Even after everything changed, its odd how many things stay exactly the same. Homura still lives in the same apartment, still attends the same school, and still gets up in the morning at the same time, despite living in a universe without Madoka.

She opens the drawer to retrieve The Ribbon. Madoka's gift. The proof of Madoka's existence.

There should not be anything else in this drawer, but there is. Homura freezes, and stares at the ring in shock.

"Hello," a man's voice says sounding tired and resigned, coming from the ring. The brown gem glimmers faintly, but entirely unlike a soul gem's glow.

A flash of purple; in an instant a magical girl in full raiment has a drawn longbow with a crackling purple energy-arrow trained at the drawer.

She hesitates. "What are you?"

"Oh, that's unfamiliar. Fairly sure it would not do much to me, however." A touch of amusement. "I am a genie. Bound to this ring, cursed, if you will. Bound to give each bearer three wishes, terms and conditions apply, see inside for details."

Homura lowers her bow, dissolving it back into her soul, which is on the back of her hand in its usual place. She flashes it briefly.

"I've already made my wish, so what could you want with me?"

"I'd like to be freed. I don't think you can do that. Nothing short of a god could do that, seeing as one made me into this. Barring that- Modern stuff, looks like. Plop me in front of a television? Or get me some books? That'd be better than some drawer, at least. I'll move on eventually if you aren't going to wish for anything either way."

Homura's first thought is that-

-no-

-definitely not-

She has to at least ask, "What kind of... god... made you?"

"That would be Gatudu, the bastard son of Ninurta, lord of fraud, thousands of years ago on a different plane."

"Oh."

Homura would like to be too jaded to feel the crushing disappointment this answer results in, but she'll just have to make do with pretending. This ring is certainly untrustworthy. Homura knows the price of wishes. But this is probably more important, not to mention more interesting, than school.

"If I pick you up, does anything happen that isn't already happening?"

"No. I can only really do much that isn't talking or looking around if you make a wish."

Well, it doesn't sound like he's lying, but he might be.

Homura uses magic to levitate the ring up in front of her, and leaves it hovering there while she retrieves The Ribbon and ties it into her hair.

"You should explain what your wishes entail, if you want me to consider making one. If your price is not one I've already spent."

"The rules are thus: You cannot change the passions of the heart or the intricacies of the mind, whether for yourself or of others. It is forbidden to wish for the death of any person. Your wishes are but three, and any attempt to subvert or extend this limit shall end in failure. My grasp and reach is not infinite, but I am certainly capable of discussing the possibilities. I could make it so you don't need grief cubes, without changing too much else. Probably."

"That's-"

"And the price?"

"If I don't like you, you have to be very, very careful with your wording." Amused, again.

Homura frowns at the ring.

"Stop deflecting."

"Well, when the wishes are all wished, I disappear to grant wishes to someone else. The cost is really on me. I cannot refuse. It is the disproportionate punishment of a scummy demigod with little forethought. If you don't believe that, I suppose there's nothing I can do about it."

Homura sighs.

"You're right. I have no proof you're not simply lying. But if you are not lying, you still haven't actually said that getting a wish won't cost me anything. I know better than to fall for the Incubator's favorite trick."

"Getting a wish granted won't cost you anything, just decrement the number of remaining wishes you have. But as I said, if you word it poorly, I can do my best to make it backfire. This is considerably more likely if you have irritated me."

Homura shuts her eyes. A flicker of darkness wriggles through her soul, tainting the pure violet light.

"I see."

Taking the ring at face value... it's certainly a very different flavor of trap. A free wish, that will inevitably go wrong, because the hostile wish-granter controls the details of the granting, rather than dooming one's soul less directly.

To be safe, she should throw the ring away and never look back, to avoid exposing herself to the temptation. After all, she might be able to out-smart him, but then, she might not.

But. There is one thing that Homura wants very dearly. Dearly enough to risk herself, certainly, if not dearly enough to risk Madoka's legacy. And the ring had said he wanted to be free, that only a god could...

"...I'd like to propose a deal."

"...Oh, here we go. Propose away."

"I know where you can find a goddess who will be more than happy to free you if that is within her capabilities. The deal is this: I will use my wishes in a way that allows you and this goddess to meet, and her to free you. In exchange, you will grant said wishes as I intend them, without sabotage."

"A goddess, hm? I haven't had very good experiences with divinities. Not at all. Perhaps you should explain further."

If she explains too much, the ring might be able to trick Madoka into freeing him in a way that keeps Homura and Madoka apart afterward.

"I was there for her... apotheosis. I know her. She... has the kindest heart of anyone I've ever met; nothing I ever did was enough to stop her from sacrificing herself for others. She will try to help you. That is an inevitability."

The prospect of freedom is elating and terrifying.

"You seem to believe it. Though I'm not used to being the one who has to trust."

On the other hand, what exactly does he have to lose?

"I am also, not used to being the one who has to trust, but it seems we are both risking betrayal in an appropriate symmetry."

Homura hesitates a moment, but then snatches the ring out the air and slips it onto her finger. Not the same hand as her soul gem. She de-transforms and finishes getting dressed in her normal clothes.

"Perhaps I am the frog, crossing the river. And you are the scorpion, riding on my back. We both may achieve something we dearly desire, if you can resist your nature, but otherwise you'll doom us both."

"Oh, fuck you. I'm a human trapped in this form, not something inherently malicious by nature. Unless you think humans are inherently malicious by nature."

Homura merely frowns as she leaps off her balcony and lands lightly in the alley several stories below.

"I don't think either of us is human anymore, so I couldn't say. Regardless, you told me that you would try to turn my wishes against me. It would be foolish to ignore your own warning."

"I do that to boring, uncreative idiots wishing for stupid selfish things. Prettiest girl in high school. Large quantities of money. Humiliation of their enemies. Being evil is exhausting, you know. Summoning up that much pettiness and spite when I've seen it all before is just... Tiring. Reserved for those who most deserve it."

"I see."

Homura walks for a while, and when the city blocks her path, she leaps easily onto a tenth-story roof to continue her stroll. She thinks about how to word her wish. In the place between timestreams, the Incubator had explained a lot about the consequences of Madoka's wish. Homura had been too overwrought to process the implications at the time, but she did understand more of that explanation than the Incubator probably thought she did.

"How much do you need to understand, to grant a wish correctly?" Homura asks. "How much of the process is, you, yourself?"

"It's mostly me. When a wish is made I see... Paths, shapes as the magic fills out and prepares to activate. I'm forced to mold and shape the magic into a form that has the desired result - an active participant who must attend to the details, even if it's something as simple as conjuring gold. Factors I didn't understand that are relevant to the wish become clear in that space, but I can't just... Wait and analyze if something strange comes up, once the wish is made it must be fulfilled. If I'm going to affect a god with your wish, I should probably have a good idea of what's going on, metaphysically speaking. I don't know much about you. The grief cubes thing is just a guess generated by some sort of temptation engine. I can tell you whether a prospective wish is impossible to fulfill, or a terrible idea in some way, though."

So, in other words, to even attempt this, Homura will, in fact, have to trust him. Almost a worst-case scenario.

"In the past, have wishes you intended to fulfill correctly gone wrong anyway in ways we can guard against?"

"Yes. Most often when people wish for complicated social results, like getting a government to change a law. I can do that but often it will not have the intended effect because society is dizzyingly confusing and I'm not a politician. Or it'll just get reversed in a year or two. Sometimes it happens when people ask for magical powers, artifacts, or changes to their body. We fail to think through all the implications, or the changes to their lives, fame or different family dynamics, make them less happy rather than more. But it's most dangerous when interacting with magic, curses, and gods. Don't ask for something like 'become the most powerful magician' - the only way to do that was to drive him mad, even if I hadn't wanted to. Don't wish to understand the true nature of divinity. I tried to talk her out of it, but of course, she made the wish anyway and then committed suicide. Also, I cannot change the past."

Homura nods slowly.

"Alright. I'll do my best to explain the background."

Homura takes a breath.

"The power of a magical girl comes from the weight of her karmic destiny. That is to say, her importance in the shape of the future, her influence over the weave of fate. The form that power takes is determined by our wish, the wish that rips our soul out of our body and transubstantiates it into material form. Every magical girl is an immortal undead reality warper, with a technical form of local omnipotence. Our power is limited by a form of cosmic balance: every act of magic corrupts our soul, transforming hope into despair. Within the concept expressed by our wish, we are mostly shielded from the effects of this rebalancing and can act far more freely, but it will eventually catch up with us and destroy us, if we cannot siphon it off into grief cubes."

Homura pauses, letting a shadow fall over her face.

"The truth of this is worse than that. The corruption is as alive as the hope, a being with just as much karmic claim to our soul as we have. A dark reflection of our pain and misery, a living embodiment of our despair. These abominations were called witches, as they were what magical girls inevitably grew to become. Madoka Kaname undid the witches. She used her wish to travel simultaneously to every point in history where a magical girl's soul broke, and took their grief into her own soul. She undid every witch in reality, even her own."

Homura is getting a little choked up. She steadies herself.

"Even then, her power was that of a magical girl like any other, if vastly greater. But her intervention in the past and future was too much. It shattered the timestream entirely. That entire reality was erased and re-written to create this one, in which the girl called Madoka Kaname never existed, in which the wish of Madoka Kaname has been woven into the cosmos as a fundamental Law. Woven... by her, I'm certain, woven with such characteristic care. Not a single soul misplaced in billions of years of re-written history..."

"Oh, so that's why... Hmm. Messing with that balance could have some nasty consequences. My power - I don't know where it comes from. Yours is very great in some ways, but bears that cost... I cannot recommend caution highly enough when your wish might have universe-wide consequences. Where do your wishes come from? Is it part of the... Karmic balancing, I suppose? The wish powered by the karmic debt of inevitably-going-to-fall?"

"I thought so, before Madoka defied the balance entirely."

Homura resumes her roofhopping stroll.

"Now, given the end result of Madoka's wish, given the cost... I believe that it is a more straightforward sacrifice. A magical girl trades away her karmic destiny, destroying something metaphysical to create something physical in its place."

Homura shakes her head, then runs a hand through her hair. She touches The Ribbon.

"Madoka gave me this. After she became the Law of Cycles. I still have the powers I had in the original reality, in addition to the powers I gained in this one. I still remember the history that she erased, or I wouldn't know any of this. When a magical girl dies, sometimes her comrades will claim to have seen an apparition, and the description always resembles Madoka."

Homura shakes her head.

"She can still touch this world. She still does touch this world. These things are proof of that."

"Then, I take it your wish would be aimed to reverse the grand sacrifice? Or not reverse, precisely. To save the one who sacrificed herself to save all magical girls?"

"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."

Once again magic stretches up and out, and down and in-

And he sits up inside the coffin, blinking rapidly in wonderment at how he has hands.

Homura is smiling. A rare sight, but one that will probably be a lot more common in the future.

Homura takes Nican off her finger and hands him wordlessly to his body, before resuming Madoka-cling.

He puts... Himself... On his left index finger.

"I- Thank you. I can't say this is what I was expecting today."

He lets out a long breath, too long to even properly be a sigh.

"Even my glibness and sarcasm is offline. I'm... Not sure what to do next."

"I'm not either, to be honest."

"I think you should introduce him to Mami," Madoka suggest lightly. "After that, would you like to go on a date with me, Homura?"

Homura nuzzles her goddess. "Always."

She turns to Nican. "Mami is a friend and ally. She would adore the chance to give a friendly stranger a tour of the city."

"Very well. I would be honored to meet your friend." He stands, and bows with a flourish.

As predicted, Mami is delighted to have a guest. They go out for ice cream.

Madoka takes Homura on a date, the first of many, and makes love to her even more often.

The girl is in love, and takes Homura home to meet her family, 'reminding' them that, in another life, they had a daughter. To everyone's surprise but Homura's, Madoka's little brother doesn't need to be reminded because he already remembers her.  Eventually, she and Homura get married formally, in a grand spectacle that the happy couple ignores entirely. The girl is happy. 

The goddess is free. The goddess is everywhere. The goddess and her multitudes of angels, the many former magical girls who wish to return to the world in her name, reveal themselves to the world. The Incubators are expelled from the earth, their technology stolen and reverse engineered. The goddess gives the world everything it needs to be a paradise. Humanity is immortal. Humanity is free. Humanity spreads out among the stars.

Homura has everything she ever wanted.

When they've been together so long they've stopped counting the years, Homura briefly dies. Being an angel is better, after all. It changes very little about their lives together, but there is always one thing that will forever remain true: when Madoka has need of her, Homura will always be the instrument of her will. And, wherever Homura goes, Madoka can always reach.

Their reality is saved. Now it's time to help the rest.

The genie that made it possible takes a few years' vacation. He's restless and anxious and a bit maladjusted at first, though Mami is a good host. He doesn't really have a feel for what life with a body, without constantly either waiting to grant wishes or being made to do so, is like, but he slowly starts to feel more normal. Eventually, he starts wandering the world, granting medium-size wishes at whim. Everything is okay here, now, thanks to Homura, so he doesn't need to feel any urgency about it-

-Except for all the other worlds. He came from a different one. He can go there too. So he does, walking the road eternal, and helps as best he can along the way.