Work Text:
As long as Akemi Homura remembers Kaname Madoka, she will keep trying to save her, no matter what. Whether it means saving her from a witch, from Walpurgisnacht, from other magical girls, from becoming a magical girl... or even from her own choices and destiny.
This is something that both Akemi Homura and Kaname Madoka are acutely aware of.
As long as Akemi Homura remembers, she will keep fighting to secure a happy ending for the person she loves so much.
That is precisely why Kaname Madoka, with tears in her eyes after stripping Akemi Homura of her divinity, makes a decision.
She must make Homura forget everything.
If only she forgot about magical girls, if only she forgot all this tragedy.
If only she could forget about her...
Then, she could be happy.
In the midst of the sea of stars that encompasses the entire universe, amidst the countless red threads that no one but them can see—threads that comprise destiny, the different timelines, and their connections—the two of them stand. Akemi Homura is kneeling on a non-physical floor, completely devoid of energy, utterly exhausted and defeated, yet still keeping her gaze fixed on Madoka.
"I suppose this is the end, Homura-chan," Madoka says, her voice broken and trembling. She desperately wants to hide the sadness this scenario brings to her face.
"It wouldn't be, if only you would accept having a normal life, Madoka." Homura continues to stare at her. There is resignation in her voice; she knows she can't do anything else, that none of her words could convince Madoka of any other conclusion. Even if she were to beg and cry right now, she knows it would be useless.
"You know I can't do that. Someone has to be in charge of passing on hope." She grips her bow tightly.
"Even if that brings me despair?"
"It shouldn't. You've already saved me. I'm no longer in a cycle of despair. I won't die anymore."
"What is the difference if you can no longer experience the rays of the May sun, if you can no longer eat eggs for breakfast, if you can no longer be with your warm family? You might not die anymore, but your situation can no longer be called living. You are not happy." For the first time in their entire conversation, Homura shows a distressed expression, clutching her skirt with her fists.
"I may not be able to experience those things anymore, but I am still happy. No one can judge the happiness of others, not even you, Homura-chan."
"Then tell me, wouldn't you be happier with all those things? The times I saw you the happiest were before you became the Law of Cycles. And you know very well, Madoka, that I have never stopped watching you, not even now." True to her words, her eyes remain fixed on Madoka, but not in the piercing way anyone else might think. She mostly observes her face, though her gaze occasionally sweeps over her body, her entire being. She isn't trying to find anything new in her, as she already knows everything there is to know about her; her gaze is, in reality, much more intimate.
Madoka doesn't respond verbally.
But her silence has, in fact, already given the answer.
"You will no longer even be able to experience the feeling of a friend thinking of you, nor of a friend calling you, nor even calling a friend yourself. Will you still call that loneliness your happiness?" Homura grips her skirt even tighter, tearing the fabric slightly from the sheer force.
"I will keep doing it if it means giving hope to people."
"STOP SACRIFICING YOURSELF SO MUCH! STOP THINKING MORE ABOUT OTHERS THAN YOURSELF! THE ONLY THING I ASK IS FOR YOU TO BE HAPPY! I HAVE GIVEN EVERYTHING FOR IT, SO WHY CAN'T YOU JUST TRY TO PUT YOURSELF FIRST OVER OTHERS FOR ONCE IN YOUR DAMN LIFE?!" she screams desperately, losing the composure she had been trying to maintain, shedding tears of frustration.
"I suppose that is my biggest flaw. But don't you think it's strange? We're two of a kind. I always put others before myself, and you always put me before everything, especially before yourself. I could say the same to you, Homura-chan; you should think more about yourself." Madoka offers a small smile as she finishes.
"That spirit of self-sacrifice is what I hate the most about you, and at the same time, what I love the most about you... It's what made me love you. I still remember our first meeting as if it were yesterday. Across time, across space, across universes, I still see your smile, I still see your back, I still hear our first conversation. Even though I've lost my sanity, all of that remains burned into me like flames. That self-sacrifice started it all. If only you had run away that day, if only that day other people's lives had mattered less to you than your own, then we could be fulfilling our dreams right now."
"You know I never would have run away, knowing that in exchange for my life, I could have saved even just a single person."
"I know... You love the world too much, so much that you would sacrifice yourself for it."
"And you love me too much, so much that you would sacrifice the world for me."
Neither of them speaks immediately after that. They just share a mutual look of sadness, each reminiscing about the other's actions.
God loved the world so much that she sacrificed herself for the world, and the Devil loved God so much that she sacrificed the world for God.
They are aware that they cannot reach an agreement when both are willing to go to such extremes. Their opinions and choices are not compatible in the slightest.
"Even though I want to make people happy, and even though I have become a god, I feel powerless, unable to bring happiness to the person I wish it for the most."
"And I feel powerless that despite all my efforts, despite having gone back in time over a hundred times, I haven't been able to make you happy."
Madoka takes a deep breath. She has to prepare herself for what she is about to say; she has to put it into words to gather the courage to do what she plans, even though she is well aware that Homura already knows what she is going to say and what awaits her.
"I am going to make you forget everything, Homura-chan." Even if Madoka wanted to close her eyes or look away to evade these emotions, she doesn't. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't give Homura the farewell she deserves.
"I know. You know? I always made sure to remember our promise; it was what kept me going throughout this entire cycle of despair... The thought that I will forget even something like that makes me lose my sanity. Upon waking up at the start of every timeline, I would close my eyes again just to verify it. I can't imagine a beginning without that promise, a beginning without closing my eyes to remember that promise one more time so I could keep moving forward—where my heart would awaken to draw that future that started running long ago, no matter if it came to a halt on a difficult path, all while thinking of that beautiful blue sky and the future waiting for us. Where nothing scared me, because no matter what happened, I would never stop. I would make sure to save you."
"Madoka, do you believe in soulmates?"
Madoka opens her eyes with a hint of surprise; she didn't expect such a sudden question from Homura.
"I'd never thought about it very seriously. In fact, it surprises me a bit that you're the one asking. You've never been much into these kinds of things."
Homura lets out a small laugh. "If I try to remember my life before meeting you, everything is gloomy and colorless. When I met you, my life began to have color. Those red ribbons you wore in your hair, in my eyes, were the very red threads of destiny. When I touched them, the world started to shine and glisten. At that moment, I thought that soulmates did exist, and that you were mine."
"Homura-chan... Honestly, I also think that if soulmates truly exist, then you would be mine, too."
"Then doesn't it seem sad to you? Countless versions of me that were born and will be born will have their souls yearning for you, wanting to be by your side, and they won't even be able to meet you."
"It certainly seems a bit sad." Madoka steps closer to Homura. "But that doesn't mean they can't be happy. Without me, you will finally be able to achieve happiness."
"But I wouldn't want to live without you."
"And I wouldn't want to live without you either, but that is the reality. It's where our philosophies lead us. We cannot be together because we would only destroy everything around us in a useless attempt to impose our will over the other, just as we have done countless times before. Times when I've only managed to hurt you, times when I caused your tears, times when you broke into a thousand pieces."
"And I would keep repeating that as many times as necessary if it meant being with you one more time. I used to hate my destiny, which did nothing but fade your life away, which forced me to turn back time. But now I love it, because that destiny made me meet you countless times as if it were the first time, because that destiny at least meant I could be with you. I don't mind suffering for you, because if it's for you, then any pain is beloved to me...
...my true and only wish was always to meet you as if it were the first time."
"And I have treasured each of those encounters where it was our first meeting. I am glad I met you. I am truly glad I met you those a hundred times, these countless times." Madoka sheds a single tear, full of nostalgia and melancholy, remembering their multiple first encounters.
"Please don't cry, Madoka... I don't want to see a tear on your face... The reason I've been looking at you so intently without looking away is because I hope that even if my mind forgets, my soul will remember. That my soul will remember you, the person it will love the most."
Homura stands up for the first time in their entire conversation and approaches Madoka.
Madoka doesn't even try to get defensive; she knows Homura won't try anything now.
When Homura is face to face with her, just a short distance away, she takes Madoka's cheeks in her hands, caressing them as if they were the most precious treasure in the entire universe, with a gentleness as if handling a fragile jewel.
She leans her face in.
And kisses her tear.
"Please don't cry. In this moment, which is now the end, I want to engrave your smile into my soul—what I always wanted for you all this time."
Despite her words, Madoka continues to shed tears.
Does she really have to do this to the person who loves her so much?
Homura's hands stroke Madoka's cheek once more, wiping away her tears with immeasurable tenderness. She doesn't care that she is standing in front of her executioner.
As she declared before, anything that comes from Madoka is now beloved to her.
"Please let me kiss you. Let me kiss you as if you were the only thing that existed in this world. Let me kiss you with the despair crying out from my soul. Let me kiss you as if this were the end of the world. Let me kiss you for an eternity."
"You know I can't let you do that. I have a duty to fulfill." Madoka continues to shed tears, unable to reconcile the situation they are in.
"Then let me give you just one little kiss. Anything that comes from you, even if it's brief, will last an eternity for me."
Madoka then nods.
Homura offers a small smile, leans her face in, brings her lips closer, feels her breath, and synchronizes with it.
She plants a kiss of love on her—pure and unconditional love, stripped of any ulterior desire. Her love for Madoka is the purest thing inside her that still exists within her wretched being; it is the only thing she retains from her previously immaculate self.
The kiss is short, but just as she claimed, for her, it is an eternity.
"I suppose it's time to say goodbye, Homura-chan."
"Yes... but please, wipe that sadness from your face. Please, I want the last thing that illuminates my eyes before the bitter awakening that awaits me to be the smile of the one I will love the most."
Madoka finally stops her weeping. She forces a smile, the most perfect one she can muster, without a single glimmer of sadness, exactly as Homura would want to see.
"Goodbye, Homura-chan. I will always love you."
"Goodbye, Madoka. I will always love you."
An incandescent flash of light envelops everything around them—not just the two of them, but the entire universe.
It is the third time the universe has been rewritten.
The first time was out of the love Madoka felt for humanity.
The second time was out of the love Homura felt for Madoka.
And this third time is out of the love Madoka feels for Homura.
---
A young girl with jet-black hair, beautiful as a starry night, wakes up in a hospital room.
Tears spill from her eyes.
"Why am I crying...?" The girl wipes away the tears that fall without stopping.
Poor girl, shedding tears of heartbreak without even knowing why, without even knowing who they are meant for, without knowing who it was she loved so much.
The girl touches her heart with a clear expression of pain on her face.
"If the surgery to heal my heart was a success, then why does it still hurt?"
The girl knows she had a dream.
But she doesn't remember it.
The only thing she remembers is the white and pink silhouette of someone...
She doesn't know who it is.
The only thing she knows is that...
"Even though they faked a smile, I know that person was sad..."
Could that person she saw in her dream be the cause of the pain in her heart?
She doesn't remember ever seeing her before; she doesn't know why she dreamed of that silhouetted person.
But something inside her cries out for that figure.
Could it be her soul?
Then, she looks at the calendar.
May 1st.
Something inside her celebrates the achievement of having made it to the first day of May...
But at the same time, that something feels sad, feels incomplete, as if a half were missing...
Could that something be the same thing that was crying out for that figure?
A sudden ray of light filters through the curtains of her room.
"The rays of the May sun are so dazzling..."
The girl admits, using her arm to shield her face from the blinding light.
"I suppose I should get ready to go to school... My friends must be worried about how my surgery went..."
The girl stands up, still carrying the strangeness of the melancholic pain in her heart, still carrying the strangeness of her soul searching for something—of her soul wanting to tell her that she has forgotten something very important, something she promised never to forget.
She gets dressed to go to school, thinking about the happiness of being alive, of having friends who love her.
Even though her heart continues to ache in a strange way, she decides to ignore it, because despite all the obstacles she has experienced in her life, now, in this precise moment, she is happy.
---
This happiness is a gift for the person I will love the most across all these eternities, and for the one who loved me the most within the infinity of time.
From me, to you.