The days after Madoka's first and final wish passed slowly.
Homura Akemi had spent so long trapped in repetition that she'd forgotten what it felt like to move forward. Now, time stretched on and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was no loop. No countdown. No purpose.
Just silence.
She wandered through the city, through the school, through the empty places Madoka once stood, and found nothing. Nobody remembered her. Nobody remembered Madoka. The girl who had saved the world with a smile had been erased so cleanly that even the magical girls who owed their second chance to her walked by without a flicker of recognition.
Not even Sayaka.
Homura should have felt peace. Relief, even. She had done it. The fight was over. Madoka was safe, beyond harm. Beyond this world. Beyond her.
But peace never came.
Instead, there was confusion.
Then fear.
And finally… the deepest loneliness she had ever known.
Confusion, because for so long, she had known exactly what she needed to do. Save Madoka. No matter how many loops it took, no matter how many lives she had to walk through alone, the path had always been clear. And now that it was over, she didn't know how to live without that purpose. She didn't know how to be without Madoka.
Fear, because the future was a blank page.
No plan. No path. Just the slow burn of surviving. Wraiths roamed the city like phantoms of a war long gone, and she hunted them automatically, because it was all she could do. They were laughably easy compared to the witches she fought, the witches she prepared for, with all her skill, experience and knowledge. It was barely a challenge. Even then, she continued to fight, continued to collect, continued to horde grief cubes, to horde weapons. to collect them. Because that was all she knew how to do. The war was supposed to be over, but her body wouldn't rest. Her hands wouldn't stop reaching for weapons.
And loneliness, true, never-ending, aching loneliness.
Not the kind she felt in the loop, where Madoka was always somewhere in reach, smiling at her through time.
But the kind where she was completely, irreversibly alone.
The other magical girls had gone back to their lives, their memories reset. The versions of them that had bled beside her, cried with her, fought by her side, fought against her. They were gone. In their place were strangers with familiar faces. No one remembered her, like always. But this time, she didn't have the heart to try. to try to remake those bonds once again.
But what hurt the most, what crushed her soul the most, was Madoka's absence.
Homura could bear being forgotten. She could even bear being hated. But walking through a world without Madoka… that was something else. A quiet emptiness gnawed at her with every step she took. And though she wore the red ribbon Madoka left behind, it wasn't enough.
It would never be enough.
.
.
.
That's why she roamed the night, saving and helping as many people as she could - for one reason and one reason alone.
because Madoka would have
Madoka would've saved everyone she could. After all, it was her wish that freed all magical girls from their fate as tortured fuel for an uncaring system. She changed everything. Not for recognition. Not for reward.
Just because she could.
So Homura kept fighting. Kept saving. Because it's what Madoka would've done. And as long as Homura followed that path (no matter how far it took her), it felt like Madoka was still with her.
It was the only way she knew how to keep her close.
.
.
.
A/N I hope you enjoyed reading this small prologue. I hope it has drawn you into what im creating.
I've always thought about the impacts of suddenly losing the only pillar of support in your life. losing a constant in your life. Or the impacts of homura losing Madoka.
So yes. This is the story of a heavily unstable Homura Akemi being dropped into Re:Zero, armed with an unhealthy coping mechanism and an overwhelming need to do what Madoka would've done.
Thanks for reading.
See ya!