2019-05-01 - Not Yet
| Title: Not Yet | |
|---|---|
| Summary: After the Incubator shares its own terrible revelations with her, Homura Akemi runs to beat the devil. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: Tokyo | |
| OOC - IC Date: 5-1-2019 - | |
Soundtrack: Thrice - The Earth Isn't Humming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcD81fKRZVU
How many times has Homura Akemi raced headlong through Tokyo's streets? How many times this timeline -- how many times across them all?
'Very soon, you'll be the only Puella Magi left to face Walpurgisnacht...' The devil might as well perch on her shoulder, its double-ears streaming out alongside Homura's hair in the rising stormwinds. She races to spite its smug prophecy.
How many times has she been too late?
Shitamachi blurs around her. It feels necessary to run past the arcade she and Kyouko occupied not so long ago, to spy upon its metal stage through the plate glass windows. It feels futile, even before she sees the empty DDR pads. The screen seems less bright without the spearmaiden's stance to limn.
'I'll fight with you. Dance with me.'
Perched atop the gleaming-wet rooftop of Dark Burger, she shields her eyes and peers through shifting sheets of rain. It's just as futile.
Homura leaps into the open space between buildings and winks out of sight amid the driving grey.
-=-=-=-
Is she searching for Kyouko and Eri? Or is Homura Akemi fleeing like the frightened girl she swore she'd never again be?
Ohtori's famous gardens (to be distinguished from its sheltered Garden) are becoming flower-lined canals as the soil saturates and unceasing rain fills the rows. Eri Shimanouchi kneels in none of them. Futile.
Is she just delaying the inevitable?
They confronted Madoka here, together, before the brutal advent of the Mermaid Witch, before the Golden Queen fell to Eri's rising lash. And after they interrupted her devoted and needful weeding, after Homura dashed a gift from Madoka's hands to the ground with a cold comment... Eri gathered her spilled chocolates, one by one, from the dirt.
Another small tragedy, one of a multitude of sins staining Homura's hands. And for what?
She spins on one heel, splashing muddy water in an arc, and pelts away. She'd told the Incubator it wasn't over yet. It's a thin thing for a soul steeping in grief to depend upon, but Homura Akemi has survived thus far via unceasing movement.
She doesn't check Eri's dorm. It is one place she feels sure the green girl will not be.
-=-=-=-
If they'd grown closer, perhaps she would have a chance of knowing where Kyouko Sakura lays her head. Things stand precisely as determined loner Homura claims she wants them; those cunning boltholes go unchecked.
Only fully-fledged Witches and their prospective prey populate Nishitama's shadowed paths. Another garden Eri Shimanouchi is not tending. There is one place left in sprawling Tama either girl might reliably be. Perhaps Homura will get lucky, and catch them there together.
She races like she can outpace fateful revelations, like she can somehow escape the profound and seductive black which lays in wait behind her eyelids.
Like she can still avert fate.
