"No," Homura says sharply. "...no. This... is what she wanted. Besides, if you can't change the past, that is impossible. The Law of Cycles is timeless. Madoka exists throughout all of time without being subject to time. And I think... I believe that is why she is so limited. She is barred from things which have beginnings or ends."

Hmm.

"...How do you know these things? How confident are you in your knowledge of the mechanics of it all?"

"Reasonably. After the destruction of the original timestream, I was able to follow Madoka into the void between timestreams, I think because we are both... gestalts of multiple timelines. In that void I spoke with both the Incubator and with the true Madoka. I believe I know enough."

"This is going to give me a headache and I don't even have a head. What do you want, then?"

Homura puts her thoughts in order.

"I want to grant Madoka the freedom to act within the linear time of this reality."

"The problem, so far as I can tell from vague possible-wish-shape impressions, is that Kaname Madoka is now so vast and important, not to mention timeless, that... She is almost literally incapable of paying attention to things that aren't taking on everyone's despair, releasing their burdens. The interpretations of that wish that don't feel like terrible ideas are along the lines of... Giving her something to hold onto here-and-now. But that wouldn't do it, by itself. It might let you talk to her but she'd still be timeless."

"We have three wishes with which to accomplish this. If the first merely allows her to help us with the other two, that might be worth it."

Homura hesitates.

"And I am not certain that it isn't better for her to remain timeless in her fundamental nature. If she was once again fully subject to linear time, that would make her vulnerable. It would make it possible for the Law of Cycles to end. We don't want that."

"All things can die. Infinity is a big place."

"If you can give Madoka the means to speak with us with minimal risk to her, I... wish for that."

"Are you certain? Now, I want to help, here. Asking that resets the clock slightly. If you would like to spend an hour thinking of ways this might go wrong so I can avoid them, now would be the time to do so."

Homura shakes her head.

"We're just... opening a door for her. I have faith in her that it will be enough."

The wish takes hold. "Very well. So it is spoken, so mote it be."

Magic flows, twists, inward to a tiny point, outward to the vast sky-

This is challenging. This is metamagic. He almost feels ill as he tries to guide it. It could go wrong so many ways. Make it something stable, a rock in an ocean, a hook to catch on the threads of divinity... But non-invasive, not something that pushes on Kaname Madoka, just something available. 

The ribbon is, by far, the physical object with the greatest resonance. As a physical anchor for this magic, as an extant metaphor for Kaname Madoka, it reduces the metaphysical load considerably. He might as well make it nigh-indestructible while he's at it. (It glows slightly in Homura's hair.)

In a timeless and location-less place, as much as 'place' even means anything, an elegant spiral of magic opens up like a flower. A tunnel... No, a telephone line of sorts, from nowhere to a specific place and time. And a specific person- Homura Akemi.

The connection is alike with countless others. It is the connection that Madoka has, and has always had, with every magical girl's soul in the cosmos. It is the path she follows, every time a magical girl dies, to enter the timestream and uplift those souls out of their despair. For the first and only time, it does not lead to a magical girl at the moment of her fall. Instead it leads to a point in time much earlier.

This soul in particular is one that the part of her that is still human has spent her existence longing to see again. Madoka has also spent an eternity she has not yet lived, planning for this moment.

A beautiful pattern of sakura petals carves itself into the air, in the sky above Homura, concentric rings of light. It does not cover the sky. Rather, the fabric of space stretches around it, adding extra degrees to the circle of their awareness. A path materializes, connecting this apparition to the rooftop where Homura stands.

A girl in a white dress full of stars, with light pink hair, fades into being with a small, proud, joyous smile on her face. She descends to the rooftop and immediately pulls Homura into a tight embrace.

"I told you didn't I? You would see me again," she says happily.

Homura clings to Madoka and sobs.

This seems like an appropriate time to be silent.

"We don't have long," Madoka says gently. "Homura. You have a choice. You can come with me, as every magical girl does when it is time for her to lay down her burdens and ascend. Or, you could lend me your new friend for a moment, and stay by my side on earth. Hello, Nican. Don't worry. I already know what she's going to say."

He doesn't say anything. He's terrified. A god, here and now, the same thing that started all of this- He should have sabotaged the connection, somehow. He should have-

It doesn't matter now. The ring glimmers slightly in timid, frightened acknowledgment.

It takes Homura a moment to process the question. To process the implication. Madoka has created an afterlife, for magical girls? All this time, and all she had to do to see Madoka again was die?

Homura mentally shakes herself. That would've been monstrously selfish. As would going with Madoka now, abandoning the earth, abandoning the man who enabled this moment, this opportunity.

"Stay with me." She unhugs just enough to place the hand with Nican on it into Madoka's hand.

"Of course."

Madoka touches Nican. "I wish to synchronize the akashic record of the intratemporal existence known as Madoka Kaname henseforth by this moment in this timestream."

The wish is more than words, it is the entire structure of magic presented as a fait acompli. An intricate and yet stunningly simple causal tie between the causality of a sentient's subjective experience and the causality of this ground reality, lining the two up in parallel such that they advance in step. All of the work is already done for him. All he has to do is instantiate it.

Well-

Madoka is not the current bearer. Homura is. But it's clear enough that Homura wants what Madoka wants to do. The presence of a god overwhelms the strictest objections of his curse.

He channels the god's wish into reality.

"Two out of three," he says lightly. Faintly.

Madoka smiles.

"Thank you, Nican. This is going to change everything. I'm so grateful. I have something for you."

Madoka gestures behind her, and a pair of girls emerge from the eldritch doily, carrying a glass coffin. Inside the coffin is the body of a man. A face that Nican might still recognize as his own. Carrying the coffin is a certain blue-haired girl who gives Homura a wink.

They set the coffin down and take the lid off, before chasing each other back into the eldritch doily with a laugh. The eldritch doily collapses in on itself, restoring normal euclidian geometry to the surrounding space.

Madoka takes a moment to enjoy being back in the world.

"I have a suggestion, for how you might like to use wish number three," she says, gesturing at the body.

"...Honestly? I've grown to like granting wishes. Just not the part where I'm forced to, and can't control where I go. But here and now, the one who did this to me... So far away, his craft stiff and inflexible. I've come to feel out all its limits and dimensions. I think... If you'll allow it..."

He holds out a complicated, multi-layered concept in prayer: The shape of his curse, inferred from experience but unable to be touched from the inside. The mighty reality-altering rush of a wish, with a bare smidgen of divine power applied at just the right angle - snapping the bones of the curse in such a way that it is still technically there but no longer limiting except that he must grant others' wishes, not his own. He would give up much of his power, but inhabit that new form, and get to choose his bearers, and choose whether to grant their wishes.

Also in the prayer, not entirely intentionally- Desperate hope and the yawning, breathless excited fear that comes with being on a precipice. Wondering whether he dares ask for this and immediately answering himself that - Yes he does. After all, it's freedom he wants. It's the ability to make choices. So he is making this choice, to ask for slightly more.

Madoka smiles affectionately, and like she already knew that's what he'd want.

"I think you deserve better, Nican."

She shares an expanded concept: the structure of the bond between soul gem and body, modified to be compatible with his current magic. She shows him the paths, the shape of magic that would allow him to keep all of his current powers while also living as a human, to subvert the curse and gain control of the mechanisms that currently act against his will. Using his magic will mostly still be in the form of granting wishes, as he outlined, but the connection to the body will be inside that, more fundamental, allowing him to use his power on his body without wishes being necessary.

"Ah..."

Can a ring smile? The swirling twinkle inside it seems to indicate one, at least.

"So mote it be."