Homura woke up suddenly.

Oh… Whatever it was, it was just a nightmare. She couldn't remember it anymore, but whatever it was, it scared her immensely.

Wait.

Was she in her hospital bed again? Was this another time loop? She felt so warm and... Oh.

She realized Madoka's arm was wrapped around her… the girl must have climbed into her bed during the night. She hated having to watch over Madoka every single night the past few weeks, but it did have its benefits, including maximum cuddling time.

"Madoka…" she whispered. "Are you awake?"

"Hnnnnnn... Homu…."

"I'll take that as a no." Homura laid her head back down on her pillow and tried to go back to sleep.

It didn't work very well. She was just too anxious.

She was extremely glad that Gyuhey had decided to stop telling Mami to try and kidnap Madoka, but she wasn't so sure that Sayaka and Kyoko wouldn't try to do the same themselves, or that Mami would try again anyway.

Apparently, double-wishing makes people a little… mentally unstable, because all three of the other magical girls had gone completely nuts. General Tomoe blindly followed the orders of Gyuhey, who wasn't even trying to hide his obviously-evil nature, and didn't seem to be able to reason with anyone. Kyokannibal was even more of a glutton than before, and was obsessed with challenging everyone to battles after not being able to fight Mami in the hallway way back when. Negasayaka was so completely nihilistic that she was the most unpredictable and impulsive one in the group; there was no telling what she'd do, because she no longer cared about the consequences of anything she did.

That magical girl civil war concept very quickly became a reality, and now all four of them were fighting each other for seemingly no real reason other than the insanity of everyone involved. Homura had no idea why she never snapped; maybe her experience in so many timelines helped her get past that? She couldn't figure it out.

But as long as Madoka was safe, and as long as Walpurgisnacht was eventually defeated… Everything was alright with Homura.

"I love you," she said to Madoka before trying to go back to sleep.

"Rabu tsu…" Madoka muttered, still asleep.

She brushed her hand through Madoka's hair and closed her eyes.

Homura and Madoka walked, hand-in-hand, down a very busy street. The skies were darkening, the rain had already begun pouring from the sky, and Homura knew that Walpurgisnacht was going to come in about two days. So she only needed to keep Madoka safe for another, well, two days, before she could finally fulfill the first part of her wish. She would be so happy.

They had to continue to be in large crowds so that none of the other magical girls couldn't attack. Because if there's something none of them wanted at all, it was getting the whole world to notice as-

"Hold it right there, you two! General Tomoe is here to capture you both!"

Oh, fuck.

Mami, riding the giant snake-like witch Charlotte that she had apparently captured earlier, was destroying cars left and right, and shooting at Homura in the middle of public, with absolutely no regard to the civilians around them.

"You have to stop this, you madwoman!" Homura shouted. She transformed into a magical girl and began throwing cluster bombs made of light. Luckily, her weapons could hit only the targets she desired, so she didn't need to be especially careful. The Cybernet was great that way.

Three bombs impacted on Charlotte and knocked her to the ground. Mami jumped off the witch and began chasing after Homura through the fleeing crowds.

"Homura! Where do we go?" asked Madoka, barely keeping up with her.

"I don't know! Just follow me, alright?"

But in the middle of all the people, and all the explosions-

She lost her.

"MADOKA!" She screamed, but the blasts from Mami's dozens of hair-soldiers as well as the shrieks from Charlotte, now loose and wreaking havoc all over the city (and somehow visible to non-magical humans now, apparently) covered her voice up.

"MADOKA!" Mami jumped down and swiped at her with her rifle's bayonet, but she roll-dodged out of the way and knocked her over with a light-disc. "MADOKA! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Kyokannibal swooped in and punched Homura in the face, knocking her to the other side of the street. That must have been payback for the second timeline…

"Y'all about to face some pain," Kyokannibal said almost incomprehensibly, chomping down on a lollipop. She suddenly gained the power to shoot blue spirals out of her arms, because that made any sense at all, and blasted away at Mami and Homura. Both of the magical girls dodged, but the spirals crashed through a nearby building and wrecked its first floor completely. The building started to collapse on itself. The three of them darted away as quickly as they could

But Negasayaka, standing right underneath it, simply stood there, watching the rest. "I don't know why you bother running. It's not like our soul gems won't just heal our bodies in a few minutes anyw-" The building crashed and fell on top of her.

Kyoko and Mami jumped back and forth, bouncing against the walls of buildings and attacking each other. Having consumed a pack of sno-balls, Kyoko somehow gained the power to shoot pink orbs of death out of her mouth, so the two of them were blocking each other's shots, timed perfectly.

Homura looked everywhere she could for Madoka. Not a single person with pink hair persisted in the area. Perfect. She had completely lost her.

"What is wrong with all of you?!" Homura angrily asked the others as they kept fighting. "I can't find Madoka, and all you want to do is fight each other!" As she said this, Negasayka leapt to attack her, but she dodged, and Negasayaka hit the concrete head-first.

She left the battle, though Mami appeared to be giving chase. She raced down alleyways, looked through the empty buildings… and nothing. Where could she be?

She suddenly realized- She typed in a message on her keyboard. "Madoka! Where are you?"

Only seconds later, Madoka replied, with only a location marker. Homura ran towards it with all her might, avoiding sno-ball blasts and attacking hair-soldiers along the way.

Once she got there.. "No! MADOKA!"

Madoka stood over Gyuhey, and held her hands to her chest, just the same as Homura had done.

"It's okay, Homura," she said. "I'm doing this for the best. You're still going to save me."

Homura was about to burst into tears. "Madoka! But we can't live happily ever after if you're a-"

"You are the one that said that we don't have to become witches or monsters," Madoka said, giving a smile to reassure her. "I love you, Homura." She turned to Gyuhey and narrowed her eyes. "Yes, Gyuhey. I'm going to use both of my wishes!"

"Go forward, Madoka Kaname!"

"No!"

"I wish to save the world from all evils that plague it! And then, I wish to save Homura and the others from themselves!"

That… was an extremely badly-worded wish.

One blinding burst of light later, and Madoka was now wearing a black robe with a hood, and was wielding a giant scythe almost twice as long as she was tall.

"Go forth Shinigamidoka!" Gyuhey said. "I believe you will become our greatest magical girl, and then our greatest monster. Thank you so much."

Shinigamidoka ignored that and stared straight at Homura. She knew that stare; it was the one that Homura had trained herself to-

Madoka lunged forward and kissed Homura. "Let's save the world," she said as she broke away.

"Yes. Let's."

Kyoko, Mami, and Sayaka were just about to reach the plaza where Homura and Madoka stood, and Madoka raised her scythe. "You three have been judged by Shinigamidoka! You will be purified!"

Uh-oh.

The three of them did not seem to care much of what she just said, and they continued to race towards her to attack, so she jumped at them and sliced her scythe. Sayaka's cutlasses tore in half vertically.

Charlotte, bursting out of a skyscraper, plummeted mouth open, towards Shinigamidoka. But she merely looked up, tossed her weapon, and cut the witch in half. It exploded in a fiery burst of special effects.

"MY BABY!" General Tomoe screamed. "THE BRIG IS TOO KIND FOR WHAT YOU'LL EXPERIENCE!" At this, she summoned an absolutely incredible number of hair soldiers, every single one of them designed to attack Madoka.

Homura wouldn't stand for this, though. She created a bow-and-arrow and began firing bursts of energy at each of them. She had no experience using this weapon for combat aside from training sessions with Madoka in the second timeline, but it felt completely natural to her. It was as if the Cybernet was entering her consciousness and teaching her how to become adept at any skill she wished for.

Each of the hair soldiers went down and exploded into yellow strands. General Tomoe, however, was too focused on shooting down Madoka to notice that her army had already been decimated. The two zoomed around in the air, and bullets flew practically everywhere.

Sayakan't stood among the rubble of a downed skyscraper and watched the battle above her. "I don't really care about this anymore," she said. "I think I just want to go home." Several explosions in the distance went off and the ground shook violently for fifteen seconds. Almost every building in a three-block radius collapsed."I assume that this means my home probably no longer exists."

"What the hell was that?" Kyokannibal asked, rapidly consuming every single piece of food held within her six arms before jumping back into the sky and attacking both General Tomoe and Shinigamidoka.

Homura was somewhat confused as to why they weren't actively trying to kill her right now. Was Madoka the only one that mattered now? What was the point in all those explosions? Where did they come from, anyway?

Lightning began striking from the sky, and the thunder rumbled loudly. One of the bolts hit Kyoko and sent her flying to the ground. There was more lightning at once than anything Homura had ever seen, and she had lived in Florida in the United States for three years as a child.

Something was wrong. Something-

"STOP!"

Everyone, Gyuhey included, turned their heads. In the sky, slowly floating towards the scene of the battle was a teenage girl in her school uniform. She looked unremarkable in almost every way, but Homura realized something was extremely off about all of this.

She descended to the ground and touched down near some rubble. Even though the rainstorm had begun to pick up, no raindrops fell on this girl's head. It was as if some sort of barrier was protecting her from them.

Another girl walked up next to her. She had the same uniform on, and had strangely-grayish hair, despite being a teenager as well. And while she did not seem to possess the incredible powers of the other girl, her smile was twisted and her stare was harsher than anything Homura had ever been able to make.

"My name is Kiiko Kawakami," the girl with the powers said. "And I have been informed that this universe is one of the most powerful out there. So I wish to practice my skills on all of you."

The other girl stepped forward and bowed. "My name is Aaya Saito," she said. "What Kiiko means by this is, she is going to kill all of you, and destroy your planet. My apologies in advance if this is upsetting to you. Please don't take it personally."

Homura saw the look in Kiiko's eyes. A look of someone who had given up, like Negasayaka, but someone who still possessed enough rage to do something about it. And it was terrifying.

For the first time in a long time, Homura was truly scared. And she was right for it, because Walpurgisnacht spawned at this very same moment.

(art by an aritst named Ikki, but I can no longer find any contact information from them, so just appreciate whoever the heck it was that made this image)