Madoka bolts upright. The screens shut off. We fall to the ground.

I'm too stunned to get up. But something hoists me to my feet, and it's only after a second that I realize it's her. She's not paying me any mind, though; she's grasping and feeling her own body wildly.

"Head! Yes! Arms, legs, two of each. Good sign. Hair..."

She grabs at the back of her head.

"Tied up like that? I always worried that looked less cute. Something's wrong..."

We look each other up and down.

"Homura, when did you get so short...?" She taps impatiently on her own hip. "No. No! That's it! I'm- I'm taller! And sweaty! Taller and sweaty. Taller and sweaty, why?"

"Madoka..."

She massages her lower face. "I'm... that's right, how could I forget? I'm sixteen, no wonder!"

"Madoka...!"

"And, and, and we're dating. We're dating, and before that, you had that labyrinth that was meant to execute you. Is this universe the same one?"

"That's a-"

"Sorry! Sorry, sorry... I can figure it out."

"How much do you remember?"

"Eh... golf clubs."

I blink. "Golf clubs?"

"Remember golf clubs? Remember attacking witches with golf clubs...? No? No golf clubs?"

"..."

"I thought it was pretty endearing, actually."

I drop my hands to my sides. "It's you, isn't it?"

She shoots me a wry smile. "Who else?"

There's a moment where I find myself with nothing to say or do. She takes the chance to hug me.

"But how is this possible?"

A second longer and she pulls back, and sheepishly scratches the back of her neck. "You were right to think you could heal me by using my memories. That was your plan, right?"

"If there was a crack in your soul, I thought filling it with every moment of life you've lived would be enough to seal it."

"But they're troublesome things, aren't they? Once you remember one thing, it leads into another, then another, then another. You said something like that before, right? Probably more eloquently than that, though, hehe."

I don't say anything.

"Homura, are you feeling alright?"

"Would you believe me if I told you yes?"

She shakes her head. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know what's going to happen now. Now that you're back to how you were... are you going to leave? Are you going to judge me? Are you going to destroy this universe and begin again?"

"Oh...! Those are big questions, aren't they?"

I swallow and I nod.

"Well, I don't know enough about what's happening to you to judge, and maybe it's none of my business anyway. I wouldn't know how to leave, even if I wanted to, and resetting the entire universe again only seems like a waste."

"So you're here to stay?"

"Yes! Well, I'm sure "stay" is a strong word for someone who's immortal, like you..."

"You mustn't think like that, Madoka. There will be a way for us to be together, even like this. I'm just glad to have you back wi-""

"That was why you were so reluctant to restore my memories, wasn't it?"

"No, it's more complicated than that. I didn't want to interfere with your mind any more than I already had."

"Homura... if you're afraid of betraying my trust, you really should own up to it instead of trying to bury it in more lies."

I shake my head.

"You're not scared of me, are you?"

"Of course not."

"Oh my gosh, you are, aren't you? Why didn't you ever say something?"

"It doesn't matter. This wasn't how I was hoping eventual reunion with you would be."

"We should probably talk about this, I think."

"We...!"

I can't argue with her. She's right, and I'm too tired. For the first time in the course of this universe, I pass out.

I come to in the living room of my apartment, where I just was, but the place is... different. Madoka is putting everything back where it was. No, hold that thought: she's directing the dolls in doing so.

She glances at me. "Oh, hello! I'm sorry, you gave me a real bad shock when you passed out and I didn't know what to do... I just sat you up on the couch, made sure you were breathing, and left you there."

"My health wasn't in any danger."

"No? Oh! Of course, because you can't die."

Not the best way to broach a sore subject, but it's not like I've been anything less than insensitive myself.

"You really don't have to fix everything up."

"Oh, it's no trouble! Those doll friends of yours are really agreeable and helpful, huh?"

"Those aren't the words I would use."

Twelve, Stupidity, pokes her tongue out at me when she's sure Madoka isn't looking.

"Should I help?"

She waves me off. "Please, please, don't worry about it. You should rest up; you had a pretty nasty fall!"

"I wouldn't have fainted if I didn't want to."

"Really?"

She double takes.

"Wait, really?!"

I shrug. "Perks of demonhood, I think. It did me wonders, though."

"How long were you awake for...?"

"I'd prefer not to say."

"Well, as long as we're both feeling better. After, well-"

"All that."

"Heh, exactly."

We don't make eye contact.

"I'm so sorry for scaring you like that."

I bolt up. "What do you have to apologize for? This was all my doing!"

"But I feel terrible about it!"

"Well... you shouldn't. It's over. Why don't we just let the matter rest?"

"If you say so."

I put my hand on her shoulder. "What's the matter?"

"How..."

She bites her lip.

"How do we go back to living the way we were before, after everything we just saw and did?"

"I don't know. I'd like to try, though."

"Me too, honestly."

So we do.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Cut.

We move ahead to a period of days we've privately designated a recuperation period. Presently, we-

"Homura, darling, did you just cut yourself?"

I feel my shoulder. There's blood. "I was trying to cut my timeline. I should pay more attention next time."

"I think you should too."

Presently, we're back at school, sharing lunch on the roof (a roof somehow more decadent than the one at middle school) with the only two classmates we find attuned enough to the truth of magic NOT to start running strange rumors about our dual disappearance for... well, weeks to them.

Even Kyosuke started working the rumor mill, and that boy's a hopeless idiot. Not to drive a knife in too soon, but I'd like to see him try upholding a relationship for more than a year.

Kyoko begins a question with a mouthful of something, and only responds to demands to finish chewing first by loudly gulping it down. "Okay, so- alright, look. I promise not to go spreading things about you two, it goes waaay against my principles."

"You have pr-"

"You have principles? Homura, you must feel so blessed to have a girlfriend who doesn't even care if you only have one joke."

Madoka laughs at her remark harder than I care to detail.

"But! I do have to ask: what the heck did happen to you guys? Everyone was worried sick!"

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't know?"

Now Sayaka's turn to grill me: "That must be a first."

"I hope you're glad to be present on such a momentous occasion. I'll say that something magical and horrible happened, and neither myself nor Madoka, Madoka...?"

She shakes her head. "No, me neither!"

"...have the vocabulary to explain it."

Sayaka leans forward. She tries very hard to disguise a morbid fascination. "Well, are you two okay at least?"

I take my girlfriend's hand in mine and smile at her. "I think so."

In her eyes I see worlds beyond and before our own: a private little secret that only brings two lovers closer.

Cut.

Time draws on, as it is wont to do. Moments of my past (our past, now) which once would have convinced me Hell would be a relief have been reduced to subtle in-jokes. She's a better fighter now, too, and I feel the relief from loneliness has made something stronger of myself as well. Our hunt-dates grow more intense, and cover larger territories. I almost worry about us being seen, but she tells me the risk is part of the excitement. How scandalous!

We have our fun, but her insistence that we talk about our situation very gradually grows stronger. I don't know what to do about that, I'll admit. I can tell she wants to sit quietly and just enjoy our happy little life together as much as I do, but this is something nagging at her. That it's nagging at her also means it's nagging at me, and that only makes her feel worse. I'm trying to quell a feedback loop of dread for as long as I can, but I don't know how long that is.

Okay, I do know how long that is. Seventy-one days, six hours, twenty-three minutes and four seconds. But I'm trying to pay as much attention as I can to those seventy-one days, six hours, twenty-three minutes and four seconds! I want them to drag on.

Which is not easy to have happen when you have an infinitely accurate perception of time as a skill under your belt, but I try.

Let's see what Tomoe is up to!

"So, you two are star-crossed lovers, I'm hearing?"

The three of us are sitting around her tea room. This isn't what it is, but it seems all we do here is drink tea so often that we've taken to calling it her tea room behind her back. You know which room it is.

There's a horrible smirk on her face. I want to slap it off, but I'm better than that.

For now.

I fold my arms, at least. "We have been for years at this point. You know this."

"I know it's been a thin line between that and best friends for the two of you. And-"

She nods in humility.

"I am led to understand that both of these things are of the utmost importance to the two of you! But now the ugly beasts we call high school rumors seem to have called it one way over the other."

Madoka huffs. "Well, what would they know?"

"Oh? You sound genuinely aggrieved by it all."

"I just don't think it's fair the kinds of things they say about Homura, is all!"

"Of course."

Oh, I do wish she would shut up.

Excuse me?

I mean, certainly, she's never said anything with the explicit (the operative word here) intent to antagonize me, but I can tell. Just trust me.

"Well, it's good to have both of you back, at least."

I share a private smile with Madoka. "I think "back" is understating the whole situation a little."

Madoka playfully gives me a little slap on the shoulder and recites my name in such a way that its final syllable becomes a mock-whine.

"Has something happened between you that I don't understand?"

She recovers: "It's just a silly in-joke between us now."

"So what happened, then? Strange, magic curse stuff?"

I take over: "Actually, yes. More or less an overabundance of strange, magic curse stuff."

Tomoe rolls her eyes. "That's just the luck of our lot, isn't it?"

I'm...

Almost awed that she doesn't care about any further specifics than that.

"I'm inclined to concur."

I sip my tea, uncertainly. If the nature of my uncertainty can be said to reflect on the act of myself sipping tea, it is so. On reflection, the statement seems almost tautological, but as an emphatic, I hope it's clear I'm describing a situation where you just had to be there. One which, hopefully, you can identify, because you are here.

You almost can't tell I'm trying to make this scene drag on, to dodge the inevitable.

"Homura...? Is everything alright?"

Now there's a thought. But why?

I always do this, don't I? Always cut my losses and carry on living, or slowly die pushing back something inevitable.

"Homura?"

My lot is to lose, and to try again. Never for some victory: so much isn't in my profile. In place of that, I'm exceptional at... losing better. Not winning.

"Homura, darling...!"

"Cut..."

"Huh? What did you say?"

I said cut.

Let's...

Let's get this dealt with.

We're in the kitchen of my apartment.

"Well?"

Madoka immediately senses something has changed about me. I doubt the shuffling around of my active consciousness is very noticeable even to her, but she certainly picks up on something.

"Well what, Homura darling?"

"You wanted to talk to me about..."

I gesture down at myself. In her company I make no attempt to disguise my true appearance.

"Yes. R-right. Is now a good time?"

"Well, I have all of time to choose from."

"Of course! My bad."

"If you intended to lambast me for my actions against your wellbeing, there's no time better."

"Lambast?! Oh, oh, no! Nothing so harsh. I only want you to show me what turned you into... this."

I give my dress a twirl for her. "What's the matter, is it not to your liking?"

"I don't mean a demon! I mean a nihilist."

"A nihilist?"

"Isn't that what you are, though?"

"Of course, it's just that you say it so derisively."

She frowns.

"Do you have a problem with my attitude, Madoka?"

"I think "problem" is a mean way of putting it."

"A concern, then? Are you concerned about me?"

"For you."

All of space and time unfurls around me. Galaxies and ages fly past her ears. Our heartbeats jump to the rhythm of stars being born, and dying.

And then, it all folds back into place.

"Why do you need to be concerned about me? What do I have to worry over?"

"Yourself. Don't you see? You're so caught up in this hedonistic whirlwind, it's like you're trying to hide the fact that you're hurting from yourself. I...!"

She's in visible distress to be blurting all this out.

"Go on."

"I think... you know that you can't keep this up forever. What's going to happen when you stop?"

I smirk. "You've misunderstood. I'm so far beyond beginnings and endings now. My perspective is no more than a collage I'm deliberating over in every moment I stitch together."

"So you're free from consequence? Is that it?"

"Well... I'd hope so. More or less."

"Isn't that such a hollow way to live, though?"

"Life is always hollow, my dear. You become accustomed to it."

"Show me."

She snaps at me now, but I don't know what she expects.

"Show you... what, exactly?"

"I... don't know how to say this nicely, my love, and I'm sorry, but you're not... optimistically inclined."

"Your point being?"

"Why are you so intent on letting your life ring so hollow...? You're aware of all the suffering in the world, aren't you? Well, can't you... stop it, or something?"

"I don't know what the point would be."

"What?"

I shake my head. "None of it matters. Nothing in this world is of any real importance. That's what my powers made me understand."

"Well, then... that's what I'm asking you to show me!"

"If I showed you what I saw, if I showed you how futile this existence really is, even for a second, it would drive you insane."

"Is that what it did to you?"

What do I even say to that?

"Is it really okay for you to suffer that alone?"

I like to tell myself that if I knew the answer to either question, we could have sidestepped this entire quandary.

"Please. I want to help you. You'll let your girlfriend help you, won't you?"

This conversation is giving me a headache.

"You help me already."

"Eh...?"

"Every day, I get to see your face, and hear your voice, and hold your hand. That's all I ever needed."

"Ah! That's such a sweet thing to say, Homura..."

"It's how I really feel."

"...But I still don't like it when you won't tell me the truth."

"When did I?"

"You say that nothing matters to you, anymore. Now you're saying that I do? Which is it?"

My head is pounding by now. I blurt out, "You. You're obviously the exception."

"Then why won't you let me help you?"

"I..."

She flinches at my tone.

"I'm not worth the mantle you're offering to take up!"

I double over. I'm crying, I think. I'm not sure. Barely, at any rate.

It feels...

Good, maybe.

She puts a hand on my shoulder. "You'd do anything for me, right?"

"Of course."

"Doesn't being in love mean we share that feeling?"

Slowly I rise. I sniffle, slightly, and I nod.

"You're scared?"

I nod again.

"Me too. But isn't that so exciting?"

She beams at me. The smile I return must look far more stressed, but I mean it all the same.

"You want this power I have, then? So that you might see the world as I do?"

"Yes."

"And you're not offering this out of fear, or pity?"

She shakes her head. "This is because I love you."

"I love you too."

I take her hand.

Cut.

Here's the part where you have to forgive my lack of record, because I lost consciousness again. This time, because I have been thrown across the room by a powerful force. I see her standing where we both were a moment ago, only now she glows. She is steeling herself for something. I can see this "something" run down the veins of her neck.

The world implodes around her, but not in one, almighty, turbulent motion: rather, it consumes itself in sharp, random shudders inward, locking itself piece by piece into her being. It shreds through her like the tough membrane of a chrysalis, and she turns to a thin layer of dust slowly cascading off a new body. The gem around her neck becoming the ivory head of a chess queen; her skin now with all battle scarring smoothed away, but as mummified alive as my own; her dress and her hair now flowing on an absent breeze, and a beautifully macabre bone-white in contrast to my own outfit. It doesn't billow outward like her last few; this dress is more form-fitting. Maybe some grander✧･ﾟ:*Demonic Forces*:･ﾟ✧ at play demand that she gets used to that which she dislikes about her own undying body just as they had with my surgical scar. Or maybe I'm inferring some great karmic intelligence exists from two points of data. This is how superstitions are made.

Like I, a magical demon, have much room to talk.

"How do I look?"

She sways her dress from side to side, uneasily.

"Uneasily's a strong word, isn't it?"

"You... you can hear when I do that?"

"Huh?! I don't know what "that" is. Sorry if I did something wrong..."

No, no, no. You can hear me when I do this?

"Not very well, I think. What is that you're doing?"

I've been projecting some of my thoughts out into the ether. Maybe it's best you don't hear them so well. They've been quite private.

"O- oh!"

No, no! Nothing like that. From me? Good heavens, no.

"Sorry, I didn't mean... ah! Please excuse me, I'm still getting used to this!"

Her hands shake. She's shivering with excitement. I'm beginning to think I lost the thrill of my own transformation to the depression I was fighting at the time.

I take her hand to remind her of her own physicality...

"...but it feels like I'm noticing it for the first time."

That's how it felt for me, too. How are you taking it?

"Alright, I think. But... everything's so clear, I feel..."

A chill?

"I was going to say vertigo."

Of eustress?

She smiles. I see now her eyes are as glassy as my own, and her fangs as sharp.

"Yes! This is wonderful, Homura!"

There are tears venturing slowly, cautiously down her face. I...

I'm sorry. I'd get ahead of myself, but first, I have to emphasize: you really are very beautiful, you know. Not that you weren't before, of course! It's just...

Please, excuse me. I'm at a loss.

"Hehe, it's okay! If you're having trouble putting it into words, you don't have to say anything."

She brushes her fringe out of her face and hugs me.

I hug her back, it's just... I do have to say something.

"Hm?"

Because I'm narrating.

"Oh, right! Of course. My bad, heheheh... I can do that for you, if you'd like!"

You can?

"I don't know, probably!"

Well, that would be one too many changes for me to have to get used to for now. Besides, it might be about time now that I should conclude this eighth and final book club.

"A book club?"

I'll explain later.

Alright, then, I think that's about a wrap. We're done here, and-

"Wait!"

Yes?

"You said we could talk, earlier. About my sickness."

And we can't do that later? I just want to relax, for today.

"Me too, but... the longer we put it off, the harder it's going to be to talk about!"

Okay. Point taken. Let's talk.

"No, please, can we actually talk? No narration or prose or anything, just a normal conversation. Please. I want this to be a nice, easy chat about things."

"I'm..."

"Yeah! Like that!"

"I'm really..."

"You're really what, darling?"

I'm really trying.

Erm,

Homura said?

"Well, I guess that's a start...?"

I'm s"orry. Oh! There I go."

"Eh..."

"No, no, you're right. I should stop joking around, dodging the question, any of that."

"You're still scared of me."

"Yes."

"What are you worried I'll say?"

"Something I most assuredly deserve, but I don't know what."
"Well, if you ask me, I think what you deserve is a much better outlook on life. I think what you deserve is to stop being so afraid of everything. And on top of that, I think what you deserve... no, need! Is to be kinder to yourself."

"After everything I've done?"

She giggles. "Everything you've done? You sure are putting a weight on your own shoulders, for someone so certain that nothing in life makes any difference."

"Am I so wrong for believing that?"

"Yes! To both things, just... here, I'll show you."

She cups my chin in the palm of my hand and gently guides my line of vision to...

To...

To everything.

To every beat of a fly's wings, to every blade of grass, to every drop of rain and every rolling of a pebble on all the universe's lifeless planets, to all the spinning out of control of the particles floating between these worlds. To the vast and completely untranslatable consciousnesses of networks and networks of mycelia, to the firing of every neuron in every thought of every person, to the telepathic network of the Incubator I shattered and discarded. To...

"Please, make it stop."

She doesn't look at me. "But do you get it, yet?"

"What's there to get?"

"Keep looking."

I look again. Closer than individual atoms, closer than hadrons, closer than individual packets of energy. I'm looking at every quantum field in every smile of an infant, in every last breath of a dying man. In the left shoulder of a shy teenage boy from Siberia fifteen thousand years ago. In a bolt of lightning across the sky of a methane-based planet that won't exist for another two billion years. In the void itself.

"Are you starting to see it?"

"See what?"
"When I became a demon just now, I finally figured it all out. You've got it backwards, darling; everything matters!"

"Everything?"

"Births, deaths... every breath you draw, every time you blink! Even removing a single atom from its place is worth mourning, and its new position worth celebrating! But, can't you see it?"

"I... I'll keep looking!"

I can feel something in her mind. Something so overwhelmingly brilliant, and tremendous, that if I glimpsed it directly for even a moment, I would burn. Like a moth to a candle, I want to feel it burn. I want to see the beauty she sees. For the first time in too long, I'm excited to even think such a thing!

(I wonder if this is why the Brass Knight called the treasure it sought what it did. The Deep Light, I'm sure you remember. I think I understand the sentiment. I've buried myself too deep in darkness, but I'm so deep now I can make out a light I never saw before.

Would it be inappropriate if I remarked, with dubious sincerity, that it's enough to almost make me want to root for the Knight? I'm not bothered, of course, it just seems a funny stance to be able to justify, even if I don't actually know what it wants.

If you figure that out... well, your fascination with such a strangely constructed story still boggles my infinitely capable mind somewhat. But you've listened to me talk so much, I'm sure if that tale ever gets to any significant plot reveals, the least I can do is pretend to listen to you talk about them.)

"Do you see it?"

Not yet. But I trust you that it's all right there. And I'll stay on the watch.

You make the universe sound so beautiful, you know...

"It is."

I'm not doubting you. Not for a second.

"Would you like to share it with me?"

I'd like not a single thing more.

And you.

Not Madoka. I'm addressing YOU now. Get it?

Your time here is done. You were a comfort dog to me this time. Whatever theories I passed you were to keep you appeased while my girlfriend was ill.

Now that myself and my immortal wife have the breadth of eternal time and space to explore together-

"Like Doctor Who!"

"Excuse me?"

"Have you seen Doctor Who? Oh, I'll have to show you."

Now that myself and my immortal wife have the breadth of eternal time and space, and a popular science fiction television series from England(?) to explore together-

"And Terminator! That's a time travel movie, too! It's a bit scary at times, though... I think my parents got that on DVD when we were in America! Have you seen Terminator?"

"N... no?"

"Okay, Homura. I'm sorry. We have to stop everything right now and watch Terminator 1 and 2."

"Do we really?"

"Trust me, darling, you'll understand."

Alright. Well, this is where I bid you goodbye. And I don't mean to see you again, this time.

I have not only the universe, but an entire canon of time-travel film from around the world to experience with my dearest, now. You are no longer a part of it by any necessity.

So, goodbye.

"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time?"

"No, I- actually, would you believe I have seen that one, funnily enough?"

"Oh, really?"

"It was on some sort of daytime movie marathon on TV a few years back, when I was still in the hospital."

"Would you want to watch it again?"

"I wouldn't complain. I thought it was pretty cute."