GOSE-E-12: Demystify Feast

Demystify Feast

All the four “resistance fighters” were standing in front of the familiar house on the next evening. They waited for Homura to recover after the barely kilometer-long walk then Madoka rang the doorbell. She wasn’t exactly sure that her home’s key wouldn’t open this door but it would have been impolite to simply drop in the house.
“Homura-chan, could you open the door?”, they heard from the inside. A few moments later they could enter. They could only see Akuma Homura’s back for a moment as she instantly slipped back to the kitchen.

“What the hell is wrong with her?”, Kyouko asked staring where she disappeared.
“Don’t you understand?”, Homura asked in reply. “It’s simple. She feels guilty for setting her goons upon us. Just look how much she’ll tremble before Madoka for her play last night...”

They found the runaway demon with Tomohisa and Madokami. The three were wearing aprons, decorating a huge cake. Father and daughter seemed having fun while Homura focused on her job with a timid smile. The newcomer Madoka watched her and remembered her home six years ago. Her desperate savior, the honored dead of the great Mitakihara battle had taken the way her family treated her with the same shy disbelief. Just like this Devil who turned the whole world upside down with her infinite power. It did not seem to matter what had Homura been through, she remained herself.

The demon’s double felt someone tugging the leg of her pants. She looked down and saw the little brother of this world’s Madoka.

“Maroka, two devils!”, the child laughed. Homura smiled and stroked his messy hair.

Junko stepped into the kitchen stylishly dressed and directed her son to his father. Then she took a careful but completely unsurprised look at her guests. Apparently Madokami had prepared her family well. The others left to change their clothes and Tomohisa took Takkun with him.

“So this is what you look like when you aren’t substituting my daughter!”, Junko glared at Madoka with narrow eyes. Then, without warning, she burst into laughter.

“I see you won’t ever catch up to me! How old are you? Twenty?” she asked the pinkette who was still shorter than her. “You may scold your father for not feeding you properly!”

Then she looked Homura up and down with a grin.

“You know what? You can put him in his place too! You’re just as skinny as tiny my Madoka is! You look exactly like this poor ‘devil’... But, it seems, you got better otherwise.”

Junko’s grin had already disappeared by now, she talked seriously to the dark haired girl.

“I’m glad to see. Our Homura looks so disturbed, no surprise that Madoka won’t let her go! I’ve never seen her like this, she defends her to the end... I start to believe that our daughter has really become something else. But I also know that this is how we raised her. You reap what you sow, don’t you? We have room for Homura, we’d just like to fix her... Do you live with Madoka’s family too? How did they treat you?”

Her question embarrassed the raven haired girl. How could she tell the things that happened to her in the Kaname household? Would she help the other Homura by telling? They were similar, yet different... Madoka saw her trouble and helped her out.

“Just forget that you have gods living in your house! Everything Homura-chan needs is a normal life with a normal family, because she never had one. She needs you all. Mom and dad have always been great at it and I’m sure that you’ll be great too! You should have seen Homura-chan after she spent two months frozen in amber! Believe me, she was just as broken.”

“It’s funny... I expected that one day you’d give me advice, but I’d have never imagined that this day would arrive so soon...”, Junko sighed. “Thank you, Madoka.”

Then she hugged Homura.

“Life isn’t always fair. I don’t think that any you would have deserved to suffer so much. But you’re right, this is why you have a family standing by you.”

“She’ll may protest, but she needs it...”, Homura said, still embarrassed. She felt strangely awkward in another Junko’s arms, like the comforting hug was meant for someone else.

“Good. We’ll give her share of this too! Won’t us, sweetheart?”, she turned to her husband who just got back to the kitchen.

“We’ll do what?”, he asked cheerfully.

“Fix Homura-chan!”

“Of course!”, Tomohisa nodded.

Kyouko came next. Junko patted her shoulder for her firm handshake.

“So you’re Sakura Kyouko. My daughter hasn’t brought any of you yet, but don’t feel shut out of the fun!”

She seated the three girls and poured four shots of whisky then quickly swallowed hers.

“Stop sulking, Sayaka! You can join us in a few years!”, she laughed ruffling her fourth guest’s blue hair.

“I had my first drink at your age!”, Madoka teased.

“Oh, really?”, Junko shot a surprised look at her. Her daughter had always obeyed this rule to the letter - but still, a shadow of a doubt crossed the woman’s mind.

“It was Mom who offered me the drink.”, Madoka added. “I had a terrible hangover next day.”

“Then I don’t think it’s a lighthearted story...”, Junko eyed her empty glass.

“It happened that night when Homura-chan stayed in the amber at the place we just call Walpurgis Memorial. We all thought that she died or even worse. And I knew that she did it for me and that she had no other choice, she couldn’t have lasted another day anyway. She had struggled for years to save me then when she finally succeeded she was doomed. No one should have to endure what she felt...”

“Was this after Walpurgisnacht?”, the returning Madokami asked. She had probably let her hair down with some mysterious magic because it flowed longer than that of Homura – but she stuck to her twin tails and bows. Her long dress was white and frilly and the inside of the skirt seemed to reflect the Universe itself. Her eyes glowed in golden light. She entered hand in hand with Akuma Homura who wore the same costume as last evening on the hilltop but hid her wings.

“I’m still not sure what to think about this girl.”, Junko admitted to her guests. “These are quite daring clothes for such a timid little mouse. And the things my Madoka told about her... Anyhow, this dress just doesn’t suit her.”

“It can’t be helped, Mom! That outfit belongs to her, just like this white one belongs to me. And yes, I think that it’s cute! Don’t say bad things about Homura-chan! She’s a good girl.”

“You drag her home like a stray kitten and defend her with tooth and nail, then you say she’s the Devil herself, and now she’s a good girl...! Madoka, you really don’t make your mother’s life easy! At least you should have given her a pair of socks to stuff that dress a little...”, Junko laughed.

“I change back to my uniform...”, Akuma Homura mumbled deeply blushed and turned back. Junko looped a friendly but firm arm around her shoulder and didn’t let her run off.

“Oh, come on! Have a little confidence! Madoka loves you the way you are, what else can matter? Don’t listen to the ramblings of an eccentric old hag! I can only wish to be as young and beautiful as you!”

“But Kaname-san... you are still so beautiful!”, the girl answered with downcast eyes. She just couldn’t figure Madoka’s mother out.

“You didn’t say that I’m young!”, Junko laughed. “I’m too old even for the Devil!”

The pink-eyed Madoka giggled. She didn’t even know why she turned to her alter ego.

“You know, Madoka, my Homura-chan was exactly like her and I introduced her the very same way: a good girl. Right after she confessed some very steep things from an earlier timeline.”

“I don’t even know which Homura-chan is the bigger devil!”, the yellow eyed girl winked. She knew everything they did for the two of her, she saw the city one Homura burned up (it would have been ruined by Walpurgis very soon) and the world the other turned upside down (the Incubators had already been preparing to take it over from Madoka), and she felt everything they felt. Even though she had no intention to hurt them she found teasing the too serious, too sad girls strangely amusing.

Now the two black haired girls were equally embarrassed. Each Madoka cupped the cheek of her Homura and gently comforted her. Kyouko hadn’t found them so funny since her two friends could finally bring themselves to admit that they really loved each other – but seeing them in duplicate was just too much. She found their identical gestures immensely amusing and she wasn’t the only one.

“Talking about outfits... Is this some kind of uniform?”, Tomohisa asked her daughter’s alter ego when she sat down again. The guests couldn’t help coming in their grey camouflage uniforms, Kyouko’s was quite worn at that – but they could at least clean them in the river.

„Something like that. I don’t know what Madoka told you about them, but we are the magical girls of our world. At least we’d like to be the only ones, because the real ones are dying. So we took on the task of witch hunting and fixing time-space anomalies.”, Madoka answered. “We just need a little sensitivity to magic. Homura-chan and Kyouko-chan had been magical girls before they joined. I hadn’t but I have some natural talent so I don’t need anything but a little Cortexiphan before missions. Oh, and we try to save as many girls as we can before they could turn into witches!”

It had all been true before the Observers arrived... but she didn’t want to mention them on this beautiful evening.

“So you’re a bit like our Madoka.”

“A little bit.”

Madoka and Homura found their other selves and both pairs asked each other curiously about their life and world. They learned that they had followed the same path for a long time, then they took a different turn at a very distinct point of time. As magical girls they couldn’t break free from the Incubators’ trap, but one Madoka found a wish to overturn their system. The other Homura kept fighting - but for the first time in many years she asked for and received help from where she hadn’t even expected.

Now that she thought it over Homura froze in the middle of a sentence. She didn’t understand how the memory could emerge so suddenly and how it could hide until now. It was bright and clean just like in a flash of lightning. She recalled the whole scene as she had seen - then forgotten.

“Impossible! I can’t believe it...! Listen, Homura, I can’t tell you now, but I think I remembered what happened at that point! I know why we are still human while you two became gods! I know that you’d be happier if Madoka had stayed human, but you really shouldn’t! I’ll tell you everything after dinner!”

The meal was great, just as they expected from Tomohisa – any Tomohisa. After the exquisitely creamy strawberry cake (which naturally reminded both Homuras of the magical Madoka) Junko showed the guests around and offered them to spend the night in the house telling that Sayaka had already had sleepovers there before they moved to America. The house was almost like they remembered, except for a few things things that were still in boxes.

“You may use this room. Unfortunately it’s still a bit empty but we have a few spare futons.”, Junko opened an apparently unused chamber. “It’ll be Homura’s room, but it’s still lacking furniture.”

“This is hers in our house too.”, said the uniformed Madoka. “But she doesn’t use it too much, she’s always with me.”

They shared a smile, hands intertwined.

One by one they all took a shower and gathered in Madoka’s room.

“Sorry, mom, we’d like to discuss a few things among ourselves...”, the golden eyed goddess said, now in pyjamas.

“Well, well, are you plotting some mischief? Maybe you really have the Devil among you!”, she pinched her daughter’s cheek.

“It’s a magical girl conspiracy!”, Madokami laughed.

“Then you should definitely keep Sayaka here as she’s the only magical girl in your company, correct?”

“Well... She’s almost one.”, the Goddess archly admitted.

The girls pushed two low tables together and sat around them.

“Come, Homura-chan!”, Madokami patted the pillow next to her. Akuma Homura quickly took her place. The Goddess smiled, tugged her closer and began to stroke her dark, flowing tresses.

Sayaka gritted her teeth at the sight. Her chaotic memories from the many  disordered timelines proved stronger than her recent experience.

“Hands off of her you demon!”, she snapped at the raven haired girl. “I know what you’re up to! You entice her, put her off guard then seal her away again, this time together with Kyouko and everyone else so no one can free her anymore!”

Madoka and Homura from the other world froze. They hadn’t yet seen her like this. She had been a pain in the neck for Homura in the time loop, but they considered this other Sayaka way more level-headed. Now she thoroughly ruined her ‘wiser version’ image. Kyouko frowned at her but kept silent: she thought that this time the other Madoka should take care of things.

“I-I don’t! I swear I won’t ever do such things again, Miki-san!”, Akuma Homura vowed, taken off guard by the sudden attack. Sayaka angrily bit her lower lip. That devil was playing the pigtailed-bespectacled schoolgirl again, just like in her labyrinth...

“Shut up you traitor! You’re doing it only because you know that Madoka can’t resist when you’re like this! Beware, Madoka, she’s not as innocent as she pretends!”

“Sayaka-chan!”, the Goddess furrowed her brows in anger. “Homura-chan did nothing at all! In case you haven’t noticed, it was me who called her here!”

She ostentatiously hugged the startled raven haired girl. This time something really snapped inside Sayaka.

“Because this is exactly how demons work! She slyly gets close to you and will control you before you’d realize!”

“Come here, Sayaka-chan!”, Madokami ordered strictly. Then her voice softened as she saw how much she scared Sayaka. “I think you still don’t remember everything... but I can help you. You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t hurt you, even if you keep angry with Homura-chan, but I can’t let you unfairly judge her!”

Then she placed her hand hand on Sayaka’s forehead. Memories flashed in the blunette’s head as she fell toward the floor. She couldn’t even sense when she hit the ground.

“Kyubey tricked us all!”

“I’m sorry, Miki-san...”

“I wanted to handle things before Kubey got to Kaname Madoka, but it can’t be helped now.”

“At this rate you just make Madoka suffer even more! Then I might as well kill you right now, Miki Sayaka!”

“N-not me! I am... the pumpkin!”

“So you’re saying that the person who wished for this situation is one of us?”

“The world is in working order, the law is still in effect. All I took was a tiny piece of it. Just the records of the person that Kaname Madoka had been before she ceased to exist.”

“Sayaka, are you okay?”

The blue haired girl felt a hand on her shoulder. She shook her head to clear up her vision. As the blur began to dissolve she saw a pair of worried violet eyes. Why did it have to be Homura? The demon cast a carefully calculated troubled look at her and addressed her in an unusually friendly manner. This time she targeted her... Then again, she might have really been trying to make peace... Sayaka had a thousand reasons to be angry with her, but she had to admit that Homura had payed dearly for her sins – even before she could commit them. Sakaya sighed and accepted her helping hand.

“All right...! But I’ll keep an eye on you, transfer student!”

She shook her head at the dark haired girl’s thankful gaze. It had been so much simpler to just place her on an imaginary shelf in an imaginary jar with a black label of ‘Evil’... or, even before that, with another label saying: ‘Nuts’. She hoped that she would eventually find the correct label for the errant creature. Perhaps a grey or smeary one, as she couldn’t find any black or white fit her...

When they took their seats again Madokami looked around with an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, I’d like to see this world all right... And where should I start if not at this very table?”

“But why are you two here to begin with?” The lamplight sharply flashed on Kyouko’s fang. “I mean we’re cheerfully having a dinner in your parents’ house instead of meeting somewhere in space, or on a mountaintop or something like that... you’re gods after all...”

“You know, Homura-chan was right in one thing.”, the middle schooler goddess answered. “I was really longing for a normal, simple life here on Earth. If I had been as conscious as I am now I’d have been very lonely. And even the way I was I missed my parents and my friends. I missed Homura-chan. Poor girl, while she was with me I couldn’t see the struggle she had been through for me. And when I finally saw everything we had to part ways... But now, we can be together again, thanks to you. If you need us you can always find us here. We’ll always be here for you and any magical girl who is, was, will be in need. We meddled with space-time a bit so this house will stay like this forever. Now that there’s two of us our job’s much easier so we can take some rest once in a while.”

“Then, I think, you don’t need...”, Kyouko began.

“No, Kyouko-chan. There won’t be any witches in this world anymore. We’ll be on guard until the Universe cools down in the end. What we don’t wait too eagerly, so you can say that the Incubators work for us in this new world.”, Madokami blushed a little. “But Homura-chan keeps them on a short leash, she won’t let anyone suffer just to postpone the heat death of our Universe! But what about your world? I don’t know too much, but I’ve heard that you all are in big trouble...”

“Madoka! The other Homura told me that she found out something very important!”, the Devil cut in, her gaze fixed on her Goddess. Then she turned to her alter ego. “This is what you wanted to talk about, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”, the older Homura replied. “It seems that someone tampered with my brain too, because I couldn’t possibly forget such an important thing by myself! It’s about that certain 96th attempt, if I didn’t mess up counting...”, she looked back at her parallel.

“It hadn’t ever been so hard before. It seriously crossed my mind to give up. I had run out of my month, I couldn’t stop time anymore and Walpurgis hit me full on with a building. I was lying in the debris, my splintered leg stuck under a huge concrete chunk. And I knew that I’d have just hurt Madoka if I had kept trying. My soul gem was pitch black. I was defeated. I closed my eyes and waited for Madoka to make her wish. I waited for a good while and nothing happened so I warily looked around, just to realize that I was in still time, even though I couldn’t stop it anymore. A bald man was crouching in front of me, one of those very Observers, and he was pricking needles in the concrete chunk on my leg.


“It can possibly distract your judgment.”, the man said in a toneless voice. Homura was watching apathetically as he placed the last needle. Then a single touch of a button on his PDA and the concrete chunk simply evaporated. The stranger straightened the girl’s leg and ran the contraption along to her feet. The pain was gone in a few seconds, but Homura didn’t care.

“I only used peripheral nerve blocking. Your leg is still broken.”

It was the same otherworldly, monotonic voice, the same empty face, like he really wasn’t human. He might have not been.

Then he checked her eyes very closely with a blinding flashlight. Indifferent grey look met a broken purple. When he made sure that the girl could understand him he finally began his speech.

“Your mission is important for our... future. We decided to let you change timelines. At this point we can not afford letting you give up so I have been authorized to share certain details of your future with you. We have a new... assignment for you. And new hope.”

Floating images appeared before her eyes, recordings about four people: an old and a young man, a white and a creole woman.

“You have to contact these persons. They are capable of solving... your problem.”

The corner of Homura’s mouth curled up a little. This stone faced stranger just couldn’t understand. At least it was a bit funny. Another drop of blood trickled down her face, slightly tickling. Everything she remembered from her life was hiding behind that stoic mask, and sometimes, only sometimes, crying to Madoka. It didn’t feel too bad to die smiling after all...

“See you in my labyrinth...”, she whispered what she meant to be her last words. With the last of her strength she raised her hand showing him the pitch black magical jewel.

The hatted man took her hand and examined the stone’s swirling darkness very carefully. The girl’s lavender eyes widened as he took a grief seed out of his pocket and touched it against her soul gem without so much as a blink. He held it there until the gem shined brighter than any time Homura had cleaned it, no matter how many grief seeds she used. She saw the unmistakable gears on the little black gem’s casing. Gears that had been haunting her since the first time she woke up in the hospital room with her soul gem in her hand. Gears that kept grinding her sanity. Walpurgis.

“How...?”

“You think that you control time. You don’t even know what you don’t know. You live because you hope. But there’s no hope for us. We only have knowledge of possible futures. Knowledge expels hope. This is why you must forget what you’ve seen here. Your subconscious will store the images you need.”


“The next thing I remember is the ceiling of my hospital room, the same as always.”

“Homura-chan, this is terrible!”, the two Madokas exclaimed at once. Kyouko slammed her fist on the table. They all saw the hidden threat behind the act of generosity. It was a carefully chosen little intervention that changed the direction of an entire universe. And it was the very trap that could have driven the time traveler Homura crazy: probably they only let her save Madoka because it was a step in the course of events that led to them taking over the world.

“Twisted!”, Kyouko whistled. “Even if you could go back again to thwart their plans you’d have to throw Madoka away...! These baldies are just as nasty as the Incubators! Our world is in good hands... or... just wait a minute! Are you sure you didn’t have any business with them since then?”

“I had never seen them since then, until Hochfeld. Unless they erased that from my mind too...”, Homura didn’t look delighted by this possibility. “But Walbey said that he met them. I think we both were manipulated to create a stable universe for them to take, because our world seemed to stop decaying after you crossed over. The thought of being a chess piece in their hands when all I did was trying to save Madoka makes me sick!”

“And they still want something from us!”, Madoka added. “We saw those screens: Homura-chan and I are still wanted in our world. And they’re looking for Walbey too!”

“Who’s this Walbey?”, Akuma Homura wondered. “I thought you’re at war with the Incubators.”

Kyouko burst into laughter.

“It’s Walbey who’s at war with them the most! I don’t think he’s happy about his looks but he had to steal a host body from them... Truth is, he has to hide in that form while his human body is serving his life sentence in the Wissenschaft prison... The old man’s a genius and a good guy anyway, he’s our greatest help. Okay, he has his burdens too, just like every one of us, but it can’t be helped... He was found by Homura somehow, back when he was a human. But now we know where she got the idea from...”

“I owe Madoka’s and my life to him.”, the dark haired girl said humbly. “I hope he can help us again and the Observers won’t stop him before he could...”

“I hope so, Homura-chan! And I’d like to help you too! Could you think of this man for a moment? We might have his parallel and I want to find him!”

Madokami closed her eyes for a second.

“Oh... it’s really interesting! I understand now! He was really your best choice. He and his son are both tied to multiple worlds, just like Homura-chan or myself! No wonder that you’ve ended up here! And I had no idea that there are such people in my world! Even though we became gods we can’t just be omniscient, you know. We’d go crazy if we had to keep everything in mind. And we really don’t know much about other worlds. I can’t even explain what I see... it’s like a huge tangle of threads and force fields and junctions where worlds split. Just like the fork where Homura-chan tried to save me again and again. The timelines she created are branching from that point like stamens of a spider lily. But your world is different: it’s relocating right before my eyes without splitting and keeps changing in the future and the past too... I don’t even know why. It has no apparent reason. But even if it doesn’t, that reason will be created in the past for sure, to protect causality. I can only tell one thing: this change has something to do with Homura-chan, with both Homura-chans!”

“It must be the machine Jones put me in...”, the older dark haired girl sighed.

“He... made me feel like... your Homura. Then he connected the two universes. This is how we met and this is why our worlds are neighbors now. It was a real nightmare, I even saw an Incubator with him! That little bastard was cheering for him the whole time. He wanted to study your world. They’ve practically steered ours closer...”

Akuma Homura’s eyes burned with red glow behind the gentle lavender as she clenched her fists. No matter how lost she was in her new role, threats against Madoka were no laughing matter to her.

“What the hell do I need to shake them off?! Even a whole universe isn’t enough? Goddamn alien bastards... Just try to sneak into our world and take your hands on Madoka, I’ll show you that even you can suffer...!”

The yellow eyed Madoka just shook her head.

“Let them be, Homura-chan... you know that they won’t come here. They simply can not.”

“How come...?”, the older Homura raised her brow. “Even we mere earthlings could cross over with our early 21st century technology! We wouldn’t even need magic if we did the same as Jones: he followed me from timeline to timeline and I never noticed him!”

“That’s because you’re separate individuals! But the Incubators store their memories in a big collective consciousness. It’s hard to kill one, but even if you do you’ll get nothing from that, because they’ll still remember everything it knew. But there’s a catch: if an Incubator enters a world with another similar collective network it’ll become one of them and inevitably forget why it came. And they can’t go back in time for the same reason: when they arrive they won’t remember anything they didn’t know at that time. I don’t know how they connect to the others from within a witch’s labyrinth and why they don’t send messages to their past selves, but this is why Homura-chan could protect me until I finally made my contract. If they had warned themselves about her trying they would have surely done something against her! After all, they could even turn her into a witch, right here under my nose!”

Even the Goddess herself was scared of the thought. She protectively clutched Akuma Homura by her head. Then her grasp tightened even more when the other Homura told her about the tiny little scratch that she found on her soul gem on the morning before Walpurgisnacht – even though it was nothing to the screws in the younger version’s soul...

“It was almost a success. By the time we defeated Walpurgis I must have been within an inch of Homulilly... I rather froze myself in amber together with Walpurgis and Kyubey than letting Madoka see me like that. I was so close that everything was horribly familiar in her labyrinth where we met... I had been roaming that city for two months so you can imagine that I couldn’t get away from there even after I was freed and those grinning dolls kept hunting me too. Madoka can tell you how terrible I looked every night after Walter carved me out of the amber and broke my soul gem. He saved my life but couldn’t save my dreams.”

“So you had your own Clara dolls?”, Akuma Homura wondered. “Then you were really close! Have you ever seen them outside your head? Would you like to? There’s fourteen of them and each one is as strong as a magical girl!”
The other Homura made a wry face.

“You’re right, it’s a bad idea... They rarely listen, only when they feel like it. They only fear Madoka...”, the Devil blushed, peeking through the divine arms. Madokami still didn’t let her go, even though she seemed to be somewhere else.

They all watched the Goddess for a few seconds - then Madoka returned with a blink.

“I have no power over your world, but I’ll do my best to help you.”, she said looking around at her guests. “You ought not talk about this universe in yours, for your own good. But I’d like to be there for you when you need us, because you will. This Walter Bishop has a pair of strange typewriters, designed to transmit between two worlds. It works by quantum entanglement so it can’t be monitored neither by the Incubators nor the Observers. I asked him to lend them to us while he was sleeping. He wasn’t even too hard to persuade. Take one to your world, I’ll keep the other. The postman’s going to deliver them next morning, then I’ll send you home.”

“Wow, your postal service is quick as hell!”, Kyouko noted.

“I asked him last week.”, Madoka smiled.

“You’re awesome! But won’t you be discovered this way?”

The Goddess’ smile gave way to a grin.

“They sent it to another city someone accidentally mixed up the address and no one remembers a thing. But...”, she changed to a serious tone. ”As the demanding God I am I’d like you to do something for me too. It’s just a little play. You know, we’ll always be like this, but you had... grown up. I’d like to see how we’d look like older.”

“I don’t understand...”, the other Madoka gave her a confused look.

“But it was you who just played my role... I’d like you two to swap places with us for a little. Don’t be afraid, I won’t impose the world on you, I’d just like to see you in my outfit! And the other Homura-chan too, as a Devil!”

Kyouko took a bowl of peanuts and leaned back giggling. These two didn’t fail to amuse her again.

Madoka had no objections so both pinkettes got up. She bowed a bit to let her shorter alter ego kiss her forehead. In the next moment she was standing there in her parallel’s divine white dress.

“M-Madoka... You’re stunning!”, it was everything Homura could stammer. Madoka smiled in deep blush.

“You’re next!”, Kyouko demanded looking at Homura.

“All right.”, Homura sighed. “But believe me, I’m not a great sight...”

“It’s not true, Homura-chan! You’re beautiful!”, the pink eyed Madoka joined in. “It would be fantastic to wear fitting dresses! Even you have to admit that the other Homura-chan is cute in it!”

“You’re nice, Madoka, like always... But she’s so... perfect. And I’m...”

“...perfectly skinny! You two are as like as two peas!”, Kyouko said with finality and to demonstrate her point she simply picked up the raven haired girl and carried her to her alter ego.

Akuma Homura clapped with a mischievous little smile and the change was done. The girl in her diabolic dress suddenly raised her hands to hide something between her barely covered breasts. This was the moment when Madoka realized the reason of her reluctance and the penny dropped for Kyouko too. She had already seen Homura naked on the operating table and she knew that the thin girl would walk through the Chamber of the Parliament dressed in a pair of AK-47s without as much as a blink if she needed to. Kyouko was appalled that Homura could worry about such a trivial little thing. A strange girl, indeed.

“Don’t you say that it worried you! You had been cut open, then what? They did it like a pro. Just be happy that it wasn’t me! Then you’d really have something to hide! Anyway, I’ve seen someone with a tattoo like this...”

Akuma Homura gave her parallel a surprised look.

“Why didn’t you mend that scar?”

Her older self sighed and lowered her arms.

“I didn’t feel like I had enough excess magic for that. You weren’t there in those timelines, they were getting harder and harder. I could barely survive the last battle. I tried to save every drop of my power. I’ve repaired everything inside and my eyes too because I needed them in battles, but I couldn’t care about marginal things... I thought that even if Madoka saw it she wouldn’t waste her wish on it if it isn’t dangerous or painful. So I stayed like this. But Kyouko’s right, it’s stupid to worry about it. Madoka did never mind...”

Kyouko waited for her to finish then whispered something in Akuma Homura’s ear. The Devil asked something in return just as silently then she shrugged and clapped her hands again. In the next moment the bored Sayaka toppled over backward with her chair.

“I knew it!”, she yelled.

Kyouko stood before them in a traditional red and white miko outfit, swinging a stick with a long paper ribbon.

“Just to make you happy! It’s your obsession, not mine!”

“Neo-Christian, yeah, sure...! Don't try to pull a fast one on me!”, Sayaka laughed clutching her stomach. But Kyouko poured cold water on her spirits.

“This is my farewell gift. I’m going to leave tomorrow, to the world where I belong. They need me more than you do. You’ve probably figured out already that I am someone else.”

Sayaka looked at her sullenly but finally she nodded. She knew that this redhead was just a reminder of the Kyouko of her own world. She resolved to find that other one the next day. She hoped that their Kyouko’s memories were returning too now that the world was freed from the Devil’s grasp. If not...

But there was something else Homura was curious about.

“What’s this ‘World D’ you keep mentioning? Why isn’t it ‘A’ like ‘the first world we’ve known’?”

“It’s D like Drugs. This is our technique. I’m not really sure if I should be proud of it being more advanced at biochemistry when we know a dope that can incubate witches... Their universe is just Wold M to me, because they’re much more magical.”, Kyuoko grinned at the alliteration. “Then I realized that that ‘M’ could be ‘Madoka’ instead...”

Madokami led the whole group to the backyard where Tomohisa usually raised tomatoes.

“Wow, Madoka! I’ve never seen it! I didn’t know that you have something like this in your garden!”, Kyouko yelled, surprised by the shinto shrine gate.

“We can have anything you want in this garden as long as Papa gets his tomatoes back in the end. He’s just planted them!”, Madokami giggled. “All I want you to do is to stand here, under the gate. I’d just like to take a picture of you three. It’s not everyday that you get visited by your alter ego from another world!”

“Just watch!”, Kyouko grinned and dragged her worldmates under the gate.

“Almighty Madoka-sama of the heavens, Good-for-nothing Homura-sama who rulest over white rats, may ye bless this house and its holy gate. Bestow good luck upon all who treadeth this sacred ground, amen!”

“I’ll kick your ankle...”, Homura hissed.

“Why do you think that no one else should read stupid messages in bus stops? It’s you who shouldn’t read them to begin with, you like to brood over such things too much... Wait, I see why you have these dark thoughts! You’re possessed by a demon! Just let me purge you! Begone, evil spirit!”

And she brandished her stick and swung Homura with the paper ribbon. In her left hand she was already holding a paper talisman against the demon.

The move the raven haired girl dodged the talisman with was way quicker than it should have been. Kyouko tried to follow but she could only see blur and feel her own talisman slapping her forehead and sticking there. She growled about Cortexiphan, magic and sense of humor while she scraped the piece of paper off herself. Homura panted, hiding behind Madoka.

“Not bad at all!”, Sayaka laughed. “Only that ‘Amen’ wasn’t right on... And you should practice exorcism a bit more because devils can be quite nimble!”

Kyouko bowed.

“I’ve already said that my Christian background puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to the rituals of the Church of Madokami! But it seems that even makeshift priestesses like me can do for this embryonic religion... Just watch how our Goddess tries to catch new followers with her own hands! ...Oi, Homura, are you okay?!”

Only Madoka stopped the dark haired girl from collapsing. They quickly carried her up into the guest room and assured Madokami’s parents that they didn’t need a doctor and even if they had, no normal physician could have helped this Homura.

The house goddesses examined her instead and they marveled at her state.

“Madoka, I almost envy you! Homura-chan’s soul is partly outside her body and it’s a bit inside you! How did you do this? What happened to you?”

“It must be her magnets. You know, we said earlier... Jones injected some of them into me to torture her more efficiently and to make her more similar to real magical girls. I was afraid that he tried to turn her into a witch but fortunately he was content with almost doing so...! We escaped in the end but Homura-chan stayed this way. Now her soul is attracted by my body too. We’re really close this way but we were already close enough and I’m worried about Homura-chan... It’s very dangerous for her. If there aren’t enough magnets in her bloodstream her soul may slip away...!

“See? Our method isn’t perfect...”, Homura faintly smiled. She had to gather her strength for every few words. “This is the best we can... But I’ll be fine, just let me rest a little... I used magic, that’s why I’m... exhausted. When we get home I’ll get... new magnets... in the university lab.”

“No way, Homura-chan!”, Madokami objected. “I know you too well... you should take better care of yourself! I won’t let you leave like this!”

“Let me do it, Madoka!”, Akuma Homura offered. “It’ll be better this way. Do you remember the pain you felt when you contracted with the Incubators? It’ll be just as painful for them! I don’t want you to hurt them, it’s the Devil’s job! But I think I’d better anesthetize them for the operation like humans do...”

Madoka would have liked to talk with them some more, but Akuma Homura clapped and she suddenly felt weary and drowsy. She collapsed on the futon next to her Homura and the world faded to black before her eyes.


Silence fell over the house, every light went out. Everyone was sleeping, only Akuma Homura was still lying awake. Her head was full of thoughts after everything that happened. She got up and left the dreaming Madokami while she sneaked around in the house full of sleepers, immersed in her thoughts. She had been alone for so long that the world got re-created twice in the meantime - then, suddenly, everything changed and she lost her footing. Dreamlike things happened to her, things she couldn’t even hope for since her early days as a pigtailed, bespectacled naive little girl who tried to protect Madoka from the unknown with a mere golf club. After these years of isolation she found herself sitting in the Kaname household, literally dragged home by Madoka. Just a day earlier she had been the almighty Devil, pulling strings from the world’s engineering deck. Now she was Madoka’s strange and clumsy protege, surrounded by a bunch of oddly friendly people. She found this crowd distressingly hard to handle.

“Why, a black cat wandering in the night... Come, sit here, Homura. Don’t be afraid, I won’t bite...”

So there was someone else awake. Madoka’s mother was sitting in the murky kitchen. She was the most confusing of the whole family, and the girl had just run into her arms... Homura felt like running away and erasing their meeting from Junko’s mind. In the next moment she was ashamed of her own thought. She had just been thinking of betraying Madoka’s trust... Dozens of well deserved tomatoes would have splashed on her hair and clothes if she hadn’t been in Madoka’s house. But even her unruly familiars behaved themselves here.

Something touched her hand. Homura just realized that she was holding on the edge of the table with whitened knuckles and the touch came from Junko’s hand that she placed on hers. The girl sighed at the gesture. She couldn’t do anything about the ruins of her once perfect mask that leaked like a sieve.

“I’m glad that you popped up here. I’d like to have a little talk with you. I know that I’m just a funny stranger to you and I don’t know you either. But I know Madoka and she doesn’t lie to me. I accept that you’ve long known each other, since a time I can’t even remember. In a sense it wasn’t even real, was it?”

“I... I don’t know...”, the girl began, her timid gaze wandering around. “It might sound unreal to Kaname-san... But everything she said had really happened to Madoka and me.”

“You can call me Junko. I know that a few hours have passed again, but I’m still not that old!”

“Junko-san...”

Homura fell silent. They lived in totally different worlds. She couldn’t think of anything she could have told to Madoka’s mother.

“Here, let me help you. I know much more than you think. Madoka told me so much about you that I can’t even imagine how she could do it in the short time you spent here. You know that you’ve done something horrible, don’t you?”

The question wasn’t necessary and it needed no answer: Homura’s eyes spoke in her stead. Now Junko really had to hold her to stop her from running away. The only difference between the girl’s gaze and that of a scared beast was a whole mountain of guilt. Junko felt bad for mentioning but perhaps she was doing the very thing she wanted to talk about.

“And I can’t forgive you. First of all, I’ve never had a grudge against you. What’s more important, only you can forgive yourself.”

As she spoke Junko had a great chance to study the shifting shades of purple in the girl’s eyes as widened in fear, dropped in submission, then fixed at her again full of confusion and a little faint hope.

“Madoka is my daughter and I won’t let any harm come to her. Still... you may not believe, but I kind of understand you. You know, once I had a talk with Madoka, right here. It might haven’t even been so long ago... She asked me how to help a friend. This friend of hers just wanted to do what she felt right. She might haven’t even been wrong, but life isn’t so simple. Sometimes you can only hurt yourself if you do the right thing. I told Madoka that sometimes you need to make a mistake to get things right. I advised her to tell a lie to this friend or run away. To do something wrong. Sometimes the only exit from a dead end is a big mistake. I feel like you were here with us too, because I could have never found a better example.”

Homura remembered a blue soul gem falling from a bridge, Madoka crying over Sayaka’s dead body, scared of her own deed. Homura didn’t understand how Junko could remember that time but she was sure that the woman knew what she was talking about. Homura had been there too, it was her who got Sayaka’s soul back from the back of a truck. It must have been some divine intervention, the gem would have probably shattered if it had fallen on the pavement. What Madoka had done was terribly stupid - yet it helped Sayaka and Kyouko to make peace.

“Junko-san... why don’t you hate the Devil for what she did?”

“Cut it out, Homura, this is stupid! You’re no more ‘devil’ than Tomohisa or myself.”

“B-but I sealed Madoka here on Earth! I wanted her to be together with me forever in blissful ignorance! I took her memories, her divine power she could have been so proud of...”

The girl blinked fighting back her tears then she gave up and wiped her eyes. She couldn’t tell how Madoka’s pride felt – but hers was surely in ruins.

“You are frighteningly powerful, Homura. When I talk with you I always have to push away the thought that I’m playing with fire. But!”, Junko held up her index finger. “Have you ever tried to give this power to someone just to see what they'd do with it? Believe me, you used it way better than most people would! I’m not even sure that my world would be better than this one. And you could even realize your mistake with a little help and try to make things right. What would you call such a ‘Devil’? And you did something more. You say you wanted to keep Madoka for yourself, but if you two told me the truth it was exactly you who gave her back to me.”

The undeserved kindness made tears trickle down the girl’s face. Junko watched her carefully and failed to see the monster that Homura saw in herself. In the woman’s eyes she was no more than a troubled, weary teenage girl who made stupid mistakes like anyone else in her age, but even her parents weren’t there to support her. Junko got up from the table, stepped behind Homura’s chair and took the girl in her arms.

“You don’t have to carry everything alone... you should trust Madoka! I’m sure she has learned from her mistake. And we are here for you too, just like for her.”

Junko held the crying girl until she felt the sobs ease behind the black curtain of hair that hid Homura’s face, then she helped her to her feet.

“Come, Homura, it’s time to sleep. I hand you back to Madoka...”

And she steered her to the door where the golden-eyed Goddess had already been waiting her with open arms.