Chapter 29
What was your wish?
Her jaw was aching. It felt like her face was frozen, rigid and mask-like.
A slim figure, seemingly out of place in her crisp, white school uniform, walked down the sidewalk along the outskirts of the trendy section of northwest Mitakihara where she lived. Lost in thought, it took Homura several minutes before she became aware of the stares...
Her fellow pedestrians were a mix of late-night-at-the-office corporate types, university students heading home from an evening shift or a night on the town, and occasionally stumbling middle-aged men trying to walk off their sake. They drifted through her field of vision, an instant of threat assessment to determine they posed no danger, and then they were gone. Singly, they occupied no more of her attention than individual drops of rain; noticed as they fell right in front of her lilac eyes, forgotten in the next moment.
It was people's actions as a group that gave Homura pause; an odd mix of erratically behaving humans was a good indication of Witch activity, under the influence of a Kiss.
She looked around, noticing several sets of eyes watching her. Not sinister, really, but disconcerting. An old, wizend man bobbed his head in acknowledgement as he passed by . A young couple, arm in arm, walked out of a shop as she stode past, doing a double take. As she strode across the intersection, a middle aged woman gave her a wide, bright smile. What the hell is going on? Homura thought, bewildered, as she got another nod from a suit-wearing man with grey hair, and a young, pigtailed girl holding her mother's hand actually smiled and waved.
Homura was invisible. She stalked through the city, unseen and unnoticed, returning the favor. As people continued to stare, to look at her, she became increasingly self conscious. What was wrong? What was different? Why was everyone looking at her, acknowledging her?
It was strange. Despite her unease, deep down it felt good. She was feeling like a new person; the last twenty-four hours had gone very, very differently from anything she'd experienced during any of the timelines she'd traveled through.
Striding by the large window of a late-night eatery, Homura glanced at her swiftly moving reflection, not seeing the dozen figures lounging around the tables inside. She stopped in her tracks, eyes wide.
The stark light of the overhead floodlights provided her a near-perfect reflection, but she didn't recognize the face she saw. It was almost bizarre, alien... the hair was the same, and the outfit, but-
Putting her hand to her cheeks, Homura was unable to wipe the smile off her face even as she became fully aware of it. She stared at her wide grin, her slightly narrowed eyes sparkling with new-found vitality. It was something she didn't see often, could barely remember, actually. She looked happy.
And, even stranger, she felt happy. At least she thought so. It had been so long.
A movement ahead caught her attention, and she focused on the several sets of eyes that gazed out from behind the window, some inquisitive, others rueful, but by and large responding to the manic grin with a wave, or a wink, or a slight nod. Most with a little smirk of empathic understanding.
Flustered, Homura spun away, her long black hair leaving a trail of darkness. It immediately separated her from the brief attention of the people within the shop. Several of the onlookers had found it strange that a middle school student would be out and about at this time of evening, wearing such a gleeful expression and staring into shop windows as if searching for something.
"So... will you tell me?"
"Tell you what, Homura-chan?" Madoka had giggled, a twinkle that Homura had almost forgotten dancing in her bright eyes.
"What was your wish?" The black-haired girl found herself desperate to know, for some reason she couldn't quite pinpoint.
Madoka had laughed a little, smiling shyly. "I... I don't want to tell. I know it's silly, but I want to see it before I say it out loud."
Lilac eyes stared at the pinkette, uncertain. Madoka began to blush, standing there awkwardly until Homura couldn't contain herself. "But... the whole point of becoming a Magical Girl is your wish... Kyubey should have granted it immediately-"
Grinning with embarrassment, the pinkette waved her hands limply. "Oh, I know that my wish 'has overcome entropy,' whatever that is," she muttered. "I just want to see how it works?" her voice rose, ending the statement as a question. "Anyway, it's early. Plenty of time to go out looking for a Witch." She frowned, lips pouting as she considered. "There's people out there, right now, that could be hurt tonight. Killed." She shuddered, Homura marveling at the strange admixture of innocence and courage. "So... will you come out with me? Can we hunt together?"
Homura attempted to force a smile, before she realized she was already wearing one. She was excited at the prospect of Magical Madoka, the strong, caring leader she had so sorely missed ever since she'd made the promise.
The promise. So often, recently, it came back to the promise. Who was she responsible to? Was this Madoka the real one? A girl she'd barely met, at least from the pinkette's viewpoint. A latecomer into the impending doomsday scenario that lay just around the corner. An innocent, foolish child who had no idea of the consequences of her actions.
Or the Madoka she remembered from a dozen lifetimes ago; the one who'd returned her love, only to be snatched away at the last second, the bitterest of defeats. A dead Madoka. The Madoka she'd had to-
"Of course," she exclaimed, perhaps a little too forcefully. Madoka had blinked, then smiled cheerfully, nearly bouncing with excitement.
Homura knew exactly where to find just the right Witch. It was just about next on the list, anyway.
Without Mami-san around, it was highly unlikely that this particular Witch would ever cross paths with Madoka, even tangentially. It didn't seem to employ Kisses, and rarely left a few block radius from the high school across town.
Homura thought of the Witch as the School Spider. There was no way to know a Witches name, of course, unless you were unlucky enough to encounter someone who you'd known as a Puella Magi. But after killing the same Witches, over and over, she begun to develop a certain understanding for them, even as she'd drawn away from humanity.
The Spider was one of the Witches Homura didn't hate. She pitied the thing. Or, more precisely, the girl that the thing had once been.
Madoka had transformed as they'd approached the barrier, amazed at how quickly the transfer student had found a Witch. "Last night I looked for hours," she said sheepishly.
"Got lucky. Get ready," Homura said, transforming into her magical attire. The shield, as always, provided her with a great sense of relief once she was physically holding it again. Then she watched, enraptured in the display as a swirling pink starburst seemed to explode, and there stood Magical Madoka, in all her glory.
Homura stared at the pinkette's flushed, excited expression, eyes wandering down to take in the radiant pink Soul Gem at her throat, and the expanse of bare skin above the corset wrapped around her torso. The poofy miniature dress with is pink petals and ruffles was adorable, and she saw the slim, elegant white gloves clutching at the fabric self-consciously.
The girl's slim, creamy legs that lay exposed below it were a spectacle, right down her knee-high white stockings and dainty pink shoes.
"Um... H-Homura-chan-" Madoka began, feeling warm under the other girl's stare.
The black-haired veteran cleared her throat. "W-we should get going." The pinkette nodded, suddenly serious, and the two had walked into the barrier together.
Madoka shielded her eyes, a bright blue sky taking her completely by surprise after the evening darkness she'd left behind. She noticed Homura glancing about, squinting but seeming to absorb every detail.
The blue sky was bright, but there didn't appear to be sun or anything like that. Instead, when Madoka looked up, she saw a vast network of interconnected lines, some type of cord or wire, stretching up into the sky. In the distance, she picked out movement. "I see something. I think."
Homura nodded without seeming to look where the pinkette pointed. "Where do you think it will be?" she asked, trying to get a feel for the girl's instincts.
"Umm." Madoka made a show of looking around. "Up, I'm guessing?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Homura answered warmly. She was remembering all the times that this seemingly uncertain girl had reassured her, taught her, convinced her that she was worth something. That she was important. She mattered.
Now, it was her turn to encourage.
They began bounding up the network of lines, networks of knots providing solid landing points for part of the way. Madoka kept up, her small body fueled by a powerful determination Homura had nearly forgotten. She watched the girl, remembering how quickly she herself had tired during her initial training, but the pinkette didn't seemed to be slowing down.
A few hundred meters in the air, if such measurements had any meaning at all within labyrinths, the ropes began to thin out. The two were forced to continue on foot, balancing along the high-wires with the aid of their magic. Madoka seemed to be a quick learner, picking up on subtle ways of using her energy from Homura's demonstrations almost before she was done explaining.
Another several stories, and the lines began to flutter, crisp, white school uniforms pinned to the rope, flapping in the wind. "That's what I saw!" Madoka whispered, puzzled. She'd run into evil mustachioed puffballs and colorful-eyed flesh-eating caterpillars, but she couldn't recall seeing something as mundane as a school outfit inside of a barrier before.
Homura simply nodded, continuing.
They found the Witch, surrounded by familiars, perched on an interconnected series of the wires, almost a spiderweb design. Homura had signaled for silence, and the two bent down, looking at the strange creature that sat in the middle of its much smaller companions. The companions were similiar to humans, except everything above their waist was missing. A skirt, pants, and some strange footwear that looked like ice skates...
The Witch was giant. Scary looking. Arms bristled out of the thing, two pairs sprouting from her black blouse, another pair where her legs should have been. Madoka's eyes were drawn toward certain details without understanding why. The headless, faceless monstrosity: was she ashamed of herself? The black, black outfit, when every uniform that hung along the lines around them sparkled a clear white: what was the deal with that? The arms poking out of her skirt, the bared midriff... there was something at the tip of her perception, some kind of clue that she just couldn't quite see.
The thing had been sitting, surrounded by its skirt-and-leg familiars, ordered rows mimicking the layout of a classroom of students. Madoka had a sense that if she just thought about it more, she'd understand something important about the Witch.
With a hiss, the Witch stood, hands clasping the line as it skittered across, directly up and away from the girls. Homura cursed, watching the dozen familiars get up, seemingly skating across the thin ropes, coming right at them.
As the familiars approached, Homura TimeStopped. She was happy to give Madoka a taste, but she figured on dealing with the Witch herself. Better safe than sorry. Everything went still, except for a flash of pink light that went hurling down into the approaching familiars, pew!, pausing after traveling a few meters from Homura.
Purple eyes wide in shock, the time-traveller spun around, her hair seeming to float in the air behind her, a shimmering curtain of midnight against the bright blue sky. Madoka stood, just a step behind her, her tongue poking out between thin pink lips, aiming a bow as tall as she was. Pew! Another streak of pink lanced through the sky, stopping after a few meters, hovering.
"What is going on? Homura, everything's stopped, and my arrows-"
Homura took a step back, wobbling uncertainly along the wire for a moment. "Madoka... how? How are you...?" This was something she'd never encountered, never seen before. Unless she was actually holding on to someone, nothing and no one had ever kept going once she'd TimeStopped. She glanced around nervously, but everything else, the onrushing familiars, the Witch that was bounding away, remained frozen.
"I thought you were just really fast, but I see now that you were actually making everything else really slow! Wow," the pinkette breathed, impressed. Homura remembered back to when her powers had impressed and amazed her, instead of being merely a tool to use in the pursuit of her duty.
Purple eyes took in the scene before her, taut lines stretched across the infinite blue sky, hundreds of white school uniforms, frozen in rippling chaos. Skating legs, caught in ridiculous poses mid-motion, the frozen, insect-like Witch far above them, captured in mid-flight.
"How is this possible?" Homura breathed in wonder. Madoka looked at her, puzzled. Pulling back a pink ribbon of energy, she drew her bow, a lance of crackling rosy power shooting out, once again stopping well before the onrushing familiars.
"This is a good way to fight!" Madoka squealed, shooting off another arrow. Four shimmering streaks of light hung in the air. "I don't have to run away at all!"
"Madoka... how are you still moving?" Homura approached the pinkette. "Did... did you wish for... more time, or something? Something like changing the past?"
Giggling, the pink-outfitted girl shook her head. "Not even close! Good try, Homura-chan." A thought occurred to her. "When you, uh, start time again... my arrows keep going, right? That's what you did to Kyubey, in the park? That's how he got all those holes in him, all at once."
"It's not a him, it's an it." Homura said with a trace of her old darkness and gloom. "Whatever it told you, the Incubator has tricked us all..."
Madoka watched as a flash of pain crossed the transfer student's face. Curious. "What do you mean, tricked us? Tricked us how?"
Now was not the time to get into a discussion about Souls, Gems, Witches, and the concept of lying by omission. Not to mention that the Incubator seemed to be making sure Walpurgisnacht was a worse disaster each timeline. "We should get going," she subject-changed without any subtly, even Madoka being hard-pressed not to call her out on it. She checked her energy level, expecting the drain of the past few minutes to have used up a generous amount of the precious sand.
Instead of a stream, the tiniest trickle flowed down. She'd never seen the sand flow that slowly, it almost looked thick, like syrup. "What the fu-"
"Akemi-san!" Madoka choked.
"Sorry," Homura apologized absently, mind working to match her theories to the startling observations of the past few minutes. "We should still get going." She began walking swiftly up a nearby line, trying not to look down at the vast distance that seemed to open up below her. The pinkette followed, shuffling along the rope carefully.
"So, I bet if you can fight like this you never get beat!" Madoka chirped, halfway to the looming form of the six limbed Witch above them. The black-haired girl's breath caught in her throat for a moment. Swallowing, she continued onward and upward.
"I... rarely get beat," she explained, sticking to the relative truth. "But I never lose," she finished, narrowed eyes flashing, feeling the old sense of determination flooding back, refilling her with purpose. She looked back at the pinkette, who's wide eyes were fixed on her.
"Oooh." The girl's mouth formed a little 'o'. "Kay." Madoka suppressed a shiver. Looking up, she saw the inhumanly long arms of the Witch, and bounded ahead in a tremendous leap. "I'll race you to the top!" she cried playfully.
"W-" was as far as Homura got before the pinkette hung, frozen in mid-leap. "-ait..." Only a few meters into the jump, actually. Taking a few steps, she stood underneath the girl, looking for clues about what was going on. Some time later, after she'd developed an awful crick in her neck, she knew what she needed to do. Looking at the sand, noticing the steady, normal flow of the very finite resource draining away at her reserve, she let go, allowing time to restart.
Below, four successive impacts resulted in miniature pink explosions, wisps of the destroyed familiars fading into nothing. A hundred white blouses were snapping and cracking all about them. The School Spider Witch turned on the pair, a rattling hiss accompanying the creepily insectile skittering as the thing turned its skirt toward them-
Homura leapt, grabbing Madoka's slim ankles, and she heard the girl squawk as she was yanked downward and time stopped again. Stumbling, the black-haired girl steadied herself and the burden she carried, still hanging by the ankles.
"D-d-don't l-l-let g-g-g-go!" Madoka chattered below her, eyes feeling ready to burst from her head as she stared fearfully at the long, dizzying drop underneath her.
"I got you," grunted Homura, the muscles of her arm taxed by the exertion of holding on to the dangling, thrashing pinkette. Hauling the girl up, getting another peek up her dress in the process, Homura let go as soon as Madoka regained her balance and had been turned right-side up. Gasping, she reached out to maintain contact, but it was too late-once she no longer was touching someone...
But, just like before, Madoka was moving around, a startled look on her face. "Did... something just happen? Because I just jumped, and all of a sudden the Witch was moving and you were, well, somehow below me, and then you grabbed me, and then everything was stopped again except I was hanging over a bottomless drop-" She paused. "Why are you so flushed? Are you feeling okay?"
"Well, you jumped, and then froze like everything else. I was... worried."
Pink eyes sparkled with delight. "Thank you, Homura-chan. I appreciate your concern. How close was I?"
"To the Witch? Not very-"
Madoka shook her pink pigtails. "No, to you. How far had I gotten?"
Homura tried to calculate. "Around... three and four tenths meters." Madoka smiled at the confident authority in the girl's voice. To think, she'd been crying in her room an hour ago... She liked this Akemi Homura much better than the harsh, sinister one she'd known just a few days ago, or the sad, weepy one she'd also seen on occasions like this afternoon.
"Thank you, Homura-chan. I probably need to stay close to you. If that's okay," she said, dropping her eyes shyly and pretending to kick the line they stood on with a tiny pink shoe.
Again, Homura found herself smiling. "Yes, that was the plan from the start." She continued up, looking at the hideous creature ahead of them.
"I feel bad for her," Madoka said, out of the blue. Homura knew exactly who she was talking about. "I don't know why, but seeing her, this place... it just seems so sad."
Dismayed, the time traveler stopped and turned around, facing the pinkette with as much disappointment as she could muster. "First of all, it's an it, not a she. Secondly, those are the kind of thoughts that will get you killed in here, Madoka. Killed! Once you enter a barrier, you have two things to accomplish; killing the Witch, and staying alive. You can't get distracted by stray thoughts and feelings!" Homura was up in the pinkette's face at this point, the smaller girl cringing slightly under the intense lilac stare.
Then, the pink eyes narrowed. "I'm not weak, Homura-chan." She drew back the glowing bowstring, concentrating as a nimbus of glowing light began to radiate from the tip of her arrow of energy. Unleashing, she watched the missile stop a dozen yards before hitting the Witch before them. She shot another, and another, and another, disappointed that they didn't freeze after the fun stuff began to happen, like she'd hoped.
She turned to the black-haired girl. "Your turn, Homura-chan. Try to do something. It's an experiment." Homura thought she knew where this was going, finally. She concentrated, a crackling orb of purple energy hovering in the air before her, and the lilac eyes widened as the orb expanded and grew, from a grape to an orange to a melon... until finally a beach-ball sized sphere shot out towards the Witch's skirt.
"That was... unexpected," she commented after a moment.
She hardly felt drained at all. Manifesting energy wasn't really her thing; the first time she'd encountered Madoka outside of school, she'd been unable to finish the Incubator off in time because of how draining the attacks were to her.
Besides, she preferred guns, anyway. Madoka watched the girl pull out a large rifle, seemingly from behind her tiny shield. Homura took aim, feeling the pinkette's presence behind her. Lining up shot after shot, the bullets hurled towards the large, black-clad shape before stopping. Homura noticed something odd, the .50 caliber bullets seeming to glow.
The pair of girls turned around, heading in a direction away from the threateningly open skirt. Homura turned a dial, causing the sand to stop falling, noticing again the slow, trickling drain had barely put a dent in her reservoir. Then several things seemed to happen at once, like the finale of a fireworks show.
Madoka's pink glowing arrows split apart into dozens of separate shards of rosy death, flashing brightly as they cut into the Witch. Homura's glowing purple energy orb went right up its skirt, and the thing's six limbs twitched as arcs of dark lightning played across its skin. The bullets, which had seemed to glow, each doubling before they tore through the Witch, dark pink light radiating from holes her bullets tore through the creature.
How is that even possible, Homura thought in confusion. The bullets aren't even magical to begin with!
There was a sound like a plane crashing, echoing under the endless sky. The Witch, the lines, the sky, everything faded, the two girls finding themselves standing on a street corner across from a forbiddingly strange high school campus. Clouds had descended upon Mitakihara in the few minutes they'd been gone, and a steady rain was falling, soaking both girls as they let their outfits fade away. Madoka dashed forward, grabbing the Grief Seed before it could drop to the ground. She turned to the transfer student, a wide smile playing out across her face. "Thank you, Homura-chan. That was much more fun that going alone! I hope you'll fight with me again, I mean, that we'll fight together again."
Homura smiled again, her face starting to feel tired. "It would be my honor, Madoka. Really. That was..." She broke off, unable to frame a proper response. "Interesting." Then, recalling an earlier train of thought: "Would you be willing to tell me what your wish was, now? I'm out of guesses." The last wasn't technically true, but she didn't want to play twenty questions at the moment.
"You want to know my wish? The one thing that has bothered me about Puella Magi since, well, since I met you, was the... um, fighting. Not against Witches, against each other!" Madoka frowned, her soft face serious. "I wished that Magical Girls would help each other fight Witches! I want them to work together, not fight each other!" She was almost shaking with passion, white gloves clenched tightly at her sides.
"I was t-too late for S-Sayaka-chan and Mami-san," the girl said, bitterly. "And Kyoko-chan," she added. "But at least we can help each other, can't we, Homura-chan?"
Crossing the Y intersection as she approached the imposing European-style building, Homura sighed. Opening the door to her room, the lighting increased, revealing a spartanly clean white living area, low curving seats forming a circular pattern around the table at the middle. Activating her computer, an entire length of the wall lit up, dozens of stacks of windows littering the surface of her apartment. She walked along the hallway, eying the ancient pages of cryptic text, the images of locations and sketches of witches, the curiously etched black orb, timetables and lunar calendars stretching back for centuries... she drew an X across one display, showing the silhouette of a six limbed creature.
She didn't bother lighting the candles, or making her typical bland meal. The butterflies in her stomach precluded any thought of eating. Perhaps a nice long shower...
Twenty minutes later, Homura was laying on her back, long hair carefully arranged behind her.
Things may still be hopeless, she may have failed already in her mission and was just waiting out the clock... but Homura clamped down on the feeling of contentment. Madoka had listened to her, and coming clean about all the darkness that had separated her from the pinkette had seemed to make that barrier fade. Junko had told her to open her heart, be absolutely truthful about her feelings for the pinkette, and most importantly be willing to live with the consequences, whatever her response may be.
Sighing again, she luxuriated in the feeling of being accepted. Of being wanted. Of having people in the world who cared about her. Who thought she mattered. Maybe, in the end, that was all this seemingly pointless and confusing existence was all about. Seeing your own worth through other people's eyes.
If so, she thought, how very cruel and unsatisfying.
As she began to drift off, fleeting thoughts of Walpurgis and Kyoko spun through her mind. She thought of her erstwhile, on-again-off-again ally regretfully. She could have used the powerful red-head in the upcoming battle, her skill and ferocity providing a deadly synergy with the girl's determination. Even Sayaka... Homura sighed, rolling her eyes. Now I'm just being maudlin.
She turned off the light, but stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows play across her walls as cars passed by outside.
Thanks for your continued interest and reviews, my apologies for the slowing updates.
The girl's don't know Witches' names in this "universe," I can't remember them mentioning Witches by name, and I'm not sure if they intuitively are able to read the runes that appear within labyrinths. Let me know if you have any idea and I'll appreciate it.