Chapter Text
Sayaka lounged on Homura's oddly shaped couch, her legs crossed. She'd made a visit to check in on her, and had found herself curious about Homura's plans for the week. Walpurgisnacht had passed, after all, thanks to their group's best efforts. Only Madoka hadn't taken part, as she wasn't a mahou shoujo. She, Mami, and Kyoko had made a habit of regularly patrolling together in preparation, and had stuck to it after the Witch was defeated. Homura tagged along at times, but this week was a little different.
"Hey, Homura."
"What?"
"Are you staying in today too?"
The scoff aimed in Sayaka's direction was nothing short of grating, but that was the typical Homura way of things.
"I mean," Sayaka started, "you have to be running low on grief seeds, right?"
Homura hummed.
"And you need to go hunting," Sayaka concluded, eyeing her suspiciously.
"Maybe."
"Then why aren't you coming with us?!" she exclaimed. Her hands thumped onto the table, a growl of frustration ripping out her throat. "I don't get it. What's the point of staying inside all day?"
"I don't believe I ever made it your problem," Homura challenged. "If you see the need for urgency, perhaps you yourself should leave."
"That's not—" Sayaka sighed. "Look, I.."
"If you could, now," she dully announced.
"Fine! Have it your way!" The sheer gall of this girl. Sayaka came all the way to her dingy apartment, and she couldn't bother to hear her out? "Not like I care."
Homura stood silent as she slammed the door while leaving.
Sayaka had to sullenly admit that hadn't been the best course of action, but then the next day at school hadn't fared any better. She had sat near Madoka, as she always had, and Homura looked battered.
It would be hard to notice if you didn't know her, and maybe Sayaka was nearing the heights of arrogance to presume she would ever understand how Homura's fucked up mind worked, but—
Homura was a deft hand, a star pupil, and a darn excellent mahou shoujo. It wasn't becoming of her to dawdle, oh, no, that wasn't how Homura operated. Homura's first month at their school had only proved her superiority to the rest of their infantile schoolmates — this, Sayaka acknowledged with a hint of sarcasm and self-awareness, — but the automatic scratch of chalk on the blackboard was rather absent from her prim bearing. Her fingers moved with a certain lethargy to thumb at her pen, and her usually set jaw hung, to Sayaka, so loose you would think her mouth was wide open, but those thin chapped lips pressed to one another as ordinarily as always.
Maybe if you thought you knew Homura another way than how Sayaka did, you'd assume that this was a good sign. After all, what was wrong with those knitted brows now resting evenly above her eyes? And what, if anything, did it say that Homura was folding the edge of her assignment paper? No, this meant she was finally starting to unwind. Surely there was no issue with an uptight young lady relaxing her all too frigid demeanour. Perhaps some full hours of sleep had eased the burden on her shoulders; after all, they weren't as highstrung.
Sayaka would vehemently disagree.
There was nothing normal about this Homura. You had to be blind to miss it, that, she was sure of. It irritated her that their friends were apparently this flavor of blind. Not that Sayaka was better off. Not like I care, she'd said. What an idiotic thing to tell a girl who lived alone and would rather, in the past, have hunted witches than have spoken a word to anyone. That gaffe made her burn in shame.
It took the bell ringing for Sayaka to realize she had spent most of the lesson thinking about Homura, to the point she'd actually missed her.
"Sayaka-chan."
"Wha– Huh?" Sayaka spun her head from the door to Madoka.
"Do you want to eat lunch with Mami-senpai?" Madoka continued patiently. A small smile lined her lips. "She said she's free today."
"Right," Sayaka lamely responded. "That."
She hitched her gaze to the classroom door again.
"Um, I have to go to the bathroom real quick. Do you mind if you go ahead without me?"
"Mm," Madoka shook her head, "it's fine. We'll be in the yard, okay?"
"Yeah," Sayaka muttered. "See ya in a bit."
Madoka waved goodbye to her as she made her way out of their classroom and up the stairs. Some guilt churned in her gut at the lie, and maybe Madoka would've known what to do about the whole Homura-issue better than Sayaka, but the way Homura would aimlessly stare at Madoka sometimes made her think otherwise.
She should be here, right? Sayaka thought uneasily, this time pushing the rooftop's double door open. That's where she usually stays...
And there Homura was, hand interlaced with the rooftop's chain-link fence, head angled downwards.
What's she looking at? Sayaka clenched her hands. Jeez, she never stops brooding, does she?
"Hey, um–" Sayaka began, only to falter when Homura's head inched to her direction.
Homura's gaze unnerved her in the way an empty landscape did. It was as if time had stopped and decided to deny it the birthright of life – as if the fabric of reality had given up on it and fled, and you could see it in her eyes, in the way she held herself.
"Are you," Sayaka stumbled, voice raising in pitch, "um, are you doing okay?"
"Yes," came the word, slow and drawled.
"That's the most obvious lie I've ever heard," Sayaka argued and stepped forward.
Homura didn't snap to attention or her usual defiance, and for once Sayaka found herself missing the sharp edge in Homura's voice.
"If that's all, I'll be taking my leave," she declared.
Before she could step past Sayaka and back into the confines of their school hallways, Sayaka shot a hand out to grab her wrist. Homura tensed and made to pull it to herself, but Sayaka didn't let her.
"What business of yours is my absence?" Homura bit out angrily, and relief fell over Sayaka.
"What business?" Sayaka questioned. "You flat out ignored me yesterday, and you just lied to my face. You don't think I deserve an apology? Huh?"
"I apologize."
"So you can liste–" Sayaka huffed, only for Homura to try to push past her once more. "Hey! We weren't done talking."
"I wasn't aware," Homura dryly quipped.
"It's important," insisted Sayaka. "Look, I'm really sorry for interrupting whatever you were doing just now, but can you, like, sit still and listen? I'm not trying to waste your time."
"I suppose you aren't."
The amount of self-restraint it took for Sayaka to not turn tail and leave was stupid.
"Let's start with you actually answering my question."
"Was 'yes' too unfamiliar a word for you?"
"That was a lie and you know it."
"Okay." Homura turned around to face her properly. "I'm not doing well. Is that satisfactory? Does it please your ego to hear me admit you were right?"
"What's up with you today?" Sayaka asked, bewildered. "Y'know, I really was worried about you, but where'd all this hostility come from? I know we didn't exactly get off on the right foot, but that doesn't make it fine!"
"I'm glad we agree," Homura asserted. Sayaka startled, only for Homura to continue: "It doesn't make it okay. I simply hate you, Sayaka Miki. That's all there is to it. I've disliked you since the day I transferred. Your presence irks me," Homura didn't bat an eye, "and I often find myself wishing you weren't around. You are a liability to every witch hunt we both have ever been on. My life would've been much easier if we never met."
"T-That's not.." Sayaka became flustered, taken aback.
"Perhaps that still doesn't clarify it. Most of the people in your life would also be better off without you. Your behavior is an affront to the friends you keep. Your manners are an embarrassment, and neither can you make up for them in skill or effort. There is not a single redeemable quality to you, I can assure you–"
"That's enough! Stop."
"–and if there were, far too much would be hidden behind your inadequacy–"
"Do you think I don't realize what you're doing?!" Sayaka yelled, tightening her grip on Homura's wrist. Homura herself went quiet. "F-Fuck you for saying all of that," her voice cracked, "but that's not going to drive me away."
Homura shuffled in place and faced left, unwilling to meet Sayaka's eyes.
"I'm not quite sure I get what you mean. Those were my honest thoughts on you."
Sayaka grit her teeth. "Why can't you just be honest for once?"
"I don't know why you'd care," snapped Homura, and this time there was genuine malice behind it. "You never have."
"Seriously? What the heck was the entirety of today for, or the last few months? Did all that time mean nothing to you?"
"That's," Homura paused, barely concealed conflict brewing, before dismissing it, "entirely unrelated."
"Why's that?" Sayaka contested. "Am I not good enough for your highness?" she mocked.
Homura's lips smoothed into a thin line.
Sayaka held herself back from visibly fuming, but it was one of the most difficult things she'd had to do in her life. All of what Homura had said stung, because it wasn't completely false. Mami, Kyoko, and Homura were all far better of a mahou shoujo than her. She was too tomboyish for Kyosuke to like, possessing nothing of Hitomi or Mami's grace, neither Madoka's kindness nor Kyoko's levelheadedness. As trivial as it seemed, Homura was a much better student and had a stronger sense of self than Sayaka could ever hope to. She was a tireless worker the likes of which only Mami could compare.
Sometimes Sayaka had thought it unfair that all of her circle was blessed with those gifts, but their circumstances all made her balk at the notion. Her life was nothing short of peaceful, after all. Who was she to complain?
Even then, who was Homura to throw away all of the time they'd spent together as if it mattered so very little?
"Show me your soul gem," Sayaka demanded. Something wasn't right with Homura, and if Sayaka's guess was right–
"Will that put an end to your ceaseless blunders?" Homura scathingly asked.
"Show me it."
Homura scowled, but her purple soul gem quickly manifested in the palm of her hand. It wasn't as murky as Sayaka expected, but it was dirtied enough to impair Homura's fighting ability.
Sayaka rummaged around her pockets while Homura watched with impatience. Finally, her fingertips brushed against a grief seed.
"This should help," Sayaka mumbled, right? She pressed the spindle against Homura's soul gem, both observing it suck in the filth. Homura seemed almost resigned by the time the seed was full, and Sayaka couldn't help but share the sentiment.
Homura's soul gem was just as worn as before.
"Maybe that wasn't enough," Sayaka said, grimacing, but it was more to herself. "I might have more somewhere–"
"They won't work," Homura confessed, a tinge of defeat to her voice. Exhaustion lined her features. "It's been like this for the last week."
Neither spoke a word.
Sayaka swallowed thickly. She swept her gaze through the fence, across the buildings dotting the horizon. If she can't use her magic– Images of Homura getting torn apart by a Witch flashed in her mind. No! No. I don't wanna think about that.
"Do you have any clue why?" she broke the silence.
"I do have an idea," Homura hesitated, "but it wouldn't change anything."
"That's not for you to decide!" Sayaka exclaimed, letting go of the soul gem so she wouldn't harm it by accident. "Whatever it is, spill it! I – my magic might be able to help, or maybe Mami knows something, or Kyoko–"
"You're overcomplicating."
"I'm not! How can you be so calm about all of this?"
"It's not your life on–" Homura clamped her mouth shut before she could finish.
Her lips began to tremble as her pupils shrunk. She schooled her features into place as best as she could after a sharp inhale, but it might as well have done nothing to hide what had happened. What the heck was she about to say? Sayaka thought, alarmed. What would get Homura of all people so shaken up?
"It's not.." Homura took a deep breath again. "You have no reason to get involved. There's nothing you can reasonably do about this."
"You haven't even told me what 'this' is!"
"There's nothing to do about it because I haven't depleted my magic, Sayaka," Homura irritably got out. "It's like this exactly because I'm not feeling well."
..Huh?
"What?" Sayaka uselessly said.
"Did Mami never explain this to you?"
"I don't.." she trailed off, glancing at the soul gem once more. "I really don't see what that has to do with anything."
"That's not entirely unexpected." Homura frowned. She began to murmur: "Maybe Mami hasn't.. no, but that.. surely she'd have realized by now? But it's not exactly commonplace knowledge.. then again, that incubator.. That's not a difficult connection to make.."
She sighed and transformed the gem back into its ring form. "You're aware of what," a pause, wrinkled nose, "pollutes a soul gem, yes?"
"Yeah? That's like, the first thing Mami told us," Sayaka couldn't help the confused lilt to her tone.
"Did she fail to mention your mental state plays a part as well?"
"It does?" Sayaka said, stunned.
"I'm surprised you weren't told so. Yes, it does. The impact is," Homura struggled for a moment, "largely miniscule, but it depends on the person. Consequently, if your magic depletes either by normal use or by way of recovering physical injury, it'll start to decay. It's a bothersome cycle to escape."
"Right, you'd need more grief seeds to fix it, but you'd have less magic to work with," Sayaka mumbled. She jolted in place. "Wait, why didn't that grief seed do anything then? If it's miniscule, it should have, right?"
Homura rubbed her wrist, facing away.
"It's a constant drain," she explained. "One grief seed, or even multiple, won't work. It's not–" she glowered at nothing, "–the gem that's causing me to decline. The effort is largely useless." Homura's gaze flickered to Sayaka's pocket, where the spent grief seed was resting.
"You should've kept that one for yourself," she flatly claimed. "It would've served you more than me."
"Like hell I should've!" Sayaka cried.
She didn't know nearly as much as Homura did about magical girls, that was for certain, and that grief seed might've not done much, yeah, but it's not like Sayaka wouldn't offer assistance when it came to her friends. Homura seriously needed to drop that lone wolf attitude; it was annoying, but also harmful, that much Sayaka could tell by now. It wouldn't kill her to ask for help — and it darn well would've made her job easier. Who the heck had these conversations on a rooftop?
"And you tell me I'm overcomplicating," Sayaka muttered. She sighed. "‘Kay, so we're back where we started is what I got from that."
"In a way." Homura warily observed her form.
"What's – what's bothering you?" Sayaka managed, chewing on her lip. "What's causing that, uh, drain then?"
Homura's eyes narrowed into thin slits of violet.
Her jaw set tight once more, and maybe Sayaka would've appreciated that if it weren't for the fact it was actively working against her right now. "I don't need your help," Homura snarled. "And I don't need your empty platitudes, nor your pity either. Do you understand, Sayaka Miki?" Her arms shuffled closer to her torso, away from Sayaka. "This is a minor setback unrelated to you. You would do best to ignore it and move on with your life."
"Unrelated to me?" Sayaka repeated incredulously. "Homura, you're my friend. You're Madoka's friend–" Homura flinched, "–and I'm sure Mami and Kyoko don't feel differently either, even if.."
It hurt to stop there, but it really was only Sayaka who had noticed anything was off with her. She had gone to check on Homura first, that much was true, and it wasn't like Mami or Kyoko attended the same classes, but..
A sardonic smile played on Homura's lips.
"How ironic," Homura said, unable to steady her breathing, "that it's you who came looking for me. It can't get worse than that, can it?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sayaka said, bristling.
Homura glanced her way. "Nothing you would understand, I'm afraid." She turned and headed for the doors. "Don't seek me out again, Sayaka Miki."
She paused.
"You'll regret it."
Sayaka was left alone on their school's rooftop as the doors clicked shut.