Chapter 12: Chapter 12: *Morning, Wednesday, 16th of March 2011; Mitakihara City Hospital, Mitakihara, Japan.*

*Morning, Wednesday, 16th of March 2011; Mitakihara City Hospital, Mitakihara, Japan.

Homura woke up to the new day, and more importantly, a new timeline, a fresh start in her long quest to save Madoka from becoming Magical Girl, only to be assaulted by this oppressive feeling of wrongness she remembered from the anomalous loop preceding this one. One when she nearly died at the hands and claws of the monsters that defied everything she had learned previously. She felt the pressure to act.

Magical Girl’s eyes frantically darted around her surroundings as she tried to scramble on her feet in expectation of the attack that never came, only to hit the bed rails that prevented her from rolling down from the hospital cot she laid on.

As far as she was able to tell, it was the same room in the Mitakihara city hospital that always welcomed her at the beginning of every time loop; clean, calm, and silent, as it always had been, no matter how the future events diverged from her previous re-tries from that point on. This was the juncture where everything began, through her action or inaction, even though the cruel twists of fate, whatever happened in the following month this specific point in space and time remained a constant.

Except, now it was different in one notable way. It was no longer a sunny morning with clear skies as it had been without fail each time she woke up to this repeating time loop. Now, the weather was overcast, with thick, rolling leaden clouds which radiated this indescribable wrongness deep into the heart of the senior Magical Girl, a strange, horrific feeling of unseen terrors lurking somewhere behind her sight. It was a gut-wrenching sensation, almost like she was looking into a disgusting necrotized tissue in those darkened heavens behind her windows, almost like something was telling her the death was close no matter how many times she tried, almost like she faced that abomination that was so close to killing her.

“Good Morning, Miss Akemi. We will be releasing you today…”, said the nurse that suddenly entered the room, her voice calm and monotonous. Her words startled Homura even if she heard them so many times, again and again.

Homura didn’t reply, unnerved, disturbed, she fiddled with the railing to get off the confines of her bed.

“Miss Akemi, are you feeling well?”, the nurse asked, concerned, trained professional noticing the sign of the shock and tried to stop the girl. Homura lashed out, more in the instinct than out of any planned action or desire.

“Miss Akemi!”

Finally, words brought her back to the reality of her struggle with the medical attendant, to now and there of the moment.

“Wha… What day is it?” Homura asked, confused. Deep inside there was a concern, a fear, that her power failed once again, that her only goal in life failed in a spectacular fashion.

“Wednesday?”, was the answer. It didn’t satisfy her at all.

“Date, what date?”, the time traveler barked out, pressuring the surprised woman for the answer.

“March, 16th?”, the nurse replied, obviously concerned with the girl’s sudden strange behavior. It calmed Homura somewhat, confirming she indeed traveled the beginning of her time loop where she was about to be released from the hospital, and the event she would absolutely derail if she somehow gave an impression she wasn’t fit and well. She could always run away, potentially, but it would just provide yet another variation of the events she wasn’t prepared to deal with, forcing another roll of her powers and with them …

The nurse called her name once again, she ignored it. Her gaze once again fell on the disgusting clouds and it made her wonder whether only she can see them if it was some trick, a Witch’s Labyrinth that trapped her inside. Or perhaps was closing in, just as Walpurginnacht would be, even if that one didn’t have the Labyrinth in the first place. So many thoughts burdened Homura’s mind, so many options.

“What is going on in here?”, said another voice, a doctor who entered the room, perhaps to give the last check-up to the patient before the release, perhaps attracted to the commotion.

“Doctor Takeshi!”, the nurse replied, “Patient started to act strangely, I believe she is in shock.”

Homura couldn’t tell how it was before, she couldn’t right now remember the proper sequence of those hundred times repeated events that transpired in this place in her previous re-tries, as her mind wandered somewhere else. She continued to ignore the attempts at communication and struggled against the hospital staff trying to calm her down.

“With each turn, you fatten your pink lamb for your patrons, bringing her closer to the slaughter.”, she once again heard gloating of the abomination that wasn’t a Witch, that wasn’t a Magical Girl, a creature that shouldn’t exist. It was a memory, but it burdened her almost as much as if the monstrosity emerged from the shadow in this very place.

Doctor checking the reaction of her pupils with a small flashlight brought her back to reality.

“Panic attack, probably.”, the clinician decided, mostly as information for the nurse still trying to hold the girl down, then focused on his still struggling patient, “Miss Akemi, do you hear me? How do you feel?”

He spoke slowly, carefully pronouncing the words, almost like he expected the other side would have difficulty understanding him.

“I am fine,” Homura said suddenly. She couldn’t risk them concluding she wasn’t lucid, that she couldn’t be released as planned, that her heart condition was worsening despite the fact that she technically didn’t have one as the Magical Girl anymore.

“I just woke up from the bad dream, that’s all.”, she lied. Her eyes wandered to the window, to the looming skies. She couldn’t risk using her power to bypass this inconvenience, there was a reason for the ominous sensation and changed to her world.

“I am feeling well.”, she repeated, tried to smile, tried to act as if nothing was going on.

It wasn’t perfect.

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The doctor didn’t believe her, and what followed was a few hours of medical exams that didn’t prove or reveal anything, along with a long stream of questions they led her on to figure out what was behind her sudden change of behavior. She insisted on having a nightmare, while they checked her heart rate and blood pressure.

It was endless. It went on and on, it seems that the doctor insisted on being thoughtful this time, hardly a major change to the timeline, but it did come at the worst possible moment.
She lied through her teeth hoping to hasten her release, to bring back the time wasted. Finally, they did clear her out, but it was almost past noon now. Sun would be high in the sky now normally, but the thick clouds stole that moment away, and the city was submerged in gloomy dim light almost like the moments before the inevitable storm.

“When the weather becomes this bad?”, Homura asked almost absent-mindedly looking up from her release papers. Her guardian or parents didn’t show up, luckily enough, no one in the hospital found it too strange and let her sign the documents herself. She dressed and was about to run as soon as she could. A small convenience, she thought to herself, now she had other things to be concerned about than legal matters.

“Yesterday, or the day before.”, answered the nurse, eyeing the girl suspiciously, making Homura realize how horrible she became in the small talk completely unrelated to the tasks she set herself to do, and how much attention she was drawing to herself. She also realized that the weather that felt so soul-crushing to Magical Girl may be completely invisible to normal people, but luckily enough, it wasn’t the case, even though they obviously didn’t upset the mundane people as much. To them, it was simply abnormal and annoying weather.

“I hope it will get better soon, it would be nice to have a nice weekend.”, Homural mused in the forced conversation she wasn’t able to follow on, her sentence awkward as it was largely unplanned and forced.

“You shouldn’t be exhausting yourself in your condition, Miss Akemi.”, the nurse said, taking the signed papers from Homura.

“Of course. Thank you.”, the girl answered with a polite bow, the best she could manage. The woman also wished her a nice day, but Homura already rushed out of the hospital, even though she briefly paused to look at the TV in the hospital lobby above the waiting benches.

She listened briefly to the news broadcast mentioning the strange weather phenomenon spreading slowly from the city along the coast and deep into the mainland meteorologists couldn’t reasonably explain, but urged the public to stay calm as there was no sign of any major storm or any other disaster. It didn’t soothe the mind of the time traveler a single bit though, in confirmed that not only the events were playing out differently, they diverged at very least two days before the loop even started, and even though clearly magical effect of the overcast skies eluded the mundane people, it wasn’t invisible per se. Magical Girl clenched her fists - something inside her pushed her to act, she couldn’t stand this indescribable, but unmistakably unpleasant sensation.

At that, Homura quickly left the building, ignoring the confused gaze of the few people she darted past like some invisible specters were after her. And in a way, there were ghosts haunting her indeed, ghosts of the events that didn’t happen - on the horizon, a storm was brewing again, and the wind brought in the soft rain along with the distant stench of rotten eggs. The smell of sulfur, the smell of monsters that shouldn’t have been, feeling almost like those winged monstrosities were about to descend from the angry heavens and drown poor Magical Girl in blue fire.

The monsters didn’t come, they were nowhere to be seen, it was just Homura’s mind wandering, but it didn’t make it any better as it made her worry how many other things could have broken with the anomaly that seem to propagate itself. Briefly, she considered going back home, to her apartment, but she cast that idea away for now as there was no time to lose now the new timeline was rolling.

“With each turn, you fatten your pink lamb for your patrons, bringing her closer to the slaughter.” She once again recalled the abomination’s words that kept haunting her, wondering whether she really meant Madoka and whether Homura was indeed making things worse. No matter how hardened Homura was, sadness gripped her once more. She briefly stopped looking at her Soul Gem, it was clear, with her new try on things, but she doubted it would remain so at that long if things continued as now.

Homura spent a while wandering around the city directionless until she randomly stumbled upon one of the local rail stations, practically empty at this time of the day as the vast majority of city dwellers were either in work on in school, only a handful of stragglers milled around nervously most likely due to some schedule their missed and waiting impatiently for the next connection. None of them noticed the lone girl gazing absent-mindedly to the distance. The next train came and left, emptying the platform, and left Homura alone with her thoughts.

She sat on the bench, considering what she knew, planning for the next move, and for the first time she wasn’t sure how to proceed as this time there wasn’t a mere variation of who becomes a Magical Girl, who dies or turns into a Witch, there was an outside element in the play, strange monsters being one and whatever was beyond those darkened heavens above the other. No matter how disastrous it proved in previous variations of the events, Homura needed allies.

Mami was a good option, she thought. The blonde one was experienced to help should the monstrosities appear again, and most importantly, she was right here in Mitakihara, she could at very least verify this strange sensation coming from the hostile skies. And prevent her from dying, as even if Homura and Mami clashed in the previous timeline it felt allies once more were in high demand and an attempt to mend the discord was in order, especially in extraordinary circumstances.

And there was Kyouko, she skipped town, but could potentially be brought back. While not more receptive than Mami, she could hold her own in the fight and could prove to be a valuable ally in the fight against the unknown.

Then a stench in the air reminded her of the monstrosities. Creatures went straight after Homura, but helped Sayaka and ignored Kyouko, reminding the senior Magical Girl she couldn’t trust either of them. She couldn’t trust her own powers, Homura realized, as those winged foxes eventually stopped being affected by it - a feat that not even the most powerful Witch encountered didn’t meet. It frustrated her a great deal, as she had no idea who the enemy even is, and the only thing she could do is to try to keep an eye on the suspicious ones. There was a connection there, even if Homura didn’t know what it was, she had seen Sayaka speaking to the creatures - she knew what they were. The girl was always emotionally fragile, but she didn’t turn into a Witch just yet, hence creatures weren’t her familiars. So many obstacles, so many questions, Homura rubles under her breath.

But the time traveler hadn't backed down before, and she was not going to back down now - a remainder of her mission did give her some measure of renewed resolve on top of her stubborn determination to save Madoka, in defiance of fate and all the anomalies timeline decided to throw at her. But also gave her recollection of the other set of events she couldn’t allow happening.

If she couldn’t find the source of monstrosities early on, then she had to bring down the threats she knew about.

She jumped on her feet, and rushed out of the station, ignoring the droplets of water showering her, and headed to the residential district, to solve one of such events before it had a chance to transpire.

There was a Magical Girl, Homura knew, one that was going to kill Madoka, and she had to be stopped before she even tried and even though it was doubtful Oriko was at home at this very moment. And there was a one-of-the-hundred probability she would be Magical Girl in the first place, Oriko was an anomaly in her own right, but still, something had to be done, an inner pressure building up forcing Homura to act was there. Something had to be done, something better than nothing. The girl has to die, always, there was too much risk with her following that anomalous pattern to ruin everything. Something drew Homura there, pushed her to action, to do at least something in spite of those hostile heavens above.

She slipped in her Magical Girl form in the alley, unnoticed by everyone in now seemingly empty streets, and jumped over the wall surrounding the villa where Oriko, a daughter of the local politician, lived. No one was around. Not on the streets, not in the home she invaded,

Oriko was nowhere to be found, but that was a little concern at this moment, Homura was aware she was out of the usual schedule, but that wasn’t a point, another change of events that didn’t happen before, threatening to potentially throw the time loop into disarray. Signs of a change of behavior. A special madness perhaps, a kind uncharacteristic for the person from before.

The room was completely vandalized, it was out of character for her victim, many of her belongings cast in the corner almost like she had no longer use of them, furniture moved away to make some space, and on the wall, covering the as much space as it could muster from the entirely re-decorated room, a crude painting scratched into the wall, illuminated by still burning candles and incense, forming a crazy shrine cobbled together by a deranged person.

From the crude, improvised mural, an enormous winged creature, a western-looking black dragon with a crown of horns and two sets of eyes looked down at the invader, clutching the sphere in his claws, surrounded by painstakingly painted blue fires.

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