Akemi Homura

Akemi Homura
Name	Akemi Homura (♀)
Star-name	⁠⊃⁠Divine-seeking
Kanji	暁美 ほむら
Age	462-463
Occupation	Unknown
Special Comments	Former First Executive, MSY
Soul Gem Placement	Left hand
Soul Gem Color	Purple
Weapon	Energy Bow
Classification	Misc.
Commanding Officer	N/A
Mentor	None

Akemi Homura (暁美 ほむら Akemi Homura) is one of the original protagonists from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. In To the Stars, she has thus far appeared only in flashbacks, disappearing of her own accord immediately after the Battle of Epsilon Eridani.

Story

Homura is first introduced in-story in the context of the Akemi (movie), where she stars as the main character. Most information about her life in the New World comes from the movie's dramatized account and the recollections of other members of the Mitakihara Four.

While she is presumed dead afterward by both Governance and the MSY, many senior officials instead believe she is alive and in hiding, and the Black Heart maintains an effort to find her again, led by Kuroi Nana, which has uncovered evidence that she survived at least a couple of years after her disappearance.

It turns out that Homura negotiated a binding‐preference‐alteration‐agreement with the Ceph (specifically the Tentacle Consensus/Ahimsa-extending), bringing "a written document claiming Consensus/Thinker‐preserving was compromised, and that their violence was founded on false premises". Her star name is Divine‐seeking. The document "gave detailed instructions on where and when to wait for [Shizuki Ryouko], and requested technology necessary to produce [her]"; the latter presumably refers to the pre-natal surgery Homura performed on Ryouko, adding an incomplete (Ceph-)communications and preference-specification organ (later completed by the Ceph).

MG was also in the negotiations. This led Chitose Yuma to the asteroid in deep space where the negotiations presumably occured. Yuma had previously seen a letter that implied Joanne Valentin's role was replaced by Homura (with consent; the original Valentin now lives in the Colonies). Additionally, Joanne Valentin was also at (( some colony )), where Sakura Kyouko found coordinates that led to the very same location in deep space, causing Kyouko and Yuma to meet up. (( See the Joanne Valentin article for more details )). Yuma in turn told Ryouko that Joanne Valentin is Homura, which allows Ryouko to later state that Homura installed the Version 2 TacComp Clarisse on Ryouko.

Tomoe Mami would also receive evidence of Homura's survival; for instance, Homura was the only one who could've undone Mami's self-reformat (given that Sakura Kyouko and Chitose Yuma didn't). Additionally, Mami redirected a projectile heading for Earth with much less grief than usual; this amplification of power is attributed to Homura. It has been suggested that Homura had a hand in the team selection of X-25.

Homura is the only one with intact memories of the Old World, and the only one who knows the whole story behind the Goddess. While she often hints or discusses her past and the Goddess with others, she refuses to ever use the Goddess's name, except once, at the very beginning. These conversations form the basis of the beliefs of the Cult of Hope, formed after her presumed death.

Background

Before Sayaka's Death

From Mami's commentary on the Akemi Movie, it seems Homura was left as an orphan at a Catholic convent from a young age, possible even from birth, and probably has no memories of her parents. At some point in her childhood, she developed a serious heart condition, seriously enough to require extensive hospitalization and surgery. While she survived the experience, she was severely weakened physically, and lacked social skills from years spent away from her peers in the hospital. She abandoned the religion imposed upon her by the convent, opting instead to live alone and attend a regular middle school.

Homura's despondence on her inability to socialize in her new school leaves her vulnerable to demon attack, but she is rescued by Tomoe Mami and Sakura Kyouko. Upon discovering she has Potential, she makes a wish to protect the universe, one that seems unusually audacious given her background. The Akemi Movie attributes to a vision from the Goddess.

Later on, their group acquires Sayaka as an additional member, but Sayaka's inability to deal with the consequences of her contract and losing her crush to Shizuki Hitomi causes her to exhaust her soul gem.

After Sayaka's Death

Immediately after Sayaka's death, the Akemi Homura from the old world arrives, her memories integrating into the Homura of the new world. While the superior weight and duration of the memories from the old world ensure that the personality from the old world becomes dominant, the new Homura is not erased, and aspects of her personality can still be seen in Homura's later behavior.

Homura has initial difficulty reconciling the disparate memories and dealing with her new situations, but overcomes it rather smoothly. In one of Mami's flashbacks, she visits the Mitakihara docks on what is implied to be Walpurgisnacht, and is visited by Clarisse van Rossum.

MSY

Homura becomes the driving personality for the formation of nascent MSY, eventually attaining the charisma and support necessary to cement a role as the MSY's de facto leader, which is formalized by her consistent reelection as First Executive post-MSY Charter of 2059, a post she never cedes. She leads the MSY all up to the Battle of Epsilon Eridani, becoming somewhat notorious for her belief in a Goddess of magical girls and occasional comments regarding the old world. Publicly, this is written off as an eccentricity, but privately the MSY leadership never stops trying to get her into the office of a MHD psychiatrist.

During the battle of Epsilon Eridani, she exhausts her soul gem for the first time, but survives, and is heard speaking to her Goddess. She then single-handedly leads the MSY and humans back to victory, displaying an unheard of and novel level of power, including the deflection of a Cephalopod particle cannon superweapon. Her seemingly miraculous displays of ability lead Kyouko to form the Cult of Hope a year later.

Despite her great feats, and the dire need the MSY has for a leader after being revealed to the rest of humanity, Homura appears to be severely destabilized by the event, deliberately experimenting with exhausting her own soul gem and seeming to lose her willpower. Finally, she announces to Kyouko and Mami that she is leaving the MSY, escapes their attempt to befriend her and disappears entirely.

The investigations of Kuroi Nana and MSY Internal Affairs later reveal that Homura hid in the colony worlds for a number of years, occasionally contributing secretly to battles against the aliens, but they lose her trail after that.

Homura's influence on the organization is such that, after her disappearance in 2440, the first executive post is permanently vacated, leaving her as the honorary first executive, even in death.

Character

Traumatized by her past experiences, and still pining for her Goddess, Homura rarely expresses significant emotion, and often comes across as cold and calculating. As leader of the MSY, she had a tendency to micromanage, and was very deeply involved in the affairs of Finance Division and Science Division.

She lacks the moral outrage Kyouko and Mami often had for some of the MSY's more questionable acts, and it is likely she was a strong supporter of the Black Heart, supporting Chitose Yuma against the others. Despite that, Homura lacks Yuma's absolute utilitarianism, and occasionally opposed actions on the grounds that her Goddess would not approve. While by no means evangelistic about her beliefs regarding her Goddess and the magical girl system, her quiet certainty in what she said led her to obtain a reputation as eccentric, and possibly subtly insane.

Despite these shortcomings, Homura was eventually able to cultivate a politician's command of emotional expression, gaining the ability to be exceptionally charismatic when necessary. In private, especially in the presence of the Mitakihara Four, she was considerably softer-edged, and could occasionally even seem like a normal girl.

Titles

Current

• MSY Rules Committee Representative, Mitakihara Special District
• First Executive, MSY Leadership Committee
• MSY Founder

Past

• None known at present

Distinctions

• Directorate Citation, for the Battle of Epsilon Eridani (the medal is earned "for contributing to an exceptional degree to the wellbeing of Humanity")

Gallery

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  Kyouko with the rest of the Mitakihara Four, circa 2065

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References

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