2019-04-06 - TIMELINE X: Wish Upon Every Star

Wish Upon Every Star
Summary: Madoka Kaname ends a bunch of timelines.
Who: Madoka Kaname, Mami Tomoe, Hitomi Shizuki, Sayaka Miki, Kyouko Sakura, Eri Shimanouchi, Usagi Tsukino, Steven Universe, Jasper, Setsuna Higashi, Nanoha Takamachi, Fate Testarossa, Nori Ankou, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste, Niramo Umokeshi, Mikoto Minagi, Kasagami Araki, Mai Tokiha, Kozue Kaoru, Endo Naoki, Ren Aizawa, Takeo Akamizu, Fuu Hououji, Homura Akemi
Where: Everywhere
OOC - IC Date: 04-06-2019 - Everywhen

<SoundTracker> Run - Amy Macdonald https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jl4kwuSOiY

Madoka cradles the still-warm, mangled corpse of a kitten in the palms of her hands -- one of the only things in the world that could make such little hands look big and strong.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Two porcelain cups clink delicately together. Madoka's eyes dance over the rim of hers, as she looks across them at the owner of this apartment, and increasingly, her affection. Her heart yearns to ease Mami's loneliness.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Hitomi's eyes are nothing but whites. She gapes up, sightless in her hysteria, as a shadow falls, here to prey upon her soul. A door slams open. There's Madoka. Just in time.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Sayaka's arms are like a steel vice around Madoka and Charlotte's descending bulk reflects in both of their eyes, lensed pink, lensed blue. She can't tell where her own wings-beating-on-the-bars-of-the-birdcage heartbeat ends and her best friend's begins.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

From behind a rubied barrier, Madoka looks on helplessly. Kyouko's boots make a light scuffing sound in the alley, her hair flapping behind her like a crimson battle flag, as she soars, speartip-first, towards a dazed Sayaka. Sayaka, whose tattered cape already tells the story of this battle; whose cape will soon become a shroud, and finish telling the story of her life. But maybe Madoka isn't helpless, after all, to stop the fight...

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka's legs are too short to reach the bottom of the dais from where she sits on its edge. The heels of her brown flats, student to the last, thunk softly as she kicks her feet out and lets them bounce. She looks over at Kyouko, at the half-eaten apple in her hands. At the look on her face.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka gasps as the classroom window shatters, and as Eri shatters it, tumbling over desks and bookshelves on her way in to a rough landing. Her green gem is clouded, and clouding further, well on its way to darkness. The same darkness she saw in the alley. The same darkness she saw in the the gardening shed. Madoka stands up.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka shouldn't be at the North Pole; it was a mistake of destiny and magic that brought her to this place. She's freezing to death, but her heart is already a shard of ice lodged too sharply in her chest, as she looks down at the sprawled forms of the senshi at the bottom of the broken ravine that was once a fortress. She half runs, half-falls to them, and threads her shaking fingers through Usagi's limp ones.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka, cowering behind the bridge, flinches as a massive alien fist punches almost straight through Steven's nose -- as he's thrown over Jasper's shoulder like a bag of potatoes -- as he's taken to the ship. She clenches her own hand, too. The fist it makes is so much smaller.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka gapes at the broken body of Setsuna Higashi, strung up in the trees of Okinawa, then looks up tearfully at the woman animating them, the woman who called her fortune-telling friend traitor, but really sounded like she was saying daughter. The woman who did this to her.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka covers her eyes, shading them from the blinding light of Nanoha and Fate's beams colliding with one another -- and moreso, from that of the Jewel Seed hung between them, which detonates into a mushroom cloud at the heart of their city. But it's the girls' expressions, the grief, twinned in their eyes, that stirred her to action. She shakes her head. Everything shakes, even her voice.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka can't breathe. Her lids struggle to lift against the pressure of an ocean in storm, which has her effortlessly clasped in the vice of its lost control. Somewhere, Nori is at the heart of this. Nori needs help. Nori needs her.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka shudders as the man in the mask reaches towards Ladybug, Chat Noir and Sourisi, moments from collecting their magical jewelry. He cackles his plans at the darkening sky. A fairy whispers the truth in her ear: it isn't too late.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka reaches out to take Mikoto's hand, across the bento that separates them, and smiles up at them with a neighborhood cat's face. (Not THAT one; another one, who lived.) Mikoto, who feels so strongly. Mikoto, who is so desperate. Mikoto, who is so lonely. Mikoto, who needs to find her Lord Brother.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

Madoka reaches out towards Kasagami as she falls off the balcony, plunging from view.

Towards Mikoto again, this time even as she's charging, eyes blank, teeth bared, sword screaming sparks along with her.

Towards the explosion in the sky that used to be Mai and Kagutsuchi.

Towards the unthinkable tears she sees on Kozue's cheek.

On Endo's, as he holds Ren.

On Takeo's, as he holds Mika.

On Fuu's, as she holds Ferio.

It doesn't have to be this way.

This is something she can do.

"I wish..."

---

Over and over. Run the statistics; Walpurgisnacht isn't the only thing that generates data in this endless maze. Sayaka is the likeliest reason to form a Contract--

(All-time dumbest wish as marked on Homura's murder board: wishing for Sayaka's team to win the championship. It was bad enough when Sayaka wished for it herself. With Madoka doing it for her, it was infinitely worse.)

(All-time greatest wish: None, by Homura's reckoning.)

(But if you ask Madoka, someday, when this is all over and in fact never was, she might cup her hand against your ear and breathe into it, and you could feel a tender smile curve her lips as she relates the story of that one time, when she and Sayaka...)

--but there are countless others. It sometimes feels like Madoka would do it to save the life of an ant -- there's no life too small to throw her own away for. If she has the power to change things -- and she knows she has that power -- and she ALWAYS, somehow, seems to know, seems to find out -- then there is something she can do.

I wish I may, I wish I might...

There's one wish, though -- one repeated wish, one inevitable wish -- the context changes but the truth of it is always the same -- which ends a timeline in the most painful way of all.

---

"HOMURA-CHAN!" shrieks Madoka, horror tearing her throat hoarsely open -- terror beading in her eyes -- making her whole body quiver.

Homura Akemi, transfer student, is a mysterious girl. A strange girl, but somehow never truly a stranger.

There's no life too small but there's something especially unbearable -- oddly so -- about watching Homura stoically face her oncoming death, be it at the hands of a dark queen, a Witch, or... something worse.

But it doesn't have to end like this.

This is something only she can do.