As N Approaches Infinity

by Corisanna

Despairing as yet another timeline goes horribly wrong, Homura wanders into Karakura. There she discovers that while the spiritually-aware people of Karakura were distracted by Ichigo Kurosaki and Xcution, Kyubey contracted the Kurosaki sisters as magical girls. Drawing the attention of the shinigami could be just the advantage Homura needs.

29. ACHTUNDZWANZIG

A/N: You've been so patient with me. Thanks! ;)

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ACHTUNDZWANZIG

TIMELINE X + N

Isshin wandered back to the main room behind everybody, unable to stop gripping his daughter's arm so tightly she would probably bruise. If Karin noticed, she didn't care, which was terrifying. Everyone settled around the table in Urahara Shop's back room once more. Ichigo set Karin's Soul Gem on the table where Orihime could see it— just in case. The surviving Kurosaki sister curled up in her father's lap for comfort. Isshin was both gladdened and sickened by her seeking his touch; it was incomprehensibly out of character for her. She had even called him Daddy for the first time since... God, he couldn't even remember. She had been tiny. It was more evidence of how thoroughly her experience had broken her.

He would not vomit. Would not.

God, he wished Masaki was with them.

Kisuke reappeared from down the hall with a voice recorder and a notebook. Once he was situated, he turned to Homura, who was in her school uniform once more. The girl sat across from him, between Ichigo and Isshin. Tessai had served tea, so she was fiddling around with her cup.

Kisuke cleared his throat to call the meeting to order. He looked Homura straight in the eye. "Okay. I think what we need is for you to tell everything from the beginning. That will probably answer a lot of our questions without our having to ask."

"Everything?" Homura asked with a frown.

"Well, obviously not over forty timelines' worth of events. Tell how this all began. I'm very interested in the original timeline. Give important highlights from there on."

"...All right."

Isshin steeled himself. The story was probably going to be awful. Over forty repetitions... what had Homura endured? She implied her friends turned repeatedly; had Homura felt what he felt when he saw Karin's soul explo—?

Engetsu hushed him and soothed him with balmy summer moonlight.

Homura took a deep breath. "In the first timeline, Mami and Madoka saved me from a Witch two weeks after I transferred to our school. The Incubator— it looks cute and calls itself Kyubey to seem harmless— said I had the potential to be a magical girl, but I was too afraid to contract. I went with them to fights sometimes. It all seemed very straightforward. Then Walpurgisnacht came." Homura paused and stared into her teacup, then breathed deeply again. "I followed Madoka and Mami. It seemed wrong for them to be risking so much to protect the city with no one to... appreciate them, I suppose. I thought I could contract and help if things went badly, but I froze when Mami was killed. I tried to stop Madoka from fighting by herself, but she said it was her duty. She did it— she defeated Walpurgisnacht— but she died. That is when the Incubator came to me again."

Kisuke's eyes narrowed. "It waited for your greatest moment of weakness and desperation and exploited it."

Homura nodded. "I contracted. I wished to redo my meeting with Madoka, except I would be strong enough to protect her like she had protected me."

Isshin tiredly palmed his face and shook his head. Such an innocent and earnest wish. It was something he could see a nine-year-old Ichigo do in the aftermath of his mother's death. Some monster had taken advantage of that broken heart.

"I immediately went back in time," Homura continued. "I woke up in the hospital the day I was to be released to start school."

"March sixteenth," Kisuke guessed quietly.

"Yes."

Kisuke scratched his chin. "So your time travel is in your head? That is to say, at mind level, writing over your soul or memories at that moment, in a way?"

"I suppose," Homura said with a shrug. "I have never cared about how it works."

Kisuke hummed and scribbled on his notepad.

"So what went wrong that time?" Yoruichi asked.

"We did relatively well in that timeline," Homura continued. "Madoka and I defeated Walpurgisnacht and survived." No mention of the other girls. Isshin was afraid to ask. "But then Madoka turned into a Witch. That is how I found out about the origin of Witches."

Those around the table grimaced, shook their heads, or just looked angry.

"So you went back again," said Yoruichi.

"Yes." Homura pursed her lips, face somewhere between frustrated and mournful. "I tried to warn everyone. No one believed me. I suppose no one wanted to believe me. Then Sayaka turned into a Witch in front of us and we had to... put her out of her misery."

There was that phrase again. Isshin hated it.

Homura was silent for a long time, grimly staring at her tea.

"I take it your friends... didn't handle it well?" Uryū said delicately.

Homura closed her eyes. "Mami went insane." She wrapped her hands around her cup and squeezed. "Mami... she uses magical guns and magic ribbons. When we were standing in the train station after the labyrinth collapsed, Mami restrained me with ribbons so I could not stop time for her and shot Kyōko's Soul Gem. A one-shot kill."

Various listeners recoiled. "What?!" "Oh my God!" "Why?!"

Homura sighed. "She was crying and shaking. She said something like 'If Soul Gems become Witches, then we have no choice but to die.'" She wet her lips. "Madoka stopped Mami from shooting me by shooting Mami's Soul Gem with her bow and arrow."

Orihime held both hands to her face, eyes shimmering with tears. "Oh— oh, Homura—"

Isshin mentally reached to Engetsu for help staying grounded. He couldn't allow himself to express his helpless anger. He didn't want Homura to misunderstand it and Isshin could count on his zanpakutō to seethe for him now that they were reunited. He didn't know how he survived their years of separation while stabilizing Masaki's soul. Engetsu took his fury, converted it into lunar fire, and stored it for future use.

He was going to need to fight something soon if Homura kept talking.

Homura deliberately ignored Orihime— and everyone's reactions, really. "Madoka and I defeated Walpurgisnacht again. We were laying in the ruins, both of us about to become Witches, when M-madoka used her last Grief Seed to save me." Homura swallowed hard. "She asked me to go back in time and keep her from contracting at all. I said yes. Then she—." She cut herself off and hunched forward.

"Madoka turned into a Witch again?" Ichigo asked gently.

Homura shook her head and covered her face, unable to speak.

Ichigo carefully lay a hand on her back, worried. Glances were shared around the table— what could be worse? Isshin didn't want to know, but felt obligated to listen. Homura deserved to be heard and have her burden shared. She had carried it herself for too long.

"Miss Akemi?" Kisuke prompted gently.

"M-madoka didn't want to become a W-witch, and there was still t-time left before I could go b-back." Homura drew a ragged breath. "S-so she asked me to sh-shoot her Soul Gem. And I d-did."

Isshin closed his eyes again and leaned back with a deep breath through his nostrils, trying to control his rage at what fate had befallen the girls; Engetsu was enough to rein it in. Barely. With great effort. If Ichigo made a similar effort, he failed badly, sad outrage at what the girls went through flooding the room. Face unreadable, Karin silently slid out of Isshin's lap, crawled to her friend, and wrapped her arms around Homura's shaking shoulders.

His daughter was still capable of empathy. Karin was still there. Thanks to Homura opening up to them with her greater knowledge instead of taking off at the first opportunity and leaving them to fend for themselves. Homura had risked herself and ended up revealing her greatest secrets because she cared about helping Karin. She did hard things— unfathomably difficult things— because she cared.

Tell her, Engetsu whispered. She needs to hear it.

"You did the right thing," Isshin said thickly. He opened his eyes and found Homura looking at him, tense and baffled. Like it had never occurred to her someone might think that. Isshin felt like he had aged twenty years since the previous afternoon. He looked her in the eye and tried to project empathy instead of anger. "Knowing what she would go through, thinking there was no way to save a Grief Seed, and knowing that you would soon undo it all... you did the right thing. The hard thing, but the right thing. You spared her that pain, however briefly."

"But—"

"Shut up," Karin muttered darkly. "I know what it feels like when it h-happens to you now. You did the right thing." Her fingers curled into Homura's arms as she whispered, "She was better off that way."

Isshin's rage collapsed in on itself as something in his heart shriveled up and died.

After a suitably tactful, long pause while Homura pulled herself together again, Kisuke said, "Is there anything you want to add from additional timelines?"

Homura sniffled and thought. "I ha-have come very close to succeeding at at least saving Madoka several times, but whenever I've gotten Madoka to tomorrow alive and uncontracted, she ends up doing some combination of dying, contracting, and turning while I'm fighting Walpurgisnacht. Various things happened that made me learn things I told you about Soul Gems and the Incubator. Otherwise, it's been... a lot of combinations of the same thing, really. People die or turn in different ways, but it's the same set of patterns. Except everyone died early this time."

Everyone was quiet for awhile as Kisuke tapped his pen and stared blankly at his notepad. Eventually, he asked, "Have you ever had any help dealing with all of this?"

Homura shifted. "Sometimes I can convince Mami and Kyōko to cooperate. I tried going to the police once early on when I was still stupid. That ended about as well as you would expect. The social worker was kind, but..." She trailed off and shrugged sullenly.

The cops probably thought she was delusional, Isshin realized. He could see that triggering psychological tests galore. He both did and didn't want details of whatever disaster had ensued.

"I wouldn't say stupid," Kisuke mused. "Naive, perhaps, but understandably so. It makes sense to seek help from authority figures when you are overwhelmed by something dangerous."

Homura made a disdainful sound, obviously still thinking she had been stupid. Kisuke and Isshin sighed.

"Let's cut to the chase," Yoruichi said frankly. "Are you going to come for us for help next time around?"

"I had considered it," Homura hedged. "But none of you will remember any of this. I would be a stranger telling you strange things."

Kisuke rested his elbows on the table and wove his fingers together. "Tell me, Miss Akemi: Does whatever you store in your shield travel back in time with you?"

Homura blinked in surprise. "Yes. Except for Grief Seeds— they disappear. Why?"

The scientist hummed and stared at the ceiling in thought. "That makes things much easier."

"What do you mean?"

Kisuke eyed her keenly. "We have until tomorrow morning to amass as much evidence as possible, come up with things to give you to convince our other selves you are telling the truth, and cram it all into your shield, of course."

Homura stared at him, eyes wide.

"Hmmm, I want to investigate why you can't take Grief Seeds with you and how your shield works— it's all terribly fascinating— but I suppose another me will have to study that. I'll have to write down some notes." His lips curled faintly with mischief. "I wonder if it would be easy or difficult to solve a riddle a future version of you wrote."

"...You know, Kisuke," Yoruichi drawled, "Somehow it feels like I should only be surprised it's taken you this long to stumble upon a way to mindscrew yourself." She disregarded her friend's pout in favor of weighing Homura with a measured glance. "Assuming we get stuff together to convince our... past, future, other, whatever selves to cooperate with you, would you come to us?"

Isshin tried not to hold his breath waiting for her reply. If she agreed, he could save all of his girls—

—And this "Incubator" shall taste our flames as did the Grand Fisher, Engetsu growled.

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Homura's mouth opened and closed speechlessly for several moments as she thought. She still wanted the three Kurosaki siblings as allies; she wasn't sure of the others. While she was still unsatisfied that she knew enough about the shinigami and their allies to truly say she trusted them, there were several huge mitigating factors: They fought well in labyrinths. They seemed able to apply science to the situation in a way that could reap future dividends if they were allowed to investigate further. It sounded like there was an entire army she could point at Walpurgisnacht. But the most priceless advantages an alliance with them could reap would be the ability to purify Soul Gems without Grief Seeds and the ability to reverse the Soul Gem's transformation into a Grief Seed. That alone could break the chains that kept her tied to the Incubator no matter how much she hated using its methods to stay sane.

It would be folly to ignore the shinigami's capabilities in the next timeline. But it could be equally foolish to throw herself into their arms without reservations. Caution would have to rule the day.

She trusted the Kurosaki family. They seemed to have her best interests at heart in addition to their shared hate of the Incubator. She felt reasonably sure they would behave the same way in a new timeline, especially if she could prove how badly wrong this timeline had gone for them. They were just that frank, honest, and empathetic.

But what of the scientist?

He seemed genial enough, but Homura was absolutely certain that was a sugar coating over cold steel. Candy and razor blades, just like in Karin's labyrinth. Kisuke Urahara was frightfully perceptive, unusually insightful, insatiably curious, and better at getting her to admit things than she was comfortable with or confident she could resist. He could be a valuable ally or a terrifying enemy.

Homura decided to table that issue until she could think on it in private. Instead, she pursed her lips and said, "My concern would be the involvement of the shinigami military." Her eyes strayed to Hitsugaya, who frowned but didn't respond. She looked back to Urahara. Her uncertainty and distrust was equal for both the scientist and the shinigami captain, but she didn't want to admit it because the others seemed to trust him.

Urahara's eyes narrowed slightly; how many lines had he just read between? "A legitimate concern," he allowed with an inclination of his chin. "If you start on the wrong foot with them, it could get quite bad. Second and Twelfth Divisions would be far more heavy-handed than me, should the Thirteen Divisions have no context and want your information. Cooperating with me— with us here in the shop— will be your path of least resistance, as our affiliation with the Thirteen Divisions is informal and we are thus not entirely obligated to obey orders from them. And the Captain-Commander often seems comfortable with having Captain Hitsugaya lead special teams in the World of the Living, so he can help minimize bad reactions in Soul Society."

Yes, Urahara had read between every single line and was answering both concerns with one reply.

"How can I be sure he won't react in the exact opposite way?!" Homura objected, pretending she didn't notice. "Hitsugaya is a military leader—!"

"He is," Urahara conceded. "He is also personally involved through his relationships with the members of the Kurosaki family and capable of nuance and discretion." Homura suspected he was also speaking of himself. "Isshin was once his commanding officer, Ichigo is a comrade-in-arms, and the girls are his friends. He has spine enough to express disagreement to his military peers and defaults to treating unknowns with dignity while investigating them instead of automatically condemning them in a snap judgment. While he can be very exacting and even merciless in battle, he is capable of independent thought and morality and applies such harsh qualities only when appropriate. And Hitsugaya, like many shinigami, has expressed distaste for Captain Kurotsuchi's methods. Should you show yourself trustworthy and responsible to him and appeal to his sense of decency about not wanting to end up in Mayuri's labs, I'm fairly certain your little secret won't find its way into an official report unless there are dangerous extenuating circumstances. Even then, such a report would be discreet and directly to the Captain-Commander to mitigate the chance of others in the command structure deciding to do things to you on their own. Am I correct in this assessment of your character and likely actions, Captain Hitsugaya?"

Hitsugaya, sour-faced, looked like he couldn't decide whether to be flattered or insulted. He reluctantly nodded with a frustrated sigh.

"How are you a hardass and a softie at the same time, Tōsh?" Karin muttered distantly as she stared into space, almost as though talking to herself while still lethargically draped around Homura's shoulders. "I've never understood it."

Hitsugaya shifted uncomfortably. No one knew how he could answer that— or if he was even meant to answer that at all. He settled for an uncertain frown.

Urahara cleared his throat. When he had Homura's attention again, he continued. "I believe the Thirteen Divisions' reaction, absent the circumstances that have happened in the last week, will depend on how you approach them. I can be a liaison for you— I know how they work."

"What he means," Yoruichi interrupted with a smirk, "is that he's pretty decent at talking circles around them and turning a situation to his advantage. Nine times out of ten, he can convince the captains it's wise to let him be the point person for handling local oddities. That odd time out is when the captains insist on there being an official presence, in which case they usually shove Hitsugaya at the problem and make him deal with Kisuke. Or Rukia Kuchiki if the weirdness doesn't merit a captain's attention. Right, Caaaaaaptain?"

Hitsugaya grumbled his agreement while pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache.

"And Kuchiki is like one of the family around these parts," Yoruichi added with a lazy grin and gesture around the room. "If you go to the Kurosakis first, then come to us at the shop, we can handle how to break it to the higher-ups among the shinigami."

Homura frowned and tilted her head. "You want me to go to the Kurosakis first? Not you at the shop?" At Yoruichi's nod, she asked, "Why?"

Yoruichi, Urahara, and Isshin all exchanged glances before breaking out in grim laughter. Even Karin managed a dark snicker. Ishida and Hitsugaya sighed deeply. It made no sense to Homura.

"Why, Miss Akemi!" Urahara lilted from behind a fan that mysteriously appeared in his hand to hide a sharp grin. "The first thing you should know about dealing with the Thirteen Divisions— and supernatural conflicts in general— is that having Ichigo Kurosaki on your side is the best life insurance policy you could ever acquire!" He waved his fan at the young man, who looked unamused. "Honestly, the best thing you can do for yourself in any timeline is get Ichigo on your side."

Homura looked around at all the baffling expressions of general, sometimes reluctant agreement. "Why?"

"Kurosaki is obnoxiously powerful and bizarrely influential among shinigami," Ishida explained with a strangely resentful respect. "If the Captain-Commander got... overzealous... and decided to move against you in any way, he'd have to plow through a lot of people who aren't directly under his command to do so because Kurosaki is inexplicably good at gathering allies." He gestured at the people in the room. "He'd have to throw his subordinates against Kurosaki's allies and Kurosaki himself— and much of the shinigami command structure hold Kurosaki in high regard, so giving such an order could sow dissent in the ranks."

"What? Seriously?" Ichigo asked with innocent surprise.

Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose. "Trust you to be completely unaware of how your antics affect shinigami politics even though you can spout Shakespearean politics for days," he sneered.

"Hey!" Ichigo looked around. "Tōshirō, is that true?"

A muscle twitched in Hitsugaya's cheek. He scowled at Homura. "Is he going to remember any of this beyond tomorrow?"

Homura warily shook her head. "No."

Hitsugaya closed his eyes and sighed forcefully. "Yes. Heaven help me. Your power and social influence are the proverbial elephants in the room among Seireitei authority figures. Everyone knows they're there; no one wants to talk about them."

Ichigo blinked, still surprised. "Oh."

"Yamamoto must thank God every moment of every day that you are the friendly idiot you are, Kurosaki," Ishida sniped.

Ichigo scowled. "Hey!"

"It pisses off Soi Fon, doesn't it? Doesn't it?" Yoruichi asked with poorly suppressed glee. "Ichigo's a real bee in her bonnet, isn't he?"

Hitsugaya snorted. "Yes."

Yoruichi and Urahara cackled. Tsukabishi cleared his throat disapprovingly.

"Ahem. Yes. Er. Anyway," Urahara said, slipping back into seriousness. "Given a way to convince us to cooperate and shelter you from any bad reactions by the Thirteen Divisions, will you come to us for help?"

Again, Homura opened and closed her mouth speechlessly. It was all so overwhelming. She had wanted help, yes, but hadn't expected anything on the scale they were offering. It could turn out very well, but it could also complicate everything with more variables than she was prepared to handle.

"Homura," Ichigo said firmly. When she looked up at him, he offered her a pained smile. "You don't have to do this alone anymore. We'll help you. We'll help you save everyone— Mami, Sayaka, Kyōko— and Madoka and Yuzu."

Homura couldn't help the dismayed frown that revealed her misgivings. "There are just so many potential variables and complications to add..."

"I think you've been scrambling to cover too many angles by yourself," Isshin said quietly. "Let us step in and help you help them."

"Juggling fifty flaming batons is less likely to end in disaster if you have more than your own two hands to do the juggling," Yoruichi drawled.

Homura closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Everyone stayed respectfully silent, recognizing the weight of the decision she was making. That was encouraging. Eyes still closed, she firmly said, "Yes. I'll do it. I will seek you out." She opened her eyes and solemnly looked from person to person. "Please do as much as you can to ensure your past selves cooperate."

Among the sounds of general agreement, Urahara loudly smacked his folded fan on the table. "Okay, okay, okay! Listen up!" He tapped the fan tensely, gray eyes hawk-like as he gave out orders. "Everyone is to write down as much as they can remember about where they were and what they were doing from at least the week before March sixteenth to the present. I want Miss Akemi to be able to pick a good time to contact us as we will likely have no time to work that out before the turnback point. I will collect all of these diaries or calendars for Miss Akemi's reference. Next, all of you are to write something to your past selves to convince them to cooperate. Mention how badly this has all gone, mention deeply personal secrets, package up unique trinkets, I don't care as long as it would convince another you they're not being pranked. Write them out by hand— I want your past selves to recognize your handwriting. I will then use a reishi sealant on the envelopes or boxes or whatever you put together—"

"Say what?" interrupted Ichigo.

"Think of it as an old-timey wax seal," Yoruichi said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It'll seal whatever it is with some stuff that will be imbued with your reishi. It's done for top secret communication to ensure integrity of information and source identification. You'll be able to tell you're the one who sealed it and no one else has opened it. There's also the more complicated option of setting a reiatsu key so only the intended recipient— you— can open it. So your stuff could be private from Homura, too."

Homura didn't like that. The technique sounded fascinating but she did not like the prospect of being unable to fully access something in her shield. And it could easily be used to convey directions to work against her. It made sense strategically to convince the others, but still.

"Yes, yes," Urahara said impatiently. He slapped his closed fan into his open palm. "My duty will be to amass and organize as much of the relevant data as possible. As a bonus, that will be enough to convince another me on its own." He looked at Homura. "What is our deadline?"

"Approximately eight o'clock tomorrow morning, to be safe," Homura answered curtly. "Walpurgisnacht descends around that time. My turnback point is roughly an hour afterward."

"There are five recon teams in the Mitakihara area right now," Hitsugaya said with a frown. "What do we do about them? Do we warn them? Do we warn anyone?"

Urahara frowned. "Telling the Thirteen Divisions about the time travel will cause unnecessary alarm and be too distracting to Twelfth. Dealing with them will slow us down. Really, we probably don't have to warn them about Walpurgisnacht, either. Anything that happens in Mitakihara tomorrow will be undone, anyway."

Hitsugaya looked doubtful. "Even if it's to be undone, leaving them to be surprised by a massive enemy doesn't seem... ethical."

Homura eyed him and considered what Urahara had called the shinigami's sense of decency. Hmmm.

Urahara hummed and smacked his fan in his palm. "I'll contact Twelfth later. I'll give them an edited brief about the situation in exchange for more of their sensor data. It should give them time to warn the recon teams but not enough to really pick at the threads of the report, so to speak."

Hitsugaya inclined his chin in acknowledgment and Homura noted that the scientist had taken his concern seriously despite his youth. Hmmmmm.

Urahara turned to Homura. "While everyone else is writing to their past selves, your job is to write as much as possible about Walpurgisnacht, magical girls, and the Incubator as you can without even hinting at time travel. If you know anything because of repeated experience, find a way to lie and explain it with something different. Got it?" Homura nodded seriously. "I'll send that off to Twelfth when you're done so they can stay busy playing with it, then I'll include a copy in our little time capsule." He went quiet and stared into space, eyes unfocused as he thought through the many things they needed to do.

"Have any more marching orders for us, Kisuke?" Yoruichi asked when he didn't say anything for a minute.

Urahara cocked his head to one side and frowned. "No." He glanced around the room with hard eyes and smacked his fan on the table again. "Whatever you do to prepare, be back here by midnight. Dismissed!"

Homura watched everyone chattering and dispersing and rummaging for supplies. She had forgotten what it felt like to be part of a team with a plan.

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This chapter was replaced with an edited version on November 1, 2019. Reviews with timestamps before that date refer to a slightly different version of the chapter.