You reach up to the jeweled pin on your chest that is your Soul Gem, and carefully unfasten it, before holding it out to her. "Just in case she somehow does something."
She twitches, staring at the Soul Gem in your hand. Her jaw works, as if she can't decide what to say.
"Look, Homura," you say, gently reaching out and taking the pistol from her hand. She lets you take it, fingers slack, and you press your own Soul Gem into her hand, and close her small, cold fingers around it. My life in your hands. "It'll work out, Homura, and we'll get you, and Madoka, and Mami, and Sakaya and Kyouko and everyone else your happy endings. The question here is whether Oriko and Kirika will be there to see it."
"Why are you giving her the chance?" Homura asks. Her left hand, holding Oriko's Soul Gem, hangs freely by her side, in contrast with yours, held out between you like a warding shield.
You look away, casting your gaze out over the rusting machinery and old buildings around you. "I don't want to kill her. I... you saw how she reacted to what I told her about Margot. She doesn't known everything, and she can be shaken. If I can... I'd rather talk her down."
You take a deep breath, and meet Homura's eyes. "But if we can't, then as I said, I'll help you. My mess, my responsibility."
She shakes her head slowly. "You can't be this naive."
"I'm making progress," you argue. "You saw how she reacted!"
"She could be acting," Homura counters.
"Could she?" Your eyebrows arch high. You certainly don't think she was.
Homura's lips twist, but she seems to concede the point.
"So, if she'll only talk if you can't hear, then I'll humour her. But in any case, Homura, I'd feel a lot safer if you could take overwatch. If she does anything funny, well..." you gesture at Oriko's Soul Gem. "We need to be connected, so I could use my Grief to form a trail to connect us?"
She nods slowly, letting the hand holding your Soul Gem fall to her side. "That won't be necessary," she says, carefully untying the rope from around her waist. "I have a longer rope." She lets go of her end of the rop-
-e. You grimace. "Ugh. Never going to get used to that." Homura's tying a brightly coloured length of rope to the one currently bound around your waist, and you follow that rope with your eyes - it trails across the landscape, reaching to the top of some old, half built structure, all exposed steel and I-beams. Homura nods at you, finishing the knot, and then lets g-
-o again. "Argh," you mumble into the floor.
Wait, why are you on the floor?
You push yourself up, off the floor, and look at the old structure where the rope led to... where the rope doesn't lead to.
...
