2022-10-02 - Disaster Recovery 2

Disaster Recovery 2
Summary: The second part of the BF ninth anniversary plot. The magical girls pursue their missing friends and family... and discover a major Wraith infestation. This is their first encounter with Wraiths, so it is fortunate that some Puella Magi are there to explain...
Who: Mami Tomoe, Mikoto Minagi, Mai Tokiha, Nori Ankou, Fumiko Inoue, Kyouka Okazaki, Eri Shimanouchi
Where: Sanbu Village, Japan
OOC - IC Date: 10/2/2022 - 01/16/16

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

A variety of volunteers got on Angel Aid's charter bus to go deliver supplies and solace to the storm-shattered Sanbu Village. Mothers. Brothers. Friends. At first, not hearing from them was expected; though a day trip, it was well-understood that it would be a LONG day, not least because Sanbu is about two hours away by car. But dinner has come and gone, and the bus has not returned.

And no one is answering their phone.

Concerned parties that contact the non-profit get the optimistic response that perhaps the group decided to spend the night in the village. Anyone who contacts the police gets the old twenty-four-hours-must-take-place-before-anyone-is-missing canard.

It will be a long night for anyone who decides to wait for their loved ones at home, keeping the faith that it's just traffic; it's just a flat tire; it's just a delay.

For those who decide to investigate, the night will become much, much longer.

It could be plain and simple impatience, or a more complex anxiety, that drives certain loved ones of the Angel Aid volunteers, and their allies, to take direct action. It could be an evil feeling; some magical girls get premonitions, and even more mascots do; some sixth sense about how terribly wrong something has gone at the village. How intervention is needed, how magical girls are needed. NOW, not tomorrow.

Or it could be a phone call. People know people. Friends know friends.

Transportation may pose a bit of a challenge; Sanbu isn't on a train line, and municipal busses aren't running out there anymore because the roads are bad. But the journey can be made all the same. Money is like magic that way. And for some, magic is like magic, too.

---

<SoundTracker> Signum Malum - PMMM OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkUEy1jctZc

By the time the magical girls arrive at the outskirts of Sanbu Village, it is the middle of the night. The witching hour.

It's easy to be cool and say 'look at this thick mist, it would have been just as dark at high noon,' but it's not really true. This isn't ordinary Tokyo nighttime; this is the extraordinarily jarring true darkness of not only the coastal countryside, but the coastal countryside with one hundred percent mudslide-destroyed power lines. The Moon is a sliver, a crescent sharp enough to cut. Outside of the village -- if you're not under a tree, anyway -- it offers a bit of gradient, a relief from absolute blackness, with the creation of subtle negative space between dim, dim shadows. But it's not very much more than nothing.

It is enough, though, to collect with the faintest quicksilver shimmer on the mist. And it makes it very easy to see -- very stark -- where the coastal fog ends...

...and the miasma begins.

Density is part of it. Outside of the village, where fog rolls through the hills and weaves in between the trees, it is cloyingly thick, but also feathery in a way; it feels light. That's because it is made out of water.

There is a place, however, where even within the fog, it's as though you could reach out your hand and touch a wall of it. Stick your hand into it, and it disappears up to the wrist. It is not normal; not natural; and about as safe-feeling as entering a mirror glass. Which is not to say that one departs from this world and enters another, when passing through the veil. That, sadly, is not the case. This is very MUCH the world. The world as it really is.

It's insidious stuff, miasma. It gets into things. Underneath fingernails. Curls inside lungs. It is cold, not like the ocean is cold or even like the night sky is cold, but cold like the little match girl is cold, cold not as ice but as emptiness, as loneliness. You can climb a mountain as a group, but everyone has to face what lives inside of them alone.

Miasma is not made out of water.

Miasma is made out of grief...

And it is heavy. Desperately heavy. Especially here and especially now. In such great quantities, it is far more than any normal human heart could bear. And yet, even at its maximum, it is far less than the concentration of grief that once was called labyrinth, before it never existed. Miasma obscures reality, but it does not warp it outright. Miasma torments humanity, but it does not murder it... though there are so many fates one might argue are worse than death. So many miseries, worsened unto wretchedness by their extension, stretched out like limbs on a medieval rack. In much the same way that a funeral can last an hour or last a week, depending on the mourner.

Nothing good could have happened to the people of this village.

It is difficult to see more than a few feet in any direction. Objects come to the fore all at once. Here, a broken statue, that used to guard the village gate. There, a charter bus.

The bus is empty. The 'it had a flat' theory is also swiftly disproven. And for a sense of the claustrophobia involved, one cannot see its back seat from the driver's seat; there is too much miasma in the air. Someone has to go back there and check to confirm its emptiness.

But there is someone nearby.

There is even less color inside the miasma than there was outside of it, but whatever color the bus is normally, the man's uniform is, too. They share a similarity of grayscale. His skin is gray too, but that feels less like a trick of the light and more like a true transformation. An ebbing of spirit. He is gray with pain, with suffering.

The bus driver stands at the edge of the plaza. He stands on the very edge of an overlook, though there's nothing he could hope to look over through all of this. Still, the railing in front of him, it feels like a view at a precipice, and in Sanbu Village surely it is a view of the ocean. He stares at it, which is to say he stares at nothing.

He does not turn when approached, nor respond when spoken to. He will not be roused. He is lost. Lost in his own world. Lost to the world's grief. Lost.

There's an bag of chips in his hand. Its metallic yellow is the brightest color here, and it isn't very. Slowly, mechanically, and very, very absently, he reaches in to take one, to bring it to his mouth, to crunch it. But there are no chips left. He must have run out a long time ago. Perhaps he held the grief at bay with some stress eating, for a time.

All he has left is pantomime.

The bag rustles each time his fingers enter it.

The sound his teeth make when they click together on nothing shouldn't be louder than the plastic crinkling.

Click.

Click.

Click.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

In this case, a few phone calls went out, but one in particular was born of necessity. For this magical girl, it is not an evil feeling or quiet intuition but a knowledge born of surety; she has seen the results of similar incidents... and she is sure of what is happening.

Money is like magic, but asking an ordinary driver to come all the way out here only puts them at risk. So there was little choice.

So, here and now...

The silver-and-white car that they took is left behind, hopefully safe from what's going on here by virtue of distance. From here, it is enough to walk.

Mami Tomoe's heels clack against what pavement remains, in the darkness. In her upraised palm is a glowing goldem gem--her very soul, bright with danger. She breathes evenly, and walks, as if she's done this before. But this is darker than Tokyo ever is. If she were alone...

But she's not.

"...The miasma is made of grief," Mami Tomoe explains. "Being around it for a while will not do irreperable harm... but it's vitally important that we act now. Miasma this thick... We can't allow them to stay here much longer. Any of them."

"...From it emerge Wraiths. That's what I expect to find here. They don't kill humans, themselves. But when we attack, they'll fight back."

She comes to a stop, then. She reaches the bus, and kneels down to examine it. No flats... Too much miasma. "...Mikoto-chan," Mami says. "Watch my back." She will check the seat's back herself.

But soon, the man. Gray... An ebbing. With pain. "...Here. The... driver...?"

Mami does not reach out to him. She can tell he is lost. But she steps up beside him nevertheless, looks into his eyes. "...It's not hopeless. They can recover from this much. And they will, when we get them out of here, home to rest."

Mami looks around, trying to see in the fog.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Mikoto is aware that Takumi and Chie and Aoi went to Sanbu, certainly -- but she stayed behind, to help Mai with something very, very important.

Not studying, obviously, because Mai's been studying to death for ages. All that other stuff!

But when she doesn't get a message back from Chie on her phone for hours and hours, Mikoto starts worrying. Takumi was out there, too. Mai will be worried. Should she say something? She should say something. Mai should eat something, anyway. She sends out a few more messages, her anxiety only grows, and in the end the questions she's sending out look a lot like:

> Did someone go missing????

> Come hre!!! To Ohtori!!!!

> Were going!!!!

She's nervous enough that she's sending those messages out to everyone on her contacts list, not just the magic ones. And one of those messages, in particular, has a different tone to it:

> It's reall bad? Don't worry ill find her

> Leave it to me!!!!!

But what they're driving out to see... a place Mami knows to go.

Mikoto, in a dark cardigan over a polo shirt, skirt over warm tights, gets out of the car, retrieves her black case -- and in the darkness, draws the black blade, Miroku. All her conversation has died to a focused nothing at all.

Her nose wrinkles, but she can't keep it out.

"Got it," Mikoto issues, to Mami, as she ventures into the bus. Mikoto stands vigil at the entryway, eyes too gold and too bright darting this way and that.

And when they come to the driver, Mikoto's comment is,

"This much."

A question with no rising tone, because all her dread remembers lying in bed, all day.

She is gruff; she is short-spoken.

She is afraid.

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

With university entrance exams looming, a few missed messages throughout the day didn't raise any alarms. Mai has been studying - cramming, even, pushing into late hours and steadily wearing at whatever wakefulness she might have had. She eventually stopped refilling her coffee because the characters on the page were dancing too much, but she's been focused. Too focused to notice the hours slip by.

Fortunately, she didn't miss every meal of the day, because she has a roommate with far less interest in academics and far more interest in Mai's well-being than Mai does.

But supper came and supper went, and Mai finally noticed that her phone hadn't buzzed all day. Maybe that wasn't too strange. She and Takumi weren't as...constant in talking to each other as they once were, and there were always those eggshells to dance around. But he'd been proud of this Angel Aid thing. Why didn't he have more to say?

"...one phone call. Just to ask how things have gone."

But nobody in the mundane world had an answer.

Only after resorting to seldom-messaged numbers could Mai even hear a suggestion.

---

Money might be useful to get to a far-off village. Magic could definitely help, but Sanbu Village has seen too much destruction for Mai to countenance her options there. A friend with a motorcycle might have been her option at one point.

But, thanks to the absurdity that is Ohtori social events, Mai Tokiha is herself in possession of a car. She didn't drive it herself tonight - caffeine and anxiety are poor supports for driving skills - but the car was driven all the same, and eventually, they arrived.

Mai even managed to rest her eyes fleetingly along the way - two hours was too much to worry constantly. So it is with fresh...er eyes that she beholds the miasma, the emptiness, the grief that weighs within and without. Reality is masked behind the fog, and it is with uneasy footsteps that she follows once anew in Mami Tomoe's wake.

"W...raiths." The word feels odd, arcane, and it is with cautious steps that Mai steps into grief anew. She hesitates, chilled by the mist, watching Mikoto watching Mami. Can she hear the ocean, in this miasma? Or is it a river whose water she hears?

She hesitates, and tries not to accuse with the fear in her question. "...you're confident we'll find them? Alive, that is. That they'll...recover?"

There's a driver. Mechanically eating nothing, standing on a precipice, and Mai can't even bring anger to burn here, only fear. "You- where...where are the others? The students, everyone...where is everyone?"

<Pose Tracker> Nori Ankou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

IN THE CAR

Nori Ankou is wearing relatively sedate clothing for a fashion model. Basically, what she had on, plus a warm jacket which in this case is very dramatic because the exterior has interlacing strips of embroidered textiles, giving it a sort of duality between a red sunset scene with a crane and a black starscape interrupted by a kind of threaded stardust. It has a soft quilted interior. (Otherwise she is in a T-shirt and sweatpants.)

At quarters this close, those who are unfamiliar might get to have a good look at her hair. Nori told someone with a similar hair appearance (long, black, straight, vaguely classic-yamato-nadeshiko -- Nori has stopped doing the bangs, but still) that she had a secret to it, and it was glycerin in abundance. Indeed, it's very glossy hair.

Nori has a bag with her. The bag contains a taped-up old brass lantern and an otter. The otter is on his phone, watching videos to take his mind off of things.

HERE, NOW

Nori walks some distance behind Mami. She has the bag over her shoulder, most of the way, and holds her lantern close. It seems curiously reflective in these subtle conditions. When they get closer, and Mami examines the tires, she says, "It seems to be time." The bag is taken off and set down, and Nori steps a few paces away from the immediate area of the bus - and raises up the lantern. "Shine forth, O Pharos! Let the storm break against me--"

Against miasma like this, it's no more than a whisper of wind, at least from that far away. But the battered relic seems to gleam, shedding a conglomerated form and becoming something simpler, brighter, and cleaner. Silver light and another sort of luminance, something like the diametric reverse of light itself, washes outwards; raises up into an oval bubble that stirs some of the tendrils of gloom; allows for a brief scent of the sea (or at least, of *a* Sea; it's salt water, that's for sure), and with sparkling black twinkles and sizzling embroider of silver,

"La Sirene de Diamant!" stands, and she steps forwards, and --

-- She doesn't have an answer for Mai. But her face is set, brows faintly creased in the black cosmetic streak that crosses the center of her face like a mask.

COMBAT: Nori Ankou transforms into La Sirene de Diamant!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi transforms into HiME Mikoto!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe transforms into Puella Mami!

<Pose Tracker> Fumiko Inoue [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Fumiko had finally gotten time to herself. No mother to bother her - and her mom was doing good in the world for once! Things were looking up. Until time brought them back down. Something was wrong.

"No... probably just a flat... bad cell service... she's 'making friends'... nothing to worry about."

"There's something to worry about!"

"Ressi! Not funn...ny..." Fumiko stopped scolding when she saw her Kwami's face. "You're not joking. What's wrong? Is it my mom?"

Ressi shook her head. "I... don't know. Just a really... REALLY bad feeling. I sense that - "

"H-hold it! I just got a text! Maybe it's mom!"

Instead, it was Mikoto's panicked messages. This wasn't good, was it?

"We're going, Ressi."

"Of course we are, but... with them? They don't know-"

"If the group is mixed, nothing to worry about. If they are all magical girls... I guess it's time?"

Wearing a puffy green winter coat and snowpants, and a white backpack, Fumiko was dressed far from the fashion sense of her mother when she arrived to meet Mikoto and her group. "H-hi... um... is this where we go to look for missing family members in Sanbu? And..." she mumbled something about trying to figure out how to ask, something about a codeword or phrase."

Either way, she rides with the group, and is immediately hit with the pressure of the miasma. "That's... not good, is it?" Wraiths? Mysterious grey man? This was magical girl territory. She ducked behind the car. "Ressi, bare fangs..."

Where Fumiko once hid, Serpentina Ruse now stood. This was far from inconspicuous, but she had to make the effort out of habit. "This... is what happened to everyone? We have to save my-... we have to save them."

COMBAT: Fumiko Inoue transforms into Serpentina Ruse!

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Kyouka paces at home, a concerned Wolfy whining as he watches her go back and forth. She'd expected it to be a late night--when she made dinner, she set aside her mother's portion, expecting her to get in late... But this is ridiculous.

All calls and texts go unanswered. And when she calls Angel's Aid... the suggestion that they 'stayed the night' is met first with incredulity, and then with increasingly severe amounts of profanity, in both English, Japanese, and a few other languages, besides.

There's some left over for the police, too.

She even tries her Dad--sort of a shot in the dark, as she knows he can't really just send in the cavalry, no matter how much she desperately wishes he could. It does calm her down to hear his voice, though.

Next, is friends. Maybe something happened to her mother's cell phone, maybe the others have been able to get in touch with some of her classmates, maybe...

She doesn't have a finely tuned sense for the supernatural, doesn't have a mascot advising her of premonitions, but when she sees the text from Mikoto... the lead weight in her stomach intensifies. She can't know, but something in her tells her she does. Foreboding tidings.

"Be good, Wolfy," she says as she gets her coat on, locks up the house, and heads for Ohtori.

---

Normally she would be excited to meet fellow magical girls, but her face has been creased with worry for the entire trip. She does mention, if asked, that it's her mother out here that she's concerned about, but is rather preoccupied with that fact to converse much, even if anyone else is in the mood for it.

She steps out of the car, looking around, and when transformation and miasma start happening, she nods to herself. She pulls the sleeve of her parka back to reveal her device, and simply says." Strike Wolf, set up."

<Set up.>

Her jacket, jeans, and boots are replaced in a riot of surging purple energy with shorts, a tank top, and a vest that seem woefully inadequate for the time of day, though her armored gauntlets and boots at least seem suited for battle.

She's nervous, though she's doing her best to calm herself, but the introduction of 'miasma' and 'wraiths' into her lexicon of magical girl things does liittle to help settle her already rattled nerves. She makes sure to stick close to the others, constantly keeping an eye out for... well, whatever she can see in this thick miasma. "Did this all happen in a single day...?" she wonders aloud.

"So if we do find one of these... wraiths... what's the plan for dealing with them?"

Then they find the bus, and she looks around... "... shouldn't there be a truck delivering water? Does anybody see that?"

And when they see the driver, see the state he's in... she shivers. It's not the cold--her barrier jacket handles that. It's seeing the first real toll something magical has on a person--and ordinary person, one without magical powers to defend themselves. Something powerful enough to seemingly affect a whole village. "I really hope we're not too late..."

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki transforms into Barrier Jacket Wolf Fighter!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

It seems the unremitting colorlessness of the miasma is NOT proof against the light of a Soul Gem; Mami's soul shines as clearly and as beautifully as ever. Moreso, in that way that light becomes precious when held up against darkness, or in this case, bleakness. It is lovely and luminous, golden in a way that does not at all seem to occupy the same part of the color wheel as the yellowishness of the chip back, and of other will-o-the-wisp lights that are flickering intermittantly; here and there, now and then.

(The batteries in Hina's flashlight, in Furukawa's lantern, they died weeks ago. There was never any ice, and there was never any electricity, not by the time the charter bus arrived.)

And though most other souls are properly inside their bodies, the other magical girls shine too, at least in comparison to everything else. Transformed, they are their own, ordinarily extraordinary colors, proof not that they are more real than their surroundings, but rather that they are more puissant. Much as Nori invokes, the gray of the miasma does indeed break against their raiment like waves against the shore. A terrible power has congealed in this place, sharp and rotten like turned milk in the jug. But it is not more terrible than they are, nor can it much reduce the beauty of their simple and vitally, wonderfully out of place existence. Just their presence makes the miasma easier to bear, at least for one another.

But it can be felt, continuously, more foreground than background, steadily irradiating the heart.

Strangely enough, these emotional neutrinos don't really match the whole vibe of the place. Because, miasma or no miasma, as they head into town the magical girls can't fail to notice the presence of wreckage and the absence of whole buildings; the absence of ENTIRE buildings is easier to pass over, but not one of the ones they DO see could be said to be whole. So then the soft and comforting hiss of snow into snow, silence into silence, like a warm blanket over the cold landscape, is strange, disturbing. Even more out of place than the magical girls themselves.

There is no reason to think that things are the way they are because they've always been this way, and to catch yourself out thinking it is like seeing the magician through the two-way mirror of his trick. It is not just a cold comfort, but a false one. Nothing here is as it should be, and a month ago, nothing here was as it is now.

There is good reason for a terrible sense of foreboding, though; the weighty imminence of doom. Especially since no one is answering any calls; no one approaches the group, no matter how much noise they make. The townspeople must stay in at night, for whatever dismal definition of 'in' they have in their miserable makeshift shelters.

But eventually, as they round a curve, the group approaches someone. Someones.

Familiar faces; Naru Osaka and Gurio Umino are far from celebrities, even within their own school, but they have a friendly everyman sort of look to them, a Juuban look. That kind of makes it worse, really, that it's them that are spotted first.

It's not raining, but Gurio is holding an open umbrella. It's the kind where the click-release is at the base of the shaft, beneath the thumb. But it's stuck open now, because his thumb depressed the button... and stayed. That isn't obvious at a glance, of course, but that he can't put it down, is, because if he could then there wouldn't be sweat at his brow from his tired nerdy noodle arm chivalrously holding an umbrella up for his lady-love for hours, when an umbrella isn't needed, an umbrella is useless, it's no help at all. Nothing is.

But he had to do SOMETHING for Naru. It felt like a good idea at the time. Or, no, there were no good ideas. But it was at least AN idea.

Naru, you see, is holding a door. Maybe she was hoping to find someone inside; the building -- a little touristy shop, or rather, the corpse of a shop -- is whole ENOUGH to have resources inside, or maybe people. Adults. But she never made it in. She can open the door, but she can't walk through it... because she can't let go of the handle.

She looks pale and fragile and exhausted. Like the man with the chips, she keeps trying to make the door work, because there's nothing else left to do. Nothing else she can try. Pull back, then step forward, into the threshhold, as though maybe this time, her hand will remember to casually release the handle, to do something she didn't know it was possible to forget how to do. The door creaks on its hinges, but the entrance doesn't work, she can't work the entrance, and she blankly resets, stepping back to let the door shut in front of her.

Creak.

...

Creak.

<Pose Tracker> Raising Heart [Admin] has posed.

What happened here took a different amount of time for everyone. Tall, freckled Rina was first, she and her stoplight, as if she came off the bus already halfway to wherever the miasma took these people. In the panic that ensued afterwards, it was easy for the symptoms to disguise themselves. Easy to tell oneself that they had to stay here and help, and then, when outside help was clearly needed, to dismiss any plan as misguided or dangerous. Even if they found the driver or got the bus keys, none of them can drive a vehicle that big. And climbing up the mountain to get cell phone signal... insanity after a mudslide, especially after dark. The villagers are evidently of no use. Struggling with Rina might just hurt her. It is all very reasonable.

Something must be done. But no particular choice is the right one. The ones who were more resistant, they just had to be run around this loop more times. It gets to you in the end. Shouldn't becomes don't want to becomes can't.

This place, this random segment of a road that will never go anywhere, has little to recommend it. It is cold. Fog curls sickeningly about the knees. There is still some non-perishable food left in the konbini -- no one looted the ruin because that would be acknowledging that it was a ruin -- but not much. All there is to listen to is the sound of others crying over their own private miseries. All there is to see is darkness and ghost lights, save for the glow of a yellow traffic light in the middle of the street, and the single girl it illuminates.

That girl is not Rina Takashimizu, who clings still to the metal frame of the traffic light, her arm just beneath the bulging yellow bulb. It is Shiho Kubota. She sits hugging her knees, her body bathed in yellow light, her skein of a shadow stretched far out into the darkness. Smaller shadows extend from the crumpled forms of snack bags from the konbini, which are littered around her legs. Off-brand stuff. Like her and Rina.

The ghost lights float in and out of the traffic light freely, swarming only the yellow light. A few occasionally float through the bluish green bulb, like phosphorescent fish in a bowl. But the red light has not so much as glinted the entire time. Sitting in the yellow beam causes the ghost lights to keep making hesitant efforts to stick to Shiho, but she brushes them off by muscle memory at this point, sending them reluctantly floating away. Some have stuck to places like her back or the outside of her calf, unnoticed.

Shiho lifts her eyes. They are puffy from crying, and there is a deadened misery to her gaze. She, too, is holding an object in her hand: her camcorder, whose red light went out hours ago. Her unfocused eyes seem unaware of the newcomers, as the others had. As though she cannot see them.

She does not see them. Easy to forget when Shiho is illuminated so well by her unseelie lantern, how dark it must be outside of its range.

When the group draws a bit closer, or makes noise, Shiho comes alive. Her scramble to her feet is messy, but not listless. She doubles back, when halfway standing, to plant the camcorder on the ground, and her hand leaves it behind there as she rises again, fully this time, her eyes full of alarm.

"H-hello?" she calls to the strangers. As she gets a better look at these strangely-dressed girls, her mind seems to jump less readily to the glorious heroines of Tokyo urban legend than it might have normally. The way she looks up and down at their garments, it is like she was expecting whoever came here to be abnormal, and is relieved that they are not frightening.

"I... my name is Shiho Kubota, I'm from Tokyo... please, you need to get help for my friend." Shiho glances at Rina, who is standing with her chin tucked down on a shoulder for comfort. Her long legs look exhausted, tremulous where they extend below her plaid uniform skirt. Rina does not look over, though she she seems conscious.

"I th-think she's mad at me. She doesn't like it when I try to get her off of that thing, so I... haven't tried to do that in a while. Everybody was trying to help at first, not like we really got anywhere with it, but..." Shiho's usual verbosity fails her, and she skips ahead in the story.

"Just me still... doing that."

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Mami Tomoe does not offer the easy manner she might usually: she is very, very serious in the moment, and the sort of confidence she projects is not entirely an act, but is certainly calculated to reassure. So she doesn't hesitate when she answers Mai:

"I am. The danger is real, but it's not hopeless."

Though Mami does her best to project confidence, it's true that La Sirene's presence is reassuring to her in turn. Not just hers, though. There was a time when new magical girls set her on edge... But that time is past, for now, and she tries to say kindly to Kyouka, "We destroy them. It'll be dangerous, I won't lie. Only by keeping our composure and handling them one at a time will we pull through. ...But we will pull through."

She looks to Mikoto's question, "With this much miasma, I expect a lot of Wraiths. ...More than I'd like to handle by myself." Pause. "But what I said still applies. It'll be worst for the ones who've been here a long time... but your friends and family will only have experienced it for a relatively short time."

Theirs. ...It doesn't sting as much as it used to, knowing it's 'theirs', not hers. There is no one out here that Mami would have come for specifically. She is here because people are in trouble. ...Not because her mother, or brother, or best friend is here.

Her best friend is...

Mami won't dwell on that today. Instead, she continues walking. She continues to this segment of road, here. To the darkness and the lights, the traffic light...

The fog gathers and curls. Mami notices a girl athed in yellow light, and then Mami sees the little lights clinging to Shiho. Mami makes noise; Mami s bright, and draws close enough that her steps are audible, her Gem is visible. "Hello," Mami says to Shiho, keeping her voice calm and even. "We'll help her," she promises. And she means it.

Then she turns to the others for a moment, only half-. "Don't let the lights gather on you."

To punctuate her statement, Mami, in her black and gold and yellow, brushes a few off of herself. "We have to keep moving. We're not immune to what's going on here... We need to find the Wraiths and free everyone. Soon."

"...So remember why you're here," Mami reiterates, and ties to rreassure Shiho with a look as best she can. She looks to her Gem, and looks around, as if her golden gaze could pierce the fog.

COMBAT: Eri Shimanouchi transforms into Puella Magi Eri!

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Mikoto is afraid -- because Mikoto feels she must worry for the worst case scenario, for these people, these normal people who have fallen prey to grief. (She wants this to be a world where she can put that effort in.) And she asks Mami for reassurance, because she doesn't know, not any more.

"But... we can help all them?" Mikoto presses, again, to Mami, hope all crammed into her throat. It's hard to talk past it. She nods, and insists, at length: "I'll fight. Eri and me stopped hunting together, 'cause it was bad habits, but I can still fight."

She says that so firmly, but there's one more difference, between here and there, then and now.

It's the difference of putting out her school uniform at the foot of her bed, and waking up to find a pauldron and cape folded there instead.

... the difference of watching a screen, turning to answer a question, and looking up to find a scene from Inifinity instead of Ohtori.

... the difference of turning to face him, only to find him at her other side.

Mikoto has impeccable instincts, and impossible senses, and both these things are still true, but one of them is more nuanced now.

It's complicated.

What's in front of her eyes... what is in front of her eyes is...

Mikoto's eyes are so, SO gold, impossibly gold, inhumanly gold. They catch the light of that thin slice of moonlight and reflect it back on the world, more like a cat than a girl -- or, uncharitably, perhaps the comparison isn't to beasts or to men. Bright as fireflies, it is no wonder, perhaps, that those glowing lights come to settle about her broad forehead like a crown, settling on her twin dangling braids, hair too spiked and careless to be feminine.

She sneezes, and shakes her head. The lights swirl off of her. They don't stay away for long.

"Mai," Mikoto says, and with effort lifts a hand from the hilt of that red thread about her blade to tug at the taller girl's sleeve. "Mai's all lit up..." As if Mikoto isn't, too. She presses, insistent: "Remember your Element, 'kay?"

Mikoto grasps her blade again, because she remembers, too.

Either the worst or the best sight to see, cast all in yellow light. She shakes the whole of herself, and more of those ghost lights fan off of her. They always seem to come right back. It's nice to be able to come back home.

It's nice to have someone to come home to.

Mikoto entertains, briefly, the idea of cutting that traffic light in half.

But it's important to Rina.

She can't do that.

She keeps following Mami.

<Pose Tracker> Serpentina Ruse [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Wraiths.

Miasma.

Ghost lights.

Kids clinging to stoplights.

The complete destruction and ruination of a village and a way of life.

And her mother was somewhere in all this!

Serpentina paused to take it all in, accidentally letting a few of the lights float over to her. She swatted them away and sighed. "How do we take care of the Wraiths? How do we help these people? Where are the rest?" Her voice was far from that of a confident hero. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

She leaned on her parasol like a cane, trying to shake the negativity out of her head. After a few deep breaths, her voice was more steady. "Sorry... the questions still stand, but not in a 'I'm helpless, it is hopeless' kind of way. Point me at the trouble and I'll figure out a solution." She gave a half-sincere smile, trying to look confident and cheerful in the face of danger and despair.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"The light of abyssal revelation shows many things," la Sirene tells the Wolf Fighter, "but it cannot reveal all things at once." After a beat, she explains in equally sonorous but slightly smaller letters, "I mean to say that I don't see it. It might be behind something...?" Looking for a truck is fairly nice, compared to some other things.

Mami speaks to them then. She smiles to the senior puella. She walks, her back held straight. And she gazes at the town.

It feels wrong to her. Both in the ordinary sense, clear to everyone; and for the muted appeal to the tragic ruins of memory that la Sirene often delectates upon. It is not either of them. It is held fast. Not able to even become a ruin; held fast by - by something that's slipping in nearer.

What is it?

The fog?

La Sirene walks... and someone speaks to them. She straightens up then, looking towards Shiho as she comes near, as she gives her report. As she tells her of Rina, who is there, towards that gleaming traffic light. That situational nexus; that--

La Sirene sees Mami brush something off herself. She looks down at her own arm. Her ARM is clear -- but her hip has acquired a good three of the small, yellowish lights. They hover, a little, baffled only subtly by the limn-light of radiance coming from the Pharos, tied stoutly to her hip. "Hgn," she says, sweeping them off with a shiver,

"You've done well to hold out," la Sirene tells Shiho, with some effort to sound Reassuring.

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

Light a torch to spite the darkness. That might have been a good idea.

Mami's soul, at least, shines brightly - a beacon piercing the miasma enough to help Mai find her footing. And those words of explanation, of reassurance, of warning help her remember conviction amid this endless fog.

"They...Takumi, Chie, Aoi, they haven't been here long. So they're still...okay. I can be...careful." Uneasy thoughts wind their way through her head, though, and she glances back at where a driver never answered a single desperate question. "Then...the people who lived here, are they-"

She shakes her head. Ultimately...maybe she doesn't want to know. Not yet.

Mikoto, perhaps freed of bad habits, worries about her. And...maybe she's right to. Mai finally lights that torch - digging through the well of grief to remember the conviction in her heart, willing fire to blossom in the mists. Rings of gold and jade manifest themselves, adding their light to what the group carries into this disaster zone.

But every step is unsettling. Every sight a glimpse of despair. Mai stops in her tracks, once, at a glimpse of a little chimney poking its way free of a mudslide, and an old fear thought mastered surfaces once more. Mikoto's steps might be surer and she has familiar faces aplenty to follow here, but the idea, the condemnation just won't leave her head.

She never should have let Takumi be here alone.

Around a corner, to the corpse of a konbini - and there's life. Or, at least, people - trapped in endless cycles, amid those ever-so-plentiful yellow lights that Mami warns them about. Mai...tries to listen to Shiho, honest she does - but she just brushes off those pleas and the lights that seem to swarm her. This isn't the place, this isn't the time, and she just...can't...

"...what about my brother? Takumi. Takumi Tokiha. Gr- Middle schooler, reddish-brown hair. Did you see where he went?"

Mai has to take care of her brother. That's all that matters, after all. That's the promise she made, the promise she'll keep.

<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

PlopPlopPlopPlopClack. The moment mud shifts to pavement for a heeled boot as she emerges from the fog. A Gardener does not mind the mud... the air pregnant with miasma, that is what she minds. How did she get here? Some things are best not spoken. Needless to say the driver will awaken safely, and doubt his memory of what happened soon enough.

She's already clad for battle, wreathed with leaves and greens, accented in blacks and sharp lace.

Mikoto doesn't yet realize the reason she didn't let her hunt with her anymore. Not really.

She might understand tonight.

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to say anything with Mami here. Even after so many years, she is still the expert over her when it comes to explaining this side of their life to outsiders.

"No sign of Takumi?" Is the only thing she asks of Mikoto and Mai, catching the tail end of the question to Shiho, before walking forward towards Mami Tomoe.

And there's just this grim expression as she looks upon the ghost lights clinging to Shiho, before stepping up in behind her. She doesn't say anything. Her expression says it all 'This would be difficult even if all of us were here.'

Some things don't need to be conveyed with words.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Kyouka nods to Mami when she replies. It's a shaky, hesitant nod, at first... and then she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath to center herself--does her best to ignore the scent and taste of miasma--and lets it out. When she opens her eyes again she nods more firmly. "Got it. One at a time." She has to pull her weight. She may be the newest magical girl here (a fact she can't confirm but that she definitely suspects), but she'll pull her weight regardless.

After a moment's consideration, she says, openly, to the rest of the group, "... I'm pretty much only good at hand to hand range, by the way." Should they have talked battle strategy earlier? Probably. Except it wasn't entirely clear in the car ride over it was a group full of magical girls... though of course, she's glad it was.

They wander into the town. She sees--well, she doesn't see the hotel, she sees the makeshift replacement for it, making an annoyed grunt to herself. 'Stayed the night', sure.

She frowns as she sees... Well, she doesn't know their names, but they're pretty evidently students that were on the bus, given their age and the circumstances. Her first impulse is to rush to them, but then she sees the way they act, how they seem not aware of their surroundings... "What are they doing..." she asks quietly. "What's gotten into them?"

She lets Mami handle the talking, and trying to reassure the girl they've found. Then blinks, when Mami mentions the lights, and looks at herself... she swats a few stray ones off, though she doesn't see as many as some of the other girls have. "What are these things?" And endless list of questions.

But she can't forget why she's here. It's a reason burning all too bright within her, that would have driven her out here even without powers. For her mother? Definitely. But are there other people that need help? Also definitely.

When Mami says they're not immune, she attempts to kep an eye on the others, just in case... She looks to Mai and Mikoto, frowning behind her barrier jacket's visor (which is, thankfully, clear to her, at least from the inside.) "... You two okay over there?"

Then again, she's seen Mikoto fight, and she seems to be looking after Mai. She drifts over to Serpentina Ruse, instead, to give the other girl a firm pat on the shoulder. "Hey, we got you." Is she nervous? Oh yes, and it shows. Is she letting that get her down? Not a bit. She might not be putting her soul on display like a certain other magical girl, but she can offer her own form of warmth and encouragement.

She does frown a little, tensing and turning when she hears another person arrive--but when nobody else reacts she figures Eri for another magical girl and relaxes again. Good to have one more on hand, on a night like tonight.

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
<SoundTracker> Umbra Nigra - PMMM OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvG7Fo3xA7U

Why did the magical girls cross the road?

To get to the other side, which they wouldn't be able to see otherwise, not through the miasma...

On the far side of the intersection -- with the traffic light and its two girls separating it from Naru and Gurio -- is another Sister Schools student: Infinity swim team member Hanae Fujioka.

She is stuck to a first-aid kit. That might be some small solace for Mai: someone rather big-sisterly was here with Takumi; someone thought to go for supplies; someone was even resourceful enough to find them.

But it's like the door. VERY like, painfully like. She never could get into the kit, because her hand is in the way, stuck to both the top and the bottom half. It's like a second hinge. When she pulled at it, her other hand stuck to the back, where she grabbed for leverage.

She's seated at least, a loose, cross-legged position, in striking contrast to Naru and Rina who must stand, and to Gurio who felt he must. But it's bad too, it's wrong, all wrong; she's a little TOO comfortable on that broken piece of road, with concrete shattered around her and mist in her eyes and nose and mouth. She should be more upset than she is, about having the kit and yet being unable to help Takumi, to help anyone.

She looks up at Mai when she hears his name.

"I'm here," she croons, soothingly. "It's okay. Everything is fine."

Her eyes are so blank.

"...I'm here," she repeats, with identical pitch. "Everything is fine."

It was in shadow when she was leaning back, but when she straightens up in her seat, everyone can see that she's wearing some kind of backpack.

No.

"I'm here. Everything is fine."

The things on her shoulders, they aren't quite straps, are they? They almost look like... tusks. Heavy. Pale, like bone.

"Everything is fine."

No. Pale, like horn.

"Everything is fine."

The horned terminus of two limbs. Two black limbs, limbs that grip Hanae, blackly, from behind. If it were a human backpack, they would be arms coming around from over her shoulders. Clinging to her. Hugging her. Holding her close.

"Everything is fine."

It isn't a human.

"Everything is fine," insists Hanae, pleasantly.

COMBAT: Mai Tokiha transforms into Mai-HiME!

<Pose Tracker> Raising Heart [Admin] has posed.

Shiho watches Hanae with a weariness that is worse than fear. She does not seem aware of the bony, disgusting black limbs, for her expression does not change at all when they come into view, though she is looking right at them. And yet, she seems to feel the need to explain, as if some part of her does see.

"It's not just the... stuff they grab onto," she says distantly. "It's like they're carrying something around." She shakes her head. "It's... heavy."

That weight is all around them. The miasma is a burden. And somewhere between the traffic light and the konbini, that weight has grown ponderous. No. Tumescent.

Something is accumulating in the swirl. There are many unnamable types of material that are found only when polluted liquids congeal, gunk that is only created when water runs through the same pipe for years and years until a glop that exists nowhere else is wedged thick and greasy at the edge of a ridge. Such a gunk is accumulating right now -- probably it had already started to a while ago, but it has gotten thick, visible.

It starts as trickles, that thicken out, like goopsicles forming in fast motion. They get thicker, stronger. Where they join, like the six legs of a table, a fat ball starts to gather, glistening in places, rough in others. It bloats out, and gradually the legs begin to bend beneath it, bowing down. They snap, but they are supposed to; they snap one by one in the right places, forming joints.

It all went quickly. Mere seconds after it started to form, this beast begins to wander around in search of nothing but its own balance, blind, weary. Its belly thumps the ground a few times, too heavy for its legs. With a peeling sound, a face begins to shake its way out of the blob. Quivering, it presents its brand new face to the magical girls, its new form all but finished.

This black, ponderous thing does not really look like a spider. The tips of each of the six legs are hard, dangerous bone, but the rest of each is recognizably skin and muscle. The bloated belly section is arranged like some insect abdomen between all those legs, but no spider ever had such slothful, loose skin. Its body is so dissimilar to a spider's that one wonders why the comparison should even be made. And yet, what other language does a human have for something like this? A person who had never seen a cat would have to call it a dog, but it would feel wrong every time.

So too for its face. Broad, horned, with sharp teeth and a slovenly shape, its very flesh sunken, too weary to lift itself. Its bovine similarity is not even parody; it is analogy.

It ought to be more disgusting than it is. Flesh should not be like this. But even to a glance, it is too alien to produce the same visceral reaction it would create to see an animal in this pitiable state. Like the flesh of a lizard is different from that of a mammal, not just in texture but somehow also in its nature, this flesh is not mammal, or arachnid, or anything. It is something else, swirled together.

And there is one more thing this entity may remind one of, after seeing its arms fastened around Hanae. Or spying its bloated bulk on Rina's back, as her legs tremble. Or seeing it slough around, exhausted unto death, but looking for something in the mist.

A tick.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

"..." Mai doesn't want to know. So Mami looks at her a moment, and doesn't answer, though there are others she will. Like Mikoto, who asks something similar. "We can help them. The first thing to do is to free them from this--they can't recover so long as they're trapped."

This is... worse, than Mami is used to. Darker. Thicker. It is not a 'normal' night.

"That's fine," Mami says then to Kyouka of her range. "I'm a long-range attacker myself, so if you're confident up close, I can back you up. Mikoto-chan is also good in melee." Serpentina, too. "We fight them. Just follow my lead. I'll need your help."

Mai can't help but ask the question; Mami couldn't stop her if she tried. If she got in the way, nothing good would come of it. So she keeps searching, looking around... until she sees Hanae. Hanae, of the swim club. But it's painful to look at a girl who has the same instinct Mami has--to 'help'. She's there with the first aid kit... If Mami allowed herself to get caught up in worrying about that, it would be over. She feels for her, but she has to stay apart. Because 'Everything is fine' won't be true if they don't do this.

"STOP," Mami says, and looks sharply to the others. "Whatever you do, don't attack yet. We only have one chance to do this right, and attacking one will draw out many, many more."

She sees another form. No, it is not a spider. "This... is a Wraith," Mami says. "These are Wraiths. And they feed like this, once you're vulnerable."

Mami steps around, looking to the one that's now roving, to the one that is already on Rina, to the one on Hanae...

"Left to themselves, they'll keep doing this. It doesn't kill quickly. But it feeds. ...Your friends and family will forget that this ever happened, once they recover. And they will recover. But only if we destroy the Wraiths. Until we attack, though--they won't do a thing. They'll just keep feeding. So get yourselves in position. Don't attack, but be ready to, because the horde will be here as soon as we start."

Mami lifts her hands, spreading her stance and extending them towards Hanae and Rina both, as she sets her eyes on Eri.

"Eri-chan," Mami says. "You know what to do. Everyone... we'll need your full power, so get ready. Leave shielding them to me. They won't attack normal people once they start coming after us... but I'll make sure none of us hits them by mistake. Keep your eyes open, though--not everyone's accounted for yet."

Mami's expression is a mask of determination, her golden eyes bright. Her Soul Gem is no longer out and shining, but has shimmered into a pin on her hat. Her fingerless gloves keep out some of the chill; her boots gleam in the darkness.

"On my mark, Eri."

Mami breathes. She has to stay loose. But there is nothing 'easy' about what's about to happen.

<Pose Tracker> Mikoto Minagi [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Takumi. Chie. Aoi. That's right, they came here to find people. Takumi, Chie, Aoi, and...

"Eri!" Mikoto says, and her name on her lips is a welcome, familiar relief. Isn't it comfortable to see her here, like always?

Like always.

"Searching," she says, like always.

For Takumi, and Chie, and Aoi, and...

"I'm strong," she assures Kyouka, and how long did it take her to say it? "I can fight anything." She shakes off the yellow lights. "It's okay. I'll come home." She can't blink away her eyes. Mikoto wasn't lying to Mami, back there; she really thought it was a bad habit.

She'll keep going. She keeps going. On the far side of an intersection, and there is Hanae Fujioka, the other person Mikoto was searching for. Wasn't that who Mikoto was searching for?

She promised she'd find her.

"Hanae!" Mikoto exclaims, sharply, as she recognises Yumi's friend. She was almost eaten by an Ogre, once. She was almost eaten --

"It's not!" Mikoto yells, all at once, all in a hurry, all pressured, all pressure. "It's not! It's not! It's not!" She has another chance and she can't let it be bad like this she has to do something she has to

Mikoto advances on Hanae, hands all buried in that red, red thread, hilt stained the same as what's inside. Her intention is clear to anyone who's ever fought alongside her --

STOP

-- which is why Mami might need to raise her voice so sharply.

Mikoto stops, in the middle of the street, in just the way parents warn their daughters never to do. Mikoto never had a mother to warn her. Perhaps that's the crux of the problem, leading here today. She stops, and she turns, all anger, all pique. "The enemy's here! The enemy's in front of us, Mami!"

She turns, at least, to yell at her instead. "If Takumi's in trouble, Mai won't be with me no more! Mai can't go! Mai can't go, so we have to defeat them now! And it can go back to normal!" Her eyes shine -- from the light of those ghostly fireflies, from the miserable moonlight, from her ears. "Normal..."

A moment passes. She gathers herself into herself.

"Just... tell me what to do, Eri," Mikoto asks her, and she's miserable.

<Pose Tracker> Serpentina Ruse [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Just when things were overwhelming her, Serpentina felt a reassuring hand. "..thank you. I got you all too. Just... someone I care about is here too. But I'm fine now." Well, more fine than a few seconds ago, anyways.

The 'normal' people don't seem to be fine, though. Well, one of them claimed to be - a lot. But that was far from comforting to Serpentina. She flailed her parasol at more ghost orbs as she tried to figure out what to do about them. Should she shake them and try to get them back to reality? But... it was probably like sleepwalkers, you aren't supposed to wake them... that could make things worse. She didn't know. Best not to do anything.

She had little time to ponder (or give into intrusive thoughts), as suddenly... giant monster ticks? She prepared to attack, pointing her parasol at one.

'STOP!' Serpentina obeyed. "O-okay. I'll... follow your lead." So that is a Wraith. Good to know. But how to handle them? If she attacks wrong, that could be problematic. But if she does nothing when it is time, that would be worse. Was it hopel-

Yeah, right. That's definitely not going to help, and that was definitely not her normal thought. She steels herself, entering a low, maneuverable stance. She swayed slightly, ready to move in any direction, and her parasol was clenched in her right hand, swinging gently but gripped tightly. "What's the plan? Just fight on your mark?"

<Pose Tracker> Mai Tokiha [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

Takumi's not here. Mai scarcely has the presence of mind to shake her head in response to Eri's question, worry writ upon her face. It's not just Naru and Gurio, not just Shiho and Rina - what's left of this village has ground to a halt and everything is just...stopping.

Warnings. Mai was warned as they came in. Maybe those warnings should have been shared - but she was right not to tell Takumi about all the troubles, wasn't she? The world has so many secret dangers, it would have just worried him - can't she just keep pretending everything's normal?

Mai stops, a moment, to brush away a few more of those yellow lights, but soon gives up the effort. She'll manage. Yellow kind of suits her anyway, right?

But it's worse, ever so much worse, when they find Hanae. It really should be a solace that there's a big-sister type here, someone who could help keep an eye on Takumi, to help if he gets in trouble.

It should be a solace. But it isn't. Because that's supposed to be Mai's duty.

And Hanae is just sitting there with the first aid kit, not even helping anyone, and says that everything is fine.

That everything is fine. That life is fine, that -

This? This is not fine. And Hanae won't stop repeating that line, over and over until Mai's nails dig into her palms and she's striding forward to find out where her brother went. "Just stop saying th-"

And then she sees it. The horns, the bug, the...bloated tick. The monstrosity, the monster. And another, and another - and an abrupt order from Mami, telling everyone to stop and wait.

Wait. Like these things aren't sucking the life out of everyone, as if Mami Tomoe doesn't even care about-

Mai swallows her bile, and staggers back, looking at Mikoto. She...what is she doing here? She's supposed to be protecting Takumi, and he's not even here - and yet that's what Mami just said. That not everyone is accounted for. And - and there are people here to protect from...the horde.

Like this girl before her, whose failing was trying to help Mai's brother.

Mai wipes sweat and motes of yellow light from her brow. "...they'll all come for us once we attack, you said? Even the ones...feeding on people not right here?" A deep breath. "That's fine by me. On your mark, Tomoe."

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Eri's arrival gets an obscurely relieved look from la Sirene, and she answers Kyouka quietly. "I can fight from a ways away, but it is Mami who will have to help us if the enemy is truly remote."

And they move nearer. Confusion abounds. Horror, too, when the illusion breaks and there is SOMETHING else on them - it isn't a backpack or the straps of a winter coat. Something else erupts - rising out of the gelid waste of despair. La Sirene's left hand raises, fingers crooked in a mystic sign --

It forms an open palm instead when Mami speaks.

Mami explains. There is more going on out here. Takumi is not yet found. The wraiths will come in their dreadful swarm. La Sirene's pale eyes turn towards Mami as she speaks. Her eyes turn towards the Wraiths, the thing, and she can see its eyes.

La Sirene breathes out with force. She raises her left hand -- and unfastens the buckle of her glove, taking that glove off and carefully holding it in the palm of the opposite hand. There is a prominent white scar on the back of this hand, but it doesn't seem to interfere with her actions. Carefully, la Sirene tosses it catty-corner across the intersection; the black diamonds twinkle, faintly visible in the reflected un-light of the Brazen Pharos, albeit largely veiled by the miasma. If it wasn't for that faint twinkling it might be impossible to spot this part of her attire.

She repeats the process with her right glove. "Seven seekers," la Sirene softly half-chants under her voice. "Seven savers; seven ladders to the, seventh heaven..." It sounds like a tension-relieving little lullaby. Or the prelude to a spell.

La Sirene clasps her hands together; rubs her palms together; parts them, bare fingers wiggling as if to limber up. "Seven stars had Ursa Major," she keeps half-chanting to herself, glancing around momentarily and giving Ruse a tense smile and a two-fingered touch of her own pale brow in salute. She turns herself, facing slightly back towards the way they came for a moment. But it seems likely, la Sirene thinks, that the weight will come from THERE.

Her little nursery rhyme slips to an inaudible mumble. She gives Mami a V-sign instead, to say: Ready.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

It's somewhat unbearable, this tension. To know there is danger--to see it all around you, in the form of miasma, to see the effects it's having on everyone, what those small yellow lights are doing and how they swarm.

To know that not even they are immune to what's going on here.

She's watching out, she's forcing herself to stay focused, she's trying to keep an eye on her comrades, and she's fighting the urge to just do something. An urge not nearly as strong as Mikoto's, but one she feels for quite different reasons.

She gives Serpentina a nod and another shoulder squeeze, and goes back to surveiling the area.

Kyouka listens to Shiho explain, and wonders just how shes managed to survive--such as it is--for so long. Is it just the lights, or something else?

And even more tension as one of those spider-cow-tick things forms, but Mami says not to attack yet.

They'll be swarmed, once they start. A fight very unlike anything she's had to manage so far, but there's no time for practice or rehearsals now. As Mami gives directions, tells them to prepare, she moves to the front of their little formation, so she's all the more ready to get into range. She doesn't go--she's not so itching for action she would risk them all--but she is tensed up in the way a spring waits to release--or a runner waits to start their sprint.

But Mikoto is already trying to act, and she blinks. That is definitely not the plan. "Mikoto!" she hisses. "You said you were trying to be better about..." Well, they were talking about another thing, but it's not a stretch to imagine it applies here. "... that," she finishes, lamely. But then Mikoto seems to come to her senses, at least, and she lets herself let that one worry go.

"Do these things have any weak points...?" she asks grimly as she looks the creatures over. "Is it worth it to target their legs to immobilize them, or... does that not even matter?" A few of those yellow lights find her while she's remaining still and tensed up, but she shakes them off easily enough.

<Pose Tracker> Eri Shimanouchi [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The cross legged girl, Hanae, Eri looks at but with a sense like she's dissecting a scenario she's seen far too many times, albeit not on this scale. She doesn't even really pay the forming Wraith much mind, other than marking its existence.

This is not an uncommon situation with Wraiths, even if Mami is giving instructions, Eri holds up a hand despite herself as if telling everyone to wait, even as Mami verbalizes it much more clearly.

Those possessive hands...

'Just tell me what to do, Eri,'

"Prepare." She says to Mikoto, "For many of them. Don't hold back. Don't let yourself get bogged down. Everything Mami-san has said is correct."

'Eri-chan, you know what to do.'

With a succinct nod, Eri lowers her hand, and moves up to Hanae at a slow, measured gait. Not even a hint of fear in her eyes.

"You're right." She tells Hanae with a tone which might make everyone who knows just how reality rewrote itself, and what she was like before that nervous, "Everything is fine. Now close your eyes."

With her palm, she hovers it just in front of her face, in a pronouncement which seems more and more unsettling.

The green Puella Magi, half hidden in fog keeps her eyes on her, her opposite hand lifts the wooden handle of her whip, whose thorny tendrils are drawn back, like she's going to bring it down upon her, and cut her in half.

And on Mami's signal, the executioner's whip slashes-

-above her. Slicing through that space so fast that it's like there's a gouge in the air, in the miasma... and revealing the mauled predator.

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

It is as Mami suggested; the wraiths really don't care about the magical girls, until they're invited to do so. The horrible creatures will happily continue their meal until then. It's a funeral of a wait, even at under a minute. That minute stretches and contorts and how much consolation it is to know that the villagers have had these, these THINGS, attached to them, for weeks, and are still alive, so sixty more seconds for Rina, it probably won't matter that much?

It matters as little as it does that the bus driver stole the bag of chips from the konbini. There are more of them visible through the broken storefront window. The villagers couldn't loot it, because they could not acknowledge that the world had changed, had changed irreparably. That there was no going back.

But in the bus driver's world, the village was already dead. It isn't better. It's worse. It's upsetting, if you think about it, not that you should think about it at a time like this. The people of Sanbu are undoubtedly STARVING, they are wasting away on the withered vine of the village's existence, and this random man just trying to make a buck for the day waltzed in and just TOOK some of the only supplies they had? The only calories that could possibly survive the storm, prepackaged, preserved junk food? Would it even make it better if there were a few small coins left on the konbini counter, like offerings to gods, to spirits, or to ancestors?

Or would it make it worse--?

--!

Eri cracks her whip, but it's more like the starting gun going off at a sports event. In the least pleasant possible way. Kind of a weak analogy at a time like this. Especially because, as the Puella Magi know all too well, this isn't going to be a sprint.

Wraiths are a marathon.

The miasma explodes into motion. Into dozens of wriggling legs attached to one-sixth as many bodies, but still... many. Fourteen or fifteen at least. And there are eight legs each, aren't there -- a distant thought at a time like this, yet inescapable all the same, how the eighth pair of limbs are the bovine horns curling above each silent and staring face. They're much too much like the other six legs, just oriented in the opposite direction. If you flipped one over like a crab it could probably use them to flip back. And in fact, that's exactly what happens to Eri's; it lands with all those legs curling helplessly in the air, with its huge and somewhat hairy sack of a body, less plump-bellied than it is plump generally -- plump on suffering, to be sure. And then it digs its horns beneath it and is back on its feet in no time.

But there's no time at all left for this wraith, as Eri's whip rings out a second time, and finishes its bisection.

The corpse disappears, but it doesn't sublimate; which is to say, it doesn't disappear with a poof of smoke. It simply fades from view.

And it leaves something very small behind, but there's no time for that now.

The closest wraiths are actually the ones the group already knew about. Satisfyingly, Rina and Hanae's wraiths drop straight off their backs, abandoning them immediately, mindless in their instinct to go for the aggressor. A good thing too; it would be so much worse if this had been a true hostage situation. But Hanae keeps repeating herself. And the first aid kit is still stuck to her hand; Rina is still touching the traffic light.

Two more reveal themselves to have been attached to Naru and Umino. They skitter forward, towards the group, and close the last yards across the street in a great leap.

That's four. Add to it the one that came into existence, and was ambling around; like the rest of its kin every hair on its black body stand at attention the moment Eri attacked, and at the top speed its bony legs can muster, it rushes at the nearest magical girl -- Mami.

More appear in much the same fashion, materializing out of the miasma on the spot. It doesn't feel like they came from elsewhere; more that they were always everywhere, a sort of quantum waveform of potential that has distilled down into a horde of singular existences now that the matter has been forced.

And the miasma is still, indeed, everywhere; and the grief, the choking grief, the knowledge that nothing can stay the same forever, the terror of inevitable change, unstoppable change, unfixable change, it surges along with the wraiths, it closes in from all sides, like the jaws of a bear trap snapping shut.

COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick transforms into Major Wraith Infestation!

TO BE CONTINUED