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The battle is over.

There is happiness and weariness and sadness. Their banners of victory are flown, and the Ohm retreat.

Homura cares little for all of those things; before they even return to the ship, her thoughts are with Madoka. And after throwing off the others, she strides through the many paths of the ship. Searching and searching. But Madoka cannot be found. The ship is huge, so she can't possibly search every nook and cranny. So she takes a brief look through everything but the city; and when Madoka is not found, she carefully combs through it again. And again.

And eventually, she finds her way back to the Obs Deck. She sits on a couch and breathes, trying to keep her composure.

Where could she be?

[ Closed to Sayaka and Mami! Bendytimed to just after they get back from Lirath. ]

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There was one place Homura didn't check, actually. Whether she refused to or just didn't think of it, Mami wasn't sure, but really, the first place the dark-haired girl should have checked was the room Madoka shared with Mami.

Not that it matters, since Mami had been doing her own sulking in there since they returned, but it was strange. And she really hated to be the bearer of bad news, but she doubted Homura would keep searching until she collapsed from exhaustion or lack of sleep. Or both.

So here she was, crossing the Obs Deck towards one of the lesser occupied areas, and sitting herself down on a nearby chair.

"I know you're looking for her. And it's no use. She's gone."

The words hurt, not as much as they'd probably hurt Homura, but there was a horrible twisting feeling in her chest as she spoke.

Sayaka blinked, having been separated from Homura and Mami during the later parts of the battle of Lirath. At least they had managed to win that fight. With what everyone had been saying, it had seemed like the Ohm were near impossible to defeat.

So of course, when Sayaka had managed to find Homura and Mami, it was right when Mami had said that. "Who's gone?"

Homura stills. She's read where people go when they are gone-- back to the pods. She swallows down the hysteria that threatens to build up at Mami's words, the overtired incoherence, and just tilts her head. She closes her eyes, and wills strength back into her fingers.

It's not hopeless; there's always hope; things will be okay, so long as you don't give up. She would prefer Madoka to be back in a pod-- unknowing of the danger that had lurked in the caverns some time ago-- than for her to be missing for some other reason. A reason like death.

"Madoka is," says Homura in response to Sayaka, voice calm and cool though she feels like she's floating above her head. "Mami and I can't find her."

Mami, on the other hand, would much rather have Madoka here with them. She had since given up on encouraging the other girl to help fight, assuming that that most likely led to her death in some of the past timelines Homura had been through. But she wanted... needed her friend here with her, the only person she could let all her walls crumble around...

But no, she couldn't think about that now. She had to stay calm. After all, there were other things she needed to discuss after this.

"It must have happened right after we left for the mission. That's the only time she was alone..."

Sayaka's eyes widened a bit at that, before she scowled a bit. "Great, just great," she said. "Of all the times for the ship to put her back in... why'd it even bother letting her out if it was going to do this!"

She took a deep breath. "I mean, I know she's probably a bit safer in there rather than out here since she... well, hasn't made a contract with Kyuubey and probably wasn't ever going to, but still. It was nice having her here with us."

"It was," Homura says, voice completely flat. She's trying so hard to keep up her composure, her quiet and her calm. It might just appear that she doesn't care, but of course that's the opposite. If you look into her eyes, maybe you can see a little bit of her turmoil.

It pains her to consider it, especially in a place where resetting is not possible but it's far from unlikely. Homura murmurs: "Are we absolutely certain she hasn't died? Nowhere could have been safe during that battle."

Mami's insides turned to ice at that thought. It... was possible. Madoka, bless her heart, probably would have wanted to help, even if she had no power to do so, and if she ran off after they had set out...

No. She wasn't going to think about that. She had enough on her mind as it was, and she didn't need thoughts of her friend dying piled on top of that.

"I'm sure they would have..." She paused to stop her voice from cracking. "Found her body if that was the case. Or would have at least counted her missing when we fell back."

Sayaka nodded. She definitely didn't want to think about that. If Madoka was dead, they definitely would've found the body somewhere.

"Right... we... would've been able to find her..."

"That's right, isn't it..."

Homura tells herself that they are right, that they'd have found her body, but it's hard to shake. After a moment of silence, she throws it. Yes, the pod cavern. The pods. That's where Madoka must be. She stands, and takes a step forward. "I'm going to go check the pod caverns."

"Wait."

Mami also stood up, grabbing Homura's wrist so she couldn't move away. "Before you do that," - before you disappear into that huge cavern where it'd be easy to lose track of a person - "You said you'd explain some things after the battle was over. I'd like it if you filled us in before you go off again."

Sayaka nodded, looking over towards Mami. She didn't say anything, though Sayaka had a good idea that she already knew what Homura was going to tell them.

Homura looks away briefly, hesitating. There's no getting out of this; there's nothing she can do to get away from telling them. She edges her way back to her seat, prying Mami's hand off of her wrist, and sits.

She takes a breath, and starts slowly.

"Kyuubey has been lying about a lot of things," Homura says quietly. "By omitting many crucial details you should have been told when you made the contract. ... The reason you did not die when your bodies were damaged so severely is because--" she waves her hands together and sitting in the palm of her hand is her own soul gem. It's not too dark, but visibly dim; fighting like that took a lot out of her. "-- your soul is inside of this."

That... what? It seemed completely ridiculous, but in a way, it made sense... even right down to the name. It unnerved Mami, even disturbed her a bit, knowing that her soul had been ripped out of her body and she didn't even realize it.

"So the only way we can die..." In a flash, her own Soul Gem appeared, and she rolled it around through her fingers. "... Is if this is destroyed?"

Again, it made sense, as horrifying as it was. There was one moment, in that terrifying void of darkness and pain as Charlotte attacked, where she was aware of what was going on - aware of that monster's jaws clamping down on her throat and head and-- - and it only went away when she heard the faint sound of cracking glass.

Gripping her Soul Gem in a tight fist and taking a shaky breath, Mami spoke again. "What else isn't he telling us?"

Sayaka blinked, nodding as Homura told them that. "Right. Yeah, in my time Madoka and I found that out the hard way," she said, shivering a bit. She... well, still wasn't over finding out about that. What that really meant about her.

"But you said he was lying about lots of things? I guess that shouldn't surprise me."

Homura doesn't like the panic evident in Mami's breathing and her gait, but she nods. "That is correct. If it's destroyed, so is our soul." So she tries to soften this all. She won't come out with the answer to the question 'how are witches formed' on her own, but she can't sidestep it forever. Another time, she thinks. This is already a scary thing for Mami to realize.

She listens to Sayaka and puts that information away. She's from somewhere in the future, then, because Homura doesn't remember them finding out the hard way.

"... as for what else he was lying about. It was mostly things like his motivations-- the reason for magical girls existing."

"... How was he lying about that?" Mami asked, suspicion clear in her voice. "What else are we supposed to do, other than fight witches?"

Ah... right. That's another thing that's been bugging her for a while now, sadly for Homura. It had been brought up in her discussion with Nanoha what seemed like ages ago, and she had been meaning to ask Kyuubey, but he seemed to have disappeared as well.

"And that's another thing I'd like to ask. You seem to know Kyuubey's motivations, and you've seen so much... so I'm sure you know. How are witches created?"

Sayaka looked over at Homura. "Yeah... that really doesn't make sense. How could he be lying about that. I mean, we clearly beat the witches..."

She blinked. "And how do you know all this anyway?"

"Fighting witches is not all there is to it," she says. "Our being made into magical girls in the first place delays the death of the universe itself. We are an energy source. He never explains that unless you ask." Homura pauses. "But I suppose that does not matter now that our universe is gone."

She pauses. Mami just had to ask, didn't she? Homura looks uncomfortable for a brief moment before her composure is regained. She radiates calm, radiates a rock heart. She speaks, and her face is so perfectly blank. She's scared of what Mami might do, but if she refuses to say-- who knows what will happen.

"We, magical girls, are immature witches."

There's no other way to put it. Any other way will boil down to the same thing, so Homura puts it bluntly. Her voice is so very small, so very quiet, and she carefully ignores Sayaka's question as to how she knows what's going on.

"... When our soul gems dim and become completely black, we become witches."

Mami's Soul Gem, which was previously held in a near-vicelike grip, fell to the floor.

The revelation that they're used as an energy source was bad. This new information about witches? Even worse. They're fighting to avoid becoming monsters, and... oh god, the monsters themselves. The Grief Seeds, the true essence of a witch... were those the remains of another Puella Magi's Soul Gem?

The more Mami thought about it, the more sick she felt. They've been killing girls like themselves, using their corrupted souls to repair their own...

It takes her a moment to find her voice again, but when she does, it's sof, and shaking just a bit. "Is... is there any way to stop the transformation after the Soul Gem goes dark?"

There has to be. Puella Magi don't normally work together, right? All these witches, they just had to be the unlucky girls who tried to go solo with their duties, and had nobody to help them when they were pushed beyond their limits...

Sayaka glared, looking over at Homura. That couldn't be, that didn't make any sense at all. "That's bullshit!" she shouts, being very careful to hold herself back and not materialize her swords to start attacking Homura. "That makes no sense at all! Why have us fight the witches if we're supposed to turn into them!"

Homura leans over to pick up Mami's soul gem, quickly turning her own into its compact ring form. She pushes the gem into Mami's hands, closing the other girl's fingers over it. It's her own clumsy gesture of kindness, and Homura murmurs: "Be careful. ...I've never seen anyone stop the transformation after it starts. Only a grief seed can save a dark soul gem."

Then, she turns towards Sayaka. She straightens her posture and flicks her long hair back. "You don't have to believe me," she says. It feels like she's back in the past; Sayaka always fought the truth, didn't she? She can't blame her. "We fight to survive. Without witches, there are no grief seeds. And without grief seeds, we die."

It says a lot about how Mami's feelings towards Homura have changed when she doesn't pull her hand away. Had this situation been different, if they were home instead of on this strange ship, if Mami didn't know about what Homura had been though... she would have just snatched her Soul Gem back and called Homura a liar.

Oh, she wanted it to be a lie. She really did. But the tone of Homura's voice alone is enough to confirm that she's telling the truth.

"And how long until that happens?" Mami's voice is still soft, but it has a hard edge to it. "This ship saved witches for us... but how do we know how many it has? For all we know, the next witch we fight could be the last one, and then... and then..."

It would only be a matter of time until one of them turned. Then the survivors would have to fight her, and the cycle would repeat until there was only one of them left....

Sayaka nearly moved to punch Homura in the face after that. But really, what reason did she have to lie now? Madoka was in the pods, Kyuubey was who knew where, and all she Homura ever seemed to do was keep Madoka from contracting with Kyuubey. It wasn't like she tried attacking her ever...

"How do you even know this?"

Mami... delicate, she's got to be delicate.

"I don't know enough about the ship itself to take a guess at that," she says. If there was any way for them to check how many witches there were in 'stock' Mami wouldn't even be asking this.

Instead of falling into the thought process Mami is trapped in, Homura clasps hope with her two hands. She speaks calmly. "If we were chosen specifically to fight in this war, and the ship provides everyone else with what they need to fight... it's very likely it has done the same for us." Her meaning is clear: don't worry about turning into a witch. It's likely they've prepared as many witches as we'll need our entire lives. She doubts this thought will console Mami very much, but she says it on the tiny chance it might.

Then Homura looks Sayaka straight in the eye and says simply, "Experience. I've been a magical girl far longer than you have."

"But there's no way it can know." Mami still sounded relatively calm, but that was mostly thanks to her stubborn refusal to completely break down in front of Homura. Oh, sure, there were a few beginning sparks of trust there, but it would take so much more than that to get Mami to lower her defenses any more.

"Sometimes our Soul Gems darken faster than others..." She didn't know of the link between the corruption in the gems and their own emotions, but she noticed that much at least. "This ship can't possibly plan too far ahead."

Sayaka turns away from Homura, not saying anything. What could she even really say about that anyway? Kyuubey was the whole reason that witches existed back home, and he used them to give a reason for magical girls to make the contract. She... she had no idea what to really think at the moment. Did Kyouko know?

Probably wasn't likely, considering everything.

Homura takes a breath in silence, stewing in it for a moment. Then she speaks.

"We are both as strong and as fragile as these gems. None of us have been on the ship for a very long time. ... When we bet our entire life on a single desire, we gave up many things. That hasn't changed, not even after our worlds have died. A fate of combat is what we offer up as penance for our wish, and we may have to fight that hard again and again. Do you understand...? Sayaka Miki. Mami Tomoe."

She pauses. "There's nothing we can do but fight, and wait, and hope."

"... Hope?" There was a slight hint of disbelief in Mami's voice. Yet another crack in her now-fragile defenses. "Hope? What hope is there for us? It's inevitable, isn't it?"

Even if they do somehow manage to survive this war... then what? Their world will be returned? Mami could deal with the fighting of course, it was nothing new to her. She was used to it. But the constant threat of turning into the very monsters they fought...

She wasn't sure how long she could deal with that.

"Mami-san's right!" Sayaka shouted. "What the hell can we possible hope for anything?!"

If they survived this, they'd just go back to their own worlds, their own times. And then it would happen again. Fighting and fighting. Forever and ever. Until they became the thing that they were fighting against.

"I'll fight as long as I can, that's not a problem. But once we get our world back, if we get it back, Kyuubey would just make more of us!"

"If you lose hope, it's the same as giving up completely. ...That's all I'm getting at. If you stop hoping and give into despair, your transformation will approach much more rapidly."

There's nothing more than that to say. Homura stands. She's given her warning, fulfilled her promise to explain. She said nothing that didn't need to be said. And brushing her hair off of her shoulders, Homura takes a step forwards. "I have to find Madoka's pod. I'll contact you both when I find it."

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