Chapter Text
The weeks that followed were absolute misery. She hadn’t seen Tatsuya around at all since the, uh… incident, and nobody else even knew that the world around them was an illusion.
Somehow, Sayaka was alone, even with all her friends around her.
(If only she had ever, in any timeline, tried to make friends with Akemi Homura and understand who she really was, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.)
She was left to mourn the memory of someone that she had despised for most of her time knowing her, and nobody else really… noticed? Mami and Kyoko and Nagisa and the lot of them all said nothing. At times, it seemed like there was a question about Homura on Madoka’s lips, but she never voiced it. They hadn’t been particularly close, in the end. There wasn’t enough time — oh, how ironic.
Similarly ironic, now she was the only one in the entire universe that remembered what had happened, and she didn’t think that anyone was overly receptive to believing her.
One day, she was out for a drink with Madoka, trying to both forget what had happened and hear of all the stories Madoka had of her time in America — real or not, they were something new, and they were therefore welcomed as a distraction. She felt that the real Madoka — the whole one that no longer existed, goddess and girl both — would be disappointed in her for what she had done.
In that way, Sayaka realized, grimly humorous, she had yet another thing in common with Akemi Homura.
When none other than Kaname Tatsuya showed up at the cafe — he looked so much older than she remembered, but that was a timeline away, wasn’t it? — Sayaka was a little shocked. It was the first time she’d seen him in weeks. He’d been the only one receptive to her doubts and memories of Akemi Homura, and as such, he was her accomplice in the murder they had both committed.
He definitely seemed about as messed up as Sayaka was about it.
Madoka smiled at him. “How have you been, Tatsuya-kun?”
He and Sayaka shared a haunted look that the pink-haired girl didn’t quite notice. Tatsuya faked a smile, laughed and joked around, and masked his obvious grief and anguish; Sayaka was a little impressed, really.
But at last, the moment was over.
“I, uh, I saw Akemi Homura the other week.”
Sayaka blinked. Oh, right. He didn’t actually know that she’d gone in after him. They hadn’t spoken since the night before the murder, after all.
Madoka tilted her head, curious. “Oh, from our class in middle school? How lovely! What was she like?”
A cold spike drove its way through Sayaka’s heart. This battle in the shadows, all along…
It really wasn’t worth it, was it?
They’d really messed up, hadn’t they.
Tatsuya nodded, slowly. “Y-yeah. She said she, uh, that she remembered you. She told me to tell you that she, uh, she loved you?”
There was dead silence for a second as confusion washed over Madoka’s features. The coldness sank deeper and deeper into Sayaka’s heart.
“— at school! She, uh, she really thought you were enjoyable to hang around.”
Nice save, Sayaka thought.
Madoka smiled. “Oh! Tell her I said the same — she just needed a friend, really, and I was there, you know?”
Sayaka wanted to curl up into a ball and die. All of these things she hadn’t known…
Tatsuya turned to Sayaka. She blinked. He leaned over to whisper into her ear.
“One of the last things she said was, ‘tell Miki Sayaka that I’m sorry.’”
Oh.
Even though she’d gone in after Tatsuya had left, Akemi Homura spared a thought to her as she was dying.
Even though she knew that
Even though she didn’t have to put on a show to make Sayaka feel sorry for her (it wasn’t a show — she only realized this when it was too late).
Akemi Homura was sorry.
“Sayaka-chan? Are you alright?” Madoka asked.
“H-huh?”
She looked down. Oh. She was crying.
Sayaka paused for a moment. Just an instant. Should she lie to protect Madoka?
Oh, it was too late anyway.
“N-no,” she admitted, and then began sobbing.
This wasn’t how it should’ve gone.