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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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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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