Chapter Text
The end of everything started off feeling so promising.
It was a timeline where nobody had died early, and Kyoko returned to Mitakihara without Homura having to go too far out of her way to push things in that direction. She and Mami didn't manage to reach an understanding regarding their past together, leaving a degree of tension to fester there, but given that escalation into active violence or Kyoko leaving had been avoided, it was still a good outcome, relatively speaking.
Madoka hadn't contracted, but Sayaka had. That was usually a bad sign, given Sayaka's irksome tendency to consistently fall into despair and become a Witch, usually dragging one or more of the others down with her. On the bright side, however, she had contracted late, with little time left until Walpurgisnacht arrived, so even if her fall was inevitable, if the timing worked out it could happen after Walpurgisnacht was routed with the full team, when the fallout didn't mean anything anymore.
Perhaps most importantly, Mami was willing to engage with Homura in good faith, and she had somehow managed to avoid earning Sayaka's distrust this time around, so everyone was willing to listen to her. This was a close-to-ideal timeline, a board state Homura occasionally managed to achieve but could never figure out how to replicate consistently.
What a joke. Homura was a fool for having been optimistic.
She had seen all of them at their worst by this point, had seen what forms their despair took. She shouldn't have trusted any of them. Every one of them, at least once, had dragged Madoka down with them. Had ruined things beyond repair and forced a reset.
Homura hated them, even as doing so made her hate herself. Every one of them a liability, and, all in their own unique ways, impossible to control. And despite knowing that, she had still been stupid enough to let her guard down. To have assumed that just because things looked like they were going well from the outside looking in, she could leave the others to their own devices and prioritize preparations for Walpurgisnacht, as well as keeping Kyubey away from Madoka.
When Walpurgisnacht finally arrived, though, all of the timeline's potential had already been squandered. Kyoko and Mami were unable to look each other in the eye, and when Homura had attempted to press Kyoko for answers regarding why, she was ignored. Sayaka already looked half-dead before the battle even started, Soul Gem dangerously murky, and when Homura had tried to get Mami to go over and convince her to purify with a spare Grief Seed, Sayaka had rebuffed her with a harshness she almost never directed towards Mami.
A bad sign, but Homura could still salvage this, or so she had thought at the time. Sayaka was more likely to die outright than turn into a Witch mid-battle, which would have allowed Mami and Kyoko to remember her as a brave colleague who sacrificed herself for them, instead of having her act as the stepping stone to their own falls into despair. Even if Sayaka did become a Witch, she'd be more likely to attack Walpurgisnacht over her former teammates based on animalistic threat assessment, so optimistically, it could just end up serving as a boost in firepower. Even if Mami was almost sure to follow suit, again, that didn't mean a reset by default. As long as Walpurgisnacht was defeated and Madoka was alive, and not a Magical Girl or Witch by the end of the battle, that was all Homura needed for her to consider it a victory.
What disgusting naivete on her part. She had experienced a lot over all the timelines, she knew what to expect from each of her teammates' Witches, but she still neglected the important fact that one of the few things she had never seen was more than one of them falling into despair at the same time.
And so, as Walpurgisnacht arrived, and the end arrived, the four of them began the assault. Luckily, Mami and Kyoko's strained relationship hadn't dragged down their teamwork, them moving together efficiently and cleanly. Sayaka, on the other hand, almost immediately began dangerously mispositioning, but a combination of good luck and having more Magical Girls than usual to cover for her meant she managed to stay alive. The military equipment Homura had had enough spare time this loop to steal was deployed according to plan, and enough had been dealt out within the first salvo that Walpurgisnacht had taken visible damage. At seeing that, Homura had allowed herself a moment of hope, a small belief this timeline could be the one where she would finally succeed.
She was a fool for jinxing herself like that.
She had only taken her eyes off of Walpurgisnacht for a second as she prepared for a time stop, but that second was enough to cost her. A distant whip-like cracking sound filled the air, and an instant later, Sayaka slammed into Homura with all the speed and force of a blue-streaked comet. Homura felt her ribs shatter and windpipe be crushed as Sayaka's broken body entangled with her, and the two of them hit the ground. Their now-shared momentum didn't halt quickly enough as they rolled across the concrete like ice, before punching clean through the metal guard rail at the end of the roof and beginning to tumble and fall down towards the street below.
Homura eventually managed to regain consciousness, and immediately tried to move, but her body chose to make its refusal clear by searing her mind with pain. As her awareness returned, she heard what sounded like Mami's voice, frantic and crying, but it sounded muffled, like it was coming from the other side of a wall.
"Akemi-san! Miki-san!"
"I'm fine. Stop worrying."
Oh. Sayaka could still speak, but Homura couldn't. A very, very bad feeling settled in her gut.
"You need to stay still! Your injuries, they're—"
"I said I'm FINE!" Sayaka interrupted with something somewhere between a manic laugh and a growl, and Homura felt the weight pressed against her lessen, as Sayaka presumably got up. Homura's vision began to return, and she saw Sayaka standing there, her body horribly mangled, laughing and outstretching her arms.
"Miki-san, please, just lie down! I'll heal you, and then—"
"Heal 'who', exactly? You're not referring to me, right?"
Sayaka's voice became cold, horribly so. Homura could barely even hear it through her ears ringing.
Mami looked to flinch as she saw the look on Sayaka's face, although it was hard to tell for sure from where Homura was sprawled out onto the concrete. Homura growled as she tried to force magic to circulate through her body and hasten her healing, hoping for just enough that she could shout at Sayaka to shut up before she said something which would ruin everything.
"…What the hell are you talking about?" Homura recognized Kyoko's voice, coming from just outside her field of view. Despite the rough and blunt choice of words, the feeling of concern so intense it bordered on terror put into them was obvious.
Sayaka chuckled, before throwing her head back and looking into the sky. "So none of you knew?! That's… ha… hahahahahaha!"
Homura tried to stand up, but her legs refused. She tried to move her arms, but only her right one gave her any sensory feedback. She spun her eyes over to see, bile filling the back of her mouth, that while her left hand with her still intact Soul Gem was still narrowly attached to her body, most of the muscle and flesh in her left arm had been torn into useless, clumped-together shreds around the elbow.
"These bodies aren't 'us' anymore to begin with!" Sayaka ripped her soul gem, now little more than a swirling mass of darkness, from her navel, and held it out towards Mami. "From the moment we became Magical Girls… we became nothing but corpses, puppeteering our own bodies from these! I'm a zombie! We're all zombies! So who cares if I get injured?! I can't even feel it anymore to begin with! I can't feel anything anymore!"
Sayaka screamed, voice raw and strained, so much so it could only have been hurting her. Homura futilely tried to shout at her to shut up, as Mami and Kyoko both were stunned speechless at her declaration.
"…That's right… I'm not Sayaka Miki anymore. I'm just a monster wearing her skin." Sayaka let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and Homura watched, with dread, as the last bit of blue floating in her Soul Gem was swallowed by black.
An explosion of sound and wind tore through the half-flooded street as Sayaka's body spasmed, darkness clawing its way out of her Soul Gem with a wail. Homura was sent tumbling backwards, landing on her already broken ribs with a sickening crunch, as she craned her neck to look at the Mermaid Witch taking form before her.
There wasn't a barrier which formed. There never was for whatever reason when Walpurgisnacht was around, as if its breaking of the rules extended to those around it besides just itself. Homura could only take in the familiar sight of what was once her friend ally, metal visor swallowing up anything recognizable as a face, painfully familiar-looking ribbon tied around her neck, and a thick, dull-coloured, scaly tail.
Oktavia von Seckendorff drew her blade and wailed in a poor attempt at Sayaka's voice, before flying away towards Walpurgisnacht.
Mami and Kyoko said nothing, simply staring blankly at where Sayaka's now-empty, collapsed body laid, while Homura grit her teeth, trying desperately to pulse magic through her windpipe.
"Oh…" Mami finally spoke up, voice a hollow monotone. "So that's where witches come from."
Homura wished she could scream.
In an instant, Mami summoned a musket and fired on Homura, broken and exposed on the ground, bullet heading straight for her Soul Gem. Homura's shield arm was unusable, so she was completely vulnerable. All those timelines, and this was how she was to die, Madoka still left unsaved. Gunned down by someone she was stupid enough to trust even after Homura had seen her barrel pointed at her with intent to kill before.
A streak of red filled Homura's vision for just a moment and the gunshot echoed as Kyoko came to a stop between Homura and Mami. Everything was still for just a second before Kyoko's midsection exploded, and she let out a gasp of pain. She lurched forward precariously, but caught herself with her spear, barely managing to stay standing.
"Hey, Mami…" Kyoko huffed, voice clear and deceptively calm. "What… the FUCK… do you think you're doing…?"
Mami let out a cry of anguish and rage somewhere behind Kyoko. "If we're meant to just fall into despair and become Witches… then it's better if we just die while we're still ourselves! I'll save you two now, go free Miki-san, and then let myself die… that's the kindest thing I can do for any of us now!"
Kyoko snarled, and even having seen her angry in previous timelines, the fury emanating from her was still enough to make Homura shudder. She was forcing herself to stand up straight, even as the wind from the storm blew down on her and tried to snuff her out.
"What makes you think… you have the right to make that decision… huh?" Kyoko spat. Another musket shot, but Kyoko whipped out her spear, and glass shattered somewhere on the other end of the street. "Typical Mami… always has to be the one calling the shots… gotta always be the reliable senpai, the one looking out for the weaklings of the world, cause if she isn't… she might as well not even be there…"
"Kyoko… please… just let me do this one last thing for you…!" Mami's voice was small and broken, difficult to hear through the sound of rainfall and howling winds of the storm.
Another gunshot. Kyoko tore forward, nothing more than a red smear, before a sickening crunch filled the street. Homura struggled to crane her neck to try and look over at Kyoko and Mami, just out of her field of vision.
A clattering sound of something hollow and metal hitting tarmac, followed by the spray of high-pressure liquid. Kyoko's bitter laugh as she crumpled to the ground.
"You… idiot. I've… known for a long time… that I'm going to hell. Compared to that… becoming a Witch together with you and Sayaka…"
Homura heard Kyoko cough up blood.
"…Maybe it won't be so bad."
Homura was trapped in her own broken body, unable to even witness the two's final moments. As she heard two Soul Gems crack apart in tandem, all she could do was feel tears of frustration run down her face and mix together with the rainwater flowing through the streets.
The melded-together roars of Candeloro and Ophelia's respective emergences rang out, making Homura's ears start ringing again. She grit her teeth and tried as hard as she could to make herself stop crying.
It wasn't truly over yet. She just needed to try her absolute hardest to use her magic to fix her arm. She'd been taken out of the fight quickly, so she still had plenty of magic left to spare.
Candeloro and Ophelia, to Homura's muted surprise, did not immediately start to tear each other apart upon forming, despite territorialism being the one thing pretty much every Witch had in common. Instead, they followed in the footsteps of Oktavia, both letting out screeches equal parts battle cries and funeral dirges before flying off towards the looming shadow of Walpurgisnacht, leaving their human-shaped cocoons abandoned in the soaking wet streets below.
This was all Homura's fault. If only she had noticed what was happening with Sayaka before the literal day of the final battle and nipped it in the bud preemptively, or had tried slightly harder to push Mami and Kyoko to reconcile, this whole thing wouldn't have happened. Now she had squandered one of the best chances she'd had yet, because she was just too useless.
Well, she thought to herself bitterly. If Walpurgisnacht and her former allies' Witches managed a mutual kill, that would still count as a victory, bitter taste in her mouth aside. All she'd have to do is pull herself back together and make sure Madoka didn't contract.
"No…"
…And she had jinxed herself again in thinking so. Again, the only thing that kept Homura from screaming was her own useless body.
"Sayaka-chan… Kyoko-chan… Mami-san…"
Madoka began to cry, and Homura considered biting her tongue off to try and choke herself. It would be less painful than having to hear Madoka break down like this again.
Madoka was suddenly by Homura's side, and her eyes widened as she saw that her last yet least friend was still alive. Madoka pulled Homura into a hug and sobbed incoherently, Homura not able to begrudge her even as horrific molten pain shot through her still magically mending ribs.
"What a shame, Madoka Kaname."
"In… cu… ba… tor…" Homura hissed, her crumbled voicebox finally something reminiscent of usable again. Unfortunately, the deflated sound of it meant her undying, burning vitriol didn't come through.
He was the only way Sayaka could have found out about how Soul Gems in a way that hadn't required Homura to go find her, and one of the worst things about Mami was that she nearly always used Kyubey as a sounding board to go over her problems, interpersonal or otherwise. He had pulled the strings to set this up while Homura was focused on Madoka, it was clear to her now.
"Don't force yourself to speak, Homura-chan!" Madoka cried out, voice wavering. Madoka didn't understand. If Homura didn't manage to do something right now…
"Sayaka Miki, Mami Tomoe and Kyoko Sakura have already disappeared. Homura Akemi is nigh-mortally injured, and even if her magic is able to heal her wounds, which is unlikely, it will be too late to stop Walpurgisnacht from wiping out Mitakihara."
Homura tried to warn Madoka not to listen, but her voice came out as a pathetic wheeze, some blood dribbling out of the corner of her mouth.
"What do you intend to do, Madoka Kaname?"
Madoka pulled away from Homura, affixing her with the soft, apologetic, yet steely look that Homura was all-too-familiar with by now. She tried to raise her one remaining arm to grab at Madoka, grab her and refuse to let her leave, but all she could manage was brushing her fingertips against Madoka's own as she stood up, affixing Kyubey with a determined stare.
Homura grit her teeth. On instinct, her fingers fumbled for a shield that wasn't there.
The blood in her ears meant she didn't even get to hear the specific wording of Madoka's wish this time.
Homura woke up in a room that was blindingly, painfully white.
She shot up in a panic, heart in her throat, as she looked around. What was the last thing she could remember?
Her attempt to take in her surroundings was instantly foiled by the pain of trying to understand the space around her. There were no clear lines between where walls met floor, or ceiling met walls, and the visual harshness of everything being taken in all at once made her nauseous. She collapsed back down onto the bed, retching to herself, barely managing to avoid vomiting.
It took her nearly an hour to mentally resituate herself, get back up, and be able to properly investigate. She was in what seemed to be a properly furnished room set up with intent to be a livable space, which clashed horrendously with the stark white of the walls. Everything seemed almost normal at a glance, but the more she took it in, the more it made her stomach twist. A television set, unplugged and with no outlet in sight, but still flickering with static. A shelf full of books that were mostly normal, but the ink on the inside making up the words was smeared slightly, forming characters still readable but requiring a moment of thought to decipher. Cushioned couches which were soft, but felt pliable in a way that fell just short of feeling real.
Homura felt sick. She crawled back into the bed before long, the only part of the room that matched in both form and function.
She was in Hell, was what she had deduced. It differed from how it had been described by the teachers of that Catholic school what felt like aeons ago, but this could only be Hell. The last thing she remembered was Madoka making a wish when she was injured in a way that rendered her unable to hold her shield to go back in time, so she was probably dead. She had checked her finger and rifled through her pockets to find her Soul Gem was gone, so she couldn't transform into a Magical Girl. The intent was seemingly that she was powerless here.
Homura vaguely remembered reading once on the internet about how, in some countries, governments would torture dissidents or political prisoners by locking them in cells which were pure white and permanently brightly lit. The sensory deprivation paired with the isolation would work to drive prisoners mad, wearing away at their sense of self until there was nothing left.
It wasn't an exact match to her situation, of course, given how there were actual objects which could provide sensory feedback or mental stimulation in here, but this being intended to be her punishment, her personalized torture, only made sense given everything. This room seemed set up to remind her of both the void she projected in her apartment, and the hospital room she had spent so long stuck in, to not let her forget her weakness and failures.
So she had died and found herself in Hell. It was certainly deserved, after all the suffering she had invited upon Madoka, Madoka's friends, and the whole world (and herself), timeline after timeline. Either way, it wasn't a helpful revelation, since there was nothing she could really do in response to it. Crying didn't come naturally to her.
So she elected to crawl back into the bed, and resolved herself to lie there and sleep until her mind gave out and faded into oblivion.
Unfortunately, before she could fall unconscious, the quiet was wrenched away from her. Her body tensed up as she heard the knob of the door to the room turn. Something was there.
Her flight-or-fight response failed her as she moved her hand to a Soul Gem no longer there, and her stomach sank. Of course.
There was furniture spread throughout the room, but nothing positioned in such a way it could work as a viable hiding place. The bed frame was raised up too high, too much like a hospital cot, for Homura to be able to hide underneath it.
No way to fight, no way to hide. No way to run. Homura simply shivered, throwing the heavy duvet of the bed over herself and turning to face away from the door, trying to pretend to be asleep. This was unlikely to mean much of anything if this presence was here to advance her torture, but it was the closest thing to an actual option Homura had.
The door creaked open from somewhere behind her as Homura stilled herself, trying to calm her breathing. She recognized the sound of muffled footsteps on the carpet, approaching her slowly, in no rush.
Footstep, footstep, footstep, until the presence stopped next to the bed. Homura felt it loom over her, and the only thing which kept her from shivering in fear was the emptiness in the core of her swallowing up the feeling.
Homura stilled her breathing as she felt fingers, long fingers terminating in claws, rest softly on her shoulders. Any strength to resist left her as she was insistently, but gently, rolled over to face the presence.
Oh God.
A silhouette, greyed-over so completely most detail was lost, looked over Homura. A shadow puppet carved out in the unmistakable shape of Madoka Kaname, wearing her Magical Girl outfit.
Of course. Of course her greatest failure was her jailer and warden. Madoka certainly had earned the right to judge Homura a hundred, a thousand times over, for having failed her so completely, more times than anybody should even be able to fail a person in a normal, sensible world.
Homura returned the unreadable stare of the shard of Kriemhild Gretchen. Its hands were disproportionately large and clawed, and parts of its skin peeled and fell down around her body in the form of waxen streamers.
Homura hated how even like this, nothing but a shell being worn by darkness, she struggled to look away from Madoka.
Homura waited for the Witch to tighten its grip and its claws to dig into the skin of her shoulder, to hurt her like she had earned, but instead, Gretchen lightly pulled Homura's boneless body up, directing her to move from lying down to sitting on the edge of the bed. Homura simply limply obeyed, waiting for the gentleness of all of this to be snatched away, for her to be dragged into the darkness of the nightmare to come in earnest.
And then, gingerly clutched between two talons, Gretchen produced Homura's Soul Gem from seemingly nowhere.
Pathetically, like an unruly child, Homura sprang forward and attempted to steal it away, but Gretchen was quicker. Gnarled knuckles met Homura's pounce with a prod, right up against the length of the scar over her heart, and any spark of resistance abandoned her as she found herself unable to even work up the energy to try and stand up. She stared blankly, seeing her own dead eyes reflected in her dimmed, stained soul.
Homura watched, feeling nothing, as Gretchen raised the egg-shaped jewel to where its mouth would be if it was actually Madoka, and a small slit opened up. A harsh inhale which sounded like a woman hacking something up came from the Witch, and Homura watched, stunned, as the darkness clouding her soul gem dissipated, ribbons of shadow being absorbed into Gretchen's makeshift orifice.
Homura suddenly felt lighter. A sort of relief as close as she could get to happiness after so many timelines of disappointment and detachment.
The frayed intellectual side of Homura found herself surprised. She had learned Witches were able to grow in strength by eating another Witch's Grief Seed, and it made at least some sense they could absorb despair from a corrupted Soul Gem directly just as their Grief Seeds could. But the idea of a Witch actually doing so didn't make sense. The closest Homura had seen to a Witch showing something recognizable as intelligence like this was Kirika Kure's, but in that case, it didn't seem capable of anything more complex than 'kill everyone, except Oriko Mikuni'. This calm and considered display from Gretchen was nothing like that.
Homura watched as her Soul Gem was cleaned completely, all the impurities clearing away to leave behind unblemished purple. Seemingly satisfied, Gretchen placed the Soul Gem inside a pocket in its outfit that Madoka didn't usually have, and that Homura was pretty sure Gretchen itself hadn't had when it first entered the room either.
Homura felt her mouth go dry as she suddenly realized what was happening. Witches fed on despair, but drain a human too much, and they would lose the will to live and die. A Magical Girl, however… if you drained the accumulated curses from their Soul Gem instead, then it would be keeping them stable instead of killing them. Magical Girls couldn't die from old age or natural causes, so as long as the Witch made sure not to let the Magical Girl fall into despair and become a Witch herself, she could act effectively as a sustainable and permanent, if somewhat inefficient, food source. Gretchen no longer had to worry about population depletion of its prey leading to starvation, not as long as it had Homura to fall back on.
Somehow, Madoka's Witch had come into form this time with enough intelligence to force Homura into some sort of twisted, mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship. That's why it was treating Homura so gently; Homura was the livestock it was taking care of, and livestock tended to produce better meat when they were kept happy and healthy.
Homura felt almost hysterical thinking about the twisted cleverness of it all, so much so she nearly laughed. She wondered how Kyubey would react to this if he was here… probably not very much at all. He had all those pretensions of greater good, but if given a choice, he was the type who would almost certainly choose efficiency over sustainability, Incubators being scum as they were.
Homura gasped as she was torn from her thoughts, Gretchen pulling her into a firm embrace. Its body, with a texture like plastic, chafed against Homura's, some of its skin sloughing off into streamers and wrapping around Homura possessively. Homura feared for a moment Gretchen completely unraveling and wrapping up Homura's entire body, suffocating and mummifying her.
Instead, Homura let out a gasp as something pinched down on the flesh of the crook of her neck, hot to the touch. She shook a little, trying futilely to push away from the Witch, before giving up and simply sitting there limply as Gretchen did whatever it was trying to accomplish.
It must have been over a minute before Gretchen finally released Homura from her clutches, leaving her to fall back down onto the mattress, eyes glazed over. Homura looked up to see Gretchen still for a few moments, somehow able to feel eyes that weren't there affixed on her neck, appraising her.
Gretchen eventually let out a sound that, from context, Homura assumed was synonymous with a human's sigh, seeming to have not been able to find what it was looking for. Homura watched it turn and walk away, muffled footsteps on carpet again, and she felt tears roll down her cheeks for a reason she couldn't discern.
This wasn't Hell, then, but it might as well be. Homura had squandered her last chance, and her punishment for her incompetence was to be the personal food source of what was left of the person she had failed so thoroughly, for God knows how long going forward.
And the worst part was…
Homura's weakest, most worthless side was already starting to accept it. At least this way, she would still be of some use to Madoka even in all her failure.