Tangled Regrets – Chapter 6 – A Blessed Child

There’s a child living in a house full of girls and magic.

He’s always been a cheerful child, a smile rarely leaving his face, sadness never touching him for long. He’s always been the bright ray of light in a story with far too many shadows.

His name is, was, and will be, Tatsuya Kaname, and he has lived many more lives than people realize. Than he himself realizes.

Because someone like Sayaka was old enough that the additional memories carried enough experience to allow her to mature beyond her age, and that was also the case with Kyouko, Mami, and Homura.

But to Tatsuya, remembering a few extra bright moments, a mother hugging him one more time, a sister desperately trying to catch his food before it hit the floor… Those won’t make him become a more mature Tatsuya, a man in a child’s body. No, that would be too cruel.

Instead, all those memories will make him… More.

More Tatsuya, more son, brother, and bright child. More a smile that always brightens the room and those around him.

Like now, when he’s trying to grab his newest sister’s curly hair and Mami has to fend him off while trying not to drop her serene composure. But Tatsuya won’t have any of that, and his father will quietly chuckle beside them as he sips his far too sweet tea, and Mami will end up being forced to tickle the overly affectionate child to make him give up, a smile on her face that she doesn’t notice, that isn’t forced or a mask.

Because that’s who Tatsuya is. Was. Will be.

That’s the magic he’s yet to realize he’s wielding, even under the nose of the most powerful mage of her generation. His mother.

They called her the Curse Breaker, and she always tried not to groan at how ridiculous the title would’ve sounded in a world that never was.

She’s in the yard, talking with Tatsuya’s other mother, relaxing after a trying day, and they are—

Uh…

I guess I should give them some privacy.

It’s just a reminder that fate can only go so far. That things can happen outside its scope, and those things can be equally wonderful and important.

And they deserve—

Oh. Looks like Tatsuya’s interrupting them.

He’s demanding Kazuko bounces him on her lap, and, as always, he tries to steal her glasses whenever he bounces up.

He always was a little thief. Thankfully, a clumsy one.

He got into enough mischief without adding that to it.

But… it was a bright kind of mischief. There was no malice to it, never was. Tatsuya wasn’t cruel, not even in the way most children usually can be through ignorance.

Or, at least, that’s how he always appeared.

Even if he had a tendency to pull on hair, to throw food off the table, to demand attention at the most inconvenient of times.

He did all that, and yet, nobody ever got mad at him.

It was his smile, if anything. A bright, cheerful thing without any guile.

He was a bit like Sayaka, in that regard, like the Sayaka before Kyuubey and Hitomi. But Sayaka’s cheer was always forced, a brave thing rather than an innocent one.

She also played with him. The only one of them who did.

Because Mami and Homura never visited, and neither did Kyouko, though for very different reasons.

So, Tatsuya has memories of a girl with short blue hair making faces at him over his crib and laughing in delight at each of his reactions.

He also has memories of the girl screaming in a mix of panic and disgust when he threw up all over her.

I suspect Sayaka would rather not have multiple copies of those, but they’re important. They give context to her struggles, her fights, her losses. They are bright spots, even if they didn’t look like it at the time, because they were untainted by all that came after, all that she had to live through again and again, even if she was unaware of the cruel repetition.

And that’s the main difference with Homura. That Homura did remember, and she lost anything untainted along the way.

Devoted Homura. Sad Homura. Lost Homura.

Wonderful, strong, determined, heroic, beautiful Homura.

She didn’t have those moments. She refused them, far too focused on her mission, her goal, her promise.

But… But now she’s living under the same roof as the bright, cheerful child already set on healing Mami, and Tatsuya will show her what she overlooked through all those times going through a month that never ended.

She will heal.

And Tatsuya will grow up with his sister-in-law loving him like a brother in all but name.

That… It isn’t fate. Not really.

It’s just natural.

As natural as the kid’s eyes drooping with fatigue after his burst of activity and bouncing around from one lap or another. Kazuko’s glasses are askew, but she’s smiling, not bothering to fix them as she cuddles the child to her chest and looks down at him with a soft, warm smile that is one of her wife’s greatest joys and triumphs.

She doesn’t yet know she’s carrying Tatsuya’s brother. It will be a delightful surprise, after she realizes why exactly orange juice doesn’t taste that great anymore.

It would’ve been in two weeks, and I feel a slight pang at not being there, but I remember it’s a pang that doesn’t belong to me. Not really.

I follow them up the stairs and watch as the two of them settle Tatsuya in his bed, no longer a crib with protective wooden bars around him, but still having his favorite mobile toy, a dangling, spinning display with stars, planets, sun, and moon made of sparkling, crinkly, colorful fabric. It projects a night sky on the ceiling when turned on, and it plays a cheerfully nostalgic melody as the shining bodies above and below it spin to its tune.

He will outgrow it soon enough. Too soon.

But he’ll remember it years from now and smile.

At the warm memories, at the loving family, at…

At me, I hope.

“Tatsuya,” I whisper. Gently, far too gently, almost afraid to wake him up, and even more afraid that he won’t.

His eyes languidly open as I feel the beginning of a pull, and he looks at me like nobody has since the world began.

His mouth opens in that cheerful, bright smile that means so much to me, and a grabby hand opens and closes in my direction.

“Madoka!” he cries out, my name almost laughter on his lips.

I lean down, over him, and beneath a yellow moon made of sparkly fabric that reminds me of the birth of the real one. He tries to grasp my trailing hair, the pink tresses a curtain around him.

“Yes, Tatsuya. It’s me. Madoka. Your sister.”

He looks in confusión at a hand that doesn’t manage to pull on my twin tails, but quickly looks back at me, the smile once more blooming on his face.

“I know you don’t understand, but… I wanted to say goodbye.”

Something clenches in my chest, and it must show in my face as his eyebrows purse in a very rare frown.

“Madoka?”

I caress his cheek, something in the world yielding so he feels my touch, my warmth, and all that I can offer him.

He closes his eyes in pleased contentment and leans his face into my cupped palm.

And I know this is pointless. That the part of me that will miss him won’t be around for long, that it will go back to the other Madoka as I become fully me.

I feel my light spreading, going to Homura and Madoka in a meeting that was set to occur eons ago.

It’s not a loss, not really.

Just… a shuffling. An exchange.

There’s no reason to be sad, not now that fate’s about to end and only choice will remain.

But, still, I brush his bangs up and lay a kiss on his forehead. On my brother.

The light is calling me, and all that is law and magic is already there, while only what was once human, what was Tatsuya’s sister, remains.

I resist the call just for a moment, even as I feel the exultation of purpose being fulfilled, of becoming and being.

Finally, I turn and leave Tatsuya behind, my last tie to a past self that made the most selfless selfish wish imaginable.

I fade from the room, the house, as I step into a groove illuminated by a moon that always was and always will be, that is somehow more real than the one up in the sky above and less than the yellow one over my brother’s bed.

I take a breath, ready to allow my human part to reunite with the soul that’s missed it for so long. And with the other Madoka, I guess.

And I leave nothing behind. No reminder of the girl who became a goddess, and the goddess who became something else. Law, and magic, and laughter between the stars.

But my human part was always too sentimental, too kind, too attached to those she loved.

And so, this is a lie.

Because on a toy that Tatsuya will outgrow soon enough, there is a bright red ribbon tied to a yellow moon, dangling over the sleeping child as if about to caress his cheek.

He will outgrow it some day. Soon.

But he will remember.

And I hope, when he does, he will smile like he used to do.