On the Origin of Madness

This, again.

She looked off into the distance—there was hell… and there was light. But, mostly hell. Any place where Madoka contracted had to be a hell, regardless of the light Madoka sought to provide. Nevertheless, Madoka was adamant; she was hell bent on saving everyone that could be saved.

(But, were worlds where Madoka contracted better or worse than worlds where Madoka did not exist at all?)

Again, she watched Madoka confront Kyubey, declare to all present (only it and Homura—the only ones who mattered in the end) her wish. Again, she watched Kyubey express true shock, speaking the words that marked Madoka's condemnation (ascension to the most heinous of burdens). Again, she watched Madoka explode into a pillar of light and hope—hope for everyone except themselves.

Nothing new.

She watched from her familiar spot in the rubble of the old world. Her hand always attempted to reach out for her timer, but of course it did not succeed, just as it had not succeeded in every time previous.

Finally, her favorite part came: Madoka etched her sigil into the doomed sky; it tore through Homura's body.

And she wakes up.

"Ya look awful."

"Miss Homura? Are you alright?"

She snaps, "The demons will not kill themselves."

But, of course, Mami Tomoe approaches her with a look of "friendly concern," regardless of Homura's blatant stance on the matter. Kyouko Sakura throws her hands up in the air, scoffing.

None of them ever listen to her—nothing new.

"Kyubey told us about… your theory."

Mami Tomoe says it delicately; too polite to be derisive, yet intelligent enough to be skeptical.

(It makes her wonder if she should be skeptical of herself—well. Of course any "sane"person would be skeptical.)

"That drivin' ya bonkers, is it? Keepin' ya up late at night, hauntin' ya, messin' with yer head, that kinda thing? 'S just ramblings, that's what I say. Over-active imagination, y'know? Nothin' to freak over."

Up the street, a horde of wraiths await them.

Gritting her teeth, she sprints ahead, notching an arrow into her bow. She sights, draws, shoots, and repeats. Mami Tomoe's musket fire joins in, followed by Kyouko Sakura's spear.

They loom over her.

Whispering, groaning, moaning, cursing under their breath: 'Have I gone mad?'

Yet, for all their disheartening efforts, the wraiths die easily enough. Condensed into small cubes, they do not seem so important anymore—except for the sharp reminder that even as she fights these monsters, plenty more are spawned from the shadows of humanity's thoughts.

That is to say, she creates themeven as she kills them.

It makes her glower when the last wraith drops, because she knows that there will be more waiting for her even as the grief cube touches the ground.

"Really, Miss Akemi, if there is anything we can help you with—if you want to talk with someone, or simply have some company… we are here to help!"

Kyouko Sakura counters, "Not me! I ain't gonna pamper little-miss-loner here."

Answers that are typical of them.

"It is enough," she deigns to reply, tossing her words over her shoulder, "that neither of you nor Kyubey believe me."

For it is indeed enough.

(Enough to sow the seeds of doubt. Enough to germinate another slew of wraiths.)

"Whaddya expect? I've never seen a 'witch' in my life! I've never met this 'Madoka' of yers, either. They're jus' dreams. Dreams an' nightmares of an overworked brain."

Do you mean to say that the witches are the dream, and Madoka is the nightmare?

"Let us go. We waste time idling here."

Some blocks over, and another band of wraiths skulks around an abandoned office building. A few linger back, watching the decimation of their fellows; she attempts to take them out with her longer range, but they use the lesser wraiths as shields.

Nevertheless, even the more cunning, the more tenacious wraiths fall eventually.

(It is a lesson she learned personally, after all—she, who has outlasted time and space.)

They divide the grief cubes amongst themselves. Mami Tomoe insists on giving her a few extra; she accepts them, if only to quell the worry that lies odiously beneath her skin. Afterwards, they part ways, Mami Tomoe and Sakura Kyouko to the east, and herself to the north.

Her steps echo against the concrete of the streets. This late at night, there is little noise to obscure the sound of her passage.

Fog swirls around; it is especially thick in areas where wraiths will soon emerge. She notes the locations: the playground, an old apartment complex, and a particular alleyway between a shabby convenience store and an even shabbier pharmacy.

What a dilapidated pharmacy. Even in the beginning of her illness, she had not had to endure lesser conditions, for she had been…

…

Before Madoka Kaname, did Homura Akemi even exist?

She thinks this is the question she should be asking, since everything else seems to fall into place on its own.

Memories of her time in middle school in the old world (and all its iterations) are stark in her mind. Memories of her time in middle school in the new world are also stark in her mind. All memories of any of her lives before middle school—before Madoka Kaname—are difficult to recollect.

None of the darkened buildings and empty streets around her tell her anything in response; they are just as clueless as she is.

Even her house, wedged at a triangular intersection, fails to provide answers. Who gave it to her? Who pays for it? Who saw fit to give a recovering patient a house all to themselves? Who knows?

Certainly not she.

Once inside, she locks all the locks (added in a fit of misplaced paranoia after she had… remembered) and resolves to sulk in her living room until her mind settles.

The holographic axe swings in its never-ceasing arc, despite the timer's lack of existence in this universe. No more images float around the axe; they, apparently, are entirely dependent on the timer.

Perhaps it is the already maudlin tone of her thoughts, or perhaps her restless nights have finally caught up with her. Regardless of the reason, she finds herself dozing, and then sleeping, on the couch, with the pendulum's silent presence presiding over her dreams.

She dreams the dream again.

"Truly, you do not remember?"

"No," Mami Tomoe shakes her head, frowning sympathetically (at least she is not derisive).

Red ribbon undone in her hands, she insists, "A girl, my age, shorter than me, far cheerier, pink hair styled with this very same ribbon—it does not stir anything in your mind?"

(Why bother? Mami Tomoe did not believe that first time, or the second, or the third. You know better than to do this again.)

Again, Mami Tomoe regards her regretfully. "No," she says, "but this has been weighing on you heavily as of late, has it not? The day Sayaka… left. You haven't been the same since then, Homura. Please do not take offense, but… has this been your way of coping?"

'Because I remembered!' she wants to scream, but it will do her no good.

"Fine." She weaves the ribbon back around her headband. Once it is in place, she stands.

Mami Tomoe stands as well, a hand outstretched towards her as she backtracks, "I'm sorry, Miss Akemi, I did not intend to be so harsh! Please, let me—let me help, just tell me what to do, please—"

"You were never good at listening, or following orders. Almost as bad as Sayaka Miki, I would say."

She leaves.

Outside, Kyubey is perched on the rail; it follows her to her favored lair.

From this high up, the city is less oppressing. The influence of the wraiths has not yet reached the upper echelons of the atmosphere, though she is sure that they will, one day.

'It really is too bad we cannot replicate the witch system you described.'

"But it is fictional," she dismisses its words.

(This creature is the bane of Madoka's existence—this she feels in her very bones, in the deepest abyss of her heart. In this, she is certain.)

'Ah, but to hear you speak, it is not.'

"It exists solely in my mind, Incubator. It cannot possibly be reality; you said it yourself."

'Which is too bad.'

Kyubey leaves her, then.

Leaves her to her tangled thoughts.

Up high in the sky, she has nothing else to do but think, so she does.

She has dreams of the day Madoka Kaname became a magical girl and rewrote the universe, writing herself out of it in the process. She would call those dreams nightmares, but they are not so bad, now; she is mostly resigned to the futility of that erased universe.

She also has doubts. No one else knows of Madoka Kaname, not even the Kaname family—except Tatsuya Kaname, who draws pictures of his once-older sister in the sand. But does Madoka live in his mind as his sister, or has she been reduced to an imaginary friend, doomed to fade away in time? Tatsuya cannot possibly answer this question.

She has not pored over the magical girls and wraiths as much as she studied the magical girls and witches over there, so she has no answer as to what happens to magical girls here when they expire. It is another unknowable thing.

If only she could have proof. A ribbon and drawings in the sand are mere tokens, nothing substantial enough to hold water, never mind the weight of an entire universe.

Did she indeed create an imaginary world to cope with the loss of Sayaka Miki? She does not remember if she felt particularly close to Sayaka Miki in this world; the specter of the old world's Sayaka Miki looms too strongly in her mind now to properly recall her first impressions here.

All these questions. All these unknowable things. All these specters.

They bother her.

They are going to drive her insane—if she is not so already.

/\

a/n:

Started off as ninety words in response to a prompt from a friend, then escalated to this... thing.

Please review! ^^