what fate had prescribed for her, happy and alive.

"Still, people know that Miki Sayaka existed, and even if her family doesn't, her friends know what she did and how she died," Homura wrote.

Tatsuya read on. The date on the document was a few years later now, and Homura was no longer speaking of events in the present tense. She described worlds and timelines and things that no longer existed in this world. Tatsuya had heard the stories from Madoka first, and Madoka had always emphasized the noble struggle with which the characters fought.

"None of us were heroes," Homura wrote, "though it's understandable how somebody might mistake us as heroic. Tomoe Mami was kind and motherly but anybody paying attention would see her instability, her desperate cries for companionship, her profound internal weakness. Sakura Kyouko had some noble qualities—the urge to protect Sayaka, or mend her relationship with Mami, showing up in every timeline, again and again. Really, in comparison to the rest of us, it might be easy to latch onto her as the well-adjusted magical girl of the group, despite her traumatic background. But Kyouko's sense of justice died with her father. After that, any good she did, she did it only to prove to herself that she wasn't the villain she knew she was. She needed to validate herself as a hero, but she was doomed to never become one. Miki Sayaka suffered from the same curse. Perhaps that's why they gravitated towards each other. In her case, she was outwardly confidant in her heroism. But, internally, I think she always knew that she couldn't possibly play the role of the hero. She knew her own flaws better than anybody else.

"I wasn't a hero, of course. Near the end, I was probably about as villainous as the Incubators I fought against.

"I can't remember if Madoka was a hero. I try to remember what she said or did, but the timelines run into each other and turn everything into a featureless blur. She sacrificed herself, she believed in what she fought for, but she cried and cowered and stumbled just like any normal girl would. So, then, who was she, really? If I could make a second contract with the Incubator, I'd wish to know the answer to that question, because I can't ask her myself anymore."

Tatsuya was startled to find his eyes wet. It was rather comforting that they weren't tears of self-pity this time. Madoka had never explicated the nature of her relationship with Homura outright, but Tatsuya was old enough to fit the puzzle pieces together now. Homura had loved Madoka as desperately as Mami had sought friendship, Kyouko redemption, or Sayaka reciprocation. It was an ugly love, stained with violence and secrecy and despair.

But Madoka had loved her back, and it was love nonetheless.

As Tatsuya continued reading, he paused once again as he saw his own name appear in the text. This was dated only four years ago.

"I saw Tatsuya today. He was with Madoka's mother, Junko. Neither of them recognized me. I'd be surprised if they remembered me at all. I knew he was there because I recognized Madoka's mother, but I couldn't get a good luck at Tatsuya himself. I'm sure he's grown up into somebody that Madoka can be proud of. Madoka had a good mother. In only a few years, Tatsuya will be the same age Madoka and I were when we contracted. I wonder what he'll be like. I wish I could have seen his face."

Abruptly, Tatsuya navigated to the end of the document.

"I think I understand what's left for me, now," Homura wrote. "Some have said that a person only truly dies when her name is spoken for the very last time. If that's true, when I die, Madoka will die with me, which is too sad to believe. Is Madoka's legacy encapsulated only by her name? She gave herself up to fight for the fates of the mahou shoujo, so that the world could become a kinder place. It was a grand sacrifice for a grand cause. And Madoka will only ever be forgotten when we stop fighting for that cause."

Tatsuya sat motionless for a few moments. He realized that he was afraid. It wasn't the familiar fear of the demons that gripped him now. Madoka hadn't spoken to him for a week. When he was a child, it had always been a given that Madoka would be with him. He was a teenager now: the cynical age, when he was supposed to start seeing the world through jade-tinted lenses. And anyway, people stopped playing with their imaginary friends when they were seven or eight. Maybe Madoka was never going to come back. And then, when would he forget her forever?

Tatsuya let loose a slow breath before he shut the computer off. Its internal battery would die in a few days, and even if he managed to make his way back to the apartment, he wouldn't be able to boot it up again.

The weapons he had scavenged from the apartment were waiting for him on the kitchen table. Tatsuya stared at them for a moment as he realized that he had no idea where to put them. He wished that he had Homura's shield.

He clipped the grenade to his pants' belt hook, which seemed somewhat unsafe, but it wasn't like Tatsuya knew what he was doing anyway. The couple clips of ammunition that he found barely managed to fit into his jacket pocket, but Tatsuya managed to do it.

Pistol in hand, Tatsuya strode up to the apartment door. He resisted the urge to look behind him, and then flung the door open.

Tatsuya wasn't sure what he expected to see when he opened the door, but his eyes began immediately scanning the ruined wasteland for some means of escape. It was a miracle that there was an upended motorcycle maybe a hundred meters away from him.

Demons crawled along the street like maggots on a corpse. There hadn't been any bodies when Tatsuya had first arrived at the apartment, but now, dead men and women were strewn about at random. The streets were stained red. Tatsuya guessed that a few desperate people had tried to make their way back into the city, and had been cut down. Maybe that was why the motorcycle was there.

Tatsuya took a deep breath, tensed his legs, and then broke out into a sprint.

The demons only noticed him when he was halfway to the motorcycle. Perhaps the idea of a human emerging from the city that they had destroyed, only to deliver itself straight into their waiting jaws, was too preposterous to consider. Food was food, though, and the demons began to swirl around him.

Tatsuya managed to fire off a couple shots before laser fire forced him to duck down behind cover. He didn't know how long he had to cower—a small path to the motorcycle had opened up because of his fire, but it obviously wasn't going to stay open long. Tatsuya counted to three and then started running again.

Two demons stood in his way. Tatsuya tried aiming his gun and running at the same time, but the pounding of his footsteps made accuracy impossible. He thought about slowing down, but the rattling breaths of the demons behind him reminded him what would happen if he were caught.

Three of his shots went wild before one, by either pure luck or divine providence, went through the first demon's head. The laser that the demon had been charging went wild, slicing through the second demon.

A laser from behind clipped Tatsuya's arm, eliciting a cry of pain. The familiar warmth of blood sticking like syrup to his skin began to spread once more. Biting down further whimpers, Tatsuya pulled the grenade out of his pocket, winced as he chipped his teeth pulling the pin out like it was done in the movies, and tossed the grenade behind him, far into the ranks of the demons.

Tatsuya was straddling the motorcycle, frantically flipping switches, when the grenade detonated. An invisible giant's hand struck Tatsuya, rattling his bones and almost forcing him off the motorcycle. Terror was the only thing compelling him to keep trying to turn the thing on.

It took Tatsuya a moment to comprehend what had happened when the motorcycle lurched forwards, and he almost fell off the vehicle for lack of balance. The, he realized—I'm free—as he zoomed past the demons, faster than they could track him.

Tatsuya glanced over his shoulder at Götterdämmerung. The city lay in the shadow of the white tower, black darkness climbing across the skyscrapers to lead to the pillar of white. Tatsuya wrenched the wheel at the next intersection so that Götterdämmerung and the core of the city were at his back.

As he rode, a vague sense of unease swept over Tatsuya. Until now, the question of his destiny had been a non-starter, given that he had fully expected to die pathetically, holed up in Homura's apartment. But now, he lived.

Fear gradually seeped out of Tatsuya's body as the demons he passed grew sparser and sparser. He was leaving the former population centers and heading out into mostly empty countryside. Somewhere, he knew, were the largest refugee camps, taking shelter outside of the demon-infested cities. He would find his father there. And he would continue to survive.

The streets in front of Tatsuya were suddenly bathed in light. Startled, Tatsuya brought the motorcycle to a stop. Shadows elongated away from him, jagged points of blackness against the light. Wind began to swirl, picking up the lighter debris that covered the streets and tossing it upwards. The air tasted foul.

Tatsuya's mouth opened slightly as he turned around. Light shone over Götterdämmerung, brighter than the sun. From the tower, countless demons began crawling out, heading towards the light like moths to flame.

"What is that?" he wondered aloud.

Purple explosions flashed against Götterdämmerung, and Tatsuya realized what the light was—a pair of wings on the back of Akemi Homura.

He watched her fight, transfixed, as she fought the demons around the spire. More demons began to emerge from the tower's base in the sky, but Homura seemed to be batting them aside effortlessly.

Without warning, the light in the sky grew blindingly intense, forcing Tatsuya to shield his eyes. A shockwave's bass boom passed over him a second later. When he looked up, blinking spots out of his eyes, he saw a single outstretched arm protruding from the white mass of Götterdämmerung, a single index finger pointing in silent condemnation. The finger steamed from the heat of the laser it had just produced. Homura was nowhere to be seen.

The demons began flying downwards, converging on something on the ground. Tatsuya knew, his palms beginning to sweat, that Homura had been brought down.

Tatsuya stared in silence as the wind whistled around his ears. No Incubator came to him to compel him forwards. Kyubey had other, more useful people to talk to. And his sister was as silent as she had been for the past week.

What could Tatsuya do, anyway?

Why wasn't there anybody who could tell him what he could do?

Tatsuya imagined his sister. She was impossibly beautiful and graceful, with poise and composure in every movement, with compassion yet firmness in every word. Once, he had seen her with her bow, as long as he was tall, and he had marveled at the ferocity of the weapon.

But she was just a ghost, wasn't she? Something that couldn't touch anything in this world.

What could one human being do? Tatsuya knew that the answer to that question was "not much." He also knew that his sister would answer that question differently.

Tatsuya hadn't known that there was still faith left to spare in his body, but he found it, hiding somewhere in his empty bones, and placed it in Kaname Madoka, just for the moment. He gripped the motorcycle with a shaking hand, and, slowly, turned it around.

There was absolute silence as Tatsuya mounted the motorcycle. The city around him was broken, the sky above him dark, and his face was frozen in an expression that most would describe as "resigned." For a moment, Tatsuya thought that he might look like a knight, riding into battle. He didn't smile at the thought.

"Ride forth," he said, before clenching the accelerator.

-x-

Tatsuya knew that he was too late before he arrived at the base of Götterdämmerung. It had taken him almost twenty minutes, riding through the abandoned city, to reach his destination. As he drove closer and closer to Götterdämmerung, the demons began to flow thick like blood. Most of them ignored him. Their prey was further ahead, and one human was crumbs.

Homura hadn't come alone. When he found her, she was protected by Kyouko's shield magic. Kyouko's hands were glowing with a weak, sputtering light. Tatsuya could see the frustration etched into the lines on her face and the fear in her eyes.

Mami noticed him first. Her eyes widened momentarily in disbelief. No civilians could have possibly survived inside the city, and if there were any, this was the last place anybody would go. Her gaze lingered on him for a few moments, before Kyouko shouted something and Mami shot a volley of musket fire into the demons.

As Tatsuya came closer, he could see the wounds lying across Homura's body. The blood looked gentle as it flowed down Homura's body, like rose petals. Her soul gem's light struggled to manifest itself through the darkness.

Kyouko was too busy trying to heal Homura to acknowledge Tatsuya when he came up beside her. A few moments later, she gave up, and her hand stopped glowing. She slumped over Homura's body, head bowed low.

"I remember you, kid," she said, without turning around. "I don't know why you're here, but if you expect to somehow fucking live, I'd get a better crystal ball."

Tatsuya only half-listened to her. His eyes were fixed on Homura's face, numbed with exhaustion and pain. Recognition flashed across it as she made eye contact with Tatsuya.

Mami hit the ground beside Tatsuya with a thud. As she slowly got back onto her feet, she looked at Kyouko and said, "I don't have enough magic to keep this up."

Kyouko waved at her shield wall. "And I don't have enough magic to keep that up."

Absurdly, the two of them turned to Tatsuya, as if he could provide a solution. "You're a normal boy?" Mami asked.

Tatsuya nodded.

Kyouko began laughing. "Wow, what the fuck are you even doing here? Is this some sort of joke?"

There was finality in the way Tatsuya stepped forwards. For the past week he had crawled and stumbled and ran. He hadn't known his purpose then, and he certainly didn't know it now. Tatsuya's gaze flickered over to the demons, now pounding away at Kyouko's shield.

"This will sound strange," Tatsuya said, "but you three were heroes to me, long before you ever met me. Or the demons attacked. It's strange to see you all look so broken."

Mami looked oddly peaceful. "The camp couldn't survive without resources any longer. We had to make a move, so we attacked Götterdämmerung. And we failed."

"'Broken,' are we?" Kyouko asked. "I'm guess I'm just tired."

"We've done our part and fought. And ultimately, what hope was there for us? This is how our story ends—filled with failure and regret," Mami said. "We couldn't protect this city. But if we die, we'll do so together."

Tatsuya knelt down by Homura. The darkness in her soul gem was quickly overtaking whatever light remained. Homura stared at Tatsuya with wide eyes. Slowly, she struggled to raise an arm up to Tatsuya's face.

"Well," Tatsuya said, "if the mightiest heroes are only ordinary humans, scared and alone, isn't the reverse true? You're right. I'm just a boy. But an ordinary human can rise up from the darkness of a normal life into the glory of heroism, right?"

"I'd like to see you do that," Kyouko said. There was an awful snapping sound as the first layer of Kyouko's shield wall gave in.

"There were people who came before us," Tatsuya said. "Isn't that right, Sakura-san? People dear to us fought and died so that we might have the hope, no matter how faint, of a brighter tomorrow. They continue to live at our backs, pressing us forwards. I think it would be the ultimate disservice to them if we were to just give up."

Kyouko stared at the demons advancing upon them and did not answer.

Tatsuya grasped Homura's hand. "I was raised hearing about heroes," he said. "The magical girls of Mitakihara. Tomoe Mami. Sakura Kyouko. Miki Sayaka. Akemi Homura. I could never truly understand them, though. They were part of the magical world, and I was a member of the normal world. And even beyond that, it was frightening to think about how children just as young as me had to give up their lives to defend the world. And sometimes, they just died in vain. Nobody would remember them.

"But now, you know, I think I understand. I didn't come out here to live or to die. I did it to see you three with my own eyes, even if it was only for one last time. Because I've been told that I have a destiny, but for the world I can't tell you what that destiny is. But even if I don't know what it is, I think I can still choose it."

Homura's voice was the weak whisper of the dying. "Tatsuya," she said. "Please—"

She raised a hand and turned Tatsuya's face towards her.

"I'm not glad you came," she said. "You could have lived on."

Tatsuya nodded. "I'm sorry."

"I can see her in your face," Homura said. "Again and again, whenever she contracted, she would apologize. I swore to myself that I would never again see the face she made when she apologized."

Homura's eyes devoured Tatsuya's face, taking in every detail, burning it into a mind that was preparing itself to die.

Tatsuya pulled his hand away from Homura and straightened his back. "I told you, didn't I? I didn't come here to die."

It was such a small motion, Tatsuya thought, and one that he had done repeatedly in a mixture of boredom and desperation so many times before. The ring was no different, but it seemed to slide into place on his finger like the pieces of a watch fitting together.

For a moment, it seemed to Tatsuya like nothing had changed. Then, his mind derailed like a jump cut in a film, and he was suddenly in a different world.

The chamber was coated in candy. The want for sweets was the most childish, primal want, and it had exploded onto the walls like it exploded inside a little girl's head. There was a black snake, long and twisted like an intestine, with a large, gaping mouth lined with knives.

Tatsuya knew that it was a witch. It was another stage in the life cycle of a magical girl. Really, any human being had witches inside them, just as surely as they felt despair. The blackness flowing in their veins and slowly infecting their hearts was the witch. Magical girls only had the misfortune to have their witches writ large across their souls.

He saw the witch devouring the mangled body of one girl while an Incubator sat on its haunches and flicked its tail.

He saw the sludge of despair pool inside one girl's soul gem while her mind became an echo chamber of doubt and self-hate and envy.

He saw one girl accept the futility of life and resolve on the best course of action—to die gloriously, to save another, instead of live on in desperation.

And by the darkness that Tatsuya saw infesting the lives of not only the mahou shoujo, but also those of the ordinary human beings, he knew that despair wasn't an enemy that could be fought, but instead an infection that could only be inoculated against. It took root deep inside the spirit of mankind, twisting itself through the sinew and flesh of society.

He saw one girl finally gaze upon the rivers of blood she had spilled for a fight with no end and no purpose. That was despair—to know that all possible gains or victories were illusions, and that the only substance to be found in life was the specter of death. He saw the girl lie down and surrender.

Tatsuya, listen to me.

He saw that despair could not take one girl, who stood defiant against the Incubator.

You have had destiny ever since your birth, by your own choice. Because you could see me. Because you knew that I was watching over you. You have power, Tatsuya, because out of the billions of people on this planet, you know best, even if you try to deny it, that hope is there. And you know that I am watching over the heroes that defend hope.

Tatsuya heard the voice of the Incubator, shocked at what one girl, one temporarily organized assortment of organic chemicals perched on one ruined corner of one small planet, had the audacity to wish for.

Do you really want to become a God?

He heard the words that the girl spoke and watched as she smashed the system that the Incubators had created. His sister struck with the power of a thousand suns, destroying and renewing, extending her protective grasp over the new universe that she created.

So this is how the story ends, he thought, and watched as the witches were saved and his sister ascended into divinity. And while despair kept its firm grip on the throat of humanity, Tatsuya knew that his sister did not allow it to win over the hearts of the mahou shoujo.

So, Tatsuya, Madoka said, do you understand now?

I do.

I'm sorry that I've placed this burden on you.

Don't be. People in our family are good at shouldering burdens, Tatsuya said.

Mami and Kyouko stared as Tatsuya began to glow. Above him, light burst through the clouds that had blanketed the city, a revelation of the free sky, cleansed of darkness, that lay behind it.

Madoka's voice grew in intensity inside Tatsuya's mind. If you understand your destiny, and you choose to accept it, then you must cast aside what has held you back up until now. The blood of the Goddess runs inside you, marking you for greatness.

Tatsuya,

Fire burned inside Tatsuya's mind, searing Madoka's words inside the folds of his brain for the rest of eternity.

RISE UP.

The demons recoiled as the human before them began to emanate an awful light, cutting through the miasma that sustained them. As he walked forwards, he seemed to be gliding through the air, and his eyes shined with a golden color that pierced through the blackness.

With a final smash, the demons broke through Kyouko's shield wall, only to find themselves unwilling to go any closer to Tatsuya.

Tatsuya knelt beside Homura and passed a hand over her soul gem. "Sadly, this sort of thing only happens once," he said. "But that's how miracles work, isn't it?"

Kyouko looked at Homura's purified soul gem and managed to form only one word around her astonishment—"How?"

"In this world, hope and miracles exist," Tatsuya said, and his voice rang with truth more solid than the Earth itself.

Homura's wings extended outwards, and instead of the white wings she had once had, these were jagged and filled with blackness. There were stars dotted across the wings, and they flickered like a fading dream. Tatsuya thought of his sister, straddled across the cosmos while she protected Earth, and he looked back at Homura's wings. They weren't harsh or frightening. They were surreal, but even though they seemed like something that didn't belong in this world, Tatsuya felt a connection to them.

He knew who lived inside those wings.

Homura stood beside him, not in astonishment over her resurrection, not surprised by the black wings that now sprouted from her back, but instead, with a determined, resolute look chiseled into her face. She took one glance at Tatsuya and nodded.

"The demons are doomed to failure," Tatsuya said, "because there is a Goddess above, watching over the mahou shoujo, and, by proxy, all of humanity. When we fight, it is with her strength that we strike. When we live, it is by her benevolence."

Tatsuya's voice grew louder. "And humanity will not fall," he said, "because the will of the Goddess above is hope, and by her hand will humanity be delivered from despair."

Homura leaped forwards, startling the demons out of their paralysis. They fired upon her as one, and in one sweep of her wings she swept aside lasers and claws, before bringing another wing down and obliterating the entire mass of demons.

Götterdämmerung, judgment reaching down from the skies, towered above Homura. As she raced upwards towards it, its surface began to bubble. First a second arm emerged, then a torso, until a giant reached out of the tower, stringy bits of flesh connecting it to Götterdämmerung.

Homura's wings extended, until tip to tip they blanketed the sky, painting a picture of a starry night of color and light across the firmament's canvas.

Götterdämmerung shot one laser. Kyouko stepped in front of Tatsuya in time to shield his fragile human body from the shockwave.

The blast washed over Homura, but she continued to ascend towards Götterdämmerung. As the demon poured energy into the blast, the stars in Homura's wings seemed to glow brighter, and the light of her soul gem was visible even from the ground.

Homura floated above Götterdämmerung for a moment. Time flowed around the girl and the demon in that one tiny fraction of eternity as they stared at each other, two pillars of light piercing the sky.

Then, Homura drew her bow back in one smooth, deliberate motion. An instant later, purple light split the sky, like a shooting star streaking across the heavens.

Götterdämmerung collapsed, huge pieces of flesh burning as they fell, before dissolving entirely into miasma. A bit of the demon's face crashed down not far from Tatsuya. He watched as its features melted away.

Awe and fear glistened in the sweat on Mami and Kyouko's faces as Homura landed on the ground besides them. There was uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Mami spoke, a halting hesitancy in her voice. "Homura?"

"I'm still the same person," Homura said. "I have had a lot of practice being Akemi Homura."

Homura smiled, and Tatsuya was struck by how radiant that icy face was when sunlight struck it.

"I am still your friend."

Kyouko looked away in embarrassment and chuckled. The fear melted away from Mami's face, but it was replaced with concern. "What…was that?" she asked.

"Tatsuya saved me."

Mami turned towards Tatsuya. "What you said about the Goddess is true, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tatsuya said. The light had died around him, but his eyes still glowed gold.

"How do you know?" Mami asked, without any hint of skepticism in her voice.

"It's my destiny," Tatsuya said, "to place the Goddess in the heart of humanity, and to give the people hope. And just like any other prophet, I know this because the Goddess told me."

Kyouko stared at Tatsuya. "If there really is a Goddess, like you say, then why has she let hundreds of millions people die? Why'd she have to wait?"

"She's not omnipotent," Tatsuya said, "although, you have to consider what a world without her would be like. But that's beside the point. The Goddess cannot snap her fingers and make everything a paradise. It is up to us to save the world."

Kyouko turned to Homura.

"What he says is true," Homura said.

"I believe him," Mami said, stepping forwards. "How could I not, after seeing that? Not many people are lucky enough to say that they live for a reason. We were saved by a miracle right now. I'm willing to believe. If it means that there's hope for this world, I'll believe with all of my being."

Kyouko shook her head. "It's hard to accept that there's a Goddess, even after seeing that," she said. "I know you're special, kid. But what does it mean for there to be a Goddess? What's she going to do for me? What am I supposed to do for her? People have been giving answers to those questions for millennia, and I'm pretty sure they were all lying. I don't know any of that shit."

"I could teach you," Tatsuya said. He waited a second before saying, "And you might give me a chance before calling me a liar."

Kyouko grinned. "All right, then. I'll follow you. But I have to admit, I don't understand most of what you're saying. The stuff about knowing us was completely incomprehensible. And first I gotta know your name. Tatsuya, was it?"

"Yes," Tatsuya said. "Kaname Tatsuya."

The smile gradually slipped off Kyouko's face. "Kaname Tatsuya," she repeated, her brow scrunched in concentration. "That name sounds familiar."

Tatsuya nodded slowly. "I'm sure it is."

-x-

Kaname Tomohisa wept when he was reunited with his son. Tatsuya looked at his father and saw the lines carved into his face and the sickly pallor to his skin. In the weeks since Tatsuya had seen him, death had stolen years.

"Don't worry, Dad. From now on, everything's going to be all right," he said, before starting to cry with him.

The people of Mitakihara spoke of him around campfires in hushed tones. They said that when he spoke, he took words from heaven above and placed them on his lips. They called him the boy who was followed by light. And, one day, Tatsuya found an ornate pendant of a rose, carved out of wood, lying misplaced on a table. The owner had flushed in reverence when Tatsuya returned it and complimented her on her craftsmanship. They exchanged pleasantries before Tatsuya realized that he really was creating a new religion.

With Götterdämmerung toppled, and the miasma mostly dispelled from Mitakihara, the mahou shoujo had the task of relocating the inhabitants of the refugee camps back into the city. They worked quickly, not only moving people but also using magic to quickly rebuilt infrastructure, guided by what few engineers and JSDF soldiers remained. Bunkers and barricades began popping up soon afterwards. Mitakihara was being transformed into a city of forts and the Goddess.

News of the miracle at Mitakihara had spread quickly throughout the Japanese islands, and then to the world beyond. In the few communications that Homura received from international magical girls, most of them had some form of the question: is there really a Goddess?

Homura would always allow Tatsuya to respond, and each time, Tatsuya would answer, "Of course."

Tatsuya found his new life to be surprisingly busy. He spent one month, speaking and praying to rally morale, before he found one moment of respite.

In all likelihood, nobody would miss him for one afternoon, but Tatsuya still arranged to cover his absence. Kyouko and Mami would explain to anybody who asked that Kaname Tatsuya had business outside the city, and would unfortunately not be able to meet with anybody.

After lunch, Tatsuya walked out of the austere apartment complex he now called home. Two magical girls flanked him on either side. Out of all the city's inhabitants, the mahou shoujo had been the fastest to flock to Tatsuya. It had been easy to find girls who were willing to play bodyguard for a day. It was still dangerous outside the city, after all, although miasma spawn rates within the city walls had dropped dramatically. The decrease in spawning had baffled the Incubators, whose data from the past month had indicated that miasma tended to spawn near human populations. The migration back into Mitakihara should have moved the spawning grounds back into the city, but instead, they remained in the abandoned camps, where the people had once gathered.

Tatsuya had some idea as to why the miasma could no longer spawn, which he had told Kyubey. Kyubey had tilted its head and only said, That hypothesis is not falsifiable.

The magical girls that were going with Tatsuya nodded their heads respectfully as he approached. They weren't as old as the leaders of the mahou shoujo, like Homura. Tatsuya could easily imagine them in Mitakihara middle school. They were his peers.

A former JSDF soldier drove them in an APC salvaged from the demons to the outskirts of the cities. Tatsuya and the two magical girls sat in the back of the vehicle.

"Are you going to see someone?" one of the girls asked.

Tatsuya turned to look at her. Her vibrant purple costume looked like it could have come straight from an anime. The other girl had a similarly outstated blue costume. Their clothing contrasted with the aged looks on their faces. They spoke words of death so easily, with their faces unmoving, that Tatsuya couldn't help but imagine them much older than he knew they were.

"Yes. Are you?"

"A friend," the other girl said.

"Her name was Akiyama Yoshino," the first girl said. "She died defending the camps. This is the first time we can go out and…see her, I guess."

The girl's voice broke. "Look, if—if there really is a Goddess, then shouldn't there be a heaven? Won't we get to meet Yoshino one more time?"

Tatsuya stayed silent for some time, but not long enough to make the girls think that he was ignoring them. He was thinking.

"You know," Tatsuya said, "I know that the life of a magical girl is one filled with regrets. There's no way to prepare somebody of our age for war. And there are kind words that remain unsaid, and good that stays undone."

There were tears running down the first girl's face. She blushed in mortification when she saw Tatsuya looking at her, but Tatsuya, as best as he could, smiled back.

"The Goddess is with every magical girl as they die," he said. "She delivers their soul from the despair they suffered in life. And then, she releases them. I am not going to lie to you or deceive you. I do not want to administer comforting lies to the public, so that they follow me like blind sheep. There is probably not a heaven waiting for your friend."

Tatsuya placed a hand on the girl's shoulder as she shuddered with silent sobs. "But I haven't answered your real question. The Goddess exists outside of time and the fabric of this world. Even if the meetings you and your friend have with the Goddess are separated by time, she can still bring the two of you together. So, I believe the answer to your question is 'yes.' I'm absolutely certain, if you ask, that you can meet Yoshino one last time."

The girl blinked through her tears. "Really?"

"Of course. I said that I wouldn't lie."

"I'm glad, then."

The other girl slowly reached over and intertwined her fingers with the first one. They began to whisper, and Tatsuya turned away to leave them to their moment.

When the car stopped and Tatsuya stepped out, he began to walk ahead of his magical girl escorts. They continued to guard him from afar as Tatsuya navigated his way through the rubble.

As far as anybody could tell, this particular patch of rubble was the remains of the campsite his mother had been in when the demons attacked. None of the bodies had been identifiable, and the graves were dug hurriedly and without much care to the dead.

Tatsuya stopped and knelt at the ground. He could still feel the miasma crawling against his skin. All that was left in the blasted wreck of the camp were the remnants of evil and the hovels that the people had lived in. There was nothing here to remember his mother by.

That was fine, though. Anything left on the physical world to remind Tatsuya of his mother would be a poor substitute for her own warm, living body. His mother continued to live only in memories and dreams. Elsewhere, she was a whisper—the mother of the prophet, a poorly defined character in a story. There were very few people that could still bring the whispers back to life.

Tatsuya instinctively flinched as he felt bright light hit his eyes. When the light faded, there were two people standing in front of him.

The first was Homura, whose wings were receding back into her body, taking the light with her. It took Tatsuya a second to recognize the second person.

Madoka's hair was shorter, and her eyes didn't glow golden anymore. It took Tatsuya a moment to realize that he had always envisioned his sister as an otherworldly beauty, but now, her features seemed perfectly plain. Instead of her usual white dress, she now wore a rather frilly pink skirt.

"I'm sorry that we're late, Tatsuya," Madoka said. "Homura and I had a little conversation."

Tatsuya shook his head. "It's all right."

A mix of somberness and happiness shone through the ordinary stone mask of Homura's face. To many, this would have been disconcerting, but when Tatsuya had first seen Homura in his childhood, she had been smiling. Her hand fit snugly inside Madoka's.

"Can you visit more often?" Tatsuya asked. "I'll need your help."

A hint of regret ran through the expression that Madoka made. "Manifesting myself in this world at will takes a lot of effort," she said. "You'll know when you'll need me, and when those times come, I'll be there. That's all I can promise you."

Tatsuya made brief eye contact with Homura, and he could see the disappointment in his eyes mirrored within Homura's own.

Madoka reached forwards and gave Tatsuya a hug. "You shouldn't worry about where I'll be in the future. I'm here now."

Laughing softly, Madoka ran a hand though Tatsuya's hair. "And you've grown so much now," she said. "I never really had the chance to tell you that."

Tatsuya smiled. "Madoka, can I ask you something?"

"Yes?"

"What was our family like when you were with us?"

Madoka pulled away from Tatsuya. If he stared long enough into those eyes, Tatsuya felt like he was wading through time that ran so thick it barely allowed movement. She seemed human—she was human—but for one moment, Tatsuya couldn't help but remember that he was looking at a god whose human life had happened worlds and eternities away.

"When I was a teenage girl," Madoka said, "mom was a figure of…someone that I wanted to be, but knew that I never could become. She was strong, and independent, and successful at work, and cool. She always said…"

Madoka glanced downwards, and her face darkened. "…that she wanted me to drink with her when I grew up. I failed her, you know. But mom always expected me to take care of my baby brother, who was always getting into trouble. And I thought, even if I was just a kid, if I could help raise Tatsuya, then I'd be a little useful, wouldn't I?

"I'm proud of what you've done and who you've become, Tatsuya."

Tatsuya bowed his head and said nothing.

Homura stepped forwards beside him. "For the entire week, I had been busy trying to keep the camp intact," she said. "When the attack that killed her came, I was too far away to help. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Tatsuya said. "Regret is a fool's game."

Slowly, Homura kneeled beside Tatsuya. "Some time after I first met her in this timeline, your mother found out that I didn't have any family to stay with. After that, she kept inviting me to your house, over and over again. Half the time I couldn't come because of my duties. As I grew older, life became busier, and I eventually stopped seeing her at all."

Tatsuya hesitantly placed a hand on Homura's shoulder. It was easy to realize that for her, his mother had been the closest thing to family she had ever had.

Homura's breath hitched, and Tatsuya realized that she was crying silently.

Through her tears, she said, "I need you, Tatsuya. I'm no leader. Even though I can fight, when it comes to inspiring people and making them believe, I can't do it. We need a leader to fight on."

Homura took a deep breath. "And we have to fight on. All of us need something to remember the people who came before us. Your mother was such a wonderful person. I failed her once already, and I won't do it again" she said. Madoka reached down and pulled her into an embrace. Slowly, Homura's breathing returned to its normal pace.

The three of them sat there for a while, as the wind whipped dust into ghostly trails that danced along the ruins. Tatsuya thought it fitting, for a brief moment, that now, there were no tombstones or markers to remember his mother. None of them had any idea where she was, only that she wasn't there.

"I thought of a happy dream," Tatsuya said. Homura and Madoka turned to him with questioning looks.

Tatsuya's smile broke the veil of darkness that had fallen over them. He turned towards his sister. "It's a world where you stayed with us," he said, "and you two are madly in love, like things should be. And mom is alive, and she's happy for both of you. Everyone's happy. There isn't any pain, and even if there is, we have each other to lick the wounds. It sounds so silly, doesn't it? But it sounds like the way things should be.

"Mom would be so happy that her daughter found someone so wonderful to love. Well, she'd be shocked, at first, that her innocent Madoka was growing up so quickly, but she'd get over it soon. Dad would just smile. And at the wedding, mom would…"

Madoka giggled. "There's a wedding?"

They sat in the ruins and talked about the happy dream until the sunset came and sent streaks of pink streaming across the sky. Madoka glanced upwards and said, "Well, Tatsuya, what do you do in the happy dream?"

Tatsuya couldn't answer for a while. "I don't know."

"Why not?"

"I've never had many friends in school," Tatsuya said. "I suppose I would have friends, but the more that I think about it, the less important it seems. Logic dictates that I would live out the life of a regular middle school student, without Incubators or magical girls. I don't know what that would be like. If you beamed me up onto an alien planet, it would be pretty much the same."

Madoka smiled. "Then, even if your place should be in the happy dream, your destiny has put you here, on this world of suffering. Both of you."

As she stood, Madoka's hair flared out into long strands of pink intertwined with the sunset. "Even if people suffer and die, they will live their lives knowing that Kaname Tatsuya and Akemi Homura are fighting for them. Because of you, they will have hope. That is far more than I could possibly ask of either of you, but you do it anyway."

Homura shrugged, and the hint of a smirk flashed across her face. "It's not terribly inconvenient. We have a deity on our side."

"That is true," Madoka said, stepping in close to Homura. Suddenly, she pointed at the sky behind Tatsuya. "Hey, Tatsuya, what's that?"

When Tatsuya turned back around, Homura was flushed and breathing hard.

"I can't stay any longer," Madoka said. "Until next time?"

"Of course," Tatsuya said. Madoka leaned in to whisper something in Homura's ear, before light swirled around her body, and she disappeared.

Tatsuya turned to Homura. "The magical girls will want me to head back now," he said. "We should get going."

Homura nodded and started walking forwards. Something made Tatsuya hesitate for a moment, and he paused to look behind him. In the spot where they had been sitting, a rose plant had inexplicably grown out of the rubble.

"It's strange to think that people look up to us now," Homura said, after Tatsuya had caught up. "I haven't grown used to it over the years. There are so many people who deserve recognition, but instead remain invisible."

Tatsuya shrugged. "I seem to have inadvertently started a religion around Madoka. That counts as remembrance enough, in my opinion."

"That is true," Homura said. "But Madoka's too humble to want worship, or even necessarily recognition. So what are the people making signs and learning prayers for?"

"To remember her," Tatsuya said. He thought about the girl with the rose pendant. "Not for her sake, but for their own. To remind themselves that there is somebody who walks with them and guides them. And for us, so that we remember that there were people who came before. Mom and Madoka won't die so long as we continue to believe that there can be heroes, and we can still struggle for something worth fighting for."

Heads held high, Homura and Tatsuya walked into the impending night.

-x-

The Prophet, his religion, and the armies that rallied under his banner were new and untested. They faced the enemy, in its million forms. They knew that the enemy's aim was the destruction of humanity.

But the enemy knew not that the Goddess above was at the Prophet and the Servant's side.

And though their limbs ached with the toil of battle and their hearts shook with the losses of war,

By the license of the Goddess did the armies in her name grow in strength,

And with the fury of the oncoming tide did her flag advance.

-x-

END INTERMISSION PART 2

-x-

(here's a fun fact: the "tatsu" of the given name "tatsuya" is usually written with the kanji for either "dragon" or "master.")

(however, "tatsu" can also be written as "立." its use in the name "tatsuya" is apparently quite rare, as a cursory examination of the wikipedia page on the name "tatsuya" reveals that, out of a long list of notable people with the name, only ishihara tatsuya has his given name written as "立也." When "tatsu" is written like this, its meaning is "to stand.")

(or, in less frequent contexts, "to rise.")

-x-

Shout out to AKAAkira and yo, who've both been giving me substantial and consistent reviews. You two are pretty baller dudes. To all my reviewers, the time you guys spend supporting me is greatly appreciated.

As always, please leave a review if you have anything, be it praise or criticism,to say about my work. Thank you!