Homura Akemi has had a rough few days recently. She wasn't bothered so much by what had been done to her as she was bothered by what she had done. Or neglected to do. Technically she told the truth, most of the time. Some of her lies were only through omission. If Hannah ever figured out what it was exactly that she had done to herself...
Well, Homura joined her because she had faith in Hannah's methods. Homura would just continue to have that faith.
Or so she tells herself. There's a reason why she decided, long ago, that she'd never rely upon anyone anymore. People were unreliable, and that was all there was to it no matter how much she wanted to forget that.
Homura is thinking about this as she walks down the busy sidewalks of Mitakihara's Neon District. Large bright pictures and words float over her head while her eyes are on the ground, watching her step. She's not in her henshin, but her Soul Gem is always nearby.
She's feeling around for a Witch, but it's halfhearted. She doesn't expect to find one here. It's more like she's just using it as an excuse to go for a walk so that she doesn't have to berate herself for wasting time.
Kyouko Sakura is doing much the same. She's becoming desparate for a Grief Seed- she hasn't been able to secure one since her escape from Hannah's dungeons. Mami has cleansed her in the immidiate aftermath, but she didn't have any of her own, and she's been in several major fights since. The result is a red Soul Gem looking decidedly murky, and Kyouko feeling a little big on edge.
So she's out walking the streets, keeping her senses open for the feel of a Witch. She's not in Henshin either, but as noted, Soul Gems by their nature are never far away. Her eyes are not on the ground though.. they restlessly scan the crowds, watching everyone around her with a sort of half-paranoid fervor. So it is that she catches sight of Homura walking towards her through the crowd, eyes down and lost in thought.
Kyouko's teeth grit. Oh, oh, this might be a chance. A chance to pay the dark-haired girl back for some of the suffering she'd had to endure. Kyouko keeps right on walking.. and just as she passes Homura, she reaches out, grabbing the other Puella by the collar of her shirt. She turns and in one motion, pulls Homura into a convinient dimly lit alleyway, and pushes her up against the wall, keeping hold of her collar. A small, be-fanged grin greets her. "Well well.. look who it is."
Homura is pretty light. It's not difficult for someone like Kyouko to pull her aside and into an alleyway. Homura, perhaps strangely, doesn't even resist. She almost seems limp somehow. She doesn't even look at Kyouko directly, her eyes looking further down into the darkness of the alley.
"Hi, Kyouko."
When Homura looks back at Kyouko, it's with a cold stare. "Another fight? You really don't get what kind of situation you're in do you?"
What her arms and legs lack in actual resistance, her eyes and tone make up for in sharpness. "You're so used to being the big fish in a small pond, but you're not in your pond anymore. If you keep screwing around and messing things up, you're gonna get eaten alive."
"You keep talking about the law of the jungle, but Natural Selection doesn't favor those who can't adapt."
Many people would smirk after thinking they've hit their opponent with a cutting remark, but Homura just doesn't have it in her to do that. She just stares, coldly, Kyouko's ferocity reflecting in her stoney purple eyes.
Kyouko /does/ smirk.. still holding onto Homura's collar. You see, she's learned a thing or two. She knows now at least the basics of how Homura's power works.. and she knows if she keeps hold of her, she won't be able to 'teleport' away. Or at least, she' figures as much.. it has yet to be tested. Consider this a test.
"Me? /I/ don't understand the situation?" She laughs a little bit, a cynical chuckle, her eyes alight with an almost desparate fire, a contrast to the cool purple stare coming back her way.
"I'm not sure /you/ understand, Akemi-san." She hisses after a moment, her teeth baring to show those little fangs of hers. "You think you can do whatever you want, that the ends justify the means so as long as you convince yourself that Miss White is going to come up with some miracle cure for Puella, it means you can do any horrible thing you feel like and it makes it ok?"
"Well I got news for you, missy. You keep poking at the animals in the cages, and sooner or later, you're gonna get bitten." She shakes the hand holding Homura's collar back and forth, causing the other girl's head to bobble a little bit. "Tell me why I shouldn't stab you and leave you bleeding in this alley right now, just as payment for all the crap I've been through because of you?"
Homura's head does bob around, limp as she is. She /really/ doesn't seem to care right now.
Yet, at the threat, Homura finally does smirk. "Stab me? Hahahaha. Stab me? You think that's going to solve your Homura problem?" She shakes her head, or tries to. She can't shake it very much while she's in Kyouko's grip like this. "You still don't get it. You don't even understand what you are yet. Not even after what Hannah did to your Soul Gem."
After that outburst, Homura does sag again, her face going blank. "I accepted what I was a long time ago. People like you who don't want to admit to it like to act all self righteous, but you don't even know how horrible you are."
"What do you think would happen if you had your way? What do you think would happen if you drove off all the other Puella Magi, leaving us with nowhere to hunt? We'd die, simple as that. A lot of us would die, and you'd be the one responsible for those deaths."
"That makes you a pretty sick mass murderer if you ask me. Do you expect me to feel sorry for you after you pull something like that?"
Homura still doesn't move to resist. She probably wont until she sees an actual weapon coming for her.
Kyouko's face tightens at these words, her mouth drawing into a line, her fingers flexing where they keep hold of Homura's collar. "It might not solve my problem but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better." She grates, the temptation clearly growing.
"I don't understand what I am? No, I understand perfectly what I am. I'm a person playing with the hand I was dealt, and trying to stay alive in this god-forsaken world. It's /you/ who're acting self-righteous? How can you not see that?!"
She's seething now, lips pulled back from her teeth again as her voice takes on a distinctly ranty tone. "All I'm doing is living the way I need to live to survive. You're the one who freaking thinks she knows better than everyone else, and who's willing to sacrifice anything /except your own goddamn self/ to achieve some nebulous end nobody but you even cares about!"
And now she does shake Homura, hard, slamming her shoulders back against the brick wall unless Homura makes some move to stop her. "If these experiments of MIss White's are so important, why didn't you volunteer, huh? Why didn't you go under the knife, if it'll bring such benefits to everybody? Because you're a holier-than-thou /bitch/ who thinks she walks on goddamn water and is willing to throw anyone under the bus but not sacrifice anything yourself!"
She reels back her free hand, as if she's about to punch Homura in the face, but instead her fist impacts the wall just beside Homura's head with a dull thud. "Maybe I am a murderer, but if I am, it's just so I can survive! There's nothing wrong with that! The only people who think so are the ones too weak to survive unless they re-define the rules and make the rest of us into the bad guys! Well I'm sick of it!"
She's all but screaming in Homura's face now, her frustration having built to a breaking point over the past several days. "I'm sick of it! I'm sick of doing the best I godamned can and never, /ever/ getting anything for it, while people like you have the whole goddamned world handed to them on a silver platter while you go around /torturing/ people! I never tortued anyone! I just did what I had to!"
Finally she seems to exhaust herself, head sagging down, grip loosening on Homura's collar although it doesn't let go. "I'm just sick of it." These last words mumbled, her eyes on the ground.
Homura finally does react as she's slammed against the brick wall, reaching for Kyouko's wrists out of instinct. It hurts, but it's just her exterior hardware that hurts. She can block out the pain. Still, she might actually end up in the hospital if Kyouko keeps this up.
"You're wrong. I don't think I'm righteous at all. I just think it's ridiculous when people like Mami-san and /you/ pretend to be. You're all fools and I'm the one who's forced to watch your stupid farce of bad decisions. The only thing that surprises me is that you aren't all dead yet."
That part actually does surprise her, she's not being entirely sarcastic.
She falls quiet as Kyouko vents in her face. Screaming and yelling isn't the best form of communication, but at least she's communicating. When Kyouko is done, a single tear rolls its way down Homura's cheek. She turns away to hide it, she doens't want to look like she isn't tough, but she can't with Kyouko holding her as she is.
"I'm sorry you were tortured. I don't know what happened between you and Miss White. All I know is that you went off to destroy WPS and next time I saw you it was in a cell, with your Soul Gem in a nearby room. Someone mentioned that Miss White tried to move your Soul Gem further away until you reacted badly to it... Believe it or not aside from her I really don't get along with most of the people associated with her. Hell, if I didn't consider her a friend I'd be burning it down along with you. I guess that's what you were trying to accomplish by driving a wedge between us."
Kyouko's grip lessens, and Homura breaks away before she can end up being actually hospitalized. She turns away and looks at a wall, and her voice gets harder.
"... but do you really think I've never suffered? You think I just had the world handed to me? I guess you don't know me. I guess you don't know about the friends I've lost just recently, despite doing everything I could ot save them. I guess you don't know about how long I've suffered and fought, completely by myself, because everyone I depended on turned out to be an idiot or an asshole. I guess you don't know about the time my best friend, the sweetest and kindest person I've ever known, tricked me into using her last grief seed, and then asked me to mercy kill her."
"To hear you say that I have it all? Haha, wow. Your life must really be terrible if you envy /mine/."
Homura turns around, looking at Kyouko, or perhaps just keeping an eye on her. Her hair covers her face, and the darkness of the alleyway helps. "You get what you work for. I worked to make WPS a strong company, and it is. You worked to create division between myself and the other Puella Magi, and you succeeded at that, too. If you aren't satisified with the results, maybe you should work towards something that's less self-destructive."
"Oh please. /Oh please./" Kyouko spits, although she doesn't stop Homura from pulling away, her hands bunching into fists instead as she glares daggers at the dark-haired girl. "I'm not pretending to be anything, and sure as hell not righteous. Mami, maybe, but she's always had a stick so far up her ass I'm surprised you can't see it when she talks." Overly harsh, but Kyouko isn't feeling particularly generous at the moment.
"I know I'm an animal, a murderer, all those things you said. I know! And you know what, I don't care. Because all that matters is that I'm still alive. No thanks to you." She spits on the ground, a show of contempt. "You expect me to believe that you're there working with Miss White, you visited me in that cell, and you had no idea what kinda stuff she was doing to me? Sorry, but I call BS on that. Theres no way you didn't know. I've done a lot of bad things in my time, but at least I'd have the common decency to put a trapped animal out of its misery. You couldn't even do that much for me."
"And no, I'm sure you've suffered. We've /all/ suffered, right? It's freakin' what we do, us Puella, we make one wish and that's the last goddamned good thing that ever happens to us, except most of the time /that/ turns out to be a sham too! I don't know what horrible mistakes you've made, but here's the bottom line: you live in some posh apartment I bet, with all the food and grief seeds you want, changes of clothes, hot baths, and you got it because you work for that.. that.. /madwoman/. Because you lie to yourself that she's not as bad as she seems, that some ridiculous pipe dream of hers is worth all of this."
"Meanwhile, I live in a freaking ruin, I'm starving and I don't have a Grief Seed to my name, and I just escaped a /dungeon where I was tortured for a week/. Alright? So how about you re-define 'suffering' if you want to toss the word around, because from where I'm standing, it looks like you got a lot of nice crap and you've earned /none/ of it."
Kyouko throws her hands up and turns her back. "I don't know why I'm talking to you. It's obvious you don't give a shit."
"It's not like you give a shit about me, either. Don't expect me to feel bad about not caring about you." Homura said that a little too matter of factly. She wasn't saying it to be mean. It's just a simple truth she's laying out.
"Besides, did I tell you I'd see you when you got out? Putting you out of your misery would be overkill. Maybe if you had been there for a month I'd feel a bit more compelled to feel sorry. As it happened, I'm just glad none of the people who work there got killed during your escape."
Homura flips her hair, a bit of confidence rising in her voice. "We have valuable skills. I sold out. You didn't. The people I sold out to paid me for what they got. That's how money works. It isn't fair, but it's life."
Homura finds a can to kick, some loose piece of garbage that someone was too lazy to throw away properly, and kicks it against the wall. "I thought I was doing you a favor by offering you a job with us, but I guess it just got you in trouble. Maybe it would've been better if you never heard of WPS. Too late to fix that now." Homura sounds frustrated as she says that last line, for reasons she doesn't explain.
"But yeah, you should see my blank white boring apartment. It has running water, a huge computer screen that takes up a wall, a ton of couches, a stash that stores enough Grief Seeds to supply for three people. Well, two of those people are dead. Well, actually it's dwindled a bit. It's still a higher number than zero though."
"At least when I have trouble sleeping at night, I can toss and turn in a comfortable bed. Money buys happiness after all, right?"
There's a bit of sarcasm there, but she shrugs. "All sarcasm aside, Economically I'm doing alright. Though I'll say one thing: before I had a job, the only way I lived like that was because of money from my parents and, um... well stealing. I mean, how else do I have all those guns?"
Homura henshins, but briefly, only to take out a single Grief Seed from her shield before dehenshining back into normal clothes. She looks it over, and it gleams in the light. She's just looking at it. It's not like she's trying to make it easy for Kyouko to steal it or anything.
%tKyouko doesn't even listen to the rest of it. As soon as Homura delivers that line about "none of the people who work there got killed", she all but snaps, turning around and throwing a punch right at Homura's face. It's not a metal-clad or a supernaturally-strong punch, but it's a good one, too. "You're glad none of /them/ got killed?" She all but shrieks, her voice echoing in the alleyway. The Grief Seed Homura had pulled out may go skittering across the ground, but Kyouko doesn't even care, her eyes filled with rage.
"They /tortured/ me, Akemi! They cut me up to see how I healed! They /fucked with my soul/! And you're glad /they/ didn't die!?" She throws another punch, but she's crying now, tears running down her cheeks, and it's poorly aimed and very easy to dodge. "You call me a monster, but you have no idea! /No idea/! They're the monsters, and I won't stop until /everything they've built is burned to the ground!/
After that second attempted punch she falls to her knees, hiding her face in her hands, clearly trying to regain control of herself. Kyouko Sakura does /not/ cry in front of her enemies. But she just can't seem to help it. "Fuck you, and fuck your job." She manages to get out after a moment, though it's wavery and interrupted by sniffling. "Just leave me alone."
Homura does get punched in the face. She doesn't dodge it. She deserves it and she knows it. She lands on her butt, dropping the Grief Seed. It bounces a few times on the ground before righting itself, balanced perfectly on its tip.
She stands up, brushing herself off. "Well. I guess that settles it then. Kyouko, while I might work with you in the future, I doubt it'll ever be for anything but our own survival. It's true, they are the worst people. I guess I couldn't really blame you if you did kill them all. But part of my job is keeping them alive. I live in a cushy apartment and can focus on things other than my livelihood because I keep them that way."
Homura brushes off her face and forgets about the Grief Seed. She suspects that Kyouko is too proud to accept charity from her, so she doesn't offer it. "Even Hannah did something terrible to herself by turning into an Artificial Witch, or whatever it was that she transformed into last night. I wonder how long she'll even survive doing that. As impressive as it was, did you see the way she collapsed afterwards? I thought she was going to die. I guess that would've suited your purpose, wouldn't it?"
Once Homura is done brushing herself off, she walks past Kyouko and heads back to the street. "Bye, Kyouko. Don't expect to see me again tonight. I wont be around here."
Kyouko remains where she is, kneeling in the alleyway, and not looking up as Homura speaks, and then leaves. She's still sniffling, and once Homura is out of sight, she allows herself to wipe her eyes with her hands, brushing away the tears she's so ashamed to have shown to her enemy too. She's not normally the type, but she's felt so violated by what was done to her at WPS, hearing Homura defending them, even in a roundabout way, just broke through all of her self-control.
A few moments later, she gets to her feet. All desire to hunt is gone for tonight. BUt she does pick up the Grief Seed from where it fell, because she's not stupid. She tucks it into her pocket along with her hands as she turns and silently walks out the other side of the alleyway and back into the crowd.