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Akemi Homura huddles in a corner hidden away from the track, struggling against the nausea and heat to keep her meager meal inside her stomach. A shadow falls near her. A girl with bright pink hair and a gleaming smile- Kaname Madoka, she remembers- crouches beside her to offer her a water bottle and an encouraging word.
Homura knows what she ought to do in such situations. She must smile, nod and then reject any companionship as politely and as firmly as possible. She must not associate with the kind girl, lest the cruel whispers of her peers would spread to the far less deserving target.
But Akemi Homura is a sinful and greedy girl. She feasts on water and attention even as she curses herself for her weakness.
Homura is well aware of her worth - or, more accurately, complete lack thereof. Live as unobtrusively as possible, take as little space as possible, consume as little air as possible - she takes these maxims to the heart.
But Akemi Homura is a sinful and greedy girl. So when a helpful voice in her head offers her a sensible solution to the problem of her existence, she hesitates.
An ugly and selfish desire in the depths of her heart eats through the illusion, and Homura finds herself under the sky of blood-red paint.
She is rescued from the nightmare by two radiant figures - one of them familiar.
They vanquish the aberration, they coddle her and feed her sweets, and they reveal to her secrets hidden beneath the skin of the world.
Homura diligently follows them on their hunts, even though she is terrified of witches and their reality-violating dwellings, even though she is nothing but a dead weight to the duo. The allure of a thing far sweeter than cake and far more savory than secret knowledge drives her forward. The thing kindling the pleasant and gentle warmth at the bottom of her stomach.
Kaname Madoka's smile.
Homura gouges herself on it until she's sick, and then she gouges herself some more.
Among the ruins, Homura kneels in the ankle-deep waters before the corpse. A slight smile still stains Madoka's lips, but the pleasant feeling in the stomach is gone, replaced by the gnawing emptiness.
Ah, she understands now. What she felt before wasn't a pleasure. She merely was experiencing an absence of pain for the first time in her life.
The dead smile taunts her, widening the thirsting abyss at the core of her being.
It's wrong.
She understands why Madoka died smiling.
It's wrong.
She said that saving Homura from the Artist Witch was one her proudest accomplishments. Now, Homura is safe once again, just as the countless civilians still crowding the shelters.
It's wrong.
Madoka thought she was doing the right thing.
It's wrong.
No. Madoka did the right thing. In this world, it is an undeniable truth.
It's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong! The emptiness bleeds, the stained hungry desire grows and collapses onto itself, until it is denser than the heart of a star. A single spark, borne out of the immense pressure ignites the blood, turning the surface of her soul into a blazing inferno.
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a glimpse of white.
She cannot, will not allow for such truth to remain. She will deny it, she will hide it, she will rewrite it, until the truth of the world is replaced with her own.
She will protect Kaname Madoka, even if she has to reduce the principles of this world to ashes and then shape them back with her own two hands.
The flame fuels her determination, but what fuels the flame?
Homura rewinds the time once, twice, ten times. Friends turn into obstacles, their spirits crushed by the truth; variables propagate, smothering the way forward under their enormous mass; and above all looms the ever-present stage of the Queen of Witches.
Even Madoka grows more and more distant, her cheerful smile turning cautious and unsure.
The sheer enormity of her task sets in. Despair lurks in the shadows of her mind and hunger wracks her soul.
In a disgusting display of weakness, she decides to sate it.
In the first days after her transfer there are always excited swarms of schoolgirls buzzing around her desk. Annoying as they are, she learned how to tune out this existential noise.
Homura doesn't do so today. She singles out one with sufficiently pleasing features out of the crowd. She waits for her after the school, shows her best approximation of a friendly smile and offers to go somewhere, only two of them. The puppy-like enthusiasm with which the girl accepts her offer is grating, but she has suffered far worse from Miki Sayaka.
They end up going to some cheap café not far from the school. She listens to the girl's incessant chatter, periodically humming or asking empty questions. Homura's careless offer to pay whatever trivial sum is sufficient to buy anything she wants from the menu paints her cheeks pink and stutters her speech.
Under some absolutely idiotic pretense Homura manages to lure her companion to her house.
The girl yields to her caresses rather easily. With a light giggle and deep flush she unhooks her bra and surrenders her flesh to Homura's tongue.
The savor is muted, almost empty. It's nothing compared to what she desired to taste. It will do for now.
It will not end as a singular display of weakness, no matter how hard she tries to convince herself otherwise.
The desire grows and swells, until it cannot be denied any longer. She tells herself that it is merely a stress management, that using her precious time to pursue carnal desires will allow her to carry out her duty with greater focus, that every breath she takes, she still takes for Madoka's benefit.
She knows it's a lie. Because Akemi Homura is a selfish and greedy girl.
For a time, the thirst of the gaping abyss within her heart could be sated with libations of shared comfort.
It does not last.
At first, she inflicts small cruelties upon her faceless and nameless companions as means to an end - the mad pace her quest sets leaves little time for courting or a word "No". As months turn into years and years turn into iterations, the pain and humiliation becomes a purpose in itself; the girls suffer her cold rage so no one of value would suffer it instead. Still, she tries to keep some thin veneer of machine-like rationality.
And then she acquires a taste.
With each passing iteration her appetites grow more twisted, and her insights - more profound.
Her every sense heightens far beyond what mere enchantments could achieve, her every sensation deepens far beyond what mere humans could experience. Her skin grows soft and silky-smooth, like that of a newborn. The precise clockwork behind her every movement and thought is no more, now she flows like a gush of blood from a cut artery. Weak minds of teeming human masses are incapable of resisting her otherworldly allure. It almost feels like a deliberate insult to know that they belong to the same species as her Madoka.
And it's so, so hard to not paint her sacrifices' hair pink in her mind's eye.
She understands blood and she understands feast. She does not yet understands birth.
The knife in Homura's right hand slides between the girl's breasts and down to her abdomen, its bite deep. Her left hand plays on the girl's throat, transforming the terrified screams into a delightful melody. Her tongue follows the blood, tracing the breasts, sliding down to the navel and then even lower, until the coppery savour morphs into the salty one. She bites down, tasting both pleasure and agony. It's hard to restrain herself to not tear a mouthful of flesh out of the girl's most sensitive place.
Tongue dines and blade licks.
A violent tremor rolls through the girl's entire body. Her cries stop, her eyes roll back and her mind slips into the redmost dreams, overwhelmed by the limit-experience. The play reaches its climax and a delighted moan escapes Homura's lips. She allows herself to bask in the afterglow for a few seconds, until the sweet fire filling her veins fades back to the bottom of her stomach and she is once again empty.
Then she starts on the cleaning. A routine work; her hands follow rote movements, her mind busies itself with statistics and logistics of the newborn iteration. She vanishes the knife into the cold space of her shield. She wills, and the bloody bedsheets ignite in a purplish smokeless flame, soon leaving no trace in the material world. She wipes the girl clean, and she stitches and dresses her wounds.
She isn't terribly concerned by leaving such obvious marks. Be it shame, trauma or paranoia, her pleasures oftentimes go to incredible lengths to hide their encounter from the world. Perhaps, one day they could hoard enough courage to tell someone the truth.
Shame the world never lives this long.
For the third day in a row the teacher calls an unfamiliar name a few times, only to be greeted by silence. The fact slips from Homura's mind as soon as it is acknowledged.
A strange sight greets Homura when she returns home that day.
The girl from a few days ago huddles on the steps of her townhouse, shivering in the chilly night air. Her hair is disheveled and her eyes bloodshot; she looks like she barely slept since their last meeting. Her gaze flickers all over the street, expression wavering between doubt and apprehension.
Their eyes meet. They don't exchange a word, but Homura still sees what the girl wanted to show her. Below layers of pain and fear embers the blood-red hunger. The primeval desire, once hidden behind the meat of societal taboos, now flayed open by her hand.
Homura considers the silent plea. Refusal is the only reasonable choice - she has no time for frivolous distractions. Excess of pleasure is a luxury, luxury is a waste and waste is a betrayal.
But Akemi Homura is an ardent and greedy girl. So instead, she silently beckons her follower into the depths of her house.
The girl returns again and again, even though each time she leaves a little bit lesser.
Eventually, there isn't enough of her left to allow her to leave at all.
Insistent ring of the doorbell interrupts Homura's ballistic calculations. She's almost glad for the distraction; the work is as tedious as it is important.
Two police officers meet her on the doorsteps, one man and one woman. They apologize for the late visit, they only want to ask a few questions. They are investigating a disappearance of one of her classmates, and Homura might've been the last person who ever saw her.
The name doesn't sound familiar. With a tinge of amusement Homura realizes they might be searching for her pet.
She have dealt with police before. It's hardly different from dealing with other adults; her poise and looks make her all but immune to all persecution. They see only what they want to see, and it's so simple to corrupt the narrative to make them see what she wants them to see.
She could turn their calcified minds away with a couple of well-placed words.
Instead, she feigns a genuine worry and interest, and offers them to come inside. She guides the pair to the dining room and retreats to the kitchen to prepare tea.
Water boils and Homura wonders why did she did what she just did. Is it some exhibitionistic thrill? Does she find it ...exciting, discussing the disappearance, knowing full well that the girl in question is just behind the door, that they could discover the truth by merely taking a wrong turn on their way to the bathroom?
What would they think if they were to behold her pet's new form?
...What would they do?
But then, what can they do? She would not allow them to leave. It would hardly even inconvenience her. People, even people of some importance disappearing into the night never to be seen again is a common occurrence in Mitakihara. It would attract some unwelcome attention, but not nearly enough. And in less than a week it all would be a moot point.
Does she want to flaunt her pleasure, or does she merely want to experience a consequence in this eternal world of hers?
That night, the bloodthirst of the Spider's Door is quenched, if only for a moment.
The consequences fail to materialize.
But the idea continues to worm in her brain even as iterations progress.
She is sure that Incubator knows. She is also sure it would not be able to comprehend her sensations and her insights even if she were able to overcome the immense distaste and talk to it.
She wants to be condemned. Or perhaps she wants to be understood. She is no longer sure what the difference is.
Sakura Kyoko is a greedy girl. But her greed is a paradoxical thing; she uses it to shield herself from the very same thirsting void from which it originates. She balances precariously on the edge. What does not cease, succumbs. Kyoko chooses to not cease until she doesn't, but still, she succumbs slower than most.
This unknowing corruption of the secret doctrine is almost admirable, insofar as all corruption is admirable.
Her insight into the principle of hunger is borne out of scarcity, not excess. It is unrefined, almost bestial. But she will be able to understand, and with that, judge.
Homura wonders if her influence could tip the scales enough to show this lost soul the primordial truth beyond the base hedonism.
And if she could teach greed to Kyoko, who else could she teach it to?
Soon, the opportunity presents itself.
In her usual bold and unapologetic manner Kyoko invites herself into Homura's house. She devours her culinary experiments, fortunately not bothering to learn of their ingredients, and complains loudly about Miki Sayaka's ongoing deterioration.
With the feigned air of casual indifference she asks for a way to reverse the foolish girl's condition, to convince her that the state of her soul does not change who she is.
There is some rage and distrust buried deep within her words. Too deep to affect anything. She's willing to let Homura gorge on secrets just as she herself gorges on food. She just wants one of them.
There is some anxiety too. Miki Sayaka is not the only one who needs convincing. But Kyoko doesn't admit her weakness out loud, so Homura doesn't say it either.
But that's the problem, isn't it? Kyoko doesn't want for Miki Sayaka to simply live, she wants for her to be right. She desperately wants to hear the wrong answer.
It simply won't do. She already knows the only attainable solution. She just needs a little push to start considering it. So Homura reminds Kyoko of her own words. Break his arms and legs, make sure he will not be able to do anything without his savior. Create love out of suffering. The nature of Miki Sayaka's magic will make it less trivial, but still hardly impossible. 'She will resist, of course. But, if you want...' Homura purrs into Kyoko's ear, letting the words drip like a sweetest honey with glass shards inside, '...I can teach you how to make her love it.'
Homura doesn't give any orders or send any signals. But this is her dwelling, and inside of it her desires are not easily refused.
In a moment, the door opens, and her latest pleasure shambles into the white void of the room, her only remaining eye locked on Homura in a prurient and worshipful gaze.
A flash of red, and the spearhead strains the skin of her throat. Kyoko stands before her in a full magical girl regalia, face twisted in confusion and fury.
Homura simply moves through. She lets the enchanted steel to part her skin and muscle, to open her jugular vein. Her blood, thick and rich, oozes ponderously, slowly enveloping her neck and suffusing the collar of her uniform. She glides towards her pet, flesh and bone flowing in a bewitching harmony. Spearhead lags behind, as her guest's mind struggles to grasp her movement.
Homura's bloodstained fingers walk over the shivering girl's pliable flesh, eventually finding their way into her mouth. Her pet licks them greedily, savoring every drop of her luscious blood, eye rolled back in ecstasy. She allows herself to get lost for a moment in the aroma of the strawberry shampoo that suffuses the girl's hair, styled in the short and neat twintails.
The tip of Kyoko's spear is trembling.
She came here to hear a secret. So a secret truth Homura shall reveal. Sakura Kyoko is afraid. The abyss at the bottom of her heart - it terrifies her. So she runs away, because it is what she always did. Miki Sayaka seems as a beacon, a guiding light promising a path away from loneliness and hungering darkness.
'She shines, does she not?' Homura whispers wistfully. The girl in her hands throws a curious glance at Kyoko, but she is quickly distracted, as Homura's fingers worm into her holes, both natural and inflicted. The girl moans and grinds, seemingly trying to impale herself onto her hand.
Miki Sayaka might shine, but the truth is that her light is nothing but an illusion in this world. Merciless it may be, but it won't illuminate the path forward. For what Kyoko seeks was what she has been trying to escape all along. The hungering abyss may be forever empty, but it is not forever lonely. What is consumption if not unification? How can one devour without being devoured in turn?
The succulent lore seeps into Kyoko's mind, in her eyes Homura can see how insight twists and swells. The very air the words leave behind is moist with possibility. Pierce it, and it might bleed.
Homura separates her body from her pawn's. In a perfect synchronicity they flow around the spear to embrace its holder. Homura's finger gently traces the contours of the Gem embedded into Kyoko's chest, and with a light push she makes her fall back onto the waiting ottoman. The spear clangs a few times on the floor and then dissolves into red motes of light.
Her girl coils around redhead's arm, fingers crawling beneath the skirt, lips almost kissing her ear, murmuring sweet words of sacrifice. In a reverent tone she recalls her own experience, how even someone as lowly and unimportant as herself could ascend to greatness by submitting her flesh and her mind, by becoming a part of her perfect master. 'Just as Akemi-sama said, we cannot be undevoured, as we cannot be unborn,' she whispers the delectable secrets of self-dissolution, as her tongue caresses Kyoko's neck.
Homura's knee creeps up between Kyoko's smooth thighs. Another leg follows through, and Homura kneels above her, looking, analyzing. Salivating. She observes how the lean chest raises and falls in shallow breaths, how hot air escapes the chapped lips, how muscles lose the will to resist, giving in to the delicious sensation. The body beneath her turns soft. Malleable.
Kyoko's lips curve into a rapturous grin. With her free hand she tenderly touches Homura's neck, wetting her fingertips with red. Homura mirrors her smile involuntarily, slight blush lighting her cheeks. She accepted the only truth. She is willing to be reshaped in Homura's image.
Kyoko slowly closes her eyes.
And then she starts laughing. It's a cruel and grating sound, like a rusty nail scraping on a still living bone. 'I see now...' Kyoko coughs out in-between the laughing fits, 'It was never about you. It was always about that girl.' Her eyes slide over the pet. 'Madoka, that's her name?' Angry words spill out of her mouth in an unbidden deluge. Akemi Homura, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows, holding the keys to all the truths. Insightful and cunning. Prophet of hunger and appetite. And she's afraid too. Terrified to touch the only thing she desires. Because for all her preaching, she's afraid of being consumed. She's afraid that a simple human girl would digest her so utterly and completely, not a single trace of what was once Akemi Homura would remain in the world. The ultimate loneliness. The ultimate weakness.
No.
No, Kyoko doesn't understand. She can't possibly understand. This feeling is for Madoka and Madoka alone. Afraid to be consumed? What a nonsense. Akemi Homura came from nothingness, forged for the singular purpose, and when the task is done, to the motherly embrace of nothingness she shall gladly return.
But if she's truly empty, why does her heart hurt so? If she's nothing but a tool, why does her blood burns with unquenchable thirsts? Why doesn't a tool have a right to shape its wielder too? 'Why does the world always follows her desires and never mine? Why can't I be right too, just one time?'
But Kyoko have long got up and stormed out. No one stopped her. Homura's plea remains unheard by anyone, save for her pet.
Homura's apostatic ideas do not get the chance to mature into something greater; eternity ends as suddenly as it begun.
Perhaps it's for the better.
The same smile that started it all plays on Madoka's lips, and just like that, She's gone.
The new world awaits.
Akemi Homura the worthless puella magi is digested and dissolved, and Akemi Homura the apostle bursts out of the chrysalis.
The world borne out of her failure and Madoka's martyrdom isn't a kind place. But it's kinder than the previous one.
Homura got what she so dearly desired. She escaped the eternal recurrence, and the torment of the new world is both her punishment and her reward.
She will live, or at least exist, and the results of her actions will propagate into the infinitely branching future. She will die, ripped to shreds by a horde of wraiths, and she will meet her Madoka one last time.
If there's ever a good point to end her story on, it's right now.
But Akemi Homura is a girl enlightened by greed.
Birth occurs at the conjunction of pleasure and torment. The Enticements of the Grail are greatly coveted, but it is the Torments that are its final nature and its true gift. Thanks to her Madoka's sacrifice she finally understood that.
The secrets of birth are peeled bare before her. Rubedo is Grail and Grail is Rubedo.
She knows what she has to do.
The cold moonlight illuminates the infinite sea of dunes. Halfway across the world, Homura stands before the last resting place of a long-forgotten immortal.
The door before her is a marvel of both engineering and the more arcane arts. Across centuries, it deterred countless grave robbers.
The modern plastic explosives make a short work of it.
She finds the owner in the central chamber. The body is preserved perfectly, but it crumbles into black flaky ash the moment she approaches. No matter, it isn't her objective. Her prize lies on a small altar nearby - an unremarkable lead flask. She unscrews the cap. The milky liquid inside is viscous like coagulated blood and glows lightly in the gloom of the tomb.
Azoth. Perhaps it isn't the final solvent that alchemists sought. But it will do, for her purposes.
She pours the liquid into a wide silver chalice. The Gem, almost ready to burst under the relentless assault of the curses she has hoarded, frees itself from her flesh and floats into her open hand. Gently and slowly, she drowns it.
She stumbles towards the stone table, the chalice clutched in her rapidly ossifying fingers. She sinks onto it, not bothering to sweep the ashes of the previous occupant. Her vision swims, as the connection between her soul and body dissolves in the purifying waters.
She closes her eyes, and waits.
The False Mitakihara is almost perfect. Almost.
Ironically, it is Miki Sayaka who allows Homura to proceed to the next stage. Her suspicion and distrust are so familiar, and so clashing with the idyllic narrative of the dream. Poor, foolish Miki Sayaka. She always saw so much, and understood so little. Even now, dwelling as close to the Glory as she is, she still has no hope to comprehend the full extent of Homura's design.
Akemi Homura dies. Akemi Homura was dead since the dream started. Homulilly wakes. Homulilly was awake the entire time.
Her Madoka stays the blade of the guillotine. She hugs her and promises that as long as they are together, everything will be all right.
Homulilly remembers the radiance beyond the torment. Akemi Homura remembers the abyss beyond the pleasure.
Love.
Devil reaches towards her Delight,
And tears Her in two.
A new sun shines above the House without Walls, painting the once cobalt stones in deep reds. It swells and festers, until it can swell no longer.
Devil flicks her wrist carelessly, and the womb is sliced apart.
Tide of the blackest ichor pours onto the Dream below. It engulfs, it devours, it violates. The black tide digests the barriers, until there is no difference between the principles of the world and Devil's desires, until there is no difference between the truths of the world and Devil's views, until there is no difference between the flesh of the world and Devil's own.
She feasts and she is feasted upon. She lies at the root of the cycle of violence and she is the cycle itself, enshrined as a fundamental law of nature.
She is a God-from-Blood and she is the God-of-Blood. Every shriek of pleasure and every cry of agony, every orgasm, every birth and every murder is a heartfelt prayer to her and her alone.
Eons pass and the ichor reaches the roots of the Wood that grows around the walls of House without Walls. The miniscule amount of it filters through the thirsty ground, to fall beyond the Dream.
In a precise place and at precise time it coalesces into a human form. Or at least the closest thing to a human form Devil's memory can conjure.
In a soft and warm bed, surrounded by the herds of stuffed animals, her Delight dreams sweet and carefree dreams, exhausted by the long flight back home.
Gently and reverently Devil brushes away a stray lock of hair.
She birthed the world of her delight and for her Delight. Perhaps, She will accept her gift. Perhaps, She will rebel.
It doesn't matter. At last, she has won. She devoured the old world, and Her terrible eternal fate with it.
Ah, she can't wait to be devoured too~