Earthly Chains
For a full thirty seconds, a second sun blazed on the outskirts of Terminus City. The land for half a mile around was rendered a lifeless, blasted desert, and then that desert turned to fused, black glass. Only the restraint of the being at the heart of the dying star held back the solar wrath from the total obliteration of the city entire, and likely the countryside for quite a way as well - and this restraint was less an act of mercy and more an afterthought, a desire not to destroy the things that the being had once cared for. The thing at the heart of the star was not Kaina Shikinami; at least, not any more. It wasn't Infinity Princess, either. Neither of those names had really suited, after the death of Alice. It was a creature of despair - a thing without a name, for there was no voice left which it would permit to speak it. Lesser creatures had thought up names for the being, but it did not particularly care for any of them. It hadn't cared for much, in the aftermath, save for the total and complete obliteration of those who had taken away from it the only thing to give life meaning, and - No. Bad thoughts. It would never happen again; this, the being would make absolutely certain.
It had been the idea of one of those that the being might have called sisters, once. They, too, had loved Alice. If she had lived, their relationships might have curdled into jealousy and bitterness, but as it was they were united in their grief and rage. Once those who had taken her were removed, thoughts naturally turned to how to get her back. All the genius of three of the exemplars of what it meant to be a Magical Girl, combined with the shattered desperation of those newly-Fallen by grief - and it could not restore her. Maxine's skill with machines, Mia's prodigious magical power, the being that was once Kaina's ability to defy the universe itself in pursuit of her goal, and none of it was enough. So, naturally, they sought other avenues. The thing that was once Infinity Princess led an invasion into the heart of Hell itself, scoured the record rooms, and found no mention of Alice's soul. Then, it did the same to Heaven, with similar results - though admittedly, that one was a long shot. Every other Magical Girl, Fallen or not, whose abilities could provide the slightest possibility of her resurrection was consulted, willingly or otherwise. Nothing. Until Mia, who had delved into deeper and darker things as their desperation mounted, suggested it. If they could not restore Alice to life, then they could subvert the progression of time - they could make it so that she never died in the first place.
It had been the work of nearly half a decade. Many lesser creatures had tried to stop it, prevent the being from reaching it's love, and were destroyed as insects deserved. It became clear, however, that only one of those who loved Alice would be able to be sent back. Saving Alice would be rather invalidated by obliterating the fabric of time, after all, and trans-temporal consciousness transfer is a fundamentally destabilizing procedure. The being that was once Kaina would be the one to be sent back. That was established early. The Kaina of the past would still exist, and as much as Maxine and Mia wished to see Alice again, they would not be able to take on Infinity Princess. And whoever was sent back would almost certainly have to; the translocation process was theorised to be intensely energetic, and more so the more powerful the Magical Girl returned was. The destruction would be intense, even at the absolute minimum scale. And the Kaina-that-was would not have stood for that - would have believed it was her never-to-be-sufficiently-damned duty to destroy whatever had damaged her city so. The being that had been Kaina almost shuddered, at the thought of duty. It was duty that had taken Alice from it - that had removed it from her side at the critical moment, allowing the lesser creatures to destroy her. Never again. Its only duty was to Alice; nothing more, nothing less.
The solar blaze flickered, sputtered, collapsed in on itself, and from the ashes rose the thing that was once Infinity Princess, crowned in black trinitite, pristine and untouched by the localised apocalypse around it. It looked to the blue sky, the first it had seen for years; Terminus City had been shrouded in a perpetual thunderstorm since the day of Alice's death, and it had rarely left the city after all those who had contributed had been hunted down like the dogs they were - No. No breakdowns, not this close. If Mia and Maxine had calibrated correctly, this should be the morning of the day that Alice arrived in Terminus. The being that was once Kaina's lip quirked in the first semblance of a smile its face had made in more than five years. Soon. And then it turned around, and beheld - Terminus City, but so much smaller? The city hadn't been this shiny, this new, in decades. It looked almost... freshly built. This, the being surmised, was an issue. The calibration must have been off; by the state of the city, this was just around the end of the Resource Wars. Before Lokwyn, before her pacting, before the MGA. This was a problem. But also, a possible opportunity. Without the Kaina-of-before to fight, the thing that was Infinity Princess was undeniably the most powerful being around. It could vanish - leave the second sun to be unexplained, perhaps blame it on some lesser being's weapon test - and find Alice. Yes, that was a good plan.
The thing that was Kaina turned away from Terminus City, and began to walk. Terminus was too hot, its entrance had ensured that. It would have to find another way to its love. But soon.
She giggled, like a schoolgirl with her first crush. Soon, Kaina would find Alice - and the world would be right again.