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Following yet another failed battle against Walpurgisnacht, Homura expects to wake up in the hospital, as she always does after each reset. This time, however, she finds herself in a garden of neatly trimmed boxwood hedges, punctuated at regular intervals by orderly spikes of cypress.
A labyrinth.
Homura frowns. This is... odd, to say the least, and she distrusts anomalies, despite--or because of--being one herself.
She shouldn't be here, and yet no matter how she fumbles with her shield, the jammed gears refuse to turn. For the first time since becoming a magical girl, she has no control whatsoever over the flow of time, and she doesn't like it. Thus thwarted, at least for the time being, she gathers herself together and sets out to explore her strange surroundings in hopes of further clues.
Homura is no stranger to labyrinths, and yet she has never encountered a maze like this one. The paths spreading out before her diverge, branch, and reconnect with no obvious pattern she can discern and it is impossible to determine where she is going or where she has been. No matter how she tries to mark her way, the identical passageways quickly blur together in her mind with no obvious start or endpoint.
Despite everything, she cannot believe a witch is responsible for this place. There is power in this landscape, yes, but no hint of any malevolent presences, no bloodthirsty familars charging out of the bushes to tear her to pieces with their bare hands. There are only living green walls and the endless forking paths, broken only by the occasional sundial, fountain, or sculptures of fanciful beasts Homura has no name for. The overall effect is oddly tranquil, as if she has stumbled into some isolated medieval European monastery outside the normal flow of time.
Yet she cannot relax. The silence here is palpable--no birds, no insects, not even a breath of wind to disturb the eerie hush. Her feet make no noise in the soft grass, and her heartbeat echoes unnaturally loud in her ears. Every now and then, human voices echo in the distance--but are those really real, or merely illusions her brain conjures to fill the oppressive silence?
The grey sky overhead diffuses and filters the sunlight, making it impossible to tell what time of day it or how much time has passed. Homura walks and walks for what feels like hours and yet she experiences neither hunger nor thirst nor exhaustion. With no way in or out, there is nothing to do but keep walking until she drops.
If it's for Madoka's sake, I'll stay trapped in this endless maze forever, Homura once vowed , and she winces at the memory. Given her current situation, she probably could have phrased that better. Once again, the universe appears to have given her exactly what she asked for--no more and no less.
So it is a surprise when she turns a corner and finds herself in an open courtyard at the foot of a picturesque, if ruined, Grecian temple. An imposing figure, robed and hooded in brown like a Catholic monk, looms above her, bearing a massive, leather-bound tome in his arms as if it weighs nothing at all. A manacle locks his exposed wrist, chaining him to his mysterious burden.
Once, Homura would have shrank away from such a sight. But she is no longer that timid, wretched creature and quickly smooths her features to blankness as she confronts the stranger openly.
"Who are you? What is this place?"
"I am Destiny of the Endless." His face is hidden in shadow, but his voice booms out, a deep basso profundo like the rolling of church bells. "Welcome to my realm, Homura Akemi."
Fear grips Homura, though thankfully, none of it shows on her face. She had never heard of the Endless before, and yet she does not doubt his claim for a second. Whatever presence standing before her may look human and speak in a human tongue, but isn't human, not in the slightest. The being before is older than humanity, older than the Incubators--perhaps even older than existence itself.
"You know my name," she says tightly, unwilling to concede even this much, yet having no choice.
"I know everything that is written in my book. It was written that you would come here; therefore, here you are."
For the first time, Homura meets someone more cryptic as she is, and she doesn't like it. "I'm dreaming," she says. "This has to be a dream."
He shakes his head. "We are not in my younger brother's realm, but stand outside of time and space, beyond beginnings and endings alike."
"You--are Destiny, then aren't you? That's not just your name--that's what you are."
"Correct."
"Why did you bring me here?"
"There are things you must see."
He turns and ascends the stairs, and she follows after him up the stairs to the temple--which, upon closer inspection, is no run of the mill garden folly, but a vast compound in its own right, far bigger than it appears from a distance. When he halts at last, she can see they have climbed further than she thought, with the hedge maze laid out before her like a map.
"You are well-acquainted with my family," Destiny says, gesturing to the giant statues now visible on the horizon.
Homura nods. She's never seen any of these people in her life, and yet she recognizes them on a deep, atavistic level: Desire, who baits the curved hook their twin Despair uses to drag each and every magical girl to their doom, with wild-eyed Delirium and jovial Destruction tagging along for the ride. Homura cannot help but sympathize with the aforementioned king of dreams, who stands aloof from his siblings as if their antics disgust him. Destiny is there as well with his book and chain, and next to him stands--
"This is who you have been fighting, is it not?" Destiny says. "She is not so cruel, my sister Death. She comes to all in time. Even you will not escape her forever, Homura Akemi."
Homura balls her hands into fists, the nails driving into her palms. She hates how Death looks so... perky. So happy. Not like any death Homura has ever witnessed. "What did you want to show me?"
"This."
He opens his book, and Homura coughs at the stir of dust and the scent of old libraries in her nostrils. He holds up the open volume for her to examine the thick parchment, written and rewritten countless times by an unknown hand, the old versions faint ghosts overlaid across the most recent line of text, though none of it in any language she can read.
"Each time you use your magic, you write your story anew, but be careful," Destiny says. "Time may be your plaything, but not without consequences. Each new timeline you invoke becomes wrapped in the tangle, pulling Madoka Kaname along with it. Each time, her magical potential grows exponentially, making her both a more attractive target to the Incubators and a far more dangerous witch."
The truth of his warning rings deep in Homura's bones; she does not even have the luxury of denial. He is right--everything she's done up to this point has changed nothing for the better, and much for the worse.
She'd thought nothing could be worse than the Incubators' casual, unfeeling indifference to human life and suffering.
Once again, she was wrong.
She swallows tightly, forcing herself to remain calm. "Why did you show me this? What do you want from me?"
"I want nothing. I am only doing what is written I must do."
"Then you are a slave to that cursed book!" Homura shouts, trembling with barely suppressed rage. She wants to shoot him, attack him, drive him away, and yet she restrains herself, acutely aware he could squash her like a bug if he chose.
"Your shield, my book," Destiny says, utterly implacable. "Each of us has our roles to play, our own burdens to bear. Thus it is written. There is no way out of the tangle you have created, and yet even so, it is possible in coming here to gain a little perspective--"
And for a single moment, Homura's long, circuitous route across timelines is overlaid across the hedge maze below, just as they are in the book, only this time she can see both the routes she has chosen and the ones she has yet to take. For the space of a single heartbeat, she understands everything, and how it all fits together, past, present, and future--and then it's gone.
But not forgotten. Contrary to Destiny's grand assertions, there is indeed a way out of the maze, a spark of hope amidst the darkness, and she knows exactly what she must do--if she has the courage to see it through.
"If you know all this, then you know what I'll do next," Homura says at last, exceptionally careful in her wording.
"That's right."
"And you don't mind?"
"Mind? How could I? It is not yet written."
Seemingly unconcerned by the paradox, he closes the book with a thud, releasing another plume of dust in an indication the interview is over. "Go forth now, Homura Akemi, and remember what you have witnessed here. Go forth, and we will find out together how you choose to meet your fate."
And with a single snap of his fingers, she is gone.
***
It is quiet in Destiny's garden after Homura Akemi's abrupt departure, but he is undisturbed by the silence and solitude; his book is enough. Having played his part in this particular story, he is content.
"You are a strange girl, Homura Akemi," Destiny says to himself, which is also written. "Long have I watched you, and yet you continue to surprise me, who believed myself to be beyond surprises. What will you do with the knowledge you have gained from this encounter, I wonder?"
He opens his book to where Homura wakes up in her hospital bed once more, and turns the page to learn what happens next.