To Guard Once More

(Ignore if you have no interest interacting. You didn't have a rules post unless I missed it somehow, so I figured I'd just send an ask without waiting for a mutual follow or whatever other metric.)

...Well, this was a complicated situation, wasn't it? She was a little uncomfortable to look at, in fact, but Homura did her best not to let that discomfort show on her face.

"Something about you reminds me of her, but I cannot tell what. Perhaps it is the glasses? Didn't Madoka wear those once? I can't seem to recall. I will not wallow in that failure of course. It is not your fault if I forget, given the circumstances. Right Madoka?"

A second passes where the amalgam is still and silent, as if expecting a response.

“It’s a little complicated, but… I’m the one who sacrificed herself to protect as many as I could, and Madoka especially.” She closes her eyes for a moment as she speaks, reflecting— Things hadn’t gone perfectly, not by any means, but she’d stopped Kaname Madoka from becoming a Witch, at least. That much was enough.

She blinks in shock as she sees the matured and grown up Homura.

"...how? What are you?"

"Ah, Kimura Noriko."

Homura turns to face the dark magical girl, and for just a moment, to Noriko alone, her form would change— Becoming at once both young and ancient beyond words, a symbol of grace, power, and righteousness all in one, clad in a long white dress with jet-black hair cascading in waves out of sight...

But then the moment passes and the vision with it, and the elder woman smiles softly at the younger magical girl.

"All you give me are excuses and threats. You have all the power in Creation to save lives, but instead you save souls. At least your conscience is cleared while you take a person away from their friends, their family."

She stuck her hand out, making her Soul Ring turn into its true state, the Soul Gem. She grabbed it from midair and presented it to this Law of Cycles.

"See this? Not a speck of impurity. Not a shred of corruption. This is how all Soul Gems should be. You could easily, easily, carry the burden of despair and prevent everything. After all, what is despair to an timeless, fourth dimensional being? You lie through your teeth, just as you lie when you say every Magical Girl knows the stakes when they make their wish, because they do not. That is the whole point. That is Kyubey's game all along. They are left blissfully unaware that their teenage emotions and eventual angst would become poison to their very life. Just as you reach down and pluck their soul, you could take away that which is killing them and leave them to live. But that is too benevolent, is it not? And we both know, your benevolence is... limited." She shakes her head.

"A shield." She scoffs at. It is enough to get a single "Ha" of a laugh out of her. "Protecting yourself, maybe." The Soul Gem returns to it's ring-shape on her finger. "You speak of my cause as impossible, but last I checked, you were impossible, until suddenly, one day, one dark day, everything changed. Now look at you, intimated by the next coming change."

She spoke plainly, her voice level still, holding her own anger back. “But if you intend to yap, perhaps I’ll grant you a form more appropriate for that.”

The Goddess closed her eyes and waved one hand through the air between them, and Noriko’s form began to shift— Shrinking as her bones and muscles shifted painlessly, her hair recessed, and fur sprouted from the entirety of her body. Homura stepped forward, calmly, eyes fixated upon her, as she continued. “Maybe it’ll help you listen to what you’re being told, too.” Finally, as the change finished, Homura reached down and scooped up the chihuahua that had once been Noriko, careful to hold her such that she couldn’t bite (as she would surely try), and looked her in the eyes.

“I do everything in my power to protect people, magical girls and humans alike. I have saved more lives than you could possibly know, in more worlds than you could ever comprehend, and I’ve tried to save many, many more. Furthermore, I offered you a kindness, and you met it with nothing but anger— An entirely misplaced anger, at that. I have done nothing to you until this day. I would have continued to leave you well enough alone, if you hadn’t called out to me.”

“Instead, you insisted on this. On letting my words pass you by. So I will repeat them, once more, in the vain hope that you’ll listen this time: We can only do so much. And part of what we did, what I did, was ensure that the Incubators would provide potential magical girls with all the information needed. No more deception, no more half-truths; they have a reason to work with magical girls without manipulating them. If the Entelechy hasn’t told you that, if things have changed in your world, you should consider who’s responsible for that— Because it is neither I nor Madoka.”

 Finally, she set Noriko down once more, gently, before crossing her arms as she looked down upon her. “Lastly… I am not of your timeline. You must know that. And know, too, that whatever you do here, it will not affect me. …And you should know, too, that there was a force out there, once, that would have flattened your timeline. Ensured you never existed; not in this form.”

   "I wonder indeed." The reason truly evades her ( emphasis on the sarcasm ). "And if curiosity ails you — " She's not even going to bother with correcting her. " — you are more than welcome to visit them." So yes, they are doing well. But she can not promise that they won't bite anyone's ankles.

She blinks in shock as she sees the matured and grown up Homura.

"...how? What are you?"

"Ah, Kimura Noriko."

Homura turns to face the dark magical girl, and for just a moment, to Noriko alone, her form would change— Becoming at once both young and ancient beyond words, a symbol of grace, power, and righteousness all in one, clad in a long white dress with jet-black hair cascading in waves out of sight...

But then the moment passes and the vision with it, and the elder woman smiles softly at the younger magical girl.

"In other words, you have nothing for me. You are of no use to me. Typical. Absolutely, typical. All these beings equated to a 'god', always telling me to look the other way, that they cannot or will not provide even a sliver of what I ask."

She repeated in her mind that she does not show weakness, the same words she always leaned on whenever fury clouded judgement. She was also cool under pressure. She learned that the buttons she did have could be easily covered. She just needed to relax. To disassociate. To disconnect mind from body. To be a husk.

She tried. She really did.

"All that power. Divine, they call it. Again and again, I hear of the benevolence of the Law of Cycles. 'The Law of the Cycle is our salvation,' they think. 'The Law of Cycles will save us from our despair,' engrained in the minds of so many Magical Girls. The ones that know of you, through hushed whispers and gossip and rumors, revere you. They do not just preach your existence in silly platitudes. They believe it. They believe in all you stand for. They believe you come to save them. That you care. But every version of you I meet, whether it wear Madoka Kaname's face or someone elses, always give me the same lines."

She turned away from Homura.

"I will tell you the same thing I told my own Law of Cycles when I went to painstakingly great lengths just to be disappointed by her; You do not bring hope. You do not offer salvation. You are the death of hope. You are the death of salvation. The sight of you means the end of a story. You never save anyone. You are a grim reaper, you are the morality that comes eventually, you..."

"You are the reason..." Her ranting turned into muttering. "The reason they fight me, the reason they deny me. They think they're fighting in your service, but all they are doing, all they will ever do, is die in your honor. And their reward for that devotion? Silence. From a 'god' that has nothing left to give..."

Her voice became calm. She no longer spoke through gritted teeth. She spoke with the sense of a realization.

"Yes, I am angry. No, that is not common for me. Well done. You might be wondering where it is coming from. It stems from the fact that all these beings with supposed infinite power cannot be as gracious and to give my life some closure. Everything ends; lives, friends, I know this. I believe I have the right to know why this friendship has ended, what came of this life. No one that knows will tell me, and that circle is incredibly small in the first place. Denied, always."

Her head angles to face Homura again. The fury is gone from her face, just was from her tone. But the words she says... still radiate.

"My Law of Cycles will be rendered obsolete. She will be the god of nothing. Over time, no one will remember her. No one will look up to her. No one will fall into her embrace. There will be no need for your brand of false salvation. I will erase death from the equation. Every Magical Girl will be allowed to live without fear of the corruption that still plagues them to this day. I promise you, I will do your job better than you ever could."

“...And it’s clear you don’t know Madoka, or the Law of Cycles as a whole, either.” A pause, before she shakes her head, “But you couldn’t, could you? Not with the wish you made. One who wished for immortality could never understand the hope for a good end.” 

Homura steps forward, her voice level as she continues, “But perhaps I could elucidate you on a few things. First… The Law of Cycles was never about saving a magical girl in her mortal form. It was about saving a magical girl’s soul, stopping them from becoming the very monsters they fight. Madoka knew exactly what she was doing when she made her Wish… And so did I. It was a task we accepted willingly, and one that every magical girl understands when making their wish.”

Another step forward, her heels clacking audibly against the pave-stones, “Second… I am not hope. I am the one who protects magical girls against the cruel fate the Incubators imposed on them, and the Incubators themselves… I am a guardian, a shield. One that you cannot hope to break.”

One final step and she’s within arms reach of the dark magical girl, “Third… The opposition to you has nothing to do with the Law of Cycles. You would be fought against regardless of whether we existed, because other magical girls are going to recognize your words for what they are— An impossibility. A vain attempt to cling to a corpse, to return to something long gone. Your words and actions are no different than those of the Incubators, and the Entelechy is one of them. They’re no different from the others at their core, and they’re doing what they always do; manipulate children to whichever ends they choose.”

She crosses her arms, looking down upon Noriko as she finishes, “She knew you were coming. Madoka, the Law of Cycles. She gazed upon your coming just as she did all the demon would do, and without a doubt, she has prepared for it. If you want to test yourself against her mettle, that’s your prerogative… But even with clouded vision, I know it’s doomed to fail.”

Finally, the veil of mortality is lifted, and in her minds’ eye Noriko would see the Law of Cycles as She is once again; the middle-woman replaced with that same being, clad in white, ageless, glorious, and practically radiating might. “I spoke to you today out of kindness, Kimura Noriko.” She does not raise her voice, but it rumbles through Noriko body and soul regardless, threatening to rip her asunder, “But if you intend to provoke me, you may well get your wish. Do not doubt my willingness to put down a threat.” With her words, a vision would force its way into Noriko’s mind; the Entelechy and its forces reduced to dust on the wind, with her contract rendered null and void.

“You are meddling with forces beyond your ken, child. That anger will serve only to cast you into the grave, immortal or not.” With that, the moment passes, and the vision with it, and Homura stares down at Noriko with something akin to pity.