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“Well, here we are again.”
Sayaka sighed and flopped down into one of the armchairs. Once, she’d asked why there were even armchairs here. This place was outside of time, in a void. Why was there anything here except the two of them?
Homura had explained something complicated about magic and thoughts and manifestation and honestly Sayaka had tuned out even before she interrupted the explanation, so she still didn’t know why the chairs were here. But she was glad for them.
“Kyubey really does have a sick sense of humour,” she grumbled.
“I don’t disagree with you,” Homura said. “But I’m not sure they’re behind this.”
Sayaka tilted her head quizzically. How unlike Homura to not blame the Incubators for something.
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“I don’t think they fully understand wishes,” Homura said. “Or even fully control them. They never seem to understand that I’m a time traveller into fairly deep into the loops. If they know that they can grant time travel, wouldn’t they assume it as soon as a magical girl they don’t remember forming a contract with shows up?”
“So what, you’re saying that they didn’t know this would happen?” Sayaka said.
“Most likely,” Homura said, sitting on the other armchair and crossing her legs. “They simply granted the wish of a magical girl who wanted to go back in time, without realizing they’d already granted a wish like that before. And then when those two powers overlapped…”
Homura gestured vaguely towards the expanse of emptiness around them.
“Everything broke,” Sayaka said.
“Perhaps,” Homura said.
“What do you mean “perhaps”,” Sayaka said. “Does this not look broken to you? This seems an awful lot like the end of the universe to me.”
“We don’t know if the rest of the universe is here or not,” Homura said. “It’s possible, yes, that we broke time and existence broke with it. But isn’t just as possible that time is only broken for us, and the rest of the world goes on?”
Sayaka sighed and slumped down deeper into the chair. “I guess,” she said, begrudgingly. “But then what are we even doing this for, if we’re the only two people who it even affects, in the end?”
“Save your selfish desire for heroism,” Homura said. “If we haven’t doomed all life to a ruined existence if we never fix things, I consider that a plus.”
“Stop painting me in the worst possible light,” Sayaka complained.
“You, of all people, shouldn’t be saying that to me,” Homura grumbled. “If you could trust me just once, we wouldn’t keep ending up here.”
“Maybe you should try being trustworthy instead of the most suspicious girl in the city,” Sayaka shot back.
“How very constructive of you. Do you have any particular advice for achieving that?” Homura said, sarcastically.
“What would it matter if I did? You’ll just forget anyway,” Sayaka said.
“I might do it accidentally, and then we’ll see just how effective it was,” Homura said.
Sayaka sighed. “...Do you think we’ll ever figure it out?” she said glumly.
“I have no idea,” Homura said. “All I know is I can’t afford to risk Madoka being destroyed by this foolishness. So we’ll continue to retry until we find a way not to end up here.”
She pulled a handgun out from her shield and pointed it Sayaka.
“I believe it’s my turn to reset us,” she said.
“Yep,” Sayaka said. “Go for it.”
Homura fired a shot into Sayaka’s soul gem, shattering it in an instant. As Sayaka’s vision went black, she saw Homura turn the gun towards her own gem.
“Well, points for creativity,” Sayaka said, lazily leaning on the arm of the chair as Homura frowned. Another unsuccessful loop. An amusing one, though. “Still, I don’t think that idea was ever going to work out.
“...Just do it already.” Homura lifted her hand with her soul gem pointed towards Sayaka, scowling and not meeting her eye.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sayaka said, swinging her sword through the gem. Not even watching Homura fall, she flipped the blade around and drove it into her own.
“You know.” Homura said, flopping down into the chair with a sigh. “You used to make a different wish.”
“Really?” Sayaka said.
“It was just me looping at first,” Homura said. “Hundreds of times. Almost every loop, you had the same wish.”
“What was it?” Sayaka asked, tilting her head curiously. It felt surreal. A different her, who made a different choice. It almost didn’t feel possible, after how many times she’d unknowingly made the same wish, only to end up in this void once again.
“You wished to heal Kamijou’s hand,” Homura said. “Instead of going back in time to prevent the accident.”
Sayaka groaned and hit herself in the forehead. “That’s so much easier…” she complained. “Why the hell did I decide on time travel instead?”
“Presumably to be his knight in shining armour,” Homura said.
“Projecting, are you?” Sayaka said slyly. “Bet that’s why you picked your wording for your wish.”
“Hmph.”
Not denying it, Sayaka noticed.
The two of them had shared a lot of information, back in that first couple of times in the void, before they realized how things worked. It was a strange whiplash for Sayaka. She went from seeing Homura as suspicious, mysterious, a stranger and an enemy, to entering the void again and her memories flooding back. To Homura becoming the person she knew best in the world. The person she’d spent more time with than anyone else. Who she’d died side by side with over and over again.
Of course, the first few loops were the most impactful. Where they’d slowly died of thirst or starvation together, unaware of how things worked or simply too fearful to actually kill themselves or the other with only a vague theory. They’d spent days together in a world where only they existed. It would be stranger if they hadn’t grown close. If they hadn’t told their story and their secrets to the only person left who would ever be able to hear them.
If they hadn’t experimented with things that they were afraid of dying without ever experiencing.
“Let’s try again,” Homura said, raising her pistol.
“This time, don’t fuck it up,” Sayaka said.
Homura snorted. “Same to you,” she said.
Bang.
“Do you think it’s even possible to escape?”
Homura shrugged, balancing a grenade on her finger idly.
“It seems likely,” she said. “As I said, you didn’t always make this wish. And the loops are different.”
“But what if my new wish is a constant?” Sayaka said. “What if it causes a paradox if we ever do break the loop, so only loops where we don’t can happen?”
“Then so what?” Homura said.
“What?” Sayaka said.
“Do you have any other suggestions for what we should do, if not try to break the loop?” Homura said, raising an eyebrow. “The only way to escape this void is death. And we can’t survive here forever. What other choice do we have?”
Sayaka sighed.
“You have a point,” she said. “But…”
“But what?” Homura said.
“We don’t have to rush through this part, you know,” Sayaka said, leaning back in her chair. “If this is the only time we get to live as us, with our full memories, we don’t have to kill each other right away.”
“...What do you propose we do instead?”
Sayaka smiled and started to undo the buttons on her shirt.
Another loop. Another failure. Another few hours together with Homura before she grew impatient and reset them. Over and over and over again.
Each time, Sayaka found herself back in the void. Each time, Homura was there with her.
And each time, Sayaka hid the feeling that was growing stronger and stronger inside her.
Even as Homura hoped more and more fervently for them to find a way out of the loop, for her to break this deadlock and get back to saving Madoka…
Sayaka hoped that the two of them would be trapped together for the rest of time.
Funny. Sayaka had always thought of Homura as the crazy, possessive stalker.
Who could have guessed that she’d be worse?