The Iron Sole Alchemist and the Magical Girls (Chapter 4) Madoka's Return
by Howlin
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the universes, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Sloth, and Loki as my own creation. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)
In a flash of gold light, I used the Oin's power over space to transport myself, Loki, and the magical girls to where my magic map said Kyubey was. The magical girls had all transformed into their unique battle costumes. Loki was in his green scaled, gold maned, three hundred pound chimera form.
Homura was dancing in front of an audience of her paper doll familiars with Kyubey lying motionless off to the side. Our appearance took her completely by surprise.
In the fraction of a second it took Homura to recognize what was going on, Mami summoned and fired a hundred single shot, rifled flintlocks. Some were aimed at Homura and some at her audience of familiars. Nagisa transformed into her witch, the cartooney black worm with clown makeup, a party hat for a nose, and massive, sharp teeth. Instead of transforming, Sayaka summoned her witch to fight beside her, a massive mechanical mermaid with a huge sword.
Kyoko and I rushed Homura directly, me managing to wrap the chain form of my zanpakto around her neck and decapitate her while Kyoko drove her spear through Humora's chest. Loki hung back. Unable to see much of what was going on, my pet chimera waited for me to give him a signal.
Destroying Homura's body didn't even slow her down. In a flash of purple light, Homura towered over us dressed in black and with a pair of black feathered wings coming out of her back. She had to be a hundred feet tall. An army of familiars marched out of the city to join their mistress in battle.
Homura's familiars were intercepted by the familiars Sayaka and Nagisa commanded. The four magical girls coordinated an attack on Homura while I turned and flash stepped toward Kyubey. Suddenly, the sounds of battle stopped, and my charge was intercepted by an enormous gloved hand.
Homura had stopped time to intercept me and the Oin's power over time allowed me to keep moving when everything else was frozen. She widened her eyes when I collided with her hand, but she had the presence of mind to close her hand around me. Then she picked me up and raised me to eye level.
"I told you to stay away from my friends," said Homura angrily. "I tried to be reasonable, but you've let me no choice."
Homura squeezed my body to pulp, crushing my skull with her thumb, and tossed my corpse to the ground contemptuously. Before I struck the ground, the Oin's power automatically reversed time's effect on me, undoing my death and restoring my body. I solidified spirit particles in the air into a handhold and caught myself.
Time resumed for everyone as I teleported next to Kyubey and cast a spell. Homura grabbed me and threw me through Sayaka's giant mechanical summoned witch form. I struck with the force of a comet, blasting straight through the witch's chest. I opened my arms and halted my momentum, then used space time reversion to undo the damage to Sayaka's witch.
Sayaka's witch grappled with Homura, holding her still while Mami summoned an enormous flintlock cannon and blasted Homura in the temple. Her brains were blown out, but magical girls don't need their brains to think, so the damage was largely cosmetic.
While the battle with Homura raged, my homunculus self was on the other side of town, hidden beneath an invisibility cloak. I'd taken a small dose of felix felicis, the gold colored good luck potion, about enough for ten minutes. The giddiness that was a side effect of the potion had me chuckling to myself as I reflected on the situation.
All of the new powers I'd squired since leaving this world were in the hands of my other half, currently fighting Homura. It was questionable whether any of those powers would make a difference. I'd restored the memories of the other magical girls using only alchemy I'd known since long before leaving my original world, and if all went according to plan, restoring Madoka would be handled the same way. The invisibility cloak and potion I was using were things I'd had with me the first time I'd visited this world too.
I brought my mind back to the task at hand when I reached Madoka's house. The windows were dark, and everyone had gone to bed. A small cluster of birdlike familiars were perched on a tree outside Madoka's window, watching over the pink haired girl and relaying their senses to Homura.
Invisible thanks to my cloak and intangible thanks to the array tattooed on my back, I stepped through the wall and into Madoka's bedroom. She was wearing flannel pajamas and her blankets were twisted from her tossing and turning in her sleep. A shelf filled with stuffed animals was positioned above her bed, high enough that she wouldn't hit her head sitting up.
I knew the plan, but the felix felicis in my system prompted me with an overwhelming urge to deviate from it. I tossed aside my invisibility cloak and called out, "Madoka, wake up!"
Madoka's pink eyes shot open. Before she had a chance to scream in response to the stranger in her room, Homura appeared, having abandoned the battle to defend Madoka personally. She was too late. With timing that would have been impossible without the good luck potion coursing through my veins, I clapped my hands the same instant Homura appeared, and all three of us were taken before the Gate.
Madoka and Homura were both phenomenally powerful beings capable of reshaping the universe to their whims. When the Gate opened, the amorphous black creatures I called the Gate Children reached out to claw away pieces from the two of them and were blasted into nothingness on contact. The absence of the Gate Children did nothing to make me feel safer as I stood before the Gate with the pair.
With our minds flooded with all the knowledge in creation, we also knew each other. When the Gate closed, that prospective would be lost, but for right now, there could be no lies between us, no deceiving ourselves, and no misunderstandings. Taking hold of that golden opportunity, I turned to Homura.
"The thing you love about Madoka is her kindness and generosity of spirit. Again and again, throughout every timeline, no matter what you did or how broken you became, and even when you were someone who scared her, Madoka always opened her heart to you and decided you were someone she cared about."
"But you were too kind," said Homura sadly, ignoring me entirely. "You were so selfless you were willing to sacrifice yourself again and again. I had to watch you do that. Then you became the Law of Cycles and you'd sacrificed yourself so completely, I was the only one who remembered you ever existed."
Turning to Madoka, who's pink eyes had turned gold when the return of her memories reconnected her to her power, I said, "It's hard to love someone who doesn't love herself. Homura knew you were important and worthy as an ordinary human being. Deciding she was wrong about that hurt her."
"I'm so sorry, Homura," said Madoka. "I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't think about how my wish would hurt you. I was only thinking about myself, how much I wanted to save you and all the others, and how powerless I was."
"And by cutting Madoka off from the Law of Cycles, you made her powerless again," I said to Homura. "The girl you love more than anything, you turned back the clock to when she was helpless, weak, and hating herself for it. The others could have been happy in your gilded cage, but the most important one, she never could."
"It was never going to work," said Homura. "The more I tried to protect you, to convince you to live for your own sake, the more miserable you got. You're someone who couldn't be happy if you weren't doing something for someone else. I should have understood that about you. I did understand that. I just lied to myself because I couldn't stand thinking I'd been hurting you all along. I'm so sorry, Madoka."
"You both love each other," I said. "What you've been doing hasn't been working because you've made assumptions about what the other person wants and needs. If you want to fix this, you have to talk to each other."
"Homura, I want to keep being the Law of Cycles," said Madoka. "Being omnipresent means I'm always close to the people I love and being timeless and acausal means I don't ever lose them. But most importantly, saving magical girls from becoming witches means I have some meaning and purpose. I feel good about who I am and what I do."
"Madoka," said Homura, "I want you with me. And not as some undetectable presence. You may feel like you're always with us when you're omnipresent, but to those of us still living in the world you're gone. I also need you to let other people help you and support you without getting down on yourself for it. You're not the only one who feels good when they help someone. Let me help you. Let your mom and dad be your parents. Let your little brother Tatsuya grow up with a big sister he can look up to and adore. Talk to your friends when you're feeling weak, or scared, or helpless and let them be there for you like you're there for them."
"I can be both Madoka and the Law of Cycles at once," said Madoka. "I am right now. I can stay like this, both existing inside time and being beyond it. Of course, if I did stay, Kyubey or someone else might come after me in order to interfere with the Law of Cycles." Madoka smiled.
Homura smiled back and said, "I can protect you. Even when you were just the Law of Cycles, Kyubey tried to trap you, control you... I used my power to do the same thing, but I could use it to ensure you're safe and free, no matter what comes."
The Gate closed. Madoka and Homura were holding hands and smiling. They both flinched when I clapped my hands.
Now that I knew what Madoka was, I knew what I had to do. When I'd asked myself what I was willing to do to get Sloth back, this was something I never even considered. Even so, I didn't hesitate.
With my hands clasped firmly together, I dropped to my knees and prayed.
"Madoka, someone very important to me was taken by the Law of Cycles. I didn't know what form she exists in now. If she's happy and content in whatever afterlife you've prepared for her, so be it, but if it can be done without it being a cruelty to her, I beg of you, bring her back to me."
"You don't have to do that," said Madoka, smiling benevolently down at me. "I had a talk with Sloth. She's on her way now."
A glowing pink portal opened up and Sloth stepped through. She was wearing the black bodysuit, red cloak with a flamel on the back, and gold crown with her Soul Gem set in the front that served as her magical girl combat outfit. Her hood was back, revealing her blue eyes and brown hair, done up in two braids that went down her back under the cloak. When she spotted me, she leapt into my arms.
On my knees, I still had to duck down a little to wrap my arms around her and hug her tight, assuring myself she wasn't going to disappear like a dream or an illusion. She kissed me then nuzzled her head against my shoulder.
"Magical girl heaven was a nice place to wait until you came for me, but I'm glad to be alive again," said Sloth.
"If you ever want to come back, there will always be a place for you," said Madoka as the portal closed.
"We should probably tell the others the war's over," said Homura, transporting us out of Madoka's bedroom and to the battlefield.
Homura's familiars vanished and everyone fighting them stopped and we saw Madoka and Homura standing together. Sayaka and Nagisa dismissed their familiars. Then the four magical girls and my other self came up to where we were standing. I removed my backup soul and merged with my spirit self, synchronizing our memories.
"What happened?" asked Mami.
"Homura and I talked," said Madoka. "We're going to be friends again."
"So, is it time to go?" asked Nagisa.
Madoka shook her head. "You can return to the Law of Cycles whenever you want, but I'd be pretty hypercritical if I didn't let you stay human when I'm going to."
"You're staying human?" asked Sayaka.
"Well, maybe a little more than that," said Madoka with a smile quirking on the side of her mouth.
"I-" began Homura awkwardly. "I tried to force everyone into roles I thought they'd be happy in. I was wrong, and I apologize. I hope you'll let me try to be your friend again."
Looking at Madoka as she silently pleaded for her friend to understand, Sayaka sighed and said, "That's gonna take some time. Lunch is on you for the next hundred years, and if you ever hurt Madoka like this again, I won't forgive you."
"So, what happens now?" asked Kyoko. "Do we just go home and see each other at school tomorrow?"
"There is one more thing," I said. I whistled and Loki appeared at my side, Kyubey's limp corpse held between his razor sharp fangs. "During the fight, I outlined Kyubey with a spell so Loki could see where he was and finish him off. Were you telling the truth about this being the last one?"
"Yes," said Homura, looking down at the dead Incubator.
"It feels weird," said Sayaka. "I mean, yeah, he caused basically all our problems, but he's the reason we're all together."
"When I wished to change the rules of how magical girls worked, I hoped it would mean Kyubey would change how he acted," said Madoka.
"Kyubey's the only reason I'm alive," said Mami.
"Why did you kill him?" asked Nagisa. "Didn't he offer you a wish if you saved him? I thought he was your backup plan."
"I had Loki kill him," I clarified, "because he granted Madoka's wish. Out of nowhere, he granted a wish that reached out across realities and back through time to kill Sloth in a way I didn't understand for months after she was gone. And the person who made the wish didn't even want to hurt her. As long as Kyubey's alive, that could happen again, and I won't stand for it."
"What would you have done if plan A didn't work?" asked Kyoko.
"Taken his corpse back to my lab and brought him back to life in a way I could easily undo after I got what I wanted."
"You can do that?" asked Sloth.
"After you died, I fought a bunch of evil fullbringers and stole their powers," I said. "One of them, called Book of the End, lets me insert a false past into someone or something. I'd insert a false past where I saved Kyubey, then, once I got what I wanted, I could remove that false past and he'd go back to being dead."
"And since you never rally killed him, he wouldn't become a part of your bankai," said Sloth. "Nice."
"Will you bring him back?" asked Homura.
"Why would you want that?" I asked.
"The wraiths," said Homura. "I have the power to destroy all of them. Kyubey understood how they arose out of magical distortions. I was using him to help me find them before they could attack anyone."
"You weren't succeeding," I said. "I found two wraiths in Mitakihara when I came back."
"Those were old wraiths," said Homura. "I had a familiar waiting every time a new wraith appeared to kill it immediately. Tracking the ones that were already here was taking time, but eventually, I could get them all."
"With no wraiths, magical girls can't purify their Soul Gems," said Sloth.
"I solved that," I said. "In the timeline where you died, I eventually figured out how to make artificial Grief Cubes."
"I know I screwed up making my wish," said Nagisa. "Sloth made agood one. Homura, do you think if Greed brings him back, you could keep him from granting wishes like mine?"
"Kyubey really did swear off granting wishes," said Homura, "but if he changes his mind, I can do that."
"What do you think, Sloth?" I asked.
"If Homura can reign him in and use him to clean up the wraiths, I suppose I can let go of my grudge against him," said Sloth. She held out a hand toward Kyubey's corpse.
"Wait," I said, lowering her hand. "If you resurrect him, it'll be no strings attached. Let me do it."
I took my badge off my belt and transformed it into sword form. At my signal, Loki dropped the corpse. I slashed the body, my blade doing no physical damage. The Incubator stirred and opened his pink eyes.
"Congratulations, Kyubey," I said. "The magical girls decided you get to live."
"You're here?" asked Kyubey, looking at Sloth. Then he turned back to me and thought, "Did I already grant your wish?"
"I granted his prayer," said Madoka.
"Don't think about going after her again," said Homura. "You know what'll happen if you do."
"Your survival has conditions," I said to the Incubator. "The magical girls have their conditions they'll be enforcing. My conditions are baked into the techniques I used to save your life. If you go to grant a wish that will effect anything outside this universe, you will die. If you try to tamper with the conditional I set, you'll burn away to nothing no matter how many bodies you have."
"I understand," thought Kyubey. "I'm impressed you managed to acquire so many interesting abilities since we met last. Are you ready for your wish?"
"I don't want a wish," I told the creature. "I like my soul the way it is. Instead, I'd like you to provide me with the equations, design specifications, and other technical data on granting wishes, producing Soul Gems, tracking magical distortions and the like."
"Why would you want that?" asked Kyubey.
"I've been working on a less horrifically exploitative implementation of a similar technology and your data would speed up the development process," I said. "I'll eventually figure out what I need on my own, but since you were offering a reward for saving you..."
"We've always tried to trade fairly with your species, even if we didn't understand your value system at all," thought Kyubey. "If that's what you want, here you go. Be careful with it, though."
I paid careful attention to what Kyubey was doing inside my mind as I let him past my occlumency barriers to implant the knowledge. He didn't try anything while he was in there. That done, I used the Oin's power to teleport Sloth, Loki, and myself back to the underground lab.
Author's comments:
Destroying your enemies isn't how one achieves their greatest victories. Madoka and Homura are reconciled, Kyubey is contained, Sloth is back, and the other magical girls will have time to start to reconcile with their friend.