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She honestly wasn’t sure if the chanting was diegetic, this time. Sometimes, she’d have scheduled a concert for around this time, and she couldn’t remember if this was one of those loops. Homura stood amidst the ruins of Mitakihara City, the wind whipping her hair across her face, the taste of ash and magic thick on her tongue. In the distance, Walpurgisnacht's massive form crumbled and dissolved, its gears grinding to a halt with a deafening shriek of metal on metal.
The sky split open, revealing a kaleidoscopic burst of colors that seared Homura's vision. She squinted against the glare, barely making out Madoka's incandescent figure at its center, her arms outstretched as her body dissolved into pure light.
Homura's soul gem pulsed in time with her racing heart, its violet depths swirling with emotions too complex to name. She had done it. After countless failures, innumerable cycles of hope and despair, she had finally found the path to Madoka's salvation.
But as the light faded and the world reshaped itself around Madoka's sacrifice, Homura felt a creeping hollowness taking root in her chest. The city reformed, the rubble knitting itself back together like a time-lapse of healing wounds, but the emptiness inside her only grew, a yawning void where her sense of purpose used to be.
She looked down at her hands, half-expecting to see the familiar weight of a gun, the gleaming edge of a spent bullet casing. But there was only smooth, unblemished skin, a stark reminder of the battles that had defined her for so long, now conspicuous in their absence.
In that moment, as the last traces of Madoka's magic faded from the sky, Homura felt the first stirrings of a desperate, clawing hunger.
In the weeks that followed, Homura drifted through the resurrected city like a warrior without a war, her body still braced for a fight that would never come. She attended classes, walked familiar streets, but every step felt heavy with the weight of unspent adrenaline, her muscles aching for the strain of combat.
At night, she dreamed of witch labyrinths and shattering soul gems, woke with her pulse pounding in her ears and the phantom recoil of a gun thrumming up her arm. In the dark, Homura found herself reaching for her shield, fingers grasping at empty air, a physical ache blooming in her chest at its absence.
She took to wandering the city after midnight, tracing the routes of past battles like a cartographer of her own violent history. The hunger grew with each step, a yawning chasm opening up inside her, desperate to be filled with the bright, searing purpose that had sustained her for so long.
Mitakihara's silent streets shimmered at the edges of her vision, familiar buildings blurring into battlegrounds half-remembered. Homura blinked, and for a split second saw the city as it had been in those final moments - a hellscape of shattered glass and twisted metal, the sky above leaking an unnatural crimson.
She paused at the edge of the river, staring into the dark waters, her reflection fracturing across the surface like a broken mirror. The girl who looked back at her was a stranger, her edges dulled, a weapon left too long in its sheath.
Homura clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms, chasing the bright sting of pain, the closest thing she had to the familiar rush of magic crackling through her veins. In the distance, a siren wailed, and for one stumbling heartbeat, she was back on that debris-strewn battlefield, the hum of power rising in her throat, death and salvation singing in her bones.
But the vision dissipated as quickly as it had come, leaving her once again on the quiet riverbank, a strange, restless energy buzzing beneath her skin. Homura drew in a shaky breath, tasting the cool night air, so different from the copper-bright tang of blood and magic that had lingered for so long on her tongue.
She knew, in some distant, rational corner of her mind, that she should be happy. That this was meant to be her reward, this peaceful life free from the cycle of violence and despair. But the rest of her, the parts carved out and remade by the crucible of the battlefield, were screaming for something more.
For the searing clarity of purpose, the diamond-edged focus that came with staring down death and oblivion. For the world to make sense again, in the way it only ever had when she was fighting for Madoka, the gears of fate inexorable beneath her fingers.
Homura turned away from the river, from the too-still reflection of a face she barely recognized anymore. The old hunger gnawed at her insides, sharp and insistent, a predator's teeth closing around her heart.
She didn't have a name for it yet, this unquenchable thirst, this yearning for a war that had already been won. All she knew was that it grew a little more with every breath, every second that ticked by in this strange, silent world where she no longer fit.
Find me, it whispered from the darkest corners of her mind, from the aching, empty spaces between her ribs. Complete me.
And somewhere deep within herself, in the secret place where she kept the memory of Madoka's smile and the weight of a hundred shattered timelines, Homura knew that she would. That she would tear herself apart and rebuild from the ruins, as many times as it took, to feel whole again.
There was no other choice, in the end. Not for a girl who had been forged in the crucible of war, who knew no other way to love than with the searing heat of devotion, bright and brutal as a wildfire.
Not for her. Not anymore.
The hunger followed Homura through the winding streets of Mitakihara, a constant shadow at the edges of her thoughts. She felt it in the restless twitch of her fingers, in the way her breath caught at sudden noises, adrenaline spiking in anticipation of a threat that never came, far greater than the paltry wraiths that were left behind as a pauper’s inheritance.
She found herself gravitating towards the places where the veil between realities had been thinnest - the abandoned lot where she'd fought Charlotte, the alleyway where Oktavia's labyrinth had bloomed like a nightmarish flower. She'd stand there for hours, waiting for the familiar tug of magic in her veins, the bone-deep certainty of purpose. Chasing the echos of witches just wasn’t the same.
But there was only the distant hum of traffic, the empty ache in her chest where her soul gem nestled, returned to her in lilac-grey rather than its once vibrant violet. Even the thrill of the hunt, of grief cubes clinking together in her palm, of arrows piercing looming shades, felt hollow now.
Until the day she found herself standing outside Madoka's house, the muted gray of early dawn casting everything in shades of memory. A single cherry blossom drifted down from the tree out front, its delicate petals pale and perfect in the early light. Homura reached out, caught it in her palm, the silk-soft brush of its petals against her skin an echo of a touch half-remembered. For a moment, it rested there, motion yet incomplete, weightless and perfect, before yielding to the inevitability of time and gravity, the petal crumpling to lie dull against the lifeline of her hand.
In that moment, the hunger sharpened to a knifepoint, a searing clarity blooming in the hollow spaces of her chest. She knew what she had to do.
The weight of her shield was achingly familiar against her arm as she slipped it on, the metal warm and almost eager beneath her fingers. Homura closed her eyes, let the world fall away until there was nothing but the whisper of magic through her bones, the drumbeat of purpose in her blood.
One more time. Just to be sure. The words tasted like absolution on her tongue.
She spun the gears of the shield, felt the jolt in her veins as time shuddered to a halt around her. The city froze, caught between one breath and the next, a snapshot of stillness that set Homura's nerves alight with anticipation.
She moved through the suspended streets like a ghost, like a god, the familiar thrill of power crackling in her fingers. The hunger receded, replaced by a sense of rightness, of certainty, that settled into her bones like an old friend.
This was what she was meant for. This dance between seconds, this war waged in the spaces between heartbeats. The searing clarity of devotion, the purpose that burned away all doubts and left only diamond-edged focus in its wake.
Homura stepped into the hospital, walked down hallways that shimmered at the edges with déjà vu. Kyubey was waiting for her, perched on the windowsill of her old room, its eyes glinting with something ancient and unknowable.
"You can't keep doing this," it said, tail swishing languidly behind it. "The balance must be maintained. Even you cannot fight entropy forever."
Homura smiled, a blade-sharp thing that felt more natural on her face than any expression she'd worn in the past few weeks.
"Watch me," she said, and spun the gears again.
The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of color and sensation, time unspooling around her in dizzying coils. She let it wash over her, through her, the familiar ache of magic burning in her veins like a homecoming.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing in her hospital room, the steady beep of the heart monitor a metronome counting down the seconds until her rebirth. Homura flexed her fingers, feeling the power thrumming just beneath her skin, eager to be unleashed.
Somewhere in the city, a girl with pink hair was staring up at the sky, her eyes wide with wonder and the first stirrings of a destiny that would shake the foundations of the world.
Homura's smile widened, a wild, reckless thing that tasted like gunpowder and glory.
So it began again. The hunt, the war, the brutal, beautiful dance of devotion and despair. The only thing that had ever made sense in a world that was too bright, too soft, too empty for a girl forged in the crucible of battle.
She welcomed it like a lover, like a prayer, the hunger in her veins singing with savage joy.
This was her purpose, her salvation, the only truth she knew.
And she would chase it, again and again, through as many lifetimes as it took, until the very stars burned out and the universe shuddered to a halt.
Until Madoka was safe, and the hunger was finally, blessedly sated.
Or until there was nothing left of her but ash and echoes, a girl-shaped hole in the fabric of reality where a weapon used to be.
It didn't matter. All that mattered was the fight, the glorious burn of it in her blood, the certainty of a love so fierce it could rewrite fate itself.
For Homura, there had never been any other choice.
And there never would be.